0. Late-breaking job announcement
1. Vaclav Havel: An orientation of the spirit, an orientation of the heart
2. Dog's impact on wildlife/No commercial dog-walking in our national parks - with pics
3. Colorful garden of San Francisco native plants at Frederick & Arguello
4. Grow your own food and flowers - Garden for the Environment
5. Solar-powering highways. Why not?
6. Redwood plant community talk May 3/walk May 8
7. Lots going on in Claremont Canyon and Garber Park this week
8. Picnic supper and stroll through SF Bot Gdn's native plant garden Thursday 5 May
9. Bike to Work Day Thursday May 12
10. California Native Grasslands Assn field courses in May and June - identifying grasses is fun
11. Mother's Day gift - a subscription to Bay Nature
12. Feedback - potpourri
13. Now showing in night sky: Arcturus; what it's made of, where's it going
14. Stellar newsletter: East Bay Regional Botanic Garden. Dragonflies, wild cucumbers
15. Save the date: Native Plant Garden Symposium September 17-18
16. Stewart Brand: Information wants to be free/Lewis Mumford on the next transformation of man
17. LTEs: Alleluia for Bolivia and pachamama/a skeptical view
18. Contradictions in Ft Sumter Celebration. The failure of politics and the folly of war
19. Misinformation about the North Beach Library, Joe DiMaggio Playground, land-use and past history
0. (JS: This just came in as I was about to mail. I will forward the job description and other details on request; it's too long to post.)
Job opportunity/contract position: Bay Area Early Detection Network Early Detection Coordinator
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1. Vaclav Havel:
"Either we have hope within us or we don't.
It is a dimension of the soul and is not essentially dependent on some particular observation of the world.
It is an orientation of the spirit, an orientation of the heart.
It transcends the world that is immediately experienced and is anchored somewhere beyond its horizons.
Hope in this deep and powerful sense is not the same as joy that things are going well or willingness to invest in enterprises that are obviously headed for early success,
but rather an ability to work for something because it is good, not because it stands a chance to succeed.
Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism.
It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense regardless of how it turns out."
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2. Article on Dogs' Impact on Wildlife
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1354546/Dogs-wreak-havoc-habitats-threaten-endangered-species.html
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Note: The persuasive pictures didn't come through in the last newsletter, so I re-paste it. It is an egregiously improper use of our national--or city--parks. JS
Say No! to Commercial Dog Walking In our National Parks
Commercial dog walking has never been legally permitted on any of our National Park lands. However, the National Park Service is now proposing to allow commercial dog walking within the San Francisco Bay Area’s Golden Gate National Recreation Area. Commercial dog walking will impact all park user groups and set a dangerous precedent for all National Parks!
• Commercial dog walking is not an appropriate use of our National Park lands. Commercial dog walking is contrary to the purpose and mission of our National Parks.
• Commercial dog walking impacts park resources and park visitors. Commercial dog walkers, each with groups of four to six dogs, will negatively impact park resources and park visitors.
• Commercial dog walking provides no service or benefit to any park users. In fact, commercial dog walking activity will displace park visitors, of all user groups, from trails and other areas of the park.
• Commercial dog walking serves only for the capital gain of private enterprises at the expense of the American public. The costs of administering and overseeing a permitting process, additional law enforcement, additional resource maintenance, additional public relations, and the loss of legitimate park visitors and volunteers will be paid for by the American tax payer!
• Daily volume and value. If permitted, it is estimated that commercial dog walking will bring over one thousand dogs to the GGNRA and net more than $30,000 for dog walking businesses daily!
Say No! Speak up now and tell the National Park Service to keep commercial dog walking out of our National Parks. Comments are due by May 29, 2011 and can be submitted online at http://parkplanning.nps.gov/dogplan
Or mail comments to: Frank Dean, General Superintendent
Golden Gate National Recreation Area
Fort Mason, Building 201
San Francisco, CA 94123-0022
"We need another and a wiser and perhaps a more mystical concept of animals. Remote from universal nature, and living by complicated artifice, man in civilization surveys the creature through the glass of his knowledge and sees thereby a feather magnified and the whole image in distortion. We patronize them for their incompleteness, for their tragic fate of having taken form so far below ourselves. And therein we err, and greatly err. For the animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complete than ours they move finished and complete, gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings; they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendour and travail of the earth." --Henry Beston, The Outermost House
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3. HANC Nursery and colorful planted traffic island
This is a propitious time to visit the HANC Recycling Center Nursery. It is worth a trip just to see HANC's planting of a DPW island at the corner of Frederick Street and Arguello Blvd. It is chock-a-block with colorful San Francisco native plants at the height of flower. (Well, the clarkias aren't yet in bloom, but soon will be.)
Then go into the nursery and buy some of these plants. You'll do yourself a favor, and the proceeds go to fund HANC's many community projects.
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4.
Urban agriculture
Grow your own food
Free plants from cuttings - DIY
Water-wise gardening
Urban composting
These and more on Garden for the Environment:
https://app.e2ma.net/app/view:CampaignPublic/id:1408195.7050299934/rid:66910216bd923748e0aa966dbf45fbd4
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5. Why will this sensible idea not happen? Clue: It doesn't use oil
http://www.wimp.com/solarhighways/
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6. Talk and walk in Redwood Forest plant community
TALK: Tuesday, May 3, 7:00-8:30 p.m:
Garden Plants From the Redwood Forest, a talk by Matt Teel
The Coast Redwood Forest plant community is home to a wide variety of native plants suitable for gardens in the greater Bay Area. This talk will cover the most popular perennials, shrubs, and ground covers in cultivation, as well as some of the rarer plants in order to interest both beginners and enthusiasts. Matt Teel is the plant propagator at Yerba Buena Nursery and has over a decade of horticultural experience working with California native plants. Saratoga Library, 13650 Saratoga Ave., Saratoga. (408) 867-6126.
Sunday, May 8, 10am-noon
Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park (Felton)
Take a stroll through an old-growth redwood grove to view 1,000+ year old trees and meet other species of the redwood plant community. Kevin Bryant will lead this easy interpretive hike over mostly level ground in and around the Redwood Loop. We will also take in some views of the San Lorenzo River riparian woodland, including several large western sycamore trees. The walk is expected to be approximately 2 miles in length.
Directions: Take Hwy. 17 south to the Mt. Hermon Rd. exit. Go through Scotts Valley to Felton, where Mt. Hermon Rd. ends, turn right, and quickly get into the left hand lane. Turn left onto Hwy. 9 and go about 0.6 miles to the entrance of Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park, which is a left turn off of Hwy. 9. The entrance fee to park in the lot is $10. Some parking is available outside the park on Hwy. 9, about a 10 minute walk to the park gift shop. We will meet at 10am at the park gift shop. For more information contact Kevin Bryant at mtngreen17@verizon.net or (408) 348-9470.
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7. Join Us in Claremont Canyon
May 3: First Tuesday Stewardship in Garber Park. Join the Garber Park Stewards as we continue eradicating invasive weeds, especially Cape ivy, French broom and Himalayan blackberry at designated spots along the loop trail. We have reduced the mound of mulch at the Evergreen Lane entrance and the loop trail is the beneficiary. We would appreciate help in distributing the rest of the mulch to the fireplace plaza. Meet, 10 AM to 12 Noon as usual, at the Evergreen Lane entrance. For specific directions or more information, contact Shelagh at GarberParkStewards@gmail.com or visit our blog www.garberparkstewards.blogspot.com.
May 7: Spring Bird Walk. Meet Dave Quady and Kay Loughman at 7 AM at Four Corners, where Claremont meets Grizzly Peak. We will look for birds that breed in Claremont Canyon, both year-round residents and the neotropical migrant birds. Bring binoculars although we will have a few pairs to share if you need them. Field guides are helpful as well. If you're an early bird, Dave and Kay will be at the foot of Gelson Street at 5 AM to enjoy the dawn chorus before sunrise. We'll stand quietly to identify birds by their song until about 6:30 when we'll break for a quick breakfast before we regather at 7 AM. If there's rain on the 7th we'll try again on the 8th, same times and places.
