Northtown's McGonagall conducts the raffle, floating
above the bookstore counter...
5 hours ago
Saturday, July 21, 2007
Sunday, March 04, 2007
Mike Thompson Steps Up
Righting Wrongs
Flying on America's commercial airlines stopped being enjoyable some time ago. As airlines cut back service and airport security rituals became a major headache, you were lucky if it was merely annoying. Now flying is becoming so stressful and chaotic that what used to be routine travel is routinely hazardous to your health and safety.
It's bad enough that in a cross-country trip I just booked, which involves several stops, crossing three time zones and more than 12 hours, there is not a single meal offered on any flight. That, along with the dry air and poor ventilation, makes these flights a health hazard, and adds to the effects of jet lag. (You're supposed to drink a lot of water, but how can you do that when they don't let you take water on board, and they don't give it to you?) But the spectre of passengers incarcerated in a plane on a runway for eight hours, as happened several times last month, goes well beyond the pale.
JetBlue, the airline with the most notorious delays and incarcerations, responded with its passenger Bill of Rights, which the business boosters immediately lauded. But its provisions were so weak as to be insulting. Why, they promised to keep you locked up on the runway for no more than five hours! Their compensations were on the order of free fries with your next purchase of a big mac.
The only rights passengers can get will come from the federal government, and apply to all airlines, which taxpayers as well as frequent flyers subsidize. So it's significant that a passenger Bill of Rights has been proposed by our own Member of Congress, Mike Thompson. And it's a very reasonable proposal. For example, from Thompson's website:
These standards include allowing passengers to deplane after three hours on the tarmac, while providing pilots with flexibility if takeoff is imminent, and providing passengers with adequate food, safe drinking water, clean and sanitary facilities, air ventilation and a reasonable temperature while waiting on an aircraft. Airlines must also keep passengers fully informed about the timing and cause of flight delays and cancellations.
Also: Calls on the FAA to work with airlines to allow long-delayed flights to offload passengers who choose to disembark – without losing that flight’s position in the departure sequence.
These and other provisions are sensible, and should become part of the contract that airlines enter into when they sell tickets. In this way passengers can expect the same standards on every airline, and no airline is singled out for a particular burden the others don't have to bear. That's the whole logic of government regulation.
Mike Thompson is also getting support for his bill to set a timetable for the redeployment of U.S. troops in Iraq--some 45 bipartisan cosponsors so far. Thompson, a Vietnam vet, authored the bill with Rep. Patrick Murphy of PA, an Iraq vet. It is sponsored in the Senate by Senator Barack Obama, and in that regard will be a test of his leadership as he contends for the Democratic Party nomination for President. But here in Humboldt HR 787 is Mike's bill:
I’ve been against this war since the beginning and think our troops should have been redeployed long ago,” Thompson said. “Our troops have done everything we’ve asked of them and they shouldn’t be in the middle of Iraq’s civil war. The Iraqi government should step up and take responsibility for securing their country.”
Flying on America's commercial airlines stopped being enjoyable some time ago. As airlines cut back service and airport security rituals became a major headache, you were lucky if it was merely annoying. Now flying is becoming so stressful and chaotic that what used to be routine travel is routinely hazardous to your health and safety.
It's bad enough that in a cross-country trip I just booked, which involves several stops, crossing three time zones and more than 12 hours, there is not a single meal offered on any flight. That, along with the dry air and poor ventilation, makes these flights a health hazard, and adds to the effects of jet lag. (You're supposed to drink a lot of water, but how can you do that when they don't let you take water on board, and they don't give it to you?) But the spectre of passengers incarcerated in a plane on a runway for eight hours, as happened several times last month, goes well beyond the pale.
JetBlue, the airline with the most notorious delays and incarcerations, responded with its passenger Bill of Rights, which the business boosters immediately lauded. But its provisions were so weak as to be insulting. Why, they promised to keep you locked up on the runway for no more than five hours! Their compensations were on the order of free fries with your next purchase of a big mac.
