Kathleen Pender, author of the Net Worth column for the San Francisco Chronicle (www.sfgate.com) wrote Thursday that lending $25 billion now would give the government (ie. us, the taxpayer) virtually no control and very low priority to the assets of the three automakers.

Instead, and Lynn LoPucki, professor of bankruptcy law at Harvard and UCLA agrees, Pender favors letting them file Chapter 11 and then provide debtor-in-possession ("DIP") financing. Interestingly the Democrats may in fact force the automakers to file by taking their two-month holiday now, rather than voting on the bailout.

But the point she makes is the automakers don't want this, it gives the lender (us again, the government) too much control and they don't want to give that up. To avoid this they are claiming that Chapter 11 would force them out of business entirely because consumers would stop buying their cars completely. Their compelling line is "this is about a lot more than just Detroit", predicting "it is about saving the US economy from a catastrophic collapse." The loss of jobs would be in the millions they say.

But Pender notes that it would be very unlikely the companies would be liquidated in bankruptcy. "That only happens when a company is sold off in pieces than restructured as a going concern," she says. UC Berkeley bankruptcy law professor Jesse Fried points out that "Chapter 11 was created for companies that can't pay their debts but are still worth more alive than dead."

All admit that many jobs will be lost. On average companies that enter Chapter 11 emerge with about half their former job force. LoPucki says "the employment loss is not caused by bankruptcy. Bankruptcy is simply the recognition that you needed to shrink the business."

Shareholders too, will suffer but both GM & Ford are trading below $3 a share right now anyway (Chrysler is not publicly traded). But top executives are usually replaced (you remember, the CEO's who flew to those hearings in their private jets at a cost of about $20,000 compared to about $600 for coach fare) and most important if we do DIP financing, creditors (again, us, the taxpayer) typically get back some or all of their money.

Unions are forced to renegotiate their contracts in bankruptcy, too. But members of the UAW have benefits that far exceed what most Americans have, Pender says, and maybe that's another necessary sacrifice.

I'm for Chapter 11 here, what about you?

Reading in Volume

These five bestsellers weighed 11 pounds and measured 8-1/2" tall. And that was AFTER we returned "Snowball", the biography of Warren Buffet. I won't count that one because neither Sally or I could get through it . . . the story of a guy who lived just to make money somehow didn't sit right with the way things are going these days (although it fits right in certainly with Wall Street).

But we're doing well on the others, she having finished "Edgar Sawtelle" for instance while I'm closing in on the final pages of Ken Follett's "A World Without End", the one on the bottom. If we ever finish the stack that amounts to almost 500 cubic inches of serious literature per person. I probably could figure out how many pages too but I'm almost worn out just realizing the inches and pounds.

The two by Menzies are controversial and largely unaccepted by academia. One postulates that China discovered America (and most other continents) while in "1434" he thinks China ignited the Renaissance. Despite the exciting possiblities of each I found both to be awfully dry. Menzies spends a huge amount of time on translated Chinese, Portugese, and Italian documents in an effort to buttress his arguments but in the end nothing seemed compelling enough, despite the fact that you want to believe these theories. I mean a Chinese junk found in the Russian River ???

So until I take on "Edgar Sawtelle" my fun right now is with Follett. He's a Brit with I think 18 bestsellers behind him and one, "Pillars of the Earth" is the launching board for this "World Without End", based as it is in England in the 1300's. My copy is paperback and as you can see, thick and heavy. Good thing they did away with the term "pocket book".

Historical fiction I think you'd call it as it covers real events and actual places in England, including war with France and the plague. The central themes are the prominence of the church and the ugly relationships of earls and barons to serfs and peasants. In fact things are so routinely bad that it almost becomes predictable, a criticism I have of the book. Every single time someting nice is about to happen to some downtrodden schmuck an insanely cruel lord beats him out of it. The really evil guys also last way too long too, (one of them, Philemon, lasted til the very last, 1,014th page).

But it's colorful and intricate; the way Follett winds plot and characters together is absolutely heroic. You learn five chapters after the fact why Caris said something to Merthin that at the time made no sense at all. Follett's office walls must be papered over with notes and plot lines.

Sally and I are most fortunate to receive gift certificates to Village Books for holidays and birthdays. We couldn't afford this otherwise and yet we're still awash with books. Surmising that there are many others with similar collections in their homes makes me wonder if we could put together a private library here in Shastina and save people some money during these hard times.

Any thoughts on that?

December CC&R Corner

Important Vote on Changes to the CC&Rs

With a very important general election behind us we are asking the members of the LSPOA to please vote on the proposed changes to the CC&Rs. After 8 years the Environmental Control Committee (ECC) and the LSPOA Board have identified three important, or controversial, well let’s say “hot topics.”

