THE SMOKE drifting into Mendocino County, mostly on Sunday, is assumed to be coming from large-scale fires burning in Butte County and three fires farther north, well north of the Mendocino County line. 5,000 firefighters are battling a total of ten wildfires in California. The National Weather Service has issued a red flag warning for coastal counties from Mendocino to Monterey due to the possibility that the combination of dry lightning and gusty winds could create dangerously dry fire conditions up and down the state. A fire weather watch begins Monday for the Northern California mountains and foothills.

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RANDOM OPINIONS: The gist of the Brown Act is that the public business be conducted in public. Why the Point Arena School Board would be so silly as to deny board candidate Susan Rush access to a draft of a document called “Systems Analysis — Point Arena Schools District — Technology Task Force — Technology Insertion Program,” is not known. Ms. Rush is probably the only person in the world who wants to read the thing. She clearly annoys the PA board, especially a couple of the men who sit on it, but that’s hardly reason to keep public documents away from her. Ms. Rush says her next stop just might be the DA’s office, perennially reluctant to take on school-related issues having to do with the Brown Act. But if the DA would deign to take up a Brown Act beef (as is their legal obligation) it would certainly have a salubrious affect on the rest of the County’s secrecy sillies. The basic prob is the ancient one of “Give a fool a little power…”

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YOU PROBABLY KNOW that all Mendocino County’s school boards pay wayyyyyy too much to a Santa Rosa legal collective of, in my direct experience of them, marginal competence. But the way this legal combine has set themselves up as an adjunct of Mendocino County’s school districts, they get a fat annual retainer and are paid separately for their sagacity if a school drone administrator calls them up for advice on how to shut down a complaining parent or a pesky member of the public. Most people probably still assume that money for schools goes to their children’s classrooms. Some of it, but most goes to staff and barnacles fixed to that big pot of public money like these educational lawyers who are now an extension of your local school district and apply their dubious legal acumen strictly to the advantage of school boards and their administrators. Or administrators and their school boards, which is the way school authority works these days with school administrators and the school apparatus selecting the school boards. (In Boonville, for years the school board simply ratified whatever the school administration handed them. There was a huge hullabaloo a few months ago when the board, in a rare show of independence, voted 3-2 not to renew the contract of the high school principal, a guy who didn’t belong in the position in the first place. Since, the board has returned to volunteer captivity, but the school lawyers ran up a nice big bill “advising” the president of the school board and her pal, the school superintendent.) If you try to sue a school district or a school board, they get free legal advice from the Santa Rosa office while you have to pay your lawyer, a huge deterrent to lawsuits from the affected public. It’s all a kind of white collar racketeering, and one more reason America’s public schools are the temples of mediocrity they’ve become.

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MIGUEL TEJADA, the great veteran shortstop, has been suspended for 105 games. His crime? He got caught with an amphetamine-like drug, Adderall, in his blood sample. I don’t understand how speed would give you an edge in playing baseball. It might help you get over a hangover real quick, help you stay awake on a long, hot day, but it’s not going to enhance your performance, is it? (Any tweeker ballplayers out there? We need an expert opinion here.) The usual Major League Baseball drug suspensions are for substances that improve your strength and your vision. Super human strength and radically enhanced vision (cf Barry Bonds) definitely help a baseball player, but in exchange for his hair, scrotum, complexion, and liver. Any drug that helps a hitter see the ball better gives the guy taking that drug a big advantage, the difference between a pea and a volleyball coming at you.

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PRIVATIZATION QUESTIONS

Letter to the Editor:

Here are questions for the supervisors that citizens of Mendocino County deserve answers to:

Why did the supervisors allow the mental health privatization adult contract to go to the former employer of the Mental Health Director, instead of to the immensely more qualified and experienced Optum?

Where are the promised Fort Bragg and Ukiah Crisis Residential facilities?

How can contractors, inexperienced in tiered crisis care provide this for our County with just a portion of the federal and state money coming in annually?

Why do we now have eight crisis phone numbers?

Why do the supervisors allow administrators to make medical decisions to hospitalize someone in psychiatric crisis?

Why do supervisors allow Crisis Workers to overrule medical decisions by physicians?

Why do people have to hire lawyers to get their sick, vulnerable and gravely disabled loved one conserved?

Why don’t supervisors see that state and federal money for mental health patients is used for crisis care with early intervention and for recovery programs in all our communities? What have you done with all that money (up to $25 million/year)?

Why is Ortner’s North Valley Behavioral Health called a “warehouse” by people whose loved ones go there?

Why does Fort Bragg Mental Health turn people away and say we don’t do crisis here — call this 800 number?

Why did the supervisors not require a medical provider license for the last five Mental Health Directors?

Where is the informed moral leadership and courage that we have a right to expect from our elected officials?

Sonya Nesch, Comptche

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THE SEGMENT of ‘This American Life’ which features Mendocino County Tom Allman and other recognizable Mendolanders (Northstone Organics’s Mitch Cohen, Supervisor John McCowen, et al) involved in the now defunct Mendocino Medical Marijuana Cultivation Program (aka the “9.31 cultivation program” is now up and available for listening at:

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/503/i-was-just-trying-to-help

It’s a little under 18 minutes, a decent recap of how a reasonable attempt to bring order to the smaller, legitimate end of the medical marijuana business got taken down by an overzealous US attorney and the Federal anti-marijuana brigades.

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THE PARTNER OF A JOURNALIST who received leaks from former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden was detained for nearly nine hours Sunday under anti-terror legislation at London’s Heathrow Airport, triggering claims that authorities are trying to interfere with reporting on the issue.

David Miranda, the partner of Guardian reporter Glenn Greenwald, was held for nearly the maximum time authorities are allowed to detain individuals under the Terrorism Act’s Schedule 7, which authorizes security agencies to stop and question people at borders. Greenwald said Miranda’s cellphone, laptops and memory sticks were confiscated.

“This is obviously a rather profound escalation of their attacks on the news-gathering process and journalism,” Greenwald said in a post on the London Guardian website where his reports on the NSA regularly appear. “It’s bad enough to prosecute and imprison sources. It’s worse still to imprison journalists who report the truth. But to start detaining the family members and loved ones of journalists is simply despotic.”

Greenwald has written a series of stories about the NSA’s electronic surveillance programs based on files handed over by Snowden. The former contractor fled the United States and is now in Russia, where he has received temporary asylum.

The 28-year-old Miranda was returning home to Brazil from Germany, where he was staying with Laura Poitras, a US filmmaker who has worked with Greenwald on the NSA story, Greenwald said in his post. He also said British authorities had “zero suspicion” that Miranda was linked to a terror group and instead interrogated him about the NSA reporting and the contents of the electronic equipment he was carrying.

“If the UK and US governments believe that tactics like this are going to deter or intimidate us in any way from continuing to report aggressively on what these documents reveal, they are beyond deluded,” he said. “If anything, it will have only the opposite effect: to embolden us even further.”

London police acknowledged that they had detained a 28-year-old man at 8:05am. He was released at 5pm without being arrested, the Metropolitan Police Service said.

“They kept David detained right up until the last minute: for the full nine hours, something they very rarely do. Only at the last minute did they finally release him,” Greenwald said. “This was obviously designed to send a message of intimidation to those of us working journalistically on reporting on the NSA and its British counterpart, the GCHQ.”

The British Home Office says in a report released last year that more than 97% of those questioned under Schedule 7 are detained for less than an hour. Less than a tenth of 1% are held for more than six hours. Some 230,236 people were questioned under Schedule 7 from April 2009 through March 2012.

Schedule 7 is designed to help authorities determine whether people crossing UK borders have been involved in the “commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism,” according to the Home Office report. Border agents are not required to have reasonable suspicion before detaining a traveler.

Examining officers may require travelers to answer questions or provide documents. Detainees may be held for up to nine hours if they refuse to cooperate, the Home Office report said.

Greenwald’s post said the Guardian sent lawyers to the airport. Detainees have the right to legal representation, though publicly funded legal advice is not guaranteed.

The Brazilian government expressed “grave concern” over the detention of Miranda, Greenwald’s longtime partner with whom he’s in a civil union. The pair lives in Rio de Janeiro.

Brazil’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement Sunday that Miranda was “detained and held incommunicado.”

The statement went on to say that the Brazilian foreign ministry considered the detention “unjustifiable, as it involves an individual against whom there are no accusations that could possibly legitimize the use of such legislation.”

(Courtesy, the Associated Press)

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AN INVITATION TO TRY YOUR HAND AT GUALALA RIVER ALCHEMY! An invitation-only event where we will attempt to change Chainsaw Wine into water!

AT 1PM SATURDAY, AUGUST 24, 2013 Annapolis Winery, Annapolis (in Northern Sonoma County). Be there at the first, fun kick-off event in a public campaign to convince the third largest corporate winery in the world to spare 154 acres of Gualala River’s redwood forest from the chainsaw. They plan to clear-cut more than a million board-feet of raw timber to build a sprawling vineyard development over a district of historic Pomo meadows, forest, villages and campsites. This is the only proposed redwood deforestation project in California, and with its end, we will make it the last. Not only will you be given a bottle of this troubling Chainsaw “Wine” to work your magic on, but you will have the pleasure to hear unique presentations from the noted writer and activist Starhawk, and local Kashaya Pomo traditional storyteller and artist Eric Wilder.

Eric Wilder, storyteller

Their compelling words and tales will entertain and inspire you to see this deforestation threat in a broader context. Your participation will send the first volley out of a powerful message to the corporate headquarters of the Spain-based Artesa Winery. Show them that the silent forest and river have friends with big voices to oppose Chainsaw Wine. Let the world know that red wine made from redwood clear cuts is undrinkable — no redwood deforestation for new vineyards. Graciously hosted by the Annapolis Winery (not a drop of Chainsaw Wine to their name!). Location: 26055 Soda Springs Road (at the corner of Annapolis Road and Soda Springs Road) in Annapolis, directly across from the Artesa project forest site. See all the background on the Artesa project and the effort to stop the project by activists and the Friends of the Gualala River at GualalaRiver.org. Or more specifically: http://www.gualalariver.org/vineyards/artesa.html.

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GREAT DAY IN ELK — The 39th fun-filled “Great Day in Elk” will be held this coming Saturday, August 24, from 12pm until 7pm. The parade starts at noon on Highway 1, with floats, tykes on bikes, Smokey the Bear and lots more. The carnival follows, with game booths and prizes and do-it-yourself craft projects for children. There’s a $100 grease pole, fortune-telling, a massage booth, a watermelon-eating contest, sack races, bounce house, crafts fair, a cake auction, silent auction and a raffle drawing. Daytime food includes Terri’s famous oysters, caesar salad, fresh baked focaccia bread, Moroccan lentil soup, old-fashioned hot dogs and lots of homemade goodies. There will be fresh-pressed Greenwood Ridge apple cider and Elk’s famous margaritas, along with soft drinks and beer. The afternoon entertainment includes live music, dance and juggling. This year’s dinner will be an outdoor barbecue from 3:00 to 7:00 p.m. featuring grilled turkey breasts with all the trimmings and a vegetarian option.

So, come to the “Great Day” in the coastal village of Elk, located 5 miles south of Highway 128 on Highway 1, and enjoy a fun-filled family day while supporting the Greenwood Community Center. For more information call 877-3245 or go to elkweb.org. No dogs please. On Aug 18, 2013, at 1:46 AM, ava@pacific.net wrote:

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24TH ANNUAL YORKVILLE ICE CREAM SOCIAL

It’s that wonderful time of year again. It’s Yorkville Ice Cream Social time!

Please join in on Labor Day Monday at the Yorkville Communiity Center/Fire Station for a day of fun and frivolity. They’ll have ice cream, root beer floats and lots of yummy salads and Baked Goods. There is always the famous BarBQ oysters and delicious grilled burgers and sausages. This year if you come early they’ll have BBQ Tri Tip sandwiches too.

One of the highlights of the Social is the Cake Walk. Imagine musical chairs without chairs. You stroll around a numbered circle to great music, when the music stops, if you’re on the right numbered spot, you Win A Cake! An entire cake!

Get there early and get the first crack at the book sale. Hundreds of books for only $1 an inch! You can’t beat that. There will be some really great new releases and bestsellers this year. You can pick up some great CDs, movie DVDs and books on tape too.

Stock up at the produce stand featuring Yorkville’s finest fruits, vegetables and flowers of the season.

The BIG Draw is a great raffle for you to take home some wonderful prizes from all over the Anderson Valley — wine, gift certificates for local restaurants and services, t-shirts and art too.

And the best part: you get to socialize with friends and neighbors from all over the valley. Come catch up on the happenings, check out our brand new Quick Response Fire Truck and just have fun. The kids always have a good time too, they can cool off in shower of cool water from the fire hose and eat hot dogs.

All the proceeds from the Ice Cream Social benefit the Yorkville Volunteer Fire Department and the YCBA Scholarship Fund. If you’d like to donate something or your time, give us a call 707-391-4928.

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PETER RICHARDSON, TAKE TWO

by Bruce McEwen

With the announcement by Dr. Sanjay Gupta on CNN Sunday that marijuana has been shown to reduce the size of cancer tumors, the testimony of Dr. John Palmer Lovejoy in the medical marijuana case of Ukiah’s Peter Richardson is suddenly invested with more gravitas than it seemed last week. Last week, it seemed that Richardson was simply growing the stuff for America’s insatiable market while using some of what he pro­duced to beat back his prostate cancer. Gupta’s announcement Sunday night means that marijuana as medicine will seem a great deal more credible to many more people.

The efficacy of treating cancer with marijuana has been common knowledge to many Boonvillagers for years, and just last year an infant in Boonville was reportedly cured of brain cancer with the miracle drug. But until Sunday, the American Medical Association continued to dismiss apparent cannabis cures as “spontaneous remission,” and “the placebo effect,” while the mainstream media referred to the cures as “anecdotal,” by which they mean “probably untrue.”

Now, the mainstream media and the American Medical Association — long-time drug pushers for Big Pharma — don’t seem so cutting-edge.

As it happens, a major medical marijuana defense is going down in the Mendocino County courts just as Dr. Gupta and CNN decided to break the long overdue news that cannabis can arrest cancer. Until now, the only way mainstream voters could learn about the miracle drug was to sit as jurors in a medical marijuana trial.

Dr. Lovejoy, on the stand last week in The People vs. Peter Richardson, was schooled in Boston and New York as an Ob-Gyn but switched to prescribing the miracle drug when he moved out to California a few years ago. His office is in Ukiah, and he told the court that his training in medical marijuana was mainly self-taught. Defense attorney Keith Faulder asked Dr. Lovejoy if he had actually seen the medical benefits of cannabis use.

Lovejoy: “Yes, in treating a growing number and vari­ety of cancer cases and other diseases such as HIV, epilepsy, diabetes, and multiple sclerosis. The list keeps growing.”

Faulder: “Is there something in cannabis that causes it to be effective in treating these diseases?”

Lovejoy: “Yes, there’s over 100 cannabinoids and a growing body of evidence suggests that these CBDs are the effective substances in treating disease.”

Faulder: “Is there a baseline dosage?”

Lovejoy: “Yes, a typical dose of 600 milligrams has proven useful in treatment of psychosis anxieties, a dos­age extrapolated from in-vitro animal models, typically in white mice.”

Faulder: “Can you give me something more relative to this case?”

Lovejoy: “In the case of Mr. Richardson, he has a long history of motorcycle injuries and started using cannabis for his pain. Then, more recently, he was diagnosed with prostate cancer and began using cannabis to augment chemo-therapy treatments, relieve the pain from surgery and to lessen anxiety. There’s anecdotal evidence of cancer cases being completely cured, and stud­ies where 58% of patients were shown to improve — each study getting better and better.”

Dr. Lovejoy seemed transported, rapturous: “Looking at CBDs in-vitro zino grafts — treating mice with human cells — fascinating results…”

Faulder: “Yes, Dr. Lovejoy, but what about Mr. Richardson?”

Lovejoy: “Peter? He showed me his biopsy results.”

Faulder: “Have you seen any lab test results showing that cannabis has been effective in the treatment of his cancer?”

Lovejoy: “I can’t say I have. We know that prostate cancer expresses on the surface of the cells and that it should respond to the CBD cannabidiol, and it certainly appears it would over time — and relapses have certainly been dropping.”

Faulder: “Okay, is there a way to extract the CBDs from the cannabis plant?”

Lovejoy: “There is no way.”

Faulder: “So you’re stuck with using the whole plant?”

Lovejoy: “If the cannabis is raw or fresh you can take it in a form that’s not psychoactive.”

Faulder: “Have you and Peter talked about the best way for him to take it.”

Lovejoy: “Yes, Peter’s a bright guy with a science background, and he’d already done the reading to find out how it’s done. He was growing his own organic cannabis, juicing it several times a day.”

Faulder: “And Ms. McKay [Richardson’s wife, a children's protective services worker, a consensus high stress job], you recommended it for her as well?”

Lovejoy: “Yes.”

Faulder: “A particular amount?”

Lovejoy: “Yes.”

Faulder: “How much?”

Lovejoy: “To get the baseline recommendation, that’s extrapolated from the studies by Health and Human Services using lab mice.”

Faulder: “Maybe I’d better ask this — how much should Peter be taking?”

Lovejoy: “Nobody really knows, yet. But five to 20 milligrams per day is what many of us are using. Peter did his own research and came up with an amount that he thought was appropriate.”

Faulder: “And the strength of the strain of cannabis being used — is that a consideration?”

Lovejoy: “I have only the strain used in the HHS studies to go by. It’s a Northern Lights strain of 1% CBDs per pound in the dehydrated flowers, about one to one-and-quarter grams per pound. So he should be ingesting one to one-and-a-half pounds of the dehydrated flowers per day. The leaves are devoid of the cannabinoids.”

Faulder: “So he would need one-and-a-half pounds per day to get 20 milligrams of CBDs?”

Lovejoy: “Yes. If it were comparable in strength to the Northern Lights strain.”

Faulder: “And the fresher, the better?”

Lovejoy: “Yes. Any drying or heating increases the psychoactive effects.”

Faulder: “Do you have any idea about how much it would cost to buy that much cannabis?”

Lovejoy: “No, I don’t know.”

DA David Eyster rose to cross: “In preparation for your testimony today, did you do any reviews?”

Lovejoy: “Yes. The Health and Human Services materials and a British paper on prostate cancer and CBDs.”

Eyster: “Where did you get the police report on Mr. Richardson?”

Lovejoy: “From the police.”

Eyster: “You received a subpoena?”

Lovejoy: “Yes.”

Eyster: “Have you prepared any reports on Mr. Richardson?”

Lovejoy: “No.”

Eyster: “Did you review your file on Mr. Richardson?”

Lovejoy: “Yes.”

Eyster: “Are you his primary physician?”

Lovejoy: “No. Dr. Green is.”

Eyster: “Did you review Dr. Green’s medical file on Mr. Richardson?”

Lovejoy: “No.”

Eyster: “Doesn’t the Medical Board require you to do that?”

Lovejoy: “They require a number of things.”

Eyster: “When did you start seeing Mr. Richardson?”

Lovejoy: “In May of 2011.”

Eyster: “Had he seen a cannabis doctor before?”

Lovejoy: “I don’t believe so.”

Eyster: “So he was self-medicating.”

Lovejoy: “Yes.”

Eyster: “Dosing — ?”

Lovejoy: “He was smoking, vaporizing — ”

Vaporizing seems to have come and gone among most stoners, maybe because it requires too much heat for the cool crowd these days. Anyway, we’re talking meds here, not stoners.

Eyster: “When was the last time you saw Mr. Richardson?”

Lovejoy: “Two weeks ago.”

Eyster: “From today?”

Lovejoy: ”It may have been a little before that.”

Eyster: “Was that time with his wife?”

Lovejoy: “Yes.”

Eyster: “Was that the first time you saw her?”

Lovejoy: “Yes.”

Eyster: “Did he advise you of his legal problems at that time?”

Lovejoy: “He may have, yes.”

Eyster: “Did he tell you he’d been arrested for canna­bis cultivation?”

Lovejoy: “I don’t believe he did.”

Eyster: “Did he tell you he’d been arrested in 2012 for cultivation?”

Lovejoy: “I don’t believe he did.”

Eyster: “Did he tell you that in March of 2012 he had 200 pounds?”

Faulder: “Objection, your honor. He’s mis-stating the evidence, and mis-leading the witness.”

Judge Moorman: “The order was signed by Judge Nadel and — well, let’s have a sidebar.”

After a heated discussion out of earshot, Moorman returned to the bench and ruled: “I am partially sustaining the objection regarding the Russian River Estates property.”

Eyster: “When he came in to see you, did he tell you he had 354 plants?”

(Right about here is where we think Faulder’s math will probably win the case for Faulder-Richardson. As revealed last week when he elicited from Agent Hoyle that a large number of those 354 plants were still being grown, and given the daily juicing by Mr. and Mrs. Richardson, both of whom possess 215 cards, 354 doesn’t seem an unreasonable number to possess for his particular self-medication purposes.)

Faulder: “Objection. Relevance, your honor.”

Moorman: “What is the relevance?”

Eyster: “I’ll explain in a sidebar.”

Another heated discussion took place beside the bench. When it was over Moorman announced: “I’m gonna allow it.”

Eyster: “When, in 2011, when you gave Mr. Richardson a medical marijuana recommendation, what amount did you recommend for him?”

Lovejoy: “I never make recommendations on amounts.”

Eyster: “What manner of ingestion did you recommend?”

Lovejoy: “I customarily recommend my patients ingest cannabis in smoothies and juices to avoid the psychoactive effects.”

Eyster: “Do you give suggestions in the form of handouts?”

Lovejoy: “What I typically hand out is graphs and make a point of the benefits of the CBDs.”

Eyster: “What is the maximum amount you believe would be reasonable for Mr. Richardson?”

Lovejoy: “I don’t tend to think in maximum amounts.”

Eyster: “What strains of marijuana do you recommend?”

Lovejoy: “I don’t know the strains by name, but I understand they can vary dramatically. And while I don’t use cannabis myself, I do hear it’s all very unreliable, unless sent out to a reputable lab for analysis.”

Eyster: “Did you ever send out a sample of Mr. Richardson’s marijuana to be analyzed?”

Lovejoy: “Obviously, I wouldn’t send it out myself. Typically, I recommend they send it out themselves; 99% of the time, they don’t.”

Eyster: “But in this case, did he ever show you the results from a lab?”

Lovejoy: “No.”

Eyster: “So there’s no baseline amount for therapeutic use?”

Lovejoy: “I think I said there’s no gold standard for specific conditions.”

Eyster: “So, based on the strain — well, first of all, you don’t even know what strain he had, do you?”

Lovejoy: “No.”

Eyster: “Nor do you know the volumes used?”

Lovejoy: “I think he informed me he was using it in smoothies three times a day. Two to three gallons using a couple of pounds per day.”

Eyster: “Now, doctor, if only two pounds were found at his home, that’s only one day’s use, isn’t it?”

Lovejoy: “Correct.”

Eyster: “Yes, well, you’d expect more, wouldn’t you?”

Faulder: “Objection.”

Moorman: “Sustained. I think that calls for speculation.”

Eyster: “When did you discuss the preparation of the marijuana for use?”

Lovejoy (after a pause): “I do not — recall.”

Moorman called for another sidebar and this one was lengthy. Angry comments could be heard and the judge audibly hissed “stop it” more than once. The judge at one point physically pushed the two lawyers apart, as they bowed up and got in each other’s faces, chests puffed out belligerently.

Dr. Lovejoy looked on, as did your trusty courthouse correspondent, the only other witness, at this display of professionalism gone sour. We though these guys were pals. After a while some prisoners were shuffled in and seated in the jury box. The quarrel between Eyster and Faulder at the side of the judge’s bench raged on in harsh whispers.

Finally, the judge stomped back up to the bench and announced: “We’re going to conclude for the day; there’s a problem with the confidentiality of the medical file. We’ll resume again on August 14th at 1:30. I’m issuing a protective order for the witness — he’s a legit guy. Okay, Dr. Lovejoy, I’m gonna let you go and order you back on the 14th at 1:30; you are not to have any contact with the defendant or defense counsel, understand?”

Eyster and Faulder nearly went to blows over the subpoenas but the judge said, “Okay, Dr. Lovejoy, I’m handing you two pieces of paper. Take ’em with you and I’m looking forward to seeing you again on the 14th.”

Legit Guy Lovejoy stepped down.

At the last minute the date everyone will be back was changed to the 13th. Peter Richardson had surgery scheduled for the 15th. The guy really is sick.

Pinches

SUPERVISOR JOHN PINCHES said Monday that he won’t run again for Third District supervisor. “I never considered myself a politician, never mind a career politician. I’ve been in the job 12 years and that’s enough,” the popular Laytonville rancher explained. He also intimated that poor health, “heart problems” as he described it, has persuaded him to retire, as have the difficulties of trying to manage his Eel River Canyon ranch from a temporary home in Willits while traveling to Ukiah almost every day to carry out his supervisor’s responsibilities. Pinches said his one big fear is that the County will resume “spending money we don’t have.”

WE’VE ALWAYS THOUGHT Pinches was the best kind of supervisor, in that he consistently questioned dubious expenditures and raised issues that otherwise would not get a public airing. When the County was on the brink of buying an expensive communications system for department heads, Pinches said, “Since most of them are in the same building why don’t they just walk down the hall if they have something to say to the other guy.” He always brought a commonsense clarity to the foggy proceedings of local government. Conservative to libertarian on most issues, Pinches enjoyed a solid bipartisan support, much of it attributed to his generous personality. He was never mean-spirited, never refused to talk to people who disagreed with him or didn’t support him. We hope Cowboy John will decide to run again.

AN EXAMPLE of why Pinches will be missed was last week’s Supes meeting in Fort Bragg. He was the only supervisor to point out that a new trash transfer station on Highway 20 is not needed “for two trucks of garbage a day.” The transfer station is presently located at the inconvenient end of Road 409, East Caspar, meaning neighbors of the site, and all the people living along 409, would like to see an end to it rather than an upgrade of it. So, Pinches wondered, why not have Waste Management expand their existing Pudding Creek facility? Or simply make the two-trucks-a-day trash transfers at a wide spot in the road?

NOPE. PINCHES’ obvious alternatives to a multi-million dollar new facility were ignored, although they’re alternatives that would spare ratepayers the inevitable trash fee rate increases to recover (partially) the cost of a new transfer station.

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Sweeney

COUNTY TRASH CZAR Mike Sweeney did a good job lobbying the supervisors and the Fort Bragg City Council to buy into a new transfer station for the Fort Bragg area, a scheme Sweeney attempted about ten years ago when he teamed up with then-supervisor Richard Shoemaker to place a transfer station in the Forks neighborhood of North State Street, Ukiah. One of its Sweeney-alleged selling points was proximity to the non-existent but, Sweeney claimed, imminent rail line on which Mendo’s trash would be hauled outtahere. North Ukiah rose up and that was the end of that. Highway 20, Fort Bragg, doesn’t seem to be aware yet that they’re getting a garbage plant in their neighborhood, a transfer station Mendocino County does not need but all of Mendocino County will be on the hook for.

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THE SMALL GROUP of Democratic Party insiders who decide which flabby liberal will represent the Northcoast at all levels of government, has picked an Arcata man to succeed state senator Noreen Evans. Evans has decided not to run for re-election after her relentlessly grasping tour of Sacramento.

Lehman

ARCATA’S CHRIS LEHMAN is the man we’re told will be our next Noreen Evans. He’s been working as an aide in Sacramento for a while and is heralded by none other than Wes Chesbro as, well, Wes-like, a sure sign that Lehman is not for you and me, brothers and sisters. Patty Berg also thinks the boy is the cat’s pj’s, a second sign that he’s to be avoided by any person who retains even the faintest hope for a working democracy.

CHESBRO SEZ: “I’m endorsing Chris Lehman because I know first-hand that he will be a powerful voice for the people of this community and an unwavering defender of our region’s magnificent natural resources and environmental beauty.” Just like Wes hasn’t been.

THAT THESE TIME SERVERS and career officeholders can force feed us our candidates totally outside so much as a semblance of a democratic process is insulting enough, but for mediocrities like Chesbro and Berg to think of themselves as the public service standard is, is, is… one more sign that the End Times are upon us.

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DAN HAMBURG formally announced Monday he is running for a second term as 5th District supervisor. We hope he is not re-installed unopposed. He’s been a poor supervisor — the weakest, least responsible of the five presently sitting and, we would say, could only have been elected in the first place in the wacky 5th where Hamburg, an Adi Da cult guy himself, enjoys a cult-like following. Hamburg’s manufactured controversy over the burial of his wife should, all by itself, unseat him. In that one, knowing full well the County could not legally issue a burial permit, Hamburg threatened to sue the county he allegedly represents simply because the County wouldn’t roll over for him. As that one turned out Hamburg got his burial permit from a judge, an option he could have exercised months earlier.

HAMBURG BACKED without demur or apology former supervisor Kendall Smith in Smith’s lengthy efforts to swindle the County out of thousands of dollars in falsified travel reimbursements. Smith only partially paid the money back when DA Eyster threatened to arrest her.

Hamburg

HAMBURG probably used the County Counsel’s office and Mental Health administrators to get his troubled son out of the County Jail and into a private facility that costs County taxpayers $825 a day. I say “probably” because all I have is the end result as reported in two odd court proceedings by Bruce McEwen that make it clear there was an extra-legal intervention by County officials who wouldn’t even consider such an intervention for anybody else.

WHEREVER you stand on the marijuana issue, Hamburg, a proponent and, from the dazed, inattentive persona he often presents at public meetings, a regular user, he was compelled to settle a claim by a Ukiah man that Hamburg had shorted him for his work on the pot garden on the Hamburg property south of Ukiah. Probably half of his constituents are opposed to marijuana, especially its easy availability among young people. The supervisor, however, in apparent tandem with his daughter, tried to open a pot dispensary in downtown Boonville.

HAMBURG claims the now meaningless mantle of “progressive,” but whether he happens to be registered Green — in Mendocino County the Greens are simply a front for Democrats and otherwise non-existent — or as a Democrat, you will find him at the big shot table with local Democratic officeholders.

AS A SUPERVISOR, Hamburg has accomplished exactly zero for the 5th District, even rudely chastizing Boonville critics who complained about road closures for a movie company filming a moronic epic featuring car chases. Hamburg claimed the film would bring lots of money to the County, which it didn’t. The movie company even brought its own food, spending very little for County amenities, and the filming was given permission to begin before public hearings were held. What the car chase movie brought was a lot of inconvenience to the residents of Anderson Valley and the Mendocino Coast

AS MALCOLM MACDONALD pointed out in a recent edition of the AVA, Hamburg’s political concerns are far, far from Mendocino County. He’s a big think guy, a guy who really isn’t interested in the everyday concerns of his constituents.

HAMBURG’S involvement with the sinister Adi Da cult alone should get him the boot. That group, especially when Adi Da was alive and Hamburg was an active member, was and remains a sort of Manson Family for trust funders led by a rapist and all-purpose psychopath. Hamburg says he learned big things from this nut.

