In the beginning this blog was centered on San Francisco parks and open space issues with special emphasis on natural areas and natural history. Over time it began to range into other areas and topics. As you can see, it is eclectic, as I interlace it with topics of interest to me.

I welcome feedback: just click this link to reach me.

Saturday, January 28, 2012

2012.01.28

1.   Conservation Project Coordinator wanted - reposting
2.   Bird walk on Pedro Pt Headlands with Paul Donahue Jan 29
3.   Renewable Energy - Meeting Threats to California's Deserts
4.   Challenge of life: Realizing when a diversion has gotten out of control
5.   Crowboarding - fun (and informative) video
6.   Feedback:  Why do men shave?
7.   Astronomy 2012 preview/Mars now showing
8.   Buds, by Garrison Keillor
9.   40% of taxpayers should be exempted from filing returns
10. Delightful mural and garden on 10th Avenue
11.  Profound reflections on civilization - by Kenneth Clark and WB Yeats
12.  Primo website for music lovers

1.  Re-post - No telephone calls, please

JOB OPPORTUNITY:  CONSERVATION PROJECT COORDINATOR

The San Mateo County Resource Conservation District (RCD) seeks to fill the part-time position of Conservation Project Coordinator. The RCD is a special district that
acts as a focal point for local conservation efforts on private and public lands. The RCD partners with land owners and managers, area jurisdictions, government agencies, and others to protect, restore, and enhance natural resources by providing technical assistance and education, project management, and coordination.

The deadline for applications is February 1, 2012. The position is open until filled.  Job description on craigslist.  Please don't telephone.

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2.
BIRD WALK ON THE PEDRO POINT HEADLANDS
DATE:  January 29th
TIME:  8:00 to 10:00 AM
MEETING PLACE: the firehouse along Danmann Avenue on Pedro Point in Pacifica
LEADER: Paul Donahue
HABITAT RESTORATION
TO FOLLOW (IF YOU ARE UP FOR IT)
DATE:  January 29th
TIME: 10:00 AM - 1.00 PM
MEETING PLACE: If you don't already do the bird walk please meet at the firehouse along Danmann Avenue on Pedro Point in Pacifica
LEADER: Paul Donahue

Above Photo by Paul Donahue...Bewick's Wren, a bird characteristic of the coastal scrub on the Pedro Point Headlands
With its diverse habitats of coastal scrub, coastal prairie, Monterey Pine woods and Eucalyptus forest, all accessible via a good trail system, the Pedro Point Headlands is a great place to become more familiar with Pacifica's winter avifauna. About 30 species of birds can readily be found here on a typical winter day. We'll meet at the firehouse on Pedro Point in Pacifica at 8:00 AM and carpool up to the headlands from there. Once up on the headlands, we'll walk about a two mile loop that will take us through the representative habitats and along the top of the high bluff with its spectacular views out over the Pacific.

We'll aim to be back at the trailhead about 10:00 AM. For those who would like to stay and help, our monthly habitat restoration work party will follow immediately afterwards.

As we will be looking primarily at small birds in the vegetation, binoculars are strongly recommended.

More information about the Pedro Point Headlands, including a trail map, descriptions of the habitats, and a list of the area's birds can be found at www.pedropointheadlands.org

                                        More on the Habitat Restoration if interested...

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3.
(JS:  Our poor energy management and planning creates "crises" that then call for fast-tracking.  Fast-tracking essentially means damn the consequences, which makes one wonder why we have environmental protections and processes to begin with.  As this drama is being played out in the magnificent California deserts it behooves us to become aware of consequences and tradeoffs--one of which is ignoring distributed energy, a cause in itself that is attracting public notice and demand.)

California Native Plant Society meeting - free and open to the public
Renewable Energy: Meeting the Threats to California's Desert Rare Plant Habitats
Speaker:  Greg Suba, CNPS Conservation Director
Thursday, 2 February, 7.30 pm
San Francisco County Fair Bldg
9th Av & Lincoln Way in Golden Gate Park

California's emerging renewable energy portfolio: what we can do to reduce the impacts of solar and wind energy projects on native habitat.

This presentation summarizes the history and current state of large-scale renewable energy projects (solar and wind) in California, and initiatives to implement distributed energy generation ("rooftop solar"), energy conservation, and energy use-efficiency programs throughout the state.

The fast-tracked permitting and construction of large-scale wind and solar projects are being driven by federal and state targets to reduce our climate-altering greenhouse gas emissions. Superimposed on renewable energy goals are efforts to stimulate a global economy in recession, and reduce record levels of joblessness. Several multi-thousand acre projects have been permitted without a comprehensive project-siting and habitat conservation plan in place. Both the Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan (DRECP) process and the BLM's Solar Energy Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (Solar PEIS) will provide a more conservation-minded siting process, but both initiatives lag behind the permitting and building of projects.

Wholesale distributed energy generation ("rooftop" solar), energy conservation, and energy use-efficiency programs are vital components of our state's energy portfolio which currently face multi-faceted obstacles to increased implementation and popularity.

CNPS members and staff are involved in efforts to transform our energy future while minimizing impacts to native plant habitats.

Greg Suba has been the CNPS Conservation Program Director in Sacramento, CA since 2009. Previous to joining CNPS, Greg worked as a watershed coordinator, science educator, and biological consultant in northern California, and spent several years monitoring streams and surveying forests throughout the state. He has a B.S. in Biology and an M.S. in Marine Science, and began his professional career as a research scientist in marine botany.

(If you wish to join the speaker for dinner before the meeting, email Jake Sigg)

March 1 program:  The Great Sunflower Project: Pollinator Conservation by the Public - Gretchen LeBuhn



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4.
"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

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5.
Here's one of those bazillions of YouTubes uploaded every hour.  JS)

Crowboarding

Steve Philips: 
Jake--Has anyone sent this video your way yet? I think the bird is a jackdaw.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AI_b-ao7djQ&feature=player_embedded

(And I thought ravens were the ultimate funsters.)

