I’ve been remiss — I’ve not noted that there’s a new league of Women Voters’ newsletter for March. The March 2009 Newsletter has a schedule of upcoming LWV events. A copy of the newsletter is available as a pdf link in this post, and as a link on my blogroll (on the left column of this website).

Here is a partial listing of events, with more information and events inside the newsletter.

Date: April 7, 2009 (Tuesday)
Event: Election Day

Date: April 23, 2009 (Thursday)
Event: Paula Mohan speaking on “Energy Policy in the Obama Administration.”
Location: 7 PM, City Hall Council Chambers

About the League —

The League of Women voters, a nonpartisan political organization, encourages the informed and active participation of citizens in government, works to increase understanding of major public policy issues, and influences public policy through education and advocacy. We take action on public policy positions established through member study and agreement. We are political, but we do not support or oppose any political party or candidate.

Good morning, Whitewater

I don’t know of any public meetings scheduled for today. A gift, from a few to so many more — one less risk to run. Thank you, city officials.

A sad story, today, from Wired‘s science section — “March 25, 1916: Ishi Dies, a World Ends.” It’s about the death of Ishi, the last survivor of the Yahi tribe of American Indians. Wired recounts the story:

The California Gold Rush of 1849 to 1850 attracted 90,000 new settlers to California in a single year. That influx created major problems for the region’s native people, who’d previously had to contend with Spanish soldiers and missionaries, Mexican ranchers and, lately, Americano settlers from the East.

In Butte County, where the Yahi lived alongside the Yana, mining silt poisoned the salmon streams, and deer and other wild game fled as the new settlers’ livestock competed for grazing resources. Indians starved. Epidemics of the white man’s diseases took a further toll, and the indigenous population collapsed.

By 1861, the Southern Yana had disappeared and the Northern and Central Yana had been reduced from 2,000 people to fewer than 50. The Yahi started to raid cattle to stave off starvation and extinction. White settlers reacted with a vengeance, and the Three Knolls Massacre in 1865 left only 30 members of the Yahi alive.

Ishi and the other survivors escaped, but cattlemen used dogs to find them and killed about half of the Yahi. The others fled farther into the hills, and hid themselves for more than 40 years.

Following their traditional lifestyle as much as resources permitted, they gathered acorns, ground them into flour and cooked the mush. They turned the skins of deer, wildcats and rabbits into clothing and blankets.

It was tough. Soon there were only five Yahi. Then two. When Ishi’s mother died in 1911, he was alone. Butchers found Ishi in their corral at Oroville on Aug. 29, 1911. They took the undernourished and terrified man to the Oroville Jail.

Two University of California professors, Alfred L. Kroeber and T.T. Waterman, read about him and arranged for him to live at the university’s new museum of anthropology in San Francisco.

Ishi was theoretically free to return to his homelands, but it’s doubtful he could have survived alone, the sole survivor of a culture detested and persecuted by most of the people who would have been his neighbors. Instead, he opted to stay with the friendly anthropologists, their colleagues and their families.

Ishi worked as an assistant at the museum, explaining his language — which had been presumed extinct — to Kroeber and Waterman. He identified objects in the museum collection (baskets, arrowheads, spears, needles, etc.) and demonstrated how they were made and how they were used.

The anthropologists also recorded Ishi singing traditional songs. But he never told them his real name. Ishi means “man” in the Yahi language.

Ishi eventually succumbed to tuberculosis at age 54. The museum staff respected, perhaps even loved, Ishi, and they did their best to give him a traditional Yahi funeral. They cremated him along with bow and arrows, acorn meal, shell-bead money, tobacco, jewelry and obsidian flakes….

On Saturday, March 14th, the Whitewater Area League of Women Voters sponsored a forum for candidates for city offices. Here’s the video from that event. I’ll offer commentary below.

President of the LWV, Ellen Penwell, ably hosted the candidates’ forum. After outlining the rules of the forum, each candidate received an introduction, made an opening statement, answered several questions posed to all, and then made a closing statement.

I’ll offer a few remarks about each of the candidates (all of whom are seeking a seat, either by district or at-large) for Common Council.

First, though, a quick observation. Most of the candidates emphasized how long they have lived in Whitewater. Well, yes, of course they have. It’s a mixed accomplishment, though — if one has been here so long, and circumstances are still troubled, what does that say about how one has spent one’s tenure as a resident? Tenure, generally, drifts toward entitlement, and there is already a thick, smug feeling of entitlement among a few hundred people in this city of fourteen thousand.

