Everything’s broken
"La Dragona del Jardin" in the Echo Park garden of Larry Nichols and Rob Kibler. Photo: R Daniel Foster (reproduced with permission). Click on La Dragona to be taken to Foster's story "A smashing success" in the Los Angeles Times.
By now you may have read that the Governor of California and a good number of state legislators want to spare voters the trouble of considering an $11bn bond measure to pay for the package of water bills that they passed last November. After describing passage of the bills as “historic” and “herculean” last fall, the same men who told us that it had to be done because our water supply was “one earthquake, one flood away from collapse” have now decided that disaster can wait. We’re not scared enough to pay what it will cost to plan for it. For details, go to Aquafornia. My own …
Miss Emily regrets
… that she will not be logging onto Facebook today. MoveOn.org has an interesting drive aimed at improving Facebook’s privacy policy. I upgraded my privacy guarantee independently by today deleting my account. Those interested in this site’s updates, largely from the worlds of water and gardening, may elect to follow links on Twitter, or not. To those Facebook friends who found themselves deleted, it was nothing personal, which was precisely the problem. UPDATE: For MoveOn.org’s latest Facebook statement, click here.…
TV water
You may have heard of the illusory quality of paper water. Well, for fantasy value, the rights system that allocates Western water far beyond the volume of actual H2O has been briefly and deliriously topped. Last night on the ABC show “Brothers & Sisters,” a network TV family discovered water (in an aquifer!).
Admitting to having watched it is embarrassing. This show puts most right wing vanilla treacle in the savory category. But it’s always interesting to see California’s water supply on TV. “You’ve heard about California’s water problems!” cried the babbling idiot characters. “We’re rich!”
I can’t wait to see how they develop the water. They’d have a hit if next season Stewart Resnick showed up. Casting would be a no-brainer: Larry Hagman.
PS: If you have a TV, don’t watch this crap. It’s evil. Instead, watch Treme on HBO, set in post-Katrina New Orleans. Now there’s a show …
Callie Angell
I don’t know if I remember rightly that Callie’s cat was called Clara back in the 1970s, when Callie and I were closest, but I do know that Clara had an unusual meow.
“What’s your favorite kind of computer?” Callie would ask.
“Wang,” Clara would say.
The news of Callie’s death by suicide has brought much comment about her dedication to avant garde film, Warhol in particular, the most beautiful by Jim Hoberman in the Village Voice. But the Callie I knew had a life outside of screening rooms.
This born New Yorker loved a small lake and family lakehouse just outside the city. There were snapping turtles, which she would watch snare unaware birds. Sitting on the porch on humid evenings was never dull. Lightning storms could cast freakish bolts that would come in through the porch and zizzle through the house until they raced out of a door. …
“Everything but the water”
Dear University of California Regents,
California’s water system is on the brink of collapse. If we fail to figure out our water supply, California fails as a state. Clamor from various users, be they Delta fishermen, Central Valley farmers or Southern California realtors is deafening. Each group tells the story in ways that suit their cases. Only one place, the University of California’s Water Resources Center Archives, is dedicated to systematic and impartial collection and cataloging of the kind of information that will help us find our way forward.
There could be no more foolhardy step than to dismantle the Water Resources Center Archives at the moment that they are most desperately needed. Please find a way to save and build the collection as a powerful way to save and build our state.
Sincerely,
Emily Green
Click here for how, and why, to support the Water Resources Center …
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