Never having done something like this before, I am not sure where to start.

So I’ll take you back to the beginning of this new beginning of my life written in several entries summarizing the past nine years, including the highs and the lows. Hopefully at that point, I’ll be to my life as it is today.

I’m afraid that if I start from today things that took place in 1999 won’t make much sense. They still might not.

Knowing that dialysis was a reality, I sat down with my dialysis nurse to discuss the possibilities. There were many.

There was, of course, hemo dialysis. This is where you are hooked up to a machine for a period of time determined by your nephrologist, for a machine to filter your blood for waste and excess fluid. Think of it as a large machine doing the work your kidneys would normally. For me that would be about four hours a session, three times a week.

Second, there was peritoneal dialysis. Now this is a little more complicated to explain.

A surgeon places a a peritoneal dialysis catheter in your abdomen. Dialysis occurs when you fill your abdomen with dialysat chemistry. Next the blood pases through the liquids as the travel from one area to another and re-entering your blood vessels. You drain and fill your abdomen four times a day. Each “exchange” takes about 45 minutes. Peritoneal dialysis is much more mobile as you can take the bags of chemisty with you if you are going on a trip.

With hemo, you have to make arrangements with a center close to the area you’re visiting and hope they have room to fit you in. And with more people needing dialysis, being a traveling patient is becoming increasingly more difficult.

Of course there was a third choice, do nothing and die.

This really isn’t what I wanted. I didn’t relish the thought of going to a clinic three times a week. To me, it was just another part of losing my independence. By this time the vision in my left eye was getting worse and I knew my time driving was the next thing that was going to be taken from me.

This was not a good time in my life.

At least I can say that in my 25 years of driving I never had an accident. I had several close calls but never a wreck.

Time went forward and I did lose my driving privileges as well as more sight in the eye I had left. I would have my good days but I knew my vision would never be good enough to get my license back.

Never in my life did I ever think I would follow in my father’s footsteps. But little did I know, that was just what I was doing.

In attempting to get on the kidney transplant waiting list, I was required to get an angiogram done. For those who don’t know, an angiogram is where they run a camera up through your thigh to your heart to see what kind of condition your heart is in.

In my case, the results weren’t good. They found major blockages and said I was in dire need of bypass surgery.

So now a kidney transplant was on hold and I needed some major heart work. The toughest part was going to be finding a surgeon willing to take a chance with a diabetic on dialysis with an injection fraction of about 15 percent. The injection fraction is the percentage of blood pumped out of the heart on the down beat.

But my cardiologist, Dr. James Srebro knew the man for the job, Dr. Ramsey Deeks. Both are doctors in Napa and as far as I’m concerned the best in their fields.

Dr. Deeks said I needed at least two, possibly four bypasses, but he assured me he would not do anything that my body couldn’t take. With that we said it’s what we need to do and let’s get a time scheduled.

He harvested a pair of smaller veins near my heart and about five hours later, I was good as new. I spent a day and a half in ICU and another two and a half hours in a regular room and that was it. I was prepared for five to six days there. The worst of my pain was the day after surgery when they got me out of bed for a walk. I made one lap around the wing and I was pooped.

Actually, the worst pain was once when I sneezed. I thought my chest was going to explode. But I had my heart shaped pillow they gave me to support my chest and all was intact.

In fact the day I was discharged, we went home and I attended a Boy Scout meeting. My wife, Peggy, called me crazy. It was a challenge I gave myself to complete.

It’s those challenges which make me stronger and keep up the spirit to make this second life one that I will make better than the first.

I realize I am tough on myself and I drive myself harder now than I ever have. But as I explain to Peggy, I’m no tougher on others than I am on myself. She tells me I need to settle down and enjoy life. She says I go to extremes at times. Maybe she’s right. But when you’re 46 sometimes it’s hard to change what you’ve always known and done.

My father had triple bypass surgery and came back stronger and he said he felt 25 years younger. Me too.

That was five years ago, the day when President Bush landed on the aircraft carrier and announced the war in Iraq was over.

Since then, I have had many more procedures done, tried to get back on the transplant list three times and am now working to get a part-time job working from home. Heck I even had pneumonia and wound up on a ventilator with a tube run gown my throat for three days. That happened the day after Christmas last year.

There’s so much I could about just in the last nine years of my life, I’d never catch you up to October 2008.

The only reason I tell you these things is I want you to know a bit about my life. My second life.

Brett Behrens is writing a regular column for Lake County News about dealing with serious health problems. Behrens, 46, is a native of Lake County. He has spent most of his life behind the lens as a photojournalist and the owner of a successful portrait photography studio. He continues his image-making activities as his time and eyesight allows.

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LAKE COUNTY – Our national population is aging on a grand scale, and Lake County is no exception. In fact, we have a higher percentage of retired folks here than many places in our nation.

