1. Speak out against AT&T's proposal to install 726 Utility Boxes - July 11
2. Presidio Tree Tour July 9
3. See the rare and endangered fountain thistle in the Crystal Springs Watershed - July 9
4. See massive displays of clarkia - aka farewell to spring
5. Unsubscribe.com eliminates unwanted emails
6. Smithsonian offers free entry to some museums (including outdoor museums) nationwide
7. Bay Area Open Space Council Fog Gathering July 21
8. A chance to reclaim Hetch Hetchy Valley - from former California Resources Agency Director
9. In the Plex: How Google Thinks, Works and Shapes Our Lives
10. Feedback: horizontality in last newsletter/population clocks
11. Population - several articles
12. SciAm: Last wild camels in China/air pollution triggers heart risk for cyclists
13. Highlights of July-Sept issue of Bay Nature
14. You have not danced so badly, my dear - Hafiz
15. Ten reasons why you should make a donation to California Invasive Plant Council
16. Notes & Queries: Meet the president - and First Dude
1. PLEASE ATTEND AND SPEAK OUT AGAINST AT&Ts PROPOSAL TO INSTALL 726 METAL TRANSMISSION BOXES ON SAN FRANCISCO NEIGHBORHOOD STREETS. This is the last chance the public has to speak out.
What: Land Use and Economic Development Committee Meeting
When: Monday, July 11 at 1 PM (check agenda for time of this item)
Where: City Hall, Committee Room 263
Purpose: Reports from staff of MTA, Planning, DPW and the PUC regarding placement of Surface Mounted Utilities underground or on private property and conformity with the Better Streets Plan and the Urban Design Element of the General Plan (links )
Public Comment will be allowed
Tell the Land Use Committee that you want an EIR on this project, that you are opposed to the cumulative impacts of visual blight, graffiti, blowing trash, and impediments on the right of way these refrigerator-sized boxes will have on our City Streets.
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2. Tree Tour of the Presidio
July 9, 2011 11:00 am to 1:00 pm
You're invited on a free Tree Tour of the Presidio of San Francisco, led by Presidio Forester Peter Ehrlich. We'll hike in a two-hour loop through several reforestation projects, and learn some Presidio history (mostly of the natural variety). Meet at Inspiration Point, just inside the Arguello Boulevard Gate. Bring comfortable walking shoes, and be prepared for some stairs.
Public transportation: Muni 1, 2 and 33 buses, and the PresidiGo Shuttle (www.presidiobus.com)
RSVP sarah@fuf.net
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3. Sat Jul 9th Crystal Springs Watershed (mid-peninsula) 10am-2pm
Join Don Thomas to see the rare, federally endangered fountain thistle (Cirsium fontinale var.fontinale) in the Crystal Springs Watershed, normally closed to the public. This plant is endemic to the San Francisco Peninsula, and most of the populations occur in the Crystal Springs Watershed.
First we will visit a small, easily accessible fountain thistle population on Upper Crystal Springs Reservoir, and this will include a short work session to remove teasel and yellow starthistle that is invading its serpentine seep habitat. (Tools will be provided.)
We will then visit another smaller newly discovered nearby fountain thistle population called the Dean Kelch site.
We will walk less than two miles in total. The activities will end in the early afternoon. The trip is limited to 20 participants. To reserve a spot, contact Don Thomas at don_e_thomas@yahoo.com or 408-828-4044.
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4. Pink, anyone?
Jake: Last year's rains produced prodigeous blooms of farewell-to-spring (Clarkia rubicunda). This year's long string of storms have outdone 2010. Many times we can see large flushes of wildflowers near the summit of San Bruno Mountain in the grasslands above Brisbane. The problem is enjoying them up close.
As of this moment, July 7, 2011, there is an outrageous display of thousands of Clarkia blooms on Resevoir Hill at the intersection of Crocker Avenue and Bellevue Avenue in Daly City. Crocker is easily accessed from Mission Street a few blocks east of the Mission-San Jose Avenue intersection. Blooms can be found along Crocker from Bellevue to Pointe Pacific Drive.
Anyone interested in being treated to wild pink eye-candy should get there in the next 10 days or so.
