Point Reyes & Trivia
Thank you for publishing Peter Byrne’s reporting on the years of disastrous overgrazing and subsidized dairy cow ranching on this beautiful peninsula (“Apocalypse Cow,” News, Dec. 9).
I visited it on several occasions in 1968–1970, but haven’t yet had the opportunity to revisit since arriving here in September. Oyster farming in the Tomales Bay was just beginning in the ’60s and it is good to know that water quality degradation has not spoiled it. I don’t look forward to seeing the erosive effects of overgrazing in Point Reyes. It is evident elsewhere in Marin County, however, and shockingly evident on public lands in New Mexico, Arizona and Colorado that I saw on my recent road trip from North Carolina to Mill Valley.
Three observations on Trivia Café, which entertained us yesterday evening at the dinner table:
#2 Green is not a primary color, even though television, etc. screens apply it that way (RBG). The primaries are red, blue and yellow. Blue and yellow mixed = green, as school children know. #7 suggests that the pancreas and gallbladder are together known as glands. This cannot be. The gallbladder is not a gland. #9—the designation “camping” applies to different arrangements whereby folks enjoy the outdoors, whether hiking into wilderness areas to camp out or, more commonly, pitching tents in campgrounds where their vehicles are parked nearby. #9c should have read “backcountry camping gear retainer,” assuming you wanted to obfuscate by using the word retainer.
Peter H Freeman
MA Geography 1970
UC Berkeley
