DON MONKERUD INK
Eagle's First Flight
by Don Monkerud
Copyright, 1999
The golden eagle's vitality, wildness, perfectly-shaped wings and slow looping flight were a wonder to behold as it dipped and swooped over the oaks, searching the dry hillside for the unwary field mouse, ground squirrel or cottontail.
Eagles are new here since a pair began hunting in the old apple orchard below the house. Two patches of white decorated the wings and a strip of white banded the tail of the young golden eagle. With a five-foot wingspan, the bird soared fifty to a hundred feet above the ground as it caught the wind thermals. These golden eagles are the first I've seen in my ten years of living in this small, mid-California coastal valley.
My exuberance in seeing this bird turns to concern as this small valley rapidly changes. The owl, coyote and golden eagle habitats are in danger of being destroyed by development. Swaths of apple orchards in the valley below are being ripped up by the roots and piled to burn in the fall, leaving the ground bare, the rippled brown earth mute evidence of a house about to be built.
Clearing land and destroying animal habitat is a global problem. Worldwide, more than 34,000 plants and more than 5,000 animal species are threatened with extinction. While I know of no studies of threatened species in our area, the overall problem is immense. Each year the world loses a forest the size of Washington state, and eight of the most endangered ecosystems in the U.S. are found in California. Our blissfully unconscious land-clearing habits are taking their toll.
Golden eagles do not reproduce like gophers or cockroaches. Bruce Elliott, from California Fish and Game in Monterey, explains that the golden eagle lays two to three eggs, several days apart, but normally only one survives. After hatching, it lives in the nest for 45 to 48 days and grows to full body size in its first year, taking 4 to 6 years to develop its adult plumage of brown with a golden wash over the back of the head and neck. Mature golden eagles have a wingspan of six to seven feet and hunt primarily in the dry coastal ranges, especially areas from Mt. Diablo to the backside of Mt. Hamilton, although they are also common in Santa Cruz and Monterey counties.
The eagle's hunting grounds are under threat. In the past year, several whole sections of orchard and meadows disappeared behind nine-foot high fences, the fields plowed into orderly rows of grape seedlings, the wires overhead glistening like barbs atop a prison wall. For weeks, the white cones around the young seedlings formed white crosses, perhaps in memory of the wild creatures that once roamed across the bush-studded meadows.
Bought by a developer who clear-cut most of the former Christmas tree farm and immediately sent a letter warning all the neighbors to keep off his property, the meadow is now gated with an expensive cast-iron motif reminding one of either deer antlers or the flames of hell. A nearby forty-acre parcel is ringed with a fence and decorated at its entrance with a three-foot tall statue of a white-faced Virgin Mary, complete with votive candles, as if warning the animals against trespass.
The cotton tail rabbit, coastal deer, jackrabbit, red-tail hawk, coyote, owl and different species of field mouse and ground squirrel habitat are being replaced by wire fences that sit across ancient animal trails. The fenced fields and plowed ground destroy the natural vegetation that animals once grazed upon, hunted in and hid behind.
People want and need housing, but in the rush to build, something is being lost forever. This small valley, which as recently as 1962 was filled with apple orchards, coyote brush, ceanothus, mixed grasses, oaks, elderberry, monkey flower and yerba santa, is becoming an urban area. It's inevitable. But does this once rural area of California have to resemble an upscale Napa County, all landscaped yards and suburban dreamscape dotted with sprawling $2 million mansions?
The question of how people will accommodate the wildlife looms larger as more houses are built. Will people continue to fence off the land, plow under the brush, scrape the ground beneath the oaks bare as a war zone? Or can we learn to have a minimum impact on the land, to plant native plants, leave passages for the animals, forgo water-guzzling lawns and live with wildlife instead of destroying it?
We need to break the suburban dream's grip on the American sense of hearth and home and provide space for wildlife in order to release our own rich heritage. I want the eagle's first flight to excite my grandchildren, giving them a sense of awe so essential to understanding our place in the universe. This is a far more precious gift than a six-foot square patch of sod.
The end
How Culture Contributes to a Climate of Violence
by Don Monkerud
After the initial shock of kids killing kids in Jonesboro, Arkansas, the public has begun to search its conscience to discover how such a thing could happen.
Despite protestations of this grisly act being abnormal, this was a natural outgrowth of a whole way of life, one in which I grew up. The cruelty, the bullying, the guns, the divorces, the absent parents, the competitive drive, the quiet rural town, and more, are part of the American landscape.
I was taught the same values these boys were taught and it's not a mystery to understand their actions. Teachers, Sunday school instructors and school administrators said that I was destined to be a criminal because my mother was divorced. I certainly had the gun training. From killing imaginary Indians and play shooting friends on the playground, I quickly went to a BB gun and a .22 to shoot birds, rabbits and squirrels. The gun lobby claims this teaches "safety," but it doesn't occur in a vacuum.