Doug Allshouse, San Bruno Mountain
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5. Unsubscribe.com offers a complete solution for eliminating unwanted and potentially damaging emails from your inbox. Unsubscribe.com goes beyond filtering or sending messages to spam; it actually stops the email from being sent and removes your name from the senders’ email lists. Once you install this tool into your email software, you can use it to safely unsubscribe without opening and clicking the opt-out link in the email. It’s quick and easy to use with multiple email addresses too. They also have a tool to opt-out of Facebook applications that you are no longer using, but have long forgotten about.
We’ve teamed up with Unsubscribe.com to offer Catalog Choice members an exclusive free lifetime license. Click the button below to learn more about Unsubscribe.com. When you are ready to order, use the Promo code CATALOGCHOICE or click this link to receive your free license.
We have been testing the service at Catalog Choice for several months and we are confident that you will like it. Unsubscribe.com is one more free and easy step to protecting your privacy and reducing clutter. You can support our continued efforts to provide tools to give you control over what gets in your mailbox by donating to Catalog Choice.
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6. Smithsonian offers free entry to some museums
This is good: Filoli Gardens inWoodside
This coupon is good for more than Smithsonian Museums! There is something in every state. Request your ticket NOW since supplies are limited-- But sometime a museum will fill up quickly and they will only issue a limited number. so if you are interested do it NOW. You get two admissions per address/email address. Ticket will be emailed to you so you will need to print it eventually.
Pass this on to anyone you know who might enjoy going to a museum for free. Some of the museums listed are free always but most are not.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/museumday/
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7. Bay Area Open Space Council
Fog Gathering on July 21
Now more than ever the transportation and land conservation communities are working closely to address the effects of climate change. A sustainable community is possible but there is a long road (or trail) ahead.
How do we get from here to there? What funding mechanisms are out there for this important work? What role does land conservation have in the efforts to create a sustainable Bay Area? What partnerships exist to build a transportation-friendly region? And what is happening at a policy level that will drive (or pedal) change?
We'll discuss all of this at our Fog Gathering on July 21, 2011 from 10am-1pm at the David Brower Center in downtown Berkeley (conveniently located near BART and AC Transit lines with plenty of bike parking). Speakers will include:
• The Nature Conservancy
• East Bay Regional Park District
• Greenbelt Alliance
• Others to be announced
Program starts at 10am and lunch will be served. Register early - our Gatherings can sell out!
Click here to register.
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8. San Francisco Chronicle Wednesday, July 6, 2011 (www.sfgate.com)
A chance to reclaim Hetch Hetchy Valley By Douglas P. Wheeler
San Franciscans may wonder why Restore Hetch Hetchy (hetchhetchy.org), a nonprofit organization, has recently challenged the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission concerning re-licensing of the Don Pedro Hydroelectric Project, a dam and reservoir on the Tuolumne River in Tuolumne County.
As most San Franciscans know, an upstream part of the Tuolumne in Yosemite National Park was long ago dammed to form the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir. Much of San Francisco's water is stored in the Hetch Hetchy and Don Pedro reservoirs and distributed via the Tuolumne and artificial conduits to its ultimate downstream destination.
Environmentalists, including many San Franciscans, are encouraged by recent studies that demonstrate the feasibility of removing O'Shaughnessy Dam and restoring Hetch Hetchy Valley to its natural splendor without detriment to San Francisco's supply of water or hydroelectricity. To appreciate this possibility, it is important to realize that the Hetch Hetchy and Don Pedro reservoirs are merely jointly managed water storage projects. Neither serves a function that cannot be served elsewhere and neither enhances the natural supply of water provided by the Tuolumne. Having served as California's secretary for natural resources for eight years, I am profoundly aware of the need for reform of the state's water delivery system. Much of California's water infrastructure is outmoded, having been constructed in the 19th and 20th centuries with little concern for the natural environment. Despite a solid public consensus on the need to protect the environment, this imperative has yet to be fully realized in the management of California's water supply.
Conceived of in the 1890s and constructed in the 1920s, the Hetch Hetchy water system required the clear cutting and damming of Yosemite's once-spectacular Hetch Hetchy Valley to provide an additional storage reservoir for water from the Tuolumne River. Exploiting the Tuolumne River to the fullest extent possible, the system currently diverts 60 percent of the river's water to San Francisco and central valley farmers.
