Over the LATC's Head

Despite my recent resignation from this blog, NOE has yet relinquish my access to the site. So, I feel compelled to post, though I will resist from posting about how NOE and Koland's Labor Day Party at their new place in LA has been canceled and instead post about our favorite whipping-boy/rag the Los Altos Town Crier.

A while back I posted about local scholar David Grewal's new book Network Power and how the LATC probably would not cover it. Well, either LATC staff reads this blog or they actually flipped through the copy Yale University Press sent them a few months ago, because this past week someone "special to the Town Crier" decided to review it. But don't worry folks, the LATC hasn't lost its touch. The reviewer complains that it was over her head and makes a comparison of the theory of network power to that of String Theory. She wishes Grewal could use "techniques of creative nonfiction" to clarify his argument. If anyone knows what "techniques of creative nonfiction" are, please let me know.

Oh yeah, and for a more educated review of Network Power, check out today's Boston Globe.

My sister, gardening neocon

Recently retired from the Sacramento Bee, my sister apparently has nothing better to do than go on local public radio and suggest I am naive about pest control in gardens.

Ironically, just days after her piece aired, I remained alone among my family members in both knowing of and heeding the brown apple moth quarantine, which, as a reminder, prohibits moving fruit out of yards in Los Altos, Mountain View, and most parts of Los Altos Hills.

Georgians show creativity with dead primates

Popular things to do with a primate carcass in the state of Georgia--

1. Cut off its tail, shave, bleach and dye it green, then set it on fire and leave it on the side of rural country road.

2. Put the "creature" in a freezer, call it Bigfoot, then drive the frozen carcass to Palo Alto for a press conference.

1953



2008

Maybe they are compensating for something

Since you keep asking, the 140-foot phallic symbol next to City Hall is a communications tower for the police department, and not just a way of taunting local peaceniks for their pole on the other side of the library being only eight feet tall.

One of the most interesting parts of this story is that it turns out "monopole" actually is a word.

The waterfall in the neighbors' backyard is really for the good of the community

A few backdated posts aside, it's been, in the words of Jim Anchower, a long time since I rapped at ya.  So I won't argue with you guys if you want to call me lazy for writing about a letter to the Town Crier rather than something for which the paper was itself responsible.  But Barney Dragony's complaints about increases in water rates are too positively Los Altan for a blog purporting to be about Los Altos to ignore.

Water rates - (sic) don't reward the slobs

Unbelievable. We Los Altos citizens who keep our town looking nice by keeping our lawns and trees green plus adding the very essential element, oxygen, to the atmosphere are to be penalized for doing so, while the slobs among us get rewarded for letting their properties dry up and go to seed and blight our town. Unbelievable!

Suppose we all get together and let the town revert to a desert. Swell, I can just imagine the uproar.

Five bucks says his proposed solution is to pay people based on how much water they manage to use each month, generating the revenue by a tax on people who irresponsibly conserve electricity.

Somebody call a doctor

I've got Olympic Fever.

UPDATE 7/13: And also a massive crush on Natalie Coughlin.

"лицеме́риe" Means Hypocrisy in Russian

And so does invading Georgia.  With the world's attention distracted by the spectacle and controversy of the Beijing Games, Russia invaded Georgia to support the breakaway province of South Ossetia. Thus far about 1500 have been killed.  Russia has constantly opposed any independence movements (and most recently opposed independence for Kosova) so as not to give any legitimacy to its own rebel province of Chechnya.  So, this recent move of violating the territorial sovereignty of a neighboring country to support the splintering of a country seems a bit inconsistent, no?

Violence has been reported in the Georgian city of Gori.  Gori, is the hometown of Russian hero Joseph Stalin and high on the Foreign Correspondent's list of places to visit since Gori boasts what is presumed to be the world's last standing statue of Joe Steel.  So far there has been no mention on any damage to the statue...

NOE 1, Taxi driver 0

"The case is closed."

An officer with the San Francisco Airport police taxi division proudly informed me last week that he had cited a driver, suspended him without pay for a day, sent him to taxi school, and made his company refund my money.

"He took advantage of you," the officer explained.

"I bet he won't do that again," I replied.

"If he does," said the officer, "he'll be terminated."

So, what did the poor driver do to me to deserve such vindictiveness?  If you guessed "failed to inform you that a trip to Los Altos would cost meter-and-a-half, which didn't really matter because Koland's company was covering your travel expenses anyway, and you probably only cared about it because your dad made you feel like a pushover afterward and your mom told the driver that you were an attorney and wouldn't let him get away with this," you were right.

Goddamnit

McCain's price has risen 20% in the last two weeks. Not coincidentally, it was two weeks ago that McCain and the GOP embarked on a slathering of attacks on Obama.

Happy Belated Birthday Ken Ballard

I'm all for hoisting conservative "hatemongering a-holes" (as one local newsperson described them) on their own petards. But it was still disappointing to see chickenhawks Michelle Malkin and Melanie Morgan get coverage when they came to town a month ago to dumb down our national discourse, while a heartfelt birthday celebration for native son and actual patriot Ken Ballard go ignored.

I had the privilege of joining Ken's other Karen Meredith along with other family and friends Saturday at Cuesta Park, who gathered to hear stories and release gold balloons in his honor. This somber annual tradition is documented in Neil Young's new film "CSNY: Deja Vu," now playing at the Aquarius in Palo Alto.

I had the privilege of meeting two of the other Bay Area Gold Star Mothers in attendance: Mary Tillman, whose new book about the simultaneously inspirational and infuriating story of her son Pat just arrived in the mail, and Nadia McCaffrey, who made international news when she invited the press to see her son's flag-draped coffin and is in the midst of launching a hospice for veterans in upstate New York. These mothers are linked in their loss, their antiwar activism, and the indignity they suffered when the Pentagon lied to them about how their sons died.

I did not get a chance to talk to Dolores Kesterson, who was also there, but the 2005 interview in which she humiliated Bill O'Reilly through the simple act of remaining sane is still a revelation to watch.

Now you guys are just baiting me

The days appear numbered for La Costena, a fixture in the Latino community for decades. Naturally, the Voice article quotes only a customer with a Jewish last name.

The paper also boldly refuses to examine the factual claims it attributes to the restaurant's owners.  One would think that, of all publications, the Mountain View Voice would look in its archives to see whether the restaurant actually has won eight Best Of contests in a row.  (It hasn't).  On the other hand, a very quick check of the Voice website also confirms that Las Costena did in fact set the record for world's largest burrito.  But who has five minutes to look these things up? 

Next week: An in-depth look at the greenness of our lawns

In more than two years at the Voice, I'd estimate I wrote around 500 articles. Perhaps 15 times did my my editors allow me to write 990 words on any particular subject. These were stories about the city's legal battle with Clear Channel, the effort to clean up Moffett Field, the police department's use of Tasers on unarmed (and often intoxicated) suspects who were doing little other than resisting arrest, the fight over BART-to-San-Jose, the push to open a medical marijuana facility in Mountain View, feature stories on immigrants and firefighters, and a drugging at a downtown bar. I also wrote one about bird-watching, but thankfully it doesn't seem to be online.