Moral teachings begin in the home. From a drunken stepfather who knocked my mother around, beat me and boasted of beating up others, I learned that physical violence was the final arbitrator of disputes. Spiteful shouting matches between the stepfather and my mother were common. Any questioning of authority resulted in a swift backhand or a belt across bare buttocks. In facing the world, my mother taught me that might makes right and urged me to defend myself with my fists from an early age.
Churches are the next step in moral teaching, but the religion of the Bible Belt is an Old Testament religion that emphasizes hellfire and brimstone, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, revenge, retribution and apocalyptic events. Original sin is inescapable and feeling guilty is encouraged. People of other religions and races are looked down upon, as are any behaviors that don't fit the norm. Women are suspect in this male dominated culture and, when confronting those different than oneself, morality is suspended.
Other social institutions compound these teachings. The Boy Scouts instill quasi-military teachings of obedience, fighting for true ideals and defending one's country. Young men are trained to become soldiers and enforce the will of the U.S.
Rather than looking within the culture to see what went wrong in Jonesboro, much public attention focuses on how to execute these boys of 11 and 13. Some point to the rural South as the problem, but that culture exists in pockets across the country. Teaching children how to deal with problem parents, hateful surroundings, personal rejection and anger are not high on the agenda.
There is something tragically wrong in the teachings of many traditional values. These values that contain elements of aggressiveness, domination, and revenge -- developed for capitalistic competition and military might -- no longer serve us well. The world has changed beyond our ability to keep up and such values now turn inward, resulting in children killing children.
The emphasis of our moral teachings in the home, in the school and in public institutions needs to refocus if we are to avoid such catastrophes. We need to learn tolerance of others and to work cooperatively. We need to learn to share, not always insisting on getting our own way. We need to manage our anger and hostility and to understand and cope with our feelings. Not only does each of us need to relearn some of our "traditional" values, we need to teach children.
It's easier said than done. Each of us needs to do some serious personal searching to see what we doing to contribute to the violence in our culture -- from giving the finger to a driver who cuts us off, to voting for candidates who support guns and disrespect other people.
The end
History Lesson on Ronald Reagan's Death
By Don Monkerud
With high school students graduating across the country, no more apt history lesson is at hand than that illustrated by the death of former president, Ronald Reagan: History belongs to the victor.
Of course, the graduates' history courses didn't cover Reagan-during my schooling, history courses stopped at the beginning of WWII. Although students may hunger for knowledge of and a perspective on recent history, school boards know that parents can initiate a contentious political debates that could turn their schools into political battlegrounds.
The power of the forces that supported and championed Reagan-what's good for GE is good for America-is nowhere more apparent than last winter's stifling of a TV show on the Reagans, pulled from the CBS lineup after the Republican National Committee objected.
The RNC demanded that their in-house "historians" vet the show after conservative groups complained about a portrayal of Reagan they hadn't seen.
The show depicted Reagan as passive and judgmental; Nancy as overbearing and in control of the White Housee; Reagan as being insensitive to the AIDS crisis, which anyone who lived through the time knew that he was. (According to Reagan's authorized biographer Edmund Morris, Reagan said, "maybe the Lord brought down his plague" because "illicit sex is against the Ten Commandments.")
Even though CBS agreed to cut some scenes to win the favor of the RNC, and although the producers had evidence to support every scene in the film, CBS pulled the film after a barrage of protests spearheaded by conservative forces. Although Director Robert Ackerman quit in protest, CBS shifted the film to Showtime, which has an audience of 1 million (compared to CBS's 20 million), thus saving Americans the need to make the decision on whether the portrayal of Reagan was a "balanced portrayal."
"The conservative movement wanted to spin one for the Gipper and they succeeded," said Matthew Felling of the Center for Media and Public Affairs in Washington, D.C. Elliot Mincberg, legal counsel for People of the American Way, said pulling the show "has many of the trademarks of censorship."
This incident illustrates the power of the Reagan supporters, but this influence pales in comparison with the eulogies across the country for the dead president. Conservative shrills such as Charles Krauthammer tout Reagan as "the second-greatest president of the 20th century," failing to mention the most popular president and the one neo-radical conservatives hate-President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
The message on Reagan is orchestrated, with Krauthammer adding his voice to a tidal wave of nearly 1,000 conservative think tanks-which some call "a shadow government." These think tanks, such as the American Enterprise Institute, the CATO Institute, the Hoover Institute and the Heritage Foundation, spend hundreds of millions of dollars to influence public policy each year. They produce a relentless barrage of conservative ideas supporting the agenda of their corporate sponsors who seek to use the government for their private ends and Reagan bought their agenda.