HAMBURG voted to eliminate funding for Anderson Valley’s popular deputy, Craig Walker, and maintains a childish hostility for local law enforcement, any law enforcement, which probably stems from the pot raid on his own property several years ago.

WHEN THE STATE pointed out there were irregularities in Hamburg’s campaign finances — he hadn’t reported some $9,000 in in-kind contributions — Hamburg blamed it on his treasurer.

HAMBURG promised that as supervisor he would ensure that the County purchased more from local vendors. Never happened.

HAMBURG approved an expensive study of County ambulance services that told us nothing we didn’t already know.

HAMBURG still thinks the Sheriff mishandled the Bassler matter.

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THE SMOKE drifting into Mendocino County, mostly on Sunday, heavily on Monday, is assumed to be coming from large-scale fires burning in Butte County and three fires well north of the Mendocino County line. 5,000 firefighters are battling a total of ten wildfires in California. The National Weather Service has issued a red flag warning for coastal counties from Mendocino to Monterey due to the possibility that the combination of dry lightning and gusty winds could create dangerous fire conditions up and down the state. A fire weather watch begins Monday for the Northern California mountains and foothills. The National Weather Service’s Ryan Aylward, said Monday that “We have an upper low set up off the coast south of San Francisco, and that switched our winds around to out of the east. And there are multiple fires now in the Sierras, and then additionally there are fires nearby in our area up in northeast Humboldt County and southwest Siskiyou county… all that smoke is now drifting our way and it’s created some really hazy conditions out there.”

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A FEDERAL JUDGE approved a request from California and federal officials on Monday to force-feed inmates if necessary as a statewide prison hunger strike entered its seventh week.

Officials say they fear for the welfare of nearly 70 inmates who have refused all prison-issued meals since the strike began July 8 over the holding of gang leaders and other violent inmates in solitary confinement that can last for decades.

They are among nearly 130 inmates in six prisons who were refusing meals. When the strike began it included nearly 30,000 of the 133,000 inmates in California prisons.

Prison policy is to let inmates starve to death if they have signed legally binding do-not-resuscitate requests.

But state corrections officials and a federal receiver who controls inmate medical care received blanket authority from U.S. District Judge Thelton Henderson of San Francisco to feed inmates who may be in failing health.

The order includes those who recently signed requests that they not be revived.

Henderson oversees the ongoing lawsuit over inmates’ medical care. The filing Monday came as prison officials and inmates’ attorneys argued over whether strikers should be allowed to voluntarily begin a liquid diet.

“Patients have a right to refuse medical treatment. They also have a right to refuse food,” said Joyce Hayhoe, a spokeswoman for the receiver’s office.

However, “If an inmate gets to the point where he can’t tell us what his wishes are, for instance if he’s found unresponsive in his cell, and we don’t have a DNR, we’re going to get nourishment into him. That’s what doctors do. They’re going to follow their medical ethics,” Hayhoe said. “We’d take any and all measures to sustain their life.”

The process, which prison officials call “refeeding,” could include starting intravenous fluids or snaking feeding tubes through inmates’ noses and into their stomachs.

Prison officials already can seek a court order forcing an individual inmate to take food, though they have not done so. Now they and the receiver’s office are jointly asking for blanket permission to take that step without seeking orders on a case-by-case basis.

The federal and state officials were joined in the request by the Prison Law Office, a Berkeley-based nonprofit that represents inmates’ welfare in ongoing lawsuits that led to a federal takeover of the prison health care system and a requirement that the state sharply reduce its inmate population to improve conditions.

They want Henderson to let the chief medical executive at each prison act if a hunger striker is at risk of “near-term death or great bodily injury” or is no longer deemed competent to give consent or make medical decisions.

Moreover, do-not-resuscitate directives would not be honored if the medical executive reasonably believes the inmate was coerced into signing the request or if an attorney representing the inmate revokes the request.

Do-not-resuscitate orders signed by a hunger striker at or near the beginning of the strike or during the hunger strike would automatically be deemed invalid. (Courtesy, the Associated Press)

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COMMENT OF THE DAY: Most people have figured out what’s going on by now. Our charismatic hologram president has led us down the primrose path. All the promises of hope and change were pure malarkey, not a word of truth to any of it. Ten million workers still can’t find a job, 47 million people are on foodstamps, five million borrowers are in some stage of default on their mortgages, the share of productivity gains going to workers is smaller now than anytime on record, “four out of five US adults struggle with joblessness, near poverty or reliance on welfare for at least parts of their lives” (Associated Press), and according to the Fed’s 80-page tri-annual Survey of Consumer Finances, the median net worth of middle class families in the US fell by 38.9% between 2007 and 2010 — while “the median value of a US home dropped by 42%.”

Face it, Obama has been a disaster. Discretionary federal spending is lower than it’s been in a half-century, while the budget deficits are falling faster than anytime since WWII. What does that mean? It means Obama is sucking the stimulus out of the economy to put more pressure on wages and to reduce working people to grinding third-world poverty. It’s a stealth version of starve the beast, and it’s working like a charm. The middle class is taking it in the stern-sheets while Obama’s moneybags buddies laugh all the way to the bank. (— Mike Whitney)

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OCEAN FRACKING SHOULD BE NO SURPRISE

‘Petro Princess’ oversaw creation of marine protected areas

by Dan Bacher

The California Coastal Commission, under intense pressure from legislators and environmental activists, pledged Thursday, August 15 at its meeting in Santa Cruz to investigate reports of fracking (hydraulic fracturing) for oil in ocean waters in the Santa Barbara Channel.

“Blindsided by revelations of fracking in waters off the coast of California, the state’s Coastal Commission on Thursday vowed an investigation into the controversial practice, including what powers the agency has to regulate it, “ according to Jason Hoppin, Santa Cruz Sentinel reporter. (http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_23876202)

“We do not yet understand the extent of fracking in federal or state waters, nor fully understand its risks,” said Coastal Commission Deputy Director Allison Dettmer, who will lead the investigation.

“Blindsided” by “relevations” of fracking? How can that be possible when the Coastal Commission, Fish and Game Commission and other state regulators failed to question the leadership role of a big oil lobbyist, nicknamed the “Petro Princess” by anti-fracking activists, in the corrupt Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative to create alleged “marine protected areas?”

State officials and representatives of corporate “environmental” NGOs shamelessly embraced Catherine Reheis-Boyd, President of the Western States Petroleum Association (WSPA), as a “marine guardian.”

Reheis-Boyd, who lobbies relentlessly for increased fracking in California, the construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline and the evisceration of environmental laws, served as the CHAIR of the MLPA Initiative Blue Ribbon Task Force to create so-called “marine protected areas” in Southern California. She also served on the MLPA task forces for the Central Coast, North Central Coast and North Coast.

She oversaw the creation of questionable “marine protected areas” that fail to protect the ocean from fracking and oil drilling, pollution, military testing, wind and wave energy projects and all human impacts on the ocean other than fishing and gathering.

I’m glad that the Commission is calling for an investigation of offshore fracking now – and I support that investigation.

However, I must ask where were they when grassroots environmentalists, recreational anglers, commercial fishermen, Tribal members and advocates of transparency in government were calling for an investigation of conflicts of interest, corruption and the violation of state, federal and international laws under the privately-funded MLPA Initiative?

“We take our obligation to protect the marine environment very seriously and we will be looking at this very carefully,” claimed Charles Lester, executive director of the Coastal Commission.

If the Commission wants to really show that they take their obligation “very seriously,” they should include in their fracking investigation a probe of Reheis-Boyd’s role in creating so-called “marine reserves” that fail to protect the ocean from fracking, oil drilling, pollution and all other human impacts on our coastal waters than sustainable fishing and gathering.

After that probe is conducted, they should call for a independent and thorough investigation of the conflicts of interest, corruption and violation of laws under the MLPA Initiative.

In 2009, then California Senate Majority Leader Dean Florez (D-Shafter) had planned to conduct a Senate Oversight Hearing about conflicts of interest and “mission creep” in the Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative process. (http://www.calsport.org/4-12-09.htm)

He said that the funding of the MLPA Initiative by a private entity, the Resources Legacy Fund Foundation, “really has to be looked at,” along with other potential conflicts of interest.

“We have to look at all of the relationships,” said Florez. “Nobody thought the MLPA would become a process where the coast is closed first and the science is done later. Politics, not policy, have led this issue.”

However, Florez’ attempt to investigate the tainted process was apparently squashed by Senate Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, according to political insiders.

After the long-needed investigation was squashed, Tribal Leaders, environmentalists and fishermen continued to challenge the role of Reheis-Boyd and other corporate operatives in creating alleged “marine protected areas.”

At the peaceful takeover of an MLPA Blue Ribbon Task Force (BRTF) meeting by North Coast Tribes and their allies in Fort Bragg on July 21, 2010, Yurok Tribal Elder Susan Burdick pointedly asked Reheis-Boyd and the task force, “What is your real purpose: to start drilling for oil off our coastline? Be honest with us!”

Burdick’s concerns over the push by the oil industry and others to industrialize the California coast were echoed by environmentalists including Judith Vidaver, then Chair of the Ocean Protection Coalition (OPC). (http://yubanet.com/california/Dan-Bacher-Environmental-Leader-Calls-For-MLPA-Official-s-Resignation.php)

“For over 25 years OPC, with our fisher and seaweed harvester allies, has protected our ocean from threats such as aquaculture projects, nuclear waste dumping, offshore oil development and recently, wave power plants,” Vidaver stated. “We are requesting that final Marine Protected Area (MPA) designations include language prohibiting these industrial-scale commercial activities.”

She also shocked the panel by asking that task force member Catherine Reheis-Boyd voluntarily step down from her position on the BRTF.

“Oil and water do not mix—as we are being reminded daily by the disaster spewing in the Gulf,” she stated. “Mrs. Reheis-Boyd’s position as President of the Western States Petroleum Association and her lobbying efforts to expand offshore oil drilling off the coast of California are a patent conflict of interest for which she should recuse herself from the BRTF proceedings which are ostensibly meant to protect the marine ecosystem.”

Unfortunately, the calls of Tribal members, grassroots environmentalists and fishermen to include strong protections from oil drilling, fracking, pollution and ocean industrialization in “marine protected areas” and their repeated challenges of the role of a big oil industry lobbyist in the process went unheeded.

Now the Coastal Commission and other state officials express “surprise” after they read an Associated Press report documenting that at least 12 fracking operations have been conducted in the Santa Barbara Channel in recent years.

At the same time, Governor Jerry Brown, a strong supporter of the oil industry, is fast-tracking the Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP) to build the peripheral tunnels under the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. The tunnels will be used to export massive quantities of water to corporate agribusiness interests and oil companies seeking to expand fracking operations in Kern County and coastal areas. The construction of the tunnels will hasten the extinction of Central Valley salmon and steelhead, Delta and longfin smelt, green sturgeon and other fish species.

Reheis-Boyd apparently used her role as a state marine “protection” official to increase her network of influence in California politics to the point where the Western States Petroleum Association has become the most powerful corporate lobby in California. The association now has enormous influence over both state and federal regulators – and MLPA Initiative advocates helped facilitate her rise to power. (http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/08/07/the-ocean-frackers/)

Oil and gas companies spend more than $100 million a year to buy access to lawmakers in Washington and Sacramento, according to Stop Fooling California, an online and social media public education and awareness campaign that highlights oil companies’ efforts to mislead and confuse Californians. The Western States Petroleum Association (WSPA) alone has spent more than $16 million lobbying in Sacramento since 2009.

When the oil industry wields this much power – and an oil industry lobbyist oversaw the process that was supposed to “protect” the ocean – it shouldn’t be a surprise to anybody that California’s ocean waters are now being “fracked.” Both the state and federal regulators have completely failed in their duty to protect our ocean, bays, rivers and Delta.

For more information about the MLPA Initiative, go to: http://intercontinentalcry.org/the-five-inconvenient-truths-about-the-mlpa-initiative/

What Is Fracking and Why Should It Be Banned? (from Food and Water Watch website: http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/water/fracking/)

“Fracking is short for hydraulic fracturing. It’s a water-intensive process where millions of gallons of fluid – typically water, sand, and chemicals, including ones known to cause cancer – are injected underground at high pressure to fracture the rock surrounding an oil or gas well. This releases extra oil and gas from the rock, so it can flow into the well.

But the process of fracking introduces additional industrial activity into communities beyond the well. Clearing land to build new access roads and new well sites, drilling and encasing the well, fracking the well and generating the waste, trucking in heavy equipment and materials and trucking out the vast amounts of toxic waste — all of these steps contribute to air and water pollution risks and devaluation of land that is turning our communities into sacrifice zones. Fracking threatens the air we breathe, the water we drink, the communities we love and the climate on which we all depend. That’s why over 250 communities in the U.S. have passed resolutions to stop fracking, and why Vermont, France and Bulgaria have stopped it.”

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WILL SIEGEL & FRIENDS Play Parducci’s Acoustic Cafe this Saturday This Saturday, August 24th Parducci Winery’s Acoustic Café series is presenting the longtime local Roots & Roll band Will Siegel & Friends. This concert will feature some of the best musicians the area has to offer. Siegel’s roots and roll presentation will weave a tapestry of early dance music from Latin America followed by non-stop dance grooves from the bands rhythm and blues repertoire. The festivities start around 7:00 with gates opening at 6:00. General Admission is $14 and tickets are available at Parducci Wine Cellars tasting room, calling 463-5357 or go online at parducci.com/Wine-Store/Event-Tickets. Food will be available throughout the summer from The Potter Valley Café and North State Street Café with part of the drink proceeds benefiting the Alex Rorabaugh Center (The ARC). Seating fills quickly so be sure to show up early enough to get a seat at 6.

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2013 WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP ABALONE COOK-OFF

Saturday, Oct 5 11:00a to 4:00p, Noyo Harbor, Fort Bragg

<http://events.sfgate.com/fort_bragg_ca/venues/show/15820923-noyo-harbor>

Mendocino Area Parks Association (MAPA) invites abalone divers and cooks to form competition cook teams and register for the chance to win the World Championship Abalone Cook title and trophy, or a Grand Prize of a week at a private villa in the Yucatan, or one of 1st, 2nd and 3rd place prizes of various dive gear. For more information on being a competing cook, or for abalone tasting-judge tickets, please contact MAPA at www.mendoparks.org, mapa@mendoparks.org, or 707.937.4700.

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BECAUSE OF BRADLEY MANNING

By Dennis Loo

Because of Bradley Manning, we have Edward Snowden, who was inspired to come forward by Manning’s example;

Because of Bradley Manning, we know that most of the prisoners held at Guantanamo are innocent or low-level operatives and we have the identities and pictures of the prisoners held at Guantanamo who are now hunger striking (BradleyManning.org);

Because of Bradley Manning, we have the “Collateral Murder“ video which allowed Reuters to finally find out how their reporters were killed, in the face of years of Pentagon lies and stonewalling, and allowed the world to see the attitudes and actions of the U.S. soldiers who commit war crimes and laugh about it, and by implication, the brass and public officials who expect and encourage this barbaric behavior;

Because of Bradley Manning, “U.S. defense contractors were brought under much tighter supervision after leaked diplomatic cables revealed that they had been complicit in child trafficking activities. DynCorp — a powerful defense contracting firm that claims almost $2 billion per year in revenue from U.S. tax dollars — threw a party for Afghan security recruits featuring boys purchased from child traffickers for entertainment. DynCorp had already faced human trafficking charges before this incident took place” (BradleyManning.org);

Because of Bradley Manning, we have the Tunisian Revolution which in turn inspired Arab Spring which in turn inspired Occupy Wall Street which in turn showed the reservoir of mass support for radical/revolutionary changes here in the U.S.;

Because of Bradley Manning, we know that Egyptian torturers received training from the U.S.: “According to a leaked diplomatic cable from Cairo, the head of Egypt’s notorious State Security Investigative Service (SSIS) thanked FBI Deputy Director John Pistole for the ‘excellent and strong’ cooperation between the two agencies. In particular, the FBI’s training sessions in Quantico, Virginia were of ‘great benefit’ to his interrogators. Another cable documented what the US embassy considered ‘credible’ allegations of human rights violations by the SSIS, including torturing prisoners with ‘electric shocks and sleep deprivation to reduce them to a “zombie state.”’ (BradleyManning.org);

Because of Bradley Manning, we know that the State Department under Hillary Clinton secretly sought to strong-arm the UN: “According to the ‘National Humint Collection Directive,’ a secret document that was signed by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and published by WikiLeaks, US diplomats were authorized to collect ‘biometric’ and other sensitive information from top UN officials as well as UN representatives from other nations. The leaked documents show that ‘biometric data’ specifically included samples of the officials’ DNA, among other forms of personally identifying information. They also ordered diplomats to collect credit card information and secure passwords. These activities contravene the 1946 UN Convention.” (BradleyManning.org);

Because of Bradley Manning, we know that the Japanese and U.S. governments were warned about the dangers of a nuclear disaster at Fukushima three years before the 2011 catastrophe but ignored the warnings. Fukushima has now been ranked as bad as Chernobyl and TEPCO officials recently admitted that the damaged plant has been leaking radioactivity into the Pacific Ocean ever since (BradleyManning.org);

Because of Bradley Manning, we know that in December 2009 President Obama authorized a secret drone campaign in Yemen. “A year later, WikiLeaks revealed that Yemen’s President Saleh had agreed that his regime would ‘continue saying the bombs are ours, not yours.’” (BradleyManning.org);

Because of Bradley Manning, we know that hundreds of civilians in Iraq were executed at checkpoints (Iraq War Logs);

Because of Bradley Manning, we know that Obama’s administration handed over thousands of detainees to the Iraqi authorities with the knowledge that they would be tortured (Iraq War Logs);

Because of Bradley Manning, we know that 15,000 civilian deaths that were previously unknown were uncovered in the leaked files, in contrast to the denials of the U.S. government that they had figures on civilian deaths (Iraq War Logs);

Because of Bradley Manning, we know that detainees were humiliated, tortured, and killed by US Special Forces, the CIA, and military contractors (Iraq War Logs);

Because of Bradley Manning, the public is informed of things the government would never have let us know about, and would have continued to categorically deny with straight faces; and

Because of Bradley Manning’s conscience, bravery, and sacrifice on behalf of the interests and future of humanity, the world is a different place, a world in turmoil but with a chance now to turn things aright.

(Dennis Loo is a member of the Steering Committee of World Can’t Wait. His website is dennisloo.com.)

THE COUNTY BOARD OF SUPERVSORS met in Fort Bragg last Tuesday to hear an appeal of a State Parks proposal to remove the remnants of the old Haul Road between Ward Avenue and the Ten Mile River. A century ago the haul road was constructed by the Union Pacific Lumber Company as a railroad to facilitate liquidating the virgin old growth redwood stands in the Ten Mile River watershed and hauling the logs to the mill on the Fort Bragg Headlands. Right around the end of World War II the railroad was converted to a truck road to continue mopping up the last of the old growth and to go after the second growth that was reaching market size. The liquidation logging ramped up once Union Lumber was taken over by Georgia Pacific. By 1983, when a half-mile segment of the Haul Road was washed away by wave action during a winter storm, the redwoods in Ten Mile were pretty much gone. A few years later the company sold the right of way to State Parks.

THE PACIFIC OCEAN continues to wash away the Haul Road north of Ward Avenue, to the point where there is a gap of a mile before reaching a relatively intact 2.5 mile section of the Haul Road south of the Ten Mile River. From the north, the remnant of the Haul Road is reached by parking in the small lot south of the Ten Mile bridge and hiking through the dunes across private property. The project would remove the remnants of the Haul Road; remove invasive European beach grass; and replant with native species. State Parks says this will improve habitat for endangered plant species and the snowy plover, which nests on the near shore sand.

THE PROJECT WAS APPEALED by the Westport Municipal Advisory Council (WMAC) which contends the Haul Road should be rebuilt as a segment of the California Coastal Trail. Lots of people are stirred up at the thought that a functional segment of what should be the Coastal Trail is being removed. State Parks says building a trail, any trail, through the sensitive coastal dunes, which are officially designated as a “nature preserve,” is infeasible because of the cost, impacts to archeological sites, and impacts to the endangered species. The Sierra Club, Audubon Society, California Native Plant Society and even Linda Perkins and Bill Heil are lined up in support of State Parks, but most community members willing to publicly voice an opinion are opposed.

FOLLOWING A LONG BREAK (to deal with a joint meeting of the Supes and the Fort Bragg City Council to consider the siting of a future transfer station in the Fort Bragg area) on a 3-2 vote the Haul Road appeal was continued to a special meeting to be held in Ukiah on August 26. But before the break, Supervisor Gjerde made it clear that he didn’t believe State Parks when they said a trail could be built through the dunes and that the Supes should line up with the project opponents to pressure State Parks to rebuild the trail. Supervisor McCowen, after saying he would not support removing an intact park, made the point that the remnants of the Haul Road are not readily accessible at either end (despite the impression created by some that there is a perfectly good, intact, Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) accessible trail that Parks wants to rip out for no good reason) came out in support of the State Parks project. The other Supes kept their own counsel until August 26 when the issue will be replayed at the Supes chambers in Ukiah.

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THE SUPES AND CITY COUNCIL, after considerable hemming and hawing, voted to support doing the environmental review for a new transfer station at a site on Highway 20. Northcoast trash now gets dumped at the Caspar Transfer Station on Road 409 before being reloaded for the trip out-a-here. A new station on Highway 20 will cost a million more according to garbage czar Mike Sweeney, but will pay for itself in the long run with fewer truck miles. Lindy Peters, representing Empire Waste Management, threw a monkey wrench into the works by announcing that they were willing to have a new transfer station built at their yard on Pudding Creek. Most of the decision makers didn’t like the idea of all the garbage going through town twice, consistent with the overall wish to get it out-a-here as quickly as possible. Supervisor Pinches, who was the sole no vote, questioned why any transfer station was needed at all since, he said, we are only talking about two truckloads of garbage a day vs. a cost of almost $5 million to build a transfer station at the Highway 20 site.

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Kramer, incognito at a booksigning for his book “Teach Your Dog To Shoplift”

BAD NEWS from the County seat. Tommy Wayne Kramer won’t be writing his popular Sunday column for the Ukiah Daily Journal, which also means inland charlatans of the Nice People type won’t have anyone busting their pretentious bubbles, and doing it in a way that makes us laugh. The prigs and the pompous hate him, of course, and have regularly threatened the Journal with the withdrawal of subscription money if Kramer is kept on. You can always count on the libs to be the first to reach for the censor’s cudgel. Maybe Dr. Trotter, the Ukiah polymath and one of many inland prigs to demand that the paper dump Kramer, can replace Kramer with weekly paeans to himself and his tedious social circle, or tell us how bad the drunks smell that he treats in the emergency room. How about a column called, Westside Personality of the Week? The Journal would sell out in minutes. Public opinion in this county is already blanded down to an oppressive lock-step sameness, and without Kramer blasting the smugly righteous every Sunday, one more interesting County voice goes silent.

When I asked him about his leaving the Journal, Kramer replied,

“Well yeah, I reckon so.

“I was hoping to prod the Journal into giving me some token amount of payment (a free lunch twice a year at the bowling alley, something like that) after donating columns since the summer of ’07, but I guess not.

“So I’m on strike. Join me. Picket outside the paper. Soak Bruce McEwen in gasoline and set him on fire in front of the courthouse. Have the MEC and KZYX stage a big benefit.”

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DOUGLAS FIR AWAITS SHIPMENT TO CHINA

Logging equipment parked in front of decked logs after a day’s work at the export log yard on the north end of Willits.

An exporter of US timber to China has accumulated high piles of Douglas fir logs this summer at a log yard just north of Willits High School. Bay Area-based MDI Forest Products operates the yard. There are no signs on the property declaring the operation’s name, but there are signs of bustling industry on the previously vacant site. “Land owners are happy,” said MDI’s Gary Liu. Liu said earlier this year he was anticipating increased volume when he opened up his Willits operation. Liu’s forecast was right: MDI’s yard appears to be at full capacity, with decks of logs waiting for the haul to the Port of Oakland. — Zack Cinek (Courtesy, Willits Weekly)

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FROM LOSTCOASTOUTPOST.COM’S COMMENT LINE: “Yes, compared to what the gyppo loggers did in the post WWII lumber boom, environmental damages by pot growing are often visually more subtle except in the cases of large landings bulldozed to install commercial sized greenhouses. That doesn’t make de-watering salmon bearing streams, using rodenticides or a host of other damaging practices less egregious. Runaway logging resulted in new regulations to control the industry that worked to a large degree, but marijuana cultivation brings different problems because most of it serves the black market and the government is hamstrung from the outset to control it. Hell, even the specter of Federal intervention has made state and local medical marijuana regulation tepid. Seventy-six years of outright prohibition couldn’t put a dent in demand for recreational marijuana, so expecting any sort of environmental or purity laws to have an affect on a culture deeply rooted in disobeying existing laws is futile until legalization happens. But for right now the environmental consequences of unregulated marijuana cultivation is the most pressing environmental crisis in Northwestern California.
 In the next six to eight weeks before any significant rainfall comes there will be reports of fish kills on small streams due to the impact of drought plus water diversions caused by everyone who draws their water from a tributary watershed, whether they are pot growers, ranchers, farmers or homesteaders.” (Posted by ‘Uti’)

TO WHICH A PERSON CALLING HIM OR HERSELF ERNIE BRANSCOMB REPLIED:

”You are one of my favorite commenters, but just like many younger people you have missed a lot. I am firmly convinced that you have to have seen things with your own eyes to truly believe them. The 50s and 60s were rife with wildfires. The timber was salvage logged following them. There was a disastrous flood in 1955, the timber was salvage logged after that. In October 1962 we had the worse windstorm in recorded history. A large percentage of our timber was blown down. The blow down was salvage logged. In 1964 we had another disastrous flood. Much of the clean up that happened, and the makeshift roads that were re-opened and re-built were pretty crude. All of that was blamed, in hindsight, on logging. Much of the blame is true, but it is also true that the northcoast would have been in pretty damn poor shape if it wasn’t for the loggers that pitched in and opened roads and saved lives. 
It is also true that many factors, much beyond our control, have contributed to the decline of the wildlife in some areas. When I was young, there were NO predators. No bears, no wolves, no coyote, no mountain lion, no bobcat, yes there were not even any stray dogs. If a dog was not on his own ranch, or not near his owner he was shot on sight. It was understood by all, if you wanted to keep your dog, it had better be at your heels. The ranchers had the best trained dogs in the world. We were able to raise sheep on our hillsides in relative safety. Many things were wrong with that philosophy, as many are chomping at the bit to point out. But, things change, many would say that we’ve changed for the better. However, if you want to change things for the better, you have to work on today and tomorrow, the past is past and unchangeable. Why so many people like to hold up red herrings and say hey look what the loggers did wrong instead of looking at something that we CAN change is beyond me. There are many factors for what is going on today; what about global warming? Some people believe that the real problem is ‘chemtrails.’ At some point this thread will probably deteriorate into what’s worse, marijuana or alcohol, but who the hell really cares? What’s at OUR door is today’s deterioration of our very precious local environment. Somebody has to point out that the Emperor has no clothes. (To those who are slow on the wit, that means that we have to point out that some marijuana growers are polluting our north coast and using up most of the fresh water supply.) It does no good to talk about the past or things that we cannot change. I should close with saying that logging is the most environmental sound solution to some of the world’s problems. The trees are grown on fresh air, sunshine, clean soil and water. When cut and made into lumber it sequesters C02. Timber production really doesn’t need any chemicals. Where the hell did logging get such a bad rap? It can be done right. And… It’s time to stop making excuses for the rogue growers.
”

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JUST ANOTHER LOVE STORY

Pittman

On Friday, August 16, 2013 at 6pm, Mendocino County Sheriff Deputies were dispatched to the 44000 block of Fish Rock Road in Gualala for a report of a domestic dispute. When Deputies arrived they learned the (unidentified) 32-year-old male victim returned home from work earlier in the evening to find his ex-girlfriend, Iuta Pittman, 29, of Gualala, at his residence. An argument ensued after the victim asked Pittman to leave the residence as a result of her being intoxicated. This prompted Pittman to begin throwing various household items at the victim. Pittman then placed her hands around the victim’s neck and then also struck him several times in the face with her hands. The victim sustained minor injuries due to the physical assault. Deputies subsequently located Pittman in Point Arena, where she was arrested on charges of domestic violence battery and for committing a crime while being out on bail on an unrelated incident. Pittman was transported to the Mendocino County Jail where she was held in lieu of $50,000 bail. (Sheriff’s Office Press Release)

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JOHN HOLLANDER, Poet at Equally Ease with Dazzling Virtuosity and Private, Hermetic Meditations (Both), Dies at 83

* * *

Hollander

At this time of year, late-summer, my thoughts turn to being a kid growing up in apple country.

Apple country in upstate New York.

I remember the apple orchards in the Counties of Westchester, Putnam, Rockland, and Orange. All are located in the northern suburbs of New York City.

I could rhapsodize at length about those orchards. Go on and on. I have an almost crystalline memory of each of these orchards. Each was different. Each had a unique beauty. Each was important to me.

In Westchester County, there was Stuart’s Farm (Granite Springs). Also, Wilkens Farm (Yorktown Heights).

In Putnam County, farther up the Hudson River, there was Salinger’s Orchard (Brewster).

Crossing the Hudson River, in Rockland County, you find of the country’s oldest orchards, Conklin Farms (Pomona). I remember reading Conklin was first planted in the very early 1700s. I think they provided cider to the Revolutionary Army.

Davies Farm is also in Rockland County (Congers). I have a friend who is a broadcaster, Pete Dominick, who lives in Congers. He is lucky that he can take his kids apple picking at Davies Farm at this time year.

In Orange County, north of Rockland County, you have several good orchards. Ochs Orchard in Warwick comes to mind.

Then, there is also the matter of apple varieties. Many of these family orchards go back hundreds of years, and so they are planted with heirloom apples.

There are the more common varieties of heirloom apples. Cortland. Empire. Macoun.

But what I really love are the oldest varieties.

I love the old English russet apples…medium size, golden-brown skin with a crisp nutty snap; fruit explodes with champagne-sherbet juice infused with a lingering scent of orange blossom.

I love the Buncombe…a high quality dessert apple, medium to large and very oblong or conical; smooth yellow flesh, skin covered with deep purplish-maroon; tender, juicy and sweet.

I love the Ribston Pippins…a highly esteemed Victorian dessert apple; juicy, firm deep cream-colored flesh that has an intense, rich, aromatic apple flavor, along with an intense sharpness; skin striped red over greenish-yellow, with russet patches (very pretty).

Even the names of the oldest varieties intrigue me. Esopus Spitzenburg. Ashmead’s Kernel. Calville Blanc d’Hiver. Maiden Blush. Cox’s Orange Pippin. Grimes Golden. Pitmaston Pineapple.

Again, I could go on and on.

Generally speaking, I love eating apples that have a high acidity that complements an intense sweetness. I also love crisp eating apples.

But I also love the varieties for pies. And the other varieties for cider.

Most of all, I love how apple trees look.

The most beautiful thing in the world is that apple tree at the edge of the orchard full and resplendent with bright yellow fruit. That tree is most beautiful at sunset in late-September. It reminds me of a tree hung with luminous yellow lanterns.

