Category: Current Affairs

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I Hear America Braying

Today’s leading contenders for the Rep. Devin Nunes “Totalitarianism Drives Me Crazy” Award: Callers to Rep. Bart Stupak, the anti-abortion Michigan Democrat who played a key role in getting the health-care bill passed the other day. It’s a nice mix of men and women, and almost makes you feel like it’s time to update Walt Whitman’s paean to American voices. These are all filled with such venom that I kind of wonder what part of “pro-life” they (or I) don’t understand. Here’s the CBS News clip on the Stupak calls:

For the record, Stupak said in an interview with the Michigan news site MLive.com that he’s gotten dozens of threats since the vote. And MSNBC reports at least half a dozen other Democrats have been on the receiving end of similar attentions.

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‘Crazy Totalitarian Tactics’

I’ve only recently become acquainted with Representative Devin Nunes, who hails from California’s 21st Congressional District, in the southeastern corner of the Central Valley–big pieces of Fresno and Tulare counties. Nunes came to my attention for his authorship of a bill that would ban cutbacks in federal water shipments from Northern California to his part of the state. The cutbacks he targeted are designed to save endangered fish species, and Nunes’s proposal would allow limits to preserve the fish only if the amount of water shipped south equaled or exceeded the historical maximum. A nice Orwellian touch.

Nunes showed up on our television screen today when we started flipping channels between the NCAA basketball tournament and the C-SPAN coverage of the House health-care vote. During one such channel-changing excursion, Nunes was featured talking about the issue of the day. I just went back and played the online video version of the interview he did, and I guess it’s good to know in a way that his on-the-fringe tactics on water are matched by extremist views on other issues.

During the course of the 29-minute interview, he matter-of-factly declared four times that Democrats were using “totalitarian tactics” (or “crazy totalitarian tactics”) to not just enact health-care legislation but to “usher in a new era of socialism.” Early on, the rather milquetoast-y interviewer asked Nunes about incidents Saturday in which demonstrators opposed to the legislation hurled anti-gay and racist epithets at Democratic congressmen.

Nunes’s response? As the Chicago Tribune’s Eric Zorn, among others, noted:

Q. Can you give us a sense of the flavor of the debate on the floor and what you’re hearing? A lot of angry comments yesterday aimed at a couple of your colleagues including Barney Frank and Congressman John Lewis using the N-word as some of the protesters jeered at him as he walked through the halls of the Capitol.

A. Well, I think that when you, when you use totalitarian tactics people begin to act crazy. I think there’s people that have every right to say what they want. If they want to smear someone, they can do it–it’s not appropriate–and I think I’d stop short of characterizing the 20,000 people who were protesting that all of them were doing that. … I think the left loves to play up a couple incidents here or there, anything to draw attention away from what they are really doing.

Nunes got off a couple of other beauties during the interview. To one veteran who said he loved having government-run health care to cope with his health issues, Nunes essentially said care for veterans is too expensive and the guy shouldn’t expect to be taken care of. He also hews to the ultra-right GOP rhetoric that suggests if big government would just get out of the way, state and local governments could take care of people the way God and the Founding Fathers intended (note to the congressman: Be careful what you wish for. Where do you think all those water projects your folks depend on came from? Also: Have you checked on the condition of the state and local governments recently? They’re begging Washington for help.)

It all made me wonder who this guy represents and what in the world they’re thinking when they send someone like this to Washington. How is it that he feels so safe to so complacently utter such on-the-edge beliefs?

A little quick research on the 21st District:

–For the years 2006-08, the Census Bureau estimates that 19.1 percent of the district’s residents have income that places them below the federal poverty level. (California as a whole:  12.9 percent.)

