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Category: Ethics

  • Sierra Club Presents Awards to Diana Almendariz and Adelita Serena for Outstanding Service to Communities and the Environment

    Diana and Adelita

    Diana Almendariz and Adelita Serena (Photo credit: Juliette Beck).

    (From press release) The Sierra Club, the nation’s largest and oldest environmental organization, is pleased to recognize two outstanding environmental justice leaders – Diana Almendariz and Adelita Serena – for their dedication to protecting and enhancing the local environment for people and nature in the Yolo bioregion.

    The Sierra Club Yolano group’s geographical reach extends from Southern Colusa County through the entirety of Yolo County to Northern Solano County and is within the ancestral homeland of the Patwin-Wintun people. The awards were granted by the Yolano Group to the two indigenous women for their work to engage community members in protecting the ecological health and sustainability of the region.

    Diana Almendariz is a Cultural Practitioner of Maidu/Wintun and Hupa/Yurok traditions, heritage and experiences. She is a visionary culture-bearer, storyteller, naturalist, educator and visual artist who has been dedicated to the cultural and ecological revival of her Native homelands for over three decades.

    Almendariz teaches homeland-based ecological stewardship using traditional materials such as tule – a wetland reed – to make baskets, mats, cordage, dolls, and boats, blending arts, culture, and ecology into the learning.

    (more…)

  • Reminder: still time for citizens to give input on environmental review of “Shriner’s” project

    Location of proposed Shriners project

    Comments are due by Monday, August 12.  Details are on this earlier post:

    https://newdavisite.wordpress.com/2024/07/14/notice-of-preparation-nop-for-so-called-shriners-property-project/

    You can send your input, comments or responses (including the name for a contact person in your agency) to:

    Attn: Dara Dungworth, Principal Planner
    City of Davis Department of Community Development and Sustainability
    23 Russell Boulevard
    Davis, CA 95616
    ddungworth@cityofdavis.org

  • Al’s Corner August – “Vanguard News Group” New Website Still Sucks

    B06d68e7-1808-4726-a1a3-c4b40600b925After years and years of anticipation and false promises of 'any day now' going back years, the 'Vanguard News Group' new website landed last week with a 'plop', like the sound of a human turd dropping on a San Francisco sidewalk.  I honestly wanted it to be better, but it wasn't.  In some ways it was worse.  Why spend so much time to get it right, and then roll out something that is less functional and still has many of the problems of the old site?

    The old site was bad and getting worse.  It would load so slowly it would often time out.  The site used massive RAM memory that would drain a laptop battery.  The pages would skip while you were reading them, and then when you went back (if you could find where you were), the page would skip again. 

    Towards the end the site had some sort of virus/malware that would cause the page to spontaneously skip to unwanted ad pages, and it would replace the recent history with six steps of the same ad page address with the original address eliminated.  Usually it was unwanted ads, or Bing, for some reason.  A couple of times it was straight up porn.  Without giving it in full the domain address it skipped to once began with "https://da.check-tl-ver-176-2.com/my-adult-video/ . . . ".   This should have been stopped at once, but it happened 2-3 times.

    One piece of good news, the new site hasn't spontaneously skipped to ads or porn or replaced the short-term history.  It has, however, had the same loading issues and even said, "The site you are trying to reach is taking too much memory and is slowing down your browser.  Would you like to leave?".  It also still spontaneously skips text as it is trying to load text, and still does it again when you go back.  Others have told me this was the worst part of the old site to them as well, and it's amazing DG rolled out the new site without fixing this.

    Certain things about the new site are worse:  It's too plain.  While the old site had too much color, it would have been nice to have kept the old color scheme, just as borders and highlight, but it's just plain with no character.  For some reason, the "Davis Vanguard" livery is replaced with "Vanguard News Group".  Like so many things with the Vanguard, I'm sure this has some meaning to DG, but to the common person it's just confusing. 

    There is no ability to click on comments so you have to scroll through the whole article to reach them.  Honestly, the so-called articles are so often dull and predictable and/or copied from elsewhere, so I'd often read the comments first or don't read the article at all.  Having to scroll to comments, if there are any at all, which increasingly there are not, is just more than I feel like doing.  In addition, there is no 'new comments' box, so you'd have to keep track of each article and keep clicking on it to see if anyone added a new comment.  And again, that's more than me or most people are willing to do.  And as people learn that no one knows they posted a new comment, they won't bother to post at all.

    The banner at the top only hides one article at a time, and it moves at a weird rate, and it's too big and obscures to those not familiar that the most recent news is below.  The articles are still repetitive crap on housing in Davis, how someone is going to sue on measure J, and on why cutting school costs actually costs money, and how more housing will save schools.  And there are the usual copy articles on the evils of 'carceration' by the ACLU.  And by the way, if you liked the ACLU of years ago, join F.I.R.E..  It's like the old ACLU without all the new utlra-progressive crap.

