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I grew up in San Francisco. I remember “Eddie the policeman” and his horse Chief. Back then, kids could explore Golden Gate Park without tripping over a homeless encampment, or meander through any of the museums and Japanese Tea Gardens, FREE. Did you know that Golden Gate Park is bigger than New York’s Central Park? Yup, we got one up on the Big Apple.
Some of us remember when Playland still existed and Laughing Sal made you almost wet your pants in hysteria. Geary Street was clean. Things change. Then again, some things do not.
One super fun thing to do in San Francisco is to rent a paddle boat at the Stow Lake Boathouse in Golden Gate Park, and get some exercise circling around Strawberry Island (on top of which is a great view of the City), taking in the turtles basking on logs, the idyllic Chinese Pavilion, or the faux waterfall. It’s also a place where birders can have a field day discovering the many fantastic birds that make the lake and surrounding trees their urban home or resting place. I’ve been lucky and have not been pooped on by a seagull or pigeon yet, but I hear it does happen.
If you’re not in shape, the first ten minutes of paddling will give your legs a good burn. After that, it’s all downhill (so to speak). The lake itself and the surrounding scenery is a real time warp: other than the Chinese Pavilion, which was a gift to the City from Taipei in 1981, the scenery is exactly as I remember it as a kid. The Pavilion is so serene that as you come around the curve and see it, you want to stop paddling and drift, imagining that you’re actually in China during some ancient dynasty. This is where you should get off of your boat, and take a look at the exquisite hand-painted ceiling in the Pavilion, rich with Chinese symbols of good luck and blessings.
It’s hard to think that you’re even in a city as you circumnavigate Stow Lake. This really is the BEST city in the world.
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
California's budget and the Future of Education
How does education help the economy? Will the Governor cut us off at the knees in mid-2009? How can empowered citizens make an impact through political videos, blogs, or other social media?
By now you’ve all heard facts and predictions:
- 2.3 million Californians are unemployed or underemployed.
- Home sales have declined more than half.
- Foreclosures have pushed many renters and their families into homelessness.
- The California Prison system is the third largest penal system in the country with 33 prisons housing more than 172,000 inmates at a cost of $5.7 billion dollars a year.
- Legislators propose huge cuts to education and to human services, which will especially hurt poor children and the mentally ill.
- Adding to the revenue shortfall—large, profitable corporations and people in the upper income bracket have continuously received handsome tax breaks since the 1980s.
Blog, blog, blog to vent and to make suggestions for how we can deal with the State’s budget crisis.
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Eight Years From Now
In the 1969 hit song “2525,” the lyrics blithely ponder, “If man is still alive, If woman can survive, They may find..."
Well it’s not quite 2525, but 2016 is close enough--if we are even here on Planet Earth then.
The Mayan calendar stops on December 21, 2012. At that time, the winter Solstice sun crosses the center of our galaxy. Does that mean Earth reverses polarity and heads back into the Big Bang from whence it came? We get sucked back up into anti-matter? No Christmas, no Happy New Year? Or, does the clock simply get reset?
Remember the Y2K predictions? People were stocking up on emergency rations, but nothing happened. I can imagine how many pessimists drank themselves silly, toasting the demise of technology-dependent Earthlings, only to wake up the next day to the hangover headache from hell. Did they remember to stock up on Excedrin? The truth is, nobody really knows what’s going happen, but I, no Nostradamus, predict:
More gray hair. Dammit. That means my hairstylist will make more money. Eight years closer to Social Security, which amazingly has survived the Republicans’ attempts to “privatize” the system (a euphemism for raid the coffers and then stick it to taxpayers for a bailout).
The good news is that ordinary citizens have participated in self-governance during the Obama presidency, and collectively, we have put a dent in global warming. Mass transit is everywhere, replacing the huge, individually-driven automobiles that Americans so dearly loved. Gas has been replaced by clean fuel and prime habitat has been given back to the wildlife. Polar bears have been spared extinction! Alaska is still pristine. There are organic community gardens everywhere, and local co-ops distribute food that its citizens have raised. Factory farms have gone bankrupt and their CEOs do penance by hauling manure to compost bins. Sonars were outlawed in our oceans, and marine life is making a dramatic comeback.
The economy still sucks, but we have finally come to the realization that Karl Marx was right: there is enough to go around. We have a global flat tax and the tax loopholes and lawyers who helped people jump over them are gone. Women represent 50 percent of elected politicians and have finally made “family values” a reality versus a counterfeit ideology. We have a four-day workweek! Education is fully funded. Affordable healthcare is available to everyone.
