©Joe Medieros
STANISLAUS CONNECTIONS
Working For Peace, Justice, and A Sustainable Environment
January 2004
Living Lightly
Rivers
of Birds, Forests of Tules: Central Valley Nature & Culture in Season
By
LILLIAN VALLEE
5.
Macro-sky, Micro-birds
In January and February,
the earth and sky trade places. The land, normally the site of so much activity
against a rather uniform blue, now seems abandoned and possesses an unearthly
stillness. Trees, stripped of their leaves, do not rustle; fields, stripped of
their crops, lie exposed; and winter gardens have few of the showy fruits and
flowers of later months. Cold temperatures add to the torpor by discouraging
walkers, freezing water, and wilting winter vegetables. In our part of the
Central Valley, most of the action moves into the underground (that pesky
gopher) or into the skies (those glorious, dwarfing skyscapes). Then the
bustling, sometimes malevolent, housecleaning winds show up, moving enormous
quantities of soil and seed, knocking dead branches from the trees, and
uprooting living things with shallow roots.
This past Friday a great
billowing canopy of every cloud on the cloud chart stretched from the dark face
of the Diablo Range to the glistening Sierra Nevada: cloud formations mimicked,
in turn, furrows of plowed earth, battalions of sheep, misshapen witches’
hats, towering breakers, boulders and cliffs. The sun disappeared under gunmetal
streaks broken only by the mildest wildflower pink or blue. That evening the
full moon sported one grizzled eyebrow making the night sky look like the giant
eye of a raven. In looking long at earth and sky, the rapt observer rediscovers
the raw origins of chthonic (earth-based) and ouranian (sky-oriented) religions:
the slumbering and quickening earth, the animated heavens, the powerful forces
that push and prune, scatter and bless, threaten and descend.
The stark architecture of
valley oaks reveals that they are not simply trees but communities: evident at
this time of year are their remnant galls; hawk, egret and heron nests; owl
perches; and acorn woodpecker larders. The eloquence of leafless oak limbs is
punctuated by the movement and color of small songbirds, musical messengers from
distant kingdoms and miniature brethren of dinosaurs. Many of these, sometimes
labeled “various micro-birds,” weigh a bare fraction of an ounce and possess
an intricate and marvelous beauty, the probable prototype for fairies and angels
and other winged intermediaries between heaven and earth.
Is there anything more
disarming, for example, than a small flock of bushtits (Psaltriparus minimus), each weighing less than two-tenths of an
ounce, busily gleaning microscopic insects from an oak and then descending to a
communal bath in which they twitter with abandon while all fifteen perform their speedy ablutions? David Allen Sibley describes
these hippies of the bird world as “disheveled-looking, long-tailed ball[s] of
fluff” almost always engaged in “sparkling chatter”; bushtits are the most
convivial birds I have ever seen with the exception of a band of elegant but
tipsy cedar waxwings with a pronounced weakness for privet berries. The year we
cut the privet down, the flock of waxwings arrived and stared morosely at the
oak sapling that had replaced it.
The bushtits have other
endearing habits: they fly singly from one tree to the next, plucking insects
and spiders, never crowding one another, each bird following the one ahead, so
that at the end of the day (or when they bathe), they are together. According to
Sibley, when it is cold, “foraging flocks roost communally in dense cover,
often huddling shoulder to shoulder during cold spells.”
Another bird with energy
and sociability in inverse proportion to its size is the oak titmouse (Baeolophus
inornatus), once known as “the plain
titmouse.” Yet there is nothing plain about the language experts use to
describe it: “confiding” (because it can be induced to take seeds from your
hand), “acrobatic” (its strong legs allow it to exploit the buds at the ends
of twigs), prone to “mobbing” (that is, chasing, dive-bombing or generally
attacking large birds of prey to make them leave) and “cultural learning”
(their British relations or “tits” learned how to puncture the
foil/cardboard caps on milk bottles delivered to doorsteps and to drink the
cream at the top!). They also cache seeds (for now and
later) and have been studied for their impressive spatial memories. Two days ago
I happened to see one (they weigh a hefty six-tenths of an ounce) scolding a
young cat spellbound by the bird’s audacity.
But it is the ruby-crowned
kinglet (Regulus calendula), another
foraging and fidgeting insectivore, whose name tells the best story. A muted
(Sibley calls it “drab”) olive-yellow with a pale eye ring and bright red
crest on adult males, a kinglet weighs just over two-tenths of an ounce. This
“hyperactive midget” (as Kenn Kaufman calls it) also seems “confiding.”
I have walked along the hiking trail at Sousa Marsh at San Luis National
Wildlife Refuge in the company of two kinglets who flitted from weed stalk to
weed stalk, looking up, flicking their wings, busily gleaning, alert but not
uneasy.
