Marin Maven

Sea of Green Edition

marinmaven — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 12:29:46 +0000

rtleaton

From rtlbeaton via Twitpic

Thanks to rtlbeaton, for snapping a pic of a quintessential Marin county sign even though Marin County recently admitted that it violated its own rules in using pesticides in our parks — where our children play.

Marin Maven has joined the “Sea of Green” Twitter movement, turning the profile picture green and turning the Twitter time settings to Tehran time.

Next Monday, June 22nd, Marin Peace and Justice Coalition will be hosting a potluck and meeting, “Marin Clean Energy: Bringing Green Power to Our Towns.” The potluck dinner starts at 6:00pm at the First United Methodist Church (in the basement) on 9 Ross Valley Drive in San Rafael. The featured speaker is Tracy Shepard of the San Francisco Bay Sierra Club.

Marin Clean Energy is an innovative program that can provide Marin County with 50% clean, renewable power while meeting or beating current utility rates. Most cities and towns in Marin have voted to pursue MCE, but only tentatively. A great deal of public support and pressure will be required in the next few months to assure that the final contract is approved.
You will only have access to Marin Clean Energy if your city or town votes YES.
So come to connect with other activists and to hear Tracy explain the program
and the small but vital things you can do to help make it a reality!

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Moonlighting Maven

marinmaven — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 05:51:12 +0000

Maven is now moonlighting over at SF Gate in their “In Marin” section of local blogs. I am joining Pam Gould, over at More Marin to provide a larger public news from Marin. It just went live now! eek. Getting busier, my life is.

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Hold On, It Will Be A Bumpy Ride…

marinmaven — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 14:18:39 +0000

This weekend we will be doing some work on this blog and website, trying to gussy it up for when Maven starts blogging for the SF Gate’s “In Marin” page along with Pam at More Marin. We will be upgrading the Wordpress up to the latest and that means we will be changing the theme as well to take advantage of its groovy features. This means things will almost certainly go awry – not because we wish it to, but because the universe commands it. In order to get fancy-dancy, one must pay the bitter price of seeing various error messages. Be patient.This happened before, and we survived stronger and better…

Would you like to contribute to Marin Maven and blog about Marin here? All you need to do is email me or call me at 415-203-6965. What we need are people willing to write about living in Marin, Marin events and Politics, and post pictures of Marin. In return, you will get featured in the About page with a pic and a bio as a contributor. Plus, you get to share whatever we get in revenue. Now it is shells and shiny objects, with this SF Gate thing happening real currency in change.

Join our Culture Maven, Geneva Anderson in being part of this craziness and take advantage of the exposure. Perhaps, you will find fame and great from this modest of launch pads and Maven can say she knew you when.

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Twitters and Tweetups with Tweeple

marinmaven — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 12:38:41 +0000

We all gathered at the Clear Center of Health Marin meet Marinites who twitter on Wednesday Night. Sally Kuhlman of Sally by the Bay (read her post on this event here) and Lissa Rankin of Owning Pink co-hosted this “Tweetup” last night in Mill Valley.Shock! We are not bots, but really diverse and quite awesome people.

Celia Graterol or @MamaMtnBike who does Mountain Bike Tours, Training & Corporate Team Building events. Marjanne Pearson or @Nextmoon, who is a “Talent strategist for a constellation of design firm clients. Finds joy in language, ideas + culture, great food + wine, + living in Sonoma.” or a Design Maven for Commercial Architecture, who knows how to live (Yay, redheads!). Anastasia Schuster from Petaluma or @Accessinspirati describes herself as a bridge between travel suppliers and agents. If you ask nicely she will let you know about all the nice restaurants in Petaluma.

Tricia Barrett of Clear Center makes this very interesting green juice which is highly nutritious, beneficial, and absolutely cleansing. Maven thinks everyone should try it. If I were to have it again I would add apple juice or maybe blueberry to add sweetness. The green juice would also go great with vodka, as it sort of has the taste signature of a bloody mary. Yet, I suspect that Tricia would not approve as it would redefine the whole idea of cleansing.

Got to meet Peggy Butler (@pobutler), Diane Fischler (@dianefischler), and Doug Levy (@SFDoug) with Wine & Food World. There were many more, but yesterday’s migrane has Maven drawing a blank right now.

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Twitter Operatives Weekend

marinmaven — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 02:40:30 +0000

Marin Maven is addicted to Twitter, the newfangled killer application that all the kids are using.