May 8: Butterfly Walk. Lepidopterist and illustrator Liam O'Brien will walk us through Butterflies 101 and give tips on identifying butterfly species and understanding the close relationship between each species and its host plant. This event is sponsored by the California Native Plant Society. We will meet at the Rockridge BART Station at 11 and carpool from there. With the steep or rough terrain, sturdy shoes and a walking stick are recommended. For more information, contact Liam O'Brien at liammail56@yahoo.com or 415.863.1212.
May 14: Second Saturday Stewardship. This month we will be back at the area above Stonewall Road working with the East Bay Regional Park District to remove broom and beat down thistle and euphorbia. Park above 180 Stonewall and walk up the stairs at #261 to Marilyn Goldhaber's backyard. We'll meet at 10 AM will work until Noon, as usual. Next month we'll be back on the UC side of Claremont Avenue and continue trail improvements with Tom Klatt.
May 21: Garber Park. This is the day for our monthly documentation and weeding of the restoration planting site. We also will continue our French broom and Cape ivy eradication efforts.
Coming in June: Yoga Walk on Sunday June 5.
For stewardship work, please dress in layers and wear long pants, gloves and shoes or boots with good traction.
Questions?: info@claremontcanyon.org or GarberParkStewards@gmail.com.
For a summary of all of the Conservancy's current activities, please see the home page of our website: www.claremontcanyon.org
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8.
Annual picnic supper and walk in the Arthur Menzies Garden of California Native Plants
Thursday May 5, 5:30 pm SHARP
San Francisco Botanical Garden parking lot
10th Avenue & Lincoln Way
Everyone welcome. Bring a picnic supper and have a pleasant evening in this native plant garden, which is at its peak of spring growth and flowering. Leaders long associated with the garden -- Don Mahoney, Ted Kipping, Terry Seefeld, and Jake Sigg will take small groups on a leisurely stroll through the garden.
You must be in the parking lot by 5.30, as the gates are usually locked behind us.
Information: Jake Sigg, 731-3028
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9. Bike to Work Day: Thursday May 12
www.youcanbikethere.com
www.sfbike.org/?btwd
www.marinbike.org/Events/BTWD/2011 (click on "Index.shtml")
www.ebbc.org/btwd
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10. California Native Grasslands Assn field courses - These workshops usually fill up well in advance
A. May 27: Grassland Monitoring Workshop. Location: Heidrick Western Center for Ag Equipment, UC Davis
Fees: $120 CNGA members, $140 Non-members, $75 Students w ID
Instructors: Chad Aakre, Catherine Little, and Karen Velas
This workshop is a combined classroom and field opportunity to learn the latest techniques for monitoring vegetation, birds, and mammals in a California grassland. Monitoring is critical to understanding the success of your restoration project, or to document changes in your natural area, by quantifying the species composition (plant and animal) of the area over time. This workshop is designed for restoration practitioners, land managers, landowners, students, or anyone with an interest in learning more about vegetation and animal monitoring techniques in a grassland setting.
B. June 11, 9-3: Introduction to California Grasslands and Grass ID. Location: Pepperwood Preserve, Santa Rosa
Fees: $30 CNGA and Pepperwood members, $35 Non-members, $25 Students w ID
Instructor: Wade Belew
This new CNGA workshop features lecture, lab, and field components in a 6-hour format. It is designed for landowners, students, ranchers, professional resource managers, and anyone who wants an entry-level opportunity to learn more about grasses. Prior botanical experience not needed.
C. June 25-26: Identifying and Appreciating the Native and Naturalized Grasses of California. Location: Point Reyes Dance Palace and Field Sites, Point Reyes Station
Fees: $220/CNGA members, $240 Non-members, $135 Students w ID
Instructor: David Amme
Grasses are fun and easy to identify! Our goal is to learn the basic skills of identifying grasses.
Day 1 in the classroom: Learn about California’s grassland ecology, the qualities of specific native grasses for restoration, and become skilled at recognizing the basic groups and common species through working with plant samples in the classroom.
Day 2 in the field: Explore a local grasslands, rich with a diverse assemblage of both native and naturalized grasses and make use of your new understanding and skills.
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(JS: I recently encountered a regular reader of my newsletter who, unaccountably, had not heard of Bay Nature, in spite of my frequent plugs for the magazine. I berated him, of course, and told him I didn't want to pass by his house again and find that he still hadn't subscribed. Everyone in the Bay Area should be a regular reader. That would be, let's see, about five million, and counting.)
11. This Mother’s Day, give Mom the gift of nature--Bay Nature
Bay Nature is offering our readers and friends the opportunity to give a very special Mother's Day gift, one that will help her cultivate nature right in her own backyard!
For only $20, she will receive a one-year subscription to award-winning Bay Nature magazine, along with two engaging special publications:
- Gardening for Wildlife with Native Plants, showing the possibilities for creating beautiful garden habitats for native birds and butterflies in your own yard.
- Soil Matters, rich with information about nurturing the soil and the diversity of life within in it.
Just click this link, or call 1-888-4-BAYNAT (1-888-422-9628) to purchase your gift. We'll send a gift card to your mother right away, and then every three months, we'll send her a new issue of a beautiful magazine that's guaranteed to get her inspired and get her outside. And it's printed on recycled paper and comes with no plastic wrapping.
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12. Feedback
On Apr 30, 2011, at 6:57 AM, Veronica Oliva wrote:
And a neighbor two houses down from the Buckeye was telling us that after the tomatoes in her garden reach a certain size the roots reach the water table and she doesn't have to water them any further. In other words, water available to the Buckeye in question.
Hi Veronica: This is a questionable conclusion to draw. For one thing, despite being an annual plant tomatoes send down deep roots right away. Home gardeners have learned to withhold water at a certain point, otherwise the vine won't fruit, it just keeps growing and growing, sprawling all over the place. And perhaps you may have noticed my annual jihad on behalf of dry-farmed Early Girls. Early Girl is the best tomato anyway, and some growers at farmers' markets will withhold the water even earlier, stressing the vine and forcing it to concentrate its flavor and sweetness. These tomatoes are small but powerful. Yum.
There doubtless is water at deeper levels all over the city because of garden watering. Water finds its way around.
On Apr 29, 2011, at 8:21 PM, Vicki Young wrote:
I will be saddened to no longer receive the newsletters directly, it makes me feel as if I am personally linked with all the amazing events you post. I appreciate all your information and insights. V
Why, thank you Vicki; I am touched.
I know what you mean; I feel that something is lost. (When I look at it I think "blah". Perhaps I should call it my blahg!) Several things drove me to do this. As I may have explained before, the mailing process itself is a job, as I don't have a way of mass mailing. The blog site is also a way of archiving.
Having said that, I fear I am laying a trap for myself. A website gives me room for all sorts of stuff that I have wanted to post but didn't dare to in a finite newsletter. I have a hard time respecting my limitations; that has been a lifelong trait that serves me well in many ways but which also gets me into trouble and subjects me to lifelong frustration. It reminds me of someone remarking that "wherever I go I take myself with me and spoil the trip".
P.S. Some people believe that parents know what they're doing when they name their children. I have no idea whether this is so, but my parents fit this theory; my American Heritage Dictionary says about Jacob: "from Hebrew Ya'aqobh, 'he who takes by the heel or overreaches,' from aqebh, heel."
It further sheds light on my questionable lineage:
Jacob |ˈjākəb|
(in the Bible) a Hebrew patriarch, the younger of the twin sons of Isaac and Rebecca, who persuaded his brother Esau to sell him his birthright and tricked him out of his father's blessing (Gen. 25, 27). Jacob's twelve sons became the founders of the twelve tribes of ancient Israel. See also Tribes of Israel .
ORIGIN from Hebrew yaעaqō b ‘following after, supplanter.’
Sounds pretty ambitious, wouldn't you say?
