Welcome to Saturday's Potluck

“Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.”
Pablo Picasso

Earliest memory of a wildfire was kindergarten. A community wide request for all able-bodied adults to grab a shovel and head to the fire line to protect the city. Dad picked me up early so he could go fight the fire. Great Grandma's house was close enough we could watch the flames. If it got too close instructions were to get down to the other side of the river about 20 blocks away.

Smoke plumes and flames are a regular part of the horizon during summer and fall. A string of arson fires in the 90's changed the local approach to wildfire prevention.

Central Oregon learned many lessons from that 3,500-acre fire — the words “defensible space” are etched into many people’s way of life. The FireFree effort and Project Wildfire offered lessons on how to create a safe zone around homes, and yearly free disposal of yard debris to make it easier to keep those areas clear of fire fuels.

Also, neighborhood rules that often required the woodsy feel of a wood-shake roof, to blend into the woods, did a 180-degree turn, with bans on such roofs in many communities and subdivisions.

As wildfires hit areas in what became known as the “wildland-urban interface,” the Oregon Legislature in 1997 passed Senate Bill 360, the Oregon Forestland Urban Interface Fire Protection Act.

Probably why I live in the middle of irrigated pastures.

Learn about the three zones of home protection from wildfires.

The concept of the home ignition zone was developed by retired USDA Forest Service fire scientist Jack Cohen in the late 1990s, following some breakthrough experimental research into how homes ignite due to the effects of radiant heat. The HIZ is divided into three zones.

Understanding the Wildfire Threat to Homes video and transcript (pdf).

________


Fire-resistant Landscape Plants for the Willamette Valley
a pdf by the Oregon State University Extension Service.

The Willamette Valley is known for mild, wet winters, but summer droughts leave the valley as vulnerable to wildfires as drier areas of the state. You can decrease the potential for loss from a wildfire by creating defensible space around your home.

To do this:Reduce the level of wildfire fuels around your houseKeep brush areas thinned and clear of exces-sive dead wood, and use fire-resistant mulches in areas immediately adjacent to your home. Choose decorative rocks and gravel instead of wood-based mulches. Use fire-resistant plant materials in your home landscaping.

No plant is fire-proof. However, some plants are considered to be fire-resistant if they:• Are high in moisture with supple leaves• Don’t accumulate deadwood within the plant• Have water-like sap• Have low resin level

________

Interactive map showing air quality with ozone and/or particulate matter 2.5.

________

What is on your mind today?

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Below see a photo I took from about one mile away looking back up river toward the house I was leasing in Yosemite NP.
The South Fork Fire there came within about 100 yards of the houses in the wildland urban interface zone at the "far end" of the town of Wawona.
smoke_plume_from_fire_by_my_place_small.jpg
As the fire got close to the houses there were tons of helicopters circling the area to monitor the fire activity. The rangers came around door to door and warned everyone to be ready to evacuate. At this time I could see the smoke plume was near to the house. Then about 4 hours later they came back and told us to evacuate. As I left the house I could now see flames in the trees nearby. Lucky for me I was able to escape the fire scene and go stay at the beach with friends in Southern CA during the evacuation. The houses where I was living were mostly all Park Personnel housing. They pulled out all the stops to keep the fire from taking out any structures. With Federal, State and Local fire fighting resources allocated to fight that fire there was a huge effort made. The instructions for any out of control fire situations causing all escape roads to close were to go to the center of the golf course at the hotel and hope for the best.

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studentofearth's picture

@jbob to see if small smoke columns expand into significant fires. Far enough away not personal danger. The firebombers have been flying over the house off and on for the past few days.

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Still yourself, deep water can absorb many disturbances with minimal reaction.
--When the opening appears release yourself.

what a mess we have made
perhaps ol' ma nature is warning us

thanks for hosting soe!

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studentofearth's picture

@QMS does not seem to be in the forecast.

Been enjoying your Open Threads.

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Still yourself, deep water can absorb many disturbances with minimal reaction.
--When the opening appears release yourself.

Lookout's picture

...made me think of hecate and his experience.

Wishing him and all westerners in the "line" of fire safe and well!

We've been through fire here too, but it is a different scale...understory with some (mainly bark) damage to older trees. We created a firebreak trail system that could be plowed if we needed too. I've never experienced a canopy fire.