Many within the elderly population are what might be called “invisible people.” They have lived busy and productive lives, but are now tucked away in their homes with very little contact with others.

While at one time they raised families, worked in jobs, volunteered within our communities or served our nation in the military, they are now mostly alone, living a confined and isolated life. Many rarely see their family; some wait long periods for even the simplest contact with another human being. They are homebound seniors.

Konocti Senior Support Inc. of Clearlake has a program that benefits otherwise isolated homebound seniors: Friendly Visitors of Lake County.

Through weekly one-hour visits by trained volunteers, the outside world is being brought to the lives of those who otherwise have limited contact with it.

The program is currently funded by the Redbud Healthcare District as a means to preserve the health of the isolated elderly by combating depression through friendly visits. Our program currently serves South Lake County, from Clearlake Oaks to Middletown and west to Kelseyville.

Clients of this program are called “Ami’s” – the French word for friend – and trained and supervised volunteers offer friendship, understanding and compassion by visiting seniors’ homes weekly to chat, write a letter or maybe play cards or work a jigsaw puzzle.

Many of our volunteers are seniors themselves, but volunteers can be of any age. We are currently working with local high schools to provide community service hours for teens that are recommended to our program.

Volunteers are given free training on the specifics of aging, communication and other facets of the program and are then matched to an Ami within their community. They arrange with the Ami a mutually beneficial time for a weekly visit. Volunteers attend a monthly meeting for support, advice and camaraderie.

The motto of Friendly Visitors of Lake County is “Two hearts are better than one.” We are always amazed that such a small slice of time – one hour a week – can bring such great benefits.

We have a waiting list of seniors who are waiting to be matched with a friendly visitor and are on the lookout for caring individuals willing to be volunteers.

The requirements for volunteering are simple: reliable transportation, the willingness to be trained and, most of all, the desire to share one’s heart and spirit with someone in need.

And here’s our little secret: Our volunteers are greatly blessed! They often report that our training and their visits with their Ami benefit their lives greatly.

To volunteer, refer a client or to simply ask a question, contact Friendly Visitor Program Director Esther Oertel, at 995-1417 or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Trainings are offered on a continuing basis.

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On Nov. 18, 2007, after a night of heavy drinking at a bar in Martinez, I got into my car and drove onto Highway 4. I was driving in the wrong direction and nearly killed many people. I finally came to rest near the Pacheco exit after colliding head on into another driver who was simply trying to get home to his family for the holidays.

The impact of this crash resulted in this man having severe injuries almost resulting in his death. I suffered a broken back, seven months jail time and three years probation. My license was suspended for a year, plus three months of DUI classes, court fines and restitution.

Up until this collision, I had a clean driving record. I owned a home with my husband of 11 years and our 5-year-old daughter. I had a job I loved for five years at a local school. To most, I seemed like just another working mother and wife except this mother and wife has struggled with alcoholism for 16 years.

I was pretty good at first hiding it, lying about it, denying it, especially to myself. I tried to get help through local alcohol programs, counseling and rehab. The thing was, I did it for everyone else. I did it to make them happy. I wanted to show everyone else that I could do it.

That was the biggest mistake of my life. I should have been doing it for myself all along like everyone was telling me. I never wanted to do it for me. I didn’t like me, I didn’t love me. I was a miserable person who loved alcohol more. And near the end, even more than my own family.

Sound hard to believe? Well that’s the power of alcoholism. It makes you lose interest in all the things you once loved and loved doing. Consuming every ounce of who you are until you decide to change it, beat it, and kill it before it kills you. Or you can wait and do nothing like I did and continue on a path of destruction until you kill yourself or someone else in the process.

Never in a million years would I have ever thought I could cause such a horrible accident, cause the hurt and pain I have put my family and the victim and his family through. But I did and I will be living with that for the rest of my life.

This collision has been a big turning point in my life. It has taught me that sometimes in life, tragic things have to happen to us or someone we love no matter how much it hurts or who it hurts. To give us a reality check and open our eyes a little wider to the fact that someone with a higher authority has complete control over our lives and the power to take everything that means anything to us in an instant. To also help us realize that we are given one last chance to live life the way it was meant to be lived, with a purpose. Do you know what yours is?

I have learned that my ugliest personality trait was selfishness. I am now selfish in a different way. I put myself and my recovery first. I try not to worry so much over the things I have no control over. After all, our most destructive habit is worry. I have also learned that the worst thing I can be without is hope. I had, at one time, given up all hope that I could ever get sober. Now I am full of hope, strength and have the courage to keep up my sobriety and not give up.

Since my release, I have been working very hard to start a new life for myself. Being involved in my recovery is number one. I am looking forward to doing some public speaking and sharing my story with others who may be struggling with alcoholism. I am also starting a new career in the medical field as a CNA. And I am enjoying being a sober mother to my daughter.

Thank you to those who took the time to read my story. I hope that you remember my story and how quickly your life can be affected if your planning to continue to drink and drive.