1. Overhangs or eaves. This section as currently written only says that all overhangs will be a minimum of 18 inches as measured from finished siding. To where? A horizontal measurement? What about the facia board or facia gutters? Should they be considered as far as the overall aesthetic look of the building? Constant variance requests by members have left the ECC in the position of recognizing the need for both clarification and re-consideration of this section.
2. Sheds and outbuildings. The minimum construction standards require that all buildings and structures have certain roof pitches, eaves, and roofing material. What about a shed? Should they have 18 inch eaves on a 10 by 10 shed? What size of an “outbuilding” should meet the minimum construction standards (MCS)? In the past rules were drafted to state that if the building was under 120 square feet that it only needed 12 inch eaves, and that the building should be painted as close as possible to match the primary residence. Certain buildings such as a wood shed lean to, and a car port maybe do not need minimum eave lengths to fit in. All of these considerations may not take place because any rule that conflicts with the CC&Rs is not legal and would be null and void.
3. Fences. The first thing almost every new home wants after a year is a fence to keep the dogs in or out, and protect the kids. Fences must be “open” and not any higher than 5 feet. What is open? 50% is the established rule, but what about a 12 inch wide board, does it need to have a 12 inch wide opening to meet 50%? Yep. 12 inch openings don’t keep in or out too many dogs or keep the little kids in. Go and try and buy a 5 feet high dog kennel. Not many out there, they come pretty standard 6 feet high. What if it is just a small 10 by 12 feet dog kennel in the back yard? Nope. Current CC&Rs state no higher than 5 feet tall. But I want a small garden enclosure in the back yard, and the deer keep jumping my 5 feet high fence. Sorry, 5 feet is 5 feet.

We need to amend the CC&Rs to be allowed to make architectural rules that will allow certain exceptions and provisos to the MCS. It takes 51% of the owners of lots to vote yes on these changes. That is over 1,500. We have about 500 ballots and the balloting period ends on January 5th.

The Board may not just go out and draft new rules and pass them. Any and all rules must be posted to you the member so that you may review them, respond to them at a designated meeting or in writing.

If you cannot find your ballot and need another one sent to you, please contact our office at 938-3281 extension #107. Please vote.

Memories of Another Camelot

For those of you who were around in November of 1960 this campaign and election surely must sound familiar. The handsome, elequent John F. Kennedy with his cultured wife Jacquline and their children and their dog getting ready to move into the White House at the peak of their wave promising change for America.

It wasn just a couple days ago when I realized that Obama's electoral landslide wasn't just about politics and racial equality. Some one on the tube put it like this, "It's not an election it's a movement." And that's what I remember about Kennedy, too. Yes, the first Catholic president. Young too, yes. Children. Pets. Many firsts. But much of his appeal to my generation in those years was his fresh approach to what we at the time felt was a political system running amuck.

I was attending Cal Berkeley and while I saw Joan Baez and Mario Savio, a flaming liberal I was not. Married with our first child soon to be on the way Sally and I were more armchair than activist. The glow that we and others in that time and place felt though was the same purposeful involvement that Obama is calling for now. Over and over he has been saying in one way or another that our country's future is up to us, as individual, proactive citizens, not solely our elected officials.

Well, Kennedy said those same things too, and it became kind of a fairy tale in modern times. A Camelot in the making. It ended a short three years later in Dallas and business as usual returned to Washington with Lyndon Johnson in the White House. Somehow he didn't have the charisma or the innocence that Jack had despite the major improvements made in civil rights during his administration. Of course he had his Vietnam to endure too.

Like most I'm hoping it can last more than a few years this time. That we may really make those changes we all seem to feel are needed. Kennedy didn't have enough time but I'm hoping Obama will.

Recycling Those Plastic Bags

As more and more cities and communities are banning the use of disposable plastic bags, retailers in increasing numbers are beginning to help recyle them. We routinely take them back to Ray's and Walmart although like many people, we've been using various cloth tote bags more. When we forget to bring them (which is more than we'd like) we ask for paper and use them for garbage ___ at least they decompose.

I'm not sure where to put the plastic bags they use to keep my newspaper in, though. Until I saw www.plasticbagrecycling.org on one. The site has lots and lots of info on the types of bags, where they can go, etc.

And how about those styrofoam egg cartons (and take-out food containers)? They're light enough to mail back to the company but I'm not patient or forward-looking enough to do that so when we can we buy eggs in the old-fashioned gray corrugated boxes that are biodegradable.

Speaking of "bio" things the Nov. '07 issue of Smithsonian magazine had a teriffic critique article on biofuels. Here's an excerpt from the story discussing the subsidies offered to ethanol producers:

"Biofuel subsidies might make sense some critics say, if they favored "cellulosic" ethanol instead (of corn) ___ fuel that comes from breaking down the cellulose in the fibrous part of the plant, such as the corn stalk instead of the kernel. That wouldn't put direct pressure on food prices, and might even reduce them by providing a market for agricultural waste products.

