Welcome to the Slo
Coast Journal.
Published monthly, the Journal brings you information about
California's Central Coast and surrounding area.
The Great Blue
Heron Image on Banner by
Nan Carder. All Content Copyright Slo Coast Journal and Individual
Writers.
"Do
you think God gets stoned? I think so . . . look at the platypus!"
Robin Williams
New City
Council Seated - First
Native Member?
by Jack McCurdy
Matt Makowetski may
be the first native
of Morro Bay to be elected to the Morro Bay City Council. But more
importantly, he brings to four the number of Council members who have
shown their bona fide commitment to the welfare of the community as a
whole, aside from special interests.
Three of the five
members of the
five-member Council can enact virtually anything legal in the City. But
having four votes conveys something special, convincing, and powerful
and leaves no doubt about the dominion behind the vote and the support
of a large majority of residents. Read
More
What Makes a
Good Citizen?
by Shana Ogren
Lourey
Would it feel wrong
to be drafted to
help others?
It was our official
commemorative
Veterans Day last month on November 11. On that day, I think of civic
duty and wonder if I am doing my job to fulfill it.
What does it mean
to serve
one’s country? Or to serve the world?
What if we were to
require non-military
national (or international) service for our citizens? In Austria and
Switzerland there is an organization called Zivildienst, which provides
its citizens with the opportunity to avoid enlistment in the military
if they wish to by completing an alternative civil service.
In Austria, for
those who object to the
draft for military service, they instead can spend nine months serving
at an NGO, a nursing home, a hospital, or in a ministry. Read More
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Buddhist Monks,
MFP Stage Vigils
to Close Diablo
by Jack McCurdy
Buddhist monks, joined by Mothers for Peace members and supporters,
will stage a series of local vigils and fasts starting today, December
1, and extending through next Sunday, December 7, after leading a Peace
Walk joined by the public from San Luis Mission Plaza to the gates of
the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant yesterday, November 30.
It’s
all to advocate the closure of the plant, which is under the gun from
many quarters for fear, among other things, that an earthquake will
tear through one or more of the faults surrounding the plant and cause
a disaster that could expose many people in San Luis Obispo County to
harmful, if not deadly, radiation.
After
the Peace Walk yesterday, the first vigil today (December 1) will be
near the gates of Diablo in Avila Beach from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.;
again on Tuesday and Wednesday. The second vigil will be held on the
lawn of the County Courthouse in San Luis Obispo (across from the
Fremont Theater) from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. on Friday and Saturday.
The third will be next Sunday at the plant’s gates.
San
Luis Obispo Mothers for Peace is a local organization which works to
promote peace and to abandon nuclear energy and weapons. The flyer for
the Buddhist monks events can be found at the
Mothers for Peace website.
Meanwhile,
nine environmental groups and the Natural Resources Defense Council
(NRDC) have filed separate lawsuits in the D.C. Court of Appeals
challenging the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) decision to proceed
with an “extended waste storage rule” and a generic
environmental impact statement, claiming it has failed to comply with a
2012 federal court ruling that had reversed the NRC decision.
A
Mothers for Peace statement said three of the nine groups and NRDC
brought the earlier lawsuit that resulted in the suspension of all U.S.
reactor licensing and re-licensing decisions until the NRC completed a
study of the environmental impacts of the long-standing failure to site
a repository for disposal of spent reactor fuel. Now the groups have
sued again, charging that NRC had failed to meet federal safety and
environmental requirements and failed to comply with the
Court’s decision.
Momentous
Decision on WRF Looms
by Jack McCurdy
Nearly
twelve years after a state agency ordered Morro Bay and Cayucos to bite
the bullet and replace their decrepit, polluting, wastewater treatment
plant with one that will do all the things a modern plant can
do. It will produce recycled water, for a big example, that
won't pollute the ocean with unprocessed sewage. The Morro Bay City
Council is on the verge of doing what past Councils failed to do and
has cost the city untold millions from delays. That money is gone
forever from Morro Bay taxpayers' pocket books. Read More
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