In Their Backyard (cont'd)

About 7 months ago, I wrote about a community meeting in West Oakland where most in the audience were "out-of-towners" who could leave this highly polluted neighborhood and return home to a healthier place.

At Wednesday's follow-up meeting on diesel impacts on health in West Oakland, the demographics were only slightly different, in favor of the local residents, but not different enough to dismiss the recurring question of why more people directly impacted by these issues were not there. Was it that the meeting hosts (California Air Resources Board, Bay Area Air Quality Management District, Port of Oakland, and Union Pacific) didn't get the word out? Aren't the residents concerned about their health? Were they too busy or tired from working already long hours -- or possibly even at work during the meeting -- to attend?

Whatever the reasons, something needs to be done to get the community more engaged, because, as was confirmed last night, "The West Oakland community is exposed to diesel particulate matter concentrations that are almost 3 times [higher than in other parts of the Bay Area] (West Oakland Study)." This supplements findings that "In 2005,...state data [revealed] that West Oakland children ages 5 and under visited the emergency room for asthma at a rate nearly 3 times higher than children in the county overall,...and a study of death certificates dating to the 1960s showed that residents of West Oakland live 10 years fewer than people living in the Oakland hills (SF Gate article)."

So will this continue being an issue of "in their backyard, so not my problem"? For many of us, I think it needs the attention and involvement of the residents themselves first.

Patricia's Green

...in Hayes Valley. That's the name of the thin strip of urban park in northeast SF, bordered by Fell, Hayes, and two halves of Octavia Streets; and surrounded by picturesque rows of unique shops. Frolicking kids climbing the domed jungle gym are a regular blur to us each time we speed past this patch of green along the Fell Street artery to the west side of the City. We decided to pull over recently when slowed traffic allowed us to notice Isotope, a fun comic book store adorned with madly illustrated toilet seats and run by joyful tall-haired owner James. Our stroll took us past a walk-up kiosk of the Blue Bottle Coffee Company, which is all the rage among some friends; and Stacks', a chic breakfast joint. We also visited La Boulange de Hayes, featuring "only organic flour, filtered water, and sea salt" in its delectable pastries and aromatic breads. While sipping our mocha and Orangina in the bakery, we stared skeptically at Patxi's Chicago Style Pizza across the street.  That'll certainly bring us back during mealtime on another day, to see if it passes my Chicago boy's authenticity test.  As we departed, the rain came to nourish Patricia's Green, a haven in an otherwise urban expanse.

Reach The Summit

I'm a slug...or my friends are freaks. No offense to slugs (or freaks), but compared to buddies who have achieved amazing athletic feats like marathons, the Iron Man, and the Century Ride, I'm quite the slow mover. The latest physical challenge I'm hearing about is CR's Reach The Summit trek to the top of Mount Hood, Oregon's highest peak, in June. He's doing it in support of the American Lung Association of Oregon.

From underground to the top of the world... I first met the guy in 1995 during my summer internship at Lava Beds National Monument ("Club Beds") where we explored caves and monitored bat colonies. Not sure how deep underground we ventured, but I remember many hours of hiking in dark catacombs illuminated only by our headlamps, and eerie silence except for our steady boot steps and occasional *thunk* of a hardhat against a low overhang.

Now CR is training to hike from about 4,000 to 11,237 feet in two days! (You go!) He has a fundraising goal of $6K, which will be used to support... [excerpted from his letter]:

• Research into promoting lung health and preventing lung diseases;
  
• Being pro-active in environmental health issues and the fight against outdoor air pollutants;
• Reducing tobacco use, especially among young people, which is responsible for >40,000 deaths in the U.S. each year.
  

I'll send you more info if you'd like to sponsor him.

The Real World

It's fast becoming a trend these days to spend vacations on "reality tours". That's when socially-conscious travelers sign up to get up-close with life in the slums or alongside those on the frontlines of humanitarian crises like modern-day slavery. The main purpose of these tours is to educate, with the hope that people, like ambassadors, will tell others about their first-hand experiences and help create greater global awareness about social injustices. Some outfits also serve a secondary cause, like the ones aimed at favelas (shanty towns) in Rio, which train local children to be tour guides as an alternative to begging.

But I wrestle with whether these tours really benefit the people who are living the hard life. Is a 300-rupee tip to take a photo of a child digging through garbage a charitable gesture? Critics call these kinds of tours voyeuristic and accuse tour guides of making money from the plight of others. For now, I tend to agree...

Welcome to the Family

We welcomed 8 new additions to our fish tank ecosystem this weekend. Meet newcomer neon tetras Frodo, Sam, Pippin, and Merry; and long fin blue danios D'Artagnan, Athos, Porthos, and Aramis. They joined the fellowship of Gandalf the gold-skirt tetra and Ottawa, our algae-eating Otto catfish.

I'm a cat-lover, he's deathly allergic to felines (to the extent of "OMG, my throat is constricting 'cos a cat was in the vicinity within the last 24 hours"). He'd like a dog big enough to ride, and I'm not into the heavy slobber that I associate with "rideable" ones. So unless we discover a hypoallergenic cat or dry-mouthed dog, our pets will probably always be fish.

Note: Amazingly, these stock photos look very much like the ones in our tank!

Springing Forward

Interesting. I guess I was saving money without even knowing it during my pre-Daylight Savings days in Bloomington, IN, and Singapore...

Another eHow

For our first Thanksgiving dinner that we co-hosted while we were dating, A & I got instructions on how to roast a turkey from eHow.com. It turned out pretty well! Useful tips for almost any challenge you may be facing, from overhauling your car's suspension to styling your limp hair (very important) to busting the latest break dancing moves.

Instructables.com is another survival guide that's worth checking out, especially when you find yourself in a bind like this.

Maybe I should share some wisdom of my own...like how to enjoy scary movies without really watching them. (Deadpan accomplice required.)

No Whey!

I stole that title from a speech I heard today at Toastmasters. I'm never disappointed when I attend a meeting 'cos I get to practice my public speaking skills and learn about some fascinating topics that my fellow TMs choose to expound on. Today, we were schooled on the deleterious* effects of cow milk. In a riveting 10-minute spiel, this guy built a fairly strong and convincing case against the popular national mustache campaign by presenting medical findings linking milk consumption with the exacerbation of several diseases, including Crohn’s, diabetes, and (get this) even osteoperosis. A major culprit: recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone (rBGH) produced by biotech company Monsanto, which has been charged with falsifying data in product tests, was a maker of Agent Orange, and has one of the strongest lobbies in D.C. (I learned a few other things I didn't want to, like how pus and other icky stuff plays into all this, but I'll spare you the details.)

Milk. Building block of life or White Poison? This is making my head hurt. (Supposedly another side effect of drinking milk.)
__
*deleterious - our meeting's word of the day