Now, FERC must consider whether to relicense the Don Pedro reservoir in light of current realities, including environmental mandates that did not exist when it was designed in 1919.
Restore Hetch Hetchy asserts that the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 requires FERC to examine all environmental impacts associated with the relicensing of the Don Pedro dam, including those upriver. Further, NEPA requires that FERC consider environmentally advantageous alternatives to the current configuration, including those that would facilitate restoration of Hetch Hetchy Valley in Yosemite National Park.
For these reasons, I recently filed comments with FERC on behalf of Restore Hetch Hetchy, calling on FERC to seize this opportunity to conduct a thorough analysis of the environmental benefit of a restored Hetch Hetchy Valley.
It is up to FERC to apply the federal law and to find a sustainable solution that meets San Francisco's needs while enhancing the natural environment.
Douglas P. Wheeler is an environmental attorney who served as California's secretary of natural resources from 1991 to 1999 and as executive director of the Sierra Club from 1985 to 1987.
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9.
googol: 10 raised to the power of 100
googolplex: 10 raised to the power of a googol
Google: outsized ambitions and prodigious talents
It's not magic, just ambition and talent
In the Plex: How Google Thinks, Works and Shapes Our Lives, by Steven Levy
Reviewed by Siva Vaidhyanathan, Washington Post
As Arthur C Clarke once wrote, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic". This concept has been the key to Google's remarkable success. Google seems to read our minds. It delivers copious results to mundane queries. And it does so for free.
But believing in magic is unhealthy. If we fail to understand the nature of the technologies we invite into our lives, we risk being ruled by them, rather than ruling them. By demystifying even the most complex tools, we can learn to use them more wisely, criticize them intelligently, and admire the skill and craft that real human beings put into them. Steven Levy's In the Plex demystifies Google fully, laying bare the company's outsized ambitions and prodigious talents.
Now a senior writer for Wired magazine, for years Levy explained the complexities of computers and the internet to a general readership as Newsweek's chief technology reporter. At Wired, he has a more tech-savvy readership. But he has lost none of his flair for digesting the complex into the comprehensible. Levy is a Silicon Valley insider who writes for the rest of us on the outside.
In the Plex follows many other Google books. Some writers, such as Ken Auletta, author of Googled, used their substantial access to the company's leaders to explain its remarkable commercial success and boldness of vision. Others, such as Randalll Stross in Planet Google, have tried to explain the tech giant's creative processes. Still others, such as Jeff Jarvis, author of What Would Google Do?, concentrated on how other businesses might learn from Google's success.
Levy distinguishes his book from its predecessors by delivering a detailed yet stirring intellectual history of many of the company's major innovations, from the initial breakthroughs in search algorithms to the development of Gmail and the Android mobile operating system. If you have ever wondered how Google manages to translate web pages written in Telugu into Malayalam without the expertise of hundreds of south Asian linguists sitting at terminals, Levy has the answer. However, not even he can explain what Wave, Google's failed communication platform, was supposed to do.
Others have tried to make Google's problem-solving processes intelligible and gripping. Levy has outdone them all. He has produced the most interesting book ever written about Google. He makes the biggest intellectual challenges of computer science seem endlessly fun and fascinating.
Levy does not attempt to outline the larger societal consequences of Google's triumphs. There is not much space amid the narrative techniques, colorful characters and impressive accounts of brilliance and innovation for deep consideration of what has happened to us as a result of Google's 12-year ascendancy. Delivering social, cultural and economic analyses is not one of Levy's strengths.
The author has spent substantial time with Google's principals, and therefore has been immersed in Google's principles. Often he seems to have given Googlers the benefit of the doubt about their own intentions. He accepts the company line that Google's two most glaring privacy debacles - the bizarre and inexplicable collection of Wi-Fi data from open hubs by Google cars taking photos for its street view maps and the violation of Google's own privacy policies through the poorly conceived Buzz social networking service - were mere glitches. instead, I would suggest, these were gross errors of judgment (both inviting heavy governmental scrutiny and potential liability) almost guaranteed by the company's arrogance. It's not hard to slip from believing one is doing no evil to believing one can do no wrong.