The Town Crier's Mary Beth Hislop just wrote 990 words about a hole.

Locals sustain injuries in city parking lot

To be fair, it's not just any hole.

Let me start by wishing a speedy recovery the nice-seeming old ladies injured in this non-news event. That being said, let's get back to aimlessly rambling about how this article is too long.

Instructor Barbara Klee is known to bring the students in her Stretch & Flex classes at the Hillview Community Center to their knees with floor exercises. But on April 17, Klee and friend Marjorie Lins were apparently brought to their knees -- by a hole outside the Los Altos center.

The awkardly forced irony -- a style known as Sutcliffian to baseball fans -- is but one of the paragraphs this article could have done without. The worst offenders might be the paragraphs of weird, irrelevant and barely readable legal jargon at the end, or perhaps this one:

"I put my arms around her," Klee said. "As I stepped back on my right foot, I could not find the ground to place my foot on because my was over the hole. ... I lost my balance and, hanging onto my student, we both fell and crashed onto the asphalt pavement."

Put another way, they fell. I know it's sick, but I couldn't help thinking of An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge. when I saw the incredible level of detail here.

There's a place in hell for you Angelo Mozilo

SANTA MONICA, CA --
While driving back to work, having just secured an apartment for our esteemed publisher, I saw this.

Foreclosures take place in even the best times. The jobless rate is a fluctuating number. A run on the bank is (at the very least) an unmistakable sign of a crisis in public confidence. I feel bad for the people spent their entire day waiting in line hoping they could get all their money back.

What's safe (unlike people's deposits above exceeding $100k) is the bottom line of the bank's founder, Angelo Mozilo. Mozillo, who also founded subprime uber-predator Countrywide Financial earned more than $200 million in salary and bonuses from 2001-2006. As of press time, he has made no plans to use a portion of those earnings to replace borrowers' lost savings.

What's scaring us: Art & Wine edition

I've been a little under the weather the last few days, so it feels like the right time for a linkdump, in the form of a list of things people are afraid of this week:

The Bush Administration: The Environmental Protection Agency protecting the environment.

Speaking of which: Jesus.

Congress: Big campaign donors being unable to use "I was just following orders" as a defense for helping the government spy on citizens.

Remember when people said that was not a defense?

Los Altos Hills residents: Toni Casey running for office

Personally I hope she does, because I am curious whether Los Altos Hills is conservative enough that her affiliation with George Bush might actually be to her advantage.

Los Altos residents: Mountain View residents

Don't worry Mom and Dad, the police think she was adopted.

Mountain View residents: Brown people, and also gays

Last week, I lamented that people were more upset about the Voice's use of the non-word "preggers" in a headline than they were about a double-murder that orphaned an 8-year-old boy. Readers of the Voice site responded (with some prodding from yours truly) in a flurry of posts insanely blaming the tragedy on low-income housing and federal immigration policy. (Not a single poster said anything along of the lines of 'I hope the police catch the people responsible for this.')

For sale: Coverage in The Economist ($1,000 obo)

The 2003 California Recall Election offered one of the best values for shameless self-promoters in recent history. For $3,500 and 65 signatures, your name and personal statement would reach tens of millions of people as a candidate for Governor.

This bar-lowering allowed people often left out of gubernatorial politics, such as brewers, satanists, pornographers, railroad car brake operators, prop-based comedians and tiny thespians, a chance to get their name and message across in an arena where millions were likely to notice.

Fast forward to 2008. This time it's The Economist offering low cost publicity.

Attempting to justify an article attacking Senator Jim Webb as a poor choice for Barack Obama's running mate, despite neither Webb nor anyone in Obama's campaign suggesting he's under consideration or would take the position, presented the following explanation:

"No one but Mr. Obama knows whom he will pick, but the buzz around Mr. Webb is loud enough to make in the favourite on Intrade, a betting website. So it is worth examining his weaknesses, too."

The problem with this is that only about $1,000 was actually wagered on Jim Webb via InTrade. Don't tell Gallagher.

They don't know how to haggle

Last week's settlement in the Westwind Barn lawsuit closed an embarrassing chapter in the history of Los Altos Hills. It takes a lot to embarrass Los Altos Hills, but allegations that the ranch hands at such an iconic location endured racial slurs, lived in unventilated rooms and worked overtime without pay should be enough to do it.

Interestingly, the plaintiffs alleged $500,000 in damages only to wind up getting $675,000 from the settlement. This is probably because the lawyer could have filed an additional claim for attorney's fees, but I prefer to attribute it to an inability to haggle on the part of Friends of Westwind Barn. I imagine the negotiations went something like this:

Friends of Westwind Barn lawyer: How much will it take to make this case go away?

Plaintiffs' lawyer: Since the City of the Town of Los Altos Hills already settled with my clients for $75,000, they are willing to deduct that from their overall claim, bringing the total request to $425,000.

Friends of Westwind Barn lawyer: How about $600,000?

MOSPR ad absurdem

If Mountain View has ever made a more ironically misguided decision than Tuesday's vote to hold the new train depot tenant responsible for creating new parking spaces, I can not imagine what it might have been.

Personally, I can't see myself interrupting my commute for "artisan cheese," shrimp scampi and oysters, but I suppose it's better use than the train museum idea readers used to suggest to me.

As embarrassing as it was to see the place lying empty for the first six years after the city spent millions to build the plaza, imposing $54,000 of extra costs for minimum off-street parking requirements is especially indefensible.

'Preggers' headline shocks city

A gruesome double murder last week left two siblings dead in Mountain View last week, after the 911 system completely failed them. While a little boy slept in the next room, Omar Aquino and Teresa Sanchez became the victims of Mountain View's fourth and fifth homicides this year. The tragedy came only a few days after Leonardo Dizon Hilario was stabbed to death at his girlfriend's home.

Also, the Voice used an arguably inappropriate word in a headline.

Guess which one readers are upset about.

Don't get me wrong: I thought the "preggers" headline was juvenile and the article -- a short breaking-news type of story about the fact that women have babies -- was pointless. But also: really? That is the thing we're all concerned about?

I bet they thought this was over

Remember Rickenbacker?

Erik Koland does.

Now that his crusade has turned the company into the subject of an investigation into a potential class-action lawsuit, I don't think Rickenbacker will be forgetting about him any time soon.

(I want to assure readers that I have done some research into the Sturdevant Law Firm and have reached the conclusion that it is an actual place with real lawyers and not just something Erik made up to get mentioned on the blog.)

Let this be a lesson to readers: just because the way you might have wronged Erik was trivial in no way guarantees that he will pass up the opportunity to avenge that trivial wrong later.