Wendy Jensen is a member of Team DUI.

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With the issue of a GE Free Zone ordinance in Lake County being put off time and time again, I thought I would take some time to explore some questions concerning the genetically modified organism (GMO) issue in hopes of raising awareness of the GMO monster which has been slowly and steadily creeping up on us from the shadows.

Biologists classify every living thing into four basic categories – Plantae, Animalia, Protista and Fungi. Since genetically modified organisms (or genetically engineered organisms) more often than not contain genes from several different kingdoms, they do not actually fall into any of these categories and therefore cannot technically be considered an animal, a plant, a protist or a fungi.

Are they simply freaks of nature? Well, that would imply that they were actually of nature. Yet, since nature has never combined the DNA of even two different kingdoms since the history of the planet, they can hardly be considered “of nature” at all. They are no more natural than the Frankenstein monster. Hence, they have been dubbed “Frankenfoods” by many. After examining the facts, I would dare say they are actually less natural than the Frankenstein monster and more accurately compared to the monstrous science experiments of Dr. Moreau which could not be categorized so easily.

So, really, what are they? Well, maybe, we should move on to the next question ...

Why should you care?

Since the government agencies such as the FDA, EPA and USDA have yet to be able to accurately define these GMOs, they have yet to be able to hold them to any standards of accurate research, testing or labeling. Instead, these GMOs are simply treated as “new inventions” which are then patented and passed on to the consumer as if they were just another product of a savvy company. Yet, these broad allowances have made for some fairly interesting developments.

For instance, baccilus thuringiensis (BT) is a bacteria often used as a pesticide. The genes from this bacteria (from the Monera Kingdom) are currently being introduced into food crops (from the Plantae Kingdom) used to create genetically modified food where the pesticide is no longer outside the plant but is now part of this new GMO’s DNA. However, because BT is considered a pesticide, and our foods are not required to be labeled with any pesticide information, this new GMO food is not required to be labeled to contain the genes of a pesticide within it. This creates a huge safety issue for the consumer, because genetic code cannot be scrubbed or washed off like other pesticides and can be consumed internally.

In the same vein, many plants we consider food crops are being genetically engineered to contain Glyphosate, a non specific systemic herbicide which allows resistance to pesticides. This means that our food crops can and very well may be sprayed even heavier with pesticides. Again, these GMOs are not required to be labeled, allowing for the possible consumption of pesticides.

And, even when the genes of the GMOs are simply coming from two sets of gene pools which are similar, there are potential hazards due to lack of a definition. For instance, when crops of soybeans were combined with genes of a brazil nut, the crop was still allowed to be referred to as soybeans, creating an issue for those consumers with nut allergies because the Brazil nut gene did not have to be legally mentioned in any labeling. With the current lack of accountability, biotech companies bear no responsibility towards the consumer concerning these GMOs, even if a consumer went into anaphylactic shock (a type of allergic reaction which can cause death), because legally they are not required to make these distinctions, due to lack of definition.

So, this brings me to the question, once again …

What are GMOs?

Maybe, the question we should be asking is – what purpose do they serve?

Many biotech companies would answer this question by telling you that GMOs are going to someday feed the world and end world hunger by producing “new and improved” genetically engineered crops. However, this could not be further from the truth. In fact, hunger is not a food issue but a political and social issue. When it comes down to it, the hunger problem the world faces is not in the creation of the food but in the systems of delivering the food. We are not having a food shortage, unless you consider the biotech industry’s attempt to patent many food crops as “new inventions” in an attempt to control our food supply through a “pay to plant” system which includes terminator seed which “terminates” (basically creating an unfertile plant) the seed after each season forcing growers to buy new seed every season.

And, in fact, even if you accidentally sow the patented seed or your seed is simply contaminated by their crop and it reproduces their seed, you can be held financially responsible by these companies. Several farmers in the U.S. and Canada have already realized this, thanks to being sued by Monsanto (one of the largest biotech companies in the world) for thousands of dollars.

This issue should weigh heavily, on the minds of many farmers. Particularly, it is a question of great importance, to organic farmers. From a business standpoint, we need to be asking what will become of the reputation of other farmers (as well as other businesses), if contamination occurs?

In the year 2000, many farmers found the answer, thanks to Aventis and their genetically modified Starlink corn.

Starlink corn was actually banned for human consumption in the U.S. because it could trigger symptoms adverse enough to land people in hospitals. Still, somehow, it found its way into the food supply.

In fact, this genetically modified corn was suspected to have contaminated over 300 products and these products had to be recalled.

As a result, farmers and other companies which sold the accidentally tainted products lost enough money to sue for over 10 million dollars. These farmers and other companies didn’t just lose money, though, due to GMO corn which should have never entered the marketplace, they lost their good reputation, as well.

So, again, I ask, what are GMOs, really? I believe it is a question you should care about and be asking. Ask yourself, ask the biotech companies and ask the government. Keep asking, until you get an answer you can believe in.

