We’ve all heard the stories. High-schooler gets bullied by text messages from school mates. Kids harassing each other over Facebook pages. Employers “Googling” potential employees.

Ever since the dawn of popular social networking around 10 years ago, cyber issues have affected our children.

Parents, business people, and school teachers/administrators have struggled to find effective ways to deal with these social networking challenges.

And more recently, as more and more adults and businesses have jumped on the social networking band wagon, the sins of cyber life have graduated from the school yard to our backyards and our workplaces.

The more tech-savvy we as a society become, the more social networking has become a gray area of proverbial backyard justice.

It’s not only become a way for cyber predators to gain access to their victims, it’s become a way for victims to retaliate against their harassers.

Take three cases that have made national and international news recently.

In once case, comedian Jon Lovitz tweeted the names and pictures of three high schoolers who committed racist vandalism at his friend’s home.

In another case, German Olympian Ariane Friedrich posted on Facebook the name and email address of a man who had sent her a lewd photo of his genitals.

And in a third case, movie director Spike Lee used Twitter to help spread the address of an elderly couple as that of the man who shot and killed an unarmed teen. The couple, who had nothing to do with the shooting, had to leave their home in fear for their lives.

And then you have the professional arena, with businesses finding new ways almost daily to use social networking to gain information about existing and potential employees.

Sure, businesses use social networking for background checks, marketing and advertising – that’s old news.

What’s potentially more interesting (and possibly insidious) is the recent trend of some employers asking applicants for Facebook passwords, or sites such as LinkedIn tracking members’ usage in order to assist recruiters in evaluating the efficiency of an applicant’s professional networking skills.

There’s no question that social networking can be a valuable tool when used appropriately. Clearly social networking is a growing trend that’s not going anywhere, and its results can be powerful and effective.

But since it’s an unprecedented developing phenomenon, lawmakers and enforcement authorities have little guidance on how to manage it and are scrambling trying to figure out how exactly to deal with the fallout of wrongful use.

Right or wrong? You decide. But get used to it. There’s no going back, so parents, teachers and community leaders, add it to the list of important issues to be discussed with your children.

Like it or not, social networking is here to stay, and because there are no real rules of play yet, it’s like the wild wild west all over again.

No punches are pulled, and everything we do and/or say can find its way to the Internet. And once it does, it’s permanent.

So be prepared for the world (including your boss and your grandma) to know about it.

Annette Lee is a Lake County, Calif., business owner, community college instructor and proud parent.

Here in Lake County and all over the state, volunteers are circulating petitions to put genetically modified food – or GMO – labeling on the California ballot.

If the considerable body of scientific evidence pointing to health risks associated with GMO consumption is not sufficient motivation for you to sign, then please, do it to restore free market capitalism.

Do it to end the Corporate Agriculture Welfare State.

Eighty percent of all our GMO crops go directly to animal feed, mostly factory-farmed livestock and poultry. An industry which, like GMO crops themselves, is heavily subsidized by American taxpayers.

GMO crops would not be able to compete economically in a real free market (i.e., without government welfare checks) because the cost of producing the GMO end-product exceeds the value of that product on the market.

Yes, it costs more to plant, grow and harvest a bushel of GMO soy or corn than that bushel is worth, per the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT). Taxpayers have been making up the difference.

Therefore, GMO crops are welfare crops.

Search the prices of GMO soy verses non-GMO soy and organic soy. You will find that, per CBOT, non-GMO soy sells for 10 to 30 percent more than what is paid for GMO soy per bushel and organic soy brings in at least twice the price of GMO soy.

American taxpayers have been carrying Big Ag on our backs for too long already. GMO labeling will correct many wrongs currently plaguing the Wall-Street-rigged US farming system.

And by the way, one fear-tactic you will hear from the Biotech lobbying industry is that GMO labeling would drive up the cost of food. Not true.

And here’s why:

While it may be true that a majority of processed foods on the average American supermarket shelf today contain GMO ingredients, the percentage of GMO is usually low, and usually from vegetable oil ingredients.

