If you think your wine is gold medal material, enter your wine in the Golden State’s oldest and best wine competition in the nation, the 2018 California State Fair Commercial Wine Competition.
The California State Fair is looking for the best wines throughout the Golden State and the deadline is coming up fast.
Your wine will be showcased before more than 50 world-class judges and sommeliers in a blind taste-test.
The wine that captures the judges’ senses will be named the "Best of Show" and all winning wines will be featured at a tasting reception prior to the State Fair Gala on June 21.
Awards are also given to the best of show in Dessert, Pink, Sparkling, and Best Value wines.
Now is the time to put your wine on the map and showcase the best at the California State Fair.
BERKELEY, Calif. – Most of us put up with whiners, naggers, control freaks and other annoying people in our lives for good reason – we’re related to them.
Researchers from the University of California, Berkeley, and Bar-Ilan University in Israel sought to understand the reason people don’t just ditch the difficult or demanding people in their family and wider social networks.
Their findings, recently published in the American Sociological Review, show that when it comes to toxic relationships, blood can be thicker than water.
Participants surveyed for the study were more apt to report that the most difficult people in their lives were female family members such as wives, mothers, and sisters.
That said, close female kin may be disproportionately named as difficult because they are more likely to be actively and emotionally involved in people’s lives, researchers said.
“The message here is that, with female relatives, it can be a two-sided thing. They may be the people you most depend on, but also the people who nag you the most,” said study senior author Claude Fischer, a sociology professor at UC Berkeley. “It’s a testament to their deeper engagement in social ties.”
Overall, the findings show that, on average, about 15 percent of the relationships that survey takers talked about were categorized as difficult, and that their conflicts were most often with close kin such as parents, siblings and spouses.
Friends were least likely to be difficult, representing about 6 or 7 percent of the annoying members of social circles for both younger and older adults.
"The results suggest that difficult people are likely to be found in contexts where people have less freedom to pick and choose their associates," said study lead author Shira Offer, a professor of sociology at Bar-Ilan University.
The researchers analyzed relationship data from more than 1,100 younger and older adults in the San Francisco Bay Area, more than half of whom are female, using the University of California Social Networks Study (UCNets), of which Fischer is the principle investigator.
Launched in 2015, the multiyear UCNets survey uses face-to-face and online interviews to assess how people’s social connections affect their health and happiness.
“It’s commonly agreed that maintaining strong social ties is healthy,” Fischer said. “But social ties can be as much a source of stress as a source of joy, and so it’s important to understand how different relationships affect our health and well-being.”
For their investigation, Offer and Fischer studied more than 12,000 relationships that ranged from casual friendships to work relations to close family bonds.
Participants were asked to name the people with whom they engaged in different social activities and, of those, identify the ones they found difficult or burdensome.
The relationship categories were divided into “difficult only,” meaning ties that participants mentioned solely as difficult, and “difficult engaged in exchange ties,” meaning relationships that are considered difficult but that also include confiding in, and giving and/or receiving emotional and practical support.
Younger people aged 21 to 30 named more “difficult engaged” people in their lives (16 percent) than the older cohort. They most frequently described sisters (30 percent), wives (27 percent), and mothers (24 percent) as being burdensome, and to a lesser degree fathers, brothers, boyfriends and roommates.
Older people in their 50s, 60s and 70s identified about 8 percent of the people in their social networks as “difficult engaged.” Topping their list were mothers (29 percent), female romantic partners (28 percent) and fathers and housemates tied at 24 percent.
As for relationships with co-workers and other acquaintances, younger people named a little over 11 percent of those connections as difficult only. For older people, that number was slightly higher, amounting to 15.5 percent of acquaintances and 11.7 percent of co-workers.
Overall, workplaces were hotbeds of trouble, but not of the “difficult engaged” kind. And, as for why we don’t rid our lives of difficult people.
“Whether it’s an alcoholic father whom you want to cut ties with, an annoying friend with whom you have a long history or an overbearing boss, relationships are complicated and in many cases unavoidable,” Fischer said.
Yasmin Anwar writes for the UC Berkeley News Center.
LAKEPORT, Calif. – The Lake County Winery Association announced the results of its recently held board of directors election for the regional trade association.