The only rights passengers can get will come from the federal government, and apply to all airlines, which taxpayers as well as frequent flyers subsidize. So it's significant that a passenger Bill of Rights has been proposed by our own Member of Congress, Mike Thompson. And it's a very reasonable proposal. For example, from Thompson's website:
These standards include allowing passengers to deplane after three hours on the tarmac, while providing pilots with flexibility if takeoff is imminent, and providing passengers with adequate food, safe drinking water, clean and sanitary facilities, air ventilation and a reasonable temperature while waiting on an aircraft. Airlines must also keep passengers fully informed about the timing and cause of flight delays and cancellations.
Also: Calls on the FAA to work with airlines to allow long-delayed flights to offload passengers who choose to disembark – without losing that flight’s position in the departure sequence.
These and other provisions are sensible, and should become part of the contract that airlines enter into when they sell tickets. In this way passengers can expect the same standards on every airline, and no airline is singled out for a particular burden the others don't have to bear. That's the whole logic of government regulation.
Mike Thompson is also getting support for his bill to set a timetable for the redeployment of U.S. troops in Iraq--some 45 bipartisan cosponsors so far. Thompson, a Vietnam vet, authored the bill with Rep. Patrick Murphy of PA, an Iraq vet. It is sponsored in the Senate by Senator Barack Obama, and in that regard will be a test of his leadership as he contends for the Democratic Party nomination for President. But here in Humboldt HR 787 is Mike's bill:
I’ve been against this war since the beginning and think our troops should have been redeployed long ago,” Thompson said. “Our troops have done everything we’ve asked of them and they shouldn’t be in the middle of Iraq’s civil war. The Iraqi government should step up and take responsibility for securing their country.”
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Earth to North Coast
This is as close to a snow scene as we've had in Arcata, but
it's after a hail storm this past week. BK photo.
Cold and Quake: A Wake-Up Call?
In a relatively isolated, largely rural area, natural forces are seldom out of the news. Right now they're dominating. Like the rest of the country, we had an unusual January--in our case, it was sunnier, drier and warmer than usual. (Nationally it was the hottest January on record.) And like much of the rest of the country, our February has been much different: wetter (bringing rainfall to about double the average for the year to date) and colder (45 was the high in Arcata yesterday, and that's unusual).
The hail storm the other afternoon was also pretty unusual, in that it gave Arcata streets that winter wonderland appearance for a half hour or so. I was out in it, standing under the shelter of a tree for awhile on H Street towards Northtown, and saw one young woman dash out of her house to snap a photo, and a couple of kids trying desperately to make "snowballs" and throw them before the whole thing disappeared. I got home just in time to take a few photos myself. There was still a remnant of white on the ground when a hummingbird came by the feeder.
Snow and storms in the mountains have been a big problem. Some of the few roads that connect us with the outside world have been closed because of snow or slides. One storm knocked out power to a transmitter on Horse Mountain for the local ABC affiliate for days. Suddenlink, our new cable company, got the ABC feed in time for the Oscars Sunday, which explained the patches of black screens and silence where local ads would normally go.
In terms of the Big Picture, weather is naturally variable and there are trends that play themselves out for a series of years, but despite locally active Climate Crisis deniers, global heating is clearly changing weather patterns. As to near-term effects, the devil can be in the details. For instance, our total rainfall is about normal since July, but we've been experiencing different winter patterns for several years now, with the rain that used to fall over several months coming later and more intensively. That's bound to have an effect on life in the rivers, forests and fields, as has been seen elsewhere when, for example, the balance between predator and prey species has been upset, and migrating birds or birds hatching chicks at a certain time of year aren't finding the food they normally do, because the weather has altered insect cycles. And as the climate has grown warmer, some species expand into new areas, creating various kinds of havoc. All this can eventually affect us--food and water supply, behavior of wildlife, etc. I hope our scientists are monitoring this here. Anticipating the possibility of problems might help the area cope with effects, instead of being completely blindsided by them.
Earth sent another reminder Monday morning with a 5.4 magnitude earthquake about 35 miles off the coast and south of here, at 4:19 AM. I was still awake at the time, sitting right here at the computer, and Pema the cat had just come by to find out why. The ripple went right under us, and Pema lost her footing for a second. No damage was reported anyway, due to the distance of the quake from land--5.4 is in the "moderate" range, so it could have done some damage otherwise.