In every case where giant food manufacturers sell overseas, they are already making an equivalent product without GMOs, to avoid overseas GMO labeling laws.

Ergo, a vanilla wafer made for the US market contains GMO ingredients, while the same company’s vanilla wafer made for export is made without GMO veggie oil.

When GMO labeling passes here in the USA (and since no company wants to admit to GMO ingredients) it will be a relatively pain-free process for those food manufacturers to simply start using GMO-free vegetable oil in all their products, not just the ones they export to other countries.

Almost overnight (and well before any labeling deadline approaches) the 70 to 80 percent of processed foods currently using GMO veggie oil will no longer contain any GMO ingredients.

One industry that will be significantly impacted by GMO labeling is factory-farmed livestock and poultry, which is already the source of many health problems.

Even without E. coli and other outbreaks, standard operating procedures – such as daily hormone and antibiotic supplements – in these factory farms negatively impact our health. We are long overdue for a serious overhaul of that entire industry.

I am a meat and poultry eater myself, but I regard the health risks of eating factory-farmed food to be unacceptable. Also unacceptable: huge amounts of tax money needed to subsidize increased health costs resulting from chronic diseases associated with the factory-farmed meat that most Americans eat daily.

If GMO labeling can provide the impetus to clean up our factory farm situation, that will be an added benefit of passing this bill here in California.

Deb Baumann lives in Upper Lake, Calif.

You’ve seen the commercials about starving children in other parts of the world, but did you know that there are starving children right here in Lake County?

According to a Food and Nutrition Survey in 2010, 18 percent of Lake County residents are living in below poverty conditions and do not have access to a stable source of food throughout the year.

They cope in various ways, including the use of food stamps, free meal programs for children and by using church or community sponsored food pantries.

United Christian Parish (UCP) does not have the only food pantry in the county but I would like to share a little about how it functions as indicative of needs and service in our community.

UCP has always had some kind of food ministry to feed the hungry and we have been proud participants and supporters of the Free Kitchen Project since its inception, but in 2008 we determined we needed to do something more.  

As with many other churches, prior to that time we tried to help people on a case by case basis but always felt we were falling short of what people needed.

In response we decided to open a food pantry that would provide one week’s worth of food for any family that needed it.  

Further, we would let the families have some choice in the kind of food they received, but they would be limited to using the pantry once every three months.

We offer this service all year round, by appointment Tuesday through Thursday.

In 2008 when we first opened we provided one week’s worth of food for 196 adults and 128 children for a total of 324 people.

By 2011 that number grew to 272 adults and 180 children for an annual total of 452 people.  

How were we able to provide a week’s worth of food for 452 people last year, and how can you help feed even more next year?

Our food pantry has in the past been stocked solely by members of the congregation. This year we received several large group donations that enabled us to significantly increase our giving ability.

Students and staff at Terrace Middle School completely stocked our pantry through a food drive before the holidays and throughout the year we received food donations from the Early Lake Lions Club, Kiwanis, Strong Financial customers, Weight Watchers, Konocti Christian Academy and through partnerships with groups such as the Free Kitchen who received grants and food from Sutter Lakeside and Grocery Outlet in addition to others.

In short – we did it through community partnerships.

All this month the “Stop Hunger Now: Lake County CAN!” food drive has been collecting food to help fight hunger not just in Lake County but around the world.

In addition to stocking food pantries around the lake we will be preparing 20,000 meals to ship overseas to a country where the people are not only “food insecure” but are actually dying from starvation.

On Friday, March 30, and Saturday, March 31, the seven United Methodist churches throughout the county will organize all of the food received and distribute it to food pantries in Lakeport, Upper Lake, Clearlake Oaks, Clearlake, Middletown, Lower Lake and Kelseyville.

You can still participate in Stop Hunger Now: Lake County CAN! by bringing a donation of food to the Upper Lake United Methodist Church, 604 Clover Valley Road, from 5:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. Friday, March 30, or to Clearlake United Methodist Church, 14521 Pearl Ave., from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, March 31.

