Hoy durante la cena Angela y yo hablábamos acerca del termino "gentrification" y tratábamos de encontrar una traducción correcta al español. Al no conseguirlo buscamos en el internet y descubrimos que se dice "gentrificación", un neologismo. Existen otras traducciones que se han considerado o utilizado pero sin ser tan apropiados como gentrificación, tal como elitización, la cual nos gusto a ambos.
Luego de leer, en español, un resumen del termino, Angela comento que la inversa había pasado en nuestro vecindario cuando compramos nuestra casa. En ese entonces estábamos rodeados principalmente de gente de raza blanca y de mayores ingresos. Nosotros logramos comprar la casa debido a que había estado abandonada por mas de un año y estaba en condiciones de ruina. De no ser así no hubiésemos podido. Pero, al mudarnos, el vecino mas antagonista y racista le comento a los otros vecinos, "when those Mexicans move in, there goes the neighborhood" (cuando se mudan aquí esos Mexicanos se arruina el vecindario). Entonces, pregunto Angela, ¿cual es el antónimo de gentrificación? Chusmatizacion, conteste yo.
Friday, April 4, 2014
Thursday, February 20, 2014
Thoughts on the California drought emergency.
I belong to the American Water Works Association online group in which I am an active participant. In response to a current hot issue, the severe drought in California, I posted something about global climate change having an impact on the drought. Seemed like a no-brainer to me, but not to others. One response was "the issue here was "Water emergency in California due to record drought."
Why are you discussing global warming?." My response follows:
It is disingenuous to address the issue of drought in California without addressing everything that impacts the drought, and without addressing the entire region's drought crisis. Nothing exists in isolation. The drought is not just an issue of lack of water, it's also about politics, money, and climate change.
Certainly, as mentioned before, long-ago deceased political and financial wheeler-dealers were a factor in creating the mess we're in. To my knowledge no one here disagrees with that. However, politicians being what they are, they continue to cater to the whims of the business sector (agribusiness, sprawling home developments), common sense not withstanding. Hence the recent back room deals that allow almond and pistachio farmers (big business really) to have a permanent water supply, whereas vegetable farmers do not. Guess what, money crops win and politician's pockets are lined. Such is the state of affairs in this state, and without hesitation I can tell you that it's the status quo in every state of the union. Here it's water, there it's coal, over there it's oil. It's always something, and the crisis du jour happens to be the drought in the southwest.
Conservation costs money. Once upon a time farming was a mom and pop operation with very little mechanization, thus labor intensive. Profits required larger tracts of land, mechanization, fewer laborers, and a larger planting season. The southwest (and that includes other states than CA) proved the ideal conditions for industrial farming. Industrial farming (or agribusiness) carries a lot of weight financially and politically, hence special deals for this kind of business. But folk snowed in elsewhere in our nation enjoy produce grown in CA, hence our plight is not just CA's plight, it's the plight of the nation as a whole. To believe otherwise is not to be in sync with reality.
What are Californians to say? 'Mea culpa' and thump our chest in repentance for the crimes others in times past? I certainly won't. My family and I have done our utmost to promote responsible development, including water conservation measures that in our area mean essentially that we do not need Mulholland's aqueduct. For now we're essentially isolated because 99% of the folk I speak with immediately accuse me of being everything from a tree-hugging liberal to a Water Nazi. These folk cry about concern of their manicured lawns as a constitutional right akin to the First Amendment. Same thing when I talk to them about prohibiting special water rights to cash crops (almonds, pistachios). Same thing when I tell them farmers are going to have to start paying the real cost of water, which means substantially higher prices at the market because conservation costs money. It's not just politicians who are living from election to election, thus their myopic view of things. It's all of us really, and that includes EVERYONE in the U.S. who enjoys relatively and artificially low priced produce from CA.
Change requires not just exhuming Mulholland and his ilk (Eaton, Lippincott, et al), and of course Theodore Roosevelt, and whipping them back to hell for their sins, but also every politician from the 1890s to this very day. More importantly, it means reeducating everyone so that this sh*t isn't allowed to happen again. Wishful thinking on my part, I know. So what will happen in reality? Some dumb politician of whatever inclination is blamed, his butt is thrown out of office and a new one takes his place. And the cycle starts all over again. Without a quantum leap in understanding that everything is interrelated (politics, money, climate change, globalization) all we will do is jump from one scapegoat to another.
Why are you discussing global warming?." My response follows:
It is disingenuous to address the issue of drought in California without addressing everything that impacts the drought, and without addressing the entire region's drought crisis. Nothing exists in isolation. The drought is not just an issue of lack of water, it's also about politics, money, and climate change.
Certainly, as mentioned before, long-ago deceased political and financial wheeler-dealers were a factor in creating the mess we're in. To my knowledge no one here disagrees with that. However, politicians being what they are, they continue to cater to the whims of the business sector (agribusiness, sprawling home developments), common sense not withstanding. Hence the recent back room deals that allow almond and pistachio farmers (big business really) to have a permanent water supply, whereas vegetable farmers do not. Guess what, money crops win and politician's pockets are lined. Such is the state of affairs in this state, and without hesitation I can tell you that it's the status quo in every state of the union. Here it's water, there it's coal, over there it's oil. It's always something, and the crisis du jour happens to be the drought in the southwest.
Conservation costs money. Once upon a time farming was a mom and pop operation with very little mechanization, thus labor intensive. Profits required larger tracts of land, mechanization, fewer laborers, and a larger planting season. The southwest (and that includes other states than CA) proved the ideal conditions for industrial farming. Industrial farming (or agribusiness) carries a lot of weight financially and politically, hence special deals for this kind of business. But folk snowed in elsewhere in our nation enjoy produce grown in CA, hence our plight is not just CA's plight, it's the plight of the nation as a whole. To believe otherwise is not to be in sync with reality.
What are Californians to say? 'Mea culpa' and thump our chest in repentance for the crimes others in times past? I certainly won't. My family and I have done our utmost to promote responsible development, including water conservation measures that in our area mean essentially that we do not need Mulholland's aqueduct. For now we're essentially isolated because 99% of the folk I speak with immediately accuse me of being everything from a tree-hugging liberal to a Water Nazi. These folk cry about concern of their manicured lawns as a constitutional right akin to the First Amendment. Same thing when I talk to them about prohibiting special water rights to cash crops (almonds, pistachios). Same thing when I tell them farmers are going to have to start paying the real cost of water, which means substantially higher prices at the market because conservation costs money. It's not just politicians who are living from election to election, thus their myopic view of things. It's all of us really, and that includes EVERYONE in the U.S. who enjoys relatively and artificially low priced produce from CA.
Change requires not just exhuming Mulholland and his ilk (Eaton, Lippincott, et al), and of course Theodore Roosevelt, and whipping them back to hell for their sins, but also every politician from the 1890s to this very day. More importantly, it means reeducating everyone so that this sh*t isn't allowed to happen again. Wishful thinking on my part, I know. So what will happen in reality? Some dumb politician of whatever inclination is blamed, his butt is thrown out of office and a new one takes his place. And the cycle starts all over again. Without a quantum leap in understanding that everything is interrelated (politics, money, climate change, globalization) all we will do is jump from one scapegoat to another.
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