End of the Year
The January All Point Bulletin is out with its recap of what we’ve all been through this past year in Point Roberts. Although it's been a kind of crushing year for many, many people, the Point has come through pretty well, I’d think. The library and the Parks Board got their levy increases, and there is a move afoot to try to encourage the County to do something about restoring the dock/boat launch at Light House Park. All good things. More of Lily Point was conserved and it appears that the historic remains will remain where they historically have been. There have been deaths of course, perhaps most notably, that of Irene Waters, but that is the truth of every year. And we haven’t lost anything --other than dock and the curbside trash collection--that we formerly had, although one of the banks is looking a little poorly.
The newspaper also has a bunch of cheerful letters, thanking people for good things that came to pass recently. And then, at the very end of this letter string, there is a downer: a letter, initially about the Aydon Wellness Clinic, which the letter writer is hoping will soon go out of existence, because, apparently, it is a great burden on his existence.
Of course, many other people—probably most residents of Point Roberts-- find the clinic very helpful, find its staff knowledgeable and resourceful and able to get them to more complex health care when it is needed. Thus, it’s a little hard to sympathize with whatever personal burden the letter writer feels about the clinic’s existence.
Not content with hoping for the end of the clinic, the letter writer takes on health care reform as well, which he also hopes will go out of existence. I spent a lot of years working in and around health care, so I’m pretty sympathetic to those who are frustrated with how the ‘system’ (or ‘no-system’) works. But our letter writer’s grievance is largely that he is going to have to buy health insurance, even though he’d rather spend his money on gym membership and natural food supplements. But he’s not going to buy health insurance, he says.
Well, I doubt if he’s discovered the secret of eternal life, either in gyms or health food stores or organic vegetables. But I certainly hope that he’s willing to follow a life of true principle such that when and if he should experience the ominous chest pain that might precede a heart attack, or the strangely slurred speech that can appear as a sign of stroke, or the grievous loss of blood and the intense pain that can occur after, say an accident involving cars or in homes with guns...well, I hope he proceeds immediately to his gym for a workout, or calls his health food store and asks which supplements can be delivered to him ASAP. The unprincipled alternative, of course, would be to get himself to a hospital, where the rest of us will have to pay his bill.
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Monday, December 28, 2009
My Best Book List, 2009
Here it is, the annual (well, I did it in 2008, and now again in 2009, so I guess that qualifies as annual) list of the ten best books I’ve read this year:
1. Jane Meyer, The Dark Side.
2. Lawrence Weschler, A Universe, a Miracle.
These two non-fiction works are both about torture, but they both get past the inherent problem of writing about torture. Meyer, who writes for The New Yorker, does a terrific job of showing us how the U.S. turned into a torture purveyor and suborner, and lost its status as a supporter of human rights. Weschler, in a fine piece of look-back journalism, written long before Meyer started thinking about U.S. torture, investigates the ways in which Uruguay and Brazil came to terms with the fact that, in a troubled period in their recent histories, each country’s government turned to torture. No sign yet, of course, that the U.S. is planning to do any coming to terms, but here are some guidelines if we should choose that path.
3. Susan Choi, A Person of Interest.
4. Hari Kunzru, Revolutions.
These two books, both novels, offer compelling imaginings about just how it is that someone becomes a terrorist, but in the case of Kunzru’s hero, it’s not a Muslim teenager; it’s a middle-class white kid in the U.K. in the 1970’s. And what becomes of him over the years. Choi comes at it from the other side: how it is that law enforcement agencies come to see someone as a terrorist, even when he is not one. (Strong reminders of Wen Ho Lee in this second novel.)
5. John LeCarre, A Most Wanted Man.
Also about terrorists, but more about spies and mostly the best LeCarre novel in years.
6. Hooman Majd, The Ayatollah Begs to Differ.
Iran and an Ayatollah (Khatami), as we don’t usually see them in the news. This non-fiction book, written before this summer’s election chaos, is about the political nature of Iran and the status of dissent and dissenters, even among the Ayatollahs, in the country.
7. Debra Dean, The Madonnas of Leningrad.
This is a touching and unsentimental novel about old age and memory and what old age does to memory, as well as how memory makes old age possible.
8. Lesley Chung, Chinese Factory Girls.
Another non-fiction work, this time about the astonishingly and suddenly changed lives of the teenage peasant girls from small villages in China who go to work in bigger towns in big factories. Where all that stuff we buy comes from, in addition to who makes it, and the very different kind of life they are creating along with all that stuff in the Dollar Stores.
9. Peter Schejldahl, Let’s See.
10. Geoff Dyer, The Ongoing Moment.
Schejldahl writes the weekly art piece for The New Yorker, and he is, for my money, the best art writer/critic around. The ‘best’ in the sense that he shows me how he sees a piece of art, even when I am not actually looking at it with him, and yet, I do see it. Dyer does an astonishing and similar piece of work on photography. These are both men who not only know how to look at something, but how to tell the reader what their seeing tells them about the larger issues of meaning.
And, not number 11, but a shout out for all of Geoff Dyer’s books that I’ve read so far. If you are interested in D.H. Lawrence or in writing/literature more generally, try Out of Sheer Rage. If you’re interested in travel writing, try Yoga for People Who Can’t be Bothered to Do It. If you are a fan of classic jazz, especially, try But Beautiful. Thinking about life and death? Try Jeff in Venice, Death in Varnasi. He’s got other books out there as well, but I haven’t read them all yet. He’s the most interesting writer I’ve run into in years. His books are novels that are simultaneously non-fiction (or vice versa). Asked about which they were, he replied that “there’s only an inch of difference between fiction and non-fiction, but all the art’s in that inch.” And he's putting an amazing amount of art into it.