Well take care everybody!

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

studentofearth's picture

@Lookout The description of burned people to describe survivors of the fire was so accurate. Living through severe tragedies changes people. New migrants to an area often scoff at the warnings or described experiences at recreate the same situation that contributed to the tragedy.

Each of our landscapes are different and bring their own challenges to natural disasters. The insides of our homes are probably more similar in risks and potential preventative measures. A firebreak trail system is a new concept I need to ponder.

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Still yourself, deep water can absorb many disturbances with minimal reaction.
--When the opening appears release yourself.

earthling1's picture

In that first link from the NFPA, there is so much wrong with that HIZ graphic.
To begin with, the immediate zone takes in what appears to be an inflamable concrete patio, but ignores a detached garage that is so close to the home it would take both structures with it.
Secondly,even the intermmediate zone fails to take in the detached garage. Epic fail.
While the extended zone appears adequate, the car should be shown in the middle of the inflamable driveway.
I have spent a career working in fire protection industry and I'm very familiar with the NFPA code book.
It does need some serious updating, especially its seismic codes.
However, one only needs to look at that graphic and apply some common sense when preparing your own home for fires, both wild and accidental (which typically begin in a garage or kitchen).
Fire sprinklers save lives, including and especially first responders.
Thanks again for the post and I hope your garden survived the recent heat wave.

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Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.

studentofearth's picture

@earthling1 blueberries dehydrated on the bushes. The raspberries picked while hand watering today tasted cooked. Transparent apple crop is good, debating to pick today or tomorrow. The birds are checking for ripeness and I want to beat them to harvest.

Appreciate the critique of the fire safety link. Everyone has their own area of expertise. Slowly recognizing some of the features I have been altering in my close landscape for aesthetics and to keep buildings cool decreases the defensible space. It is a constant balancing act.

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Still yourself, deep water can absorb many disturbances with minimal reaction.
--When the opening appears release yourself.

zed2's picture

https://www.shelterwoodforestfarm.com/blog/2020/7/7/metasequoia-creating...

"MetaSequoia" is a very pretty and redwood-like "deciduous conifer" that grows well in the East Coast and other areas where redwoods don't like the cold winters. For example, the NYC area.

If you look at photos of it you'll see that when it starts to gain girth, the branches and trunk often take on very mysterious, interesting shapes, evocative of Tolkien, etc.

I wonder how well metasequoia does in fires. The coast redwood is not impervious to forest fires, (although its Latin name implies it might be) but at the same times does very well in a fire compared to most other trees. Fires tend to thin out other trees but increase redwoods dominance in a stand of trees. But Metasequoia because the needles die nd fall in the fall might be different (thats the biggest difference between metasequoia which is from China and coast redwood.. )

Big redwoods often survive large fires. They grow lots of new sprouts from their burls also, creating a redwood-friendly web of roots that sprout new saplings in the soil.

Yes, I am @zed on Common Dreams where I have just now been "canceled" all of my posts there over the last three years are now vanished. But they contain important information that confusers there succeeded in obscuring from common knowledge. People there were working very hard to keep these very many very important dishonesties hidden.

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studentofearth's picture

@zed2 Did discover there is a specimen within a 150 miles in Portland, Oregon. (note the "I" in the article is not me)

Dawn Redwood: THE METASEQUOIA MYSTERY

I first learned about the tree and its discovery while doing research for a visitor center display at Hoyt Arboretum in Portland, Oregon, where I am a volunteer writer, tour guide, and herbarium specimen mounter. Hoyt’s signature tree is one of six Metasequoia grown on its grounds from seed originating from the 1940s China find. That same tree was reportedly the first of its provenance in the Western Hemisphere to produce cones, in 1952.

Thanks for contributing to the conversation. The story of the Metasequoia survival and redistribution around the globe after being considered extinct is encouraging.

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Still yourself, deep water can absorb many disturbances with minimal reaction.
--When the opening appears release yourself.

Dawn's Meta's picture

@studentofearth @studentofearth @studentofearth I found a pot-bound baby in France, planted three years ago and it's at least 15 feet. I don't know for sure but knowing my dad's work with all three types of Sequoia in the various parks and roadways in Portland, the Coast and Giant are probably more fire resistant than the smaller thinner-barked Meta Sequoia.