I believe, it is time we begin to care about GMOs and the motives behind those who support the promotion of GMOs (such as Monsanto, the company who promoted Agent Orange and Aventis who brought you the Starlink Corn fiasco) and the motives behind those who support initiatives like a GE Free Zone in Lake County (such as Organic Farmers and The Coalition For Responsible Agriculture). Let’s not make the mistake of allowing the GMO monster to hide in the shadows and attack indiscriminately without accountability.

For a firsthand look at the newly drafted ordinance concerning the creation of a GE Free Zone in Lake County, please visit www.lakelive.info/cra/draftordinance.pdf and, if you like what you see give, go ahead and show your support by endorsing the ordinance and writing or calling your supervisor to express your support for a GE Free Zone in Lake County.

A supervisorial district map with phone numbers and email addresses for all board members is available at http://www.lakelive.info/bos.htm and don’t forget to join supporters of the GE Free Zone Ordinance at the BOS meeting on Tuesday, Oct. 21!

Andrea Anderson is a writer/photographer for www.butterflygardennews.com, a natural living resource. She lives in Lakeport.

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Spin and hype were apparent, once again, at the third and final debate between McCain and Obama:

• McCain claimed the liberal group ACORN “is now on the verge of maybe perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in voter history ... maybe destroying the fabric of democracy.” In fact, a Republican prosecutor said of the first and biggest ACORN fraud case: “[T]his scheme was not intended to permit illegal voting.” He said $8-an-hour workers turned in made-up voter registration forms rather than doing what ACORN paid them to do.

• McCain said “Joe the plumber” faced “much higher taxes” under Obama’s tax plan and would pay a fine under Obama’s health care plan if he failed to provide coverage for his workers. But Ohio plumber Joe Wurzelbacher would pay higher taxes only if the business he says he wants to buy puts his income over $200,000 a year, and his small business would be exempt from Obama’s requirement to provide coverage for workers.

• Obama repeated a dubious claim that his health care plan will cut the average family’s premiums by $2,500 a year. Experts have found that figure to be overly optimistic.

• McCain claimed that Obama’s real “object” is a government-run, single-payer health insurance system like those in Canada or England. The McCain campaign points to a quote from five years ago, when Obama told a labor gathering that he was “a proponent of a single-payer health care program.” But Obama has since qualified his enthusiasm for Canadian-style health care, and his current proposal is nothing like that.

• Obama incorrectly claimed all of McCain’s ads had been “negative.” That was true for one recent week, but not over the entire campaign. And at times Obama has run a higher percentage of attack ads than McCain.

• McCain described Colombia as the "largest agricultural importer of our products." Actually, Canada imports the most U.S. farm products, and Colombia is far down the list.

• Obama strained to portray himself as willing to break ranks with fellow Democrats. His prime example was his vote for a bill that was supported by 18 Democrats and opposed by 26. Congressional Quarterly rates him as voting with his party 97 percent of the time since becoming a U.S. senator.

Analysis

Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama met for their final debate Oct. 15. The face-to-face was held at Hofstra University in Hempstead, N.Y., and was moderated by CBS News' Bob Schieffer.

ACORN and Vote Fraud

McCain made some dire claims about a liberal group he said was out to steal the election:

McCain: We need to know the full extent of Sen. Obama's relationship with ACORN, who is now on the verge of maybe perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in voter history in this country, maybe destroying the fabric of democracy.

It's true that the voter registration wing of the Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now has run into trouble in several states. ACORN employees have been investigated and in some cases indicted for voter registration fraud. Most recently, more than 2,000 registrations in Lake County, Ind., have turned out to be falsified.

But does this constitute "destroying the fabric of democracy"? More like destroying the fabric of work ethic. There's been no evidence that the ACORN employees who submitted fraudulent forms have been paving the way for illegal voting. Rather, they're trying to get paid for doing no work.

Dan Satterberg, the Republican prosecuting attorney in King County, Wash., where the first ACORN case was prosecuted, said:

Satterberg: [A] joint federal and state investigation has determined that this

scheme was not intended to permit illegal voting.

Instead, the defendants cheated their employer. ... It was hardly a sophisticated plan: The defendants simply realized that making up names was easier than actually canvassing the streets looking for unregistered voters. ...

[It] appears that the employees of ACORN were not performing the work that they were being paid for, and to some extent, ACORN is a victim of employee theft.

The $8-an-hour employees were charged with providing false information on a voter registration, and in one case with making a false statement to a public official. ACORN was fined for showing insufficient oversight, but it was not charged with masterminding any kind of fraud.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the table, Obama wasn't entirely forthcoming about his relationship with ACORN:

Obama: The only involvement I've had with ACORN is, I represented them alongside the U.S. Justice Department in making Illinois implement a motor voter law that helped people get registered at DMVs.