    DG say:  "The website highlights the various segments of the Vanguard. My focus will continue to be heavily on Davis issues and multiple commentaries each week."  Let me guess:  Recycled crap about  housing in Davis, how someone is going to sue on measure J, on why cutting school costs actually costs money, and how more housing will save schools.

    DG say:  "we now have a team member who is working exclusively on grants which we see as part of the long-term financial sustainability for the Vanguard."  It's good to have a team member doing this, so they can get grants that will partially cover their own salary  :-|   And bye bye Sparkplug Foundation:  you exhibit poor judgement.

    KO say:  "I remember the days when there would be 50 comments by 9am. There were robust conversations. The fact now that comments often sit in the moderation queue for hours kills any chance of that ever happening again."   Yup.

    KO say:  "Where are the several conservative commenters that used to post? Having diverse views used to generate more commenting. I thought progressives were supposed to be all about diversity."  Diversity of skin color, not diversity of ideas.

    KO say:  "What you need are the Alan Millers, Ron Oertels, SOD’s and Frankly’s to return."  Not to mention Rik Keller, that spacey woman who talked about space aliens, and that drunkard musician who doxxed RO with the global coordinates of his house.

    And yes, bringing back Alan C. Miller would be the savior of the Vanguard.  He is more interesting then the entire blog and its staff combined and can bring you joy and eternal life.  Alan C. Miller says:  "I am the resurrection and the life.  He who believes in my will never die!"  [Actually Alan C. Miller does not say that.]

    But it is true that bringing back the robust community comments would bring more clicks and more eyes.  Apparently that doesn't interest the Vanguard.  Having developers, H.A.L.'s, useful idiots, startup foundations and civil-rights lawyers fund the thing is all that matters in the new business model, apparently, and community engagement and discussion or even clicks really don't matter.  Is that sustainable?  Especially with a tax lawsuit to fight?

    I would have gladly served as a site-tester for the new website, but no one asked me.  Apparently DG never even had a normal person look at it, as surely they would have said, "Dude . . . "

    Well, DG, your savior awaits.  DG deep down knows I am the savior, that my comments are the best, most humorous, and most interesting and will save all blogs whom I touch.  DG knows my terms.  DG knows the real problem.  But until he deals with it . . .

  • New Commissions are Opportunity for more public participation and Innovation

    By Alan Hirsch, Davis Lorax

    The controversial city council plan for commission consolidation and refocus is going into effect this summer. This is a rare opportunity for reform I hope is not missed. 

    Let us begin by restating the overarching goals council set forward in this reform: 

    Davis Council Resolution 24-079 May 2024

    Guiding Principle for New Commission Structure

    . City Commissions should act at all times with the understanding that guiding principles are at the core of their work.

    1. Promote and embrace diversity, equity, and inclusion
    2. Prioritize environmental and social justice
    3. Make space for community engagement
    4. Balance environmental and fiscal sustainability
    5. Strive for innovation and human progress

    The first meeting of the new Climate and Environmental Justice Commission on 7/22 Monday is precedent setting as it can begin to put implementation meat on the bone of these principles by:

    1. Better Prioritize Environmental  Justice than in the past  (principal B)
    2. Change meeting practices to allow more public participation. (principle A & C)  
    3. Speed surfacing of new ideas and follow through on their implementation.  (principle E

    As a first step in embracing council principles for this reorganization,  I suggest the  commission’s pass a resolution to  establish these ground rules for operation

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  • Farmer’s Kitchen Cafe Energy Prices Force it Out of D Street Location

    Farmers-kitchen-cafeby Scott Steward

    My brother came over from the Bay Area, where they have a lot of great dessert shops, and we sat down on my mom's west Davis back patio for a picnic lunch.

    I had stopped at previously at the Farmer’s Kitchen Cafe and picked up a beautiful (gluten-free) crust strawberry and raspberry pie, which we had with a small amount of ice cream, following our humus and vegetable platter with potato and green salads.

    But the pie! "Best pie I've had," my brother exclaimed, and his wife agreed and the seven of us present were able to eat half of the large 12" diameter desert. 

    This is the kind of consistently tasty and inspired eating you get from the Farmer's Family Cafe. Roseanne and her family have served sit-down no hurry service, and have provided a subscription menu, for years from the D Street location, but no more as of this July.

    In the last eight months, Roseanne has had to pay PG&E $36,000 in energy bills. Energy bills have always been high for the businesses renting in the conspicuously inefficient 11,400 sq ft D Street building (est. built in the 60s), but the last 8 months are different. $36,000, and Roseanne—who is not one to want to move—is moving to a new location to be announced once all is settled.

