Commentaries on social issues, politics, real estate, art and other matters, both published (principally in The Napa Valley Register) and unpublished, can be viewed by selecting the appropriate page at the right.
  
Disclaimer: the opinions and thoughts expressed herein (except where an occasional - and hopefully attributed - comment of someone else is included) are those of the author.  In this regard, the following should be borne in mind:
  

“There are two literary maladies – writer’s cramp and swollen head.  The worst of writer’s cramp is that it is never cured; the worst of swollen head is that it never kills.”  Coluson Kernahan, British writer (1858-1943)

  

If that isn't enough to give the occasional reader of the included commentaries pause, then perhaps this is:

  

"I made a most thoughtful, symmetrical and admirable argument. But a Michigan newspaper editor answered it, refuted it, and utterly demolished it by saying I was in the constant habit of horsewhipping my great grandmother."
Mark Twain, American writer, 1879

The MOST RECENT COMMENTARY  and a SELECTED PAST COMMENTARY follow directly below:

Most Recent Commentary

Burn This

(Originally Submitted as “Put Out Your Damn Fire”)

By Skip Keyser

(originally published in The Napa Valley Register, January 9, 2014)

Recently my wife and I returned to Napa Valley after a day visiting with our daughter, son-in-law and grandsons in Green Valley.  As we turned north on Highway 29 from Highway 12, I was struck by the pungent odor of burning wood.  Inasmuch as this was a Spare the Air day and responsible residents of Napa Valley would therefore not be stoking their fireplaces with toxic- and pollution-causing fires, I glanced around to see if I could detect the location of the raging forest fire that must be producing such an odor.

As I looked around, I could see no reflection of flames on the horizon, nor did the radio carry any report of a civil disaster that might point to the source of the stench of burning wood that pervaded the air.  Sadly I concluded that the Neanderthals were at it again, no doubt relaxing in front of their smoldering fireplaces, rifle(s) in hand, bemoaning yet again the intrusion of Bay Area Air Quality Management District into their self-anointed, God-given right to pollute the air; neighborliness, public civility and civic responsibility notwithstanding.

Either that or they were exempt from the Winter [November 1 thru February 28] Spare the Air Alert then in effect for the Bay Area.  Given that Napa Valley shares some of the attributes of Lake Wobegon (where “all the women are strong, all the men good looking, and all the children above average”) and therefore – by definition – considerate of others, I concluded that either this area was saturated with wood-burning restaurants, or there were significant ceremonial fires related to specific religious activities, or – right here in the 21^st Century – Napa Valley was cursed with a 1930’s era, pre-TVA, Appalachian-like significant concentration of homes in which a smoldering fire place was the only source of heat, these being the three salient exemptions to the Spare the Air prohibition against burning wood.

Either that or a number of residents were thumbing their noses at their neighbors, the elderly, children and others in Napa Valley afflicted with respiratory conditions easily exacerbated by poor air quality.

Unfortunately, based on recent editorial, weekly commentary, and letter-to-the-editor comments, I have come to the conclusion that it might be the latter; namely those of limited intelligence, an atrophied – or non-existent – sense of social responsibility, and an apparently well-honed “I’ll put out my fire when you rip it from my cold, dead hands” view of the world.  Sad.

So, in a no-doubt vain attempt to drag at least one or two of these self-centered, myopic individuals, kicking and screaming, into the 20^th Century (in the hope that their subsequent transition into the 21^st Century might be a little easier) herewith some of the rationale for Spare the Air Alerts:

·       Wood smoke is similar to cigarette smoke, containing carcinogenic components such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), dioxin, fine particulate matter, sulfur dioxide and various irritant gases such as oxides of nitrogen that scar the lungs.

·       Wood smoke interferes with normal lung development in infants and children and increases children’s risk of respiratory infections such as bronchitis and pneumonia.

·       Wood smoke exposure can depress the immune system and damage the layer of cells in the lungs that cleanse and protect the airways.

·       Wood smoke causes coughs, headaches, and eye and throat irritation in otherwise healthy people.

·       Wood smoke – even short exposures - is particularly harmful for those with asthma, chronic respiratory and/or cardiovascular disease.

·       The particles of wood smoke – to which carcinogenic chemicals adhere - are extremely small and therefore are not filtered out by the nose or the upper respiratory system, instead ending up deep in the lungs where they remain for months, causing structural damage and chemical changes.

·       Recent studies show that fine particles deep in the lungs increase the risk of strokes and are linked to heart attacks and arrhythmias in people with heart disease, causing chest pain, palpitations, shortness of breath, and fatigue.

·       The particulate matter in wood smoke is so small that windows and doors cannot keep it out—even in newer energy-efficient weather-tight homes.

·       The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that a single fireplace operating for an hour and burning 10 pounds of wood will generate the same polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon carcinogens as smoking 129,000 cigarettes.

