Just got a notice in the mail on the SLO BOS's public hearing, 9 a.m., September 29, in the BOS chambers. It's the appeals hearing on the proposed Los Osos Sewer Project, and there's an interesting collection of people who have filed appeals, including Don Bearden. (You can read their appeals at the http://www.slocounty.ca.gov/ site.)
Don Bearden?? Like a metronome, Don's shown up at numberless meetings to urge The Powers That Be to brook no delay, to build whatever will be done quickest, to ignore those who would toss roadbocks -- like appeals -- in the way of whatever project has been proposed, that he didn't care what kind of system is picked (though he prefered gravity) he just wanted this project to move ahead a quickly as possible.
Yet here's Don's appeal, urging the BOS to return to Tri-W as a feasible site, which if the BOS does, will open a hideous can of worms (remember that old unsupported SOC? Remember the Bait & Switchy Coastal Commission? Remember Ron Crawford of http://www.sewerwatch.blogspot.com/ endlessly connecting dots and telling us of his official filed complaint (on that SOC and SRF $$ being used for "amenities" just waiting to be turn-keyed, maybe resulting in investigations that nobody wants to get into, maybe public hearings, awww Gawwwdddd ) all of which will result in Delay! Delay! Delay!
Which then begs the question: Can we now start calling Don an ANTI-SEWER OBSTRUCTIONIST?
Oh, say it ain't so, Joe.
Monday, September 21, 2009
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Your Sunday Poem
Stephen Dunn’s books of poetry, including “What Goes On: Selected and New Poems 1995-2009” and “New and Selected Poems 1974-1994” can be yours at your nearest bookstore. Support a Poet. Order a few books of their poems today.
If A Clown
If a clown came out of the woods,
a standard-looking clown with oversized
polk-a-dot clothes, floppy shoes,
a red, bulbous nose, and you saw him
on the edge of your property,
there’d be nothing funny about that,
would there? A bear might be preferable,
especially if black and berry-driven.
And if this clown began waving his hands
with those big white gloves
that clowns wear, and you realized
he wanted your attention, had something
apparently urgent to tell you,
would you pivot and run from him,
or stay put, as my friend did, who seemed
to understand here was a clown
who didn’t know where he was,
a clown without a context?
What could be sadder, my friend thought,
than a clown in need of a context?
If then the clown said to you
that he was on his way to a kid’s
birthday party, his car had broken down,
and he needed a ride, would you give
him one? Or would the connection
between the comic and the appalling,
as it pertained to clowns, be suddenly so clear
that you’d be paralyzed by it?
And if you were the clown, and my friend
hesitated, as he did, would you make
a sad face, and with an enormous finger
wipe away an imaginary tear? How far
would you trust your art? I can tell you
it worked. Most of the guests had gone
when my friend and the clown drove up,
and the family was angry. But the clown
twisted a balloon into the shape of a bird
and gave it to the kid, who smiled,
let it rise to the ceiling. If you were the kid,
the birthday boy, what from then on
would be your relationship with disappointment?
With joy? Whom would you blame or extol?
If A Clown
If a clown came out of the woods,
a standard-looking clown with oversized
polk-a-dot clothes, floppy shoes,
a red, bulbous nose, and you saw him
on the edge of your property,
there’d be nothing funny about that,
would there? A bear might be preferable,
especially if black and berry-driven.
And if this clown began waving his hands
with those big white gloves
that clowns wear, and you realized
he wanted your attention, had something
apparently urgent to tell you,
would you pivot and run from him,
or stay put, as my friend did, who seemed
to understand here was a clown
who didn’t know where he was,
a clown without a context?
What could be sadder, my friend thought,
than a clown in need of a context?
If then the clown said to you
that he was on his way to a kid’s
birthday party, his car had broken down,
and he needed a ride, would you give
him one? Or would the connection
between the comic and the appalling,
as it pertained to clowns, be suddenly so clear
that you’d be paralyzed by it?
And if you were the clown, and my friend
hesitated, as he did, would you make
a sad face, and with an enormous finger
wipe away an imaginary tear? How far
would you trust your art? I can tell you
it worked. Most of the guests had gone
when my friend and the clown drove up,
and the family was angry. But the clown
twisted a balloon into the shape of a bird
and gave it to the kid, who smiled,
let it rise to the ceiling. If you were the kid,
the birthday boy, what from then on
would be your relationship with disappointment?