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6.  Feedback

Name Withheld (in regard to question in Notes & Queries):
Dear Jake,
In reply to "Why do men shave?"
For the same reason women shave.
Men shave because they do not want to give women a rash, and women looove to touch a smooth face. The current fad of facial hair is disgusting, and I think most women will agree.
Why wouldn't men shave? It must be hot and itchy. Most men don't want women to have body hair. Most women feel the same way about men.
-Anonymous

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7.
Astronomy 2012 preview:

The rarest of all predictable events--a transit of Venus--takes place June 5 or 6 (the date depends on where you live).  Venus' black disk last crossed the Sun's disk in 2004 and won't do so again until 2117.  So, if not exactly a once-in-a-lifetime experience, a Venus transit certainly qualifies as a twice-in-a-lifetime event.

For planet-watchers, the highlight of 2012 may be the return of Mars to prominence.  It will reach opposition and peak visibility in March for the first time in 26 months.  Saturn and Jupiter also put on nice displays, with Saturn at its best in April and Jupiter in December.

JS:  Mars is already prominent in the eastern sky in mid-evening, I just noticed last night while trying to figure out what ruddy star that could possibly be.  I finally decided it was not a star.  Here is what
Astronomy magazine says:
"No other planet changes appearance during January as much as Mars.  The Red Planet nearly doubles in brightness, going from magnitude 0.2 to magnitude -0.5, while its diameter when viewed through a telescope grows 30%.  (JS:  Minus magnitudes are brighter than positive magnitudes, and magnitude scales are logarithmic.)  The reason: Earth's orbital motion carries us significantly closer to Mars.  The transformation foreshadows the planet's imminent opposition, which occurs March 3.  (JS:  Opposition means the planet, as viewed from Earth, is diametrically opposite the Sun.

Oddly enough, the changes to its physical appearance don't translate into significant motion in the sky.  Mars starts January against the backdrop of southeastern Leo the Lion.  It moves slowly to the east, crossing into Virgo January 14.  Its eastward motion comes to a half January 24, and the Red Planet then reverses direction.  It will reenter the Lion's friendly confines in February's first week."

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8.

BUDS by Garrison Keillor

Stones and trees speak slowly
and may take a week
to get out a single sentence.
And there are few men,
unfortunately, with the
patience to wait
for an oak to finish a thought.



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9.
"..a group of centrist Democrats called the Hamilton Project offered a...set of proposals.  One gem:  a young wonk named Austan Goolsbee suggested that 40% of American taxpayers should be exempted from filling in their own tax returns because the Internal Revenue Service already knows what they earn, having demanded records from their employers and banks.  This, he said, would save $44 billion in compliance costs over ten years.  It would be good for family values, he argued, since people would be able to spend 225 million more hours with their loved ones instead of wrestling with incomprehensible forms.

The Economist, 29 July 2006

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 10.



My friends and neighbors at 1823 - 10th Avenue (Noriega/Ortega) have created a delightful mural and garden.

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11.

Well, as much as one hates the inhuman way in which the doctrines of Malthus were accepted, the terrible truth is that the rise in population did nearly ruin us. It struck a blow at civilization such as it hadn’t received since the barbarian invasions. First it produced the horrors of urban poverty and then the dismal countermeasures of bureaucracy and regimentation.  Kenneth Clark, Civilisation
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From Kenneth Clark - Civilisation p 347 (final paragraphs of book)
At this point I reveal myself in my true colours, as a stick-in-the-mud.  I hold a number of beliefs that have been repudiated by the liveliest intellects of our time.  I believe that order is better than chaos, creation better than destruction.  I prefer gentleness to violence, forgiveness to vendetta.  On the whole I think that knowledge is preferable to ignorance, and I am sure that human sympathy is more valuable than ideology.  I believe that in spite of the recent triumphs of science, men haven't changed much in the last two thousand years; and in consequence we must still try to learn from history.  History is ourselves.  I also hold one or two beliefs that are more difficult to put shortly.  For example, I believe in courtesy, the ritual by which we avoid hurting other people's feelings by satisfying our own egos.  And I think we should remember that we are part of a great whole, which for convenience we call nature.  All living things are our brothers and sisters.  Above all, I believe in the God-given genius of certain individuals, and I value a society that makes their existence possible.

This series has been filled with great works of genius, in architecture, sculpture and painting, in philosophy, poetry and music, in science and engineering.  There they are; you can't dismiss them.  And they are only a fraction of what western man has achieved in the last thousand years, often after setbacks and deviations at least as destructive as those of our own time.  Western civilisation has been a series of rebirths.  Surely this should give us confidence in ourselves.

I said at the beginning that it is lack of confidence, more than anything else, that kills a civilisation.  We can destroy ourselves by cynicism and disillusion, just as effectively as by bombs.  Fifty years ago W.B. Yeats, who was more like a man of genius than anyone I have ever known, wrote a famous prophetic poem.

        Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
        Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
        The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
        The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
        The best lack all conviction, while the worst
        Are full of passionate intensity.

Well, that was certainly true between the wars, and it damn nearly destroyed us.  Is it true today?  Not quite, because good people have convictions, rather too many of them.  The trouble is that there is still no centre.  The moral and intellectual failure of Marxism has left us with no alternative to heroic materialism, and that isn't enough.  One may be optimistic, but one can't exactly be joyful at the prospect before us.


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12.  Presented here is the beautiful film of Alexis Weissenberg, a premier pianist who recently died.  The medici site is one you may want to bookmark.

http://www.medici.tv/#!/alexis-weissenberg

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