House Democrats Introduce A Bill To Help “99ers” - Atlantic City Liberal | Examiner.com: "The '99ers' are people who have exhausted the full 99 weeks of unemployment benefits without being able to find work. These are hard-working Americans who had jobs prior to the financial meltdown caused by the rapacious greed of the wealthiest and most powerful in the country. Right now there are roughly five unemployed workers for every available job. That means that for 80% of the unemployed there simply are no jobs available no matter how hard they try.
In the Atlantic City-Hammonton metropolitcan area the '99er' problem is even worse. The unemployment rate in Atlantic City is 11.5%, nearly 2 full points higher than the national unemployment rate of 9.8% The Obama-McConnell tax cut raw deal does nothing for 99ers who have lost their last lifeline, through no fault of their own.
To remedy this unacceptable situation, House Democratic Reps. Barbara Lee (pictured) (Calif.) and Bobby Scott (Va.) introduced legislation Friday that would provide additional assistance to “99ers”, to which I say, about damn time. The legislation would add 14 weeks of benefits to the first “tier” of Emergency Unemployment Compensation, one of two programs that together give the unemployed up to 73 weeks of federally-funded benefits for workers who exhaust 26 weeks of state benefits. The full 73 weeks are available in states with unemployment above 8.5 percent.
With the Republicans about to take over the House in January, the expectation among the political punditry is that this bill will stall indefinitely. The excuse that Republicans give in opposition to helping the 99ers is that they are against more deficit spending, which is really just their excuse to be cold and heartless. Their desire for fiscal restraint certainly did not stop them from joining hands with President Obama to add hundreds of billions of dollars in tax cuts for the wealthy to the deficit. But on this issue I think the Republicans are playing with fire and will break eventually.
According to Republican Fed Chairmen Ben Bernanke, it will take 4-5 years for the country to reach a normal level of unemployment again, without factoring the possibility of a double-dip. That is a long time to leave millions of suffering voters high and dry. Republicans may not have compassion, but they do have a strong sense of self-preservation. At some point voter anger will reach a tipping point where the Republicans will have to buckle. But maybe I am just being hopeful?
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Monday, December 20, 2010
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Rant - Democrats Cave In: No Tier 5 for Unemployment Extension 2010
Rant - Democrats Cave In: No Tier 5 for Unemployment Extension 2010
As they say, a week is a long time in politics and no more so then in the current lame duck session. Less then a week ago, the Democrats in the House of Representatives were in rebellion over the deal made between President Obama and the Republicans.
The most contentious issues of the agreement between the President and the GOP were the extensions of all the Bush era tax cuts for a further 2 years, but only a further 13 months extension for federal emergency unemployment insurance tiers 1 - 4. And a glaring omission was that the subject of a Tier 5 for the long-term unemployed – the 99ers, was not even discussed by those brokering the agreement.
On Wednesday, one of the most vocal Democrats in opposition to the bill, Peter Welch [D,VT], appeared to sum up the Democrats current position on the bill, with him being resigned to the fact that the bill would be passed by the House without any "significant" modification, saying "The die is now cast," and that "any further discussion of changes to the bill are now academic."
So it appears now that the Democrats have rolled over and caved in to the Republicans threats to block any amendments to the bill. By folding so easily, the Democrats have abandoned several million people to fend for themselves, leaving them without any form of assistance or income to tide them over until the nations depressed job market improves. To say that these people feel betrayed and abandoned by the Government is an understatement.
Readers have expressed their dismay, with Martin writing "I can't believe that this country of ours runs to help other countries in need, but is unwilling to help its fellow Americans. These Republicans are fighting because they want tax breaks for the wealthy and super wealthy, who in turn are sending all their jobs and business overseas. This has to be a literal crime against all Americans. I really don't understand why no one is voicing this in the media."
Another reader writes "It is said that the American voter has a short memory, but without relief for millions of 99ers in this package, this nightmare is just beginning. How many will it take before Congress wakes up to the untold suffering that is life without any unemployment benefits and abject poverty? When will the numbers get big enough that even the Republicans can not ignore them? Can they ever get big enough to make a difference?
