Tying it All Together - Part 6
SYNOPSIS: Parts 1 – 5 slogged through some US history commencing in 1846 and established that in the American psyche there exists a tacit pride for any act committed in the name of the flag, leaving off with NASA’s irrepressible and unabashed revelry for their marksmanship in blasting a hole in an innocent bypassing comet that didn’t belong to them because there was neither law nor moral restraint to prevent them. Part 6 – comments on some noteworthy current events. (Reading time: about a minute, probably less.)
PART 6
“Zeit, Wind, Frau und Glueck
Veraendern sich im Augenblick
(“Time, the wind, women and fortune
Can change in an instant.“)
That proverb was etched on an old beer stein I bought in Munich a long time ago when I was in the army over there. I eventually gave my son the beer stein but the etched proverb remained, etched also onto my mind: (“Time, the wind, women and fortune Can change in an instant. “)
And lemme tell you, things just changed for me, BIG TIME! (Because I didn’t die soon enough.)
Under a program sponsored by the Sewerage Agency of Southern Marin (SASM) which qualified me for financial assistance because I am well below the median income for Marin County, I had my sewer lateral replaced in January 2011. The old one wore out before I died.
Day before yesterday my dentist told me one of the two molars supporting a bridge which has two artificial teeth in between was about to go south (because I haven’t died yet) and, owing to the location and peculiarities of this case the only option for repair is a complete new bridge. And I believe him. Then he told me the price. I believed that too. And that is something to talk about.
There was a time when I was a good fit in Marin County. While employed by the State of California in a civil service classification of Journeyman (I was never Management material) I bought and paid for the modest house where my wife and I still live and where our son lived while he walked every step – for twelve years – to his schooling in the Mill Valley School District. Now, I couldn’t afford my front door knocker because prices are headed for the moon and because everybody and his brother have their fingers in my pockets. And for years Social Security says nothing has changed. To which I say – Humbug.
Herewith, my reasoning: My present Dental Plan is the same and only one my wife and I have ever had, and I don’t know how long that has been but my records go back to December 1991 when, as a point of reference the charge and the benefit for “Adult Cleaning” was $46.00. In December 2010 the charge for the same service, now called “Adult Prophylaxis” was $113.00, PLUS $48.00 for ”Periodic oral evaluation” (which the dentist used to do as part of his service for no extra charge.) That’s a jump from $46.00 to $161.00 for the same identical procedure, or roughly 350%, an acceleration rate of about 18% a year, inexorably and forever.
If anyone wants to argue about that, be prepared for a cascade of numbers to be thrown at you with all the enthusiasm of NASA in their favorite pastime of blasting comets.
Now – to put the current replacement cost of my dental bridge in perspective: it (the cost quoted to me) is equivalent to four times the cost of the first NEW automobile I ever purchased, in 1960. Four teeth in 2011 are worth the same as four new automobiles in 1960. (Yes, yes, I know all about apples and oranges.)
And dyspepsia, too.
For which I should offer HVCA my most groveling and humble thanks for the object lesson of passing Measure A before the axe fell. They – not I – are insured a rising income – out of my pockets – clean through eternity, no matter what.
To be continued.
Saturday, February 26, 2011
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
NEWS FLASH ! ! - (Good News? - Bad News? - You decide.)
Tying it All Together - Part 5 - "From NASA to Homestead Valley"
(Reading time: couple seconds)
The other day (Valentines Day – February 14, 2011) the San Francisco Chronicle, on page A9, informed us a NASA spacecraft named Stardust was scheduled to, “meet up with its celestial sweetheart – a comet half the size of Manhattan that had an encounter with another spacecraft not long ago.” The article goes on to recall Tempel 1 (the comet referenced in the article) with these words: “In 2005, Tempel 1 received a not-so-loving visit from another NASA probe named Deep Impact, which fired a copper bullet into the comet on the Fourth of July that sparked cosmic fireworks.”
Whoa, Nellie! Hold it right THERE !
The 4th of July 2005, NASA’s reaction (on international television!) upon receiving the news that their long planned and perfectly executed “Deep Impact “ project had just blasted a hole in a by-passing comet – the Tempel 1 – was unrestrained childlike glee! The whole bulging roomful of NASA people were whooping it up like the home team had just scored!