That tree!

As the Harvest Moon rises big and low on the horizon, and the last light of day fades on the clouds like something imagined by Rembrandt, as the crickets saw and skewer their legs in the furiously noisy way they do before they die in autumn’s first frost, and as Little Brown Bats begin to chase tiny, unseen flying insects in the vault of night, there is nothing more beautiful — nothing more beautiful in the world! — than that tree hung with lanterns.

Although this is the place of my childhood from long ago and far away, here, sitting against this tree, I have remained for the last 50 years or more.

Part of me remains.

The part that waits for silence again, sleep again, darkness again, the void again.

The part that wants to be not a boy under a tree, but a Little Brown Bat.

I want to hunt with my ears, not my eyes. I want to listen for for sounds and silences, both.

I want to listen for the sounds of the full end-rhymes, assonance, midline rhyming, schematic echoes, and so on; and the silences resonating in the vacant space left by one fewer foot in the subsequent lines of a long poem until the effect becomes especially noticeable in the end-stopped lines.

John Hollander taught me how to listen this way. He taught me how to listen better.

The lesson?

The lesson was that poems are not figures, images, and words on paper. Instead, poems are sounds and silences. And ultimately, in the end, there is only the hiss of the universe and silence.

These are my thoughts today as I remember my teacher, John Hollander, who died on Saturday.

Thank you, maestro.

— John Sakowicz, Ukiah

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/19/books/john-hollander-poet-known-for-his-range-dies-at-83.html?pagewanted=all

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USBR, USFWS GIVES AWAY 451,000+ ACRE FEET OF FISH WATER TO SAN JOAQUIN VALLEY FARMERS

Same farmers now suing Interior to stop releases of water to save fish

by Dan Bacher

The California Sportfishing Protection Alliance has recently learned that the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (Bureau) and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (collectively, the Department of Interior) inexplicably gave away 451,000 acre-feet of water in 2011 to farmers in the San Joaquin Valley that could have been stored in Shasta Reservoir to provide critical relief for fisheries in 2012 (below normal year) and 2013 (dry year).

Over half of the available spawning habitat on the Sacramento River for endangered winter-run Chinook salmon has been eliminated this year because of a lack of available cold water in Shasta Reservoir. Lack of flow this year has also caused serious violations of water quality standards in the Delta and impacted endangered Delta smelt.

“It is outrageous that the Department of Interior gave away many thousands of acre-feet of fishery water to San Joaquin Valley farmers that could have mitigated serious impacts to salmon and Delta smelt this year,” said CSPA Executive Director Bill Jennings. “But it is abominable and scandalous that the recipients of that gift have now turned around and sued Interior for proposing to release a small amount of water on the Trinity to prevent a repeat of the massive Klamath fish kill of 2002.”

Jennings further pointed out that, “these same South of Delta farmers also received considerable additional exported water this year because water quality standards in the Delta were ignored and violated. They have no shame.”

Pursuant to Section 3406(b)(2) of the Central Valley Project Improvement Act (CVPIA), the Department of the Interior is allocated 800,000 acre-feet of water annually to protect fisheries. During wetter years, like 2006/07, the Department of Interior has “banked” unused portions of that water in Shasta Reservoir for use in future drier years. However, in the wet year of 2011, only 348,800 acre-feet were used to protect fisheries.

Instead of banking the water for future needs, the Department of Interior allowed the remaining 451,200 acre-feet to be used as “replacement pumping” to make up for restrictions imposed by the State Water Resources Control Board (State Board) in its Bay-Delta Water Quality Control Plan (D-1641). D-1641 eliminated the Department of Interior’s right to use fish water to make up for water necessary to meet the Water Quality Control Plan’s water quality requirements.

In April, May and June 2013, the Bureau and Department of Water Resources (Department) violated water quality standards for salinity at Emmaton and in June violated salinity standards at Jersey Point. These compliance points are located in the western Delta. Southern Delta salinity standards were also violated June, July through 15 August.

Fearing that they would also violate Delta Outflow standards, as well as temperature standards on the Sacramento River, the Bureau and Department requested that State Board Executive Director Thomas Howard and Delta Watermaster Craig Wilson allow them to operate under a “critical year” classification instead of a “dry year” classification and move the temperature compliance point on the Sacramento River upstream. The National Marine Fisheries Service, Fish and Wildlife Service and Department of Fish and Wildlife endorsed the request.

Despite a dry spring, 2013 is legally defined as a “dry year.” The State Board has no legal authority to arbitrary change the water year classification. However, on 29 May 2013, the State Board informed USBR and DWR that they “will not object or take any action if the Bureau and Department operate to meet critically dry year objectives for Western and interior Delta.”

The result of the State Board’s refusal to enforce water quality standards was that the Bureau and Department increased reservoir releases, ramped up exports and throttled back Delta outflow. The temperature compliance point on the Sacramento River was moved from Red Bluff upstream to Anderson, eliminating crucial spawning habitat for winter-run Chinook salmon. Reduced Delta outflow caused the low salinity zone to move upstream and Delta smelt were drawn into the Western Delta to perish. But the farmers of Westlands and San Luis Delta Mendota Water Authority, who are now suing the Department of Interior over Trinity releases, got more water.

“This year’s failure of resource and regulatory agencies to protect fisheries and enforce the law is a poster child for the collapse of the Delta’s ecological tapestry,” said Jennings. “The resource agencies have bent over backwards to give San Joaquin Valley farmers additional water, even at the expense of fisheries, and these same farmers quickly sued the agencies when they attempted to release a little water to prevent a massive fish kill.”

Further information, including Interior’s Water Year 2011 B2 Water Final Accounting, correspondence between the agencies and State Board and a report on this years demise of Delta smelt can be found at www.calsport.org.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/08/20/1232633/-Hoopa-Valley-Tribal- Members-Protest-Westlands-Lawsuit

If we don’t get the requested flows, our salmon are destined for disaster,” said Dania Rose Colegrove, Klamath Justice Coalition organizer and a member of the Hoopa Valley Tribe. “Please come and support our way of life!”

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EDITOR,

The following is used as the preamble for John O’Hara’s novel,

“Appointment in Samarra” (1934). I send it along because it is the sort of brilliant literary sketch I often find in your fine paper, something you may wish to share with your readers. (— Jake Rohrer)

Death Speaks:

Maugham

“There was a merchant in Baghdad who sent his servant to market to buy provisions and in a little while the servant came back, white and trembling, and said, ‘Master, just now when I was in the marketplace I was jostled by a woman in the crowd and when I turned I saw it was Death that jostled me. She looked at me and made a threatening gesture; now, lend me your horse, and I will ride away from this city and avoid my fate. I will go to Samarra and there Death will not find me.’ The merchant lent him his horse, and the servant mounted it, and he dug his spurs in its flanks and as fast as the horse could gallop he went. Then the merchant went down to the marketplace and he saw me standing in the crowd and he came to me and said, ‘Why did you make a threatening gesture to my servant when you saw him this morning?’ ‘That was not a threatening gesture,’ I said, ‘it was only a start of surprise. I was astonished to see him in Baghdad, for I had an appointment with him tonight in Samarra’.”

—W. Somerset Maugham

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AFTER A TIRING DAY, a commuter settled down in his seat and closed his eyes. As the train rolled out of the station, the young woman sitting next to him pulled out her cell phone and started talking in a loud voice: “Hi sweetheart. It’s Sue. I’m on the train.” … “Yes, I know it’s the six thirty and not the four thirty, but I had a long meeting.” … “No, honey, not with that Kevin from the accounting office. It was with the boss.” … “No sweetheart, you’re the only one in my life.” … “Yes, I’m sure, cross my heart!” Fifteen minutes later, she was still talking loudly. When the man sitting next to her had had enough, he leaned over and said into the phone, “Sue, hang up the phone and come back to bed.” Sue doesn’t use her cell phone in public any longer.

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IRA AND ZIDA, JAZZ STANDARDS — Mendocino Stories & Music Series will present Ira and Zida, Jazz Standards with keyboard and vocals on Saturday, September 7. Each time a jazz standard is played, it is new — no matter how many times it’s been done before, nor how many artists have interpreted it. It is always a fresh understanding. Come take a musical journey in mood and time. Music starts at 7:30PM at the Mendocino Hotel. Ira Rosenberg has been playing piano since he was a boy in New York City. His erudition with jazz, his sensitivity and virtuosity, pull every bit of emotion out of each song. Zida Borcich sang in rock bands during the 80’s, then with Bob Ayres’ Big Band for some years before working with Ira. All Ages Welcome! Doors open at 6:30 PM for bistro menu and full bar. Reserved seating $15, $10 general admission at the door. Call Pattie at 937-1732 or visit www.mendocinostories.com/events_info.html — Pattie DeMatteo

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NORTH COAST ENVIRONMENTAL GROUPS SUPPORT PROPOSED FEDERAL PLANT ACT AS STEP TOWARD FEDERAL REFORM

North Coast environmental groups and coalitions representing more than 35,000 supporters have expressed supported for a proposed federal law targeting trespass marijuana grows in a letter to one of the bill’s sponsors, Rep. Jared Huffman (D-CA). “It’s important to recognize the severe environmental harms often associated with trespass marijuana grows on public lands, resource lands, and even smaller private parcels,” said Scott Greacen, director of Friends of the Eel River. “It’s not just semantics to describe these as ‘trespass’ grows rather than ‘cartel’ grows. Understanding a problem, using terms that accurately reflect the facts on the ground, is critical to effective policy.” This is only a significant step if it leads to deeper reforms. We hope bipartisan action leading to rapid passage of the PLANT Act can build broad support for policy changes that will truly abate and eliminate the harms associated with these trespass grows, as the most important thing the federal government can do at this point is to act responsibly and let the state regulate small-scale marijuana cultivation. The letter is supported by groups based in Trinity, Humboldt, Mendocino, and Sonoma counties.

— Gary Hughes” <gary@wildcalifornia.org>

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SEAFOOD & HARBOR FESTIVAL — Everyone is invited to the 14th Annual Seafood and Harbor Festival on Labor Day Weekend, Sunday, September 1st at the Point Arena Pier, Port Road, Point Arena. The party starts at 12 noon. Enjoy a local, fresh seafood feast including Salmon Kabobs, Fish Tacos, Oysters, wine, beer and soft drinks, and desserts. Dance to great music by Thrive, Honest Outlaws, Groove Factor and DJ Sister Yasmin. Raffle, kids’ activities, boat rides around the pier (weather permitting) and a smoked salmon contest too; fun for the whole family! No dogs please. More information at www.harborfest.net and 707-227-0939. Benefits the Point Arena Pier. (Yasmin Solomon)

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LOREN MADSEN APPOINTED TO THE ARTS COUNCIL OF MENDOCINO COUNTY BOARD OF DIRECTORS.

The Arts Council of Mendocino County (ACMC) is very pleased to announce the appointment of Loren Madsen to its board of directors. Madsen has an extensive background in sculpture, conceptual art and other media and has exhibited internationally. His work has been featured in museums nationwide and in France, Japan, and Canada. Originally from the East Bay, he has received the New Talent Purchase Award from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and other sources, and Honorable Mention in the Vietnam Veterans’ Memorial Competition in 1981. His first solo exhibition, in Los Angeles in 1973, consisted of precariously balanced bricks rooted by gravity and friction. An earthquake destroyed the show before it opened. “Despite this divine critique,” says Madsen, “I continued with these early sculptures, which mutated into large site-specific installations, of which the only record is photographs.” By 1994 he was using the Statistical Abstract of the U.S. and other sources to turn data into sculpture and prints. “These are broadly historical if the viewer chooses to engage with the information,” Madsen explains, “and abstract if the viewer does not.” He also designs and builds furniture. Samples of his recent art can be seen at www.newloren.com. Madsen joins other ACMC board members Hal Wagenet, President; Anne Beck,Vice-President; Trudy McCreanor, Treasurer; Jan Stephens and Larain Matheson, Co-Secretaries; Susan O. Gordon and Brandon Kight in supporting the Arts Council’s mission to enrich the quality of life in Mendocino County through promotion of the arts and cultivation of creative communities. Says Madsen: “I feel that an artist best contributes by keeping a voice in the conversation through his or her art.” Arts Council executive director Alyssum Wier states, “We are so pleased to have Loren join the board of directors. Loren first became involved with the Arts Council in 2011 during the HeART of Laytonville Welcome Banner project and his humor, intelligence, experience in the arts, and finger on the pulse of the North County will make him a wonderful addition to an engaged, harmonious, and diverse board of directors supporting the Arts Council’s pursuit of its mission.” The Arts Council’s objectives include expanding opportunities for artists and arts organizations, supporting art education, promoting the role of the arts in the local economy, and increasing public awareness of the value of the arts. ACMC also advocates for artists and arts organizations throughout Mendocino County with government, business, and tourism leaders. More information about the Arts Council of Mendocino County can be found at www.ArtsMendocino.org.

THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE, Eureka, at 2:14 this afternoon issued a severe thunderstorm warning for northwest California, particularly the eastern areas of Humboldt County and all of Trinity County. Doppler Radar “indicated a severe thunderstorm capable of producing quarter size hail. This storm was located over Humboldt County…or 26 miles south of Willow Creek…and moving northwest at 20 mph. * The severe thunderstorm will otherwise remain over mainly rural areas of the indicated county. Precautionary/preparedness actions… Instructions: This is a dangerous storm. If you are in its path…prepare immediately for damaging winds… destructive hail… and deadly cloud to ground lightning. People outside should move to a shelter… preferably inside a strong building but away from windows.”

BY 3PM THE STORM HAD MOVED ON, and so far as we can determine it was not as severe, or severe at all, but the conditions for Ma Nature to do a total flip-out were all in place.

A DOZEN major fires, some touched off by lightning storms occurring in unprecedented bunches, or serially, are burning across California wildlands. The Rim Fire west of Yosemite National Park is in its fifth day and rages out of control, prompting hundreds of residents of the Sierra foothills residents to flee their homes. The Orleans fire in Trinity County has consumed thousands of acres with no end in sight.

“The conditions we’re seeing in August are what we usually see at the beginning of October,” said Daniel Berlant, spokesman for California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. “We’re seeing conditions about a month to two months drier than normal.”

CALFIRE is most fearful that winds, which have so far remained seasonally mild, will pick up, and big winds combined with very dry conditions could mean major disasters.

THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE issued a red-flag warning for most of Northern California last weekend because of dry lightning and gusty winds. The warning is expected to remain in effect at least through Thursday morning.

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LIVING IN A WICK DRAIN STITCHER, Part 2

by Will Parrish

By the end of my third day of living high in the wick drain stitcher in the northern construction area of the CalTrans Willits Bypass (Saturday, June 22nd), I felt as though in the throes of a dream I was mostly powerless to control. I’d been severely rationing the little bit of food and water I’d been able to bring with me. Meanwhile, due to the floodlights the CHP shined into my platform from four directions, I’d barely been able to sleep. (It was hard enough to sleep on a two-by-seven platform, 50 feet in the air, without a pad, to begin with.) Earlier in the afternoon, I’d run out of food entirely. I was down to about a gallon-and-a-half of water. My body already felt achy and clumsy from being undernourished, such that when I stood for very long, the muscles in my thighs began to shake and I sat back down.

My throat was beginning to parch. I looked down at the wetlands, which already had thousands of wick drain tubes inserted into them. It struck me that CalTrans, which clearly controls the policies of the CHP vis-a-vis the Bypass police operation, was intent on drying out both of us. I felt a sense of kinship with the wetlands — these kidneys of the valley, which absorb its waters and slowly release them back into the system — on a level far greater than before.

By this point, CalTrans’ strategy was evident. They wanted to starve me out, to make my situation as unbearable as possible so that I would climb down voluntarily, thus saving on the resources and potential negative publicity of a police extraction. If this was to be a test of my will, I knew I needed to become as disciplined as possible. I schooled myself against expending any unnecessary energy, against any extraneous body movements, which might burn calories or cause me unneeded stress. I was putting all of my faith in the people supporting me from the ground to carry out some unknowable means of resupplying me.

Meanwhile, I had another worry teasing at the back of mind, one that I wasn’t entirely willing to face at that point. Several people had been hanging out regularly in an adjacent pasture, monitoring me and keeping me company — particularly since I didn’t have a cell phone.

My good friend Amanda, aka ‘The Warbler,’ was among them. She yelled up to me that it was supposed to rain lightly the next night. While I had brought a tarp with me, my intention was to use it as a privacy curtain, rather than as a roof; the damn thing had several small tears in it. If it rained in any significant way, my platform would invariably become its own miniature wetland. That, combined with my lack of food and inability to sleep, promised a level of discomfort for which I had no reference.

As the sun was setting, I was elated to hear raucous shouts coming from my west with voices calling out “Merry Solstice, Will!” and “Thank you, Will!” I rolled over and was elated to see around 40 people — most of them familiar faces, people I had seen or worked with in Willits across the previous six months — striding gallantly toward me across the deadened wetlands. Many of them were carrying water and bags that were surely full of food. The two CHP guards got out of their squad cars and stood in the throng’s path. The throng formed a stream around them and continued in my direction. The officers fell back and followed after the front line of the throng, which in turn was headed straight for the wick drain stitcher tower.

I quickly lowered my “drop line” — in this case, a jumble of some truck rope and static rope I had uncoiled and tied together with sturdy knots the previous day. As one especially determined young man reached out toward the rope and attempted to clip a bag of food onto the carabiner I had attached to a loop at the end of the line, one of the CHP officers reached out and forcefully yanked the rope away from one of my would-be food-angels. Pulling out a knife or multi-tool from his belt, the officer slashed the rope.

As the police rotated around, making threatening gestures towards anyone who might creep up toward my rope, which was now approximately seven feet shorter, most people opted to sit down to demonstrate their intention to remain non-violent, and thereby guard against any violent police outbursts. One man desperately flung a pack of granola bars toward me as hard as he could, but even that little bit of sustenance only came tantalizingly close to reaching the platform.

I heard sirens screaming down Highway 101. It had taken less than ten minutes for several law enforcement reinforcements to arrive on the scene. People began to shuffle out, most of them stopping to turn toward me with plaintive looks on their face, some of them offering words such as “We’ll be back!” and “Hang in there, Will — we won’t abandon you!” As everyone was leaving, the officers opted to arrest several people. Ultimately, six people were arrested in all.

One of them, Sara Grusky, was clearly singled out not because of anything she did in particular, but because the police recognize her as a leader of the Bypass demonstrations. When Sara’s daughter deigned to complain a little bit to the officer who was unceremoniously dragging her mom into the squad car, the police arrested the daughter as well.

As I watched this dramatic scene play out, I felt rage flowing through me — which was itself a form of vitality. I suddenly felt energized. The CHP had just arrested six people who were merely trying to feed me and give me water, and they weren’t even pretending to apply the law equally or fairly in doing so.

Then again, I already had zero faith that law and justice were governing anything related to the outcome of the Willits Bypass. I had scaled the wick drain tower because I wanted to document and report on my experience, and also because I knew there was no other choice.

As I’ve documented extensively in some of the 14 articles I’ve written on the subject, CalTrans has propelled this project forward not because it will enhance the well-being of people in Willits, or because it will enhance the planet’s well-being, or because people want it, or even because it is justifiable on the grounds of reducing traffic in Willits. Rather, this project is proceeding because CalTrans is an extremely powerful institution of the state that has alternately bought off, intimidated, manipulated, cajoled, or run over anyone who has stood in their way. If this destructive and illegal project is to be stopped, it will only be because of civil disobedience.

Actions speak louder than words, though the combination of the two is more powerful still. Noticing a video camera pointing up at me, I looked directly at it and yelled slowly and deliberately, placing an emphasis on each word, “I would rather starve than let this wick drain stitcher install one more wick drain!”

Folayemi, 2003

As I attempted to sleep that night, my sense of outrage continued to supplant my earlier anxiety. I’d meant what I said: I was determined to stay for as long as I could. The words of one of my influences in my early-20s, a former Black Panther named Babatunde Folayemi, rang through my head: “If you’ve got nothing you love that you’re willing to die for, you’ve got nothing you’re really living for.”

(The third and final part of this series will appear next week. For pictures and another description of the effort to resupply me, see: http://www.savelittlelakevalley.org/2013/06/23/stitcher-sit-day-three-supporters-make-dramatic-bid-to-resupply-red-tailed-hawk/.

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HEADLINE OF THE DAY, brought to us by the Santa Rosa Press Democrat: “Healdsburg prepares to repair roads in poor condition.”

GUESS HEALDSBURG already fixed the ones in good condition.

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AT THE AUGUST 13, 2013 Board of Supervisors meeting in Fort Bragg, a woman named Heather McKee of Ukiah read the following letter to the Board of Supervisors based on her own experience with Mental Health staffers both before and after the privatization of Mental Health a few months ago:

I am a mental health client formerly under case management at Mendocino County Mental Health. I have received services through Mental Health for a decade. I have been a homeowner in this County and was formerly employed here. I am now disabled by my mental health conditions and physical handicaps, yet I still need services to function and remain alive. I am extremely worried about the privatization of adult care to the Ortner Management Group. Although the transfer of services was being phased out at the former South Dora location since the beginning of June 2013, I have received no contact information for Ortner Management Group either via a physical presence in the County or by phone to date. My therapist who has long been a contractor with County Mental Health and with other MediCal clients has no answers as to whether this new entity will be extending contracts for MediCal clients like myself. Neither does she have any way to contact Ortner Management Group. This is very stress producing in itself as we have each worked hard to develop a therapeutic rapport with each other. And because of my disorders and the disorders of, I’m sure, many Mental Health clients, it is very important to maintain this rapport for healing to occur. I have already been given a new case manager, a person from Manzanita Services which to my knowledge is the previously existing program at a church on Pine Street in Ukiah and has nothing to do with Ortner Management Group. It’s also a peer-run program. I’m aware that the client to case management ratio is 1 to 45. With the number of mentally ill people in our county we must information is easily obtainable for clients regarding where and how they can obtain services. Services for this population of traditionally underserved, handicapped people are imperative for the sake of clients, their families and the entire community.

NOT ONE BOARD MEMBERED commented or responded to Ms. McKee’s heartfelt early warning sign that Mental Health privatization is a mixed bag, at best. When a mental health client is brave enough to drive all the way from Ukiah to Fort Bragg to publicly describe her own situation and ask that some very fixable problems with the newly privatized mental health set-up be solved, the Board or public health staff should at least offer to look into such things as why Ms. McKee or her therapist received no information from Ortner and what specific procedure was used to make sure clients are properly transferred to the for-profit mental health outfits. If County staff or the Board were really on the ball — which they’re obviously not — they’d require monthly updates on the status of the controversial transition to privatized mental health services to make sure things are moving the way they were advertised. (We’re told that the Board got a last minute “matrix” on how the privatization would cover various categories of mental health services, but that “matrix” was not part of the actual privatization contracts, which itself is still being amended.) — Mark Scaramella

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CALTRANS will close the Bay Bridge on Wednesday night August 28 through early Tuesday morning September 3, the day after Labor Day. Federal officials have approved a temporary fix for broken seismic safety bolts that have delayed the opening of the new, $6.4 billion eastern span. While the Bridge is closed, traffic in many areas of the Bay Area will be worse than usual and, as the more ghoulish wags point out, if the new Bridge falls into the Bay because the Gorilla Glue of a temporary fix didn’t hold, traffic will be real bad.

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AFTER 17 YEARS OF WEEKLY SERVICE to their respective communities, the McKinleyville Press and Arcata Eye newspapers will publish their final editions Wednesday, Sept. 25, then cease publication. In other news, the Mad River Union, a new weekly newspaper merging the Eye and the Press, will debut with Issue 1, Volume 1 on the following Wednesday, Oct. 2.

This union of newspapers will include the best of the Arcata Eye and the best of the McKinleyville Press. It will be co-published by veteran newspapermen Kevin L. Hoover and Jack Durham.

In a sense, the Mad River Union will restore the tradition of the beloved Arcata Union, which closed after 109 years in 1995. Hoover and Durham both worked at the Union, which covered Arcata, McKinleyville and beyond.

The Mad River Union will provide readers a bigger and better-defined paper than its two antecedents, with virtually all the content now found in the Press and the Eye.

By joining forces, the papers will be able to eliminate duplication in management, distribution, production and printing, and reallocate resources to best serve readers and advertisers.

The staff will be better positioned to do old-fashioned reporting, with more consistent content management. Local communities will receive more thorough coverage of news and events. The merger will also double the readership for advertisers, who will enjoy more exposure and a significantly larger distribution area.

The Mad River Union will be headquartered in a new, larger office in the lobby of Jacoby’s Storehouse on the Arcata Plaza. It will be printed at Western Web in Fairhaven.

The Arcata Eye had been scheduled to close on Feb. 14, 2014, ending an independent community newspaper tradition in Arcata that began in the mid-1800s. That gloomy scenario has been averted.

“We only started talking about this a few weeks ago, but right away we saw that it made major sense on multiple levels,” said Eye editor Kevin Hoover. “We’ve been able to start with a blank sheet of newsprint and re-imagine the entire operation to make the most of our assets and better serve readers. It’s been quite exhilarating.”

“I always wanted to provide the people of McKinleyville and Trinidad with a larger paper with more comprehensive news coverage, but the Press just didn’t have the resources,” said Press editor Jack Durham. “Joining forces will make it possible to provide the communities with the news coverage they deserve.”

Like the Eye and Press, the Mad River Union will be an independent, non-partisan community newspaper that reflects the character and diversity of the communities it covers. The Union strives to provide readers with a newspaper that is fair, accurate, relevant, smart, engaging, adventurous and open to all without fear or favor.

Readers who liked the previous papers will find even more to enjoy with the Union, which will grow to two sections that feature expanded news, opinion and community coverage. The popular Police Log that began with the Union, then continued with the Humboldt Beacon and Arcata Eye, will continue in the Mad River Union.

“Many readers have lamented the imminent loss of a weekly hyperlocal newspaper, and now, that doesn’t have to happen,” Hoover said. “Making this possible is the diverse talents of our staff and the loyal support and encouragement of our readers. With the new paper, none of that ability and enthusiasm has to go to waste.”

Durham will serve as the paper’s editor, Hoover as an Arcata-based reporter. The Eye’s Lauraine Leblanc will be the Scene Editor and handle production tasks. Ad Manager Jada Brotman will connect the newspaper with area businesses. Reporter Bryn Robertson will also provide local coverage, as will the other reporters and columnists you’re used to reading in the Eye and Press.

“Although readers weren’t aware of it, there were times in the past when the Press teetered on insolvency. The Press endured some tough times and faced an uncertain future,” Durham said. “This merger will help ensure that the communities of Northern Humboldt County get real newspaper coverage for years to come.”

“Reapportioning our resources, particularly the time and skills of our resourceful staff, gives us the strength we need in this challenging time for newspapers,” Hoover said. “It will be exciting to see what we can all accomplish under this much more rational structure.”

(Press release from the Arcata Eye/McKinleyville Press. Courtesy, LostCoastOutpost.com)

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DEMAND INTERNATIONAL FUKUSHIMA SOLUTION

On February 22, 2013 the Tokyo Electric Company revealed that contaminated water from Fukushima was leaking into the Pacific Ocean. Fukushima is in crisis two years after the earthquake and tsunami hit.

Japan’s government estimates 300,000 tons of radioactively contaminated water are being released into the ocean daily. It’s the worst nuclear accident in history – an international issue affecting everyone and all life on Earth.

Millions of lives depend on stopping Fukushima’s Building

Four from melting down. Helen Caldicott said the Fukushima accident was two to three times more powerful than Chernobyl. In the 25 years since Chernobyl, one million people have died and more deaths will follow.

The Japanese government isn’t disclosing Fukushima’s effects on human health. It’s time for an international task force of nuclear power experts to converge on Japan and collaborate to stop Fukushima from melting down completely.

Please call and write Senators Boxer (202-224-3553) and Feinstein (202-224-3841) and our new Congressperson, Jared Huffman (202-225-3311). Tell them you want the US government to demand full disclosure of the Fukushima disaster. Tell them you want our country to demand an international team be dispatched to Fukushima immediately.

It’s time to shut down every nuclear power plant in the world. There’s no permanent storage for all the nuclear waste that has been created since the first use of this deadly inefficient technology. Nuclear waste will have to be stored securely for millions of years before it decays to a safe level.

Ed Oberweiser, Fort Bragg

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‘SOMETIMES YOU HAVE TO PAY A HEAVY PRICE TO LIVE IN A FREE SOCIETY’

by Bradley Manning

(Statement made by Pfc. Bradley Manning as read by David Coombs at a press conference on Wednesday following the announcement of his 35-year prison sentence by a military court):

Manning

The decisions that I made in 2010 were made out of a concern for my country and the world that we live in. Since the tragic events of 9/11, our country has been at war. We’ve been at war with an enemy that chooses not to meet us on any traditional battlefield, and due to this fact we’ve had to alter our methods of combating the risks posed to us and our way of life.

I initially agreed with these methods and chose to volunteer to help defend my country. It was not until I was in Iraq and reading secret military reports on a daily basis that I started to question the morality of what we were doing. It was at this time I realized in our efforts to meet this risk posed to us by the enemy, we have forgotten our humanity. We consciously elected to devalue human life both in Iraq and Afghanistan. When we engaged those that we perceived were the enemy, we sometimes killed innocent civilians. Whenever we killed innocent civilians, instead of accepting responsibility for our conduct, we elected to hide behind the veil of national security and classified information in order to avoid any public accountability.

In our zeal to kill the enemy, we internally debated the definition of torture. We held individuals at Guantanamo for years without due process. We inexplicably turned a blind eye to torture and executions by the Iraqi government. And we stomached countless other acts in the name of our war on terror.

Patriotism is often the cry extolled when morally questionable acts are advocated by those in power. When these cries of patriotism drown our any logically based intentions [unclear], it is usually an American soldier that is ordered to carry out some ill-conceived mission.

Our nation has had similar dark moments for the virtues of democracy — the Trail of Tears, the Dred Scott decision, McCarthyism, the Japanese-American internment camps — to name a few. I am confident that many of our actions since 9/11 will one day be viewed in a similar light.

As the late Howard Zinn once said, “There is not a flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people.”

I understand that my actions violated the law, and I regret if my actions hurt anyone or harmed the United States. It was never my intention to hurt anyone. I only wanted to help people. When I chose to disclose classified information, I did so out of a love for my country and a sense of duty to others.

If you deny my request for a pardon, I will serve my time knowing that sometimes you have to pay a heavy price to live in a free society. I will gladly pay that price if it means we could have country that is truly conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all women and men are created equal. (Courtesy, CommonDreams.org)

STATE PARKS has apparently rented all the camping spots at Hendy Woods to a Russian evangelical group over the weekend, much to the chagrin and even outrage of locals. The Rooskies are said to be bringing all their own firewood, food and other supplies so there will be no gain for local business. We hope to have more on this one by tomorrow.

