I’m still thinking about going to the Occupy LA venture last weekend with my friend Mindy Moffat. After a long drive down from the mountains, we parked at the North Hollywood subway station, and seven or eight stops later we got off near Los Angeles City Hall. On the subway were other riders heading to…
The Murder Mystery/Thriller World – Everyone in the mystery and thriller world goes to Bouchercon, named after Anthony Bouchercon the first literary critic to raise mystery fiction to literary status.
Everyone is there to network as well as hear established authors and see what’s new. I went to talk about my debut mystery, No Dice…
I’m a real straight-arrow so I never get to meet the “nose-pickin’, booger-eatin’ morons” that Sgt Derek Pacifico talked about in his Homicide Investigation school for Crime Writers last weekend in Covina, California. For a long time I’ve been collecting “stupid criminal stories”, but Derek topped them all. I just never meet AHs (figure it…
Cal EPA and the California Department of Toxic Substances Control has hit Chemical Waste Management with yet another fine, this time for $400,000 and an order to purchase $600,000 worth of new equipment to properly test the hazardous substances they’re processing. Have they taken down their website? I can’t find it. If I were running the place, I’d be hiding my head in…
Midas or methyl iodide is used to kill every living thing in the soil to prepare the ground to grow strawberries and peppers, tomatoes, even roses. “The first commercial applications of MIDAS soil fumigant in California began in Fresno County, in May, 2011. To date since its federal registration as a pesticide, more than 17,000…
I opened my August 7th copy of the Los Angeles Times and was delighted to see the Times focusing some attention on the Central Valley. See Victor Davis Hanson’s piece entitled Follow the water: The west side of the Central Valley supports California’s booming agricultural prosperity. We can’t afford to let it go dry. In short,…
You may remember from a previous post that the California Air Resources Board relocated an air monitor which had been collecting data for the last 20 years. Results showed that Arvin had the worst smog in the United States. The station is now set up at a location where the stink index on the monitor gives them…
Former Senator Moynahan said once: “You are entitled to your own opinion…but you are not entitled to your own facts.” Political scientists at the research-renowned University of Michigan are pointing out that facts don’t necessarily have the power to change our opinions. The opposite is true. It seems that when misinformed people, particularly political partisans, were…
In short, an air monitoring site showing the highest rates of ozone pollution in the Valley–in Arvin–was moved so that the readings make the job the state agency is doing look better. The air monitor at the Bear Mountain site has collected data since 1989, causing Arvin to light up as the smoggiest place in America. The…
Claims that EPA environmental restrictions have caused more fallow land and the loss of jobs in the San Joaquin Valley have been watered down by a new study. The most recent drought hit California through 2007 to 2009, and was a mild one. The Pacific Institute based in Oakland reports that less than a quarter of…