BEST

(For reasons that I explained last week, this blog, Felton League, will be discontinued; but there are still a few old articles that can be recycled like this one from last October.)

B-enchlands E-stuary S-tewardship T-eam is the BEST! They remove both trash and invasive exotic (nonnative) plants from the portion of the San Lorenzo River that flows through Santa Cruz and into Monterey Bay. Some team members are residents of the Benchlands Encampment at San Lorenzo Park or nearby neighborhoods. Some are members of the Santa Cruz Downtown Streets Team, which also collects trash elsewhere in Santa Cruz County, including here in Felton. All are volunteers.

BEST was organized in response to concern about the sensitive ecosystems of the San Lorenzo River, and, among other issues, the consequences of habitation by unhoused residents within such ecosystems. Direct involvement of the associated unhoused residents not only utilizes their coordinated volunteer efforts as a primary resource, but also provides them with ecological and environmental insight, which is a collective asset to the local unhoused Community. Others of the local unhoused Community are more likely to respect the sensitivity of the ecosystems in which they reside if they are more aware of how detrimental some of their activity can be to such ecosystems, or if they are aware that others within their particular Community take the initiative to mitigate some of the consequences of potentially detrimental activity.

For a distinctly socially disadvantaged segment of the Community, BEST provides opportunity for social, as well as environmental, contribution and improvement. This is more than socially and personally gratifying. It is healthy!

For the distinctly disadvantaged animal and plant life that inhabits and interacts with the associated ecosystems, but is unable to defend them, BEST does what it can to alleviate various ecological incursion, and promote recovery. So, BEST is not only healthy for the human participants, but is also healthy for the native flora and fauna of the intricate ecosystems of the San Lorenzo River Estuary.

Bad Journalism

Very coincidentally, this recycled article is in regard to some of what I would have written about if I had written an article for this week. It explains both my inability to commit to the continuation of this blog, as well as the lack of relevant topics to discuss within the context of this blog. As I exhaust the supply of older articles to recycle, while simultaneously neglecting to compose newer articles, it has become obvious that this blog was essentially discontinued quite a while ago. Although a few more older articles may continue to be recycled here during the next few weeks, I will not likely compose additional articles. My erratically diverted career continues to evolve and become more interesting. The collective social situation of the socially disadvantaged Community of Felton generally continues to improve. It is therefore appropriate to formally discontinue this blog at Felton League.

Felton League

There are two primary reasons why the brief articles that post here have been of less than exemplary quality for the past year or so. Actually, they have been of rather substandard quality. (Okay, they have been downright ‘bad’.) I would prefer to avoid such unpleasant description; but that would merely defer the obvious.

Firstly, the second of the two primary reasons for the compromised quality of posts here is the lack of time to devote to composing them. I am simply overworked. It is a long and irrelevant story. To be brief, I continue to write horticultural articles for a few newspapers between San Francisco and the Los Angeles Region, while also working as many as three days weekly to help maintain landscapes at a local Conference Center. I know that I should retire from such writing, but can not bear to do so. Nor do I want to…

View original post 160 more words

Summer House

Ah, if only relocation were simpler.

Felton League

Because so much of my work is online, I can do it anywhere. Therefore, for the past many years, I have considered the acquisition of a so-called ‘summer house’ in another region, where I can live for parts of the year when I do not need to be here. Of course, and contrary to the seasonal designation, I would be more likely to go there during autumn or early winter rather than during the busy summer season. Such acquisition has always been delayed by local obligations, as well as other unrelated travel. There is no need to work remotely when I already work remotely.

Nonetheless, the investigation of real estate in other regions has been interesting. Although many of the properties that appealed to me were very small and isolated homes in (horrid) desert regions (because such regions lack vegetation that is so distracting to horticulturists like me), some of…

View original post 221 more words

Personal Aversion

It is mere coincidence that this article is recycled as I plan for my next trip to Southern California, and Los Angeles.