The feelings of many were summed up by this comment: "There was never a Country as free as the United States of America. When it came into being, no such country had ever existed. People fought for their lives to keep such a freedom alive…Now once again more than ever here we stand again, watching our freedoms begin to disappear one by one. The Rich are becoming richer and more powerful as the Middle Class Begins to disappear and the poor just become poorer. How long will we stand and watch before we take action again, to save our freedoms here in the United States of America!"
As they say, a week is a long time in politics and no more so then in the current lame duck session. Less then a week ago, the Democrats in the House of Representatives were in rebellion over the deal made between President Obama and the Republicans.
The most contentious issues of the agreement between the President and the GOP were the extensions of all the Bush era tax cuts for a further 2 years, but only a further 13 months extension for federal emergency unemployment insurance tiers 1 - 4. And a glaring omission was that the subject of a Tier 5 for the long-term unemployed – the 99ers, was not even discussed by those brokering the agreement.
On Wednesday, one of the most vocal Democrats in opposition to the bill, Peter Welch [D,VT], appeared to sum up the Democrats current position on the bill, with him being resigned to the fact that the bill would be passed by the House without any "significant" modification, saying "The die is now cast," and that "any further discussion of changes to the bill are now academic."
So it appears now that the Democrats have rolled over and caved in to the Republicans threats to block any amendments to the bill. By folding so easily, the Democrats have abandoned several million people to fend for themselves, leaving them without any form of assistance or income to tide them over until the nations depressed job market improves. To say that these people feel betrayed and abandoned by the Government is an understatement.
Readers have expressed their dismay, with Martin writing "I can't believe that this country of ours runs to help other countries in need, but is unwilling to help its fellow Americans. These Republicans are fighting because they want tax breaks for the wealthy and super wealthy, who in turn are sending all their jobs and business overseas. This has to be a literal crime against all Americans. I really don't understand why no one is voicing this in the media."
Another reader writes "It is said that the American voter has a short memory, but without relief for millions of 99ers in this package, this nightmare is just beginning. How many will it take before Congress wakes up to the untold suffering that is life without any unemployment benefits and abject poverty? When will the numbers get big enough that even the Republicans can not ignore them? Can they ever get big enough to make a difference?
The feelings of many were summed up by this comment: "There was never a Country as free as the United States of America. When it came into being, no such country had ever existed. People fought for their lives to keep such a freedom alive…Now once again more than ever here we stand again, watching our freedoms begin to disappear one by one. The Rich are becoming richer and more powerful as the Middle Class Begins to disappear and the poor just become poorer. How long will we stand and watch before we take action again, to save our freedoms here in the United States of America!"
Monday, December 13, 2010
Long-term unemployment is worrying - Dec. 13, 2010
Long-term unemployment is worrying - Dec. 13, 2010: "FORTUNE -- What happens to a nation's collective psyche when millions of once-productive people remain out of work for months or even years? What happens when unemployed husbands resign themselves to relying on a wife's income, when unemployed wives feel trapped at home, when twenty- and thirtysomethings calculate that they'd rather live off their parents than face a cut-throat job market, when middle-aged men and women stop searching for jobs after realizing they're hopelessly lost in a haze of rapid-fire technological change?
The pre-holiday bickering over tax cuts and extending unemployment benefits is drowning out a December government number so frightening it should concentrate the minds of every posturing political leader in Washington: 9.8% unemployment. That is staggering, up from when the recession ended 18 months ago, and comes despite signs of recovery in retail, real estate, and corporate profits.
Especially troubling is that long-term unemployment continues to mount. 'It is unprecedented in post--World War II U.S. history to have 3% of the labor force unemployed for over a year,' Narayana Kocherlakota, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, said in a recent speech. 'If history is any guide, this year-plus unemployment rate will only revert to pre-recession levels after several years.'
Add to that mix this perplexing fact: While there aren't nearly enough jobs, there are more of them -- a lot more. Since the month after the recession ended, the number of available jobs has surged 44%, according to the Labor Department. Job vacancies are nowhere near pre-recession levels (according to the Conference Board, there are still 10.4 million more unemployed workers than advertised vacancies). Still, there are as many as three million jobs going unfilled.
Various economists have posited various reasons for this mismatch:
* Employers, still reeling from all the downsizing they've had to do, are pickier about whom they hire and slower to close the deal.
* Jobless workers, especially those out of work for months and years, don't have the skills to multitask in a fast-paced economy where medical workers need to know electronic record-keeping, machinists need computer skills, and marketing managers can no longer delegate software duties.
