New Yorker spends a summer with Firebaugh goats

When we first started this blog, I suggested the name “Ships in the Night” because that’s how I often see the Valley. It’s full of interesting and fascinating people and happenings that no one sees because we’re all ships in the night. That name was a bit too esoteric and confusing in the end but “A Summer with goats” blog is what I mean.

It’s written by an organic farming intern who is studying divinity in New York City, but she’s spending the summer in Firebaugh! I love this fresh perspective on the Valley. Seems like she likes what she saw in Fresno, especially the Farmers Market at Shaw and Blackstone. Welcome!

What a great window into an aspect often ignored by Valley city life. Farms!

today, i was outside by 7:30 and ivan and i picked about 5 lbs of purple beans. this involved picking the pods, opening the pods and dumping the little beans into the bucket. each pod had 2-3 beans inside. we worked on this for about an hour and a half and had only 1/8 of a bucket full.

Good for you, and good luck with your adventures in the San Joaquin Valley.

 

World leader to visit Fresno this weekend

Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, president of the Philippines, plans a visit to the Central Valley Sunday morning

According to closely-hugged sources– Tatay and Nanay Valley Notebook– Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo will visit Fresno for a few hours Sunday morning, partaking in a Catholic ceremony at the Exhibit Hall in Downtown Fresno, and likely visiting with local leaders at Fresno’s Community Hospital. She’ll fly from the Bay Area and proceed to Washington, D.C., sources say.

Many Filipino expatriates (particularly Filipina nurses) work in the American health care profession, and our closely-hugged sources say she would like to see their working environments.

The Philippines, like the Central Valley, has a severe brain drain problem–an estimated 121 Filipinos leave the homeland every hour– and it helps fill our own shortage of health care workers.

Gloria’s second visit to Fresno

This will not be the first visit to Fresno for the diminuitive and controversial President, who is a former classmate of our former President Bill Clinton at Georgetown University.

She visited about eight years ago when she was Vice President of the Philippines. She slipped in and out without any media attention during that visit, but then-Miss Valley Notebook was in attendance.

Macapagal-Arroyo (who IS as cute as a button in person) spoke of the important ties between Filipinos and Filipino-Americans. She gave much credit to the Filipino-American community for sending money back home.

People are country’s most valuable export

Instead of cars or iPods, the Philippines’ main export for decades have been its professionals and not-so-professionals. The country relies heavily on money sent home.

Many Filipinos work abroad in the middle east in the oil industry. Although the country would like to shed this image, many Filipinas work in homes across Asia and Europe as nannys, domestic helpers, and entertainers.

This policy of exporting its best and brightest has caused a cascade of economic and social problems back home in the Philippines, including a generation of children raised by extended family in exchange for financial stability.

In America and the Central Valley, many Filipino immigrants are nurses and doctors due an immigration policy in the 1960 and 70s that encouraged foreign professionals to move to the United States. Nurses are still particularly recruited.

A few “famous” Filipino-Americans on the Internet?

Blogger David Lat of Above the Law and conservative Michelle Malkin, both children of Filipino-American doctors.

A few famous Filipinos in Fresno?

TV news broadcaster Dale Yurong and Fresno Bee writers Joan Obra, B.J. Anteloa and Tracy Correa.

Not so trivial trivia on the Philippines?

The US colonized, controlled, the Philippines for the first half of 19th century. Among other effects, the culture is very Americanized and American English is widely taught and spoken.

Recommended summer reading on Filipino culture and diaspora:

Dogeaters by Jessica Hagedorn

 

UC Merced medical school makes moving home easier for Valley medical student

We caught up with Scott Matthew Summers, a 26-year-old Valley native and (of course) former classmate after he sent us an excited e-mail regarding U.C. Merced’s medical school.

“You’re probably familiar with this, but it’s relevant to your blog and really exciting for me,” he wrote.

We took notice, one because we can’t remember the last time we talked to Scott online or in person. And two, because from what we remember, Scott doesn’t wear excitement on his sleeve.

Here’s our e-mail/facebook messenger interview with Scott, an MD/PhD student at U.C. Irvine.

One-sentence summary: A Valley medical school means he could live both his dreams–to live in the Valley and flourish professionally.

It means that returning to the Central Valley will likely become considerably easier for me…

– Scott Matthew Summers, sixth-generation Valley native

What year are you in school?

I’m just starting my 7th year in the MD/PhD program at UC Irvine. Meaning I’ve completed the PhD and two years of med school. I have two years of med school left there.

What are you researching?