–In January, California had a statewide unemployment rate of 12.5 percent. That’s low compared to Nunes’s district. Fresno County had an 18.2 percent rate for the month; Tulare County was at 18.3 percent. Here’s the jobless rate percentage for some of the bigger towns in the 21st District:
Clovis: 10.0
Dinuba: 26.4
Lindsay: 22.1
Porterville: 16.9
Reedley: 33.6
Tulare: 15.8
Visalia: 11.6

–The district is 71 percent white, 2.4 percent black. Maybe that’s why it’s no big deal for people to blow off steam using the “N-word.” Here’s a stat that puts the “white” number in perspective, though: 48.5 percent of the residents identify themselves as Hispanic or Latino, and more than 90 percent of that group is of Mexican ancestry. Just 40.6 percent identify themselves as “white only.”

–20 percent of the district’s population is foreign-born, and one-third of that group are naturalized U.S. citizens.

–About 57 percent of the 18-and-over population is registered–though because of the high number of foreign-born in the district, that’s not necessarily a reflection of eligible registrations. Voter registration is 46.6 percent Republican, 34.8 percent Democrat.

None of these numbers explain this guy. More reading into the Nunes files later.

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Finding Your Own Work ‘Blank, Suspicious, Meagre’

“The best I had done seem’d to me blank and suspicious;
My great thoughts, as I supposed them, were they not in reality meagre?”
—Walt Whitman

I notice a week’s absence from this place. I notice it every night at about 11:45 when I realize I’ve got nothing new to post, or nothing that I want to hurry and post, and that I need to be up at 6 in the morning.

At work meantime–at one of the local public radio stations–I’ve been busy. And I suppose I have something to show for that. To wit:

–A blog post on the latest federal water allocations in the Central Valley. “Federal water allocations” sounds like a topic only a mother could love, but alas, it has no mother. The post is here, on KQED’s Climate Watch blog: California Water: A Mostly Adequate Year.

–Another blog post on a major development for California’s endangered coho salmon–a recovery plan from the National Marine Fisheries Service. The post is on KQED’s Quest Science blog: ‘Condor Time’ for California’s Coho.

–And then this: a radio appearance Friday during which I was “debriefed” on a new scientific review of plans to save fish by Stephanie Martin, our local news anchor for the day: New Chapter in Battle to Save Endangered Fish.

So what’s with the introductory quote? I’ve been a big fan of the poem in which those lines appear, “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry,” ever since I first read it. I guess I take heart that someone like Walt Whitman experienced his moments of doubt even at the point he was at the peak of his creative powers. For me, I’m aware more and more of how much I do not get done, how far short my work sometimes falls of what it might be or at least what I wish it to be. This issue arises around all the fish and water topics I’ve taken an interest in. There’s an amazing amount to tell and little time to tell it well; I don’t have the feeling I’m getting it done. That’s largely a function of divided time and attention; my day-to-day work having to think of other things as an editor gets in the way. My conclusion, for now: Try to focus on what I really want to do and on how to make it happen.

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Roadside Attraction

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Spotted on Highway 25, an otherwise gorgeous slice of California, just south of the east entrance to Pinnacles National Monument. I think it may be the first time I’ve seen the anti-illegal-immigrant cause married to the sacrifices of the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

A couple of things come to mind looking at the signs. It’s tempting to look at how many of the war dead–in these and other wars–arrived in the United States without their engraved invites or are the children of parents who came without papers. I’m thinking their sacrifices are still worthy.

It’s also tempting to come up with a list of all the other things the troops may or may not have died for besides “open borders.” Maybe some other night.

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Condors

I feel like I’ve been hearing about California condors all my life. When I was a kid back on the other side of the Mississippi, the story was about the imminent extinction of a giant bird in a faraway place. In the ’80s, the story was about the capture of the last 20 or so wild birds and the beginning of a captive breeding program in Southern California designed to save them. Since then, most of the news has seemed remote and mixed: the condors have reproduced fairly readily in captivity. They’ve been reintroduced to areas in Southern and Central California as well as Arizona and Baja California. According to the San Diego Zoo, which launched the captive breeding effort, the California condor population stands at 348, which 187 birds in the wild. On the other hand, much of what we hear about the wild condors is bad news: birds that have been shot, killed by power lines, or died of lead poisoning after ingesting lead shot or bullets in carcasses they’ve dined on.

