voices

Votes Cast to the Wind
“Those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything.”
— Joseph Stalin

The 2004 presidential election was plagued by innumerable incidents of blatant voting and voter fraud, intimidation, and confusion. However, if your primary source of news is the corporate media — newspapers and TV — then you probably believe the election was fair. With minor exceptions the major media have dutifully ignored, downplayed, denied, or attempted to speciously explain away the anomalous results suggesting fraud. To draw an objective conclusion regarding the legitimacy of our recent election, we need to critically examine the facts, and it is my belief that the facts show our current voting system is corrupt and our democracy is a mirage.

Vote-rigging, or voting fraud, has a long, infamous history in America. A groundbreaking book, Votescam: The Stealing of America, was published in 1992 by James and Kenneth Collier and was immediately banned by the major bookstore chains. The book is a thorough investigation into America’s multibillion-dollar election rigging industry, and the corporate, government, and media officials who control it. Modern history has countless stories of suspicious results in elections, working to the advantage of both major political parties. For example, stories emerged after the Kennedy-Nixon election that vote-rigging had occurred in Texas and Illinois.

Perhaps the most serious problem with our elections process today involves who counts the votes. Imagine the following scenario: My candidate and your candidate oppose each other for political office. I publicly express my staunch support for my candidate and give generously to his campaign, and publicly ridicule your candidate. Coincidentally, I own a vote-counting company and I’ve convinced the local elections officials to use my newly developed system, a system so good, I say, it never makes mistakes and it’s easy to use. My only requirements: I will count the votes in secret and no one is allowed to examine my technology. Trust me. I will be totally honest. And there is no need for a recount since my system is so accurate. I am a convicted felon, but you don’t know that, and elections officials don’t check my credentials. At the end of Election Day, I present the results, and presto! Would you believe it, my candidate won by five percentage points, even though your candidate was leading in the polls just days before the election, and exit polls also showed your candidate ahead? Those voters sure can be fickle.

Absurd as it sounds, this is the system we have today. Much of the country now votes on electronic voting machines manufactured almost exclusively by three corporations: Diebold Election Systems, Election Systems and Software (ES&S), and Sequoia Voting Systems, Inc. All of these companies have close ties to the Republican Party. They are owned and led by vocally partisan Republicans. There is absolutely no government control over who can design voting machines. These companies can be, and actually are run and staffed by convicted criminals.

Bev Harris is an indefatigable researcher of electronic voting and fraud. Her newly published book, Black Box Voting: Ballot Tampering in the 21st Century is an invaluable resource for understanding the elections systems in the U.S. today. It is filled with dozens of election fiascos, suspicious results, and inexplicable behavior in past elections. As an example, voting machines made by ES&S were used in the 2002 interim elections in Alabama. The Democratic candidate appeared to have won the governor’s race, but after polls closed the voting machines “lost” 6,300 votes, flipping the election to his Republican opponent. Democratic candidate Don Siegelman, the incumbent, requested a recount but was denied. Six months after the election, a manager with ES&S shrugged and said, “Something happened. I don’t have enough intelligence to say exactly what.” During the 2000 presidential election, electronic voting machines in Florida (Volusia County) recorded 10,000 votes for the Socialist candidate, nearly 50 percent of his nationwide total, and 4,000 erroneous votes were given to George W. Bush, while Al Gore received negative 16,022 votes. During the 2002 interim elections in Georgia, six incumbent Democrats were running for reelection against newcomer Republicans. With only days to the election, the last polls showed all incumbents with comfortable leads. But when the votes were counted, all six incumbent Democrats had been defeated in what many described as a remarkable turn of events. There had been 12 percent and 14 percent swings in vote percentages between the last polls and vote results. Diebold electronic voting systems had been installed across Georgia for the election; it was discovered later that Diebold employees made several last-minute and unauthorized changes to the software. No recounts were allowed. This is the tip of the iceberg.

Computer specialists at Johns Hopkins, Harvard, Rice, and Stanford universities examined a version of the vote-counting software used by Diebold and found more than 500 serious flaws in the code. These scientists and others have been warning for years that electronic voting machines are wide open to fraud. It would be easy, the experts say, to build a secret “back door” into the software to allow undetectable manipulation. But the software is proprietary. Neither the public nor elections officials are allowed to examine it under threat of suit. There is no governmental oversight, no certification process, and no standards or restrictions.

Another major flaw is how the votes are tallied nationwide. For this past presidential election, tallies from states were sent to the Associated Press (AP), who then tallied them and presented them to the media. The AP is a private company co-owned by its 1,500-member daily newspapers. Their chairman of the board, Burl Osborne, is also publisher emeritus of the conservative Dallas Morning News. The AP Managing Editors vice president, Deanna Sands, is also managing editor for the ultra-conservative Omaha World-Herald. The parent company of the World-Herald is ES&S, the same company making the voting machines and counting the votes.

Let’s follow your vote on the path from you to the final tally. If you cast your vote on an electronic machine, your vote enters the ether of the digital world and you have to trust that it was recorded correctly — as you can’t look inside the machine, there is no way for you to check. Then at the end of Election Day, the machines are connected to the Internet and the results transferred to central computers, which are also owned by the machine manufacturers. The central voting machines then tally the votes from all the machines in a particular region, in secret. The results are then electronically transferred over the Internet to the AP, where their machines then tally the votes, again in secret. All of these computers are vulnerable to hackers via a wireless connection — this has been demonstrated by investigators. At the end of the day, the results then get presented to us as truth. Do you trust that your vote was correctly counted?