On Apr 29, 2011, at 6:25 PM, Christina Salvin wrote:
Have you considered Facebook? We would so easily read your posts--some could be long and some could be short and many could have pictures or video. It's super user-friendly even for non-techies.
Christina: I don't even know what Facebook is--or Twitter or LinkedIn either. And I don't want to know.
I am a self-confessed near-Luddite. I am still cursing myself that I let my friends bamboozle me into getting, first, a computer, and second, email. I partially convinced myself that a blog site will slightly reduce the time I spend, but that's just another layer of self-deception--I know that. From the beginning the computer, then email, now blog, has been successive layers of enslavement until now I have almost no time left to myself. Why do I do it? Sigmund Freud might have been able to tell me but he's not around anymore.
Thank you for your attempt to save me from myself.
“Perhaps the most ironic aspect of the struggle for survival is how easily organisms can be harmed by that which they desire. The trout is caught by the fisherman’s lure, the mouse by cheese. But at least those creatures have the excuse that bait and cheese look like sustenance. Humans seldom have that consolation. The temptations that can disrupt their lives are often pure indulgences. No one has to drink alcohol, for example. Realizing when a diversion has gotten out of control is one of the great challenges of life.”
from Television Addiction by Robt. Kubey and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi in Scientific American February 2002
Ha ha you have a great point. Facebook can suck your time away. My students read Bill McKibben's "Daybreak" essay and challenge themselves to unplug for a weekend. It's so difficult especially for teenagers to appreciate the natural world without technology.
Aalgis Ratnikas:
"How much space would each person have if the the planet's land surface were shared equally?"
The world population is currently estimated to be 6.915335 billion by the United States Census Bureau.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population)
The world’s land surface is 148,940,000 km2. This is 29.2 % of the total surface. The rest is water.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth)
Thus: 6.915335billion / 148,940,000 km2 = 46.43 people per km2
or .00215 km2 per person
Since 1 km2 = 1million m2
We get 2150 m2 per person.
See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_density
Don't forget to ask how many people want to spend their lives on the Antarctic ice sheet or in middle of Sahara Desert. And all those Polynesian islands going under rising water.
Alice Polesky:
Yes, Prime Minister
Loved your reference to it, Jake. I've watched them all, and the series that preceded it, "Yes, Minister." My husband Nick, who's English, had to spend a lot of time explaining that obscure aspect of British politics to me, the uninitiated. Apparently, the British Civil Service, a permanent fixture in the political system there, is constantly at odds with the different political administrations, which come and go, locked in a never-ending power struggle. It was Margaret Thatcher's favorite program. At least I found something upon which I actually agreed with her.
Is this different than in this country?
No idea -- but if so, it's not with the wit and class of Sir Humphrey.
On Apr 30, 2011, at 11:41 AM, Christine Hall wrote:
I suspect I won’t be the first to tell you that I was unable to scroll down beyond Item 8 in this newsletter. This has happened before, so I hope you have a good solution handy. As always, thank you so much for your hard work and important information, and all best with the blog.
You're only the second to tell me. I expect I've got too many pictures for some computers. I expect this won't be a problem on the blog site--IF I can ever get the effing thing running. I was not made for the internet age; I'm as well-designed for it as is a sieve for transporting water.
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13. Now showing: Arcturus--what it's made of and where it's going
I have trepidations about posting this item about the night sky right now. At time of writing the last several days have presented good seeing, with fairly clear skies, no moon, and not much atmospheric moisture. It inspires me to point out interesting things to see, and interesting things about what you see. But by so doing I am almost guaranteeing that dense fog will roll in and stay for days. That is the pattern of the past. Since I can't defy the gods anyway, I may as well go ahead and post and let them pull their mean tricks. It seems to please them, and I like to please the gods. Good policy.
Arcturus, high in the eastern sky at dusk, is easy to find; merely follow the curve of the Big Dipper’s handle—it points right toward Arcturus (“follow the arc to Arcturus” is the mnemonic). Before dwelling on this out-of-the-ordinary star I want you to continue to follow that arc to Arcturus and then continue the curve to the next bright star. That "star" is the planet Saturn, and the whole arc forms a wide bowl. Saturn, of course, is not going to stay put and will move on. It is now more or less in opposition--ie, it is directly on the opposite side of the Earth from the Sun. The star directly below it is Spica, the brightest star in the constellation Virgo, and the only star in that constellation to be seen in our washed-out sky.
(While you're looking at this [with the gods' permission], test your vision by looking at the Big Dipper handle, the next to the last star from the handle's end. This star has been used as a test of visual acuity by people for thousands of years. It is actually two stars which people with good eyesight can see. [Living on the foggy coast is a double challenge.] Cheap binoculars show it readily.)
Did all the stars you see originate in our galaxy?
What kind of question is that? When I was born, our galaxy and the universe were the same thing. It was eternal and stable (read static). Only in the 1920s did Edwin Hubble find that there were other galaxies besides our own. Now we know there are hundreds of billions of them, and they are all moving away from each other at great speeds.
Recent research has revealed that a bright star that is easily seen, even in light-polluted San Francisco, apparently came from another galaxy: Arcturus. Because Arcturus was known to be travelling faster than surrounding stars, it was assumed that it came from somewhere else. That ‘somewhere else’ turns out to be not in our galaxy, but from some neighboring galaxy. (Remember that the universe is almost 14 billion years old, so it has lots of time for these maneuvers.
Arcturus was likely born in a dwarf galaxy that fell into the Milky Way 5 to 8 billion years ago and has now almost completely dispersed. (Or, you can say that the Milky Way ate the galaxy--galactic cannibalism is common.) Large galaxies are now considered to have grown by cannibalizing smaller galaxies or merging with other similar-sized ones. (If you’re wondering what’s the difference between cannibalizing and merging—there isn’t any, except when the larger merges w/the smaller it is called cannibalism.)
Arcturus is speeding through our stellar neighborhood at 120 kilometers per second. A half million years ago it was too distant to be visible with the naked eye, and a half million years from now it will have again faded from view. Presently it is one of our brightest stars.
Excerpted, paraphrased, and augmented in a report in Sky & Telescope, February 2004
More on Arcturus in next newsletter--rain or shine
JS: Take a look at comparative star sizes. If you want to have your brain fried, glance at this site. If your brain isn't fried by this, then it's dead: http://www.rense.com/general72/size.htm
“There are two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” Albert Einstein
“Sometimes I think we’re alone. Sometimes I think we’re not. In either case, the thought is staggering.” R. Buckminster Fuller
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14. Regional Parks Botanic Garden May 2011 newsletter
The Bay Area's Dazzling Dragonflies
Flame Skimmer
You'll want to bookmark this site to get consistently high-quality information, stunningly beautiful pictures, and events:
http://us1.campaign-archive2.com/?u=01091d83e4aa193c78a888704&id=076151564a&e=dc1584429c
The May issue also reprints my article on Marah, wild cucumber or manroot.
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15. Save the date
CNPS, Friends of Regional Parks Botanic Garden, and Pacific Horticulture are collaborating once again to present a two-day symposium on native plant gardening and design on Sat-Sun, Sep 17-18, 2011 in Lafayette & Berkeley. Featured speakers include Carol Bornstein, David Fross, Steve Edwards, Don Mahoney, and other native plant professionals.
This is to request your assistance in getting the word out to your members.
A press release and poster are attached. A mention in your newsletter, website, and email notification to your members is appreciated. CNPS members are eligible for discounted admission. Earlybird registration deadline is June 30, 2011
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16. From Stewart Brand:
"Civilization’s shortening attention span is mismatched with the pace of environmental problems."
"Environmental health requires peace, prosperity, and continuity.”
"Information Wants To Be Free. Information also wants to be expensive. Information wants to be free because it has become so cheap to distribute, copy, and recombine — too cheap to meter. It wants to be expensive because it can be immeasurably valuable to the recipient. That tension will not go away. It leads to endless wrenching debate about price, copyright, 'intellectual property', the moral rightness of casual distribution, because each round of new devices makes the tension worse, not better." (Spoken at the first Hackers' Conference, and printed in May 1985)
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"... man has still within him sufficient resources to alter the direction of modern civilization, for we then need no longer regard man as the passive victim of his own irreversible technological development."
