2012.06.23

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
Most people are mirrors, reflecting the moods and emotions of the times; few are windows, bringing light to bear on the dark corners where troubles fester. The whole purpose of education is to turn mirrors into windows. -Sydney J. Harris, journalist and author (1917-1986)

1.   Native Plant Nursery Internship - San Francisco/Brisbane
2.   RecPark 2012 bond issue - trails
3.   School groups and citizen scientists, attention: The California Phenology Project
4.   Wanted:  Images from San Francisco's natural areas
5.   Japanese visitor wants hands-on environmental volunteer work
6.   Friends of 5 Creeks schedule, this weekend and beyond
7.   GOP threatening family planning funds
8.   LTEs: Sustainable syntax/Rio+20 Earth summit
9.   Strength in Diversity: The Poetry of Ecology - 2 pm TODAY in Berkeley
10. Feedback
11.  Mary Oliver asks what you plan to do with your one life
12.  William James doesn't ask that; he thinks we're a mass of habits
13.  Rilke:  Live the questions now
14.  The valley of debt: dredging up economic predictions.  How embarrassing
15.  Say "No" to plastic on your dry cleaning/oysters come to Mission High School
16.  Exploring Tajikistan at Ted Kipping's potluck June 26
17.  Identifying safe limits for human impacts on planet/books in brief
18. Notes & Queries: World's most honest politicians
19.  You'll never guess who's in Baseball's Hall of Fame
20.  News from the Wild West


1.  Native Plant Nursery Internship - San Francisco/Brisbane, CA.  San Bruno Mountain Watch.
San Bruno Mountain Watch’s Mission Blue Native Plant Nursery is seeking a motivated individual to work in a community-based, habitat restoration program restoring the biodiversity of San Bruno Mountain.  San Bruno Mountain is a unique island of biodiversity in the heart of the San Francisco Bay Area. This ecological treasure is home to several endangered species, dozens of rare plants, year-round springs, ancient native oak groves, and 5,000 year-old Native American village sites. San Bruno Mountain is one of the last significantly sized, viable remnant of the Franciscan ecosystem that once covered San Francisco. The regional importance of the mountain’s high biodiversity, lead renowned Harvard Biologist E. O. Wilson to list San Bruno Mountain as one of the biodiversity hotspots in need of preservation.
The nursery intern will assist with native plant seed collection and propagation as well as overall nursery management and maintenance. He/she will also assist in Wednesday morning community volunteer workdays at the nursery as well as Saturday habitat restoration community workdays on San Bruno Mountain. The intern will gain valuable experience in developing and running volunteer programs, native plant propagation and nursery operations. Previous knowledge of California natives and/or propagation techniques is ideal but not necessary. Final Application Filing Date (July 6th, 2012). The Native Plant Nursery internship is a part time (20 hours/week), six month long position (July –December). There is no financial compensation. For questions and/or to apply for this position, please send a resume and cover letter to Joe Cannon at restore_ecology@earthlink.net . Thank You.
( for more information about the program and organization http://www.mountainwatch.org/stewardship-nursery-container/ http://vimeo.com/26404002)

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2.  RecPark November 2012 bond issue - trails money

For those whom I have not personally written to regarding the temporary confusion surrounding the amended language to the trails section of the RecPark 2012 issue:

Supervisor Scott Wiener had proposed amending the bond language about the sites that would be funded by the trails section of the bond.  All parties attending the Board's Government Audit & Oversight Cmte June 21 hearing agreed with the Wiener proposal that the 2012 trails bond money would be assigned to Golden Gate Park and John McLaren Park.  Anyone knowing these parks know that they can absorb the $2m each, and hold out their bowl for "MORE, PLEASE." 

Some people were understandably confused, and wondered whether Supervisors Wiener and Elsbernd were trying to reduce the amount for trails.  They were not; they are both very committed to the bond.  It passed the GAO committee unanimously and is now part of the November bond.

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Jake, I truly appreciate the email.  I'm passionate about this bond, and I just want to see it succeed.

