ojai news at The Ojai Post :: blog, newspaper, events in Ojai, California

Power rates could surge - 30% rise possible under SCE plan

2008-07-23T17:24:26Z

ROSEMEAD - Southern California Edison estimates rates for some residential customers could increase by an average of 30 percent or more next year because of soaring fuel prices and costs to upgrade infrastructure, according to a company executive.
Edison filed an application with the California Public Utilities Commission last fall to ask permission to raise electricity rates in 2009. The utility's initial rate forecast included an average increase of 17.5 percent for residential customers, according to a report issued by Edison in March.
Now, Edison expects that number could double. Average residential rates could increase "in excess of 30 percent" when rising fuel prices are taken into account, said Akbar Jazayeri, vice president of regulatory operations for Edison.
Edison's rates are broken into a five-tiered system based on the amount of energy a customer uses. Only

customers within the three highest tiers - the heaviest users - would be affected by the proposed rate hikes, Jazayeri said. "A customer that stays within tier one and tier two will not see any rate increase at all," Jazayeri said.
"It's very important for the customers to start planning and make sure they have energy-efficient equipment and that all steps are taken to reduce their energy usage," Jazayeri said.

Edison said the higher rates are needed because of volatile fuel prices, which have skyrocketed since the utility filed its initial request with the PUC. "We are mentioning this to basically prepare the customers," Jazayeri said. "We are very concerned."

Open Thread

2008-07-23T05:01:49Z

Tyler Suchman http://www.ojaiblog.com/

Ojai City Council - 2008 Elections

2008-07-22T19:40:39Z

I've started a new resource page for the upcoming city elections. I'll be adding information and maintaining it as a community resource. Let us know if you have suggestions, observations, etc. It will be accessible via a link under "Resource Pages" in the upper right of the site.

Ojai City Council Candidates 2008

Camarillo Airport: Skyboy Ultralight

2008-07-21T17:06:27Z

My longtime friend Anthony and I went up yesterday afternoon in his ultralight experimental Skyboy, out of Camarillo Airport. We were going to fly over Ojai, and got as far as the south foothills below Sulphur Mountain, but the fog and mist were rolling in from the ocean. The biggest concern was other planes seeing us.

We were up about 45 minutes, and despite me getting a little queasy, it was a blast. Back down on the ground, other pilots repeatedly walked by to get a look at the Czech Republic-made aircraft, of which there are less than a handful in California. Good times. Takeoff video and more photos after the jump.

Alex Grey - Visionary Art Los Angeles

2008-07-19T22:15:53Z

Last night, Ali-Sun and I went to the Visionary Art LA show, hosted by visionary artist Alex Grey and his wife Allyson. Following an artist panel and a raw vegan meal, the electronica got thumping, artists manned their canvasses and the party went on until the wee hours...

o genki deska? (to save the earth ...)

2008-07-18T20:19:27Z

Toshio Asai is out to save the world from Wall Street.

Asai sees the collapse of the global economic system at hand, and forecasts the disappearance of eighty percent of the corporate world. And, a rare true voice indeed, Asai confirms that this is hopeful ... as only through the ending of our medical corporate state will people return to growing their own food, and learning again how to lead healthy lives.

His life study of diet and health has led him now to teach that the fish that the Japanese were historically accustomed to eat is now deadly, saturated with poisons and toxic metals. So too the rice that is the core of the Japanese diet, particularly the brown rice which retains more of the petrochemical industry promulgated poisons. Add to that the poisoned fruit and vegetables -- and all the oil-rich and processed foods -- and the rapidly declining health of the Japanese public and global community is well understood.

Asai also attempts to dispell the image of Japan as the summit of longevity in today's world. The statistics being perhaps artificially warped by the fact that elderly Japanese are maintained for many extra years by the hospitals and resting homes, without seeming mental presence, in bed-confined states. The numbers are equally skewed by the articially low numbers of infant deaths in Japan, due to the extensive surgery and other drug practices of the medical industry. He sites the traditional reference of the Transcaucasian Mountain peoples between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, Azerbaijan and Georgia, as perhaps the pinnacle of personal longevity. Consequence of a life-style clinging the mountains-sides, drinking the mountain spring water?