BUT – they were celebrating – their marksmanship! at having blasted a hole in a bypassing comet, which DIDN’T BELONG TO THEM.
Just to see what is inside.
I take exception to NASA’s revolting conduct and to their whole revolting project. By whose authority does NASA presume to destroy stuff that doesn’t belong to them?
Consider this, please: To take something that doesn’t belong to you, simply because you find it appealing, and have your way with it – is the philosophy and the practice of the Thief, the Pickpocket and the Rapist – the same philosophy and practice which put the American Indians (what was left of them) on reservations because someone else coveted their land and the wealth, actual and potential, it contained.
When my thinking apparatus is engaged and directed toward Homestead Valley, scratching my chin and wondering “Hmmm,” naturally follow.
NEWS FLASH ! ! – (Good News? – Bad News? – You decide.)
To be continued.
(Reading time: couple seconds)
The other day (Valentines Day – February 14, 2011) the San Francisco Chronicle, on page A9, informed us a NASA spacecraft named Stardust was scheduled to, “meet up with its celestial sweetheart – a comet half the size of Manhattan that had an encounter with another spacecraft not long ago.” The article goes on to recall Tempel 1 (the comet referenced in the article) with these words: “In 2005, Tempel 1 received a not-so-loving visit from another NASA probe named Deep Impact, which fired a copper bullet into the comet on the Fourth of July that sparked cosmic fireworks.”
Whoa, Nellie! Hold it right THERE !
The 4th of July 2005, NASA’s reaction (on international television!) upon receiving the news that their long planned and perfectly executed “Deep Impact “ project had just blasted a hole in a by-passing comet – the Tempel 1 – was unrestrained childlike glee! The whole bulging roomful of NASA people were whooping it up like the home team had just scored!
BUT – they were celebrating – their marksmanship! at having blasted a hole in a bypassing comet, which DIDN’T BELONG TO THEM.
Just to see what is inside.
I take exception to NASA’s revolting conduct and to their whole revolting project. By whose authority does NASA presume to destroy stuff that doesn’t belong to them?
Consider this, please: To take something that doesn’t belong to you, simply because you find it appealing, and have your way with it – is the philosophy and the practice of the Thief, the Pickpocket and the Rapist – the same philosophy and practice which put the American Indians (what was left of them) on reservations because someone else coveted their land and the wealth, actual and potential, it contained.
When my thinking apparatus is engaged and directed toward Homestead Valley, scratching my chin and wondering “Hmmm,” naturally follow.
NEWS FLASH ! ! – (Good News? – Bad News? – You decide.)
To be continued.
Friday, February 11, 2011
Tying it All Together - Part 4 - Friends in High Places? Let me tell YOU!
Tying it All Together - Part 4
Friends in High Places? (Let me tell YOU about it!)
SYNOPSIS: Parts 1, 2 & 3 brought us from Mainstream America’s kneejerk intolerance with American Indians all the way to torching the historic old Cloverdale Depot in 1991, a spectacular conflagration that also took with it the plans and toil for a monument in Cloverdale to the local Pomo Indians, which would have been on the site where the Cloverdale “multi-modal transportation center” now stands, having picked up a few officials of the County of Marin and the City of Mill Valley along the way, and connected all of that with the Evergreen Avenue sidewalk affair in Homestead.
This episode, Part 4, is not much more than a loser’s lament, but it hopes to open a few eyes to what goes on while we are playing canasta or out walking the dog or just gazing at the moon.
PART 4
“There are strange things done in the midnight sun
By the men who moil for gold…” Robert W. Service
(Parenthetical remarks: A few weeks ago, late in January, 2011, I sent a courtesy email to Supervisor Steve Kinsey which included as attachments three letters I planned to mention on this blog sometime, so he wouldn’t be blindsided by any references to them here:
1- Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey to me, dated February 17, 1997 re: FHWA
2- Thomas Ptak, FHWA to Lynn Woolsey, dated January 27, 1997 (3 weeks earlier.)
3- Me to David H. Densmore, FHWA, dated February 19, 1997 - End of parenthetical remarks.)
However, there is a FOURTH letter worth noting which I did NOT send him and which I will only introduce here by reference, but I sent copies of it to some of my Homestead neighbors just to establish it as a fact that exists. It addresses “this matter,” which is the historic Cloverdale depot that burned, and a lot more.
