2. Occidental arts & Ecology Center employment opportunities
3. AB 1544 would encourage more undocumented workers to compete for jobs
4. Linda Mar State Beach workday Sunday March 25
5. SFPUC proposes to spend $1.5 million per year for unneeded water
6. Save the date: May 10 for Annual Open Space Conference
7. Nesting red-tail hawks on Park-Presidio
8. Kestrel at KPFA transmitter site
9. Coastside Land Trust art show submissions - changed deadline
10. Feedback
11. Debate on tree management on Mt Sutro and related subjects March 26
12. Community Opportunity Fund Workshops - schedule
13. SF Beautiful - billboard action alert
14. The Spring, by Delmore Schwartz after Rilke
15. Willa Cather loves life
16. Suspicious gasoline price drop before election
17. Today's word: doxy
18. The Doctor is Way Out - Fox News expert on psychiatry
19. Scientific American, April 1862
20. Notes & Queries: Do hedge fund managers and investment bankers serve any useful purpose?
A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
Man is most nearly himself when he achieves the seriousness of a child at play. -Heraclitus, philosopher (500 BCE)
1.
Let yourself be silently drawn
by the strange pull of what you really love.
It will not lead you astray.
~ Rumi ~
(Essential Rumi, versions by Coleman Barks)
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2. Occidental Arts and Ecology Center - Employment Opportunities
School Garden Program Director
Applications Due by 5pm March 30
The School Garden Director oversees all aspects of an established, highly successful program that promotes and teaches ecological literacy to K-12 students and school communities in the San Francisco Bay Area, statewide and beyond through school garden projects and related curriculum. Coordinate the expansion of the program to train other regional centers around the U.S. using the OAEC program model. Click here for more info...
Development Associate
Applications Due by 5pm April 13
The Development Associate will serve as an integral member of OAEC's expanded Development Department, with the goal of increased support for the growth of OAEC programs. He/she will work closely with OAEC's Development Director and various program staff to maintain and enhance our current funding relationships while exploring new opportunities for foundation and donor support. Click here for more info...
Communications Manager
Applications Due by 5pm April 13
The Communication Manager will serve as an integral member of OAEC's program and administrative departments, helping all of OAEC's programs be more successful. She/he will manage OAEC's website; coordinate web-based, social media, print media and other outreach for OAEC and its many programs; will work with various program staff to develop messaging and outreach strategies for each OAEC program; will develop web-based interactive maps based on OAEC programs' work; and will help our Nursery Program develop a marketing strategy for our growing plant sale operation. Click here for more info...
Save the Dates!
Spring Plant Sale - Saturday & Sunday April 14 & 15
Summer Plant Sale - Saturday & Sunday May 5 & 6
Click here to learn more
APPLY NOW for the 2012 School Garden Teacher Training!
APPLICATIONS ARE DUE BY APRIL 2!
School garden teams are invited to apply for OAEC's School Garden Teacher Training & Support Program.
Summer Dates:
June 11 - 15
July 9 - 13
Other Job Opportunities in Sustainable Agriculture
Ag Innovations Network, based in Sebastopol, CA, is seeking a full-time Process Facilitator: Food Systems. The position is based in Sebastopol, and you can find more about it on the AIN website.
http://aginnovations.org/
California Certified Organic Farmers Certification Services has an immediate opening in its Santa Cruz, CA office for a Handler Certification Specialist. Job application details can be downloaded here.
The Edible Schoolyard in Berkeley, CA seeks to fill job and internship openings. Job opportunities include: Grant Writer and a Director of Development. Intern opportunities include: Editorial Intern, Special Events Intern, and a Spring Garden Intern. Details on these positions is available on the Edible Schoolyard website.
http://edibleschoolyard.org/
Roots of Change in San Francisco, CA is seeking unpaid interns to work in policy, social media, web development, graphic design and communications. ROC asks interns to commit to 16 hours per week for three months between April 1 and October 1.
http://rootsofchange.org/
http://campaign.r20.constantcontact.com/render?llr=98qez7bab&v=001QhuZciaLI3WdS_B_YqA3n7a1yzWzo-q0qW09zVr0it5YdWGJoolrERuyS56cJMrLJ3Vku4J-GCLFB0dO-93n8kXhn3J1P2LrDfQ9MJLfkob4D6JMVuqVwQ%3D%3D
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3. CA ALERT! California Legislature considers state amnesty bill!
AB 1544 would declare that there are not enough legal residents in California to fill service industry and agricultural jobs and, if the federal government allows it, set up a state program to give work permits to "undocumented persons" and their family members.