Dad planted after 1960. East and West Moreland Parks, McGloughlin Boulevard, various parks have Sequoia gigantia plantings. Many homes have Meta Sequoia in the yard, including ours in Portland suburbs.

The Wiki article on the history of Metasequoia is very interesting.
Wiki

eta: A place in Lyon, France is full of the Dawn Redwoods. They look healthy and it's cool to see them en mass. great city to go to in France and is considered the food capital of France.

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A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they know they shall never sit. Allegedly Greek, but more possibly fairly modern quote.

Consider helping by donating using the button in the upper left hand corner. Thank you.

studentofearth's picture

@Dawn's Meta when living in the Sellwood district during the early 1980's. My dog, Sheba and I enjoyed walking through the tall trees several times a week. A bit of forest in the city. One of those odd moments in life right now, realizing we live on opposite sides of the world, will probably never meet in person and your Father's past actions impacted both our lives.

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Still yourself, deep water can absorb many disturbances with minimal reaction.
--When the opening appears release yourself.

Dawn's Meta's picture

@studentofearth botanical gardens, dad's last project, we had a map of all the places he planted during his work for the City of Portland and their large greenhouse complex southern Mt. Tabor.

I walked into Laurelhurst Park with friends a couple of years ago when we went back for a visit. We saw clusters of Cedar and other conifers. Dad was there! He had a signature.

Such a legacy.

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A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they know they shall never sit. Allegedly Greek, but more possibly fairly modern quote.

Consider helping by donating using the button in the upper left hand corner. Thank you.

zed2's picture

@Dawn's Meta Two Dawn redwoods live in a formal garden attached to a 20's mansion that makes up a park next door t oa popular progressive TV personality.

There are several I know of in NYC. There are three at Strawberry Fields, in Central Park, and hey are expected to grow very large there (Near the Dakota apartment where Yoko Ono lives.

There is one in NYC at the entrance to the Lower East Side and one on Houston St, near Bowery in the Lower East Side.. (RIP David Peel)

https://untappedcities.com/2017/06/05/theres-a-redwood-tree-on-houston-s...

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Dawn's Meta's picture

@zed2 height in three years. People offer to help us cut it down in the Fall when it turns color and loses its fronds. Takes some explaning.

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A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they know they shall never sit. Allegedly Greek, but more possibly fairly modern quote.

Consider helping by donating using the button in the upper left hand corner. Thank you.

snoopydawg's picture

@zed2

I saved one of your comments with lots of links and also the one to your post that I had posted here and yes it’s gone. You got no word from them that they were going to do that? UN real, but CD still limits itself on what it will write about.

I’ve posted the one to Angus King a few times on Twitter and have been telling people what you said about trade agreements.

Disgusting that they did that. You have the links stored elsewhere right?

Beagle Bailey and asked you to post them here. Too bad I only have the 1 comment. I’ll message what I have if you need it. I rarely comment there anymore unless Gandalf and friends post silly comments on republicans only whilst pretending democrats are our friends.

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zed2's picture

@snoopydawg @snoopydawg @snoopydawg hank you. You can see why they both really should allow links and also why they (in the bad world we now live in) why they didnt want them.) Its so much better when you can post links. Thats the essence of the web. I wouldnt have posted so many there were we not in the midst of a real emergency which will likely sour the country to the Democratic Party (which I suspect is what they want) Because they really are trying to use the WTOs byzantine rules and punitive sanctions to divest us of Medicare and Social Security, and we will lose them if we follow their instructions to the letter, by doing something that souds liike it would be safe or even positive - reducing the age at which people could buy on to Medicare. The reasons WHY this might happen however requires explaining something ugly, the real goals of many things we're doing, which is to wipe out public services people really need just as they really will need them the most, because their intention is to lower the cost of labor in their proprty. The country.; . The only conclusion one can come to is that many of the higher ups are the opposite of what they claim to be WHats really REQUIRED from them is an explanation of what their goals are (virtually zero chance of that happening, though) and what rationale drives this. (Neoliberalism is a igid, extremist idology thy know we wont agree with so I doubt if they would ever explai themselves.