Expressing it as kindly as possible, it is the explanation by the FHWA Division Administrator in Sacramento of events subsequent to the fire that destroyed the historic Cloverdale depot. Expressing it from my heart, though, it is FHWA's triumphal fanfare of what happened: such a sublime construction of gobbledygook that it will stand for generations as a high water mark of bureaucratic achievement. The signature is illegible, but the letter writer’s superiors in Washington, D.C. revealed his identity. Poor fellow, he was only a victim of the fray who signed on behalf his superiors, and thus is entitled to his anonymity. His superiors, on the other hand and the politicians, who for their own righteous reasons sanctified “this matter,” are entitled to such judgment as history may accord to them.
Now – Your CLOSE ATTENTION, please.
My Congressional Representative, Lynn Woolsey, (letter number 1, above) opened with these words: “Dear Mr. Cook: I am sorry to tell you that the Federal Highway Administration has advised me that it was unable to take the action you requested. Enclosed please find a copy of the agency’s response.” Several polite personal paragraphs followed, then her signature.
Well, the “agency’s response” (letter number 2, above) was a letter to her (Ms. Woolsey) signed on behalf of FHWA, Washington, D.C., by Thomas J. Ptak, telling her to tell me (figuratively, of course) to take a hike, but (actually, of course) telling her to tell me to go bother the FHWA Division Administrator in Sacramento, because he (the Division Administrator in Sacramento) had already told me (according to Mr. Ptak) that, “CHANGES IN CIRCUMSTANCES(Caps mine-for emphasis. RC) since approval of the Final Environmental Impact Statement for the bypass made the intended use of the archaeological site no longer applicable.”
Then, I suppose, Mr. Ptak and his buddies had a good laugh (hah hah hah, slap slap haw haw haw) watching me chase my tail, because the Division Administrator in Sacramento had already said all of that – and a lot more – in a letter to me seven months earlier (letter number 4, above.) Which had provoked me to write Ms. Woolsey in the first place! Hah, hah hah, slap slap haw haw haw.
BUT … … … I didn’t go chasing my tail.
I just wrote the Division Administrator in Sacramento, a guy named David H. Densmore, and admitted that he had won the battle for the Pomo Indian Monument in Cloverdale. (What else could I do? HIS Friends in High Places were more numerous and more powerful than MINE, namely, Lynn Woolsey, My Congressional Representative.)
He had beat me, yes, in the contest for the Pomo memorial. (But, “fair and square?”)
You’re probably wondering what all this has to do with the Evergreen Avenue project? Stick around for Part 5: Tying it All Together/Friends in High Places/Evergreen Avenue Project
To be continued.
Friends in High Places? (Let me tell YOU about it!)
SYNOPSIS: Parts 1, 2 & 3 brought us from Mainstream America’s kneejerk intolerance with American Indians all the way to torching the historic old Cloverdale Depot in 1991, a spectacular conflagration that also took with it the plans and toil for a monument in Cloverdale to the local Pomo Indians, which would have been on the site where the Cloverdale “multi-modal transportation center” now stands, having picked up a few officials of the County of Marin and the City of Mill Valley along the way, and connected all of that with the Evergreen Avenue sidewalk affair in Homestead.
This episode, Part 4, is not much more than a loser’s lament, but it hopes to open a few eyes to what goes on while we are playing canasta or out walking the dog or just gazing at the moon.
PART 4
“There are strange things done in the midnight sun
By the men who moil for gold…” Robert W. Service
(Parenthetical remarks: A few weeks ago, late in January, 2011, I sent a courtesy email to Supervisor Steve Kinsey which included as attachments three letters I planned to mention on this blog sometime, so he wouldn’t be blindsided by any references to them here:
1- Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey to me, dated February 17, 1997 re: FHWA
2- Thomas Ptak, FHWA to Lynn Woolsey, dated January 27, 1997 (3 weeks earlier.)
3- Me to David H. Densmore, FHWA, dated February 19, 1997 - End of parenthetical remarks.)
However, there is a FOURTH letter worth noting which I did NOT send him and which I will only introduce here by reference, but I sent copies of it to some of my Homestead neighbors just to establish it as a fact that exists. It addresses “this matter,” which is the historic Cloverdale depot that burned, and a lot more.
