1. Central Subway and the mayor
2. First-ever State of the Birds Report for SF Bay
3. Protest date hearings for AT&T Utility Box permits
4. SF Dept of Environment job opportunities
5. More on Drake's Bay oyster operations permitting
6. SFPUC Watershed Tool Workshop/introduction to residential graywater systems
7. Mammoth bones found in Pacifica
8. Man as Object: Reversing the Gaze. Women artists look at men and masculinity
9. SciAm: Where have all the honeybees gone?
10. Feedback: Jerusalem cricket/fracking
11. Reckless Endangerment: How Outsized Ambition, Greed, and Corruption Led to Economic Armageddon
12. A humorous, but perceptive, look at the Greek bailout
13. At the still point, there the dance is. Anything you do has a still point
14. How To Be a Poet; Wendell Berry reminds himself
15. War from the air - a perspective from a century ago
16. Notes & Queries
Fact of the week: The UN calculates the world will have its seventh-billion person by 31 October. The sixth-billionth child was born in 1999, the fifth-billionth in 1987, fourth in 1975, and third in 1960.
1. SaveMuni strongly condemns Mayor Ed Lee’s careless and highly inaccurate response to the Grand Jury’s carefully researched report on the Central Subway
On October 27, the Board of Supervisors Government Audits and Oversight Committee will consider the results of the Grand Jury’s seven month investigation of the Central Subway debacle. SaveMuni will support the well reasoned conclusions of the Grand Jury’s report and provide new information about the Central Subway and its failings.
SaveMuni will also expose and rebut the MTA’s weak response to the Grand Jury report, which consists mainly of vague generalizations intended to defend the status quo at all costs. Because of MTA’s and Mayor’s inadequate responses we will call upon the Board of Supervisors to table the matter until such time as the MTA and Mayor Lee have provided detailed and well thought out responses to each of the Grand Jury’s findings and recommendations.
Government Audits & Oversight Committee
Civil Grand Jury Report: “Central Subway - Too Much Money For Too Little Benefit”
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 27, 2011, 10:00 AM
City Hall Room 263, San Francisco
Agenda: http://www.sfbos.org/Modules/ShowDocument.aspx?documentid=39945
www.SaveMuni.com
###################################
2. The first-ever State of the Birds Report for San Francisco Bay summarizes the current state of knowledge on the Bay’s bird populations and details the actions needed to keep birds and their habitats thriving as sea levels rise and extreme storm events increase due to global climate change.
URL includes video: http://data.prbo.org/sfstateofthebirds/
##################################
3. AT&T Applies for Numerous Utility Box Permits; Protest Hearing Dates Posted Online
San Francisco Beautiful has been notified of the protest hearing schedule for various AT&T utility box locations.
Starting tomorrow, more than 42 protests to protect our sidewalks are scheduled to be heard by the Department of Public Works. Please check the schedule for protested sites in your neighborhood and spread the word.
At the protest hearings be sure to:
• Request that the City require AT&T to offer fair compensation to property owners
• Ask for undergrounding, already required by DPW
• Highlight adverse impacts to aesthetics, historic resources, trash, and pedestrian access
• Demand an environmental review based on locations specific to the boxes now being proposed
A representative from San Francisco Beautiful will be at City Hall, Room 416, at 9 AM tomorrow, Wednesday, October 26 for the first in a series of protest hearings.
Let's keep the pressure on!
Download the protest flier and spread the word.
#####################################
4. San Francisco Dept of the Environment
Please forward this email to anyone interested in applying for our Landscape Integrated Pest Management (IPM) Trainer/Consultant RFP: http://sfenvironment.org/downloads/library/ipm_consultant_rfp_10.19.11.docx
Proposals due by email: November 2, 2011; 5:00 pm
Anticipated Contract Start Date: November 28, 2011
_______________________________
Action: SF Environment Job Opportunity, 5642 HHW and Toxics Coordinator
Commission weblink: http://www.sfenvironment.org/our_policies/overview.html?ssi=10
################################
5. Environmental Action Committee of West Marin:
Folks here are very concerned about that radio interview being broadcast again since it was totally imbalanced and it's 2 years old.
As suggested below, perhaps you could post the new website (http://www.savepointreyeswilderness.org/) as a follow-up.
Background
• The 1962 Point Reyes enabling legislation mandated that “…the property…shall be administered…without impairment of its natural values…and supportive of the maximum protection, restoration, and preservation of the natural environment within the area…”
• The Wilderness Act of 1964 established that Wilderness areas are for nature, wildlife and plants, untrammeled by commercialization and mechanization.
In 1972, the Johnson Oyster Company (JOC) sold their land on the shores of Drakes Estero to the National Park Service and entered into a 40-year Reservation of Use and Occupancy (RUO), to expire in 2012.