There was an all-day earthquake prepardedness drill at HSU a few weeks ago, which in itself was a step forward, although the only local newspaper that said a word about it--the HSU student newspaper, the Lumberjack--opined that it wasn't well organized, didn't involve enough people and was generally taken too casually. At one point a Coast Guard helicopter landed on the HSU soccer field. I happened to be in the vicinity when it did. I watched as the two people inside stood and looked towards where an ambulance and a knot of people were, but if there was supposed to be a practice run of stretchers or whatever, none happened while I was there. HSU President Richmond came by where I was standing, then went down closer to the field. I saw a lot of nodding but that's all. I walked away and a few seconds later, the helicopter was in the air again.
I'll say it again: for a place that has earthquakes and storms, there's no excuse for the apparently cavalier attitude towards prepardeness here. And when we get to really sustained and complicated crises like a pandemic, a well-constructed plan that everyone in the community understands could be the difference between life and death for hundreds and maybe thousands. But apparently this isn't interesting enough for media to hone in on it, or important enough for the public and public officials to give it priority.
In a relatively isolated, largely rural area, natural forces are seldom out of the news. Right now they're dominating. Like the rest of the country, we had an unusual January--in our case, it was sunnier, drier and warmer than usual. (Nationally it was the hottest January on record.) And like much of the rest of the country, our February has been much different: wetter (bringing rainfall to about double the average for the year to date) and colder (45 was the high in Arcata yesterday, and that's unusual).
The hail storm the other afternoon was also pretty unusual, in that it gave Arcata streets that winter wonderland appearance for a half hour or so. I was out in it, standing under the shelter of a tree for awhile on H Street towards Northtown, and saw one young woman dash out of her house to snap a photo, and a couple of kids trying desperately to make "snowballs" and throw them before the whole thing disappeared. I got home just in time to take a few photos myself. There was still a remnant of white on the ground when a hummingbird came by the feeder.
Snow and storms in the mountains have been a big problem. Some of the few roads that connect us with the outside world have been closed because of snow or slides. One storm knocked out power to a transmitter on Horse Mountain for the local ABC affiliate for days. Suddenlink, our new cable company, got the ABC feed in time for the Oscars Sunday, which explained the patches of black screens and silence where local ads would normally go.
In terms of the Big Picture, weather is naturally variable and there are trends that play themselves out for a series of years, but despite locally active Climate Crisis deniers, global heating is clearly changing weather patterns. As to near-term effects, the devil can be in the details. For instance, our total rainfall is about normal since July, but we've been experiencing different winter patterns for several years now, with the rain that used to fall over several months coming later and more intensively. That's bound to have an effect on life in the rivers, forests and fields, as has been seen elsewhere when, for example, the balance between predator and prey species has been upset, and migrating birds or birds hatching chicks at a certain time of year aren't finding the food they normally do, because the weather has altered insect cycles. And as the climate has grown warmer, some species expand into new areas, creating various kinds of havoc. All this can eventually affect us--food and water supply, behavior of wildlife, etc. I hope our scientists are monitoring this here. Anticipating the possibility of problems might help the area cope with effects, instead of being completely blindsided by them.
Earth sent another reminder Monday morning with a 5.4 magnitude earthquake about 35 miles off the coast and south of here, at 4:19 AM. I was still awake at the time, sitting right here at the computer, and Pema the cat had just come by to find out why. The ripple went right under us, and Pema lost her footing for a second. No damage was reported anyway, due to the distance of the quake from land--5.4 is in the "moderate" range, so it could have done some damage otherwise.
There was an all-day earthquake prepardedness drill at HSU a few weeks ago, which in itself was a step forward, although the only local newspaper that said a word about it--the HSU student newspaper, the Lumberjack--opined that it wasn't well organized, didn't involve enough people and was generally taken too casually. At one point a Coast Guard helicopter landed on the HSU soccer field. I happened to be in the vicinity when it did. I watched as the two people inside stood and looked towards where an ambulance and a knot of people were, but if there was supposed to be a practice run of stretchers or whatever, none happened while I was there. HSU President Richmond came by where I was standing, then went down closer to the field. I saw a lot of nodding but that's all. I walked away and a few seconds later, the helicopter was in the air again.
I'll say it again: for a place that has earthquakes and storms, there's no excuse for the apparently cavalier attitude towards prepardeness here. And when we get to really sustained and complicated crises like a pandemic, a well-constructed plan that everyone in the community understands could be the difference between life and death for hundreds and maybe thousands. But apparently this isn't interesting enough for media to hone in on it, or important enough for the public and public officials to give it priority.