With joy? Whom would you blame or extol?
Friday, September 18, 2009
Jimmy's Ear
Calhoun’s Can(n)ons for Sept 18, 09
Former President Jimmy Carter’s recent remarks to NBC’s Brian Williams was a welcome breath of fresh air in what too often has turned into a weird psycho-socio-political, Jung/Freudian chthonic brew that’s been swirling around legislation that’s supposed to be about “health care reform.” As with most things, the health care debate too often isn’t really about health care.
Here’s what it’s really about: fear, money, power, class, hypocrisy, race, status, politics, subtext and “morality,” the usual suspects in a country constantly in denial about its history and its ongoing reality. In short, all the usual suspects that we are taught from an early age NOT to discuss honestly in polite company.
Here’s what Carter observed, “I think an overwhelming portion of the intensely demonstrated animosity toward President Barak Obama is based on the fact he is a black man, that he’s African American. . . . I live in the South, and I’ve seen the south come a long way, and I’ve seen the rest of the country that shared the South’s attitude towards minority groups at the time, particularly African Americans. . . . And that racism inclination still exists.”
Here’s one of the signs carried by some “tea party” participants: “I want my country back.”
Here’s the subtext of that Cri de Coeur: Bring back the good old days of the white, Anglo Saxon power structure, the days when uppity minorities knew their place and a poor working class white man could feel he was better than . . . well, somebody.
And here’s the missing reality that nobody wants to honestly discuss in polite company. For at least 20 years, The American Dream World has been slowly turned upside down. The working class has been gutted, well paying manufacturing jobs have moved offshore, to the benefit of the corporate bottom line. America doesn’t make very much any more; it just consumes what others have made. That’s not a sustainable model for any society. Meanwhile, the middle class has been systematically diminished as the nation’s wealth (and tax breaks) were deliberately moved to benefit fewer and fewer groups at the very top. The consolidation of Corporate America, the rise of “Wall Street,” the marriage of corporate and congress has given us an unbalanced wealth distribution not seen since the days of the Robber Barons at the turn of the century. Toss in an economic collapse, add in a racial demographic shift, with “minorities” soon to be the “majority” in a few years, and you have the makings of a revolution.
But what kind of “revolution,” will depend on how honest we can be with one another about what has happened to this country while we were all in a trance shopping at the Mall. That’s why Jimmy’s ear for subtext is so valuable. A son of the South, he, better than most, hears what may be inaudible to many others. He knows the code, the wink-nudge, the unspoken look. He knows too the hidden fears, the dark heart, the history.
And it isn’t just a “southern” history. It’s American. It’s Apple Pie. And it is dangerous.
President Obama, in his address to Congress, set the discussion about “health care” into terms of “morality,” and “character.” What kind of nation are we that we continue to allow millions of our fellow Americans to sicken and die because they can’t afford proper medical care? No other “civilized” country does that. Only in America.
And we do that because we haven’t had an honest national dialogue about the real meaning of the founding documents we pretend to cherish, you know, all that stuff about all men being created equal, or equal justice under law, or equal opportunity or level playing fields or promoting the general welfare, or all of us being Americans and being in the same boat. All nice sentiments, useful for rhetorical flourishes on the Fourth of July, but the reality is this: In America, wealth, power, class and status are what we value, not “equality.” The rich powerful citizen is of value; the poor citizen is not. That’s the American “character” as it is lived in real time.
And it is of supreme irony that so many of the millions of people who have been systematically devalued and dismissed are the very people who voted for politicians and policies that devalued and dismissed them. And so they show up with signs about getting their country back from some illegitimate, black socialist commie Hitlerian usurper, not realizing that the old system they want back was the one that kicked them to the curb in the first place. And the only way they have any hope of hanging onto their piece of the American Pie is to understand that promoting the general welfare is meant to include them. But that will only happen if they insist that those who live on Main Street have as much, if not more, value than a corporate entity known as “Wall Street,” that lifelines have more value than bottom lines, and that the citizen is first in line, not under the stairs hoping for a few patronizing scraps.
