Joel Grover reports for NBC 4 News at 11:00, Feb. 29, 2016. (Published on March 1, 2016).
(NBC 4) Families are flocking to get a look at brand new model homes in a beautiful canyon west of Los Angeles. What some buyers might not realize is that the development, called "Arroyo Vista at the Woodlands," is right next to one of the most contaminated sites in California -- the former Santa Susana Field Lab. More
The latest report, which aired Wednesday night, looks at questions of contamination at a popular kids summer camp, Camp Alonim, run by American Jewish University (AJU) at the Brandeis-Bardin Institute in Simi Valley.
Aerial view of the Santa Susana Field Laboratory in Simi Hills, with LA's San Fernando Valley and San Gabriel Mountains to the east. The ETEC site is in the flat area at lower left, with the Rocket Test Field Laboratory sites in the hills at the center.
NBC 4 and some parents have asked AJU to release all tests they’ve ever done on soil and water on the Brandeis-Bardin property, and the lab reports that go with those tests.
It appears AJU officials have released some but not all of the tests. Now AJU is trying to assuage worried parents with a new test.
In a letter to families, American Jewish University (AJU), which owns the camp and paid for the report, said this new study "definitively confirms the safety" of the 2,800 acre campus and finds there is "no unacceptable human health risk" from contamination at the Field Lab. The AJU says as part of the study, "extensive additional testing" was conducted at the camp in February 2016. — NBC 4
Experts consulted by KNBC found big problems with the new test, conducted by [controversial] Pasadena-based Tetra Tech, including: More + AUDIO
Every winter the bald eagles return to the San Bernardino Mountains to escape from the harsher climates of Canada and Alaska. Visitors and families can witness these majestic birds in their natural environment, and even take part in the yearly bald eagle count.
Discovery Center Tour
Within close proximity to Big Bear Frontier Cabins, the eagle exhibit at the Discovery Center offers a variety of eagle facts, literature and a life-sized replica -- always a favorite among the youngsters. Additionally, there is a two-hour guided eagle tour that meanders through the forest to get a closer look. When eagles aren't soaring the skies, they're on the prowl for food. They often perch upon lakeside tree tops in search for fish, small mammals and even ducks.
Adult bald eagles sits in a pine tree ready to swoop down on fish in Big Bear Lake.
For those yearning to venture out on their own, the "eagle discovery guide" is a great resource for locating eagles and learning more about their activities, habits and dietary adventures in the wild. It's easy to spot eagles with the naked eye, but binoculars are recommended for a more detailed look.
The Eagle Eye
Eagle, Ganymede Roman era relief (wiki)
On average an eagle's eye is the same size as a person's, but its precision is far more impressive. An eagle could spot a fish in the water from hundreds of feet up in the trees. Eagles also have two centers of focus, which means they can see forward and to the side simultaneously. So when an eagle spots its prey from above, it literally "locks its eyes" on it. In other words, if the prey starts to move, the eagle can move with it, while it keeps its eyes directly focused on the prey.
Great Family Outing
Children are always very excited when they spot an eagle in the wild. So if you're worried about the youngsters getting bored on this excursion -- think again.
Forest Service Annual Eagle Count
If you're interested in being part of the annual eagle count, they're always looking for volunteers. Since 1978, the Forest Service has held annual eagle counts throughout the San Bernardino Mountains. Numbers of eagles have ranged from 10 to 40. More
Rotten luck: archaeologists hail "unique" Mesolithic fermented fish find
The fish weren’t this well preserved; archaeologists
at Blekinge were lucky to make the find as fragile fish bones usually
decompose without a trace (Imaginechina/REX Shutterstock).
[Eagle food.] 9,000-year-old fish bones discovered in southern Sweden provides
earliest evidence of fermentation for food preservation anywhere in the
world.
The Scandinavian diet is famously hard going for anyone who doesn’t
like pickled fish -- and a unique archaeological discovery has proved
that it was exactly the same more than 9,000 years ago.
The find has revealed that freshwater fish were being fermented on an
industrial scale in southern Sweden, through a complicated and
distinctly unappetizing process involving pine bark and seal blubber,
which made the region capable of supporting a far larger population than
previously thought.
The discovery was made during the excavation of an early Mesolithic
settlement site in Blekinge, on the Baltic sea in southern Sweden. It is
the earliest evidence of fermentation being used to preserve food
anywhere in the world.
The fish were preserved without salt or storage jars. Instead they
were acidified using pine bark, wrapped up with seal fat in seal or wild
boar skins, and buried in a pit. The process required a cold climate... More
Dharma punks, campers, meditators, and Buddhists of Against the Stream, Los Angeles
A meditating "America" wears sweatshop-free American Apparel attire andholds a fine quality made-in-China American flag on a 4th of July parade float in Huntington Beach (KFI AM)
Meet author/founder Noah Levine
Wisdom Quarterly has been on vacation while the world falls apart.
