life on the central coast January 2010
This is possibly my first of these since the nice fellow died. Maybe not. I'm not up to checking.
Here are my favorite headlines from today's Sentinel:
They've posted a corrected phone number for Fish and Game so you can report mountain lion sightings. (I was going to insert a link to James Thurber's "After the Steppe Cat, what?" from Let Your Mind Alone but Thurber's writing is not available online)
This fellow, Charles Storey, has been charged with felony vandalism and misdemeanor trespassing. He built himself a 5,000 square foot house on 8 ridgetop acres in Scotts Valley and thought that it would be no big deal to cut up or cut down 49 of his neighbor's mature trees to get a clearer view of the ocean (leaving a horrible mess behind -- treetops dangling, slash all over the ground). He's the kind of person that buys property like that at 275,000 and builds a ridiculous house -- "a three-car garage, five potential bedrooms, three fireplaces and a gathering room with 20-foot ceilings and 18-foot-tall gothic arches," which he then tries to sell for almost two million dollars, partly on the basis of views he got by felonious means. (not that the views the house would have had anyway wouldn't have been fine: I just don't get these people, who can't relate to a piece of land for what it actually is)
The neighbor is the kind to elicit sympathy around here: he's a local, a retired fisherman who uses his two acres to hike and picnic, hoping someday to get it together to build properly. He says it will cost 15 thousand dollars to clean it up. The government arborist says there's been 20 thousand dollars in damage.
Everybody already knows, but we pretty much expect rain for the foreseeable future. Now, it's not odd to have a lot of rain at this time of year -- it's when we get it -- but the weather people are modelling on big storm after another without any letup for weeks, and they're worried.
There is somethiong wrong when it is news that the largest school district in the county, serving many of the poorest students, is going to apply for a state school breakfast program that's been in operation for years. I think what is wrong is that the reporter didn't understand what was being said, or didn't express it well: both Pajaro Valley and Santa Cruz school districts are speaking of "expansion grants," to cover students who weren't already in the program. But why weren't they? Was there a rules change? Are students newly poor? Did the state apply some of the stimulus money to breakfast programs (which wowuld only mnakes sense as a use of stimulus money if the money was used to hire local workers to prepare the food, and locally-grown food for them to prepare).
PZ Meyer is coming to town next week: (from Pharyngula Blog
7:00 - 8:30 pm, Bay Tree Building, Third Floor, Cervantez and Velasquez Room. Admission is free and open to the public.
I intend to go, because Frank can't!
Here are my favorite headlines from today's Sentinel:
They've posted a corrected phone number for Fish and Game so you can report mountain lion sightings. (I was going to insert a link to James Thurber's "After the Steppe Cat, what?" from Let Your Mind Alone but Thurber's writing is not available online)
This fellow, Charles Storey, has been charged with felony vandalism and misdemeanor trespassing. He built himself a 5,000 square foot house on 8 ridgetop acres in Scotts Valley and thought that it would be no big deal to cut up or cut down 49 of his neighbor's mature trees to get a clearer view of the ocean (leaving a horrible mess behind -- treetops dangling, slash all over the ground). He's the kind of person that buys property like that at 275,000 and builds a ridiculous house -- "a three-car garage, five potential bedrooms, three fireplaces and a gathering room with 20-foot ceilings and 18-foot-tall gothic arches," which he then tries to sell for almost two million dollars, partly on the basis of views he got by felonious means. (not that the views the house would have had anyway wouldn't have been fine: I just don't get these people, who can't relate to a piece of land for what it actually is)
The neighbor is the kind to elicit sympathy around here: he's a local, a retired fisherman who uses his two acres to hike and picnic, hoping someday to get it together to build properly. He says it will cost 15 thousand dollars to clean it up. The government arborist says there's been 20 thousand dollars in damage.
Everybody already knows, but we pretty much expect rain for the foreseeable future. Now, it's not odd to have a lot of rain at this time of year -- it's when we get it -- but the weather people are modelling on big storm after another without any letup for weeks, and they're worried.
There is somethiong wrong when it is news that the largest school district in the county, serving many of the poorest students, is going to apply for a state school breakfast program that's been in operation for years. I think what is wrong is that the reporter didn't understand what was being said, or didn't express it well: both Pajaro Valley and Santa Cruz school districts are speaking of "expansion grants," to cover students who weren't already in the program. But why weren't they? Was there a rules change? Are students newly poor? Did the state apply some of the stimulus money to breakfast programs (which wowuld only mnakes sense as a use of stimulus money if the money was used to hire local workers to prepare the food, and locally-grown food for them to prepare).
PZ Meyer is coming to town next week: (from Pharyngula Blog
7:00 - 8:30 pm, Bay Tree Building, Third Floor, Cervantez and Velasquez Room. Admission is free and open to the public.
I intend to go, because Frank can't!