Occupy- Stop Foreclosure Fraud!

Today Occupy Chico was part of a state-wide Action called Occupy The Crime Scene. It is an effort by Occupy groups to get audits and investigations of fraudulent mortgage practices being perpetrated by the banks on hundreds of thousands of California homeowners. There will be coverage on www.khsltv.org and info is available from Occupy Petaluma-Foreclosure Crisis who alerted us about the complexity of this.

 A homeowner can go to their county recorder's office and look up their deed of trust on this machine. If on page 1 it shows the letters MERS you probably have fraud going. Ask for an audit and investigation..the folks at Occupy Petaluma can help you. In the case of this long and complex mortgage situation on this home we couldn't find that but we did in another case of a foreclosed homeowner.

Butte Co. D.A. Mike Ramsey was very obliging and willing to help. Now we have to stay with it so we can actually bring together the prosecutorial offering and the victims.

 Let's prosecute white collar criminals, keep people in their homes and restore money to our cities.

Day light savings evening

 Michael says, "Haven't you already taken that picture before?" The answer is no, not with this light, this particular attraction of growth and color. These two fields above and below have the few remaining peach trees from the old orchard between them.

 And this lovely specialty salad plant (name?) of Bruce's is like purple lace.

 I took these photos after yoga and my second late afternoon time at the movies getting signatures on the Clear-Cutting petition at The Lorax. There has to be an easier way to stop the rape of the forests-- https://secure.sierraclub.org/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=8117

In beauty the spring vetch did pose before the shining creek. No thought but growth and green.

Occupied Days

 The day was mostly human centered but we did go for a walk in the morning and found another bushtit nest. The bees were buzzing in the rosemary and the birds were singing with abandon... you can always tell when rain is coming by the uptick in their chorus.

 We had a Regional General Assembly and a good circle of people it was--I was cooking for Food Not Bombs so was a little late for introductions but know there were Nevada City, Marysville, Red Bluff, Redding, Quincy and Taylorsville represented. We will now have increased connectivity and strength as a Regional Occupy.

The top photo is of the Red Bluff folks and the second one is of women from Nevada City. It was great to be together at Food Not Bombs but we didn't have that organized well enough. It would have been fun to march together through town rather than just meet and scatter. I wish I'd gotten to talk to more of them. I was in scatter mode myself-- went to the Peace Endeavor Vigil for awhile then had to go out to the Cinemark theater to get petitions signed against Clear Cutting at the Lorax movie. There's more activism in the pipeline, more radio and thankfully, more rain.

 Yesterday was a fine day. International Women's Day may be a time to lament about all that is not going right for women but I've found that in Chico it usually falls on a beautiful spring day and women want to celebrate our sisterhood through connection and good feelings.

 Occupy Chico planned this event to coincide with suggestions of Women Occupy (www.womenoccupy.org) The theme was Bust up the Banks and some of the Code Pink women in the Bay Area got roughly arrested for showing up topless or in pink bras but in Chico we leafleted and vigiled in our usual rowdy way with the messages-- Break up into smaller, safer banks, pay the required 35% corporate income tax,  make a moratorium on foreclosures and invest in small businesses.

 Nellie MacKay and her band had been at KZFR prior to their concert at Laxson Auditorium and when they heard about our action they wanted to come out, even though they had a long way to go that day to get to Santa Cruz. Nellie sang a song called Topeka about a harried mom talking to her man on the phone. Funny, and just right on for the conditions of so many women--reminding how important reproductive choice is to each and every woman.

 As the Bank of America protest disbanded these good Occupy men were across the street protesting at a Rush Limbaugh sponsor's. I went in to talk to the guy and we went round a round with his libertarian stuff about not wanting to pay for birth control and my bringing it back to the issue of hate speech. After my cranky self had been there awhile he said, "OK, I'll let my wife decide." You gotta wonder about politics in America but I'm grateful for my little place on the planet.

500 Postings!

 This is a milestone of some sort. I started blogging in Corvallis in July, 2007 and so that's almost 5 years of our lives recorded here along with some of the most beautiful country anywhere. I'm amazed that the task held me to it this long but I think, after watching Green Fire! tonight, a film about the life of Aldo Leopold I understand the need to demonstrate land ethics to those who might not be as lucky as I am. For instance, the photo above I took late this afternoon. In the soft patterning of color and jumble of form it stimulates a feeling almost like adoration for Riparia and it's plants, seasons, continuity...

 Same with this photo from Comanche Creek (upstream a short distance from Riparia) taken yesterday during a creek clean up. I have loving eyes for this environment and the creek responds with its beauty (not that I didn't get a blackberry snag or two plucking for plastic bags though.)

 Yesterday afternoon I was very pleased that Michael had over 40 people attend his talk on How to Run a Diesel Vehicle on Used Cooking Oil. It caused me to appreciate him all over again. He picked up that knowledge from scratch and initiated and accomplished our Veggie Voyagers saga (see 2007-mid-2008 here if you don't know what I'm talking about.) All with his own initiative and determination.

 And this Lady Gaga is Ed McLaughlin, founder of Chico Velo, who broke his neck biking in Dec. 2007 while we were looping the U.S. and were in Texas. Every year now his friends put on the Tour de Ed, "Honoring Ed McLaughlin, who knows every day is part of the big Stage Race of Life. Ride to Work. To school. To the store. It's what Ed would do."

We did the sissy loop around lower Bidwell Park but still got the teeshirt. How wonderful it is to be able to ride a bicycle and have lived healthy on this incredible planet for 500 postings on the blogosphere!

 In the ways of the world I don't do so well. The world itself is amazing and chuck full of stimulating, alarming and incredible things. I wanted to show the contrast between what is happening in nature here in the valley vs our day in the Sierra yesterday during the March 1st snowstorm. For once I didn't have the camera with me (because the wind and whipping abrasive snow made it hard to do anything.) The photo I did get and wanted to share would NOT upload-- it was just one of those amazing things-- the corridor of Hwy 20 just like a narrow white corridor between ghostly drooping giants. This little tunnel cave was something I discovered while walking on the road after getting us turned around and far from where we started --very slick and disconcerting road but it was neat to see this little cave with a set of tracks going in... definitely not human.

 On the way home, where Hwy 20 goes over the Yuba River there was this last gasp of the storm rainbow. I was so glad for this rain in a very dry winter...it provided a very good dumping of snow.

 Still, I worry for fruit set because we had such high winds just after this photo with our house in the background was taken. I kind of can't help worrying-- we went to the Sustainability Conference at Chico State today and a lot of environmental issues are rumbling around in my head. Tomorrow though Michael is presenting on running a diesel vehicle on SVO (straight veggie oil.) I'll enjoy that.

Stop the Drones- Beale Protest

 Great to see new folks at the Beale North Gate today and we had some new banners and signs too. Meanwhile the FAA has authorized the use of domestic drones so there was new bad news on the drone front this week.

 Carol Eberling and I came down from Chico and there were six folks from Nevada City and a wonderful new woman from Marysville. Jeff from Nevada City led us in wonderful peace and justice movement songs and the time just flew by.

 Toby had a good day because the base MP didn't call the sheriff, or the sheriff didn't come, so she was able to leaflet a lot of the service personnel leaving the base. We always hope if they can read our words of common sense and peace they will start to rethink their involvement in the drone warfare program.

 Here's our whole little contingent this lively and somewhat blustery spring day.

Another thing that was different was that the SR-71 spy planes made low circles right over our heads and there were many fighter jets out blasting around. I hope the increased activity has nothing to do with Iran.