While the major automakers are getting ready to roll out the next generation of electric cars, a North Bay company is demonstrating how that technology could be applied to such utilitarian vehicles as mail trucks.

Zap—the name is an acronym for “Zero Air Pollution”— recognizes that they are not positioned to compete with major American and international carmakers who are readying electric models for the broad consumer market. But company founder Gary Starr says they are setting their sights on a specific sort of vehicle, and the mail truck prototype is a strong step in that direction.

Zap founder Gary Starr (right) explains the mail truck  gas-to-electric conversion project to North Bay Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey at the company's Santa Rosa workshop on Tuesday, as CEO Steve Schneider (left) looks on. The array of lithium batteries that will power the vehicle instead of a gasoline engine are on the platform in the foreground. (Photo by Margot Duane)

More expensive gasoline and other rising costs have left some disabled people in rural Sonoma County without transportation to their jobs and other programs.

When it became clear that Pride Industries would not be continuing the bus service beyond the end of January, Executive Director Bob Hamilton says North Bay Regional Center still expected to be able to find another vendor to take over those routes. But they also tried to let the affected families know that the situation was up in the air, even though that effort fell short in quite a few cases.

Becoming Independent already provides transportation for many of their clients, and Executive Director Cami Weaver says they are now looking at ways to expand those services to meet the needs of at least some of their clients who have lost their buses from North Bay Regional Center.

California’s airports are banding together to weigh in on state and federal laws and policies that affect them, and the Sonoma County Airport (seen here looking south from the air)  is part of the group.

Florida’s commercial airports have had a joint lobbying organization for almost 40 years, the only other state with such a group. Sonoma County Airport Manager Jon Stout observes that California may have been overdue in following suit.

Membership dues in the California Airports Council are based on traffic, so the cost to Sonoma County is modest, just $715 per year, Stout says. And that could more than pay for itself if the group’s lobbying to increase one particular federal fee is successful.

Terrorism in the 21^st century is not confined to hot spots in the middle east or attacks on urban centers elsewhere. The upsurge in piracy in waters off Africa and Malaysia can be seen as another form of terrorism, but one that is driven by economic pressures rather than ideological concerns.

The pirates of east Africa, many of them former fishermen who have lost their traditional livelihood, almost always seek ransom for the ships they commandeer. But history professor Richard Kirk, who has made a special study of piracy over the past nine years, notes that the fate of captured vessels in the South China Sea is often much more dire.

It’s quite rare for passenger ships to be targeted by pirates, but Kirk knows of at least one instance in which a modestly sized cruise ship came under attack.

The original swashbuckling buccaneers of the 16^th century are the basis for the romanticized image that has endured, and Kirk says their era lasted almost two centuries.

Pirate attacks in 2007

Pirate Attacks in 2008