PG&E reports it is about halfway through its rollout of wireless Smart Meters to monitor utility use. But critics of the meters are calling for a moratorium on the devices, for multiple reasons, including health concerns.

Sandi Maurer, founder of the EMF Safety Network, explains that the possible health problems resultant from exposure to wireless transmission derive from their effects on the sophisticated bio-electric processes within the human body.

These electrical considerations are heightened, Maurer notes, for individuals with medical devices, such as pacemakers, implanted in their bodies.

For people who are experiencing health problems after a new meter has been installed at their home, Maurer says there is recourse available.

The biggest number of complaints about the new Smart Meters have not been about health issues, however, but about billing problems.

In the article, Are Smart Meters Smart? the EMF Safety Network offers an extensive critique of the new metering technology.

Horror movies and popular musicals notwithstanding, carnivorous plants do not eat people, nor do they grow to tower over us. Without that far-fetched scare factor, they are strangely beautiful…and decidedly weird.

Peter D’Amato was just a boy when he first sent for a mail-order Venus Flytrap. It didn’t last long, but his interest in these strange plants did, especially after he was introduced to some that were growing in the wild not far from his home.

D’Amato’s California Carnivores nurserypropagates and breeds many of the plants they display and sell, such as sundews and pitcher plants. They need to be kept wet, he explains, but they don’t need to be fed.

Aside from the loss of habitat that threatens them, carnivorous plants are naturally long-lived.

Many of D'Amato's specimens are currently on display in San Francisco, at the exhibit called Chomp 2 at the Conservatory of Flowers.

Since the Americans With Disabilities Act was enacted by Congress 20 years ago, it has changed much more than building codes.

When the ADA passed, it took some time for the law’s new requirements to have a visible effect. But Anthony Tusler (left), founder of About Disability, a Penngrove-based advocacy office, observes that there were some notable changes in the public media landscape almost immediately.

 Most adult Americans with disabilities were cheered and empowered by the passage of the ADA in 1990, but Tusler acknowledges there were a few who felt threatened by the changes the bill would bring, and opposed it.

Despite their gains in other areas, most disabled Americans continue to struggle to find meaningful employment. Tusler suspects some employers manipulate the hiring process to avoid dealing with the ADA.

This is one of a series of photos taken in April, 1977 by Anthony Tusler at the demonstration and picketing at the U.N. Plaza in front of the Federal Building in San Francisco. The group then entered the offices of HEW and refused to leave. It was the longest occupation of a Federal Building by any group. Demonstrations were also held at other Federal Buildings across the country. Because of the political pressure of these actions Secretary Califano signed the regulations in May. A more complete history can be read at 504 Sit-in: Historical Articles and Eyewitness Accounts.

Fort Ross, the only Russian outpost ever established on what is now the continental United States, celebrates the 198^th anniversary of its founding with an annual Cultural Heritage Day on Saturday, July 31.

In addition to the imported Russian culture that was central to life at Fort Ross, park interpretive specialist Hank Birnbaum says that the native Kashaya people and their heritage will be well represented at the event Saturday.

Schedule Of Events In The Fort

10:00 Gates open to the fort.

10:00 St. Nicholas Cathedral performs a liturgy

10:30 Slavyanka Choir performs Russian secular music

11:00 Russian Folk Music & Dance

12:00 Musket and cannon demonstration

1:00  Russian Folk Music & Dance

2:00 Slavyanka Choir performs Russian liturgical music

3:30 Musket and cannon demonstration

5:00 Gates close

This expanded schedule of events for this year’s Cultural Heritage Day is, in part, preparatory to the more extensive celebrations already being planned for the Fort’s bicentennial in 2012.

Small black balls of glassy rock found in the Dry Creek Valley may be remnants from a prehistoric meteor strike. Or maybe not.

Geology professor Rolfe Erickson with tektites collected from strewn fields all over the world. (Photo by Jean Wasp)