Tuesday, January 02, 2007
North Coast Pix 2006
Before we get deeper into 2007, here are some of my photos from the past year. This is Stephanie Kim, a North Coast ballerina after her premiere performance as the Sugar Plum Fairy in this year's Nutcracker, performed at HSU by North Coast Dance.
The Guantanamo Group of North Coast Quakers continues to meet and use various means to attain their goal of visiting the Guantanamo Bay prisons to offer comfort to prisoners and staff. They are Andrea Armin-Holland, Karin Salzmann, Dr. Fred Adler, Carol Cruickshank and Margaret Thomas Kelso. Not pictured: Dr. Richard Ricklefs.
Thursday, December 28, 2006
Why the apocalypse will not be broadcast
Humboldt cut off from the outside world said the headline in the Eureka Times Standard. On Tuesday, we had our annual Christmas week storm and power outage. I'm not entirely kidding--all the serious outages I recall in the past ten years have been between Christmas and New Years, including the immense storms that caused a lot of flooding and destruction as 1996 became 1997--and literally did cut us off from the rest of the world for awhile (Rt. 101 was closed in both directions, as were portions of other roads, and planes weren't flying into or out of the airport.) Last New Years Eve there was another storm that left us without power for days.This time it was the day after Christmas, and a night and morning of wind and rain left us without electricity for several hours.
But that wasn't what the headline was about. Late in the day we lost all Internet connections and all long distance phone service. There was "a problem" somewhere north of here, but perhaps the most disturbing thing the paper said was that no one knew what it was or exactly where.I'm not sure exactly when Internet service was restored because in the interim we lost our electricity again. Winds raged through here all night and well into the morning--up to 50 mph. The power went down at abot 2:30 am and wasn't restored until Wednesday nightfall, just as we had the fireplace stoked up and were getting the candles in place.
The most maddening thing about this again this year was the lack of information about what was going on. When I lived in Pittsburgh, I could be confident that no matter how silly local radio and TV got--and they were getting increasingly silly---they would all have complete information in any emergency. Some stations would go to an all news format, while others would extend their regularly scheduled newscasts. Because they had regularly scheduled newscasts--on radio stations, at the top of every hour usually, or five minutes before. And probably news headlines at half-past.
But here on the North Coast we have no reliable source of news and information from any radio or television station. My guess is that there are three basic problems. First, conglomerates bought up local stations and ditched local news. With little or no local presence they are unable as well as unwilling to fulfill their public duty, which I would argue they are required to do by law since they are using our public airwaves.
Second, this is a small media market that has trouble getting and keeping experienced newspeople. It's easy to make fun of the teenagers who staff the news shows, with their fake media voices trying to make fluff and half-baked stories sound important. But in emergencies, when the public needs accurate information, it's not funny. The lack of it has a real potential to compound tragedy, if not cause some.
The third reason is that local media don't take the responsibility to inform the public seriously. Where are the regularly scheduled radio newscasts ? And if they can't afford to do them every day, how about scheduling news in times like this, on the hour and half-hour, so listeners will know when to tune in?
What did I hear today? A couple of guys grudgingly offering a few tidbits of info as part of their Studio 60/Daily Show repartee, in the midst of the discussion that really interested them: have any good bands ever come out of Ferndale? And a few mumbled sentences in the local break of All Things Considered, when we were told that power might or might not be off in some places, and if it was, it would be restored as soon as possible.
Isn't anyone being trained to make phone calls and insist on answers? Is it too much to ask to be able to get that information without listening for it amongst hours of music you may not really want to hear?
As beautiful and virtuous as it is, this is a vulnerable place. We are rather easily cut off from the world. We expect a major earthquake that can come at any time, probably accompanied by tsunami. Yet we have no system of obtaining information when we will most need it. There seem as well to be no clear lines of authority for those emergencies, which is something that ought to interest the local print media more than it seems to.
This week wasn't bad (although it's not over.) But the ease with which we lost power and Internet and long distance all at once should be sobering. It's not a joke anymore, if it ever was.