Once upon a time there was
a contest to determine the king of the birds. All the birds competed to see
which could fly the highest, but the eagle knew he was the mightiest, and he
approached the contest with characteristic arrogance. During the last moments of
the competition, as the eagle soared to victory with the last of his strength,
he was surprised to find the kinglet above him. The eagle had not realized the
kinglet had hitched a ride on the eagle’s back, and when the raptor was
exhausted, the kinglet flew even higher and was declared king of the birds. The
eagle was so furious he chased the kinglet into a mouse hole and asked his
crony, the horned owl, to watch the mouse hole while he attended his coronation.
Of course, being a nocturnal bird of prey, the owl fell asleep, and the kinglet
escaped, winning the crown. To this day, the kinglet wears his ruby (or gold)
crown as a reminder that not arrogance and brute strength, but mental acuity and
wise use of resources determine the quality of leadership. But that’s not all:
the kinglet is also a vigorous singer and has a reputation for “rich, warbling
song” during breeding season.
The next time you see a
ruby-crowned kinglet plucking insects or spider eggs from the vegetation in your
garden, give that drab but savvy citizen a little nod of approval.
Sources:
Kenn Kaufman, Birds of North America;
David Allen Sibley, The Sibley Guide to
Birds and The Sibley Guide to Bird
Life and Behavior; and Bohdan Dyakowski, Our Forest and Its Inhabitants.
Critical Mass in Modesto forms
By DOUG GILBERT
Critical
Mass is a worldwide movement of bicyclists who take to the streets to realize
that they
aren't blocking traffic, they are traffic! Instead of a smog-filled
unsustainable world of gas-guzzling SUV's, we would like to see sustainable
energy and transportation. Come, ride with your friends (some bikes will be
provided), and see what happens when autonomy hits the streets!
Critical
Mass promotes alternative forms of transportation and fosters a better, more
connected community. Critical Mass is designed so riders can be a part of the
flow of traffic, but obey streets signs, and leave lanes open for car traffic.
This is an all-family event. We will stay safe, ride together, and HAVE
FUN!
CRITICAL MASS WILL RIDE THE LAST FRIDAY
OF EVERY MONTH.
CRITICAL MASS POINTS OF PURPOSE:
1) To promote alternative forms of
transportation and energy. The
current use of fossil fuels is not only costly and environmentally-destructive,
but not sustainable for future generations. Critical Mass works to advocate
non-destructive forms of energy.
2) Celebrate autonomous group
organization and participation.
Modern society is constructed under hierarchical structures based around
capital, the state, and patriarchy. Critical Mass works as an autonomous system,
where all involved are in charge of directing and managing the desired outcome
of the social situation.
3) Reclaiming public space.
Private property brings the worth of most things down to that of only its worth
in connection with profit. Through actively using space in a way that liberates
our desires, we connect with that in which we, as a class, produce.
4) Act in solidarity with other groups
seeking change. Critical Mass sees
itself not as the solution to all problems facing our world, but as part of a
larger movement against authoritarianism, hierarchy, and empire on a global
scale. We seek to give attention to various problems through our actions, and
also act in solidarity, when we can, with other groups.
ACTION:
When: Friday, February 27th, 5 p.m. Where: Gather outside of Brendan Theaters
and 10th St. Place. After the ride, gather again at Tower Park, 17th and G St.
where Food Not Bombs will feed a special meal.
New Agriculture Sec’y stresses
nutrition
Community Alliance with Family Farmers (CAFF) member, A.G. Kawamura,
recently named California Secretary of Agriculture by Governor Arnold
Schwarzenegger, is a third-generation farmer, growing and marketing fresh
produce along the city of Irvine’s urban boundary. He has worked intensively
to resolve hunger in his community and to educate the public about farming
issues. He and his brother lease 600 acres of small parcels scattered around
Irvine for their Orange County Produce.
Kawamura's involvement with progressive food and agriculture issues
includes supplying produce to local food banks, the creation of Common Ground
Farm as an outdoor classroom for local middle school students, the creation of a
student exhibition farm called Centennial Farms on the Orange County
fairgrounds, and introducing high school students to careers in agriculture. He
also developed the Incredible Edible Park, an edible landscaping project planted
along a local bike path.
Kawamura is also focusing on nutrition as a vital piece of the overall
hunger problem. "We've started keying into the fact that hunger is a
symptom of malnutrition, " he says. “On my farm, plants that don't get
all the nutrients, don't get enough water, don't thrive. How can kids be any
different? We have an entire nation, rich and poor, that is not getting adequate
nutrition."
"We need the consumer to support local agriculture and to convince
the chain stores that they will make money supporting local people. We all need
to move together in a sustainable direction, " says Kawamura.