(Disclosure: Erik sometimes claims to be a correspondent for this blog).

Swellness abounds

The Merc's special "report" on Los Altos describes in detail the way in which nothing bad ever happens here. The article begins by glorifying the asinine practice of staking claims on downtown streets in advance of the Festival of Lights Parade, while the map accompanying the story makes the two cities appear to have two country clubs and only one school.

It's a different story in Mountain View, where the city just experienced its fourth and fifth homicides of the year.

Clash of the Genocidal Powers

The final four teams in the UEFA Euro Cup 2008 are familiar names to students of modern history. Turkey (Armenia), Germany (Jews, Gypsies, Gays, etc.), Spain (all New World indigenous peoples) and Russia (Ukraine and their own) made it through to the semifinals from a wider field of European nations vying for this years cup.

Germany dispatched Turkey late yesterday and Spain and Russia are now set for the kick-off. I sit amused as I listen to the Russian anthem play since it is sung to the tune of the old Soviet anthem thanks to a change Putin made in 2000.

Perhaps our Predictive Markets Correspondent can figure out some odds for this game and the final based on the scale and date of the genocides?

When you are engulfed in flames

KQED radio's traffic reporter said yesterday that "the Bay Area is surrounded by fire."  For a split-second, I thought Armaggedon was here, albeit slightly sooner than I thought.

 

Today, with 800 fires raging and the air quality only getting worse, I asked BigDra to finally put his world travels to use for someone other than himself and share some lessons about living in a ring of fire.

His suggestion: "Go to Peru."

Speaking of unfortunate juxtaposition

Seen next to each other on the table in the reception area at my office on Monday:

Headline from the front page of the New York Times: Obama camp closely linked with ethanol

Headline from the front page of the San Francisco Chronicle: Oil drilling question looms as election issue

Essentially, our presidential candidates are competing to see who can offer the most counter-productive solution to our oil addiction.  One day I would love to see a candidate suggest people drive less.

Working People Lose Again; Big Business Wins

Today's Supreme Court decision to drastically reduce ExxonMobil's fine for its 1989 Valdez oil spill in Alaska is just another in a long line of decisions by Our Nation's highest court to reduce punitive damages for large companies at the expense of the environment and Working Americans.

Its also interesting to keep in mind the record profits that this company has been reaping in recent years. For an flurry of articles published on ExxonMobil's record profits over the past 7 years click here, here, here, here, here and here. Be sure to note the dates and profit numbers in each articles.

Perhaps I'm missing something

Last Friday, the Mercury's top story was about immigration status of the driver who killed a 12-year-old bicyclist in front of her school on the last day of class.  The Merc made a self-fulfilling prophecy about the story "renewing the debate on whether undocumented people should be allowed to apply for driver's licenses."  Lo and behold, after some interviews suggested they should be, several letter writers wrote to argue the point.  Voila: debate renewed.

Appearing immediately below this story was an article about the sheriff's deputy who killed two bicyclists receiving only misdemeanor charges.  (This is not a surprise.  Given our district attorneys' track record of failing to prosecute drivers for killing bicyclists and pedestrians, the easiest way to kill somebody and get away with it is to do it from behind a steering wheel.) Nowhere did the article suggest that we should have a debate about whether sheriff's deputies should be allowed to apply for driver's licenses.  

Perhaps we should be debating whether people who kill other people with their cars be allowed to have driver's licenses.  I will start: no.

Travels in the Colonies

I've recently become a big fan of visiting modern-day colonies. My first experience with a formal modern-day colony was in New Caledonia, the most populated Non-Self Governing Territory in the world (some readers may be familiar with my work on mining impacts in New Caledonia) Recently, I had the opportunity to visit a couple other Pacific colonies. Although not formally on the United Nations Decolonization list, some people on Rapa Nui (Easter Island) clearly think they're a Chilean colony (see photo at right) and French Polynesia certainly has that anachronistic colonial feel - complete with impoverished indigenous peoples next to the mansions of the rich white French.

So if you're looking for a holiday with a little more edge - perhaps something with a bit more social tension, economic disparity, or disenfranchisement look beyond your local Native American reservation and perhaps book travel to one of these exotic modern-day colonies in the Pacific. Plus, there's also Western Sahara.

The Russian is cut!

Taser held responsible in Salinas death

The child molester's guide to junior high school graduations

Courtesy of the Merc.

No no no no no no no no no.

*Exasperated sigh*

Parking structure downtown necessary

Rather than buying a gift for my dad, I spent a good part of Saturday analyzing all the logical fallacies in this editorial. (Sorry Dad). However, I'm not exactly a logician, so I deleted them and will just give you the gist:

It's wrong.

Two days before this editorial ran, the city council told the high school administrators they needed to do more to encourage students to make more responsible transportation choices. Now, inspired by the putative failure of completely baseless parking regulations that ignore basic principles of economics, the city is considering a massive subsidy to encourage people of all ages to drive to downtown, which is about half a mile from the high school.

To briefly engage in my own fallacious ad hominem attack, the best information I have on this subject indicates that Town Crier employees are among the worst offenders at evading local parking regulations, so I guess we shouldn't expect objective analysis.

Let them eat tacos

Note to self: speaking at city council meetings may be more effective than wearing a paper bag over your head.

The taco truck survived, for now, as Megan Satterlee and David Casas joined Ron Packard in opposing an ordinance to force mobile food vendors away from school property. Mayor Val Carpenter and Council member Lou Becker were silent on the issue.

MVLA Superintendent Barry Groves presented the problem to the combined city council and school board, and seemed perplexed that people would see this as an issue of social justice. I followed by reminding the council of the last time it got in the business of telling people where they could stand and pointing out that cities with laws against gypsies need to be extra careful when passing discriminatory ordinances.

Re-ducks

I almost missed it, but this:

,

just happened again.

Does anybody know if there is a reason the openings in storm drain grates are duckling-sized?

Journalism is the new baseball

Two weeks ago, the law firm where I am working this summer took us to Palo Alto Bowl. Shamefully, I rolled an 85 and a 90. My team averaged 107, which, while far better than my own scores, should not have been good enough for us to finish third among the 10 teams that were there.

The Palo Alto Daily News -- which is not actually located in Palo Alto, contains a regular feature dedicated to unsourced rumors, and has gotten so bad even by its own standards that its founders have started a competing paper -- pulled off a similar feat last week, winning 17 awards from the Peninsula Press Club, including one for general excellence. (I know what you're thinking, but there was not a category for Falsest Story.)

This may actually be even less impressive than our bowling prize, as more than 43 percent of entries in this contest win an award. (I have not found out how many the Daily submitted). As Michael Lewis once said about major league baseball front offices, "there really is no level of incompetence that won't be tolerated."

UPDATE, 6/16: I forgot to mention the paper's history of plagiarism.

