1. Tea Party...something is definitely wrong here
2. Diamonds in the Rough: Discovering San Francisco's Natural Areas, Thursday Aug 4
3. SF Ocean Edge volunteers meeting and other news
4. Golden Gate Audubon at Pier 94 August 6, Saturday
5. One-bedroom apartment richly planted with native plants available Sept 1
6. Feedback
7. A cool view of health care spending
8. The fight over methyl iodide
9. The fading genius of the U.S. post office
10. Is math invented or discovered? Why math works
11. The Summer Triangle - three stars, but very different
12. New species of antelope discovered - in a bushmeat market/mushroom that lives underwater
13. Let somebody else become a dove or gnash with a tiger's tooth; I am happy to be a stone
1.
KAL in The Economist
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2.
Diamonds in the Rough: Discovering San Francisco's Natural Areas
Speaker: Lisa Wayne, Director of SF Rec and Parks Dept's Natural Areas Program
Thursday, August 4th, 7:30pm
San Francisco County Fair Building (details below)
Lisa Wayne, Director of the SFRPD Natural Areas Program, will take us on a visual tour of the San Francisco Recreation and Park Department's Significant Natural Resource Areas. From the native oak woodlands of Golden Gate Park to the wildflower fields of the Bayview District, we will explore the hidden natural treasures that still survive in our urban environment. These remnant native ecosystems support a surprising array of locally rare plants and other botanical wonders that provide habitat for the City's wildlife. She will discuss the groundbreaking efforts, hurdles, setbacks and victories on the path to preserving and restoring these urban gems. She will also bring us up to date on the long-term planning efforts to protect and enhance biodiversity in natural areas.
Lisa Wayne has a Masters degree in Conservation Biology from San Francisco State University. She has been the Director of the San Francisco Recreation and Park Department's Natural Areas Program since its inception in 1997.
Everyone is welcome to attend membership meetings in the Recreation Room of the San Francisco County Fair Building at 9th Avenue and Lincoln Way in Golden Gate Park. The building is served by the #71 and #44 bus lines, is one block from the N-Judah car, and is two blocks from the #6, #43, and #66 bus lines.
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3.
SF Ocean Edge Volunteers meeting: www.sfoceanedge.org
Sunday, August 7th, 5:00 – 7:00 p.m. , 1243 42nd Avenue between Lincoln and Irving
As requested, we are now having regular meetings for our volunteers. Learn what’s going on and what you can do to help. Enjoy great snacks! (Bring great snacks!)
Come early (4:30) to talk about your concerns for Golden Gate Park in a video.
Join us at Sunday Streets! This is FUN!
Sunday, August 14th, 11:00 to 4:00. Tenderloin / Civic Center. These events are the most fun – meet lots of people who love our parks, let them know what they can do to protect Golden Gate Park. Contact us to coordinate with other volunteers and to get our table location.
Sunshine Complaint decision:
At its July 26th hearing, the Sunshine Ordinance Task Force voted unanimously to support George Wooding’s Sunshine Complaint against the Recreation and Park Department. At this time, George is waiting for the SOTF's formal Order of Determination. Please see our website for updates as they occur.
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4. Join Golden Gate Audubon at Pier 94 on San Francisco’s Southern Waterfront Saturday, August 6, 2011 from 9:00 am – noon
Lend a hand at Pier 94 in San Francisco where we will learn about and participate in invasive plant removal, tend native plants and remove trash. The site is home to native California Sea-blite- an endangered plant, as well as habitat for shorebirds and waterbirds and a nesting site for several resident species of birds.
Directions: Take Third Street and turn east (toward the bay) onto Cargo Way and take the first left onto Amador Street. This industrial road turns right (480 Amador St.) in San Francisco turn into parking area just before the chain link fence. Ahead you will see a small sign next to the left of white barriers. This is the entrance to Pier 94.
Park in front of the barriers and join us at the marsh.