Lewis Mumford, “The Next Transformation of Man”
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Join the conversation
"The power of nostalgia and wistfulness is amazing in how it can dominate ecological common sense. Some of our biggest invasive pests were introduced and spread by people who dreamed of the 'old country' or an image out of their childhood."
Comment on hcn.org/blogs/goat/tumbling-along
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17. LTEs, Guardian Weekly 29.04.11
Alleluia for Bolivia and the grounded vision embodied in its new laws recognising the covalency of humans and nature (Bolivia enshrines rights of Mother Nature, 15 April). The Norway-Guyana forest deal (Green bargain of the century, 8 April) is an exciting and necessary transition structure, but at root is still the old paradigm trying to ingest the new – have your paradigm and eat it?
Bolivia is both radically challenging anthropocene economics, which is predicated on a terminally stupid race to see who can destroy Earth's life-support systems fastest, and giving birth to the ecozoic era, in which economics, technology and human aspiration are ancillary to ecological wellbeing, and where the manifold services provided by the natural world – as tangible as oxygen and pollination, as tenuous as awe and delight – are factored at their true value into our cultural bedrock.
What mind-boggling sophistication keeps trees aloft, water sweetly flowing, and gets oaks into acorns and back out again? Molecules of chlorophyll and human blood are identical except that chlorophyll has a magnesium atom at its heart and blood has iron. The genome of just one person, written, would fill 12,000 books. We share 70% of our DNA with bananas. A wheelbarrow of healthy soil contains more DNA – more intelligence? – than a human does.
We not only deny sentience and rights to the non-human world, but treat it as a cross between an abattoir, a sewer-cum-junkyard and a bargain basement. Bolivia is signposting a way out of that psychotic narrative.
The concept of a ministry of Mother Earth, with its own ombudsman, gives me goosebumps. Ombudsman is both gender- and species-offensive: how about ombudstree?
Annie March
West Hobart, Tasmania, Australia
• I read your article on Bolivia and felt that I had to mention an information session that I attended recently in Aachen. It was by an academic from Ecuador who was supposed to be explaining the pachamama (Mother Earth) philosophy and I have to say that after two hours I was still none the wiser.
Yes, it all sounded very well-intentioned, but there seemed to be no consistent thread and the speaker kept going off on all kinds of "human rights tangents" which, although very worthy in their own right, completely detracted from the core issues that had so attracted me to the meeting in the first place.
Afterwards I decided that if the expert couldn't explain it to me, then I would come up with my own explanation, which I would now like to pass on.
The key points are the following:
1) Free-market liberals believe that it is our right and our duty to buy enormous TVs because this is a sign of liberty, status and achievement ... and it stimulates growth.
2) Socialists believe that everyone should have a big TV because it would impinge on "equality and justice" if certain people didn't have them.
3) Greens believe that everyone (especially middle-class people) should have wind- or solar-powered TVs because in this way you can enjoy a consumer lifestyle without feeling guilty about your carbon footprint.
4) Those affiliated to the philosophy of pachamama believe that you should simply read a good book, go for a nice walk or meet friends instead of watching TV.
I believe that, despite the disastrous job of explanation done by the professor from Ecuador, I have become a fan of (my version of) the philosophy of pachamama. Maybe we should all take this on board?
Alan Mitcham
Cologne, Germany
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18. United States: A union with a divided history marks a civil war anniversary
Civil war memories sparked by a cannon's volley at Fort Sumter
Tuesday 26 April 2011 14.00 BST from The Economist
A cannon fires on Fort Sumter to mark the first shot of the American civil war in Charleston, South Carolina. Photograph: Richard Ellis/Getty Images
It's a beautiful sight. The sun is just coming up behind Fort Sumter in front of us, and behind us, across the harbour, the gracious skyline of Charleston is coming more clearly into view. A squadron of pelicans skims across the water; terns are diving, plovers are keening.
I am here, however, not to watch birds but for an awkward anniversary, the commemoration of the first shot of the American civil war, fired from this spot150 years ago.
The crowd around me is almost entirely white, some sporting T-shirts adorned with the Confederate battle flag, a few official re-enactors in Confederate grey, a young man holding a red South Carolina banner, and a few recognisable local politicians.
The ceremony draws out the contradictions of claiming and celebrating both southern and American identity at the same time. The programme opens with everyone reciting the Pledge of Allegiance, asserting the indivisibility of the American republic. It continues with an unabashedly Christian prayer from a local pastor.
As we get closer to the Big Bang – the firing of an original 1847 Seacoast mortar – the sourest note of the proceedings points to the way the civil war divides the contemporary US not so much (or not only) on regional lines, but on political ones.
The firing of the shell is greeted by a tall dude with a long black beard yelling, "The south shall rise again." Still, at least it's only one person, and he gets some lip from a presumed Yankee woman nearby who snarls, "Get over it– y'all lost."
The keynote speaker is the conservative Charleston state senator and civil war buff, Glenn McConnell. His speech attempts to reconcile some of the event's contradictions, defending South Carolina's right to secede in 1860, but celebrating the eradication of slavery. He talks up the shared culture of southern blacks and whites, with no reference to the 100 years between the end of the civil war and the passing of the Civil Rights Act.
The contradictions cannot comfortably be contained at Fort Sumter. They will surely dog the remaining four years of the civil war commemorations, especially in the south. I look forward to 2015 when we can maybe all just mourn the dead – the failure of politics and the folly of war.
History will be kind to me for I intend to write it. Winston Churchill
"Nothing is so fatal to a nation as an extreme of self-partiality." Edmund Burke
Man's capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man's inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary. -Reinhold Niebuhr, theologian (1892-1971)
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19.
ATTACHED: MEDIA INFORMATION SHEET - (JS: This is not attached, but I will forward attachment on request, or you can request from Howard)
There’s so much misinformation out there about the North Beach Library, Joe DiMaggio Playground, land-use and past history. The City has worked to control the message---employing many hundreds of thousands of dollars of public relations consultants, EIR consultants, architects, drawings, reports, city agencies, non-profit affiliates, managers, staff, city employees…. The power of the state can be quite overwhelming. In a democratic society, a vital balance is the press and media. Attached are some entertaining facts.
Sincerely,
Howard Wong, AIA
Ph: (415)-982-5055
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Dear Friends of Richmond:
As you know, this past November the people of Richmond voted down the idea of a casino at Pt. Molate by defeating Measure U.
We are now looking to involve community members in helping to design a new vision for Pt. Molate. Citizens for a Sustainable Pt. Molate is competing for a $5,000 grant to conduct community workshops engaging community input on that vision.
I need your help - please go to www.baycitizen.org/citizenoftomorrow/ watch the video and vote for Citizens for a Sustainable Pt. Molate. You can vote as often as once a day, so remember to come back often! Andres Soto
The 2008 Clean and Safe Neighborhood Parks Bond dedicated $5.8 million to improving Glen Canyon Park. SF Recreation & Parks (RPD) is partnering with The Trust for Public Land (TPL) to design and prioritize a park improvement plan at Glen Canyon Park.
We will be holding the 5th community meeting this Thursday, May 5th, from 6:30-8:30pm at the Glen Canyon Recreation Center, located inside Glen Canyon Park near the intersection of Elk and Chenery Street.
This meeting will be fun! We'll be reviewing the preferred park improvement plan, and discussing phasing and design elements. We want your feedback! Please invite your neighbors and others who are interested to attend this workshop.
For more information about the process, please visit http://sfrecpark.org/glenparkproject.aspx or contact Karen Mauney-Brodek (karen.mauney-brodek@sfgov.org, 415.575.5601, or Alejandra Chiesa (alejandra.chiesa@tpl.org, 415.800.5303).
