The Awards Committee invites all Angeles Chapter entity chairs to submit nominees for the 2011 chapter awards. The submission deadline is Tuesday, November 1, 2011. Submissions can be sent any time before that date. Late applications will be held over for the 2012 awards, so earlier is better to ensure all candidates are honored in a timely way.

The ocean is our friend. It supplies us with food and recreation, helps regulate our climate and is the livelihood for millions of people. But our seas are not the infinite bounty they appear to be. For many years worldwide fishing practices have been damaging the oceans by depleting fish populations, destroying habitats and polluting the water. According to Marine Conservation Biologist Callum Roberts, the author of 'The Unnatural History of the Sea', intensive fishing since medieval times has caused a gradual decline over the centuries, so that a fish-deprived sea now seems normal to us.

What made 292 members of the House of Representatives pass the infamous bill HR872?

Let's see. The bill, or rather this legislative outrage, would keep the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from adopting guidelines to keep pesticide discharges out of our waterways. And to make matters worse, they called it 'The Reducing Regulatory Burdens Act'.

My husband and I decreased our water consumption by digging out the grass, and any other plants that need irrigatIon. There are a million beautiful native and Mediterranean things that will grow here in our climate with litt1e water. Low-water yards can be a lot more imaginative that a few cactuses and a decorative cow skull and just as pretty as the east coast yards that use water-gulping vareties of flowers.