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Haven’t really been in the mood to post today, other than in the comments section. Been busy anyway. But we lost at least one teenage girl to a car accident yesterday. She was the daughter of a prominent local businesswoman and a friend. The other young woman, a former client of mine, had just graduated from South Fork and currently suffers a coma. I’m not going to say much more so as to respect the families’ privacy for as long as it can last. Those of you who know whom I’m talking about please devote some prayers and thoughts to the families. Hug your own kids. That’s what I’ll be doing.
I’ll probably resume posting tonight or over the weekend.
My wife being out for the evening, I was trying to get the kids down for sleep when the phone rang. I was instantly greeted by a mechanical voice identifying itself in the royal “we” as part of some research organization asking me to take 45 seconds to respond to some questions. By the third or fourth question I realized it was a sleazy push poll.
The first couple of questions were fine. It asked me if I was registered to vote in California. I had to answer audibly “yes” or “no,” to each question, so I complied without complaint until it got to the substance, which was “do you support the concept of federal wilderness area” or something like that.
“Yes.”
“Do you realize that some members of congress want to declare portions of Humboldt and Del Norte counties as wilderness land?”
“No, but I’m glad to hear it.” (Obviously the machine heard simply the “no” part, because it got to the next question almost before I could finish the sentence.)
“In wilderness area you cannot construct even one structure, nor introduce any mechanized vehicle such as a bicycle. Does this make you more or less likely to support the designation of wilderness area in your area?”
“More, defini—” (Stop trying to talk to the machine moron!)
“Development in areas surrounding wilderness area (I think it gave me some specific mileage, I’m not sure) is prohibited. Does this make you more or less likely to support the designation of wilderness area in your area?”
“More.”
“Some members of congress want to use wilderness area to stop development in towns in your area. Does this make you more or less likely to support the designation of wilderness area in your area?”
“More.”
Then it offered some alternative designation of land that allows for certain “management” activity and still guarantees the serenity of the land, blah, blah, blah, then it asked me which I would prefer to see in my area.
“Wilderness.”
“Are you aware that wilderness area can increase the danger of fires, such as the biscuit fire and the Canoe Creek fire near Salmon Creek that resulted in the evacuation of over a hundred residents? Does this make you more or less likely to support the designation of wilderness area in your area?”
“Definitely, more.”
“Please state whether your answer is ‘more,’ ‘less,’ or say ‘repeat.’”
“More.”
Either that was the complete survey or the machine gave up on me. Didn’t seem like 45 seconds. Anyway, it thanked me and hung up.
So does anybody know what legislation it’s talking about? Sounds like something I’d want to support.
Update: So there is a bill in the works, and apparently somebody is nervous about it – perhaps anticipating a change in the make-up of congress next year. I found a few articles on a topic that I certainly haven’t followed, including this one. And The Wilderness Society has this summary (with links) of various bills, including HR233 / S2432, the “Northern California Coastal Wild Heritage Wilderness Act.”
Why haven’t I heard about the proposal?
Being the quasi-hippie parents of two young kids, we buy a lot of soy milk. At this point both my 1-year-old and my 4-year-old prefer it to cow’s milk. For some reason, probably because it was the first box we grabbed off the shelf, we started both off on vitamin enriched WestSoy. On one occasion, when Asher, my oldest, was younger, we ran out of WestSoy and the local store was out of stock. We tried Soy Dream, but he made it very clear that he didn’t like it, though he wasn’t quite at the level to communicate why. And the bad parents we were, we didn’t think to check the labels.
Well, it happened again recently. Luckily Lilith is young enough that she doesn’t have quite the prejudice. But Asher explained that Soy Dream “isn’t sweet enough.” Sure enough, my wife compared labels and a serving size of WestSoy contains 12 grams of sugar, while the same amount of Soy Dream contains 4 grams.
Personally I can’t stand any of it, so I never noticed. Live and learn.
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