You can deliver your food and go, or you can stay to take part in special events planned for the day.

More information is available at www.lakecountycan.org .

Can Lake County make a difference and help stop hunger now? Lake County CAN!

Shannon Kimbell-Auth is pastor of United Christian Parish in Lakeport, Calif.

April is Alcohol Awareness Month, which offers the opportunity for awareness of the consequential severity of driving under the influence.

Frequently, no matter what area one lives, we turn on the television or pick up the newspaper to hear or read about another DUI tragedy.

These tragedies are not accidents, but rather they are the result of an individual’s irresponsible decision to drink and drive.

In a matter of a few seconds, that irresponsible decision can change the lives of many forever.

Every day, innocent people get hurt by the carelessness of DUI drivers.

The sad fact is that it’s only a matter of time until the next alcohol-fueled tragedy happens on a road, because too many people won’t admit they had too much to drink or arrogantly believe they can drive anyway.

Last year almost 800 people were killed and nearly 30,000 injured in California as a result of drunken driving crashes.

These catastrophes didn’t have to happen. Drunk driving is completely preventable, yet it continues to claim more than 10,000 lives each year across America.  

Each day you and I share the road with two million people who have been convicted of drunk driving three times or more. More than 400,000 people were found guilty five times or more. On an average, these folks drive drunk 80 times before their first arrest.  

These repeat offenders have an oblivious disregard for human life. Remorse is absent. A change of behavior is absent. Sound judgment is absent. Understanding consequences is absent. They are clearly a proven danger to public safety, not only in the community they reside, but wherever they travel.

Most DUI drivers convince themselves that their destructive action was an accident. If they convince themselves it was an accident, then their guilt is minimized.  

Some of these drivers may utter the words “I’m sorry,” but those words are merely an instant, built-in mechanism that is used when they are caught.  

There could never be enough “I’m sorries” to take away the pain and emptiness that is in the hearts of a family and friends who have lost their loved one or have watched their love one suffer at the hands of a DUI driver.

The DUI driver is not the one left behind to pick up the pieces to a family's life. Their lives go on, as they will never feel the suffering that is felt by their victims.

Drunken driving is inexcusable and against the law. Negligent DUI drivers who are responsible for the death or injury of an innocent person must be made to face the consequences of their selfish act.  

Driving under the influence effects everyone. The impact of the consequences of DUI is pervasive and knows no boundaries.

People tend to think, “It can’t happen to me.” Yet anyone, in any community, including here is Lake County, may become the victim of a DUI tragedy at any time.

Statistics reveal that one in every three people will be involved in a drunken driving crash during their lives.

No one is immune from this hideous crime. It is time this violence be given the seriousness it deserves.  
        
Despite all of the sorrow we deal with each day across the nation due to DUIs, there is still hope.

Hope that one day people will understand the seriousness of this crime.

Hope that one day, more people will become accountable for their actions.

Hope that there will be no more drunken driving tragedies because of prevention.  

Hope that no one will ever have to cope with a lifetime of pain due to injuries sustained in a drunken driving crash.

Hope that all parents will know the importance of talking with their kids about alcohol, and that teens will learn the dangers that alcohol can bring to their young lives, before a tragedy occurs.

Hope is a valuable and powerful resource. We can all do our part to share in the hope that will help change the culture of this violent crime.

Judy Thein is founder of Team DUI and a member of the city council for the city of Clearlake, Calif.

TNR stands for “trap/neuter/release,” which is a program where unowned cats, whether feral (wild) or simply “strays” are trapped, spayed or neutered, vaccinated for rabies, and released back into the environment where they were found.

For years Lake County, like most parts of the country, has had a “trap and euthanize” policy which has completely failed to resolve our cat overpopulation problem.  

As has been mentioned in previous articles, Lake County kills five times more cats per capita than any other county in the state. This is a shameful and embarrassing statistic.

Our cat problem has a negative impact on real estate values and the quality of life for our citizens. It generates strife between neighbors, poses health risks to people and their pets, and shocks visitors and prospective homebuyers coming to the area.

