As a cable TV show interviewer, I make a much better newspaper editor. Hopefully, some Sutter County residents tuned into tonight’s Comcast candidates forum featuring candidates for the three supervisor races. Tune in tomorrow night for the Yuba County candidates forum, starting at 6 p.m., and to see if I’m any more comfortable under the lights.
As someone whose job duties include regularly reading comments posted to our stories online, I’m struck by the nastiness and mean-spiritedness that often seems so pervasive.
I’m OK with the slings and arrows tossed at the newspaper - that’s to be expected in this business. What troubles me is how eager some people seem to embrace the attack mode: “You don’t agree with me, so you must be stupid.” We offer readers the opportunity to interact, but the level of discourse should be higher. Let’s talk, let’s reason, let’s agree to disagree. But let’s tone down the bad attitude, OK?
“Letter from the editor” on Sunday attempted to give some insight into how the Appeal-Democrat provides coverage of events. Not sure if I succeeded.
Have you checked out the Appeal-Democrat’s “Database Central” lately? We recently added restaurant inspection reports, highlighted by results from inspections of Sutter County eateries. We’re still working on getting Yuba County information.
Hey, newspapers must be cool if MTV is airing a reality series, right? “The Paper” follows the students of Cypress Bay High School — home of the award-winning newspaper “The Circuit.”
The series description: “Find out what it takes to build an editorial team and run an award- winning paper. Follow the staff of “The Circuit” from beginning to end, from brainstorming to getting the pages to the printer. And with a new editor-in-chief in charge, watch the drama unfold!”
Love the drama.
Maria Fotopoulos, a senior writing fellow with Californians for Population Stabilization, a nonprofit concerned with the impacts of overpopulation on California, sent this column via e-mail. I couldn’t squeeze it into paper, but thought it should get some attention.
“The Missing Link in Our Earth Day Activities”
Through the loud and persistent voices of Al Gore, the Natural Resources Defense Council, numerous other environmental organizations, thousands of activists and the businesses and cities that have adopted truly green models, the absolute necessity of living sustainably has become mainstreamed. More people truly are trying to live sustainable lifestyles.
With this increased awareness, Earth Day has become not just one day in the month to acknowledge Mother Earth, but essentially “Earth Month” with festivals and celebrations throughout April in cities and towns across the country. From environmentally friendly face painting for the kids to products made from cotton grown sustainably and goods made from recycled materials, these festivals show it’s fun to be green.
If you’re pushing for change, making that change palatable is of course desirable. So bully for all the green successes. They should be celebrated.
It seems no one in the environmental movement though has figured out how to serve up a palatable plate during Earth Day of one of the key components to environmental degradation and overconsumption. Maybe that’s because there’s little good news to celebrate about overpopulation.
In the five minutes it will take you to read this piece, more than 1,200 babies will have been born in the world. On a yearly basis, the globe adds about 81.6 million people. While it took perhaps some 200,000 years to reach a population of 1 billion homo sapiens on Earth, it took only 123 years to add the second billion humans and 33 years for the third.
Trying to comprehend these huge numbers is akin to trying to understand the huge budget deficit in the federal government. It’s easier to look at smaller – albeit still huge – numbers. In recent years primarily through immigration and the addition of American-born children of illegal aliens to the state, California has been adding about 500,000 people annually. This is a number equivalent to what 20 years ago would have been considered a fairly large city.
The impacts of overpopulation are clearly seen here in California in burgeoning schools, budget shortfalls, diminished quality of life, inferior air quality, jammed traffic and lost biodiversity. On a global scale, one of the most obvious impacts is seen through wars (fought over lands and other resources, for example). And a most current impact of overpopulation is seen in the food riots of recent weeks, which have been “explained” as simply a problem with “markets.”
While overpopulation was a fixture in the early environmental movement – I very distinctly remember getting the message of “Zero Population Growth” in the ‘70s growing up in a small town in Oklahoma – it’s practically absent from current public discourse. And the organization formerly known as Zero Population Growth even gave up on that name and is now Population Connection.
On this Earth Day, it would behoove us all to remember – and then act upon – the words of Earth Day’s founder, the late Senator Gaylord Nelson. “The bigger the population gets, the more serious the problems become,” Nelson said. “We have to address the population issue…. It can be done.”
(The Californians for Population Stabilization Web site is www.capsweb.org)
Observing “4/20″ is a big deal in my old stamping ground. What’s 4/20? Read on.
From the Sutter County Taxpayers Association:
YUBA CITY – All eight candidates vying for three positions on the Sutter County Board of Supervisors will participate in a candidates’ night/town hall meeting on Monday, April 28. The event, hosted by the Sutter County Taxpayers Association, will also include information on Measure R, the Sutter County Charter Initiative.
KUBA’s Bob Harlan will moderate the question and answer period for the supervisor candidates and former Yuba City mayor and Sutter County supervisor Ron Southard will present information on Measure R. There are five candidates running for supervisor in District 1: incumbent Larry Montna, Jeff Boone, Rick Libby, Gabrial Singh and Melinda Russell. The District 4 race pits challenger Sylvia Oakley against incumbent Jim Whiteaker, with James Gallagher running unopposed in District 5.
The meeting will be held at the American Red Cross Headquarters, 2125 East Onstott Frontage Road in Yuba City starting at 7 p.m.
“We encourage the public to attend and listen to what the candidates have to say about their visions for the future of Sutter County and what their positions are on the many issues that face the county such as flood protection, roads repairs/improvements, pension costs, development, Sutter Buttes and jobs,” said Taxpayers’ President Pat Miller. “It is important for the citizens of Sutter County to educate themselves as to what is happening in the county, where the candidates stand, and to vote in the June 3rd primary election.”
Danny Federici, a charter member of Bruce Springsteen’s E Street band and the musician Springsteen credited with bringing “the boardwalks of Central and South Jersey alive in my music,” is dead at 58 from melanoma. My favorite Federici musical moment: his organ work on “Kitty’s Back.” Just saw Springsteen and the band at Arco, and admittedly it wasn’t the same without “Phantom Dan,” who had stopped touring with his fellow E Streeters last year as he battled his disease. We’ll be missing you.
Want to know what you can do about the local gangs and drugs problems?
Young people will discuss how gangs and drugs affect the community at a “Gang and Meth Awareness Night” for adults only sponsored by the Sutter County Superintendent of Schools-intervention and prevention programs.
The program is at 6 p.m. Thursday at Boyd Hall at Feather River Academy, 1895 Lassen Blvd., Yuba City.
The Community Youth Outreach program will include representatives from the Yuba-Sutter Gang Enforcement Team and the Substance Abuse Steering Coalition.
For more information, contact the Sutter County Probation Department at 822-7320.