My PhD is in pharmacology, specifically cardiovascular pharmacology centered around treating orthostatic intolerance, a.k.a. fainting when you stand up.

Why is this news exciting?
The Central Valley desperately needs not only more physicians, but also some sort of biomedical research facility. A medical school tends to foster much greater biomedical research opportunities, particularly in the basic sciences, than are available at a university without a medical school or a hospital that only offers resident training such as what is currently available at UCSF-Fresno.

What does this news mean for you, personally?

It means that returning to the Central Valley will likely become considerably easier for me in terms of career opportunities.

Do you plan to move back to the Valley? Why or why not?

Yeah. I’m a 6th generation Central Valley native. My family on all sides still lives in the area around Fresno and Sanger. I really can’t imagine living somewhere other than where they are for the long term. Further, I had a great childhood here and I would want my kids to have that as well.

What in particular did you like about your childhood in the Fresno area?

I liked the open space. I played in the furrows between grape vines on grandfather’s farm. The people are nicer than a lot of other places in the state.

How did you think you’d move to the Valley before this?

I thought my research would probably be more clinical. But such as it is, this might allow me to do the goal that most MD/PhDs have which is 80% research and 20% clinical activities.

Ok, let me get this straight, before UC Merced’s Med school, you thought your only option to move back to the Valley with an MD/phD would be to work at a Community hospital doing clinical research?

The other option was to work at UC Merced, but do only basic science. Now I could actually do both.

The whole bench-to-bedside process that MD/PhDs dream about.

 

Google Map for independent and locally-owned businesses in the San Joaquin Valley

Community Activism Cartography:

A Guide for San Joaquin Valley Local-holics

View Larger Map

I just started a custom Google map for Independent and Locally-owned businesses in the San Joaquin Valley. Normally, I would only include the central San Joaquin Valley, but since I made this map public (and maybe others would help add and update), then I included the whole enchilada of the San Joaquin Valley. We’ll see how it goes!

Here’s the description I wrote for it:

“Promoting local efforts, local economy and local culture in the San Joaquin Valley of central California. This list is open to the public for editing. (Please no national franchises.) Thank you for adding and updating this list!”

I have about 75 businesses that added just today, it was really easy. The larger benefit is that people (Valley residents or visitors) can use this map to purposely shop, eat and drink local.

Google’s reach is so vast that it’s been only a few hours since the Independent and Locally-owned Businesses in the San Joaquin Valley map’s birth and it’s had 442 page views. As searchers stumble upon one entry, they’ll be linked to this network of local-licious options. The way I see it, a tourist could be eating at my favorite local diner instead of Applebee’s because of this.

For Google Map newbies

For those of your unfamiliar with Google maps, the icons will link to the businesses’ name, address and website and picture if it exists. Google also aggregates as many reviews as it can find. So for Dam Diner, for instance, you can read reviews from tripadvisor.com and fresno.citysearch.com in one place.

Here’s where we come in: We can add even more! So if you have another picture of the Dam Diner, you can upload it here. You can leave a review. If Dam Diner’s information or location is out of date you can change it. Etc.

For those of you interested in contributing to this, it’s easy, you:

• Sign into a google account
• Go to the map itself
• Search for the businesses you want to list, i.e. Irene’s
• When you bring up Irene’s placemarker, click, “Save to My Maps”
• Choose “Independent and locally-owned businesses in the San Joaquin Valley”
• Add or update extra information (another review, updated hours, the businesses’ website if you like
• Feel smug!

Let me know what you think, please, I’m enamored with all this fancy Internet stuff.

 

Would Jesus slash Darwin’s tires?

In learning about Central Valley Cafe Scientifique, we stumbled upon a startling incident that may or may not reflect on the scientific climate in the Valley.

The cafe’s next speaker, Fresno State professor Dr. Ryan Earley, found his car tire punctured this week and with a nasty note on his windshield saying: “Fuck you Darwinist. Take your car to heaven.”

(Editors’ Note: Please excuse the profanity, but we thought it was a necessary evil in this case.)

Earley, who displays a bumper sticker of a Darwin fish chasing a Jesus fish on his car, says its not the first time he’s received this sort of reaction to the sticker he meant lightheartedly. “I’ve gotten a bunch of notes on my car, especially when I lived in Georgia and Kentucky.” This is the second note he’s received in less than two years working in Fresno. A similar, but less profane note was left on his car while he was shopping at Borders, he says.