The California Agricultural Jobs and Industry Stabilization Program, by Assemblymember V. Manuel Perez (D-Coachella), would apply not only to farmworkers, but also to workers in the broad fields of "domestic services, janitorial or building maintenance services, food preparation services, or housekeeping services."
As if that were not enough, the bill goes on to criticize the successful E-Verify program and the existent H-2A guest worker visa that allows agriculture to employ workers legally. Let the legislature know that the state should oppose illegal immigration, not support it with this state amnesty bill.
ACTION NEEDED
Tell your Assemblymember to oppose this nonsensical notion, and instead pass a state mandate for E-Verify. Send a fax or an e-mail.
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4. If you want to get your hands dirty, you can help the Pacifica Beach Coalition with the Habitat Restoration at Linda Mar State Beach.
Linda Mar State Beach workday - March 25th 10 am- 12.00noon
Michael Ayala will be the lead for it and they meet at the Portola Statue at the Community Center on Crespi at Hwy 1. And you can sleep in... they work from 10am - 12.00 noon.
Our next work day is with Pacifica Beach Coalition's Earth Day Event on Saturday April 21st
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5. Stop the Water Transfer
Please see our action alert at http://www.tuolumne.org/notransfer and send an email to the SFPUC encouraging them to drop its plans to purchase 2 million gallons of water per day from the Modesto Irrigation District. The transfer could harm the River below Hetch Hetchy Reservoir, and is unnecessary. In 2008, when the transfer was studied, the SFPUC was selling 260 million gallons of water per day. Last year that figure dropped to less than 220 mgd. We don't need the water, so why pay $1.5 million per year (and increase water rates) for water we don't need?
Tuolumne River Trust
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6. Save the date
Crossing Bridges: Creating Possibilities
The 13th Annual Open Space Conference
May 10, 2012 from 8:00am-4:30pm
Golden Gate Club, The Presidio, San Francisco
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7. On Mar 21, 2012, at 2:05 PM, Jean Ouellette wrote:
Hi, Jake -
Just wanted to report two new prospective neighbors: a pair of red-tailed hawks who appear to be evaluating nest sites on the bridle path strips along Park Presidio Boulevard between California and Clement. They've been spending a lot of time in two tall cypresses, they seem to be carrying nesting material, and they're industriously working on decimating the local vole and pocket gopher populations. The raven pair that had nested in this area didn't do so either last year or this year.
Well, Jean, I'd like to see that decimated population of pocket gophers. You'd think that with all the hawks, owls, coyotes, and gopher snakes (on Bernal Hill) that there would be a noticeable decline in gophers. Ask any park gardener or even some home gardeners. Otherwise peaceful, vegetarian, sandal-wearing, bearded peaceniks and Schweitzerean reverence-for-life people who wouldn't even swat a mosquito suddenly turn into serial killers.
I can appreciate the sentiment; I've seen the damage they do in Golden Gate Park. Voles were a bane of my existence when I was doing native species reveg in the Delta. The little sweeties were experts at girdling our painstakingly propagated and installed saplings.
The coyotes in the 'hood don't seem to have effected much rodent reduction, but they'd have a challenge accessing the critters through blankets of nasturtium and ivy.
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8. From KPFA transmitter site
Steve's picture was copied from Kay Loughman's excellent web site http://www.nhwildlife.net/.
Kay's very descriptive caption reads: "American Kestrel (Falco sparverius) male, at the Pacifica site, Oakland, CA on Jan. 26, 2012. This bird is likely the same individual that has wintered at the site since at least 2007. Photo by Steve Hawes
Back on Thursday March 8th, I saw the Kestrel again at one of his favorite perching spots atop the PG&E power pole on Grizzly Peak Boulevard near Marlborough Terrace:
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(Correction to item in last newsletter JS)
9. Coastside Land Trust
Yesterday you received an email from me regarding soliciting submissions for our spring art show, May 6 to June 24, 2012. The submission deadline was incorrect. The deadline for spring show submissions is March 31, 2012.
Application: http://coastsidelandtrust.org/gallery/docs/CLT-CallForArtists.pdf
Also, please to join us for restoration workdays on our protected lands Saturday April 7 and Wednesday April 18, 10 am to noon. Meet here at the Trust office.
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10. Feedback
On Mar 19, 2012, at 5:51 PM, Louise Lacey wrote (about SF Beautiful's survey):
Jake
Your first attachment just says: "Take our survey."
But it doesn't say how, and nothing else happens.
I often wonder how many of these buttons come through. This one didn't. Here is the address: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/TSR9NWT
I suggested one (at the bottom of) "Street trees". When I signed at the end of the survey, they said I had to answer one of the ones where I suggested street trees. They didn't like my suggestion.
