More Water Pictures

 Not sure why keeping this up-to-date is getting so difficult.  It's hard to blog while driving from SF to LA.  And then there were a bunch of followups on the repair work at my mom's house.  

But despite the rain last Tuesday night, the morning had cloudy sunshine.  

And walking along the boardwalk in Cambria  was spectacular.  

The rain that was predicted hadn't arrived yet.  

There was a steady supply of waves roaring toward the shore. If you ever consider a stopover between LA and SF, I highly recommend a hotel along Moonstone beach.  It's off the main highway and the Boardwalk offers magnificent, life affirming views and sounds.  

The birds were enjoying it too.  And part of my delay was me remembering how I used to play around with my photos before putting them up, and so I dabbled with Photopea - a free online program that is very close to photoshop.

But we had to move along to get to LA before five to turn in the rental car.  But we did have sun most of the way.  Everything was significantly greener than when we'd driven up this way.  

We stopped in Santa Barbara to test the reciprocity between the Anchorage Museum and the Santa Barbara museum of art.  Key areas of downtown maintain a Mexican like architectural style. Below is the city hall.

And here's a nearby city parking garage, where parking was free for the first 75 minutes.  Since we didn't have too much time, that was perfect.  

Then on back to LA where we dropped off the car and found a good vegan restaurant.  In LA it was threatening to rain again and but the storm held off for another day, and then we got lots and lots of rain.  But we haven't seen any flooding except for the normal rush of water going down the hill the house is own.  Had to rescue trash cans that floated down the street.  

We did have a Persian dinner the other night with lamb shanks. When I stray from the basically veggie and fish, it should be really worth it.  And it was.  Looking forward to being back in Anchorage soon.  

Calm Before The Storm

Sunday (I'm so far behind here)  in San Francisco was beautiful and I went along with my son's family and two other couples with kids to Mussel Rock - which turned out to be a hang gliding spot.

If you look closely, there's a hang glider in the upper right hand corner. Gliders are easier to see in the next shot. I'd note that we're technically in Daly City and that water curves right at the top and under the Golden Gate Bridge.     

This was also January 1, 2023,  the day after San Francisco had record rains and headlines said things like "California brought to its knees by weather."  Clearly we were fine, the weather was great and we didn't pass any flooded streets.  Beware of headlines, particularly about disasters.  The photos tend to show the one or two extreme examples.  Of course, there are actual disasters where there is widespread damage.  

As you can see from the background, this is the same spot.  

And the first moonrise of 2023 was happening above the houses on the cliff above the beach area.  I'm sure these houses have great views of the ocean.  But I grew up in LA and remember houses like this siding down the side of the hill.  

And another sign nearby showed that the parking lot where I took the first pictures from was right on the San Andreas fault line.  What could go wrong?  But I'm the sort of guy who sees a glass near the edge of a table and I see it getting knocked off the table.  And move it toward the middle of the table.  

Monday more rain was predicted and there was some drizzle as we headed back down to LA.  We had wanted to go back down Highway 1 through Big Sur to look once more for condors and then to the elephant seal beach again.  But there was a rockslide a bit north of the elephant seal beach.  Coming down Highway 101 was easier and we could cut back to the coast to Cambria and be about 15 miles south of the targeted beach.  

It was a bit windy and chilly and there was some rain watching the seals.  But I think it would take a long time for me to get tired of watching them.  There were a lot more and this time we could see lots of little pups. 

 

   

I checked several sites because I'd assumed that the ones with the elephant like noses were the miles and the internet confirmed that.  So this is a male with the baby that was exploring and generated an attack from a nearby female.  The male just put his considerable weight on the pup to keep it from scooting off into trouble.

They work really hard moving on land.  You can see this one's trail up out of the water.

So that gets us to Monday afternoon.  We spent the night in Cambria again.  

 

Elephant Seals Beach Near Cambria, California

Happy New Year to you all.  May it be a better year for all.  And may you all have find peace within if not without.  

What with adventures and projects with our SF grandkids and other other friends here, I've not gotten these pictures up.  But this was such an amazing time, watching the Elephant Seals lying on the beach, in the water, and occasionally moving around.  So enjoy the pictures and short videos.

I don't usually put up so many pictures in one post.  I really did edit out most of the pictures I took.  The videos are very short and at the end.  And here's a link to the Friends of Elephant Seals website that will tell you more about the seals and good times to visit.

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This LA Times Story Tells us Prisons Are A Criminal Justice Joke

[The point here is the excerpt below from an LA Times story.  But I ended up putting a lot of context before the excerpt.  You an skip down to the quote if you think you know all the introductory thoughts already.  And, of course, you don't need my permission to do that, or whatever you want.]

I've watched enough prison movies and read enough books and articles to know that the US prison system doesn't work very well*.  First of all we top the world in prisoners per 100,000 population:

The countries on this list are not among the most enlightened and prosperous.  But we're on top.  By a lot.  

Our justice system massively discriminates against people of color.

"Nationwide, Black people are locked up in state prison at a rate of 1,240 per 100,000 residents, as compared with 261 whites. That’s 4.8 times greater incarceration of Black than white people, based on 2019 data from the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics. On average, one of every 81 Black Americans is in a state prison.

In California, it’s worse. One of 62 Black Californians is in state prison."

The editorial goes on to counter the traditional response that it's because people of color commit more crimes, but rather it's discrimination throughout the justice system.

When people make lascivious remarks about what evil things might happen to a young defendant when he reaches prison, do you smile or do think that something is wrong with prisons? If you smile or if you're the one who makes the joke, you're part of the problem.  