Unfortunately there's a lot of inaccurate information swirling around stating (inaccurately) that I'm reducing or removing the trail money.  That's never been the case.  I would greatly appreciate it if you would help correct the record on that and let people know that I'm not changing the amount.  People look up to you, and that would mean a lot.
Thank you.

Scott Wiener
Supervisor, District 8
(415) 554-6968

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3.  The California Phenology Project (CPP) is a statewide project for long-term phenological monitoring. The CPP was launched in 2012 as a 3-year pilot project in eight "pilot" parks in California. The Golden Gate National Recreation Area was chosen as one of the eight pilot parks. Please refer to the following website to find more information on the CPP:  http://www.usanpn.org/cpp/. To learn more about the National Phenology Project please refer to the following: usanpn.org.

Since the summer of 2011, we have had school groups and citizen scientists from around the Bay Area actively monitor and participate in phenological monitoring of native plants. This summer is the second year of the pilot program in the GGNRA. The goal is to further develop and sustain the project beyond the pilot stage. On July 19th-July 21st, the CPP is hosting a workshop in the Presidio in San Francisco, to educate engage, and recruit scientists, educators, and nature enthusiast. The CPP extends the invitation to this free workshop.

Flyers for the workshop can be found at the CPP website. There are two opportunities to attend the Introductory workshop on Thursday 9am-12pm or Saturday 10am-12pm. A Field workshop will be offered on Saturday afternoon 1pm-4pm and is complementary to the Introductory workshop. If participants attend the Thursday Introductory workshop, they do not have to attend the Saturday Introductory workshop and instead just attend the Saturday afternoon Field workshop.

If you have any questions/comments, please feel free to email me and/or contact me at 415-810-0975.

Ruby Kwan
GGNRA/Phenology Project

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4.  The Director at the Photo Center in San Francisco would love to have a lot of images from the City's natural areas - panoramas, close-ups, endangered plants, animals, insects, etc.  The initial review deadline has been extended to June 30.

Photo Center Membership info:   http://harveymilkphotocenter.org/membership/
Hours of Operation:  http://harveymilkphotocenter.org/visit/

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5.  From David Wiesner:

Hi Jake,
My friend in Japan who speaks English wants to visit San Francisco in August and do some hands on environmental volunteering.  Can you point me to a few of the best opportunities within reach of public transport?  This can be a mixture of different one-time deals and some long-term stuff.

I know that most of the opportunities are on the weekends.  Where can he get in some weekday time?

(JS:  I will relay information to David Wiesner.)

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6.  This weekend: Restore mural? Clean Codornices Creek?
Friends of Five Creeks’ next general work party will be Saturday, July 14, on Cerrito Creek at Creekside Park. We also have lots more going on, including projects with Wells Fargo, Cub Scouts, summer camps, and high-school and college students.
 

This Saturday, June 23, F5C Board Member Rebecca Sutton and muralist friends will restore the Creekside Park mural painted by Eagle Scout Henry Treadway, whose untimely death is a great loss. They could use a few extra hands. If you have basic painting experience and can start about 9 AM Saturday, contact Becky at Sutton.becky@gmail.com.

The City of Berkeley also is looking for help counting and picking up trash on lower Codornices Creek this Saturday. Volunteers will meet at 9 AM at the north end of Second Street, past the Berkeley Transfer Station. Wear clothes and shoes that can get wet and dirty. Volunteers under 18 must be accompanied by a parent or guardian. For information or to RSVP, contact Danny Akagi at the City of Berkeley, dakagi@ci.berkeley.ca.us.

Upcoming walks: Creek loop, sunset/moonrise stroll

F5C does a lot of work, but we also just enjoy the outdoors! Please join us on two lovely walks coming right up:

From 9-11 AM Thursday, June 28, our age-50+ walking group, co-sponsored with the Albany Senior Center, will explore a volunteer-created wildflower garden, creeks, parks, Native American rock art, and four restoration projects on a loop in north El Cerrito. Walkers should wear comfortable shoes and bring water.