* Workers, some of whom feel cushioned by unemployment benefits, are too picky to take lower-paying or less prestigious jobs.
* There is a geographic divide between where the jobless are -- states like Florida, Nevada, and Michigan -- and where the jobs are -- states like Maryland, South Dakota, and Iowa. Relocation is especially hard if your mortgage is under water.
The cost of not working
Whatever the right mix of reasons, the fallout is crippling. Economically, long-term joblessness means fewer dollars for consumption. For deficit control, it means fewer taxpayers contributing to government revenues and tens of billions more spent on unemployment insurance. Then there is the psychological toll on individuals and families -- and on the nation.
Early on in the recession, popular culture seized on the romantic notion of tightening our belts and looking inward to frills-free fun with our friends and families, after a decade of borrowed hyperconsumption. Now we need to ask a less romantic question: What happens when millions of Americans lose the habit of work, a habit that lends balance, structure, dignity -- and, of course, economic support -- to lives?
The longer people are unemployed the less employable they become. Skills become rusty; managers look more suspiciously at someone who has been out of work for years than a candidate already employed. I remember an old conservative saying: Graduate from high school; get a job -- any job; get married -- stay married; and (statistically speaking) your chances of landing in poverty are practically nil.
Even if that was once true, that calculation has lost some relevancy in this far more complex economy. But the concept of getting people back on the ladder, even if it's on a lower rung, is a worthy one.
Hopefully, Congress will pass a tax bill that gives business enough certainty and financial incentive to create more jobs. Hopefully, economic growth will begin to put a dent in that loss of 8 million jobs since the recession hit.
But an even knottier problem facing the nation's political leadership, from the President on down, is how to get the long-term unemployed into jobs as they become available. To avoid becoming chronically unemployed, people need more than platitudes offering sympathy. Career reinvention requires encouragement and guidance. Business leaders have specifics to offer on what jobs will be coming down the pike in expanding sectors like health care, and what skills are needed. They should to be brought into the political dialogue.
President Obama opened the conversation this fall with an industry-led initiative to better match community college graduates with skilled jobs. He followed with a Dec. 6 speech calling for a 'Sputnik moment' to restart American innovation to create jobs and compete in the world.
But as he assembles a largely new economic team, the President face a more immediate challenge: the need for a 'Manhattan Project' to get the long-term jobless back to work, something that would boost the psyche of both the unemployed and the nation
- Sent using Google Toolbar"
The pre-holiday bickering over tax cuts and extending unemployment benefits is drowning out a December government number so frightening it should concentrate the minds of every posturing political leader in Washington: 9.8% unemployment. That is staggering, up from when the recession ended 18 months ago, and comes despite signs of recovery in retail, real estate, and corporate profits.
Especially troubling is that long-term unemployment continues to mount. 'It is unprecedented in post--World War II U.S. history to have 3% of the labor force unemployed for over a year,' Narayana Kocherlakota, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, said in a recent speech. 'If history is any guide, this year-plus unemployment rate will only revert to pre-recession levels after several years.'
Add to that mix this perplexing fact: While there aren't nearly enough jobs, there are more of them -- a lot more. Since the month after the recession ended, the number of available jobs has surged 44%, according to the Labor Department. Job vacancies are nowhere near pre-recession levels (according to the Conference Board, there are still 10.4 million more unemployed workers than advertised vacancies). Still, there are as many as three million jobs going unfilled.
Various economists have posited various reasons for this mismatch:
* Employers, still reeling from all the downsizing they've had to do, are pickier about whom they hire and slower to close the deal.
* Jobless workers, especially those out of work for months and years, don't have the skills to multitask in a fast-paced economy where medical workers need to know electronic record-keeping, machinists need computer skills, and marketing managers can no longer delegate software duties.
* Workers, some of whom feel cushioned by unemployment benefits, are too picky to take lower-paying or less prestigious jobs.
* There is a geographic divide between where the jobless are -- states like Florida, Nevada, and Michigan -- and where the jobs are -- states like Maryland, South Dakota, and Iowa. Relocation is especially hard if your mortgage is under water.