How do they do this? Think tanks "experts" appear in the media despite the charge that their research and opinions exist merely to put a spin on policies and events rather than provide objective opinion. Academics are sidelined as think tank "specialists" work as theatrical agents to peddle opinion pieces to major newspapers and set up appearances for their "experts." The Heritage Institute alone utilizes a dozen specialists in such work.
This strategy works: the country has moved to the right. Reagan was the first president in modern history to support a conservative social and political agenda-the Heritage Foundation made 2,000 recommendations, 60 percent of which was adopted by Reagan.
With cheerleaders such as these is there any wonder that Reagan was made to appear larger than life? That an outpouring of public sympathy touts his optimism and cheerfulness, his lack of airs and his appearance as "one of the common people?" The current administration--$500 billion in debt and counting, that loathes adding holidays to the calendar and resists every effort to raise the minimum wage-even calls a national holiday for Reagan's burial.
Conservative forces worked hard to promote Reagan's popularity and to tout the man-meanwhile his ill-conceived policies that risked nuclear war, ignored the AIDS epidemic, paid for the massacre of millions of South Americans and squandered national resources on a military build up-gets pushed to the back pages.
The influence of these powerful conservative think tanks helped create the most grasping administration since the age of the Robber Barons: and they all worship "Reagan as their ideological father head.
History indeed belongs to the victors.
The End
Trophy House Way: Because We are Better than You
by Don Monkerud
Despite a report that predicts Santa Cruz county will gain only 12 percent population over the next 46 years-while the state adds 400,000 new inhabitants a year-the question remains open about the character of our evolving local community.
Changes on my small country road in south county leave me feeling like a curmudgeon, digging in my heels against change, and harking back a mere 15 years ago when I moved to this valley. I chose this area because of its rural nature, a valley filled with apple orchards, where owls hooted at night, coyotes howled, coveys of quail browsed and herds of deer moved between the hills. Neighbors spoke to each other.
Today everything is changed. Once wild areas are now filled with a phantasmagorical collection of French chateaus, California suburban palaces, and Tudor mansions. Fake thatched roofs and cobblestones line the road, busy with the pool cleaners, handy men, carpet and window cleaners, house cleaners, babysitters and soccer moms.
A recent house for sale exemplifies the changes. On the market for almost $3 million, the house boasts of being built on a "Sunset Western Dream Home" plan where "every inch" of the 2.5 acre parcel "is groomed and put to use." In addition to the 4-bedroom/3-bath house "plus a bonus room and den," there's a swimming pool, barn, 3-car detached garage, dog kennel, outside fireplace, extensive patios, horse "pastures" and a riding arena, although I have yet to see a person outside. Did I mention that the compound is fenced and gated with "electronic security gate with key pad access"?
It's unfair to single out one house on the road. Actually the whole road is transformed to a fairy tale land of privilege, exclusivity and wealthy accruements akin to Marin County. The apple orchards have been ripped out and the Christmas tree farm cut down, replaced with fenced vineyards. Miles of redwood fences, stone walls and electronic gates set in boulder-strewn edifices attest to the owners' status and wealth. The populations of deer, owls, rabbits, foxes, coyotes, and wildcats are much diminished. And the destruction doesn't end.
A neighboring parcel is constructing a two-story, five-car garage with an apartment and what appears to be a 10,000-sq. ft. house towering over new vineyards. Granite rock lines the drainage ditches. Next door, a ten-acre parcel includes a seven-year-old house that was striped to 2x4s and rebuilt. Covered with "improvements" on every last inch, the compound features parking lots and roads, an Olympic-size dressage arena, horse barns, a swimming pool, paddocks and rolling lawns. Two or three workers tend, prune, and mow in a beehive of activity.
None of these owners are among the truly wealthy-the handful that controls 70 percent of the country's wealth-but they are well to do. They may be perfectly "nice" people behind their gates but they benefit from Bush tax cuts, send their kids to private schools and live in luxury, while in the distance, Watsonville sits under a layer of fog, houses crammed to overflowing to provide cheap day labor.
The rural ambiance, wildlife and quiet have been replaced with ostentatious displays of wealth and status. Bright lights line driveways and pathways at night. Gates control access. Neighbors never wave or stop to talk. Houses represent lavish garrisons standing like guard towers over the land.
There should be a law against developers building estates, wrecking the ambiance of a neighborhood, then selling out and moving on. They should be forced to live in the house they built rather than fleeing to wreck another neighborhood, although they made poor neighbors now.
Ultimately little can be done about the exploitation of the land. Changes have to occur deep in a culture's values before wholesale luxurization of the land will stop. Is it really necessary to have such large, lavish houses? Does every inch of the land need to be developed, destroying animal habitat, a natural environment and rural settings? Towards what ends are these monuments to success and wealth built? Is this really the way we want to distribute our resources and run a community?