He did, but that wasn't his only involvement. He also worked closely with ACORN's Chicago office when he ran a Project Vote registration drive after law school, and Obama did some leadership training for Chicago ACORN. The Woods Fund, where Obama served as a board member, gave grants to ACORN's Chicago branch; both organizations are concerned with disadvantaged populations in that city. And during the primaries of this election, Obama's campaign paid upwards of $800,000 to the ACORN-affiliated Campaign Services Inc. for get-out-the-vote efforts (not voter registration). Those services were initially misrepresented on the campaign's Federal Election Commission reports, an error that some find suspicious and others say is par for the course. ACORN's Chicago office and CSI have not been under investigation.

For more on investigations of ACORN and registration fraud, and Obama's involvement with the group, keep an eye on our home page. A longer article on ACORN is in the works.

Joe the Plumber

Ohio plumber Joe Wurzelbacher got a lot of airtime.

McCain first mentioned Joe by saying:

McCain: Joe wants to buy the business that he has been in for all of these years, worked 10, 12 hours a day. And he wanted to buy the business but he looked at your tax plan and he saw that he was going to pay much higher taxes.

Joe’s newfound fame stems from an impromptu encounter Oct. 12, during which Wurzelbacher questioned Obama’s tax plans. Joe has since become a conservative folk hero after telling both Fox News and the conservative Web site Family Security Matters that he thought Obama’s plans sounded “socialist.”

At their encounter, Wurzelbacher told Obama that “I’m getting ready to buy a company that makes 250 to 280 thousand dollars a year,” before asking whether or not Obama would raise his taxes.

If the company is actually that profitable, and depending on how the business is organized legally, Obama’s plan would indeed raise his federal income taxes, and Obama conceded as much during the exchange. As we’ve written before, small businesses commonly are organized in such a way that their owners file business taxes as individuals. So if Joe’s plumbing business earns more than $200,000 per year (or $250,000 if Joe is married and files tax returns jointly) then his taxes would indeed be higher under Obama's plan than under McCain's.

It’s worth noting that while Wurzelbacher told Fox News’ Neil Cavuto that he lives “in a simple, middle class home” and portrayed himself as an ordinary working guy, Wurzelbacher’s $250,000 to $280,000 is a bit higher than "ordinary." In 2007, the last year for which the Census Bureau has figures, the median income for a family in Toledo, Ohio, was $43,553.

But Joe the Plumber wasn’t through yet. He made an encore appearance when McCain recycled a bogus claim that Obama would "fine" small business owners who fail to provide health care coverage for their workers:

McCain: Now, my old buddy, Joe, Joe the plumber, is out there. Now, Joe, Sen. Obama's plan, if you're a small business and . . . you've got employees, and you've got kids, if you don't get – adopt the health care plan that Sen. Obama mandates, he's going to fine you . . . I don't think that Joe right now wants to pay a fine when he is seeing such difficult times in America's economy.

McCain raised a similar charge at the last debate. It's still false. Obama’s plan, which is posted on his Web site, specifically says, “Small businesses will be exempt from this requirement.”

Obama hasn't defined exactly what he means by "small" but he seems to think Joe would qualify; he repeatedly referred to Joe’s “small business” during their exchange.

Obama's health plan does mandate that children have health coverage. If Joe doesn't provide insurance for his kids, he would face some unspecified penalty.

Health care hype

Obama and McCain traded boasts and accusations on each other’s health care plan. They ran afoul of the facts a few times.

Obama: And we estimate we can cut the average family's premium by about $2,500 per year.

The Obama camp does estimate that. But experts we talked to found that optimistic figure hard to believe.

Then, McCain said:

McCain: Sen. Obama wants to set up health care bureaucracies, take over the health care of America through — as he said, his object is a single payer system. If you like that, you'll love Canada and England.

Obama’s plan is not a single-payer system, which would be one in which everyone has health care provided and paid for by the government. Under Obama’s health care plan, Americans can keep the insurance they have, choose from federally-approved private plans or buy into a new public plan similar to the health care federal employees and members of Congress have.

McCain was referring to comments Obama made at a town hall meeting in Albuquerque in August. But Obama did not say that "his object is a single payer system." He said it would "probably" be his first choice "if" he were starting with a clean slate, which he isn't. He said his object is to "build up the system we got." According to the Wall Street Journal, Obama said:

Obama (as quoted by the Wall Street Journal, Aug. 19): If I were designing a system from scratch, I would probably go ahead with a single-payer system. ... [M]y attitude is let’s build up the system we got, let’s make it more efficient, we may be over time — as we make the system more efficient and everybody’s covered — decide that there are other ways for us to provide care more effectively.

Back in 2003, Obama was much more explicit. At an AFL-CIO forum, he said he was “a proponent of a single-payer health care program,” adding, “that’s what I’d like to see. And as all of you know, we may not get there immediately.”