This 16 y.o. girl from Marin has been missing since 5/29. If you know anything that will help, please alert the authorities. As a mother, Maven can only imagine what having a missing child feels like.

Vote for @marinmommies Nick’s Parents’ Picks 2009. They are ahead at 64%, but less than 40 days to go we have plenty of time to make it even more lopsided. Wee! Speaking of Marinmimmies, they have feature information on the Memorial fund for Novato DUI victim Melody Osheroff’s family. Donate @ any Wells Fargo in Marin.

Shock! Marooned In Marin conservative blogger calls Obama, the “Fourth Dixie Chick” Maven predicted when listening to Obama’s speech in Egypt this week,that conservatives would react by saying, “Look, Obama is a muslin!” Why are conservatives so predictable? Why can’t they surprise us with a rare instance of fair-mindedness? Well, actually, there is one notable case, Ted Olson, who fought on the wrong side of Bush v. Gore is joining David Boies, who represented Gore are teaming up to challenge the ban on same sex marriage on the federal level.

“The constitution protects individuals’ basic rights that cannot be taken away by a vote. If the people of California had voted to ban interracial marriage, it would have been the responsibility of the courts to say that they cannot do that under the constitution. We believe that denying individuals in this category the right to lasting, loving relationships through marriage is a denial to them, on an impermissible basis, of the rights that the rest of us enjoy…I also personally believe that it is wrong for us to continue to deny rights to individuals on the basis of their sexual orientation.” – Ted Olson

Despite how eloquently he speaks about gay rights, many groups are questioning his motives believing that it is far premature to bring gay marriage to the federal courts. The danger is that if you bring the issue to the Supreme court too early, you may lose and wipe out same sex marriage laws on the state level.

@marinij: Man sues over SMART tax, saying Marin didn’t provide two-thirds approval. The man is Dennis Fishwick, a former Novato councilman. While Sonoma approved of the Measure with 73.5, Marin voters only supported it at 62.5%. With both counties together the vote was tallied at 69.5%. Fishwick charges that SMART’s intent was to water down the Marin vote to push SMART through.

@MoreMarin wrote about ‘Water Report Claims Marin Does Not Need A Desal Plant’. Personally, Maven believes the money that would be spent to create a desalinization plant would be better spent encouraging both commercial and residential customers to convert lawns into water gardens and use rain barrels and gray water systems. Maven wrote about this here. The desalinization plant will also be in-taking water in an area of the bay that has had oil and waste spills, so I am not sure about the quality of water the plant would be starting with.

Needing a rooster like a fish needs a bicycle…@jessicapirie Except Tiburon, every city in Marin allows each home to raise up to 8 chickens, but no roosters are allowed. It would be cool to have backyard source of fresh eggs and chicken manure for the garden wouldn’t it?

@marinij_opin, or the MarinIJ Opinion page featured a letter by Adam Davis, “Why Marin Clean Energy is vital.” Now Maven has heard that the California legislature is threatening to undermine Community Choice power via SB695. Check out our post about Marin Clean Energy here.

@KevinGongHiking let us know about an updated SF/Marin hikes map with thumbnails, ratings, and summaries. Once you have burnt a lot of calories hiking, you can join @rusticbakery or Rustic Bakery who will be a part of new eco-cafe re-opening in Muir Woods next Tuesday, all local and organic foods will be sourced from Marin! @whywine suggests a great way to wash down those eco-goodies — a Marin County Pinot Noir Tasting on June 13th, in Larkspur.

Speaking of wine, Stubbs Winery in Petaluma, one of the first organic wineries will be hosting a benefit for educational development programs in Afghanistan on next Saturday, June 20th, 5:30 to 8:30 at Stubbs Vineyard – 1000 Marshall Petaluma Road, Petaluma, California 94952. The tickets are $60 each.

@Reelpolitik via @nprpolitics reminds some of us how old we are when on Thursday they marked Jerry Brown’s 35 year anniversary of his winning the California Democratic Gubnatorial Primary.

The Tiburon Film Society will present the Bolivian/Japanese film, Pachamama, at the Bay Model located at 2100 Bridgeway in Sausalito [Phone: (415) 332.3871] on Tuesday, July 7, 2009 @ 6 PM.

@LibLarge reports that Marin County rock history may get new chapter if legendary Sweetwater reopens as nonprofit nightclub. An old friend of Maven points out that Sweetwater has always been a non-profit.

Sign of the times from @Ash_Craigslist: Unemployed in Marin – A networking group is forming at Aromas in San Rafael on this Wednesday, June 10th at 4pm.

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