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FORMER ALL-STAR CLOSER for the San Francisco Giants Brian Wilson made his first major-league appearance since undergoing Tommy John surgery and pitched the ninth for Los Angeles, allowing one hit and striking out two. The game was his first since April 2012. “It was long overdue, a very arduous process, but I’m glad I went through it so I could appreciate baseball even more,” Wilson said. “I felt comfortable. I felt like I hadn’t skipped a beat.” Wilson completed the Dodgers’ 17th shutout, most in the majors. Miami was shut out for the 15th time. The Dodgers (75-52) climbed 23 games above .500 for the first time since 2009. They went 5-2 on their two-city trip and have won 22 of their past 25 road games.

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COMMENT OF THE DAY UNO: To be possessed when you are a child is just a wonderful feeling. It makes you feel safe. It makes you feel loved. But later if anyone tried to possess me — oh boy, I was out of there. That was something Frank (Sinatra) never understood. He just couldn’t deal with it, and I couldn’t explain it to him. Probably because I couldn’t understand it myself. — Ava Gardner

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COMMENT OF THE DAY DOS: It’s time to put my baby-boom generation out to pasture! We’ve had our day and managed to muck up a hell of a lot. It remains baffling how anyone would think that Hillary Clinton (born the same year as me) is our party’s best chance. She has more sooty baggage than a 90-car freight train. And what exactly has she ever accomplished — beyond bullishly covering for her philandering husband? — Camille Paglia

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JOHN CHAMBERLIN’S memorial party will be held Saturday, Aug. 31, 2013, at the Greenwood Community Center in Elk. Potluck, bring your own drinks. Music by dozens of John’s friends, a silent auction and a memorabilia sale. Come celebrate John’s life and wife and all our years of dancing together!

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UKIAH CITY HALL TRIES A COSTCO END RUN

To the Editor:

The City of Ukiah is attempting an end-run to approve a $6.2 million Traffic Modification Plan needed by the proposed new Costco at taxpayer expense. They want to by-pass the environmental impact evaluation by declaring that the “minor” adverse effects of the proposed project can be mitigated to levels that make them insignificant with a snap of their finger.

Smith Engineering & Management, an independent traffic engineering firm, has concluded in their August 9th letter to the Planning Director that the proposed traffic mitigation plan is deficient in a number of respects and would be a threat to the safety of the throngs of rabid consumers expected at this new store.
a: The plan is potentially hazardous and uses inconsistent data and methodologies.
b. It understates the peak period traffic and relies upon the very low traffic volumes of February 2010 data as its basis. Cal Trans northern California data for Hwy 101 shows February traffic to be 7% lower than the average month, and 18% lower than the busiest month of the years 
c. Cal Trans has previously noted that the data being used “Grossly under represented typical average peak hour demand throughout the year”.

The City has no money for this poorly designed plan and the State Department of Finance has forbidden their using the $2.3 million revenue they hope to receive from the sale of 15 acres of land to Costco. This was old RDA funds that are now blocked by the Legislature in Sacramento. Thus they must find some other source for the full $6.2 million cost of this Costco driveway. Sales tax revenues and property tax receipts are falling as we sink further into recession. That will make two loans for the same project. Really smart thinking, City Council!

The trouble is that most of us are far too busy getting by in these troubled times to give a hoot about City Hall and their failings. Only two of us spoke at last night’s public hearing. You can still send in comments in writing by August 27th. Without public outcry the Council will think they’re home free.

James Houle, Redwood Valley

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THE CALIF STATE DEPARTMENT OF TOXIC SUBSTANCE CONTROL will hold an important meeting next Wednesday night, August 28 at 6:30pm in Fort Bragg’s Town Hall. They will provide updates on what they have discovered and what they will be requiring of G-P to clean it up. They will be prepared to answer questions about this ongoing process. Let’s show up and let everyone know we’re watching and pulling for the best possible clean-up.

Ed Oberweiser, Fort Bragg

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EASY ON THE ADVERBS, EXCLAMATION POINTS AND ESPECIALLY HOOPTEDOODLE

by Elmore Leonard

These are rules I’ve picked up along the way to help me remain invisible when I’m writing a book, to help me show rather than tell what’s taking place in the story. If you have a facility for language and imagery and the sound of your voice pleases you, invisibility is not what you are after, and you can skip the rules. Still, you might look them over.

1. Never open a book with weather. If it’s only to create atmosphere, and not a character’s reaction to the weather, you don’t want to go on too long. The reader is apt to leaf ahead looking for people. There are exceptions. If you happen to be Barry Lopez, who has more ways to describe ice and snow than an Eskimo, you can do all the weather reporting you want.

2. Avoid prologues. They can be annoying, especially a prologue following an introduction that comes after a foreword. But these are ordinarily found in nonfiction. A prologue in a novel is backstory, and you can drop it in anywhere you want. There is a prologue in John Steinbeck’s “Sweet Thursday,” but it’s OK because a character in the book makes the point of what my rules are all about. He says: “I like a lot of talk in a book and I don’t like to have nobody tell me what the guy that’s talking looks like. I want to figure out what he looks like from the way he talks. … figure out what the guy’s thinking from what he says. I like some description but not too much of that. … Sometimes I want a book to break loose with a bunch of hooptedoodle. … Spin up some pretty words maybe or sing a little song with language. That’s nice. But I wish it was set aside so I don’t have to read it. I don’t want hooptedoodle to get mixed up with the story.”

3. Never use a verb other than “said” to carry dialogue. The line of dialogue belongs to the character; the verb is the writer sticking his nose in. But said is far less intrusive than grumbled, gasped, cautioned, lied. I once noticed Mary McCarthy ending a line of dialogue with “she asseverated,” and had to stop reading to get the dictionary.

4. Never use an adverb to modify the verb “said” … he admonished gravely. To use an adverb this way (or almost any way) is a mortal sin. The writer is now exposing himself in earnest, using a word that distracts and can interrupt the rhythm of the exchange. I have a character in one of my books tell how she used to write historical romances “full of rape and adverbs.”

5. Keep your exclamation points under control. You are allowed no more than two or three per 100,000 words of prose. If you have the knack of playing with exclaimers the way Tom Wolfe does, you can throw them in by the handful.

6. Never use the words “suddenly” or “all hell broke loose.” This rule doesn’t require an explanation. I have noticed that writers who use “suddenly” tend to exercise less control in the application of exclamation points.

7. Use regional dialect, patois, sparingly. Once you start spelling words in dialogue phonetically and loading the page with apostrophes, you won’t be able to stop. Notice the way Annie Proulx captures the flavor of Wyoming voices in her book of short stories “Close Range.”

8. Avoid detailed descriptions of characters. Which Steinbeck covered. In Ernest Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants” what do the “American and the girl with him” look like? “She had taken off her hat and put it on the table.” That’s the only reference to a physical description in the story, and yet we see the couple and know them by their tones of voice, with not one adverb in sight.

9. Don’t go into great detail describing places and things. Unless you’re Margaret Atwood and can paint scenes with language or write landscapes in the style of Jim Harrison. But even if you’re good at it, you don’t want descriptions that bring the action, the flow of the story, to a standstill.

And finally: 10. Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip. A rule that came to mind in 1983. Think of what you skip reading a novel: thick paragraphs of prose you can see have too many words in them. What the writer is doing, he’s writing, perpetrating hooptedoodle, perhaps taking another shot at the weather, or has gone into the character’s head, and the reader either knows what the guy’s thinking or doesn’t care. I’ll bet you don’t skip dialogue.

My most important rule is one that sums up the 10. If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it. Or, if proper usage gets in the way, it may have to go. I can’t allow what we learned in English composition to disrupt the sound and rhythm of the narrative. It’s my attempt to remain invisible, not distract the reader from the story with obvious writing. (Joseph Conrad said something about words getting in the way of what you want to say.)

If I write in scenes and always from the point of view of a particular character — the one whose view best brings the scene to life — I’m able to concentrate on the voices of the characters telling you who they are and how they feel about what they see and what’s going on, and I’m nowhere in sight.

What Steinbeck did in “Sweet Thursday” was title his chapters as an indication, though obscure, of what they cover. “Whom the Gods Love They Drive Nuts” is one, “Lousy Wednesday” another. The third chapter is titled “Hooptedoodle 1” and the 38th chapter “Hooptedoodle 2” as warnings to the reader, as if Steinbeck is saying: “Here’s where you’ll see me taking flights of fancy with my writing, and it won’t get in the way of the story. Skip them if you want.”

“Sweet Thursday” came out in 1954, when I was just beginning to be published, and I’ve never forgotten that prologue.

Did I read the hooptedoodle chapters? Every word.

(Ed note: Elmore Leonard, the award-winning mystery writer whose snappy dialogue, misfit characters and laconic sense of humor produced such popular works as “Get Shorty,” “Hombre,” “Fifty-Two Pickup” and “Out of Sight,” died Tuesday, August 20, 2013. He was 87.)

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Huffman

REPRESENTATIVE JARED HUFFMAN will join host, John Sakowicz, on “All About Money”, on KZYX, tomorrow, Friday, August 23, at 9 am, with an update on all that’s he’s being doing in Congress — sponsored legislation, voting record, and committee work. During the second half of the show, we’ll kick off a new series on successful small businesses in Mendocino County with unique business models. We start with Leslie Williams, owner and co-founder of Orr Hot springs. We broadcast at 88.1, 90.7, and 91.5 FM in the Counties of Mendocino, Lake, Humboldt, and Sonoma. We also stream live from the web at www.kzyx.org .

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JUDGE LIFTS ORDER BLOCKING INCREASED TRINITY RIVER RELEASES

by Dan Bacher

In a significant victory for salmon, a federal judge in Fresno today issued a decision lifting a temporary restraining order blocking increased releases of Trinity Reservoir water into the Trinity River to prevent a fish kill on the lower Klamath River.

The decision by U.S. District Judge Lawrence O’Neill came after a two -day court hearing and days of protests from a large group of Hoopa Valley Tribal members. Over 60 Tribal members protested in Fresno, California at the Westlands Water District board meeting on Tuesday and outside the Fresno courtroom and in Sacramento, California outside a fisheries hearing at the California State Capital building on Wednesday.

Judge O’Neill concluded “…on balance, considering the significantly lower volume of water now projected to be involved and the potential and enormous risk to the fishery of doing nothing, the Court finds it in the public interest to permit the augmentation to proceed.” (Page 19.)

The Court also noted, “…the flow augmentation releases are designed to prevent a potentially serious fish die off from impacting salmon populations entering the Klamath River estuary. There is no dispute and the record clearly reflects that the 2002 fish kill had severe impacts on commercial fishing interests, tribal fishing rights, and the ecology, and that another fish kill would likely have similar impacts.” (Page 16.)

“The Trinity River is our vessel of life and the salmon are our lifeblood,” stated Hoopa Valley Chairwoman, Danielle Vigil-Masten. “We applaud the decision to release this water to avert a fish disaster, but this lawsuit demonstrates the need for long term solutions to the fisheries crisis in the Klamath and Trinity rivers.”

The Court rejected demands by San Joaquin Valley corporate agribusiness interests to block the releases that were supposed to have started August 13.

The Trinity River, the Klamath River’s largest tributary, is the only out of basin diversion into the Central Valley Project. Westlands Water District and the San Luis and Delta-Mendota Water Authority filed a lawsuit against a government decision to release water for fish on August 7. The Hoopa Valley Tribe and Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations intervened in the case on the side of the federal government.

After hearing from half a dozen fisheries experts who all agreed that the water release program was supported by the science, the Court ruled for the water release program to move forward.

“Judge O’Neill seemed to be pressing Tribal and Federal scientists for answers to what salmon need to survive in the Klamath River this year,” said Hoopa Valley Tribal biologist Mike Orcutt. “We did our best and hoped and prayed for this decision. The fate of the fish was in the judged hands and he made the right decision.”

“Commercial fishermen and Indian Tribes explained to the Court how another large-scale fish kill would devastate the coastal economy,” said Glen Spain of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations (PCFFA). “This decision is wonderful news for a California native salmon run and all the coastal communities who depend on the salmon for their sustainable livelihoods.”

Attorney Jan Hasselman of Earthjustice, who intervened on behalf of PCFFA, said, “The decision to protect salmon also protects the Northern California coastal communities. Salmon runs can provide jobs forever if managed correctly. The science is clear that additional releases are needed to protect this priceless resource.”

Yurok Tribe Stillwater consultant Josh Strange testified that the Ich parasite, which devastated Klamath salmon populations in September 2002, was a poor swimmer so the water flows wash away the parasite. Yurok scientist Mike Belchik also testified about the disruptive effect of water energy on salmon parasites.

“This year is unusual in that extremely low flow conditions in the lower Klamath are occurring at the same time fisheries managers expect the second-largest run of chinook on record to begin arriving within days,” noted Spain. “Federal, state and tribal salmon biologists have been gravely concerned that this confluence of high runs and low flows will lead to another mass fish kill like the one that occurred in 2002.”

Experts explained to the judge how water conditions in the basin this year are almost identical to those in 2002, except with a far larger adult run of chinook, the third largest on record, expected to return to the system. “The undisputed evidence before the Court was that the risk of another fish kill was grave,” said Spain.

The 2002 fish kill led to coast-wide closures of commercial, recreational and tribal fishing, leading to serious harm to the economy, reminded a joint statement from the PCFFA and Earthjustice. Congress ultimately appropriated $60 million in disaster assistance to help coastal communities, an amount that was widely regarded as a fraction of what was needed.

“This decision is great news for the Trinity River, its salmon, its people and the rule of law and science,” summed up Tom Stokely, Water Policy Analyst/Media Contact for California Water Impact Network (C- WIN).

Dan Nelson, Executive Director of the San Luis & Delta-Mendota Water Authority, also claimed victory in response to Judge O’Neill’s order lifting the temporary restraining order, noting that the order reduced the total amount of water slated for release to 20,000 acre feet.

“Today’s decision by Judge O’Neill to lift the temporary restraining order which prevented the release of water from Trinity Reservoir results in a significant decrease in the harm originally expected to occur,” said Nelson. “Yesterday, the United States reduced their stated need of up to 109,000 acre-feet of water, which they claimed just last week was the amount necessary, to now only 20,000 acre- feet. Clearly the scientific justification they provided last week just couldn’t hold up.”

“We appreciate Judge O’Neill’s understanding of the urgency and importance of this matter. We also recognize the burden he placed upon himself by setting aside his heavy case load to allow for the careful consideration of the question at hand. In his decision, Judge O’Neill stated that, ‘all parties have prevailed in a significant, responsible way,’” Nelson stated.

While this is a big victory, the future of salmon and steelhead on the Sacramento, Klamath and Trinity rivers is threatened by Governor Jerry Brown’s rush to build the peripheral tunnels under the California Delta. The twin tunnels would deliver massive amounts of northern California water to corporate agribusiness to irrigate toxic, drainage-impaired land on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley and to oil companies to expandfracking in Kern County and coastal areas. The $54.1 billion boondoggle would hasten the extinction of Central Valley Chinook salmon, steelhead, Delta and longfin smelt, green sturgeon and other fish species.

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JOIN SANCTUARY FOREST on Saturday, August 31^st for the Sustainable Forest Management hike! Hike leaders Noah Levy, Campbell Thompson and Jared Gerstein will take hikers through two second-growth groves in the upper Mattole River watershed with planned Programmatic Timber Harvest Plans (PTHPs), that will include light-touch timber harvesting and thinning—accelerating the return of old-growth conditions. Time willing, hikers will also visit a grove on Indian Creek—passing through beautiful old-growth redwoods and stopping for ridgetop views. Scientists, environmental organizations and foresters alike are learning that, unlike old-growth forests, previously logged second-growth forests benefit greatly from active management—as well as the rivers, animals and people who live or pass through them. This is a chance to learn about the work humans are doing to help restore past damage to our watersheds. Meet at 10 a.m. at the Sanctuary Forest office. Wear sturdy walking or hiking shoes, bring a lunch and plenty of water. Hikers should be prepared for a moderate to rigorous walk both on and off trail. The hike is free of charge, though donations are gladly accepted and help Sanctuary Forest offer this program year after year. For questions or clarifications, contact Marisa at marisa@sanctuaryforest.org, or call 986-1087 x 1#. Hope to see you there!

Support from volunteers and local businesses have made this program possible for Sanctuary Forest. Local businesses that have made generous contributions are Blue Star Gas, Jangus Publishing Group, Whitethorn Winery, Charlotte’s Perennial Gardens, The Security Store, Chautauqua Natural Foods, Clover Willison Insurance Services, Hohstadt Garden Center, Roy Baker, O.D., Worthy Construction, Wyckoff Plumbing, Mattole Meadows, James Friel Plumbing, Ned Hardwood Construction, Randall Sand & Gravel, Sylvandale Gardens, Redwood Properties, Dazey’s Supply, Monica Coyne Artist Blacksmith, Southern Humboldt Fitness, Pierson Building Center, Whitethorn Construction, Caffe Dolce, Mattole River Studios, and Wildberries Marketplace.

Sanctuary Forest is a land trust whose mission is to conserve the Mattole River watershed and surrounding areas for wildlife habitat and aesthetic, spiritual and intrinsic values, in cooperation with our diverse community.

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ROCKABILLY DOO WOP

The Annual Odyssey for Equal Time

by Joe Don Mooney

The eighth annual Rockabilly in the Redwoods Festival at the miniature livestock arena in Scotia, Humboldt County, was held during the weekend of August 1-4 to celebrate otherworldly wild western classical music. The main three-day festival took place Friday afternoon through Sunday morning.

This year’s headliner was honky-tonk rockabilly phenom, Bobby Wells and her Swingin’ Arky Revue from Lake Beaver, Arkansas, a suburb of Eureka Springs.

For burlesque fans, the festival organizers and the ever popular Gomer and Retro, plus a new Okie group, Thumper and the Cottontails, a house band at the Bob Wills Tulsa Playboy Club — all former Miss Tulsa beauty queens.

A surprise last-minute booking was Little Dickie Doo and the Don’ts, a retro group from Dover, Delaware, making a national doo wop revival tour.

At the Mooney clan’s annual St. Paddy’s Day gather­ing this year, uncle Eddie Mooney entrusted me with the secret clan recipe for quadruple distilled homebrew (Mooneyshine) brought from Ireland by my ancestors in the early 18th century. He also passed me the clan’s ancient copper pot still. At the Biblical age of three score and ten, I’m now responsible for the advance of Mooney tradition. With the handoff complete, Eddie grinned, winked, slapped me on the back and crooned the Mooney tune, “There is nothing like whiskey to make maidens risky.”

After the freedom of traveling light last year, I now have the burden of spreading Mooney culture, so I built a nifty two-wheeled teardrop camper trailer as a tanker to tow behind my methane powered turbocharged V-8 1943 Czech Tatra.

Rancho Puerco, my compound on Duncan Peak west of Hopland, home of the Okie Razorbacks, is perfectly suited for moonshining since it’s remote, easily defensi­ble, and harbors a herd of testy, slashing Razorback hogs led by Sharpie, a 1000 pound stud boar.

My early departure for the Festival on Thursday morning was a hopeful attempt to avoid the Highway 101 gridlock of stoner caravans rolling north to KaKa in the River, a reggae festival at Frog’s Camp near Piercy.

Loading the trailer with camping gear, duds, gorp, water, icechest, hooch and weapons, I bid farewell to Sharpie and company, fired up my rig, and meandered down the mountain, tipping my hat to the leprechaun artists as I passed their unique pygmy forest enclave.

The gumdrop shaped Duncan Peak, due to its loca­tion and proximity to the Sanel Valley floor is a visually prominent feature in the Hopland area.

According to old-timers in Sanel Valley the peak was named after Elijah Duncan, a Tennessee native born in 1824 who married Elizabeth Craddock of Virginia in 1858, migrated to the town of Sanel, and in 1879 purchased 460 acres near the base of Duncan Peak on which Duncan Springs Resort was developed and maintained into the 1960s. And all this time I thought the Peak was named in honor of fast food huckster, Duncan Donut.

At Highway 101, I motored north to Ukiah for a trav­eler’s breakfast at the Bebop Diner on South State Street — the official headquarters for the Rockabilly in the Redwoods Festival planners who meet all year long, eating and drinking much while planning little. The planners choose to remain anonymous, wearing Groucho glasses to avoid power trips.

After gobbling chicken fried steak with country gravy, eggs, fried potatoes, and toast while guzzling tomato juice and coffee, I ordered two different triple-decker “big bopper burgers” for the road: The “great balls of fire” with American cheese, jalapeno peppers, lettuce, tomato and onion, and the “James Dean” with sauteed peppers, mushrooms, onions, jack cheese, lettuce and tomato — both heavily lubricated with “bop sauce.”

For the fun of it, I launched a one-man parade north on State Street, the Champs d’Elysees of the Redwood Empire, to show off my unique little emerald green Czech Tatra with its three headlights and central tail fin. We got a few stares but virtually no rotten eggs and tomatoes. Most people were zoned out, thumbing their electronic gizmos, aware of nothing beyond their digital bubbles.

Traveling north through Calpella to West Road in Redwood Valley, I continued on Tomki Road along the Russian River past Oster Wine Cellars, Frey Vineyards, then up into rugged outlaw territory.

This route, though rough and dangerous, is the only remaining scenic bypass of Willits, a hard drinking cow­boy frontier town that has mushroomed into a full-blown crank/pot theme park — a pharmaceutical oasis for speed and weed.

With the new Caltrans (Calturds) Highway 101 bypass now being dozed through Little Swamp Valley, the old country road eastern bypass route has been visu­ally trashed.

Willits boosters are frantically trying to “brand” the town as a tourist destination before the bypass is com­plete. Their job is already done. Willits is known nation­ally for two things: the Skunk Train and primo skunk­weed. Drunktown has become Skunktown. “Visit Choo Choo Skunk town, home of the pot rush.”

The grand marshal of this year’s July 4 Skunktown Frontier Days parade was the head honcho of High Times Supply, the largest distributor of pot grow stuff in Northern California — including rat poison and a witch’s brew of other toxic chemicals. The theme of this year celebration was “Hawaiian Luau.” Welcome to the Hula pot frontier.

Driving Tomki Road is a suitable adventure for those who can tolerate stream crossings and gunfire. In June of this year a Mendo County deputy sheriff was fired on from 30 feet away by an Hispanic man in camos during a pot bust at the 20000 block of Tomki Road. The deputy returned fire, “missed,” and camo dude went into the for­est unscathed. How could the deputy miss at only 30 feet? Aren’t the cops packing assault rifles? At the very least, pot raiders should be armed with AK-47s and bloopers.

From Tomki, I drove west on Canyon Road past the Frisco Bay Area Boy Scout camp to Hearst-Willits Road — briefly — then north and west on Reynolds Highway skirting the Okefenokee section of Little Swamp Valley.

Opponents of Calturd’s Half Ass Skunktown bypass claim that wick drains used to suck moisture from the water table will desertify the Valley, converting an immense wetland into a vast desert. It’s happened before in the Sahara. Hello Little Dunes Valley.

I admire the brave, idealistic folks are trying to stop the Calturds juggernaut, but they’re up against an evil empire headed by Darth Dougherty who has a galactic mission to pave the entire state from Mexico to Oregon creating a fireproof nirvana with unimpeded runoff to fill the reservoirs. We’ll all live in computer-controlled per­petual motion vehicles.

By using incoherent, fragmented tactics, the bypass opponents violated one of the oldest, most fundamental rules of battle: never divide your strength when faced with superior force.

The Calturds opponents remind me of an old Earth First! inspirational cartoon showing a Stone Age barbar­ian chucking a spear at an onrushing D-9 Cat. Without a return of Luke Skywalker their cause is doomed.

The Skunktown bypass is collateral damage from the “American way of life,” and the owners of America say, “The American way of life is not negotiable.” 90% of the population cheerfully accepts this reality.

On a positive note, the atrocious bypass will actually benefit interregional travelers who can avoid exposure to the squalor of South Stunktown. And I’m told that local stoners really groove on the highway construction pile drivers which sound like reggae drumming: THUMP THUMP THUMP.

At the Reynolds Highway/101 juncture, I turned the peppy Tatra north to climb Oil Well Hill on the way to future boom town, Laidbackville, home of Lumpy Gravy’s Camp Winnacashflow and former location of the holy stoner papal conclave “Emerald Cup” at Area 101. The annual event is held in December to pick a pot pope for the year, typically the one who produces the most powerful strain of “medicine.”

The “Emerald Cup” event which quickly outgrew Area 101 was held at the Mateel Community Center near Ganjaville last year where the holy stoner mob was so huge that organizers have moved the show to the Sonoma County Fairgrounds this year, anticipating a crowd of over 7,000. Pot is now the fastest growing organized religion in the world.

The traffic north of Laidbackville was already heavy due to early bird KaKa in the River caravans, and after Rattlesnake Summit, I was relieved to veer right on Spy Rock Road to visit my Okie school days chum, Buddy Roach and his Two Rock Ranch compound. Buddy, the unofficial mayor of Spy Rock, greeted me with a bone crushing bearhug then introduced his current girlfriend, Olivia, who he snagged at last year’s Kaka in the River Festival.

Olivia, a 30-something former fashion model from Houston, Texas, was tall and lanky with big teeth, hol­low cheeks, pert nose, saucer eyes, and a full head of short, erect black dreadlocks — the pincushion look. A dead ringer for actress Shelley Duvall. Buddy and Olivia, the odd couple, looked like Bluto and Olive Oyle in the Popeye cartoons.

Last year after Kaka in the River Buddy resigned as security honcho because the festival was getting too violent and dangerous even for a 6-3, 240 pound muscle­bound thug. He hated the music but loved the pay and used ear plugs to dampen the noise, only responding to high decibel screamers. He said, “It’s sex, drugs and roving thugs, the music is background noise.”

Buddy had agreed to help staff this year’s Rockabilly in the Redwoods, gratis, just to get back to his Okie roots music. He’d shaved off his 13 foot long red topknot crowd control bullwhip and his ear to nose to ear mus­tache in order to create a rockabilly hairdo — a clerical tonsure with bald top, side fendrs and rear ducktail — the felonious monk.

I could never achieve the 50s hairdos. Even with gobs of Lucky Tiger Hair Wax, my flattops always wilted, and each hair grew at a different rate, so the flat­top became a rolling plain and eventually a mountain range. I was a pre-punk pioneer. Today my hairstyle could best be described as multidirectional combover.

To fortify us for the grueling traffic jams on High­way 101, I uncorked a jug of Mooneyshine and warmed up the big bopper burgers on the stove. Buddy grabbed the Great Balls of Fire and by default I took the James Dean — a kindred rebel without a clue. Olivia passed since she is a third-degree vegan who won’t eat anything that casts a shadow and survives on trace minerals, lichen, algae dust, and creeping pot.

After chow we piled into the Tatra, Buddy in front with his Marine Corps duffel bag and Olivia twisted like a pretzel in back. The Tatra’s rear mounted engine and running gear allow for a roomy cabin, comfy even for big guys like Buddy.

At Highway 101 the traffic flowed like molasses but speeded up at the four-lane sections. From Cummings to Leggett to Piercy we eventually approached the Dread­boldt County line and hit a cloud of ambient pot smoke that was dense enough to require headlights.

At Kaka in the River grand entry portal we stopped, uncoiled and offloaded Olivia, who, wearing only a thigh high, tie-dyed hemp flour sack, dissolved into a swirling mass of dreadlocked and loaded zigzag zombies, never to be seen or heard from again.

Buddy seemed unconcerned. He’s been a serial wom­anizer ever since his college sweetheart, Rhonda Jo Petty, ran off with Joe Bob Briggs to become an adult film star.

At the time, Buddy went ape-shit and virtually destroyed the I Phelta Thi sorority house on the Okie University campus. For that Samson trip, he was perma­nently dismissed from the football team — until the next game.

Through Richardson Grove we traveled in silence north to Ganjaville for a free gas-up pitstop at KBUD radio then pushed onward to Phillipsville and detoured through the majestic Avenue of the Giants redwoods where Buddy came to life and fired up a big fatty.

At Shively we harvested a gunnysack full of organic veggies as our contribution to this year’s Festival dinner featuring road potluck stew.

At Scotia, the rockabilly early birds had flocked and joined staff in the arena for “orientation” — a bad omen, indicating an attempted take over by friendly fascists.

Bud and I set up camp, roasted weenies, grabbed some beer and went to the arena for a look-see. Buddha Bud, the human beer keg on stilts, was AWOL, while an officious looking twirp named Phil was organizing an evening “workshop” titled “Whither Rockabilly.”

Since most of the mob was already loaded, this looked like fun, so we blended into the crowd to give our input.

The workshop quickly tanked into ranting shoptalk, bitching about work. “My boss is an asshole!” “Get over it, that’s the job description, or be your own boss and be your own asshole.” “The company doesn’t appreciate me!” “The company’s job is to ‘depreciate’ you.” “They don’t pay me what I’m worth!” “You’re worth what they say your worth and nothing more.”

Twirpy Phil was, “Like totally” peeved and stomped off in a huff. Who let him in? Don’t we have shit detec­tors?

Rockabilly rebels don’t do workshops, we do work parties: work a little, party a lot. On full red alert, rockabilly rowdies gathered around the evening bonfire to guzzle and strategize.

According to evolutionary biologist E.O. Wilson, the campfire is one of the founding pillars of civilization. Humans are the animal kingdom’s greatest practitioners of what he calls “eusociality.” We form groups contain­ing multiple generations and perform altruistic acts as part of our division of labor. And the focus of these groups is a pile of burning wood.

Around the bonfire rockabilly wisdom prevailed: “America doesn’t have a culture, it has a depraved way of life that is actually a living death, and the rockabilly resistance, spread face to face, telepathically, or via smoke signals, is gradually gaining cultural identity and culture trumps politics, blah blah blah.”

“The rockabilly revolution has reached critical mass. We are the birds of the coming storm, blah blah blah.” “Like whatever, dudes, let’s not take ourselves too seri­ously. It’s party time!”

Early Friday morning, still fuzzy, Buddy and I crawled out of our sacks, gobbled gorp, guzzled coffee and checked out the scene. The arena campground was nearly full of rockabillians positioning vintage cars and trailers, firing up Webbers, swilling beer and getting stoned for the Festival Parade which was scheduled to begin at high noon.

At Ground Zero I noticed an elegant lady riding what appeared to be a snazzy electric bicycle which on closer inspection was actually a rare, historic, mint condition 1901 Indian Camelback motorcycle featuring an air cooled 200cc single cylinder engine, dual chain drive, front mounted throttle and choke levers and trademark “camel’s hump” over the rear fender draped with bulging black saddlebags.

At the information kiosk, mystery lady dismounted and waved, presenting a vision of Marianne Faithfull in the classic 1968 French movie, “Girl on a Motorcycle.” Now in her late 60s, Faithfull was a headliner at the Kate Wolf Memorial Festival at Laidbackville this June.

Mystery was clad in an emerald green rayon riding suit, black hemp kneelength motorcycle boots, and I a pink kevlar crash helmet which she removed to reveal an ancient Celtic hairdo with beautifully spiraled curls, both in front and hanging down either side, briaded down the back and confined at the ends with light hollow golden balls.