Levy's account of Google's audacious culture of brilliance and innovation explains why. We can expect many more books about Google. But few will deliver the lively, idea-based journalism of In the Plex. It's for the rest of us to make sense of the moral and social implications of what this powerful company has wrought.
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10. Feedback
On Jul 5, 2011, at 8:01 PM, Salmon wrote:
Hi, Jake --
Always nice to get your news...
Lately your blog runs off the page (except not when in "reply" format -- except this time, it's still going on in Item 10 -- so you can see for yourself) no matter how one frames it... new program? computer? any fix?
I don't know how this horizontality creeps in, but I have had trouble intermittently. Usually I can "launder" items through Text Edit, where the Default setting usually takes the bugs out. However, it doesn't always work, and sometimes by the time I notice its presence, it has already affected other items in the newsletter. In the case of yesterday's newsletter, I found out very late, and erasing it would have meant re-doing the entire email--which would have destroyed all formatting, all italics, all bolding, all color. I didn't have time to do it and I was tired, and I uncharacteristically sent it out, knowing it had this fault.
The problem seems to arise from two sources: emails I receive from others (not common), or Word files in my computer. I have struggled with so many problems with Word that I finally decided to convert all my files to Text Edit (which has its own set of problems, but are easier to work with than Word). That is a huge job, and I do it over time. Sticking pins in Bill Gates' effigy (I have to have a face--you can't stick pins into a generic body) hasn't done the trick so far. Anyone know what Steve Ballmer looks like?
I don't need another computer problem. I hope that this won't happen in any other newsletter in the future. The trick is to spot it the first time it appears rather than after it has affected an entire newsletter.
Norma Wallace:
Dear Jake Well, my family and friends who are teachers LOVED that hilarious Doonesbury cartoon. I see #7 below which I have not yet read, but anyway, just great feedback on both the cartoon and the url !
Thanks, Norma. I love it when it delights others (if that is the right word for a depressing subject!) as much as it does me. What a treasure Gary Trudeau is.
On Jul 6, 2011, at 12:12 PM, Steve Lawrence wrote:
Population clocks are amazing and scary. But perhaps all is not hopeless. Necessity does seem to be the mother of invention. In 1968 Paul Ehrlich's The Population Bomb hit. It predicted mass famine in the Seventies. Didn't happen. Inventive humans created a Green Revolution. Population did not expand quite as fast as predicted, because, counter-intuitively, the richer people become, the fewer children they have. How often scientists are wrong! There's hope.
Is food to feed the billions all you're concerned about?
A frequently employed refutation technique is to cite the times predictions have been confounded by events. Ehrlich's timeline is irrelevant. The Green Revolution you cite is something that no one is predicting will happen again. The cleverness of Homo sapiens (and we are clever) has limits, and can as easily create problems (we aren't so good at predicting them) as solutions. Case in point: India was periodically faced with mass starvation when the monsoons didn't show up. For the last 30+ years monsoon have shown up on schedule; we can't count on them to continue. In the meantime its population has more than doubled, from 600 billion to 1.2 billion. The Green Revolution and massive groundwater pumping has allowed that doubling. The aquifers are running dry and land is slumping. What is to rescue India this time? I don't hear a single voice speak up. I could cite other scary scenarios around the world, including in the U.S.
My vision verges on apocalyptic. I see mass migrations around the world as governments are destabilized by a number of problems, all stemming directly or indirectly from over-population. Except that immigrants will not be met by customs officials--more likely by guns. I shudder, but that's what happens when we let things get as far out of control as they are.
Steve, you and I see different worlds out there. Given that, there doesn't seem point in arguing our respective cases.
Jake, we all see different worlds. That makes things interesting.
Books like Collapse (I think it is) prove that humankind certain has and can wreak environmental societal suicide, and we humans of the 21st may be doing so on the largest scale; that risk is undeniable. Or maybe our cleverness saves the day.
I hope you're not only looking to share ideas with those who agree with you. We all need to be challenged, and should hear from those with different world-views and views.
No indeed; I like to be challenged, and I'm glad there's more ideas out there than are in my head. From your response I thought we were way too far apart to possibly bridge in an email conversation, so that was my way of saving time and energy, both of which are in short supply. Your response indicates you may have a more realistic view than came across in first email.
