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Category: Ethics

  • Davis Residents Invited to “No Kings” March and Rally in Woodland June 14

    Event will be held alongside protests across the country
     
    Indivisible Yolo Rally May

    Local residents gather in Davis for a rally on May Day with Indivisible Yolo alongside events across the country to protest the Trump administration. Indivisible Yolo and Sister District Yolo will hold a countywide “NO KINGS" march and rally in Woodland on June 14 to coincide with nationwide protests
     
    (From press release)  Indivisible Yolo and Sister District Yolo invite Davis residents and people across Yolo County to join its countywide, family-friendly “NO KINGS” march and rally in downtown Woodland on June 14 at 10 a.m. The march and rally will take place alongside more than 1,300 NO KINGS events across the state and country to protest the Trump administration and authoritarian rule on Flag Day, when Trump will host a military parade for his birthday using tax-payer dollars. Participants will gather at the new courthouse at 1000 E. Main Street in downtown Woodland and will march a route to the old courthouse at 725 Court Street for a rally that will include activities, speakers and entertainment. For more information and to RSVP: https://www.mobilize.us/indivisibleyolo/event/788262/.
     
    “This event brings together our community coalition in Yolo County for a national day of action to highlight the authoritarian excesses and corruption of the Trump administration, as well as the impacts being felt here in Yolo County,” said Steve Murphy, co-chair, Indivisible Yolo. “Trump thinks his rule is absolute, but we don’t do kings in America. From farmers to faculty, students to seniors, citizens to non-citizens, all people of every race, gender and ethnicity across the county are encouraged to join us as we remember this is our Flag Day – of the people, for the people and by the people.”

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  • No “Show Me” Mike Thompson

    Screenshot 2025-06-01 at 8.23.22╯PM

    By Scott Steward

    Prior to the Friday 3:30 start of the 90-minute League of Women Voters Yolo County moderated interview with Mike Thompson this past Friday, it was good to remember that the Congressman had voted for HR 224, which calls for the urgent delivery of food to Gaza. He was also in the 2024 minority that voted against an appropriations bill that blocks the State Department from citing statistics (numbers of dead and wounded) provided by the Gaza Ministry of Health.

    So when the Congressman passed by on his way into the Woodland Senior Center where we were standing, with "Dollars for Democracy, not Genocide" signs, We respectfully asked him to speak out to end the killing.  He replied, "Yes, we should."  

    Unfortunately, Mike Thompson, like most Democrats and almost all California representatives to Congress, voted three different times for what now amounts to $22 billion to use our tax dollars to finance 70% of all weapons used to enable Israel to accelerate the decimation of an entire nation and kill mostly women and children while doing it.  Current and historical atrocities on both sides do not excuse Israel's disproportionate response.

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  • “The Future of Cache Creek” Presentation on June 2

    Welcome-to-Summer Potluck and a Presentation on

    The Future of Cache Creek – Past Problems and Proposed Solutions

    What-When-Where – The Sierra Club Yolano Group is sponsoring an in-person potluck dinner and presentation on Monday, June 2 from 7 to 9 pm in the Blanchard Room at the Yolo County Library, 314 E. 14th Street in Davis. You can also view the presentation via Zoom (see below for link).

    Cache creek

    Cache Creek looking west into the Capay Valley in the 1970s

    Who are the Presenters – For the evening’s presentation, we are pleased to welcome three knowledgeable and informed speakers who will discuss Lower Cache Creek’s troubled past, present problems, and a proposed new vision for a hopeful future.

    6:45 PM – Doors Open

    7:00 PM – Catherine Portman – Welcome and invitation to eat!