Humboldt cut off from the outside world said the headline in the Eureka Times Standard. On Tuesday, we had our annual Christmas week storm and power outage. I'm not entirely kidding--all the serious outages I recall in the past ten years have been between Christmas and New Years, including the immense storms that caused a lot of flooding and destruction as 1996 became 1997--and literally did cut us off from the rest of the world for awhile (Rt. 101 was closed in both directions, as were portions of other roads, and planes weren't flying into or out of the airport.) Last New Years Eve there was another storm that left us without power for days.This time it was the day after Christmas, and a night and morning of wind and rain left us without electricity for several hours.
But that wasn't what the headline was about. Late in the day we lost all Internet connections and all long distance phone service. There was "a problem" somewhere north of here, but perhaps the most disturbing thing the paper said was that no one knew what it was or exactly where.I'm not sure exactly when Internet service was restored because in the interim we lost our electricity again. Winds raged through here all night and well into the morning--up to 50 mph. The power went down at abot 2:30 am and wasn't restored until Wednesday nightfall, just as we had the fireplace stoked up and were getting the candles in place.
The most maddening thing about this again this year was the lack of information about what was going on. When I lived in Pittsburgh, I could be confident that no matter how silly local radio and TV got--and they were getting increasingly silly---they would all have complete information in any emergency. Some stations would go to an all news format, while others would extend their regularly scheduled newscasts. Because they had regularly scheduled newscasts--on radio stations, at the top of every hour usually, or five minutes before. And probably news headlines at half-past.
But here on the North Coast we have no reliable source of news and information from any radio or television station. My guess is that there are three basic problems. First, conglomerates bought up local stations and ditched local news. With little or no local presence they are unable as well as unwilling to fulfill their public duty, which I would argue they are required to do by law since they are using our public airwaves.
Second, this is a small media market that has trouble getting and keeping experienced newspeople. It's easy to make fun of the teenagers who staff the news shows, with their fake media voices trying to make fluff and half-baked stories sound important. But in emergencies, when the public needs accurate information, it's not funny. The lack of it has a real potential to compound tragedy, if not cause some.
The third reason is that local media don't take the responsibility to inform the public seriously. Where are the regularly scheduled radio newscasts ? And if they can't afford to do them every day, how about scheduling news in times like this, on the hour and half-hour, so listeners will know when to tune in?
What did I hear today? A couple of guys grudgingly offering a few tidbits of info as part of their Studio 60/Daily Show repartee, in the midst of the discussion that really interested them: have any good bands ever come out of Ferndale? And a few mumbled sentences in the local break of All Things Considered, when we were told that power might or might not be off in some places, and if it was, it would be restored as soon as possible.
Isn't anyone being trained to make phone calls and insist on answers? Is it too much to ask to be able to get that information without listening for it amongst hours of music you may not really want to hear?
As beautiful and virtuous as it is, this is a vulnerable place. We are rather easily cut off from the world. We expect a major earthquake that can come at any time, probably accompanied by tsunami. Yet we have no system of obtaining information when we will most need it. There seem as well to be no clear lines of authority for those emergencies, which is something that ought to interest the local print media more than it seems to.
This week wasn't bad (although it's not over.) But the ease with which we lost power and Internet and long distance all at once should be sobering. It's not a joke anymore, if it ever was.
Friday, September 29, 2006
So far...but not for long..
If you follow my more active blogsite, Captain Future's Dreaming Up Daily, you've no doubt noticed that the Climate Crisis is one of my major themes. But adding to the surreality of this moment, so far it seems that at least in the most obvious ways, global warming has been pretty good to the North Coast. When most of the nation and much of the world was broiling, in drought or being inundated with torrential rains and struck with wind and lightning storms, we had a fantastic summer, at least on our coastal strip. We've had a warm early fall; although this has often been the warmest and sunniest time of the year since I've been here, it seems that this fall has been ever balmier and clearer.
But as much as I enjoyed it--and I was well aware how lucky we were, and how beautiful it was--it was with some unease. That feeling increased for the four days I spent in Seattle in early September. It was bright sunshine, clear skies and 80 plus degrees the entire time. People who live there said they hadn't had rain in weeks. I've never seen Seattle like that. Maybe it's seasonal, and in my many previous visits I hadn't been there in early September, but as well as being glorious, it felt eerie.