That was five years ago, however, and recently, Obama has said he’d favor single-payer only if “starting from scratch.” He told The New Yorker in May 2007: “If you're starting from scratch, then a single-payer system ... would probably make sense. But we've got all these legacy systems in place, and managing the transition ... would be difficult to pull off. So we may need a system that's not so disruptive.”

Obama exaggerated a weakness in McCain's health care plan:

Obama: Now, under Sen. McCain's plan there is a strong risk that people would lose their employer-based health care.

Experts see a risk that some would lose their employer-based care, but Obama’s reference to "people" makes it sound as though nearly everyone would. Two independent studies both found that McCain’s plan would lead to a net decline in the number of people with health care through their jobs. (They said Obama’s would result in a net increase.) Both reports show, however, that there’s not a “strong risk” for all, or even a majority, of workers to lose their health care.

 

Currently, 159 million Americans have health care through their jobs, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. A study by the Lewin Group shows a net decline in the number with job-provided benefits of 9.4 million people in 2010 for McCain's plan. The Tax Policy Center projected that the net decrease would be 7.7 million in 2010 and 20.3 million people by 2018.

McCain and Obama both said much more that may have confused viewers. For a spin-free look at both of the candidates’ health care plans, see our recent article on this issue.

100 percent negative?

Obama falsely claimed all of McCain's ads had been "negative."

Obama: And 100 percent, John, of your ads – 100 percent of them have been negative.

McCain: It's not true.

Obama: It absolutely is true.

It was almost true, for one recent week. Obama was referring to a report by the Wisconsin Advertising Project at the University of Wisconsin that concluded that “nearly 100 percent of the McCain campaign’s advertisements were negative” during the week of Sept. 28 through Oct. 4. During the same week, 34 percent of the Obama campaign’s ads were negative. The Obama campaign was found to have outspent the McCain campaign in nearly all of the competitive states, in some cases by a margin of more than 3-to-1.

McCain’s ads, however, have not been deemed 100 percent negative in other weeks. In fact, in the week after the Republican National Convention, 77 percent of Obama’s ads were negative, according to the advertising project, while 56 percent of McCain’s were negative.

Wrong on exports to Colombia

McCain was way off when he said that Colombia is "our largest agricultural importer of our products." To be sure, Colombia is an important trade partner. According to statistics from the Department of Agriculture, Colombia imported slightly more than $1.4 million worth of U.S. agricultural products in 2007. But that's not even close to the nearly $1.9 billion worth of agricultural products exported to Canada. And there are dozens of other countries that import more U.S. farm products than Colombia does.

Obama no maverick

Obama exaggerated his willingness to defy his own party. When McCain asked for an example, Obama offered this:

Obama: First of all, in terms of standing up to the leaders of my party, the first major bill that I voted on in the Senate was in support of tort reform, which wasn't very popular with trial lawyers, a major constituency in the Democratic Party.

That 2005 bill was S.5, which dealt with class-action lawsuits. Obama was one of 18 Democrats voting for it, while 26 opposed. It's a stretch for Obama to claim that he bolted his party when nearly 41 percent of Democrats voted in favor of the bill.

And as we pointed out before, Obama has a pretty consistent record of voting in stride with his party. According to Congressional Quarterly, in Obama's three years in the Senate, he has voted with his party almost 97 percent of the time.

Budget ballyhoo

Both candidates got ahead of themselves when it came to balancing the budget and eliminating the deficit. Obama said every one of his spending increases was paid for.

Obama: Now, what I've done throughout this campaign is to propose a net spending cut. ... Every dollar that I've proposed, I've proposed an additional cut so that it matches.

McCain said he could balance the budget within one term.

Schieffer: Do either of you think you can balance the budget in four years? You have said previously you thought you could, Sen. McCain.

McCain: Sure I do. And let me tell you...

Schieffer: You can still do that?

McCain: Yes.

These are pie-in-the-sky predictions. We've looked at McCain's balanced-budget promise before – it's out of reach unless he cuts spending to an unrealistic degree. The Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center estimates that by 2013, at the end of his first term, McCain's tax plan would have him facing a $662 billion deficit. That could come to more than half of that year's discretionary spending, which the Office of Management and Budget projects to be $1.1 trillion. And we've previously disputed Obama's claim that "every dime" of his proposed spending is covered. The Tax Policy Center estimated that Obama’s plan – and McCain's, too – "would substantially increase the national debt over the next ten years" unless the candidates come up with "substantial cuts in government spending" that they haven't yet specified. More recently, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget also estimated that in 2013, Obama’s major budget proposals – including spending cuts – would increase the deficit for that year by $281 billion.

The $42,000, again

McCain was on the wrong side of this exchange:

McCain: Sen. Obama talks about voting for budgets. He voted twice for a budget resolution that increases the taxes on individuals making $42,000 a year ...

