Black-eyed peas are a favorite in the southern U.S., especially on New Year's Day, when they're believed to bring good luck. Photo by Esther Oertel.

Happy New Year and pass the black-eyed peas, please!

These happy little bi-colored legumes, also called cowpeas, field peas, crowder peas or Southern peas, are said to bring good luck in the New Year.

When combined with leafy vegetables such as collards or kale, which represent the green of money, then a financial boon is said to be in store.

Black-eyed peas are actually one of four recognized cultivated subspecies of the cowpea, a crop prevalent in Africa.

Ancient ancestors were inconspicuous, low-lying plants that grew among dusty rocks in the Sahel of north central Africa, a transitional region that lies between the Sahara desert to the north and savannahs to the south.

Cowpeas have been cultivated throughout the African continent for thousands of years and are an important resource there, both as a staple food and a source of revenue for countless people that work small farms.

Two hundred million men, women and children in Africa consume cowpeas often, even daily when they’re available. Africa’s hot, arid climate is a perfect environment for this crop, which thrives in such conditions.

Cowpeas, black-eyed peas and the like are the dried seeds of long, slender green pods that look much like one of their relatives, Asian yardlong beans. The seeds are pea-like, on the small side when compared to other dried beans. This, along with the characteristic black spot on the center of each bean, provides the source of their moniker.

After centuries of cultivation in Africa, cowpeas became popular in many regions of Asia. They were brought across the Atlantic to the Caribbean basin in the holds of slave ships in the 17th century. There are records of their use in Jamaica as early as 1675, in Florida by 1700, and in North Carolina by 1714.

These plants were long considered “poor man’s food” and looked upon as cattle fodder by those with land throughout the Eastern seaboard, who preferred the English pea. George Washington, for example, imported 40 bushels of seed from Jamaica to plant for his livestock in 1797.

Farmers in the southern U.S., however, embraced the black-eyed pea as a food source. It grew well in the heat of the south, unlike the cool weather English pea.

Many varieties were developed, some known only within a particular region. One such variety was the Clay pea carried by Confederate soldiers as a source of protein. Many who reenact the history of the Civil War grow the Clay pea to provide an authentic field provision.

Hoppin’ John, a favorite southern dish made with black-eyed peas and greens (often collards), is traditionally served there on New Year’s Day as a harbinger of luck and prosperity. Southerners are not the only ones who see black-eyed peas as being lucky, however.

They’re eaten by Sephardic and Israeli Jews on Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year, as a good luck tradition. This practice is recorded in the Babylonian Talmud, compiled in 500 A.D., which says, "… now that you have established that good-luck symbols avail, you should make it a habit to see qara (bottle gourd), rubiya (black-eyed peas), kartei (leeks), silka (either beets or spinach), and tamrei (dates) on your table on the New Year."

Sephardic Jews immigrated to Georgia in the 1730s and have lived there continuously since. Some say their custom of eating black-eyed peas at the New Year was adopted by non-Jews in the South. Others point to the Civil War, when the town of Vicksburg, Mississippi ran out of food. A store of black-eyed peas was found, and they’ve been considered lucky ever since.

A variety of dishes around the world are made with black-eyed peas, including Texas caviar, which is made by marinating them for a relish-like salad.

Fritters are made from them in Colombia; they’re mashed and fried to make akkra in West Africa and the Caribbean; in Indonesia they’re used for curry dishes; they’re made into a stew called daal in northern India and Pakistan; in Vietnam they’re used in a dessert with sticky rice and coconut milk; and in Portugal, they’re served as a side dish with boiled cod and potatoes, just to name a few uses in world cuisine.

The tender leaves of the plant are nutritious as well; they contain high stores of good quality protein. In fact, NASA is so impressed with the nutritional potential of the leaves that they’ve considered growing cowpeas in future space stations as food for astronauts.

In some areas of Africa, cowpeas are cooked as green pods, and the swollen beans consumed. These fresh cowpea pods, together with fresh green leaves, are the earliest foods available to harvest, another reason they’re a live-saving crop there.

When planted, the cowpea family gives copious amounts of nitrogen to the soil, which makes them a wonderful crop to plant in advance of vegetables that use much of it, such as corn.

These small beans are amazingly nutritious, with 25 percent of calories in the form of protein. They’re also rich in digestible carbohydrate. When combined with grain, a meal with balanced protein is achieved, which makes the southern tradition of serving them with cornbread all the more appealing.

Today’s recipe is – of course! – my version of Hoppin’ John. Be sure to serve it with plenty of cornbread.

If you don’t have time to soak the beans overnight, put them in a pot with the water, bring it to a boil, then turn off the heat and let the beans sit for an hour. Drain the water and cook as directed below. You can also substitute frozen or canned peas.

If desired, add a ham hock to the pot with the beans as you cook them.

Enjoy! And best wishes for a happy, healthy 2012.