    7:15 PM – Alan Pryor (Chair of the Sierra Club Yolano Group Management Committee) – The History of Cache Creek, the Impacts of In-Channel and Off-Channel Mining, and the Status of Current Restoration Efforts in Off-Channel Mining Sites

    7:35 PM – Jim Barrett (Cache Creek Conservancy Board Member) – A New Vision to Use Natural Processes to Restore Former Mining Sites to Riparian Floodplain Habitat

    7:55 PM – Chris Alford (Interim Director of Yolo Habitat Conservancy) – Current Efforts by Yolo Habitat Conservancy to Protect, Enhance, and Restore Cache Creek Native Habitats

    8:15 PM – Q&A

    8:30 PM (+/-) – Adjourn and Clean-up
    _____________________________________

    Please join us for an evening of great food, good fellowship, and very interesting, informative, and inspiring presentations. If convenient, please bring your favorite dish to share but feel free to attend even if you don’t plan to eat or can’t bring a dish as there is always plenty to share. To help make this a “zero-waste” event, also please bring your own plates, cups, and utensils . The Yolano Group will provide plenty of reusable tableware and linen napkins for those who need it in addition to beverages.

    You can also view the presentation via Zoom (see below for links)

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  • The Water that Makes Local Food Possible is at Risk.

    Yolo-waterBy Scott Steward

    Add your voice. Contact your County Supervisor and our Water Board (YSGA). Best to make your request before Monday May 19th to place a moratorium on wells in the Yolo focus area that includes Hungry Hollow.  But don't stop making this request on the 19th.

    Everyone's hands are tied except the most important hands, yours. The public needs to insist on a well moratorium in the Yolo focus area in order to greatly speed the legal considerations that the county must make at the Department of Environmental Health and with County Council to develop the legal language (based on water table drop data from the YSGA) and other criteria to declare a moratorium.  Here is the problem: this cannot take years as the water and the west Yolo farms are drying up. 

    The county, through our elected Trustee/Supervisors, has the ONLY authority (not the YSGA) to place a moratorium on the Hungry Hollow focus area. The county will not do this on its own – we need public pressure, or we will lose the ability to water our own food. The majority of Supervisors welcome the pressure to enact a sustainable water policy.  We can win this. We need to speed it all up!

    The Yolo County Supervisors are governed by the State Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA), requiring local agencies to form groundwater sustainability agencies (GSAs).  SGMA makes it clear….

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  • Burrowing Owl Habitat Restoration Event on May 24

    (From press release) Please join the Burrowing Owl Preservation Society and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) for a Burrowing Owl Habitat Restoration Event at the Yolo Bypass Wildlife Area on Saturday morning, May 24.

    Burrowingowlevent

    What: Volunteers are needed for a few hours of burrowing owl habitat restoration work. We’ll be restoring/resetting artificial burrows for our beloved feathered friends and removing surrounding vegetation for their security.

    When: May 24, 8 am – 11 am (only 2 hrs maximum work time is requested).

    Where: Yolo County, Yolo Bypass Wildlife Area (https://duckduckgo.com/?q=yolo+bypass+wildlife+area&atb=v315-1&iaxm=maps&source=places).

    Bring: Plan to bring Gloves, Hat, Sturdy Shoes, and Water. Note that there is no toilet at the site.

    Contact: Please email Catherine Portman (DuskBuster07@gmail.com) for site location details and directions.

  • Hundreds Expected for May Day Protests in Davis, Woodland and West Sacramento

    Indivisible-mayday

    By Kari Peterson

    On May 1, local grassroots and labor organizations from across Yolo County will be marching in Davis and rallying in both West Sacramento and Woodland to join the MayDay Strong National Day of Action .

     Who, when and where:

    • Davis, 5:00 – 6:30PM: March begins in Central Park at 5 PM. Marchers will gather near the wall and then march through downtown Davis before returning to Central Park. In addition to Indivisible Yolo, Sister District Yolo, and the Davis Faculty Association, participating groups include Democratic Socialists of America (Yolo), Davis College Democrats, American Federation of Teachers – UC Davis, and the Labor Council for Latin American Advancement,Sacramento.
    • Woodland , 5:00 – 7:00PM: Rally is at the Courthouse on Main Street at 6th Street.
    • West Sacramento , 4:30: Rally at the corner of Park Boulevard and Jefferson.

