RICH MAN A JAILED MAN & CALIFORNIA SNAPS

JUSTICE TASTES LIKE PRISON
FOR A ONE PERCENT MOGUL

     The Associated Press and the Sacramento Bee report the fall of a food industry tycoon and one of America's super rich.

     Frederick Salyer was one of the most influential and powerful men in the agriculture industry, but is headed to prison, convicted of price fixing and lying to consumers about the quality of his tomato products.

     US Attorney Benjamin Wagoner says, "This is a tremendous fall from power. He was one of the richest and most influential..."

     Salyer was accused of bribing buyers for companies such as Kraft Foods and Frito Lay to pay inflated prices for his products which were then passed along to consumers.

     Federal Prosecutors say Salyer told his workers at SK Foods to lie about the quality of his product, the mold content and whether the product was organic. Government records say moldy tomatoes were processed into paste, pasta sauce and salsa.

     Salyer's tomato farming-canning empire dominated 14% of the market.  The AP says Salyer is from one of the West's oldest land and farming dynasties, going back generations. 

     The government found that Salyer and co-conspirators manipulated the price and quality of millions of pounds of tomatoes, paying bribes of up to $100 thousand.

    Government records indicate Salyer tried to move some of his fortune to Andorra, a small nation between Spain and France. He made a down payment on a condo there. He is under house arrest at his Pebble Beach mansion. The wealthy captain of industry has been sentenced to six years.  

     I wonder if he'll eat the prison tomato sauce. I also wonder if Banking and Wall Street regulators or US attorneys have the same verve as the team that brought down Salyer. US Attorney Wagoner says he hopes the conviction will send a message to the agriculture industry to keep fraud out. Fraud-Investment banking?  Hey, Mr. Attorney General Holder, are you listening? 

CALIFORNIA ODDS AND ENDS

This beauty graced Main Street in Cambria's West Village.

   Wasn't the original color either black or green?  What do you think of this upgrade?

  Sometimes a sun dappled day at a winery is not complete without paella.  

Good night sun.

  Do you see those fresh oranges, hiding away?

 Odds and ends indeed!

     See you down the trail.

POWER

MULTIPLICITY OF POWER

natural-phantom-shopping

A GOOD BLOW

    California's central coastline is roiling with strong surf

     driven by the first of three punches of wind and rain 

     coming in from the north.  Storm #1 left a half inch in our gauge and debris on the beach.

      15 to 20 foot waves are expected through the weekend.

    The power of the sea rakes the kelp beds.

     Writers, painters and nature lovers take inspiration from
the seasonal brooding.

PHANTOM POWER

     Appliances in our homes and offices that remain in stand by (televisions, chargers, microwaves, computer boxes) cost us hundreds of dollars a year.  David I. Levine at UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business wrote an eye opening piece for the LA Times. 

     Read and learn about "phantom power" by linking here.

OUR POWER TO SAVE LIVES

     Unraveling this string of circumstance may lead us to an uneasy truth.  Many clothing shoppers seek the lowest price, sometimes even over quality. Manufacturers seek to lower production costs. Clothes are made abroad, in nations with "cheaper" labor and without benefit of health and safety standards.  

     The 112 people killed by a fire in a Bangladesh garment factory were making clothing for Wal-Mart, Disney, Sears, Sean Combs, Teddy Smith and Edinburgh Woollen Mill as reported by the Associated Press. 

      When asked about these tragedies, and there have been several, retailers and even manufacturers often cite contract language and explain how they are sometimes duped by sub-contractors over which they have no control.  Some of that may be true, but it is also disingenuous and refuses to accept responsibility. 

      Retailers award contracts to those who can make their product most cheaply. That maximizes their profit while offering a product that we can buy less expensively. So we are back to our role in perpetuating sweat shops where humans are abused because of profits and low prices.  

      I've heard people explain how the poor of other nations are at least given work.  Yes, but under what conditions?  And at what cost to American workers, put out of work by out sourcing to cheap labor markets?  We really can't escape our blame in these tragedies.  Well, maybe my mom could have.  Before her passing, she made a habit of never buying any thing but Union and or American made goods.  She even returned gifts if they did not pass that test.  Wonder if that is even possible today?

      See you down the trail

       

VOCALIZING

MEN AND THEIR OATHS

Photo Courtesy of Coast Guard, California Highway Patrol and the Associated Press

     It sounds as though the 77 year old pilot and his son were pretty cool as they waited two hours to be pulled from the sinking pontoon plane.