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11. POPULATION, POPULATION, POPULATION......
OBSERVATIONS: Laureate urges next generation to address population control as central issue
A 93-year-old Nobel laureate in physiology or medicine received a standing ovation from hundreds of scientists on June 30 at the end of a speech in which he urged the world's young people to take measures to control runaway population growth
http://links.email.scientificamerican.com/ctt?kn=28&ms=MzY3OTU4NzUS1&r=NTM5NzIzNTA1NgS2&b=2&j=MTA1NzM0NTg3S0&mt=1&rt=0
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World Population Day —An Urgent Reminder of the Impact of Too Many People
On July 11, World Population Day will be recognized. The annual event evolved out of Five Billion Day which was initiated in 1987. That year on or about July 11 the global population reached 5 billion. The United Nations projects that this year, less than a decade later, the world population will reach seven billion on October 31.
Global population has soared nearly 40 percent since the first World Population Day with the United States playing a leading role in growth. The current U.S. population is approaching 312 million, up 30 percent from 242 million in 1987.
The United Nations notes that overpopulation has created painful contradictions. The world produces enough food for everyone but more than a billion still go hungry. Medical science has the knowledge to cure disease yet it continues to spread. Our rich natural environment is subjected to daily assaults, most of them generated by efforts to provide for increasing population.
In an effort to raise awareness, the United Nations has launched its “Seven Billion Actions” campaign that calls on each of the world’s residents to assume his share of responsibility for curbing population growth. Included among the key actions are ensuring that every child is wanted and that each birth leads to smaller and therefore stronger families. Lower fertility will alleviate pressure on urban sprawl and free up scarce resources to better care for the planet’s aging and infirm.
Critical to the success of United Nations’ mission is the role of young people who are called upon to use social media and the Internet as vehicles for sharing constructive ideas and positive action plans.
As an example of what people working together can accomplish, in 1986 a group of concerned citizens formed Californians for Population Stabilization (CAPS) to bring attention to the consequences of unchecked growth. No state has been more adversely impacted by increased population than California. Historically, California has accepted high levels of nationwide in-migration as well as millions of legal and illegal immigrants who have, on average, higher fertility rates than native-born Americans.
Since its founding, CAPS has worked to protect the environment and to improve the quality of life by promoting replacement-level fertility and replacement-level immigration in order to achieve a stable population.
Addressing the United Nations’ prediction of seven billion people Marilyn De Young, CAPS’ Chairman of the Board and a former member of the President’s Commission on Population Growth and the American Future, said: “This ominous projection underscores the urgent need to provide safe and effective family planning to the hundreds of millions of men and women who lack it. Families must have the ability to exercise their human rights to determine the number and spacing of their children.”
De Young stated that continuing human population growth is “the most serious environmental problem for our planet and for our nation” and linked the loss of open space, air and water pollution and never ending sprawl as the gravest results of too many people.
For those who have never considered overpopulation’s grave implications, consider that there is no social problem whose resolution would not be simplified if the world had fewer people. Become involved today to make tomorrow better for everyone.
Californians for Population Stabilization
Fast Fact: 61% of likely U.S. voters believe that a child born in the United States to a woman who is here illegally should not automatically become a U.S. citizen. -- Rasmussen Reports
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Give to Californians for Population Stabilization - a challenge grant
This particular grant is restricted to new donors and those who have not donated to CAPS in the past year. Here's a chance for your gift to double its impact:
Our donor will give CAPS $1 for every $1 we raise. That means if you give us $40, our donor will give us $40 - your gift will be worth $80 or double the original amount - up to $100,000!
If we raise $100,000, our benefactor will give CAPS an additional $100,000 - that's $200,000 to fight overpopulation and improve the quality of life for all Americans by helping to fund:
◦ Expansion of CAPS' legislative Action Alert email system - provided free to anyone that joins the Action Alert team!
◦ Hard-hitting TV, Internet, radio and newspaper ads, all across the U.S.
◦ Support of efforts that are paving the way toward a long-term solution to our overpopulation and over-immigration crisis.
