Green Living by Janet Marchant: Un-greening Our Tomatoes!

I'm so disappointed. Just as I was starting to learn about how good local, organic produce is for our planet, I heard that the U.S. Senate is about to put all of those small farmers out of business. As I understand it, big agribusinesses have gotten jealous of the success of farmer's markets and small, local producers, and are demanding that all of those sustainable farms be forced to buy the same produce-bagging and shrink-wrapping machinery that helps larger producers stay at the forefront of producing new strains of E-coli bacteria.

Now, I'm not angry about this, because it's probably just some kind of misunderstanding. Our Senators probably aren't aware of how much healthier organic produce is for us and for our environment, so it's up to fans of green living to introduce them to the joys of truly good fruits and vegetables. There's just no comparing a juicy, vine-ripened tomato at its peak to those bland pieces of styrofoam that pass for tomatoes in some stores. So the best way to help Senators understand the issue would be for some East Coast organic tomato growers to take them free samples of the ambrosial fruits of their labor. Of course, since our elected officials are busy people, it might be hard to get close enough to the Senators to hand them a fragrant slice of delicious tomato, so it's important that someone with a good throwing arm be included in the organic growers' delegation, in case the tomatoes have to be delivered all in one piece, and in a hurry.

It's true that throwing the tomatoes could get messy, especially since only the ripest, juiciest samples will do for the purposes of educating Senators. But then, they are probably also not aware of how much fun it can be to get covered in tomato juice and pulp, as many surprised tourists in Spain discover every year in the city of Buñol.

Apparently, no-one really knows how the tomato-smashing festival started, but I read that "one of the most popular theories is that disgruntled townspeople attacked city councilmen with tomatoes during a town celebration." The councilmen must have enjoyed the experience enough to make it a yearly event. And the moral of that story is that when you mix ripe tomatoes and elected officials, wonderful things will happen!

So, how about it, green living lovers? Who wants to take some transformative tomatoes to Washington D.C.?

Waterfront Is Home to Empty, Crumbling, Burned-Out Crime Magnets

Editor,

I heard that someone is trying to restore some historic buildings on Alameda's waterfront, and re-use them for something other than what they were built for. This is unconscionable! Those buildings should be used as what they were built to be, which is empty, crumbling, burned-out crime magnets.



Now, I'm not opposed to plans for redevelopment in general, but this particular plan is all wrong for the mixed commercial/industrial/residential character of the neighborhood. For one thing, those buildings were once three stories tall, so restoring them would ruin the views on that street. In order for any redevelopment plan for this site to be acceptable, it would have to create no additional traffic, and not change the appearance of the property in any way. Change is bad. We ned to preserve the restful view of rusted beams and boarded-up windows for future generations.

And don't even get me started on those people who suggest putting some other kind of building there instead. Surely, no-one could take that idea seriously.

Sylvia Meadow

Editor's Comments:
Miss Meadhall certainly seems to have a good grasp of what makes Alameda a nice place to live. She is right that change is bad. Now, if only certain slip-shod young noosepaper editors could keep that in mind, maybe we could all have confidence in the future of our island city.

We're Not Chicken, Unlike Some We Could Mention

Recent census figures show that currently, 160 residents of Alameda are chicken. However, we here at the Inaction Alameda Alameda Daily Noose dispute that number. Clearly, many more residents of the island city are scaredy cats, considering that this is the only local noose source with the guts to do real investigative journalism, bringing frightening facts to light. And if so few Alameda residents were chicken, and therefore afraid to read those frightening facts, our readership would be even more phenomenally large than it already is.

Based on our own infallible estimates, the number of residents who are chicken must actually be closer to 20,000, including a certain former and acting editor who doesn't just come out and say that he is unjustifiably critical of how much time we put into the Inaction Alameda Alameda Daily Noose. Instead, he insinuates things in little "Editor's Comments" attached to what he views as important Noose items. We would just like to point out that no-one asked for his opinion.

Clean-up Planned for Alameda's Most Toxic Sites

The Inaction Alameda Alameda Daily Noose by Inaction Alameda has obtained a list of Toxic Personality Superfund Clean-up sites located in the city of Alameda. This list includes a record of the many citizens' complaints about hazardous, threatening, disruptive or just plain annoying behavior originating from each site. There are far too many complaints about each Toxic Personality to reproduce here, but to give our readers a quick sampling of highlights, #1 has done damage to both public and private property with a crowbar and a car, #2 has been involved in public fistfights, excessive air horn use, sifting through other people's garbage and other dirty activities, and #4 consistently fails to clean up after a little white dog while walking it past other people's houses.

The Toxic Personality Superfund list did not include the names of these individuals, but the Inaction Alameda Alameda Daily Noose was able to use the geographical coordinates of the clean-up sites to plot their locations on this "map" which we tore out of a "phone book" and attached to a piece of "cardboard" with the use of some "tape."

The colored "push pins" indicate the locations of the Toxic Personality Superfund Clean-up sites. Notice that they are clustered in and around the over-privileged Gold Coast neighborhood of Alameda. It's about time someone did something about these hoity-toity blots on our landscape, going around blowing their air horns at all hours of the night for no good reason. We always have a perfectly fair reason for blowing our air horns. Usually, the reason is that it's the best way to demonstrate how effective they could be in an actual emergency.

In addition to the colored "push pins" on the map, there are also some metal "push pins" that have little to do with this story. Just ignore them.