They cant just GATSlight it away. Biden is now complaining about disinformation and saying that if somebody has been banned from social media (no doubt after they were pressured by the Administration or the Hilarians who all have cultivated connections within the social media organizations so close they basically give them carte blanche to do things like "information gerrymandering" people claiing that they were posting disinformation without any questioning of whether that was true, or of what the motive might be. In my case I am just pointing ioout things that I know to be true, that are open (or supposed to be) Assuming a model of theft of the country based on adverse possession, theycant steal the country unless they tell us they vare doing it an dthen take it notoriously but to do that there would have tobe disclosure. The same thing that is required for doing medical experiments (even medical economics experiments on people you already know wont work to cure them, does not qualify in any case and thats what theyhave done. They knew in the 1980s that all the ideology - all the appraoaches they knew about would fail to make for profit health insurance affordable to around 10% of the country, those with serious chronic disease.

So not switching to something else was not just indefensibe, it violates the Nuremberg Code, in any medical context.

Especially whe there is no informed consent. and as the loss of the only safety net programs we have (because they are subsidized ) would be a disaster for most of us, I think we deserve a apology an explanation of whatever species of neoliberalism they subscribe to and why they do what thgey do really. Not the bullshit.

We need to rebuild this country in a way that we the people vote for. They no longer deserve the benefit of the doubt. Also with what we know bnow the entre last 30 years at least needs tonbe gone through with a fine toothed comb to allow the revisiting of all actions taken under neoliberallism. and we need courts to protect freedom of speech online as well as steal our privacy. They also wnt to set up a cashless system that can snatch away peoples money what little as they have (and it will be a lot less) Because I see us being led into a disater of epic proportios I just want to say that we still can say no to it. And should. ) as privacy. They would like to isolate all of us for life so that the times they lied would go undetcted, and that just doesnt fly.

They are trying to ditch the social contract, without any protest from any of the losers of their services liberalization. A surprise attack.
Kind of like the attitude of a candidate who won the party's nomination and thinks that entitles them to votes without having to do or be anything in particular. Or especilly not be something.
No, sorry I am not that kind of citizen. Or Democrat. Well, people should know that tons has been written about how countries would or could cope with service liberalization. (which destroys social services in order to turn many good stable jobs into entitlements of the lowest bidding quakified firms from all around the globe with a slight edge given tothe very mostunnequal countries the ones ith the lowest wages and often the lowest levels of regulation as well.

In a normal country there would hav e been a debate however in virtually none of them has such adebate occurred because almost nobody except the group that is doing this realizes whats beingdone or why.

That means that the whole scheme is illegitimate by most peoples definitio of government.

Its set up so that services" (nolonger public) can only continue exist in their currently subsidized states if we dont allow them to be commercial, ever. They must be only those "supplied in the exercise of governmental authority" and that definition is a very narrow one indeed..
Medicare, Social Security and the NHS. Everything thats been done to them for the last 20 years has been done so their position in some futue challenge is less tenable. They are being set up to be taken down by the new rules that nobody knows.

As they are today they are WTO-illegal most likely. To understand the basic concept people lack see the glossary entries on my site for government authority exclusion and GATS Article 1:3 (after you click the link you need to scroll up to where the text is visible. there are currently 23 links visible in that keyword.)

This was all planned out starting in 1986. At Punta Del Este September 15-20

simply because of When thy occurred we should re-examine

1.the terrorist incident that occurred just a few weeks before the important Doha WTO Minestrial of 2001

and

2. the coronavirus pandemic of 2020-2021

I have a (plain http only) web site with more than a thousand clickable links Around 90% relate to this global power grab. Check out the keywords on the left. You may have to scroll up.

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snoopydawg's picture

@zed2

this is funny… it looks like a reply to your comment.

What is god’s name is GATS?
If you can’t tell us in the first paragraph,
you need to go back to school and study writing.

Reply:

Zed HAS been telling us about GATS (General Agreemen on Trade in Services) for a LONG time. It’s very unfair to dis him and the effort he’s put in to enlighten us because you don’t want to put in the effort to read some of the links he so patiently provides.

Welcome to the room where yesterday’s history is rewritten to fit today’s narrative.