I stumbled over for introductions and “Breezy Rider,” a nurse from Mendopia Village who hails from New England and was curious about rockabilly, a for­eign music, her passion being doo wop. She was drawn to the festival primarily to hear the doo-wop group and as an environmental and animal rights activist, she wanted to check on our environmental bonafides and treatment of animals.

I assured her that we ran a clean show with pampered animals including last year’s hamster olympics gold medal winners who were given lucrative promotional contracts by “Wheaties, breakfast of champions.” Used, but not abused. At that bit of blarney, she laughed out­loud and said, “It’s the same thing.”

While admiring her rig, I learned that the Indian was a family heirloom purchased by her grandfather, Red Ryder, who rode the motorcycle west to become a cow­boy movie star.

Breezy was also scouting the scene to get ideas for her dream of organizing a doo-wop festival in Mendopia. Her knowledge of doo-wop was amazing, tracing the form to early American black vocal harmony, primarily gospel. Important 20th-century influences were the Mills Brothers and Ink Spots in the 30s and 40s. After the Ink Spots faded, two similar groups, the Ravens and Orioles, gained national stardom in 1949. By the early 50s doo-wop was a growing phenomenon with many singles top­ping the R&B charts. It remained popular through the 50s and 60s but dwindled in popularity by 1964 due to the British invasion. King George III got his revenge.

But doo wop didn’t die, and it didn’t fade away. Peri­odic doo-wop revivals keep the sound alive. Rock ‘n roll connoisseurs still regard doo wop as the cream of the cream.

Breezy said, “Doo-wop” was a term used to describe the characteristic nonsense syllables invented early in the game by background harmonizers who didn’t get to sing lead.

I heard a different version from my “Music Apprecia­tion for Jocks” teacher at Okie University, an Irish-Italian football washout from Brooklyn named Pookie Spaniello. He said — with a straight face — that doo-wop was an Italian hair style.

So, why doo wop at rockabilly festival? Because rockabilly is country doo wop, evolving, in part, from the vocal harmonies and yodeling of groups like the Sons of the Pioneers. Doo-wop preceded rockabilly by about five years. The first rockabilly recording was Elvis Presley’s “That’s Alright Mama” on Sun Records in 1954.

Suring the OK 50s, rhythm and blues music was rarely heard on the airwaves until Wolfman Jack shined his musical beacon on mid-America from a multi-mega watt pirate radio station in Mexico across the border from Del Rio, Texas. At midnight he could be heard all the way north to Canada and west to California. I’ve talked to Sonoma County natives who boogied to Wolfman Jack’s beamed-in music at coast beach parties in the 50s. Wolfman advised listeners to “Get yo’ self nekkid” while peddling various snake oils, plastic Jesus statutes, coffins, and “inspirational” literature.

At high noon, Buddha Bud emerge from the shadows and fired his earsplitting ancient blunderbuss to announce the beginning of the Festival parade around the tiny arena.

As the rockabilly clubbers gathered along the perime­ter, a black 1923 Ford T-bucket Roadster emerged pulling an antique redwood haywagon carrying the “Rockabilly Belles” from the Redwood Empire Fair clad in short shorts, sleeveless tank tops and high-heeled sneakers. They smiled, blew kisses, and waved the rockabilly flag showing the 50s era hot rod pulling a hay wagon over a field of horizontal red, white, and blue stripes with the motto, “Don’t you tread on my blue suede shoes.”

The Ford customized roadster had exposed chrome chassis rails, mammoth V-8 engine, individual sparkplug wires, chrome headers and side pipes. Other features included open suicide doors, a tufted seat and tilt down window.

In second order came the Turlock Shriners precision riding mower unit consisting of fat guys in overalls driving John Deeres. Then the crowd favorite, Abraca­dabra topless tap dance troupe, attempted to make noise dancing on turf. Distracted by Abracadabra, the Hayfork precision pitchfork drill team lost cadence resulting in superficial wounds and bandaged butts. Following the carnage, Hippity Hoppers square dance troupe, consist­ing of 16 hefty folks in matching the overalls and red checked shirts, twirled to polite applause, clearing the way for the Bindlestiffs, a roving band of hobos, tinkers, and gypsies singing Woody Guthrie songs. Bringing up the rear, sitting atop a 1955 Ward LaFrance Texaco firetruck, the beloved Emmet Otter Frogtown Hollow Jubilee Jug Band played rockabilly standards.

When the arena cleared, rockabilly staff and volun­teers began setting up for for fun, games and music.

After chow and preshow lubrication, the rockabilly mob packed the arena for an evening of musical bliss.

The hayseed duo, Gomer and Retro, opened playing squeezebox and ukelele while singing silly and risque lyrics to popular tunes including a pot grower parody, “Home on the Ridge,” an Amsterdam tribute, “How much is that Dolly in the Window?” and a hit spoof, “Ghost Writers in the Sky.”

After a polite round of one hand clapping, Gomer and Retro introduced little Dickie Doo and the Don’ts who hopscotched on stage to a warm welcome. Lead singer Richard Dooley has a terrific voice similar to Johnny Maestro and the backup vocals are superb. With alto sax legend Ornette Cobb on board, the group has produced an entire repertoire of doo-wop covers many of which are better than the originals.

The 50s look Triple-Ds opened with covers of the Cadillacs “Speedo,” the Jewell’s “Hearts of Stone,” the Harptones’ “Life is but a Dream,” the Flecktones “This Little Girl of Mine,” Johnny Maestro’s “Trouble in Para­dise” and the Del Vikings’ “Whipsering Bells.”

Bowing to a whooping round of applause, they down­shifted to mushy slow dance stuff that we called “groin grinders” back in the day starting with the Chan­nels’ “That’s my Desire,” followed by the Skylineres’ “Since I Don’t Have You,” the Capris “There’s a Moon Out Tonight,” and the Hearts’ “Long Lonely Nights.”

After a short break the doo-wop mimics returned for a sentimental medley starting with the Dells’ “Oh what a night,” followed by the Dupres’ “You belong to me,” closing with the Flamingo’s spine tingling classic, “I only have eyes for you.”

The audience exploded in sentimental, misty-eyed cheer as the Triple D’s high-fived for a prolonged stand­ing ovation.

As the crowd disappeared, I reminisced about the high school groin grinding sock hop days of nearly 60 years ago. The dances, held in high school gymnasiums, were called “sock hops” because we had to dance with­out shoes to prevent damage to the hardwood floors. Buddy, ever the clown, went barefoot just to cause trou­ble. The prissy dance monitors threatened to throw him out for spreading athlete’s foot but even then he was too much to handle.

Buddy was 6-5 in high school and had a hard time groin grinding. To play the game he to either dance on his knees, or lift his partner a foot off the floor. To com­pensate, he develop a floor-clearing style of free-form dancing to woo the chicks using his favorite pickup line, “Come go with me.”

After fetching some hooch, I joined Breezy and Buddy at the evening bonfire wondering if we should introduce the Celtic ritual of human sacrifice, thinking of that annoying twerp, Phil. Passing the hooch around the horn we wondered why many of the early doo-wop groups were named after noble birds — Orioles, Ravens, Cardinals, Robins, Flamingos, Falcons, Penguins. Why not Coots, Vultures, Dodos and Boobies?

And why was “Angel” used in so many subtitles? “Angels listened in,” “Devil or Angel,” “Angel Sang,” “Blue Angel,” and “Earth Angel,” Breezy’s favorite doo-wop tune.

While “Earth Angel” by the LA group Cleve Duncan and the Penguins is considered by many to be the best doo wop tune, I favor the Cole Porter classic “In the still of the night” by Fred Parris and the Satins, a group from Connecticut. Buddy’s favorite is “Come go with me” by the Del Vikings originally pegged as a rockabilly group.

We thought Breezy should now be known as “Earth Angel” since she’s an Earth Warrior and a bonafide angel of mercy. At that, she described how doo wop music helped her get through a hellish Vietnam tour as an Army nurse.

Buddy and I knew that country very well at we each turned and smothered Breezy with emotional welcome home hugs. Goldilocks and the two bears.

Changing the subject, Earth Angel asked why Scotia is a rockabilly stronghold and wondered about its his­tory.

Records show that the village was established as For­estville in 1863 and was renamed in 1888 supposedly by Irish immigrants using the ancient Roman term for Ire­land — Scotia.

Throughout history and prehistory Celts of the Irish shore crossed the 12 miles of open water into the north­ern land of what is now Scotland. In one such wave, about AD 500, after the Romans had withdrawn, the “Scots” established a new kingdom of Dalriada on the long Kintyre peninsula. Scots are Irish.

According to local folklore Scotia Village in northern California was named by Irish immigrants Darby McGill and the little people who created a miniature livestock arena and other village landmarks. Rockabilly celebrates its Celtic roots in Celtic Scotia.

Having driven away the bonfire mob with boring his­torical tales, we called it a night and went our separate ways.

After Saturday morning breakfast, the still woozy rockabilly wild bunch assembled in formation for a wel­come day of head-clearing fun and games.

Festivities started with the banana slug race which was not completed before darkness causing the finish to be postponed until next year.

The canasta tournament was won by Spade McCue, a non-GMO corn farmer from Oxford, Indiana who was later disqualified for palming cards.

The Bouncing Hoss Blanket Toss was a dud since four musclebound hunks — one at each corner of the square blanket — couldn’t lift Frisco’s Sister Boom Boom even one inch. Boom Boom, a defrocked nun and former Sutro wrestler, holds the record for a non-techni­cal climb of Frisco’s Mount Sutro Tower.

Sister Boom Boom and Titania, a burly barn party leg­end from Burlington Iowa, squared off as finalists in the hominy grits wrestling competition but neither could pin the other.

In an attempt to introduce a cultural event, staffers organized a rockabilly poetry reading contest won by a foppish barrister from Fort Bragg, Aubrey Conover (Shakespeare Man) who wowed the crowd with an emo­tional reading of Roy Orbison’s “Ooby Dooby.” El Centro native Fannie Flagg was a close runner up read­ing Gene Vincent’s “Bebop A Lu La.”

The main event, held midafternoon, was the cowpie frisbee competition easily won by Twirpy Phil, a Calturds PR hack from Eureka who has perfected the art of tossing bullshit.

Due to the popularity of last year’s Hamster Olym­pics, the kids were treated to another special pet event, gerbil gymnastics, sponsored by Holly Robertson author of “The Gerbil Farmer’s Daughter” whose father Ronald, the first gerbil czar, was obsessed with the “pocket kan­garoo” resulting in a lifelong quest to breed the perfect gerbil. The gerbil athletes were hilarious, particularly on the rings and parallel bars. And the tumbling event looked like bouncing fur balls.

The kids also enjoyed a full day of entertainment by the Emmet Otter Frogtown Hollow Jubilee Muppet Jug Band from Waterville Arkansas who performed at the miniature bandstand.

Exhausted by a day of extreme fun and games, the rav­enous rockabilly herd galloped to the feed trough for evening chow which included Hobo Roadkill Stew pre­pared in 30-gallon trash cans, steamed cabbage, grilled artichoke hearts, kosher corn on the cob, Bud and Won­der Bread, followed by hand-cranked ice cream provided by the Ferndale milk dudes. The fresh roadkill was gra­ciously donated by Twirpy Phil, courtesy of Calturds.

With full bellies and high spirits, the rockabilly rebels gathered for the grand finale as the warm-up band, Thumper and the Cottontails, hopped on stage: Four stunning southwestern beauties clad in red, white, and blue gownless evening straps, pink bunny slippers, west­ern straw hats with bunny ears and strategically placed cottontails.

Thumper, a kettle drum virtuoso, opened with a tom-tom crescendo as the Cottontails, tooting kazoos, sinu­ously moved to the beat, dancing a prolonged ecdysiast western swing version of the Bunny Hop then one by one up on stage to thunderous applause and calls for more!

With the mob warmed up to the boiling point, Bob­bie Wells and the Arkies stomped on stage to Thumper’s tom-tom beat and displayed themselves wearing thigh-high Tony Llama beaver pelt booties, pink spandex Apache shorts, red, white, and blue star-spangled stra­pless halter tops and ten-gallon white Stetsons.

Bobbie and the Arkys opened with a brief set of origi­nal tunes including “Mud Room Stomp,” “Slow dog rag,” “Swamp snake boogie,” then sang a medley hon­oring forgotten rockabilly artists Thumper Jones’ “Rock it,” Pee Wee King’s “Catty Town,” Autry Inman’s “Be bop Baby,” and Arky Bittle’s “Jitterbug drag.”

Following a whooping applause and short break the band closed with a tribute to former rockabilly queens including Alvadean Coker’s “We’re gonna bop,” “Boots Collins’ “Mean,” Sandy Keen’s “Ballin’ Keen,” and Spar­kle Moore’s “Rock a Bop.”

The ensemble then gathered onstage for a sing-along medley of classic tunes by the Sons of the Pioneers, “Tumbling Tumbleweeds,” “Cool water,” “You’ll never miss the water ’til the well runs dry,” and the spine chilling closer, “Ghost Riders in the Sky.”

The hooting, hollering, whistling mob gave a pro­longed salute, then slowly fanned out into the camp­ground for all-night jamming while pondering the mes­sage given by the Sons of the Pioneers to the local pot pioneers who’ve made a Faustian bargain by shamelessly promoting and encouraging an outlaw culture. Now the rivers are trashed, the water is almost gone and salmon are doomed. “So, like dudes, let’s boogie!”

Sunday, the day of atonement, opened with a high noon sunrise service led by Preacher Roy, a former big league baseball pitcher who warned that “There are no timeouts in the game of life; the clock keeps ticking, so live each moment as if it will be your last. The game of life can’t be won, only played. So mend your ways before the final days and never take a third strike — always get wood on the ball.” Good advice, but what about the beanball?

As the rockabilly rebels broke camp and packed, I realized that the Festival with full capacity crowd of 250 has reached a critical mass. Do we prevent runaway growth that will ruin the magic?

The crowd, as always, was upbeat and well behaved because live acoustic music is the primeval medicine to cure the blues. I don’t like message t-shirts, but one made me smile: Music = Life.

Earth Angel, bidding farewell, was taking the long way back to Mendopia stopping at the Yellow Rose in Petrolia to rendezvous with friends.

Now a rockabilly convert, though still a doo-wop devotee, she asked about the festival’s primitive sanita­tion — slit trenches and tarps. Why not portapotties?

Because they’re gross, ugly, toxic, smelly, unnatural, and festooned with tacky advertising. And judging by Kaka in the River, people don’t like to use them.

Regarding her dream of creating a doo wop festival on the Mendopia Coast, I encouraged her to contact two doo-wop experts in Fort Bragg — Doug at Northtown Brewery and Paul at Thanksgrabbing Coffee.

I also offered my help, thinking that a start would be “doo-wop in the dunes” at Big River beach during the Mendopia Music Festival.

We hugged goodbye and off she went probably never to be seen or heard from again. The ephemeral American way.

Buddy rode back with Buddha Bud after the Pike Min­now fishing derby on the Van Duzen River. They both bend the rules by fishing with their hands, but who’s going to stop them?

After helping with cleanup and packing my rig with gear and Festival leftovers I headed to Rio Dell for a logger’s breakfast, then traveled south on the Redwood Highway.

At Frog’s Camp, the Kaka in the River drones were still chanting Hookah! Hookah! Hookah! A modern ver­sion of Tora! Tora! Tora!

The pot stench was so intense that my eyes reddened with tears of pain so I stomped the gas pedal and cleared the area quickly, motoring to Leggett, then southwest on Coast Highway 1.

At Westport I downshifted for a leisurely drive along the coast as the fog lifted to reveal a blue-green mirror extending to infinity.

Ruminating about Earth Angel’s doo wop quest, I wondered how a charming person like her could tolerate living among the pompous snobs of Mendo Village. Any attempt organized a festival of simple retro unsophisti­cated music would be immediately stomped out by the village gentry.

Too bad because doo wop features the most beautiful soundingmusical instrument in the world, the human voice, and vocal group harmony has been an integral part of rock music development at every stage. With the Mendo Music Festival including an a capella group this year there may be hope for doo-wop after all.

Approaching MacKerricher dunes, I noticed a thun­dering herd of Harleys approaching from the rear in three columns led by a ghost rider wearing a San Quentin tank top who resembled Marlon Brando’s “Johnny” in the 50s cult classic film, “The Wild One” which features a motorcycle gang that terrorizes a small town. When the town mayor asks Johnny, “What are you rebelling against?,” he replies, “Whatcha got?”

Rockabilly rebels are more focused. We are rebelling against the entire techno, whacko, hyper digitized American way of life.

I slowed down to let the bikers pass, but they backed off and stayed on my tail, yipping and waving. With my serious weapons out of reach in the camper and armed only with my “Old Slabsides” Colt .45 service pistol, I recalled something Hunter Thompson said, “A mass Hell’s Angels run is one of the most terrifying things you’ll ever hope to see. When those bastards come by you on the road, that’s heavy. And being a part of it, you get this tremendous feeling of humor and madness. You see the terror and shock and fear all around you and you’re laughing all the time. It’s like being in some kind of horror movie where you know that sooner or later the actors are going to leap out of the screen and burn the theater down.”

In Fort Bragg I pulled over and the bikers peeled off into the Northtown Brewery parking lot. The gnarly Hulk Hogan gang leader ran across the street flashing a toothy, bug splattered grin and said, “Hope we didn’t scare you, but your rig was so cute we wanted it to lead our parade into town.” He called himself “Sonny from Oakland,” and after some brief shop talk about cars and bikes, offered to buy me lunch but I declined preferring the lean cuisine of Cafe 1.

After three days of gut-busting junk food, the Cafe 1 chow hit the spot. Topping it off with a light dessert and several cups of Gold Rush black, I beelined south past Mendo Village then southeast on Comptche-Ukiah Road to Orr Springs Road along the south fork of Big River to my evening destination, Montgomery Woods. The whole drive from Highway 1 was eerie, as if eyes were watch­ing and following my every move. Welcome to outback Mendopia, the land of big medicine.

Exhausted from four days of whoopie, I spread my poncho liner atop the camper and climbed aboard sprawling flat on my back looking up through the tow­ering old-growth redwood sentinels as the setting sun illuminated their tops with a golden glow.

As an old-growth human I felt a strong kinship with the ancient trees — part of a continuum along the round river of life. Preacher Roy’s words ring true, “There are no timeouts in the game of life. Live each moment as if it will be your last.”

Sadly, Mendopia’s counterculture is in denial about the realities of aging. It’s pathetic to see flower children gone to seed. As John Tully said, “And now the crows of trouble our walking around their eyes.”

The Mendo boomers current age-avoidance fad is drinking deluded hydrogen peroxide as an oxygenator to prolong life indefinitely.

Mendopia’s dominant religion (other than pot) is Tink­erbellian Peter Pantheism — the childlike fantasy that “Wishing will make it so.” Wave your magic wand, sprinkle stardust and your dreams will come true.

Don’t worry, be happy! A boogie a day keeps the dol­drums at bay.

At Monday morning sunrise I was awakened by gun­fire in the distance. Still sprawled atop the camper, my whole body ached as I slid down the back and prepared for the day. After a handful of gorp and a cup of cold coffee, I shouldered my pack and trusty blooper, then began an uphill ascent northeast to Leonard Lake which was named for an infamous Anderson Valley skalawag.

I had a glimpse of the lake from atop Eagle Peak last year when I planted the rockabilly flag and wanted a closer look-see. The climb through redwood, mixed conifer, and oak woodlands on maintained jeep trails was easier than expected.

The lake squates i a small basin that drains into Mill Creek which runs through Reeves Canyon and into the Russian River.

At first glance the lake seemed too small because the water level is extremely low. I glassed the shoreline and spotted telltale poly pipe siphons signifying big medicine country.

Feeling vulnerable after the sunrise gunfire, I retreated to safety in the ancient redwoods and packed my rig for the gun lap home. Before leaving, I made a note to research the origins of Leonard Lake since it’s called “Leonardo” Lake on some maps.

Traveling east past the hippie dunk tanks at Orr Springs, I climbed to the summit and down the long ridge east to hellhole Ukiah, then south on State Street for a pre-dinner cocktail at Ukiah Brewing Co., the only watering hole in town that gives a veteran discount.

Chugging the beer in two gulps, I boogied south to Be-Bop’s diner for homecoming dinner of onion rings, coleslaw, Peggy Sue Burger, deep-fried Twinkie and chocolate milkshake.

Be-Bop’s Diner won the Wurlitzer prize for the best bebop music in America so I tossed in two nickels for dinner music: Come go with me, by the Del Vikings, Be Bop A Lu La by Gene Vincent, Blue Angel by Orbison, Earth Angel by the Penguins and, In the Still of the Night by the Five Satins.

After high-fiving the Be-Boppers and cranking up my righ, I popped a 5 Satins cassette into the tape deck and drove south to Hopland then west into fading sun­light grinding up Duncan Peak to Rancho Puerco, home at last.

Sharpie and company were pawing the ground and snorting for food so I slopped the hog trough with road­kill stew, poured myself a tumbler of moonshine on the veranda and enjoyed the evening chorus of frogs, crick­ets, and leprechauns.

As Duncan Peak gradually spread its gumdrop shadow across the valley below, I mentally reviewed the past weekend festivities.

Other than our fifth anniversary blowout three years ago this was the best festival ever, and the crowd was more diverse as the rockabilly movement spreads.

We’ve come a long way since that first planning bash in 2005 around the bonfire at Sonoma Beach near Jenner.

At maximum density the Festival must either grow and move to a new location or sustain itself indefinitely at Scotia.

We’ll hash this out at Be-Bop’s when the planning year begins in mid-August.

As darkness fell in the still of the night, I wondered about Doo Wop in the Dunes.

ALL THAT FISH AND GAME commotion at Little River yesterday (Thursday)? An abalone study off of Van Damme State Beach, not an abalone bust.

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LAST WEEK SUPERVISOR DAN HAMBURG issued a press release announcing that he intended to run for another term as Fifth District Supervisor. Usually, these announcements are simply printed as released in the local chain papers without comment. But in an unusual move, Ukiah Daily Journal Editor K.C. Meadows added some commentary to the press release last Tuesday, August 20.

Supervisor Hamburg To Seek Second Term

Ukiah Daily Journal

(FIRST THE PRESS RELEASE):

Supervisor Dan Hamburg announced Monday that he plans to seek a second term representing Mendocino County’s 5th District. “I have been honored to do this work over the past three years and I want to continue doing it,” he said. Hamburg cited two areas where he has been particularly active — broadband and economic development. “I was instrumental in the formation of the Broadband Alliance of Mendocino County,” Hamburg said. “Like most of rural America, we are lagging far behind in the availability of affordable high-speed Internet. We have been successful in pressing our case with the state Legislature and with the California Public Utilities Commission. I believe we are on the cusp of major improvements in both access and affordability that will bring 21st-century broadband to our corner of rural California.” Hamburg maintains that broadband is one of the essential components for a healthier county economy. Further, he states, an improved economy is necessary to maintain essential county services, especially road maintenance and public protection. “The only way out of our county budget predicament is more revenue, and that takes a stronger economy. To achieve this, I’ve been working on a range of economic development projects with people who see the potential of a county that remains rich in natural amenities and human talent.” Hamburg is the principal sponsor of the Mendocino Clean Energy Program under which homes and businesses can make major improvements in their properties with an extended payback through the property tax. He also contributed to the completion of the long-awaited Ukiah Valley Area Plan and is currently deeply involved in the process of updating the Mendocino Town Plan. “My first term as Fifth District Supervisor has been productive and I fully intend my second term to be even more so,” said Hamburg . “I plan to ask the voters to reelect me so that I can complete projects that are vital to our county and to our wonderful District.”

(THEN THE COMMENTARY):

Hamburg ‘s first term has not been without controversy. He recently sued the county – and demanded to get his attorney’s fees paid by the taxpayers – over his fight with the county after burying his wife, Carrie, on his private property illegally following her death from cancer. A judge recently signed an order allowing the burial to remain as it is and Hamburg dropped his lawsuit and demand for payment. Earlier this year Hamburg was fined $9,500 by elections officials for irregularities in his campaign finance reporting, including $5,000 in unreported collections. Hamburg also criticized a regional effort to clean up marijuana growing in the Mendocino National Forest, an effort that has been considered a success. Hamburg was not among the supervisors who volunteered to cut their pay when county employees took a significant pay reduction. And in one of his first appearances as a supervisor in 2011, Hamburg shouted at Sheriff Tom Allman over budget frustrations.

ON FRIDAY (August 23) Supervisor Hamburg wrote in to the Journal responding to the Ms. Meadows’ commentary:

Hamburg Responds, And So Do We

To the Editor:

Thank you for printing our campaign press release regarding my announcement that I am seeking a second term as a as a supervisor. A few clarifications regarding your article embellishing the release are in order. Judge Cindee F. Mayfield ruled last week that the county must issue a death certificate and burial permit for my wife Carrie. This was after the county had previously refused to issue the documents. That refusal was the reason for my lawsuit. A request for attorneys fees often accompanies legal action as a way to encourage a successful outcome. In this case, the county agreed to issue the documents and I dropped the suit and request for fees. You write that “a regional effort to clean up marijuana in the Mendocino National Forest has been considered a success.” By whom? Almost no arrests or convictions resulted and what was supposed to be an ongoing effort was canceled after a single year. Legalization of marijuana is the only way to get a handle on illegal growing. I have been saying that for at least three decades while the war on marijuana continues to be a bust. I took the voluntary 10% pay cut, as I had promised in my 2010 campaign shortly after taking office. Please check your facts. Regarding my “shouting” at Sheriff Allman, I was frankly tired of watching him berate the Board of Supervisors and I called him on it. I think relations between the Sheriff, the Board, and the executive office have improved since. Besides, the Sheriff is a big boy. It’s okay for me as a guardian of the public purse to question him vigorously on his budget. I regret the campaign finance reporting problems I had in 2010 which resulted in my having to pay a fine. I will definitely be more careful this time around! Finally, as you will recall, the candidate you backed in 2010 lost by a large margin. Clearly, the Daily Journal, a Ukiah paper, has little comprehension of the political pulse of the Fifth District.

Dan Hamburg, Ukiah

UKIAH DAILY JOURNAL EDITOR’S RESPONSE: The fact is, while you did take a voluntary 10% cut in pay, you voted against a permanent 10% cut in pay which your colleagues Carre Brown and John McCowen advocated in January, 2012 (and which passed with John Pinches also voting yes and you and then supervisor Kendall Smith voting no) as the County made severe cuts to the pay of rank and file employees. The 10% voluntary cut you took does not affect your benefits or your retirement fund and therefore does not actually save the county 10%. As for the marijuana cleanup in the Mendocino National Forest, ask any of the sheriffs in the region touched by the Forest if they haven’t seen a significant downturn in marijuana growing in the forest since the eradication and the following cleanup of infrastructure. I am told that residents of Covelo are using the forest again, that local ranchers are grazing livestock in the area again and that another infrastructure cleanup has been delayed because fewer gardens have returned. You dropped your lawsuit but just because asking for attorneys fees may be boilerplate in your mind, that money would still have come from the taxpayers. Finally, if you want to shout at the sheriff that’s up to you, we just point out that your temper sometimes gets the best of you and shouting at other elected officials isn’t the best way to get things done. As for your district, we know you have a dedicated following in the Fifth. That we thought your opponent (a smart, longtime resident and Democrat from the Fifth that your campaign unfairly maligned throughout) would do a better job, is called the democratic process. What’s wrong with that?

ED NOTE: Mendo didn’t “refuse” to issue the death certificate; they didn’t have any choice given the current law. The judge simply issued the order, letting the County off the hook for any law violations. It’s hard to tell if Hamburg is deliberately deceptive or just delusional.

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FROM REGINA CHICHIZOLA of the Hoopa Valley Tribe in Fresno:

A FEDERAL JUDGE issued a decision lifting a restraining order holding back releases of Trinity water into the Trinity River to advert a Klamath River fish kill. The decision came after days of protests from a large group of Hoopa Valley Tribal members. Tribal members protested in Fresno, California at the Westlands Water District board meeting on Tuesday and outside the Fresno courtroom, and in Sacramento, California outside a fisheries hearing at the California State Capital building on Wednesday.

THE TRINITY RIVER is the only out-of-basin diversion into the Central Valley Project, and is also the Klamath River’s largest tributary. Central Valley Irrigation interests, Westlands Water District and the San Luis & Mendota Water District filed a lawsuit against a government decision to release water for fish on August 7th. The Hoopa Valley Tribe and Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations have intervened in the case on the side of the government.

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JOHN SAKOWICZ points out, “…following the County’s budget preparation in Ukiah last night If Mendocino County receives $0.29 per $1 in property tax collection, then approximately $350 million in new taxable assessment is needed to generate $1 million in property tax revenue.

Zillow:

http://www.zillow.com/local-info/CA-Mendocino-County-home-value/r_2796/

$269,000 median price. Doing the math, we would need to build/sell 1,300 new homes to generate $1 million in property taxes for county services.

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WATERCOLOR FOR THE REST OF US

Weekend workshop invites creative undertakings

by Roberta Werdinger

The Grace Hudson Museum presents a two-day watercolor workshop with noted painter Woody Hansen on the weekend of Sept. 7 and 8. Combined with the Museum’s ongoing Family Fun at the Museum series, which has been featuring watercolor worskhops, adults and kids will have plenty of opportunities to expand their creative repertoire. Sacramento-based artist Woody Hansen is the recipient of numerous awards and has been painting watercolors for over 50 years. Hansen’s approach to his art and his teaching is both down-to-earth and sophisticated. Calling his classes “No Bull,” he combines indoor and outdoor instructional sessions. Guests at this workshop can take full advantage of both approaches. On the first day, participants will meet indoors at the Grace Hudson Museum, which is currently exhibiting works by the influential watercolorist and teacher Milford Zornes (1908-2008). Titled “Milford Zornes: A Painter of Influence,” this retrospective exhibit of an extraordinary nine-decade career will serve as an inspiration for all and as the departure point for Hansen’s own instruction. On Sunday, Sept. 8, the class will travel to the Mendocino Coast, where they will work outdoors to create their own watercolors. Woody Hansen states, “I consider myself a shape painter, one who attempts to create interesting marks on paper. I believe there is an elusive difference between the approach to art and craft, and that painting and drawing are two different but related skills… In short, the terms ‘art’ and ‘craft’ are not interchangeable, but certainly deserve equal appreciation.” Hansen likes to think of histeaching approach as “watercolor for the rest of us.” (Learn more about Woody Hansen’s approach and see samples of his work at www.woodyhansen.com. The fee for the workshop is $150. Please call the Museum at 467-2836 to sign up. Participants will need to bring their own materials; the Museum will provide a list of what to bring upon signup. The Grace Hudson Museum is at 431 S. Main St. in Ukiah and is a part of the City of Ukiah’s Community Services Department. General admission to the Museum is $4, $10 per family, $3 for students and seniors, and free to members or on the first Friday of the month. For more information please go to www.gracehudsonmuseum.org.

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HOW GOOD IT IS, LEMONS’ PHILO MARKET

by David Ballantine

Lemons’ Market, nestled in the small burg of Philo just five miles north of Boonville, has been a mainstay in Anderson Valley for 40 years now. Elmer and June Lemons, along with their son Tom and his wife Connie, started the Philo market together. They have owned and successfully directed the business through a myriad of economic landscapes as the valley has shifted from apples, sawmills, and sheep to its present day grapes, wineries, and its subsequent tourism.

