By Jack Mirkinson, Salon

Ah, Labor Day. A time to kick back, put your white clothes away, eat burned meat products and, if you really love to have fun, reflect on why it is that labor issues get such short shrift in our mainstream media. (See what I did there?) But really, the point of Labor Day is in the title, so, just for a second, let’s talk about how we talk about labor.

Or, rather, how we don’t talk about labor. Our media is filled to the brim with stories of, by and for the wealthy. We have three separate television channels focused solely on business. Newspapers come stuffed with sections devoted to real estate, fine dining and high fashion. When the public editor of the New York Times asked the paper’s executive editor, Dean Baquet, why he was launching a new “anthropological” beat focused on the “superrich,” he replied, “The New York Times does enough about poverty and the middle class.”

Working people, meanwhile, find themselves lavished with much less attention. And forget about unions, which, even in their diminished state, still represent millions and millions of people. The number of outlets with reporters dedicated to covering labor issues has steadily shrunk in recent years, even as the technological revolution makes an examination of modern-day labor practices more important than ever. (To be fair to the Times, it is one of the few newspapers to maintain a labor beat, though that is dwarfed by the paper’s coverage of high finance and technology.)

On TV, meanwhile, unions might as well not exist. A 2014 study by the stalwart media watchdog FAIR found that, over an eight-month period, exactly zero representatives of labor unions appeared on any of the five main Sunday talk shows. Billionaire CEOs, meanwhile, got lots of chances to put forward their vision of the American economy.

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To the community,

“We love the reading program. Always a good time. Look forward to it every year!” “The plays and special events are awesome. Excellent, love the program.” “Great summer reading practice! Thank you.” These are just a few of the many positive comments received from parents about the 2015 summer reading program at our Minden and Lake Tahoe branches.

Every year in June, the Douglas County Public Library challenges kids and teens to read all summer. This year we signed-up 680 children. Of those, 375 finished the children’s Summer Reading Program “Every Hero Has a Story”.  Children complete activities like reading, singing, attending library programs, and reading to others to earn prizes.  Teens who participated in “Unmask”, the reading program for teens, read an astounding 49,600 pages. They wrote book reviews for every 100 pages they read during the program.  The Minden and Lake Tahoe branches of the library signed up a total of 115 teens.

Youth Services Librarian Kathy Echavarria and Senior Library Technician Maria Pearson put together 59 fun activities for children including Lego building clubs and movie ays.  Special programs included a Brüka Theatre live performance, an ice cream social, the Fratello Marionettes “Aladdin” finale, and Magic Dan at the Lake Tahoe branch library. Teens enjoyed a Mario Kart tournament and two “Captain America” movie nights during the reading program.

We are fortunate to have outdoor venues in the valley to host our programs. Dangberg Home Ranch Historic Park welcomed our Summer Popcorn Blizzard and Mormon Station State Historic Park hosted our Hero Puppet Show event. Stories at Lampe Park returned this year and were well attended. All together our programs were attended by 1318 kids.

The local business community was very generous. Minden-Tahoe Airport donated the grand prize, a glider ride, for one finisher from each program. All finishers received a personal pizza from Round Table Pizza.  Carson Valley Swim Center donated swim passes. Donations were also made by Fatburger, GE Energy, Ironwood 8 Cinemas, Maverick America’s First Stop, Maxton Manufacturing, Minden Fortnightly, Papa Murphy’s, Perma-Cal Industries, and Zephyr Cove Stables.

Programs, events, and prizes were made possible by the following organizations: Friends of the Douglas County Public Library, Douglas County Public Library Foundation, the Institute for Museum Library Services, and the town of Minden. We thank them for their generous support.

The library could not have run such a well-received program without the generosity of educators and volunteers. We are fortunate to serve such a motivated community. The library was very busy this summer.

Maggie Rusmisel, library technician

A heart shaped gathering spot has been created in Meyers. Photo/John Dayberry

By Kathryn Reed

MEYERS – The heart of Meyers has a new meaning.

Carl Fair, who built Meyers Station in 1992, this summer completed a landscaping project at his commercial enclave that is designed to bring in people who aren’t just in cars.

“People on bikes are coming out,” Fair told Lake Tahoe News. “It’s what we set out to accomplish – to make Meyers bikeable and walkable.”

Fair participated in South Tahoe Public Utility District’s turf buyback program, which afforded him the opportunity to get creative with his landscaping. He removed 1,800-square-feet of sod, most of which fronted the property on Highway 50. This was land that used 400 gallons of water every timed cycle.

But he didn’t want something ordinary to replace the grass. With the creativity of John Dayberry, the landscape design became a heart. It’s not immediately noticeable at first. Walking out of Verde restaurant people are at the bottom of the heart. The part near the sidewalk is the top of the heart.