Felton League

As much as I want to go, I also slightly dread returning to Los Angeles next February. I have more than four months to plan my trip, in order to accomplish what I intend to do while there. It will be a vacation of sorts, with only limited professional obligations. There are a few touristy follies that I have somehow always neglected, which I will now prioritize. I should be completely pleased with anticipation. I almost am.

However, I do not want to observe the situation with the unhoused Community there. It has become so prevalent. It can be oppressively saddening to see so many people in such unpleasant conditions. Although most other social conditions of many regions of Los Angeles have improved since I first visited in about 1986, homelessness has increased substantially. It can not be ignored.

Some encampments of the unhoused have become somewhat perennial within their…

View original post 150 more words

Gentrification

This seems like too much of a good thing.

Felton League

Clients sometimes ask me if I can recommend a qualified arborist, gardener or landscape designer. (I am a horticulturist and consulting arborist.) For many years, I have been unable to do so. Some clients inform me that they spent millions of dollars on their home, so are willing to spend whatever is necessary to maintain the associated trees and gardens. Their expenditure is irrelevant. I still can not recommend qualified horticultural professionals who are not already overwhelmed with the demand for their respective expertise.

The problem is that horticultural industries are not lucrative. Most who are employed with such industries do not earn income that is sufficient to afford to live here or anywhere within practical proximity. (It is rather ironic for a region that had formerly been famous for horticultural commodities.) Consequently, they must live and work elsewhere.

This is one of the few problems associated with gentrification. Those…

View original post 150 more words

China Town

China Town is not merely one town. It is a designation for particular districts of several Communities throughout the World. Many of such China Town districts were developed to accommodate immigrants from China who were unwelcome to inhabit portions of the same Communities in which they worked. China Town of San Francisco, which is the oldest major China Town in America, originally accommodated immigrants from China as they transitioned from mining and railroad construction to shipping and industrial work within San Francisco.

Such institutionalized discrimination confined development of many China Town districts to regions that were undesirable to others within their respective Communities. The last China Town of Santa Cruz was located within the floodplain of the San Lorenzo River, east of Front Street, mostly between Soquel Avenue and Cooper Street. It developed as a residential neighborhood after a fire destroyed a previous China Town in 1894. For the following half century, it was slowly replaced with more industrial development, until the Christmas Flood of 1955 destroyed the last few remaining residences.

Half a century later, the Benchlands Camp, which is inhabited by many of the unhoused of our Community, developed directly to the northwest of the former China Town, on the opposite side of the same floodplain of the San Lorenzo River. It is just as vulnerable to flooding as the former China Town was, but unlike the former China Town, occupies an area within a public park that is intended to be accessible to everyone of the Community. Very understandably, the Community wants to recover their public park space.

Incidentally, the Benchlands Camp developed as a result of the evacuation of the former Ross Camp to the southwest of the Highway 1 Bridge over the San Lorenzo River. The former Ross Camp was outside of a levee that excluded flooding, on otherwise unused land that is owned by Santa Cruz and California.

Live In Fear IV

One advantage to a lack of unpleasant topics to write about, in conjunction with a lack of time in which to do so, is that I must, on rare occasion, recycle a contrarily delightful article such as this.

Felton League

This is becoming too much like a miniseries. To disrupt the monotony, we could consider the alternative to choosing to living in fear. After all, that is what most people prefer to do. They appreciate the Community in which we live. The climate and scenery are certainly assets also. Actually, there are many reasons why we live where we do. There are a few unpleasantries that occasionally instill major fear, such as the CZU Fire, the Loma Prieta Earthquake and the Love Creek Mudslide; but most of us prefer to fear them only when justified.