1. Jane Meyer, The Dark Side.
2. Lawrence Weschler, A Universe, a Miracle.
These two non-fiction works are both about torture, but they both get past the inherent problem of writing about torture. Meyer, who writes for The New Yorker, does a terrific job of showing us how the U.S. turned into a torture purveyor and suborner, and lost its status as a supporter of human rights. Weschler, in a fine piece of look-back journalism, written long before Meyer started thinking about U.S. torture, investigates the ways in which Uruguay and Brazil came to terms with the fact that, in a troubled period in their recent histories, each country’s government turned to torture. No sign yet, of course, that the U.S. is planning to do any coming to terms, but here are some guidelines if we should choose that path.
3. Susan Choi, A Person of Interest.
4. Hari Kunzru, Revolutions.
These two books, both novels, offer compelling imaginings about just how it is that someone becomes a terrorist, but in the case of Kunzru’s hero, it’s not a Muslim teenager; it’s a middle-class white kid in the U.K. in the 1970’s. And what becomes of him over the years. Choi comes at it from the other side: how it is that law enforcement agencies come to see someone as a terrorist, even when he is not one. (Strong reminders of Wen Ho Lee in this second novel.)
5. John LeCarre, A Most Wanted Man.
Also about terrorists, but more about spies and mostly the best LeCarre novel in years.
6. Hooman Majd, The Ayatollah Begs to Differ.
Iran and an Ayatollah (Khatami), as we don’t usually see them in the news. This non-fiction book, written before this summer’s election chaos, is about the political nature of Iran and the status of dissent and dissenters, even among the Ayatollahs, in the country.
7. Debra Dean, The Madonnas of Leningrad.
This is a touching and unsentimental novel about old age and memory and what old age does to memory, as well as how memory makes old age possible.
8. Lesley Chung, Chinese Factory Girls.
Another non-fiction work, this time about the astonishingly and suddenly changed lives of the teenage peasant girls from small villages in China who go to work in bigger towns in big factories. Where all that stuff we buy comes from, in addition to who makes it, and the very different kind of life they are creating along with all that stuff in the Dollar Stores.
9. Peter Schejldahl, Let’s See.
10. Geoff Dyer, The Ongoing Moment.
Schejldahl writes the weekly art piece for The New Yorker, and he is, for my money, the best art writer/critic around. The ‘best’ in the sense that he shows me how he sees a piece of art, even when I am not actually looking at it with him, and yet, I do see it. Dyer does an astonishing and similar piece of work on photography. These are both men who not only know how to look at something, but how to tell the reader what their seeing tells them about the larger issues of meaning.
And, not number 11, but a shout out for all of Geoff Dyer’s books that I’ve read so far. If you are interested in D.H. Lawrence or in writing/literature more generally, try Out of Sheer Rage. If you’re interested in travel writing, try Yoga for People Who Can’t be Bothered to Do It. If you are a fan of classic jazz, especially, try But Beautiful. Thinking about life and death? Try Jeff in Venice, Death in Varnasi. He’s got other books out there as well, but I haven’t read them all yet. He’s the most interesting writer I’ve run into in years. His books are novels that are simultaneously non-fiction (or vice versa). Asked about which they were, he replied that “there’s only an inch of difference between fiction and non-fiction, but all the art’s in that inch.” And he's putting an amazing amount of art into it.
Saturday, December 26, 2009
Boxing Day
The other Boxing Day tradition up here, I think, is one that I’ve never participated in: the going to the stores for the Boxing Day discounts. In fact, this may well be the primary Boxing Day tradition: you go to the stores, buy up tons of goods on deep discount, and take your boxes/packages home with you. By contrast, we never get the leftovers of the holiday feast put into little boxes for us to take home.
Never going to a Boxing Day sale is one of the things that is easy to accomplish when you live in an out-of-the-way part of the country. There aren’t that many things that I need or want a lot extra of, at least the things that are on sale. If they knocked 50% off the price of eggs or imported cheese or smoked sausage, I’d be more interested, I suppose. But for now, Boxing Day is, like Christmas Day, a day that doesn’t require you to do much of anything prior to dinner time, when you put on clean clothes and present yourself to the neighbors’ table.
This year, though, the dinner had a touch of sadness, as the neighbors have put their house up for sale and we are about to do the same, and there probably won't be another Boxing Day dinner at the neighbors for us. But what is not in the future doesn't overcome what was in the past. Thanks, Don and Jean, for always being there for us.
Thursday, December 24, 2009
Christmas, the Eve, the Day
For some of us in our eighth decade, everything seems to be less about the present than about the past, but I think that for virtually all adults who do not have young children in their immediate environment, Christmas Eve is pretty much all nostalgia, all the time. And the older one gets, the farther back that nostalgia goes. If I just knew something about my mother’s or my grandmother’s childhood Christmases, I’d probably be nostalgic for them.
Comparing Christmas Eve in the 1930’s and ‘40’s with Christmas in the first decade of the 21st Century presents such an enormous gap that I can scarcely make my way across it. I was in Idaho, then. It was always cold at Christmas, bitterly cold, and snow was abundantly available usually. By Christmas, the town government people would have flooded a vacant lot with water and there we could take our new skates to try out on Christmas Day itself. I don’t know that anybody floods anything anywhere for skating rinks anymore. We’ve found other ways, for pretty much everything, I guess.
Before, during, and immediately after the war, Christmas was a tree with decorations, and singing on Christmas Eve plus the opening of one carefully chosen gift from those under the tree, and then on the following morning, the rest of the presents. It seemed like a lot of presents, but there were seven of us by 1945, and since everyone bought at least one gift for everyone else, plus the grandparents’ gifts, the abundance was largely sheer volume. The childrens’ presents always included new pajamas/nightgowns, slippers, a game, a book, maybe new mittens, and one big phenomenon: a train set, ice skates, a bicycle, although those big gifts were more a post-war phenomenon.
