Special to Bayview Hill-Jake Sigg's Nature News

1. Beginner's walk at Lake Merced, Sunday 22
2. Bees in the City - stellar program at CounterPULSE Feb 25
3. Oceans vs plastics - correction on URL
4. Edna St Vincent Millay anniversary February 22
5. Useful information from the California Oak Mortality Task force and sudden oak death
6. Would you like to be a host for the Native Plant Garden Tour April 5?
7. New e-newsletter for invasive plants
8. The NAACP turns 100
9. More Lincoln
10. Endangered Species: California Game Wardens
11. Feedback
12. A lament for saver; prudence gets penalized
13. Wisdom from Arabia
14. New mintings for the penny? Why?
15. The Food Pyramid/Coffee's pros and cons/carrots of many colors/why are carrots better in winter?

1.
Sunday, February 22, 2009
starting at 10:00am
Walk: Beginner's Walk at Lake Merced

Guide: Tom Annese
Location: Lake Merced
Contact: Tom Annese tomannese@yahoo.com 415-297-1413

On this leisurely stroll around Lake Merced's Mesa, we'll identify and review some of the most common dune and coastal scrub species. With luck, we'll see some early bloomers, but we'll focus on learning these plants by vegetative characteristics. This walk will provide an excellent foundation for those new to San Francisco's flora and will help those planning to attend more advanced wildflower walks in spring. This is a short walk on flat sandy soil. Wear closed-toe shoes and layered clothing. Wind is likely. A pleasant drizzle will not deter us but heavy rain cancels.
Directions:

* We will meet at the intersection of Lake Merced Boulevard and Middlefield Drive near the crosswalk.
* The site is accessible via Muni lines #29 and #23.
* If you're driving, park on Middlefield Drive at Gellert and walk across the Boulevard to the Lake.


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2.
Title: Bees in the City
Date: February 25, 2009
Time: 7:30 p.m.
Place: CounterPULSE
1310 Mission Street (@ 9th)
San Francisco, CA 94103
Cost: Free & open to the public
Description: Learn about the "Colony Collapse Disorder" afflicting commercial beekeepers and the threat to agribusiness, in juxtaposition to the dozens of native bees flourishing in California's urban environments, which reinforce local biodiversity and provide another important link to growing our own food in cities.
Speakers: Phillip Gerrie (SF Beekeepers Association), K. Ruby (Institute for Urban Homesteading), Gordon Frankie, and Alemany Farm
Contact: steward@natureinthecity.org, 415-564-4107

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3. Correction on last newsletter's item about oceans vs plastic:
The oceans vs plastic; act
the link to the program is broken. (http://tinyurl.com/8hhzyj)

This looks like it might be the correct link: http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/128097118

I got it by going to http://www.sfsurfrider.org/ and clicking on 'rise above plastics!' graphic on right

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4.
Born 22 February 1892: Edna St Vincent Millay
Information taken from the internet

Edna was in high school when she entered a poetry contest and wrote a poem, Renascence, which she recited at a poetry reading, and a woman in the audience was so impressed that she paid Edna's way to go to Vassar College.

She was a rebellious student at Vassar, then moved to New York City, where she lived in Greenwich Village and had numerous love affairs with both women and men. Edmund Wilson thought she was almost "supernaturally beautiful." He proposed marriage and never got over the rejection.

In her poem First Fig she wrote:
My candle burns at both ends;
It will not last the night;
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends-
It gives a lovely light!

And in Second Fig:
Safe upon the solid rock the ugly houses stand:
Come see my shining palace built upon the sand!

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5.
The California Oak Mortality Task Force uses peer-reviewed science to help clear up misconceptions about sudden oak death. Because the pathogen can be transported in soil, sanitation is key to controlling the disease's spread. But people sometimes have taken unnecessarily extreme precautions after hiking in infested areas. "Some threw their shoes away right after hiking...Others put all their clothes in a paper bag, washed them right away and then burned the bag," (says a researcher). But all hikers really need to do is to clean clumps of mud off their shoes during the rainy season, she says.

Another misconception is that people in susceptible coastal areas should avoid gardening with native plants. "Some see the host plant list as a prohibition list," (says the researcher). "But aside from bay laurels, they all should be planted. Natives are better than nonnatives, which could introduce another pathogen." Bay laurel trees are the main host responsible for spreading Phytophthora ramorum in California wildlands.