Earley, an expert on behavioral ecology, appears to be shrugging the incident off. He didn’t report it to authorities, but simply took it to the dealership since his car was still under warranty. (We heard about it in passing from another Fresno State professor, while learning more about Cafe Scientifique and other science projects). Earley says he found the incident humorous, only in that it reflects what he thinks is a larger issue of science illiteracy and a misunderstanding that religion and science are at odds.

“Honestly, my whole take on the issue is: It’s not just the Central Valley, it’s everywhere.”

Earley says, “If you went to Europe, you’d never ever see this sort of thing…Certainly, it’s symptomatic of a greater problem. The biggest problem is education. People are not educated to be open-minded and to think and to be able to recognize that when something is opposing your beliefs–[that] that’s not necessarily a bad thing.”

 

Is the San Joaquin Valley starved for science?

Unlike the newest chain store to open in Fresno, we’re always hungry for happenings that gets us excited–I mean really excited–about returning to the San Joaquin Valley. When we heard about Central Valley Cafe Scientifique, we had to learn more: mostly the who, what, where, when, why and how can we help out.

That’s because Central Valley Cafe Scientifique is a free monthly forum for the public to hear lectures and ask questions of local scientists. The talks are half-a-year-old, have no advertising budget and garnered no major media coverage, but organizers tell me that meetings have attracted as many as 60 to 80 participants and counting.

“It’s been an embarrassment of riches,” said Scott Hatfield, a Bullard High School science teacher, an evolution activist, and one of the organizers.

“It just shows that Fresno County is really starved for opportunites to hear science.”

A Worldwide Trend

Cafe Scientifique is a concept that started ten years ago in England and is catching on worldwide in Uganda, Japan, Hungary, Poland and now Fresno, California . The idea is to take science out of the classroom and into public spaces. It’s commonly held in cafes, bars and restaurants, where people can munch on chips and salsa while contemplating the cosmos.

A Growing Audience

Hatfield says people who have attended are part of the Fresno State community, but they are also members of the public–people who might watch public television, or be active in their communities. The crowd has grown so large that the group has stopped actively promoting its meetings to make sure the venues don’t overflow. They might even branch off into two cafes to meet the demand, and also become more accessible to participants in the north Valley– such as near U.C. Merced.

Think Globally; Learn Science Locally

One important draw is that the cafe will feature local scientists from academic institutions, private industry and also the local branches of governmental organizations– such those at the US Dept. of Agriculture, Dept. of Fish and Game and US Forest Service.

The cafe’s first topics demonstrate the depth of our science community. They’ve spanned the gamut of forensic biochemistry, social psychology, global warming and sexual diversity. The talks are billed as provokative, but also playful. The next meeting on June 2 is on “Finding your inner fish.” Reading the promo, we’re already intrigued and educated: Fish use tools? They can switch gender mid-life?

Would you like some Central Valley with your science?

Now, it’s no secret that since this is the Central Valley’s Cafe Scientifique, this is all going on in the midst of the creationism/evolution controversy. We’re not well-schooled in creationist battlegrounds, but at least one of the topics seem to take the religious alternative head on with lectures on the age of the universe. Hatfield says they welcome participants from all backgrounds to engage in mature scientific discourse.

If you’re interested in attending the next Central Valley Cafe Scientifique it’ll be held:

Monday, June 2

6:30 to 8:30pm

at Lucy’s Lair

10063 N Maple Ave

Fresno, CA 93730

(559) 433-9775

 

Former illegal immigrant makes good as brain surgeon

Dr. Alfredo Quinones-Hinojosa was a farm worker in the Central Valley before moving onto Berkeley, Harvard, UCSF and John Hopkins University.

He’s caught the attention of various media, but sometimes it doesn’t hurt to spread an interesting life story with a Valley connection.

• Here’s a link to an interview from the New York Times

I was a farm laborer in the San Joaquin Valley, seven days a week, sunup to sundown. I lived in this little trailer I paid $300 a month for. It didn’t take long to see that farm work was a dead end.

-Dr. Alfredo Quinones-Hinojosa

Here are links to other articles about Dr. Quinones-Hinojosa:

• Reader’s Digest
• Hopkins Medical Magazine- A magazine for the John Hopkins Hospital and the Johns Hopkins Medical School.
  
• Johns Hopkins Medicine’s Bio of Dr. Alfredo Quinones-Hinojosa
  
• DOME, a Johns Hopkins’ In-house publication
  
• Science Daily
• NPR

 

But is your website Valley-friendly? It is if you show us $3.5 million.