Oakland Zoo in action with Bay Area Puma Project, conservation partner in California. Courtesy photo. OAKLAND, Calif. – To better reflect Oakland Zoo’s evolving purpose and mission in its commitment to conservation, the zoo is launching a new campaign which includes a more prevalent focus on conservation messaging, a new logo and a name change to the Zoo’s governing organization; the East Bay Zoological Society.
As since 1922, the zoo will remain the Oakland Zoo, and legally the East Bay Zoological Society will now be known as the Conservation Society of California.
“Conservation is the core of our organization, and adopting a name to reflect that purpose is how we can better communicate that,” said Dr. Joel Parrott, Oakland Zoo’s president and CEO of 34 years. “For almost 100 years, families have been coming to Oakland Zoo and enjoying our animals, but now we can articulate that their visits help us continue and expand our conservation work – in education, hands-on field work and financial support to our conservation partners worldwide.”
In the past decade alone, through the zoo’s conservation efforts, the zoo has invested over $1,000,000 in contributions supporting partnering conservation organizations in saving animal species worldwide.
Zoo-based education efforts in conservation are extensive and growing, as is expanding existing zoological programs such as re-populating critically endangered species back into the wild and collaborating with conservationists locally and abroad in research studies to benefit animals both captive and in the wild.
"Oakland Zoo has been a steadfast friend of ARCAS and Guatemalan wildlife for the last nearly 20 years. Working in a country with such pressing needs and with such instability, it's heartening to know that we have in the zoo an ally with a similar vision, that understands the importance of preserving the earth's biodiversity, and the difficulties that this work entails," said Colum Muccio, executive director, ARCAS, Guatemala.
As an accredited member of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, AZA, Oakland Zoo is part of the largest conservation organization in the nation.
These 230 AZA-accredited zoo and aquarium institutions contribute over $160 million every year to wildlife conservation.
AZA institutions also train 40,000 teachers every year, supporting state science curricula with teaching materials and hands-on opportunities for students who might otherwise have no first-hand experience with wildlife.
Over the decades, Oakland Zoo has been evolving, improving, and growing; and the East Bay Zoological Society has been the driving force behind the zoo’s evolution. EBZS has worked purposefully behind the scenes, doing business as the Oakland Zoo.
Oakland Zoo in action at Centre Val Bio, conservation partner in Madagascar. Courtesy photo. Community leaders who have served on the EBZS Board of Trustees throughout the years dedicated their efforts to ensure that the zoo continued to grow into one of California’s finest wildlife conservation and educational institutions.
Supporting conservation has always been priority in their efforts, from the zoo’s 25 conservation partner organizations globally to species rescue, recovery and re-introduction into the wild to educating 60,000 students annually through conservation-based education programs. EBZS has quietly and successfully guided the zoo through the development of all of this.
Over the past year, through a collaborative process engaging constituents of the zoo and research, the Oakland Zoo and the EBZS began talks in undergoing a renaming and rebranding campaign.
As a result of the gathered research, it was discovered that the name, the East Bay Zoological Society, was not recognized among the zoo’s audiences. For every paid admission to Oakland Zoo, a contribution is made to saving species in the wild.
The Conservation Society of California recently doubled its existing allocation, and expanded it to also include a portion of Zoo membership households. We expect our efforts to raise over a quarter of a million dollars this fiscal year,” said Patrick Sherwood, Board Co-Chair, CSC.
It bears noting that community research highlighted that many in the Bay Area community view Oakland Zoo as primarily a place to bring the kids and spend family time outdoors.
“The name of Oakland Zoo will never change. The zoo will always be a great place to bring families and children, and we believe conservation begins with a great family experience. This is our opportunity to instill and inspire people that the future is conservation,” said Dr. Parrott.
Over the next few weeks and months, the zoo plans to roll out their new Conservation Society of California campaign, showcasing engaging conservation-minded messaging and programs.
Oakland Zoo in action at ARCAS, conservation partner in Guatemala. Courtesy photo.
Hops, barley and grain. The California State Fair is looking for home beer brewers who have all of the ingredients it takes to make your homebrew number one at the California State Fair.
From left to right, Marilyn Gunther, liaison to the schools, Leilani Carrell holding her Smokey Bear/Woodsy Owl certificate and Linda Waterstraat with Leilani's winning poster. Courtesy photo.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – The Clear Lake Trowel and Trellis Garden Club is proud to announce the contest winners for the Smokey Bear/Woodsy Owl Poster Contest.
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