Meet at Baxter Creek Gateway Park, Conlon at the Ohlone Greenway (stub end of Conlon at Key or Kearney, just east of San Pablo Ave., AC Transit 72, or walk north on Ohlone Greenway from El Cerrito Del Norte BART). The walk is free, but please RSVP to co-sponsor Albany Senior Center, 846 Masonic, 510 524 9122.
 

On Monday, July 2, we replace our June meeting with a sunset/moonrise walk in the El Cerrito Hillside Natural Area, co-sponsored with El Cerrito Trail Trekkers. This is a spectacular walk with magnificent sunset views and a full moon in mysterious oak forests -- or maybe ghostly fog. It's July, after all! Refreshments, too!

We'll meet at 7:30 PM at the west end of King Court, El Cerrito (west of King, north of Moeser). Parking is limited, so allow some extra time. Wear sturdy hiking shoes and long pants and sleeves; bring flashlight and walking sticks if you use them. It's free, like all our hikes!

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7.  From the Population Institute
Tell the House of Representatives to Support Title X

Last week the U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee on a party line vote approved the budget for Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies for FY2013. The bill includes only $293.9 million for Title X funding, which supports family planning clinics serving low-income households. That’s a slight reduction from last year’s funding level of $296.8 million.

The worst, however, is yet to come.  The House Appropriations Committee will be marking up its version of the bill soon. Last year the Subcommittee, which is chaired by Denny Rehberg (R-MT), voted to eliminate all funding for Title X, defunded Planned Parenthood, and slashed funding for teen pregnancy prevention initiatives, while boosting support for failed “abstinence only” education programs.

The Senate ultimately blocked most of those proposed cutbacks, but this year’s legislative battle could turn out differently.  The stakes are high. Every year more than 5 million women and men obtain family planning and related services through Title X funded clinics.  In 2008, according to the Guttmacher Institute, Title X clinics helped to prevent 973,000 unintended pregnancies, 432,600 unintended births and 406,200 abortions. 

We must ensure that the women and men who depend on these clinics continue to have access to the services they want and need.

Isn’t it time to halt the assault on contraception and reproductive health? Tell your Representative to support increased funding for Title X! (click to send)

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8.  LTEs, Guardian Weekly

Sustainable syntax

Thanks for John Vidal's timely overview of the billions of words published to virtually nil positive effect on our environment (Ecological web is badly tangled, 15 June). I'd like to suggest, though, that the treaty chaos might have a lot to do with the two key words themselves, "sustainable" and "development", because it's becoming blindingly obvious – so much so that nobody wants to look at it – that the two concepts are fundamentally irreconcilable.

"Sustainable" is supposed to mean we shouldn't do anything unless our natural environment can sustain it without depriving future generations. But what does "development" mean and imply? It refers back to what used to be called "under-developed" countries, which for PC reasons turned into "developing" countries. Now we have "emerging" countries – emerging presumably from under-development and into development. Which in fact means that their economies are growing, and therefore using up more natural resources, although no-one has yet figured out how that growth, plus growth in so-called developed countries, can happen "sustainably" (let alone without fighting about it).

As long as we keep talking about "sustainable development" instead of "sustainability", it can never be anything but talk.

Ilona Bossanyi St Sardos, France


• Your front-page article about the Rio+20 Earth summit and a certain ineffectiveness of the host of past treaties on the environment, with regard to the ever-increasing harm that humanity does to nature, makes me think of a poem I wrote a few years ago. Actually it is less about poetry and more about real life. I just hope I will be wrong eventually:

I tried one day to count all the energy expended, the sum of forces multiplied by the distance covered.

And also all these useless things we do so diligently.

But I was told: "that's how the system works".

And I saw clearly that everyone: the happy, the discontented, the reasonable, the pragmatic, the well-off, the middle-class and often even  the rebellious,     they all love the system. As it was unanswerable, I didn't count anything any more.

In the meantime, the sea is rising.