Please help us fight against the unfairness of the loss of American jobs to illegal workers, birthright citizenship and amnesty for illegal aliens. Most of our elected officials are not doing what it takes so we must use every opportunity to take action ourselves.
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Population Institute (For more information visit: http://www.populationinstitute.org)
Rep. Ellmers Introduces Bill in House of Representatives to Defund UNFPA
Rep. Renee Ellmers introduced a bill (H.R. 2059) last month that would eliminate funding for the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). UNFPA is an international development agency that promotes the right of every woman, man and child to enjoy a life of health and equal opportunity. UNFPA works to ensure that every pregnancy is wanted, every birth is safe, every young person is free of HIV, and every girl and woman is treated with dignity and respect. Currently, the U.S. is contributing $40 million a year to support UNFPA's work, but opposition is building in the U.S. House of Representatives.
(People tell me that we have to prepare for growing population, because you can't stop our numbers expanding. Really? Nothing?
Republicans are on the wrong side of so many of the world's critical problems, and will in the not distant future pay the price; in the meantime, we are paying it. JS)
“In this world of sin and sorrow there is always something to be thankful for; as for me, I rejoice that I am not a Republican.”
"Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard." H.L. Mencken
Worst Places in the World to be a Woman
Women around the world face grave challenges like: rape, infanticide, female genital mutilation, and sex trafficking. This month the Thomson Reuters Foundation released a survey listing the five worst countries in the world to be a woman. The survey ranked each country by six factors: health, discrimination and lack of access to resources, cultural and religious practices, sexual violence, human trafficking, and conflict-related violence. The results showed that Afghanistan was the worst place in the world to be a woman followed by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Pakistan, India, and Somalia in decreasing order.
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12. Scientific American
EXTINCTION COUNTDOWN: Last Wild Camels in China Could be Saved with Embryonic Transfer Technique Perfected in U.A.E.
The Camel Reproduction Center in the United Arab Emirates, which in 2009 produced the world's first cloned camel calf, could come to an endangered Chinese camel's aid
http://links.email.scientificamerican.com/ctt?kn=25&ms=MzY3OTU4NzUS1&r=NTM5NzIzNTA1NgS2&b=2&j=MTA1NzM0NTg3S0&mt=1&rt=0
EARTHTALK: Air Pollution Triggers Heart Risk for Cyclists
In big cities, cyclists breathe an array of pollutants from exhaust-spewing cars and trucks
http://links.email.scientificamerican.com/ctt?kn=33&ms=MzY3OTU4NzUS1&r=NTM5NzIzNTA1NgS2&b=2&j=MTA1NzM0NTg3S0&mt=1&rt=0
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13. July-September Issue of Bay Nature Highlights San Francisco Bay
The Return of the Harbor Porpoises - The Launch of the Bay Water Trail - 50 Years of Save the Bay
Berkeley, July 7, 2011 -- The July-September issue of Bay Nature magazine puts the Bay itself front and center, starting with some good news: the auspicious return of harbor porpoises to the waters of San Francisco Bay for the first time in over six decades! This shorter, stockier cousin of the dolphin has been spotted around the Bay in healthy numbers, reports cetacean researcher Bill Keener, and the best place to spot — and study — them is from the pedestrian walkway across the Golden Gate Bridge! Keener will share more of his pioneering research and thrilling photos at a talk on this homecoming at Aquarium of the Bay on Pier 39 in San Francisco, on Thursday, August 4 at 7:00 p.m.
The new issue also:
• explores the opening of the new Bay Water Trail, designed to be an aquatic counterpart to the networks of hiking and cycling trails around the Bay;
and
• marks the 50th anniversary of Save the Bay by visiting the organization's native plant nurseries, which play a critical role in efforts to restore the Bay's shoreline. .
Other features in the issue include an inspiring interview with geologist and educator Doris Sloan, who didn't let the male-dominated world of geology get in the way of her passion for rocks and the stories they tell.
And fans of the small and the furry will be pleased to hear that mesopredators reign supreme in the backyards and streets of the Bay Area: the cast of regulars includes skunks, raccoons, possums and bobcats.
Bay Nature Magazine is dedicated to the informed and joyful exploration of the natural world of the Bay Area, The magazine is available both by subscription and at bookstores, newstands and park visitor centers throughout the Bay Area. Visit Baynature.org to learn more.