I don't care for Surveymonkey. There are much better ones.
I hate surveys altogether and never participate, nor do I fill out questionnaires. I can't answer the questions they ask. I seem to live in another world.
Fortune Zuckerman:
Hi Jake,
Sorry. I made a mistake by sending an empty email. However, it gives me the opportunity to say thank you once again for all of the work you do to share information of relevance and beauty with the rest of us who need enlightenment and don't take time to find it on our own.
So, thank you so much, once again.
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11.
March General Meeting Monday, March 26th 7PM* Eric Miller, who is president of the San Francisco Forest Alliance, will present to SHARP.
The San Francisco Forest Alliance is an organization with people from 20 neighborhood and community groups who care deeply about the stewardship of wilderness in city parks and open space, such as Glen Canyon Park, Mount Davidson, Mount Sutro and McLaren Park. Our mission is to protect the parks’ tree canopy and wildlife habitat, protect existing recreational use, and stop the waste of San Francisco city funds for the Natural Areas Program. NAP wants to kill 18,500+ healthy and beautiful trees and plants because it considers them to be nonnative despite their importance for a thriving ecosystem that supports hundreds of species. It wants to close 10 miles of popular trails and restrict access to the few places where people can experience an abundance of nature in a big city. And it has steadily increased its use of toxic herbicides in these areas by 70% in just the last two years. While NAP was originally intended to nourish a few remnants of natural landscape it has morphed into an empire that now controls 1/4 of city managed parks (1100 acres). It blindly follows misguided, expensive objectives in an attempt to turn back the evolutionary clock to an idealized time centuries ago when the city was mostly sand dunes and rock, with few trees. Our city has scarce resources that when allocated to parks should be to keep them safe and accessible, not create fenced-off native gardens by destroying greenery we are fortunate to have. Learn more about the Forest Alliance at sfforest.net or facebook.com/forestalliance.
Mr. Jake Sigg will present an opposing view: Some people think that the "forest" should just be left alone. The day when we could just leave everything to nature is unfortunately over, and, like it or not, because of having upset the natural balance we must manage the landscape forever after. What choices shall we make, and who will make them?
The public is invited -- Bring your neighbors. www.sharpsf.com
NOTE: Please do not ring tenant doorbells at the SHARP building.
S.H.A.R.P. Community Room -- 1736 9th Ave. near Moraga
JS note: SHARP recently built this building, and designed it to not look like a clubhouse. It looks like the adjoining apartment buildings. Don't ring doorbell--just walk in.
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12. From SF Parks Alliance
COMMUNITY OPPORTUNITY FUND WORKSHOPS
As part of the 2008 Clean and Safe Neighborhood Parks Bond, the Community Opportunity Fund is giving neighborhoods, community groups, and park enthusiasts an opportunity to make a real difference at their favorite local city parks. Please attend one of the following workshops to begin your application process for a Community Opportunity Fund project. Attendance at one workshop is mandatory for all applicants. To download the application, click here and go to the Application Materials tab, round 3.
Thursday, March 22nd 6:00-8:00 PM, County Fair Building, 1199 9th Ave (inside Golden Gate Park), San Francisco, CA 94122
Tuesday, March 27th 6:00-8:00 PM, Joe DiMaggio Recreation Center, 651 Lombard St., San Francisco, CA 94129, Multi-Purpose Room
Thursday, March 29th 6:00-8:00 PM, Joe Lee Recreation Center, 1395 Mendell St., San Francisco, CA 94124, Multi-Purpose Room 2
Tuesday, April 3rd 6:00-8:00 PM, Mission Recreation Center, 2450 Harrison St., San Francisco, CA 94110, Auditorium
Tuesday, April 10th 6:00-8:00 PM, San Francisco City Hall, 1 Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett Place, San Francisco, CA 94102, Room 278
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13. San Francisco Beautiful Action Alert:
We need your voice on a precedent-setting billboard contract
The City is on the verge of authorizing a huge billboard at 1650 Mission Street, a City-owned building that houses the Planning Department.
We believe this 20-year billboard contract will blight our City skyline and harm this emerging residential community. If you agree, please submit comment and we'll share your thoughts with the Board of Supervisor's Land Use Committee on Monday, March 26, at 1 P.M.
For further background, review our letter sent to the City's Real Estate Division earlier this month.
Supervisors Mar, Wiener, Cohen, Chiu, Avalos, Campos, Kim, and Olague voted "yes" to refer this contract to the Land Use Committee in order to highlight broader policy implications. Voting "no" were Supervisors Chu, Elsbernd, and Farrell.
