Deck the Halls, Fa-la-la, la-la, la-la

Ah, Christmas came early to the developers of the Margarita Ranch when the Three Amigos (Supervisors Ovitt, Lenthall and Achadjian) voted to approve the project. In Bob Cuddy’s report in the Tribune, no mention was made of thrown shoes, so this all-day hearing was likely quieter than the last, with no flying Nikes, Birkenstocks and Pumas clunking on the floor like lumpy raindrops.

Cuddy also notes that “representatives of the developer” . . . “were still submitting ‘a flurry of papers’ to the Board and county planning staff on Tuesday . . .” which meant that the Supervisors and staff wouldn’t have time to actually read the stuff before voting.

And, “During the afternoon hearing, [supervisor] Gibson painstakingly went over the proposal line by line, arguing that findings the board was about to ratify could not be legally sustained. He repeatedly asked Achadjian, Ovitt andLentahll to justify singing off on particular conclusions. . . . “ While “Achadjian, Ovitt and Lenthall declined to reply.”

Except for Ovitt saying “the board had to make a decision by Jan 9 to meet a state deadline,” only to have County Counsels say, Naw, there is no state deadline, (sorry Harry, can’t hide behind that claim) and that the decision to vote dump the whole issue onto the new board and let them wrestle with this monster was entirely the Board’s choice.

And so it went. I didn’t have to be in attendance to tell you that for me it was all déjà vu; The Done Deal, The Stone Faces, The Decline To States, The Made Up Stuff, the “We Have No Choice The State’s Making Us Do This” Lie, the bewildered audience asking for real answers and getting blank looks. All déjà vu.

Sigh. Santa Margarita has turned into Los Osos. Lawyers to follow. And like Los Osos, will the good taxpayers of the County (who are going to foot the bill for all this legal wrangling) discover too late that IF ONLY the Board had done this right – carry this over to the next board with time for staff and community and developers to hammer out all the last-minute, stuffed-in “flurry of paper” – that despite that delays, it would STILL turn out to be cheaper and faster than what will now transpire?

Ah, and will the developers of the project come to the same conclusion? If so, their victory yesterday was Pyrrhic, indeed. Merry Christmas.

God Bless Us Every One

The rain has missed us, except for a few splortles here and there. The early morning sky is blowsy and air is surprisingly warm. The wind is softly ringing the wind chimes on the porch. If you aurally squint, you can imagine they just might be church bells. All over town, small children are stirring, willing the clock to move forward so they can fly from their beds to see what Santa has brought them. It’s Magic Time.

No children in this house, but the dogs rose when I did only to look at me funny then go back to bed. Too early for them. When the sun comes up, it’ll likely be time for a trip to the dog park for their Christmas treat.

In no time, the day will be gone and friends and family will gather for what started out as a joke but which has now become a tradition in this house: Christmas Dinner ca. 1950, with what can only be called “regrettable food.” For any of you old enough to remember the 1950’s I need only say, “Green Bean Casserole,” and you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about. For those younger, 1950s “regrettable food” almost always involved a can of Campbell’s condensed soup poured over something else, usually something that just didn’t quite fit – i.e. green beans with cream of Mushroom soup over it – but also something that also didn’t slide off into absolute nausea. Not inedible, exactly, but . . . . Regrettable.

And if you are of a certain age and want to read something that will truly bring tears to your eyes, get a copy of James Lileks, “The Gallery of Regrettable Food,” (Crown Publishers, NY, 2001) complete with vintage color photographs from vintage home magazines and vintage cook books. Especially alarming are the ones involving chopped up vegetables imbedded in huge molds of brightly colored Jello.. Trust me on this. Tomato aspic is NOT a food you want to approach lightly. Nor “Creamed Brains on Toast,” or “Tongue with Carrots in Spinach Nests,” or the chapter, complete with photographs of the chefs and their creations, called: “Famous Chefs Forced To Use Marshmallows.” (The “Famous” chefs in question were hired by the Campfire Marshmallow Company which put out a little recipe booklet called “How Famous Chefs Use Campfire Marshmallows.” The recipes were designed to make marshmallows seem like a delicacy, in hopes that “people might regard these puffy delights as a sign of breeding and taste.” Notes the author, “The project was hampered by one small detail: when attempting to convince someone your product isn’t just for campfires, it would help to remove “Campfire” from its name.”)