In 1976, Congress passed the Point Reyes Wilderness Act, by which they designated the Drakes Estero portion as potential wilderness due to the remaining non-conforming use of the private, commercial oyster operation. The Committee reports directed the NPS to discontinue the non-conforming use in 2012, so that the Estero could become full wilderness.
From 1999 to 2005, JOC drastically cut oyster production to between 1/20 and 1/3 of the 1994 peak levels of 684,000 pounds of oyster meat, possibly in anticipation of the upcoming termination of the RUO in 2012.
In 2005, Drakes Bay Oyster Company (DBOC) bought the remaining seven years of the RUO from JOC. DBOC of course knew about the 2012 termination, and yet, ever since has lobbied relentlessly and waged a public relations campaign to continue their private, commercial industrial operation in the estuary after their non-renewable rights expire on November 30, 2012. In fact, the 2012 termination meant that DBOC purchased the oyster operation from Johnson at a lower price than it would have been otherwise.
In 2008, DBOC even turned down an offer from the American Lands Conservancy to buy them out.
The whole DEIS process stems from an unvetted rider that Senator Feinstein attached to the FY09 Appropriations bill. The rider stripped NPS' legal mandate to terminate oyster operations after the rights expire in 2012, and instead made the decision discretionary for Interior Secretary Salazar.
On August 31, 2011, NPS released the DBOC Permit DEIS, which is a comprehensive environmental analysis of oyster company’s operations on Drakes Estero. The document includes hundreds of references, including dozens upon dozens of peer-reviewed scientific articles. Yet, DBOC wages on with their campaign against the National Park Service by calling the DEIS “a political tool to mislead the general public,” and their mouthpiece, the reactionary Point Reyes Light, calls the DEIS “toxic beyond our wildest dreams.”
Let's celebrate the 50th anniversary of Point Reyes National Seashore by fully protecting Drakes Estero wilderness, the wildlife sanctuary and ecological heart of our beloved Bay Area national park.
########################
6.
SFPUC P2 is again sponsoring a workshop geared towards teaching teachers, educators, and parents hands-on activities, art projects and scientific investigations they can use with children to learn about our watershed and pollution prevention at home and at school.
Name: Watershed Tool Workshop
Hosted by: The Watershed Project
When: Saturday, November 5, 2011, 9am-4pm
Where: Alice Fong Yu Alternative School
1541 12th Ave, San Francisco 94122
Cost: Free!
Registration: Email Katy@thewatershedproject.org or call (510) 269-7twp
_______________________________
SFPUC Lunchtime Talk: Introduction to Residential Graywater Systems in San Francisco
Don‚t let good water go to waste! Come learn about the potential to reuse graywater in your San Francisco landscape. Local expert Laura Allen will give an overview of where and when to install residential graywater systems for outdoor irrigation. The presentation will cover laundry-to-landscape and branched drain systems, as well as more complex systems. To learn more about the SFPUC‚s graywater programs: www.sfwater.org/graywater To RSVP for the lunchtime talk:landscape@sfwater.org. Please note that this is a brownbag presentation. You will need to bring your own lunch.
SFPUC Lunchtime Talk: Introduction to Residential Graywater Systems in San Francisco
San Francisco Public Utilities Commission
1155 Market St, 6th Floor Conference Room
Thursday, November 17, 12-1pm
RSVP: Yes! Space is limited. Please RSVP to landscape@sfwater.org
##########################
7. Mammoth bones found in Pacifica
Click photo to enlarge
Ian Butler shows what is believed to be a rare mammoth tooth
Ian Butler was picking up trash in a cliffside gorge when he saw it: yellow and calcified, not rock or shell, but bone.
"The first thought that came to my mind was 'mammoth,' for some reason," Butler said.
He wasn't hallucinating -- he was right. Butler had stumbled on a tusk segment belonging to a mammoth, the kind that roamed the earth during the Late Pleistocene period, which ended about 11,000 years ago.
Then he found other pieces of bone -- bits of leg; a single mammoth tooth, larger than his own skull. Enough to fill four shoeboxes.
Last Friday, he took the bones to Jean DeMouthe, geology collections manager for invertebrates at the California Academy of Sciences. DeMouthe confirmed that the bones, which have extensive water damage, probably belonged to a Columbian mammoth -- a species of mammoth that ranged across the Bay Area until it went extinct at the end of the last ice age.
Full story: http://www.mercurynews.com/san-mateo-county/ci_19183943
#################################
8. Man as Object: Reversing the Gaze
Opening at SOMArts Main Gallery
Friday, November 4th: 6-9:00 p.m.
San Francisco, CA
WOMEN ARTISTS LOOK AT MEN AND MASCULINITY
ART EXHIBITION RE-ENVISIONS GENDER, SOCIETY AND
THE POLITICS OF EXPOSURE
PLEASE JOIN US... for our ART OPENING!
Friday, November 4th, 6-9:00 p.m.