Public Transit: The Muni Metro T-Line stops at Marin, which is located a couple blocks before Cargo Way on Third Street. Please visit www.511.org for a transit planner from your location. Follow the directions above from Third Street turning onto Cargo Way.
Gloves, tools and snacks will be provided. Please bring your own water bottle to cut down on trash, we’ll provide water.
Wear sturdy shoes, a hat, sunscreen, dress in layers of clothes that you don’t mind getting a bit dirty – you’ll have fun while helping local birds.
More details here www.goldengateaudubon.org/volunteer
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5.
Hello Jake,
I am sadly leaving the Bay Area and would love to have someone who appreciates native plant gardens take over the lease for my studio. The only problem is I don't really know that many people here in the city. Would you do me a huge favor and post this add in your news letter? I would really appreciate the help. Thanks
This one bedroom apartment has a wonderful native plant garden that was recently shown on the 2011 CNPS garden tour. The garden boasts over 35 different species of wildflowers from varied lupine to crimson columbine, 12 different species of native grasses, 15 native shrub species from Ca sagbush to blue elderberry, and 3 native trees. There is a bioswale for the washing machine filled with native rushes, sedges and other riparian plants. It is located the quiet, safe Outer Richmond district a few blocks from Lands End and China Beach. We are moving to Davis for school and would like to find someone who loves to garden to take over our lease. It is available on September 1st for $1200/mo plus deposit. If interested contact Kaya at kayamacmillen(at)gmail.com or 831-588-1262. Thanks.
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6. Feedback:
Paul McGee:
Regarding Rupert Murdoch, et al., the new book The Psychopath Test by Jon Ronson reveals that there are an inordinate number of psychopathic personalities in the upper echelons of business and in politics. Perhaps that partly explains the irresponsible, destructive behavior of the majority in the House of Representatives.
Judy West:
Hi Jake I appreciate your focus on the population issue. When I was in college in the 1970s, Ecology classes were all about the population explosion, but it seems a taboo subject anymore.. I would propose one small step toward eliminating unwanted pregnancies: Remove the testicles from violent criminals. Why do we allow men who perpetuate violence to reproduce? It is a well known fact that violent men reproduce violence in their offspring. I'm sure there are men who would baulk, but we spay dangerous dogs and we should do the same with dangerous men, especially those who rape or commit sexual violence. Judy West
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7.
Health-care reform
Looking to Uncle Sam
As lawmakers squabble, spending on health care continues to grow
Jul 30th 2011 | NEW YORK | from The Economist print edition
POLITICIANS want to lower spending, or at least they say they do. But in all the to-and-fro over raising the debt ceiling, little sensible has been said about lowering spending in the long term. Nothing illuminates this more clearly than health care.
A new report, published in Health Affairs on July 28th, paints a daunting picture. Health spending will rise by 5.8% each year from 2010 to the end of 2020, according to actuaries at the Centres for Medicare Hawks have long warned that it would be impossible to curb government spending without curtailing spending on health. Democrats claimed that their health law would lower costs. Barack Obama assembled grey-haired sages to recommend changes to entitlement programmes. Paul Ryan, the Republican chairman of the House Budget Committee, offered his own reforms. And yet spending on health care continues to climb.
Last year the actuaries at CMS projected that health reform would not lower spending, as Democrats hoped. From 2009 to 2019 average annual growth for health spending would be 0.2 percentage points higher with Mr Obama’s health reform than without it. This slight net rise would mask dramatic shifts, the actuaries said. For example, reform’s efforts to contain costs for Medicare, the government programme for the old, would be dwarfed by the expansion of Medicaid, the government programme for the poor.
...If these surveys are borne out in firms’ actions, government spending will be even higher than CMS expects. The debt disaster on August 2nd may be averted. The bigger problem remains.
Edmund Burke: "Leaders have another duty: To give voters the benefit of their best judgment."