Britney’s kids are pre-adolescents. We found out that Angie and Brad were the genesis of the nursery rhyme, “There was an old woman who lived in a shoe . . .”
Facebook went the way of MySpace.
George Bush went back to college to study Comparative Religion, earned grades higher than a C, then converted to Buddhism and donated his vast ill-gotten oil fortunes to repay his bad karma.
Animals are recognized and venerated as sentient beings, a vast connection of diversity in the cosmic web of life of which we are all a part.
Life is good.
Well it’s not quite 2525, but 2016 is close enough--if we are even here on Planet Earth then.
The Mayan calendar stops on December 21, 2012. At that time, the winter Solstice sun crosses the center of our galaxy. Does that mean Earth reverses polarity and heads back into the Big Bang from whence it came? We get sucked back up into anti-matter? No Christmas, no Happy New Year? Or, does the clock simply get reset?
Remember the Y2K predictions? People were stocking up on emergency rations, but nothing happened. I can imagine how many pessimists drank themselves silly, toasting the demise of technology-dependent Earthlings, only to wake up the next day to the hangover headache from hell. Did they remember to stock up on Excedrin? The truth is, nobody really knows what’s going happen, but I, no Nostradamus, predict:
More gray hair. Dammit. That means my hairstylist will make more money. Eight years closer to Social Security, which amazingly has survived the Republicans’ attempts to “privatize” the system (a euphemism for raid the coffers and then stick it to taxpayers for a bailout).
The good news is that ordinary citizens have participated in self-governance during the Obama presidency, and collectively, we have put a dent in global warming. Mass transit is everywhere, replacing the huge, individually-driven automobiles that Americans so dearly loved. Gas has been replaced by clean fuel and prime habitat has been given back to the wildlife. Polar bears have been spared extinction! Alaska is still pristine. There are organic community gardens everywhere, and local co-ops distribute food that its citizens have raised. Factory farms have gone bankrupt and their CEOs do penance by hauling manure to compost bins. Sonars were outlawed in our oceans, and marine life is making a dramatic comeback.
The economy still sucks, but we have finally come to the realization that Karl Marx was right: there is enough to go around. We have a global flat tax and the tax loopholes and lawyers who helped people jump over them are gone. Women represent 50 percent of elected politicians and have finally made “family values” a reality versus a counterfeit ideology. We have a four-day workweek! Education is fully funded. Affordable healthcare is available to everyone.
Britney’s kids are pre-adolescents. We found out that Angie and Brad were the genesis of the nursery rhyme, “There was an old woman who lived in a shoe . . .”
Facebook went the way of MySpace.
George Bush went back to college to study Comparative Religion, earned grades higher than a C, then converted to Buddhism and donated his vast ill-gotten oil fortunes to repay his bad karma.
Animals are recognized and venerated as sentient beings, a vast connection of diversity in the cosmic web of life of which we are all a part.
Life is good.
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Fetch
Cornell, Purdue, Michigan State, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign—these universities are just a few that recognize what is now scientifically proven: The “Human-Animal Bond, the dynamic relationship between people and animals” that influences the psychological and physiological state of each other in profound ways. The human-animal bond is universal. From the earliest caveman to the present, humans and animals have depended on each other for food, shelter, companionship, well-being, love.
Some people regard other animal species as mere property, or commodities that fetch a price, meaning, can “be sold for,” as were human slaves less than 150 years ago, and are now. Yet, the U.S. Public Health Service states that a “scientifically established link exists between how people treat animals and how they treat each other.” In other words, if we want kinder people, we need to treat animals humanely, especially since they have benefited us for more than 10,000 years, which is when they were first domesticated!
Everything has its light and its dark side. Take the Internet for example: how might the Web relate to the human-animal bond?
Surprise! Cyberspace has eyes! Cookies and spyware can be used to record your online browsing behavior. In this context, fetch means “return with information.” Some people might be surprised to discover that police, the government, criminals, or maybe even aliens can observe Homo sapiens’ online behavior. In short, there is no such thing as online privacy. Everything you do on the information superhighway leaves footprints. Anything you buy, email, upload, download, or post can be tracked.
How is that any different from observing animals in zoos, circuses, aquariums, pet stores or research laboratories? The answer is that although you may be observed, you are not confined.
The irony of the Internet is that the same technology that allows governments and corporations to observe and capitalize on our behaviors, also allows us to find out about them. That’s the light side.