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14.
My Sweet, Crushed Angel
You have not danced so badly, my dear,
Trying to hold hands with the Beautiful One.
You have waltzed with great style,
My sweet, crushed angel,
To have ever neared God's Heart at all.
Our Partner is notoriously difficult to follow,
And even His best musicians are not always easy
To hear.
So what if the music has stopped for a while.
So what
If the price of admission to the Divine
Is out of reach tonight.
So what, my dear,
If you do not have the ante to gamble for Real Love.
The mind and body are famous
For holding the heart ransom,
But Hafiz knows the Beloved's eternal habits.
Have patience,
For He will not be able to resist your longing
For long.
You have not danced so badly, my dear,
Trying to kiss the Beautiful One.
You have actually waltzed with tremendous style,
O my sweet,
Oh my sweet, crushed angel.
~ Hafiz ~
(I Heard God Laughing - Renderings of Hafiz by Daniel Ladinsky)
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15. Cal-IPC supports invasive plant managers throughout California.
Support Cal-IPC, make a donation today!
Why do professionals and volunteers throughout the state remove invasive plants? For some it's protecting wildflowers, recreation, or wildlife habitat. For Bruce Delgado, who pulls invasive plants throughout the Monterey Peninsula, there are many reasons!
Here are Bruce's top 10 reasons he volunteers to pull weeds:
10. Walk my talk (by giving back to the planet)
9. Get my aggression out in a positive way
8. Its great exercise and more fun than yoga!
7. Maintain hope for the natural world
6. Do something! (about the needs of our environment)
5. Work with inspiring people
4. Connect with nature on and off trail
3. Experience the seasons every year
2. Rejoice at the flush of wildflowers at formerly weed-infested sites
1. Feel empowered by interacting with nature, not just viewing or walking through it.
We hope that Bruce's Top 10 List has inspired you, and that you'll make a donation to Cal-IPC.
Here's the link: http://www.crowdrise.com/cal-ipc20th
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16. Notes & Queries, Guardian Weekly
Meet the president – and First Dude
The Americans have a first lady, but if they elect a married woman as president, what will they call her husband?
HBH – her better half.
Cynthia Dummett, Basingstoke, UK
• Either Dude or Dud.
Roger Morrell, Perth, Western Australia
• Here in Australia, our female prime minister's long-term partner is known as the First Bloke.
Hilary Vallance, Sydney, Australia
• The governor of Washington state is Christine Gregoire and her husband is called the First Gentleman.
Barbara Long, Seattle, Washington, US
• Whatsisname.
John Ralston, Mountain View, California, US
• A first!
David Ross, Robertsbridge, UK
• President Consort, perhaps – or maybe a Republican would be First Gentleman, while First Guy would better suit a Democrat.
Alaisdair Raynham, Truro, Cornwall, UK
• I don't know, but a woman seeking the presidency should improve her chances of election by marrying someone whose first name was Adam (the first man).
Walter H Kemp, Halifax, NS, Canada
• Bill.
Catherine Andreadis, Ottawa, Canada
• William, the Duke of Arkansas.
John Anderson, Pukekohe, New Zealand
• Mr Clinton. Though in this particular case, it might be confusing, since ex-presidents retain the honorific.
Atul Sharma, Montreal, Canada
• He'd be her coyboy.
E Slack, L'Isle Jourdain, France
• Poor gent.
Lynne Weinerman, Mendocino, California, US
• Second fiddle.
Margaret Wyeth, Victoria, BC, Canada
When friction isn't enough
How did cavemen cut their nails?
For those on their fingers and thumbs, they used their teeth: for those on their toes, what are friends for?
Philip Stigger, Burnaby, BC, Canada
• Bit them, of course, hence the term tooth and nail.
Bryan Furnass, Canberra, Australia
• Between a rock and a hard place.
Ross Kelly, Paddington, NSW, Australia
• With a saber-tooth tiger – very carefully.
James Carroll, Geneva, Switzerland
• They didn't need nails – the cave was their house.
Adrian Cooper, Queens Park, NSW, Australia
• Let me chew on that.
Sally Foster, Edinburgh, UK |