We have other signs here, too. As in this Times-Standard story about last Saturday, which set a record high for that date, and also a record low. It got up to 82 in Eureka on Saturday afternoon, and down to 42 that night. It's the first double record like that, the paper said, since the late 1800s, which is almost as far back as official white people's records go hereabouts. Not that this alone proves anything. But it does add to the general sense of weirdness, and of more to come.
For under the obvious are other trends. It seems to be getting drier. We can see the fallout from that--the smoky air from forest fires, the mountain lions wandering into neighborhoods in search of water. Because of the time spans and the personal nature of perception of the weather (do winters seem warmer to me because they are, or because for our first years in this house we had less insulation, worse windows and no central heating?) we can't be sure, but we do get a sense of it, and with only that, comes a certain unease, a vague disquiet and anxiety.
Because of the complexities of weather and climate as well as the complexities of our own perceptions, we have science to measure, compare and quantify, according not only to effect but to causes. And climate science is telling us clearly and in as unanimous a voice as science ever has, that we're into an era of serious climate change that could very well become catastrophic to millions of people at minimum, and to all of human civilizaton and most of the nature we know at the maximum, which is not far from likely.
I read this stuff a lot (along with the latest on how we might cope with the near-term effects and even perhaps prevent the ultimate catastrophes in the longer term) and it's become part of me. So it's interesting to me to read something like Bob Doran's account in the North Coast Journal of behind-the-scenes problems concerning this year's North Country Fair. I went to the Fair this year for the first time in several years, for a couple of specific purposes (like gift shopping), which included this one: it was a beautiful day in a world about to change.
Apparently a lot had changed behind the scenes at the Fair--according to Bob, not for the better. But to me it was like it always has been, at least on beautiful days. I enjoyed seeing the people, especially children, several of whom I saw in rapt attention to a puppeteer. I enjoyed the food at the African booth. The stalls, the glass and metal and pottery objects glinting in the sun, all the color, the fabric, the shapes. And for me it all had an air about it that I imagined as being somewhat like that in those movies (I thinking one was called "The Shooting Party") about the years or year just before World War I, when life changed abruptly and, over time, almost completely for many if not most people, when most people didn't realize it was going to change. And they certainly didn't know how life would change.
The Climate Crisis could bring that kind of change even in the lifetimes of the children or even the college students at the Fair, or--as I am beginning to suspect from the alarm with which scientists are greeting the latest data--at least the start of it in my own lifetime. Of course, I'm hoping that intentional changes will start soon, in an effort to save the future. Either way, such change may or may not be as abrupt as the effects of a Big earthquake, but once it has started, it will roll on, faster and faster. There will be no going back.
Of course, the North Country Fair has just enough of a feeling of timelessness--of the most ancient marketplaces and harvest festivals--that something of it will survive. But the people who go to it simply will not feel the same about their lives and the world as the people who attended this year's fair.
That was in my mind and in my feelings that day. By coincidence, I guess it was the same day as that double high-low temperature record.
Reading Bob's story prompted another thought about it that seems apropos to this blogsite's erstwhile theme. Becoming native to a place is partly a process of learning its history, and especially learning it through people you know, and through experience, as Bob knows it, or as Barry Blake knows North Coast theatre. But place has other dimensions, and other time scales. So maybe there is room for people like me as well, and ways for us to contribute our kinds of perceptions, and to in our ways to become native to this place.
If you follow my more active blogsite, Captain Future's Dreaming Up Daily, you've no doubt noticed that the Climate Crisis is one of my major themes. But adding to the surreality of this moment, so far it seems that at least in the most obvious ways, global warming has been pretty good to the North Coast. When most of the nation and much of the world was broiling, in drought or being inundated with torrential rains and struck with wind and lightning storms, we had a fantastic summer, at least on our coastal strip. We've had a warm early fall; although this has often been the warmest and sunniest time of the year since I've been here, it seems that this fall has been ever balmier and clearer.
But as much as I enjoyed it--and I was well aware how lucky we were, and how beautiful it was--it was with some unease. That feeling increased for the four days I spent in Seattle in early September. It was bright sunshine, clear skies and 80 plus degrees the entire time. People who live there said they hadn't had rain in weeks. I've never seen Seattle like that. Maybe it's seasonal, and in my many previous visits I hadn't been there in early September, but as well as being glorious, it felt eerie.