SOMArts Cultural Center
Main Gallery
934 Brannan Street
San Francisco. CA
www.somarts.org
Exhibition Dates:
11/4 - 11/30/2011
Man as Object: Reversing the Gaze is an exhibition that re-envisions gender, society and the politics of exposure. With a gallery filled with men stripped naked, this body of work exposes women's cheeky, provocative and sometimes shocking commentaries on the opposite sex. The exhibition's contemporary scope encompasses all the ways that women view Man-as-Object, reversing the traditional view of male artists objectifying women. Its diverse perspectives on masculinity come from straight, transsexual, transgender, lesbian and multi-cultural artists through a spectrum of media, from paintings to sculpture, installations to performance, video to social media. The show's extensive collection of male adoration, male impersonation and male appendages may make the viewer squirm a little. But that is precisely the point. The more than 100 women artists in the exhibition unapologetically reveal how they really see men. Through this public display at SOMArts Cultural Center, the show's organizers aim to equalize the gaze between the sexes.
#############################
9. Scientific American
PSIVID: Where Have All the Honeybees Gone? A Documentary on the Devastation of Colony-Collapse Disorder
http://links.email.scientificamerican.com/ctt?kn=71&ms=MzcyODk2MDAS1&r=NTM5NzIzNTA1NgS2&b=2&j=MTE2NzEyNTI4S0&mt=1&rt=0
or
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/psi-vid/2011/10/26/the-plight-of-the-honeybee-a-documentary-on-the-devastation-of-colony-collapse-disorder/?WT_mc_id=SA_CAT_ENGYSUS_201110271
######################
10. Feedback
On Oct 25, 2011, at 12:21 PM, Margo Bors wrote:
Jerusalem crickets are among my favorite insects. They look frightening but are very entertaining. If they are trapped, they turn over and play dead. I watched one once for quite a while - on it's back, feet in the air. I thought maybe it really was dead, but after several minutes an antenna twitched and about 30 seconds later it rolled over - just playing possum.
If I recall what David Weissman wrote in that California Wild article, I think that is also its defensive, fighting posture.
SaveNature.org:
Regarding Jerusalem cricket - keep up the curiosity by going to SaveNature.Org and the Insect Discovery Lab and clicking on Learning Guides (it says "click here")
Judy West (re 8. gasland (http://gaslandthemovie.com/) is a new documentary on natural gas extraction via a method called fracking):
As a geologist and someone familiar with the technology of fracturing underground reservoirs, I have to express my frustration that this film maker has attained any credibility on this subject. Is he suggesting we should remain dependent on filthy fuels like coal? The vast majority of gas leakages into surface water supplies have been going on long before fracking technology started and should not be blamed on this recent technology. I'm afraid this kind of journalism by non-experts is purposefully designed to combat the evil fossil fuel industry, is politically motivated and could have serious impact on our energy future. Natural gas is America's best energy alternative to coal and other dirty fuels. Windmills and solar will never make the kind of impact we need, especially in the east where this guy is from. In Wyoming where I am today, fracking has not been proven to be a problem and what water contamination has occurred has been proven from other sources. Get the facts not the hype.
#############################
11.
A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
It is unwise to be too sure of one's own wisdom. It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err. -Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869-1948)
Reckless Endangerment: How Outsized Ambition, Greed, and Corruption Led to Economic Armageddon. By Gretchen Morgenson and Joshua Rosner.
“THE shapers of the American mortgage finance system hoped to achieve the security of government ownership, the integrity of local banking and the ingenuity of Wall Street. Instead they got the ingenuity of government, the security of local banking and the integrity of Wall Street,” David Frum, a former White House speechwriter, lamented in 2008. In “Reckless Endangerment”, Gretchen Morgenson, a veteran New York Times reporter, and Joshua Rosner, a consultant, provide the best account yet of how this system went off the rails. So successful have the pair been at ferreting out the details that the book is at the top of Amazon’s worldwide bestseller list...
###############################
12.
(This is a light-hearted treatment of a serious subject. Although it is humorous, my reason for posting is because it also contains much truth. JS)
Id, ego, and debt: The Greek bailout
By Todd Buchholz Marketplace, Wednesday, October 26, 2011 (http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2011/10/26/pm-id-ego-and-debt-the-greek-bailout/)
Listen to this Story
The Greek bailout has a lot to do with the history between Germany and Greece.