In early December each year, my parents would give us each a little money, $3 or $4, as I recall, and with this we were expected to produce about ten presents: one for each of the other 8 family members, and a couple for friends. We made some things. I remember embroidering baby bibs for my youngest sister one winter, knitting scarves or mittens when we were ten or so. We spent many hours in the five and dime stores (Woolworth, Kress, Newberry’s) imagining buying a little bottle of perfume for our mother (Evening in Paris, in a blue bottle), some candy for our father, little salt and pepper shaker sets for my grandmother who was a collector of such things, barrettes or hair ribbons for another sister, a deck of cards for my older brother, a simple toy for the baby (I recall painting empty wooden thread spools with red fingernail polish and then stringing them together one year), and I don’t know what for the friends. Coloring books? Stickers? Jacks or marbles? Possibly.
During the war, there just wasn’t that much stuff around for presents. I remember one year, my grandparents gave me a can of mushrooms, while my older brother received a package of cinnamon rolls. I remember my next younger sister receiving several pieces of Fleer’s DoubleBubble gum, gum whose taste I can recall vibrantly still. Our stockings had fifteen or twenty cents at the bottom, a tangerine, a few pecans and walnuts in their shells, a package or two of life-savers, a small package of maple sugar candy, some crayons or colored pencils, maybe a little notebook. And we were plenty excited about such wonderful things because, in general, we didn’t have very many things.
Today’s children and grandchildren have so much of everything that they already have everything long before Christmas is even an emerging holiday. And they’re surely not spending their days trying to imagine what they might give to someone else. To my surprise, it turns out that I share that experience with this current generation of children: now, I too have or have had just about everything I could ever want; such an abundance of things, experiences, and relationships that I cannot imagine ever needing more, although I definitely continue to need those I still have. And all I have to give is the work of my hand.
Merry Christmas to all those I know and love, to all those who read this, many of whom I do not know, to all those of good will: May the abundance of life ever reside in your heart.
Comparing Christmas Eve in the 1930’s and ‘40’s with Christmas in the first decade of the 21st Century presents such an enormous gap that I can scarcely make my way across it. I was in Idaho, then. It was always cold at Christmas, bitterly cold, and snow was abundantly available usually. By Christmas, the town government people would have flooded a vacant lot with water and there we could take our new skates to try out on Christmas Day itself. I don’t know that anybody floods anything anywhere for skating rinks anymore. We’ve found other ways, for pretty much everything, I guess.
Before, during, and immediately after the war, Christmas was a tree with decorations, and singing on Christmas Eve plus the opening of one carefully chosen gift from those under the tree, and then on the following morning, the rest of the presents. It seemed like a lot of presents, but there were seven of us by 1945, and since everyone bought at least one gift for everyone else, plus the grandparents’ gifts, the abundance was largely sheer volume. The childrens’ presents always included new pajamas/nightgowns, slippers, a game, a book, maybe new mittens, and one big phenomenon: a train set, ice skates, a bicycle, although those big gifts were more a post-war phenomenon.
In early December each year, my parents would give us each a little money, $3 or $4, as I recall, and with this we were expected to produce about ten presents: one for each of the other 8 family members, and a couple for friends. We made some things. I remember embroidering baby bibs for my youngest sister one winter, knitting scarves or mittens when we were ten or so. We spent many hours in the five and dime stores (Woolworth, Kress, Newberry’s) imagining buying a little bottle of perfume for our mother (Evening in Paris, in a blue bottle), some candy for our father, little salt and pepper shaker sets for my grandmother who was a collector of such things, barrettes or hair ribbons for another sister, a deck of cards for my older brother, a simple toy for the baby (I recall painting empty wooden thread spools with red fingernail polish and then stringing them together one year), and I don’t know what for the friends. Coloring books? Stickers? Jacks or marbles? Possibly.
During the war, there just wasn’t that much stuff around for presents. I remember one year, my grandparents gave me a can of mushrooms, while my older brother received a package of cinnamon rolls. I remember my next younger sister receiving several pieces of Fleer’s DoubleBubble gum, gum whose taste I can recall vibrantly still. Our stockings had fifteen or twenty cents at the bottom, a tangerine, a few pecans and walnuts in their shells, a package or two of life-savers, a small package of maple sugar candy, some crayons or colored pencils, maybe a little notebook. And we were plenty excited about such wonderful things because, in general, we didn’t have very many things.
Today’s children and grandchildren have so much of everything that they already have everything long before Christmas is even an emerging holiday. And they’re surely not spending their days trying to imagine what they might give to someone else. To my surprise, it turns out that I share that experience with this current generation of children: now, I too have or have had just about everything I could ever want; such an abundance of things, experiences, and relationships that I cannot imagine ever needing more, although I definitely continue to need those I still have. And all I have to give is the work of my hand.
Merry Christmas to all those I know and love, to all those who read this, many of whom I do not know, to all those of good will: May the abundance of life ever reside in your heart.
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Wrapping It Up
Last January, I started a project in which I made one furoshiki/wrapping cloth each week. Today, I finished the last of the 52. The furoshiki originated in Japan, but it is also found, although in a slightly different form, in Korea, where it’s called a pojagi (or sometimes bojagi). In both places, it is cloth that is used to wrap a gift or some other object that could be more easily carried if wrapped (e.g., bento—lunch--boxes in Japan). In Japan, it is a specially designed cloth made just for this purpose; in Korea, it is more likely to be pieced from other cloth, more like an American quilt is pieced. The sizes vary, depending upon what is being wrapped.
I came to wrapping cloths in the gift wrapping form. I imagined a beautiful cloth loosely wrapping an exquisite but small gift: maybe a perfect apple, or a luscious chocolate bar, or a small hand-made Shaker basket. My idea was to make one a week during 2009, using different techniques, and then to send them out as Christmas 'gifts' in December, leaving the recipients with the option of keeping them as gifts for themselves, or as wrapping for a gift that they were giving to someone else.
