More than 40 peaceful demonstrators, mostly from West Marin, walked from Sacred Heart Church in Olema to Point Reyes National Seashore headquarters Sunday in a last-ditch effort to discourage the the park from killing its few remaining fallow and axis deer. Despite public opposition, the park two weeks ago announced eradication was about to resume.

Opposition to Park Service plans for killing the fallow and axis deer has been so widespread that National Seashore Supt. Don Neubacher in 2005 temporarily placated the public with assurances that eliminating all 1,000 deer would take 15 years. There would be plenty of time to find other approaches for controlling herd sizes between now and then, he told a public meeting.

But, like so many of Supt. Neubacher’s public statements, the assurance was untrue, and late last fall, the park set out to kill off all 1,000 as quickly as possible.

Moreover, the brutal way in which the first 800 or so deer were killed, many left in the wild to suffer long, agonizing deaths from gut wounds, offended hunters as much as the general public.

Eventually, US Senators Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, three other Bay Area members of Congress, Lynn Woolsey, George Miller, and Anna Eshoo, and Lt. Governor John Garamendi all called for a moratorium on the killing while the use of contraception was studied.

But Supt. Neubacher was as quick to thumb his nose at members of Congress and the lieutenant governor as at members of the public. A bureaucrat who thrives on defiance, Neubacher two weeks ago rejected contraception studies by the Humane Society of the United State, which is willing to help administer the birth control. He instead announced he would proceed with the killing posthaste.

In trying to justify his nativistic eradication of un-American deer in the park, Supt. Neubacher’s administration, as most West Marin residents realize, fabricated the problems the deer were supposedly causing.

The most notable untruth was that the few fallow (right) and axis deer were out-competing the park’s native blacktail deer. In fact, the park and land immediately around it has, if anything, an overabundance of blacktail deer, as evidenced by all the roadkills. (Photo by Janine Warner, founder of digitalfamily.com)

But then, Supt. Neubacher may be one of the most dishonest public officials around that isn’t in prison; witness his deceitful, bully-boy attempts to drive Drakes Bay Oyster Company out of business. Here’s a press release distributed last week by the Business Wire. I’ll be coming back to the topic in future postings:

MARIN COUNTY’S DRAKES BAY OYSTER CO. ABUSED BY GOVERNMENT AGENCY, ACCORDING TO U.S. DEPARTMENT OF INTERIOR INSPECTOR GENERAL REPORT

Business Wire, July 23, 2008

REPORT SHOWS NATIONAL PARK SERVICE USED FALSE INFORMATION, BUREAUCRATIC RED TAPE IN ATTEMPT TO RUIN MARIN COUNTY BUSINESS

SAN FRANCISCO — A report issued by the Office of the Inspector General for the U.S. Department of the Interior has concluded that the National Park Service knowingly used false scientific data to bolster its attempt to drive a local oyster company from the Point Reyes National Seashore area.

The investigation conducted by the Inspector General reveals that Park Service officials made false scientific claims, misled other federal authorities and attempted to hide data that called into question the veracity of the Park Service’s case. The report details how the Inspector General’s Computer Crimes Unit recovered an email apparently deleted by the National Park Service’s lead scientist that showed the government agency was knowingly misrepresenting environmental data.

Park Service officials are accused of engaging in a campaign of intimidation and disinformation to damage the operation of the Drakes Bay Oyster Company. Investigators concluded there is no scientific evidence to support Park Service claims that the oyster company was responsible for pollution or damage to the environment.

Drakes Bay Oyster Company was purchased in 2004 by Kevin Lunny [at left with oyster “seed”] along with his brothers, Robert and Joe Jr. The Lunny family owns the Historic G Ranch and has been a fixture of the Point Reyes community for more than 60 years. The Lunnys are committed to organic ranching practices and policies that protect the environment in western Marin County. (Photo by Janine Warner, founder of digitalfamily.com)

The Lunny family says it will now seek “restitution for interference and harm to its business.” The family praised Senator Dianne Feinstein for demanding justice in this case of alleged government abuse of a small family business.

“With the Inspector General findings, we at last have vindication of the Lunny family after four years of frustration and government abuse,” said Sam Singer, a spokesman for the Drakes Bay Oyster Company. “The Lunnys purchased Drakes Bay Oyster Company with the full intent of restoring a Point Reyes business and contributing to an important local industry. What the National Park Service tried to do here in misleading the Marin County Board of Supervisors and penalizing citizens at the expense of the truth was nothing short of outrageous.”

“This report shows that the National Park Service under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Department of the Interior fabricated and falsified the science to drive Mr. Lunny and his family out of business,” said Mr. Singer. “This report is devastatingly critical and calls into question Interior Secretary’s Kempthorne’s newly announced ethics policy. We expect wholesale changes in the Department to come from this unfortunate episode.”

