Jeff Pelline's Sierra Foothills Report

“California Governor Jerry Brown helped open a new Dell Inc. research center in Santa Clara on Wednesday,” as the San Francisco Business Times reported.

“Michael Dell, the chairman and CEO of Dell (NASDAQ: DELL) joined Brown for the ceremony at what will ultimately be a 240,000 square foot campus with about 700 employees.

“When Dell is finished moving those workers into the area sometime next year, it will have a total of 1,500 employees in Silicon Valley.

“Dell said his company is ‘making significant and thoughtful investments to develop and acquire industry-leading intellectual property.’

“He stressed the ‘great talent pool’ in the area as an attraction for the company.

“Brown praised a move that will bring hundreds of new jobs to the Golden State.”

The rest of the article is here.

Exit question: Why hasn’t our Assemblyman Dan Logue, who seems to be more of a champion to Texas than his home state of California when it comes to jobs, mentioned this? And what about CABPRO, who named Logue its “adovcate of the year” for helping to “save” California jobs?

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To read a digital copy of the new Fall/Holiday issue of Sierra FoodWineArt — coming out later this week — click here.

The cover is a photo illustration of Nevada City and the South Yuba River by award-winning photographer David B. McKay — honoring the 10th year of SYRCL’s Wild & Scenic Film Festival in January. It melds “wild” with “scenic.” David calls the photo “My Dream City,” and he showed it on the county’s recent Open Studios Tour.

I’m a longtime journalist, and when I met with David at our house the other day, I reminded him that we are home to some of the most talented photographers around. The “landscape” — our foothills and Sierra — is world class.

Here’s a list of the photographers for our current issue from the masthead:

Akim Aginsky, Georgette Aronow, Kurt Bertilson, Brian Blair, Mark Blakley, LeeAnn Brook, Wayde Carroll, Dave Carter, Vern Evans, Claudia Gründer, Kial James, David Lovere, David B. McKay, Dave McLellan, Janet Nicholson, Kacper Pempel, Dave Preston, Lisa Redfern, Adrian Schneider, Dan Senkbeil, Jackson Starr, Keith Sutter, Erin Thiem.

(click for larger image)

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“My mother, Pat Wynne, died this morning, peacefully in her sleep,” according to her son, Tim, on his Facebook page. “Arrangements for her funeral are now being made, which will take place in Los Angeles. Her ashes will be buried next to those of her beloved son Rick at Angelus Rosedale Cemetery.”

Pat’s death was confirmed by Grass Valley resident Steve Enos, who is helping Tim with the arrangements. Pat had been suffering from lung cancer, according to Steve. She was 80.

Readers of Sierra Foothills Report will remember Pat for her insightful comments here. She told me how much she enjoyed the discussions here.

I will be writing an obituary of Pat later. She was a smart and lively personality. My prayers go to her family.

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“The media chorus is singing a new song this week in its anti-tea party echo chamber. It goes something like this: The law-breaking anarchists who want to tear America down are somehow just like law-abiding tea partiers — who are working tirelessly to build America back up,” Mark Meckler writes in Politico.com.

“This boneheaded comparison reminds me of what has now become an oft-repeated political euphemism. In 1988, during a vice presidential debate, Democratic candidate Sen. Lloyd Bentsen said to his Republican opponent, Sen. Dan Quayle, “Senator, I served with Jack Kennedy, I knew Jack Kennedy; Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you’re no Jack Kennedy.”

“So despite the risk of sounding cliché here, I say to the small band of misfits and anarchists now occupying Wall Street: I was one of tens of thousands of patriotic Americans who were there at the beginning of the tea party movement. I stood shoulder to shoulder with tea partiers all across this country. And you, who are occupying Wall Street and trying to tear America down, are no tea partiers.

“In recent days, I’ve been repeatedly asked by reporters, ‘Does the comparison now being made in the media between the tea party and the Wall Street protesters bother you?’

My answer is an unequivocal: “Hell yes, it bothers me.”

The rest of the article is here.

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More Swift-owned newspapers (also owners of The Union) are putting up “paywalls” to their content – in this latest case, a market where there’s competition from the free “Carson City Now.” Here’s the latest from the Nevada Appeal:

“Because of the shift in the industry, the Nevada Appeal, along with [some] other Swift Communications newspapers in the West, will begin charging subscribers to read premium online content. The paid website subscription, known as All Access, will begin Nov. 2,” the newspaper announced Wednesday.

“Print subscribers will be able to enjoy the premium features on http://www.nevadaappeal.com in addition to their print subscriptions by paying an additional monthly fee.

“Readers will be able to visit http://www.nevadaappeal.com and read one main story and some breaking news without paying. They’ll also be able to browse the newspaper’s photo gallery, obituaries, classified ads, the Web calendar and the Appeal’s online chatroom, Cover It Live.”

“Appeal sister newspapers the Lahontan Valley News and the Record-Courier in Gardnerville will also start charging for full access to their websites.”

The rest of the article is here.

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credit: UNESCO

“Yesterday afternoons round table with media was fascinating. First, print is still king here. UB [the Mongolian capital of Ulaanbaatar] has eight newspapers, officially, and another unknown number of street newspapers and hyper local news web sites that are self published, some quite interesting, and critical of the government environmental policies.

“The media really dug on during our conversation on the whole ‘environmental governance” issue. The press really wanted me to get specific about what Mongolia could do, what specific mechanisms exist in American law that Mongolia should look to, to protect the people from environmental damage.

“One of them stated that what they needed is ‘real’ law to protect the people, but the Mongolian constitution, written after the revolution in 1990 and before they knew there were substantive minerals in country, did not anticipate these issues.

“We had a long conversation about the ‘public trust doctrine’, the National Environmental Policy Act, and the California Environmental Quality Act as examples of tools that can be used in the US to ensure public participation in environmental decisions, require agencies to consider cumulative impacts, and create standing for citizens in the judicial system.

“The media was well informed about environmental issues and very interested in climate change and how the US is addressing climate change mitigation and adaptation. California is seen as a leader, and is definitely an influencer of policy here.

“I was struck that in the US we seem to feel that the global environmental crises, exemplified by climate change, can not be seriously addressed because the scale of the problem is so great. Here people seem to be very open to the idea that the crises itself is an opportunity, to leap frog technologies, to leverage resources for mitigation, to capture and internalize external costs of doing business and build them into future costs of products.”

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