Taking a closer look it’s obvious this is a heart. While granite may seem like a cold border, it is so Tahoe. The soft gray of the natural rock is actually inviting, and blends in well with the natural landscape.

The granite walls are not quite all the same size. This was deliberately designed to help deflect the road noise. Plants are growing from the tops – giving it a warm, outdoorsy feel.

Tables are scattered about on the gravel, making it an ideal place to gather to enjoy food or drink from one of the restaurants. A fire pit is in the center.

Fair’s goal is for this to be a gathering spot for Meyers – thus the heart of Meyers in a different dimension.

The first party at the new digs was in mid-August when the conservation landscape tour ended at Meyers Station. Fair had electricity put in so bands can set up a stage just off to the side with amplified music.

By Ben Hewitt, Outside

Rye Hewitt putting his pack basket, which he wove himself, to good use. He and his brother Fin learned how to make the wooden baskets from a friend of the family’s who also unschools her children. Photo: Penny Hewitt

In early September, in a clapboard house situated on 43 acres just outside a small town in northern Vermont, two boys awaken. They are brothers; the older is 12, the younger 9, and they rise to a day that has barely emerged from the clutches of dark. It is not yet autumn, but already the air has begun to change, the soft nights of late summer lengthening and chilling into the season to come. Outside the boys’ bedroom window, the leaves on the maples are just starting to turn.

School is back in session and has been for two weeks or more, but the boys are unhurried. They dress slowly, quietly. Faded and frayed thrift-store camo pants. Flannel shirts. Rubber barn boots. Around their waists, leather belts with knife sheaths. In each sheath, a fixed-blade knife.

By 6:30, with the first rays of sun burning through the ground-level fog, the boys are outside. At some point in the next hour, a yellow school bus will rumble past the end of the driveway that connects the farm to the town road. The bus will be full of children the boys’ age, their foreheads pressed against the glass, gazing at the unfurling landscape, the fields and hills and forests of the small working-class community they call home.

The boys will pay the bus no heed.

Maybe the boys are actually my sons, and maybe their names are Fin and Rye, and maybe, if my wife, Penny, and I get our way, they will never go to school.

Hey, a father can dream, can’t he?

There’s a name for the kind of education Fin and Rye are getting. It’s called unschooling, though Penny and I have never been fond of the term. But “self-directed, adult-facilitated life learning in the context of their own unique interests” doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, so unschooling it is.

It is already obvious that unschooling is radically different from institutionalized classroom learning, but how does it differ from more common homeschooling? Perhaps the best way to explain it is that all unschooling is homeschooling, but not all homeschooling is unschooling. While most homeschooled children follow a structured curriculum, unschoolers like Fin and Rye have almost total autonomy over their days. At ages that would likely see them in seventh and fourth grades, I generously estimate that my boys spend no more than two hours per month sitting and studying the subjects, such as science and math, that are universal to mainstream education. Not two hours per day or even per week. Two hours per month. Comparatively speaking, by now Fin would have spent approximately 5,600 hours in the classroom. Rye, nearly three years younger, would have clocked about half that time.

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By Jenny Kane, Reno Gazette-Journal

Black Rock City erupted in cheering as the gigantic wooden man burned on Saturday night at Burning Man.

Following fireworks and fire dancing, the man exploded in a ball of flame and collapsed into ashes after about 45 minutes. The vibration of music lasted through the night and well into the early morning.

By sunrise, however, it was quite a different story.

While some Burners had left earlier in the week due to high winds throughout the event, the bulk of 70,000 attendees were getting ready to leave by Sunday.

Traffic on Pyramid Highway and Interstate 80 was expected to be heavy Sunday and Monday, with varying degrees of backed-up traffic.

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The ninth annual poker run to benefit Austin’s House is Sept. 19.

All types of vehicles are welcome to join. Registration is from 9-10am in the parking lot at Century 21 Clark Properties located at 1674 Highway 395 in Minden. The entry fee is $30 plus $20 for a second rider.

The fee includes a prize for the best poker hand, barbecue lunch, limited edition ride pin, pink bandana and excellent live music by Trippin’ King Snakes.

The first stop will be Nevada’s oldest thirst parlor in Genoa. The next draw will take place at Jethro’s in the Gardnerville Ranchos. The caravan then heads south on Highway 88 to Markleeville and a stop at the Wolf Creek Restaurant & Bar. The run continues over Monitor Pass down to Topaz Lake for the fourth stop at Iggy & Squiggy’s Holbrook Junction Bar. The final stop is Heritage Park in Gardnerville where lunch will be served with live music. The run is approximately 81 miles and will last about two hours.