Because we ignored that simple idea, we’ve brought ourselves to a crisis in search of solutions. Which means we can recalibrate, we can change directions, we can reassess our values and priorities so that we can change the way we treat one another and change the way America does business. But we can’t do any of those things unless we understand more clearly the meanings of the messages we are sending to one another, messages full of history, text, subtext, myth, reality, all being picked up by Jimmy’s finely-tuned ear.
And in those messages are some critical questions: Exactly what is it that people think they “want back?” Just what do we really value? What are our priorities? Is the country we have we created at this point really the one we want to live in and leave to our children?
If not, then it’s time to start working to form a more perfect union -- One honest brick at a time.
Former President Jimmy Carter’s recent remarks to NBC’s Brian Williams was a welcome breath of fresh air in what too often has turned into a weird psycho-socio-political, Jung/Freudian chthonic brew that’s been swirling around legislation that’s supposed to be about “health care reform.” As with most things, the health care debate too often isn’t really about health care.
Here’s what it’s really about: fear, money, power, class, hypocrisy, race, status, politics, subtext and “morality,” the usual suspects in a country constantly in denial about its history and its ongoing reality. In short, all the usual suspects that we are taught from an early age NOT to discuss honestly in polite company.
Here’s what Carter observed, “I think an overwhelming portion of the intensely demonstrated animosity toward President Barak Obama is based on the fact he is a black man, that he’s African American. . . . I live in the South, and I’ve seen the south come a long way, and I’ve seen the rest of the country that shared the South’s attitude towards minority groups at the time, particularly African Americans. . . . And that racism inclination still exists.”
Here’s one of the signs carried by some “tea party” participants: “I want my country back.”
Here’s the subtext of that Cri de Coeur: Bring back the good old days of the white, Anglo Saxon power structure, the days when uppity minorities knew their place and a poor working class white man could feel he was better than . . . well, somebody.
And here’s the missing reality that nobody wants to honestly discuss in polite company. For at least 20 years, The American Dream World has been slowly turned upside down. The working class has been gutted, well paying manufacturing jobs have moved offshore, to the benefit of the corporate bottom line. America doesn’t make very much any more; it just consumes what others have made. That’s not a sustainable model for any society. Meanwhile, the middle class has been systematically diminished as the nation’s wealth (and tax breaks) were deliberately moved to benefit fewer and fewer groups at the very top. The consolidation of Corporate America, the rise of “Wall Street,” the marriage of corporate and congress has given us an unbalanced wealth distribution not seen since the days of the Robber Barons at the turn of the century. Toss in an economic collapse, add in a racial demographic shift, with “minorities” soon to be the “majority” in a few years, and you have the makings of a revolution.
But what kind of “revolution,” will depend on how honest we can be with one another about what has happened to this country while we were all in a trance shopping at the Mall. That’s why Jimmy’s ear for subtext is so valuable. A son of the South, he, better than most, hears what may be inaudible to many others. He knows the code, the wink-nudge, the unspoken look. He knows too the hidden fears, the dark heart, the history.
And it isn’t just a “southern” history. It’s American. It’s Apple Pie. And it is dangerous.
President Obama, in his address to Congress, set the discussion about “health care” into terms of “morality,” and “character.” What kind of nation are we that we continue to allow millions of our fellow Americans to sicken and die because they can’t afford proper medical care? No other “civilized” country does that. Only in America.
And we do that because we haven’t had an honest national dialogue about the real meaning of the founding documents we pretend to cherish, you know, all that stuff about all men being created equal, or equal justice under law, or equal opportunity or level playing fields or promoting the general welfare, or all of us being Americans and being in the same boat. All nice sentiments, useful for rhetorical flourishes on the Fourth of July, but the reality is this: In America, wealth, power, class and status are what we value, not “equality.” The rich powerful citizen is of value; the poor citizen is not. That’s the American “character” as it is lived in real time.
And it is of supreme irony that so many of the millions of people who have been systematically devalued and dismissed are the very people who voted for politicians and policies that devalued and dismissed them. And so they show up with signs about getting their country back from some illegitimate, black socialist commie Hitlerian usurper, not realizing that the old system they want back was the one that kicked them to the curb in the first place. And the only way they have any hope of hanging onto their piece of the American Pie is to understand that promoting the general welfare is meant to include them. But that will only happen if they insist that those who live on Main Street have as much, if not more, value than a corporate entity known as “Wall Street,” that lifelines have more value than bottom lines, and that the citizen is first in line, not under the stairs hoping for a few patronizing scraps.