    Why we’re mobilizing on May 1

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  • Check The Box, Yolo Capay’s Hungry Hollow Farms are in a Water Crises

    Check the box

    By Scott Steward

    We have a Groundwater Sustainability Agency called the Yolo Subbasin Groundwater Agency (YSGA).  Evidently, the word "Sustainability" is optional when considering well permits in Yolo County, as Annie Main found out after a 2-year struggle to point out the obvious to the Yolo County Supervisors who voted 3 to 2 on April 8th last week to add another high capacity 350 gallons per minute corporate well to further drain Hungry Hollow's already well documented declining water table.  The Boundary Bend well could mean the end of her Good Humus third-generation farm.  What's worse, there are four more deep well applications on the way to Hungry Hollow.

    You can't see our groundwater, but according to our Groundwater Sustainability Agency there are 346,000 acre feet that can be drawn from our 540,000 acres of ag land. That's 2.6 billion bathtubs worth of water.  That's our budget; use more and our invisible mega bathtub might not re-fill as high – ever.  Consider Annie Main, the most recent canary in a long line of canaries in the water coal mine, Yolo County the aquifer of choice for corporate tree crops (olives and nuts) and our County Supervisors, for now, the court of last resort.  

    Hungry Hollow family farmers like Annie Main of Good Humus are under threat of disappearing. Her area of land is in a designated "Focus Area." Focus Areas are so named because of the historical steady Hungry Hollow drop in the water table and because it's taking forever to get decent monitoring wells into place to "understand" what locals have been saying for the last two decades (no more additional well capacity!).  

    State and local water policy that was not enforced on April 8th.

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  • Errant Water Permit Puts Good Humus Farm at Risk

    Good humus at risk

    By Scott Steward

    Boundary Bend was cited by the County in August 2023 for its non-permitted well drilling in the Hungary Hollow region of Capay Valley. So how, after two years of evidence showing that the well is out of compliance, is County staff recommending upholding Boundary Bends agricultural well permit # 23-022W?  The County and Boundary Bend know that the new well is too big and too close to Good Humus farm. 

    Good Humus and other family farms have already had to modify their wells to sustain their table crop farms. Nearly three generations of care have gone into the land craft of organic farming in Hungary Hollow. Without much help, these farms have entered our region's food markets and succeeded in producing some of the healthiest food on earth. Capay has inspired farm-to-fork land care nationally.  

    Boundary Bend (application #23-022W) took advantage of one-time replacement well criteria that the county was obliged to put in place for farms and residents short on water following the seven-year drought. Replacement well designation was allowed for existing agricultural operations and drinking water. Boundary Bend did not meet the criteria for a replacement well. Instead of reapplying as a new well, Boundary hired lawyers at Kronick to lean on the county.

    Here are some of the facts that show that Boundary Bend application #23-022W did not and does not qualify for the approved "replacement well" status. The application:

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  • HandsOff Rally at Capitol, Saturday April 5

    Joint Announcement by Sacramento Region Grassroots Organizations

    Copy of Sacramento 50501 Movement_20250317_085853_0000_20250318045316158496

    (From press release)

    WHAT: Mass Mobilization to Stop the Trump/Musk Corruption and Power Grab
    WHEN:  April 5, 2025 11 a.m.
    WHERE: State Capitol West Steps, Sacramento [and in multiple outlying areas*]

    On April 5, local grassroots organizations from around the Sacramento region are calling on all people concerned about the direction of our country to join the 50501 Picnic Protest in tandem with the national Hands Off! mass rally to protest the Trump-Musk billionaire takeover and the Republican assault on our freedoms and our communities.

    Events across the country, in major cities and small towns in every state, will show that the people—the majority—are taking action to stop the corruption and power grab.

    Why we’re mobilizing on April 5th

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  • Go See “October 8th” @ Davis Varsity playing through Thursday

    by Alan C. Miller

    The showtimes for Monday March 31st – Thursday April 3rd are:  6:10pm & 8:40pm

    The official summary is:

    "OCTOBER 8th" offers a look at the explosion of antisemitism on college campuses, social media and in the streets of America beginning the day after the October 7th attack on Israel by Hamas. Through meticulous investigation, the film also uncovers how over decades, Hamas created sophisticated networks in America to permeate U.S. institutions and examines the tsunami of online antisemitism, propaganda, and disinformation unleashed by Iran, China and Russia – with the sole purpose of dividing American society.