Hoppin’ John

2 cups dried black-eyed peas

6 cups water

1 medium white or yellow onion, chopped

Several sprigs fresh thyme (tied with kitchen string for use as a bouquet garni or the chopped leaves of the sprigs)

2 bay leaves

1 medium green or red bell pepper, seeded and chopped

1 large bunch kale, stems removed and chopped

1 cup long-grain rice

2 medium cloves garlic, minced

1 tablespoon smoked paprika

Leaves from 3 or 4 sprigs thyme leaves (1 tablespoon; may substitute 1 teaspoon dried thyme)

Salt & freshly ground black pepper to taste

Tabasco sauce (optional)

Rinse black-eyed peas and soak in water to cover for six hours or overnight. Drain peas and transfer to a large soup pot.

Add water, onions, kale, garlic, thyme, and bay leaves. Simmer until beans are tender but still whole, about 45 minutes.

Add rice, green or red pepper, paprika, salt, and pepper. Cover and simmer until rice is tender, about 15 to 20 minutes.

If desired, season with Tabasco sauce. Remove thyme (if in bouquet garni) and bay leaves before serving. Ladle into bowls and enjoy with cornbread.

Makes four servings.

Recipe by Esther Oertel.

Esther Oertel, a freelance writer, cooking teacher, and speaker, is passionate about local produce and all foods in the vegetable kingdom. She welcomes your questions and comments and may be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

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This image of the asteroid Vesta, calculated from a shape model, shows a tilted view of the topography of the south polar region. The image has a resolution of about 1,000 feet per pixel, and the vertical scale is 1.5 times that of the horizontal scale. This perspective shows the topography, but removes the overall curvature of Vesta, as if the giant asteroid were flat and not rounded. An observer on Vesta would not have a view like this, because the distant features would disappear over the curvature of the horizon. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA/PSI.

When NASA's Dawn spacecraft entered orbit around giant asteroid Vesta in July, scientists fully expected the probe to reveal some surprising sights.

But no one expected a 13-mile high mountain, two and a half times higher than Mount Everest, to be one of them.

The existence of this towering peak could solve a longstanding mystery: How did so many pieces of Vesta end up right here on our own planet?

For many years, researchers have been collecting Vesta meteorites from "fall sites" around the world. The rocks' chemical fingerprints leave little doubt that they came from the giant asteroid.

Earth has been peppered by so many fragments of Vesta that people have actually witnessed fireballs caused by the meteoroids tearing through our atmosphere.

Recent examples include falls near the African village of Bilanga Yanga in October 1999 and outside Millbillillie, Australia, in October 1960.

"Those meteorites just might be pieces of the basin excavated when Vesta's giant mountain formed," says Dawn PI Chris Russell of UCLA.

Russell believes the mountain was created by a 'big bad impact' with a smaller body; material displaced in the smashup rebounded and expanded upward to form a towering peak.

The same tremendous collision that created the mountain might have hurled splinters of Vesta toward Earth.

"Some of the meteorites in our museums and labs," he said, "could be fragments of Vesta formed in the impact -- pieces of the same stuff the mountain itself is made of."

To confirm the theory, Dawn's science team will try to prove that Vesta's meteorites came from the mountain's vicinity. It's a "match game" involving both age and chemistry.

"Vesta formed at the dawn of the solar system," said Russell. "Billions of years of collisions with other space rocks have given it a densely cratered surface."

The surface around the mountain, however, is tellingly smooth. Russell believes the impact wiped out the entire history of cratering in the vicinity.

By counting craters that have accumulated since then, researchers can estimate the age of the landscape.

"In this way we can figure out the approximate age of the mountain's surface,” Russell said. “Using radioactive dating, we can also tell when the meteorites were 'liberated' from Vesta. A match between those dates would be compelling evidence of a meteorite-mountain connection."

For more proof, the scientists will compare the meteorites' chemical makeup to that of the mountain area.

"Vesta is intrinsically but subtly colorful,” Russell explained. “Dawn's sensors can detect slight color variations in Vesta's minerals, so we can map regions of chemicals and minerals that have emerged on the surface. Then we'll compare these colors to those of the meteorites."

Could an impact on Vesta really fill so many museum display cases on Earth? Stay tuned for answers.

Dauna Coulter works for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

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Cross-section of the south polar mountain on Vesta with the cross sections of Olympus Mons on Mars, the largest mountain in the solar system, and the Big lsland of Hawaii as measured from the floor of the Pacific, the largest mountain on Earth. These latter two mountains are both shield volcanoes.Credit: Russell et. al.

The 2011 Invasive Species Report includes the first records of the appearance in the San Francisco Bay of four species previously found only in other parts of the coast.

These organisms include:

• Caprella simia, a Caprellid, or “skeleton” shrimp, which was first discovered in California’s Long Beach Harbor in 2000. C. simia is a Japanese species, probably introduced by fouling or ballast water and considered likely to spread north. It is now widespread in San Francisco Bay.