My Japanese Oji-I-San (Grandfather) lived to 103 years, and still tended the grounds of his rice-farm, on hands and knees, until he was a hundred. In the last years of his intellectual and conversational presence he claimed that I would live to a longer span than he -- though this accolade might be somewhat colored by the observation that 2-3 years later he was claiming to have lived 137 years -- his calendrical counting accelerating like the windblown leaves from the trees of his final seasons.

Oji-I-San was the village math teacher, and bicycled everywhere throughout his life, never taking to the automobile. He never threw anything away, even saving every single grain of rice left over in his rice bowl, to be made into paper glue at his writing desk.

Does Toshio Asai save every grain of rice, and recycle all his kitchen and (minimal) household waste to the garden? I have no doubts.

Toshio-sama repeats that essentially all health problems result from overeating, which is the (dying) Western cultural norm. He advocates a return to growing your own food, eating locally, growing organically, and culturing lots of probiotics. Specifically he recommends a diet of organic white rice, supplemented by cultured vegetables ... or 'pickles' as they are named in Japan. And eliminating the Western and Junk foods in order to create a healthy diet. He points out that Kombucha, Miso, Natto, and other cultured foods are much healthier than the uncultured varieties.

Clearly he can't go wrong in Japan, advocating an economy centered around locally grown white rice!

O-Genki Deska?

From Rosie and Tillie: Ojai SpokesPigs Alert

2008-07-18T15:49:38Z

This morning we learned of a news report that the United States Army is planning on using our own brothers and sisters -- live pigs -- in a new training exercise.

What kind of training exercise could that be? we wondered. At first we worried it might be something like chasing live pigs, or wrestling them, or capturing them and tying them up or or some other cruel and insensitive practice.

But then we learned the real reason.

The live pigs are being shot with M-16 combat rifles so that the medics-in-training can have some real live bodies torn up by rifle bullets to practice their skills on.

The Army says our brother and sister pigs have nothing to worry about, because the pigs will be anesthetized before they are fired on with M-16 rifles.

Somehow that did not make us feel any better about it.

We know that in this world today the life and feelings of a pig count for less than dirt. We know the medics must be trained to encounter the most appalling conditions of war.

But we pigs are mammals just like you humans. We have a heart and skin and lungs and blood and a very finely developed brain and nervous system.

You would never let dogs be shot like this, would you? Well, we pigs are just as intelligent and sensitive as dogs, even though most of you don't keep us in your houses as pets.

The army even admits it will be traumatic for some of the soldiers because the pigs remind them of their own pets at home.

If you agree with us that this "training exercise" is very very cruel and unnecessary, there is a way you can protest it, and here is how:

Take Action: URGENT: U.S. Army Shooting Live Pigs in Trauma Training on July 18

(Even though today is July 18, unless people protest, the army is bound to repeat this travesty!)

Click here: Army to shoot live pigs for medical drill - Yahoo! News

Thank you!

Sincerely,
Rosie and Tillie
Ojai's SpokesPigs

Meet Rosie and Tillie, Ojai's First Spokespigs
http://www.ojaipost.com/2008/02/_meet_rosie_and_tillie_ojais_f_1.shtml

Art Show At Ojai Community Bank

2008-07-18T02:32:10Z

Years after studying at the Academy of Art College in San Francisco, award winning local artist, Edie Simone, has returned to her first passion, oil painting.

Twenty five diverse oil paintings by Edie are being presented at
Ojai Community Bank, 402 W Ojai Avenue July 1 - August 30.

Already well known around the valley for her gourd art, Edie’s work has been sold by art galleries throughout the western states and the Ojai Valley Museum.

With a Bachelor's degree in Eastern Philosophy and a Master's in Humanistic Psychology, Edie's lifelong fascination with our inner lives has inspired her to paint portraits, landscapes, nature, and experiences that capture essential moments and moods in our consciousness.