Most recently, research has shown that sudden oak death infections are not affected by azomite, a mineral-rich powder that is mined from volcanic deposits. While azomite is touted as a natural cure, "it's like treating pneumonia with orange juice," says study leader Matteo Garbelotto, a forest pathology specialist at UC Berkeley..."Azomite appeals emotionally to a lot of people, (says a researcher). "now we'll be able to tell them that it doesn't work."

Excerpt from California Agriculture, January-March 2009

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6. Volunteer opportunity in San Francisco

Looking for a fun afternoon, meeting friendly interesting people, and having a positive impact on the community?

We are looking for volunteer to co-host at the Yerba Buena Chapter of the California Native Plant Society's Native Plant Garden Tour, Sunday, April 5, 2009, 11 AM to 3 PM.

No experience necessary, knowledge of native plants helpful but not required! The owner or caretaker of each of the private gardens will be present. Co-hosts greet visitors, ask them to sign in, and is the friendly face that improves guest experience. A packet of information, map of the gardens on the tour, open/shut sign for the entrance, and sign in sheets provided.

Please contact Nancy at: yb09nr@yahoo.com by March 1 if interested.

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7.
New e-newsletter on invasive plants
The Center for Invasive Plant Management now offers a free bimonthly electronic newsletter, which covers a variety of topics related to invasive plant science, management, education, and policy: http://www.weedcenter.org/

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8.
Another February 12 anniversary
The NAACP at 100
Much still to do

During the summer of 1908, riots raged through Abraham Lincoln's hometown of Springfield, Illinois. The quiet removal of two black men who had been held in prison as suspects in two separate attacks on white people enraged the white community. They took out their anger on black residents and black-owned businesses and properties. The riots went on for two days and simmered for longer; seven people were killed and some $200,0000 worth of damage was done.

The following February, partly in response to the Springfield riots, a group of Jewish, white and black activists met in New York to found the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People, whose aim was, and remains, to ensure "the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights of all persons and to eliminate racial hatred and racial discrimination". Excerpt from The Economist 14 February 2009

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9. More Lincoln

Excerpts from the archives of The Economist: www.economist.com/fromthearchive

The new president-elect
“THE success of the Republican candidate for the Presidency in the United States will prove one of the greatest events of modern times, if it indicates, as we trust, no mere accidental fluctuation of public opinion in the direction of the Anti- Slavery cause, but the commencement of a permanent and sustained movement.”
24 November 1860

The death of a president
“THE murder of Mr Lincoln is a very great and very lamentable event, perhaps the greatest and most lamentable which has occurred since the coup d'etat, if not since Waterloo. It affects directly and immensely the welfare of the three most powerful countries in the world, America, France, and England, and it affects them all for evil.”

"...not merely that a great man has passed away, but he has disappeared at the very time when his special greatness seemed almost essential to the world."
29 April 1865

Looking back at Lincoln
“IT is yet too early to look for a full and satisfactory biography of one who in the pages of American history will occupy a place second only to Washington, both for services rendered to his country and for the integrity and simple-hearted devotion with which he served her.”
29 July 1865
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The war over Lincoln
America is throwing a big birthday party for its 16th president, and everyone wants a share

The forgotten meritocrat

...both sides have shortchanged one of Lincoln's most important ideals: that of self-help and upward mobility. Lincoln was not just content to be a personal example of upward mobility--born, in the poet James Russell Lowell's phrase, "out of the very earth, unancestried, unprivileged, unknown". He believed that the essence of the promise of American life was "to lift artificial weights from all shoulders" and "afford all an unfettered start, and a fair chance, in the race of life."

Both parties continue to pay lip service to this ideal. But they have done far too little about America's rusting ladders of opportunity. Mr Bush's Republicans cut the top rates of tax at a time when the richest Americans were amassing unheard-of wealth, and widened the gap between rich and poor while turning a healthy budget surplus into a big deficit. The Democrats are wedded to a system of affirmative action that judges people on the basis of their race rather than their individual merits. They are also in the pockets of teachers' unions which have fought relentlessly against introducing more competition or standardised testing into the public schools. Mr Obama, like Bill Clinton before him, has sent his own children to a private school, while simultaneously anathematising voucher schemes that would allow those less wealthy to do the same. If the hottest political question in this bicentennial week is "what would Lincoln do?", then the first answer is surely try a lot harder to repair America's faltering commitment to meritocracy.

Excerpt from Lexington's column in The Economist, 14 February 2009


Freedom's messy triumph
America, Empire of Liberty: A New History, by David Reynolds

Which American president was described by his top general as "nothing more than a well-meaning baboon"? Abraham Lincoln, who thought no better of General George McClellan. Convinced that a vast Confederate army lay in wait for him, McClellan hesitated to march on Richmond, Virginia, the rebel capital. "If General McClellan does not want to use the army, I would like to borrow it for a time," sighed Lincoln. When McClellan at last started creeping towards Richmond, he was embarrassed to discover that some of the imposing gun emplacements that had scared him were only painted logs.

