What if they gave a contest and nobody came – not many people anyway. This recently happened twice in Lake County but the reaction by the organizers was very different in the two cases.

In 2008 the nationally organized “Poetry Out Loud” competition was promoted in Lake County. Poet Laureate Sandra Wade and Lorna Sides circulated the promotional materials throughout our local schools and waited for the enthusiastic students to line up at the announced venues. It was a no show, except for one person. So they had their contest and declared our county winner and sent her off as the Lake County rep to the state level. The local organizers were just a little vague on the level of participation.

There was never a question about following through with the contest. The participant showed up and performed well. That was all that was required. There was no requirement that other students show up. She gained useful experience at the state semifinals while making valuable contacts. Lake County made the cut as a player for showing up also. The publicity encouraged a fuller participation by students this year, with a selection made at an Arts Council event.

As this year brought a successful second year to the “Poetry Out Loud” recitation competition after building on the first year, another contest was sailing into uncharted waters. The regionally advertised “Dream Weaver” playwriting contest was to be run by two Lake County Theater actors in their spare time. This was nothing like a previous playwriting contest promoted nationally with many volunteers. The subject matter was wide open with only technical constraints officially listed.

I saw this as an opportunity to write my first full length play, moving up from skits and short plays. Unlike writers outside the county, I knew something of the judging milieu. The theater board that would anoint a winner tends to favor producing light faire while recoiling from anything with a whiff of avant-garde.

With eyes wide open, I submitted my play “Yellowgrease” with the belief that it would win and be produced only if it were the only functional play before the judges. As this was the first half-hearted year of a regional contest, I knew this was a small but real possibility.

A month after the submission deadline the board took up the contest as an agenda item at their meeting. There was no announcement about what was decided after a week. A month passed – nothing. They did mail their planned upcoming season program but there was no mention of a play from the Dream Weaver contest or even that such a contest ever existed.

Finally, on May 26, one of the two reviewing actors called me because she thought I shouldn’t be left hanging any longer. The verdict was that there were only two functional plays entered that could be produced. Mine was one of them but there was no way they were going to produce it. It was good enough but good enough wasn’t good enough. It was … straaange, and Lake County Theater doesn’t like “strange.” Their solution was to cancel the contest for “lack of participation” without even notifying the contest entrants in writing that there would be no winner and no production. (Contest? What contest? I don’t remember a contest.) I feel those writers who sent in plays in good faith deserve to be treated better. In fact, I would describe the board’s behavior as “artless.”

So what should have been done? At minimum, if they decided that small town economics and values would absolutely prohibit producing the winning play they could have approached the winning playwright thusly:

“All right Shakespeare, you caught us. We gambled that we would get a good romantic comedy or murder mystery in the stack but it didn’t happen. We got you instead. So now you know that this theater community is not open to all types of theater as we led everyone to believe. In many ways we are a much smaller place. Now we have to deal. You want to be the winner? Fine. You’re the winner. Put it on your resume. We’ll alert the media. But we need an out. We will say that we couldn’t find a director that wanted to direct it or not enough actors auditioned for the parts. Since the prize money was coming out of ticket sales, which we won’t have, we will credit you as a life member in our theater company instead. Good luck shopping your play in the big city.”

See how easy it could have been? Apparently the goodwill of local writers is not something the Lake County Theater Co. values very highly. So be it. I will be signing up with online services for playwrights anyway. However, I will require that future contests by LCTC fully disclose their genre limitations to prospective entrants or I will.

Dante DeAmicis lives in Clearlake. To see an outtake from his play, visit www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ND0IMcl9BA.

Given the current economic climate, or economic storm, money and its availability in the form of wages, credit or profit, or lack thereof, is once again foremost on everyone’s mind, even the very rich few who without a doubt are currently developing new schemes to profit from the misery of the many (this is usually called seizing opportunities, the way the sick or exhausted African zebra is the seized opportunity of the hyena).

Let’s not be exceedingly fooled by talks of compassion at any societal levels: ours remains mostly a dog eat dog world, and many of the top winners of such a senseless survival contest appear determined to make it ever more unforgiving for the losers.