Local News Almost as Bad as LATC...Almost

So there's an oil spill off the coast of Buenos Aires, but you wouldn't know it by watching local news here. After being sent the BBC article by a friend, I flipped to the numerous local news channels available here. I saw plenty about the continuing farm protests and also an interesting piece on a photo of Pamela Anderson without make-up. But nothing about the oil spill...

"The proposed ordinance smacks of socio-economic discrimination."

Tensions are rising (with an assist to the Daily News) over a rejected proposal to discuss term limits for board members at next week's joint meeting between the Mountain View-Los Altos Union High School District board and the Los Altos City Council. Just imagine what they will say when they actually do discuss something.

Next Monday's meeting will feature a long-awaited decision on the high school district's request for the city to do something about all those damn taco trucks.

Council member Ron Packard, whose position on this issue won him the blog's endorsement in the fall, e-mailed his reasons for opposing a potential ban to colleague David Casas. He is so thoroughly correct that I am going to reprint them here sans commentary. (Also, I can't think of anything funny to say.)

The proposed ordinance smacks of socio-economic discrimination. Students with vehicles can drive and eat wherever they want. Those without vehicles cannot. If the major concern is quality of food consumption, then the District should consider alternatives (whether closed campus or whatever) that apply to all groups, not just one.

The city has already had to allocate police time and efforts to enforce the parking restrictions around the high schools due to the District's approach to student parking. I suspect the high school would be a vigilant complainer each time the vending vehicle exceeded its limited stay. As such, the city's police resources would often be removed for other important functions to enforce the vending vehicle restrictions during school day. I do not feel that is a wise allocation of our police resources.

While nutritional eating habits are important, here the market-place has met a need for the less-mobile, which is already met by other means for the mobile. Let the District go back to the drawing board to come up with another solution that doesn't tax our police department and smack of discrimination.

A skull-cracking analysis of what ails the Mercury News

After trying and failing to explain to a confused out-of-town guest why the news section of the Saturday's San Francisco Chronicle consisted of only eight pages, I sat down this morning to thumb through a hard copy of the Merc for the first time since I got home two weeks ago. My mom took the front and my dad took the "local," leaving me with sports. A teaser on the front page of the section read:

"The Giants' young lineup did not score till the ninth inning."

There are far better reasons to mock the Merc, but none that require so little work on my part.

A closed mouth gathers no flies

Yesterday was Miss Prescott Day in Los Altos and Los Altos Hills.

Parents and former students organized a surprise reception at LAYC to recognize the Egan Junior High language teacher's 40 years of teaching approximately 8,000 students, including all four of Los Wiener. Los Altos Mayor Val Carpenter and Los Altos Hills Vice Mayor Jean Mordo read proclamations honoring her (after which emcee Rick Lanman told them "Thank you mayors.") My favorite story from the reception was about a student whom Miss Prescott (who is blind) caught making spitballs in class -- she made him stay until he had made 1,000. (My eighth-grade history teacher, who earlier told me that I "turned into a stud" and "should have three or four wives," claimed credit for the idea.)

Miss Prescott (soon to be Mrs. Kavinoky) had a regimented style of instruction that gave students a better understanding of English grammar than we ever got from an English class. At her reception, a parade of former students spoke about how she taught them so much that they didn't learn anything new until Spanish IV. I remember when my classmates and I arrived at Los Altos High School as freshman, a large group of us protested that Spanish II Honors was not hard enough. We expected to be learning new tenses and made to conjugate more verbs. We failed to realize that they were none left to learn (until we got to past subjunctive-conditional constructions in the aforementioned Spanish IV).

Miss Prescott also introduced me to the phrase "En boca cerrada no entran moscas," forcing me to write it 50 times after I had mocked a student who was struggling with his oral exam. (In my defense, I was only retaliating against him on behalf of a student that he had mocked). I had no idea what it meant, even after using a Spanish-English to translate it literally. When I finally asked someone to explain it to me, the answer was, "It means you should shut up."

Congratulations to the only teacher to ever get that across to me effectively.

You can always give it back

Last year, the federal government gave John Vidovich $1 million of your money.

Vidovich, a Los Altos Hills developer whose Sunnyvale-based Sandridge Partners was the top recipient of the unconscionable corporate welfare in last year's farm bill, gave what appears to be his first interview on the subject with the Town Crier this week.

You can almost see a little piece of Vidovich's soul dying as you read him telling the TC that he doesn't really want the money, but will reluctantly accept it because the farm bill is a boon to small farmers and an important step in achieving food security. Vidovich received his $1 million for growing cotton, which by the way, you can't eat or even turn into a soft drink.

The (white) couple behind the day workers

If I didn't know better, I'd say Mexicans are boycotting the Voice. The last three articles about the Latino community have relied almost exclusively on people from outside the Latino community for information.

But this is one of the few times in my life that I do, in fact, know better. The best book I ever read about journalism contained a list of what readers like, with talking heads at the very bottom, ahead of only "numbers." (At the top of the list? Furry animals, followed by small children). As you might imagine, though, it turns out that it's much easier to get a quote from a talking head than from somebody you've never met before that isn't accustomed to talking to the press.

That's why the most recent feature story on the day worker center was about a white couple from Los Altos, a story on the deportation of day worker and youth leader Luciano Casiano-Miranda relied on Phil Cosby for perspective*, and a story about the graduation ceremony of sorts for English learners quoted only Maurice Ghysels and Judy Crates (and that one was about Latinos who speak English, no less). Ironically, only the story about the couple from Los Altos had an original quote from a Latino, and it was from Maria Marroquin, director of the center.

Don't get me wrong, I like white people as much as the next guy. But if 40 percent of students in the Mountain View school district really are Latino, it would be nice to hear from one of them once in a while. Unfortunately, given its reliance on real estate advertisements, the paper is more likely to boycott Mexicans and other non-home-buying populations, rather than al reves.

UPDATE: The story on Caciano-Miranda included a lifted quote from him, though the source unknown. And Maria also has a quote -- as does John Rinaldi -- in a story about the unexpected cost of the day worker center's new location. Looks like it's time to get in touch with those white folks from Los Altos again.

Something You Won't See in the LATC

Among other newsworthy stories, you probably won't read anything in the Los Altos Town Crier about "Network Power," a book by Los Altos native and scholar David Grewal. His work focuses on globalization; the Financial Times calls it "brilliant" and it is quoted extensively in a piece in today's International Herald Tribune.

Having read advance chapters of the book (an exclusive benefit for being the Foreign Correspondent for a well-respected blog), I can vouch that it is an important work for understanding our world. I'm still awaiting delivery of the book so I can finish it. In my experience, mail delivery in much of the world seems to be holding back globalization...

This is almost too perfect

Imagine you are assigned to write a fake editorial in the voice of the Town Crier. And it has to reference the earthquake in China AND the cyclone in Burma. I bet it would look something like this.