What about people who are wrongly convicted?  The Innocence Projects around the US have gotten 399 prisoners exonerated.  Those are just the people who were able to get enough evidence to prove their innocence, even though it's guilt that is supposed to be proven in court. 

The 13th Amendment to the Constitution abolished slavery, EXCEPT for prisoners.

"Thirteenth Amendment

Section 1

Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction."

  Prisons and companies who get prisoners to work for them take advantage of this exception.  

So all that was preface to this excerpt from an  LA Times story that appeared last week about the Mexican Mafia (their term) that has operated in San Bernardino for decades (again, according to the story). 

This excerpt truly tells us of how truly corrupt and failing these prisons are.  (Yes, I know they depict this in tv shows and movies regularly, but still it's shocking.)

Moreno was Rodriguez’s “secretary” — a role once typically filled by women who were not in prison, who used visits and letters to pass messages from Mexican Mafia members to their underlings. But the proliferation of contraband cell phones in the state prison system has proved a “game changer,” testified Lt. Eddie Flores of the San Bernardino Police Department. Prisoners can now communicate directly with one another to arrange drug deals, order assaults and organize collection rackets, Flores testified.

Phones are smuggled in by correctional officers and “free staff” — plumbers, electricians, food preparers, Goo Goo testified. “I’ve seen nurses bring ‘em in, I’ve seen ‘em flown in on drones.”

A phone costs about $1,200 in prison, he said. “You kind of learn how these things work, the economics. If you’re bringing in too many cell phones, flooding the yard, the price drops.”

Goo Goo described his daily routine as Rodriguez’s man on the street: “I’d get up in the morning — it’s like going to work, having a job,” he told the jury. First he would call someone in the prison system, usually Moreno.

From his cell at the state prison in Calipatria, where he was serving 10 years for possessing an assault rifle, Moreno would tell Goo Goo what needed to be handled that day. “Patch this up here, that there,” he recalled. Deliver drugs. Pick up money.

That's from LA Times,  but if you can't get in, it's also on Wildlandfire News.

*Whether the prison system 'works well' or not, of course, depends on whose objectives you measure it by.  The official objectives to get dangerous criminals off the streets so they can't keep committing crimes, to mete out justices, to rehabilitate offenders, or the objectives of other players like the prisoners who are well connected, the owners of the private prisons, or the various people who work in the prison who can double and triple their salaries by smuggling in contraband.  

Article Not Quite Accurate When Comparing California And Alaska [Pot] Taxes

This might seem like a post on pot, it's really a post on journalism and packaging information.  A chart comparing pot taxes and a sentence referencing Alaska caught my attention in this Los Angeles Times article

"One year of legal pot sales and California doesn’t have the bustling industry it expected. Here’s why"

LA Times reports marijuana business in California is below expectations.

The second paragraph offers a list of reasons:

"But as the first year of licensed sales comes to a close, California’s legal market hasn’t performed as state officials and the cannabis industry had hoped. Retailers and growers say they’ve been stunted by complex regulations, high taxes and decisions by most cities to ban cannabis shops. At the same time, many residents are going to city halls and courts to fight pot businesses they see as nuisances, and police chiefs are raising concerns about crime triggered by the marijuana trade."

The article also has this chart comparing taxes in various states.

Chart from LA Times article

It's not clear from this chart exactly how Alaska's cultivation tax translates into a way to compare with California's sales and excise tax and its cultivation tax (1/5 of Alaska's) impact on prices.  It also leaves out the fact that local governments may add their own tax on marijuana.

• So I did a quick comparison to an Anchorage store and an LA store to see their on-line prices.  :

  Anchorage - Alaska's Green Light District

  Sativa

   Headband - By Parallel 64                       1G  $18

  1/8

  $55
• Cinderella Dream - By Parallel 64  

  1G

  $15

  1/8

  $50
• Pineapple Dream - By Parallel 64   

  1G

  $15

  1/8

  $50

LA's The Pottery offers:

Happy House (s) - KNBIS  1/8 = $52   (says it includes all taxes, though there's a 10% charge for credit cards)

Cherry Sherbert - Passiflora (S)  1/8 = $50loc

Cherry AK (S/H)  Glass House  1/8 $50


[I just picked a store online near me where I'm staying in LA, and an Anchorage store that popped up online. Alaska stores have to use Alaska grown pot so I really don't think I can compare 'brands' like I could with, say, soft drinks.  But I picked Sativas.https://www.leafly.com/news/cannabis-101/sativa-indica-and-hybrid-differences-between-cannabis-types    These links probably won't last long as products and prices change.  Here's a guide to the quantities pot is sold in.]

There's one reference to Alaska in the text:

"With nearly a tenth of the population of California, that state has more licensed cannabis shops — 601. On a per capita basis, Alaska has also approved more pot shop licenses than California, — 94 so far. The state imposes a tax on cultivation, but there is no retail excise tax on pot."

First, Alaska approved pot in 2014, it went into effect in February 2015 and the first pot shop opened in October 2016.  

California voters didn't legalize pot until two years later.  The first legal recreational pot shop didn't open until January 2018.


So Alaska had a two year head start on California.  So it should have more licensed shops.  Also it took nine months longer than California to work out its regulations and have the first shops open, so maybe that meant fewer problems.  Though a less populated and more isolated state is probably easier to regulate.

I'd also point out that last sentence, while factual, may leave the sense that the lack of retail taxes might make a difference on prices.  As my quick comparison shows, if there is a difference, it's probably not significant.  It also doesn't mention that in Alaska local jurisdictions may tax marijuana.

What's notable about Alaska (state) marijuana taxes is that it is based solely on volume, not price.  

The other issues listed in the article - local resistance, excess regulation, the illegal market - probably are bigger issues than the taxes in California.