Upcoming Events:
Pavement to Parks Imagination Session: Thursday, March 22
We're working with the City of San Francisco and San Francisco State University to host imagination sessions on the future of the Pavement to Parks program -- a public laboratory where the City works with communities to test the reclamation of public open space for pedestrians. Hear from community leaders in Supervisor Wiener's office and the Castro Community Benefit District.
Our first session will be held at 10 AM at Jane Warner Plaza, located at the intersection of Castro and 17th streets.
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14.
The Spring
(After Rilke)
Spring has returned! Everything has returned!
The earth, just like a schoolgirl, memorizes
Poems, so many poems. ... Look, she has learned
So many famous poems, she has earned so many prizes!
Teacher was strict. We delighted in the white
Of the old man's beard, bright like the snow's:
Now we may ask which names are wrong, or right
For "blue," for "apple," for "ripe." She knows, she knows!
Lucky earth, let out of school, now you must play
Hide-and-seek with all the children every day:
You must hide that we may seek you: we will! We will!
The happiest child will hold you. She knows all the things
You taught her: the word for "hope," and for "believe,"
Are still upon her tongue. She sings and sings and sings.
~ Delmore Schwartz ~
(Last & Lost Poems)
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15. Willa Cather, from My Antonia:
There in the sheltered draw-bottom the wind did not blow very hard, but I could hear it singing its humming tune up on
the level, and I could see the tall grasses wave. The earth was warm under me, and warm as I crumbled it through my fingers. Queer little red bugs came out and moved in slow squadrons around me. Their backs were polished vermilion, with black spots. I kept as still as I could. Nothing happened. I did not expect anything to happen. I was something that lay under the sun and felt it, like the pumpkins, and I did not want to be anything more. I was entirely happy. Perhaps we feel like that when we die and become a part of something entire, whether it is sun and air, or goodness and knowledge. At any rate, that is happiness; to be dissolved into something complete and great. When it comes to one, it comes as naturally as sleep.
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16.
(I believe this item--from the archives--was before the 2010 congressional elections. Still pertinent, but this time may be an increase.)
Suspicions about dropping gasoline prices in the months before the election are substantive, according to an observer reporting on NPR’s Marketplace. Oil companies, hearing Democrat plans for closing corporate loopholes, wanted the GOP to control Congress, so started taking smaller profit margins on gasoline delivered for distribution--until the day after the election, at which time prices started rising again. The leak in BP’s Alaska pipeline, which normally would have a strong impact on gasoline prices, was ignored; oil companies said declining prices at the pump was because of declining oil prices. However, gasoline prices declined much, much more than oil prices.
The fact that oil prices are dropping now is weather-related, as milder weather back east is creating gluts on the market, and is unrelated to price manipulation.
Congressional candidates who denounce Washington as a cesspool, once elected treat it as a Jacuzzi.
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17. doxy
MEANING:
noun:
1. A mistress or a promiscuous woman.
2. Opinion or doctrine.
ETYMOLOGY:
For 1: Of uncertain origin, perhaps from obsolete Dutch docke (doll). Earliest documented use: around 1530.
For 2: Back-formed from orthodoxy, heterodoxy, etc. From Greek doxa (opinion), from dokein (to think). Ultimately from the Indo-European root dek- (to take or accept), which is also the root of words such as paradox, orthodox, doctor, disciple, discipline, doctrine, dogma, decent, decorate, dignity, disdain, condign, and deign. Earliest documented use: around 1730.
USAGE:
"The arresting officer would still be filling out paperwork and the doxy would be collecting her things and heading back to the street."
Neil Steinberg; Blinded by Race; Chicago Sun-Times; Dec 31, 2008.
"In that twilight zone of the Anglican double standard, orthodoxy is really just a word for my doxy. Heterodoxy means everyone else's doxy."
Hywel Williams; Let Us All Err and Stray; The Guardian (London, UK); Jul 8, 2003.
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18. The Doctor Is Way Out
An amateur examination of one shrink's noodle
By Steve Mirsky | Scientific American March 23, 2012
Image: Illutration by Matt Collins
This column is not about Newt Gingrich. Nor is it about Chaz Bono. It’s not even about how the thought of them dancing together would make Rick Santorum’s head explode. No, this column is about a psychiatrist named Keith Ablow, who in recent months has taken the time to write about Gingrich and Bono from his unique perspective as a mental health professional.
According to his Web site, Ablow “serves as the FOX NEWS expert on psychiatry.” It was in that capacity that in January, Ablow penned a widely circulated column regarding the well-documented peccadilloes of Gingrich and the former House speaker’s qualifications to be president.