We have other signs here, too. As in this Times-Standard story about last Saturday, which set a record high for that date, and also a record low. It got up to 82 in Eureka on Saturday afternoon, and down to 42 that night. It's the first double record like that, the paper said, since the late 1800s, which is almost as far back as official white people's records go hereabouts. Not that this alone proves anything. But it does add to the general sense of weirdness, and of more to come.
For under the obvious are other trends. It seems to be getting drier. We can see the fallout from that--the smoky air from forest fires, the mountain lions wandering into neighborhoods in search of water. Because of the time spans and the personal nature of perception of the weather (do winters seem warmer to me because they are, or because for our first years in this house we had less insulation, worse windows and no central heating?) we can't be sure, but we do get a sense of it, and with only that, comes a certain unease, a vague disquiet and anxiety.
Because of the complexities of weather and climate as well as the complexities of our own perceptions, we have science to measure, compare and quantify, according not only to effect but to causes. And climate science is telling us clearly and in as unanimous a voice as science ever has, that we're into an era of serious climate change that could very well become catastrophic to millions of people at minimum, and to all of human civilizaton and most of the nature we know at the maximum, which is not far from likely.
I read this stuff a lot (along with the latest on how we might cope with the near-term effects and even perhaps prevent the ultimate catastrophes in the longer term) and it's become part of me. So it's interesting to me to read something like Bob Doran's account in the North Coast Journal of behind-the-scenes problems concerning this year's North Country Fair. I went to the Fair this year for the first time in several years, for a couple of specific purposes (like gift shopping), which included this one: it was a beautiful day in a world about to change.
Apparently a lot had changed behind the scenes at the Fair--according to Bob, not for the better. But to me it was like it always has been, at least on beautiful days. I enjoyed seeing the people, especially children, several of whom I saw in rapt attention to a puppeteer. I enjoyed the food at the African booth. The stalls, the glass and metal and pottery objects glinting in the sun, all the color, the fabric, the shapes. And for me it all had an air about it that I imagined as being somewhat like that in those movies (I thinking one was called "The Shooting Party") about the years or year just before World War I, when life changed abruptly and, over time, almost completely for many if not most people, when most people didn't realize it was going to change. And they certainly didn't know how life would change.
The Climate Crisis could bring that kind of change even in the lifetimes of the children or even the college students at the Fair, or--as I am beginning to suspect from the alarm with which scientists are greeting the latest data--at least the start of it in my own lifetime. Of course, I'm hoping that intentional changes will start soon, in an effort to save the future. Either way, such change may or may not be as abrupt as the effects of a Big earthquake, but once it has started, it will roll on, faster and faster. There will be no going back.
Of course, the North Country Fair has just enough of a feeling of timelessness--of the most ancient marketplaces and harvest festivals--that something of it will survive. But the people who go to it simply will not feel the same about their lives and the world as the people who attended this year's fair.
That was in my mind and in my feelings that day. By coincidence, I guess it was the same day as that double high-low temperature record.
Reading Bob's story prompted another thought about it that seems apropos to this blogsite's erstwhile theme. Becoming native to a place is partly a process of learning its history, and especially learning it through people you know, and through experience, as Bob knows it, or as Barry Blake knows North Coast theatre. But place has other dimensions, and other time scales. So maybe there is room for people like me as well, and ways for us to contribute our kinds of perceptions, and to in our ways to become native to this place.
Tuesday, August 01, 2006
A Beautiful Summer, With Losses
Should I feel guilty? I feel grateful. While most of the nation, and even friends who live a few miles away, are suffering through a very hot summer, the weather in Arcata has been magnificent. We've had sunshine and cool air. The strawberry crop this year is terrific (though it looks like the heavy spring rains suppressed the tomatoes), the hummers are humming, and we've just spotted a butterfly.
But the summer hasn't been without loss of prominent members of the North Coast community. Both were unexpected. The most recent, the one that is affecting a lot of people at the moment, is the death of Tim McKay, who began the North Coast Environmental Center more than 30 years ago, and has been a stalwart of the environmental community ever since. He died of a heart attack at 59. But at least he was doing something he loved--birding--and in the company of someone he loved.
