Santa Cruz

Organic Food and Red Herrings

Jacques Delacroix Current Events, Religion , , , , , ,

I use my editor’s privilege to respond here to Ryan MH’s argument in the piece entitled: “The Cost of Organic Food: An Exchange.” I do this for the sake of clarity alone. Ryan has unfettered access to this blog.

Let me begin by stating that I congratulate myself for having elicited a serviceable and seemingly complete definition of “organic” from Ryan. This is the first time someone give me a definition, in my whole life!

Ryan MH is all over the place  to such an extent that I felt like crying in my turn as I read. So, let me specify what I am interested in.

The issue of the high cost of organic food only matters to me because I believe that it is not different from a health standpoint from non-organic food grown in this country. I think it has no merits for the consumer except in his head.

I am focusing on the portion of the organic definition that had to do with the genetic modification of organisms by methods others than the traditional methods of artificial, guided, purposeful selection and hybridization by sex methods and such. This means pretty much methods that existed before World War Two.

Ryan said in my presence that  foods modified by new methods (“genetically modified” except that these terms have no meaning.), that such food have adverse effects on human health.

If Ryan MH did not say this or something identical, for practical purposes, I have no discussion with him. I must have misunderstood him and I apologize for wasting his time and yours. Continue reading →

Santa Cruz Vandals, Drums, and Left-Wing Authoritarianism

Jacques Delacroix Current Events, Politics , , , , , , , , , , ,

I live in wonderful times in a wonderful place. Important history is re-playing itself before my eyes. This a sequel to my recent previous blogs (“Freedom Fighters…” and, “The Leftist Municipality….”)

The story has to do with the fact that a few fast-moving people dressed in black caused about $100,000 worth of damage in six or seven storefronts withing three blocks of each other. (The damage cost estimate comes from the local paper. I cannot verify it.) That was in Santa Cruz, California.

The vandals came out of a demonstration of a few hundred young people with no particular agenda, except the usual vague left-wing slogans and a few more about the new Arizona law on illegal immigration . (See my posting on that too: “Illegal Immigration…,” “The Arizona Immigration Law…,” and, “Immigration: More on Conservative….”) It was supposed to be a “May Day” celebration, but May Day is the first of May and the demonstration was on the second. Well, nobody is perfect and this is a beach town.

I did not learn much from the videos on YouTube except that one demonstrator was wearing a tie. There seems to be a consensus that the window breakers were few and well prepared and that they had kept their intentions secret. I believe there were fewer than ten actively involved in the vandalism.

There were no police present at the scene for a long time. I pointed out in previous postings: 1 That the police had other priorities, and, 2 That it was not surprising that they did, given the nature of the city government. Here is more, more blatant evidence. Again, this is contemporary political history in a small capsule. Continue reading →

Le voisinage. (C’est presque pareil partout!)

Jacques Delacroix Liberty ,

La banque, ma femme et moi possèdons une jolie maison de style victorien. Elle est située dans une petite ville côtière, à 100 kilomètres au sud de San Franciso. Notre maison, comme toutes celles du quartier, date d’environ 1900. Elle est en bois, comme presque toutes les autres, dans ce pays de tremblements de terre.

Le terrain comporte un arrière-jardin clos, avec des arbres fruitiers (qui produisent bien, merci) et un avant-jardin donnant sur la rue. De ce côté-là, nous jouissons d’une vue imprenable sur le parking de la mairie, un bâtiment long et bas, en fer-a-cheval, dans le goût faux-mexicain des années 20, plutôt agréable, à vrai-dire. En saison, un vrai train folklo (pas un tramway) passe devant chez nous, au beau milieu de la rue. Les voyageurs, en wagons ouverts, saluent de la main. On leur rend leurs saluts quand on a le temps.