Over the long Independence Day Weekend, we enjoyed a "Buddhist camping trip" at San Onofre State Beach Bluffs with Dharma Punx. It was a sold out, waiting list only event.
It was not a retreat -- and not party central for the happy, clean living campers -- just an opportunity to spend time with sangha ("spiritual community") members, making campfires, surfing, hanging at the beach, and watching 4th of July fireworks.
Who is "Against the Stream"? This short clip shows a gathering at the Santa Monica branch of Dharma Punx to see visiting Theravada monk Bhikkhu Bodhi for Buddhist Global Relief.
Camping dreams not reality
There were 50 people to begin with, but the camping was rougher than expected. It couldn't have helped that we're all spoiled cosmopolitans. The parties with the earliest reservations, first come first served basis, had it no better than the waitlisters really. Anyone looking for debauchery had to consider that there would be children, RVs, and tents.
It was four people to a car, three cars per site, so there was carpooling and ridesharing. That's when the fun began -- in addition to a meditation group sits and other activities throughout the weekend. But somehow someone forgot the Twister, or at least we didn't find it.
It was every person for him or herself, a real game of Survivor because we could enjoy activities, but ATS did not provide the food, drinks, water, firewood, tents, towels, or even sparklers! There should have been sparklers. ATS did not want to assume any liability for the weekend. It was only coordinating the logistics, and the rest was up to campers.
It's just camping and SoCal socializing
It wasn't free but it was cheap: $9 per person, per night (campsite fees) or $18 per person for the whole weekend, two-night minimum.
San Onofre Bluffs and San Onofre Surf Beach are located south of San Clemente on I-5 (exit Basilone Road)
BLUFF SITE: this section of the park offers campsites along the old Hwy 101 next to sandstone cliffs, six dirt trails with steep access to the beach.
Recently, we went hiking in the rugged mountains behind Los Angeles, in the chaparral of the Angeles National Forest behind one of the largest cities in the world.
Plant wisdom
And our Indian guide made a startling find: a giant puffball mushroom that could only be described as a "brain." It is white, with two hemispheres, cortical ridges, a brainstem fixed deep in the clay and sand soil, and an apparent gunshot exit wound out of which, had Mr. Lincoln been sporting this thinking-cap, all his memories would have oozed.
The first question we had was, "Is it poisonous?" We followed that closely with, "Can we eat it?"
Like any good guide, we were taught the first rule for those who choose to snooze during survival training. As for eating wild mushrooms, "When in doubt, throw it out." This comes right out of the LAMS' playbook.
Sadly, there are no simple rules to reliably tell which mushrooms are poisonous or edible. The only way to safely forage for wild mushrooms is to be familiar with the characteristics of the species one sets out to collect. Learn these characteristics by collecting with experts who can teach them those characteristics.
Haul of desert mushrooms reaching 8.5" and brain puffball (Xochitl/Wisdom Quarterly)
LAMS hosts several mushroom forays every season where beginners can start. Why use an expert; why not just go by trial-and-error? There is a more famous saying among mushroomers (mycologists, those who study mushrooms), and it runs:
"There are daring wild mushroom eaters. And there are old wild mushroom eaters. But there are no daring-old wild mushroom eaters."
These delicate fruits of the soil can be deadly. The Buddha was possibly lead out by death caps (Amanita phalloides) fed to him by a blacksmith mistaking them for a supple pigs' feast like truffles.
Beginners ought never rely solely on identifications based on a field guide -- particularly those that provide only pictures and brief descriptions
Find some mushrooms in need of identification? See the L.A. Mycological Society contact page. Also check the recommended reading page for Websites, books, and journals to learn to identify mushrooms in the wild.
Regularly scheduled long exposure camping shot in Joshua Tree National Park,
California caught a meteor
ads it exploded in the sky during a 30 second camera exposure.
Zion National Park (scottrinck.com)
Seeing a meteor streak through the night sky takes a certain amount of luck. Turn away for a second, and you could miss it. Capturing one on film is even harder.
So when photographer Scott Rinckenberger set out to shoot fall landscapes in the West, he wasn't expecting to capture the fleeting image of a shooting star.
Yosemite National Park (scottrinck.com)
But when it happened, he knew he'd captured something rare. "Take Two" talked to him about capturing the luckiest shot of his career as part of its occasional series, Picture This.
"I generally spend my falls spending a lot of time in the outdoors, backpacking, and climbing, and that sort of thing, but late this summer...
Mt. Shuksan, Washington (scottrinck.com)
"I decided I would hit the road and just go out and try to track down the best landscape and the best weather I could starting in Seattle with a final destination of Joshua Tree National Park down in Southern California."