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enhydra lutris's picture

with wildfire was fighting one back in the very early seventies, bombers unloading right on top of us. Second one wasn't until a couple of years ago, trailer camping out on the coast. We could see the flames closing in on several sides. Got loaded, hitched up and outta there in record time.

Just got back from morning miscellany and am enjoying breakfast at last, after which I can get to HH chores and maybe deal with email and such.

be well and have a good one

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

studentofearth's picture

@enhydra lutris the pace and leave the danger zone. A couple of scary stories. Fires moves fast, can feel safe one moment and suddenly realize you are close to trapped.

Hope a good tomorrow.

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Still yourself, deep water can absorb many disturbances with minimal reaction.
--When the opening appears release yourself.

snoopydawg's picture

She is that long and can reach too many places.

Balls are fun to chase, but not to bring back for more throws. Pig is her favorite toy.

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@snoopydawg
Notice he returns the ball to the same spot every time. It appears to be the high spot, so he gets the best roll possible.

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Capitalism is the extraordinary belief that the nastiest of men for the nastiest of motives will somehow work for the benefit of all."
- John Maynard Keynes

snoopydawg's picture

@ovals49

I also noticed how he has to chew the ball a few times before dropping it just right. My labs have all done that and I didn’t know why. I still don’t, but it’s interesting. Now did he figure it out on his own?

Wonder what he’d do with a ball returner like for golf balls?

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snoopydawg's picture

@ovals49

Another lab that doesn’t care to swim. lol how funny. Great balance.

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studentofearth's picture

@snoopydawg experiencing it at full speed. Thanks for sharing the clips.

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Still yourself, deep water can absorb many disturbances with minimal reaction.
--When the opening appears release yourself.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUQiUFZ5RDw]The same thing is on my mind as yours today.

Fire and drought in the West. Death from flooding in Europe. Collapsing buildings along the Florida coast.

NYC has experienced the hottest and wettest early summer/spring ever.
Homelessness is soaring here and will accelerate as climate, drought and economic forces converge.

My expectation is Federal Resettlement Camps throughout the USA. The wealthy will claim the cities where their filtered air and water and high walls protect them from the rest of us.

This gloomy prediction comes from what I saw a week ago on Seventh Avenue between 34th Street and 35th Street. A one block length. Which happens to be filled by Macy's flagship store on the eastern side and a subway entrance at one end of the other side. The rest are small shabby businesses.

In that one block length between the subway I exited and my appointment on 35th Street, I saw a sight so shocking I was not certain I would ever write about it. But here goes.

About 30+ homeless people were stretched out on the bare concrete, draped over traffic control stanchions, or lying along the Macy's walls. NOT homeless people with their possessions in carts or boxes. People with nothing. They looked dead to me. Passed out in the middle of the day. Not even a bottle of water at hand.

A lone Policer Officer stood near the subway with his eyes fixed on some other horizon.

This is a problem with no solution in a capitalist country. Buildings only get built when somebody can profit from doing the development. Period. All the political chat about "more affordable housing" will not even begin to address the scope of the nationwide problem. Let alone, "mental health professionals." The only thing that could solve the problem is to forbid, then heavily tax, owners and builders of residential and commercial properties from keeping their properties empty for more than 6 months. After the 6 month period, confiscate non-compliant buildings from their owners and convert them to suitable housing for the masses. Obviously, this will not happen.

I think the tipping point in the USA was reached some time ago. The increasing drought will create refugees who have no shelter anyplace in the USA.

Bad Moon Rising. I see trouble on the way. CCR https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUQiUFZ5RDw

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NYCVG

zed2's picture

@NYCVG @earthling1 @NYCVG There will be a lot of redevelopment soon. This will cause a lot of homelessness as older buildings that only run on gas heat are torn down. The inhabitants wont be able to find affordable replacement apartments in the city. If you live in an older building, get ready for it. Its caused by the selling off of natural gas and subsequent huge price increases in natural gas and electricity. Many families wont be able to remain housed after their former rent stabilized apartments are torn down. They will be declred blighted and torn down, because its okay to declare well maintained obsolete buildings blight. Exporting natural gas is part of iour struggle for energy dominion over Russia. . (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelo_v._City_of_New_London )

The redevelopment will result in loss of older buildings which many live in affordably today. Decades ago a wave of rent stabilization law were passed because rents were rising at rates of 100% or more a year.
New Buildings will be built there but not affordable buildings because they wouldn't be seen as profitable enough given the highly mobile global capital, etc. So they want to figure out ways to blame the housing loss on progressives like Bernie and AOC.; Unfortunately both of them walked into a trap. AOC for not researching whether her Green w Deal was even legal (its not legal to give jobs to Americans only if other countries firms bid lower, so the jobs part is out, also the affordable building being torn down is really going to be a disaster for lots of families.

