Letters
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There are a thousand or more solutions to global warming, to pollution and to the exhaustion of resources. Spiritual, scientific and political outlooks can meet and merge in a rational preservation of our common earthly environment.
What is the single stumbling block? It is not greed or corruption, it is not ideological, it is not even war or a race for world domination ... all these are consequences of a central problem of unsustainable growth. As long as economies must keep growing in order to exist, human civilization will act as an out of control bacteria on the body of the earth, eating its way into annihilation.
This growth is not new. The North and South American continents were invaded by Europeans (mainly English, French, Spanish) who had exhausted their State coffers continuously waging wars against each other, and were desperate to find new sources of wealth. They spread and colonized the world as predators seeking sustenance for their empires.
Early America expended west, betraying every treaty signed with native nations, because it could not sustain itself in the east, and wanted gold and other resources. Communist China overtook Tibet for the same reasons.
Today the few indigenous lands, including Indian reservations in North America, remaining in possession of their original occupants are once again targeted by this global predatory civilization in its never ending hunger for resources, and the air, the water, the soil we all depend upon to live are increasingly toxic, as this absurd civilization not only consumes its way into self-destruction, but produces and discards its way into poison.
Without a return to a sustainable way of life, which must include clean technologies and the development and protection of local economies, humanity is doomed, as would the passengers of a vehicle without breaks ...
Opportunistic corporate and banking interests do reap unreasonable profits from this wild ride, but they are not really in the driver's seat, as no one will escape the final crash, which will not be a "divine punishment" but the extremely logical outcome of our now universal refusal to understand that all life is connected, that natural laws and the natural order can neither be ignored nor overcome, that we will ultimately all eat, breathe and drink our trash, our chemicals and our poisons.
The engine that drives this global civilization is indeed a belief that we exist as separate entities, without any real or relevant connections with a nature we incredibly perceive to be made obsolete by technology, and that nature itself is chaos, disorganized, spiritually meaningless, composed of bits and pieces of physical "stuff," of unrelated and competing elements that remain as separate in the real world as they can be made to appear in the laboratory.
In other words we confuse the map with the territory, and are apparently extremely surprised when the poisons we pour into the air, the water, the land show up in Indigenous mothers' milk in northern British Columbia or Alaska (in supposedly pristine environments), and saturate our bodies.
This technological civilization, which claims to be founded on reason and calls itself superiorly intelligent to all other cultures, is, then, dismayed to find out that, in spite of all the power and knowledge it struggles to acquire to become the master of nature, whenever it spits in the air, the spit does fall back on its face!
Raphael Montoliu lives in Lakeport.
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- Written by: Dot Brovarney and John Koetzner
By all accounts, Mendocino College’s first-ever LitFest is an unqualified success! Approximately 400 people attended the Friday evening and all day Saturday events on June 1 and 2. Credit goes to many, beginning with the Community Foundation of Mendocino County, which awarded the Friends of the Mendocino College Library and the College its “Arts for our Future” grant to plan and implement this new literary program. Besides providing innovative arts programming, grantees were charged with creating business partnerships and drawing visitors to the County. Extraordinary exposure from the press in Mendocino, Lake and Sonoma Counties helped create the draw to our event.
Mendocino LitFest is a wide-ranging literary arts program bringing together established and emerging authors, and small and regional presses with interested audiences. Mendocino LitFest provides a time and place for workshops, readings, discussions, book signings and publication sales. Participants to this first festival came from throughout Mendocino, Lake, and Sonoma Counties and others traveled from Eureka, the Bay Area, Gilroy, Sacramento and as far away as Santa Monica.