Society is certainly not perfect. That applies everywhere. There is always some degree of social problems such as crime, mental illness and homelessness. Few choose to live in fear of these imperfections. Most prefer to enjoy their particular society, and contend with social problems only as necessary. Precautionary measures, such as home security systems, are…

View original post 150 more words

Live In Fear III

This blog evolved from another (sort of) blog that was established partly to share insight regarding the innate problems of local homelessness. Since then, such problems have diminished. Actually, there has not been much to write about for a long time. That is good. Actually, it is awesome. Homelessness is not such a major problem within the local Community as it had been only a few years ago. Most who had been homeless are not only doing well within domestic situations, but some are doing remarkably well. Perhaps this blog should discuss topics such as that rather than discussing problems. For now, and because I lack time to write a new article for this week, this article from last summer will be recycled.

Felton League

As mentioned last week, “Those who choose to live in unrealistic or unjustified fear seem to be rather deficient of common logic.” This is exacerbated by their ignorance of such deficiency, or worse, by their innate but unfounded belief that they are somehow more logical than others of the Community.

For example, many of those who choose to live in unrealistic or unjustified fear want all homeless encampments to be demolished without a plan for those who would be displaced by such demolition. They simply do not understand how important planning is, or that a lack of planning is contrary to the intended results of the unplanned demolition that they want.

No one wants homeless encampments within the Community. Those who inhabit such encampments, including the few who do not require domestic situations, would prefer more stable lifestyles. Neighbors understandably dislike the unsightliness. In some regions, the associated fire hazard…

View original post 154 more words

Live In Fear II

Again, it is necessary to recycle an old article. Not only do I lack time for writing, but I also lack topics to write about. That second limitation is actually good, since so much of what I wrote about in the past was bad. Perhaps I should write more about how well so many of us have been doing during the past several years, . . . later. For now, this recycled article, which seems to continue from last week, actually continues from the article of three weeks ago.

Felton League

“Those who choose to live in fear have the option of relocating to someplace where they do not need to live in fear.” I mentioned this last week, with a few examples of unpleasantries that those who choose to live in fear might otherwise choose to emigrate from. One example that I mentioned was, “If they fear houseless people, (…), they can relocate to someplace that is unpopular with (…) houseless people (…).

Does that seem harsh? It should not. Some of those who choose live in fear of the houseless commonly suggest that the houseless should relocate in order to accommodate them. If this is so easy or such a practical concept, then it should be just as easy or practical for those who choose to live in fear of the houseless.

After all, and contrary to what those who live in fear of the houseless claim, the majority…

View original post 156 more words

Bad Guys

According to a scant but annoyingly vocal few within Society, homelessness is necessarily synonymous with crime, violence and a variety of social deviancy, as if everyone who lacks a domestic situation conforms to such stereotypes. Similar misconception implies that such deviancy is mostly exclusive to the unhoused Community, and therefore less applicable to those who inhabit domiciles.

Simple omission of facts and data requires less effort than falsifying facts and data. It is not difficult to portray the most notoriously villainous or disreputable of the unhoused Community as representative of the entire unhoused Community. However, doing so is about as logical as associating everyone who inhabits domiciles with the most notoriously villainous or disreputable of those who inhabit domiciles.

These are some examples of unhoused people of historical significance who do not represent any more of the unhoused Community than any other component of Society:

Jesus Christ and His Twelve Disciples

Saint John the Baptist

Siddhartha Gautama Buddha

Mahatma Gandhi

These are some examples of housed people of historical significance who do not represent any more of the housed Community than any other component of Society:

Adolph Hitler

Joseph Stalin

Saddam Hussein

Idi Amin

Incidentally but interestingly, the majority of the most inhumanely socially deviant and evil people of history systematically perpetuated unfounded malicious stereotypes regarding their victims. Many continue to do so. It is how they justify their mistreatment of their victims, whether Jews, Christians, Shia Muslims or any other distinguishable group. If it becomes socially unacceptable to perpetuate malicious stereotypes about a particular group, another likely innocent group is pursued instead. For the inhumanely socially deviant and evil of Society, the abuse of their victims, whomever such victims might be, is much more important than truth or logic. It is one of several symptoms of their mental disorder.