Letters

Another Indexer

    I had to smile while reading Gina Jaber’s “List Mania” article [Just Between Us, December 2007] as I saw myself in it, including my perpetual problem of scribbling down things on scraps of paper then trying to remember where I stashed the list! There is something very calming, though, about writing to-do items down on paper, so they stop rattling around in the brain and I won’t worry that I’ll forget to do them. And if it doesn’t get written down, it usually doesn’t get done.
    You probably have received a ton of various lists from folks who read her article, but I thought what the heck, I’m going to send in mine. I started this one on scraps of paper as usual, noting all the things I planned to do to reduce my impact on global warming. Then when I started attending the city’s Climate Protection Task Force public meetings (www.ci.alameda.ca.us/community/climate_protection.html), I realized that getting lots of Alameda residents to change their habits was going to be crucial to achieving any significant reduction in our city’s greenhouse gas emissions. Hence my little Global Warming Checklist and Resources for Alamedans one-pager was born. We’ve got the checklist posted on BikeAlameda’s Web site at www.bikealameda.org/info/Global_Warming_Checklist.pdf for easy download.
    The document is designed to be duplex printed and posted on the family refrigerator and items checked off as projects are completed and habits are changed. The front consists of a fairly comprehensive, practical list of specific actions Alameda residents can take to reduce global warming. The back consists of helpful local resources available to Alameda residents, which correspond to the categories in the checklist. I hope Alameda Magazine readers find it useful.

Food for Thought

    Loved your looking-at-the-history issue [January/February 2008]. Thinking about the past, I expect you are planning for your annual kitchen issue. I think you should feature vintage/original kitchens that have been “restored” instead of the gut-and-redo type. It is much more sustainable to reuse rather than rip out. I’m sure many people in Alameda have resisted the big-ticket re-do and turned their original kitchens into beautiful, warm environments. I’d like to see them.
    Love the magazine. Keep it up (and lose the medical, non-Alameda stuff every December).

Clarification

    The article “Riding the Rails” [January/February 2008] perhaps should have mentioned that the author relied on a number of sources for the article. While she did original research such as neighborhood interviews and on-site visits, she also drew from research contained in Grante Ute and Bruce Singer’s book Alameda by Rail and from work that local historian Woody Minor produced for a series of articles for the Alameda Journal that were an outgrowth of his earlier book, Historic Commercial Buildings of Alameda. The book, by the way, was updated, expanded and reissued in 2006 as Taking Care of Business, Historic Buildings of the Island City and can be purchased for $20 at the Alameda Museum with some sale proceeds going to help fund the museum.


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    Send letters to Letters at Alameda Magazine, 1430 A Everett St., Alameda, CA 94501; fax to (510) 553-1697; e-mail letters@alamedamagazine.com or visit www.alamedamagazine.com. All letters must be signed and include a day telephone number for verification. No anonymous letters will be published, although names may be withheld by request.