Bottom line, the birds have seemed remote to me. Part of another world, for all the effort that’s gone into saving them. That was how I felt before today, anyway.

Yesterday, we drove down to Pinnacles National Monument after hearing earlier in the week that a pair of condors nesting are incubating an egg in the back country there. I hadn’t realized until then that maybe a couple dozen condors have been released in the area, and at least one other pair has produced an egg. The drive is about 130 miles from our place, through San Jose and the towns south of there, then down a road that follows the San Andreas fault into a remote part of San Benito County. We got there too late to see any birds, but stayed in King City, about 30 miles away in the Salinas Valley, so we could go back again.

I wasn’t worried about getting there early because I had been told that condors “keep a teenager’s hours”–since they don’t fly until the day has warmed up a little, you generally don’t see them in the sky until mid- or late morning. We got back to the park at 11 or so, only to discover we couldn’t take Scout, The Dog, on any of the trails. While we stood in the parking lot outside the visitors center, Kate pointed and said, “Look!” Big bird overhead. Didn’t look like a vulture; bigger body and heavier wings. Didn’t look like an eagle; heavier wings with those splayed-out feathers at the tips. We grabbed the binoculars and each looked. No doubt about it: a California condor. In two or three minutes it was joined by one, then four, then five others: six condors wheeling upward–directly above the visitors center. One-thirtieth of the wild population, circling overhead.

There were about 40 people standing in line to catch a shuttle bus to a trailhead higher up, and not one of them was looking up or seemed aware of what was happening above them. I couldn’t resist calling out, “Look up, everyone,” and Kate walked over to point out what we were seeing. Binoculars and spotting scopes came up. I had my radio sound kit with me and talked to a few people about the condors. I found two people in line who had close encounters with them in Big Sur. One of the people was a volunteer condor guide and knew all about the birds, the other had managed a construction project that the condors visited. The endangered birds pulled stunts like pulling out a 50-pound box of nails and strewing it around the site. The condors apparently love to dig into things and would rip out insulation when they could get at it; on one occasion, a bird ripped out the seat from a bulldozer.

In the course of the day, and after having seen the birds myself, they suddenly seem real. Check out the video below, one of the first things I came across when looking for condor information this evening. (And here’s a link to a sort of hammy video with some good shots of the condors at the Pinnacles.) That’s it–except for our bonus sighting of the day: a golden eagle that appeared above the road on our way home and circled for awhile after we pulled into a church parking lot to watch it.

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California Water: Facts Just Roll Right Off

Even when we don't have all the water we want in California, we never suffer a shortage of detailed, interesting information about our water. If you need an example, go and check the California Data Exchange Center, an encyclopedia of constantly updated water statistics maintained by the state Department of Water Resources. If your thirst for water numbers isn't slaked there, go next to the Central Valley Project's operations page, produced by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. Even bathed in all that data, though, you're just getting started. If you want to go into advanced studies, you can pore over the California Water Plan, the bible for state water issues.

You get the picture. We're not hurting for water facts. And you'd think with all that data floating around, at least some would sink in when people talk about water. But when we fight over water, we, or our brains, seem to become impermeable. You can shower them with all the facts and fancy reasoning you want, but it all beads up and runs right off.

What am I talking about? Check the flyer below, distributed in advance of this weekend's California Republican convention. It banners the inflammatory and fact-free claim that the state is in the middle of a government-created drought. But the beautiful part comes at the bottom of the announcement (original punctuation preserved):

Ecological primitivists seek to return California to the 18th century Great Desert and the federal government is an accomplice.

Cutting off water supply to people while wasting that water to the ocean for the sake of declining fish species, is decimating Central Valley agriculture, causing the loss of thousands of jobs, imposing hardship on hundreds of thousands of residents- including many Latinos, and will contribute to worldwide food shortages.