In the recent presidential election, electronic voting machine fraud appeared highly probable, and as in 2000 and 2002, the majority of suspicious results and confirmed mistakes worked to the advantage of Republicans. One county in Ohio registered 4,258 votes for Bush and 260 for Kerry, even though only 638 people cast votes. An examination of voting in Florida found that results from counties that used one type of voting machine correlated closely with expected results based on past elections and voter registrations. In counties that used a different type of machine the results differed dramatically from expected results by as much as 700 percent — all in favor of Bush. In Dixie County, Florida, where Democrat voters outnumber Republican voters 77 percent to 15 percent, Bush won the election 4,433 to 1,959. A comparison of exit polls and actual posted results in several states show a disparity between states that used paper ballots and states that used or primarily used electronic voting machines. In states that used paper balloting, the exit polls correlated closely with the final results. In states using electronic voting machines with no paper trail, the difference between exit polls and presented results were strikingly different, either narrowing the lead for Kerry or flipping the result in favor of Bush. Bev Harris and her squad have uncovered apparent hacking of a central vote-counting computer in Washington in September of this year. Telltale signs of hacking were found in the computer memory and three hours of the computer’s log was missing — again, the tip of the iceberg. And if the tables were turned on the two parties, would Republicans be satisfied with the vote results?

Demand voting systems that you can trust. Contact elections officials in the county and state and take back your country. Demand federal legislation to ensure transparent and auditable voting systems. Follow through and demand overhaul of the voting system — accept nothing less. If we cannot trust our voting system, we do not have a democracy.

In Memoriam

Thomas Dibblee
1911-2004
by Eric P. Hvolbøll

Thomas W. Dibblee Jr. was old-fashioned. When he started his 76-year career in field geology as a hearing-impaired teenager on his family’s ranch near Lompoc in 1928, he did it on foot. He continued mapping California’s geology on foot — over 25 million acres of it — until last week, when he died at his Santa Barbara home, only several blocks from where he was born at St. Francis Hospital in October 1911.

John Powell of the Dibblee Geological Foundation emphasized the magnitude, integrity, and permanence of Tom’s work: “Tom mapped more than 500 quadrangles of California geology — he was a living legend for good reason.” Another colleague, Tor Nilsen, praised Tom’s “innate, accurate, and intuitive sense for mapping…his prodigious memory and vast knowledge of stratigraphy and structure, rocks and fossils enabled him to rapidly sketch in place all necessary information directly onto his field sheets.” Others note that Tom’s hundreds of maps and associated reports earned him the remarkable distinction as the most cited author in California geologic references.

Two of Tom’s professional milestones included the discovery of the Cuyama oil field in 1948, as well as a percipient article he co-authored in 1953 that proposed a lateral displacement along the San Andreas fault of more than 350 miles. It stimulated much interest in horizontal-slip fault tectonics, a key foundation to the inquiry that evolved into the revolutionary theory of plate tectonics.

Tom’s interest in the dynamic, three-dimensional science of the earth developed in the 1920s at Hicks School on Arrellaga Street under the tutelage of Selden Spaulding, who took students on mountain hikes, pointing out the geology observable from trails. Tom remembered vividly his first mountain climb up Mission Canyon Trail to the top of Mission Crags, “where we climbed over huge sandstone outcrops under scattered pine trees and could see into the wild backcountry.” Tom began learning how to prepare field maps in the summer of 1928 as a 16-year-old field assistant to geologist Harry Johnson, surveying the oil potential of the Dibblee family’s Rancho San Julian. In 1929, Tom transferred to Santa Barbara High School and continued to spend weekends hiking into the backcountry. “I would get up at 4 a.m. and push my bicycle up Mountain Drive or other roads in the moonlight to where the trails start, then hike all day to the top of the Santa Ynez Range.”

In 1932 Tom enrolled at Stanford University, and his first formal geologic training came that summer, in the Humboldt Range in northwestern Nevada. After graduating in 1936, Tom worked for the Division of Mines and Geology in San Francisco’s Ferry Building inventorying mercury deposits at a salary of $90 per month. Two months later he was hired by Union Oil Company, then moved in 1937 to the Richfield Oil Company. He spent the next 15 years mapping geology throughout California for Richfield — the Temblor and Caliente ranges, Carrizo Plain, Eel River, Santa Cruz Mountains, and the Imperial, Salinas, and Cuyama valleys. Tom later recalled: “I camped out wherever I was at the end of the day. I had enough food and water for five days of field work each week, and slept each night in the car on the seat with one door open and a board extending outward on which to rest my legs. This gave enough shelter against cold winds, which at times blew fiercely. In this way, I was able to get over much ground each week with little expense to the company. One month in Imperial Valley, my expense account was $14.92. Harold Hoots, the chief geologist, did not see how I could live on that amount, so on a visit he treated me to a four-pound steak in Mexicali.”

Tom also found nutrition in the wilds. His nephew, Joe Donohoe, recalls Tom’s delight in working in the wilderness and eating berries, roots, and grubs. “When I was about five, he showed me how to find a worm, and ate it in front of me.”