See also, WTO LDC Services Waiver and Green New Deal jobs conflict.

If you live in a city could you re-rent an apartment right now you could afford to live in, without moving away?

In SF, it depends on how much the going rate has risen. if you have been there for some time its qite possible that the going rate for new renters has doubled or more. And wages have not kept up, in fact in some cases they have fallen. And also your ability to rent depends on how high your income is and what your job or co-signer situation is

Why do they "have to" sell off the natural gas and leave so many buildings without affordable heat?

Ask them!

That is the real reason for all this stuff about Green New Deal. They are setting progressives up to be scapegoats for their activities . But the fact is that landlords who want to leave the business and sell their property generally get to do so in the US, even when tenants have lived in their buildings for decades they still own no equity in it. Its the same with jobs. .

*This is all speculative and I'm no lawyer, I just don't see how they could avoid it. Ive been tracking the scheme to sell off the gas to get the rent control tenants out for at least a decade or more. I think it originated with a landlord association in the Bay area. But I'm not sure. They might have just been repeating it from somewhere also, but anyway, it seemed likely given the huge amounts of money involved. Millions of dollars per apartment. Anyway if you area a tenant start thinking of how you could survive needing to move without disasters. Do you even own a car? (needed outside of walk-able cities) How does your credit rating look? You'll need really good credit to rent in a newer buildings which in many cities are exempt from rent stabilization, so make sure you have enough to cover the inevitable yearly rent increases, which can be very high in that situation.

Good luck!

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snoopydawg's picture

@zed2

for people not taking their crappy jobs. Guess what? It’s because people have no place to live because rents are so high. More businesses will go out and then the hedge funds will swoop in to buy their place. Farmers in the west are selling their farms because they have no water and rinse and repeat. Big AG will buy up farms for pennies on the dollar and who cares how the farmers now support their families. Add in the people who worked on them and my gawd they got us by the short hairs don’t they? They will keep pushing people until people run out of room to be pushed and then what?

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

@snoopydawg Huge tent cities. Barracks. Think Syria. Think Internment Camps from WWII.

Disease. Hunger.

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NYCVG

@NYCVG @NYCVG https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/13/magazine/los-angeles-homelessness.html

Many pages and photos of a problem that cannot and will not be solved.

Tent cities along the boardwalk in Venice. almost unbelievable.

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NYCVG

snoopydawg's picture

@NYCVG

Los Angeles is now bracing for another, more immediate surge of unhoused people, with the state’s eviction moratoriums set to expire in September. A $5.2 billion rent-relief plan recently proposed by California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, will soften the blow, but it may not be sufficient. “The expectation a year ago was catastrophic, and now I would just say it’s bad but not terrible,” says Gary Blasi, a public-interest lawyer who has specialized in evictions and homelessness in Los Angeles for the last four decades. “The biggest uncertainty is that the state bureaucracies and the people they have employed to dispense money have so far been really terrible at it.” Newsom’s critics point out that many of those who need rent relief and qualify for Newsom’s program might be evicted before they receive it, and that could mean a significant increase in the unhoused population

Yeah it’s going to be catastrophic, but if Newsom actually cared he’d have done something about it before now. Millions have been spent in lots of states while the problem just keeps getting worse. Where are those millions going? To salaries and perks for people working in the business? And congress knew damn well that people were falling behind on rents and did nothing. Unemployment benefits might have helped many, but there are lots of people who couldn’t get it for all kinds of reasons. Unemployment websites were overwhelmed because they haven’t been updated for decades in some states and their benefits don’t actually help. Congress should have given people a monthly stipend like many said was needed including our wonderful VP Harris.