Jim Winship (Registed write-in candidate, District 3). Well, he’s the candidate who represents what-might-have been. Having lost to Dr. Nosek in the last election by only two votes in the District 3 race, Winship seeks to win as a write-in candidate. He has the soothing manner that Dr. Nosek lacks, but no less restrictive a view on some zoning issues. (Winship would consider a change in R1 zoning requirements to no more than two unrelated persons; even Dr. Nosek would leave the limitation at three unrelated persons.)

Winship, if tenacious enough, might have been able to make more the last two years’ time with his soothing manner. There’s no way to tell; alternative histories are just guesses. Winship will get the 3rd District seat, and then we’ll see what a congenial manner, combined with a restrictive view on housing, might produce.

David Stone (Candidate, District 1). Either Stone or Olsen will get this seat, but how this will affect Whitewater politics, I cannot say.

Patrick Singer (Candidate, District 5). An introduction, closing statement, and general presentation reminding of nothing so much as an earnest high school candidate’s student assembly speech.

Gregory Torres (Candidate, District 5). One can be young, and yet have a mature view, looking judiciously to broader forces to shape life for the town.

Jim Olsen (Candidate, District 1). As above, either Stone or Olsen will get this seat, but how this will affect Whitewater politics, I cannot say. That’s no recommendation — one should hope to see how something might be different after a candidate’s election. I just can’t see that in this race.

Roy Nosek (Candidate, At-large seat). Is there anyone in Whitewater who does not know Dr. Nosek? It’s improbable — only the feeble-minded, comatose, or dead have yet to hear of him. If the Pratt Institute were still here, perhaps he’d be known among the dead, too. I don’t believe for a moment that he’s right on the issues, and the economics of his theories (and of Winship’s, too) are wrong. Their restrictive approach is certain to fail; they’ll not correct a problem by distorting a market.

Still, I have an increasing respect for Nosek’s conviction — if not its substance — over these last two years. He’s one of the few people who actually says something to someone plainly; most conversations in Whitewater are behind someone’s back. His challenge — and it’s huge — is that he does not understand one medium or forum from another. His convictions need not change, but he would have done so much better these last two years if he had tailored his advocacy to the forum in which it was delivered. Print tolerates far more heat than television, radio, or public speeches. Nosek’s like Pat Buchanan in this way – Buchanan was tolerably incendiary in print, but did far less well when he took that approach in public speeches. Roy Nosek shows almost no understanding of this, and it’s been much to his political deteriment.

Marilyn Kienbaum (Candidate, At-large seat). Like something out of Edwin O’Connor’s Last Hurrah, Marilyn Kienbaum campaigns on. I cannot tell how much, if any, of her remarks were read from a script. Her opening, especially, had that feel; someone of her self-touted experience and community knowledge should be able to talk off-the-cuff. (All of these candidates should be able to do so; most did.)

A few quick points, briefly mentioned, but serious. Kienbaum talks about how long she’s lived in the area (from the Pleistocene Era, I think), but the idea that Whitewater is unique of all the earth is an empty conceit. It’s just a way to insist that someone should listen to her based on her tenured residency, and supposed connection to the very soil of the city, rather than substance. Better still — that having lived here, so very long, somehow she knows better just by breathing our air and walking our streets. She doesn’t; it’s a silly person’s idea.

This hardscrabble, salt-of-the-earth posturing is merely cheap mysticism. God, Himself, has anointed no one to govern here forever. And of Nature — Our air teaches no lessons of economics, our soil offers no studies in law, our water imparts no philosophy. You may pretend if you wish; I’ll not join your foolishness.

Some serious, educated people have deferred to Kienbaum, and it’s not to their credit. This city belongs to no clique, however smug, and less so to one elderly politician, having over-stayed her time in office.

Kienbaum’s remarks on the Food Pantry are particularly telling; she often talks about how happy she is to see young people assist her there. She mentioned such more than once (at 20:36 minutes, and again at 38:33 minutes on the video of the forum). Let’s be clear — the purpose of the Food Pantry is not to offer volunteer positions, nor to encourage young volunteers to impress Marilyn Kienbaum with their enthusiasm. The Food Pantry exits to serve those in need, ably and well, where that service is caring and efficient. Nothing matters more than service to others. If you’d like to brighten an old person’s day, then you may visit at home with some flowers and chocolates. It’s not your job to make the Food Pantry director happy — it’s her job to feed our many needy residents efficiently and respectfully.

Ready for some nostalgia, Whitewater? There was a time when proper families taught their children that one served others without such self-regard. more >>