In 1947, Tom explored the Cuyama Valley in northern Santa Barbara County, familiar to Tom as comprising two large ranchos granted to his ancestors in the Mexican era. He called it a “desolate, barren, sun-baked land that supported only a few scrawny-looking cattle — it felt like a furnace.” Despite the valley’s surficial hostility, Tom recommended that Richfield lease portions to test for oil because the geologic structure was right for a possible oil deposit in the Miocene Vaqueros sandstone. A drill site was chosen near where Tom had camped on the Russell Ranch. At a depth of 3,100 feet, the Vaqueros sandstone was cored and found saturated with light oil, and a test yielded nearly 5,000 barrels per day. The oil discovery brought activity to the Cuyama Valley and the town of New Cuyama was developed by Richfield. This big strike was a tremendous boost for the company, which named the main producing formation the Dibblee Sand in Tom’s honor.

In 1952, Tom joined the U.S. Geological Survey and for 13 years mapped the Mojave Desert to assist in the exploration of borate minerals and other saline deposits until his “retirement” to Santa Barbara in 1977, when he volunteered to map the geology of Los Padres National Forest, field work which he characterized as “mostly for recreation.” In characteristic understatement, he commented that his walking over and mapping of more than one million acres of the forest “involved long treks.” I enjoyed accompanying him on many of these treks, principally in the Gaviota and Cuyama regions. On one, I asked who named some of the rock formations we were studying. His response was, as always, straightforward: “I did.” Tom’s long legs, spindly frame, and innate curiosity easily kept him abreast of his hiking companions, many 40 or 50 years younger than he.

Tom received the Department of Interior’s Distinguished Service Award in 1967 and, in 1983, the Presidential Volunteer Action Award from President Reagan at the White House in recognition for his work. Other geologists initiated a concerted effort to publish Tom’s maps, most of which remained written in pencil in his garage office on East Mission Street. Much of this work was facilitated by his best friend and field assistant, Helmut Ehrenspeck, who died in 2001. The publishing of Tom’s maps is continuing today by the Dibblee Geological Foundation at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History, organized in 1983.

Tom met his wife, Loretta Escabosa, when they both worked for Richfield in Bakersfield; they married in 1949. Tom’s office shelves were lined with dozens of spherical rocks he had polished, on which he had painted his wife’s face. He called them “Lorettas,” and presented them to her with a grin. Each was received with delight, as were the elaborate hand-created Valentines he presented her every year. She died in 2001.

Tom lived an uncommon life and made an extraordinary and unparalleled contribution to our understanding of California. While others unhesitantly regard his career as mythic, Tom’s shyness and modesty were conspicuous: “The geologic mapping during my lifetime has been a sustained, routine effort, driven by scientific curiosity. I did nothing glamorous.”

by Larry Gurrola

It was a beautiful Sunday morning when I first walked with Tom. As I left the Old Mission, I saw him in the rose garden, gazing off toward the Riviera, hands shading his eyes. I yelled hello from across the street. As a graduate student in my third year in UCSB’s Department of Geological Sciences, my work benefited greatly from Tom’s contributions — both via maps and methods — and he had also accompanied me in the field on several occasions to further my research on faults and earthquake hazards. Thanks to his help, I was eventually able to accurately map the Santa Barbara coastal plain, improving on the work he started as a legendary geologic expert a generation before me. I didn’t expect him to recognize me that morning at the Mission, but to my surprise, he called me by name, and smiled as I approached.

Geology is the study of the earth’s materials. In order to utilize resources, such as petroleum, or to avoid hazards, such as landslides, these materials need to be mapped. Geologists who specialize in mapping are called field geologists, and Tom Dibblee was that field’s foremost pioneer.

During that morning’s walk on Alameda Padre Serra, he spoke of the field data he had gathered in Santa Barbara in the 1940s, but he was also interested in the data I was collecting. He listened intently while I shared my interpretations with him. We usually agreed on geological issues, but there were a few occasions where we didn’t, such as when I discovered an unmapped fault in Goleta. I asked Tom what his thoughts were and, although I was confident in my findings, he disagreed and was reluctant to accept my argument. But later, during one of our many walks, he shared with me that he agreed with my discovery and even told me, “Well done.” I always knew he was a man of pride, but that day, he showed me a more important side of himself — that Tom was foremost a man of science searching for the “truth.”

I always knew he was a man of pride, but that day, he showed me a more important side of himself — that Tom was foremost a man of science searching for the “truth.”

Walking with Tom, I slowly realized that I had gained his confidence in my mapping skills, but the most gratifying aspect of our walks was getting to know each other on a personal level and establishing our friendship. Though geology was always a popular topic, our conversations tended to focus more on Tom’s stories about growing up in a very different Santa Barbara. He talked about what he learned via his professional career and his beautiful family history. I would also share tales about my life, and what struck me most was that Tom was sincerely interested in me as a person.

As my professional geologic research progressed in Santa Barbara, I would take Tom to my project sites. He had mapped the South Coast simply by observing the ground’s surface, and appreciated the benefits of the excavation equipment used on my sites, which allowed us to actually see faults and other geologic structures. Tom enjoyed viewing these the most — he could see how accurately located his mapped “fault line” was in comparison to the actual location. A testament to being a man ahead of his time, Tom was usually right, even without the benefit of only being able to see the surface.