To the market’s credit, and possibly its great success, it works hard at being responsive to the shifting demographic of the valley. And Erica Lemons, who now man­ages the day to day operations of the store, knows better than anyone that, with their limited space, what goes on the shelves must meet the demands of the immediate community as well as the weekend campers and tourists. She remembers fondly a spot on the shelves where Bub Clow’s B & M bread-in-a-can went. They ordered it spe­cial for him. “He was good for about one a week.” she says, “Well, when he passed, there’s this little spot on the shelf where that goes but I can’t order bread-in-a-can. Part of me wants to just because that’s Bub Clow’s space.”

These days, in Bub Clow’s spot on the shelf, you might find truffle oil or gluten free snack crackers, and back near the beer cooler many of the Valley’s best wine offerings sit on their own shelf. It’s hard to imagine, with all the wineries selling their own product at the tasting rooms, that the market would sell much of the $25 plus bottles of wine. But Erica knows her customers and she knows Lemons Market sells a lot of local wine. “A lot of people buy their wine closer to supper time, after the tasting rooms are closed.”

Elmer and June came to California from Oklahoma in 1952, where he worked in farming down south. They came north in the early ’70s and settled in Anderson Valley, where Elmer fell in love with the fishing. The family tells stories of how they would row out from Albion in a rowboat, fishing for Rock Cod and the like. That grew into a commercial venture that Elmer’s son, Tom, continues to this day. In fact, all of Tom’s sons have commercial fishing licenses. Tom Jr. owns and operates the Tarantino Jr., and Tom Sr., along with his youngest son Wade, are partners in a new boat The Quillback. A quillback is a type of rock fish that is found in the waters near Noyo Harbor where both boats dock. Matt, Erica’s husband, owns Elmer’s old boat, The New­man 1, which might not be fancy but it has great senti­mental value. Suffice it to say, this family takes their fishing very seriously. “It’s a family business and we’re all invested in it down to,” Erica says with pride and a chuckle, “not netting the fish because they don’t want to knock the scales off.” “We’re really lucky to know when it was caught, how it was handled. They are pretty when they come in.”

The reality of modern day labeling actually allows fisherman to call their salmon fresh when it has been caught weeks before it gets delivered to the vendor. Erica says she can’t say how many times she and husband Matt have traveled down 19th Street through San Francisco to meet up with a boat in Half Moon Bay or up to Fort Bragg in the middle of the night to load their pickup with ice and salmon so that customers can have fresh fish or crab the next day. The family connection also allows Lemons Market quick access to other fishermen. When Tom and Wade or Tom Jr. don’t have what the market wants — the family fishermen will put them in touch with someone who does. Lemons Market maintains a fish receiver’s license so that they can buy from any commercial fisherman.

Lemons’ Market opened its doors in 1973, when more than a few sawmills still dotted the Valley. By that time June had learned the art of butchering, working at Jack’s Valley Store back before Jack’s became primarily a building supply store. Now they had a place to sell their fish as well as beef and lamb, and the quality of those offerings have remained core to the market. Once, the lunch hour would see long lines of sawmill workers winding done the aisles of the store waiting for one of Lemons Market’s huge sandwiches made to order with fresh meats and produce. It’s a service they still provide, but now the customers are winery workers, campers passing through, and tourists taking a break before moving on to the next tasting room.

After Elmer passed and June retired, Connie contin­ued to run the store with Tom. But as medical issues took an increasing toll her health, there came a time when the physical demands of running the store just became too much for Connie. And with Tom focusing more on run­ning their commercial fishing business, it wasn’t long before Erica began filling in. She started working in the market when she was 15, still in high school.

Erica credits Tom, whom she says is meticulous in pretty much everything he does, with training her to butcher. After a while you start to notice that attention to detail may just be a family trait.

The same thoughtfulness that goes into their fish goes into their treatment of beef.

Lemons’ sources their meat from The Golden Gate Meat Co. that, like Lemons Market, is a family owned and operated enterprise. The sell their organic beef through two wholesale outlets and run a thriving retail store at the Ferry Building in San Francisco. But even more impressive is the fact that, in a family of expert butchers, the Lemons deal primarily in whole carcass meat. When the whole BSE (mad cow disease) scare was brought on by poor handling techniques at the larger meat-packing plants back in 2008, Lemons and their customers didn’t have to worry because their meat wasn’t packaged by unknown entities. From their flank steaks to hamburger everything was produced and prepared in-house with that same meticulous attention to detail that Tom has become known for.

Lemons’ Market now has eight employees that are non-family members, but it’s not a distinguishable trait when listening to Erica speak about them. When talking about her own skills Erica is brief and succinct, but when asked about the different departments of the store, she effuses over the many talents of the people around her. Most employees are capable of most tasks, but each has their specialty. A peek over the meat counter for just a moment or two is all anyone needs to realize the speed and precision with which they prepare the meat and fish. “Julie Mejia, Julie Winchester, Jenny Moore, and I all cut fish and they are really skilled — people don’t realize what a skill it is.” She is particularly impressed with the cutting skills of the young Mejia who has been with the store for about ten years now.

Erica calls Tina Perez her produce guru. As the title implies, Tina has her pulse on what is available locally and what the customers want. She has been with the market since before Erica arrived, and Erica jokes, “You never realize how fast she is moving but at the end of the day she has done all this stuff and you don’t know how it all got accomplished.” She is the dream employee that Erica wants her younger, newer employees to aspire to. “I don’t want to have to talk to you, I don’t want to see you, I just want things to magically get done.” Tina also keeps Erica up to date with needs of the Hispanic popu­lation by reminding her to get more fish near Easter or making sure to stock the sweet tamales, which is a food Erica is quick to point out she loves.

Two other employees that are highly prized are Marylin Pronsolino and Laurie Cooper. Marylin loves to test the newer products on her own time. “She is a great cook,” says Erica who has come to trust Marylin’s opin­ion on what to keep and what not to order again. Cus­tomers also have her to thank for how she decorates the front of the store with seasonal displays. Laurie, is the one that really makes walking into the market a pleasure. Erica really appreciates her kindness, and if you have ever walked up to the counter at the end of a long, hard day at work, you know what Erica is talking about. Lau­rie’s smile makes the last few miles home a little easier.

Lemons’ also places great value on the fruits and vegetables. They get their much of their produce from Coastline Distributors in Santa Rosa. Erica laments the days when they were able to use local distributor, Signal Ridge Trucking, run by George and Kate Castagnola who no longer maintain what was a grueling workweek for just one couple. But Lemons has developed a strong relationship with their new distributor that allows them to call and tell them when something isn’t up to their standards.

Coastline is quick to credit their account no questions asked because of their long relationship. “We have a rule,” Erica states matter-of-factly: “If you wouldn’t eat it, no one else should either. So if it’s something that doesn’t look good to us and we wouldn’t feed it to our kids, get rid of it.”

That’s only half the story, however, because Lemons’ Market sources continually from a variety of local farm­ers and vendors. Organic vegetables from Pam Laird’s Blue Meadow Farm, and berries from Bill McEwen often grace their produce cases. In addition they carry Cloverdale Honey, fruit from Gowan’s Apple Farm, and goat cheese from Sara Cahn Bennett’s new Penny Royal Farms. In the meat department they offer Round Man’s smoked sausage from Fort Bragg, and Angelo’s in Peta­luma provides their smoked fish offerings. They also carry note cards from local nurse and photographer Anjes de Ryck. A favorite offering is the Salsa cookbook created by local women in the valley adult school. Ven­dors get the market rate, and just like the family fisher­men, Erica wants them to succeed and get a fair wage for their efforts.

When she graduated from Anderson Valley High she had intended on going to college, but Matt Lemons asked her to marry him and she chose to stay and raise a family with him. Their own children, Will, who is 15 and Riley, a year and a half younger at 13 and a half, also help at the market as time allows between volleyball and foot­ball. Husband Matt, who is a general contractor in the Valley and who has always worked behind the scenes at the market, is taking on a more prominent role, allowing Erica to finally pursue those college goals.

This semester Erica has enrolled with a plan to earn a Certificate in Medical Assisting at Mendocino College. “This is for me,” she says with no real plan to change careers. It is no small irony that, after spending just a lit­tle time with Erica Lemons talking about the market, you know she could be teaching advanced classes in business at the college she is attending as a student.

(Brock’s Farm will be featured next in this Connecting With Local Food series brought to you by AV Foodshed. You can find articles 1-5 at www.mendocinolocalfood.org.)

ROOSKIES AT HENDY WOODS, Take Two: We’ve learned that there is indeed a group called Camp Skala that does have almost all of the camping slots at the park reserved over the Labor Day weekend. But State Parks did not “give” them the slots. Skala managed to make these reservations through the automated reservation system at ReserveAmerica.com. There are some controls on the automated system that should have prevented a mass reservation, but the controls did not do the job. Anderson Valley, always a graciously welcoming place except when it isn’t, looks forward to making the visitors feel at home.

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KGO NEWS is reporting that Caltrans may face fines or even be forced to stop work on the Willits Bypass because the project is out of compliance with environmental regulations. The $300 million freeway bypass bisects sensitive wetlands area that Caltrans is required to do $50 million in environmental improvements to compensate. The US Army Corps of Engineers says Caltrans failed to get a qualified contractor and meet required deadlines for the environmental work. The Corps calls the violations “very serious.”

CALTRANS HAD THIS RESPONSE for KGO: “We are committed to the 2,000 acres of mitigation and other efforts to protect and enhance the environment in the Little Lake Valley. We are working closely with the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers and are taking all requested steps to ensure compliance with our permit.”

THE FOLLOWING LETTER is by Jane Hicks, the Army Corps signatory to the February letter saying Army Corps would pull the permit if CTC didn’t vote enough mitigation funding, then in May she said her office was satisfied with the level of funding.

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WILLITS FINALLY GETTING FREEWAY BYPASS BUT ISN’T SURE IT STILL WANTS IT

50+ years on, Willits, California, is getting its bypass. But with wetlands to be drained for the project, opposition has arisen.

By Lee Romney

The project was proudly unveiled in this Mendocino County lumber town in the mid-1950s, when the car was king and the future looked bright.

Instead of channeling Highway 101 traffic right down Main Street, a four-lane bypass dubbed the Willits Freeway would route vacationing motorists and commercial trucks around the community’s periphery.

Then came delays, and more delays. Ukiah got its bypass in the 1960s, Cloverdale two decades later.

Now, at last, it’s Willits’ turn. Tens of thousands of corrugated plastic wick drains have been plunged deep into the Little Lake Valley to compact its wetlands. The roadway’s foundation piles are being driven.

But this is not the same Willits — or the same era.

Back-to-the-landers with visions of sustainability and an aversion to greenhouse gases have flocked here as the Willits born-and-bred have moved on. Only one small lumber mill remains, and the town’s population has dwindled.

Opponents have decried the environmental destruction, contending that a two-lane bypass would have been far less damaging and should have been considered. They have conducted studies that indicate the project’s traffic-carrying capabilities far exceed expected volumes, and last year filed a federal suit citing violations of the Clean Water Act and National Environmental Policy Act — laws not even conceived of in the 1950s.

Desperate to slow the project that broke ground in February, conservationists have teamed with more radical activists from the Little Lake Valley Defenders and Redwood Nation Earth First!, who have chained themselves to the massive wick drain stitchers — the soaring steel equipment driving the drains into wet soil — and staged sit-ins up in the trees.

The project to drain the wetlands and construct the bypass is dividing this town, which tends to rank its populace of about 5,000 by the depth of their roots here: old-timers, newer old-timers, newcomers.

“It hurts to look at this,” Ellen Drell, who sits on the board of the Willits Environmental Center, said as she surveyed a graded expanse of dirt that until recently was pasture dotted with ancient oaks. “It hurts because my town, where I’ve lived my entire adult life, wasn’t willing to be part of a better solution.

“What are we, in Willits, doing in 2013?” she asked, close to tears. “We’re building a four-lane freeway that’s not needed, and for no reason we’re sucking a wetland dry. The irrationality of it is just crushing.”

Yet plenty of residents are fed up with the protests, saying the project at last will relieve Main Street’s traffic jams while modernizing infrastructure for countless Californians who don’t wish to stop in town at all.

“It’s about inter-regional transportation. It’s about the functioning of a major state highway,” said Jeanne King, a retired schoolteacher and 30-year resident. “I don’t consider myself a bypass proponent, I consider myself a bypass acceptor. Many people accept that the bypass is here after years and years of talk. This bypass, not some other bypass, not some better bypass.”

Caltrans district spokesman Phil Frisbie said the agency followed regulations in winning approval for the project, agreeing to a massive mitigation plan to enhance nearly 2,000 acres of the watershed in exchange for compacting 60 acres.

The agency will install fencing to keep livestock out of streambeds — which will improve water quality — and replace three culverts on three streams meant to open up new spawning grounds.

“We compromised,” he said.

With a folksy archway proclaiming itself the “Gateway to the Redwoods,” Willits presents the biggest speed bump for Highway 101 traffic between Eureka and Santa Rosa. During rush hour and on holidays, particularly when music festivals are scheduled to the north, traffic can back up for miles.

“I’ve seen fistfights. I’ve seen accidents,” said Denny McEntire, a former councilman who in 1945 arrived in Willits as a 6-month-old and grew up hanging around his father’s soda fountain.

Since the bypass project was revived in earnest, most here agree, the message has been four lanes or nothing.

The Mendocino Council of Governments — which doles out state and federal transportation funds to the Caltrans district, the county and its four incorporated cities — pushed for unanimous support from local elected officials. Without it, the group’s executive director warned, the California Transportation Commission probably would hand its dollars over to more powerful places, like Los Angeles.

“They felt if there wasn’t total commitment, there wasn’t much chance of getting the money,” said McEntire, who served on the council’s board.

As a result, more than $33 million — the vast majority of the state transportation funds that have flowed to the county over the last two decades — was squirreled away for the bypass, which has an expected $210-million price tag.

When it became clear the project was a go — at four lanes — in 2010, opponents were deflated. Still, it wasn’t until construction was imminent that their movement gained steam.

A federal judge in San Francisco is expected to rule any day on the legal challenge, whose plaintiffs include the Center for Biological Diversity and the Sierra Club. One key claim: Caltrans intentionally excluded a two-lane option in its environmental review.

The Clean Water Act mandates that the least environmentally damaging of the options presented must be selected. “If a two-lane bypass had been in the mix,” said the Willits Environmental Center’s Richard Estabrook, the Army Corps of Engineers “would have had to choose it. It would have had the least impact.”

Caltrans’ own traffic data, Estabrook said, show a trend over the last two decades that is flat or declining.

But according to Frisbie, the Federal Highway Administration requires that such bypass projects meet Caltrans’ local “purpose and need” document, which had targeted a level of service over a 20-year period that a two-lane bypass could not satisfy.

“Unfortunately, you jump from a two-lane to a four-lane,” he said.

Many business owners in Willits fear they will lose crucial tourist dollars once the bypass is opened. At the very least, they had hoped for more off-ramps. “Another Business for a Better Bypass,” window posters read.

But Councilman Bruce Burton, a longtime bypass backer and second-generation native who owns that last mill in town, counters that getting rid of the traffic will bring benefits to downtown. Furthermore, without Caltrans as a Main Street landlord — it now has primary say in approving sidewalk business signage and issuing permits for festival street closures — the town at last will have total control.

“We can get rid of the stoplights, maybe, or put a little statue of the mayor there in a little roundabout,” he said. “We can brand our town. We don’t have to be a Caltrans highway anymore.”

Yet protesters are committed. They have trespassed, ensconced themselves in trees and chained themselves to equipment in an attempt to delay the clearing of vegetation and the installation of 55,000 wick drains. Law enforcement costs have run above $1 million.

For many in town, the tactics have been off-putting, causing the environmental center “to lose a lot of goodwill,” King said.

But thanks to the attention generated by such direct action, two county supervisors and two council members have said it still may not be too late to push for a “better bypass.”

So far, only the southbound lanes have been funded. They will be striped for two-way traffic while Caltrans seeks more financing. Councilwoman Madge Strong said she recently polled colleagues on a proposal to scale down the northern interchange in the hopes of keeping the project to two lanes — forever.

“Caltrans is building for the future with the idea that there are always going to be more people and more cars,” said Strong, who with seven years in Willits is a relative newcomer. “Those assumptions are just not correct anymore. We just can’t continue a growth mentality… It’s a new world.”

(Courtesy, the Los Angeles Times)

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Wood

AS A RELIABLE GUIDE to who not to vote for, Wes Chesbro is infallible. The seldom seen career officeholder has announced that he will support a Healdsburg dentist and city councilman named Jim Wood to succeed Chesbro himself as state assemblyman.

THE INSIDER DEMOCRAT CABAL that selects our candidates on the Northcoast had been grooming Efren “Night Wanderer” Carrillo to succeed Chesbro. The Santa Rosa-based supervisor was the perfect Democrat in that he had no discernible principles beyond keeping himself in public office and he was a white-talking, wine-thinking Mexican-American. Perfect! He could only be trumped as a candidate by a gay woman of color! But then he got himself busted stumbling around in the dark in his Fruit of the Looms looking for love, an episode viewed as a little too unseemly even for Democrats.

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AND TODAY’S DUH AWARD goes to Rose City policeman Chad Heiser and the Press Democrat for this thoroughly routine event (From Saturday’s PD story about pot and cash being shipped through an Santa Rosa UPS facility):

“But it was unusual when a Florida-bound package first inspected by UPS personnel turned out to contain hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of illegal drugs, Santa Rosa Police Sgt. Chad Heiser said.”

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GREAT SAVE last Thursday morning by Anderson Valley’s firefighters backed up by CalFire. Anderson Valley Fire Chief Colin Wilson reports:

“The ‘Deer’ incident near the ridge at the top of Deer Meadows drive was about a two acre fire on the Lewis property about 2.5 miles up from Highway 128. One of our lookouts, Jenny Palmer, called it into our Boonville station about the same time someone else called it in to 911. When the first AV Fire units got on scene the fire was about an acre and a half, burning in grass and mixed hardwoods and immediately adjacent to a cabin under construction and an outbuilding. AV Fire units provided protection for the structures and the CalFire helicopter (Copter 101) arrived in time to extinguish a 100-foot tall fir tree that was ‘torching’ within 100 feet of the house. Additional CalFire and AV Fire units arrived and contained the fire with a perimeter hose lay. Other AV Fire units were released with the exception of two water tenders. Four CalFire engines remained at the scene to complete ‘mop-up’ operations. The cause of the fire had not been confirmed when I left but there was a trash pile of construction debris near the house that looked like it might well have been the origin of the fire. There was no damage to the structures — the fire mostly just burned the dried grass.”

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CITY HALL TRIES A COSTCO END RUN

(Updated version)

To The Editor:

The City of Ukiah is attempting an end-run to approve a $6.2 million Traffic Modification Plan needed by the proposed new Costco at taxpayer expense. They want to by-pass the environmental impact evaluation by declaring that the “minor” adverse effects of the proposed project can be mitigated to levels that make them insignificant with a snap of their finger.

Smith Engineering & Management, an independent traffic engineering firm, has concluded in their review that the proposed traffic mitigation plan is deficient in a number of respects and would be a threat to the safety of the throngs of rabid consumers expected at this new store. 

a: The plan is potentially hazardous and uses inconsistent data and methodologies.
b. It understates the peak period traffic and relies upon the very low traffic volumes of February 2010 data as its basis. Cal Trans northern California data for Hwy 101 shows February traffic to be 7% lower than the average month, and 18% lower than the busiest month of the years 
c. Cal Trans has previously noted that the data being used “Grossly under represented typical average peak hour demand throughout the year.”

The City has no money for this poorly designed plan and the State Department of Finance has forbidden their using the $2.3 million revenue they hope to receive from the sale of 15 acres of land to Costco. This was old RDA funds that are now blocked by the Legislature in Sacramento. Thus they must find some other source for the full $6.2 million cost of this Costco driveway. Sales tax revenues and property tax receipts are falling as we sink further into recession. That will make two loans for the same project. Really smart thinking, City Council!

The trouble is that most of us are far too busy getting by in these troubled times to give a hoot about City Hall and their failings. Only two of us spoke at last night’s public hearing. You can still send in comments in writing by August 27th. Without public outcry the Council will think they’re home free.

James Houle, Redwood Valley

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WILLITS, Mendocino County’s Rodney Dangerfield. This lede from a story on Humboldt State’s centennial: “You know what Arcata would be without Humboldt State? Willits.”

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OFFICER, THERE’S A MAN IN MY UNDERWEAR DRAWER!

by Bruce McEwen

Attorney General Eric Holder was just in San Francisco to address the American Bar Association. He told the lawyers that he wanted federal prosecutors to lighten up on non-violent drug offenders. On Wednesday, the Mendocino County DA’s Office lightened up on pot pharma Peter Richardson to where the case against Richardson became so light it disappeared.

The level of interest in the Richardson matter was great enough to attract a crowd, including Sheriff Tom Allman, and after a meeting between the contending lawyers in Judge Ann Moorman’s chambers, Mendocino County District Attorney David Eyster and defense attorney Keith Faulder announced to the crowd that the case was going to be resolved and would not proceed.

Attorney General Holder also told the ABA that he wanted an end to mandatory sentencing in non-violent drug cases, and if the county DA couldn’t hit Peter Richardson with a tough sentence why go to trial, espe­cially against a man who may be dying of prostate can­cer?

Radcliffe

Out went Richardson and in came a pre-trial hearing led by that master of false starts, Public Defender Linda Thompson. Ms. Thompson doubted that her client, Marc Radcliffe, had been read his Miranda rights. She’s a stickler for Miranda. Ten years ago she mirandaized a Fort Bragg kid, Tai Abreu, straight into prison for the rest of his life. In that one, even the prosecutor was beg­ging Thompson to take the plea deal the DA was offer­ing. Nope, Thompson took a vague Miranda argument to the jury, and argument she confused even further, and after a one day trial off the boy went for the rest of his days. Abreu’s co-defendants will be back in Fort Bragg in another few years, although the man the three of them murdered will probably still be dead, and Thompson will still be asking the cops if they read the perp his Miranda rights.

Mr. Radcliffe wasn’t facing murder charges. He’s accused of breaking into an apartment at the Autumn Leaves retirement community last February where he’d rummaged through an older woman’s underwear drawer while the woman was working on a puzzle and her hus­band was on the computer. A man appeared at the woman’s elbow clad in her undergarments and began whispering unappealing endearments in her terrified ear. The husband, no spring chicken, sprang at the intruder but was shrugged off. Underwear Man, snagging the woman’s purse as he departed, ran off down the street in red panties and a pink camisole.

Radcliffe, the alleged Underwear Man, is a hefty guy in his early 50s. He’s festooned with all kinds of tough-guy tattoos, although running around Ukiah in an old lady’s underwear kinda weakens a tough guy’s public image. Radcliffe has been arrested several times in recent years on methamphetamine charges and parole violations, but this is his first beef involve grandma’s knickers.

This is the kind of thing where a testifying witness might have a hard time keeping a straight face. But the witness was Anthony Delapo of the Ukiah PD. His grand­mother had been robbed at knifepoint in the Pear Tree Shopping Center parking lot last Christmastide by another tattooed dude. Tattooed thugs hassling little old Ukiah ladies is no joke to Officer Delapo.

Deputy DA Damon Gardner called Officer De­lapo to establish the verity of Radcliffe having been properly “Mirandaized,” to use the tortured verb Ms. Thompson seems so fond of. Delapo is a rookie serv­ing his first year on the po­lice force; he carries a field guide to the care and han­dling of Ukiah’s night birds. He told the court that he read Mr. Marc Radcliffe his Miranda rights right out of the book, “word-for-word.”

DDA Gardner: “So you read it to him verbatim?”

Officer Delapo: “Yes, I did.”

Gardner: “When did you do this?”

Delapo: “The evening of February 2nd; it was past eight o’clock. May I refer to my report?”

Gardner: “If it will help refresh your memory, go ahead.”

Delapo (after a pause): “It was sometime between 11pm and 12:54am.”

Gardner: “Did the suspect appear to understand his rights under Miranda?”

Delapo: “He said yes, he did understand the admon­ishment.”

Gardner: “Did you ask him if he knew where he was at, what he’d been doing and whether he’d been in any­one’s apartment?”

Delapo: “He appeared to be under the influence.”

Gardner: “Did you ask if he’d been using any drugs?”

Delapo: “Yes; he said he’d used methamphetamine at about 4pm that day.”

Gardner: “Did you ask about the apartment?”

Delapo: “Yes, but he seemed confused, and said he couldn’t recall where he’d been that day. I showed him a jacket that was found at the apartment and he said it was his.”

Public Defender Thompson: “Where exactly did you — well, let me ask you this: Did this occur in a particular area of the Police Department? Were you at the office in Ukiah?”

Delapo: “Just in a holding cell.”

Thompson: “”You also said — but, wait… uh, do you have any sort of recording device?”

Delapo: “Yes, I do.”

Thompson: “Were you using it when you Mirandaized my client?”

Delapo: “I don’t think it was working that day, or maybe it wasn’t on.”

Police department tape recorders have a tendency to go on the fritz at the darndest times.

Thompson: “But your camera was working alright… So let me show you a photograph — may I approach the witness, your honor?”

Judge Ann Moorman: “Go ahead.”

Thompson: “I’m showing you a photograph marked People’s Exhibit Number Eight…”

Delapo: “Yes, that is Mr. Radcliffe.”

Thompson, a great one for irrelevant detail, said, “He seems to be seated on a bench of some sort.”

Delapo: “Yes…”

Thompson: “Is that where you questioned him?”

Delapo: “Yes.”

Thompson: “So you asked Mr. Radcliffe — well, first of all, you Mirandaized him first, didn’t you?”

Delapo: “Yes.”

Thompson: “So you asked him a number of ques­tions about the apartment, correct?”

Delapo: “Correct.”

Thompson: “Did you ask him which day of the week it was?”

Delapo: “I don’t recall.”

Thompson: “Did you ask what month it was?”

Delapo: “I don’t recall.”

Thompson suddenly blurted out a loud gotcha-sound­ing guffaw, which she does often in open court, at no visible or audible gotcha. The gotcha out of the way, Thompson asked, “Would it help refresh your memory if you checked your report?”

Delapo scanned his report and said, “Yes, I did ask which day of the week it was. I was trying to make just simple conversation.”

Thompson: “And he was still confused?”

Delapo: “Yes. He kept picking at his skin; he was fidg­ety and often tensed his muscles.”

Thompson: “Did you ask where he lived?”

Delapo: “He gave an address on Del Rio Street and said he lived with a friend.”

Thompson: “So you just showed him a jacket and asked if he recognized it?”

Delapo: “Yes.”

Thompson: “And after questioning him you took him to the local hospital, correct?”

Delapo: “Correct.”

Thompson: “For a blood test?”

Delapo: “Yes.”

Thompson: “What were the results?”

Gardner: “Objection, relevance.”

Moorman: “Do you know the results?”

Delapo: “No.”

Thompson: “When you Mirandaized him, did you ask if he understood?”

Delapo: “Yes.”

Moorman: “So you read to him from the booklet?”

Delapo: “Yes.”

Moorman: “What does it say?”

Delapo: “I don’t have it with me, now.”

Gardner flipped out his wallet and produced a card with the Miranda rights printed on it and read it for the judge.

Moorman: “Then you asked if he understood. What’s the next thing you did?”

Delapo: “I started asking questions about where he’d been.”

Thompson: “At the conclusion of the, uh, part about asking if he, uh, understood — HUMPF! came another odd explosion from the diminutive public defender — did you ask, ‘Do you want to talk to me now’?”

Delapo: “He just started talking.”

Thompson: “I’m gonna have to object —- and he appeared confused, correct?”

Delapo: “Yes.”

Gardner called his next witness, Mariano Guzman, who was a patrol Sergeant at the time, and had been called in to help Officer Anthony Delapo. Mr. Guzman now works as an investigator for the DA.

Gardner: “Did you participate in the pursuit of the defendant?”

Guzman: “Yes.”

Gardner “Was the defendant apprehended?”

Guzman: “Yes.”

Gardner: “What did you do?”

Guzman: “I drew my weapon and ordered him to the ground.”

Gardner: “What did he do?”

Guzman: “He went down, face down, then reached in his pocket and withdrew a lighter and a small, used cigarette. He put the cigarette to his mouth, lit it and pro­ceeded to smoke it.”

Gardner: “What was he wearing?”

Guzman: “A woman’s sweatshirt and torn jeans. He appeared to have torn his jeans from eluding police offi­cers through bushes and fences.”

Gardner: “Did you cuff him?”

Guzman: “Yes.”

Gardner: “Put him in your patrol vehicle?”

Guzman: “Yes.”

Gardner: “Ask him questions?”

Guzman: “Yes.”

Gardner: “His name?”

Guzman: “Marc Radcliffe.”

Gardner: “Were you acquainted with him?”

Guzman: “Yes.”

Gardner: “Was he on parole?”

Guzman: “That he was.”

Gardner: “Do you know his Parole Officer?”

Guzman: “Jennifer Farley.”

Gardner: “Did he appear injured?”

Guzman: “Yes, and he told me he had pain in his abdomen.”

Thompson: “His jeans were ripped — well, let me ask you this: He was wearing a woman’s sweatshirt — what you perceived to be a woman’s sweatshirt?”

Guzman: “Yes.”

Thompson: “May I approach, your honor?”

Moorman: “Go ahead.”

Thompson: “Do you recognize these photos?”

Guzman: “Yes, I took ‘em.”

Thompson was togged out in a man’s navy blazer, white ducks and deck shoes. She looked like a yacht steward: “Had you received a description of how he was dressed?”

Guzman: “Yes.”

Thompson: “A white pleated skirt?”

Guzman, suppressing a smile: “Yes, that’s correct.”

Thompson: “And Mrs. Dotson had told you the perpe­trator was wearing her pink undershirt and red panties when he fled her apartment?”

Guzman: “Yes.”

Be on the lookout for a large tattooed man in hot pink. Check that. The pink may only be a small part of a fetching ensemble that includes both pink and red gar­ments sequestered beneath a white, pleated skirt.

Thompson: “But when you apprehended him, he was wearing only the ripped jeans and sweatshirt?”

Guzman: “Correct.”

Thompson: “No underwear, no socks?”

Guzman: “Correct.”

Thompson: “And Mr. and Mrs. Dotson said they did not observe any scars, marks or tattoos?”

Guzman: “Correct.”

Thompson: “Nothing further.”

And then another wild creature eruption from Thomp­son. “EERCH!”

These startling animal cries from the public defender may be a kind of courtroom Tourettes. The old girl might have a workman’s comp claim going here if she doesn’t get control of these disconcerting blasts.

“Sorry,” she said, “Ha-ha, I need to, uh, ask a couple more, uh, questions. Well, first of all, who did you speak to first — Mr. or Mrs. Dotson?”

Guzman: “Mr. Dotson, I believe.”

