October is my favorite month. Autumn leaves, crisp cool weather, pumpkin patches, driving out to the apple orchard to pick apples. Not that we have any of that shit here in Los Angeles. But October is also the month of MLB playoffs, the last frenzied days of campaigning for the 2006 elections, and Adopt A Shelter Dog Month. Why anybody would get a dog from anywhere other than a shelter or rescue group is beyond me (unless it’s during Buy An Expensive Pet Store Dog Month.) One flimsy excuse is the desire for a certain breed. At work once I challenged someone like this that I could find them the breed they wanted on the L.A. Animal Services website. It took me two and a half minutes. And it really is true that shelter dogs show a level of devotion and appreciation like no other dogs – they know you’ve rescued them. You’re the Kevin Costner in their cheesy Top Gun rip-off movie trailer.
I’ll try to get in as much election coverage as I can in the coming weeks. The LCV just added four to their list of the Dirty Dozen, a compendium of politicos who really hate nature, so you can go out and not vote for them.
The Governator spent his last day of bill-signing with a few environmental measures:
• Signed a reduction in the amount of lead permissible in pipes and other plumbing that carry water for people to drink, from the current 8% limit to 0.25%. (Holy shit! We were drinking water from pipes with 8% lead? Shouldn’t this have happened back in the '50’s?)
• Required large supermarkets to set up a system for customers to recycle plastic bags. Interesting to note that this bill came out of the grubbiest little pocket of the San Fernando Valley, Van Nuys (which I called home for six years.) It was sponsored by Assemblyman Lloyd Levine, who probably got sick of seeing those plastic bags drift lazily down Oxnard Avenue, cheapening the character of the Spearmint Rhino Men’s Club.
• Declined a measure requiring that half of all cars and trucks sold in California be powered by alternative fuels by 2020, declaring that it would have cost the state more than $1.2 billion in federal transportation funding. Sure, he may have signed a landmark global warming bill. But once a Hummer driver, always a Hummer driver.
• Refused to allow California farmers to grow industrial hemp. Which will totally dampen business for producers of industrial bongs.