Recently, I visited Tom to tell him that I had a fault exposed and that his mapped location of the fault line was very accurate. He smiled, but it wasn’t a very cheerful smile. His health was declining and he had not been in the field for quite some time. He asked if he could visit the trench, and I recall the gleam in his eyes when I said, “Yes.” I couldn’t refuse him, even though I was anxious because the access to the fault required manipulation of steep, rocky terrain.

I took Tom to the site and, because it was too dangerous to enter the trench, walked him to a spot where he could look safely. After a while, I tried to guide him back to the car, but it was impossible to stop Tom from observing the insides of the ground; he was determined to confirm what he had mapped some 60 years ago. So we walked around the trench and made it to a spot where he could get a better look. I held onto Tom as he leaned over the edge. I sighed with relief when he was finished, and watched as he started off without me. But suddenly my heart was in my throat — Tom lost his footing and fell toward the open trench. To prevent him falling in, all I could do was position myself between him and the deep hole. Luckily, Tom regained his footing but still fell against me, and I started slipping toward the open trench. As I tried to push Tom away from the hole, a gardener saw what was happening and grabbed him. I regained my balance and we walked back to my car. Tom didn’t mention the near fall — he was too busy reveling in the fact that he had accurately mapped the fault six decades ago.

That was Tom’s last visit to the field. When Tom Dibblee passed away, I realized the impact he had on my professional life. But as I reflect on our many walks, site visits, and scientific discussions, I’m happy to say that I had a small impact on his life as well — what an overwhelming feeling.

I already miss Tom very much. I know that when I’m in the field, I’ll always have lasting memories of this exceptional geologist. But I’m most proud to say he was also a wonderful friend.

Larry Gurrola’s maps are now widely accepted as the most accurate continuation of Tom Dibblee’s work.

Ray Kunze
1936–2004
by Cynthia Carbone Ward

Friend, are you there? Will you touch when you pass, like the rain?
— William Stafford

I figured Ray would always be here, dispensing stories, wisdom, and opinions. I loved his easy smile and gregarious personality and the way he called the ladies “sweetheart” when we came through the gate. Ray was loud and expansive, robust and good-natured, optimistic and resilient. He had a colorful and remarkable history but was fully immersed in the present. He had a definite sense of the way things ought to be — and wasn’t shy about telling you — but he never stopped learning, either. He had devoted friends all over the world, but Ray was so much a part of the Hollister Ranch it is impossible to fathom his absence. Ray slipped away suddenly, and some of us wish we had paused a little longer the last time we saw him to chat or grouse or remark about the day. Too much love remains unspoken as we hurry along in our routines; now and then we are stunned into seeing that we really should slow down.

But Ray knew where he stood with the world. He simply held his strong arms open to the amazing experience of life and embraced it completely. “Your life is your art,” he famously proclaimed, and that’s the way he lived. He started out body surfing as a young boy in Hermosa Beach. In 1948, on a trip to Doheney Beach, he saw someone stand up surfing, and he thought he’d like to try it. Large, powerful, and a supremely gifted athlete, Ray became a well-known figure at Malibu in the ’50s and ’60s, along with the likes of Miki Dora, Mike Doyle, and Mysto George [Greenough]. “Great surfers?” he once said, “I’ve seen them all. But the best surfer is the guy having the most fun out there.” And Ray always had the biggest grin of all.

Ray did a stint in the Army in the early 1960s and was proud to have been an L.A. County fireman for 25 years. He was physically active all his life, even playing professional baseball for a time, but he was perhaps best known as the Malibu Enforcer of the surfing world. “I got that name from John Milius,” he explained. “He’s a famous movie producer now, but when I first knew him he was a young boy at Malibu. I was like a big brother around the beach — I had just come from the Army and was trying to get back into surfing, so I spent a lot of time at Malibu. And I used to try to keep kids from getting in trouble or fighting. One day, John showed me he had a handful of pills, and I made him throw them away. Then I made him stay out in the water until dark — I wouldn’t let him come back in. He told me about this years later, and when he made the film Big Wednesday, he had a character called The Enforcer and that was supposed to be me.”

According to Ray, surfing was not so much about the waves you rode as the friends you made. “I’ve made lifelong friends everywhere I’ve gone, and that’s a gift,” he said. He recognized the exhilarating and addictive nature of the sport, but he was modest about his own impressive achievements and he knew that a life needs balance. “Think of a good life,” he told a group of middle-school kids. “Think of yourself becoming something. Everyone should help others and contribute to the world.”

Ray was as good as his word. He was a champion helper of others and was profoundly loved by countless friends, many of whom gathered at Big Drake’s on Saturday, November 13, to remember him and celebrate his life. It was a grand day, epic and Ray-esque. The sun shone and the sea sparkled, and 200 surfers young and old gathered in the water to form a circle where Ray would have been, scattering ashes, flowers, and prayers. A pair of dolphins joined them.

