Weekend Links: Nov. 18-20
Morrissey meltdown, tar pit turnarounds, and 8 other stories to consider in your quest to understand the Golden State
Greetings from What is California? HQ, where the dead week between Veterans Day and Thanksgiving means only one thing: Time to put up the Christmas decorations! Next time you hear from us, we’ll have “Last Christmas” on loop and an eye-watering utility bill. Tis the season, etc. etc.🎄🔌 😢
Programming note
The What is California? podcast and “Weekend Links” newsletter will be off for the holiday week. We will see you back here after Thanksgiving. Have a restful, reflective, relaxing break! 🥧 🍁 🍂
ICYMI: This week’s podcast
This week’s podcast features Anita Chabria, who writes a column about California for the Los Angeles Times. We talked about her journeys through the state in an effort to understand this massive, mystifying place we call home:
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On with the Weekend Links
Meanwhile, I hope you'll consider checking out some of these nifty California stories if/when you are so inclined.
NOTE: I try to link to stories that are not behind a subscriber-only paywall. If you can, please consider subscribing or donating to news organizations that provide this essential California coverage.
A Fossil Museum Uses the Past to Reimagine Climate’s Future - Adam Popescu, NY Times (gift article; free to read)
Have you ever been to the La Brea Tar Pits? I haven’t; it always sounded like a goofy anachronism from the mid-20th century L.A. tourist-trap tradition. The folks running the Tar Pits are plenty aware of what we’re all thinking (“Only in L.A. could a 99 Cents Only Store sit next to subway construction next to a prehistoric landmark where greenish-black asphalt bubbles and burps methane as tourists gawk and cars honk,” Popescu writes), and this fascinating story chronicles the really cool work they’re doing to convince us otherwise. “Built around a group of ancient asphalt lakes that trapped and preserved over 600 species, the museum has more Ice Age fossils than any other institution,” Popescu reports, and those fossils could tell us about if and how our climate crisis mirrors the human-caused die-off at the end of the Ice Age. Sold!
Why Are Marines Working Unpaid Shifts as Security Guards at California Concerts? - Sarah Holtz, SF Standard
I don’t know how this extraordinary, deeply reported feature isn’t getting more traction. The headline says it all: What appears to be a thinly veiled scam in the concert industry (a redundancy these days, I know) has Marines doing “volunteer” security duty at big Goldenvoice music festivals—from Coachella to Aftershock—in place of trained, insured, and certified security specialists. The Marines here are on the record, and there are photos and other receipts. The bosses at the security service and promoters at Goldenvoice aren’t talking, but one of the Marines turned volunteer security guards said “he took the gig at Coachella because he had never been to a concert before. He said he didn’t expect to be dispatching EMT and supervising a team of seven guards by the end of the weekend.” Sounds totally legit.
The most fragrant native plants are just heavenly. Here’s what to plant now - Jeanette Marantos, LA Times
Welcome back to What is California? Garden Corner, where it’s crunch time for fall planting. And if you’re planting, a crop of California-native plants is ideal for anyone looking to inexpensively pivot to a sustainable, drought-tolerant yard in the place of a thirsty lawn. I really like this approach to selecting natives for your own fall planting; you can’t go wrong with fragrant specimens that also attract butterflies, hummingbirds and bees. Everyone wins! Among the top 10 here, I love the Cleveland sage. I’ve got three outside my front door, and let me tell you—it’s hard to beat that moment when the aromas first waft into the house every spring. Whatever you choose, they’re worth it.
Two major California tourist destinations named to Fodor's 'No List 2023' - Katie Dowd, SFGATE
You know things are bad in an area when a global tourism brand tells you to avoid it. And in California, the experts at Fodor’s are urging folks to stay away from Lake Tahoe and Mendocino. The former is overrun with motorists and pandemic transplants and beachgoers, literally all of whom have inflicted traffic and pollution and irreversible ecological damage on the jewel of the Sierra. (Yes, they’ve also fortified the economy, but even many of the locals are begging for a respite.) The latter, even more distressingly, is literally out of fresh water; residents have been trucking it in since earlier this year. Such a bummer! Mendocino is amazing. But this is where we’re at. You might consider Plan B if you have either of these on your travel list.