I like them on the beach where they are visible to people to see what their government has allowed to happen. How many voted against issues that would have helped the working class? How many voted to let Uber screw their drivers? How many still support stores that fired their drivers and went with a gig place that doesn’t pay a living wage? And don’t they know that once government is done with the working class they will be coming for them next?

SLC closed a huge homeless shelter and built smaller ones away from downtown and away from support services and it’s gotten worse. 13 more days till the eviction moratorium expires. Then what? And how many landlords are in dire straits too? Blackstone to the rescue….

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@snoopydawg has decided to acknowledge the obvious.

Today's front page declares that "Climate Change Comes For the Wealthy Nations."

Admitting the scope of the tragedy which is unfolding will not do anything to change the trajectory.

But it is refresshing to see an admission that climate change affects all of us. Not just the poorest people around the globe.

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3 users have voted.

NYCVG

@zed2 @zed2 of the overall plan, Zed2. How much of a part, I do not know.

Cleansing the inner cities and making them sanctuaries for the wealthy is obviously what the long-term intention is. Not just in NYC.

Bloomberg did a lot along these lines. He canceled Housing Vouchers for families with kids and thereby increased homelessness by many many thousands.

Then he offered one way bus tickets to anyplace to any homeless person who wanted them.

NYCHA was allowed to fall into ruins under Bloomberg and Cuomo as they withheld funding and nothing is going to save NYCHA now.

de Blasio talked a good game about affordable housing but he has failed to build much that low wage earners can afford. Middle income families, OTOH, did very well under de Blasio. Rent freezes and 1% raises on stabilized rents. Those days are drawing to a close.

The new guy will do even less. little to nothing for low wage earners and the same for the lower middle class.

Bad moon rising.

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3 users have voted.

NYCVG

daily for the last 9 days. There is some chance of rain today and tomorrow, very probable thunderstorms Monday through Friday of next week. Mowing the lawn is a strategic plan, due to mud.
Mother Nature is showing us that pay back is a bitch.
Good luck to everyone in a fire or flood's path.

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6 users have voted.

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981

Granma's picture

I'm glad you live in the middle of irrigated fields. That sounds pretty safe. I hope you will get the apples before the birds do.

I have a wild cherry tree loaded with berries in my yard. Couldn't understand why there were not a lot of birds visiting to eat them. Turns out there is a crows nest in that tree or just over the fence from it. So that is why the smaller birds have not visited. The crow baby has fledged now. Perhaps the crows won't hang out there anymore and the smaller birds will come to eat cherries.

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5 users have voted.
CB's picture

@Granma
In 20 years I have never seen it so full. The branches are even sagging under their weight. Normally the tree gets raided by dozens of birds (even noisy crows) as soon as the fruit starts to ripen. They would just take a bite out of the ripe side and drop them on the ground. But the cherries are now fully ripe and they are dropping uneaten. The strange thing is there are so few birds that my seed feeders have also gone untouched for well over a month. The only birds we are getting are lots of quite aggressive hummingbirds who will polish off 3-4 of the six feeders that I put out daily.

The other strange thing is I have not seen many bees in the flower beds - only one or two at most. Normally I would see dozens at work from morning till night. When going for walks we also don't see or hear any birds at all except for a few robins foraging on the ground.

I'm starting to wonder what is going on. We did get hit with a heat wave in the last 2 weeks - 104F but it is now down to the normal 80's. I am wondering if the birds have moved up into the mountains nearby.

The silence is getting weird.

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4 users have voted.

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5 users have voted.
snoopydawg's picture

This statement has been on so many tweets today

Cops in LA shot a woman at point blank with a non lethal bullet today just because she asked them to point their guns down. Then they beat them with clubs, kettled and arrested them and more. But Cuba right? The game has been canceled…in the most powerful country’s headquarters. You just can’t make this up. Go USA!

Shooting people as they try to get away from them. They got the okay to do it.

Bottom one is a thread. Lots of videos of cops being cops. Lots of bad apples with no good apples stepping in to help people. Seriously how do you do that to unarmed people who aren’t hurting you? Oh well. It’s what our troops do to people whose country we invade.

Police budget is $1.76 billion. But we can’t cancel student loans or have MFA. Just too gd expensive.

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4 users have voted.

Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.