To the iron-willed conqueror, the weak is a burden…to those who espouse social Darwinism, and they are the majority at the very top, the weak is meant to be exploited, abused, and eradicated whenever deemed necessary and with nature’s blessing, since according to Darwin’s fantasies, the survival of the fittest is nature’s plan … It is incidentally extremely ironic that a culture would be so seemingly eager to submit to an imaginary natural law when in every other respect displaying contempt for nature, and being so antagonistic and hostile to nature as to strive to overcome it and make it obsolete.

Who is weak, and who is the fittest? In business as in life, generosity, trust, innocence, vulnerability, sensitivity, openness, compassion, respect, a spirit of cooperation and sharing and even having a conscience can be somewhat detrimental to wealth accumulation and preservation.

The successful top business model is predatory, more often than not ruthless, exploitative of the ignorance, misfortune, or weaknesses of others … at the highest levels the aim is no longer to compete but to eliminate the competition, as in an all out war.

Big business is indeed war, just as war has always been big business, the collateral damage being the majority of the world population. The fittest is then the successful predator, and the poor, the working class and increasingly the middle class, are its prey.

While most small businesses offer real, valuable, honest services and products, many large businesses and multinational corporations simply feed on the public the way a wood tick feeds on a mammal, or government feeds on the taxpayer. The problem with the law of the jungle, however, is not so much that so few get to exploit so many, this sickness has always been part of the civilized world ever since the Roman Empire, but that the acquisition of wealth and power for their own sake leads to the development of philistine cultures, where the focuses in living are no longer meaning and quality but survival and quantity.

Mostly gone are, for example, reasonable interests in art, poetry, literature, philosophy, unless the popular trash that passes for such leads to marketable formulas and significant corporate profits. The barbarians are no longer at the gate, they are in the temple, and are in a position to dictate, with an implacable logic that is exclusively grounded in the harsh principles of money making, the terms of the world enduring slavery, which is that of barely existing under the burden of society’s ever more oppressive commercialism.

The habit of an obsessive pursuit of money for its own sake appeals to people whose uneducated motivations cause them to be oblivious and impermeable to any kind of refinement, sophistication or higher aspirations, to display a hatred of even the slightest traces of intellectualism, to distrust imaginative, independent, creative, free-thinking individuals, to favor conformity, uniformity, blind group loyalty as in nationalism, and to delight and perhaps even take pride in idiocy, as long as it is group idiocy, as can be seen in the media and mass trends.

Let’s compare objects created in previous centuries, to today’s mass-produced junk: most old objects, antiques, bear the mark of their human makers, a rare and beautiful quality of heart and soul involvement and individuality. Today’s objects only bear the mark of speedy profitability, they are vacant of all humanity, as are becoming our lives: plastic, rushed, impersonal, increasingly insensitive and hollow, and ruled by the crass corporate model of profit at all costs, by the ideas that what is not profitable is irrelevant and what impedes profits is the enemy of human society.

In this regard, the true artist, the true poet, whose main motivations are anything but money, are suspiciously regarded as being almost seditious, adversarial to the norm, while the norm, first defined by the productivity of the assembly line, now causes workers and professionals to compete with an increasingly faster electronic standard of productivity, natural time being perceived to be a great obstacle to monetary gain, which is to say that our very own humanity is currently defined to be an obstruction to profit.

What kind of world is this, then? A world that, for those who reject the social conditioning that encourages relentless competition, the manic pursuit of material rewards and a drive to achieve recognition within the boundaries of limited social frameworks, makes no more sense than a treadmill would make sense to someone who would rather run free in the wild open prairie.

To make sense of a world that keeps people down, immobilized, functioning like robots and barely living, and whose only practical freedom is financial freedom, without which life remains, under any form of government, slavery, one has to become a willing and obedient hostage of conditioning indeed, and follow the vastly unintelligent social script as closely as a prisoner follows incarceration rules.