EU and Greek flags are pictured under a heavy sky in Athens Oct. 10
2. First-ever State of the Birds Report for SF Bay
3. Protest date hearings for AT&T Utility Box permits
4. SF Dept of Environment job opportunities
5. More on Drake's Bay oyster operations permitting
6. SFPUC Watershed Tool Workshop/introduction to residential graywater systems
7. Mammoth bones found in Pacifica
8. Man as Object: Reversing the Gaze. Women artists look at men and masculinity
9. SciAm: Where have all the honeybees gone?
10. Feedback: Jerusalem cricket/fracking
11. Reckless Endangerment: How Outsized Ambition, Greed, and Corruption Led to Economic Armageddon
12. A humorous, but perceptive, look at the Greek bailout
13. At the still point, there the dance is. Anything you do has a still point
14. How To Be a Poet; Wendell Berry reminds himself
15. War from the air - a perspective from a century ago
16. Notes & Queries
Fact of the week: The UN calculates the world will have its seventh-billion person by 31 October. The sixth-billionth child was born in 1999, the fifth-billionth in 1987, fourth in 1975, and third in 1960.
1. SaveMuni strongly condemns Mayor Ed Lee’s careless and highly inaccurate response to the Grand Jury’s carefully researched report on the Central Subway
On October 27, the Board of Supervisors Government Audits and Oversight Committee will consider the results of the Grand Jury’s seven month investigation of the Central Subway debacle. SaveMuni will support the well reasoned conclusions of the Grand Jury’s report and provide new information about the Central Subway and its failings.
SaveMuni will also expose and rebut the MTA’s weak response to the Grand Jury report, which consists mainly of vague generalizations intended to defend the status quo at all costs. Because of MTA’s and Mayor’s inadequate responses we will call upon the Board of Supervisors to table the matter until such time as the MTA and Mayor Lee have provided detailed and well thought out responses to each of the Grand Jury’s findings and recommendations.
Government Audits & Oversight Committee
Civil Grand Jury Report: “Central Subway - Too Much Money For Too Little Benefit”
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 27, 2011, 10:00 AM
City Hall Room 263, San Francisco
Agenda: http://www.sfbos.org/Modules/ShowDocument.aspx?documentid=39945
www.SaveMuni.com
###################################
2. The first-ever State of the Birds Report for San Francisco Bay summarizes the current state of knowledge on the Bay’s bird populations and details the actions needed to keep birds and their habitats thriving as sea levels rise and extreme storm events increase due to global climate change.
URL includes video: http://data.prbo.org/sfstateofthebirds/
##################################
3. AT&T Applies for Numerous Utility Box Permits; Protest Hearing Dates Posted Online
San Francisco Beautiful has been notified of the protest hearing schedule for various AT&T utility box locations.
Starting tomorrow, more than 42 protests to protect our sidewalks are scheduled to be heard by the Department of Public Works. Please check the schedule for protested sites in your neighborhood and spread the word.
At the protest hearings be sure to:
• Request that the City require AT&T to offer fair compensation to property owners
• Ask for undergrounding, already required by DPW
• Highlight adverse impacts to aesthetics, historic resources, trash, and pedestrian access
• Demand an environmental review based on locations specific to the boxes now being proposed
A representative from San Francisco Beautiful will be at City Hall, Room 416, at 9 AM tomorrow, Wednesday, October 26 for the first in a series of protest hearings.
Let's keep the pressure on!
Download the protest flier and spread the word.
#####################################
4. San Francisco Dept of the Environment
Please forward this email to anyone interested in applying for our Landscape Integrated Pest Management (IPM) Trainer/Consultant RFP: http://sfenvironment.org/downloads/library/ipm_consultant_rfp_10.19.11.docx
Proposals due by email: November 2, 2011; 5:00 pm
Anticipated Contract Start Date: November 28, 2011
_______________________________
Action: SF Environment Job Opportunity, 5642 HHW and Toxics Coordinator
Commission weblink: http://www.sfenvironment.org/our_policies/overview.html?ssi=10
################################
5. Environmental Action Committee of West Marin:
Folks here are very concerned about that radio interview being broadcast again since it was totally imbalanced and it's 2 years old.
As suggested below, perhaps you could post the new website (http://www.savepointreyeswilderness.org/) as a follow-up.
Background
• The 1962 Point Reyes enabling legislation mandated that “…the property…shall be administered…without impairment of its natural values…and supportive of the maximum protection, restoration, and preservation of the natural environment within the area…”
• The Wilderness Act of 1964 established that Wilderness areas are for nature, wildlife and plants, untrammeled by commercialization and mechanization.
In 1972, the Johnson Oyster Company (JOC) sold their land on the shores of Drakes Estero to the National Park Service and entered into a 40-year Reservation of Use and Occupancy (RUO), to expire in 2012.
In 1976, Congress passed the Point Reyes Wilderness Act, by which they designated the Drakes Estero portion as potential wilderness due to the remaining non-conforming use of the private, commercial oyster operation. The Committee reports directed the NPS to discontinue the non-conforming use in 2012, so that the Estero could become full wilderness.
From 1999 to 2005, JOC drastically cut oyster production to between 1/20 and 1/3 of the 1994 peak levels of 684,000 pounds of oyster meat, possibly in anticipation of the upcoming termination of the RUO in 2012.