     The AP reports the son says his dad landed it well, in the Pacific, a mile off shore of San Simeon, north of Cambria.

They were on their way for an annual Alaskan fishing trip when the engine died.  Their locator beacon worked and in a couple of hours the Coast Guard chopper was at work pulling them up, just as the plane was beginning to sink.

      What do you think a dad and son would have to say to each other as they bobbed amongst elephant seals, great white sharks and took the waves in a dead plane? Few conversations get that kind of setting.

COACHING YOURSELF IN OUTBURSTS

AND OTHER OATHS

    It was amusing to hear what came from other tennis courts as our group took a break between sets.  Guys were being vocal with them self, berating their own play or lack of control.  Since the courts are on a school campus there is a club policy against profanity. In that context I heard a few God    Bless Americas! being hurled in that voice that seems as if it struggles with control.  Mostly, guys talking to themselves, like a coach; keep your eye on the ball (insert name), stroke it, don't poke it (insert name), oh!, where were you going with that shot (insert name)? 

     In a few minutes I was back on the court, and probably 

fully engaged in that "hybrid coaching" well.

     We love our games don't we?

     See you down the trail.

EXPLORATION

PUSHING BOUNDARIES

     Here's some context.  Jimmy Carter was in the White House, Magic Johnson was at Michigan State, Stephen King released The Shining, Tom Watson won the Masters and Apple released their new color logo. 
     35 years ago today one of this planet's greatest accomplishments was launched. Voyager 1 began the journey that today has taken it 11 Billion miles and to the edge of our solar system.  Voyager 1 and companion Voyager 2, now some 9.3 Billion miles in another direction, continue to mine data of deep space, soon to be interstellar space. Voyager has gone the farthest human kind has reached.
     On board are those gold discs containing sounds, data and renderings of human life, in case an intelligence encounters our sub-compact car sized "human offspring" wandering beyond our knowledge base.
     Alicia Chang of the Associated Press reports each Voyager "has only 68 kilobytes of computer memory.  To put that in perspective, the smallest iPod-an 8 gigabyte Nano-is 100,000 times more powerful. Each also has an eight-track tape recorder."
     Mind bending isn't it?

THE OTHER BOUNDARY

      Jack Kerouac's cult classic On The Road was published by Viking Press on this day in 1957.

From back cover of ON THE ROAD

       The original manuscript, a long continuous roll of type written script, now belongs to Jimmy Irsay, owner of the Indianapolis Colts.  

        A few years ago the late George Plimpton told me he was in an office as the On The Road manuscript roll was being read and considered.  He said while it may be revered now on that particular day, people in the office were having  fun unrolling it across the floor and back, like a kid's toy.

Photo from mountholly-lamano.com

DAY FILE

GARDEN NOTES

      We've got a "volunteer" and "mystery" squash growing
down the back hill side.  

     Not sure what it is-something like a butternut or summer squash.  We've had a few and it bakes and sautés nicely and is great in a casserole.  I decided to pick a few when they were smaller.  One that had "hidden" beneath a slope side leaf grew to the size of a small pumpkin. That "prize" went home with a stone mason working on a neighbor's fire pit. He was delighted.

     A tomato update.  The "beautiful" greenhouse continues to endure evening breezes and winds and the crop inside flourishes. It ain't pretty, but the crop is.

      It continues to amaze us that we can grow tomatoes in this climate near the Pacific fed by the cooler than 
hot and humid mid-west conditions which favor tomatoes.

See you down the trail.

BEING TOUGH

BRAVO TO THE TOUGH GUYS

     It takes special character to evince toughness in 

the face of the winds of adversity.

 Photo by Daniel Ochoa E Olza/AP

   Juan Jose Padilla is tough.  You may disapprove of his sport

 Photo by Elena Munoz/AP

and you may even think of him as a fool, but you can not deny his courage.  The picture above was taken in October as he was being gored by the bull he was fighting.  He was severely injured and disfigured.  That he even survived surprised many.

 Photo by Daniel Ochoa Ed Olza/AP

     This is the 38 year old Spanish bull fighter back at work this week. Five months after narrowly escaping death, Padilla returned to the ring.

 Photo by Daniel Ochoa De Olza/AP

Photo by Daniel Ochoa De Olza/AP

     He did it he said because of the "...need to win, to triumph, to be a better man."

     Too bad Ernest Hemingway wasn't around to see a 

genuine article. 

      Juan Jose Padilla's comeback offers a perfect 

transition to one of my favorite Presidential Quotes.