1. Vaclav Havel: An orientation of the spirit, an orientation of the heart
2. Dog's impact on wildlife/No commercial dog-walking in our national parks - with pics
3. Colorful garden of San Francisco native plants at Frederick & Arguello
4. Grow your own food and flowers - Garden for the Environment
5. Solar-powering highways. Why not?
6. Redwood plant community talk May 3/walk May 8
7. Lots going on in Claremont Canyon and Garber Park this week
8. Picnic supper and stroll through SF Bot Gdn's native plant garden Thursday 5 May
9. Bike to Work Day Thursday May 12
10. California Native Grasslands Assn field courses in May and June - identifying grasses is fun
11. Mother's Day gift - a subscription to Bay Nature
12. Feedback - potpourri
13. Now showing in night sky: Arcturus; what it's made of, where's it going
14. Stellar newsletter: East Bay Regional Botanic Garden. Dragonflies, wild cucumbers
15. Save the date: Native Plant Garden Symposium September 17-18
16. Stewart Brand: Information wants to be free/Lewis Mumford on the next transformation of man
17. LTEs: Alleluia for Bolivia and pachamama/a skeptical view
18. Contradictions in Ft Sumter Celebration. The failure of politics and the folly of war
19. Misinformation about the North Beach Library, Joe DiMaggio Playground, land-use and past history
0. (JS: This just came in as I was about to mail. I will forward the job description and other details on request; it's too long to post.)
Job opportunity/contract position: Bay Area Early Detection Network Early Detection Coordinator
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1. Vaclav Havel:
"Either we have hope within us or we don't.
It is a dimension of the soul and is not essentially dependent on some particular observation of the world.
It is an orientation of the spirit, an orientation of the heart.
It transcends the world that is immediately experienced and is anchored somewhere beyond its horizons.
Hope in this deep and powerful sense is not the same as joy that things are going well or willingness to invest in enterprises that are obviously headed for early success,
but rather an ability to work for something because it is good, not because it stands a chance to succeed.
Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism.
It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense regardless of how it turns out."
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2. Article on Dogs' Impact on Wildlife
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1354546/Dogs-wreak-havoc-habitats-threaten-endangered-species.html
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Note: The persuasive pictures didn't come through in the last newsletter, so I re-paste it. It is an egregiously improper use of our national--or city--parks. JS
Say No! to Commercial Dog Walking In our National Parks
Commercial dog walking has never been legally permitted on any of our National Park lands. However, the National Park Service is now proposing to allow commercial dog walking within the San Francisco Bay Area’s Golden Gate National Recreation Area. Commercial dog walking will impact all park user groups and set a dangerous precedent for all National Parks!
• Commercial dog walking is not an appropriate use of our National Park lands. Commercial dog walking is contrary to the purpose and mission of our National Parks.
• Commercial dog walking impacts park resources and park visitors. Commercial dog walkers, each with groups of four to six dogs, will negatively impact park resources and park visitors.
• Commercial dog walking provides no service or benefit to any park users. In fact, commercial dog walking activity will displace park visitors, of all user groups, from trails and other areas of the park.
• Commercial dog walking serves only for the capital gain of private enterprises at the expense of the American public. The costs of administering and overseeing a permitting process, additional law enforcement, additional resource maintenance, additional public relations, and the loss of legitimate park visitors and volunteers will be paid for by the American tax payer!
• Daily volume and value. If permitted, it is estimated that commercial dog walking will bring over one thousand dogs to the GGNRA and net more than $30,000 for dog walking businesses daily!
Say No! Speak up now and tell the National Park Service to keep commercial dog walking out of our National Parks. Comments are due by May 29, 2011 and can be submitted online at http://parkplanning.nps.gov/dogplan
Or mail comments to: Frank Dean, General Superintendent
Golden Gate National Recreation Area
Fort Mason, Building 201
San Francisco, CA 94123-0022
"We need another and a wiser and perhaps a more mystical concept of animals. Remote from universal nature, and living by complicated artifice, man in civilization surveys the creature through the glass of his knowledge and sees thereby a feather magnified and the whole image in distortion. We patronize them for their incompleteness, for their tragic fate of having taken form so far below ourselves. And therein we err, and greatly err. For the animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complete than ours they move finished and complete, gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings; they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendour and travail of the earth." --Henry Beston, The Outermost House
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3. HANC Nursery and colorful planted traffic island
This is a propitious time to visit the HANC Recycling Center Nursery. It is worth a trip just to see HANC's planting of a DPW island at the corner of Frederick Street and Arguello Blvd. It is chock-a-block with colorful San Francisco native plants at the height of flower. (Well, the clarkias aren't yet in bloom, but soon will be.)
Then go into the nursery and buy some of these plants. You'll do yourself a favor, and the proceeds go to fund HANC's many community projects.
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4.
Urban agriculture
Grow your own food
Free plants from cuttings - DIY
Water-wise gardening
Urban composting
These and more on Garden for the Environment:
https://app.e2ma.net/app/view:CampaignPublic/id:1408195.7050299934/rid:66910216bd923748e0aa966dbf45fbd4
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5. Why will this sensible idea not happen? Clue: It doesn't use oil
http://www.wimp.com/solarhighways/
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6. Talk and walk in Redwood Forest plant community
TALK: Tuesday, May 3, 7:00-8:30 p.m:
Garden Plants From the Redwood Forest, a talk by Matt Teel
The Coast Redwood Forest plant community is home to a wide variety of native plants suitable for gardens in the greater Bay Area. This talk will cover the most popular perennials, shrubs, and ground covers in cultivation, as well as some of the rarer plants in order to interest both beginners and enthusiasts. Matt Teel is the plant propagator at Yerba Buena Nursery and has over a decade of horticultural experience working with California native plants. Saratoga Library, 13650 Saratoga Ave., Saratoga. (408) 867-6126.
Sunday, May 8, 10am-noon
Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park (Felton)
Take a stroll through an old-growth redwood grove to view 1,000+ year old trees and meet other species of the redwood plant community. Kevin Bryant will lead this easy interpretive hike over mostly level ground in and around the Redwood Loop. We will also take in some views of the San Lorenzo River riparian woodland, including several large western sycamore trees. The walk is expected to be approximately 2 miles in length.
Directions: Take Hwy. 17 south to the Mt. Hermon Rd. exit. Go through Scotts Valley to Felton, where Mt. Hermon Rd. ends, turn right, and quickly get into the left hand lane. Turn left onto Hwy. 9 and go about 0.6 miles to the entrance of Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park, which is a left turn off of Hwy. 9. The entrance fee to park in the lot is $10. Some parking is available outside the park on Hwy. 9, about a 10 minute walk to the park gift shop. We will meet at 10am at the park gift shop. For more information contact Kevin Bryant at mtngreen17@verizon.net or (408) 348-9470.
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7. Join Us in Claremont Canyon
May 3: First Tuesday Stewardship in Garber Park. Join the Garber Park Stewards as we continue eradicating invasive weeds, especially Cape ivy, French broom and Himalayan blackberry at designated spots along the loop trail. We have reduced the mound of mulch at the Evergreen Lane entrance and the loop trail is the beneficiary. We would appreciate help in distributing the rest of the mulch to the fireplace plaza. Meet, 10 AM to 12 Noon as usual, at the Evergreen Lane entrance. For specific directions or more information, contact Shelagh at GarberParkStewards@gmail.com or visit our blog www.garberparkstewards.blogspot.com.
May 7: Spring Bird Walk. Meet Dave Quady and Kay Loughman at 7 AM at Four Corners, where Claremont meets Grizzly Peak. We will look for birds that breed in Claremont Canyon, both year-round residents and the neotropical migrant birds. Bring binoculars although we will have a few pairs to share if you need them. Field guides are helpful as well. If you're an early bird, Dave and Kay will be at the foot of Gelson Street at 5 AM to enjoy the dawn chorus before sunrise. We'll stand quietly to identify birds by their song until about 6:30 when we'll break for a quick breakfast before we regather at 7 AM. If there's rain on the 7th we'll try again on the 8th, same times and places.