I had very few rules for myself in the process of making them. They were to be 16 inches square; they were to be made of ordinary fabrics that I had around; they were to be lined; they were not to be quilted; and no more than 8 cloths could feature a single technique. As it turned out, there are a few that are unlined because I had some beautiful linen pieces that were previously hemmed and I didn’t see a way to line them. Otherwise, the rules held. I found different themes interested me over time. There are a half-dozen that are related to ways of mending and closing fabric: these include classic mends/darning as well as buttonholes and buttons. There are a number of takeoffs from traditional Japanese art forms: Haiku (in my version, the fabric forms/components are arranged in a 5-7-5 design); flower arranging; and sand raking (in which stitching lines take over for raking lines). There are a number of cloths that feature indigo dyes, shibori dying, and various Asian silks (Thai, Chinese, and Japanese).
All 52 of the furoshikis can be seen here. At the upper right corner of the flickr page, there’s a ‘slideshow’ choice, which is a nice way to see them individually, but for information about the individual cloth, you have to click on the individual picture.
And now they are all gone. The first, which did indeed enclose a small hand-made Shaker box, went to a granddaughter for her 13th birthday. I kept one for myself, a genuine Japanese furoshiki (whose photo is not included in the set) given to me by a quilting friend who knew I was doing this project. But the rest have all flown away throughout the U.S.
And now, there's only a week to figure out what kind of project 2010 needs to have.
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Quagmire
The very word is so nostalgic, so late-60’s, so Vietnam War-ish. But nowadays, quagmire means so much more: Afghanistan, health care reform, trash collection. Yes, I’m afraid it’s once more time to get a trash collection update. It’s been maybe six months now since those of us in Point Roberts lost all curbside trash collection, in addition to curbside recycling pick-up. Each month, it seems as if the WUTC has yet another problem to contend with in respect to getting this knotty problem solved. Mostly, WUTC thinks that it needs another thirty days to do whatever needs to be done.
And what needs to be done? At the moment, we seem to have applications from two candidates: Freedom 2000, the Dave Gellatly/Ron Caulder outfit; and Point Recyling and Refuse, the Arthur Wilkowski outfit which, up until six months-ish ago actually had a certificate to provide those services and was in fact providing at least the trash collection part. In fact, Wilkowski recently offered up several ways in which he might provide some services, but WUTC turned him down on the ‘temporary’ plan, and now we seem to be fixed on the full plan, which is not exactly as full as he used to provide. And that is perhaps because the business model for the ‘full’ plan—curbside pickup of trash and recycling--is no better now than it was when he cut the curbside recycling because the business model had too few customers to make it a viable model. You still with me?
The WUTC may now be as confused as many of us are. I say this because their current plan (since Dec. 4) is to wait about 25 days and then have a public hearing on the issue. The official reason for this is that, because the Commission has decided to combine its consideration of these two applicants—even though they are not applying to provide exactly the same service--it would be ‘appropriate to hold a public hearing. . . to provide an opportunity for members of the public to comment orally on the record concerning the pending applications.’ It’s particularly worth noting, I think, that on a matter that is of great concern to and (far too) lively comment among the residents of Point Roberts and of interest to virtually no one else in the State of Washington, the WUTC has decided to hold the hearing in Olympia, Washington, maybe 150 miles away from us. To their credit, they scheduled it for 1:30 in the afternoon. On the other side of the balance sheet, there’s not only the location but also the date: December 29. So, if you aren’t too busy with post-Christmas shopping, or sunk in the post-Christmas blues, and have cleared out the Christmas guests, or returned from your Christmas travel, well...here’s an event that might attract your interest, fill up your otherwise blank calendar in that strange week between holidays, assuming the weather isn’t so unseemly as to make driving dicey.
If you don’t care that much or aren’t able to make the trip, however, WUTC will accept your written views up until January 4. After that, I guess, they’ll be taking about 30 days either to make a decision, or to figure out how to get some information that they don’t already have.
The residents and sometime-users of trash and recycling collection have been busy making their views known to WUTC over the past months, of course. The WUTC puts all comments on line, so you can check out your neighbors’ views here. This is a list of all the documents they’ve received, and if, say, you want to see what Knick or Gordon thinks, click on the date of the document (the far left column). Then you usually have to choose to see the document in either a ‘pdf’ or a ‘word’ format. It’s not the friendliest website I’ve ever seen, but if you keep at it for awhile, you’ll probably get the knack. If you lose the site, it might help to know that the docket # is 091687.
The complainant ladies trio are represented among these commenters, although if you read the APB you probably already know what they think. Reading Mr. Wilkowski’s response to their comments may be of interest, though. I, at least, had not seen his response to their views anywhere, and it is certainly the case that there are two sides (at least) to this dispute. His response is here.
About thirty people have taken the time to communicate their views and, having read them all, I can tell you it’s a mixed bag. Some support Freedom 2000, some support Point Recycling, some support them both but just want a solution, some primarily support mandatory participation in a trash collection system in order to make sure that it’s economically viable. I found it problematic to offer my views to WUTC insofar as I have no special or specific information (as opposed to rumors) that the WUTC lacks about either applicant or about the nature of trash and recycling collection. On the other hand, perhaps they need to know where Point Roberts is located. I do know that.
And what needs to be done? At the moment, we seem to have applications from two candidates: Freedom 2000, the Dave Gellatly/Ron Caulder outfit; and Point Recyling and Refuse, the Arthur Wilkowski outfit which, up until six months-ish ago actually had a certificate to provide those services and was in fact providing at least the trash collection part. In fact, Wilkowski recently offered up several ways in which he might provide some services, but WUTC turned him down on the ‘temporary’ plan, and now we seem to be fixed on the full plan, which is not exactly as full as he used to provide. And that is perhaps because the business model for the ‘full’ plan—curbside pickup of trash and recycling--is no better now than it was when he cut the curbside recycling because the business model had too few customers to make it a viable model. You still with me?