Marc Jachym Les Ulis, France


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9.  Strength in Diversity: The Poetry of Ecology

Award winning poets, Adam David Miller and Kim Shuck, headline a FREE multicultural and multigenerational poetry reading at the Berkeley Public Library.
Strength in Diversity: The Poetry of Ecology, a FREE, multi-cultural, multi-generational reading of original works by six poets, presented by the Ecology Center and the Berkeley Public Library at 2:00 pm on Saturday, June 23, 2012 in the 3rd floor Community Meeting Room of the Berkeley Public Library, Central Branch, 2090 Kittredge St., Berkeley. 

Headliners Adam David Miller , well-known poet, teacher and community activist, author of four books of prize-winning poetry and more recently a notable memoir, Ticket to Exile, will headline the program with Kim Shuck, author of the collection, Smuggling Cherokee and winner of numerous writing awards including the Native Writers of the Americas First Book Award, and the Mary Tall Mountain Award.

The program is hosted by the Ecology Center’s Kirk Lumpkin, a poet, performer, and the Special Events and Promotions Coordinator of the Berkeley Farmers’ Markets. He will be joined by two other Ecology Center poets, Jahan Khalighi, a former member of the Eugene Slam Poetry Team and Nakia “Precious Gift” Dillard. The program rounds out with a young poet from Youth Speaks organizer of the Youth Poetry Slam. Book signing will follow.

This free program is sponsored by the Friends of the Library.  Seating is limited, so plan to arrive early for this special event.  For questions regarding this program, call 510-981-6150.

The Central Library is open Monday, noon-8 p.m., Tuesday, 10 a.m.-8 p.m., Wednesday through Saturday, 10 a.m.-6 p.m., and Sunday afternoons from 1 p.m.-5 p.m.  For questions and accessibility information, call 510-981-6195, TTY 510-548-1240, http://www.berkeleypubliclibrary.org.


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10.  Feedback

On Jun 21, 2012, at 6:29 AM, Fran Martin wrote:
Jake,
There is also the Board of Supervisors' Budget Hearing on Friday where it would be good to voice support for increasing funding for RPD. Now, only 1.96% of our City budget goes to RPD. We have probably the largest constituency in the City, but not much of a voice in these matters. It is time to change that.
Thank you for this needed reminder, Fran.

I am over-committed and unable to wrap my mind around all the urgent issues.  Your reminder should have been in my yesterday's e-newsletter, so all I can do now is print it as Feedback.  Better late than never, but you remind me that "the largest constituency" needs to make its voice louder and more persistent.

On Jun 19, 2012, at 11:13 PM, Margit Roos-Collins wrote:
Hi, Jake.  Where'd you find that poem?  I loved it.

I don't often take the time to get through Nature News but always find something that speaks to me when I do.   What I love is seeing your name in my inbox and knowing you are out there, writing, communicating, and continuing down your path.   Makes me glad.


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11.
The Summer Day

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean--
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down,
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.

I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

~ Mary Oliver ~

(New and Selected Poems, Volume I)


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12. 
William James:  "All our life, so far as it has definite form, is but a mass of habits."
The Economist:  'We like to think of our daily choices as the result of reason and will.  But for the most part they are the products of unconscious habits: habits that at best make our lives more efficient (imagine if you really did have to agonize about everything) and at worse trap us in self-destructive behavior.'

'James was a fatalist.  He once compared habits to water which "hollows out for itself a channel, which grows broader and deeper; and, after having ceased to flow, it resumes, when it flows again, the path traced by itself before".'
The Economist 07.04.12

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13.

... have patience with everything unresolved in your heart
and to try to love the questions themselves
as if they were locked rooms or books written
in a very foreign language.
Don't search for the answers,
which could not be given to you now,
because you would not be able to live them.
And the point is, to live everything.
Live the questions now.
 