Expressing it as kindly as possible, it is the explanation by the FHWA Division Administrator in Sacramento of events subsequent to the fire that destroyed the historic Cloverdale depot. Expressing it from my heart, though, it is FHWA's triumphal fanfare of what happened: such a sublime construction of gobbledygook that it will stand for generations as a high water mark of bureaucratic achievement. The signature is illegible, but the letter writer’s superiors in Washington, D.C. revealed his identity. Poor fellow, he was only a victim of the fray who signed on behalf his superiors, and thus is entitled to his anonymity. His superiors, on the other hand and the politicians, who for their own righteous reasons sanctified “this matter,” are entitled to such judgment as history may accord to them.
Now – Your CLOSE ATTENTION, please.
My Congressional Representative, Lynn Woolsey, (letter number 1, above) opened with these words: “Dear Mr. Cook: I am sorry to tell you that the Federal Highway Administration has advised me that it was unable to take the action you requested. Enclosed please find a copy of the agency’s response.” Several polite personal paragraphs followed, then her signature.
Well, the “agency’s response” (letter number 2, above) was a letter to her (Ms. Woolsey) signed on behalf of FHWA, Washington, D.C., by Thomas J. Ptak, telling her to tell me (figuratively, of course) to take a hike, but (actually, of course) telling her to tell me to go bother the FHWA Division Administrator in Sacramento, because he (the Division Administrator in Sacramento) had already told me (according to Mr. Ptak) that, “CHANGES IN CIRCUMSTANCES(Caps mine-for emphasis. RC) since approval of the Final Environmental Impact Statement for the bypass made the intended use of the archaeological site no longer applicable.”
Then, I suppose, Mr. Ptak and his buddies had a good laugh (hah hah hah, slap slap haw haw haw) watching me chase my tail, because the Division Administrator in Sacramento had already said all of that – and a lot more – in a letter to me seven months earlier (letter number 4, above.) Which had provoked me to write Ms. Woolsey in the first place! Hah, hah hah, slap slap haw haw haw.
BUT … … … I didn’t go chasing my tail.
I just wrote the Division Administrator in Sacramento, a guy named David H. Densmore, and admitted that he had won the battle for the Pomo Indian Monument in Cloverdale. (What else could I do? HIS Friends in High Places were more numerous and more powerful than MINE, namely, Lynn Woolsey, My Congressional Representative.)
He had beat me, yes, in the contest for the Pomo memorial. (But, “fair and square?”)
You’re probably wondering what all this has to do with the Evergreen Avenue project? Stick around for Part 5: Tying it All Together/Friends in High Places/Evergreen Avenue Project
To be continued.
Sunday, February 6, 2011
Tying it All Together - Part 3 Friends in High Places? (TELL me about it!)
Tying it All Together - Part 3
Friends in High Places? (TELL me about it!)
SYNOPSIS: Parts 1 & 2 brought us through Mainstream America’s aversion to American Indians, and linked the Marin County Board of Supervisors to the Pomo Indians in Cloverdale and the memorial to them that was lost when a suspicious fire destroyed the historic Cloverdale depot in 1991.
This episode, Part 3, lays out my belief that the fire was truly arson and that an ominous link exists between the Cloverdale affair and the Evergreen Avenue sidewalk project in Homestead Valley because the Disciples of Progress are in charge, and while not obvious, a real and potentially volatile situation is rushing upon us with momentum and freewheeling energy that has built up over many miles of clear and unobstructed track, with nary a thought of cooperation or negotiation and certainly no inclination to brook any changes now. With the Cloverdale affair as a precedent, a kneejerk reaction will soon be invoked to pull a few strings and zingo – it’s done!
Part 3
Several weeks ago the Mill Valley Patch, an online news medium at “http://millvalley.patch.com,” published a feature entitled, “Where am I?” It was a photo of a bronze plaque embedded in the sidewalk near 48 Locust Avenue, (which is behind the Miller Avenue 7-11) which memorializes “Marino,” the Miwok Indian for whom Marin County is named. By their approval of this memorial plaque the Mill Valley City Council is now linked to the Cloverdale affair, at least spiritually, and it would take a pretty feeble imagination to wonder how or why.