The WUTC may now be as confused as many of us are. I say this because their current plan (since Dec. 4) is to wait about 25 days and then have a public hearing on the issue. The official reason for this is that, because the Commission has decided to combine its consideration of these two applicants—even though they are not applying to provide exactly the same service--it would be ‘appropriate to hold a public hearing. . . to provide an opportunity for members of the public to comment orally on the record concerning the pending applications.’ It’s particularly worth noting, I think, that on a matter that is of great concern to and (far too) lively comment among the residents of Point Roberts and of interest to virtually no one else in the State of Washington, the WUTC has decided to hold the hearing in Olympia, Washington, maybe 150 miles away from us. To their credit, they scheduled it for 1:30 in the afternoon. On the other side of the balance sheet, there’s not only the location but also the date: December 29. So, if you aren’t too busy with post-Christmas shopping, or sunk in the post-Christmas blues, and have cleared out the Christmas guests, or returned from your Christmas travel, well...here’s an event that might attract your interest, fill up your otherwise blank calendar in that strange week between holidays, assuming the weather isn’t so unseemly as to make driving dicey.
If you don’t care that much or aren’t able to make the trip, however, WUTC will accept your written views up until January 4. After that, I guess, they’ll be taking about 30 days either to make a decision, or to figure out how to get some information that they don’t already have.
The residents and sometime-users of trash and recycling collection have been busy making their views known to WUTC over the past months, of course. The WUTC puts all comments on line, so you can check out your neighbors’ views here. This is a list of all the documents they’ve received, and if, say, you want to see what Knick or Gordon thinks, click on the date of the document (the far left column). Then you usually have to choose to see the document in either a ‘pdf’ or a ‘word’ format. It’s not the friendliest website I’ve ever seen, but if you keep at it for awhile, you’ll probably get the knack. If you lose the site, it might help to know that the docket # is 091687.
The complainant ladies trio are represented among these commenters, although if you read the APB you probably already know what they think. Reading Mr. Wilkowski’s response to their comments may be of interest, though. I, at least, had not seen his response to their views anywhere, and it is certainly the case that there are two sides (at least) to this dispute. His response is here.
About thirty people have taken the time to communicate their views and, having read them all, I can tell you it’s a mixed bag. Some support Freedom 2000, some support Point Recycling, some support them both but just want a solution, some primarily support mandatory participation in a trash collection system in order to make sure that it’s economically viable. I found it problematic to offer my views to WUTC insofar as I have no special or specific information (as opposed to rumors) that the WUTC lacks about either applicant or about the nature of trash and recycling collection. On the other hand, perhaps they need to know where Point Roberts is located. I do know that.
Friday, December 18, 2009
'Tis the Season
Today’s results from Copenhagen are not, I suppose, surprising. It looks as if North Americans will be reluctant to do much about changing their/our energy use patterns until a lot of people who didn’t expect ever to have beach property are looking right out at the ocean. That might even include me, I guess; unless all of Point Roberts is underwater. But even if I have beach, I suppose I'll be living on an island. What chance, then, of a ferry from Bellingham? Or what used to be Bellingham?
Well, a colorful Christmas, certainly. And then there's the alien invasion over the Kremlin to entertain us, too.
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Library Charity
"Bring me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses, yearning to be free." This is not the slogan of the Point Roberts Library's magazine exchange. One might think that putting signs on the cart indicating that it is a 'magazine exchange' and 'free magazines' would make it clear that this is not a place to leave your airline brochures for travel to Turkey. Doubtless some people are going to Turkey this year, but it seems very unlikely to me that they would ever think to go to the Library's magazine exchange cart to find information about such a trip. You go to the magazine exchange cart to find a copy of Wired, or The National Geographic, O, Smithsonian, Harper's, etc.
I went by the library today to do my weekly (when I'm here) tidying-up. And what did I find today? Well, maybe it's the Christmas season and people have lost their wits; or maybe it was the very cold weather last week that caused no blood to flow to their brains. What I found were a lot of old newspapers and a spontaneous outpouring of catalogs, particularly from LL Bean and Land's End. Maybe a dozen of one of them. Some person (the LL Bean contributor, I think) had carefully cut out the back-page mailing label in exactly the same way on all those catalogs, making it clear that these weren't accidentally dropped off at the library. The other set of catalogs apparently came in packages because they had no printed labels requiring removal. Just a little reminder, folks: we all get those catalogs. We don't need to pass them around. What the contributors of catalogs might need to do is contact the web site that permits you to request that companies stop sending you catalogs.
There are some people, I guess, who think that leaving something in a recycle zone automatically gives value to objects that have no value. Do these people also give their worn out underwear to clothing drives? Keep your catalogs to yourself, I ask. Politely, if possible; like the Grinch, if not. No more difficult for you to cart them to the dump than it is for me.
I went by the library today to do my weekly (when I'm here) tidying-up. And what did I find today? Well, maybe it's the Christmas season and people have lost their wits; or maybe it was the very cold weather last week that caused no blood to flow to their brains. What I found were a lot of old newspapers and a spontaneous outpouring of catalogs, particularly from LL Bean and Land's End. Maybe a dozen of one of them. Some person (the LL Bean contributor, I think) had carefully cut out the back-page mailing label in exactly the same way on all those catalogs, making it clear that these weren't accidentally dropped off at the library. The other set of catalogs apparently came in packages because they had no printed labels requiring removal. Just a little reminder, folks: we all get those catalogs. We don't need to pass them around. What the contributors of catalogs might need to do is contact the web site that permits you to request that companies stop sending you catalogs.
There are some people, I guess, who think that leaving something in a recycle zone automatically gives value to objects that have no value. Do these people also give their worn out underwear to clothing drives? Keep your catalogs to yourself, I ask. Politely, if possible; like the Grinch, if not. No more difficult for you to cart them to the dump than it is for me.