May 8: Butterfly Walk. Lepidopterist and illustrator Liam O'Brien will walk us through Butterflies 101 and give tips on identifying butterfly species and understanding the close relationship between each species and its host plant. This event is sponsored by the California Native Plant Society. We will meet at the Rockridge BART Station at 11 and carpool from there. With the steep or rough terrain, sturdy shoes and a walking stick are recommended. For more information, contact Liam O'Brien at liammail56@yahoo.com or 415.863.1212.
May 14: Second Saturday Stewardship. This month we will be back at the area above Stonewall Road working with the East Bay Regional Park District to remove broom and beat down thistle and euphorbia. Park above 180 Stonewall and walk up the stairs at #261 to Marilyn Goldhaber's backyard. We'll meet at 10 AM will work until Noon, as usual. Next month we'll be back on the UC side of Claremont Avenue and continue trail improvements with Tom Klatt.
May 21: Garber Park. This is the day for our monthly documentation and weeding of the restoration planting site. We also will continue our French broom and Cape ivy eradication efforts.
Coming in June: Yoga Walk on Sunday June 5.
For stewardship work, please dress in layers and wear long pants, gloves and shoes or boots with good traction.
Questions?: info@claremontcanyon.org or GarberParkStewards@gmail.com.
For a summary of all of the Conservancy's current activities, please see the home page of our website: www.claremontcanyon.org
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8.
Annual picnic supper and walk in the Arthur Menzies Garden of California Native Plants
Thursday May 5, 5:30 pm SHARP
San Francisco Botanical Garden parking lot
10th Avenue & Lincoln Way
Everyone welcome. Bring a picnic supper and have a pleasant evening in this native plant garden, which is at its peak of spring growth and flowering. Leaders long associated with the garden -- Don Mahoney, Ted Kipping, Terry Seefeld, and Jake Sigg will take small groups on a leisurely stroll through the garden.
You must be in the parking lot by 5.30, as the gates are usually locked behind us.
Information: Jake Sigg, 731-3028
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9. Bike to Work Day: Thursday May 12
www.youcanbikethere.com
www.sfbike.org/?btwd
www.marinbike.org/Events/BTWD/2011 (click on "Index.shtml")
www.ebbc.org/btwd
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10. California Native Grasslands Assn field courses - These workshops usually fill up well in advance
A. May 27: Grassland Monitoring Workshop. Location: Heidrick Western Center for Ag Equipment, UC Davis
Fees: $120 CNGA members, $140 Non-members, $75 Students w ID
Instructors: Chad Aakre, Catherine Little, and Karen Velas
This workshop is a combined classroom and field opportunity to learn the latest techniques for monitoring vegetation, birds, and mammals in a California grassland. Monitoring is critical to understanding the success of your restoration project, or to document changes in your natural area, by quantifying the species composition (plant and animal) of the area over time. This workshop is designed for restoration practitioners, land managers, landowners, students, or anyone with an interest in learning more about vegetation and animal monitoring techniques in a grassland setting.
B. June 11, 9-3: Introduction to California Grasslands and Grass ID. Location: Pepperwood Preserve, Santa Rosa
Fees: $30 CNGA and Pepperwood members, $35 Non-members, $25 Students w ID
Instructor: Wade Belew
This new CNGA workshop features lecture, lab, and field components in a 6-hour format. It is designed for landowners, students, ranchers, professional resource managers, and anyone who wants an entry-level opportunity to learn more about grasses. Prior botanical experience not needed.
C. June 25-26: Identifying and Appreciating the Native and Naturalized Grasses of California. Location: Point Reyes Dance Palace and Field Sites, Point Reyes Station
Fees: $220/CNGA members, $240 Non-members, $135 Students w ID
Instructor: David Amme
Grasses are fun and easy to identify! Our goal is to learn the basic skills of identifying grasses.
Day 1 in the classroom: Learn about California’s grassland ecology, the qualities of specific native grasses for restoration, and become skilled at recognizing the basic groups and common species through working with plant samples in the classroom.
Day 2 in the field: Explore a local grasslands, rich with a diverse assemblage of both native and naturalized grasses and make use of your new understanding and skills.
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(JS: I recently encountered a regular reader of my newsletter who, unaccountably, had not heard of Bay Nature, in spite of my frequent plugs for the magazine. I berated him, of course, and told him I didn't want to pass by his house again and find that he still hadn't subscribed. Everyone in the Bay Area should be a regular reader. That would be, let's see, about five million, and counting.)
11. This Mother’s Day, give Mom the gift of nature--Bay Nature
Bay Nature is offering our readers and friends the opportunity to give a very special Mother's Day gift, one that will help her cultivate nature right in her own backyard!
For only $20, she will receive a one-year subscription to award-winning Bay Nature magazine, along with two engaging special publications:
- Gardening for Wildlife with Native Plants, showing the possibilities for creating beautiful garden habitats for native birds and butterflies in your own yard.
- Soil Matters, rich with information about nurturing the soil and the diversity of life within in it.
Just click this link, or call 1-888-4-BAYNAT (1-888-422-9628) to purchase your gift. We'll send a gift card to your mother right away, and then every three months, we'll send her a new issue of a beautiful magazine that's guaranteed to get her inspired and get her outside. And it's printed on recycled paper and comes with no plastic wrapping.
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12. Feedback
On Apr 30, 2011, at 6:57 AM, Veronica Oliva wrote:
And a neighbor two houses down from the Buckeye was telling us that after the tomatoes in her garden reach a certain size the roots reach the water table and she doesn't have to water them any further. In other words, water available to the Buckeye in question.
Hi Veronica: This is a questionable conclusion to draw. For one thing, despite being an annual plant tomatoes send down deep roots right away. Home gardeners have learned to withhold water at a certain point, otherwise the vine won't fruit, it just keeps growing and growing, sprawling all over the place. And perhaps you may have noticed my annual jihad on behalf of dry-farmed Early Girls. Early Girl is the best tomato anyway, and some growers at farmers' markets will withhold the water even earlier, stressing the vine and forcing it to concentrate its flavor and sweetness. These tomatoes are small but powerful. Yum.
There doubtless is water at deeper levels all over the city because of garden watering. Water finds its way around.
On Apr 29, 2011, at 8:21 PM, Vicki Young wrote:
I will be saddened to no longer receive the newsletters directly, it makes me feel as if I am personally linked with all the amazing events you post. I appreciate all your information and insights. V
Why, thank you Vicki; I am touched.
I know what you mean; I feel that something is lost. (When I look at it I think "blah". Perhaps I should call it my blahg!) Several things drove me to do this. As I may have explained before, the mailing process itself is a job, as I don't have a way of mass mailing. The blog site is also a way of archiving.
Having said that, I fear I am laying a trap for myself. A website gives me room for all sorts of stuff that I have wanted to post but didn't dare to in a finite newsletter. I have a hard time respecting my limitations; that has been a lifelong trait that serves me well in many ways but which also gets me into trouble and subjects me to lifelong frustration. It reminds me of someone remarking that "wherever I go I take myself with me and spoil the trip".
P.S. Some people believe that parents know what they're doing when they name their children. I have no idea whether this is so, but my parents fit this theory; my American Heritage Dictionary says about Jacob: "from Hebrew Ya'aqobh, 'he who takes by the heel or overreaches,' from aqebh, heel."
It further sheds light on my questionable lineage:
Jacob |ˈjākəb|
(in the Bible) a Hebrew patriarch, the younger of the twin sons of Isaac and Rebecca, who persuaded his brother Esau to sell him his birthright and tricked him out of his father's blessing (Gen. 25, 27). Jacob's twelve sons became the founders of the twelve tribes of ancient Israel. See also Tribes of Israel .
ORIGIN from Hebrew yaעaqō b ‘following after, supplanter.’
Sounds pretty ambitious, wouldn't you say?
