Holy cow. 45 earthquakes in a day? Yikes. Let me look into this. (thanks for the comment...)

Have been thinking about this quite a bit. It's challenging to me, as a lousy navigator, to contemplating giving up the ability to find myself in the wilderness reliably, but I have to agree that with that ability to find oneself on a map in the wild on a device something important is lost when it comes to one's relationship with nature. Hope to be back on the trail in a couple of weeks; if I get a chance to talk to PCTers I'll poll them on this really interesting question. For now, here's a prof of navigational science's take on the matter. Spoiler alert; he's not for the GPS. http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/finding-the-way-back-primitive-navigation

Forgot the all-important weight measurement: 1 pound 1 ounce. Rolls up into a container about the size of a small loaf of bread.

A wide-ranging story on the front page of the LA Times brings the ever-helpful William Patzert into this discussion. http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-texas-drought-rains-20150525-story.html#navtype=outfit&page=1 The key quote re: this question: "El Niño is not a drought buster — it provides a lot of excitement and a lot of mudslides in Southern and Central California, but it doesn't do much for Northern California, and that's where we need it," Patzert said, emphasizing the state's meager snowpack. California water officials had planned to make the trek to the Sierra Nevada to conduct their monthly snowpack measurement on May 1, but called it off because, for the second consecutive month, there wasn't any snow to measure. This is why Patzert emphasizes the complexity of California's drought. "El Niño essentially drenches the southern tier of the United States, so you often have below normal rainfall in Northern California, which is where we get most of our water," Patzert said.

Short answer: yes. Water conservation is crucial, and it's infuriating to water managers in California when meteorologists in the spring to talk about possible a bounty of rainfall in the fall and winter, when a great deal of evidence can be found pointing to the fact that so-called "seasonal forecasts" remain the unfound Holy Grail of meteorology and climatology in CA. The somewhat longer answer is that a monster El Niño can bring substantial snowfall to the Sierra. (Which my post, in its focus on rainfall, obscured.) I know this from personal experience, as the El Niño of 95-96, although not strong in terms of ocean temperatures, did bring more than 200% of average snowfall to the Sierra, which I tromped through on the John Muir Trail that summer, finding the trail buried above 11,000 feet all through July. Still, it's a good question: how much more or less snow is likely during an El Niño year, vis-a-vis a normal year? Thanks for bring it up.

Interesting -- if you have a link to that info, I'd be curious to see it.

Thanks for the clarification, http://onthepublicrecord.org/.

Thank you Mr. Easley! I'm going to follow up, and read that play. There's a reason we (as a culture) continue to be interested in Williams. It's not just his greatness. He also knows how to make us love, really love, his mixed-up, troubled, struggling characters. That's art, not coincidence, and (I like to think) has lessons to offer all of us.

Thanks for sending that link. That's an exciting idea, and deserves more attention (which it sounds like it's getting from the city of San Francisco, the state of CA, and even the White House). As the geochemist quoted in the story, Whendee Silver says, we still need to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases -- but to be able to simple and practical means of biological uptake is also a great step forward. From the SF Chronicle story you mentioned: "The research showed that if compost from green waste — everything from household food scraps to dairy manure — were applied over just 5 percent of the state’s grazing lands, the soil could capture a year’s worth of greenhouse gas emissions from California’s farm and forestry industries. The effect is cumulative, meaning the soil keeps absorbing carbon dioxide even after just one application of compost, the researchers found. In theory, Silver calculates, if compost made from the state’s green waste were applied to a quarter of the state’s rangeland, the soil could absorb three-quarters of California’s greenhouse gas emissions for one year, due in large part to the one-time offset from waste diversion."

Well, I was quoting another freelance writer who had that experience when the economy tanked. For me it's always been tough, in the Great Recession and after. Always a struggle to pay the rent, but though the money is poor it's much more soul satisfying than a corporate job I had in the past.

And thank you so much for your participation Sonia! It's so heartening, I cannot tell you.

A couple of comments from friends and relations deserve mention: "Is your dad living in the post-apocalypse?" "You look like you've just been captured by the Taliban and under interrogation in Afghanistan."

