1. Restore Hetch Hetchy hiring a Development Director
2. Can Sex Save the Planet? Fundraiser for SaveNature.org
3. Half Moon Bay work party April 7
4. Brisbane's annual Habitat Restoration Day April 14
5. The Green Hairstreak Corridor and the Hidden Garden Steps April 12
6. 36th annual native plant sale & nursery grand opening, Novato April 14
7. You take a final step, and look, suddenly you're there. David Wagoner
8. April is the best time to see nesting bank swallows at Fort Funston
9. Sutro Stewards want your support to planting trees on Mt Sutro
10. Nature and Science toss archaic peer-review system
11. Feedback: Small dogs prey for coyotes
12. The Curse of Chief Tenaya April 11
13. Israel fences itself from world/Bhutan asks world to reconsider how to measure progress
14. Dallas Federal Reserve Bank ask for breakup of large banks
15. Limericks for tax time
16. Public executions a common entertainment? Maybe not in the future
17. Americans in Nazi Germany. How many saw it coming?
18. Notes & Queries: Will there be a time when thinkers, writers, poets are again revered, rather than tech wizards?
"Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves." Carl Jung
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1. Restore Hetch Hetch is hiring a Development Director. I can't post the lengthy details. Contact RHH to ask for details.
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2. Can Sex Save the Planet?
Don't miss this intimate fundraiser for SaveNature.org
http://cansexsavetheplanet.eventbrite.com
Is it getting hot in here? Who's blushing?
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3. Coastside Land Trust
Work Party
Sat April 7th, 10-noon
788 Main Street, Half Moon Bay
This Saturday, April 7th from 10 - noon, Coastside Land Trust will be taking work parties to several open space properties needing some TLC. Depending on what the open space needs, we will be doing things like pulling invasive plants, picking up trash or removing graffiti. We need more hands, so please meet us at the office at 788 Main Street in Half Moon Bay. We welcome helpers of all ages but those under age 18 will need an adult to accompany them. Thank you for your support in helping Coastside Land Trust maintain our treasured coastal open space.
As you can see above, from a workday last year...you never know what we'll find, so be sure to dress in layers and sturdy shoes. We have cleanup supplies and tools, all we need is you.
Can't make this date? Mark your calendars for workdays every 1st Saturday & 3rd Wednesday of the month and join us next time.
April 7 & 18, May 5 & 16, June 2 & 20
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4. Come celebrate Earth Day at Brisbane's 9th annual Habitat Restoration Day. This year's event takes place at Costanos Canyon on Saturday, April 14 from 9 am - 1pm. Free lunch (there is such a thing!) and organic cotton t-shirts for volunteers (while supplies last). Please wear work clothes and sturdy shoes; bring gloves, clippers, and a water bottle if you have them.
For Questions and to RSVP: Call Lisa Pontecorvo at 415.508.2118 or email LPontecorvo@ci.brisbane.ca.us
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5.
“As early as 1956, Green Hairstreaks were reported disappearing from the San Francisco area. Today, virtually all populations on the Bay’s islands, hills, and shorelines have been eliminated as the natural habitat has given way to development.”
-Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Butterflies; 1981
Thursday, April 12
The Green Hairstreak Corridor and The Hidden Garden Steps, with Liam O'Brien and Paul Signorelli.
The idea of the Green Hairstreak Corridor came to Liam O'Brien while surveying all of the butterflies of San Francisco County in 2007. It seemed to him there was something we could do for this creature. Five years into it, the project now attracts not only the attention of the surrounding Upper Sunset neighborhood, but national conservationists and others seeking innovative ways to address the problems of vanishing urban ecosystems. Liam will be talking about how Nature in the City's volunteer-driven project has worked to successfully restore habitats for the once-prevalent butterfly in one of its last remaining San Francisco breeding grounds. Paul will join Liam to talk about how volunteers from Nature in the City and the Hidden Garden Steps project have worked together so green hairstreak butterflies will find an extension of that habitat to the area at the top of the Hidden Garden Steps, where 16th Avenue exists as a stairway between Kirkham and Lawton streets.