~ Rainer Maria Rilke ~
 
(Letters to a Young Poet, translated by Stephen Mitchell)

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14.  The valley of debt:  dredging up economic predictions.  How embarrassing

LTE, The Economist
How times have changed
SIR – Rummaging through old copies of The Economist I thought the opening paragraph from an article titled “Coping with surpluses” (May 20th 2000) made amusing reading given the current state of the world:

“I used to think that if there was reincarnation, I wanted to come back as the president or the pope. But now I want to come back as the bond market: you can intimidate everybody.” These famous words of James Carville, one of Bill Clinton’s election advisers in 1992, summed up many people’s view of the power of the Treasury bond market. Yet if the American government’s forecasts of endless budget surpluses are correct, that mighty market could disappear. On present trends many other governments could also see their bond markets shrivel.

Rory McCarthy
Harpenden, Hertfordshire

(JS:  The writer could have quoted a few more gems from this ten-year-old article [emphasis mine] ):

The valley of debt
That is not all. After worrying for years about excessive public borrowing, some economists are now, paradoxically, fretting about a shortage of debt instead. Government debt plays an important role in the financial system. Government bonds are used as a broadly risk-free asset against which other financial instruments are priced

...it is worth recalling the early 1970s, when there were also serious worries about a shortage of public debt. Net public debt in OECD economies fell to a post-war low of 17% of GDP. Today, despite the prediction of further declines, that figure stands at 44%. Herbert Hoover is still right: “Blessed are the young, for they shall inherit the national debt”.
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"Most ailing companies have developed a functional blindness to their own defects. They are not suffering because they cannot resolve their problems, but because they cannot see their problems."      John Gardner

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15.
Plastic Over Clothes?
Say "No" to Plastic on Your Dry Cleaning
Shu Tan of Jack's Laundry is my hero. Last year, Shu helped put a dent in our addiction to plastic by encouraging her customers to reduce their use of plastic laundry bags. Dry cleaning generates 300 million pounds of plastic waste each year-- plastic waste that pollutes our oceans, rivers and lands. When you go to pick up your laundry, tell your local dry cleaner, "No plastic on my clothes, please."

The Watershed Project Goes to Summer School
Wild! Oysters Hit Mission High School
Dolores Park. Mexican food. Colorful Murals. Olympia oysters?
The first three are synonymous with San Francisco’s Mission District. Olympia oysters on the other hand are not… yet. The Watershed Project is proud to partner with Mission High School, Mission Graduates, and the San Francisco Unified School District to provide our high school native oyster curriculum, Wild! Oysters, to summer school students.

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16. 
Ted Kipping pot luck/slide shows
4th Tuesday of the month at 7 pm (slide show at 8 pm) at the San Francisco County Fair Bldg, 9th Av & Lincoln Way in Golden Gate Park
Served by Muni bus lines #6, 43, 44, 66, 71, and the N-Judah Metro

June 26 - Segrid Selle:  Exploring Tajikistan

*Please bring a dish and beverage to serve 8 people

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17.
NEWS: Walking the Line: How to Identify Safe Limits for Human Impacts on the Planet
Should planetary limits on the alteration of critical environmental systems be used as guidelines for human activity?
http://links.email.scientificamerican.com/ctt?kn=46&ms=MzkzNjg1MTUS1&r=NTM5NzIzNTA1NgS2&b=2&j=MTQ3NzI1NDc1S0&mt=1&rt=0

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Books in brief, from Science News

Evolution in a Toxic World, by Emily Monosson
A toxicologist traces how life evolved in deal with toxic substances and how this plays into chemical exposures today.

Transit of Venus, by Nick Lomb
This illustrated history recounts the scientific contributions and adventures of the 18th and 19th century astronomers who traveled the world to observe Venus passing in front of the sun.

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Blurb from Johns Hopkins University Press

The Great Pheromone Myth by Richard L Doty

Challenges ideas about the role chemicals play in mammalian behavior and reproductive processes.  It is a must-have reference for biologists, psychologists, neuroscientists, and readers interested in animal behavior, ecology, and evolution.

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18.  Notes & Queries, Guardian Weekly

Has anyone ever put together a ranking of the world's most honest politicians? Who headed the pack?