• Nicolea sp. A Harris, an undescribed polychaete worm, was first found in California in 2000 in San Diego Bay and Los Angeles/Long Beach Harbor. Possible vectors include ballast water and fouling on ships or recreational boats.

• Grateloupia lanceolata, a red alga native to Japan and Korea, has been found for the first time in the Port of Oakland and in Richardson Bay. This species was previously found at Santa Catalina Island, Port Hueneme and Moss Landing. It has been working its way up the coast.

• The collection of Amphibalanus eburneus (ivory barnacle) from Richmond and San Francisco marinas confirmed new distribution records for the San Francisco Bay. Although one specimen had been collected from a ship’s hull around 1938, no other occurrences were documented in the Bay during the intervening time. More recent California observations of this North Atlantic native had been limited to Colorado Lagoon (Long Beach) and Huntington Harbor.

DFG’s Marine Invasive Species Program (MISP) conducts biological surveys to monitor California coastal and estuarine waters to determine the level of invasion by non-native aquatic species (NAS).

The triennial report covers July 2008 through June 2011 and describes results of field surveys for NAS in the San Francisco Bay Area, as part of long-term monitoring efforts of its ports, harbors, estuaries and the outer coast.

MISP, housed in DFG’s Office of Spill Prevention and Response, employs a variety of programs with partners to gather report data.

Programs include:

• A survey of 50 sites in 2010 and molecular analysis of NAS in the Bay.

• A two-year pilot program to detect NAS using a “next-generation” sequencing process to analyze the DNA extracted from samples collected from artificial settling plates.

• A collaborative study with Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC) to examine the transfer mechanisms (vectors) likely responsible for marine introductions to the state.

• An MISP-funded genetic study of the difficult-to-identify “Breadcrumb” sponges by Moss Landing Marine Laboratories Genomics Lab.

MISP monitors coastal and estuarine waters of California for new introductions of NAS that could have been transported into state waters in ballast or as hull-fouling.

Research with SERC shows that of the 290 NAS (excluding fish and vascular plants) with established populations in western North America, 81 percent were first recorded in California.

Of the 257 NAS established in California, 61 percent were first recorded in San Francisco Bay and 57 percent are known from multiple estuaries, suggesting secondary spread.

Ballast water and hulls of ocean-going ships remain the primary mechanisms responsible for bringing species to California in recent years.

NAS affect the structure and function of ecosystems through declines of native and commercial fisheries, parasite interactions with native species and humans, and physical habitat alteration.

Non-native species can compete with native species; approximately 42 percent of the species on the federal threatened or endangered species lists are at risk primarily because of predation, parasitism and competition from non-native species.

Approximately 40 percent of the species forced to extinction in aquatic ecosystems are due to biological invaders.

The data from the monitoring efforts can be viewed at

www.dfg.ca.gov/ospr/Science/invasive_species.aspx.

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2011 MISP Legislative Report Final

The solo-vehicle crash was reported shortly before 1 a.m. in the 2800 block of Merced Street at Floyd Way in Nice, according to radio reports.

Responding to the crash were Northshore Fire Protection District firefighters and the California Highway Patrol.

Firefighters arriving at the scene reported that a 23-year-old male had gone over an embankment, finding him about 30 feet down the side.

The male crash victim was said to be bleeding from his leg. The incident commander reported from the scene that the man had suffered a moderate injury due to the crash, while the CHP reported his injuries as minor.

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Glenn Hughes, 52, was arrested early Saturday morning, according to a report from Sgt. Greg Van Patten of the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office.

Just after 1 a.m. Saturday morning the Mendocino County Sheriff's Office dispatch center received a call from a person reporting a physical altercation between two adult males at the Hidden Pines Campground near the city of Fort Bragg, Van Patten reported.

Deputies were dispatched less than five minutes later and arrived at the campground at 1:15 a.m., two minutes after being dispatched, Van Patten said.

When Deputies arrived they witnessed Hughes standing over the body of an adult male who was lying on the ground unconscious, according to Van Patten.

Deputies immediately detained Hughes as an eyewitness told deputies they had seen Hughes physically beating male victim, Van Patten said.

Deputies checked the male on the ground determined he was not breathing and didn’t have a pulse. Van Patten said deputies requested an ambulance and began performing CPR on man but he was later pronounced dead at the scene.

Mendocino County Sheriff's Office detectives were called to the scene and have begun followup investigations into the incident, Van Patten said Saturday.

He said Hughes was arrested for murder and was to be booked into the Mendocino County Jail, where bail would be determined.

Van Patten said Saturday that the victim’s identity was being withheld pending the notification of his next of kin.

Anyone who may have information in regards to this incident is urged to call Det. Dustin Lorenzo at 707-961-2692.