Because we ignored that simple idea, we’ve brought ourselves to a crisis in search of solutions. Which means we can recalibrate, we can change directions, we can reassess our values and priorities so that we can change the way we treat one another and change the way America does business. But we can’t do any of those things unless we understand more clearly the meanings of the messages we are sending to one another, messages full of history, text, subtext, myth, reality, all being picked up by Jimmy’s finely-tuned ear.
And in those messages are some critical questions: Exactly what is it that people think they “want back?” Just what do we really value? What are our priorities? Is the country we have we created at this point really the one we want to live in and leave to our children?
If not, then it’s time to start working to form a more perfect union -- One honest brick at a time.
Thursday, September 17, 2009
A Question For All Concerned
Here's a question for Dan De Vaul and the County, as De Vaul's code violation trial continues: Do you want to help homeless people or do you want to be right?
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Your Sunday Recipe
Instead of a poem, time to make soup while some wonderful summer produce is available. This recipe is from the L.A. Times “Culinary SOS" column and originally came from The Organic Panificio Café in Marina del Rey. In Los Osos, the only place I could get parsnips was at Vons.
Sweet corn and parsnip soup
2 ½ tb butter (or use butter and olive oil)
1 c diced onion
1 stalk celery, diced
5 cloves garlic, smashed
3 springs parsley, plus chopped parsley for garnish, divided
4 sprgs thyme
1-2 bay leaf (discard before blending)
3 c. (1 lb) fresh, sweet yellow corn kernels (from 5-6 ears)
1/3 pound peeled, trimmed and diced parsnips
2 ½ tsp salt
½ tsp white pepper (season to your taste. I tossed in sage, poultry seasoning and curry powder, whatever else caught my fancy on the spice shelf.)
6-7 c milk (I use low fat milk since the soup is so rich and creamy from the corn, I think fat milk would be a bit much)
I use a large wok-type pan for the start, put in all the diced stuff (minus the corn) and saute on medium heat for about 20 minutes, stirring. (to make sure the parsnips are soft) Add corn and sauté for another 15, stirring frequently. Then I dump it all into a large soup pot, fish out the bay leaves, add the milk, and simmer for about 30 minutes. Cool a bit then puree with an emersion blender. (Or scoop out in batches and use a regular blender) Adjust seasoning to taste and add more milk if needed.
If you want to get really chi-chi, could run it all through a food mill to really remove any bits of fiber. Or you if your dice is small enough, could remove ½ the veggies, puree the rest, return the dice and turn it into a chunky chowder. Either way, it’s rich and yummy, especially if you can get your hands on sweet fresh corn. Enjoy.)
Sweet corn and parsnip soup
2 ½ tb butter (or use butter and olive oil)
1 c diced onion
1 stalk celery, diced
5 cloves garlic, smashed
3 springs parsley, plus chopped parsley for garnish, divided
4 sprgs thyme
1-2 bay leaf (discard before blending)
3 c. (1 lb) fresh, sweet yellow corn kernels (from 5-6 ears)
1/3 pound peeled, trimmed and diced parsnips
2 ½ tsp salt
½ tsp white pepper (season to your taste. I tossed in sage, poultry seasoning and curry powder, whatever else caught my fancy on the spice shelf.)
6-7 c milk (I use low fat milk since the soup is so rich and creamy from the corn, I think fat milk would be a bit much)
I use a large wok-type pan for the start, put in all the diced stuff (minus the corn) and saute on medium heat for about 20 minutes, stirring. (to make sure the parsnips are soft) Add corn and sauté for another 15, stirring frequently. Then I dump it all into a large soup pot, fish out the bay leaves, add the milk, and simmer for about 30 minutes. Cool a bit then puree with an emersion blender. (Or scoop out in batches and use a regular blender) Adjust seasoning to taste and add more milk if needed.
If you want to get really chi-chi, could run it all through a food mill to really remove any bits of fiber. Or you if your dice is small enough, could remove ½ the veggies, puree the rest, return the dice and turn it into a chunky chowder. Either way, it’s rich and yummy, especially if you can get your hands on sweet fresh corn. Enjoy.)
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