Afterward, friends and family lingered on the bluff, remembering Ray with laughter and tears. A small plane inexplicably dipped and whirled in the empty sky above the Ranch, a strange ship passed, someone played Israel Kamakawiwo’ole’s Hawaiian-style version of “Over the Rainbow,” and a shiny fire engine led Ray’s last procession through the dark. It was a wondrous thing.


news. a&e. living. opinions. classifieds. current issue: November 25, 2004		promotions & events .
	Voices Votes Cast to the Wind “Those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything.” — Joseph Stalin The 2004 presidential election was plagued by innumerable incidents of blatant voting and voter fraud, intimidation, and confusion. However, if your primary source of news is the corporate media — newspapers and TV — then you probably believe the election was fair. With minor exceptions the major media have dutifully ignored, downplayed, denied, or attempted to speciously explain away the anomalous results suggesting fraud. To draw an objective conclusion regarding the legitimacy of our recent election, we need to critically examine the facts, and it is my belief that the facts show our current voting system is corrupt and our democracy is a mirage. Vote-rigging, or voting fraud, has a long, infamous history in America. A groundbreaking book, Votescam: The Stealing of America, was published in 1992 by James and Kenneth Collier and was immediately banned by the major bookstore chains. The book is a thorough investigation into America’s multibillion-dollar election rigging industry, and the corporate, government, and media officials who control it. Modern history has countless stories of suspicious results in elections, working to the advantage of both major political parties. For example, stories emerged after the Kennedy-Nixon election that vote-rigging had occurred in Texas and Illinois. Perhaps the most serious problem with our elections process today involves who counts the votes. Imagine the following scenario: My candidate and your candidate oppose each other for political office. I publicly express my staunch support for my candidate and give generously to his campaign, and publicly ridicule your candidate. Coincidentally, I own a vote-counting company and I’ve convinced the local elections officials to use my newly developed system, a system so good, I say, it never makes mistakes and it’s easy to use. My only requirements: I will count the votes in secret and no one is allowed to examine my technology. Trust me. I will be totally honest. And there is no need for a recount since my system is so accurate. I am a convicted felon, but you don’t know that, and elections officials don’t check my credentials. At the end of Election Day, I present the results, and presto! Would you believe it, my candidate won by five percentage points, even though your candidate was leading in the polls just days before the election, and exit polls also showed your candidate ahead? Those voters sure can be fickle. Absurd as it sounds, this is the system we have today. Much of the country now votes on electronic voting machines manufactured almost exclusively by three corporations: Diebold Election Systems, Election Systems and Software (ES&S), and Sequoia Voting Systems, Inc. All of these companies have close ties to the Republican Party. They are owned and led by vocally partisan Republicans. There is absolutely no government control over who can design voting machines. These companies can be, and actually are run and staffed by convicted criminals. Bev Harris is an indefatigable researcher of electronic voting and fraud. Her newly published book, Black Box Voting: Ballot Tampering in the 21st Century is an invaluable resource for understanding the elections systems in the U.S. today. It is filled with dozens of election fiascos, suspicious results, and inexplicable behavior in past elections. As an example, voting machines made by ES&S were used in the 2002 interim elections in Alabama. The Democratic candidate appeared to have won the governor’s race, but after polls closed the voting machines “lost” 6,300 votes, flipping the election to his Republican opponent. Democratic candidate Don Siegelman, the incumbent, requested a recount but was denied. Six months after the election, a manager with ES&S shrugged and said, “Something happened. I don’t have enough intelligence to say exactly what.” During the 2000 presidential election, electronic voting machines in Florida (Volusia County) recorded 10,000 votes for the Socialist candidate, nearly 50 percent of his nationwide total, and 4,000 erroneous votes were given to George W. Bush, while Al Gore received negative 16,022 votes. During the 2002 interim elections in Georgia, six incumbent Democrats were running for reelection against newcomer Republicans. With only days to the election, the last polls showed all incumbents with comfortable leads. But when the votes were counted, all six incumbent Democrats had been defeated in what many described as a remarkable turn of events. There had been 12 percent and 14 percent swings in vote percentages between the last polls and vote results. Diebold electronic voting systems had been installed across Georgia for the election; it was discovered later that Diebold employees made several last-minute and unauthorized changes to the software. No recounts were allowed. This is the tip of the iceberg. Computer specialists at Johns Hopkins, Harvard, Rice, and Stanford universities examined a version of the vote-counting software used by Diebold and found more than 500 serious flaws in the code. These scientists and others have been warning for years that electronic voting machines are wide open to fraud. It would be easy, the experts say, to build a secret “back door” into the software to allow undetectable manipulation. But the software is proprietary. Neither the public nor elections officials are allowed to examine it under threat of suit. There is no governmental oversight, no certification process, and no standards or restrictions. Another major flaw is how the votes are tallied nationwide. For this past presidential election, tallies from states were sent to the Associated Press (AP), who then tallied them and presented them to the media. The AP is a private company co-owned by its 1,500-member daily newspapers. Their chairman of the board, Burl Osborne, is also publisher emeritus of the conservative Dallas Morning News. The AP Managing Editors vice president, Deanna Sands, is also managing editor for the ultra-conservative Omaha World-Herald. The parent