The cost of not working
Whatever the right mix of reasons, the fallout is crippling. Economically, long-term joblessness means fewer dollars for consumption. For deficit control, it means fewer taxpayers contributing to government revenues and tens of billions more spent on unemployment insurance. Then there is the psychological toll on individuals and families -- and on the nation.
Early on in the recession, popular culture seized on the romantic notion of tightening our belts and looking inward to frills-free fun with our friends and families, after a decade of borrowed hyperconsumption. Now we need to ask a less romantic question: What happens when millions of Americans lose the habit of work, a habit that lends balance, structure, dignity -- and, of course, economic support -- to lives?
The longer people are unemployed the less employable they become. Skills become rusty; managers look more suspiciously at someone who has been out of work for years than a candidate already employed. I remember an old conservative saying: Graduate from high school; get a job -- any job; get married -- stay married; and (statistically speaking) your chances of landing in poverty are practically nil.
Even if that was once true, that calculation has lost some relevancy in this far more complex economy. But the concept of getting people back on the ladder, even if it's on a lower rung, is a worthy one.
Hopefully, Congress will pass a tax bill that gives business enough certainty and financial incentive to create more jobs. Hopefully, economic growth will begin to put a dent in that loss of 8 million jobs since the recession hit.
But an even knottier problem facing the nation's political leadership, from the President on down, is how to get the long-term unemployed into jobs as they become available. To avoid becoming chronically unemployed, people need more than platitudes offering sympathy. Career reinvention requires encouragement and guidance. Business leaders have specifics to offer on what jobs will be coming down the pike in expanding sectors like health care, and what skills are needed. They should to be brought into the political dialogue.
President Obama opened the conversation this fall with an industry-led initiative to better match community college graduates with skilled jobs. He followed with a Dec. 6 speech calling for a 'Sputnik moment' to restart American innovation to create jobs and compete in the world.
But as he assembles a largely new economic team, the President face a more immediate challenge: the need for a 'Manhattan Project' to get the long-term jobless back to work, something that would boost the psyche of both the unemployed and the nation
- Sent using Google Toolbar"
Thursday, December 2, 2010
Abby Ale to be made in Chico
Reporting from Vina, Calif. — For the Trappist monks at the Abbey of New Clairvaux, life follows a pattern centuries old.
They spend their days in the field and their nights in silence. They gather in prayer seven times daily, starting at 3:30 a.m. In many of their affairs, they are still guided by the 6th century Rule of St. Benedict — but not one of its 73 chapters deals with their current travails.
Benedict offers no words of wisdom on how the monks might find the funds to complete their most passionate pursuit: the resurrection of a medieval monastery from a jumble of stones William Randolph Hearst shipped over from Spain.
He is silent, too, on negotiating deals with a major brewery.
The 23 monks at the rustic abbey north of Chico are seasoned winemakers — their Poor Souls Petite Syrah is a prizewinner — but, until a recent agreement with Sierra Nevada, all they knew of beer was how, on occasion, to drink it.
They are learning.
In partnership with the monks, Sierra Nevada next year will release an ale that pays tribute to the renowned Trappist beers of Europe. The brew also will be a boost to New Clairvaux, with the company pouring some of the venture's profits into the monastery reconstruction project. Sierra Nevada will train Father Thomas X. Davis, New Clairvaux's 77-year-old abbot emeritus, as a "sensory professional" — a beer taster who knows his phenols from his esters.
The alliance was forged only in the last year when the monks contacted the brewery, one of Chico's biggest businesses.
"We approached them for a fundraiser," said Davis, a trim, wry man who also serves as the abbey's forklift operator. "I felt so outlandish."
But what's one outlandish moment in a saga spanning more than 800 years?
****
In 1190, monks started building the Santa Maria de Ovila monastery about 90 miles northeast of Madrid. For centuries the complex thrived, but by 1835 it was left to decay. Farm animals wandered through the chapel. The chapter house — a community hall so named for the chapters from the Rule of Benedict that were read daily — became a manure pit.
Nearly a century later, an art dealer working for Hearst, a voracious collector, stumbled across the ruins and purchased them for $85,000. Never one to think small, the legendary newspaper publisher planned to use Ovila's limestone blocks in a grand redesign of Wyntoon, his family retreat at the base of Mt. Shasta.