POSITIVE CHANGE AHEAD FROM LOS ALTOS

Every once in a while, the paper caricatures itself so well that the only possible explanation is that someone at the printer slipped in a mock article for their own amusement or that the writers took it upon themselves to satirize the publisher's world view. They could have done a better job with the headline -- something along the lines of "Don't let poverty, death of others get you down" -- but perhaps they were just trying to be subtle.

Recent news beyond Los Altos has been less than sunny, let’s face it: The national economy remains shaky, gas is officially more than $4 a gallon, the death toll from last week’s cyclone disaster in Myanmar could exceed 100,000 and another disaster close behind it – the 7.8 earthquake that hit China on Monday, killing nearly 9,000 people.

I'll give you some time to guess why the paper is bringing up the earthquake in China. (And ignore the disastrous punctuation and the tragicomically low alleged death toll -- I'm posting this at least a week after the editorial went to press).

Did you guess yet? Here's a hint.

All the more reason to count our blessings on the local scene.

This is some great character-writing here by the forger -- bringing up terrible calamities simply so that we can dismiss their importance by discussing our money. Can you think of the last time even tens of thousands of Los Altans died in a cyclone? I can't. We're rich. Leave us alone, world.

Certainly, the high quality of life in Los Altos is well documented, but here’s another thing to consider: Numerous plans and projects under way bid to make this community even better.

In the interests of time, let's use a mathematical equation to express the relative importance the forger places on these numerous plans and projects:

(Burmese cyclone + Chinese earthquake + foreclosures + high gas prices) < (New flowers and plum trees on San Antonio Road + two new downtown buildings + plans to sell lot at State and Main + Safeway expansion + post office replacement + new Loyola Corners landscaping + possible civic center renovation)

I just saved you six paragraphs.

It’s also encouraging that Los Altos residents don’t act like they live in a bubble, but are compassionate and continue to help others. Witness, for instance, the bake sale in front of Starbucks in downtown Los Altos last weekend in support of the Myanmar survivors.

Los Altos residents don't act like they live in a bubble? Sure, the city incorporated mainly to keep out low-income residents, and it has pass laws banning Mexicans and Gypsies from the town, and its local paper repeatedly writes about how great it is that bad things happen other places but not here (even when they actually do happen here). But we had a bake sale.

I like "It's a Wonderful Life" as much as any Jew I know, but this is a little too much.

While the structural improvements are nice and we look forward to them, ultimately we’re proud of the quality of people that make Los Altos the great community it is.

This conclusion is another reason I think this editorial might be a fraud. I suspect the real Town Crier cares more about the structural improvements.

Three things you might believe if you'd been reading the Town Crier instead of studying the last few weeks

1) Day workers sued the City of Los Altos as payback for the termination of a lease to which the city was not a party and not over an unconstitutional law forcing poor people to stand on the other side of El Camino.

2) Enabling more students to park closer to Mountain View High School will somehow reduce traffic there.

3) The South Peninsula Area Republican Coalition gets free advertising for its electioneering efforts because they are somehow newsworthy and not because the publisher founded the organization.

Meanwhile, the Daily News recently discovered that at least three Los Altos City Council members are rich.

I thought we were the Popular Front

My alma mater may change its name today.



Says kindergarten teacher Pam Loebner:

"For the past 3 years we have had parents go to the wrong schools (both ways) substitutes go to the wrong schools (both ways) and there is concern that in an emergency situation that someone might be confused and go to the wrong school."

Unlikely. We all know nothing bad ever happens in Los Altos. But just in case, I suggest "The Real Bullis" or asking the splitters to change their name to "Bullis Charter School for White Kids." More specificity never hurt.

Say It Ain't So!

This is just the latest accusation in the ongoing downfall of NOE's idol.

Please forgive me for overstepping the bounds of my assignments, but I don't think NOE had the courage to post this himself. Or maybe he's considering how to post about this...?

Hi guys

I don't know if you remember me, but I used to write for this blog.

With finals approaching, I've been spending a lot of time studying recently (and, it turns out, inspiring the creation of other blogs). A few things I've learned:

Everybody in Los Altos Hills is rich, which, as a matter of federal law, means its okay to keep poor people out. Ybarra vs. Los Altos Hills, 503 F.2d 250. (9th Cir. 1974).

I live next to the stupidest bike lane in America. The only one that might be dumber is one I lived near last summer.

Minimum sentencing laws still suck. We can blame them both for the large-scale disasters like the unconstitutionally shameful condition of the health care system in our state prisons as well as for the more personal tragedies like the harsh prison term facing troubled Iraq veteran Sarge Binkley. Binkley may yet catch a break from the District Attorney, but other defendants from different backgrounds are unlikely to get the same treatment.

I've got to get back to studying administrative law, so I can explain why the County Board of Education inexplicably prevailed against the Los Altos School District's case alleging that Bullis Charter School's charter was too racist for the County Board to approve. I know that part of the answer has to do with the chemicals used by downtown Los Altos dry cleaners. Stay tuned.

Ahora Mas Malos Aires

Three hundred grass fires are burning just outside the city limits of Buenos Aires. Over the past ten days a huge cloud of smoke has hung over the city further polluting the city's already dirty air.
These types of fires, lit to clear fields for grazing, are not unusual this time of year. However, timing and number of fires so close to the city cannot be coincidence. Farmers, who make up some of the richest Argentines, are locked in an ongoing dispute with the government over export tariffs. With the steep rise in commodity prices, the central government has been recently trying to raise revenues by increasing taxes on agricultural exports. The farmers haven't been having any of it and in March and early April, blocked roads and food deliveries to the capital.

The Foreign Correspondent had the luck of breathing fresh Andean air in Peru until last night. Right now, the skies look like a typical LA day, but the smoke is due to return tonight as firefighters continue to battle the blazes.

For some photos of the smoke, check out the "fotogaleria" link below the photo in this article.

Are you aware this person taught poor children?

Ahh, Los Altos Parents... tirelessly striving to make sure that the term "Los Altos Parent" still conjures up exactly what you'd imagine.

"They [the parents] still do not understand why Justus chose a principal from a school [Oak Grove High School in south San Jose] with different demographics and lower test scores than Almond."

It's nice to see that the running gag, so often exploited on this blog, about folks from The 'Tos not liking folks that aren't from The 'Tos is alive and well -- and thus the main staple of NOE is safe and sound.

Services help inexpert writers

In a rather slow news week on campus, you'd think somebody would have caught the irony in this headline.

If we can't annoy people into thinking they're unhappy enough to give us money, the terrorists have already won

Leave it to these guys to make these guys and these guys seem reasonable in their use of the word "terrorist."

Let's hope the rest of society can still recognize the difference between holding a sign that expresses your opinion and hijacking planes in order to fly them into buildings.

Chorizo's probably not a great name for a boy anyway

I just got back from a Bruce Springsteen concert, which is why I don't have a better joke to make about the following Palo Alto Daily police blotter item (via photobasement). I'm not sure of the date or the details, but it seems to be making its way around the internet, and far be it from me to stand in the way. Feel free to submit your own.