(Edited from the "Agrarian Advocate", the CAFF newsletter. An innovative farmer, A.G. Kawamura should provide a different perspective than previous state Secretaries of Agriculture. The non-profit CAFF, promotes sustainable and economically viable farming that works in harmony with nature. For info go to www.caff.org
“Nonviolent
Towards All Life”
By
VASU MURTY
In his 1975 book, Animal
Liberation, Australian philosopher Peter Singer writes that the “tyranny
of human over nonhuman animals” is “causing an amount of pain and suffering
that can only be compared with that which resulted from the centuries of tyranny
by white humans over black humans.”
Singer favorably compares
animal liberation with women’s liberation, black liberation, gay liberation,
and other movements and optimistically observes: “the environmental
movement...has led people to think about our relations with other animals in a
way that seemed impossible only a decade ago.
“To date,
environmentalists have been more concerned with wildlife and endangered species
than with animals in general, but it is not too big a jump from the thought that
it is wrong to treat whales as giant vessels filled with oil and blubber to the
thought that it is wrong to treat (animals) as machines for converting grains to
flesh.”
Although prophetic,
historical voices have been raised in defense of animals and the environment,
organized religion is just beginning to understand that the “sanctity of
life” includes other species. According to Benedictine monk, Brother David
Steindl-Rast, all life on earth is interconnected:
“...the survival of our
planet depends on our sense of belonging to all other humans, to dolphins caught
in dragnets, to pigs and chickens and calves raised in animal concentration
camps, to redwoods and rain forests, to kelp beds in our oceans, and to the
ozone layer.”
English metaphysician John
Locke attacked cruelty to animals in his “Thoughts on Education,” which
dealt with the raising children to be virtuous and humane. “This tendency to
cruelty should be watched in them,” wrote Locke, “and, if they incline to
any such cruelty, they should be taught the contrary usage. For the custom of
tormenting and killing of beasts will, by degrees, harden their hearts even
towards men. And, they who delight in the suffering and destruction of inferior
creatures, will not be apt to be very compassionate or benign to those of their
own kind. Children should from the beginning be brought up in an abhorrence of
killing or tormenting any living creature.”
Count Leo Tolstoy became a
vegetarian pacifist in 1885. Giving up “sport” hunting, and was opposed to
killing all living creatures, including ants. He believed there was a natural
progression of violence, a slippery slope that led inevitably to war among human
beings.
In his essay “The First
Step,” Tolstoy wrote that flesh-eating is “simply immoral, as it involves
the performance of an act which is contrary to moral feeling; killing.” By
killing, Tolstoy argued, “man suppresses in himself, unnecessarily, the
highest spiritual capacity, that of sympathy and pity towards living creatures
like himself and by violating his own feelings becomes cruel. And how deeply
seated in the human heart is the injunction not to take life!”
Leading Protestant
theologian, Dr. Albert Schweitzer, taught: “We need a boundless ethics which
will include the animals also.” Schweitzer opposed the use of animals in
entertainment. “I never go to a menagerie,” he once wrote, “because I
cannot endure the sight of the misery of the captive animals. The exhibiting of
trained animals I abhor. What an amount of suffering and cruel punishment the
poor creatures have to endure to give a few minutes of pleasure to men devoid of
all thought and feeling for them.”
Reverend Marc Wessels of
the International Network for Religion and Animals (INRA) admits: “...many
animal rights activists and ecologists are highly critical of Christians because
of our relative failure thus far adequately to defend animals and to preserve
the natural environment. Yet there are positive signs of a growing movement of
Christian activists and theologians who are committed to the process of
ecological stewardship and animal liberation.”
According to Reverend
Wessels: “The most important teaching which Jesus shared was the need for
people to love God with their whole self and to love their neighbor as they
loved themselves. Jesus expanded the concept of neighbor to include those who
were normally excluded, and it is therefore not too farfetched for us to
consider the animals as our neighbors.
“To think about animals
as our brothers and sisters is not a new or radical idea. By extending the idea
of neighbor, the love of neighbor includes love of, compassion for, and advocacy
of animals.”
Rachel Carson wrote:
“Until we have the courage to recognize cruelty for what it is whether its
victim is human or animal we cannot expect things to be much better in this
world. We cannot have peace among men whose hearts delight in killing any living
creature. By every act that glorifies or even tolerates such moronic delight in
killing we set back the progress of humanity.”
In a 1990 letter,
vegetarian labor leader Cesar Chavez similarly observed: “Kindness and
compassion towards all living things is a mark of a civilized society.
Conversely, cruelty, whether it is directed against human beings or against
animals, is not the exclusive province of any one culture or community of
people. Racism, economic deprival, dog fighting and cockfighting, bullfighting
and rodeos are cut from the same fabric: violence. Only when we have become
nonviolent towards all life will we have learned to live well ourselves.”
Peter Singer concludes,
that “by ceasing to rear and kill animals for food, we can make extra food
available for humans that, properly distributed, would eliminate starvation and
malnutrition from this planet. Animal Liberation is Human Liberation, too.”
The animal rights movement
should be supported by all caring Americans.