In 1931, more than 100 workers dismantled the monastery and 11 freighters hauled the stones — 2,200 tons in all — to San Francisco. Under Hearst's plan, they were to be used for a palace that would outshine San Simeon. Ovila's 1,800-square-foot chapter house was to be reconstructed as a reception hall for an eight-story castle. Its chapel was to be transformed into a swimming pool 150 feet long.
The Depression scuttled Hearst's vision. Ultimately, he gave the stones — some weighing as much as half a ton — to San Francisco for construction of a medieval museum. But for decades they sat in Golden Gate Park, where they were scorched by fires and smashed by vandals. Some were used for a retaining wall at the Japanese Garden and others in projects throughoutthe park.
In 1955, Father Davis was passing through San Francisco when a friend pointed out crates of stones piled in a eucalyptus grove behind the de Young Museum. The friend told him they were the remnants of a Cistercian monastery.
"It was like being caught up in a dream," Davis recalled. The neglected remains were those of an all-but-forgotten sacred place founded by members of his own order — now known as Cistercians of the Strict Observance, or Trappists.
"Wouldn't it be a wonderful thing," he thought, "to get them for the abbey?"
****
When Davis took over as abbot 15 years later, he hadn't forgotten the stones. From time to time, he read stories in the San Francisco papers either about new plans to use them or anger at their continued neglect. He never quit thinking that somehow they could be put to good use on the abbey's 590 acres of vines and prune trees, part of a huge spread once owned by California railroad tycoon and politician Leland Stanford.
Sometime in the 1980s, a group of New Clairvaux monks drove to San Francisco and, with permission from parks officials, loaded a pickup with about 20 stones. "I thought we'd use them artistically around the abbey somewhere," Davis said.
But nobody told Margaret Burke, an architectural historian who had a grant to study the prospect of the monastery's reconstruction. When she learned that some of the stones were at New Clairvaux, she showed up to retrieve them.
"She was expecting I would give her a hard time," said Davis, "but I'm not that kind of person."
Burke left with the stones — and with the impression that if Ovila didn't rise in Golden Gate Park, it just might have a good home at New Clairvaux
In 1994, museum officials gave the monks the go-ahead to take the lot. The only requirement was that they start work within 10 years on a project that would be open to the public.
The next year, the last of 19 truckloads left San Francisco for Vina. It was a poignant moment, ceremonially marked by a handful of modern-day Druids who had long used the stones in worship. Davis left some behind for them.
When the dust cleared, the abbey had about 1,300 stones — a fraction of Hearst's shipment from Spain. That would be enough, Burke had concluded, to restore the chapter house.
****
Davis became the plan's overseer, champion, fundraiser and publicist. As word spread, foundations and individuals gave money. Some people made bequests. So far, about $6 million has come in, with an additional $1 million needed to complete the chapter house by 2012.
It's exacting work, made even more complex by the need for a concrete superstructure to brace the medieval building against earthquakes. Craftsmen familiar with dramatically vaulted Gothic ceilings are rare in the farm country around Vina.
For six years, the job has been supervised by Frank Helmholz, a German master mason who splits his time between the abbey and a restoration project at Egypt's Temple of Luxor. Clambering up a ladder in the chapter house, he confesses to a daily dose of awe, pointing out the signatures inscribed by long-ago Spanish carvers: cross-hatched lines, a backward N, even a Star of David. Others are still heaped shoulder-high in the vast brick barn built to store Stanford's brandy at what was once the world's largest winery.
"I feel a connection to the old stonemasons," Helmholz said as he helped workers hoist a stone with a pulley and chain. "For me, it's a labor from on high."
The building is about three-quarters done. It's as spare as Shaker furniture, reflecting the Trappists' unadorned faith.
"The simplicity, the depth, the light: It's a nice image of God," Davis said.
With its columns and arched entryways, it is intended to look much as it did when Spanish monks assembled it in the centuries before Columbus set sail.
Exactly how it looked back then is a matter of scholarly speculation. Builders working on the New Clairvaux project were guided by photographs and drawings made as the original chapter house was pried apart in 1931 — when it was a dilapidated shell. Only about 60% of the original stones survived the centuries in Spain and their exile in San Francisco; the rest were carved out of a limestone quarry in Texas, the closest place builders could find stones that matched the ones in Spain.
****
At Sierra Nevada's headquarters in Chico, 20 miles south of the abbey, executives have been keeping an eye on the chapter house's progress.