The prison, the evil here is not money itself, but the utter fantasy that high artificial living standards create happiness and fulfillment while more modest natural living standards cause misery…why then do the richest people on earth are plagued by so many mental illnesses such as depression, bi-polar disorder, etc? Not to romanticize poverty and demonize wealth, but a simpler, calmer, more natural, authentic and cooperative way of life is in my opinion far superior to the mania of pillaging the earth to manufacture ever more toxic products and substances that are ever faster consumed and discarded while entire populations are exploited in every possible manner or even killed to keep this madness going.

What is today called material poverty becomes psychologically unbearable only within an environment that is culturally bare, alienating, and devoid of authentic human fulfillment, a cultural, spiritual and psychological wasteland. Where and when populations have very close family units, meaningful social roles and connections, essential values and a propensity to fulfill real, natural human needs rather than artificial desires and fancy cravings, a humbler lifestyle is not perceived to be anymore humiliating or unfulfilling than not having a 3000 square foot house would have been perceived to be damaging to the self-worth or well-being of a 19th century Inuit, or than not growing up in Beverly Hills and not going to summer vacation in the Hampton is damaging to the average American child’s psyche.

It is time to initiate new social and cultural standards to restore a sense of inner self to the individual, to understand that frantic productivity and consumerism are not conditions fundamental to fulfillment, and a quasi imperial standard of living is not essential to human happiness, so that the earth is no longer trashed and the future generations sacrificed to elevate the low self-esteem and fill the inner void of the neurotic and the spiritually vacant.

Raphael Montoliu lives in Lakeport.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Congress must act quickly to pass health care reform – the bottom line is we can’t wait any longer.

Across our country, 14,000 Americans are losing their health care coverage every day, joining the 46 million who aren’t covered by health insurance.

I’m as worried as anyone about how we’re going to pay for this overhaul. But the cost of doing nothing is even greater. We must address the lack of access, and the crippling cost of health care that is hurting our families and our economy.

The United States now spends twice as much per capita on health care than almost any other nation, and our outcomes are worse.

Spending on doctors, hospitals, drugs and other health care costs now consumes more than one of every $6 we earn – that’s approaching 20 percent of our country’s gross domestic product.

The growing costs to employers, estimated at 5 percent in 2008, have forced many businesses to cut back on benefits.

It is even worse now during tough economic times. Before the economic downturn, 62 percent of all personal bankruptcies in 2007 were the result of unaffordable medical bills. What's astounding is that three-fourths of those debtors had health insurance.

According to the numbers alone, our system is broken.

But the health care issue is about much more than just numbers.

I’ve heard from countless folks in our district who can’t afford health care, or are struggling to come up with the money to pay their rising premiums.

One constituent likened her health care bills to a second mortgage. Her middle class family has been paying nearly $15,000 a year for health coverage, which is not uncommon. She’s had to cut back on paying for other things in order to afford to keep her family insured.

Her story – and others across our district – underscore the need to act quickly to make sure that all families have affordable access to the care they need.

There is widespread agreement that something must be done. But as is usually the case when making public policy, the devil is in the details.

Changing our health care system will be very difficult, and much compromise will be necessary. No one will get everything they want and after it is done there will be more reform to do.

The American people want health care reform, but at the same time are afraid of losing what they already have – if they already have health care coverage. They want access to quality health care but are most concerned with being able to afford it. Of those who have insurance, few are interested in shifting from an insurance industry bureaucracy to a government bureaucracy.

We need to make sure that people who are happy with the coverage they have can keep it. We need to make sure that the American people will be able to keep their doctors and have a say in their health care decisions.

But we must expand the options, so that Americans who don’t like their plan, or don’t have health care coverage, have a choice. And we can’t afford to wait for an arbitrary “trigger” to be pulled to put this reform into operation. If that is part of the bill, reform likely will never happen.

A public plan that provides true competition will be an important part of this reform. According to data from the Kaiser Family Foundation, a widely respected nonprofit health policy research foundation, nearly two-thirds of Americans agree with me that we need to make sure that all Americans have access to affordable health care by providing an alternative to the private insurance options that are on the market.