Thompson: “Did you take him out to your vehicle to identify the suspect?”

Guzman: “Yes.”

Thompson: “What was the lighting like?”

Guzman: “It was still dark, but we had our flashlights and vehicle lights on.”

Thompson: “Were there any other witnesses?”

Guzman: “No.”

Gardner: “Do you recall how much time elapsed between the time of the dispatch and time you appre­hended the suspect?”

Guzman: “Two hours.”

Gardner: “In your opinion, is that enough time to change clothes?”

Guzman: “More than enough.”

Gardner: “How many times have you arrested Mr. Radcliffe?”

Thompson: “Objection! Relevance!”

Moorman: “Overruled.”

Guzman: “At least a couple of times.”

Gardner: “Are you familiar with his criminal record?”

Guzman: “He has more than five convictions.”

Gardner: “Has he been to prison?”

Guzman: “Yes.”

Gardner: “And Sandra and Darrel Dotson made a positive ID in the field?”

Guzman: “I was told it was a positive ID by Mrs. Dot­son, and a partial by Mr. Dotson.”

Gardner: “And the alleged victims, Carlotta Snod­grass and Andrea Hughes — were their descriptions con­sistent?”

Guzman: “Yes. In my mind it was the same person.”

Judge Moorman ruled that the hearing would resume on Monday with Ms. Snodgrass and Ms. Hughes. A jury trial was set for Monday, August 19th. They would then pick a jury on Tuesday and the trial was expected to be over by Thursday afternoon, at the latest.

OFF THE CUFF: SEIU, the union that represents most County workers, says the County has a lot of money stashed in the County’s reserve fund that should go to County workers to restore the ten percent imposed on workers during the fiscal crisis — check that, the ongoing fiscal crisis. The reserve fund contains about $7 million, meaning the County is fully solvent for the first time in years, which the County has achieved by attrition, eliminating positions and more or less freezing pay.

SEIU ought to break the $7 mil down. How much of it would the workers need to get their ten percent back? Do the math, make it clear. But SEIU, now being spoken for by a new name out of San Francisco, makes these blanket demands without specifics. Show us where and how the County is simply sitting on money that could go back to County workers.

COUNTY WORKERS pay upwards of a half-mil a year in union dues. In return they get feeble-to-non-existent representation that seems lazy and uninformed. SEIU could ask why is the County paying an outside negotiator to represent the County? Why isn’t the County represented by the County Counsel’s office, which local taxpayers already fund? SEIU could also ask why the County claims it’s broke and there’s not enough reserve money to restore worker’s pay, but the County hands $325,000 public money to private tourist-based businesses.

BUT THE COUNTY, like all counties, really is broke, with a huge pension obligation out of all proportion to the County’s ability to pay. Ever. That said, SEIU could, at a minimum, at least try to figure out a reasonable number to ask for out of the $7 mil reserve fund.

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WHATEVER ELSE you may want to say about Mendocino County’s recent mental health privatization, it certainly came at a good time for the Board of Supervisors which had to prepare a response to a Grand Jury Report called “Cut Backs In Mental Health Services Impacting Law Enforcement,” issued last May. The mental health privatization provides the County with a very convenient opportunity to say that whatever problems there may have been in the Mental Health Department will be magically solved by the nice-sounding promises of the newly hired Mental Health service contractors.

GJ Finding 1: “The Mental Health Department scheduling one crisis worker after hours and weekends is insufficient for Mendocino County.”

BOS Response: “The Board of Supervisors disagrees in part with this finding. The former Crisis Services System scheduled one crisis worker per shift, not one crisis worker per weekend.”

GJ Finding 2. “Crisis workers have conflicting responsibility and authority.

BOS Response: “The Board of Supervisors partially disagrees with the finding that crisis workers have conflicting responsibility; they were provided clear guidance and direction. Previous service delivery did need access to a psychiatrist after hours and on weekends.”

GJ Finding 3. “Health and Human Services Agency and Ukiah Valley Medical Center have conflicting views on the procedures for treatment of patients with dual diagnoses.”

BOS Response: “The Board of Supervisors partially disagrees with this finding. The basis for the conflicting views referred to here relates to determinations and in dual diagnostic cases where analysis of which disorder is ‘primary’ vs. ‘secondary.’ Patients with a primary diagnosis of substance abuse are not accepted at psychiatric hospitals while mental health primary diagnosis patients case diagnosis inherent in the process.”

GJ Finding 5. “The current method of providing psychiatric services needs improvement. Telepsychiatry (doc-in-the-box) is an expensive/poor substitute for the ‘real thing,’ a psychiatrist.

BOS Response: (Very long, but paraphrased and boiled down amounts to): Yes, but it’s the best we can do because finding psychiatrists for small rural counties is hard and expensive.

* * *

GJ Recommendation 1: “Mental Health provides an additional crisis worker after 6pm and on weekends.”

BOS Response: “This recommendation will be implemented as of July 15, 2013 as described in the County Health Director’s Response to the Grand Jury (which says that the after-hours crisis service will be covered by the new privatization contract).

GJ Recommendation 2: “The Health and Human Services Agency re-examine their policies regarding crisis workers making the determination for releasing 5150s when a supervisor’s authorization is required to hospitalize a patient.

BOS Response: “This recommendation will be implemented as of July 15, 2013 as described in the County Health Director’s Response to the Grand Jury (which says that the newly hired contractors will provide psych evals on 5150s.)

GJ Recommendation 3. “Health and Human Services Agency clarify the procedures for treatment of patients with dual diagnoses.

BOS Response: “The Board of Supervisors understands that the Health and Human Services Agency, Behavioral Health Division is working on dual diagnosis procedures, training implementation, and supervising the revision of policies and

procedures relating to dual diagnosis cases. This will be complete by September, 2013. In light of this agency action and progress timetable, the Board of Supervisors submits that this recommendation will be implemented in less than six months time.”

GJ Recommendation 4: “Mental Health funds be used to implement a discharge/follow-up program for mentally ill inmates released from the jail.”

BOS Response: “The Board of Supervisors notes that the County Behavioral Health Department is currently working with Ortner Management Group, Redwood Duality Management Company, California Forensic Medical Group and the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office to develop and implement a discharge follow up service mentally ill inmates. This process will be completed on or before September 2013.”

GJ Recommendation 5. “The doc-in-the-box camera be repositioned for improved personal interaction.”

BOS Response: “The Board of Supervisors notes that it has had, and continues to have, an ongoing recruitment for a Chief Psychiatrist (See Mendocino County Recruitment Bulletin No. 12-047) to serve the County.)

(This response seems out of place and should have been the response for Recommendation 6. Obviously, the County can easily reposition the camera.)

GJ Recommendation 6. “Mental Health continues the search for a County psychiatrist for the jail.

BOS Response: (None).

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SINCE IT’S UNLIKELY that the Board will conduct any systematic review of the newly hired mental health service providers either post-July 15 or post-September 2013, we strongly urge the Grand Jury to revisit the Mental Health services in 2014 to see if the private contractors really are providing what they’re supposed to provide and that promises made by the County are in fact being met.

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THE MENDOCINO COUNTY VETERANS SERVICE OFFICE is now issuing identity cards to veterans. The new ID cards will allow veterans to get discounts from 5%-25% at participating local businesses. Interested veterans are asked to bring in their DD-214 form in order for county staff to proceed with issuing the cards. Many businesses (listed below as of August 2013) have already agreed to offer discounts to those holding the cards. Business owners are encouraged to contact the Veterans Service Office and offer to participate in the program too: Mendocino County Veterans Service Office, 405 Observatory Ave., Ukiah. (707) 463-4226.

UKIAH: AAA Welding 101; Acevedo’s Ukiah Truck Repair; Acupuncture Center; Alverez Carwash and Full Details; Applebee’s; Audio Xtreme; Bill Binns Machine Shop and Diesel Truck Repair; Bridal Shop; Business and Tax Service; Crawford Signs; Day’s Inn Motel; Discount Cigarettes Smoke Shop; Finish Master; (Central Paint and Car Specialty); Dollar Smart; Deep Valley Security; Ken Fowler Motors (parts and service up to $100); Lait Maternal Baby; RadioShack; Rainforest Fantasy; Rent-A-Center; Sand ‘N’ Dirt Motorsports; Home Depot; Isi’s Pizza; John Brown’s Performance Cycle; Mendo Mill; Next Wave Electronics; O’Reilly Auto Parts; Limbird Dentistry; Friedman Brothers; Mendocino Bounty; Pardini Appliance; Sweets Lawn and Lot Care; Powerhouse Screen Printing and Embroidery; Quality Inn; Motorsports of Ukiah; McCarty’s Auto Body; Mama’s Cafe; GI Joe’s.

FORT BRAGG: Angelenos at TW’s Bar+Grill; Bamboo Garden Spa; David’s Restaurant; Denny’s; El Yuca Market; Fort Bragg Feed and Pet; O’Reilly Auto Parts; Highway 20 Feed; Kemgas; La Mexican Market; Lynette Kline, OD; Matson Building Materials; New Best Buffet; Racine’s; Spunky Skunk; Steak ‘n Burger House; Mendo Mill.

WILLITS: Purple Moose.

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DON’T FLY DURING RAMADAN

by Aditya Mukerjee

A couple of weeks ago, I was scheduled to take a trip from New York (JFK) to Los Angeles on JetBlue. Every year, my family goes on a one-week pilgrimage, where we put our work on hold and spend time visiting temples, praying, and spending time with family and friends. To my Jewish friends, I often explain this trip as vaguely similar to the Sabbath, except we take one week of rest per year, rather than one day per week.

Our family is not Muslim, but by coincidence, this year, our trip happened to be during the last week of Ramadan.

By further coincidence, this was also the same week that I was moving out of my employer-provided temporary housing (at NYU) and moving into my new apartment. The night before my trip, I enlisted the help of two friends and we took most of my belongings, in a couple of suitcases, to my new apartment. The apartment was almost completely unfurnished – I planned on getting new furniture upon my return – so I dropped my few bags (one containing an air mattress) in the corner. Even though I hadn’t decorated the apartment yet, in accordance with Hindu custom, I taped a single photograph to the wall in my bedroom — a long-haired saint with his hands outstretched in pronam (a sign of reverence and respect).

The next morning, I packed the rest of my clothes into a suitcase and took a cab to the airport. I didn’t bother to eat breakfast, figuring I would grab some yogurt in the terminal while waiting to board.

I got in line for security at the airport and handed the agent my ID. Another agent came over and handed me a paper slip, which he said was being used to track the length of the security lines. He said, “just hand this to someone when your stuff goes through the x-ray machines, and we’ll know how long you were in line.’ I looked at the timestamp on the paper: 10:40.

When going through the security line, I opted out (as I always used to) of the millimeter wave detectors. I fly often enough, and have opted out often enough, that I was prepared for what comes next: a firm pat-down by a TSA employee wearing non-latex gloves, who uses the back of his hand when patting down the inside of the thighs.

After the pat-down, the TSA agent swabbed his hands with some cotton-like material and put the swab in the machine that supposedly checks for explosive residue. The machine beeped. “We’re going to need to pat you down again, this time in private,” the agent said.

Having been selected before for so-called “random” checks, I assumed that this was another such check.

“What do you mean, ‘in private’? Can’t we just do this out here?”

“No, this is a different kind of pat-down, and we can’t do that in public.” When I asked him why this pat-down was different, he wouldn’t tell me. When I asked him specifically why he couldn’t do it in public, he said “Because it would be obscene.”

Naturally, I balked at the thought of going somewhere behind closed doors where a person I just met was going to touch me in “obscene” ways. I didn’t know at the time (and the agent never bothered to tell me) that the TSA has a policy that requires two agents to be present during every private pat-down. I’m not sure if that would make me feel more or less comfortable.

Noticing my hesitation, the agent offered to have his supervisor explain the procedure in more detail. He brought over his supervisor, a rather harried man who, instead of explaining the pat-down to me, rather rudely explained to me that I could either submit immediately to a pat-down behind closed-doors, or he could call the police.

At this point, I didn’t mind having to leave the secure area and go back through security again (this time not opting out of the machines), but I didn’t particularly want to get the cops involved. I told him, “Okay, fine, I’ll leave.”

“You can’t leave here.”

“Are you detaining me, then?” I’ve been through enough “know your rights“ training to know how to handle police searches; however, TSA agents are not law enforcement officials. Technically, they don’t even have the right to detain you against your will.

“We’re not detaining you. You just can’t leave.” My jaw dropped.

“Either you’re detaining me, or I’m free to go. Which one is it?” I asked.

He glanced for a moment at my backpack, then snatched it out of the conveyor belt. “Okay,” he said. “You can leave, but I’m keeping your bag.”

I was speechless. My bag had both my work computer and my personal computer in it. The only way for me to get it back from him would be to snatch it back, at which point he could simply claim that I had assaulted him. I was trapped.

While we waited for the police to arrive, I took my phone and quickly tried to call my parents to let them know what was happening. Unfortunately, my mom’s voicemail was full, and my dad had never even set his up.

“Hey, what’s he doing?” One of the TSA agents had noticed I was touching my phone. “It’s probably fine; he’s leaving anyway,” another said.

The cops arrived a few minutes later, spoke with the TSA agents for a moment, and then came over and gave me one last chance to submit to the private examination. “Otherwise, we have to escort you out of the building.” I asked him if he could be present while the TSA agent was patting me down.

“No,” he explained, “because when we pat people down, it’s to lock them up.”

I only realized the significance of that explanation later. At this point, I didn’t particularly want to miss my flight. Foolishly, I said, “Fine, I’ll do it.”

The TSA agents and police escorted me to a holding room, where they patted me down again – this time using the front of their hands as they passed down the front of my pants. While they patted me down, they asked me some basic questions.

“What’s the purpose of your travel?”

“Personal,” I responded, (as opposed to business).

“Are you traveling with anybody?”

“My parents are on their way to LA right now; I’m meeting them there.”

“How long is your trip?”

“Ten days.”

“What will you be doing?”

Mentally, I sighed. There wasn’t any other way I could answer this next question.

“We’ll be visiting some temples.” He raised his eyebrow, and I explained that the next week was a religious holiday, and that I was traveling to LA to observe it with my family.

After patting me down, they swabbed not only their hands, but also my backpack, shoes, wallet, and belongings, and then walked out of the room to put it through the machine again. After more than five minutes, I started to wonder why they hadn’t said anything, so I asked the police officer who was guarding the door. He called over the TSA agent, who told me,

“You’re still setting off the alarm. We need to call the explosives specialist.”

I waited for about ten minutes before the specialist showed up. He walked in without a word, grabbed the bins with my possessions, and started to leave. Unlike the other agents I’d seen, he wasn’t wearing a uniform, so I was a bit taken aback.

“What’s happening?” I asked.

“I’m running it through the x-ray again,” he snapped. “Because I can. And I’m going to do it again, and again, until I decide I’m done.” He then asked the TSA agents whether they had patted me down. They said they had, and he just said, “Well, try again,” and left the room. Again I was told to stand with my legs apart and my hands extended horizontally while they patted me down all over before stepping outside.

The explosives specialist walked back into the room and asked me why my clothes were testing positive for explosives. I told him, quite truthfully, “I don’t know.” He asked me what I had done earlier in the day.

“Well, I had to pack my suitcase, and also clean my apartment.”

“And yesterday?”

“I moved my stuff from my old apartment to my new one.”

“What did you eat this morning?”

“Nothing,” I said. Only later did I realize that this made it sound like I was fasting, when in reality, I just hadn’t had breakfast yet.

“Are you taking any medications?”

The other TSA agents stood and listened while the explosives specialist asked about every medication I had taken “recently,” both prescription and over-the-counter, and asked me to explain any medical conditions for which any prescription medicine had been prescribed. Even though I wasn’t carrying any medication on me, he still asked for my complete “recent” medical history.

“What have you touched that would cause you to test positive for certain explosives?”

“I can’t think of anything. What does it say is triggering the alarm?” I asked.

“I’m not going to tell you! It’s right here on my sheet, but I don’t have to tell you what it is!” he exclaimed, pointing at his clipboard.

I was at a loss for words. The first thing that came to my mind was, “Well, I haven’t touched any explosives, but if I don’t even know what chemical we’re talking about, I don’t know how to figure out why the tests are picking it up.”

He didn’t like this answer, so he told them to run my belongings through the x-ray machine and pat me down again, then left the room.

I glanced at my watch. Boarding would start in fifteen minutes, and I hadn’t even had anything to eat. A TSA officer in the room noticed me craning my neck to look at my watch on the table, and he said, “Don’t worry, they’ll hold the flight.”

As they patted me down for the fourth time, a female TSA agent asked me for my baggage claim ticket. I handed it to her, and she told me that a woman from JetBlue corporate security needed to ask me some questions as well. I was a bit surprised, but agreed. After the pat-down, the JetBlue representative walked in and cooly introduced herself by name.

She explained, “We have some questions for you to determine whether or not you’re permitted to fly today. Have you flown on JetBlue before?”

“Yes”

“How often?”

“Maybe about ten times,” I guessed.

“Ten what? Per month?”

“No, ten times total.”

She paused, then asked,

“Will you have any trouble following the instructions of the crew and flight attendants on board the flight?”

“No.” I had no idea why this would even be in doubt.

“We have some female flight attendants. Would you be able to follow their instructions?”

I was almost insulted by the question, but I answered calmly, “Yes, I can do that.”

“Okay,” she continued, “and will you need any special treatment during your flight? Do you need a special place to pray on board the aircraft?”

Only here did it hit me.

“No,” I said with a light-hearted chuckle, trying to conceal any sign of how offensive her questions were. “Thank you for asking, but I don’t need any special treatment.”

She left the room, again, leaving me alone for another ten minutes or so. When she finally returned, she told me that I had passed the TSA’s inspection. “However, based on the responses you’ve given to questions, we’re not going to permit you to fly today.”

I was shocked. “What do you mean?” were the only words I could get out.

“If you’d like, we’ll rebook you for the flight tomorrow, but you can’t take the flight this afternoon, and we’re not permitting you to rebook for any flight today.”

I barely noticed the irony of the situation – that the TSA and NYPD were clearing me for takeoff, but JetBlue had decided to ground me. At this point, I could think of nothing else but how to inform my family, who were expecting me to be on the other side of the country, that I wouldn’t be meeting them for dinner after all. In the meantime, an officer entered the room and told me to continue waiting there. “We just have one more person who needs to speak with you before you go.” By then, I had already been “cleared” by the TSA and NYPD, so I couldn’t figure out why I still needed to be questioned. I asked them if I could use my phone and call my family.

“No, this will just take a couple of minutes and you’ll be on your way.” The time was 12.35.

He stepped out of the room – for the first time since I had been brought into the cell, there was no NYPD officer guarding the door. Recognizing my short window of opportunity, I grabbed my phone from the table and quickly texted three of my local friends – two who live in Brooklyn, and one who lives in Nassau County – telling them that I had been detained by the TSA and that I couldn’t board my flight. I wasn’t sure what was going to happen next, but since nobody had any intention of reading me my Miranda rights, I wanted to make sure people knew where I was.

After fifteen minutes, one of the police officers marched into the room and scolded, “You didn’t tell us you have a checked bag!” I explained that I had already handed my baggage claim ticket to a TSA agent, so I had in fact informed someone that I had a checked bag. Looking frustrated, he turned and walked out of the room, without saying anything more.

After about twenty minutes, another man walked in and introduced himself as representing the FBI. He asked me many of the same questions I had already answered multiple times – my name, my address, what I had done so far that day. etc.

He then asked, “What is your religion?”

“I’m Hindu.”

“How religious are you? Would you describe yourself as ‘somewhat religious’ or ‘very religious’?”

I was speechless from the idea of being forced to talk about the extent of my religious beliefs to a complete stranger. “Somewhat religious,” I responded.

“How many times a day do you pray?” he asked. This time, my surprise must have registered on my face, because he quickly added, “I’m not trying to offend you; I just don’t know anything about Hinduism. For example, I know that people are fasting for Ramadan right now, but I don’t have any idea what Hindus actually do on a daily basis.”

I nearly laughed at the idea of being questioned by a man who was able to admit his own ignorance on the subject matter, but I knew enough to restrain myself. The questioning continued for another few minutes. At one point, he asked me what cleaning supplies I had used that morning.

“Well, some window cleaner, disinfectant —” I started, before he cut me off.

“This is important,” he said, sternly. “Be specific.” I listed the specific brands that I had used.

Suddenly I remembered something: the very last thing I had done before leaving was to take the bed sheets off of my bed, as I was moving out. Since this was a dorm room, to guard against bedbugs, my dad (a physician) had given me an over-the-counter spray to spray on the mattress when I moved in, over two months previously. Was it possible that that was still active and triggering their machines?

“I also have a bedbug spray,” I said. “I don’t know the name of it, but I knew it was over-the-counter, so I figured it probably contained permethrin.” Permethrin is an insecticide, sold over-the-counter to kill bed bugs and lice.

“Perm-what?” He asked me to spell it.

After he wrote it down, I asked him if I could have something to drink. “I’ve been here talking for three hours at this point,” I explained. “My mouth is like sandpaper.” He refused, saying, “We’ll just be a few minutes, and then you’ll be able to go.”

“Do you have any identification?” I showed him my driver’s license, which still listed my old address. “You have nothing that shows your new address?” he exclaimed.

“Well, no, I only moved there on Thursday.”

“What about the address before that?”

“I was only there for two months – it was temporary housing for work.” I pulled my NYU ID out of my wallet. He looked at it, then a police officer in the room took it from him and walked out.

“What about any business cards that show your work address?” I mentally replayed my steps from the morning, and remembered that I had left behind my business card holder, thinking I wouldn’t need it on my trip.

“No, I left those at home.”

“You have none?”

“Well, no, I’m going on vacation, so I didn’t refill them last night.” He scoffed. “I always carry my cards on me, even when I’m on vacation.” I had no response to that – what could I say?

“What about a direct line at work? Is there a phone number I can call where it’ll patch me straight through to your voicemail?”

“No,” I tried in vain to explain. “We’re a tech company; everyone just uses their cell phones.” To this day, I don’t think my company has a working landline phone in the entire office – our “main line” is a virtual assistant that just forwards calls to our cell phones. I offered to give him the name and phone number of one of our venture partners instead, which he reluctantly accepted.

Around this point, the officer who had taken my NYU ID stormed into the room.

“They put an expiration sticker on your ID, right?” I nodded. “Well then why did this ID expire in 2010?!” he accused.

I took a look at the ID and calmly pointed out that it said “August 2013” in big letters on the ID, and that the numbers “8/10” meant “August 10th, 2013.” not “August, 2010.” I added, “See, even the expiration sticker says 2013 on it above the date.” He studied the ID again for a moment, then walked out of the room again, looking a little embarrassed.

The FBI agent resumed speaking with me. “Do you have any credit cards with your name on them?” I was hesitant to hand them a credit card, but I didn’t have much of a choice. Reluctantly, I pulled out a credit card and handed it to him. “What’s the limit on it?” he said, and then, noticing that I didn’t laugh, quickly added, “That was a joke.”

He left the room, and then a series of other NYPD and TSA agents came in and started questioning me, one after the other, with the same questions that I’d already answered previously. In between, I was left alone, except for the officer guarding the door.

At one point, when I went to the door and asked the officer when I could finally get something to drink, he told me, “Just a couple more minutes. You’ll be out of here soon.”

“That’s what they said an hour ago,” I complained.

“You also said a lot of things, kid,” he said with a wink. “Now sit back down.”

I sat back down and waited some more. Another time, I looked up and noticed that a different officer was guarding the door. By this time, I hadn’t had any food or water in almost 18 hours. I could feel the energy draining from me, both physically and mentally, and my head was starting to spin. I went to the door and explained the situation the officer. “At the very least, I really need something to drink.”

“Is this a medical emergency? Are you going to pass out? Do we need to call an ambulance?” he asked, skeptically. His tone was almost mocking, conveying more scorn than actual concern or interest.

“No,” I responded. I’m not sure why I said that. I was lightheaded enough that I certainly felt like I was going to pass out.

“Are you diabetic?”

“No,” I responded.

Again he repeated the familiar refrain. “We’ll get you out of here in a few minutes.” I sat back down. I was starting to feel cold, even though I was sweating, the same way I often feel when a fever is coming on. But when I put my hand to my forehead, I felt fine.

One of the police officers who questioned me about my job was less-than-familiar with the technology field.

“What type of work do you do?”

“I work in venture capital.”

“Venture Capital – is that the thing I see ads for on TV all the time?” For a moment, I was dumbfounded – what venture capital firm advertises on TV? Suddenly, it hit me.

“Oh! You’re probably thinking of Capital One Venture credit cards.” I said this politely and with a straight face, but unfortunately, the other cop standing in the room burst out laughing immediately. Silently, I was shocked – somehow, this was the interrogation procedure for confirming that I actually had the job I claimed to have.

Another pair of NYPD officers walked in, and one asked me to identify some landmarks around my new apartment. One was, “When you’re facing the apartment, is the parking on the left or on the right?” I thought this was an odd question, but I answered it correctly. He whispered something in the ear of the other officer, and they both walked out.

The onslaught of NYPD agents was broken when a South Asian man with a Homeland Security badge walked in and said something that sounded unintelligible. After a second, I realized he was speaking Hindi.

“Sorry, I don’t speak Hindi.”

“Oh!” he said, noticeably surprised at how “Americanized” this suspect was. We chatted for a few moments, during which time I learned that his family was Pakistani, and that he was Muslim, though he was not fasting for Ramadan. He asked me the standard repertoire of questions that I had been answering for other agents all day.

Finally, the FBI agent returned.

“How are you feeling right now?” he asked. I wasn’t sure if he was expressing genuine concern or interrogating me further, but by this point, I had very little energy left.

“A bit nauseous, and very thirsty.”

“You’ll have to understand, when a person of your… background walks into here, travelling alone, and sets off our alarms, people start to get a bit nervous. I’m sure you’ve been following what’s been going on in the news recently. You’ve got people from five different branches of government all in here – we don’t do this just for fun.”

He asked me to repeat some answers to questions that he’d asked me previously, looking down at his notes the whole time, then he left. Finally, two TSA agents entered the room and told me that my checked bag was outside, and that I would be escorted out to the ticketing desks, where I could see if JetBlue would refund my flight.

It was 2:20PM by the time I was finally released from custody. My entire body was shaking uncontrollably, as if I were extremely cold, even though I wasn’t. I couldn’t identify the emotion I was feeling. Surprisingly, as far as I could tell, I was shaking out of neither fear nor anger – I felt neither of those emotions at the time. The shaking motion was entirely involuntary, and I couldn’t force my limbs to be still, no matter how hard I concentrated.

In the end, JetBlue did refund my flight, but they cancelled my entire round-trip ticket. Because I had to rebook on another airline that same day, it ended up costing me about $700 more for the entire trip. Ironically, when I went to the other terminal, I was able to get through security (by walking through the millimeter wave machines) with no problem.

I spent the week in LA, where I was able to tell my family and friends about the entire ordeal. They were appalled by the treatment I had received, but happy to see me safely with them, even if several hours later.

I wish I could say that the story ended there. It almost did. I had no trouble flying back to NYC on a red-eye the next week, in the wee hours of August 12th. But when I returned home the next week, opened the door to my new apartment, and looked around the room, I couldn’t help but notice that one of the suitcases sat several inches away from the wall. I could have sworn I pushed everything to the side of the room when I left, but I told myself that I may have just forgotten, since I was in a hurry when I dropped my bags off.

When I entered my bedroom, a chill went down my spine: the photograph on my wall had vanished. I looked around the room, but in vain. My apartment was almost completely empty; there was no wardrobe it could have slipped under, even on the off-chance it had fallen.

To this day, that photograph has not turned up. I can’t think of any “rational” explanation for it. Maybe there is one. Maybe a burglar broke into my apartment by picking the front door lock and, finding nothing of monetary value, took only my picture. In order to preserve my peace-of-mind, I’ve tried to convince myself that that’s what happened, so I can sleep comfortably at night.

But no matter how I’ve tried to rationalize this in the last week and a half, nothing can block out the memory of the chilling sensation I felt that first morning, lying on my air mattress, trying to forget the image of large, uniformed men invading the sanctuary of my home in my absence, wondering when they had done it, wondering why they had done it.

In all my life, I have only felt that same chilling terror once before – on one cold night in September twelve years ago, when I huddled in bed and tried to forget the terrible events in the news that day, wondering why they had happened, wondering whether everything would be okay ever again.

A RECENT SF CHRON story co-featured a 32-year-old Democrat named Eric Swalwell, an East Bay congressman simply because Swalwell regularly appears at town hall forums at a time few congressman are visible in their districts except to small groups of insiders assembled at small parties for those same insiders.

OUR CONGRESSMAN, Spike Huffman for instance. Spike was in Philo this past Sunday at a wine soiree where he was surrounded by wealthy Mendo Democrats of the conservative liberal insider type. Like most career officeholders, Spike doesn’t appear in any context where the great unwashed are welcome to show up and ask him any old thing from chemtrails to the utter fraud of ObamaCare,

NORTHCOAST POLITICS is run by a tiny cabal of career officeholders, senior public bureaucrats including judges, non-profit poobahs, wealthy wine people, the more successful drug dealers who’ve recycled their money into legitimate businesses. Republicans have given up supporting candidates on the Northcoast, the more sensible among them realizing that a conservative Democrat like Huffman or Chesbro or Mike Thompson can be depended on to keep things running steadily to disaster as they are with no threat to current economic arrangements. Spike, Chesbro, Thompson, Dan Hamburg, et al are enthusiastically funded by local liberal money.

THE NORTHCOAST LEFT, meaning left of the above named individuals, represents less than 15 percent of the vote, as we learned the hard way in the last election when Norm Solomon, an FDR-like reform Democrat, couldn’t quite get into a runoff against Spike, the corporate Obama-Clinton Democrat. Solomon got 14.9% percent of the vote from exactly 25,462 of us. How he might have done one-on-one against Huffman can’t be known, but he would have pulled votes from lots of people who either voted for the other Democrats in the race or voted for one of the stoner candidates. It’s safe to say that the Northcoast left, the Solomon left, thinks Obama, and soon, Hillary, are mere expediters of the rolling catastrophe America has become. The left, then, is a dependable 15% of the Northcoast vote, mainstream conservative Democrats 40 to 65%, frothing rightwingers and single-issue candidates, the rest.

BACK TO TOWN HALLS. Years ago then-congressman Bosco held a town hall meeting in Santa Rosa, the one and only town hall a Northcoast congressman has held since. A long line of Bosco’s critics cued up at the speaker’s podium to tee off on the congressman for his many sins, all of them identical these many years later to Spike Huffman’s, and all of them stemming from the basic fact that all of these characters are funded by, and beholden to, the forces preventing even the hope of a decent, fair society for this country.

THAT TOWN HALL was Bosco’s finest hour. After the third or fourth critic had finished lambasting him, Bosco began to fight back, and fight back with real flush-faced anger, making his transparently bogus cases the best he could in the face of contradicting reality and as the audience hooted at him. It was funny as hell and illuminating, in that it was clear that Bosco was unprepared, didn’t even seem to realize he and his votes for nerve gas militarism and corporate giveaways had so many critics. He seemed to think everyone in his district were versions of the Press Democrat’s craven editorial board. No one that day praised him for anything, and in living fact he deserved what he got. But I remember giving him silent attaboys for at least showing up to take it.