Stupid idea finished, woe is us.

It's time for another NOE Reader Quiz.

A headline in last week's Voice declared "Tunnel's done, time to celebrate." Before I give you the link, guess whether that headline appeared in the news section or the editorial pages.

...

You were right.

I'm as big a fan of the Stevens Creek Trail as anybody, and I understand the importance of maintaining good relationships with people at City Hall. But, just off the top of my head, I can think of enough potential criticisms of this project that it may not be the best candidate to induce the paper to drop all pretense of objectivity. (The article, of course, mentions none of them).

• $3.5 million is a large amount of taxpayer money to spend to extend the trail a very short distance.
• The city used eminent domain to complete this section of the trail, which should always give us pause even when it's justified.
• And, as the residents who posted comments on the Voice website pointed out, the city has yet to address concerns about inadequate lighting, lack of emergency phone access and displacement of homeless people.
  

Does anybody have an image of the page from Our Dumb Century in which the Onion ran a photo of the Hindenburg going down in flames underneath the headline: "AWESOME! Nation wowed by tremendous Hindenburg Explosion." I feel like that would be appropriate here.

Even gang members recognize bad journalism when they see it

Usually, when local papers write about gangs, they generally focus on what gang activity means for white people. They include the perspective of police, teachers, non-profits and government officials, but almost never gang members themselves.

This is not surprising, as most reporters generally don't have a lot of contacts who belong to the economic class that makes up gang membership. And with local newspaper profits largely dependent on real estate advertisements, publishers have little incentive to include the perspective of people who can't afford to buy houses.

So when two recent shootings renewed my alma mater's interest in gang activity in Mountain View, the only person who seemed to be concerned enough to do something about the unbalanced coverage was a Norteno.

The Voice received an unexpected visit last week from a Mountain View Norteno who says he is trying to clean up his life for the sake of his child.

...

The gang member, whose name is being withheld for his safety and his family's safety, wanted to shed light on the gang culture ...

The article goes on to cite a single anonymous source, even when he makes factual claims that could be easily verified or disproved. You almost have to admire a story that is this open about how little work actually went into it.

I would call for a boycott if I thought we'd have any material left

The governments of 113 countries, including our own, agree that the observed rise in global temperatures is "unequivocal."

The Los Altos Town Crier, though, not so much:

There may not be consensus that Earth’s atmosphere is warming, but that’s not keeping governments, groups and individuals from taking decisive action to assess their energy consumption and adopt sustainable strategies in conservation for the future of the planet.

As Earth Day, April 22, approaches, event coordinators are encouraging citizens to deluge Congress with phone calls on that day, insisting that lawmakers enact legislation promoting renewable energy and carbon-neutral buildings and calling for a moratorium on new coal-burning plants.

I don't believe Hell exists, but if it does, I can only imagine there's a special circle reserved for these people.

What would John Rocker do?

Former Atlanta-Braves-closer-turned-essayist John Rocker is making a stand against not speaking English in the U.S. with a 1300 word post on the home page of his official Website.

Rocker may have decided against "Teach English," in favor of "Speak English," because one's investment in improving the English language skills of recent immigrants need not go beyond telling them that they need more practice.

The site offers a glimpse into the impressive consistency that is the legendary Rocker.

Rocker is most famous for 1) taunting New York baseball fans (condoned by NOE) and 2) a notorious expose by Jeff Pearlman where he landed a xenophobic tour-de-force, berating gays, people who drive slowly and/or dye their hair, unwed mothers, minorities, women drivers, convicts, and, of course, foreigners (not condoned by NOE, despite one correspondent's rich use of "Macaca").

But you may not know that he also loves fireworks, hates high gas prices and purveys a remarkable selection of products.

Recession or Depression?

Wow.

Almost ten percent of our population on food stamps? Here's a grim look at the current state of affairs in the Homeland.

Things look worse than I thought. May have to stay out of the country longer than expected...

Los Altos cancels election

Seriously.

It seems that my hometown can save $100,000 every election cycle by moving city council contests to even-numbered years.

You know what else would save money? Not having elections.

In vintage Town Crier fashion, much of its coverage focused on the unruliness of a member of the public, but reassured readers that this sort of rambunctiousness is uncommon.

The Town Crier editorial gets it half-right, criticizing the plan for its potential impact on the school district. Ignoring for a minute whether the district would be smart enough to make the same change rather than shoulder the costs of an off-year election itself, the bigger and more obvious problem is that the change would allow the council to unilaterally extend their own terms. I'm no fan of voters, but not even the Los Altos Water Polo Alumni Security Council is that undemocratic.

22 years ago today

My sister came into my room to wake me up.

"Dad got you a puppy for your birthday! Dad got you a puppy!"

By way of background, I had wanted a dog ever since I could talk. My first word was "dog." My best friend had been the neighbor's cocker spaniel, Molly. (I was three or four years old when she died -- my parents told me it was because she went into the creek in our backyard and got poison oak -- and honored her memory by subsuming her identity and insisting on eating my dinner underneath the table.)

Anyway, this was the most exciting thing I had ever heard in my life (certainly more exciting than when I was three and they told me I was getting a brother). I shot out of bed and bolted upstairs, my sister trailing behind. I ran into my dad standing near the front door.

"Where is it?! Where is the puppy?!"

"It's outside," he said, "playing on the porch."

I opened the door and looked around, but there was no puppy to be seen. Confused, I turned back to see my dad, with my sister standing next to him.

"Where is it?" I asked.

"April Fool's!" they both said.

To clarify, my birthday is not on April Fool's Day, it is today. My father explained that it would be too obvious if they had waited until the one day of the year that is reserved for telling lies to six-year-olds and laughing at them when they believe you.

Any readers out there still trying to come up with a gift idea?

They are going to go far in this field

Yesterday, the number of American soldiers who have died in Iraq reached 4,000.

With this milestone approaching, shortly after the fifth anniversary of the invasion, the Daily Bruin ran the following two stories side-by-side on the front page:

Girl Scout cookies popular
Individual responsibility vital to future of Undie Run

The Sacramento Bee marked the occasion by reprinting a year-old e-mail from my sister about her faceplant into a duck pond (which was first published here last year).

I really wish they would identify these kids by their high schools instead

Then the Mercury's story about a property theft ring at Santa Clara would reference "St. Francis water polo."

I probably should have expected this

This week marked the fifth anniversary of the Iraq War. How did the Town Crier commemorate this tragic milestone?
Seriously, this was the cover story. Here's the lede:

Many decisions across Los Altos are made under the influence of coffee – companies come together, civic policy is dissected, book club alliances are formed and neighbors nestle for a chat.