Cellulosic technology is also the key to exploiting such nonfood plants as switchgrass, and it promises an improvement of more than 80% in greenhouse gas emissions compared with conventional gasoline. But while an experimental celluslosic ethanol plant is now operating in Canada, and several others are being built in this country, most experts say it will take years for the technology to become economically competitive. There are also political realities. "Corn and soybean interests haven't spent 30 years paying campaign bills for national politicians" says one critic "to give the game away to grass.""

Why is there a Totem Pole at Ray's?

I was going to call this story "Traffic Light Count Explodes in Siskiyou County" with tongue in cheek since the CalTrans paving work added two lights (I only counted the three-color lights) but several clients live here and might think I'm trying to be a smart-aleck.

So I'm putting out the real story which is the huge improvement in the intersection where Highway 97 passes through town. To go north on 97 drivers must exit eye 5 and follow N. Weed Blvd. (which I think used to be old Highway 99) until 97 veers off and heads toward Oregon.

There were no stop signs or lights in this direction and much of the traffic was heavy trucks, making it quite difficult and sometimes dangerous to enter the roadway from a side street like Main Street, the central way through downtown.

Coming south on 97 there was a blinking red light where it tee-intersected N. Weed Blvd. at almost a 90 degree angle. And it did so coming down a slight grade. On more than one occasion an 18 wheeler didn't make the stop and the businesses across the street suffered oversize visitors who didn't come through the regular front door.

So now both north and south bound traffic have lights to control them. As a bonus the city somehow bundled the job with badly-needed local street re-paving so the whole community drives a lot better now.

One last note. I just read in the last Chamber newsletter why that totem pole is there in Ray's parking lot. Highway 97 was pushed through to Alaska just before WW II because America anticipated Japanese aggression there.

The Alcan (Alaskan-Canadian) highway passed through British Columbia and the Yukon before entering Alaska and terminating in Fairbanks. Identical totem poles were erected at each end to commemorate the feat.

It's been there, where Highway 97 ends here in Weed, ever since.

Substitute Teaching

I recently did a little substitute teaching to fill in the time while this real estate market (and the entire economy) begin to turn around. I am credentialed in California and taught 7th through 12th grades for several years but I left the field in 1978 (that's thirty years ago) to start a small business and so this temporary return was quite an experience. While it was always open season when a sub came for even my own childhood school, this recent sojourn wasn't anything like what the photo above (and perhaps common perception) suggest, and that's why I'm writing this.

The first difference I noticed was that there was no blackboard. Or chalk. Of course "black" boards predated even myself, referring to the 19th century when they were made from slate. They were green when I left teaching and somebody always got stuck banging the erasers out after school.

They are moving now from the erasable whiteboards to SmartBoards, an electronic screen with a ceiling-hung projector and wireless "chalk" (in several colors). You can draw and write just like you can on a regular "board" and to erase something you encircle it with your finger and tap the erase button from a drop-down window.

Fortunately most rooms still had the whiteboard off to the side where all I had to do was print my name. "Lessons" per se do not exist for the most part when you are subbing, at least nothing you want to chance turning your back to the class for. When I had full classrooms it was all about control. I developed a reasonably disquieting look when teaching and have a rather loud voice when needed so mostly it was just trying to keep the 20 odd souls peaceful enough that we could at least think about what the teacher had left for us to do.

Sometimes though I was covering a special ed teacher who would work with different individuals from different grades on different subjects. Usually it was only one or two children at a time and in a separate room isolated from the noise and distraction of a regular classroom. These were the teaching moments I (and probably most teachers) enjoy __ the chance to really reach out and help. Even if the child had behaviour problems it was easier to get him or her settled down and focused.

The thing that struck me though was how hard these teachers were working. You could see it in their eyes and their faces. They had that professional balance of control and learning, that kind of confidence that you can see the minute you walk into their classrooms. And behavior rules were everywhere: respect for one another, saying "thank you" and "please", and even holding doors for adults. This extended to volunteers, teacher's aides, and staff as well.

An enormous machine aimed solely at educating your children and helping them cope with this confusing world.

Did I mention how tiring this is? After only 5 or 6 hours of subbing I was utterly dead on my feet. Pop an asprin and take a nap after getting home. Yet some of these schools open at 7AM with before-school programs to accommodate early arrivals and some kids stay til 6PM waiting in special SAFE classrooms for their parents to get off work and pick them up. That's eleven hours, people. A very long day for kids, staff, and teachers alike.

So if you have kids in school give your teacher and her aide a hug next time you see them in the grocery store. Trust me, they deserve it, I've been there.