• To be honest I can't imagine such a ranking. No doubt many politicians start out as honest but the pressures of their party and the wish to keep their job cause most to become "economical with the truth" over time.
Margaret Wilkes, Cottesloe, Perth, Western Australia

• It would be a short list, but I believe Peter Carington (foreign secretary under Margaret Thatcher) deserves to be high on it because of his resignation over the Argentinian invasion of the Falklands when no one considered he was at fault; he simply felt it was still his responsibility. 
Nigel Grinter, Buffalo Grove, IL, US

• Sadly there are no entries on the list. You might think George Washington would make it ("I cannot tell a lie") but that was a passing phase in his childhood and before he'd thought of a career.
Alan Williams-Key, Madrid, Spain

(JS:  This guy doesn't know what he's talking about.  Washington was not a politician and he was as honest as you can be and still remain human.  He had no need of lying, as he never asked for the job of leading a rebellion or, later, being president.)

• Diogenes tried unsuccessfully in the 5th century BC, emerging in daytime from the tub in Athens where he lived, carrying a lantern and looking for an honest man. There are no reports that any politicians qualified, and they have not improved over the centuries. The "short list" might be hard to compile.
Joan Dawson, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada

(JS:  He lived in a barrel, not a tub--you think he was a sybarite?--and he never found an honest man.  So what's this about a politician?  Are they any worse than the rest of us?)


A sense of perspective

In evolutionary terms, is shyness a good thing?

• Yes. Shyness often prompts you to reserve judgment, which prevents you from – wisely – revealing too much.
Richard Orlando, Montreal, Quebec Canada

• No, only the squeaking wheel gets the oil!
Gabriele Wohlauer, Pittsford, New York, US

• Indeed it is! The shy are inconspicuous as they sneak their way up the evolutionary ladder while the non-shy clobber each other into extinction.
Reiner Jaakson, Oakville, Ontario, Canada

(JS:  Non-shy clobber each other into extinction?  Ever look around you?  They're still here, in plenty.)

"Do you think... that men have always massacred each other, as they do today? Have they always been liars, cheats, traitors, brigands, weak, flighty, cowardly, envious, gluttonous, drunken, grasping, and vicious, bloody, backbiting, debauched, fanatical, hypocritical, and silly?"
-Voltaire, Candide


Any answers?

Where does Europe begin and end?

Sophie Abrahams, London, UK


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19.   Quiz:  Can you name anyone in the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY, who has never managed a team, never played professional baseball, in fact has never had anything to do with the game?  (*Answer at bottom.)

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20.
NEW MEXICO

Ernie Atencio, who heads the Taos Land Trust, loves to visit the stunning, high-rise ruins at Chaco Canyon National Historical Park.  The park is in a remote part of northwestern New Mexico at the end of a washboard road, and to most of its visitors, the rock-walled city that 45,000 people fled after prospering there for some 800 years is a fascinating conundrum.  Atencio has collected some of the more perplexing questions visitors have posed over the years, but he has three favorites:  "Why did the Indians always live in ruins?"  "Why did they build so far from the road?"  And the truly unanswerable, "How many undiscovered ruins are there?"

IDAHO

Idaho state Rep. Phil Hart has self-published a book claiming that the income tax is unconstitutional.  He is also a known thief, reports the Spokane Spokesman-Review.  He stole timber from state school trust land nine years ago to build himself a log home, claiming a loophole in the law allowed him to do so.  And although state courts have called his protest against paying for the timber "frivolous," he's fought the case three times over five years, and he insists he's not paying court costs that have mounted to $15,500.  Nevertheless, Hart is probably a shoo-in for a fourth term this November; his opponent is a write-in candidate.

(The Wild West lives on.)


Bumper strip seen in Utah:  My Carbon Footprint Is Bigger Than Yours!

(Well, my real foot is bigger than yours and you can guess where that foot will be going.)

Heard Around the West
High Country News 29.10.10

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*  Abbott & Costello, for "Who's on first?"