I met him only a few times. I was a guest on his radio program once. But his Center was so important to this place that it is inevitable that it plays a role, known and unknown, in our lives here. Sometimes in unpredictable ways. I first knew that the Seventh Generation Fund was here, for example, when I read a summary of one of his many interviews with Chris Peters, its director. Seventh Gen became my entry to learning more about the Native community here and elsewhere.
McKay was a giant of this place, and his influence was felt beyond it. A short summary of his achievements is in the Press Democrat; John Driscoll of the Times Standard provides more context and memory. The North Coast Journal collected reminicences for its cover story. Through the voices of people who knew him well, a portrait of the person begins to emerge. Sid Dominitz, long time editor of ECONews (who I did meet in the first year I was here) quotes McKay's philosophy of activism: "Persistence is victory," and the methodology of "endless pressure endlessly applied." McKay lived it, though his persistence was not angry and blaming but centered. It strikes me that it takes someone with the temperament of a birder to make that work.
Earlier this summer, Eric Rofes died of a heart attack at age 51. Christina Accomando, a colleague at HSU, wrote this about him in the North Coast Journal. Again, I met him only once or twice, in connection with the very valuable Education Summit he organized at HSU every year. I was surprised to learn how much of a national figure he was, and well-known in one of my old stomping grounds, the Boston area. So the Boston Globe article on him was quite a revelation to me.
I don't want to project my own ignorance on the rest of the North Coast. Yet I wonder if our provincialism didn't give less value to Rofes than he deserved. Certainly I thought the importance of that unique Education Summit was not appreciated as it should be, and I know that frustrated him. What will happen to it now?
Of course a lot of people are asking, what will happen to the North Coast Environmental Center? Whose voice will replace Tim McKay's at meetings, on the radio, in hearings and in Congress? These are very great losses for this community. Let's hope the example of these two men inspire others to come forward and continue their work.
Should I feel guilty? I feel grateful. While most of the nation, and even friends who live a few miles away, are suffering through a very hot summer, the weather in Arcata has been magnificent. We've had sunshine and cool air. The strawberry crop this year is terrific (though it looks like the heavy spring rains suppressed the tomatoes), the hummers are humming, and we've just spotted a butterfly.
But the summer hasn't been without loss of prominent members of the North Coast community. Both were unexpected. The most recent, the one that is affecting a lot of people at the moment, is the death of Tim McKay, who began the North Coast Environmental Center more than 30 years ago, and has been a stalwart of the environmental community ever since. He died of a heart attack at 59. But at least he was doing something he loved--birding--and in the company of someone he loved.
I met him only a few times. I was a guest on his radio program once. But his Center was so important to this place that it is inevitable that it plays a role, known and unknown, in our lives here. Sometimes in unpredictable ways. I first knew that the Seventh Generation Fund was here, for example, when I read a summary of one of his many interviews with Chris Peters, its director. Seventh Gen became my entry to learning more about the Native community here and elsewhere.
McKay was a giant of this place, and his influence was felt beyond it. A short summary of his achievements is in the Press Democrat; John Driscoll of the Times Standard provides more context and memory. The North Coast Journal collected reminicences for its cover story. Through the voices of people who knew him well, a portrait of the person begins to emerge. Sid Dominitz, long time editor of ECONews (who I did meet in the first year I was here) quotes McKay's philosophy of activism: "Persistence is victory," and the methodology of "endless pressure endlessly applied." McKay lived it, though his persistence was not angry and blaming but centered. It strikes me that it takes someone with the temperament of a birder to make that work.
Earlier this summer, Eric Rofes died of a heart attack at age 51. Christina Accomando, a colleague at HSU, wrote this about him in the North Coast Journal. Again, I met him only once or twice, in connection with the very valuable Education Summit he organized at HSU every year. I was surprised to learn how much of a national figure he was, and well-known in one of my old stomping grounds, the Boston area. So the Boston Globe article on him was quite a revelation to me.
I don't want to project my own ignorance on the rest of the North Coast. Yet I wonder if our provincialism didn't give less value to Rofes than he deserved. Certainly I thought the importance of that unique Education Summit was not appreciated as it should be, and I know that frustrated him. What will happen to it now?
Of course a lot of people are asking, what will happen to the North Coast Environmental Center? Whose voice will replace Tim McKay's at meetings, on the radio, in hearings and in Congress? These are very great losses for this community. Let's hope the example of these two men inspire others to come forward and continue their work.
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