As pure fantasy, it's actually a fun piece of writing. "Ecological primitivists"? I can see the bumper sticker. It's kind of amazing to see all those words bumping around there together and not produce anything that resembles the situation in the real world.

The event has been put together by a right-wing talk radio person, Martha Montelongo, I've never heard of. It ought to be a fun meeting. 

Watercrisis

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Scoop

I’ve gotten to the point in my journalism career where people I once worked with are showing up in the obits. One appeared there yesterday: Malcolm Glover, late cops reporter and rewrite man for The San Francisco Examiner. Here’s the story, which made print more than a week after his death. I didn’t know Malcolm well. I was usually in the position of sweating him on deadline for a short breaking story on something or other. But he went way back and did, as his obit suggests, seem to know everyone in the Police Department (we won’t go into the mixed blessing of that). His nickname was Scoop, though I never knew anyone in the newsroom to actually use that when addressing him.

How far back did he go. Again, as the obit says, back to the days when the paper was owned by William Randolph Hearst. Part of his legend and charm was the tale, which Malcolm didn’t need a lot of prompting to repeat, that his relationship with Hearst dated back to his childhood in the Northern California mill town of McCloud. As Malcolm told it, Hearst was at a general store in town. Malcolm, then a lad of 10 or so, held the door open for him. “The Chief” was so impressed with the lad’s good manners that he asked his name and, one thing leading to another, put him to work on the Hearst’s nearby estate, Wintoon. When Malcolm wanted to try working at one of Hearst’s papers, the old man got him a job as a photographer at The Monarch of the Dailies. Later, he switched to reporting, and outlasted scores of whipper-snappers and young hotshots. Includiing me.

I’m sure some of The Examiner people who worked with him longer have some great stories about him. I’d still love to hear them sometime.

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Reinvigorating the Haiku Economy

Robert Hass’s introduction to “The Essential Haiku” includes a short, unfussy description of where haiku came from and a brief explanation of some of what’s going on behind the scenes in these 17-syllable miniatures. Here’s part of what he says:

“The insistence on time and place was crucial for writers of haiku. The seasonal reference was called a kigo and a haiku was thought to be incomplete without it. … For example, the phrase, ‘deep autumn’ or ‘autumn deepens,’ is traditional and accumulated references and associations from earlier poetry as well as from the Japanese way of thinking about time and change. … [In Buson’s poems] the reference to snow–yuki, which can also mean ‘snowfall’– … is always connected to a sense of exposure to the elements, for which there is also a traditional phrase, fuyuzare, which means ‘winter bareness.’ The practice was sufficiently codified and there was even a rule that the seasonal reference should always appear in the first or third unit of the three phrase poem.

“… These references were conventional and widely available. They were the first way readers of the poems had of locating themselves in the haiku. Its traditional themes–deep autumn, a sudden summer shower, the images of rice seedlings and plum blossoms, of spring and summer migrants like the mountain cuckoo and the bush warbler, of the cormorant-fishermen in summer, and the apprentices on holiday in the spring–gave a powerful sense of a human place in the ritual and cyclical movement of the world.”

Reading the several hundred poems Hass chose for the book, you intuit the importance of season and nature. Here’s just one, having opened the book at random:

Mosquito at my ear–
does it think
I’m deaf?

All of which got me thinking that what we very badly need to revivify the American haiku industry is an updated list of seasonal references–urban, rural, whatever works–that evoke season and nature and reflect the way we think about change. This would work best as a group exercise, and I’m just one would-be haiku apprentice. But anyway, I’ll go first:

Slushy shoes
Icy sidewalk
Frozen socks
Stinging snowball
Fingers numb
Grimy snowbank
Deserted luge track
Oil-drum fire
Catchers and pitchers
Spring ahead
March Madness
Smart-ass robin
Mockingbird
Ants again
Termites swarm
Yellow Peeps
Tinactin time
Prom queen pimple
Unharvested prune