In 2005, Drakes Bay Oyster Company (DBOC) bought the remaining seven years of the RUO from JOC. DBOC of course knew about the 2012 termination, and yet, ever since has lobbied relentlessly and waged a public relations campaign to continue their private, commercial industrial operation in the estuary after their non-renewable rights expire on November 30, 2012. In fact, the 2012 termination meant that DBOC purchased the oyster operation from Johnson at a lower price than it would have been otherwise.
In 2008, DBOC even turned down an offer from the American Lands Conservancy to buy them out.
The whole DEIS process stems from an unvetted rider that Senator Feinstein attached to the FY09 Appropriations bill. The rider stripped NPS' legal mandate to terminate oyster operations after the rights expire in 2012, and instead made the decision discretionary for Interior Secretary Salazar.
On August 31, 2011, NPS released the DBOC Permit DEIS, which is a comprehensive environmental analysis of oyster company’s operations on Drakes Estero. The document includes hundreds of references, including dozens upon dozens of peer-reviewed scientific articles. Yet, DBOC wages on with their campaign against the National Park Service by calling the DEIS “a political tool to mislead the general public,” and their mouthpiece, the reactionary Point Reyes Light, calls the DEIS “toxic beyond our wildest dreams.”
Let's celebrate the 50th anniversary of Point Reyes National Seashore by fully protecting Drakes Estero wilderness, the wildlife sanctuary and ecological heart of our beloved Bay Area national park.
########################
6.
SFPUC P2 is again sponsoring a workshop geared towards teaching teachers, educators, and parents hands-on activities, art projects and scientific investigations they can use with children to learn about our watershed and pollution prevention at home and at school.
Name: Watershed Tool Workshop
Hosted by: The Watershed Project
When: Saturday, November 5, 2011, 9am-4pm
Where: Alice Fong Yu Alternative School
1541 12th Ave, San Francisco 94122
Cost: Free!
Registration: Email Katy@thewatershedproject.org or call (510) 269-7twp
_______________________________
SFPUC Lunchtime Talk: Introduction to Residential Graywater Systems in San Francisco
Don‚t let good water go to waste! Come learn about the potential to reuse graywater in your San Francisco landscape. Local expert Laura Allen will give an overview of where and when to install residential graywater systems for outdoor irrigation. The presentation will cover laundry-to-landscape and branched drain systems, as well as more complex systems. To learn more about the SFPUC‚s graywater programs: www.sfwater.org/graywater To RSVP for the lunchtime talk:landscape@sfwater.org. Please note that this is a brownbag presentation. You will need to bring your own lunch.
SFPUC Lunchtime Talk: Introduction to Residential Graywater Systems in San Francisco
San Francisco Public Utilities Commission
1155 Market St, 6th Floor Conference Room
Thursday, November 17, 12-1pm
RSVP: Yes! Space is limited. Please RSVP to landscape@sfwater.org
##########################
7. Mammoth bones found in Pacifica
Click photo to enlarge
Ian Butler shows what is believed to be a rare mammoth tooth
Ian Butler was picking up trash in a cliffside gorge when he saw it: yellow and calcified, not rock or shell, but bone.
"The first thought that came to my mind was 'mammoth,' for some reason," Butler said.
He wasn't hallucinating -- he was right. Butler had stumbled on a tusk segment belonging to a mammoth, the kind that roamed the earth during the Late Pleistocene period, which ended about 11,000 years ago.
Then he found other pieces of bone -- bits of leg; a single mammoth tooth, larger than his own skull. Enough to fill four shoeboxes.
Last Friday, he took the bones to Jean DeMouthe, geology collections manager for invertebrates at the California Academy of Sciences. DeMouthe confirmed that the bones, which have extensive water damage, probably belonged to a Columbian mammoth -- a species of mammoth that ranged across the Bay Area until it went extinct at the end of the last ice age.
Full story: http://www.mercurynews.com/san-mateo-county/ci_19183943
#################################
8. Man as Object: Reversing the Gaze
Opening at SOMArts Main Gallery
Friday, November 4th: 6-9:00 p.m.
San Francisco, CA
WOMEN ARTISTS LOOK AT MEN AND MASCULINITY
ART EXHIBITION RE-ENVISIONS GENDER, SOCIETY AND
THE POLITICS OF EXPOSURE
PLEASE JOIN US... for our ART OPENING!
Friday, November 4th, 6-9:00 p.m.
SOMArts Cultural Center
Main Gallery
934 Brannan Street
San Francisco. CA
www.somarts.org
Exhibition Dates:
11/4 - 11/30/2011
Man as Object: Reversing the Gaze is an exhibition that re-envisions gender, society and the politics of exposure. With a gallery filled with men stripped naked, this body of work exposes women's cheeky, provocative and sometimes shocking commentaries on the opposite sex. The exhibition's contemporary scope encompasses all the ways that women view Man-as-Object, reversing the traditional view of male artists objectifying women. Its diverse perspectives on masculinity come from straight, transsexual, transgender, lesbian and multi-cultural artists through a spectrum of media, from paintings to sculpture, installations to performance, video to social media. The show's extensive collection of male adoration, male impersonation and male appendages may make the viewer squirm a little. But that is precisely the point. The more than 100 women artists in the exhibition unapologetically reveal how they really see men. Through this public display at SOMArts Cultural Center, the show's organizers aim to equalize the gaze between the sexes.