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Friends Kevin Hart and Jordan Armstrong were severely injured in the fire, which occurred on Dec. 20 and destroyed the home, as Lake County News has reported. Fire investigators have ruled the fire’s cause as accidental but undetermined.

Both young men are being treated at UC Davis Medical Center’s burn unit, with Hart having been burned over 80 percent of his body and Armstrong over 30 percent of his body.

A mobile blood bank will be at St. Helena Hospital Napa Valley, 10 Woodland Road, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 3. Hart’s blood type is O+ but all blood types are asked to donate. Information on Armstrong’s blood type wasn’t immediately available.

To schedule an appointment call Susan Ganz at 707-963-6451 or e-mail This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

A steady supply of blood for the two young men is necessary because of the number of skin grafts and reconstructive surgeries they are facing, according to Facebook pages their families have set up to update friends and community members.

Hart has undergone three surgeries since the fire, according to his Facebook page. The most recent was Thursday, when doctors worked on skin grafting and addressing his facial injuries.

This week Armstrong was to have undergone his first surgery, according to Hart’s page.

The Hidden Valley Lake Hardester’s plans to raise money for both Armstrong and Hart through their “Change for Children” program.

The Hidden Valley Community Church is taking donations for Armstrong. Checks can be sent to the Hidden Valley Community Church, P.O. Box 1049, Middletown, CA 95461, with “Jordan Armstrong” in the subject line. The church can be contacted at 707-987-3510.

For those who can’t make the Jan. 3 blood drive, blood donations for the two young men can be made through Blood Source, 3505 Industrial Drive, Santa Rosa, telephone 916-456-1500, www.bloodsource.org.

Armstrong’s Facebook page can be viewed at www.facebook.com/events/239085382830595/, and Hart’s at www.facebook.com/pages/Kevins-Blood-Drive/303291886377820.

E-mail Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . Follow Lake County News on Twitter at http://twitter.com/LakeCoNews, on Tumblr at www.lakeconews.tumblr.com, on Google+, on Facebook at www.facebook.com/pages/Lake-County-News/143156775604?ref=mf and on YouTube at www.youtube.com/user/LakeCoNews .

Sarah Riccio, 11, of Hidden Valley Lake, Calif., is visited by UPS driver Paul Murray and another UPS employee before Christmas. Murray and fellow UPS employees purchased items for Sarah and her siblings, and food for a Christmas dinner for her entire family in December 2011. Courtesy photo.

HIDDEN VALLEY LAKE, Calif. – A young girl who had heart surgery the day before Thanksgiving is on the mend and celebrated Christmas at home with her family.

Sarah Riccio, 11, got the best gift of the year when she was able to return home 24 days after open-heart surgery at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford, according to family friend Carol Luis.

“This surgery saved her life and has given her another 10 years before more will need to be done,” said her mother, Suzanne Riccio. "We are extremely grateful for that."

Sarah was born with hypoplastic left heart syndrome, which means her left ventricle is severely underdeveloped. It’s a rare congenital heart defect that led to her having her first open-heart surgery when she was two days old, with three other surgeries occurring in her first month of life, as Lake County News has reported.

Doctors reportedly told Sarah’s parents that the November surgery was high risk because the child’s right lung no longer works. They also were told to expect her to be in the hospital at least 30 days. A previous surgery had resulted in a three-month stay.

But Sarah improved ahead of schedule and got to go home to spend Christmas with her parents and two siblings, Luis said.

The Riccio family said it has been overwhelmed by the show of support from their community, friends, family and total strangers.

They offered thanks to everyone who kept Sarah in their thoughts and prayers when she needed it most.

They’re also grateful for the donations made on their daughter’s behalf.

Donations are continuing to be taken to help cover Sarah’s very expensive medical costs. Funds can be donated online at www.everribbon.com/r/sarahsfund.

The Web site said that, as of Dec. 31, $5,941.11 had been raised. The goal is $7,500.

Luis said UPS made Sarah's day when they delivered several gifts to her and her family.

UPS driver Paul Murray and several of his coworkers generously purchased items for Sarah, her siblings and food for a delicious Christmas dinner for the entire family, Luis said.

Murray, along with a fellow UPS employee, took time out of their hectic delivery day to personally deliver these gifts to Sarah and visit with the family, according to Luis.

“Helping the Riccio family has been such an amazing experience,” said Luis. “The tremendous response from our community truly made me believe that people are genuinely good."

She said that every time she received a phone call, an email or someone came to her door asking how they could help she was overwhelmed.

“I am truly grateful to everyone that helped with raising money and awareness for Sarah and her ordeal,” said Luis. “Sarah getting to be home for Christmas is the best gift ever!"

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David Phillip Clark, 48, and Stephanie Alyce Ybarra, 29, both of Middletown, Calif., were arrested on drug charges on Friday, December 30, 2011. Lake County Jail photos.