Excerpt from The Economist, 14 Feb 09

(Lincoln was confronted by many, many problems vis-a-vis his cabinet, Congress, the public, and trying to keep border states [Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, Delaware] in the union. It was a difficult balancing act. But arguably his main challenge was General McClellan, who was good at organization, but cautious to the point of inaction. He missed opportunities to give the South the coup de grace, and that led to four extremely bloody years. McClellan was also uninterested in ending slavery. Lincoln eventually replaced him. McClellan ran against him in the 1864 presidential election. Shortly before the election he was still ahead in the polls; had he won he would have made a deal with the South allowing them to keep slavery.)

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“I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country...Corporations have been enthroned, an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money-power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until the wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed.” Abraham Lincoln, quoted in Jack London’s The Iron Heel

(See also A lament for savers; Prudence gets penalized/and the Lincoln penny, below)


Frank Noto:
Jake, "Many of Lincoln's cabinet appointments were from his opposition--some of them contemptuous of Lincoln--and they reflected opinion of the Democrats from the North. "
If you are referring to his initial cabinet, I don't think there were many Democrats from any region, perhaps you mean Republicans. Or perhaps I don't understand what is meant by reflected opinion. When Lincoln ran and won in 1864 on a Union ticket, he did include Democrat Andrew Johnson, but I do not know how many other Dems were included.
Frank: Regardless of their affiliation, some of them reflected the opinions of northern Democrats (which had significantly different views from southern Democrats, especially on the matter of slavery).
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Hey Jake.

In the Lincoln and Darwin spirit... I wanted to share a video piece that I wrote for Time.com about Lincoln and Darwin. It's featured on the front page today - listed as a "Must See" video.


I put the links in my blog: http://www.sciencecomedian.com/blog/2009/02/16/science-comedian-lincoln-and-darwin-on-timecom/


Keep up the good work! I enjoy your emails.


Brian

Brian Malow
sciencecomedian@gmail.com
www.sciencecomedian.com


(The California Academy of Sciences has On the Origin of Species in hardcover for $8!!)

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10. From Eric Mills:
New DVD in Town: "ENDANGERED SPECIES: CALIFORNIA FISH AND GAME WARDENS," available from Snow Goose Productions, P.O. Box 2480, Mill Valley, CA
94942. Cost is $22 (includes handling & postage). Producer James Swann has promised to send copies to all California state legislators and the Dept. of Fish & Game, and Commission.

California is DEAD LAST in the nation (and Canadian provinces) in the ratio of wardens per population. We currently have only 192 wardens in the field, when we could use between 2,000-3,000 to do the job. Wardens make a salary of only about 3/5's what a CHP officer makes, and are far more likely to be shot while on duty. Wardens generally work alone, often without backup, 7 days a week. As a direct result of the pay inequity, new applicants are almost non-existent, and our wildlife and environment suffer accordingly. Reportedly, some 40% of the current understaffed force will be up for retirement within three years. NOT ACCEPTABLE! Our wildlife is in dire straits, poaching is on the increase, and conditions will only worsen in light of the current fiscal disaster we face.

ALL STATE LEGISLATORS MAY BE WRITTEN C/O THE STATE CAPITOL, SACRAMENTO, CA 95814.

Letters to the Editors of various newspapers would also be helpful. Here are a few addresses:
letters@sfchronicle.com
letters@latimes.com
letters@mercurynews.com
letters@cctimes.com
letters@sacbee.com

If you would like to get onto Eric Mills' email list: afa@mcn.org

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11. Feedback

Jim Hanson:

FYI, following up on your Nature News comment about population where the financial meltdown came from, I caught a KQED Forum program on the State budget mess and made this comment to the reporter who cited how recently increasing California population has also meant a growing demand for taxpayer services, thus we're broke.

I'm encouraging the reporters to bring up population pressures from unsustainable family size and what it's doing to everything. Promoting awareness and open discussion. Also this Dept. of Finance report about increasing population/family size and use of taxpayer-funded services is timely to the State budget breakdown.


Bob Twomey (re Love the Ocean and Use Less Plastic):

I understand there is a huge "plastic island" somewhere...where all the garbage gets sucks into a huge pool

Oh yes, I may have heard of it. Some of the stories I hear are too much to bear, and I just block them out. It's the only way I can get out of bed in the morning.
I'll post your question in next newsletter; you'll doubtless get a response.