Web surfers probably know what it’s like to find a great website, only to discover that the information on the San Joaquin Valley is scant or suspiciously presented.

Did a robot do this? Did someone in Montana write this “local” piece?

Well we at Valley Notebook want to feature national websites that DO make sense for the San Joaquin Valley, or at least provide worthwhile content.

Fortune 535, a project released this week from the Sunlight Foundation, provides the public with an easy way to search congress’ personal net worth.

Some data we found about three local congressmen (Devin, George and Jim) according to Fortune 535:

• Jim Costa blows his three club-mates out of the water with an avg. net worth of $3.5 million in 2006.

• George Radanovich’s 2006 avg. net worth comes in at a respectable $331,000.

• Devin Nunes‘ 2006 avg. net worth is nothing to sneeze at at $91,002, but his net worth actually dropped after joining congress. (Hm… did his marriage have something to do with it??)

Don’t believe us? Search for yourself.

And you can also do the fun work of analyzing their research methods, the data, and even the actual financial documents themselves. The most recent PDFs of the financial documents are available. Whoever works for Devin has beautiful handwriting.

Sunlight Foundation admits themselves that the data is inscrutable and spotty. According to the submitted documents, Nancy Pelosi could either be wealthy or bankrupt, they say. They’re advocating for stricter guidelines on disclosure.

Fortune 535 also compares congress members’ wealth to the average American family’s.

(Congress wins.)

 

Brain Drain? Brain-storm!

We’ll keep publishing interviews with the Valley diaspora– it seems to be of interest to us and many people– but our intention was not to build a site solely around the brain drain. It can be a bit of a downer, and a little misleading about our true feelings about the Valley. (Hint: It is the navel of our universe.)

In fact, we got into a little brain-storming session this weekend on Valley bumper sticker slogans. Husbands and wives are known to create a language of their own, so at the risk of not making sense to anyone at all…

The San Joaquin Valley!:

• Not just where your rental lives
• It’s what’s for dinner
• Plant your roots in fertile soil
• For people who like a challenge
• Home is not a four-letter word
• Don’t hate us because we’re bountiful
• Flat is beautiful
• God’s Gift Basket to the World
• Eat your food on its own turf
• Where money grows on trees

and last but not least,

• Make love; not meth

What do you think, shall we sink our (future) life savings into a jingle-writing business?

Vote for your favorite here at Twiigs.

 

Introducing the “Brain Drain Chronicles”

The Creative Movement

We’re happy to introduce an ongoing series of posts on the Valley’s creative movement and its counterpart the Central Valley Brain Drain. We’ll be tracking down former Valley residents (with a preference on educated “creative class”-types) and finding out what they’re doing, why they don’t live in the Valley, and what would it take for them to move back.

It’s our first foray into this type of content, so expect it to evolve as the posts continue.

Note: Our concept for this humble site is to provide content on issues facing the central San Joaquin Valley. Since we are not currently located in the Valley (we left too!), a natural theme to pursue included the brain drain phenomena, and the work that Creative Fresno and others are doing to combat this. Expect a posting with more interviews and background material.

Note: This was sent and returned as an e-mail survey. If you have suggestions on how to improve the questions/process, please let us know. We’re blogging novices.

Brain Drain Chronicles: Robyn, 25

Name : Robyn

Age: 25

Where did you attend high school? Clovis High School

What is your educational background? B.A. Columbia University 2004, J.D. NYU 2008

What is your current occupation? Law Student; Public Defender

Where and how long did you live in the central valley? Clovis 1986-2000

Where do you live now? New York City

Why do you (don’t you) live in the central San Joaquin Valley? I moved to go to college and then stayed away for law school.

What are the secondary reasons? The food is better, the air is better, there is more diversity, the bars are better, the cultural options are more plentiful, there is more to do, my job is here, most of my close friends live here now (or at least not in the Valley). I’m never bored.

What are the top 5-10 adjectives that come to mind when you think of the central valley? Dusty, hot, Mormon (adj.), agricultural, driving-based, truck-y, conservative, and Tsing Tao (adj.).

If you do not currently live in the central San Joaquin Valley, what changes/acts of God would need to occur in order for you to move there? New York City would need to be located in the Valley.

If you do not currently live in the central San Joaquin Valley, what price would make it worthwhile? If I ever moved back to the Valley, it wouldn’t be because of cost of living. I’m acutely aware that the place I live now is ridiculously expensive, but after seven years, it has never tempted me to move back to the Valley.

Feel free to add any comments. The Valley is where I grew up, New York is my home.