Please contact the artist to purchase or commission a painting: ET@OJAI.NET

HELP US "STOP THE TRUCKS!"

2008-07-17T23:23:11Z

In response to one of our recent Public Records Requests to the Ventura County Planning Division, Kim Rodriguez, the Director of the Division made a tacit admission about the lack of any prior independent review of the various Conditional Use Permits (C.U.P.) issued to the Ozena Valley Ranch Gravel Mine. We are grateful for this admission as it is something we had long suspected. We responded in part to the Division as written below:

"Apparently no outside consultant, nor anyone with any with any technical or scientific expertise ever reviewed or analyzed the content and quality of work (or lack there of) with the possible exception of in house staff whose judgment in these matters has already been called into question, the 2001 C.U.P. , the 2003 C.U.P. Modification or the 2007 M.N.D. prepared for the Ozena Valley Ranch Gravel Mine operations and submitted by West Coast Environmental & Engineering (and/or John Hecht, its principle officer) prior to these permits and/or applications being submitted to the Planning Commission for review and/or approval.

If this is incorrect, please advise. However, given the contentious nature of this project, we sincerely hope that this practice of accepting and moving forward on a application with out any serious review of its merits will cease and desist. The citizens of Ventura County and most particularly those in Ojai and the Cuyama Valley expect and demand nothing less from our civil servants..."

We need the continued support of everyone in Ojai to see that these past travesties do not happen again. Please send your donations to the Stop The Trucks! Coalition – c/o The Ojai Chamber of Commerce, P.O. Box 1134, Ojai, CA, 93024, or you may also walk your contribution into the Chamber’s offices anytime during the business week, at 201 S. Signal Street -- in the Ojai Festivals building -- in downtown Ojai.

Howard Smith
More follows:

Rob Varela, Ventura County Star

By Michael Shapiro, Chairman / Stop The Trucks! Coalition

Repeating what I wrote in my Ojai Valley News Guest Editorial -- various news reports about the recent Santa Barbara-based Diamond Rock Mine didn’t tell the full story. It is simply not true that the Stop the Trucks! Coalition prevailed during the recent hearings before the Santa Barbara Planning Commission, and that’s why we’re appealing the decision of the Santa Barbara Planning Commission to approve the Diamond Rock Mine’s Environmental Impact Report (EIR). If we don’t, it paves the way for the granting of their Conditional Use Permit (CUP) and simultaneously strips-away any of Ojai’s legal rights to challenge them in the event that they “change their minds” and hundreds of rock and gravel mine-transport trucks end-up careening through Ojai after all.

Indeed -- unless their ruling is challenged and we win a reversal, Ojai and the Stop The Trucks! Coalition have been stripped of any rights to challenge and review their EIR and CUP as it relates to the health, safety, welfare and environmental havoc that such mine transport truck traffic through Ojai would cause. And this is why our appeal is so important. And although the appeal process will take time and lots of funding – we feel we have a good chance of prevailing as long as we continue to have your generous financial support to stay the course.

To compound the stresses and challenges now facing Ojai and the Stop The Trucks! Coalition, we’re now simultaneously facing an aggressive Ventura County-based mining operation – the Ozena Valley Ranch Rock & Gravel Mine – and what also appears to be a well-entrenched Ventura County Planning staff hell-bent on white-washing innumerable past CUP violations by the Ozena applicant and somehow granting them a renewed CUP and expanded production, regardless of those violations.

The struggle to preserve the traditional ambiance, character, economy, environmental health, safety and welfare of Ojai is rapidly building to a critical mass, and if we are to prevail both legally, administratively and politically, we must continue to have your generous financial and political support.

...With your continued generosity and support now – we will prevail again in this latest and most onerous challenge to Ojai’s preservation as that example of a small, California town of yesteryear… a town who’s economy and environment is supported by education, the arts and tourism, and not rampant, destructive, dangerous and unhealthful industrialization -- which is exactly what massive gravel and rock mine transport trucking would end up causing.

