It Matters What Kind of Bullets You Use

"The Iraqi city of Fallujah has seen a dramatic rise in birth defects and childhood cancer since 2004, when U.S. forces used depleted-uranium shells and white phosphorous against militants. Doctors say the city's birth-defect rate is 14.7 percent--much higher than in Hiroshima after World War II." --The Week, January 20, 2012

After reading this in The Week a couple of months ago, I couldn't help but think this is an "I told you so" moment (and what took the mainstream media so long to notice this story?!!!). This seems like a good time to post another "Best of Beyond the Batholith--Essays from the Eastern Sierra" that I wrote around 2007:

Control

I was walking into an office building and noticed the landscaping: concrete, ivy, wood chips, and tidy, evenly-spaced.... hold on a second. I want to say "evenly-spaced flowers" but I'm the kind of guy that would want to drive over there and double-check before writing that they were evenly-spaced. They sure felt like they were evenly-spaced.

So, where was I... Oh yeah, so the landscaping in this interior-building alcove was all about control. The concrete controls the buried earth and prevents anything from growing there and allows dirt and foot traffic to be easily controlled. The ivy is a weedy and invasive plant that controls everything else--nothing else will be able to grow where the ivy is, and the gardener

Getting to Know the Local Environmentalists Part 2: Saving the Coast

Subdivisions Averted 1: on display at the San Geronimo
Valley Community Center.

What would West Marin be like if there had not been heroic efforts to save it? It would probably be like the rest of the Bay Area. As you come over White's Hill from Fairfax, instead of traveling on two-lane Sir Francis Drake Blvd, you would be driving on a four-lane superhighway all the way to Limantour Beach. You'd want that superhighway to deal with the congested traffic, since there would be a lot more development and a quarter million people living in West Marin--as many as live in the entire county now. San Geronimo Valley would be built up to the ridges on both sides. The Coho Salmon

And the Rains Finally Came

I walked outside on Thursday morning and it hit me. The air smelled so so good! The high humidity just before it started raining was making the trees exhale the most delicious flavor.

We hadn't smelled moist air like that in weeks. Since around Thanksgiving, aside from a quarter of an inch of rain in December, it had been cold and dry. On Tuesday morning I ran up the hill on the north side of the valley and looked down from a grassy slope thawing in the morning sun--down into the frosty foggy white valley bottom, as if looking into a pool of iced-over water. The golf course was as white as if a dusting of snow had fallen. The air in the valley bottom was thick with white fog and wispy smoke and when combined with the white ground, was a view unlike any I had ever seen. It contrasted sharply with the green trees and sunny thawed slopes above the inversion layer.

The morning that the rain finally came,

Weak Enforcement and Penalties Lead to Increased Violations of the Laws of Physics

Lately federal, state, and municipal budget cuts have led to lack of enforcement of the laws of physics. This sad situation has allowed perpetrators to go unpunished and has led to a cavalier attitude for many who now casually disregard the laws of physics. Below are a few of the more egregious examples.


Laws of Motion
These laws apply to moving objects, having to do with things like equal and opposite reactions and centrifugal force. If everyone on the planet took a step to the east at the same time, the earth would stop spinning. This would roast the sunny side of the Earth and freeze the dark side, pretty much ending life as we know it. Given the relatively large chances of this happening,

Goodbye ecomafia

On December 18th, 2011, I let my domain name ecomafia.com expire. I first registered it twelve years ago. Even though it has expired, the registrar still has it pointing at this blog, which is where I've had it pointed since I discontinued my Website a year ago. I'll be curious to see if someone else decides it is worth buying for any reason, and when the forwarding will get turned off. Below is my slightly edited explanation of why I chose the name. This explanation used to be posted on the Website.

The idea of "Ecomafia" sprouted on the Negit Islands during summer 1999 CaliforniaGull research. I think it was Justin's idea, but

Seven Solstices

Mike Klapp and I spent seven solstices in a row together watching the sun rise somewhere in the Mono Basin. Well, actually two specific locations: Warren Bench and Black Point. Not the sun, us. This was a grand solstice tradition by the time it ended when Mike