Les voisins de gauche sont des gens à la cinquantaine accusée, bienveillants et serviables mais pas éclatants de beauté. Lui, est musicien de blues, amateur certes mais tout à fait actif. Elle, est en retraite, je ne sais pas de quoi ou d’où. C’est sans importance; l’étiquette sociale de “retraitée” lui va comme un gant. Elle, est gentille mais elle a l’allure de la retraitée règlementaire: pas toujours coiffée dès le matin, les espadrilles un peu éculées. Ces voisins de gauche se sâoulent plusieurs soirs par semaine, en famille, gentiment, sans troubler la tranquilité du voisinage. Quand ils ont bien bu, ils se déshabillent complètement et font trempette dans leur jaccuzi plusieurs heures d’affilée. Ils ont placé la cuve chauffée, à dessein, sous un gros arbre feuillu censé les abriter des regards, ou censé abriter les voisins du spectacle, ce n’est pas clair. Malheureusement, en Californie, la température reste douce bien après la chute des dernières feuilles. Malheureusement, mon second étage surplombe leur arrière-jardin, lieu de leurs ébats aquatiques. Continue reading →

Les pumas de Bécon-les-Bruyères

Jacques Delacroix Current Events , ,

Mon neveu français, qui aime la Californie, hésite à y venir camper avec sa famille parce que j’ai eu le malheur de mentionner nos pumas devant lui. Comme j’y habite depuis plus de trente ans, j’ai à coeur de le rassurer en lui présentant les fait tels qu’ils sont, tous nus. D’abord, il faut savoir de quoi on parle, bien sûr: Le puma est un grand carnivore qu’on appelle communément en Anglais: “mountain lion”, et aussi, “cougar”. (Il y a d’autres noms régionaux.) Il ne faut pas dramatiser: Il y a plus de pumas en Californie qu’en Ile-de- France mais ce ne sont pas vraiment des “lions”. Voici la réalité.

Les pumas sont présents dans tout l’ouest des Etats-Unis, c’est-à-dire, partout à l’ouest du Mississipi. Il en est aussi en Floride, sous un autre nom. Il y a même de bonnes raisons de penser que le territoire de ce beau carnivore est en train de s’étendre vers l’est. Des habitants du Vermont, à l’extrême nord-est du pays en ont signalés mais l’équivalent américain des Eaux-et-Forêts n’a pas confirmé, au moins jusqu’ici.

Mais revenons à nos moutons (si je puis dire, expression malencontreuse, peut-être!) Les pumas adorent la Californie, comme presque tout le monde d’ailleurs, et ils y sont de plus en plus nombreux. Les causes de cette préference sont d’ordreà la fois écologique et politique. D’abord, et bien que la chasse au chevreuil soit légale en Californie en genéral, les municipalités et les cantons (“counties”), animés par un souci de respect de l’environnement, y mettent de plus en plus d’entraves, Ceci sous forme de réglementations diverses dont certaines concernent simplement la décharge des armes à feu.

Les résultats de cette politique sont évidents: Dans les zones montagneuses sans grosse population, tout chasseur est bien forcé de mériter son chevreuil. Continue reading →

The Boy Who Has Everything

Jacques Delacroix Politics, Religion , ,

I am taking a leisurely drive down Highway 1 from San Francisco back to Santa Cruz after dropping off a friend at the airport. (For my friends in Tennessee: Highway 1 in California is simply the most beautiful coastal road in the world. In central California, where I live, the shoreline on which it runs is mostly undeveloped except for a few artichoke farms and some dairies.) It’s a sunlit but windy day. I stop at Waddell Creek to watch about fifty kite surfers. Behind me is a small swamp and beyond it are the redwood-lined slopes of Big Basin.

In the parking lot, a hitch-hiker waves at me. Now, I have a complicated relationship with hitch-hiking. On the one hand, that’s the only way I had to get to school my first two years in this country. On the same hand, I crossed this country hitch-hiking twice both ways when I was in my twenties. Yes, that’s about 12,000 miles total. Of course, I didn’t not know this the first time I started. In addition, I hitched from San Francisco to St Louis, Missouri in the middle of the winter to be with a girl. My journey gave her a lot of face. She showed her appreciation accordingly. On the other hand, I have no doubt that today, a good percentage of hitch-hikers are dangerous by reason of insanity. Moreover, for me, living in Santa Cruz, there is an existential dilemma in picking up many hitch-hikers: Do I want to help reach their destination transient people I consider undesirable flotsam once they have reached that destination, down the street from my house?