Randall Museum Theater, 199 Museum Way, San Francisco, 7:30-9:30 pm. For more information, go to www.sfns.org or contact Patrick Schlemmer at JKodiak@earthlink.net or (415) 225-3830. Free and open to everyone.
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6.
36th ANNUAL NATIVE PLANT SALE & NURSERY GRAND OPENING
Marin Chapter, California Native Plant Society
SATURDAY, APRIL 14, 2012, 10am - 4pm, Free Admission
GREEN POINT NURSERY
275 Olive Ave, at Atherton Ave, Novato, CA 94945
Wide selection of California native annuals, perennials, shrubs, vines & seed.
Native plant books, posters & cards.
Experts on hand to offer advice, including author Nancy Bauer on habitat gardening.
Marin botanist Doreen Smith will lead a wildflower walk at 1pm at nearby Deer Island.
Learn more about the Marin Audubon Society's local habitat restoration projects, and the Novato Streetscape Maintenance Advisory Committee's native plantings in medians.
Ongoing composting demonstrations, with a chance to win a free composting bin.
Celebrate the start of Native Plant Week (April 15-21), and the new nursery space!
For more information, go to www.marinnativeplants.org
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7.
Getting There
You take a final step and, look, suddenly
You're there. You've arrived
At the one place all your drudgery was aimed for:
This common ground
Where you stretch out, pressing your cheek to sandstone.
What did you want
To be? You'll remember soon. You feel like tinder
Under a burning glass,
A luminous point of change. The sky is pulsing
Against the cracked horizon,
Holding it firm till the arrival of stars
In time with your heartbeats.
Like wind etching rock, you've made a lasting impression
On the self you were
By having come all this way through all this welter
Under your own power,
Though your traces on a map would make an unpromising
Meandering lifeline.
What have you learned so far? You'll find out later,
Telling it haltingly
Like a dream, that lost traveler's dream
Under the last hill
Where through the night you'll take your time out of mind
To unburden yourself
Of elements along elementary paths
By the break of morning.
You've earned this worn-down, hard, incredible sight
Called Here and Now.
Now, what you make of it means everything,
Means starting over:
The life in your hands is neither here nor there
But getting there,
So you're standing again and breathing, beginning another
Journey without regret
Forever, being your own unpeaceable kingdom,
The end of endings.
~ David Wagoner ~
(In Broken Country)
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8.
April is the best time to see nesting bank swallows at Fort Funston. Males and females take turns excavating a burrow into the sheer cliff face above the beach. The babies will fledge in summer, then fly 5,000 miles to overwinter in South America. Bring binoculars to get a good view of the activity.
Another birding experience not to miss is the pair of bald eagles that have built a nest at Crystal Springs reservoir. This is the first time that bald eagles have nested in San Mateo County in nearly a century. Audubon Society volunteers will be on hand with spotting scopes every weekend morning through May to help you get a look. Go to www.sequoia-audubon.org/ for details.
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9.
Starting this Earth Month, the Sutro Stewards have an exciting chance to earn a grant that would help us add much-needed trees to the San Francisco landscape. But we need your help.
Odwalla is donating tree-planting grants to 10 community projects across the country. The program started out with 20 nominated projects, and I’m pleased to announce the Sutro Stewards Plant-A-Tree project is in the running! With your help, we hope to receive enough votes to be one of the 10 selected projects to receive a $10,000 grant.
Please take a moment to show your support and help us plant more trees in our community by visiting www.odwalla.com/plantatree and clicking on Sutro Stewards Plant-A-Tree Project between now and May 30. You can only vote once, so please share this message with your friends through word of mouth, email, Facebook, Twitter, etc.
Thank you for your support! We look forward to planting more trees in San Francisco that will last for many generations to enjoy!
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10.
