A Sebastopol-based non-profit has gotten a big boost from the MacArthur Foundation.

The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation has awarded the Conservation Strategy Fund  $400,000  over the next three years in support of their efforts to build natural resource economics skills to sustain biodiversity conservation in the Southern Tropical Andes, an area that spans southeastern Peru and northern Bolivia.

John Reid is the founder and president of the 10 year old Conservation Strategy Fun. The North Bay Report previously focused on CFS in December of last year.

Oil companies are consolidating and reaping record profits. And that's not a good thing, for democracy or for planet earth.

Antonia Juhasz' previous book was The Bu$h Agneda:  Invading the World, One Economy at a Time.

It's not the cost of oil at the derrick that has been driving up the price of gasoline at the pump, says researcher, analyst and writer Antonia Juhasz. A far more influential factor is the speculative trading of oil price futures, which happens outside the view or regulatory control of this or any other government.

While most big oil companies have recently begun to portray themselves as newly sensitive to the environment and open to alternative energy, Juhasz isn't buying it.

Some creative new measures have helped Sebastopol's Palm Drive hospital climb back out of bankruptcy.

Providing outpatient medical services to the inmates of San Quentin prison has become a helpful additional source of revenue for Palm Drive. Getting that program started with the California Department of Corrections (CDC) mostly required a little extra entreprenurial initiative, according to hospital CEO Jim Russel (below).

Palm Drive is also  trying something new by having psychologist Dr. David J. Murphy (below) on call to assist with mental health crises in the hospital emergency room.

By assisting and intervening as the individuals are admitted, he is often able diffuse volatile situations,and avoid the involvement of law enforcement personnel.This both reduces costs at county facilities, and enables the patients to receive treatment closer to home. 

The current economic downturn may take years to level out, predicts a local analyst, but in the short term, over-extended homeowners have some new options to protect their properties.

Sebastopol journalist  Steve  Pizzo was a co-author of this critically acclaimed expose of the savings and loan scandals of the early 1990s. Today's economic woes are sometimes described as a meltdown, a metaphor that he says is disturbingly accurate.