Journal of Alta California Spring 2018

We are dedicated to demystification, to self-teaching, and to encouraging people to think for themselves. Thus our Motto: ‘access to tools and ideas’ ... We recommend rather than attack ... We change with the times that we help change ... We update ourselves continually ... We are deliberately eclectic. — Statement of purpose, CoEvolution Quarterly, 1974 When I read Stewart Brand’s mission statement for his historic quarterly, I thought we might do well to imitate his example. They say journalism is the rough draft of history. I guess our Journal is the second draft, or the first revision. We examine events after some of the dust has settled, when we can reflect on impacts and sift for meaning. We are not big believers in the old media model, in which…

Few people have written as evocatively about California’s natural beauty as Scottish-born naturalist and Sierra Club founder John Muir. His letters describing his travels in the state’s wilderness are rich with colorful descriptions, especially his writings about Yosemite Valley. After taking President Theodore Roosevelt on a camping trip to Yosemite in 1903, he convinced Roosevelt to designate Yosemite as a national park. TO HIS FRIEND JEANNE C. CARR, JULY 26, 1868 Fate and flowers have carried me to California, and I have reveled and luxuriated amid its plants and mountains nearly four months. I am well again, I came to life in the cool winds and crystal waters of the mountains, and, were it not for a thought now and then of loneliness and isolation, the pleasure of my existence…

Phil Bronstein, the former executive editor of the San Francisco Chronicle, is executive chair of the board for the Center for Investigative Reporting. Jennifer Ouellette is a science writer and author of four popular science books, most recently “Me Myself, and Why: Searching for the Science of Self.” She lives in Los Angeles. Michael Bauer is the restaurant critic and editor at large at the San Francisco Chronicle. Previously he worked at the Dallas Times Herald and the Kansas City Star. Allison Bruns is a freelance illustrator. Rooted in a lifelong fascination with music and literature, her work includes a diverse cast of characters, each with their own story to share.…

Many California farmers shuddered when President Donald Trump began making good on his campaign promise to find and deport undocumented immigrants. During the Trump Administration’s first 100 days, Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested more than 41,000 individuals known or suspected of being in the country illegally — a nearly 40 percent jump over the same period in 2016. Because 70 percent of the state’s roughly 600,000 agricultural workers are undocumented immigrants, the immigration crackdown threatens to exacerbate an already acute labor shortage. “Crews are off 20 to 25 percent,” says James Bogart, president of the Grower-Shipper Association of Central California. At stake for the state’s $54 billion agriculture industry: crops left to rot in the fields, higher prices at supermarkets and eventually, perhaps, fewer California-grown labor-intensive crops like strawberries, lettuce,…

Gavin Newsom remains the front-runner in the field for the 2018 gubernatorial election, and other candidates are starting to slip behind as Newsom tightens his grip on the race. The withdrawal of former L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti removes a major potential challenger to Newsom and enhances Antonio Villaraigosa’s hopes of making the top-two runoff. LT. GOV. GAVIN NEWSOM Odds: 3-2 (Previously: 3-2) ANTONIO VILLARAIGOSA Odds: 4-1 (Previously: 3-1) STATE TREASURER JOHN CHIANG Odds: 5-2 (Previously 5-2) DELAINE EASTIN Odds: 9-1 (Previously 7-1) TOM STEYER Odds 10-1 (Previously 8-1) JOHN COX Odds 1,000-1 (Previously 1,000-1) ASSEMBLYMAN TRAVIS ALLEN Odds 1,000-1 (Previously 1,000-1) L.A. MAYOR ERIC GARCETTI Scratched…

Every once in a while, a pilot taxiing at San Francisco International Airport reports to air traffic controllers that a dog has somehow wandered onto the tarmac. Patiently, the airport’s control tower assures the pilot that there’s no dog menacing the runways. It’s just a plastic coyote. Like all airports, SFO competes for space with local wildlife. An aviation bird strike can be disastrous, as the world learned in 2009 when a US Airways jet collided with a flock of geese and had to ditch in New York City’s Hudson River. An alligator was run over and killed at Orlando Executive Airport last June. Moose can be a hazard at Alaskan airports. John F. Kennedy International Airport has a well-documented turtle problem. Working within state and federal wildlife laws, airports…