In April 2007, Park Service officials had threatened to seek civil and criminal charges against the Lunnys, claiming that their oyster beds were harming seals, damaging eelgrass and polluting waterways. “Based on the research conducted by several scientists, the Inspector General concluded that the data used by the Park Service was flawed and unreliable,” said Mr. Singer.

[Kayakers use the oyster company premises for a haulout site.]

“My family and my business have been harmed,” said Kevin Lunny. “The Inspector General detailed numerous instances where science was manipulated, facts were distorted, and false accusations were made. All we wanted to do was improve a local oyster company and contribute to the Point Reyes community. We are encouraged by the Inspector General’s report but the federal government has farther to go in atoning for what happened here. The Park Service has broken trust and good faith with the ranchers, farmers, and citizens of West Marin.”

“In the end, this is about private citizens standing up to abusive treatment by their government,” Mr. Lunny said. “We said all along that the Park Service was in the wrong and now we have been proven right. The Lunny family has lived, farmed, and ranched in Point Reyes for more than six decades. We supported the Seashore’s creation and enjoyed an outstanding relationship until recently. It is our hope and prayer that the Park Service will work with us to reestablish a positive relationship.”

“People seeking food will see an opportunity to hunt, gather, or cultivate. People who are well fed, but seek spiritual sustenance in nature, will see a refuge. Wildlife biologists will see a laboratory, archeologists a dig, real estate developers a suburb, park managers a place of employment.” Mark Dowie of Inverness.

(From The Fiction of Wilderness published in the West Marin Review. The essay was adapted from an upcoming book Vital Diversities: Balancing Protection of Nature and Culture. Dowie teaches science and environmental reporting at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism.)

A small group of Point Reyes National Seashore visitors buying oysters from Drakes Bay Oyster Company and quietly picnicking beside the water a couple of weeks ago.

The tranquility at the oyster company contrasted with the folks screaming in excitement at another national park 200 miles away. In Yosemite, two rock climbers set a speed record for going up the face of El Capitan.

The climbers, one from Lafayette and one from Japan, shaved 2 minutes and 12 seconds off the 2 hour, 45 minute, and 35 second record held by two German brothers.

Back at Drakes Bay, oyster-company owner Kevin Lunny is fighting an attempt by National Seashore Supt. Don Neubacher to close the oyster farm when its lease runs out in 2012.

Supt. Neubacher’s administration says the 125-year-old oyster farm is incompatible with a wilderness area. Of course, the oyster farm isn’t actually in a wilderness area. So far, the government has labeled Drakes Estero, the inlet where Lunny’s oyster company is located, merely “potential wilderness.”

Drake’s Bay Oyster Company’s parking lot in the foreground and the Coast Guard’s white buildings in the background.

But it’s a stretch to call Drakes Estero even “potential wilderness.” By act of Congress, the land around it is reserved for agricultural. From the oyster farm, visitors can view not only this “pastoral zone” and traffic on Sir Francis Drake Boulevard but also a US Coast Guard Communications Station.

One chunk of parkland that is in a designated wilderness area is El Capitan.

The 3,000-foot-high granite monolith is part of what the Park Service boasts is “one of the world’s greatest climbing areas.” Not surprisingly, members of the press and public were on hand for a week to hoot and holler as climbers Hans Florine and Yuri Hirayama repeatedly scrambled up El Capitan. Hirayama has said that if he climbs the rock again, he’ll bring a movie crew from Japan.

Encouraging an international hullabaloo in the Yosemite wilderness area is apparently appropriate when the national park is looking for good publicity. In their own way, national parks do a fair amount of huckstering. The National Seashore, for example, holds sandcastle contests at Drakes Beach every Labor Day to lure crowds to Point Reyes.

All this commotion suggests that seeking solitude in nature to restore your soul can sometimes be more romantic than realistic — whether you’re wandering on Point Reyes or in Yosemite (right). Even without climbers and their fans, Yosemite’s wilderness is crawling with an estimated 500 black bears. If you don’t want your meditations disturbed, it’s better to follow the Savior’s advice (Matthew 6:6), and “when thou prayest, enter into thy closet.”

So what activities are appropriate in a “wilderness” area? That apparently depends on the park superintendent of the moment and whom he likes or doesn’t. Ever since Lunny helped organize the Point Reyes Seashore Ranchers Association so that ranchers could put up a united front in negotiations with the park, Supt. Neubacher’s Administration has made it clear they don’t like the oyster grower/beef rancher.