On Apr 29, 2011, at 6:25 PM, Christina Salvin wrote:
Have you considered Facebook? We would so easily read your posts--some could be long and some could be short and many could have pictures or video. It's super user-friendly even for non-techies.
Christina: I don't even know what Facebook is--or Twitter or LinkedIn either. And I don't want to know.
I am a self-confessed near-Luddite. I am still cursing myself that I let my friends bamboozle me into getting, first, a computer, and second, email. I partially convinced myself that a blog site will slightly reduce the time I spend, but that's just another layer of self-deception--I know that. From the beginning the computer, then email, now blog, has been successive layers of enslavement until now I have almost no time left to myself. Why do I do it? Sigmund Freud might have been able to tell me but he's not around anymore.
Thank you for your attempt to save me from myself.
“Perhaps the most ironic aspect of the struggle for survival is how easily organisms can be harmed by that which they desire. The trout is caught by the fisherman’s lure, the mouse by cheese. But at least those creatures have the excuse that bait and cheese look like sustenance. Humans seldom have that consolation. The temptations that can disrupt their lives are often pure indulgences. No one has to drink alcohol, for example. Realizing when a diversion has gotten out of control is one of the great challenges of life.”
from Television Addiction by Robt. Kubey and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi in Scientific American February 2002
Ha ha you have a great point. Facebook can suck your time away. My students read Bill McKibben's "Daybreak" essay and challenge themselves to unplug for a weekend. It's so difficult especially for teenagers to appreciate the natural world without technology.
Aalgis Ratnikas:
"How much space would each person have if the the planet's land surface were shared equally?"
The world population is currently estimated to be 6.915335 billion by the United States Census Bureau.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population)
The world’s land surface is 148,940,000 km2. This is 29.2 % of the total surface. The rest is water.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth)
Thus: 6.915335billion / 148,940,000 km2 = 46.43 people per km2
or .00215 km2 per person
Since 1 km2 = 1million m2
We get 2150 m2 per person.
See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_density
Don't forget to ask how many people want to spend their lives on the Antarctic ice sheet or in middle of Sahara Desert. And all those Polynesian islands going under rising water.
Alice Polesky:
Yes, Prime Minister
Loved your reference to it, Jake. I've watched them all, and the series that preceded it, "Yes, Minister." My husband Nick, who's English, had to spend a lot of time explaining that obscure aspect of British politics to me, the uninitiated. Apparently, the British Civil Service, a permanent fixture in the political system there, is constantly at odds with the different political administrations, which come and go, locked in a never-ending power struggle. It was Margaret Thatcher's favorite program. At least I found something upon which I actually agreed with her.
Is this different than in this country?
No idea -- but if so, it's not with the wit and class of Sir Humphrey.
On Apr 30, 2011, at 11:41 AM, Christine Hall wrote:
I suspect I won’t be the first to tell you that I was unable to scroll down beyond Item 8 in this newsletter. This has happened before, so I hope you have a good solution handy. As always, thank you so much for your hard work and important information, and all best with the blog.
You're only the second to tell me. I expect I've got too many pictures for some computers. I expect this won't be a problem on the blog site--IF I can ever get the effing thing running. I was not made for the internet age; I'm as well-designed for it as is a sieve for transporting water.
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13. Now showing: Arcturus--what it's made of and where it's going
I have trepidations about posting this item about the night sky right now. At time of writing the last several days have presented good seeing, with fairly clear skies, no moon, and not much atmospheric moisture. It inspires me to point out interesting things to see, and interesting things about what you see. But by so doing I am almost guaranteeing that dense fog will roll in and stay for days. That is the pattern of the past. Since I can't defy the gods anyway, I may as well go ahead and post and let them pull their mean tricks. It seems to please them, and I like to please the gods. Good policy.
Arcturus, high in the eastern sky at dusk, is easy to find; merely follow the curve of the Big Dipper’s handle—it points right toward Arcturus (“follow the arc to Arcturus” is the mnemonic). Before dwelling on this out-of-the-ordinary star I want you to continue to follow that arc to Arcturus and then continue the curve to the next bright star. That "star" is the planet Saturn, and the whole arc forms a wide bowl. Saturn, of course, is not going to stay put and will move on. It is now more or less in opposition--ie, it is directly on the opposite side of the Earth from the Sun. The star directly below it is Spica, the brightest star in the constellation Virgo, and the only star in that constellation to be seen in our washed-out sky.
(While you're looking at this [with the gods' permission], test your vision by looking at the Big Dipper handle, the next to the last star from the handle's end. This star has been used as a test of visual acuity by people for thousands of years. It is actually two stars which people with good eyesight can see. [Living on the foggy coast is a double challenge.] Cheap binoculars show it readily.)
Did all the stars you see originate in our galaxy?
What kind of question is that? When I was born, our galaxy and the universe were the same thing. It was eternal and stable (read static). Only in the 1920s did Edwin Hubble find that there were other galaxies besides our own. Now we know there are hundreds of billions of them, and they are all moving away from each other at great speeds.
Recent research has revealed that a bright star that is easily seen, even in light-polluted San Francisco, apparently came from another galaxy: Arcturus. Because Arcturus was known to be travelling faster than surrounding stars, it was assumed that it came from somewhere else. That ‘somewhere else’ turns out to be not in our galaxy, but from some neighboring galaxy. (Remember that the universe is almost 14 billion years old, so it has lots of time for these maneuvers.
Arcturus was likely born in a dwarf galaxy that fell into the Milky Way 5 to 8 billion years ago and has now almost completely dispersed. (Or, you can say that the Milky Way ate the galaxy--galactic cannibalism is common.) Large galaxies are now considered to have grown by cannibalizing smaller galaxies or merging with other similar-sized ones. (If you’re wondering what’s the difference between cannibalizing and merging—there isn’t any, except when the larger merges w/the smaller it is called cannibalism.)
Arcturus is speeding through our stellar neighborhood at 120 kilometers per second. A half million years ago it was too distant to be visible with the naked eye, and a half million years from now it will have again faded from view. Presently it is one of our brightest stars.
Excerpted, paraphrased, and augmented in a report in Sky & Telescope, February 2004
More on Arcturus in next newsletter--rain or shine
JS: Take a look at comparative star sizes. If you want to have your brain fried, glance at this site. If your brain isn't fried by this, then it's dead: http://www.rense.com/general72/size.htm
“There are two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” Albert Einstein
“Sometimes I think we’re alone. Sometimes I think we’re not. In either case, the thought is staggering.” R. Buckminster Fuller
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14. Regional Parks Botanic Garden May 2011 newsletter
The Bay Area's Dazzling Dragonflies
Flame Skimmer
You'll want to bookmark this site to get consistently high-quality information, stunningly beautiful pictures, and events:
http://us1.campaign-archive2.com/?u=01091d83e4aa193c78a888704&id=076151564a&e=dc1584429c
The May issue also reprints my article on Marah, wild cucumber or manroot.
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15. Save the date
CNPS, Friends of Regional Parks Botanic Garden, and Pacific Horticulture are collaborating once again to present a two-day symposium on native plant gardening and design on Sat-Sun, Sep 17-18, 2011 in Lafayette & Berkeley. Featured speakers include Carol Bornstein, David Fross, Steve Edwards, Don Mahoney, and other native plant professionals.
This is to request your assistance in getting the word out to your members.
A press release and poster are attached. A mention in your newsletter, website, and email notification to your members is appreciated. CNPS members are eligible for discounted admission. Earlybird registration deadline is June 30, 2011
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16. From Stewart Brand:
"Civilization’s shortening attention span is mismatched with the pace of environmental problems."
"Environmental health requires peace, prosperity, and continuity.”
"Information Wants To Be Free. Information also wants to be expensive. Information wants to be free because it has become so cheap to distribute, copy, and recombine — too cheap to meter. It wants to be expensive because it can be immeasurably valuable to the recipient. That tension will not go away. It leads to endless wrenching debate about price, copyright, 'intellectual property', the moral rightness of casual distribution, because each round of new devices makes the tension worse, not better." (Spoken at the first Hackers' Conference, and printed in May 1985)
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"... man has still within him sufficient resources to alter the direction of modern civilization, for we then need no longer regard man as the passive victim of his own irreversible technological development."