    I am sure some will dismiss this movie as "Isreael propaganda".  I've seen two single-showing pro-Palestine movies at The Varsity that could  be considered Palestinian propaganda.  Not that I didn't learn anything or that it is all BS, but of course the most effective propaganda contains mostly truths and leaves out truths not flattering to the propaganda side.  I did not consider "No Other Land" to be propaganda; it was about a particular situation from the effects of the settlements in the West Bank.  I have yet find anything convincing to morally justify the settlements.

    I haven't seen "October 8th" yet, but will be seeing it this week.  From the clips I've seen, there is a parallel to what I felt on October 8th and the days following.  I had lived as we all have, knowing there were, as in the 40's, and through much of history, people out there who wanted to kill us for who we are, for some to kill all of us —- with one or dozens killed in individual terrorist attacks over the last few decades.  I had only come into contact with real antisemitic hatred a few times, but it's really ugly when it happens directly, and astounding.  And it has been ramping up, and most white people don't get it.  I said that on purpose to get a rise; most non-Jews don't get it.

    And then it happened.  1200 Jews killed, and hundreds dragged over the border.  I never thought I'd see an event of the mass slaughter of Jews reflecting of the Holocaust in my lifetime.  While not as massive, the genocidal intent and the hate was clear.

    The next day, on October 8th, I had no expectation of the media and public reaction, but I was shocked by what occurred.  Why would I not hear mass mourning and understanding by so so many?  I heard calls for Israel to 'stop the genocide', still weeks before Gaza was invaded, with no recognition of the genocidal attack that had just occurred.  Multiple independent news sources that I trusted and hosts I admired suddenly turned with narratives that bordered on or were outright antisemitic.  1200 Jews had just been killed, and the term 'Zionist' was now being openly used with the same tone as 'Nazi' by large swaths of the public and even some media outlets — Israelis were even being called Nazis.

    I was watching Israeli media directly as much as possible.  The day after the "40 beheaded babies" story broke, the story was debunked in Israel.  Yet days later our President (Biden) repeated it (why??? @#$%&!).  Then for months this group, suddenly empowered in the media, the 'anti-Zionists', including anti-Zionist Jews, began repeating the 40 beheaded babies story as a lie told by Israel, even though it had been debunked the next day in Israeli media.

    And the most heinous lie of all – summed up by many as "Listen to all Women, Unless they are Jewish".  The anti-Zionists spreading information that there were no rapes.  One of the darkest things I ever witnessed was — just a few days after October 7th — two hours of interviews with a team of women who had prepared the bodies of the women slaughtered at the Nova Festival for respectable and fast Jewish burial.  This wasn't propaganda — there wasn't even time to have orchestrated such a thing — these were women who had traveled to help out due to the massiveness of the task.  They described the burns, the semen stains, the broken bones and pelvises, the severed limbs.

    And then — journalists I respected said it was all a lie — there were no rapes.  Some say it to this day.  I believe the NY Tines didn't get it all right, but that doesn't mean there were no rapes.  And this just a handful of years after 'Me Too'.  And all this macro-hate directed at Jews when just a few years earlier we were told of the evil of 'micro-agressions'.

    I've made it a point to listen to both sides, to all sides, and seek to watch every pro-Palestine movie that comes through, to fully understand, if not to agree.  And yes, criticism of Israel is more than valid, it's a right and necessary.  I am not a fan of Netanyahu nor the West Bank settlements and Israel deserves much criticism.  But the outright double-standard used against Jews, and the hate, that has to be recognized by more Americans for what it is, as it isn't going away.

    So this may be propaganda in some people's eyes, and maybe it is.  As I said, I haven't seen it yet.  But I make it a point to see what is put out by all sides on this issue.  I hope you will too.