So, it will be – as all days are – a Holy Day. Hope yours is the same.

Write up!

In yesterday's Tribune, Tad Weber, the managing editor, is asking folks to send in requests for Obama, what readers would like to see the President Elect accomplish in the next four years. You can email your suggestions to: letters@thtribunenews.com or fax them to 781-7905 or snail mail them to The Tribune, PO Box 112, San Luis Obispo, CA 93406.

Here's my suggestion:

Right now the VA has the legal right to negotiate with drug companies to get better prices on drugs that are available to the vets they serve. In crafting the Medicare Part D drug program, as a huge favor to Big Pharma (in the back room with Billy Tauzin leading the charge), Medicare was forbidden by law from negotiating any price breaks (like the VA can). That could easily and quickly be changed. Because of the high volumne involved (with more Medicare Boomers coming along), the savings realized through such negotiations would still mean a healthy profit for the drug companies (and healthy competition among drug companies during the negotiations) and would also mean an immediate price drop for most people on the Part D program, thereby saving taxpayers and seniors a bundle.

What's your suggestion?


Doooo-Deee-Dooo-Dooo

This morning at nine a.m. in the SLO BOS chambers, the suspense continues to climb. Will the BOS vote to delay the Santa Margarita Ranch project until for the new BOS to tangle with? Will the planning dept. somehow magically figure out a way to reconcile the major conflicts so the supervisors can vote and make everyone happy? Will more shoes be thrown? Lawsuits to follow? Stay tuned. This one will be an interesting Christmas present, all wrapped up for the good people of this county. A present that (depending on what happens) will last for a long, long, long, long time.

And Finally, Why Are These People Surprised?

There's been a lot of huffing and puffing in the media about how gazillions of dollars of bailout taxpayer money was shoveled out the door with no accountability, with banks now being asked, in an AP questionaire, "How'd ya spend the first gazillion?" and answering, "We don't have to tell you zip!" or "Dunno, we're not required to keep track of the money." And now everyone's all wrinkle-browed and concerned that this administration has F*&^%%^ed up ANOTHER fine mess, to which I can only ask, "What did you expect? Competence at this late date???? It's a duck! What were you thinking?"



Sigh.

O.M. G!



Well, out of the mouths of babes. this from the L.A. Times, Dec 20, 08 regarding to the CA. Attorney General, Jerry Brown, requesting the State Supreme Court dump Prop 8 as unconstitutional because it removes rights from citizens, again with no compelling state reason. The counter-brief, filed by the Protect Marriage coalition, argued that the justices ". . . should uphold the proposition . . ." because "The law 'commands judges -- as servants of the people -- to bow to the will of those whom they serve -- even if the substantitve result of what the people have wrought in constiution-amending is deemed unenlightened,' they argued."



Unenlightened. Too perfect. What this state and nation needs is more "unenlightenment." Yep, that's it, you betcha. Bring back witch burning, I say. Out with the science textbooks, dump Darwin! Let's start teaching Creationism in the schools. Can't get more unenlightened that that. And astrology, too, while we're at it. Instead of algebra, I say we need classes in determining how many angels can dance on the heads of pins. Yes, Yes, I know, that's all unenlightened, but We the People have a perfect right to our unenlightenment, and if that unenlightenment denies or removes equal civil rights from our fellow citizens, well, who cares!



Oy!



Ochsnation Comment



Over at http://www.ochsnation.blogspot.com/, Aaron's posted a commentary, "Los Osos, Fighting Mistruths, Hate with Hate."



And, finally, Happy Yalda!



Yep, Yalda, an ancient Zoroastrian winter solstice still celebrated each year in Iran, a celebration that goes back thousands of year, before Islam, before Chrianianity, before Rom, back when Iran was Persia and ruled the world. Accaording the the AP story (in the L.A. Times) It's a celebration whose theme involves "the struggle between the good spririt Ahura Mazda (!) and the evil Ahriman Yalda, marked on the winter solstice, recognizes the symbolic victory of light over darkness as daytime starts growing longer and nights become shorter."