Lewis Mumford, “The Next Transformation of Man”
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Join the conversation
"The power of nostalgia and wistfulness is amazing in how it can dominate ecological common sense. Some of our biggest invasive pests were introduced and spread by people who dreamed of the 'old country' or an image out of their childhood."
Comment on hcn.org/blogs/goat/tumbling-along
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17. LTEs, Guardian Weekly 29.04.11
Alleluia for Bolivia and the grounded vision embodied in its new laws recognising the covalency of humans and nature (Bolivia enshrines rights of Mother Nature, 15 April). The Norway-Guyana forest deal (Green bargain of the century, 8 April) is an exciting and necessary transition structure, but at root is still the old paradigm trying to ingest the new – have your paradigm and eat it?
Bolivia is both radically challenging anthropocene economics, which is predicated on a terminally stupid race to see who can destroy Earth's life-support systems fastest, and giving birth to the ecozoic era, in which economics, technology and human aspiration are ancillary to ecological wellbeing, and where the manifold services provided by the natural world – as tangible as oxygen and pollination, as tenuous as awe and delight – are factored at their true value into our cultural bedrock.
What mind-boggling sophistication keeps trees aloft, water sweetly flowing, and gets oaks into acorns and back out again? Molecules of chlorophyll and human blood are identical except that chlorophyll has a magnesium atom at its heart and blood has iron. The genome of just one person, written, would fill 12,000 books. We share 70% of our DNA with bananas. A wheelbarrow of healthy soil contains more DNA – more intelligence? – than a human does.
We not only deny sentience and rights to the non-human world, but treat it as a cross between an abattoir, a sewer-cum-junkyard and a bargain basement. Bolivia is signposting a way out of that psychotic narrative.
The concept of a ministry of Mother Earth, with its own ombudsman, gives me goosebumps. Ombudsman is both gender- and species-offensive: how about ombudstree?
Annie March
West Hobart, Tasmania, Australia
• I read your article on Bolivia and felt that I had to mention an information session that I attended recently in Aachen. It was by an academic from Ecuador who was supposed to be explaining the pachamama (Mother Earth) philosophy and I have to say that after two hours I was still none the wiser.
Yes, it all sounded very well-intentioned, but there seemed to be no consistent thread and the speaker kept going off on all kinds of "human rights tangents" which, although very worthy in their own right, completely detracted from the core issues that had so attracted me to the meeting in the first place.
Afterwards I decided that if the expert couldn't explain it to me, then I would come up with my own explanation, which I would now like to pass on.
The key points are the following:
1) Free-market liberals believe that it is our right and our duty to buy enormous TVs because this is a sign of liberty, status and achievement ... and it stimulates growth.
2) Socialists believe that everyone should have a big TV because it would impinge on "equality and justice" if certain people didn't have them.
3) Greens believe that everyone (especially middle-class people) should have wind- or solar-powered TVs because in this way you can enjoy a consumer lifestyle without feeling guilty about your carbon footprint.
4) Those affiliated to the philosophy of pachamama believe that you should simply read a good book, go for a nice walk or meet friends instead of watching TV.
I believe that, despite the disastrous job of explanation done by the professor from Ecuador, I have become a fan of (my version of) the philosophy of pachamama. Maybe we should all take this on board?
Alan Mitcham
Cologne, Germany
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18. United States: A union with a divided history marks a civil war anniversary
Civil war memories sparked by a cannon's volley at Fort Sumter
Tuesday 26 April 2011 14.00 BST from The Economist
A cannon fires on Fort Sumter to mark the first shot of the American civil war in Charleston, South Carolina. Photograph: Richard Ellis/Getty Images
It's a beautiful sight. The sun is just coming up behind Fort Sumter in front of us, and behind us, across the harbour, the gracious skyline of Charleston is coming more clearly into view. A squadron of pelicans skims across the water; terns are diving, plovers are keening.
I am here, however, not to watch birds but for an awkward anniversary, the commemoration of the first shot of the American civil war, fired from this spot150 years ago.
The crowd around me is almost entirely white, some sporting T-shirts adorned with the Confederate battle flag, a few official re-enactors in Confederate grey, a young man holding a red South Carolina banner, and a few recognisable local politicians.
The ceremony draws out the contradictions of claiming and celebrating both southern and American identity at the same time. The programme opens with everyone reciting the Pledge of Allegiance, asserting the indivisibility of the American republic. It continues with an unabashedly Christian prayer from a local pastor.
As we get closer to the Big Bang – the firing of an original 1847 Seacoast mortar – the sourest note of the proceedings points to the way the civil war divides the contemporary US not so much (or not only) on regional lines, but on political ones.
The firing of the shell is greeted by a tall dude with a long black beard yelling, "The south shall rise again." Still, at least it's only one person, and he gets some lip from a presumed Yankee woman nearby who snarls, "Get over it– y'all lost."
The keynote speaker is the conservative Charleston state senator and civil war buff, Glenn McConnell. His speech attempts to reconcile some of the event's contradictions, defending South Carolina's right to secede in 1860, but celebrating the eradication of slavery. He talks up the shared culture of southern blacks and whites, with no reference to the 100 years between the end of the civil war and the passing of the Civil Rights Act.
The contradictions cannot comfortably be contained at Fort Sumter. They will surely dog the remaining four years of the civil war commemorations, especially in the south. I look forward to 2015 when we can maybe all just mourn the dead – the failure of politics and the folly of war.
History will be kind to me for I intend to write it. Winston Churchill
"Nothing is so fatal to a nation as an extreme of self-partiality." Edmund Burke
Man's capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man's inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary. -Reinhold Niebuhr, theologian (1892-1971)
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19.
ATTACHED: MEDIA INFORMATION SHEET - (JS: This is not attached, but I will forward attachment on request, or you can request from Howard)
There’s so much misinformation out there about the North Beach Library, Joe DiMaggio Playground, land-use and past history. The City has worked to control the message---employing many hundreds of thousands of dollars of public relations consultants, EIR consultants, architects, drawings, reports, city agencies, non-profit affiliates, managers, staff, city employees…. The power of the state can be quite overwhelming. In a democratic society, a vital balance is the press and media. Attached are some entertaining facts.
Sincerely,
Howard Wong, AIA
Ph: (415)-982-5055
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Dear Friends of Richmond:
As you know, this past November the people of Richmond voted down the idea of a casino at Pt. Molate by defeating Measure U.
We are now looking to involve community members in helping to design a new vision for Pt. Molate. Citizens for a Sustainable Pt. Molate is competing for a $5,000 grant to conduct community workshops engaging community input on that vision.
I need your help - please go to www.baycitizen.org/citizenoftomorrow/ watch the video and vote for Citizens for a Sustainable Pt. Molate. You can vote as often as once a day, so remember to come back often! Andres Soto
The 2008 Clean and Safe Neighborhood Parks Bond dedicated $5.8 million to improving Glen Canyon Park. SF Recreation & Parks (RPD) is partnering with The Trust for Public Land (TPL) to design and prioritize a park improvement plan at Glen Canyon Park.
We will be holding the 5th community meeting this Thursday, May 5th, from 6:30-8:30pm at the Glen Canyon Recreation Center, located inside Glen Canyon Park near the intersection of Elk and Chenery Street.
This meeting will be fun! We'll be reviewing the preferred park improvement plan, and discussing phasing and design elements. We want your feedback! Please invite your neighbors and others who are interested to attend this workshop.
For more information about the process, please visit http://sfrecpark.org/glenparkproject.aspx or contact Karen Mauney-Brodek (karen.mauney-brodek@sfgov.org, 415.575.5601, or Alejandra Chiesa (alejandra.chiesa@tpl.org, 415.800.5303).
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