#############################
9. Scientific American
PSIVID: Where Have All the Honeybees Gone? A Documentary on the Devastation of Colony-Collapse Disorder
http://links.email.scientificamerican.com/ctt?kn=71&ms=MzcyODk2MDAS1&r=NTM5NzIzNTA1NgS2&b=2&j=MTE2NzEyNTI4S0&mt=1&rt=0
or
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/psi-vid/2011/10/26/the-plight-of-the-honeybee-a-documentary-on-the-devastation-of-colony-collapse-disorder/?WT_mc_id=SA_CAT_ENGYSUS_201110271
######################
10. Feedback
On Oct 25, 2011, at 12:21 PM, Margo Bors wrote:
Jerusalem crickets are among my favorite insects. They look frightening but are very entertaining. If they are trapped, they turn over and play dead. I watched one once for quite a while - on it's back, feet in the air. I thought maybe it really was dead, but after several minutes an antenna twitched and about 30 seconds later it rolled over - just playing possum.
If I recall what David Weissman wrote in that California Wild article, I think that is also its defensive, fighting posture.
SaveNature.org:
Regarding Jerusalem cricket - keep up the curiosity by going to SaveNature.Org and the Insect Discovery Lab and clicking on Learning Guides (it says "click here")
Judy West (re 8. gasland (http://gaslandthemovie.com/) is a new documentary on natural gas extraction via a method called fracking):
As a geologist and someone familiar with the technology of fracturing underground reservoirs, I have to express my frustration that this film maker has attained any credibility on this subject. Is he suggesting we should remain dependent on filthy fuels like coal? The vast majority of gas leakages into surface water supplies have been going on long before fracking technology started and should not be blamed on this recent technology. I'm afraid this kind of journalism by non-experts is purposefully designed to combat the evil fossil fuel industry, is politically motivated and could have serious impact on our energy future. Natural gas is America's best energy alternative to coal and other dirty fuels. Windmills and solar will never make the kind of impact we need, especially in the east where this guy is from. In Wyoming where I am today, fracking has not been proven to be a problem and what water contamination has occurred has been proven from other sources. Get the facts not the hype.
#############################
11.
A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
It is unwise to be too sure of one's own wisdom. It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err. -Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869-1948)
Reckless Endangerment: How Outsized Ambition, Greed, and Corruption Led to Economic Armageddon. By Gretchen Morgenson and Joshua Rosner.
“THE shapers of the American mortgage finance system hoped to achieve the security of government ownership, the integrity of local banking and the ingenuity of Wall Street. Instead they got the ingenuity of government, the security of local banking and the integrity of Wall Street,” David Frum, a former White House speechwriter, lamented in 2008. In “Reckless Endangerment”, Gretchen Morgenson, a veteran New York Times reporter, and Joshua Rosner, a consultant, provide the best account yet of how this system went off the rails. So successful have the pair been at ferreting out the details that the book is at the top of Amazon’s worldwide bestseller list...
###############################
12.
(This is a light-hearted treatment of a serious subject. Although it is humorous, my reason for posting is because it also contains much truth. JS)
Id, ego, and debt: The Greek bailout
By Todd Buchholz Marketplace, Wednesday, October 26, 2011 (http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2011/10/26/pm-id-ego-and-debt-the-greek-bailout/)
Listen to this Story
The Greek bailout has a lot to do with the history between Germany and Greece.
EU and Greek flags are pictured under a heavy sky in Athens Oct. 10Todd Buccholz: Greece is broke and broken. Ask a German and he'll shrug: "They drink and dance during the day. We wait for sunset."
So the hard-working, disciplined, punch-the-clock-on-time German stays solvent and sober. While the Mediterranean neighbor lolls around in fertile fields of lemons and olives.
So why do Germans, grudgingly, reach into their pockets to bail out his dancing neighbors?
It's not "just the economy, stupid." It's also culture. Friedrich Nietzsche and Goethe can teach us more about the Euro crisis than John Maynard Keynes.
Germans have been searching for a missing part of their soul: passion. They envy the sun-filled days of their Mediterranean neighbors.
Nietzsche was fascinated by ancient Greece and juxtaposed sober Apollo with that reckless, wine-drinking southerner, Dionysus. A dose of Dionysus might not be so bad for Germans, he figured.
Today German companies like BMW conquer markets by manufacturing flawless motors. But when do Germans experience the fun of Dionysus? When vacationing in Greece, Italy, Spain and Portugal.