Seven Trappist monasteries in Belgium and Holland own the trademark "Trappist beer" and zealously guard its use. Sierra Nevada's "abbey ale" will be released in three varieties next winter, summer and fall. All will be called Ovila, in a nod to the project at New Clairvaux.
Though Ovila will not be labeled a Trappist beer, the brewery is taking the Trappist tradition seriously.
"Everybody in the brewing business knows about the legacy of Trappist beers," said Sierra Nevada spokesman Bill Manley. "It's monumental."
Manley, Sierra Nevada founder Ken Grossman and other executives recently visited Trappist monasteries that brew beer in Belgium, with Davis as their guide.
"I know some of the monks over there," he said. "And, as it happened, I had nothing else to do."
Neither the abbey nor the brewery is disclosing how much money the ale will generate.
At about $10 per champagne-style bottle, that's up to high-end consumers who have a taste for Belgium or a soft spot for medieval monastic history.
"Who knows?" Davis said with a smile. "It depends how much they drink."
steve.chawkins@latimes.com
They spend their days in the field and their nights in silence. They gather in prayer seven times daily, starting at 3:30 a.m. In many of their affairs, they are still guided by the 6th century Rule of St. Benedict — but not one of its 73 chapters deals with their current travails.
Benedict offers no words of wisdom on how the monks might find the funds to complete their most passionate pursuit: the resurrection of a medieval monastery from a jumble of stones William Randolph Hearst shipped over from Spain.
He is silent, too, on negotiating deals with a major brewery.
The 23 monks at the rustic abbey north of Chico are seasoned winemakers — their Poor Souls Petite Syrah is a prizewinner — but, until a recent agreement with Sierra Nevada, all they knew of beer was how, on occasion, to drink it.
They are learning.
In partnership with the monks, Sierra Nevada next year will release an ale that pays tribute to the renowned Trappist beers of Europe. The brew also will be a boost to New Clairvaux, with the company pouring some of the venture's profits into the monastery reconstruction project. Sierra Nevada will train Father Thomas X. Davis, New Clairvaux's 77-year-old abbot emeritus, as a "sensory professional" — a beer taster who knows his phenols from his esters.
The alliance was forged only in the last year when the monks contacted the brewery, one of Chico's biggest businesses.
"We approached them for a fundraiser," said Davis, a trim, wry man who also serves as the abbey's forklift operator. "I felt so outlandish."
But what's one outlandish moment in a saga spanning more than 800 years?
****
In 1190, monks started building the Santa Maria de Ovila monastery about 90 miles northeast of Madrid. For centuries the complex thrived, but by 1835 it was left to decay. Farm animals wandered through the chapel. The chapter house — a community hall so named for the chapters from the Rule of Benedict that were read daily — became a manure pit.
Nearly a century later, an art dealer working for Hearst, a voracious collector, stumbled across the ruins and purchased them for $85,000. Never one to think small, the legendary newspaper publisher planned to use Ovila's limestone blocks in a grand redesign of Wyntoon, his family retreat at the base of Mt. Shasta.
In 1931, more than 100 workers dismantled the monastery and 11 freighters hauled the stones — 2,200 tons in all — to San Francisco. Under Hearst's plan, they were to be used for a palace that would outshine San Simeon. Ovila's 1,800-square-foot chapter house was to be reconstructed as a reception hall for an eight-story castle. Its chapel was to be transformed into a swimming pool 150 feet long.
The Depression scuttled Hearst's vision. Ultimately, he gave the stones — some weighing as much as half a ton — to San Francisco for construction of a medieval museum. But for decades they sat in Golden Gate Park, where they were scorched by fires and smashed by vandals. Some were used for a retaining wall at the Japanese Garden and others in projects throughoutthe park.
In 1955, Father Davis was passing through San Francisco when a friend pointed out crates of stones piled in a eucalyptus grove behind the de Young Museum. The friend told him they were the remnants of a Cistercian monastery.
"It was like being caught up in a dream," Davis recalled. The neglected remains were those of an all-but-forgotten sacred place founded by members of his own order — now known as Cistercians of the Strict Observance, or Trappists.
"Wouldn't it be a wonderful thing," he thought, "to get them for the abbey?"
