Opinion
- Details
- Written by: Josephine LeFaye
That upright tree, in all full glory,
resplendent ... is Palace! And the tree
stump, over yonder (yes, there are many
more of them now, here in Clearlake),
deformed and protuberant – why that's
our husk. When an ancient oak tree is
felled, so in a spiritual sense, are we all!
As a few greedy developer/Destroyers make
their fortunes here and there, taking away from
us all, leaving devastation in their wake,
robbing us of the surrounding beauty, we are,
quite literally, rapidly losing ground.
In thinking, 'Perhaps we can still move somewhere
else in time' ... can another such special place
even be found, any more? Doubtful! By avoiding
struggle at all cost, and in placating with our
thought process, language, and communications,
we are become incapable of doing!
We've opted out, settled without being settlers,
not even bothering to fight for the very land
and freedom that our ancestors gave their lives
and homes for. We are modern fallen man with no
substance.
Help organize an ordinance against tree cutting!
Josephina LeFaye
Clearlake
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- Details
- Written by: DeAnn Fawcett
The Lucerne Alpine Senior Center would like to thank the Lake County Master Gardeners and the Lakeport Rose Society for sponsoring a pruning and care seminar in the Rose Garden on Saturday, Feb. 17.
It was a wonderful experience, with something to be learned whether your a beginner or experienced gardener.
We would also like to thank Janice Kane for her assistance and donation towards the ongoing care of the Memorial Rose Garden. We are now ready and waiting for our beautiful spring blooms.
Sincerely,
DeAnn Fawcett
Lucerne Alpine Senior Center
Memorial Rose Garden Caretaker
- Details
- Written by: Shelby Posada
Many thanks to all of the wonderfully talented musicians and performers who participated in the Lake County Arts Council's 16th annual Winter Music Fest. It's wonderful to have an opportunity to showcase the wide variety of talent in Lake County.
Thank you to Nick Biondo and his students for setting up the stage; and, again, to Nick for sound, to Norm Winkler for lighting and to Xian Yeagan for publicity, programs and staging.
Too often little recognition goes to the backstage crew, so kudos to Susan Yeagan, Hans Dobusch and Armand Flores for providing a seamless production.
Special thanks to David Neft who gave of his time to rehearse and accompany many of the musicians. His professional skills greatly contributed to our new and expanded venue as did the costumes provided by Diane Stawicki of the Golden Follies, and to our enchanting sign girl, Diana Magnes, who wore them with style.
Thank you, Betty Lou Surber, for keeping us on track and your wonderful energy, and to Carol Dobusch for her multiple theatrical talents and especially for directing Vaudeville 2007.
Shelby Posada
Executive Director
Lake County Arts Council
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- Details
- Written by: James BlueWolf
The myth of better productivity and reduced environmental danger, long promoted as the benefits of genetic engineering in plants and animals, has now been exploded. It is only better for the patent holders, intellectual property seekers, and corporate conglomerates. It is in their best interests to keep the consumer ignorant. Science is no longer the neutral Switzerland of pure curiosity it once was, if it ever was, and fewer than 5 percent of all scientists are now economically dependent of corporate sponsors. Ninety-five percent are paid to skew or engineer their results to favorably reflect on the interests of their “sponsors.” The democracy of science no longer represents the consumer.
No laws exist that limit biological pollution — biological contamination is potentially much more dangerous than chemical. Recent studies indicate that only 60 transgenic fish introduced into a population of 60,000 wild fish led to the extinction of the entire species group in as little as 40 generations and in a storm off the Atlantic Coast up to 100,000 farmed Atlantic Salmon escaped. Biologically engineered species destruction is exponential. Transgenics do not coexist in the wild, they invade and ultimately destroy all natural competitors — this is true of fish, pigs, cows, sheep, soybeans, canola, corn & rice. Diversity is destroyed in the name of scientific progress. There is no natural uncontaminated soy or canola seed left on the whole continent of Canada. Similar contamination and destruction of corn cultivars is occurring in Mexico and in India, of the original 200,000 cultivars of rice, only 256 varieties remain today. Today, seed, and plants themselves are being patented in the US Patent Office to corporations like Monsanto and Bayer. Only seed activists are bucking this tide.
Even human genomes are being studies for patenting. Native peoples in danger of extinction have been targeted by corporate pharmaceutical giants to bring back blood samples in the hope of discovering new and potentially patentable characteristics. A company actually convinced the Icelandic government to allow data mining of every patient medical record of every citizen in Iceland for genome research that specifically goes to pharmaceutical and life and medical insurance giants. The myth of miracle cures — pushing the fetal implant, gene therapy, and stem cell research projects is not only naïve, but dangerous. Ultimately, designing an a new and improved child may seem like a good idea to some parents — at least until they have their next child and improved technology allowed for significant improvements over the first. We may reach a point where our these children become obsolete, like Windows 95 compared to the Windows 2003 editions of technological human development upgrades.
The control technique of plant and animal contamination today is a terminator technology or engineered sterility. Scientists claim these technologies will effectively protect the environment but the pollen from terminator genes has been proven to cause sterility even in the seeds of other, unrelated species of plants. All this technology seems to represent the Cartesian model that all life is a machine, a mechanistic myth that promotes the idea that genes are the tinker toys of scientific progress and life may be creatively engineered — a kind of manifest destiny applied to the natural world.
Experimental data now exists to confirm that in consuming genetically altered DNA, organisms may incorporate that DNA rather than eliminating it. This calls into question the safety of consuming transgenic foods, yet there are no laws governing the labeling of fish, vegetables or meats in the US today that tells us if the products we consume are transgenic. New evidence seems to indicate that transgenic experiments in the real ecosystem may generate alarming disease rates and extreme species contamination, even to the point of species extinction. This lack of labeling is part of an intentional effort to keep us ignorant & misinformed while we are made the control group test subjects for corporate patent holders. It’s certainly cheaper than real science. We are the new guinea pigs. By supporting organics and seed activism, we can resist corporate science, protect our fragile ecosystem, and help make healthy alternatives affordable for our grandchildren.
James BlueWolf
Lakeport
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