MIDDLETOWN, Calif. – The service of a search warrant by the Lake County Sheriff’s Narcotics Task Force on Friday morning resulted in two arrests, the seizure of approximately six grams of methamphetamine and several pounds of processed marijuana.

Arrested were 48-year-old David Phillip Clark and Stephanie Alyce Ybarra, 29, both of Middletown.

On Thursday, Dec. 22, narcotics detectives secured a search warrant for Clark’s person, home and vehicle, according to Sgt. Steve Brooks.

Then on Friday, Dec. 30, at approximately 11 a.m., detectives served the warrant at Clark’s home on Santa Clara Road in Middletown.

When narcotics detectives entered the home, they detained Clark and Ybarra without incident, Brooks reported.

During a search of the home, detectives located approximately six grams of methamphetamine packaged for sales and multiple pounds of processed marijuana, which was also packaged for sales, according to Brooks. Several packages of the marijuana also were labeled with prices.

Brooks said detectives also located a glass meth pipe, digital scales and a surveillance system monitoring the front of the home.

Clark was arrested for possession of a controlled substance for sales, possession of a controlled substance, possession of marijuana for sales and possession of narcotics paraphernalia, Brooks said.

He reported that Ybarra was arrested for possession of a controlled substance and possession of narcotics paraphernalia.

Both were transported to the Lake County Hill Road Correctional Facility and booked.

Jail records indicated Ybarra’s bail was set at $15,000, and Clark’s at $25,000. Both remained in jail overnight.

The Sheriff’s Narcotics Task Force can be reached through its anonymous tip line at 707-263-3663.

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NORTHERN CALIFORNIA – The gray wolf that was wandering in southern Oregon has crossed the California border.

The 2 and a half year old male wolf, dubbed “OR7,” crossed the state line into northern Siskiyou County on Wednesday, according to the California Department of Fish and Game.

"Whether one is for it or against it, the entry of this lone wolf into California is an historic event and result of much work by the wildlife agencies in the West," said DFG Director Charlton Bonham. “If the gray wolf does establish a population in California, there will be much more work to do here."

The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife said “OR7” came from a pack in northeast Oregon.

Since the animal has been collared with a GPS device that periodically transmits its location, biologists have been able to document its travels since it was collared in February 2011, wildlife officials reported.

Tracking data puts his most recent location as a few miles south of the Oregon border. Biologists believe OR7 is now more than 300 miles from where his journey began.

The wolf’s journey, in total, has been more than twice that far with many changes in direction, according to the Thursday report. Several times he has reversed direction and returned to previous locations.

The Thursday report said it’s not possible to predict his next movements, which could include a return to Oregon.

DFG continues to collaborate with ODFW and expects to receive daily location data. This information is transmitted daily when atmospheric conditions permit.

DFG will be sharing only general location information as this wolf, while in California, is protected as endangered under the Federal Endangered Species Act.

Any wild gray wolf that returns to California is protected as endangered under the Federal Endangered Species Act, administered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

DFG has been following the recovery and migration of gray wolves in Western states with the expectation that at some point they will likely reach California.

The last confirmed wild gray wolf in California was killed in Lassen County in 1924.

The available historic information on wolves in California suggests that while they were widely distributed, they were not abundant.

DFG has been compiling historic records, life history information, reviewing studies on wolf populations in other Western states, enhancing communication with other agencies and training biologists on field techniques specific to wolves.

This effort is to ensure that DFG has all necessary information available when needed, it is not a wolf management plan and DFG does not intend to reintroduce wolves into California.

There are more than 1,600 wolves in the northern Rocky Mountains following a federal reintroduction effort which occurred in the mid-1990s, the agency reported.

In 1999 a single wolf crossed into Oregon from Idaho, after nearly a 60-year absence in that state, according to DFG. There are now at least 24 wolves in Oregon in four reproducing packs. It has taken an additional 12 years for the first wolf to now reach the California border.

This particular animal is exhibiting normal dispersal behavior for a young male and there is no way to predict whether he will stay in California, return to Oregon, or travel east into Nevada, officials said.

Eventually, DFG expects that other wolves will reach California. Whether this will lead to the establishment of packs or simply transient individual animals is unknown.

Gray wolf recovery in other western states has been controversial, particularly regarding impacts on prey populations, livestock depredation and human safety. There have been instances where gray wolf predation has contributed to declines in deer and elk populations, however, in most cases, predation has had little effect.

Some gray wolves have killed livestock – mostly cattle and sheep – while others rely entirely on wild prey. In other Western states the impact of depredation on livestock has been small, less than predation by coyotes and mountain lions, although the effect on an individual livestock producer can be important, particularly when sheep are killed.

Concerns about human safety are largely based on folklore and are unsubstantiated in North America, the Department of Fish and Game reported.

The agency said that in recent years there was one human mortality in Canada caused either by wolves or bears and one confirmed human mortality in Alaska by wolves.