The coffee bean is one of the world’s largest agricultural exports by value, and the United States is the No. 1 coffee importer, trailed by Germany and Japan. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Americans consumed an average of 24.2 gallons of coffee in 2005 – enough fluid to fill two tanks in a typical sedan.

Coffee consumption peaked in volume in the 1940s, when Americans drank nearly twice as much as they do now. But today boutique drinks like espressos, lattes, mochas and coffee-style beverages that totally lack bean, such as chai or high-end teas, share the mass market.

The only mention of the war in this week's issue was Charlotte Jarmy's discussion of why she doesn't care about it.

How to make lawyers work for the public welfare:

Bribe them.

Congrats to our esteemed publisher on managing UCLA's PILF auction two weeks ago, which, sadly, had nothing to with auctioning any of these kind of PILFs. Though lacking sexually attractive Platypi, our publisher raised funds in excess of $100,000 towards grants for UCLA law students who work in summer public interest or governmental legal internships.

Some highlights:
- As our publisher attempted to win a John Wooden Autographed Pyramid of Success, the auctioneer encouraged him to increase his bids because he was, "from Los Altos," and "could afford anything." He however, ducked out when the price went beyond $800.00.
- Later, he auctioned himself and sold for $15.00 (to his Mom).
- The singer was "good looking" and "good."

A pointless post about a pointless article

It's late, I'm tired and nobody is reading, but boy is this awful.

Riding shotgun with LAPD

I did a ridealong once when I was in high school. All I remember is that the cop struck me as rather racist. Something about a prostitute, too.

Head out for a night on the streets with Los Altos Police Sgt. Scott McCrossin, and you’ll be prepared for almost anything.

I doubt this is this case, but I trust you'll show us with some good expository writing.

There’s a riot helmet and gas mask in his trunk. He has books on case law and hazardous materials at the ready, along with a Spanish/English dictionary and detailed maps compiled by the fire department. For quiet moments in the night, the policeman’s pleasure reading: an industry SWAT magazine. But McCrossin’s No. 1 tool, used much more than the AR-15 strapped behind the driver’s seat, is a beefy flashlight. He deploys it through the night on parked cars, construction sites and suspects on the city’s dark streets.

Things the officer appears to be prepared for:

• a riot
• a gassing
• a legal argument
• a Mexican
• getting lost
• doing nothing

Things Eliza Ridgway appears to be prepared for:

• awkwardly watching the officer encounter the things on the above list.

In daylight, Los Altos police often chat with residents taking in sun outside the Sub-Acute Rehabilitation Center, neighbors walking dogs and business owners. At night, it’s a different story. That’s when the illicit and forgotten – the homeless, drug abusers, burglars and vandals – tend to come out.

"The illicit and forgotten" = the homeless? I hope that was a typo.

[Bunch of truly, stunningly boring stuff happens]

...

“All of your reports need to be nice and perfect here,” Langone said, speaking ruefully of what a vocal and close watch the community keeps on the department.

I'm too sleep-deprived to understand sarcasm right now, let alone be able to do it myself. So, rather than try to write something clever, I'll just say that I still can't figure where anybody would get the idea that Los Altos keeps a "vocal and close watch" on the police department. If that were the case, shouldn't more people (perhaps the local newspaper) have opposed the department's effort to enact an unconstitutional law banning day workers and lemonade stands from the city's streets?

Am I missing something?

Terrorists, your game is through

An injunction! (And also one of these!) Why didn't we think of that earlier?!

University officials filed a lawsuit against the Animal Liberation Front, the Animal Liberation Brigade and five unnamed individuals because of various attacks on professors who have been conducting animal research over the last two years.

While the concept of filing for an injunction against people you can't identify is funny, the organization's planned defense is even funnier:

“The Animal Liberation Front and the Animal Liberation Brigade are two underground organizations that do not exist."

It's not clear how these non-existent organizations are planning to go about filing this defense or the threatened countersuit, but it should be interesting.

You people still aren't getting your land back

Far more stunning than Fidel Castro announcing his resignation in today's edition of Cuba's amusingly-named government newspaper was that BigDra had nothing to say about it. Perhaps he's still paranoid or embarrassed about this.

Speaking of embarrassing, the New York Times had this to say about the leader of the Cuban Revolution this morning:

He embraced a totalitarian brand of communism and allied the island with the Soviet Union. He brought the world to the brink of nuclear war in the fall of 1962, when he allowed Russia to build missile launching sites just 90 miles off the American shores. ... His record has been a mix of great social achievements, but a dismal economic performance that has mired most Cubans in poverty.

As Joc said, that's one version of history. Another might attribute the poverty and lack of political freedom to the Bay of Pigs, the crushing embargo, the CIA's efforts to assassinate him, attempts to seed rain clouds over the mountains in order to kill crops in the plains and the continued harboring of terrorists in South Florida.

I'm not saying Castro's perfect. As a loudmouth, I found the restrictions on the press and other forms of expression particularly bothersome, especially when the social accomplishments of the Revolution are such a source of pride for the people that it's hard to imagine how democratic reforms would endanger them. But choosing from between Fidel and the types of people featured in the Museum of the Revolution's "Hall of Cretins" (Reagan, Bush I, and Batista), it's hard to see Castro as the bad guy.

Also, it's hard to deny that this story, from Tad Szulc's biography Fidel: A critical portrait, is cool. It takes place right after the Granma (the boat for which the newspaper is named) landed in the Sierra Maestre. The rebel army was nearly destroyed in the ensuing ambush, its forces scattering into the mountains, where they hid for several days before a local sympathizer alerted Fidel that this brother was camped out close by:

Just before midnight, the brothers embraced in the canefield. Fidel asked Raul: "How many rifles did you bring?" and Raul replied, "Five..." Fidel shouted: "And with the two I have, this makes seven! Now, yes, we have won the war!"

Viva Kosova Libre!

The dissolution of Yugoslavia was finally completed today as members of the Kosovar parliament declared independence. It's been a long road for the majority ethnic Albanian population of the former Serb province. In 1999, NATO forces led by the US and UK bombed targets in Serbia stopping the Serbian military's latest campaign of ethnic cleansing in the region. Since then Kosova has been in limbo as a UN administered territory. Perhaps now it can move on, garner investment, invest in infrastructure, health, and education and move towards eventual EU membership.

At the independence celebrations today in the capital city of Pristina, many of newly independent Kosovar waved American flags. Kosova is perhaps the only place in the world where NOE can sport his stars and stripes bandana and people won't think he's an asshole. Maybe he should go and have a proud stroll down Bill Clinton Blvd, one of Pristina's biggest avenues. Now the only question is: can he use his Rapid Rewards to get there?

The Town Crier's brave stand against the Kyoto Protocol

Boooo!

Politically correct, yes, but practical?