Obama: [T]he notion that I voted for a tax increase for people making $42,000 a year has been disputed by everybody who has looked at this claim.

McCain was wrong to say Obama's March 2008 vote for a budget resolution "increases" anything. Budget resolutions set targets for taxes and spending; actually raising or lowering them requires separate legislation.

The $42,000 figure also would only apply to single taxpayers, not to couples or families. As we’ve reported, a single taxpayer making more than $41,500 would have seen a tax increase, but a couple filing jointly would have seen no increase unless they made at least $83,000, and for a couple with two children the cut-off would have been $90,000. Regardless, the increase that Obama once supported as part of a Democratic budget bill is not part of his own current tax plan. And Obama was right when he said "even FOX News disputes" McCain's $42,000 claim. Chris Wallace of Fox News agreed that it was misleading.

Wrong justice

McCain said that Obama voted against the confirmations of Supreme Court Justices Stephen Breyer and John Roberts:

McCain: Senator Obama voted against Justice Breyer and Justice Roberts on the grounds that they didn't meet his ideological standards.

McCain probably meant to say that Obama voted against the confirmations of Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, the most recent additions to the court. Obama did vote against the confirmation of Roberts, but he wasn’t in the Senate when Breyer was nominated to join the Court. Breyer was nominated to the Supreme Court by former President Bill Clinton and confirmed by the Senate in 1994. Obama didn’t become a senator until January 2005.

Charter school slip-up

Obama overstated his work on charter schools in Illinois:

Obama: Charter schools, I doubled the number of charter schools in Illinois despite some reservations from teachers unions.

Actually, the bill Obama cosponsored doubled the number of charter schools in Chicago, not in the entire state of Illinois. (And an extra slap on the wrist to Obama for using the personal pronoun in saying that "I doubled the number of charter schools" – as we've pointed out before, it takes a lot more than one politician to get a bill passed.)

Tried but untrue

And we noted that both candidates continued to recycle bunk that we've heard before:

• McCain said once again, "We have to stop sending $700 billion a year to countries that don't like us very much." As we've noted several times in the past, $700 billion would have been the cost of all annual U.S. oil imports when the price was $140 per barrel. But it's down to about half that now.

• Obama said oil companies have "68 million acres that they currently have leased that they're not drilling." We've previously criticized him for similar statements, and it's still not true. As we've pointed out, there is exploratory drilling being done on much of these lands, which are not yet producing oil. In 2007 there were more than 15,000 holes that were being proposed, started or finished that do not count as "productive" holes.

• Listing some of his running mate's achievements, McCain credited Gov. Sarah Palin with “a $40 billion pipeline of natural gas that's going to relieve the energy needs" of the lower 48 states. We'll just note, again, that the pipeline is still in pre-development and is actually projected to cost $26.5 billion.

Sea story

Finally, the ears of nautical buffs may have perked up when McCain said, “we've sailed Navy ships around the world for 60 years with nuclear power plants on them.” His naval history is off by a few years. The first nuclear-powered vessel, the submarine USS Nautilus, was actually launched Jan. 21, 1954.

Sources

Congressional Research Service. Oil and Gas Tax Subsidies: Current Status and Analysis. Washington: GPO, 2007.

Burman, Leonard E., et.al. "An Updated Analysis of the 2008 Presidential Candidates’ Tax Plans: Updated September 12, 2008." Tax Policy Center, 12 Sept. 2008.

Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. "Promises, Promises: A Fiscal Voter Guide to the 2008 Election." U.S. Budget Watch. 15 Sep. 2008.

Satterberg, Dan. "Statement of Interim King County Prosecuting Attorney Dan Satterberg." 26 Jul. 2007.

U.S. Census Bureau. "Toledo City, Ohio Factsheet." U.S. Census Bureau. American Community Survey, 2006, accessed 16 Oct. 2008.

ACORN Responds to Senator McCain’s Desperate Attack. 15 Oct. 2008

Griffin, Drew and Kathleen Johnston . “Thousands of voter registration forms faked, officials say.” 10 Oct. 2008

Robinson, Mike. Obama got start in civil rights practice. Associated Press, 20 Feb. 2007

Tapper, Jake. Spread the Wealth. ABC New Political Punch Blog. 14 Oct. 2008

Brown, David M. “Obama to amend report on $800,000 in spending.” Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, 22 Aug. 2008

CQ member Profiles: Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill). Congressional Quarterly, 12 June 2008.

Rabinowitz, Steve. “Pres. TV advertising spending continues to grow;

Over $28 million spent from September 28-October 4.” Wisconsin Ad Project. 8 Oct. 2008

Kurtz, Howard. “Recent Obama Ads More Negative Than Rival's, Study Says: Democrat Said to Be Facing Pressure to 'Show Some Spine.'” Washington Post, 18 Sept. 2008

OECD Tax Database. Centre for Tax Policy and Administration.