Which, in this hemisphere, happened yesterday, Dec 21. So, toss a Yule log on the fire, serve up dried fruits and sweets for Yalda, go cast some wildflowers out before the Christmas rains and celebrate the return of the sun. Yeee, ha! Time for a little universal unenlightenment that crosses religions, crosses empires, crosses time itself and straight into our hard-wired connection to the powerful rhythms of our earthly home planet.

Shoes! Shoes! My Kingdom For Some Shoes!

Had to work yesterday so missed the BOS meeting, but the picture on the front page of the Tribune was priceless. Shoes. Great piles of them. Shoes of Shame! Sandals of Silliness! Brogans of Bewilderment! All tossed at “The Three Amigos,” (Supervisors Ovitt,& Lenthall & Achadjian) who refuse to carry over the controversial Santa Margrita Ranch project until the new year, and hence until a new (likely) Board Majority is sworn in, thereby (likely) requiring the project to undergo extensive changes. Instead, the staff is charged with somehow reconciling these massive changes by Tuesday and bringing back something the Three Amigos can vote Yes on as they scamper out the door – with more shoes flying after them?

Well, it’s all apt, near as I can see. Lame Duck President Bush, the first recipient of the Flying Shoe of Shame, has been busy shoveling out all kinds of goodies to his cronies and changing laws right and left to benefit a few buddies and political interests – the old payback – as he gallops out the door – shoes flying after him, so why not SLOTown?

And IF the Planning Dept can show up Tuesday morning having reconciled the seemingly unreconcilable, well then, that will be a Christmas miracle of astounding proportions. And if not, then it’s my guess The Three Amigos will vote yes on this project. After all, ya gotta dance with them what brung ya .

Likely, lawsuits to follow.

No Fair!
Fascinating study testing the sense of “fairness” dogs feel. Found out that if you reward one dog for behavior both are doing, the unrewarded dog stopped playing. Since dogs are pack animals, descended from wolves who are keenly sensitive to pack hierarchy and rules and keenly sensitive to “unfair” treatment which can set up dissention in the pack that can spell doom to the pack as a whole, both critters are finely tuned to fair treatment.

And if dogs are aware of ‘fairness,” why not humans, you may ask?

Well, I give you Exhibit A: L.A. Times headline, “Jerry Brown urges court to overturn Prop 8.” The attorney General of the State of California has urged the State Supreme court to overturn Prop 8 because “Proposition 8 must be invalidated because the amendment process cannot be used to extinguish fundamental constitutional rights without compelling justification.” (That old compelling state concerns that even supporters of Prop 8 can’t seem to come up with.)

So, dogs are keenly aware of being treated differently (“He gets a Snausage, I get bubkis, what’s with that??”) so can we then assume humans are also keenly aware of being treated differently? (“He gets to get married and I get bubkis, what’s with that??”)

Well, we’ll see. Will the Supreme Court allow Prop 8 to stand, thereby stripping away the fundamental right to marry they had previously bestowed on gay couples with their original ruling ? Or stand by their original ruling and void out Prop 8? Or keep Prop 8 and end up with somehow having to rule whether Prop 8 then also strips away the nearly 18,000 same-sex marriages already legally performed and recognized, leaving California with a three-tiered system: Straight Marriage, SOME Same-Sex Marriages, and Sorry Bub, None for YOU non-marriag-s “civil unions?”

Stay tuned. Meantime, Kibble anyone?

More Goodbyes

The perils of having litter mates. First Bwana, now his sister, Ajabu. When their last brother Waseem, living up north, goes, that will be the end of M'tawi's Children.

Ironically, Ajabu was the one I was expecting to go first from the cancer on her jaw. But, true to the last, she chugged on her own stubborn little way in her own time to her own tune. When she stopped eating and drinking a few days ago, I thought I'd have to call it, but she suddenly and briefly popped up, incredibly frail but thirsty and hungry again for a few brief laps of broth. But it was her last hurrah. I kept her as comfortable as I could with medication and she went into a twilight sleep. Last night I piled her on the bed with the rest of the gang, all bundled up in a cuddler, told her what a wonderful little dog she was. Her breathing changed about 2 a.m. I dozed off for a brief while and when I awoke she was gone.