It's not often the Town Crier actually comes out against anything. It backed the war in Iraq using a sports cliche that it got backwards. It stayed entirely silent when a confessed child molester awaiting sentencing was free to visit local elementary schools. This is no knee-jerk reactionary opinion page -- it takes something that's really wrong to garner criticism from the Town Crier. Gay kids qualify, of course. But efforts to stem global warming? This should be interesting.

The Los Altos City Council’s Jan. 22 decision to allocate $14,600 to begin investigating what the city can do to reduce air pollutants comes across – initially – as the right thing to do in this era of CO2 emissions consciousness.

Please enlighten us as to why it isn't.

As part of the recent action to evaluate current greenhouse gas emissions at the city level, the council directed Mayor Val Carpenter to add her signature to the U.S. Mayors Climate Protection Agreement.

Didn't they realize that Mountain View already did this? Shouldn't we just freeload off of their efforts -- we do it for everything else.

It seems politically correct to take this action. But from a practical standpoint, we wonder about the priority and direction of the effort, and whether the study is money well spent.

Zing! It's politically correct! I knew it was a bad idea. Q.E.D.

First, the study is only to determine the current emissions levels in city-operated vehicles, wastewater operations and other sources within the city of Los Altos. This seems like a good first step, but the net needs to be cast citywide. We think the $14,600 could be better used on a marketing campaign beyond city government to reach the community at large, to get people out of their vehicles. Walk-to-School days are fine but not nearly enough.

They better make it more than $14,600, given that the town newspaper consistently belittles the importance of climate change and has in the past advocated against enforcement even of existing parking restrictions.

Will the commendable volunteer energy that has pushed through this first effort be able to take the emissions information and use it to enact change, particularly given the city’s slim budget?

Let’s imagine that the study concludes in part that Los Altos police vehicles emit a high level of air pollutants. The council then recommends that level be lowered as part of the “Cool Los Altos” philosophy. Would this mean replacing an entire fleet of vehicles with more environmentally friendly ones to the tune of millions of dollars?

First of all, asking rhetorical questions is not the same thing as making an argument or taking a position. How in God's name do people give them awards for this sort of garbage? (That's not rhetorical, by the way, I'm really curious about the thought process that leads to the determination that this is good writing.)

Secondly, yes. As in, yes, it might mean that, if the emissions inventory suggested that this was a cost-effective place to make reductions. It's easy to imagine that it would be, considering that the city already spends money replacing its fleet periodically. Mountain View, for example, has rules in place that prioritize emissions reductions when fleet vehicles are being replaced.

We want to lower greenhouse gas emissions as much as the next city. But such thinking also needs to take into consideration bottom-line costs and available funding to address any recommendations.

Hard-hitting stuff there TC. Way to be the voice of reason. It was looking for a minute like the Los Altos City Council might run off spending money willy-nilly on environmental protection.

While the lobbying to get this part of the plan through was clearly effective, it failed to offer any examples of likely action to take. It would be easier to support this project if we had some examples, now, of possible solutions. We shouldn’t need an emissions study to come up with those ideas. We need a task force that is working on it – which is the only thing the city didn’t decide to do.

It's an INVENTORY. You measure things first, then you decide where best to place your effort. That said, here's a suggestion: stop killing trees to print this drivel.

Given a lack of direction and available budget, is this another study that leads to nowhere (most likely created by a new cottage industry)?

Hmm, after reading that cutting parenthetical aside, I am reconsidering my concern about climate change. It's all just a cottage industry lobbying effort. Exxon was trying to tell us all along, but we didn't listen.

Yes, we have nothing better to do

Speaking, as I often am, of the Bullis class of 1992, Becky Remmel has launched one of the best online stalking efforts I have ever seen. "Where in the World is Molly Curfman" is a Facebook group dedicated to tracking down former classmates who moved before the time capsule was buried underneath the Bullis Bear -- not just Molly but also the tall kid known as "Joshua Giraffe" and our one and only Latino classmate. (For the record, I was not the one who made Ms. Kates cry.)

Readers can infer a number of things from our ongoing obsession with elementary school. I choose to focus on the fact that growing up during the drought wasn't so bad -- our parents inability to water our lawns was a small price to pay for it being 80 degrees and sunny every day.

(This means Jon had sex!)

Congratulations to Jon and Kara Sigua, proud parents of Jackson William Sigua, born Feb. 1 in the 8-pound weight class. (Also, congratulations to Jackson. Although upon seeing a picture of him, one of Kara's friends remarked that Kara "should make babies professionally," he deserves some credit for the achievement.)

Jackson's middle name comes from his uncle Will, NOE's choice for Los Altan of the Year. Jackson was born almost exactly one year since Will was killed in action in Iraq, inspiring an unprecedented show of community support and unity. His nephew will be proud to carry the name.

Pressure's on

Sorry about the lack of posts recently. I've been playing hooky and spending my weekends skiing rather than scouring the local news. In the meantime, some of the Wiener children have actually been productive:

Jocelyn won a McClatchy Presidential Award, one of nine the newspaper conglomerate gave out in the second half of 2007, for her article on the fates of the former members of an inner city pee wee football team.

Fifteen years later, Sacramento Bee reporter Jocelyn Wiener tracked down the survivors of a champion youth football team from a rough part of the city. In a series of interlocking profiles she told a heartbreaking story about the terrible risks and temptations that African American boys face growing up. Combined with extensive web presentations, the effort turned stories that might well have faded from view into a compelling and challenging public portrait.

Andy (despite the fact that the last "book" he read was Johnny's Damon's autobiography Idiot) has been left and right getting into law schools that rejected me.

Bubba qualified for boardercross nationals, though I'm betting he's prouder of the following comment on the sophomoric college rumor Web site juicycampus.com (which features recent posts entitled "Being Drunk" and "Jews, thoughts?"):

i agree theres a big difference between hot and well known, but if you were just doing this within the sophmores (which are usually most social) in the greek system I would say...

5 most "popular" boys: (I would do them all)
carmel ashur- social and pretty hot
lorenzo einaudi- sig nu social chair, not as hot but great body :)
asher luzzatto- social and hot, good style
adam groth- knows everyone, one of the coolest guys
matt wiener- phi psi social chair, pretty hot too

Somehow, I feel that correctly answering a trivia question in class last week is not quite the same.

Sports Stars Love Animal Cruelty

Its been well-established that sports fans and even the public generally care more about the way professional athletes treat animals than the way they treat women. The latest example of sports stars lust for violent animal deathmatches brings together past and present baseball greats. A video briefly posted on youtube last week apparently showed perhaps the two best Dominican pitchers of all-time (NOE may dispute that assertion) releasing fighting cocks into the biggest cockfighting ring in Santo Domingo. Juan Marichal and Pedro Martinez were reportedly 'soltadores' for a cockfight in the country's premier cockfighting battlefield. Cockfighting is legal in the Dominican Republic, but that doesn't mean that Americans don't frown upon this off-season pastime. The venue is called Coliseo Gallistico de Santo Domingo which doesn't really compare to Bad Newz Kennels…