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Sterling's Struggles
It’s been about two months since Sterling Financial Corp., the parent/holding company of Sterling Savings Bank (which has a branch here in Pt. Roberts) received its ‘Cease and Desist’ order from the FDIC. Sterling’s most important job during this period was to increase its capital by about $300 million. In order to do this, the corporation could sell stock, sell bonds, or get a line of credit from some other financial outfit. I guess they could sell assets, as well, including real estate they had foreclosed. And there might be other things I don’t know about; I’m not an expert in this field—I just follow the news.
Selling stock isn’t very useful because Sterling stock sank on the FDIC order’s news. The stock price has bounced around over the last 8 weeks, but mostly it’s bounced down, and is now in the high 60 cent area. Sterling did set up a web page where they were arranging to sell their foreclosed properties, but that’s not likely to be something that happens fast given the housing market. Does private equity wish to rescue Sterling? Would you think it was a good investment to buy Sterling bonds at this point? No, nor would I.
Poor Sterling! It’s even been removed from the NASDAQ Mid-Cap listing because its stock fell below $1.00. This delisting is a slow process, however, and what this amounts to is NASDAQ saying that they will really, really do it if Sterling's stock stays below a dollar/share over the next six months. In addition, Sterling still owes interest on the TARP funds that it got from the U.S. Treasury, including the last payment that it missed.
Last week, there were stories in the financial press that Sterling was likely to miss its due date for that capital increase ordered by the FDIC. That date would be this Tuesday. Of course, the FDIC doesn’t have to do anything right away, and usually doesn’t. There aremany, many over 500 banks on the ‘Troubled Bank List,’ many more than are about to fail. Banks that fail are usually on the Troubled Bank List, but it is possible to stay on that list for a long time, and it is even possible to get off that list by rectifying one’s financial problems.
From my vantage, Sterling looks like a pleasure boat surrounded by sharks, though. This week, two law firms announced that they were looking for people to be members of a class action lawsuit against Sterling for federal securities law violations, relating to allegations that Sterling failed to accurately present its financial status last year. These two (one, two) law firms are looking for people who bought Sterling stock from July '08 to January '09.
A third law firm is looking for Sterling employees, whose retirement account funds were used to purchase Sterling stock during that period, as part of an investigation into whether Sterling failed to act prudentially under ERISA, the federal law that deals with retirement fund programs, and thus should be subject to another class action suit.
The company has traded out several of its highest officers. But the sharks keep swimming closer.
A few more banks fail almost every Friday. And for almost all those banks, some other bank takes over the operation immediately. On Friday, you have an account at Greenstreet Bank; on Saturday, that account is now held by Redstreet Bank, right in the same building it was on Friday. The customers are safe; even the tellers and other day-to-day employees are usually safe. It’s the shareholders, bondholders, and the executives who take the hit. And in this case, it could also be the taxpayers, since there is a TARP investment at stake. We live in interesting times, where it is possible to learn about things you never thought to learn about previously, including about your own little bank..
Selling stock isn’t very useful because Sterling stock sank on the FDIC order’s news. The stock price has bounced around over the last 8 weeks, but mostly it’s bounced down, and is now in the high 60 cent area. Sterling did set up a web page where they were arranging to sell their foreclosed properties, but that’s not likely to be something that happens fast given the housing market. Does private equity wish to rescue Sterling? Would you think it was a good investment to buy Sterling bonds at this point? No, nor would I.
Poor Sterling! It’s even been removed from the NASDAQ Mid-Cap listing because its stock fell below $1.00. This delisting is a slow process, however, and what this amounts to is NASDAQ saying that they will really, really do it if Sterling's stock stays below a dollar/share over the next six months. In addition, Sterling still owes interest on the TARP funds that it got from the U.S. Treasury, including the last payment that it missed.
Last week, there were stories in the financial press that Sterling was likely to miss its due date for that capital increase ordered by the FDIC. That date would be this Tuesday. Of course, the FDIC doesn’t have to do anything right away, and usually doesn’t. There are
From my vantage, Sterling looks like a pleasure boat surrounded by sharks, though. This week, two law firms announced that they were looking for people to be members of a class action lawsuit against Sterling for federal securities law violations, relating to allegations that Sterling failed to accurately present its financial status last year. These two (one, two) law firms are looking for people who bought Sterling stock from July '08 to January '09.
A third law firm is looking for Sterling employees, whose retirement account funds were used to purchase Sterling stock during that period, as part of an investigation into whether Sterling failed to act prudentially under ERISA, the federal law that deals with retirement fund programs, and thus should be subject to another class action suit.
The company has traded out several of its highest officers. But the sharks keep swimming closer.
A few more banks fail almost every Friday. And for almost all those banks, some other bank takes over the operation immediately. On Friday, you have an account at Greenstreet Bank; on Saturday, that account is now held by Redstreet Bank, right in the same building it was on Friday. The customers are safe; even the tellers and other day-to-day employees are usually safe. It’s the shareholders, bondholders, and the executives who take the hit. And in this case, it could also be the taxpayers, since there is a TARP investment at stake. We live in interesting times, where it is possible to learn about things you never thought to learn about previously, including about your own little bank..
Friday, December 11, 2009
Cow Warming
Continues very cold here. I look out at my warmly wrapped dogwood tree and its partially wrapped neighboring fir, and am grateful that my mother took me, in 1943, to weekly meetings of the Red Cross where I knit little khaki-colored afghan squares ‘for our boys overseas.’ I think that it taught me not only to knit, but also to associate knitting with helpfulness or charity work, anyway, which may or may not of course actually be helpful.
When I started knitting the tree scarves, I knew about ‘urban knitters,’ which group includes women/artists/activists all round the U.S. (and indeed the world) who knit scarves and the like for trees and stop-sign posts, park benches and buses. One woman for the past 6 years has been crocheting amazing ‘tree cozies’ for very large trees. So I didn’t think of myself as doing something unique, although the urban knitters were not my inspiration. I was inspired by a woman named Christine Oatman, whose work I saw one Christmas in Los Angeles, around 1978, at an annual Christmas art show called ‘The Magical Mystery Tour.’ She made temporary environmental structures, and then photographed them before or as they disappeared. One of her pieces involved her knitting neon chartreuse and neon orange lichen for trees. Thirty years later, she seems to have been teaching at a California college and not getting enough work gallaried to get on the net, but she made a big impression on me those decades ago. So, these tree sweaters are for you, Christine.