But, this hitch-hiker is different, I can tell. He is trim, muscular and handsome. It turns out also that the quick part of my mind has noticed that he is wearing a “hiking hat” that must have cost $40 in the L.L.Bean’s catalogue. There is another guy next to him similarly well-outfitted. Both are in their late twenties. I stop my pick-up truck (my pick-up truck, an important detail, culturally). The first guy explains that he and his buddy just finished their two-day hike through Big Basin State Park and that they need to call their ride but that there is no phone reception where they are standing. Continue reading →

Coyotes: How Government Bureaucrats Think

Jacques Delacroix Current Events, Liberty, Politics , ,

In my area of central California coyotes recently attacked two small dogs that were romping around. Both dogs survived. The attack took part in a public park of some sort. The reaction of the rangers (How I hate this semi-heroic designation for cops in green uniforms!) :

We are going to enforce leash laws more strictly. The attack would not have happened if the dogs had been on leash.

Why not regulate coyote behavior while you are it? You might add to the list of forbidden things on the signs posted everywhere:

Coyote attacks on dogs not allowed.

Somewhere in the depths of the bloated California bureaucracy there might even be a subsidized artist to design a cute symbol signifying the same thing, for coyotes who can’t read. While we are at it, why not a sign in Spanish also?

There is another approach to all this: Dogs like to run around. In fact, most of them need to run around to be healthy. Dogs who run are happier than dogs who don’t.

Coyotes will eat anything, small dogs when they get a chance. It makes them happy. Dog owners know this. They are morally responsible for their dogs. They are the ones to decide what’s the greatest risk for their pet: unhappiness and a constricted life vs the risk of a very rare wild animal attack. Continue reading →

A Good Society: The Coffee Proof

Jacques Delacroix Philosophy , , ,

We still live in a good society. I keep forgetting this and life keeps reminding me.

I have a younger friend who graduated with honors and with a major in Philosophy. I liked him just for that. It sure beats a major in”Psychology,” or one in “Management.” Incidentally, I know that some of my readers know that I used to teach from a “Management Department.” My excuse is that I tried very hard never to teach whatever you think is “management” and that I pretty much succeeded overall. (This story will have digressions. It’s one of those days. Go with the flow.)

Anyway, my friend takes care of several coffee shops. He has become the owner’s right hand by din of being hard working and just plain reliable. Two things happened to him as a result. The first is political. My friend went to the University of California at Santa Cruz, where Stalinists communists are considered conservative. So, of course, he used to be kind of a left-winger. (That would be the honest kind, the kind that does not knowingly make false statements.) Nowadays, though, the closer the he gets to the books, to the actual accounting of the coffee shops, the more he moves to the political center. Who ever said philosophy is “useless?”

The other thing that happened to my friend through his work is that he became a coffee connoisseur. One day that he inquired about a present for me, I said, “ Surprise me with coffee.” He did. He brought me a small quantity of a variety I had never heard about. “How did you like it? “ he asked two days latter.

Well, I stopped lying – except in emergencies – at about the time I stopped lying to women. And, incidentally, there was never much reason to believe that I ever, ever deceived a single woman. Mostly, they listened to my lies smilingly because they liked the poetry of them.

At any rate, I replied to my friend that his gift coffee did not paint my particular town red. He had this superb response I have not been able to get out of my head for days now; he said that that particular coffee was “divisive.” I am so lucky! I live in a society so peaceful, so prosperous, so fulfilling that here, expensive coffee can be considered divisive!

The Little Greatness of America

Jacques Delacroix Liberty , , ,

A Celtic music band plays loudly on the stand. Three little girls look at one another demurely, they exchange a few words and pretty soon they are dancing in front of the stand. The little blonde took the initiative and the lead, but the black girl twirls in the air with the grace of a young gazelle. The third girl is Asian, as luck would have it. She copies assiduously the blond girl and the black girl. What can I do? I am not deliberately creating or reinforcing stereotypes; I am calling the play as it unfolds before my eyes.

I must add, for the sake of the integrity of my reporting, that the little black girl seems surprisingly well-prepared. Her eight braided queues make her look adorable. That hairdo must have taken hours to create. She came wearing black tights and a matching short black skirt with sequins. Her elegant performance looks a little premeditated. I compliment her mother as they are leaving. Mom thanks me brightly but do I detect a bit of smugness in her smile?

My small town is having its annual summer Arts and Wines Festival. Some of it is a little pokey, of course, because this is a small town. Having heavy wine breath in the sunny afternoon would be an example of pokey by my standards. Much of the weekend festival is good, or even very good, like many artsy-craftsy things are in Santa Cruz. Continue reading →