We must ensure that every American has health care coverage, regardless of pre-existing conditions, and that we have adequate protections in place for the doctor-patient relationship.

And we must also make sure that people can keep their coverage if they change jobs, get divorced or their employer changes their options.

By streamlining health care, reducing fraud and abuse, ending unnecessary testing, discouraging overutilization, investing in smart reforms and emphasizing preventive health care, we can significantly bring down the cost of health care.

In addition to working for these changes, I’ll also push to expand access to telemedicine, which provides easier access to health care for people in underserved communities.

We also can make significant cost savings by encouraging more collaboration and patient-centered care by doctors. Rather than paying doctors for the volume of procedures they perform, we should reward them for keeping patients healthy.

Reform won’t be easy, but it is urgent that we act now to make sure that all Americans can access quality, affordable health care.

For the families in our district, and families across the country who can’t afford to go to the doctor or can’t afford the medicine they’ve been prescribed, it’s more urgent than ever that we reform our broken health care system as quickly as possible.

Congressman Mike Thompson (D-St. Helena) represents District 1 – which includes Lake County – in the US House of Representatives.

Our local news has been covering the mussel exposure to Lake County and the actions to prevent it very aggressively recently. This is good as public awareness is key to prevention. However it is also frustrating as those that have been tracking this high-risk situation for years realize that we have done little if anything to really prevent it from getting here.

Our “mussel task force” has resulted in a lot of time from many volunteers to try and put a plan and actions together to combat this threat within the limitations of limited funds while trying to please everyone involved. Many have done the politically correct action to tell of the “excellent job” they are doing. I will be the bad guy and conclude they have accomplished little if anything tangible to stop the threat, while acknowledging they have made a great effort.

First of all I will repeat the threat, the economy of Lake County will be severely impacted by these mussels getting into our lake. The ecology of the lake will change forever. Those of us that are both emotionally and financially invested in the county will see property values plummet much farther than expected. Property taxes will be reduced.

A financially challenged county will become a financially ruined county as the tourist industry will all but go away. Lake water users including agriculture will see their costs soar. Someday hopefully an eradication treatment for mussels will be developed, today it does not exist. We can only hope to keep them out until the treatment is available and effective.

We have known of this threat for years; in 2005 the Board of Supervisors was alerted to the potential westward spread of the mussels. In early 2007 the Board of Supervisors was told the mussels had reached Southern California.

Initial (2005) reactions were that Lake County did not need to be saddled with another negative marketing image (i.e. algae, weeds and mussels) so keep it low key and then when the threat increased many (correctly) assumed the state should be the first responder.

Finally (2007) the Board of Supervisors initiated the mussel task force to ensure that we locally did everything possible to protect our lakes and economy when it was obvious the state was not stepping up to the task.

When one objectively looks at where we are today we find public awareness at a much greater level than it was two years ago when the local effort got started. But concrete actions that could stop the mussels from getting here or at least lower the probability significantly have been discussed at length but have not happened. I contend we are at risk as much today as we were two years ago.

A couple of examples: A friend went to a local resort (I will leave the name out) to get mussel stickers for an out-of-area visitor’s boat on Memorial Day. There was no attempt to determine where the boat was recently or what the risk level was (a key part of the local prevention plan), there was no discussion of the importance of the program, no focus on the affidavit the boat owner was asked to sign – no sense of urgency whatsoever. It was just a troublesome transaction, sign here and give us $10. and here are your stickers. Nothing gained to prevent mussels.

Most of the visiting boats today are either bass boats or wakeboard boats. The bass fishermen as a group are probably among the most knowledgeable and careful regarding the mussel threat, although they are also likely to have been in Lake Mead or other infested lakes.

The wakeboard boats frequently visit us from Southern California and many of them have ballast tanks that take on hundreds of gallons of water to make them heavier and enlarge wakes. Those ballast tanks always have some water in them and can contain live mussels or veligers for long periods of time. To this day we do not treat these ballast tanks when these boats go into Clear Lake and fill and dump their tanks (a small amount of Clorox would eliminate the risk). Therefore, after countless hours of effort and discussion, our lake remains unprotected.