More doggie Basenji blossoms for the garden. Perils of having littermates. I hate this. I hate this. I hate this. And I hope I'm done with dying for a while. It's certainly not the season for sad news. She was a good little dog and brought into the world the four "Hideous Georgia Babies," heh-heh, but that's another story for another time. Rest in Peace.

Your Saturday Poem
Year’s End
By Ted Kooser, from Sure Signs; new and selected poems

Now the seasons are closing their files
on each of us, the heavy drawers
full of certificates rolling back
into the tree trunks, a few old papers
flocking away. Someone we loved
has fallen from our thoughts,
making a little, glittering splash
like a bicycle pushed by a breeze.
Otherwise, not much has happened;
we fell in love again, finding
that one red feather on the wind.

Calhoun’s Can(n)ons, The Bay New, Tolosa Press, SLO CA for December 19, 08

Christmas Present

America can change. That is the true genius of this nation
President-elect Barak Obama

The tall nutcrackers have been removed from their dusty cartons to stand guard in the coming solstice night. The Christmas lights gleam in the darkness once again. But for me it’s a season out of sorts. Instead of chill nights and the crows muttering in the cold morning dark, it’s now heat waves and time for short sleeved tee shirts. The nasturtiums in the back yard have raced to put out huge mounds of bright green leaves and new flowers, paying no attention to a sudden cold snap that will unexpectedly arrive to play havoc with their unseasonable green rebellion. Such treacherous topsy-turvy weather is fair warning of the unstable future that is now ours .

For eight years, the dark turning of the year kept getting darker and grimmer as the war’s body count rose and the loss and destruction to this country from the incompetent bunglers and appalling klepocrats in federal office got worse and worse, and the nation fell deeper into a kind of paralyzed sleep while the ship of state headed for the rocks.

And now that the crash has come, amidst a transformative election surrounded by talk of “re-booting America,” and the sense that we’re witnessing a strange déjà vu re-run of the Kennedy era -- that other “generation of change” -- I feel not elation, but only a kind of weary dismay. I am still deeply puzzled as to why and how eight years of this administrative disaster was allowed to continue for so long, why there was such a total failure of all our critical governmental checks and balances, and how to account for the lassitude of a people so inattentive that they couldn’t even move to save their own skins before it was too late.

And since our national Pandora’s box has loosed so many ills into the world, we will be faced with our self-generated blow-back for years to come. But as the ancient legend reminds us, there in the bottom of the box lies hope as well. It is past time to release that sacred gift and pray that Obama was right when he spoke after the New Hampshire primary, “For when we have faced down impossible odds, when we’ve been told we’re not ready or that we shouldn’t try or that we can’t, generations of Americans have responded with a simple creed that sums up the spirit of a people: Yes we can.”

Yes we can. That is a generational cry, as new as a child, as ancient as the hills, as regular and predictable as the turning of the world from the dark winter night of sleep and a passing away, to a new rising of the returning sun that will soon warm the earth once again. It is to be found in the legend of the Fisher King, the myths of the gods made human, come to make earth bright again. It is in all the archetype salvation stories of resurrections and reincarnations, the Great Wheel, Pluto and Persephone, even old Scrooge and his renewing epiphany, all pointing timelessly to the true fact of the world: Change, transformation, constant, fluid, fleeting, all is in flux and flow.

In the evening sky Jupiter, Venus and a crescent moon are all closely aligned in a rare fifty year event, an astonishingly bright celestial dance for winter. It isn’t a Christmas star, but perhaps it will do to lift our spirits and guide whatever wise men we have left. The young generation now moving into their own will not see that celestial gathering again until they are as old as I am now.

It will be a new world when the stars and moon come together again to dance in such perfect alignment, but much will still be the same. On a winter’s night, the candles will be lit, the old songs sung, the families will gather. And in the trees somewhere, there will be crows muttering in the dark, gossiping about one another and kraa-kakking a warning about that odd old lady standing at the end of her driveway in the early dawn, looking east for the rising sun.