Probably the most interesting story this month is that the two great science journals, Nature and Science, have set aside their decades-long rivalry and agreed to work together on an unbelievable new publication. They are doing away with the archaic peer review system and are switching to a more modern, democratic publishing model. Read more about it in this article: Science, Nature Team Up on New Journal.
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11. Feedback
Louise Lacey:
...small dogs are prey for coyotes, also. I've watched coyotes come up on a porch next to a dog and its owner and be snatched by a coyote so quickly that no one could grab it. Dogs actually have more meat.
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12. Craig Carrozzi:
Author and lecturer Craig Carrozzi will read from and discuss his book "The Curse of Chief Tenaya" at the Green Arcade Bookstore at 1680 Market Street @ Gough, San Francisco at 7:30 pm on Wednesday, April 11th. He will also discuss ongoing efforts to restore the Hetch Hetchy Valley in Yosemite National Park.
About the book: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00772ZLPI
About the bookstore: www.TheGreenArcade.com (415) 431-6800
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13. Guardian Weekly editorial 03.04.12
My father often told me: "Build bridges, not fences." It's not always an easy thing to do. And so to Israel, where contractors are welding into place a five-metre-high barrier between the Sinai and Negev deserts designed in part to keep out illegal immigrants from sub-Saharan Africa. Once it is finished, by year's end, Israel will be almost completely enclosed by steel, barbed wire and concrete. This is a fine piece of writing by Harriet Sherwood on an issue that has drawn little media attention. I hope you find it a thoughtful front-page read.
On the lighter side, Bhutan wants a happier world, and one that's far less materialistic. It has called on heads of state and leading economists to meet in the capital, Thimphu, and reconsider how countries measure progress. Bhutan measures it based on the happiness of its citizens. I wonder if they need journalists to cover such a meeting? I'd be happy to attend!
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14. NPR's Marketplace
Commentator Robert Reich says the continued specter of "too big to fail" compels nothing less than breaking up the big banks.
Last week the Dallas Fed issued an explosive report (PDF) -- predicting America will face another financial crisis and be forced to bail out Wall Street again unless the biggest banks are broken up.
This isn't the Occupy movement. The Dallas Fed is one of the most conservative banks in the Federal Reserve system. And it knows first-hand about the dangers of under-regulated banks -- the Savings and Loan crisis of the 1980s and '90s affected Texas like nowhere else.
According to The Dallas Fed report, Wall Street's power makes it almost impossible to control because "they have the lawyers and the money to resist the pressures of federal regulation." This means the Dodd-Frank act, which is supposed to prevent another financial calamity, is woefully inadequate.
Wall Street seems intent on proving the Dallas Fed correct. At this very moment its legion of lobbyists is pushing legislation in Congress to weaken provisions in the Dodd-Frank law regulating the trading of derivatives.
Meanwhile, the same lobbyists are swarming over the regulatory agencies charged with implementing Dodd-Frank. They've been trying to weaken other provisions, like the so-called Volcker Rule that bars banks from gambling with commercial deposits. The Volcker Rule is now riddled with loopholes large enough for the bankers to drive their Ferraris through.
Where they haven't yet eviscerated Dodd-Frank, Wall Street's lawyers have been going to court to stop it. Recently, they delayed a rule by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to limit speculation in commodities such as oil.
Clearly Wall Street hasn't learned its lesson. The public will not tolerate another financial meltdown and bailout, and yet Wall Street won't accept more regulation. If it's too big to fail and too powerful to regulate, the only answer is, according to the Dallas Fed "breaking up the nation's biggest banks into smaller units."
We did it to the giant oil companies a century ago because they were too powerful, economically and politically. It's time to apply the same medicine to Wall Street.
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15.
Marketplace asked for your tax-related Limericks. Here are a few
There once was a man named Grover
Who declared tax increases are over
When Republicans signed
Without budgets in mind
Makes one wonder how many were sober
Dear folks at the Fed IRS,
Your rules and your regs are a mess.
