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The good news is that they've found a millipede,illacme plenipes, in San Benito County that hadn't been seen in eighty years. It's a tiny little thing, about as big as a root hair, that lives in an area .8 kilometer square. As this rather (justifiably)chuffed-up article states, its relatives are pretty far-flung (which I'm guessing indicates its ancestor was a rather cosmopolitan arthropod in the olden days) and its body is interesting: it's leggier than most millipedes, it excretes a silky substance with an unknown use, and its sexual parts are very elaborate. It appears to be in the victim witness protection program: its location is a secret. Do follow the link: there's an embedded movie of the little dear. Also, there's more about rarities of San Benito County.
Those of you who are convention-going SF fans know that there's a joke bid for Hollister for the Worldcon. You can add to the special reasons for supporting Hollister proximity to one of the world's rarest millipedes, oh and that tiny evening primrose and that cool rock too.
Watsonville's local election was finally settled: Measure E, which would have repealed a 1/2 cent tax, went down by 124 votes (the first count had only a one-vote difference). The result means that Watsonville will not have to completely redo its finances, and it reaffirms that the tax phobia that has been driving a lot of California politics has nearly reached the end of its run. Schwarzenegger is running his campaign for re-election as Governor on the threat that Angelides will raise taxes. The ads are nasty. Let's see if Watsonville is reflective of the state as a whole.
The Local Agency Formation Commission is about to decide whether the little town of Felton can be added to the San Lorenzo Valley water district, which is the next step in determining whether the locals can buy their water system from California American Water Company, which belongs to American Water Works, which belongs to RWE whose slogan appears to be "Germany, Land of Ideas." These guys own a lot of these little water districts, and Felton Friends of Locally Owned Water are not the only ones trying to get out from under the transnationals.
The fight over a local Santa Cruz city minimum wage continues: Kelly's bakery (one of the oldest of the famous local "microbakeries" -- I don't know why they call them that, except as an analogy with "microbreweries" -- these guys all operate on a larger scale than old-time neighborhood bakeries, though they do encroach into the markets of the big commercial bakeries (the big supermarket chains and Costco carry some of these bakeries' goods), so maybe they needed a special name)has threatened to move its operations out of town if it has to pay $9.00 an hour to its workers instead of $6.50or whatever it is. To put this into perspective, politicians claim that "good" teachers can't afford to live in town on $25.00 an hour (they don't propose to give the teachers a raise, or to enact rent control, but to have special loan programs to enable teachers to buy houses, and special building projects earmakred for teachers).
Wildlife rescue people keep finding starving pelicans, especially baby ones. They've been giving them IV treatment for a few days, then stomach feeding them pureed fish until they're strong enough to eat whole fish. The current guess is that it's a result of the brown pelican's successful resurgence (they nearly went extinct before DDT was outlawed. I'm still impressed when I see a raft of thirty pelicans flying overhead, because I remember seeing my first one and my father exclaiming about it: and my kids remember the first whole rafts we saw and me exclaiming about it). They're not sure whether this also indicates a real shortage of the kinds of fish they like to eat, though it's known that some fish stocks are depleted in the bay. There's a complicated long-term cycle for sardines and anchovies, where one predominates and then the other, but I don't think it has anything to do with this.
Sardines were apparently abnormally plentiful when the Monterey sardine canning industry blossomed (see Cannery Row, John Steinbeck). They were overfished in the bay and the population collapsed, and Cannery Row along with it. Lately, though, there's been some indications that overfishing was not the whole story: that there were environmental factors not having to do with human activity. What I don't understand is how come a huge anchovy industry did not rise up in the place of the sardines, when the anchovies became more plentiful than sardines.
So, breaking news: Denice Denton, the latest of a string of controversial UCSC chancellors, has jumped or fallen from her lover's high-rise luxury apartment in the Paramount building in San Francisco. Her particular controversy is that she bargained for and got a huge salary, a brand-new hugely lucrative position for her lover, an expensive remodel of the Chancellor's residence (including what is not reported in the AP story, an astoundingly costly dog run, on a campus where nobody else is allowed to have a pet that can live out of water, yes, that's the rule), during a time when regular staff's salaries are barely and not always keeping up with the cost of living, tuition and fees keep rising by large leaps, financial aid is being cut, outreach and prep programs cut, support for research stagnating . . . the whole UC system is under scrutiny at the moment, as the regents have been setting these vast salaries and perks for top administrators and strangling the basic functions of the University on every campus. I'm sorry that Ms. Denton is dead, and I'm sorry for her mother who was staying with her at the apartment, and her lover who was off on a business trip, and I'm sorry for her dogs: but I'm afraid I'm no more sympathetic to her as an administrator than I was before.
One of the problems in education in general that nobody wants to talk about is the rapaciousness of high-level administrators, consultants, and all the parasitic industry that has arisen out of the abiding sense of crisis in the system. Boards and Regents are all too willing to throw millions of dollars at smooth-talking, white-horse riding con artists who come in with wild reform promises, suck a system dry, and then demand extortion money to leave and go on to their next victim as the next hero comes in to up the ante and repeat the process. Meanwhile, there is a body of experience and skilled staff who can actually do the job if they are given the resources to do it -- and they are not given the resources. Rather than give decent class sizes, workloads, and materials (and in the K-12 system, decent buildings and safe grounds, even), they'll buy a new proprietary program, hire a new top administrator or consultant, or worse yet, fund a completely useless and outrageously expensive retreat.
And on a lighter note: we have this guy, Richard Quigley, whose purpose in life is to oppose the motorcycle helmet law. He's been racking up tickets and going to court to argue that the law is unconstitutional as written and as enforced. Latest is that a judge has agreed that it was enforced in an inconsistent and unconstitutional way with respect to him, probably, and the judge is willing to consider the general case, maybe. Quigley's not satisfied.