From a strictly environmental standpoint, Neubacher’s justification for trying to close Lunny’s oyster farm reveals the irrational way the Pacific West Region of the National Park Service is being administered these days. If this region of the Park Service is so fastidious it wants to close down a 125-year-old oyster farm to protect “potential wilderness” at Point Reyes, what the heck is the region doing promoting environmentally damaging rock-climbing competition in Yosemite’s “wilderness area?”

“As the number of climbers visiting the park has increased through the years, the impacts of climbing have become much more obvious,” the National Park Service acknowledges. “Some of those impacts include: soil compaction, erosion, and vegetation loss in parking areas, at the base of climbs, and on approach and descent trails, destruction of cliffside vegetation and lichen, disturbance of cliff-dwelling animals, litter, water pollution from improper human waste disposal, and the visual blight of chalk marks, pin scars, bolts, rappel slings, and fixed ropes.”

And what about the 2 million visitors a year the National Seashore attracts to Point Reyes. By any chance do they affect the wilderness around here more than a low-key, family-owned oyster company? Or the National Seashore’s filling in a wetland at Drakes Beach to provide parking for for this multitude… how did that preserve nature?

Given all this, just what does the Park Service mean when it talks about protecting the “wilderness?”

“‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, ‘it means what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.'” — Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

This is a story about Point Reyes Station’s ubiquitous pink roses and how I once happened to rescue a few wild ones.

One of the many bicyclists passing through town pedals past climbing roses in front of West Marin School.

When I came to town in 1975, Toby’s Feed Barn was located in the old Livery Stable building at Third and B Streets in Point Reyes Station. The Tomales Bay Foods building next door was a haybarn. In those days, Toby’s Feed Barn was just that, an outlet for hay transported by Toby’s Trucking. Some of it was grown on family land in Nevada.

In 1976, Toby’s Feed Barn moved into the old Diamond National lumber building on the main street where it now sells everything from bales of hay to gourmet foods to fine art. Toby’s Trucking, which already had facilities in Petaluma, moved the last of its operation out of Point Reyes Station. The livery stable building, where trucks had been serviced and hay stored, was sold a couple of years later along with the haybarn.

Toby’s Feed Barn and Trucking had begun in 1942, so there was an accumulation of old truck parts and other detritus of a trucking-and-hay business to be cleared away before the buildings changed hands. Back then, John’s Truck Stop was located on Fourth Street where the Pine Cone Diner is today, and watching the cleanup from across the way was owner John Ball.

Wild roses transplanted 30 years ago to my cabin. Unlike many roses, these are pretty much ignored by deer.

The Truck Stop owner had once been a driver for now-deceased Toby Giacomini, and he asked if he could have some of the wild roses growing where the cleanup was underway. “Help yourself!” Toby immediately responded. John took a few and encouraged the late Lt. Art Disterheft of Olema, then commander of the Sheriff’s Substation, to dig up a few more for himself.

Art, as it happened, had just come down with the flu and was in no shape to dig up roses, so he passed the offer along to me. There were three degrees of separation between Toby’s “Help yourself!” and me, but I accepted nonetheless. After all, I reasoned, the area would soon be cleared, which it was.

Digging up the roses was an amazing experience. It took a pick, as well as a shovel, to free them, for they were not growing in topsoil, as you and I think of it.

These roses were rooted mostly in clay, baling wire, and old engine oil. While moving them, I had to worry as much about getting greasy as getting pricked.

The roses’ hardiness was, however, encouraging. The wind across my pasture on the hill sometimes blows so relentlessly that it had withered all the flowers I’d tried to grow around the cabin. I figured these roses could withstand anything, and they have. In fact, without their annual pruning, my hot tub would soon be overgrown by a prickly, pink jungle.

The rose now growing in front of my deck, Rosa Californica, is one of less than a dozen native to this state.

In downtown Point Reyes Station, an example of a five-petaled antique rose can be seen at the corner of Highway 1 and Mesa Road (above) in front of Jane Quattlander’s home.

Several varieties of domestic pink roses have gone feral around town, for birds can spread rose seeds. These unidentified roses are growing at Bivalve overlooking the foot of Tomales Bay. Bivalve, now little more than a dirt turnout off Highway 1, was once a whistlestop on the narrow-gauge-rail line between Point Reyes Station and Cazadero.

Climbing roses along Highway 1 frame a view of Black Mountain.

Several West Marin towns are associated with particular flowers. An abundance of nasturtiums helps give Stinson Beach its colorful character. Primroses have become symbols of Inverness, thanks largely to the Inverness Garden Club’s annual Primrose Tea. With pink roses dotting so many Point Reyes Station vistas, we’re obviously the town with the rosiest outlooks.

An immense thicket of climbing roses along Highway 1 marks the southern edge of Point Reyes Station. This wall of thorns and pink blossoms borders the entrance to the Genazzi Ranch.