Before the fire, in the autumn of 1991, the City of Cloverdale was negotiating with Caltrans to acquire a lot the State owned on Main Street in Cloverdale, between Third Street and Fourth Street, (which the State eventually deeded to the Cloverdale Community Development Agency.) One day my office telephone rang in San Francisco. The caller was an eminent political figure in the City of Cloverdale and wanted to talk about the lot on Main Street. After an interval of official talk about the lot on Main Street, the conversation drifted to the historic Depot, which Caltrans was soon supposed to relocate. Before long this person says, "Cook, if that depot ever catches fire, the fire trucks will never make it on time. I guarantee you that."
They didn’t.
And that is why MY kneejerk reaction is to suspect trouble if anyone should interfere with the published plans for Evergreen Avenue, and my kneejerk fear is that those who will suffer most are the County staff who are caught in the pincers between their consciences and their superiors and politicians who hold a good measure of dominion over their lives. The Disciples of Progress operate like the law of gravity: “without rancor but without pity.” They just get up every day and do their thing: more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more… ad infinitum. I operate on the assumption that most public officials are either themselves Disciples of Progress, or sympathetic to the “more, more, more “ credo of the Disciples of Progress, or fear for the disposition of their souls at Judgment time if they should question the Disciples of Progress.
I am concerned about the few who may have the wisdom and the courage to ask, “Why are we doing this?” and run for the vomitory when they hear the answer.
Friends in high places? TELL me about it.
To be continued.
Friends in High Places? (TELL me about it!)
SYNOPSIS: Parts 1 & 2 brought us through Mainstream America’s aversion to American Indians, and linked the Marin County Board of Supervisors to the Pomo Indians in Cloverdale and the memorial to them that was lost when a suspicious fire destroyed the historic Cloverdale depot in 1991.
This episode, Part 3, lays out my belief that the fire was truly arson and that an ominous link exists between the Cloverdale affair and the Evergreen Avenue sidewalk project in Homestead Valley because the Disciples of Progress are in charge, and while not obvious, a real and potentially volatile situation is rushing upon us with momentum and freewheeling energy that has built up over many miles of clear and unobstructed track, with nary a thought of cooperation or negotiation and certainly no inclination to brook any changes now. With the Cloverdale affair as a precedent, a kneejerk reaction will soon be invoked to pull a few strings and zingo – it’s done!
Part 3
Several weeks ago the Mill Valley Patch, an online news medium at “http://millvalley.patch.com,” published a feature entitled, “Where am I?” It was a photo of a bronze plaque embedded in the sidewalk near 48 Locust Avenue, (which is behind the Miller Avenue 7-11) which memorializes “Marino,” the Miwok Indian for whom Marin County is named. By their approval of this memorial plaque the Mill Valley City Council is now linked to the Cloverdale affair, at least spiritually, and it would take a pretty feeble imagination to wonder how or why.
Before the fire, in the autumn of 1991, the City of Cloverdale was negotiating with Caltrans to acquire a lot the State owned on Main Street in Cloverdale, between Third Street and Fourth Street, (which the State eventually deeded to the Cloverdale Community Development Agency.) One day my office telephone rang in San Francisco. The caller was an eminent political figure in the City of Cloverdale and wanted to talk about the lot on Main Street. After an interval of official talk about the lot on Main Street, the conversation drifted to the historic Depot, which Caltrans was soon supposed to relocate. Before long this person says, "Cook, if that depot ever catches fire, the fire trucks will never make it on time. I guarantee you that."
They didn’t.
And that is why MY kneejerk reaction is to suspect trouble if anyone should interfere with the published plans for Evergreen Avenue, and my kneejerk fear is that those who will suffer most are the County staff who are caught in the pincers between their consciences and their superiors and politicians who hold a good measure of dominion over their lives. The Disciples of Progress operate like the law of gravity: “without rancor but without pity.” They just get up every day and do their thing: more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more… ad infinitum. I operate on the assumption that most public officials are either themselves Disciples of Progress, or sympathetic to the “more, more, more “ credo of the Disciples of Progress, or fear for the disposition of their souls at Judgment time if they should question the Disciples of Progress.
I am concerned about the few who may have the wisdom and the courage to ask, “Why are we doing this?” and run for the vomitory when they hear the answer.
Friends in high places? TELL me about it.
To be continued.
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