Calhouns Can(n)ons

It's Official Now: Los Osos WILL Be Having More Fun

The Los Osos Bridge Bears, those beautiful Paula Zima statues that grace the north and south entrance of our fair burg, have been refurbished. From being a dark, growly, grizzly grey-brown, they've been repainted orangy, honey BLOND.

The good times can now roll here in Clairol's Woopie-Town By The Bay.

It's Also Official Now, Mark Low Has His Own Blogsite

Yes, instead of dropping long, involved postings into this blogsite's "comment" section, like some cuckoo bird dropping off eggs in another bird's nest -- much to the gnashing of teeth of many of this site's readers -- Mark has his own site at http://nowastewater.blogspot.com He's certainly free, like most commentors, to post comments here and if he has any interesting documents, simply note the link and that way folks can go visit his site to read whatever lengthy thing he might have posted there. Win-win.

More Official from The Department of Whaaaaa???

The following was emailed from a friend up near SF, a note from the SF Chronicle:

> Chronicle, today>> BAYKEEPER RAISING A STINK OVER SEWAGE>> It's suing Burlingame on discharge, starting spill-prevention push>> "An environmental group is filing suit against the city of > Burlingame today, charging that the city's antiquated sewer system > frequently spills raw sewage onto city streets and that its > treatment plant illegally discharged more than 10 million gallons > of wastewater into the bay over he past 16 years.>> "The non-profit also accuses the city of, during heavy rains, > discharging wastewater - which includes "unacceptably high amounts > of human waste, bacteria and chemicals" - into the bay through an > illegal pipeline just north of Coyote Point.>> Guess the shit has hit the fan, so to speak.>> Stand by now for furious finger pointing!

My comment to this was, I wonder why one of the local [private] "Baykeeper" units was the one suing and not The Regional Water Quality Control Board. Isn't that their job? Oh, wait, they're likely too busy hammering The Los Osos 45 to bother about leaking sewer systems and illegal pipelines up Burlingame way.

Story does point up a simple fact, however: Antiquated, poorly monitored and maintained and repaired and updated sewer systems are a problem everywhere. Yet another reason for municipalities take a leap into the 21st century and get proactive about the new technologies out there for upgrades and better ways to skin and treat the sewage cat.

And Finally, Time To Butt Out?

A group of kids is starting a movement to get smoking banned in Morro Bay's public parks. Today's Tribune editorial endorses the move. Problem comes with the mess associated with cigarette butts left on the ground by irresponsible smokers. That, and setting an example to kids who use the park that smoking in public places is, well, feh, just not socially acceptable anymore.

This particular push is now about the City of Morro Bay. But can county parks be far behind? And State Beaches? And other City parks?

If I'm not mistaken, wasn't SLO City the or one of the first to ban smoking inside public spaces? If enough county-wide residents start a similar ban in their city parks and then onto the county parks, SLO might again make the national news.

So, what about it? Would a county/city-wide ban on smoking in public parks and on beaches be another "progressive" civic move to encourage and/or codify changing social behaviors, or just another plot by PC Nazis and Big Guv'ment Liberals to take away citizens rights?