Western Weekend Queen Lianne Nunes greets the parade crowd Sunday. Her driver is Debbie Rocca.

Sunday’s parade in Point Reyes Station drew almost 1,000 spectators, who enjoyed sunny skies and a little less wind than we’d been having all week.

In many ways, Western Weekend is a small-town celebration of its ranching heritage. Of course, not all small towns are the same.

Cowgirls for Peace in recent years have become a fixture of this small-town parade.

Another politically progressive group of women, Main Street Moms, in the past have demonstrated against President Bush’s war policies. This year the Moms demonstrated for clean energy.

The Marin Agricultural Land Trust float. MALT, a nonprofit, was founded in 1980 as an alliance between ranchers and environmentalists to protect family farms and preserve open space. It works like this. Ranchers voluntarily sell commercial- and residential-development rights to MALT, typically in exchange for half the market value of their property. Under this arrangement, the ranchers give MALT an agricultural-conservation easement across their land while retaining ownership of their ranches. So far, MALT has acquired easements on more than 60 ranches for a total of more that 40,000 acres.

The Nave Patrola spoofs the World War II Italian army, at times chanting “Il Duce,” the title taken by Fascist leader Benito Mussolini. Patrol members manage to continually get their marching orders confused, collide with each other, and fall down. Back in the early 1970s, a representative of the Italian Consulate in San Francisco after seeing all this complained to parade organizers (to no avail) that the spoof denigrated Italy.

Tomales Bay State Park’s parade entry was a kayak on wheels pulled behind a truck.

The nonprofit Coastal Health Alliance operates clinics in Point Reyes Station, Bolinas, and Stinson Beach.

For youngsters, grabbing wrapped candies, which riders on parade floats throw, is often as important as seeing the parade.

Marin Sun Farms entered an especially ambitious float in the parade. The grass-fed, organic beef ranch on Point Reyes has a butcher shop in Point Reyes Station, and a butcher on Sunday cut up a quarter of beef while standing on the bed of a truck rolling in the procession.

The Aztec Dancers keep in rhythm with the beat of drummers (left rear).

Wells Fargo’s having bought the Bank of Petaluma in Point Reyes Station three months ago, the Wells Fargo Stagecoach showed up for this year’s parade.

Marin County Farm Bureau held a chicken barbecue next to Toby’s Feed Barn after the parade. Toby’s was also the site of the parade’s judging stand, a Cow Flop Drop fundraiser for Halleck Creek Riding Club, a chili cookoff, and various other Western Weekend festivities.

The 59th annual Western Weekend in Point Reyes Station got off to a merry, but tiny, start Saturday at the Dance Palace. In a large corral across Sixth Street, Point Reyes-Olema 4-H Club members showed a total of only half a dozen dairy cows and heifers.

“Where are all the other animals?” asked architect Sim Van der Ryn, a long-time resident of Inverness. But aside from five chickens and five rabbits in cages outside the back door of the Dance Palace, there weren’t any more.

Janelle Kehoe’s Holstein cow was the livestock show’s grand champion.

As it happened, a copy of The Point Reyes Light with the 1995 livestock show results was lying around my cabin, and after Saturday’s show, it occurred to me to compare the number of entries this year with the number of winners back then. I was shocked by how dramatically participation has dropped off.

The 4-H Fair winners 13 years ago included: nine beef cattle (this year, no entries); 12 dairy cows (this year, six entries); six dogs (none); 10 horses (none); four sheep (none); three cavies aka guinea pigs (none); three small animals/pets (none); 11 rabbits (five).

One of the most fascinating facets of poultry competition in the 4-H Fair amounts to herding chickens with a pencil. Competitors are not supposed touch their bird with their hands while herding it down a folding table, so Frankie Kohrdt is carefully holding back although her chicken seems perplexed.

Nathan Hemelt’s Holstein was named reserve champion in the dairy cow showmanship competition.

With great concentration, River Aguire uses a pencil to nudge his wayward chicken down the judging table. Watching intensely are all his fellow competitors (from left): Frankie Kohrdt, McKenna Kohrdt, Adriano Puppo, and Olivia Puppo.

Carol Horick of Point Reyes Station keeps a tight lead on a rambunctious heifer during “adult showmanship” competition.

Instead of an animal show that in years past lasted all day, Saturday’s was over in less than two hours. And it would have been even shorter were it not for a mostly for-fun competition, adult showmanship. Adults, including parents of 4-H members and mere bystanders, were rounded up to show cows. Judges asked the adults not to chose their own children’s cow to show, and most complied.

Why is the livestock show shrinking so dramatically with each passing year? Certainly one reason is the reduction in ranching throughout West Marin.