Besides the support of the Community Foundation and the Friends of the Mendocino College Library, we would like to acknowledge the major support of the Ukiah Daily Journal and David Smith at Nine Trees Design. Also, major contributions by Ken McCormick at Visual Identity, his associate Ken Coburn at Global Interprint, and Jay Young at J Design resulted in a beautiful Litfest book publication, “Small Mirrors,” which is available at many Mendocino County bookstores and the College bookstore. We received critical additional support from these businesses: Frey Vineyards, Mendocino Book Company, Tom Liden Photography, The Law Office of Susan Sher, Myers Apothecary Shop, Tierra, Sanford House, Local Flavor and Hampton Inn. Kudos also to staff at these agencies whose strategic contributions were key to our success: Mendocino Transit Authority, Americorps, California Conservation Corps, and the City of Ukiah.
We also would like to thank all our presenters, our book vendors, including Gallery Bookshop, Cheshire Books, Four-Eyed Frog, and Mendocino Book Company, and our food vendors.
Last but not least, a very special thank you to the many volunteers who dedicated time, skills, and their creative energy to accomplishing this innovative program and running it seamlessly.
Dot Brovarney
John Koetzner
Mendocino LitFest/Mendocino College
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- Details
- Written by: Thomas Pelandini
I attempted to attend the recent Lakeport City Council workshop at City Hall to present a letter from the Lake County Association of Realtors, and encountered a situation which I find quite troubling.
I called the Lakeport City Hall on Thursday, May 17, to be sure there was going to be a workshop the following Tuesday as I had not seen any announcement or reminder in Lake County News or the Record-Bee. No one at City Hall could confirm the workshop. On Friday, I received a call from City Hall confirming that there would be a workshop on the following Tuesday, May 22, beginning at 6 p.m.
Considering that public hearings/workshops become crowded early, I arrived at City Hall at 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday the 22nd. The doors were locked and there was no posting of the public workshop on either entrance to City Hall. I was puzzled, but came back to City Hall at 5:53 p.m. to again find the doors locked and no one waiting. At this point I figured that the workshop must have been canceled.
The next morning, Wednesday, May 23, I went to City Hall to drop off the letter I had planned to present at the workshop. I was told that there had been a workshop the evening before, and that no one from the public or the media had attended. I told the two people in the admin office that I had tried to attend; including the times I tried the doors and was told that they didn't open the doors until slightly after 6 p.m. on Tuesday evening. When I questioned that decision, I was told that the workshop was to begin at 6 p.m. and that's when they opened the doors.
Not drawing any conclusion, but by not posting a notice, or reminding the media of the workshop, it appears that the City Council almost guaranteed that no one would attend.
Thomas Pelandini
Lower Lake
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- Details
- Written by: Mike Anisman
For the last couple of years I have been observing how Tower Mart constantly takes advantage of residents of the Oaks. Tower Mart has three stations in the area, one in Lower Lake, one in Lucerne and one in The Oaks. The Oaks store is always anywhere from five to 15 cents higher a gallon than the other two locations.
Why? Because there is no competition. All the stores are supplied by the same company and I think they are owned by the same person. The delivery costs to the locations have to be the same, but consistently the people in the Oaks are charged more.
On Saturday I went to Lucerne, the Oaks Tower Mart station was $3.25 a gallon and the Lucerne Tower Mart was $3.15 a gallon. Why? The other station in the Oaks, Beacon was $3.49, so no competition there.
I should add that the Beacon Station is always 15 to 20 cents a gallon higher than the Tower Mart, except on Wednesdays, when they have locals appreciation day, then the Beacon Station is at least five cents a gallon cheaper than Tower Mart, on that day only.
In Lucerne the Tower Mart has three other stations as competition, so they keep the price close to the other stations, the same in Lower Lake, but they can charge as they like in the Oaks.
I, for one, prefer to buy locally in the town in which I live. But I refuse to get taken advantage of. I will not buy gas from any Tower Mart, because even if I go to one of the other Tower Marts they are owned by the same person.
I would hope this letter, would make other people aware of how we are being taken advantage of, and you will make some kind of statement, so the owner of Tower Mart will stop biting the hand that could feed him.
Thanks for reading this.
Mike Anisman
Clearlake Oaks
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