And then there's Sigmund Freud. His Germanic surname translates as "joy." If only. Freud, too, thought that Italy and the south could save the Teutonic psyche. Freud poses superego and id. The id hosts ecstasy. The superego is that German librarian-frau with her hair tied up in the bun telling you to "shush!"
On the map of Germany you can find quite a few towns called Buchholz. My wife once scolded me for acting too uptight, saying "You take all the fun out of everything." Wow, I felt both powerful and bad. I could take all of the fun out of everything. Even Zeus didn't have that much power! But a starchier-than-thou power sickens the soul.
So today Germany has the power and the discipline and yet still feels pretty bad for its neighbors. And so, to maintain their own sanity, Germans are willing to write some hefty checks.
######################
13.
At the still point of the turning world...
At the still point, there the dance is.
T.S. Eliot
Anything you do has a still point.
When you are in that still point,
you can perform maximally.
That still point is the firmly burning flame that is not rippled by any wind.
Pursue their pattern as before
But reconciled among the stars.
At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless;
Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is,
But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity,
Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards,
Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point,
There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.
~ T. S. Eliot ~
(excerpt from The Four Quartets, Burnt Norton, II..)
(JS: It used to be thought that our Milky Way Galaxy was a spiral, like this:
However, recent research has determined that we are more like the barred spiral above. Determining this, as you might expect, was difficult to determine, as we are on the inside looking out. Technology, allowing us to see very far and at all wavelengths--some of which can penetrate blocking clouds--and a lot of hard work enabled astronomers to roughly piece the galaxy together.)
###########################
14.
Let your life be the poem you write. -- Bokonon
How To Be a Poet
(to remind myself)
Make a place to sit down.
Sit down. Be quiet.
You must depend upon
affection, reading, knowledge,
skill — more of each
than you have — inspiration,
work, growing older, patience,
for patience joins time
to eternity. Any readers
who like your work,
doubt their judgment.
Breathe with unconditional breath
the unconditioned air.
Shun electric wire.
Communicate slowly. Live
a three-dimensioned life;
stay away from screens.
Stay away from anything
that obscures the place it is in.
There are no unsacred places;
There are only sacred places
And desecrated places.
~ Wendell Berry ~
(Given New Poems)
#############################
15. Scientific American, October 1911
War from the Air
“The rapid development of the aeroplane for military and naval purposes behooves us to consider it most seriously in the problems of seacoast and canal fortification. We like to boast of our splendid isolation, of the steel-throated monsters that guard the entrances to our harbors. Suppose, for instance, that ten years hence, every battleship is equipped with flying machines; also that an enemy’s fleet appears fifty miles off New York. Would it be necessary to pass our forts in order to destroy the metropolis? Hardly; a fleet of aeroplanes would be dispatched; within an hour they would be over the city, obeying wireless orders from their commander, and soon it would be a mass of flames. Fantastic? Possibly so.”
##################################
16. Notes & Queries, Guardian Weekly
Do you wish to continue?
What is the first thing I will see or feel when I exit this current existence?
The mother-in-law, so go bearing gifts.
Roger Morrell, Perth, Western Australia
• There is no answer because the question is based upon the false premise that there will be an "I" after the current existence.
Don French, San Francisco, California, US
• Lights out because of a power cut.
Ellen Pye, Delta, British Columbia, Canada
• Pearly gates or the other hot joint.
Andrew Muguku, Nairobi, Kenya
• Exiting will close all current programs: unsaved material may be lost. Are you sure you wish to continue?
Noel Bird, Boreen Point, Queensland, Australia
Who would leave that life?
Why do flies never find their way out?
They have warmth, free food and drink, and satellite television, so why would they want to leave?
Art Hunter, Napanee, Ontario, Canada
• But they do, like us, when they see the light.
Paul Broady, Christchurch, New Zealand
Don't know and don't care
Why do so many people still wear watches?
My friend and I were relaxing at our local beach at the end of a working day. We asked three different middle-aged passersby the time and were surprised, but gratified, to learn that not one of them had either a watch or a phone with them, nor even the vaguest notion of the time.
The response was unanimous: "Who needs to know the time on a beautiful day like this? Just kick back and enjoy the view!" Knowing the time isn't important – just knowing how to spend it.
Anna Najdzien, Sydney, Australia
Any answers?
Essex, Wessex, Middlesex and Sussex: is there any sex in the north?
Dorothy Holmes, Palmerston North, New Zealand
So the hard-working, disciplined, punch-the-clock-on-time German stays solvent and sober. While the Mediterranean neighbor lolls around in fertile fields of lemons and olives.
So why do Germans, grudgingly, reach into their pockets to bail out his dancing neighbors?
It's not "just the economy, stupid." It's also culture. Friedrich Nietzsche and Goethe can teach us more about the Euro crisis than John Maynard Keynes.