Hodge, Scott. U.S. States Lead the World in High Corporate Taxes. Tax Foundation, 18 March 2008

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The Sierra Club Lake Group has been actively participating in the analysis of the proposed Provinsalia golf subdivision for the past four years. Two entirely separate Environmental Impact Reports (EIR) have revealed numerous problematic environmental impacts associated with this project, which is located on the banks of Cache Creek in the extreme southeast corner of the City of Clearlake. Recently the Lake Group learned that the Clearlake Planning Commission may begin deliberations on the latest (Pacific Municipal Consultants) EIR at its Oct. 21 meeting, and on Oct. 10 we delivered a letter to the Commissioners detailing a number of reasons why formal consideration should be delayed until various structural and substantive problems have been corrected.

This letter stated in part:

“The City of Clearlake announced the completion of the Provinsalia Final Environmental Impact Report on April 17, 2008, and held a workshop to discuss it almost immediately thereafter, on April 22. Although public comment was accepted at that workshop, the many agencies, organizations, and individuals who submitted comments on the EIR have not yet been given an opportunity to rebut the detailed PMC responses to those comments now incorporated in the FEIR. Provision of such a response period, appropriately noticed, is required under CEQA, and until it has taken place we believe that formal review by the Commission is inappropriate.

The consultants neglected to address all of the submitted comments during preparation of the FEIR. In particular, Dr. John Parker’s letter of Oct. 18, 2007 was omitted, even though this letter detailing major inadequacies in both the method of evaluating cultural resources and the proposed mitigations was received before the submission deadline and forwarded to PMC for review, as subsequently acknowledged by City staff. It is our understanding that Supervisor Ed Robey and County Community Development Director Richard Coel also submitted comment letters, neither of which was addressed. Under these circumstances it is inevitable to wonder if additional submissions may also have fallen by the wayside, but whether or not this is true, the FEIR cannot be considered complete until all submitted comments have been incorporated, with responses. Again we assert that consideration by the Commission is premature, and contrary to the processes established by CEQA.

Numerous specific inadequacies and omissions in the FEIR will be detailed by commenters during the formal response period mentioned above, but failing to evaluate the impacts of the project on climate change could expose the City to legal action by environmental groups or by the State Attorney General, and therefore deserves special mention. This was exactly what happened to the City of Desert Hot Springs in August 2008, when the Riverside Superior Court invalidated an EIR because of failure to analyze greenhouse gas emissions and other climate change impacts.

A series of legislative actions over the past few years (eg AB 32, 2006, SB 97, 2007) have firmly established that control and reduction of carbon emissions is a stated goal of the state of California. Just a few weeks ago Governor Schwarzenegger signed SB 375 into law, requiring California communities to consider climate change impacts of development in regional planning, with an emphasis on reducing car travel.

In June 2008 the Governor’s Office of Planning and Research issued a technical advisory report recommending the establishment of uniform guidelines on CEQA processes in addressing climate change. In the meantime, lead agencies are advised to make a good-faith effort to calculate the carbon emissions associated with a project, including traffic, energy consumption, release of sequestered carbon, construction activities, etc, and to assess their standard of significance. Failure to address these impacts is not acceptable.

Although extensive oak woodland mitigations in the form of restoration have been added to the FEIR in response to Sierra Club comments (Section 2, Response 4-47), no attempt is made to calculate either the amount or the significance of these effects, or to address the project’s broader contribution to greenhouse gas emissions.

In any case the ability of small young trees of to sequester carbon is insignificant in comparison to that of mature woodlands, and will not reach equivalence for many years, perhaps for generations, rendering the proposed mitigations disproportionately inadequate in comparison to the immediate impact.

We believe that certification of the Provinsalia FEIR under these circumstances would be in violation of CEQA standards, and liable to reversal by the courts, with possible penalties accruing to the City. To avoid these consequences we recommend that:

• the EIR be returned to the consultants for revision, in order to incorporate a comprehensive quantitative analysis of its impacts on climate change, and that it be subsequently re-circulated for additional public comments related to this subject;

• a revised FEIR be prepared that responds to all comment letters, including those omitted to date and any additional submissions;

• commenters be informed of the availability of a comprehensive FEIR as soon as it has been finalized, and given due notice, including a firm timeline, of the process for responding to the consultants’ evaluation, and their rebuttals then be appended to the FEIR.

It is our contention that the Planning Commission should not commence formal consideration of the FEIR until the three steps listed above have been completed.”

No response to this letter has yet been received.

During the course of the past four or more years the Provinsalia project has raised concerns among many members of the community, who may share the Sierra Club’s belief that the EIR in its present form is not only substantively inadequate, but has the potential to expose the City to legal action. If so, we suggest that you contact City Administrator Dale Neiman immediately at 994-8201 or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. to express your views.

More information about the project, including numerous comment letters, is available at www.lakelive.info/provinsalia.

Victoria Brandon is chair of the Sierra Club Lake Group.

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