What could be done to prevent or minimize the threat:

1. Close the lake to out of county boats. Most effective but not acceptable due to the impact on the economy. Other California lakes have done this until a protection or eradication plan is determined and proven effective.

2. Stop all boats on roadways accessing the county to force inspection and treatment of at-risk boats. If this could be implemented and funded it would be pretty effective. For many reasons it is not feasible nor affordable.

3. Stop all at-risk boats from entering the lake by controlling all launch ramps. We have close to 600 private and public lake access ramps, very difficult to impossible to implement and fund (Tahoe has a plan like this).

4. The highest risk to Northern California lakes (and the delta water system) is from boats coming from southern California and Arizona. Almost 100 percent of these boats will use one of three roadways to get here (I-5, 99 or 101), three state checkpoints properly implemented could considerably lower the risk to us. This has been discussed for at least two years but not yet implemented.

5. A sticker plan to ensure that every user of our lake has signed an affidavit stating that he or she acknowledges the risk and personally assumes the responsibility to ensure that they do not spread mussels into Lake County could be very effective and is affordable. Significant penalties defined for failure to sign the affidavit and display the sticker ($1,000?) and significant legal action to anyone proven to have exposed the lake to mussels (e.g. $10,000 and loss of boat or ?) is key. Such a program that was enforced and had publicity through boating periodicals would put users of Clear Lake on notice that if they come here they better ensure they manage the mussel risk. This is the basis of our current effort. Unfortunately, we haven’t publicized it, have no meaningful fines, nor have we enforced it. We also charge a price for the stickers that is insufficient to fund the effort needed to make it work. As implemented it has very low effectiveness, properly implemented it could be much more effective.

The purpose of this assessment is not to criticize nor complement the significant effort by many county workers and private citizens to protect the lake from these invaders. The purpose is to provide an overview of the results for the community. To date it would get a very poor rating for effectiveness.

To make the hard decisions to implement and enforce a program that puts the responsibility on the shoulders of the visiting boat owners takes strong leadership and follow-through with meaningful fines. We have had neither.

Until someone comes up with a better plan, we sorely need both.

Ed Calkins is a Kelseyville resident who serves on the Clear Lake Advisory Subcommittee.

It is the peak of the commencement season which signifies the close of the school year. Team DUI would like to thank Lake County educators for their support in allowing us the opportunity to foster working partnerships with Lake County school districts, working together to help keep our youth and others safe.

Underage drinking is a serious problem in our nation. Alcohol is the drug of choice for youth and the leading cause of death among teenagers. Alcohol is involved in the deaths of more teens than any other illicit drugs combined. Each year 2,300 teens die due to alcohol. Youth begin drinking on an average of 13 years of age or under. One-third of all sixth graders get alcohol from home. Thirty-six percent of seventh graders receive care for alcohol-related problems.

Team DUI was formed to focus on underage drinking, educating our youth on the realities of drinking and driving in order to prevent one more senseless death or injury.

It takes a herculean effort of planning, setting of objectives and determining courses of action to achieve a significant impact on the alcohol/drug problems within our community. Team DUI has excelled in developing a community-based team that has raised the awareness of the tragic consequence of alcohol/drug abuse while also creating dialog between parents and their children. We believe through the efforts of Team DUI this past year our youth received a healthier understanding of the consequences of choices they make, helping them to better cope with peer pressure.

The approach of Team DUI is nonjudgmental. We offer our youth respect to make the right choices, allowing them to see that choices they make will have lasting effects on themselves and others for the rest of their lives. Team DUI continually strives to help our youth to understand that even as a passenger in a vehicle of an intoxicated driver, they can become a victim.

This year Team DUI has made numerous presentations at middle schools and high schools throughout Lake County, going into classrooms and assemblies. Our team has worked tirelessly to get our message across to over 2,000 youths within our communities. Our speakers came forth with courage and fortitude as they endured months of emotional stress, reliving painful stories in order to help safeguard our youth. As a group, we understand the impact of driving while intoxicated can have on the victim, the intoxicated driver, their families, friends and the community they live in. Each member of Team DUI fulfills a different role, but our message is very powerful when we work together.