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8. The fight over a much-needed pesticide
When should a useful chemical be considered too toxic? A battle over a pesticide in California shows this question has no easy answer. In late 2010, methyl iodide, a chemical so dangerous it gets special treatment even when used in a laboratory setting, was approved for use in the state's agricultural fields. Farmers like it because it kills most everything in the soil before they plant sensitive crops like strawberries and peppers. And they need methyl iodide since a similar material that's less toxic, methyl bromide, is being phased out because its use depletes the ozone layer.
But California scientists who reviewed methyl iodide concluded there was almost no way it could be safely used in farming; there was too much risk for workers handling the cancer- and miscarriage-causing substance. Without it, though, yields of strawberries and other crops could plummet -- costing growers and consumers.
The Environmental Protection Agency faces that dilemma every time it considers a new chemical for agricultural use. The agency must weigh health risks alongside of economic benefits, and that balancing act originally led to methyl iodide's approval in 2007. But environmental groups, spurred by the California controversy, are hoping to force EPA to change its mind. Read more about the saga of methyl iodide at HCN.org.
High Country News August 2011
(I question whether growing strawberries cheaply qualifies it as "a much-needed pesticide". How about growing it sustainably, integrated with other unrelated plants, thus obviating the need for this drastic and dangerous chemical? Have you ever wondered how many people who are so uptight about chemical and pesticide issues have no problem with buying strawberries at the supermarket? Uh-huh. I don't wonder anymore--it is very common. JS)
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9. The fading genius of the US post office
The superb post offices of the New Deal era are a monument to America's democratic ethos. Now we're selling off FDR's legacy
Comments (53)
Gray Brechin
London's The Guardian, Tuesday 2 August 2011 13.30 BST
An interior view of the post office in Modesto, California, showing New Deal-sponsored murals by Ray Boynton and local artists; the post office has now closed and is for sale. Photograph: Gray Brechin
On 9 June, the General Services Administration threw Modesto's downtown post office onto the auction block. Like so many other postal facilities, the Renaissance-style palazzo had long served as an anchor for downtown stores of the California town, a public space where citizens met to exchange news as well as transact business in an ennobling lobby of polished travertine and marble beneath murals of local farming activities.
The federal government once designed its post offices to elevate and inspire the public whose assets it is now selling. An architectural journal in 1918 spoke of the tutelary value of post offices:
"They are generally the most important of the local buildings, and taken together, [are] seen daily by thousands, who have little opportunity to feel the influence of the great architectural works in the large cities."
For complete story click on
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/aug/02/us-post-office-new-deal
Also, for more related information, go to Gray's Living New Deal Project: lndp.org
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10. Why Math Works
Is math invented or discovered? A leading astrophysicist suggests that the answer to the millennia-old question is both
By Mario Livio Scientific American August 2011
Fractals, such as this stack of spheres created using 3-D modeling software, are one of the mathematical structures that were invented for abstract reasons yet manage to capture reality. Image: Illustration by Tom Beddard
In Brief
• The deepest mysteries are often the things we take for granted. Most people never think twice about the fact that scientists use mathematics to describe and explain the world. But why should that be the case?
• Math concepts developed for purely abstract reasons turn out to explain real phenomena. Their utility, as physicist Eugene Wigner once wrote, “is a wonderful gift which we neither understand nor deserve.”
• Part of the puzzle is the question of whether mathematics is an invention (a creation of the human mind) or a discovery (something that exists independently of us). The author suggests it is both.
Supplemental Material
Photo Album The Unreasonable Beauty of Mathematics [Slide Show]
Most of us take it for granted that math works—that scientists can devise formulas to describe subatomic events or that engineers can calculate paths for space craft. We accept the view, initially espoused by Galileo, that mathematics is the language of science and expect that its grammar explains experimental results and even predicts novel phenomena. The power of mathematics, though, is nothing short of astonishing. Consider, for example, Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell’s famed equations: not only do these four expressions summarize all that was known of electromagnetism in the 1860s, they also anticipated the existence of radio waves two decades before German physicist Heinrich Hertz detected them. Very few languages are as effective, able to articulate volumes’ worth of material so succinctly and with such precision.
Albert Einstein pondered, “How is it possible that mathematics, a product of human thought that is independent of experience, fits so excellently the objects of physical reality?”