“Here’s what one interested in making America stronger can reasonably conclude—psychologically—from Mr. Gingrich’s behavior during his three marriages,” Ablow wrote. “Three women have met Mr. Gingrich and been so moved by his emotional energy and intellect that they decided they wanted to spend the rest of their lives with him.” He continued, “Two of these women felt this way even though Mr. Gingrich was already married.” He dug deeper, “One of them felt this way even though Mr. Gingrich was already married for the second time, was not exactly her equal in the looks department and had a wife (Marianne) who wanted to make his life without her as painful as possible.”
Now buckle up for the exciting psychological conclusion: “When three women want to sign on for life with a man who is now running for president, I worry more about whether we’ll be clamoring for a third Gingrich term, not whether we’ll want to let him go after one.”
I am not a mental health professional, nor do I play one on TV. Nor am I about to claim that Gingrich is a psychopath. But I do wonder whether the doctor’s personal political views may be overriding his medical judgment.
For example, Ablow is surely familiar with the Hare Psychopathy Checklist, used for diagnosing that serious personality disorder. If I were a psychiatrist—which again, I am not—who wanted to publicly contend that there was significant evidence for Gingrich being a psychopath—which I certainly do not—I could pretty much just quote from the checklist: glibness, grandiose sense of self-worth, being manipulative, having poor behavior control, being sexually promiscuous, having many short-term marital relationships and, my favorite for the guy still running for president as this column goes to press, lack of realistic long-term goals....
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19. Scientific American, April 1862
Blood Doping
“Sir Edwin Ray Lankester has inquired if the Swedish authorities, who will have charge of the coming Olympian games, will permit a Marathon competitor to carry an oxygen tank or bag and take from it an occasional whiff during that cruel and grueling twenty-six odd miles that must be run. ‘As oxygen is not a drug, but as natural an article of consumption as water, there seems to be no reason why the runner should be disqualified for refreshing himself with it, as he may with soup or water.’ Sir Edwin’s proposal is amazingly unscientific in a scientist of so great reputation; and it is most unsportsmanlike.”
April 1862
Whiskey vs. Cannon
“In a recent proc lamation Governor Brown of Georgia commands the peo ple of that State to cease the manufac ture of ardent spirits after the 15th of March, on pain of having their stills seized for the use of the government. The proclamation concludes as follows: ‘We need more cannon with which to meet the enemy. Gun-metal used in the manu facture of field pieces is composed of ninety parts of copper and ten of tin. The copper stills of Georgia, which are now heavy columb iads [large-bore can non] of destruction aimed against our own people, would, if manu fact ured into cannon, make many a bat tery of six pounders, to be turned against the enemy.’”
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20. Notes & Queries, Guardian Weekly
Do you really believe that bull?
Police guard the famed bull statue as protesters affiliated with Occupy Wall Street march nearby in New York City.
Do hedge fund managers and investment bankers serve any useful social purpose?
Of course. By doing what they do, they leave the really important jobs available for people who have integrity and a social conscience.
Alan Williams-Key, Madrid, Spain
• To unite the rest of the population in loathing them?
Nigel Grinter, Chicago, Illinois, US
• They serve to remind us that a combination of greed, recklessness and an overdose of testosterone is a heady but very dangerous mix and should not be inflicted on the world.
Margaret Wilkes, Perth, Western Australia
• They make Charles Ponzi look good.
Donna Samoyloff, Toronto, Canada
• No; they hedge their bets, sit on the fence, and when they are ripe they fall off (hopefully) on to Wall Street where they are locked out by the occupiers.
Guy Johnston, Kirchhundem, Germany
• Thanks to fund managers, the disposal of surplus assets in landfill, incineration and maritime dumping has now been substituted by their immediate environmentally friendly disposal into thin air.
David Tucker, Halle, Germany
• Yes, as doorstops and draught excluders.
Roger Morrell, Perth, Western Australia
Dvorak on the keyboard
Are we well and truly stuck with the QWERTY keyboard?
No, we aren't. I have typed using the Dvorak keyboard for years. All the vowels and the most-used consonants are in the home row so your fingers do less "walking". It's in your computer. Search for it, select it and DV will appear in the upper right corner.
To paraphrase that old Dial soap advertisement: "Aren't you glad you use Dvorak? Don't you wish everybody did?"
Lawrence Fotheringham, Chatham, Ontario, Canada
You can't handle the truth
What are the questions that should never be asked?
The kind you don't want to hear the answers to.
James Carroll, Geneva, Switzerland
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