Germans have been searching for a missing part of their soul: passion. They envy the sun-filled days of their Mediterranean neighbors.
Nietzsche was fascinated by ancient Greece and juxtaposed sober Apollo with that reckless, wine-drinking southerner, Dionysus. A dose of Dionysus might not be so bad for Germans, he figured.
Today German companies like BMW conquer markets by manufacturing flawless motors. But when do Germans experience the fun of Dionysus? When vacationing in Greece, Italy, Spain and Portugal.
And then there's Sigmund Freud. His Germanic surname translates as "joy." If only. Freud, too, thought that Italy and the south could save the Teutonic psyche. Freud poses superego and id. The id hosts ecstasy. The superego is that German librarian-frau with her hair tied up in the bun telling you to "shush!"
On the map of Germany you can find quite a few towns called Buchholz. My wife once scolded me for acting too uptight, saying "You take all the fun out of everything." Wow, I felt both powerful and bad. I could take all of the fun out of everything. Even Zeus didn't have that much power! But a starchier-than-thou power sickens the soul.
So today Germany has the power and the discipline and yet still feels pretty bad for its neighbors. And so, to maintain their own sanity, Germans are willing to write some hefty checks.
######################
13.
At the still point of the turning world...
At the still point, there the dance is.
T.S. Eliot
Anything you do has a still point.
When you are in that still point,
you can perform maximally.
That still point is the firmly burning flame that is not rippled by any wind.
Pursue their pattern as before
But reconciled among the stars.
At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless;
Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is,
But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity,
Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards,
Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point,
There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.
~ T. S. Eliot ~
(excerpt from The Four Quartets, Burnt Norton, II..)
(JS: It used to be thought that our Milky Way Galaxy was a spiral, like this:
However, recent research has determined that we are more like the barred spiral above. Determining this, as you might expect, was difficult to determine, as we are on the inside looking out. Technology, allowing us to see very far and at all wavelengths--some of which can penetrate blocking clouds--and a lot of hard work enabled astronomers to roughly piece the galaxy together.)
###########################
14.
Let your life be the poem you write. -- Bokonon
How To Be a Poet
(to remind myself)
Make a place to sit down.
Sit down. Be quiet.
You must depend upon
affection, reading, knowledge,
skill — more of each
than you have — inspiration,
work, growing older, patience,
for patience joins time
to eternity. Any readers
who like your work,
doubt their judgment.
Breathe with unconditional breath
the unconditioned air.
Shun electric wire.
Communicate slowly. Live
a three-dimensioned life;
stay away from screens.
Stay away from anything
that obscures the place it is in.
There are no unsacred places;
There are only sacred places
And desecrated places.
~ Wendell Berry ~
(Given New Poems)
#############################
15. Scientific American, October 1911
War from the Air
“The rapid development of the aeroplane for military and naval purposes behooves us to consider it most seriously in the problems of seacoast and canal fortification. We like to boast of our splendid isolation, of the steel-throated monsters that guard the entrances to our harbors. Suppose, for instance, that ten years hence, every battleship is equipped with flying machines; also that an enemy’s fleet appears fifty miles off New York. Would it be necessary to pass our forts in order to destroy the metropolis? Hardly; a fleet of aeroplanes would be dispatched; within an hour they would be over the city, obeying wireless orders from their commander, and soon it would be a mass of flames. Fantastic? Possibly so.”
##################################
16. Notes & Queries, Guardian Weekly
Do you wish to continue?
What is the first thing I will see or feel when I exit this current existence?
The mother-in-law, so go bearing gifts.
Roger Morrell, Perth, Western Australia
• There is no answer because the question is based upon the false premise that there will be an "I" after the current existence.
Don French, San Francisco, California, US
• Lights out because of a power cut.
Ellen Pye, Delta, British Columbia, Canada
• Pearly gates or the other hot joint.
Andrew Muguku, Nairobi, Kenya
• Exiting will close all current programs: unsaved material may be lost. Are you sure you wish to continue?
Noel Bird, Boreen Point, Queensland, Australia
Who would leave that life?
Why do flies never find their way out?
They have warmth, free food and drink, and satellite television, so why would they want to leave?
Art Hunter, Napanee, Ontario, Canada
• But they do, like us, when they see the light.
Paul Broady, Christchurch, New Zealand
Don't know and don't care
Why do so many people still wear watches?
My friend and I were relaxing at our local beach at the end of a working day. We asked three different middle-aged passersby the time and were surprised, but gratified, to learn that not one of them had either a watch or a phone with them, nor even the vaguest notion of the time.
The response was unanimous: "Who needs to know the time on a beautiful day like this? Just kick back and enjoy the view!" Knowing the time isn't important – just knowing how to spend it.
Anna Najdzien, Sydney, Australia
Any answers?
Essex, Wessex, Middlesex and Sussex: is there any sex in the north?
Dorothy Holmes, Palmerston North, New Zealand
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