The Internet has spawned a new kind of grassroots, community activism whereby consumer and watchdog groups are able to quickly spread the word about issues such as factory farms, where animals are crammed into small cages in order to keep housing costs down and corporate profits up. Farm animals bred and raised for the dining table are not, as ads like to claim, “pure, honest to goodness” fresh, natural ones, but are raised in totally unnatural conditions, suffer from chronic health problems, are force fed antibiotics and hormones, are fattened up quickly, and millions are slaughtered each week for human consumption.
The Web connects us. The human-animal bond means that we are interdependent. How we treat them affects us. Thus, widespread calls to action ask YOU to help end such cruel practices by voting Yes on California’s Proposition 2, a measure that improves everyone’s health and safety, helps protect the environment, and honors the human-animal bond.
Images downloaded from Google images.
Some people regard other animal species as mere property, or commodities that fetch a price, meaning, can “be sold for,” as were human slaves less than 150 years ago, and are now. Yet, the U.S. Public Health Service states that a “scientifically established link exists between how people treat animals and how they treat each other.” In other words, if we want kinder people, we need to treat animals humanely, especially since they have benefited us for more than 10,000 years, which is when they were first domesticated!
Everything has its light and its dark side. Take the Internet for example: how might the Web relate to the human-animal bond?
Surprise! Cyberspace has eyes! Cookies and spyware can be used to record your online browsing behavior. In this context, fetch means “return with information.” Some people might be surprised to discover that police, the government, criminals, or maybe even aliens can observe Homo sapiens’ online behavior. In short, there is no such thing as online privacy. Everything you do on the information superhighway leaves footprints. Anything you buy, email, upload, download, or post can be tracked.
How is that any different from observing animals in zoos, circuses, aquariums, pet stores or research laboratories? The answer is that although you may be observed, you are not confined.
Isn’t turnabout fair play?
The irony of the Internet is that the same technology that allows governments and corporations to observe and capitalize on our behaviors, also allows us to find out about them. That’s the light side.
The Internet has spawned a new kind of grassroots, community activism whereby consumer and watchdog groups are able to quickly spread the word about issues such as factory farms, where animals are crammed into small cages in order to keep housing costs down and corporate profits up. Farm animals bred and raised for the dining table are not, as ads like to claim, “pure, honest to goodness” fresh, natural ones, but are raised in totally unnatural conditions, suffer from chronic health problems, are force fed antibiotics and hormones, are fattened up quickly, and millions are slaughtered each week for human consumption.
The Web connects us. The human-animal bond means that we are interdependent. How we treat them affects us. Thus, widespread calls to action ask YOU to help end such cruel practices by voting Yes on California’s Proposition 2, a measure that improves everyone’s health and safety, helps protect the environment, and honors the human-animal bond.
Images downloaded from Google images.
Thursday, October 9, 2008
The Cuckoo's Net
I can go anywhere I want. I can read or watch anything I want. I can listen, I can buy. I can download, cut, paste, burn. I’m talking, of course, about the Internet, also known as “the net,” the giant emporium of multimedia text and images that forms the global playland of young and old alike. But not if the corporate Big Brothers take it over. If that happens, you and I might find ourselves on a slow, three-foot wave surfing kiddy pools while those who are willing to pay more get to shoot the pipeline.So much for net neutrality, the notion that free speech, capitalism, and democracy are inherently ours to use openly as we wish, without restriction, censorship, or exclusion.
I love the Internet because
But if the corporate conglomerates put their big d___s in the net, animal-rights organizations like PETA could find that web pages containing information about animal cruelty, factory farming, furs, and pharmaceutical and cosmetic testing won’t load, load slowly, or perhaps donors will no longer be able to make online donations. If you want to support an organization, you may have to pay to access their site.I visited New York City’s Chinatown once, where you could play or watch other people play tic-tac-toe with a chicken. The chicken won every time. She had to. Unless she won, she didn’t eat. Food was her reward for playing. That’s net neutrality folks: you bet, you lose.
YOU, however, can keep the net free, like the good person who freed “Lily” the chicken.
Becoming humane means waking up to personal responsibility. There are no masters, only slaves. Instead of asking, “How can the banks and corporate giants keep getting away with it?” or “How did this war start?” or “Can I trust the media?” become a citizen journalist and free the chicken inside of you. Free other chickens! Peck away at your keyboards, write your elected representatives, refuse to pay higher prices to participate in democracy, refuse to bail out the pigs on Wall Street. Refuse to be caged.