Jeff Caldwell:

While population effect fears may not be entirely without merit, I cannot help but think of the utter rapacity of generations preceding this one, who were responsible for an enormous amount of ecological damage inflicted with and by far fewer people living on the land.

Like my Uncle Vince -- who, when he was young, shot any living thing he saw, senselessly killing. Shot turtles off logs.
Those who destroyed the great auk and the passenger pigeon ... those who chose, for money at hand, to make our creeks and rivers into concrete ditches.
It wasn't their numbers that did Nature in, it was their choices ...

You say that people's "fears may not be entirely without merit". Say it ain't so, Jeff. I cannot believe that you harbor doubts about the effect of sheer numbers of one species, especially one that is as clever and heedless as Homo sapiens--and one that is ignorant of what makes its own existence possible. What you say about our choices and what we have done and are doing is indisputable. But irrelevant. It's the numbers, aided and abetted by our behavior. Jake

P.S. Regarding my own experiences: I was raised on a ranch in Montana. We were taught to kill everything that moved: snakes, toads, magpies, skunks. They were "varmints", presumably in competition with humans, or or somehow detrimental to our interests. They had no right to exist. I saw my father shoot an owl in a pine tree near the house. We were given no reason for these killings; we believed in them because our parents told us so, and everyone else said so too. It was ingrained in the culture--the frontier psychology still ruled. We would stop the car and get out and club a porcupine to death. (At least this had a thin rationale: Porcupines did girdle and kill trees, although not in large numbers.)

We had a flock of sheep, which I herded. There was a lot of talk about coyotes, and the fact that they killed sheep, especially lambs, which were supposedly easy picking. It became embedded in our outlook, and I believed it completely. So much so that I thought I saw a coyote attacking a sheep one day--in the far distance. I fired a shot from a 22-pistol to scare it off. (I had only recently been allowed to carry a gun and was ready to play the hero.) Later in life I concluded that I probably fantasized. To many people, all sheep in a flock would look alike. Not to a herder who sees them every day, all day long. The flock was 500, and I knew every one of them. If one was missing, I knew it and looked for it. We never lost a single sheep, not even a lamb. (Ewes could fend off a coyote trying to catch her lamb.) Many people in livestock country probably still believe these legends.

Why am I telling you all this? This legend about coyotes and sheep was very successful in attempts to exterminate coyotes from the land. The compound known as 1080 was authorized by the government for many years. It would kill the coyotes and anything that fed on the carcass--on up the food chain. That was of no concern to the rancher who believed this nonsense, or to his senator and congressman. I mused on the fact that I was victim of the story, and totally believed it until middle age, when I finally figured that I had been a fool for believing it instead of believing my own eyes and experience.

There's a lesson that we should all learn. We are suggestible creatures, and we believe an awful lot of what others want us to believe. Sometimes all that is necessary for it to be believed is for it to be stated, verbally or in print. And--oh yes, repeat, repeat, repeat. Advertisers, PR folks, politicians well know this. History would be very different if it were not so.

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12.
A lament for savers
Prudence gets penalized

Borrowers get bailed out. Run your bank into the ground and the taxpayer will lend it money. Buy a house you cannot afford and the central bank will cut interest rates to ease your burden.

Meanwhile those who have lived within their means and put money aside for the proverbial rainy day have seen interest rates slashed to virtually nothing in America. No one offers to help them out, even though saving is needed to allow business investment which, in turn, generates growth. Asians, told off in the 1990s for their current-account deficits, now get lectured for saving too much.

This is quite a different paradox of thrift from the usual one. In theory, everybody regards thrift as a virtue. In practice, they treat it as a vice...John Maynard Keynes remarked: "Whenever you save five shillings, you put a man out of work for the day."

...savers are far from content. Those who have built diversified portfolios (another hallmark of prudence) will have suffered losses in equities, property and corporate bonds. Even those who have been clever enough to keep their money in cash have had to fret about the security of banks and money-market funds.

...In many countries the system is biased against the saver. Interest income is usually taxable, whereas some countries allow mortgage payments to be tax deductible.

...Indeed, those saving for retirement have another problem to worry about. A much-discussed trend of the past ten years has been for employers to switch from final-salary to money-purchase pension schemes, transferring the investment risk to the employee. Less well advertised is the fact that the shift has allowed employers to cut the overall level of their contributions, and the financial crisis has prompted some to impose a moratorium on payments.