Send your donations to the Stop The Trucks! Coalition – c/o The Ojai Chamber of Commerce, P.O. Box 1134, Ojai, CA, 93024, or you may also walk your contribution into the Chamber’s offices anytime during the business week, at 201 S. Signal Street -- in the Ojai Festivals building -- in downtown Ojai.

For continuous updates on all the news regarding this issue, don’t forget to also log-on to the Ojai Post and “click” on “Stop The Trucks! Coalition.

Thanks so much.

Michael Shapiro
Chair – Stop The Trucks! Coalition

Open Thread

2008-07-17T22:51:37Z

(hat tip Carl Welch)

Carbon Free by 2018?

2008-07-17T20:25:37Z

In a game-changing speech reminiscent of JFK's call to put a man on the moon, Al Gore calls for the US to abandon electricity generated by fossil fuels within a decade, and ties it directly to the economy and national security.

“We’re borrowing money from China to buy oil from the Persian Gulf to burn it in ways that destroy the planet,” Mr. Gore said. “Every bit of that’s got to change.”

...and here's a technical feasibility article by energy banker and international geopolitical author Jerome Guillet on moving to 100% electricity from renewables by 2020. The final paragraph below...

While a goal of 100% of carbon-free electricity is probably unrealistic, it therefore seems possible to get pretty close to that, especially if [existing] nuclear and hydro are included in the mix. A plan that announced a specific goal of 40-50% of wind-generated electricity by 2020 and 10-20% of solar, with the appropriate feed-in mechanisms, demand guarantees for manufacturers and investment in the grid would therefore be realistic, make economic sense, and fulfill two major strategic goals: reduce carbon emissions, and lower fossil fuel demand.

Tuscany

2008-07-17T00:38:36Z

I thought the OP could use a change of scenery on the front page! We are traveling to Tuscany in September. I am dreaming that this will be the view from the modest villa/apartment we have reserved. Has anyone been?

The wood to rebuild Tahoe is sitting there, rotting

2008-07-15T02:40:41Z

A year after the Angora fire in South Lake Tahoe, the dead trees, debris and rubble are cleared from the devastated neighborhoods. New homes are sprouting from the earth to the tune of contractors' blaring rock music, hammers and nail guns.
Lumber to sustain the rhythm is being transported from Canada, Oregon and Washington. Dozens of structures are rising in a cacophony of recovery and new life.
It's all taking place within the afternoon shadows cast by the thousands of dead trees that remain standing on adjacent national forest lands. Although seared and killed by high heat, inside their charred bark is unburned wood, light and bright.

The wood to rebuild Tahoe is sitting there, rotting
By William Wade Keye - Special to The Bee
Published 12:00 am PDT Saturday, July 12, 2008
Story appeared in METRO section, Page B7