There are two types of cats the Lake County Animal Control shelter deals with: truly feral cats which fear humans and cannot be safely handled, and friendly strays which are lost or abandoned by their owners.

They all have one thing in common: most of them are being fed, either intentionally or not, by humans.

Yes, these cats can and do hunt for food, but most of them rely on food provided by well-meaning people who don’t want to see them starve.  

Surveys show that 10 to 20 percent of households feed cats they don’t own. Because of this most experts are calling such unowned cats “community cats.” They are free-roaming cats, some too feral to touch, some very friendly, being fed by people who don’t consider themselves the “owners” but who feed them daily.

Because these people don’t consider themselves owners, they don’t feel responsible to have the cats spayed and neutered, and in many cases the sheer number of cats being fed makes it financially impossible for them to do so.  

If you take a feral cat to the shelter it will almost certainly die there.  It is hard to make a case that they are somehow better off being brought to the shelter where they will sit huddled in a small cage, stressed and frightened, exposed to contagious viruses, for the mandatory three days before they are euthanized.  

The modern TNR program stops the reproductive cycle and gets them back to where they came from within 24 hours. They can live out their lives and the population will decline over time due to natural attrition.

Opponents of TNR usually bring up the negative impact that cats have on wildlife – primarily song birds.

My reply to that is we’ve given “trap and kill” programs a chance for the last 30 plus years and it hasn’t worked. The cats are still there, the birds are still being killed. Do you want to just keep doing what we’ve been doing for the next 30 years?

Others say TNR does not work. Experts in the field say that if managed properly and given enough time, it does work.

Successful TNR programs have reduced euthanasia rates from 30 to 70 percent in Florida, New Hampshire, New Jersey, San Diego, North Carolina, Connecticut and Utah.

Still others say TNR is too expensive.

When you add up all the direct and indirect costs of the current “trap and kill” programs it costs the taxpayers about $100 per cat. When you consider how much the county has already spent on a program that hasn’t worked, doesn’t it make sense to try something else?

In our opinion the main reason “trap and kill” has not worked and will never work is that the public will not stand for it.

People who have been feeding stray cats so they won’t starve are certainly not going to participate in a cat extermination program.

In order to get our cat population problem under control we are going to need the help and cooperation of the public, which means finding an alternative to euthanasia.

In January of 2012 local veterinarians created the “Catsnip” program which offers a limited number of free spay and neuter surgeries for Community Cats for one year.  After that time we expect the county to step up with a plan.

We would like to see the county fund a minimum two year TNR pilot program where vouchers would be issued for spay/neuter of community cats.

Lake County Animal Care and Control recently installed a spay/neuter facility for impounded/adopted dogs and cats. They are currently only performing surgery three days a week.

A county-funded TNR program would allow them to utilize their facility full-time. Vouchers could also be used at the SPCA spay/neuter facility on Highway 29, as well as any private practice willing to accept them.

What can you do to help?  

1. If you are feeding community cats and you can’t afford to spay/neuter contact one of the Catsnip coordinators listed below to get on the waiting list for the Catsnip Free Spay/Neuter Program.  Remember, only truly unowned cats qualify for this program.

2. If you can afford $50 to $65 to spay/neuter the community cat you are already feeding, DO IT! You will be doing yourself and your neighbors a favor. Spayed and neutered cats tend to keep newcomers away so your colony will not keep increasing in size. The SPCA and several private veterinary clinics around the lake offer spay/neuter for Community Cats at a significantly discounted rate. Contact Vicki Chamberlin for more information.

3. Kitten season is here. If you are feeding a community cat who has kittens, trap them ASAP so they can be socialized and hopefully adopted.

4. If you own a barn or warehouse in need of rodent control contact Lake County Animal Care and Control. There is no safer, more effective means of rodent control than a couple of hunting cats.

5. Microchip your cats! Many of the friendly cats brought to Animal Care and Control are owned but never recovered because there is no way to identify them. If you can, keep your cats indoors or inside an escape-proof yard. Studies have shown that confined cats live five times longer on average than free roaming cats.    