Images from Google images. Cartoon by Peter Steiner, Copyrighted by the New Yorker.
Squirrely
What I’d really like to do is download a bunch of videos about squirrels, remix them, then upload them onto the Internet just to show people how unfounded their fears are. However, digital rights management says that the practice is a “no-no,” because it infringes on copyright and other people’s “intellectual property.” Since when does ignorance get to be called “intellectual,” as in the case of the previously mentioned gardening article in the Chronicle?Like the great poet Pablo Neruda wrote, “I have a mind to confuse things, unite them, bring them to birth, mix them up, undress them.” That’s what the free culture movement is all about—using creativity and technology to show what is possible. For me, what’s possible is that people might someday dismiss the notion that man, earth’s supreme destroyer, has “dominion” over everything on this tiny planet. Maybe early scribes mistranslated meanings publicized in THE BOOK? According to Dr. Michael W. Fox, the original meaning of the word “dominion” comes from the Hebrew word yorade, which means to “have communion with and compassion for,” not supremacy. We have to set it right.
I’d start with this video, that in actuality shows a squirrel with a concussion, then cut to a shot of running with the squirrels, and end with squirrels dancing to a Michael Jackson song (free culture in action!). Yeah.
I posted a comment on YouTube regarding the mislabeled “drunk squirrel” video, informing people that the poor squirrel was actually suffering from a concussion. I got this rabid response from some a_hole whose username is "icanrideabigbike," “hey a concussion is even funnier! when the show gets old get out the pellet gun and put the little guy out of his erratic misery.”
I think you get the message. People, not squirrels, are nuts!
What if each one of us was to speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves? What if we were to stand in front of the trees, as did William Faulkner’s character Boon in The Bear, and shout, “They’re my squirrels!”
This week’s New York Times and other news outlets featured an article “One in 4 Mammals Threatened With Extinction” that every single human on the planet should read, if they can.
As the food chain declines, so will humans, and as THE BOOK promises, “the meek shall inherit the earth.” Think about it.
Squirrel photo downloaded from Google images.
Friday, September 19, 2008
Urban Wildlife, Part 2
Urban wildlife: they are wild and they are in your city. But does that mean that you or your loved ones are in danger of contracting the dreaded disease called rabies? Statistically, no. How is it then that articles like “Raccoon inundation a community problem,” that appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle on July 30, 2008, are allowed to be published in mainstream media without some fact checking or at least an alternative view?
According to the Center for Citizen Media, the principles of and core values of responsible journalism are: accuracy, thoroughness, fairness, transparency, and independence. The author of the above-mentioned article failed at accuracy and fairness, possibly because she only relied on a “vector control” officer for her source of information. Media democracy dictates that I put the record straight. As a former veterinary technician, long-time wildlife rehabilitator, humane educator, and media karma-inducer, let me tell you about vector control officers. Their job is to keep humans safe by controlling critters that that can or might spread germs (Wikipedia). Of course, people are vectors too! Duh.
Historically, the most common and serious known vector is mosquitoes. Think West Nile Virus and malaria. Vector control officers often consider wildlife “pests,” and many county job postings call for vector control officers to have had “pest control” experience. They are exterminators. They do not relocate wildlife. They shoot first, ask questions later.
In order to work with wildlife in the State of California, the Department of Fish and Game requires rehabilitators to take at least one professionally recognized course per year. One such class is on zooneses, diseases that are transmitted from animals to humans (who are also animals). Rabies is considered a zoonotic disease, and raccoons and skunks can be vectors for it. Rabies is spread through the saliva of an infected animal; saliva that enters the bloodstream from bites. According to the Centers for Disease Control, “The number of rabies-related human deaths in the United States has declined from more than 100 annually at the turn of the century to one or two per year in the 1990s.” With a total U.S. population of 305 million people, one or two a year is statistically nil. You have a greater chance of being hit by lightning.
In a map depicting the locations of animal rabies in the State of California in 2007, most cases were bats, and only one raccoon. There were no cases of squirrel rabies. The California Department of Health’s Report on Animal Rabies by County and Species for years 1997-2006 shows not a single case of rabies in squirrels, only three in raccoons, and six cases in humans (mostly from bats and skunks).