Yet despite this volume of usable fiber, these cellulose skeletons will never be tapped to help build a single structure.
Rather, the trees killed by the fire will be left to rot, under assault by insects and fungi, as the U.S. Forest Service plans and plans, and then plans some more, about what to do in the aftermath of the last year's disaster. It doesn't want to get sued, having lost the will to fight against environmental activists and their attorneys.
Judicial decisions have broken the back of a once-proud federal agency, handing de facto control of the public's forest to people who don't like forestry. The wood to rebuild Tahoe is being imported from distant forests hundreds of miles away. This is called protecting the environment.
As an American citizen, I'm troubled that the Toyota Prius was engineered in Japan while Detroit was figuring out how to build a better Hummer. I also don't understand why we, as Americans, can't both expand our domestic energy supplies (including fossil fuels and nuclear power) and push for much greater efficiency, alternative sources and new technology.
As a forester, I don't get the environmental benefit of burning forests down, letting them rot and then – perhaps – trying to clean them up at great expense to taxpayers. I don't accept that we won't look to quickly salvage and utilize dead public timber instead of sourcing our wood from living trees in someone else's backyard, at great cost in terms of wasted energy, carbon emissions and true community. I can't imagine why we don't plant trees in denuded areas just as fast as we possibly can to prevent brush encroachment and deforestation.
These behaviors contribute to global warming. A wildfire such as the Angora fire emits massive amounts of greenhouse gases, followed by years of slow methane release. (Methane is 20 times more active as a global warming agent than CO2.) If, instead of allowing dead timber to decompose, we harvest and utilize it in long-lasting products and bioenergy, we can store carbon for long periods and also offset the burning of fossil fuels. Finally, by not reclaiming the site with a growing young forest, we fritter away decades of opportunity to capture and store high levels of atmospheric carbon. This is something that healthy forest ecosystems are remarkably good at doing.
All over the country there is a movement toward locally grown fruits and vegetables, organic foods and community gardens. People are demanding authenticity in terms of what they eat and where it comes from. It helps us make sense of our lives in an increasingly corporate and impersonal world.
In national forest policy, it should be Prius drivers and organic farmers who are leading the way, clamoring for local responsibility and economies of ecological authenticity. Taking wood from distant forests in order to rebuild in Tahoe should be simply unacceptable. Especially when it's just sitting there, rotting on the stump.
Instead, we accept the grim counsel of the eco-clergy: better to do nothing than risk anything. Burn down the forest, let it go to brush, but just don't touch it. Where our wood comes from is not important.
No wonder the Forest Service has given up on actively managing its lands, even to the extent of trying to keep them green.
Theodore Roosevelt, who set aside most of our vast system of national forests during his risk-taking years in the White House, is turning over in his grave. Roosevelt intended them to be used, not neglected. Conservation was not about minimizing risk, but about maximizing the social good.
Forestry, like sustainable agriculture, is a "can do" enterprise, as integral to the human experience as rebuilding homes after a terrible catastrophe. When we suppress something so wholesome and engaging, we kill off a bit of ourselves. We become poorer, more afraid, easier to corral into a world of diminished possibilities.
The post-wildfire blight and deforestation in Tahoe, and spreading throughout our national forests in the American West, is a Hummer we are driving, wasting resources and spewing greenhouse gases while new life – and fresh oxygen – is so abundantly available.
About the writer:
· William Wade Keye is a California registered professional forester.

Open Thread

2008-07-14T04:35:36Z

Tyler Suchman http://www.ojaiblog.com/

Dishing Ojai: Coffee...and Radio Ojai's Latest

2008-07-13T23:29:29Z

I'm not much of a coffee drinker, which absolutely puts me in the minority here in Ojai. Even in the heat of summer, Ojaians love their coffee. Or do they just love the social aspects of coffee; the see-and-be-seen draw of a well-roasted bean? The camaraderie, the chance meetings with familiar faces, the friendly exchange with the barista who knows your name – all good reasons to seek a cuppa Joe.

About once a week, I’m good for a decaf, nonfat something-or-other. These days I’m partial to decaf ice blendeds – either a Brown Sugar Latte at Full of Beans or a Caramel Latte at Coffee Connection.

Matt long ago inspired a price check on milk on Radio Ojai, which followed with martinis, so it was only natural, in keeping with the liquid culture theme, that we would get around to coffee. You can tune in for the results here, including Matt’s preview of the newest place to get caffeinated: Blanche Street Coffee & Tea.

Local Smitty West (some know him as Scott Smith) recently told me he is a huge coffee drinker, adding “My family is trying to get me to go to CA….Caffeine Anonymous, but I know I can quit at any time so I don’t need to go.” Between sips of coffee, he released his new CD “Your World.” This is the first video from the CD, from the single on track three, “Sequoia,” which he wrote while camping in the Sierras and seeing the destruction of a forest of Sequoias that had been logged more than a hundred years ago:

You can hear another one of Smitty's singles from the CD, an ode to Ojai called "It Ain't Mine," and learn more here.

So, Ojai, what’s in your cup today?

More Dishing Ojai columns here.