Based on experience from states where substantial wolf populations now exist, wolves pose little risk to humans. However, DFG recommends that people never approach a wolf, or otherwise tamper with or feed a wolf.

More about how to avoid human-wildlife interactions can be found on DFG’s Web site at www.dfg.ca.gov/keepmewild/.

In the near future DFG expects to add information to its Web site, www.dfg.ca.gov, to provide extensive information on wolves to the public.

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A group of community members holds an "Occupy Lakeport" event in Lakeport, Calif., in October 2011. Lake County file photo.

The Occupy Wall Street movement that began in New York and spread to America’s largest cities and abroad also found support in many of California’s smaller towns and municipalities, according to researchers at the University of California, Riverside.

Occupy movements “emerged in seemingly unlikely places, demonstrating the depth of frustration that people feel about the recession and the austerity measures that have been taken by authorities,” researchers from UCR’s Transnational Social Movements Research Working Group wrote in a report issued this month.

In an ongoing study of the breadth of the protests against economic inequality, high unemployment and greed – “Diffusion of the Occupy Movement in California” – the researchers identified Occupy movements in 143 smaller California towns and cities.

Lake County’s cities and towns do not have Occupy pages; however, in late November an “Occupy Lake County” Facebook page was formed.

There also is a dedicated Web site to the local movement at www.occupylakecounty.org/, as Lake County News has reported.

“Big cities got the movement early. The spatial depth of the movement to small towns is not well-known,” said Christopher Chase-Dunn, a distinguished professor of sociology who is known internationally for his research of social movements.

People in medium and small-sized towns are occupying space, organizing events and lending their voices to the movement in their own towns, graduate student Michaela Curran-Strange added. “They are focusing on local issues as well as national and regional ones.”

“The Occupy Barstow Web site proclaimed that Barstow is ‘about as far from Wall Street as you can get.’ But the Barstow occupiers probably did not know that there were also Occupy actions in Weaverville, Idyllwild, Calistoga, El Centro and many other small California towns, even in very remote areas,” Chase-Dunn and Curran-Strange wrote in their report.

A survey of 482 incorporated towns and cities in California found that 143 of them – nearly 30 percent – had Occupy sites on Facebook between Dec. 1 and Dec. 8.

Many of the small and medium-sized towns are very active with likes, posts and events on their Facebook pages. For example, the town of Arcata has about 17,000 people and 2,950 subscriptions on their page.

A few of the medium- and small-sized towns created pages fairly early, Curran-Strange said. For example, Petaluma Occupiers created their Facebook site on Sept. 27; South Lake Tahoe and Arcata on Sept. 28; the Coachella Valley on Oct. 2; and Half Moon Bay on Oct. 5.

“When you think about the fact that Occupy Wall Street states on their website that they began on September 17th, that's pretty impressive that West Coast towns – some of them medium and small – picked up on it almost immediately,” Curran-Strange noted.

Facebook Occupy sites in California’s smaller cities were nearly evenly divided between the northern and southern halves of the state, with 70 identified north of Bakersfield and 73 south of the Kern County city.

“This was fairly unexpected,” Curran-Strange said. “Southern California is more densely populated than Northern California, with the exception of the Bay area, of course, so fewer pages were expected from Northern California.”

The north-south finding also is interesting because most people believe that the political culture of Northern California is much more Leftist than that of Southern California, Chase-Dunn and Curran-Strange wrote. “Our findings suggest that this is no longer true, at least as indicated by the propensity to establish Occupy sites.”

The two researchers found that the Occupy movement relies on social media such as Twitter and Facebook as well as public assemblies to organize, communicate, and raise awareness about growing inequalities that spawned the national movement.

“This snapshot of the Web presence of the Occupy movement shows where and the extent to which this movement diffused from its early presence in the largest cities to the smaller cities and towns of California,” Chase-Dunn and Curran-Strange explained.

Discussions on local movement Facebook pages illustrate the variety of issues that are important to local participants, ranging from student loan debt, rising tuition costs and raising taxes on the rich to corporate crime and moving toward a more democratic and sustainable economy.

Most pages have become a forum for sharing news of all kinds as well as images associated with the movement.

For example:

• A Yreka man who lost his home to foreclosure organized an Occupy group in the small Northern California town.

• Occupy Riverside activists helped an ex-Marine reoccupy the home that he and his family were evicted from as a result of foreclosure.

• Occupy Petaluma protestors successfully petitioned Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to suspend evictions during the holidays.

• Ojai organizers urged participants to move their savings from accounts from large banks such as Wells Fargo and Bank of America to local banks and credit unions.

• Occupy Davis protested tactics of police who pepper-sprayed students protesting tuition increases at UC Davis.

• Occupy Redding is supporting postal workers who are protesting job cuts.