You're unfair to the poor.
Middle class? Even more.
So beware, cuz I know your address.
--Madeleine Begun Kane, Bayside Queens, N.Y.
We even got a Tweet-length limerick:
2 raze public funds it is better
The I.R.S. thinks 2 tax Twitter
Now a fee 4 each word Is so truly absurd
But E-Z 2 charge 4 each letter
--Jim Johnson, Muskegon, Mich.
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16. The death penalty
The executioner's throng
Mar 31st 2012 | from The Economist
UNTIL they were abolished in 1868, public executions were a common entertainment in Britain. Last year only four countries carried them out: Saudi Arabia, Iran, North Korea and Somalia. In Britain, it took a further century before hanging ceased altogether. Amnesty International's report on the use of the death penalty in 2011 uses publicly available data and therefore substantially undercounts many countries (such as China and Iran). It notes a worldwide trend towards abolition. But much of the world is still enthused by judicial killing, at least in private. On March 29th Japan hanged three convicted multiple murderers, its first executions since 2010.
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17. Americans in Nazi Germany
Without hindsight
How many saw what was coming?
Mar 31st 2012 | from The Economist
Hitlerland: American Eyewitnesses to the Nazi Rise to Power. By Andrew Nagorski.
SOME books about Nazi Germany prompt the question, “What would I have done?” Readers of “Hitlerland” may instead ask, “What would I have thought?” Andrew Nagorski has written an entertaining chronicle of the views of Americans in Germany during the interwar years until Japan attacked Pearl Harbour in 1941. What did they make of the country as it moved from the messiness of Weimar to the madness of Hitlerism?
Germany was a popular place at the time, giving Mr Nagorski a rich cast of characters. “The world was being created here,” wrote Philip Johnson, an American architect, of pre-Nazi Berlin. Hitler’s rise brought yet more fascination. Charles Lindbergh, an American aviator, was clueless enough to be used by both the Nazis and the Americans. John F. Kennedy makes a rambunctious appearance as a university student.
...By 1934 Dorothy Thompson’s tone had changed, and her reports made her the first journalist to be expelled by the Nazis. On her return to America she said: “Germany has gone to war already and the rest of the world does not believe it.”
George Messersmith, a prescient American Consul General in Berlin, “made a habit of not allowing himself to be fooled by the Nazis,” writes Mr Nagorski. “A little man has taken the measure of still smaller men,” observed Edgar Mowrer, who won the Pulitzer prize for the Chicago Daily News. By the time Hitler became Führer in 1933, his thuggery was harder to dismiss.
On the whole, Americans in pre-war Berlin had the wit to sense what was coming, and thus helped prepare their countrymen for “the years of bloodshed and struggle ahead”. Yet “Hitlerland” brings back to life some early delusions about Hitler’s rise that now seem unthinkable. Any reader trying to puzzle out today’s world will be unsettled by the reminder of how easy it is to get things wrong.
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18. Notes & Queries, Guardian Weekly
Every age has its wizards
Will there be a time when thinkers, writers and poets are again revered, rather than tech wizards?
Yes, it will happen at the next renaissance, but philosophers and artists did not lose out to tech wizards: they lost out to materialism. Unfortunately the next renaissance cannot happen until corporate capitalism has been unmasked for the intricate evil it is.
Dick Hedges, Nairobi, Kenya
• When thinkers, writers and poets fill the paucity of such types in government and business.
Peter Smith, Nanjing, China
Good news and bad news
When was a currency last floated and why?
Around half of the world's currency floated today. Unfortunately, the rest sank.
John Anderson, Auckland, New Zealand
• When a long-ago government heeded the fears of captains of industry that gold reserves were sinking the ship of state.
Andy Marshall, Cochrane, Alberta, Canada
Any answers?
Isn't there a better way of showing appreciation of a musical performance other than making an ugly noise slapping our hands together?
David Bye, Göd, Hungary |