When I was doing the knitting, I worried that once I had used up most of the yarn, I would begin to long for more thrift store yarn to fill up the void. And, indeed, one day I found myself in a B.C. thrift store that was having a half-price sale (a sale at a thrift store always stuns me!), and sure enough there was a terrific and sizeable bag of various amounts of maybe a dozen different kinds of red yarn. Different reds, different yarns. For fifty cents, it was mine. And a wonderfully invested fifty cents it was.
Looking at it, I thought not about Christine Oatman’s own tree scarves, but about the fact that I was working to get Christmas presents done in time to mail them here and there in the U.S. And I thought about who, not normally on my list, might need a really nicely varied red scarf for Christmas. And without much wandering around, the face (or at least the form) of Drewhenge’s iconic cow came to my mind. So I took to knitting a 10-foot long red scarf for Ms. O’Holstein (as her owners like to call her), while also finishing the tree sweaters.
Yesterday, we walked over to Drewhenge to make the presentation. But, to our shock, there was no sign of the cow. Of course, it was 18 degrees and I couldn’t really have explained why there was any sign of me outdoors in that weather, the less so, perhaps, she. We trespassed for awhile around on the lawn (the owners did not appear to be in residence that day) and eventually found her behind the barn/shed, her nose just barely peaking out from the building’s rear wall.
So we made the presentation and Ed took the picture and now Ms. O’Holstein has her Christmas scarf, which features bells on one end and fringes on the other. And a good upcoming Winter’s Solstice to her and to us all!
When I started knitting the tree scarves, I knew about ‘urban knitters,’ which group includes women/artists/activists all round the U.S. (and indeed the world) who knit scarves and the like for trees and stop-sign posts, park benches and buses. One woman for the past 6 years has been crocheting amazing ‘tree cozies’ for very large trees. So I didn’t think of myself as doing something unique, although the urban knitters were not my inspiration. I was inspired by a woman named Christine Oatman, whose work I saw one Christmas in Los Angeles, around 1978, at an annual Christmas art show called ‘The Magical Mystery Tour.’ She made temporary environmental structures, and then photographed them before or as they disappeared. One of her pieces involved her knitting neon chartreuse and neon orange lichen for trees. Thirty years later, she seems to have been teaching at a California college and not getting enough work gallaried to get on the net, but she made a big impression on me those decades ago. So, these tree sweaters are for you, Christine.
When I was doing the knitting, I worried that once I had used up most of the yarn, I would begin to long for more thrift store yarn to fill up the void. And, indeed, one day I found myself in a B.C. thrift store that was having a half-price sale (a sale at a thrift store always stuns me!), and sure enough there was a terrific and sizeable bag of various amounts of maybe a dozen different kinds of red yarn. Different reds, different yarns. For fifty cents, it was mine. And a wonderfully invested fifty cents it was.
Looking at it, I thought not about Christine Oatman’s own tree scarves, but about the fact that I was working to get Christmas presents done in time to mail them here and there in the U.S. And I thought about who, not normally on my list, might need a really nicely varied red scarf for Christmas. And without much wandering around, the face (or at least the form) of Drewhenge’s iconic cow came to my mind. So I took to knitting a 10-foot long red scarf for Ms. O’Holstein (as her owners like to call her), while also finishing the tree sweaters.
Yesterday, we walked over to Drewhenge to make the presentation. But, to our shock, there was no sign of the cow. Of course, it was 18 degrees and I couldn’t really have explained why there was any sign of me outdoors in that weather, the less so, perhaps, she. We trespassed for awhile around on the lawn (the owners did not appear to be in residence that day) and eventually found her behind the barn/shed, her nose just barely peaking out from the building’s rear wall.
So we made the presentation and Ed took the picture and now Ms. O’Holstein has her Christmas scarf, which features bells on one end and fringes on the other. And a good upcoming Winter’s Solstice to her and to us all!
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
More Birds Among Us
Fortunately, for tonight’s stellar occasion, the Institute’s scientists did have on hand representatives of six different penguin species, including the Fairy Penguin, last seen by me south of Melbourne in
After the information, we moved on to the arts, as the scientists provided us with a few examples of poems about penguins that had arisen from their pens in the course of their studies. And then the penguins recited some poems of their own about their lives and their good times, which poems, I would guess, were occasioned by the fact that penguins appear to be good-time Charlies. And then, in conclusion and as a prelude to yet more work to be done in the future, the penguins and the scientists joined together to sing and dance, ending with a fine and only slightly altered version of "Splish, Splash,” with everyone rocking and a rolling...
We can only hope that the Institute will consider providing us with regular appearances to update the P.R. community on their research findings. And that the 13 children of our local elementary school, both penguins and scientists, have as good a Christmas as they had a Christmas Program performance.
Great job, kids! Great job, teachers and volunteer music and drama coaches!
Monday, December 7, 2009
Checking Out the Neighborhood
Delta is exactly what it says: it’s the delta of the Fraser River, and like most deltas, it’s a sumptuous agricultural area. It’s easy to forget that Vancouver is a river town because it’s also an ocean town with Burrard Inlet to the north and the Fraser delta to the south. So, we were driving around in this freezing weather through farm land, filled with farm homes and farm industry of one sort and another.