Is turning right on a red light your California birthright? Absolutely not! - Robin Abcarian, LA Times
Did you know that California was the first state to allow right turns on red lights, going all the way back to 1939? Since then, cars have gotten bigger and faster. Motorists have become more harried and distracted. Meanwhile, pedestrians, cyclists, disabled folks, and anyone else at risk of harm or death by big cars and reckless drivers who barely slow down (let alone stop) at red lights? They haven’t changed at all. Thus the growing push in cities like San Francisco, San Jose, and now Berkeley to prohibit rights on red. I love it! It’s even great for motorists, too—think of all the injuries and fatalities we can avoid in crosswalks, not to mention the collisions among folks playing chicken in the U-turn and right-turn lanes. But will entitled California drivers who’ve only known right-on-red for generations play along? It might take generations further to undo. Here’s hoping,
California hospitals erect tents to cope with rise in flu - Associated Press
Get your flu shot! ”Several Southern California hospitals have begun using overflow tents outside emergency rooms to cope with a rising number of patients with flu and other respiratory illness,” the AP reports. “Health experts said it was not immediately clear whether flu cases would reach an earlier-than-usual peak in California, which typically sees the bulk of cases in December through February, or a prolonged flu season.” Seriously! Get it!
Morrissey cancels L.A. show after 30 minutes because it was ‘extremely cold’ - Aidin Vaziri, SF Chronicle
I first saw Morrissey live in 1992 at the old Arco Arena in Sacramento, then a few more times in the Bay Area in 1997 and 2002. He was amazing. I’m glad I got my fill then, because 30 years later, A) his albums are embarrassingly bad, B) he is a fascist-adjacent parody of his younger self, and C) he pulls embarrassing and infuriating stunts like this one last weekend at the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles: “The Smiths frontman, 63, had played about nine songs […] before his abrupt exit from the stage during the second night of his ‘Live in Concert’ tour. ‘As I think you know, it’s extremely cold,’ Morrissey […] told the crowd before leaving. ‘Can you tell? I can. However, we will steam on. Where to? Who knows.‘ ” How cold was it? The mid-50s, according to AccuWeather. Cue “I Started Something I Couldn’t Finish,” I guess. (Or “I Don’t Mind If You Forget Me,” which I really wish I could do right about now.)
Is California on its way to banning rodeos? Behind the growing movement to buck the event - Susanne Rust, LA Times
What’s only thing crueler to animals than penning them farms to immobilize, torment and slaughter them for a cheap burger? How about “wild cow milking” — or, as Rust describes: “A timed event in which a lactating beef cow, unused to human handling, has been wrangled from the fields and brought to an arena. There, she is separated from her calf, tossed into a rodeo ring, and attacked by three or four men who rope her, pull her tail, wrestle her to the ground and try to hold her still while one of them grabs her teats and milks her.” Alameda County banned the practice at rodeos three years after it prohibited “ ‘mutton busting’ — an event in which small children are placed on the backs of scared, unsaddled sheep and try to stay on while the sheep bucks, kicks and jumps to knock the child off,” Rust writes. Good for Alameda County! But can/will the rest of the state follow suit and rid us of these atrocity exhibitions, against all odds? Fingers crossed.
RELATED: Legendary vegan food impresario Miyoko Schinner joined the podcast earlier this year to tell us about the state of the art in cruelty-free cuisine:
California tries to harness megastorm floods to ease crippling droughts - Sharon Bernstein, Reuters
—WITH—
This Week's Storms Brought Lots Of Water — But Much Of It Will Wind Up In The Ocean - Erin Stone, LAist
It’s no secret that California has a water storage problem (on the blessed occasions when, like during last week’s storms, we actually have water to store). For some, damming rivers to create reservoirs is the obvious strategy to solve the challenge, however expensive and environmentally destructive those dams are. But for an increasing number of observers, there’s a more immediate, accessible and inexpensive strategy at hand: Put it back underground, where depleted aquifers need restoring anyway. This pair of stories looks at the implications for this strategy in the direly drought-stricken Central Valley as well as the push for storm capture in Los Angeles, where many aquifers are contaminated and underground storage is at a premium. Now we just need to make it rain.
RELATED: Speaking of making it rain, CalMatters’ ace environmental reporter Rachel Becker has this fantastic explainer about cloud seeding and literally every other method of boosting California’s water supply in the years ahead. It’s excellent! Go read and discuss all of the above with your family at Thanksgiving. They’ll be very impressed.
And finally…
Blockbuster Video returning to LA (sort of): Bar will feature tribute to '90s culture - ABC7
”Let’s go to that Blockbuster-themed bar and have a few drinks,” said absolutely no one. But there it is anyway: A new bar, licensed by the defunct home-video giant, will feature all the nostalgic trappings of the old stores, with the added twist of… booze. Indeed, the ‘90s vibe is so hardcore here that they’re serving Crystal Pepsi and Zima, the clear beer-like substance that the young millennial news anchor in this video neither identified nor attempted to pronounce from the teleprompter. I feel so old.
Thanks for reading, and have a safe, happy Thanksgiving! 🐻 ❤️
-Stu