Just a few things some of the yahoos sitting in front of their gratuitous, smoldering fires might consider before they go ramping off on one of their “the sky is falling and the world is ending because I can’t have my fire” tirades.

And – just to clear the air – I bear no grudge against Neanderthals by comparing them to the Spare the Air Alert violators among us.

Skip Keyser lives – and currently breathes – in Napa County

Post Script: This commentary resulted in numerous reader responses, some favorable, some not.  In retrospect, comparing those who willfully violate Bay Area Spare the Air Alerts to Neanderthals was unfair; it does a gross injustice to Neanderthals.

SELECTED PAST COMMENTARY

“City of Los Angeles - Made in Mexico”

by Skip Keyser 

(originally published in The Napa Valley Register, October 21, 2006)

My wife and I grew up in the San Fernando Valley and recently returned for a short stay.  The occasion was the wedding of our niece, one of three Korean girls adopted by my sister.

My other sister, who is going on her 27^th year teaching math at the same valley high school, has as her significant other for about the same length of time, a Chinese man.

And my grandson, having just turned four, has a name that epitomizes the multicultural nature of California: Reilly (a name of no particular ethnic derivation that I can discern) Lannin (my mother’s Irish-Scott maiden name) Ramirez.  He is, to parse his heritage as closely as I can determine, a Latino some three generations removed from Michoacan, Mexico with Lithuanian-Serbian (his maternal grandmother) Italian-Dutch-Irish-Scottish (his maternal grandfather) blood.  He is, in short, the face of California, and - in more ways than one – the face of the future.

I was reflecting on this during a walk my wife and I took one morning during our stay in the Porter Ranch section of Northridge.  I had just read a short review of “Orange County Housecleaners” (Franck Cancian, University of New Mexico Press) in the Book Review of that Sunday’s Los Angeles Times when my wife and I decided to take advantage of the cool overcast morning and get what – at our age – passes for a workout.

As we walked along admiring the manicured lawns and common-area landscaping (this was – of course – a gated community, that bane of modern life in metropolitan California, neatly segregating “them” from “us,” whomever them and us are) when I noticed a series of manhole covers punctuating the sidewalk.  Each manhole cover had “City of Los Angeles – Made in Mexico” cast unto its upper surface.

Now this might have been an aberration, perhaps some small contract for such items let to a Maquiladora firm operating along the U.S.-Mexico border.  I did not, given our schedule, have either the opportunity or - to be honest – the inclination to do a manhole-cover-point-of-origination survey for greater metropolitan Los Angeles.  And I suspect, given the vagaries of the Pacific Rim economy, there are other isolated patches of “City of Los Angeles – Made in Taiwan” or “Made in China” or “Made in Indonesia.”  But the extant manhole covers sufficed as both an idiom and a mirror of California – “Made in Mexico.”

Now I do not, by this statement, intend to demean or minimize the impact of Russian, New England, Southern, Midwestern, dust bowl, Texan (sacre bleu!), Asian or other non-Mexican influences on the development of the world’s fifth-largest economy and the state that is currently home to 1 of every 7 residents in the United States.  But the fact is, the predominant cultural, economic and social influence in this state is arguably Mexican.  To believe otherwise, it seems to me, is to ignore reality.

Which brings us to the next significant cultural, economic and political issue facing this state in particular and the nation as a whole: The continued and significant migration of Hispanic people from Mexico and Central and South America.

And the current myopic, knee-jerk, counter productive response to a seminal event that has been ongoing for several decades, if not a century or more.

In this regard I refer to the “just build a wall, we’ll stop them at the border,” gun–nut-infiltrated vigilante groups (not to be confused with both houses of Congress) who seem to believe that the “solution” to this issue is one of traffic control and not economic development.

And while it galls me to say this, I believe President Bush, with his insistence on a guest worker program, has the more logical and workable, not to mention humanistic and moral, approach than do the various we’ll-just-seal-up-the-border-and-throw-them-in-jail proposals now percolating and fermenting in the halls of Congress.

Not to mention pragmatic.  For as long as Mexico’s caste system (it’s hard to characterize it as anything else given the social, economic, educational and political disparity between those principally of European ancestry and those of indigenous extraction) continues to stifle economic development and agrarian and land reform in Mexico, and so long as similar issues - exacerbated by political unrest - exist in Central and South America, those with ambition and frustrated economic future in their native land will continue to flow north.

And no fence, vigilante posse or Border patrol – with or without National Guard or - (heaven help us) – so-called Minuteman Project augmentation, will stop them, so long as there is a reasonable opportunity for employment north of the Rio Grande and particularly so long as their labor is needed in California and the Nation.

Ergo “City of Los Angeles – Made in Mexico.”  More than just a manhole cover.

Keyser writes from Napa