company of the World-Herald is ES&S, the same company making the voting machines and counting the votes. Let’s follow your vote on the path from you to the final tally. If you cast your vote on an electronic machine, your vote enters the ether of the digital world and you have to trust that it was recorded correctly — as you can’t look inside the machine, there is no way for you to check. Then at the end of Election Day, the machines are connected to the Internet and the results transferred to central computers, which are also owned by the machine manufacturers. The central voting machines then tally the votes from all the machines in a particular region, in secret. The results are then electronically transferred over the Internet to the AP, where their machines then tally the votes, again in secret. All of these computers are vulnerable to hackers via a wireless connection — this has been demonstrated by investigators. At the end of the day, the results then get presented to us as truth. Do you trust that your vote was correctly counted? In the recent presidential election, electronic voting machine fraud appeared highly probable, and as in 2000 and 2002, the majority of suspicious results and confirmed mistakes worked to the advantage of Republicans. One county in Ohio registered 4,258 votes for Bush and 260 for Kerry, even though only 638 people cast votes. An examination of voting in Florida found that results from counties that used one type of voting machine correlated closely with expected results based on past elections and voter registrations. In counties that used a different type of machine the results differed dramatically from expected results by as much as 700 percent — all in favor of Bush. In Dixie County, Florida, where Democrat voters outnumber Republican voters 77 percent to 15 percent, Bush won the election 4,433 to 1,959. A comparison of exit polls and actual posted results in several states show a disparity between states that used paper ballots and states that used or primarily used electronic voting machines. In states that used paper balloting, the exit polls correlated closely with the final results. In states using electronic voting machines with no paper trail, the difference between exit polls and presented results were strikingly different, either narrowing the lead for Kerry or flipping the result in favor of Bush. Bev Harris and her squad have uncovered apparent hacking of a central vote-counting computer in Washington in September of this year. Telltale signs of hacking were found in the computer memory and three hours of the computer’s log was missing — again, the tip of the iceberg. And if the tables were turned on the two parties, would Republicans be satisfied with the vote results? Demand voting systems that you can trust. Contact elections officials in the county and state and take back your country. Demand federal legislation to ensure transparent and auditable voting systems. Follow through and demand overhaul of the voting system — accept nothing less. If we cannot trust our voting system, we do not have a democracy. In Memoriam Thomas Dibblee 1911-2004 by Eric P. Hvolbøll Thomas W. Dibblee Jr. was old-fashioned. When he started his 76-year career in field geology as a hearing-impaired teenager on his family’s ranch near Lompoc in 1928, he did it on foot. He continued mapping California’s geology on foot — over 25 million acres of it — until last week, when he died at his Santa Barbara home, only several blocks from where he was born at St. Francis Hospital in October 1911. John Powell of the Dibblee Geological Foundation emphasized the magnitude, integrity, and permanence of Tom’s work: “Tom mapped more than 500 quadrangles of California geology — he was a living legend for good reason.” Another colleague, Tor Nilsen, praised Tom’s “innate, accurate, and intuitive sense for mapping…his prodigious memory and vast knowledge of stratigraphy and structure, rocks and fossils enabled him to rapidly sketch in place all necessary information directly onto his field sheets.” Others note that Tom’s hundreds of maps and associated reports earned him the remarkable distinction as the most cited author in California geologic references. Two of Tom’s professional milestones included the discovery of the Cuyama oil field in 1948, as well as a percipient article he co-authored in 1953 that proposed a lateral displacement along the San Andreas fault of more than 350 miles. It stimulated much interest in horizontal-slip fault tectonics, a key foundation to the inquiry that evolved into the revolutionary theory of plate tectonics. Tom’s interest in the dynamic, three-dimensional science of the earth developed in the 1920s at Hicks School on Arrellaga Street under the tutelage of Selden Spaulding, who took students on mountain hikes, pointing out the geology observable from trails. Tom remembered vividly his first mountain climb up Mission Canyon Trail to the top of Mission Crags, “where we climbed over huge sandstone outcrops under scattered pine trees and could see into the wild backcountry.” Tom began learning how to prepare field maps in the summer of 1928 as a 16-year-old field assistant to geologist Harry Johnson, surveying the oil potential of the Dibblee family’s Rancho San Julian. In 1929, Tom transferred to Santa Barbara High School and continued to spend weekends hiking into the backcountry. “I would get up at 4 a.m. and push my bicycle up Mountain Drive or other roads in the moonlight to where the trails start, then hike all day to the top of the Santa Ynez Range.” In 1932 Tom enrolled at Stanford University, and his first formal geologic training came that summer, in the Humboldt Range in northwestern Nevada. After graduating in 1936, Tom worked for the Division of Mines and Geology in San Francisco’s Ferry Building inventorying mercury deposits at a salary of $90 per month. Two months later he was hired by Union Oil Company, then moved in 1937 to the Richfield Oil Company. He spent the next 15 years mapping geology throughout California for Richfield — the Temblor and Caliente ranges, Carrizo Plain, Eel River, Santa Cruz Mountains, and the Imperial, Salinas, and Cuyama valleys. Tom later recalled: “I camped out wherever I was at the end of the day. I had enough food and water for five days of field work each week, and slept each night in the car on the seat with one door open and a board extending outward on which to rest my legs. This gave enough shelter against cold winds, which at times blew fiercely. In this way, I was able to get over much ground each week with