There’s a lot to see that I hadn’t seen before. We started in southwestern Delta on the Band Land of the Tsawwassen Nation. There’s an exquisite cemetery (I’m a big fan of cemeteries…they say a lot about us). It’s tiny with very simple wooden crosses for the most part, some standing straight, some easing into other positions as they will over time. It looks old and it looks cared for, but not with that immaculate maintenance look that most urban cemeteries have. And down the road from that, a spectacular ‘abandoned’ boat, which is only to say that it’s a lovely old wooden boat that is unlikely ever to go to sea again, but is conserved (if not preserved because preservation was just not in the cards) right next to a wooden house that is still preserved. Yet further along the main road, here is a long house unlike any I’ve ever seen before; clearly a modern structure and it seems unlikely that it is based on some traditional structure, but it is surely a grand sight with its steep reddish roof and dormers (for lack of a better word) silhouetted against the big blue sky looking oceanward on a cold sunny day.
And on to the farmland. It’s clearly farming in transition. There are virtually no animals to be seen: 2 llamas, 2 horses, and 4 sheep were all I spotted, although maybe others were all indoors staying warm. There are many collapsing buildings, barns and other out-buildings that please my eye in their state of disarray. There are farmhouses that look like those in Iowa or Idaho, and there are farmhouses that look like they’ve been moved in from Greece or Italy, and farmhouses that look like they were designed for a sizable lot in Beverly Hills. One house with a huge lawn, neatly cropped, was the home of about eight seriously-rusted pieces of large farm machinery. A kind of museum, I think.
The place is a very mixed batch. At this time of year, there are still fields full of pumpkin residue, as well as fields with green cover crops, some kind of grass that I don’t specifically recognize. But there are also great expanses of young blueberry bushes, the current newest occupier of farmland in Delta. It would appear that blueberries are going to dominate the diet of the world. And then there are the acres of also new greenhouses that are providing us with an abundance, year round, of red peppers and water-plumped, ‘vine-ripened’ tomatoes. Not everyone, it would appear is happy with the greenhouses.
Eventually, we ended up at the Reifel Bird Sanctuary to check out the sandhill cranes. There’s a pair of them there who are permanent residents and this winter there are half a dozen visitor cranes as well. We saw the great flocks of sandhill cranes in New Mexico (Bosque
And the mallards…thousands of them around the sanctuary, hundreds of them at your feet at any moment. As we were leaving, I saw a three-year-old all bundled up in a pink snowsuit, standing a few feet away from her parents and surrounded by a hundred or so mallards. They weren’t paying any particular attention to her; the flock was just walking along, as they do, slowly and with great disorganization. The little girl’s mother called out to her to come along. The girl looked around with great apprehension, raised her hands high up in the air, and called, ‘I can’t get out, I can’t get out!’ Clearly, she had no idea of how anyone could just walk through ducks. One of life's skills that you can't learn early enough.
Saturday, December 5, 2009
Christmas in Point Roberts
Which begins with the arts and craft fair at the Community Center over this weekend. This year, it was restricted not only to hand-made goods, but also to those made in Point Roberts. Which might have resulted in a smaller number of tables, but if so it was not noticeable. There was a steady crowd all day as people looked and purchased and ate. It was especially great (as ever) to watch the younger kids come in, all wide-eyed at the normally rather mundane Community Center turned into a glitter festival.
The Point Roberts Quilters had a table this year, which we don’t always. It’s a kind of on and off thing with us. It often seems as if we mainly sell things to one another, but then we ought to be, in a way, our best customers. We, particularly, understand the goods we have on sale, the nature of their quality and their use. And often we have seen things before the craft sale and had some time to think about wanting to have them for our own.
Rose was the stalwart behind our presentation this year, and she is probably the very best among us with respect to understanding display and selling. I’m the worst. But I’ve learned to live with this strange skillessness. When I sell something to someone, in the very act of their paying me the agreed upon price, I am thinking about asking for less. This is some kind of reverse negotiating skill, I’m afraid. Anyway, Rose does it well and I sat about at the sale today watching her manage the constant flow of people, some looking, and some buying, and all touching. Our table was highly touchable, I noticed.
Getting all these things ready for the craft sale was also a strange experience. Normally, I work pretty steadily on a particular kind of thing. It may not be just one thing, but it’s only one kind of thing. It might be bed quilts, or lap quilts, or wall quilts, or postcards. But the past six weeks, I’ve been bouncing around from framed quilts to embellished containers to postcards of quilts to dolls to creature pins, etc. Leaves one with a very fractured feeling and gives me new respect for artisans who do this kind of work more than for a few weeks every three or four years.
Anyway, if you’re in Point Roberts, or nearby, the Christmas Craft Fair continues tomorrow. Go and enjoy and buy if you have a mind to do so. You’ll see lots of people you know and it is a very friendly and Christmas-y atmosphere, with live music. Even though it’s commercial, it doesn’t feel particularly commercial because there’s no hard sell going on. And there’s a lot of very lovely looking desserts and other edibles to keep your energies up.
And, if you’re not in Point Roberts, check out the arts and craft fair near you; there's bound to be at least one. Your friends and neighbors have stuff to show you that you may not know about. It's likely to be worth a trip out of the house on a weekend, whether you buy anything or not. Think of it as going to a kind of pre-museum show: after all, all those things that end up in a museum started in somebody's studio or workshop and then moved on to some other venue, some other house or shop, usually, before they ended up entombed in a museum.
Thursday, December 3, 2009
Winter and the Tree Sweaters
The cold, dry northern front is dominating our weather and freezing is our lot. We awake to an outside temperature of 30 degrees F, and an inside temperature of about 60 degrees because the propane stove is having a little trouble getting it up to 65 first thing in the morning. And if we are cold, how much colder are those who live outdoors, such as the trees?
I decided about 6 weeks ago to knit sweaters for the trees as a way to use up my excessive store of small amounts of acrylic yarns. As the first photo shows, I knit three coils/rounds, each about 8 inches wide and about 15 yards long. I didn't really have much idea of how much length would be involved in wrapping the tree: would 15 yards cover ten feet of trunk or 20? It turns out that 15 yards gets you about eight feet of wrapped trunk. Less, of course, if you are engaged with a very large trunk.
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