For more info, call Danny Villalobos at 775.721.7111.

Austin’s House is the only emergency children’s shelter in rural Northern Nevada.

By Michelle Rindels, AP

Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval made a last-ditch appeal to the federal Bureau of Land Management to accept Nevada’s recommendations for protecting the greater sage grouse.

Sandoval sent an eight-page letter Friday to BLM Director Neil Kornze, urging him to reconsider Nevada’s strategies for preserving the bird’s habitat. The BLM rejected some of Nevada’s suggestions earlier this summer, saying federal and state plans were in conflict and opting to pursue the federal strategy.

The governor said it would be “inappropriate” for the BLM to proceed with the federal plan and scrap a state strategy that “provides for increased conservation for greater sage grouse, complies with federal law and policies, and is supported by a vast majority of Nevadans.”

Sandoval made detailed arguments that the state plan is more solidly based in science and would better protect the bird. It would also avoid the wholesale closure of certain public lands to development.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service faces must decide by Sept. 30 about listing the chicken-sized bird as an endangered species in Nevada and in rangeland from California to the Dakotas. The BLM and Nevada hope to come up with a workable plan together that will help conserve the bird’s habitat and will eliminate the need for an endangered species listing, which would involve layers of additional restrictions on land.

The decision carries big implications for oil and gas drilling, livestock grazing and a host of other uses of federal lands throughout the region.

The BLM is expected to publicly respond to Sandoval’s appeal in coming weeks.

Sandoval met with President Obama last week in Las Vegas to make Nevada’s case for keeping the sage grouse off the endangered species list.

To the community,

Both Bread & Broth and Live Violence Free have been helping members of the South Lake Tahoe South Shore community for over 25 years. While B&B has been focusing on providing meals to those who struggle with hunger, LVF has been promoting a violence free community through education and advocacy to address violence, sexual assault, child abuse and basic needs.

B&B is greatly honored by Live Violence Free’s sponsorship of an Adopt A Day of Nourishment on Aug. 31. It was the first AAD that LVF has hosted. With the donation of $250, they helped eased hunger by providing hot, nutritious meals to 110 dinner guests that evening.

Sponsoring a B&B dinner is “an another opportunity to give back to the community,” said Aileen Yure. Joining Yure as sponsor crewmembers were fellow Live Violence Free board members Stella Ortega and Sherri Acri. These hard working ladies represent the spirit and history of service that Live Violence Free has been promoting through its program to help improve the lives of others. B&B thanks Live Violence Free for its support and partnership in helping those in need.

Carol Gerard, Bread & Broth

The Animal Coalition of Tahoe is planning the 11th annual Mutt Strut for Sept. 27.

It will begin at the corner of Lake Tahoe Boulevard and Lakeview Avenue in South Lake Tahoe, with registration from 11:30am to noon. Participants will pick playing cards at stops along a 1-mile route, hoping for the best poker hands. Prizes will be awarded to those with the best hands.

The fun continues after the walk, with a party at Timber Cove Beach featuring music, raffle drawings, and contests such as best trick, hot dog eating, and musical sit. This year, with the shallow water at the beach, there will be some games in the water, so bring water shoes.

Poker hands may be purchased on site for $10 each, or three hands for $25. Or purchase them in advance; three hands for $25 includes a T-shirt. Purchases may be made in advance at Alpine Animal Hospital (921 Emerald Bay Road) or Bonanza Boot and Leather store located at the Chateau Shopping Center.

ACT is a 501(c)3 nonprofit, all-volunteer corporation with the goal of raising funds to support a low-cost spay-neuter program. ACT also donates 10 percent of funds raised to the El Dorado County Animal Shelter.

For more information on the Animal Coalition of Tahoe Mutt Strut Poker Run, call 530.307.3638 or email info@tahoeanimals.org.

By Jeff DeLong, Reno Gazette-Journal

With practiced labor, Tom Moura spills life across the land.

Moura opens wooden gates to flood irrigation water across his still-healthy alfalfa crops. He knows he’s fortunate. During this fourth year of drought, many of Moura’s neighbors in the Lovelock area — arguably the bulls-eye for drought in Nevada — have no water for crops at all.

“They haven’t cut at all. They haven’t even got their machinery out of the shed,” said Moura, 69 and a third-generation farmer and cattle rancher.

“I’ve never seen it like this before. This is extreme,” Moura said. “This drought is probably more far-reaching than any other drought I have ever seen or I have ever been told of.”

Across Nevada, agriculture struggles. Weeds take hold on fallowed fields. Ranchers sell off cattle their land can no longer support. Crop insurance that has carried growers through the drought thus far is drying up, no longer available for many should the drought continue even longer.

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