little expense to the company. One month in Imperial Valley, my expense account was $14.92. Harold Hoots, the chief geologist, did not see how I could live on that amount, so on a visit he treated me to a four-pound steak in Mexicali.” Tom also found nutrition in the wilds. His nephew, Joe Donohoe, recalls Tom’s delight in working in the wilderness and eating berries, roots, and grubs. “When I was about five, he showed me how to find a worm, and ate it in front of me.” In 1947, Tom explored the Cuyama Valley in northern Santa Barbara County, familiar to Tom as comprising two large ranchos granted to his ancestors in the Mexican era. He called it a “desolate, barren, sun-baked land that supported only a few scrawny-looking cattle — it felt like a furnace.” Despite the valley’s surficial hostility, Tom recommended that Richfield lease portions to test for oil because the geologic structure was right for a possible oil deposit in the Miocene Vaqueros sandstone. A drill site was chosen near where Tom had camped on the Russell Ranch. At a depth of 3,100 feet, the Vaqueros sandstone was cored and found saturated with light oil, and a test yielded nearly 5,000 barrels per day. The oil discovery brought activity to the Cuyama Valley and the town of New Cuyama was developed by Richfield. This big strike was a tremendous boost for the company, which named the main producing formation the Dibblee Sand in Tom’s honor. In 1952, Tom joined the U.S. Geological Survey and for 13 years mapped the Mojave Desert to assist in the exploration of borate minerals and other saline deposits until his “retirement” to Santa Barbara in 1977, when he volunteered to map the geology of Los Padres National Forest, field work which he characterized as “mostly for recreation.” In characteristic understatement, he commented that his walking over and mapping of more than one million acres of the forest “involved long treks.” I enjoyed accompanying him on many of these treks, principally in the Gaviota and Cuyama regions. On one, I asked who named some of the rock formations we were studying. His response was, as always, straightforward: “I did.” Tom’s long legs, spindly frame, and innate curiosity easily kept him abreast of his hiking companions, many 40 or 50 years younger than he. Tom received the Department of Interior’s Distinguished Service Award in 1967 and, in 1983, the Presidential Volunteer Action Award from President Reagan at the White House in recognition for his work. Other geologists initiated a concerted effort to publish Tom’s maps, most of which remained written in pencil in his garage office on East Mission Street. Much of this work was facilitated by his best friend and field assistant, Helmut Ehrenspeck, who died in 2001. The publishing of Tom’s maps is continuing today by the Dibblee Geological Foundation at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History, organized in 1983. Tom met his wife, Loretta Escabosa, when they both worked for Richfield in Bakersfield; they married in 1949. Tom’s office shelves were lined with dozens of spherical rocks he had polished, on which he had painted his wife’s face. He called them “Lorettas,” and presented them to her with a grin. Each was received with delight, as were the elaborate hand-created Valentines he presented her every year. She died in 2001. Tom lived an uncommon life and made an extraordinary and unparalleled contribution to our understanding of California. While others unhesitantly regard his career as mythic, Tom’s shyness and modesty were conspicuous: “The geologic mapping during my lifetime has been a sustained, routine effort, driven by scientific curiosity. I did nothing glamorous.” by Larry Gurrola It was a beautiful Sunday morning when I first walked with Tom. As I left the Old Mission, I saw him in the rose garden, gazing off toward the Riviera, hands shading his eyes. I yelled hello from across the street. As a graduate student in my third year in UCSB’s Department of Geological Sciences, my work benefited greatly from Tom’s contributions — both via maps and methods — and he had also accompanied me in the field on several occasions to further my research on faults and earthquake hazards. Thanks to his help, I was eventually able to accurately map the Santa Barbara coastal plain, improving on the work he started as a legendary geologic expert a generation before me. I didn’t expect him to recognize me that morning at the Mission, but to my surprise, he called me by name, and smiled as I approached. Geology is the study of the earth’s materials. In order to utilize resources, such as petroleum, or to avoid hazards, such as landslides, these materials need to be mapped. Geologists who specialize in mapping are called field geologists, and Tom Dibblee was that field’s foremost pioneer. During that morning’s walk on Alameda Padre Serra, he spoke of the field data he had gathered in Santa Barbara in the 1940s, but he was also interested in the data I was collecting. He listened intently while I shared my interpretations with him. We usually agreed on geological issues, but there were a few occasions where we didn’t, such as when I discovered an unmapped fault in Goleta. I asked Tom what his thoughts were and, although I was confident in my findings, he disagreed and was reluctant to accept my argument. But later, during one of our many walks, he shared with me that he agreed with my discovery and even told me, “Well done.” I always knew he was a man of pride, but that day, he showed me a more important side of himself — that Tom was foremost a man of science searching for the “truth.” I always knew he was a man of pride, but that day, he showed me a more important side of himself — that Tom was foremost a man of science searching for the “truth.” Walking with Tom, I slowly realized that I had gained his confidence in my mapping skills, but the most gratifying aspect of our walks was getting to know each other on a personal level and establishing our friendship. Though geology was always a popular topic, our conversations tended to focus more on Tom’s stories about growing up in a very different Santa Barbara. He talked about what he learned via his professional career and his beautiful family history. I would also share tales about my life, and what struck me most was that Tom was sincerely interested in me as a person. As my professional geologic research progressed in Santa Barbara, I would take Tom to my project sites. He had mapped the South Coast simply by observing the ground’s surface, and appreciated the benefits of the excavation equipment used on my