    Two systemic problems forced Roseanne's hand, and she is just one of the majority of businesses that have seen profits reduced by high utility bills. Not since Enron in 2000 have utilities increased so much in such a short period of time. The owners of these old buildings keep on collecting rent checks and do nothing about what it costs tenant businesses to keep buildings cool and food hot.

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  • Fighting Antisemitism: Lessons from history

    Hagen Cover

    William W. Hagen is an emeritus professor of History at UC Davis, specializing in German and east European history. His archival research has often taken him to Berlin and Warsaw, as well as to Vienna, Jerusalem, and New York. He recently recorded a podcast on HIS book, Anti-Jewish Violence in Poland, 1914-1920 (Cambridge University Press, 2018); https://newbooksnetwork.com/anti-jewish-violence-in-poland-1914-1920

    https://hagen.faculty.ucdavis.edu/

    By William W. Hagen

    Antisemitism has sung many tunes in willingly open or gullible ears. But its keynotes are fear and resentment. Historically, it often arose from the mysterious thought that the children of Israel were, collectively, a negative and even dangerous presence. Such fear had primordial roots, but took long-lasting anti-Jewish shape in early Christian attitudes, transmuting later into modern prejudices.

    It now slumbers in Western culture, waking now and then to foment small or big trouble. The resentment arises in hostile minds from bafflement that a numerically weak and historically persecuted people should, as a group, flourish materially and culturally – and, seemingly, possess power inimical to the aggrieved antisemite.

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  • Ten Ways to Get the Yolo CAAP Back on Track

    By Juliette Beck, Yolo climate justice advocate

    Yolo County recently reduced their draft Climate Action and Adaptation Plan (CAAP) – potentially the most important document to guide Yolo County residents, businesses, farmers and decision-makers in our collective response to climate breakdown. 

    As a member of the Yolo Climate Emergency Coalition that set this planning process in motion, I commend the hard work and thoughtfulness of hundreds of people that contributed their energy, time, thoughts, ideas and hopes. Our goal was – and still  is – to mobilize a Just Transition to an ecological, equitable, resilient county. 

    The draft plan offers a number of important and valuable actions, but the county’s consultants – Dudek – fail to chart the just transition strategies needed to avert catastrophic climate change and the accelerating impacts.

    Add your response to the draft CAAP by July 10 through the comment portal at yolocaap.org. Here are some recommended changes:

    (more…)

  • Al’s Corner – July 2024 – Open Community Discussion Page

    IMG_5229Your host:  Alan C. "Al" Miller

    Pictured:  an extreme version of himself

  • Sierra Club Hosts Summer Potluck and Wetlands Talk

    Image 573(From press release) Join the Sierra Club and YoloSol Collective on Wednesday, June 26 for a summer potluck and panel presentation on “Restoring Cache Creek Wetlands.”

    For this free, public event, we are pleased to welcome Native Californian cultural practitioner Diana Almendariz, Cache Creek conservationist Jim Barrett, and UC Davis entomologist Geoffrey Attardo in a discussion of how the lower Cache Creek’s watershed ecosystem functioned in the past before agriculture and mining changed its current condition. Panelists will share their ideas for a restorative, climate-resilient future for the creek and its plant and animal wildlife.

    Almendariz is a naturalist, educator and practitioner of Maidu/Wintun, Hupa/Yurok culture, heritage and experiences. Following the teachings of renowned Wintun basket weaver and culture bearer Bertha Mitchell (1936-2018), Almendariz has been working for more than twenty years to bring to life a Tending and Gathering Garden in a reclaimed mining pit at the Cache Creek Nature Preserve.  She is a frequent lecturer at UC Davis, Sacramento State, museums and nature centers. She leads workshops on cultural burning on place-based traditional ecological knowledge.

    Jim Barrett, a retired physician, conservationist and proud grandfather, has lived alongside lower Cache Creek near the home of Yolo County settler pioneer William Gordon for 24 years. As a board member of Cache Creek Conservancy and the Sierra Club Yolano Group, he envisions a role for reclaimed gravel mines in the restoration of lower Cache Creek.

    Geoff Attardo, Associate Professor of Entomology at UC Davis, is passionate about mosquitos, marshes, and teaching science.  He specializes in the study of arthropod disease vector biology and the role of bio-diverse ecosystems in public and environmental health. Geoff is currently partnering with Almendariz on a project to demonstrate the benefits of traditional tule and cattail wetlands management.

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  • Oh Do *@#$%& Off, Greenwald (regarding building on a conservation-forever easment specifically, but also in general)

    City-promised-to-protect-a-strip-of-land-along-a-creeCome on Greenwald.  Seriously?

    When people fought decades ago to save land from development, forever, do you believe what they were really fighting for was to save the land from development 'forever, or until there was pressure to build housing, whichever comes first' ?

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