While you're looking at these beautiful, mostly fractal, designs, register your opinion about: Do you think that energy companies should be allowed to explore and develop the Arctic? The poll is conducted jointly by SciAm and Shell Oil Co. The 'No' on drilling is way ahead, btw.
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11. The Summer Triangle--comprising the 1st-magnitude stars Vega, Altair, and Deneb--is overhead at dark. The brightest, and westernmost, is Vega--near the zenith. Of the three, Deneb (the tail of the celestial Swan, Cygnus) is noticeably the faintest. With a visual magnitude of 1.3, it barely qualifies as a 1st-magnitude star. Deneb may appear rather ordinary in comparison to Altair and Vega, but looks can be deceiving.
While Altair and Vega are 17 and 25 light-years away, respectively, a gap of more than 1,400 light-years separates us from Deneb. This star is, in fact, one of the most luminous in the galaxy--a blue-white supergiant with the light output of more than 50,000 Suns! Were this stellar colossus as near as Altair, it would be a dazzling magnitude -8.4 star easily visible during daylight hours and able to cast distinct shadows at night.
The vast rift separating us from Deneb denies us such a visual spectacle, but it also protects us from the effects of this star's ultimate demise. Like all supergiants, Deneb is destined for a sudden and violent end as a type II supernova--the rapid collapse and violent explosion of a massive star. The event could possibly occur within the next few million years--a cosmic blink of the eye. At Altair's distance, a Deneb supernova would be nearly 1,000 times brighter than the Full Moon and prove catastrophic to life on Earth. The gamma radiation released would seriously deplete our atmosphere's protective ozone layer, allowing life-threatening levels of solar and cosmic radiation to reach the ground. We're fortunate to be able to admire this magnificent star from a safe distance.
Excerpted and augmented from Glenn Chaple's column in Astronomy, September 2011
(When I decided to post this item, the sky in western San Francisco was cloudless. As I started typing, fog began moving in. At the end we were back to the usual socked-in state typical of August. Good luck on seeing the Summer Triangle; you may get glimpses from time to time. And the Triangle will be visible for a couple months yet, moving further west.
And we'll have another chance--with greater chances of clear night sky--when The Great World Wide Star Count takes place October 14 - 18. The Star Count will use the constellation Cygnus as a barometer to map the global extent of light pollution. Volunteers [that means us!] will observe Cygnus any evening between October 14 and 28 to determine the magnitude of the faintest stars visible. The process will entail matching what we see in the sky with one of seven charts showing the appearance of Cygnus when the limiting magnitude is 1 through 7. Urban dwellers will struggle to see 1st-magnitude stars like Deneb, while those fortunate enough to live in regions where dark skies prevail will detect stars of 6th or even 7th magnitude.)
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12. Random notes - Science News (?)
Walter's duiker (Philantomba walteri) was first found in a bushmeat market in West Africa. The discovery surprised scientists, as antelopes are considered to have been well studied. Its appearance in the market underscored the impact the bushmeat trade can have on rare species.
Psathyrella aquatica is a mushroom that lives underwater. The gilled fungus was found in the cold, flowing waters of the upper Rogue River in Oregon, US, and can spend up to 11 weeks fruiting under the water's surface.
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13.
Stone
Go inside a stone
That would be my way.
Let somebody else become a dove
Or gnash with a tiger’s tooth.
I am happy to be a stone.
From the outside the stone is a riddle:
No one knows how to answer it.
Yet within, it must be cool and quiet
Even though a cow steps on it full weight,
Even though a child throws it in a river;
The stone sinks, slow, unperturbed
To the river bottom
Where the fishes come to knock on it
And listen.
I have seen sparks fly out
When two stones are rubbed,
So perhaps it is not dark inside after all;
Perhaps there is a moon shining
From somewhere, as though behind a hill—
Just enough light to make out
The strange writings, the star-charts
On the inner walls.
~ Charles Simic ~
(The Voice at 3 A.M.)
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