6. Attend the next Animal Control Advisory Board meeting scheduled for Monday, March 26, at 1 p.m. at the shelter where this subject will be on the agenda.

7. Let your Supervisor know you support TNR.

8. Volunteer to help! The Catsnip program needs help with trapping and transporting cats.

Catsnip coordinators:

Vicki Chamberlin, Lakeport, 707-263-3958, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Kathy Langlais, Animal Coalition of Lake County, Clearlake, 707-995-0552
Erica Bergstrom, Middletown, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Susan A. Cannon, DVM, and Chris S. Holmes, DVM, work at Wasson Memorial Veterinary Clinic in Lakeport, Calif. Their guest commentary is endorsed by Main Street Veterinary Clinic, Clearlake Veterinary Clinic, Animal Hospital of Lake County and Middletown Animal Hospital.

I am going to leave out most of the story. And, I would add that my troubles were not caused by speculation or risk taking; au contraire, I was trying to consolidate and move to a defensive position financially when I got caught in the housing market debacle.

I pick up the story at the point of my attempt to do a “short sale.”

I contacted a local Realtor, and after entering the date in her company’s computer program, she came up with a value of $140,000. This was about half of my cost for the house and property. However, I had to accept the fact that something is worth what someone else is willing to pay for it.

Fortuitously, I received a cash offer for $120,000, which was just within the 15 percent of appraised value required.

However, The Bank had a separate appraisal for $170,000. The Bank nixed the sale and demanded the Realtor raise the price to their appraisal value, which of course we did.

And, not another person looked at the house, and the short sale period timed out.

I was curious as to why and how The Bank appraisal was so out of line with the market.

The representative for The Bank would not return my calls.

I asked my Realtor to ask the representative why he did not return my calls. He told the Realtor that he was too busy and he would not talk to me by phone, email or any other way. He was just too busy.

I tried to get help from HUD. They could offer no help in this situation.

I emailed my grievances to my Congressman: No word.

After dozens of calls to The Bank, I gave up and attempted to take the next step available: deed in lieu of foreclosure. So, I filled out all the paperwork and submitted it to The Bank.

I was assigned a representative, and was told to vacate the property by Sept. 20, 2011, which I did.

I was told to wait to be contacted for a “walk through.” That call never came.

I called The Bank several times, and my representative finally stopped calling me back.

After three months I called The Bank and was told that my file was with a law firm because there was a lien on the property.

I called the law firm in question and found out that the lien was from Sunrise Bank. So, I got on the net and found that Westamerica Bank had purchased Sunrise Bank.

I called Westamerica and got through to someone who was sympathetic and she promised that she would try to resolve the situation.

This took me, without hyperbole, 10 minutes. It took the person at Westamerica two days to get the error corrected.

Now I figured, I was back on track. So I called The Bank again, and I was told that my paperwork had a “perishable date,” and needed to be redone.

I immediately got the forms and resubmitted the paper work. I did not hear anything for a week and so I called the bank and was told that my file had been closed, and that, according to her computer, I was denied “deed in lieu of” last September. Case closed.

The problem is that my daughter co-signed and, of course, she would like to get the “clock” started for the seven-year period it takes to clear her credit.

So, I called The Bank and they said foreclosure is in the works, and that there is no way to expedite the process, and no way to know when it would take place.

I had accepted my fate and just wanted the nightmare to end. I just wanted to give back a three year old house that was in perfect order.

I asked for nothing, just closure, after a total of two and a half years since the debacle began.

The Bank was rescued by the taxpayers because it was “too big to fail.” I am thinking now that The Bank should have failed because it was too big.

The Bank, by the way, is servicing the loan, they have no stake in the outcome, they are churning fees no matter what, and the government, which is the ultimate guarantor of the loan, is footing the bill.

Those of you who have preached laissez faire (government non-intervention), I would suggest that if you ever had to deal with The Bank, you would start thinking about another French term: guillotine.

Nelson Strasser lives in Lakeport, Calif.