Rationally, therefore, many workers should be saving more for their retirement right now. And that is before they consider building up a cash cushion against the risk of losing their job, or rebuilding their wealth to offset falling house prices.

Such people will be prudently preparing for the future, with the aim of not being a burden on the state. And they will get no thanks for it whatsoever.

Excerpted from Buttonwood in The Economist 14 Feb 09

"Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it." -Mark Twain

I forget where I got this juicy gem, but it surely was pre-2007, pre-Madoff: "Only rich people invest in hedge funds. They're smart enough to look out for themselves."

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13. Wisdom from Arabia:
“A fool may be known by six things: anger, without cause; speech, without profit; change, without progress; inquiry, without object; putting trust in a stranger, and mistaking foes for friends”

When you heard that a mountain was moved, believe it; but when you hear that someone changed his character do not believe it”

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14. The penny--Is this minting really necessary?

To mark the occasion of Abraham Lincoln's 200th birthday, the U.S. Mint has redesigned the penny. There'll be 4 new ones rolled out over the next year, the first one was February 12.

The front's the same, they just changed the back. It has a log cabin where the picture of the memorial used to be, since the 16th president was born in one.

Not for nothing, but 43 percent of the U.S. population says we ought to get rid of the penny once and for all.

(And why isn't it 100%? What an annoyance.

For an efficiency-obsessed system, one constantly searching for ways to shave costs, why the U.S. penny has survived the last few decades is a wonder. Think of the cost of mining, transporting, minting, distributing; and picture standing in a grocery line while someone is searching for the pennies--well, you get the picture. If someone ever totaled the cost of the penny it would exceed the value of the item by..by...uh--how many times?

For many years I've considered pennies not worth picking up. Several years ago, nickels joined that select group. Now I am looking at dimes with a jaundiced eye, and have a nanosecond debate about whether it's worth picking up. The penny's endurance is a phenomenon that must be ripe for a PhD thesis.)

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15. From Brown and Toland's Health Link Winter 2009

The Food Pyramid, made to order
You've probably heard about the U.S. Dept of Agriculture's Food Guide Pyramid, designed in 1992 to help consumers make healthier food choices. The updated online version--www.MyPyramid.gov--allows you to build a personalized pyramid, suited to your age, gender, height, weight and physical activity.

Coffee's Pros and Cons
Trying to break your coffee addiction? Before you do, consider this: That cup of java may actually help stave off disease.

Studies show that coffee may lessen your risk of developing Parkinson's Disease. (Caffeine seems to be the key ingredient.) Meanwhile, a study of more than 126,000 people suggests that coffee drinkers were less likely to develop Type 2 Diabetes, and a review of nine studies backs up those findings, calling for more research. On another medical front, a Japanese study of more than 1,900 men and women showed that coffee lovers are less likely to develop Metabolic Syndrome, a risk factor for heart disease.

Still, coffee has its downsides. It can boost heart rate and blood pressure and occasionally leads to irregular heartbeat. (Pregnant women are among those advised to limit caffeine intake.) Talk to your doctor.
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From Agricultural Research:
One carrot a day gives you your daily need for Vitamin A. This has not always been so; this trait has been only recently bred into it. Carrots now have 75% more Vitamin A than 25 years ago.

Beta carotene is used by the body to create Vitamin A

Carrots have been developed into many different colors: white, yellow, several shades of orange, through reds to black-red.

red: lycopene, a carotene that guards against heart disease and some cancers (also occurs in tomatoes and watermelons)
yellow: good eye health; protects against macular degeneration
purple: contains antioxidants

We eat with our eyes. Different color carrots were fed to people with eyes open and blindfolded. When they were able to see the color, they responded more favorably to it.
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In a previous issue of this newsletter, I asked the question about why carrots are so much sweeter and flavorful in the winter. Andrea Williams gave this response, which may make scientific sense. However, I'm still a little dubious, because along the California coast carrots grow through the winter. Does anyone have alternate explanations to account for their superior flavor in winter?

Andrea Williams, about why carrots are sweeter in winter:
Carrots store the excess energy carrot tops (the above-ground plant) produce all year as sugars. In spring, when the carrot plant starts growing again, the sugars are used to start more growth, and in summer much of the plant's sugars are being used for growth and reproduction. Then, in fall, the plant dies back to the root, storing its remaining energy over the winter until needed for fresh growth (theirs or ours!). It's another reason why there is often a debate, not heard much these days, about whether you should buy carrots with or without their tops on: some people believe the tops sap some of the nutrients and sugars from the root while sitting on the shelf; others (who I think are correct) say it doesn't make a difference.