Some ranches for economic reasons have had to greatly scale back, for example by replacing a dairy operation with beef-cattle grazing. A number of the ranches acquired by the National Park Service have been shut down. And the demographics of West Marin’s ranching community are also changing; fewer young parents can afford to live and raise 4-H members here.

In addition, 4-H clubs from throughout Marin and southern Sonoma counties once took part in the livestock show. No longer.

Ruler of the roost: Adriano Puppo’s chicken stands head and tail above the chicken belonging to his older sister Olivia.

The 4-H’ers father said that as newly hatched chickens, the two spent last winter in the family garage where they took to this close arrangement for staying warm.

Now that the weather is warmer, the two still prefer a vertical arrangement when hanging out together, and Olivia’s chicken pushes its way under her brother’s chicken almost as often as his chicken climbs on top.

Traditionally, the Western Weekend parade was held the day after Saturday’s livestock show, but this year there were “scheduling conflicts,” according to the sponsors, the West Marin Lions and Rotary clubs.

The parade down the main street of Point Reyes Station will begin at noon Sunday, June 8. There will be a silent auction from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. that day in the Dance Palace.

West Marin Senior Services will hold a chili and cornbread cookoff at 1 p.m. at Toby’s Feed Barn. And Halleck Creek Riding Club for the Disabled will sponsor a Cow-flop Drop; the fundraiser uses a grided field behind Toby’s and is sort of like roulette, with a cow and her plop substituted for a croupier and ball.

In addition, Marin Farm Bureau and Organics will hold a barbecue at Toby’s from 1 to 3 p.m., and winners of the Western Weekend raffle will be announced at 2 p.m. at Toby’s.

A Western Weekend Queen’s Dance will be held from 8 to 10 p.m. Saturday, June 7, in the Dance Palace.

Chileno Valley ranchers Mike and Sally Gale several weeks ago returned home after spending a fortnight in the Middle East visiting their son Ivan, a newspaperman in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Sally, Mike, and Ivan Gale at their Chileno Valley ranch last Christmas.

In 2003 and 2004, Ivan was an excellent reporter for The Point Reyes Light, winning three national and three statewide journalism awards during those two years. Ivan left The Light to attend Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism and earned two master’s degrees in Communications, one with a specialty in Science Reporting.

From there, he managed to land a job in the UAE, where for two years he was a business reporter for The Gulf News in Dubai. The transportation industry was his main beat. Ivan, now 33, this month will begin a new job with a startup daily in Abu Dhabi.

Maps from the World Fact Book, which is posted by the CIA.

The UAE is a federation of seven states on the eastern side of the Arabian Peninsula: Abu Dhabi, Ajman, Dubai, Fujairah, Ras al-Khaimah, Sharjah, and Umm al-Quwain. The federation’s neighbors are Saudi Arabia and Oman while across the narrow Strait of Hormuz lies Iran.

The emirates are shown to the upper left of Oman on the right side of Saudi Arabia.

A federal constitutional monarchy, the UAE’s presidency is always held by a member of the Al Nahyan clan of Abu Dhabi and its premiership by the Al Maktoum clan of Dubai. The Supreme Council, which consists of the rulers of the seven emirates, elects a Council of Ministers.

Thanks to oil and natural-gas revenues, which in turn have fueled other industrial development, the UAE has the fifth highest Gross Domestic Product per capita in the world.

A whopping 85 percent of the UAE’s population of 4.5 million are non-citizens. Along with residents from other Arab countries, there are 2.15 million South Asians (mostly Indians, Filipinos, Pakistanis, and Bangladeshis plus several thousand Sri Lankans).

In its report on Human Rights, the US State Department annually complains about abuse of South Asian workers in the UAE. And while acknowledging improvements in recent years, the State Department also reports the UAE’s Islamic fundamentalism can be harsh.

These criticisms notwithstanding, Islam in the emirates is far less fundamentalist than in such neighbors as Saudi Arabia and Iran. And the UAE is definitely friendly to the West. From 1892 until 1971, its states were by treaty under British military protection. In 1990-91, the emirates joined the fight against Saddam Hussein in the First Gulf War, which followed Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait.

During his parents’ visit, Ivan (at left) accompanied them on a trip to Jordan, which is across the Arabian Peninsula from the UAE. Included here are two photos from that trip. While Sally like other women was expected to wear a headscarf, Ivan and Mike are wearing them to ward off a cold wind.

Because the emirates are Arab states ruled by sheiks, with each state having both secular and Islamic law, I found myself wondering what is it like for Ivan to live and work in this world, especially when he doesn’t speak Arabic. And for that matter, why are there several English-language newspapers in the UAE?

On the occasion of Ivan’s moving from Dubai to Abu Dhabi and going to work for a new newspaper, I questioned him by email about his life there. Here are his answers:

DVM: What can you tell me about the newspaper where you’ll be working?

