Your Sunday Postcard

When poet Ted Kooser was recovering from surgery and radiation for cancer, he began walking before dawn each morning to help get his strength back.  During his illness, he had all but given up on writing, but found that during his morning walks, bits and snatches of poems started coming to him.  He began writing the poems down on postcards that he sent to a good friend.  They were a variation of the "correspondence in haiku" the two had been engaged in. The post-card poems are from his book, "Winter Morning Walks: one hundred postcards to Jim Harrison." (2000, Carnegie Mellon University Press)

This lovely book is wonderful to dip into, like a box of Godiva chocolates, to get just one . . . maybe two . . . beautiful pieces to slowly savor.  All of Kooser's books are like that.  I recommend you get a few and try it for yourself.

December 24 / Sunny and clear

Sometimes, when things are going well,
the daredevil squirrel of worry
suddenly leaps from the back of my head
to the feeder, swings by his paws
and clambers up, twitching his question mark tail.
And though I try the recommended baffles --
tin cone of meditation, greased pipe
of positive thought -- every sunflower seed
in this life is his if he wants it.

One More Time With Feeling, Ana-One, Ana-Two, Ana-Three

Some time ago, Sewerwatch watcher, Ron Crawford, asked the SLO County Grand Jury to look into certain odd aspects of the Hideous Los Osos Sewer Project and they apparently replied, "We Don't Have Time." So, this time, Ron's spelled it all out, complete with links they can read, to see if they can answer some of the questions he's raised.  I'm betting their reply is "We Don't Have Time To Read Any Of The Selected Documents."

"O.K, Let's Try this again: The SLO County Grand Jury, Revisited," at http://www.sewerwatch.blogspot.com/

Before You Hang Out That Flag

Patriotism on this Fourth is all well and good.  Feeling patriotic and hanging a flag out in front of your house is also all well and good.  So is firing up the old grill and gathering the family for a barbeque.  But before you do any of that, time to get out your checkbook.

In his recent column, Tribune writer Bill Morem revisted the topic of the Veterans Express, a shuttle service that helps our vets get to VA appointments in Santa Barbara and Los Angeles.  It was going broke and needed donations to keep going.  Congresspersons Capps and McCarthy are working to see if they can get and/or continue long-term government help for the program.  But what was needed were immediate donations.  So Bill wrote his original column and a Central Valley resident and Vietnam vet "pledged $26,000 and then came in the next day and cut a check for $10,000." This astounding donor was followed by all kinds of different ones from local folks, including "9-year-old Hannah Amador, who donated all of her pennies totally $4.47 to the veterans shuttle."

So, for the moment, our vets who need a ride to the VA hospitals, will get one.  But further donations and a steady long term funding program is still needed.  So, before you show our patriotism by waving a flag, why not cut a check, made payable to Ride On: Veterans Express and mail it to 3620 Sacramento Drive, SLO 93401. Then call Reps.Capps and McCarthy's local office and tell them you want them to find funding for this program.  As Bill Morem notes, "Must this vital service depend on the good graces of a child and her cache of pennies to survive?" 

Then go eat hot dogs.

Bees! Bees! Bees!

The garden is running amok and the bees are back and busy at work.  Though I just read in the last New Times that keeping bees, a growing hobby, is apparently illegal in the unincorported areas of the county, i.e. Los Osos.  Which was news to me and will come as a surprise to hobbyists who have small hives in their back yards.  Apparently the rules were put in place years ago when killer African bees were seen as a looming threat, but -- knock wood -- it's been a threat that hasn't become a real problem here, yet.  But the rules still stand.  So hobbyist apiariasts are busy working with the county to get the rules modified. 

What, you might ask, is the problem with people keeping a few hives in the back yard?  After all, bees are in trouble so anything we can do to help them should be a very good thing.  Well, for one, ill-kept, improperly-kept, abused bees can be a problem. If they're not well cared for, they can leave home and become a nuissance to their neighbors.  But well kept, happy bees should be no problem and as far as I can see.  Plus, encouraging bee-keeping all over the place might help bees, which are in danger from mass death due from a still-unknown disease/disorder refered to generally as "colony collapse." And if "colony collapse" is the result of a spreadable disease organism, then most professional bee-keeping is the equivalent of factory farming -- gazillions of bees all gathered together in one place, just ripe for rapid disease spread.  Hobby beekeeping, on the other hand,  is more like small family farming which scatters hives and colonies all over the place so if a disease hits, it's limited to that one hive rather than wiping out gazillions. 

Hopefully, our local apiarists will help fashion practical, workakable changes in the law so anyone interested in keeping bees can do so.  And the rest of us need to plant lots of water-thrifty flowers to help the little guys out.  Our own lives (and food supply) depend on them.

So, this Fourth, hang the flag, send a donation, plant a petunia -- plant three petunias: red, white & blue-- then invite a bee over for lunch.  And have a wonderful Holiday!

How Much Is That Doggie In The Window, Part Duh

Poor Congresswoman Lois Capps. A recent Tribune story notes she supports a new proposed federal law called the PUPS Act, which stands for Puppy Uniform Protection Statute. The new law is an attempt to close a loophole that exempts puppy mills that sell directly to the public. Which means that sans new law, large scale puppy-mill breeders can continue to get a way with no oversight, sell their puppies online and otherwise continue their hideous and abusive practices – filthy kennels, sick dogs getting no care, in short, all the horrors that regularly get exposed every so often when some local TV station needs to amp up its ratings.

But I say, Poor Congresswoman Capps, because she doesn’t know the shit-storm she’s heading into. First the AKC is, even as we speak, revving up their “members,” and lobbying hard to stop any and all attempts to crack down on ANYTHING having to do with breeding and selling “purebred” dogs. Why, you might ask? Why wouldn’t AKC want to shut down hideous puppy mills? Ah, because those mills generate what the AKC referred to in a secret Board memo as “the basic cash cow” – that AKC “paper” that the buyers THINK mean something. That’s the engine that drives the puppy mill trade and that’s the paper that brings in the big bucks to AKC.

And never mind that one of AKC’s own top investigators went on ABC World News Tonight a few years ago to fess up that the AKC’s “registry” of purebred dog is 50% no good and that AKC knows it.

So Ms. Caps will have the AKC on her behind. And she’ll have the large scale breeders on her tail as well, some of whom serve on the AKC’s Board of Directors. (See the cozy connections?) Not to mention small scale breeders who can be counted on to defeat any and all sensible laws designed to protect dogs. They’re rabid about defeating such legislation. Why? Money. Pure and simple. That old “basic cash cow.”

So, this bill will go down in flames. The parties most interested in protecting their financial interests – at the cost of immense suffering by dogs and costly fraud on the people who buy these dogs – will declare that “there’s plenty of laws already on the books,” then concentrate on de-funding any and all enforcement mechanism so the laws remain in place, but they’re useless and toothless.

That’s how you do it. So the suffering will continue, the buyers will continue to be fleeced, and the money will continue to roll in.

But, Bless Ms. Capps for at least trying. I wish her luck, but I won’t hold my breath.

Your Sunday Poem

This from Ted Kooser's book, "Flying at Night." Mr. Kooser's collections are availabe in paperback.  Do yourself a favor; buy one or two and dip into them every few days for some real treasures.

At the Center

In Kansas, on top
of an old piano,
a starfish, dry
as a fancy pastry
left sitting there
during a wedding,
spreads its brown arms
over the foam
of a white lace doily,
reaching for water
in five directions.