What happened the last night in Joshua Tree? "I guess I was just looking to get a shot that sort of encapsulated the feeling of camping out in the desert. I think Joshua Tree is such a spectacular landscape.
Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming
"It's just such a wonderful way to spend the night, watching the stars and hanging out by a campfire that I was just looking for a shot that did a good job of sort of capturing that essence. So it was set up to capture the night sky with the brilliant starscape that was going on, as well as the beautiful camp we had set up among the rocks. It was going to be a good shot, but it turned out to be so much more." LISTEN + PHOTOS
Los Angeles is a megalopolis, an asphalt jungle. It is treacherous, compacted, and diverse. While it is very expansive, there are more than ten million residents squeezed in with hundreds of thousands more visiting, moving through, or fleeing for their lives.
But where is there to flee? From almost anywhere in a basin of hills and valleys of Los Angeles (Spanish, "The Angels"), both a county and a city with no fewer than 50 enclaves or semi-autonomous townships, ghettoes, and police-occupied territories -- one can see chaparral covered mountains. And after a time, sometimes after many years, it occurs to one: I can go there!
The first attempt to interact with Nature (Bhumi) is often her manifestation as Griffith Park, LA's own Central Park above Hollywood. But the urban-park is generally ruined on one end by Dodger Stadium and its enormous asphalt car parks (parking lots) and crowded on the other end around the HOLLYWOOD sign and Griffith Observatory peering into space from just above Tinsel Town. This is where young people and their companions start going missing:
Young People and Companions
(HBO) "Mr. Show With Bob and David" (David Cross and Bob Odenkirk)
In time, looking at a map, one suddenly realizes that there is an enormous amount of blank or green space on top. Lazy mapmakers? No, the north marks the southern extent of the Sierra Madre mountain range, our own snowy Himalayan foothills. Mostly they are on fire, particularly when the Santa Ana winds fan dry brush set alight by arsonists and lightning.
The tallest peak in LA is Mt. Wilson, but it is covered with TV antennae and microwave-emitting cell and FM radio towers.
Farther east is Mt. Baldy, which becomes an imposing alabaster monument after the brief winter snows. One of the best places to appreciate this view is from the north-facing hillside steps of the largest Buddhist temple in the western hemisphere, Hsi Lai (Chinese for "Going West") Buddhist Temple in Hacienda Heights. These heights are hills and are part of the Orange Curtain separating LA from a mysterious and far more uptight area known as "The O.C." with free-roaming predatory Republicans, rates of which have fallen to below 16% in LA.
The tip of Shaman's nose knows more than those who doze in the presence of Nature.
All throughout the north there are trails, slow-melting snow patches, deadly snakes (nagas), briar beds, dilapidated gold mining tunnels, poison oak beds, bobcats, bighorn sheep, brown bears, golden California poppies (a drug used by the original residents, the Tongva), coyotes, mountain lions, and swarms of mosquitoes haunting riparian areas in an otherwise crumbling limestone desert.
THE TONGVA -- also referred to by the Conquistadores (Catholic invaders from Europe) as the Gabrielinos (Archangel Gabriel's),San Gabriel Band, Fernardinos (Saint Fernando's), and the Kizh Nation -- are an indigenous people of California, whose traditional territory is in present-day Los Angeles in Southern California, centered on the San Gabriel Mountains area. Their language, which became extinct during the 20th century, is a member of the Takic group within the Uto-Aztecan linguistic phylum. The name Gabrieleño is in reference to the Mission San Gabriel Arcángel set up by the Spanish colonists in 1771. Similarly, the Spanish referred to both the Tongva in the San Fernando Valley and the nearby Tataviam people, who spoke a different language, as Fernandeño, after the Mission San Fernando Rey de España. The missions are California's famous fort system from the colonial power's invasion and apartheid system prior to the genocide which took place in beautiful SoCal.
O, Teepee, how easy art thou to build and save us from the elements! If only we had taken that outdoor survival class and foraging training with our pal Christopher Nyerges.
What a great place to meditate when its cold, too loud and crowded when its warm, too susceptible to flooding when its raining in the high desert east of the county.
The Problem with Hiking
Hopelessly lost since Easter Sunday, search party finds hapless hikers (latimes.com)
We are not grounded in LA. Other parts of the country (nudge-nudge, Mid West) may be too grounded, but we are not nearly enough. This is a city of half-baked ideas. It is a cereal city -- full of flakes, fruits, and nuts (and, admittedly, more than a few serial killers).
So when we get out and elevate along marked trails and unpaved footpaths that run all around the perimeter of our LAPDoccupation, not the cool Occupy Movement, we may not know what we are doing. This year so far a few people fell to their deaths just north of the city lights. Eaton Canyon is the hiding place of one of LA's waterfalls. (Another good one is at Switzer Falls, and there are also two little-known natural hot springs).