Ivan: The National is set to launch on April 17 and will be a nationwide, general-interest, English-language newspaper.

We will be the only English daily based in Abu Dhabi [above], the UAE capital, but there are a handful of other English dailies based in Dubai and Sharjah.

A lot of newspapers have done well here because the real estate market (and the economy as a whole) is so hot it is keeping the advertising market extremely buoyant.

Our newspaper is funded by the Abu Dhabi government which is reshaping its media subsidiary (and our parent company), Emirates Media Inc., into Abu Dhabi Media Company. ADMC’s CEO is Ed Borgerding (formerly executive vice president of Walt Disney International in Hong Kong and senior vice president of Walt Disney International Television in Hong Kong and London).

Our newspaper is the first and most significant new initiative from the Abu Dhabi government’s media arm, which has some pretty ambitious plans for the future.

DVM: Why is it possible for an English-language paper to survive in the Arab world?

Ivan: Some UAE-based English dailies have not only survived, they have flourished. This is in large part due to the high expat and South Asian population fluent in English. There could be as many or more English speakers than Arabic speakers in this country because of the
high numbers of foreign workers living here.

There are some other [English-language newspapers in the Arab world]: The Daily Star in Lebanon and some newspapers and business magazines in Cairo, where English-language publications have established themselves. But outside the UAE, I don’t think you will find the same conditions of a booming economy and a critical mass of English readers that have spelled success for the local dailies here.

Outside of the commercial aspects, I think local publications provide an important service for English readers living outside the region. There is a growing hunger among readers in the East and West [for news] about what is happening in the Middle East, and this will mean online readers will increasingly consult the websites of UAE newspapers for news and analysis.

DVM How many English-language newspapers are there in the UAE?

IVAN: 7 Days (daily freesheet), Gulf News (daily broadsheet), Khaleej Times (daily broadsheet), Emiates 24-7 (daily tabloid business newspaper), Xpress (free weekly newspaper), Gulf Today (daily broadsheet), and soon The National (daily broadsheet).

I should also note that The Times of London began printing an edition in the UAE last year, and The Financial Times does as well, I believe.

DVM: How much of the English-language press’ readership in the UAE is from India?

Ivan: It has been said that some newspapers cater almost exclusively to the South Asian segment of the population. As a block they could very well constitute the single largest group in this country. It’s probably true that some of the English newspapers rely on this group for at least half or more of their readership. But there are also large numbers of expats living here from the UK, Europe, and North America. A lot of Arab businessmen also consult the English press for news and analysis too. So it’s definitely a mix.

DVM: What fuels the UAE economy?

Ivan: A brief answer would be high oil prices which spill over into a booming real estate market, high consumer spending, and the relentless pace of infrastructure mega-projects [built with] private and government investment. Travel and tourism are also very important.

DVM: I gather you’ll be covering transportation. Why is that a major beat in the UAE?

IVAN: The thing is, there are many major beats here because the UAE government, and Dubai [above] in particular over the past five years, have undertaken an ambitious and wide-ranging diversification campaign. So there are exciting developments going on in real estate, finance, telecoms and technology, travel and tourism, media and marketing, and of course oil and gas.

But it is important to note that transport was the first major industry that put this country on the map after its pearling industry collapsed. Dubai borrowed heavily to dredge its creek and then build a deepwater port around the 1950s, before the country’s oil and gas reserves were discovered.

They’ve gone from strength to strength, and Jebel Ali Port in Dubai is now the largest between Rotterdam and Singapore. Emirates Airline is now on track to become the largest international airline in the next four to seven years. The airline has roughly 250 aircraft on order right now, worth $60 billion, while Dubai and Abu Dhabi together are spending close to $50 billion on new airport infrastructure. The name of Dubai’s new airport hub is telling: “Dubai World Central.”

DVM: Under Islamic law, Muslims are not allowed to drink alcohol. What are the UAE’s laws on drinking as they apply to you?

Ivan: It is legal to buy from a licensed liquor shop if you have an alcohol license. You can also buy from the duty free shops at the airport when you arrive. In some emirates, there are hole-in-the-wall shops where you don’t have to have a license.

DVM: How much Arabic do you speak? How do you get along, both at work and around town, without being fluent?

Ivan: I’ve picked up greetings and how to exchange pleasantries but never studied the language. And I’ve never felt that I was any worse for it. The Emiratis and the Arabs from other countries who live here all speak English with varying levels of fluency. People in the service industry are invariably from the Philippines or South Asia. Frankly, this would be a tough place to study Arabic because there is no immersion experience. English is read and spoken all around you.