****
When Davis took over as abbot 15 years later, he hadn't forgotten the stones. From time to time, he read stories in the San Francisco papers either about new plans to use them or anger at their continued neglect. He never quit thinking that somehow they could be put to good use on the abbey's 590 acres of vines and prune trees, part of a huge spread once owned by California railroad tycoon and politician Leland Stanford.
Sometime in the 1980s, a group of New Clairvaux monks drove to San Francisco and, with permission from parks officials, loaded a pickup with about 20 stones. "I thought we'd use them artistically around the abbey somewhere," Davis said.
But nobody told Margaret Burke, an architectural historian who had a grant to study the prospect of the monastery's reconstruction. When she learned that some of the stones were at New Clairvaux, she showed up to retrieve them.
"She was expecting I would give her a hard time," said Davis, "but I'm not that kind of person."
Burke left with the stones — and with the impression that if Ovila didn't rise in Golden Gate Park, it just might have a good home at New Clairvaux
In 1994, museum officials gave the monks the go-ahead to take the lot. The only requirement was that they start work within 10 years on a project that would be open to the public.
The next year, the last of 19 truckloads left San Francisco for Vina. It was a poignant moment, ceremonially marked by a handful of modern-day Druids who had long used the stones in worship. Davis left some behind for them.
When the dust cleared, the abbey had about 1,300 stones — a fraction of Hearst's shipment from Spain. That would be enough, Burke had concluded, to restore the chapter house.
****
Davis became the plan's overseer, champion, fundraiser and publicist. As word spread, foundations and individuals gave money. Some people made bequests. So far, about $6 million has come in, with an additional $1 million needed to complete the chapter house by 2012.
It's exacting work, made even more complex by the need for a concrete superstructure to brace the medieval building against earthquakes. Craftsmen familiar with dramatically vaulted Gothic ceilings are rare in the farm country around Vina.
For six years, the job has been supervised by Frank Helmholz, a German master mason who splits his time between the abbey and a restoration project at Egypt's Temple of Luxor. Clambering up a ladder in the chapter house, he confesses to a daily dose of awe, pointing out the signatures inscribed by long-ago Spanish carvers: cross-hatched lines, a backward N, even a Star of David. Others are still heaped shoulder-high in the vast brick barn built to store Stanford's brandy at what was once the world's largest winery.
"I feel a connection to the old stonemasons," Helmholz said as he helped workers hoist a stone with a pulley and chain. "For me, it's a labor from on high."
The building is about three-quarters done. It's as spare as Shaker furniture, reflecting the Trappists' unadorned faith.
"The simplicity, the depth, the light: It's a nice image of God," Davis said.
With its columns and arched entryways, it is intended to look much as it did when Spanish monks assembled it in the centuries before Columbus set sail.
Exactly how it looked back then is a matter of scholarly speculation. Builders working on the New Clairvaux project were guided by photographs and drawings made as the original chapter house was pried apart in 1931 — when it was a dilapidated shell. Only about 60% of the original stones survived the centuries in Spain and their exile in San Francisco; the rest were carved out of a limestone quarry in Texas, the closest place builders could find stones that matched the ones in Spain.
****
At Sierra Nevada's headquarters in Chico, 20 miles south of the abbey, executives have been keeping an eye on the chapter house's progress.
Seven Trappist monasteries in Belgium and Holland own the trademark "Trappist beer" and zealously guard its use. Sierra Nevada's "abbey ale" will be released in three varieties next winter, summer and fall. All will be called Ovila, in a nod to the project at New Clairvaux.
Though Ovila will not be labeled a Trappist beer, the brewery is taking the Trappist tradition seriously.
"Everybody in the brewing business knows about the legacy of Trappist beers," said Sierra Nevada spokesman Bill Manley. "It's monumental."
Manley, Sierra Nevada founder Ken Grossman and other executives recently visited Trappist monasteries that brew beer in Belgium, with Davis as their guide.
"I know some of the monks over there," he said. "And, as it happened, I had nothing else to do."
Neither the abbey nor the brewery is disclosing how much money the ale will generate.
At about $10 per champagne-style bottle, that's up to high-end consumers who have a taste for Belgium or a soft spot for medieval monastic history.
"Who knows?" Davis said with a smile. "It depends how much they drink."
steve.chawkins@latimes.com
Copyright © 2010, Los Angeles Times
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