Recently a massive search party went out day after day in search of a Latino and Anglo youth, Nick Cendoya and Kyndall Jack, from behind the Orange Curtain who got lost a mile from their car, smartphone battery dead, dehydrated, disoriented, dwelling in dense brush, and found on the doorsteps of death.
Search helicopters over Eaton Canyon
Last night another five went missing in the Eaton Canyon Wash. (This is where a hiker recently tripped, falling off the trail before being airlifted out with a broken nose; it is also where a week earlier another hiker fell to her death, according to The Patch'sJessica Hamlin). This group of young people and their companions, all in their twenties and prepared for an eight-hour hike, became lost in a canyon that only moves one way. Hey, hikers, follow the stream down to the Nature Center and parking lot. In the dark follow altitude to the canyon floor (its lowest point is where the stream will be found). Fortunately they were found 24 hours later: ALL FOUND SAFE (VIDEO)
We never got the chance to say "Bye-bye, Breitbart." He was apparently assassinated for threatening to out President B.S. Obama about something.
Death is one way to effectively silence someone, so we do not know what the outing was about. (The nonsense that it was B.S. meeting and hugging a radical figure is pure cover story deception).
Breitbart may have been a very misguided rightwing conservative blogger -- doctoring videos to make Acorn look foolish or reactionaries look sane -- but he did do a few good things. He encouraged Arianna Huffington to create a media outlet that eventually became the Huffington Post (before it sold out to the mainstream media with its AOL deal). He shed light on the fake centrists that call themselves the "left."
If Barry Soetoro Obama or Barbara Boxer is The Left then we're Mongolian aborigines on small horses racing through the grassy wastelands in search of anyone related to Kublai Khan. (The ancestors of Genghis Khan say we're on the wrong continent for that). Are we right, left, or center? Left. Why? Because we need change from the root (radix) not the branches beyond.
Worse than losing King B.B. is yesterday's loss of BB King's best virtual friend, the creator of Marshall brand electric guitar amplifiers, who built the stacks behind the Hair Farmers of our guitar hero dreams.
Thankfully the corporation will keep building and selling the deafening machines in his absence. So rock 'n roll will live on. And Daisy's guitar camp for girls will live on. And that means one day music will conquer the world.
Carolyn Jones, San Francisco Chronicle (SFGate.com)
The last of the Bay Area's major Occupy camps ended with a whimper Thursday afternoon when Berkeley police cleared about 20 tents from Civic Center Park as a smattering of protesters looked on quietly. Police and public works crews picked up tents, sleeping bags, banners, and other trappings of the once-booming Occupy Movement, which until a few weeks ago was attracting crowds in cities throughout the Bay Area to protest economic injustice. Berkeley's Occupy camp, which started in early October, at one point had at least 107 tents and 150 or so protesters. More
UFO: Unidentified Flying Occupation, UC Berkeley, home of the flying tents (boingboing.net)
Tonight (Dec. 8th) at the Occupy Los Angeles General Assembly, after a marathon session, consensus was reached on a NEW encampment. Its purpose is to house and feed activists and demonstrate compassion in the face of municipal apathy for those in need. There will be tents, there will be food, there will be a nonviolent, drug-free environment. All of this is thanks to "organized labor" via SEIU (Service Employees International Union). It is temporary site to deal with the cold showing how mobile the Movement has become. Tents go up Friday (Dec. 9th). It will go until the day after New Years. The new camp is seven miles from the old one at:
Is OM being co-opted by SEIU? Ryan Rice (Occupy LA) "Did the SEIU try to co-opt the Occupy Movement?" We all knew the Democratic machine would attempt this at some point, so was this the first attempt? I think they tried early in the week and got dealt a massive setback by 300 occupiers that defiantly marched out of the SEIU camp, held general assemblies to discuss strategy, and aired many of their grievances directly to the organizers. More
First Amendment expired in your public square? Local park prioritized empty vistas over the right to petition your government for a redress of grievances, adding one more grievance to the list?
Occupy Caroling Jackie and Katie (Occupy LA Holiday Choir) Many of the wholesome activities being planned by radical activists in Los Angeles include holiday caroling. The Movement's many Carolines, the American Sign Language (ASL) translator, would-be carolers, and most importantly the GA agreed that singing holiday favorites in a roaming band is the way to go. Join the fun set for the 19th and 20th (subject to being updated) by coming to the eastside steps of City Hall on Tuesday, Dec. 13 before the GA. The songs to be sung, with lyrics provided, are:
The Times They Are A'Changing
Simple Song of Freedom
Seize the Day
Winter Wonderland
What's Goin' On
Frosty the Snowman
Let There Be Peace On Earth
Deck the Halls
There are no plans to sing the "I'll Occupy" Anthem
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Off-Ramp has been following media partner NBC News 4's ongoing investigative series, LA's Nuclear Secret.