What is there to say about the American turkey that hasn’t recently been said? In the last 20 years, wild turkeys have spread throughout West Marin. I grew up in Berkeley and six weeks ago attended a New Year’s Eve party there; to my surprise, residents of my old neighborhood were likewise talking about wild turkeys moving in on them.

Well, how about this curiosity? Why does the bird have the same name as the country? As it happens, Turkey was the talk of the world’s chattering classes this past week after Turks voted that henceforth women can wear headscarves in universities. But getting back to the coincidence of names:

Here’s an explanation from an educational website, Kidzone, for younger students; it’s consistent with the etymology given by The American Heritage Dictionary:

“When the Spanish first found the bird in the Americas more than 400 years ago they brought it back to Europe. The English mistakenly thought it was a bird they called a “turkey” so they gave it the same name. This other bird was actually from Africa, but came to England by way of Turkey (lots of shipping went through Turkey at the time). The name stuck even when they realized the birds weren’t the same.”

The African bird which the English confused with the American turkey was the guinea fowl, The American Heritage Dictionary notes. As it happens, for the past two months that bird has been the talk of Point Reyes Station’s chattering classes, such as we are, because a representative of the alien species has been walking the streets of town.

The first report of that streetwalking was published in this blog Dec. 16. Yesterday, The Point Reyes Light reported that after two months of hunting and pecking throughout Point Reyes Station, the bird has now been caught by Station House Café employee Armando Gonzalez.

A word of warning. If guinea fowl is the dinner special some night at the café, remember the caution of Inverness Park biologist Russell Ridge: “You better like dark meat.”

Author and political activist Jack Herer showed up at the Dance Palace in Point Reyes Station Monday evening to publicize the “California Cannabis Hemp & Health Initiative 2008” signature drive.

Herer signs a copy of one of his books, Grass, for Elizabeth Whitney of Inverness. Linda Sturdivant of Inverness Park (at left) helped organize Monday’s meeting. Attendance was light, probably because in West Marin Herer was preaching to the choir.

Monday’s event began with a movie, Emperor of Hemp (narrated by actor Peter Coyote), about Herer’s 50-year campaign throughout the United States to legalize cannabis sativa, both the smokable and non-smokable varieties. In the film, Herer is seen evolving from a conservative military policeman in Korea after the war to an advocate for growing hemp for fiber, food, and fuel.

Herer loves to rant, although the effects of a stroke have slowed his speech in recent years, and is seen from New York to Oregon ranting against marijuana laws and haranguing enthusiastic crowds with, “Hemp will save the world.”

Appropriately, Herer says his interest in cannabis sativa occurred after a girlfriend convinced him to try smoking pot. Not only did the euphoria make him see the world differently, he became a different person. Herer went from a Goldwater Republican to an advocate for legalizing cannabis, both for enjoyment and medical purposes. Equally significant, he became an advocate for growing industrial-grade cannabis to replace wood in paper, for use as fuel and lubricants, for cooking oil etc.

As Herer pointed out in his repeatedly reissued 1985 book The Emperor Wears No Clothes, hemp was used for thousands of years to make paper, cloth, oil (from its seeds), and innumerable other products. In 1937, however, the US government outlawed personal use of pot and outlawed even the growing of industrial-quality hemp despite outcries from the medical community, among others.

The absurdity of banning a valuable crop became evident a decade later when, as Emperor of Hemp shows, a US Department of Agriculture film described hemp farming as a patriotic part of the war effort, even though it remained illegal.

The federal government continues to ban hemp farming (although industrial-grade hemp contains too little tetrahydrocannabinol to create the effects associated with pot), and hemp products sold in this country are all made with imported hemp. Emperor of Hemp quotes the government’s argument for banning a valuable crop as being that police would have trouble determining which cannabis was legal and which was illegal, so allowing industrial-grade hemp growing in the US “would send the wrong message to our children.” Huh?

Emperor of Hemp contains interviews with people from the medical community, academia, and the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, all saying that what Herer preaches is on target despite his bombast. Even NORML, who for years didn’t want to associate itself with Herer’s “Hemp-will-save-the-world” rhetoric, now recognizes the aging activist’s writings have made the public understand the false premises behind the government’s war against cannabis, the group’s executive director says in the film.

Herer has now authored the Hemp Initiative in an attempt to make California law reflect reality. As Herer said Monday, signatures are being collected for the state initiative, with 434,000 valid signatures needed by April 5 to qualify for the November ballot. In any initiative drive, a large number of signatures are invalidated, so organizers of this campaign hope to reach three million signatures in the next two months.

The initiative would legalize the growing and selling industrial hemp, would bar state law enforcement officers from helping federal agents enforce federal anti-marijuana laws in California, would legalize marijuana smoking for religious purposes, would legalize adult use of marijuana for euphoria as well as medicine, and would set standards for non-commercial cultivation of marijuana.

