Why I hate the Pulitzers
Posted on | April 12, 2010 | 1 Comment
The most obvious reason is that I don’t have one. But, beyond that, as the names of the winners came down the wires this afternoon, the most deserving writer for beat journalism, or explanatory writing, or public service (take your pick) was not among them. He is Mike Taugher of the Contra Costa Times. I don’t know Taugher, but I could pick out a story by him without the byline. He is the reporter who is invariably at the edge of what can be known about water in northern California. His series on the two richest, most wildly entitled fixers in the state’s water politics opened the door to subsequent profiles of Lynda and Stewart Resnick by the New York Times and, only this weekend, the Associated Press. But Taugher was there first, with a shovel doing the hardest digging. The upshot? Among other things, without Taugher’s reporting in 2009, the Endangered Species Act might be in much worse shape in 2010.
A former colleague at the Los Angeles Times, the late David Shaw, once described how the unholy crush in judging the Pulitzers came down to the physical feel of a package. According to Shaw, there were too many words from too many newspapers on too many subjects in too short a time. The rest was about clout and the vapors of the judges. That is not to say that Shaw didn’t deserve the Pulitzer that he earned in 1991 for his four-part series on McMartin molestation case, or that any work celebrated by the Pulitzer judges was unworthy. It is only to say that Taugher was done wrong in the 2009 awards. Click here for links to some of his work.
Jackie Johnson, observed
Posted on | April 12, 2010 | 2 Comments
Forget your taxes, forget whatever undone Friday task that mocks you this Monday morning, go straight to LA Observed, where Kevin Roderick has embedded a Parry Gripp song dedicated to Los Angeles weather girl Jackie Johnson. If that doesn’t make you love silliness, then in the Life is Good department, consider that gentle, almost continuous showers last night, about 3/4 of an inch of water as if laid down by a mister, nudged the rainfall total in Los Angeles to just above normal at 15.98 inches. Click here for National Weather Service rainfall data for across greater Los Angeles.
Elsewhere in the real world, Groksurf has a nifty round-up of San Diego water news and Aquafornia leads with this very good Associated Press story on Lynda and Stewart Resnick, which was inspired by a recent lawsuit. My favorite line about the billionaire who is trying to overturn the Endangered Species Act after earning millions bilking a program designed to preserve Bay-Delta fish comes from Lynda. It’s about Stewart. “My husband should be canonized for all the work he’s done.”
This post has been updated. The links to Aquafornia, AP and Groksurf were added.
Read me
Posted on | April 11, 2010 | No Comments
It is fitting that the new issue of Pacific Horticulture should land in mailboxes during the Theodore Payne Foundation tour. As Los Angeles wakes up to native gardening, the latest edition of the magazine is a gentle reminder that its San Francisco-based publisher has long given indigenous flora equal weight with exotics. This issue is no different with looks at a xeriscape garden at Pitzer College, how to foster native bees (learn to love deadwood), a matured version of a cult native garden in Altadena and green roofs. The green roofs piece asks questions that Joseph Beuys admirers everywhere must have wondered at one point or another: What about weight? Drainage? What plants do best where? What happens when it gets dry? Do you have to water your roof?
This magazine is the thinking man’s Sunset. My only wish for it is an art director. The Western azalea blossom on the cover could sue for bad lighting.
The Dry Garden: Eco-snooping, part three
Posted on | April 9, 2010 | No Comments
You might set out on the Theodore Payne Foundation tour this weekend for righteous reasons — to save water, or to help birds and butterflies. But the sheer beauty of Wynne Wilson’s Altadena home will have you wondering, why doesn’t everyone garden with natives? Her partnering of indigenous coral bells and lilac with the Mediterranean staples of citrus and lavender is so stupidly beautiful that you want to cry.
Click here for part three in the Los Angeles Times of The Dry Garden’s preview of this weekend’s Theodore Payne Foundation tour.
Do nothing, do good
Posted on | April 8, 2010 | No Comments
This 2009 photo by Allen J. Schaben of the Los Angeles Times captures the dynamics of Southern California's native watersheds in one shot, from snowcapped local mountains to the Pacific.
As a spring heat wave sends the snow on LA’s mountains gushing into the storm drain system, most of us can only dream of what the county would be like if its rivers and streams had not been channelized or buried. But rather than wait for a return to Eden, there are things that we can do to protect the Pacific as the snowmelt is plated out to sea.
That is goof off.
Click here for the lazy person’s guide to saving the watershed
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