Teddy Roosevelt

April 23, 1910 at the Sorbonne, Paris.

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat. 

Hat's Off to another tough guy

     I've posted previously about Bob Foster, my friend and former colleague, who is in the midst of a bone marrow transplant in his recovery from leukemia.  Bob is not only tough, he demonstrates great humor and wit in the midst of battle.  Here's one of his daily postings, from just a couple of days ago.

Healthcare is like an artichoke (Sorry about the vegetable choice for the metaphor. I don’t like onions.) The longer you are treated for a condition, the more you finally learn the “why”.

I am gobbling down 3,200 mg of magnesium per day. Yet, I remain magnesium deficient. At this moment, I am receiving another 2,000 mg by IV. (That’s 5,200 mg for those of you listening in Loma Linda.)  

An anti-rejection drug (Don’t you wish a drug could have prevented rejection when you were dating in high school?)prevents some magnesium absorption. Got it. But that much? No.

This afternoon I learned engrafting cells consume mega amounts of magnesium and potassium to make new blood cells. Holy catfish! Those little buggers are ravenous. They must be grinding out new cells at warp speed. (“Make it so, Number One.” –Jean Luc Picard)  And God is Number One. 

Thank you, Jesus. Rev up that IV pump. Hand me the bloomin' pills. Engraft on, Lord.

I am crying with gratitude. Folks, your prayers are being answered. Was there ever any doubt?  

Here's a toast to all who battle on with courage and 
conviction, be the foe disease, a bull, a bully, an ideologue, a racist, sexist, ageist, corruption, poverty, or ignorance.
DAY BOOK

A TOUGH CHOP

See you down the trail.

REMEMBERING CHINESE ROCK PICKERS, GIVING TO CHARITIES & ACADEMIC SURF

RESPECT DUE

The striking sculpture in San Luis Obispo's

Rail Road Square pays respect to the Chinese

workers who made rail roads a reality.

Chinese influence on the American west coast has

been largely under appreciated.  Gavin Menzies book

1421 The Year China Discovered the World

claims Chinese sailors made it to the American west

before Europeans made their way to the east coast.

While that view is not universally accepted

it is clear that Chinese helped shape the

American west.

Chinese also worked in the Cinnabar mines of
the central coast. 

Generation of Chinese families harvested kelp on the

Central Coast.  The San Luis Obispo sculpture

is a beautiful reminder of what was back breaking

labor that helped develop the west.

SURFS UP

IN ACADEMIA

A San Diego State researcher and surfer has opened the world's first Center for Surf Research. Read the piece by Julie Watson of the Associated Press by linking here.

AND WHERE DOES THE MONEY GO?

Investigative reporter Will Evans of CALIFORNIA WATCH

is out with a timely and eye opening piece on 

Charitable fund raising.  

Before you respond to a phone or mail solicitation read the piece by linking here.

My own years of investigative reporting lead me to

find the charity's excuses a bit dubious.  When I contribute

I want to know the money is going for the said cause

instead of building a data base or brand recognition.

WILDLIFE BATTLES

KILLING THE BIG CATS

  

Photo by California Department of Fish and Game

The graphic scene from high in the Eastern Sierra near Rovana illustrates
the centerpiece of an ongoing wild life management debate.
Should big mountain cats, mountain lions, some call them cougars,
be killed to protect the endangered Sierra Nevada Bighorn Sheep?
Wildlife experts say there are maybe 400 Sierra Nevada Bighorn Sheep. They say
at most, there probably has never been more than 1000.  When they were federally
listed as endangered in 1999, the number was down to 114.
The Sierra Nevada Bighorns are a relative to the more common Desert Bighorns with their rounded horns, the type used on Ram trucks and by the football team.

The alpine Eastern Sierra is vast, rugged and a harsh environment.
The Associated Press reports 23 mountain lions have been killed by trappers in the 
last ten years.  There are said to be some 5,000 Mountain Lions in the region. The AP says the cats have eaten at least 59 sheep. In the same ten years 1,079 mountain lions have been killed for threatening livestock or pets.  
THE NUMBERS
5,000 Mountain Lions
400 Sierra Nevada Bighorn Sheep 
Passions run on both sides of the kill issue.  
For the time being the lions can be killed only  if
they are proven to have killed a sheep.  Of course a
lot can happen in the wild that goes beyond monitoring.

DAY BOOK

HAPPY COWS
as the commercial says
"California Cows are Happy Cows."

See you down the trail.