Lon Geddoff Is Appalled by Gruesome Propaganda

Editor,

You won't believe what I saw in the newspaper! Not that I ever read newspapers, or get news from any print source other than the Alameda Daily Noose, but I needed some packing material for a package I was sending to my cousin on Bay Farm Island, and this gruesome image caught my eye:

Yes, that's right; it is nothing less than a visual instruction manual, drawn by some troublemaker named Mark Tutulli, showing children how to turn Squirrels into even larger, more dangerous threats to our quality of life! If you take a closer look, you'll see that I'm not exaggerating.


As if those vicious, fluffy-tailed killers weren't already bad enough, soon we're going to be dodging ones as tall as that Imperial library they built where the perfectly good motel used to be. It is appalling that any publication would be allowed to spread such blatant propaganda to corrupt our youth and terrorize our seniors, who are at extra risk from Squirrel-related heart attacks.

Whoever this Mark Tutulli guy is, he is obviously also a proponent of trees, and may be behind our gigantic acorn problem. No wonder we are having so much trouble with Squirrels in Alameda! This cartoonist must be stopped.

Lon Geddoff

Editor's Comments:

Editor-in-Chief Dave Williamson is still too occupied with promoting Miss Grumpy Alameda to assist in circulating Noose items such as this one about the escalating Squirrel threat. Even though our lives are all in danger, he thinks it's more important to prepare for the Miss Grumpy California pageant. It's lucky for him that the Alameda Daily Noose is in the capable hands of its original editor during this time of need.

Green Living by Janet Marchant: Green China and Green Silverware

I'm so excited! A friend of mine just sent me this photo of a fantastic new aid to green living: biodegradable utensils. As it says right on the box, these convenient knives, forks, and spoons are "Earth Friendly" and "Environmentally Responsible." I didn't know that there was anything that could be better than the green plastic forks I bought for my Earth Day Party, so I am blown away by this discovery!

Now, what doesn't come as a surprise is that this great new product is manufactured in one of the greenest places on the planet: China!

As my fans in China know, I'm often inspired by the wonderful things their country is doing to help save our planet. This time, I think the inspiration is flowing both ways, because China seems to have learned from our country's long tradition of finding all sorts of amazing uses for corn.

But here's a use we never thought of: turning corn starch into a kind of plastic that can be formed into biodegradable eating utensils! The Chinese are kindly sharing this ecological breakthrough with us by loading the earth-friendly forks and spoons onto majestic ocean freighters, selflessly burning countless gallons of their precious fossil fuels to bring them to our shores, and sending them to Wal-Mart and Costco mega-stores across the country so that we, too, can enjoy this clean, green, organic product.


Wow! If only there were something eco-friendly that we could send them in return, as a way of thanking them for making our lives a little greener. Maybe the best thing would be to ship them some of our corn, as a way of saying, "Keep up the creative corn processing, and send us more of those disposable forks."

It's hard for me to think of a more earth-friendly manufacturing material than corn. And remember, composting is good for the environment, so if you decide to hop on the corn-starch cutlery bandwagon, try to use at least one compostable fork or spoon at every meal. The more of them you use, the more there will be to compost! And that means more business for our clean, green, trading partner, China. It's a win-win!

Roger Rates Recent Interwebcasts

Roger's ratings of meetings initially interwebcast in the past 105 days, with the most recent shown in green:

Editor's Comment:

Today is Earth Day, which means it's a good day to stay safely in your car, away from emboldened trees and Squirrels, or at home catching up on your scrutiny of the vile machinations of "public officials" and "private companies." The following reviews will help guide you to the most outrageous recent meetings in Alameda.


Corica Have Mercy:


This Is an Outrage:
Regular Meeting of the Alameda City Council, April 20, 2010

Editor's Comments:

Both the Council and the Evil Developer Sun Cal demonstrated a bonus amount of intellectual density in their disagreement over the City's new density bonus ordinance. Any Right-Thinking Alamedan can see that the real significance of the ordinance is its potential to destroy Alameda if it were ever to be implemented. We can only hope that no City Council would ever be so foolish as to ever allow that to happen.

Regular Meeting of the Alameda City Council, March 2, 2010

Special Joint Meeting of the Alameda City Council, ARRA and CIC, January 26, 2010

Regular Meeting of the Planning Board, March 8, 2010

Public Utilities Board Regular Meeting March 15, 2010

Editor's Comments:

The Public Utilities Cupboard admits that they want to reduce electricity customers to tears! Or maybe they said something about tiers. And they must be expecting bad weather, because there was some talk about umbrellas. Either way, the Alameda Daily Noose and I are certain that it will end in tears.


So Many Things to Get Annoyed About:
Regular Meeting of the Alameda City Council, March 16, 2010

Regular Meeting of the Alameda City Council, February 16, 2010

Regular Meeting of the Alameda City Council, February 3, 2010

Special Joint CC/ARRA/CIC Meeting, April 6, 2010

Regular Meeting of the Planning Board, April 12, 2010

Editor's Comments:

The Planning Committee talks about modifying the City's density bonus ordinance, when we all know that the only satisfactory change would be to abolish it. Apologists for the ordinance claim that state law already had the same impact as the new ordinance, but how can they expect us to believe that some law in Sacramento will have any effect on Alameda? As an island, we are naturally buffered from that kind of law.

Regular Meeting of the Planning Board, February 8, 2010


Run-of-the-Mill Shenanigans:
Regular Meeting of the Alameda City Council, April 6, 2010

Regular ARRA Meeting, March 3, 2010

Regular ARRA Meeting, February 3, 2010

Regular Meeting of the Planning Board, March 22, 2010

Regular Transportation Commission, March 24, 2010


Nothing Worth Complaining About:
Special CIC Meeting, March 3, 2010

Regular Meeting of the Planning Board, February 22, 2010