And, just to demonstrate that they know what's really important, Fox Sports Net is undertaking an in-depth study as to whether Santa Cruz is really "Surf City USA," instead of Huntington Beach, which got the rights to the title. Surely this is the most momentous issue on the whole California Coast, right?
Those of you who are convention-going SF fans know that there's a joke bid for Hollister for the Worldcon. You can add to the special reasons for supporting Hollister proximity to one of the world's rarest millipedes, oh and that tiny evening primrose and that cool rock too.
Watsonville's local election was finally settled: Measure E, which would have repealed a 1/2 cent tax, went down by 124 votes (the first count had only a one-vote difference). The result means that Watsonville will not have to completely redo its finances, and it reaffirms that the tax phobia that has been driving a lot of California politics has nearly reached the end of its run. Schwarzenegger is running his campaign for re-election as Governor on the threat that Angelides will raise taxes. The ads are nasty. Let's see if Watsonville is reflective of the state as a whole.
The Local Agency Formation Commission is about to decide whether the little town of Felton can be added to the San Lorenzo Valley water district, which is the next step in determining whether the locals can buy their water system from California American Water Company, which belongs to American Water Works, which belongs to RWE whose slogan appears to be "Germany, Land of Ideas." These guys own a lot of these little water districts, and Felton Friends of Locally Owned Water are not the only ones trying to get out from under the transnationals.
The fight over a local Santa Cruz city minimum wage continues: Kelly's bakery (one of the oldest of the famous local "microbakeries" -- I don't know why they call them that, except as an analogy with "microbreweries" -- these guys all operate on a larger scale than old-time neighborhood bakeries, though they do encroach into the markets of the big commercial bakeries (the big supermarket chains and Costco carry some of these bakeries' goods), so maybe they needed a special name)has threatened to move its operations out of town if it has to pay $9.00 an hour to its workers instead of $6.50or whatever it is. To put this into perspective, politicians claim that "good" teachers can't afford to live in town on $25.00 an hour (they don't propose to give the teachers a raise, or to enact rent control, but to have special loan programs to enable teachers to buy houses, and special building projects earmakred for teachers).
Wildlife rescue people keep finding starving pelicans, especially baby ones. They've been giving them IV treatment for a few days, then stomach feeding them pureed fish until they're strong enough to eat whole fish. The current guess is that it's a result of the brown pelican's successful resurgence (they nearly went extinct before DDT was outlawed. I'm still impressed when I see a raft of thirty pelicans flying overhead, because I remember seeing my first one and my father exclaiming about it: and my kids remember the first whole rafts we saw and me exclaiming about it). They're not sure whether this also indicates a real shortage of the kinds of fish they like to eat, though it's known that some fish stocks are depleted in the bay. There's a complicated long-term cycle for sardines and anchovies, where one predominates and then the other, but I don't think it has anything to do with this.
Sardines were apparently abnormally plentiful when the Monterey sardine canning industry blossomed (see Cannery Row, John Steinbeck). They were overfished in the bay and the population collapsed, and Cannery Row along with it. Lately, though, there's been some indications that overfishing was not the whole story: that there were environmental factors not having to do with human activity. What I don't understand is how come a huge anchovy industry did not rise up in the place of the sardines, when the anchovies became more plentiful than sardines.
So, breaking news: Denice Denton, the latest of a string of controversial UCSC chancellors, has jumped or fallen from her lover's high-rise luxury apartment in the Paramount building in San Francisco. Her particular controversy is that she bargained for and got a huge salary, a brand-new hugely lucrative position for her lover, an expensive remodel of the Chancellor's residence (including what is not reported in the AP story, an astoundingly costly dog run, on a campus where nobody else is allowed to have a pet that can live out of water, yes, that's the rule), during a time when regular staff's salaries are barely and not always keeping up with the cost of living, tuition and fees keep rising by large leaps, financial aid is being cut, outreach and prep programs cut, support for research stagnating . . . the whole UC system is under scrutiny at the moment, as the regents have been setting these vast salaries and perks for top administrators and strangling the basic functions of the University on every campus. I'm sorry that Ms. Denton is dead, and I'm sorry for her mother who was staying with her at the apartment, and her lover who was off on a business trip, and I'm sorry for her dogs: but I'm afraid I'm no more sympathetic to her as an administrator than I was before.
One of the problems in education in general that nobody wants to talk about is the rapaciousness of high-level administrators, consultants, and all the parasitic industry that has arisen out of the abiding sense of crisis in the system. Boards and Regents are all too willing to throw millions of dollars at smooth-talking, white-horse riding con artists who come in with wild reform promises, suck a system dry, and then demand extortion money to leave and go on to their next victim as the next hero comes in to up the ante and repeat the process. Meanwhile, there is a body of experience and skilled staff who can actually do the job if they are given the resources to do it -- and they are not given the resources. Rather than give decent class sizes, workloads, and materials (and in the K-12 system, decent buildings and safe grounds, even), they'll buy a new proprietary program, hire a new top administrator or consultant, or worse yet, fund a completely useless and outrageously expensive retreat.
And on a lighter note: we have this guy, Richard Quigley, whose purpose in life is to oppose the motorcycle helmet law. He's been racking up tickets and going to court to argue that the law is unconstitutional as written and as enforced. Latest is that a judge has agreed that it was enforced in an inconsistent and unconstitutional way with respect to him, probably, and the judge is willing to consider the general case, maybe. Quigley's not satisfied.
And, just to demonstrate that they know what's really important, Fox Sports Net is undertaking an in-depth study as to whether Santa Cruz is really "Surf City USA," instead of Huntington Beach, which got the rights to the title. Surely this is the most momentous issue on the whole California Coast, right?
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