To publicize the initiative drive, three-day “Hip Hop for Hemp” festivals will be held in Northern and Southern California. Seeva Cherms (left), the daughter of Linda Sturdivant, is handling publicity, and Wednesday she told me 24 bands and several internationally known reggae and rock stars have already agreed to participate.

For the moment, Seeva added, the identities of the biggest names cannot be announced, pending arrangements with their recording companies. People who want to keep up with festival plans will soon be able to check a new Hip Hop for Hemp website.

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Old Christmas trees piled behind the Arthur E. Disterheft Public Safety Building in Point Reyes Station this week.

County firefighters each year encourage West Marin residents to drop off their old Christmas trees at firehouses. The trees are chipped and hauled off, eliminating the risk of dry trees accidentally catching fire around the house. I dropped my tree off at the Point Reyes Station firehouse Monday after calling ahead to make sure I could do so a day after the recycling program supposedly ended for the year. No problem, I was told.

Of course, old Christmas trees shed pine needles whenever they brush against something, so I wasn’t especially happy about hauling the tree in my car’s trunk. “Too bad you can’t just drag it behind your car,” my houseguest Linda Petersen said with a laugh.

I could imagine my route to the firehouse littered with Christmas tree branches and cited the State Vehicle Code, which says that when hauling stuff on a public roadway, you must make sure none of it ends up in the road, with two exceptions, one of which you may never have thought about.

As the Highway Patrol officer, whose patrolcar is seen here, later confirmed in detail, Section 23114 of the Vehicle Code provides: “A vehicle may not be driven or moved on any highway unless the vehicle is so constructed, covered, or loaded as to prevent any of its contents or load other than clear water or feathers from live birds from dropping, sifting, leaking, blowing, spilling, or otherwise escaping from the vehicle.”

This allows farmers to transport “livestock,” the CHP officer said. In short, if you’re allergic to feathers, it’s up to you not to tailgate the turkey truck.

Wild Turkeys at Dawn. Monday morning I was awakened by 37 wild turkeys gobbling outside my bedroom window. Transported by the sunrise, they dropped few feathers.

The non-native turkeys were introduced into West Marin in 1988 by a hunting club working with the State Department of Fish and Game. You can read that story at Posting 76. By now there are far more turkeys than turkey hunters, and their flocks have spread throughout West Marin.

Hunting and slaughtering animals are not for everyone, but for the edification of those inured to them, the Associated Press in 1875 reported on a get-rich-quick scheme for perpetual-motion farming then being advertised in Lacon, Illinois:

“Glorious Opportunity to Get Rich. We are starting a cat ranch in Lacon with 100,000 cats. Each cat will average 12 kittens a year. The cat skins will sell for 30 cents each. One hundred men can skin 5,000 cats a day. We figure a daily net profit of over $10,000. Now what shall we feed the cats? We will start a rat ranch next door with 1,000,000 rats. The rats will breed 12 times faster than the cats. So we will have four rats to feed each day to each cat. Now what shall we feed the rats? We will feed the rats the carcasses of the cats after they have been skinned. Now Get This! We feed the rats to the cats and the cats to the rats and get the cat skins for nothing.”

The advertisement not surprisingly turned out to be a hoax. The perpetrator was an Illinois editor named Willis B. Powell.

By tradition, the holidays are a time for seeing old friends and new. Here are some of the visitors I saw over Christmas.

The population of wild turkeys around my cabin keeps getting higher. Nine toms and 35 hens marched around my fields on Saturday while sentries such as this kept watch from pine trees.

Newspaperman Ivan Gale, a former reporter for The Point Reyes Light, has been writing for The Gulf News in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates, for the past year. Ivan came home for Christmas to visit his parents in Chileno Valley, Mike and Sally Gale, and will move to a newly founded daily newspaper in Abu Dhabi when he returns to the UAE. Here Ivan feeds windfall apples to Lucy the cow, who savors every chomp.

Although some raccoons can become acclimated to human surroundings, domesticating wild animals is often not good for them and can lead to smoking and drinking. This counter-feral raccoon may have taken up bartending to support a corrupted lifestyle.

‘Twas the night before Christmas, and thanks to no cats, all the creatures were stirring including these rats. Here two roof rats enjoy a Christmas Eve dinner of birdseed spilled on my deck.

“I wish the bald eagle had not been chosen as the representative of our country,” Benjamin Franklin complained in 1784. “He is a bird of bad moral character… Like those among men who live by sharping and robbing, he is generally poor and often very lousy. The turkey… is a much more respectable bird and withal a true original native of America.”

On the other hand, if the turkey and not the bald eagle were our national symbol, would it be unpatriotic to eat drumsticks at Christmas dinner?