sites, which allowed us to actually see faults and other geologic structures. Tom enjoyed viewing these the most — he could see how accurately located his mapped “fault line” was in comparison to the actual location. A testament to being a man ahead of his time, Tom was usually right, even without the benefit of only being able to see the surface. Recently, I visited Tom to tell him that I had a fault exposed and that his mapped location of the fault line was very accurate. He smiled, but it wasn’t a very cheerful smile. His health was declining and he had not been in the field for quite some time. He asked if he could visit the trench, and I recall the gleam in his eyes when I said, “Yes.” I couldn’t refuse him, even though I was anxious because the access to the fault required manipulation of steep, rocky terrain. I took Tom to the site and, because it was too dangerous to enter the trench, walked him to a spot where he could look safely. After a while, I tried to guide him back to the car, but it was impossible to stop Tom from observing the insides of the ground; he was determined to confirm what he had mapped some 60 years ago. So we walked around the trench and made it to a spot where he could get a better look. I held onto Tom as he leaned over the edge. I sighed with relief when he was finished, and watched as he started off without me. But suddenly my heart was in my throat — Tom lost his footing and fell toward the open trench. To prevent him falling in, all I could do was position myself between him and the deep hole. Luckily, Tom regained his footing but still fell against me, and I started slipping toward the open trench. As I tried to push Tom away from the hole, a gardener saw what was happening and grabbed him. I regained my balance and we walked back to my car. Tom didn’t mention the near fall — he was too busy reveling in the fact that he had accurately mapped the fault six decades ago. That was Tom’s last visit to the field. When Tom Dibblee passed away, I realized the impact he had on my professional life. But as I reflect on our many walks, site visits, and scientific discussions, I’m happy to say that I had a small impact on his life as well — what an overwhelming feeling. I already miss Tom very much. I know that when I’m in the field, I’ll always have lasting memories of this exceptional geologist. But I’m most proud to say he was also a wonderful friend. Larry Gurrola’s maps are now widely accepted as the most accurate continuation of Tom Dibblee’s work. In Memoriam Ray Kunze 1936–2004 by Cynthia Carbone Ward Friend, are you there? Will you touch when you pass, like the rain? — William Stafford I figured Ray would always be here, dispensing stories, wisdom, and opinions. I loved his easy smile and gregarious personality and the way he called the ladies “sweetheart” when we came through the gate. Ray was loud and expansive, robust and good-natured, optimistic and resilient. He had a colorful and remarkable history but was fully immersed in the present. He had a definite sense of the way things ought to be — and wasn’t shy about telling you — but he never stopped learning, either. He had devoted friends all over the world, but Ray was so much a part of the Hollister Ranch it is impossible to fathom his absence. Ray slipped away suddenly, and some of us wish we had paused a little longer the last time we saw him to chat or grouse or remark about the day. Too much love remains unspoken as we hurry along in our routines; now and then we are stunned into seeing that we really should slow down. But Ray knew where he stood with the world. He simply held his strong arms open to the amazing experience of life and embraced it completely. “Your life is your art,” he famously proclaimed, and that’s the way he lived. He started out body surfing as a young boy in Hermosa Beach. In 1948, on a trip to Doheney Beach, he saw someone stand up surfing, and he thought he’d like to try it. Large, powerful, and a supremely gifted athlete, Ray became a well-known figure at Malibu in the ’50s and ’60s, along with the likes of Miki Dora, Mike Doyle, and Mysto George [Greenough]. “Great surfers?” he once said, “I’ve seen them all. But the best surfer is the guy having the most fun out there.” And Ray always had the biggest grin of all. Ray did a stint in the Army in the early 1960s and was proud to have been an L.A. County fireman for 25 years. He was physically active all his life, even playing professional baseball for a time, but he was perhaps best known as the Malibu Enforcer of the surfing world. “I got that name from John Milius,” he explained. “He’s a famous movie producer now, but when I first knew him he was a young boy at Malibu. I was like a big brother around the beach — I had just come from the Army and was trying to get back into surfing, so I spent a lot of time at Malibu. And I used to try to keep kids from getting in trouble or fighting. One day, John showed me he had a handful of pills, and I made him throw them away. Then I made him stay out in the water until dark — I wouldn’t let him come back in. He told me about this years later, and when he made the film Big Wednesday, he had a character called The Enforcer and that was supposed to be me.” According to Ray, surfing was not so much about the waves you rode as the friends you made. “I’ve made lifelong friends everywhere I’ve gone, and that’s a gift,” he said. He recognized the exhilarating and addictive nature of the sport, but he was modest about his own impressive achievements and he knew that a life needs balance. “Think of a good life,” he told a group of middle-school kids. “Think of yourself becoming something. Everyone should help others and contribute to the world.” Ray was as good as his word. He was a champion helper of others and was profoundly loved by countless friends, many of whom gathered at Big Drake’s on Saturday, November 13, to remember him and celebrate his life. It was a grand day, epic and Ray-esque. The sun shone and the sea sparkled, and 200 surfers young and old gathered in the water to form a circle where Ray would have been, scattering ashes, flowers, and prayers. A pair of dolphins joined them. Afterward, friends and family lingered on the bluff, remembering Ray with laughter and tears. A small plane inexplicably dipped and whirled in the empty sky above the Ranch, a strange ship passed, someone played Israel Kamakawiwo’ole’s Hawaiian-style version of “Over the Rainbow,” and a shiny fire engine led Ray’s last procession through the dark. It was a wondrous thing.
news. a&e. living. opinions. classifieds. home.