On the public record
Posted on | February 25, 2011 | No Comments
Myself I planted native plants because I couldn't afford a sprinkler system when I first moved to Southern California. Then of course I became sanctimonious about it. The bees were pure gravy.
On the public record, the most smartly written blog on California water, responded yesterday to the publication earlier this week of the Public Policy Institute report Managing California Water: From Conflict to Reconciliation, “Reconciliation? Reconciliation of what? Northern and southern Californians? People living in regions that are about to get screwed with their fates? People and the new Californian dream?
Oh. Environmental and Human Water Uses, apparently. That’s a pretty boring thing to reconcile, because what matters in a political system is people’s expectations and their subjective experiences. Do they feel like they’re having their god-given American right to red meat at every meal yanked away from them, or do they feel like they’re planting native plants because they love the bees so much? The report says fuck-all about how to get people to buy into this, and so will the Delta Plan and so will the Flood Plan and so will every other state level document ever on the face of the earth because they don’t consider people and their feelings as knowable important components of what happens.”
Click here to keep reading Otpr. Hat tip Aquafornia.
Tags: chance of rain > Emily Green > On the public record blog > Public Policy Institute
The Dry Garden: Fremont’s flower
Posted on | February 25, 2011 | 1 Comment
Some years ago, the website of Native Sons Nursery had a photograph of a California flannel bush that had been trained to grow along a garden wall. Each bloom in a spangle of flowers was the size of a tea cup. Their yellow could outshine a daffodil, or sunflower. This wasn’t a garden, it was a garden that Matisse dreamed. On seeing that photo, so began years of looking in Los Angeles area gardens for espaliered examples of the glorious genus of natives whose botanical name is Fremontodendron.
And never finding one.
It turns out that the photograph was taken in Guernsey by Native Sons co-founder David Fross, who had just left a place that serves alcohol when he saw the glorious display by one of the signature plants of California chaparral growing in one of the Channel Islands between Britain and France. “I’d had two martinis and half a bottle of wine, came around the corner and late evening light was crashing into this yellow door. At first I was staring at the door. Then I focused and said, that’s Fremontodendron.” It ran almost 50 feet along a wall.
Click here to keep reading this week’s ‘The Dry Garden’ in the Los Angeles Times.
Waiting for ‘catastrophe’
Posted on | February 24, 2011 | No Comments
"Today’s system of water management, developed in previous times for past conditions, is leading the state down a path of environmental and economic deterioration. We’re waiting for the next drought, flood, or lawsuit to bring catastrophe,” says Ellen Hanak, senior fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California and co-author of the new report Managing California's Water. "But if we take bold steps now, we can move from an era of conflict to one of reconciliation, where water is managed more flexibly and comprehensively, to benefit both the economy and the environment.” Click on the cover to be taken to the report.
Rain and snow in LA and Vegas
Posted on | February 23, 2011 | No Comments
As fun as it is when it rains on celebrities at the Oscars, this year it looks like we will merely see the pencil-thin starlets shiver. The above icons in descending order represent the current National Weather Service forecasts for greater Los Angeles foothills, basin and coast respectively. Click here or on the top row of icons to be taken to the National Weather Service website. From Ken Clark’s AccuWeather blog forecast for Los Angeles: “A little rain could break out as early as Friday afternoon, especially from the Los Angeles Basin on north. But the most rain occurs Friday night, then becomes showery Saturday into early Saturday night with a couple of thunderstorms possible as well. Snow levels initially will be around 3,000 to 3,500 feet Friday night, locally lower interior mountains. Snow levels fall late Friday night and Saturday bottoming out at between 1,000 and 1,500 feet, but dropping as low as 500 feet in a heavy shower Saturday afternoon and evening.” His post, which is broken down by region, sees this for the Southwest: “I believe some snow will fall in Vegas, especially Saturday afternoon and early Saturday night. The greatest precipitation in Arizona comes Saturday afternoon into Sunday morning.” Click here for the full report.
The emperor was bald
Posted on | February 22, 2011 | No Comments
The sight of Libya’s madman-in-chief muttering nonsense from beneath an umbrella brought to mind many images of world leaders wielding other famous parasols, such as this beaut in which aides of Ukrainian Speaker Volodymyr Litvyn used brollies to deflect eggs being hurled at them. Though the umbrella is folded, this is a nice story out of the UK about how Hitler used to mock Neville Chamberlain for his trademark rain shield. This sudden absorption with umbrellas being displacement activity on a deadline day, I leave it to others to postpone some immediate chore by instead looking for file photos of famous umbrella moments. Ah, but not before adding this bit of umbrella Wiki-trivia that “in the sculptures at Nineveh the parasol appears frequently. Austen Henry Layard gives a picture of a bas-relief representing a king in his chariot, with an attendant holding a parasol over his head. It has a curtain hanging down behind, but is otherwise exactly like those in use today. It is reserved exclusively for the monarch (who was bald), and is never carried over any other person.”
An Arabist writes: “Nobody cares, but the scholarly way of spelling his name would be Qadhdhafi. He can speak English but refuses to and takes some kind of perverse pleasure in encouraging weird spellings. BTW the name means something like ‘flinger, kicker, shover, discarder.’ ” This comment came via Facebook, to which I responded: He is well named. I updated the post with your remarks. I regret my flippancy about this because however you spell his name, he’s a monster. I cannot begin to appreciate the pain he has inflicted in Libya. I do remember vividly picking up the phone at the Independent’s feature desk and taking a message for our obit editor from Rita Cadman, mother of Bill Cadman, a talented sound engineer killed on Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie. He has caused many mothers to sound just as anguished. May he rot in hell and take his umbrella with him.
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