Team DUI brings together a large coalition of individuals from law enforcement agencies, local cities and county officials, educators, social service professionals, young people, adults, victims of intoxicated drivers and people who have driven while intoxicated. This year Team DUI welcomed new members, speakers and additional agencies to our program as the overwhelming commitment of members and communities grew stronger. Each member of Team DUI is dedicated to making our community a safer place.

Summer festivities will soon be in full swing. Team DUI would like to further share our message, reminding the community that along with summer festivities comes accountability that is sometimes forgotten. The accountability comes when you step into a motor vehicle. When you are the driver of a motor vehicle, you hold your passenger's life in your hands along with the life of passengers in other vehicles. Life is the most precious gift that we will ever have. To protect life, you must be accountable for life. When you drink and drive, you are capable of causing great bodily harm or even killing; causing lives to be changed forever. If you see yourself in this description either now or previously, it is not too late to hold yourself accountable and strive to change.

To the countless individuals throughout Lake County, Team DUI offers our appreciation for your continual support. To all Team DUI members, I extend my everlasting gratitude for your heartfelt dedication. Team DUI will continue its efforts in the good fight against drinking and driving, as lives have been saved and many more will be saved.

Team DUI wishes everyone a safe and enjoyable summer.

Team DUI founder Judy Thein is the former mayor and current vice mayor for the city of Clearlake. Her daughter was killed in a drunk driving tragedy.

You would think that Arnold, after all his years in Hollywood, would know a lousy script when he sees one. You would be wrong.

At the moment, he seems to think that a combination of “Idiocracy,” “Soylent Green” and “Mad Max” (aka “Road Warrior”) are blueprints, not warnings.

Yep, ignorant kids, starving people, mass suicide and rule by mob certainly are prescriptions for a healthy society. (Before you get your leathers in a twist, let me emphasize that I have nothing against motorcycles or their riders. Some of my best friends, etc. Only incurable clumsiness keeps me from joining you.)

Arnie wouldn't be the first politician to confuse fact and fiction. Number 43 seemed to think that “Wag the Dog” and “Canadian Bacon” were how-to manuals on war as a distraction.

Maybe you agree with Arnie that what California's budget needs is a couple thousand park guards collecting unemployment, a few thousand nonviolent prisoners looking for jobs, several hundred tourist-dependent businesses paying less in taxes because they have fewer customers.

Traci Verardo-Torres, legislative advocate for the California State Parks Foundation, doesn't think so. In Saturday's Lake County News story on possible park closures, she mentioned the governor hasn't studied the economic fallout, which is what the foundation is now doing. They don't yet have all the numbers, but she said every dollar spent at a state park is known to have $2.35 worth of impact in the local economy.

Arnie says the proposal will save $143 million; the damage to the state's tourism and economy hasn't been calculated. “That's one of the things that the State Parks Foundation thinks is a real flaw for this proposal,” Verardo-Torres said.

Did no one ever explain to the political classes what satire or fiction are? That when Jonathan Swift wrote the essay “A Modest Proposal” he didn't really want the poverty-stricken Irish to eat their own babies? That when movies are not documentaries (and sometimes even when they are) somebody made it up?

Fiction, and especially science fiction, seem to confuse a great many people. Who can blame them in these days of “reality” TV shows with script writers? When “60 Minutes” airs the same story twice in five months promising a pill (not yet approved) to increase your longevity? When a fake news show is often the first to let you know about a politician's contradictions? When some of us look around and think “hmmm ... didn't Ray Bradbury write that?” When Disneyland has its own local government in Florida?

For all their confusion, politicians seem to agree on one thing: You gotta give people hope. So here's the bright side of park closures. The empty parks will be swell places for the state's jobless and estimated 160,000 homeless (about 50,000 of them war vets) to gather. (2007 figure from the National Alliance to End Homelessness.)

Sophie Annan Jensen is a retired journalist. She lives in Lucerne.