According to the Center for Citizen Media, the principles of and core values of responsible journalism are: accuracy, thoroughness, fairness, transparency, and independence. The author of the above-mentioned article failed at accuracy and fairness, possibly because she only relied on a “vector control” officer for her source of information. Media democracy dictates that I put the record straight. As a former veterinary technician, long-time wildlife rehabilitator, humane educator, and media karma-inducer, let me tell you about vector control officers. Their job is to keep humans safe by controlling critters that that can or might spread germs (Wikipedia). Of course, people are vectors too! Duh.
Historically, the most common and serious known vector is mosquitoes. Think West Nile Virus and malaria. Vector control officers often consider wildlife “pests,” and many county job postings call for vector control officers to have had “pest control” experience. They are exterminators. They do not relocate wildlife. They shoot first, ask questions later.
In order to work with wildlife in the State of California, the Department of Fish and Game requires rehabilitators to take at least one professionally recognized course per year. One such class is on zooneses, diseases that are transmitted from animals to humans (who are also animals). Rabies is considered a zoonotic disease, and raccoons and skunks can be vectors for it. Rabies is spread through the saliva of an infected animal; saliva that enters the bloodstream from bites. According to the Centers for Disease Control, “The number of rabies-related human deaths in the United States has declined from more than 100 annually at the turn of the century to one or two per year in the 1990s.” With a total U.S. population of 305 million people, one or two a year is statistically nil. You have a greater chance of being hit by lightning.
In a map depicting the locations of animal rabies in the State of California in 2007, most cases were bats, and only one raccoon. There were no cases of squirrel rabies. The California Department of Health’s Report on Animal Rabies by County and Species for years 1997-2006 shows not a single case of rabies in squirrels, only three in raccoons, and six cases in humans (mostly from bats and skunks).
Dr. John Pitts, a veterinarian who teaches courses nationwide for teachers, said that biologists, health officials, and veterinarians do not consider squirrels a vector for rabies. Why? Because they are prey animals, low on the food chain. They are eaten by other animals like foxes, coyotes, wild cats, hawks, owls, and snakes. Squirrels are "dead-end hosts," meaning that the rabid animal kills the squirrel before the virus has a chance to infect it. Simply put, small rodents get eaten immediately, as in dead.
My next post will discuss other sad, absurd, or fun-filled and freaky stories about people’s interactions with animals. Stay tuned.
Hawk eating squirrel. Image from google images.
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Urban wildlife
A few weeks ago, I read a gardening article in the San Francisco Chronicle that made me shake my head in complete disbelief. You know, the kind of disbelief that ends in WTF?? Anyway, the scenario was this: A lady wrote to ask the columnist how she could "rid" her garden of raccoons and squirrels. The columnist's response was appalling! She should have stuck to roses or weeds. What she said was this: "The raccoon and squirrel population boom you are experiencing is probably due to practices in your neighborhood that are allowing them to multiply more rapidly than usual. Much of the available advice on managing these animals assumes a moderate population, but when the animals are very crowded, the usual advice may not work. What you need to do is try to find out the reasons for the population boom and seek wider help removing them." WTF???
Multiply more rapidly than usual? Does that mean crank them out faster, or crank out more? The reasons for the so-called population boom is that these animals' habitat--normal nesting and feeding areas, has been destroyed. There are more of US and so we see more of "them." Removing "them" does not work.
As a long-time wildlife rehabilitator, former veterinary technician, and head of a large humane society's humane education programs, I am frequently surprised at how little people know about other animals, both domestic and wild. I say "other" animals because humans are also animals. This blog will be about our kinship with other animal species, about the myths and bullshit that have been and continue to be propagated to justify "removing" (a euphemism for killing) them, and I will offer tips for caring for our in-home or urban furry and feathered friends.
Myth buster #1: squirrels and other rodents almost NEVER have or transmit rabies. Want to know why? Stay tuned.
Multiply more rapidly than usual? Does that mean crank them out faster, or crank out more? The reasons for the so-called population boom is that these animals' habitat--normal nesting and feeding areas, has been destroyed. There are more of US and so we see more of "them." Removing "them" does not work.
As a long-time wildlife rehabilitator, former veterinary technician, and head of a large humane society's humane education programs, I am frequently surprised at how little people know about other animals, both domestic and wild. I say "other" animals because humans are also animals. This blog will be about our kinship with other animal species, about the myths and bullshit that have been and continue to be propagated to justify "removing" (a euphemism for killing) them, and I will offer tips for caring for our in-home or urban furry and feathered friends.
Myth buster #1: squirrels and other rodents almost NEVER have or transmit rabies. Want to know why? Stay tuned.
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