Noting that many Occupy encampments have been removed by authorities, the UCR researchers observed that events such as the crackdown in Oakland and the following one-day shut-down of the Port of Oakland “show that this movement has broad support and is capable of powerful collective action.”

California cities with Occupy pages on Facebook:

Alameda, Amador, Anaheim, Antioch, Apple Valley, Arcata, Arroyo Grande, Atascadero, Atherton, Atwater, Bakersfield, Beaumont, Berkeley, Beverly Hills, Brea, Brentwood, Burbank, Calabasas, Calistoga, Camarillo, Chico, Chula Vista, Citrus heights, Claremont, Coachella, Colton, Compton, Concord, Corona, Coronado, Costa Mesa, Covina, Cudahy, Culver City.

Danville, Davis, Delano, El Centro, Elk Grove, Encinitas, Escondido, Eureka, Fontana, Fresno, Fullerton, Gilroy, Half Moon Bay, Hayward, Healdsburg, Hemet, Hollister, Imperial, Irvine, Laguna Niguel, Lake Elsinore, Livingston, Lodi, Lompoc, Long Beach, Los Angeles, Madera, Malibu, Manteca, Martinez, Marysville, Merced, Mission Viejo, Modesto, Montclair, Monterey, Mount Shasta, Mountain View.

Napa, Novato, Oakland, Oceanside, Ojai, Ontario, Orange, Oxnard, Palm Desert, Palm Springs, Palmdale, Palo Alto, Paradise, Pasadena, Perris, Petaluma, Pico Rivera, Pomona, Poway, Rancho Cucamonga, Red Bluff, Redding, Redondo Beach, Redwood City, Rialto, Richmond, Riverside, Sacramento, Salinas, San Bernardino, San Diego, San Fernando, San Francisco, San Jose, San Leandro, San Luis Obispo, San Mateo.

Santa Ana, Santa Barbara, Santa Clarita, Santa Cruz, Santa Monica, Santa Rosa, Sebastopol, Sierra Madre, Simi Valley, Sonoma, Sonora, South Gate, South Lake Tahoe, South San Francisco, Stockton, Sunnyvale, Tehachapi, Temecula, Thousand Oaks, Torrance, Tracy, Turlock, Ukiah, Vacaville, Vallejo, Ventura, Victorville, Visalia, Vista, Walnut Creek, Watsonville, West Hollywood, Woodland, Yuba City.

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Using a precision formation-flying technique, the twin GRAIL spacecraft will map the moon's gravity field, as depicted in this artist's rendering. Radio signals traveling between the two spacecraft provide scientists the exact measurements required as well as flow of information not interrupted when the spacecraft are at the lunar farside, not seen from Earth. The result should be the most accurate gravity map of the moon ever made. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech.

NASA's twin GRAIL spacecraft, on a mission to study the moon's gravitational field, are nearing their New Year's Eve and New Year's Day main-engine burns to place the duo in lunar orbit.

Named Gravity Recovery And Interior Laboratory (GRAIL), the spacecraft are scheduled to be placed into orbit beginning at 1:21 p.m. Pacific Time for GRAIL-A on Saturday, Dec. 31, and 2:05 p.m. Pacific Time on Sunday, Jan. 1, for GRAIL-B.

"Our team may not get to partake in a traditional New Year's celebration, but I expect seeing our two spacecraft safely in lunar orbit should give us all the excitement we need," said David Lehman, project manager for GRAIL at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif.

The distance from Earth to the moon is approximately 250,000 miles.

NASA's Apollo crews took about three days to travel to the moon. Launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Sept. 10, 2011, the GRAIL spacecraft are taking about 30 times that long and covering more than 2.5 million miles to get there.

This low-energy, long-duration trajectory has given mission planners and controllers more time to assess the spacecraft's health.

The path also allowed a vital component of the spacecraft's single science instrument, the Ultra Stable Oscillator, to be continuously powered for several months. This will allow it to reach a stable operating temperature long before it begins making science measurements in lunar orbit.

"This mission will rewrite the textbooks on the evolution of the moon," said Maria Zuber, GRAIL principal investigator from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge. "Our two spacecraft are operating so well during their journey that we have performed a full test of our science instrument and confirmed the performance required to meet our science objectives."

During their final approaches to the moon, both orbiters move toward it from the south, flying nearly over the lunar south pole. The lunar orbit insertion burn for GRAIL-A will take approximately 40 minutes and change the spacecraft's velocity by about 427 miles per hour.

GRAIL-B's insertion burn 25 hours later will last about 39 minutes and is expected to change the probe's velocity by 430 miles per hour.

The insertion maneuvers will place each orbiter into a near-polar, elliptical orbit with a period of 11.5 hours.

Over the following weeks, the GRAIL team will execute a series of burns with each spacecraft to reduce their orbital period from 11.5 hours down to just under two hours.

At the start of the science phase in March 2012, the two GRAILs will be in a near-polar, near-circular orbit with an altitude of about 34 miles.