It's true that Class II injection wells, such as operated in Ventura County by Anterra, are not in and of themselves the same thing as hydraulic fracturing. But it's also true that these Class II wells are licensed to accept fluids from frack jobs by the EPA. http://water.epa.gov/type/groundwater/uic/class2/ Re: accurate data, I think it's clear that the data that Anterra reported to the CA Division of Oil Gas and Geothermal Resources, which shows the injection of millions of barrels of fluid, greatly exceeding the permit they received from the county for reinjection of oil-field fluids fifteen years ago, has set off their dispute with the Planning Department of the County of Ventura. But what is driving the county's criminal investigation of the firm?

Meant to say..."makes oak wood brittle."

That's the really troubling thing. They looked great. Vibrant and green. Heard -- I think from arbologist Mike Inuba -- that mature oaks send down taproots that can feed the leaves and encourage growth even in the most adverse of conditions, but the combination of growth and weight and extreme heat makes oak wood. The tree that just fell did not have any apparent heart rot, as did the other two big oaks that fell. It's upsetting. Thanks for your kind words. We do have younger trees that appear to have died in the past month or so, just to add to our concern.

Thank you for the thoughtful comment. I hear from Julia Brownley, a Democratic Congresswoman in this area, that 60-70% of the children crossing the border this year were found to be intent on re-uniting with a known family member in the U.S. , usually a parent. I would put that in the category of "good plan," but it does raise questions about the other 30-40% One possible point on which both sides might be able to agree would be around the expectation that every child immigrant have a plan -- such that if it didn't work out, there would be a procedure to follow, for the sake of fairness to them and everyone else. The LA Times had an excellent story in today's paper in which a photographer followed up on a kid he tracked from Honduras years ago on a great story. What happened to this kid, who did make it into the U.S., but ended up going back to Honduras? Find out here: http://www.latimes.com/world/great-reads/la-fg-c1-taming-the-beast-20140822-story.html#page=1 I

Hi DD, To be eligible for unemployment benefits, you have to work a certain number of weeks at a old-fashioned (non-1099) job. I can't remember how many weeks that is. (It's been years since I've been eligible myself.) But let's assume you are eligible. In that case, no, don't list all your 1099 side jobs together, because that might confuse the system. They might think you were working a salaried position, but trying to hide something, such as benefits. EDD actually wants to pay you all the benefits you deserve, but literally cannot stand it when people hide income and take unemployment benefits they do not deserve. So even if all the side jobs seem piddly and not worth the trouble to list separately, you'll be better off painstakingly putting them down one by one. Best wishes -- Kit

A little background on Beccario's work from Slate...not long enough! May have to try and remedy that. http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/12/18/global_wind_map_cameron_baccario_s_visualization_of_world_weather_patterns.html

Note too that the lo-fi availability of the record has been removed from the web (and the post above). Oh well. Young did make available a spectacular rendition of Bert Jansch's Needle of Death. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6H47jI6xanA Can't wait for the album, I confess.

Thanks for the factual and troubling note. I wonder if we will look back on our blithe acceptance of acetaminophen today much the way we look back now on our blithe acceptance in the 50's of DDT...except that in this case we're dosing ourselves, instead of our lands and wildlife.

Note: from reading reviews I learn that Young in fact is speaking to his late mother in the above remarks. This odd conceit adds a personal tone to the spoken-word prologue to the record, but doesn't change the fact that Young is pretty obviously talking about global warming, and all but daring us to "get it." So Neil, you can stop testing us. Yes, we're awake and paying attention. I think.

Agree completely. A little anecdote about the creation of that great line...apparently when Williams was living, utterly broke, in New Orleans, twenty years into his writing career with precious little to show for it, he would go out in the morning and ask passers-by for cigarettes, because he couldn't afford to buy his own. This is what he started to calling that, in his poeticizing way. (I believe I saw that in the wonderful collection of his notebooks put out by Yale University Press, though I've looked for the detail, and haven't yet been able to footnote it.)

How cool! I love coming across rock art in the backcountry -- here's a striking example I found in the watershed above Fillmore last fall:http://www.achangeinthewind.com/2013/11/sexy-rock-art-in-the-sespe-wilderness-2013.html

Not me, but a fellow I was with. Went on a weekend trip with a couple of guys, one of whom was a graphic artist, and got ahead of us on the trail, and put it together while waiting for us to to catch up. Thank you for asking --

Hi Nancy -- happy to talk. The Google Voice button on the site actually does work, or you can email me (kitstolz@gmail.com). Will likely delete this soon so as not to be targeted by junk mail.