When science collection begins, the spacecraft will transmit radio signals precisely defining the distance between them as they orbit the moon.

As they fly over areas of greater and lesser gravity, caused both by visible features such as mountains and craters and by masses hidden beneath the lunar surface. they will move slightly toward and away from each other.

An instrument aboard each spacecraft will measure the changes in their relative velocity very precisely, and scientists will translate this information into a high-resolution map of the Moon's gravitational field.

The data will allow mission scientists to understand what goes on below the surface. This information will increase our knowledge of how Earth and its rocky neighbors in the inner solar system developed into the diverse worlds we see today.

For more information about GRAIL, visit www.nasa.gov/grail.

Dr. Tony Phillips works for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

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LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – As 2011 draws to a close, California motorists should be aware of some of the new laws going into effect Jan. 1, 2012.

These new traffic laws were passed by the Legislature and signed by the governor earlier this year, and the California Highway Patrol is asking the motoring public to familiarize themselves with the changes before they take effect.

“Our hope is by educating the public of these new traffic safety laws in advance, more lives will be saved in the new year,” said CHP Commissioner Joe Farrow.

The following are highlights of a few of the significant changes for the upcoming year.

SB 929, Evans

A change to California’s child passenger safety seat law will now require children to ride in either a car seat or booster seat until the age of eight, or until they reach a height of 4 feet 9 inches.

This law also requires children who do not meet the age or height requirement to ride in the rear seat of a vehicle unless the vehicle has no back seats, the restraint system cannot be properly installed or the rear seats are already occupied by children under age 8.

However, the law still maintains that a child may not ride in the front seat of a vehicle with an active passenger airbag if they are under one year of age, less than 20 pounds, or riding in a rear-facing child safety seat.

AB 353, Cedillo

This new law requires drivers to stop and submit to a sobriety checkpoint. However, peace officers will be prohibited from impounding a vehicle for 30 days out of a sobriety checkpoint if the only offense by the driver is failing to hold a valid driver license.

The new law requires that the officer make a reasonable attempt to identify the registered owner in order to release the vehicle.

AB 520, Ammiano

Anyone who is convicted of reckless driving under Section 23103.5 of the Vehicle Code can apply for a restricted driver license prior to the completion of their one-year suspension, provided they meet specified conditions, including the installation of an Ignition Interlock Device in their vehicle.

AB 1105, Gordon

Vehicles will be prohibited from crossing double parallel solid white lines except where permitted.

AB 348, Buchanan

A segment of Vasco Road between I-580 in Alameda County and Walnut Boulevard in Contra Costa County has been redesignated as a double fine zone until Jan. 1, 2017.

AB 475, Butler

Electric vehicles (EV) must now be plugged in for refueling when occupying an EV-designated parking space, otherwise they may be towed.

In addition, the law prohibits a person from obstructing, blocking, or otherwise barring access to an EV-designated parking space.

AB 61, Jeffries, and SB 290, Correa

The county of Riverside, or any city within the county, has been permitted to develop a neighborhood electric vehicle transportation plan.

AB 628, Conway

Inyo County, using a pilot program, has been granted authority to explore options for developing a greater network of linked Off-Highway Vehicle trails; they will be allowed to designate combined use highways on unincorporated county roads for up to 10 miles, subject to CHP approval.

This program will remain in effect until Jan. 1, 2017.

AB 607, Brownley

The city of Santa Monica can now operate 25 city-owned buses with illuminated signs displaying advertising messages.

This pilot program is authorized through Jan. 1, 2017.

AB 1298, Blumenfield

Local governments can now regulate advertising signs on any motor vehicle parked or left standing upon a public street, except for signs painted directly upon or permanently affixed to the vehicle for permanent decoration, identification, or display that do not extend beyond the overall length, width, or height of the vehicle.

AB 349, Chesbro

Licensed livestock carriers can continue to travel on Highway 101 within the counties of Del Norte, Humboldt and Mendocino from its junction with Highway 1 near Leggett, north to the Oregon border until Jan. 1, 2015.

AB 1601, Hill

A law dealing with repeat driving under the influence offenders that was passed in 2010 also goes into effect on Jan. 1.

Section 23579 was added to the Vehicle Code, which authorizes courts to revoke a driver’s license for 10 years if a person is convicted of three or more DUIs.

Under this law enacted in 2010, a motorist may be allowed to apply for reinstatement of his or her driver’s license with the Department of Motor Vehicles after five years, if the person installs an Ignition Interlock Device in their vehicle.

The law allows the DMV to terminate this restricted license if the Ignition Interlock Device requirements are not met.

The points above are only a synopsis of the new laws listed here and only a partial list of California’s new laws adopted for 2012.

For complete information on chaptered bills enacted in 2011, please refer to the Legislative Counsel Web site at www.leginfo.ca.gov.

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