A TOUGHER, more confident person, a person like this Swalwell kid apparently, would relish regular fights with whomever at genuinely public forums. But I think there’s an obvious reason why we never see Huffman, Chesbro, Thompson and their interchangeable counterparts in open forums, and the reason is that these characters are artificial creations, hollow men (and women) who have no politics, no principles, nothing that they can vigorously defend. Their “beliefs” derive from the flabby cliches published by the Democratic Party National, and begin and end with these people in office forever, with a limo ride here and there, and endless wine parties where they’re surrounded by smiley faces. They’re duly elected and dependably supported by comfortable people insulated from the everyday effects of life in a neo-oligarchy.

A FULLY INSURED, fully amortized wine person looks out at the world and wonders how anyone could possibly be unhappy with the Obama government, could not wholeheartedly look forward to Hillary.

“SWALWELL is the exception in the all-Democratic Bay Area delegation in holding multiple and regular town halls,” declared the Chron. And he’s got to be a better rep for it, too. Regular face-to-facers with the grassroots, with struggling people, i.e., a majority of Americans, would naturally move a real person away from imperialism, away from oligarchy, away from wine sips, away from the corporate stranglehold.

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THE WILLITS Environmental Center and Willits-based Keep the Code have challenged the permit issued by Mendocino County authorizing Mendocino Forest Products LLC to remove more than 880,000 cubic yards from its property. The plaintiffs charge in an action filed Friday that the authorization violates the California Environmental Quality Act and the Surface Mining and Reclamation Act.

THE COUNTY, allege the petitioners, “abused its discretion and failed to act in the manner required by law in approving the project without CEQA review and in violation of SMARA, the (1975) Surface Mining and Reclamation Act.”

MENDOCINO FOREST PRODUCTS property is the area on which rests the Harris Quarry Expansion Project on the Willits Grade. The earth moving project was to “bring the flat working areas down to the same grade as the central portion of the site for more efficient uses in the future.”

THE EARTH REMOVAL should not be permitted because, the enviros say, an “appropriate environmental and surface mining act review” must be done.

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COUNTY AMBULANCE CONSOLIDATION? Doubt it. According to the County CEO’s recent report called “Feasibility Study for Ambulance Service Exclusive Operating Area,” the County will workshop the notion to extinction. The consultant’s report on the feasibility of an EOA is available at: http://www.co.mendocino.ca.us/administration/EMS.htm. “Based on direction from the Board, a workshop is tentatively planned to be held on September 24th to review the report’s findings and recommendations with the understanding that there will be no action regarding formation of an Exclusive Operating Agreement at that time. It is anticipated that the Board will accept the report and provide further direction to staff.” Blah-blah and etc.

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TOM STIENSTRA, the San Francisco Chronicle‘s outdoors writer, comments on the Rim Fire: “It is heartbreaking to see the old, giant pines get incinerated by the Rim Fire in the Tuolumne canyons and on their ridges. You wonder if this can be prevented elsewhere.

The forests around beautiful Cherry Lake and Eleanor Lake in Yosemite are in flames. The beloved Camp Mather and San Francisco’s power and water utilities are under siege. Miles of blackened tree skeletons will be left behind for 20 years and longer. Ash and topsoil will wash into the Tuolumne.

I have explored this region in my truck, on foot, in a raft and the trail-less canyons from the air. Everybody in the area knew it was a time bomb.

When a fire starts in such an explosive landscape, it must be put out right away or it can blow up from a spot fire to an inferno. The DC-10s were late arriving, and in three days the fire grew from 5,000 to 50,000 to more than 100,000 acres.

Environmentalists and fire scientists agree on how to avoid these high-heat infernos that turn into forest massacres, while keeping the forest landscape and habitat fresh and healthy at the same time.

A key is addressing “ground fuels” and “ladder fuels.” The Tuolumne canyons, for instance, are filled with ground-level manzanita, chemise and layers of dry pine needles. When they ignite, they burn fast and hot, and can catch low-lying limbs of pine trees.

If you burn out the ground fuel in low-heat prescribed fires, you remove much of the tinder for big fires and keep the soil fresh and charged with nitrogen.

You also trim the lower limbs of pine trees, up to eight feet above the ground, and thin out tightly-packed groves of smaller trees. That way a ground fire won’t spread “up the ladder” and get into the tree canopies – and in a worst-case scenario, start “crowning,” jumping from treetop to treetop.

What we’re seeing now is a worst-case scenario. An area many love for recreation, wildlife and the source of drinking water and electricity is a war zone. We are losing the war.”

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AUDITIONS! For William Shakespeare’s All’s Well

That Ends Well — The Mendocino Theatre Company will be holding auditions for its 2nd stage production of Shakespeare’s, All’s Well That Ends Well. The production will be directed by well-respected theatre coach and actor Dan Kozloff. Second stage productions are a perfect opportunity for those who may be new to acting, or who are looking for a project with a shorter time commitment. Auditions will be held on September 3rd and 4th at 6:30pm at The Mendocino Theatre Company, 45200 Little Lake Street, Mendocino. When an orphaned doctor’s daughter cures the King of France of a fatal disease, he rewards her by allowing her to marry any husband of her choosing. Her choice? The brash, unwilling ward of the King. With great effort, ingenuity and the help of other resourceful women, Shakespeare’s Helena is often named as one of the strongest and most complex female characters in the entire canon. This Shakespearean comedy is characterized by intensely suspenseful scenes that strike a delicate balance between drama and humor, ultimately culminating in one of Shakespeare’s most thought provoking and memorable endings. Casting is open for all 12 roles!

Helena, Female, 16-21

Diana, Helena’s rival and ally, Female,16-21

Bertram, a young Count, Male, 16-25

The Dumaine Brothers, Bertram’s two close associates, Male, 16-25

Two Lords/Soldiers, Male, 16-25

Parolles, a cowardly braggart, Male, Somewhat Older

The King, Male, Middle-Aged

The Widow, Diana’s mother, Female, Middle-Aged

Lord Lafew, Male, Older

The Countess, Female, Older

(Some genders may be swapped. The director recommends that any interested actors audition regardless of character descriptions.) All’s Well That Ends Well runs December 5^th-15th Thursdays-Sundays, for a total of 8 performances over two weeks. Sunday performances are 2 p.m. matinees. Perusal scripts are available at the MTC box office at 45200 Little Lake Street in Mendocino. If you wish to check out a script, please contact the MTC box office at 707-937-4477. If you are unable to make an audition time or would like more information, please contact Director Dan Kozloff at 707-964-7316.

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FORMER WESTLANDS STAFFER APPOINTED TO CALIFORNIA WATER COMMISSION

By Dan Bacher

The revolving door between corporate interests and California government continues with the announcement of the appointment of a former Westlands Water District staffer to the California Water Commission.

Governor Jerry Brown appointed David Orth, 55, of Clovis, to the Commission on August 21. Orth has been general manager of the Kings River Conservation District since 2002.

He was vice president of resource management at California Valley Land Company Inc. from 2000 to 2002 and held multiple positions at Westlands Water District from 1986 to 2000, including general manager and director of finance.

Orth was deputy treasurer and principal accountant at the Fresno County Auditor-Controller and Treasurer’s Office from 1982 to 1986. This position requires Senate confirmation and the compensation is $100 per diem. Orth is a Republican.

Orth’s former employer, the Westlands Water District, is known as the “Darth Vader” of California water politics. Westlands recently sued the federal government to block increased releases of water on the Trinity River to stop a fish kill on the lower Klamath River. Fortunately, a federal judge Thursday lifted a temporary restraining order blocking the releases, allowing the Bureau of Reclamation to increase the flows. (http://www.fishsniffer.com/blogs/details/judge-lifts-order-blocking-increased-trinity-river-releases/ )

The appointment of Orth continues a long tradition of the domination of California politics by corporate and “Big Money” interests. These include Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s appointment of Catherine Reheis-Boyd, President of the Western States Petroleum Association, as chair of the Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative Blue Ribbon Task Force to create alleged “marine protected areas” in Southern California.

The Governor also appointed Adan Ortega, 50, of Fullerton, a former Metropolitan Water District employee, to the California Water Commission.

Ortega has been the sole proprietor of Adan Ortega Associated since 2009. He was deputy managing partner at Rose and Kindel from 2005 to 2008 and vice president of external affairs at the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California from 1999 to 2005.

Ortega was chief deputy secretary of state at the Office of the California Secretary of State from 1997 to 1999 and assistant general manager at the West and Central Basin Municipal Water Districts from 1994 to 1997. He was vice president at the Dolphin Group from 1985 to 1993. Ortega is chair of Mujeres de La Tierra and an advisory council member at Southern California Sustainable Conservation. This position requires Senate confirmation and the compensation is $100 per diem. Ortega is registered decline-to-state.

The California Water Commission consists of nine members appointed by the Governor and subject to Senate confirmation. Its historical role includes “advising the Director of the Department of Water Resources on matters within the Department’s jurisdiction, approving rules and regulations, and monitoring and reporting on the construction of the State Water Project.”

The appointments to the Water Commission were made as Governor Brown is fast-tracking the construction of the Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP) to build the peripheral tunnels to deliver massive quantities of northern California water to corporate agribusiness interests on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley and to oil companies seeking to expand the environmentally destructive practice of fracking in Kern County and coastal areas.

The construction of the twin tunnels will not only hasten the extinction of Central Valley Chinook salmon and steelhead, Delta smelt, longfin smelt, green sturgeon and other fish species, but threatens the salmon and steelhead runs of the Klamath and Trinity rivers.

THE BOARD OF SUPERVISORS, on a 3-2 vote Monday, denied the appeal by the Westport Municipal Advisory Council (WMAC) to stop a project by State Parks to remove the remnants of the old Georgia-Pacific haul road that runs between Ward Avenue on the south and the Ten Mile River on the north. The Pacific Ocean has washed most of it away. The Haul Road, originally built as a railroad nearly 100 years ago to speed the old growth redwood forest in the Ten Mile watershed to the big mill at Fort Bragg, was converted to a log truck road shortly after World War II. The Haul Road was used by log trucks until a half mile section was swept into the Pacific  during winter storms 30 years ago.

STATE PARKS acquired the Haul Road right-of-way, which didn’t prevent winter storms from carrying off more of the section north of Ward Avenue. In 1995 the area was designated a Nature Preserve based on the presence of a couple of endangered plant species, one of which only grows in the Ten Mile dunes, and a quirky little shore bird, the western snowy plover, which nests on the sand above the high tide line.

STATE PARKS CLAIMS that removal of the Haul Road remnants and the return of plant species like the European Beach Grass, will restore the natural dune ecosystem, which in turn will increase habitat for the threatened bird species called the snowy plover and the endangered plants. Critics say the project will destroy public access, destabilize the dunes, fill wetlands, and not do anything for the snowy plover.

THAD VAN BUREN of the Westport Municipal Advisory Council seems to be the spearhead of the opposition, joined by Stan Anderson, leader of Mendocino County’s remnant Republican Party. The odd couple opposition seems to be united by a mutual distrust of State Parks, which seems to be near the top of the list of state agencies the coasties love to hate. State Parks tells the coasties they can’t set off fireworks on the beaches at Mendocino and Navarro. That they can’t build fires outside of ugly concrete fire rings, which are never located where you want them to be. That their dogs can’t run free. And, if Parks has their way, that they will be forced to pay for the privilege of parking their vintage coastal rust buckets at Big River Beach.

FOURTH DISTRICT SUPERVISOR DAN GJERDE, who also came out against the removal project at the meeting in Fort Bragg, read a long statement that the Board should demand that State Parks preserve the mostly intact 2.5 mile northern section of the road and dedicate an easement for the restoration of the road all the way to Ward Avenue. Supervisor McCowen, who earlier sided with State Parks, responded with an equally tedious defense of the removal project along the lines that there was plenty of public access already and it was futile to think restoration of the Haul Road would ever be allowed through a Natural Preserve with shifting dunes and endangered plants and birds. A rep from State Parks claimed removal of the Haul Road and beach grass will restore 60 acres of endangered plant habitat and increase plover habitat by 200 acres, which is probably why the project is supported by Audubon and the California Native Plant Society.

GJERDE, THE FOURTH DISTRICT SUPERVISOR, made a motion to uphold the appeal, preserve the intact northern section of the haul road and an easement for future restoration. The motion, which State Parks said would kill the project, failed on a 3-2 vote, with Supervisor Pinches siding with Hamburg and McCowen. Pinches, who has seldom seen a project he didn’t like, said he was looking for a compromise. McCowen then made a motion to deny the appeal and approve the project with some modifications, which passed on a 3-2 vote with Gjerde and Supervisor Brown opposed. The irony is that Pinches, who often gets pegged as a pave it over kind of guy, was the swing vote to remove 2.5 miles of pavement from a Nature Preserve, while Gjerde, the darling of coast lib, voted to keep the road intact. Project opponents have ten days to decide whether to appeal the decision to the California Coastal Commission.

WE THINK REMOVAL of the old Haul Road debris and a return to natural dunes is the right decision. Few people hike and otherwise enjoy the old Haul Road north of Ward Avenue, which is well north of central Fort Bragg and the people who regularly access the Haul Road. There are miles of easily accessed Haul Road and related paths running north from Fort Bragg at Glass Beach all the way to Mackerricher State Park. Return the area north of Mackerricher to dunes and snowy plover. The intrepid will hike it anyway, with detours to the sea shore where it’s impassable. And soon, we hope, there will be a walking path beginning at Noyo Harbor linked to the Haul Road at Glass Beach. This expansion will give the public all the easy access to the Pacific the public needs.

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MENDOCINO COUNTY HAS CONCLUDED a series of budget presentations, one held in each Supervisorial District and hosted by a local group. The Fifth District presentation was held last Wednesday evening in Boonville and was hosted by the Community Services District. Which put it in direct conflict with the CSD meeting across the street. Which meant that the local host was unable to attend. The AVA has heard that 25 or so people showed up, which may have included a contingent of five or so from the County. After some introductory remarks by Supervisor Hamburg, CEO Carmel Angelo went into detail about how poor Mendocino County is compared to Napa. This is news? Budget Officer Kyle Knopp then went into detail about the dismal state of County finances what with retirement and other costs shooting upward while County revenues have been flat for the last few years. We are told that most of the questions had to do with public safety, with Anderson Valley people complaining that the resident deputies keep getting assigned to work out of central command in Ukiah.

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LAST WEEK we received a press release from Anna Bakalis, a “communications specialist” for SEIU (Service Employees International Union) 1021, complete with a Bay Area phone number, announcing the formation of Mend Mendocino — “a coalition of residents, community and business leaders.” The press release says the coalition will demand “real economic recovery” from the County which “continues to hide money from the taxpayers and cut deeper into jobs, programs and services.” Mend Mendocino comes complete with a website and online petition.

THE PETITION SAYS, “I want to help build a better future for our county.” Well, who doesn’t? SEIU, which represents about two-thirds of County employees, often criticizes the County for trying to contract out services. But the Mend Mendocino website is operated by something called Angle Three Associates, LLC, a Delaware Registered Limited Liability Company. Which retains the copyright to all contents of the website, presumably including the lame petition. At last count the so-called coalition had garnered a dozen members. Disregarding a couple of “anonymous” signers, the “coalition” members are all members of SEIU, including the hapless local president, Dave Eberly. The irony is that Eberly, and about four of the other signers, all work for the County’s Information Technology (computer support) department, but these techno-geniuses contracted out with a Delaware LLC for web services. But like everything else to do with SEIU, the real shot callers all work out of Oakland or Sacramento. The local “leaders” are figureheads with no real decision making authority.

THE PRESS RELEASE proclaimed “Mendocino County Residents Demand Economic Recovery, Wage Restoration for Workers at Final Community Budget Hearing.” As luck would have it, the final budget presentation was held on Supervisor John McCowen’s home turf in Ukiah. McCowen was re-elected in a walk off against an SEIU candidate who spent her campaign money on fast food and out-of-County consultants. McCowen, always up for a fight, apparently challenged the phony Mend Mendocino coalition to get specific about the money they claimed the County was hiding.

ON MONDAY SEIU RESPONDED with a “Call to Action” for SEIU members to attend Tuesday’s Board of Supes meeting “to answer Supervisor McCowen’s challenge.” The call was accompanied by a poster of a young woman holding a baby with an inset of a stern looking McCowen with the caption “Families Take on McCowan’s (sic) Challenge.” (If they are going to keep attacking the guy, they should at least learn how to spell his name.) The flyer went on to say: “We have the research and facts to show that Mendocino County has the resources to invest in workers and the local economic recovery. We, the workers, will uncover the hidden surpluses.” Which should be good because so far the only thing SEIU has uncovered is their own inability to grasp basic financial concepts.

THE “CALL TO ACTION” also contained the usual imbecilic appeal to “Come Together for Purple Up Tuesday — Wear Purple and be Seen in the Workplace.” Like Patton’s Third Army, the geniuses at SEIU are trying to build esprit de corps and strike terror into the heart of the supposed enemy: the Supes and county admin. Except most SEIU members, who know they are getting next to nothing for their union dues, avoid wearing purple because they hate to be reminded that they are being played for suckers. Wearing the purple is like walking around with a sign on your back that says “kick me / I’m stupid.” If SEIU has a realistic plan for restoring wages, and how to pay for it, they should lay it out and make the case.

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OBAMACARE: THE LAST BAD IDEA

by Gerald Friedman, Professor of Economics, University of Massachusetts Amherst

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) was adopted in 2010, but many provisions are only being phased in over several years. Important provisions that have already taken effect include the requirement that family policies allow parents to keep their children enrolled until they are 26. The high unemployment rate for young adults and the lack of health coverage even for many with jobs has made this provision a great boon to many. But there is much more to come with major elements to be implemented in January 2014, including a huge expansion in Medicaid coverage to the working poor, and the requirement that individuals without other coverage buy health insurance through new state exchanges, often with substantial federal subsidies. Rather than making a fundamental shift to a system where health care is publicly guaranteed as a basic human right, the ACA reforms and expands the existing health insurance system, leaving private for-profit insurance companies as gatekeepers to medical care. Without changing the foundation of the health care infrastructure, the law offers private insurers an expansion in business as a carrot to get them to accept reforms that limit their use of adverse selection, the practice of screening to identify and discourage the expensive sick (“lemon dropping”) and to attract the low-cost well (“cherry picking”). The law also provides a dramatic expansion of public insurance by mandating that everyone is eligible for Medicaid whose income is below 138% of the Federal Poverty Line (FPL); but the Supreme Court has limited this program by allowing states to opt out of the expansion. Several Republican-dominated state governments are choosing this option despite the Federal commitment to pay over 90% of the costs of expansion. The Court preserved the requirement that everyone have insurance and the law’s subsidies for buying private insurance, subsidies that will go to households with incomes as much as 400% of the FPL beginning in January 2014 when the individual mandate goes into effect. Despite the Court decision and some state-level refusals to expand Medicaid, it is projected that the ACA will reduce the population without insurance by almost half, from 55 million in 2013 to 29 million by 2017. Over 80% of the newly insured are expected to receive subsidies; with an average subsidy of over $5,000 paid largely through new taxes on the highest earners, the subsidized insurance will be one of the largest redistributive measures ever enacted. Subsidized coverage expansion and restrictions on insurance company abuses are significant gains. But these gains come at a steep price because with the ACA the Obama Administration has entrenched the insurance and drug companies as arbiters of America’s health care system. This is not only repugnant because of these companies’ abusive policies, but it endangers everything that the ACA seeks because it precludes effective action to contain rapidly rising health care costs. Private plans divert health care spending into channels that do nothing to actually deliver health care, such as advertising and profit. The proliferation of plans has also raised billing costs for providers, hospitals, clinics, and private medical practices, costs that now come to nearly a third of the cost of health care. Without effective controls on profits and administrative costs, health care costs will continue to soar, rising faster than household, company and government budgets. The pressure to control health care costs will continue and, having removed profits and administrative waste from consideration, the ACA risks becoming a vehicle to control health care costs by squeezing providers and restricting access. The ACA commits the United States to providing universal access to health care. This is a great achievement, one to be treasured and nurtured. Now the real fight begins: the fight to turn this commitment into a reality that the ACA itself cannot produce. In a few years, it will be clear that the ACA will have failed to provide universal coverage and failed to control costs. As president, Barack Obama accepted the political wisdom that it would be impossible to enact a single-payer program that would abolish the private health insurance market, but prior to his presidency he had been a long-time supporter of single payer. And he was right: only a single payer program can provide universal coverage, and only a single payer program can control costs.  The ACA may be the last bad idea that Americans try; after it fails, we will finally do the right thing: single payer health insurance.

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SUSAN NUTTER of Fort Bragg writes: “This just in.  All five Mendocino County Supervisors voted for the following Resolution which they instigated! This was not a submitted resolution by Move to Amend. So our County governing body has now called upon the US Congress to consider House Joint Resolution 29.”

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Resolution No. 13-nn

Resolution Of The Mendocino County Board Of Supervisors Calling For Amendment To The United States Constitution To Establish That 1) Only Human Beings And Not Corporations Are Endowed With Constitutional Rights, And 2) That Money Does Not Constitute Speech And Therefore Political Contributions Can Be Regulated

WHEREAS, freedom of speech and other rights enumerated in the United States Constitution and Bill of Rights are fundamental to our democracy, as are fair and free elections; and

WHEREAS, a series of United States Supreme Court decisions have held that corporations are entitled to certain constitutional rights enjoyed by natural persons, including the right to free speech; that the use of money to influence elections is the equivalent of speech; and that expenditure of money related to political speech can not be limited based on the speaker’s corporate identity; and

WHEREAS, citizen volunteers in Mendocino County collected sufficient valid signatures to place the following question, known as Measure F, on the November 6, 2012 ballot: Should the elected representatives of Mendocino County be instructed to enact resolutions calling for amendment to the United States Constitution to establish that 1) only human beings and not corporations are endowed with constitutional rights, and 2) that money does not constitute speech and therefore political contributions can be regulated?; and

WHEREAS, Measure F was approved by the citizens of Mendocino County on a vote of 24,492 (74.71%) to 8,289 (25.29%) as certified by the Mendocino County elections office; and

WHEREAS, House Joint Resolution No. 29 was introduced on February 14, 2013, proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United State providing that the rights protected by the Constitution are the rights of natural persons only and do not extend to corporations and other artificial entities; and that the expenditure of money to influence elections is not constitutionally protected speech and that political contributions may be regulated.

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the Mendocino County Board of Supervisors hereby calls for the United States Constitution to be amended to establish 1) that only human beings and not corporations are endowed with constitutional rights, and 2) that money does not constitute speech and therefore political contributions can be regulated.

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Mendocino County Board of Supervisors encourages Congress’ consideration of House Joint Resolution No. 29.

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AN UNCONFIRMED REPORT out of Fort Bragg says Western Union has been pressured, apparently by the feds, not to accept cash for dispatch to Mexico which, if true, is another outrage perpetrated by Big Bro. The assumption, of course, is that any Mexican with cash is in the drug business, and it is, even by government standards of reasoning, unreasoning. I heard it from a man who was unable to wire money from Fort Bragg to his wife in Mexico.

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AUGUST IS FAMOUSLY a slow news period. It’s always pretty slow in Mendocino County this time of year. Everyone’s still outside guarding the crop. When it gets cold and everyone’s inside getting on each other’s nerves — that’s when the trouble starts, that and home invaders after the dope money. But a glance at the rest of the world? We’ve got major droughts and fires going here at home and the Hope and Change Gang is about to launch an air war against Syria. Say, how many undeclared wars have we had now?  Doesn’t the Constitution say something about only Congress having the authority to declare war? Beginning with Korea, we’ve had what? Twenty military actions solely on the president’s authority?

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ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY: “I observe an interesting disconnect portrayed by many in the weed trade:  We’re just gentle hippies farming ‘medicine’ ensuring this nation’s stoners can get a quality buzz on — a noble and righteous cause — so everyone should just stop bitching about the money the growers are making. Yet they conveniently overlook the fact that the middlemen in this equation — the people they do business with — are racketeering gangster thugs of the first order, and these POS are making millions off Humboldt bud whilst simultaneously selling your kid meth and heroin. But that’s cool, right? Go along to get along, or something.  The weed isn’t the problem. The smugglers’ culture is the problem. I’d like to see marijuana legalized for no greater reason than to remove that source of revenue from the pockets of organized crime syndicates and punk-ass killers.”

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THE EMENDAL CHORALE, based in Willits, will be singing songs of peace in the Mendocino County Fair parade in Boonville on Sunday September 15th at noon. Everyone is welcome to join us, to either walk or ride with our entry “1,000 Grandmothers for Peace” You may bring a large picture of your grandchild or grandmother to carry. Inspired by the Holly Near song “A Thousand Grandmothers” we want to “send in a thousand grandmothers, they will surely volunteer” with all their wisdom and love, to bring peace to the world.  Check out www.emendalchorale.org for a video of our 2012 Willits Fourth of July Parade entry, or for more information. Meet at Anderson Valley High School in Boonville at 11am on September 15th. Wear a hat for the sun and bring water. There will be a truck and trailer for those who would rather ride. For more information call Dobbe at 367-5946. Grandfathers, grandchildren, anyone who yearns for peace, you are all welcome too!

THE 50TH ANNIVERSARY of the March for Jobs and Freedom made for painful listening. The original made Martin Luther King famous. Today’s event was a bad joke, an insult to King’s memory and really nothing more than a tribute to themselves by the Democratic Party’s bigshots.

FROM THE TIME he came to prominence, and his prominence really picked up momentum after his famous speech at The March, King was nationally vilified by print media especially. Now that everyone’s a liberal on the race issue, or afraid not to be a liberal on race, people forget, or never knew, that King identified the Main Prob as economic, structural, built in to the American economy.

“There are forty million poor people here, and one day we must ask the question, ‘Why are there forty million poor people in America?’ And when you begin to ask that question, you are raising a question about the economic system, about a broader distribution of wealth. When you ask that question, you begin to question the capitalistic economy. And I’m simply saying that more and more, we’ve got to begin to ask questions about the whole society. And you see, my friends, when you deal with this you begin to ask the question, ‘Who owns the oil?’ You begin to ask the question, ‘Who owns the iron ore?’ You begin to ask the question, ‘Why is it that people have to pay water bills in a world that’s two-thirds water?’ These are words that must be said.” — Martin Luther King Jr., 1967

TODAY, from Oprah, Obama, Bill Clinton and the rest of them, we got a kumbaya emphasis because none of the speakers, except John Lewis, would dare call for a federal jobs program as King did. And none of them, including Lewis, would dare echo King’s condemnation of imperialism, especially seeing as how the libs have about ten little wars going around the world with a major attack on Syria coming right up.

NPR, natch, was orgasmic at the big event, with all the hacks saying versions of, “Well, darn, there’s a ways to go but we’re pretty darn equal, All Things Considered.”

HISTORY REWRITES are constant in this country, but the leadership, such as it is, seems to have underestimated our plump, distracted people, only 9% of whom think an attack on Syria is a good idea. We’re not as out of it as we often seem.

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EARLIER THIS WEEK in Humboldt County, Dan Rather, Sheriff Downey and Congressman Spike, took a helicopter ride over stretches of the HumCo outback. The Sheriff said he knows of 4100 pot grows, of which he busts about 40 a year.

A NUMBER of these grows are the work of people uncommitted to walking lightly on the land. They heedlessly carve up their parcels, drain feeder streams of their water and fish, and use bad chemicals that kill wildlife.

THE SAME destructive things happen in Mendocino County’s booming pot business but, it seems, not on the same scale as Humboldt County.

SHERIFF DOWNEY told Congressman Spike and Rather, the latter in town to make yet another documentary on the pot business, that it’s time to either legalize marijuana or spend a lot of money on a lot more badged pot raiders.

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ARSON ARREST IN MENDOCINO COUNTY — CalFire law enforcement officers on Tuesday arrested a 22-year-old Willits man for allegedly setting several wildfires near Willits earlier this month and last month, the agency announced. Brice Lee McKinnon was arrested and charged with numerous felony counts of arson to forest lands for allegedly starting wildland fires in the Willits area between July and August, according to CalFire. “CalFire law enforcement officers work diligently in arson cases to aggressively investigate and prosecute those suspected of intentionally starting fires,” the agency said in a Tuesday statement. The Little Lake Fire Department, Willits Police Department and Mendocino District Attorney’s Office assisted in the investigation. “Residents should be vigilant in their preparedness and aware of suspicious persons when a fire does start,” CalFire stated. “If you witness someone suspicious, make note of the time, his or her physical description, as well as any vehicle description, including the license plate number. Always contact law enforcement; never approach a suspicious person.” Anyone with information about arson is urged to contact the CalFire Arson Hotline at 1-800-468-4408. Callers can remain anonymous.

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THE NAVARRO DRUNK TREE has seen its share of unidentified objects over the years: some fly, some stumble, and a few have been known to crawl. But whatever your mode of transport, just head to the redwoods and stop when you hear the brilliant harmonica. There are a lot of things wrong in the world, but Charlie and his all-star band will have you flying into the ether. As an added bonus, Boonville’s own punk rocking/grill master Guy Kephardt will be setting things on fire and grilling tasty slabs of animal flesh on the state-of-the-art BBQ. At last year’s show, upon surveying the array of hill people, growers, buyers and tourists, an old Panther buddy of mine washed down two Viagras. He was last seen paddling out to sea in a kayak with a dozen roses, a slim volume of love sonnets, and a case of Schlitz. Swing big and go deep, my friend. The only fences holding you back are in your mind.

THE MUSSELWHITE extravaganza is the perfect close to a glorious and insane summer. Fresh off of decisive victories in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Halliburton/McDonnell-Douglas/Democrat war machine now turns its lustful gaze towards Syria and Iran, the Federal Reserve prints money like drunk Confederates in the basement of an Alabama brothel, and the Giants have devolved into a bush league outfit that strands runners, walks lead-off pitchers, and misplays routine Texas bloopers. Of all the cardinal sins, misplaying a lazy fly to shallow left-center is the worst. (Yeah, we’re talking about you, Candy Maldanado and Marvin Bernard.) And yet the Giants have won two out of the last three World Series, riding dominant pitching, clutch hitting and solid fielding to improbable victories.

FOR A FAN who grew up shivering in an empty Candlestick while trying to fall in love with the likes of Mike Ivie, Johnnie LeMaster and Derrel Thomas, the Giants’ stumble into the dumpster is lurid if not surprising. San Francisco is in last place in the NL West, two games behind the Rockies, a game behind perennial doormats the Padres. For the 37th time in general manager Brian Sabean’s reign SF opted to pay too much for overachieving veterans on the downslope of their careers (e.g., Barry Zito, Angel Pagan, Marco Scutaro and colossal bust Aaron Rowand). Sabean’s strategy has been to focus on pitching, pitching and more pitching, to the detriment of our stock of position players. We have virtually no prospects, no depth, and no power at first base or left field. Compounding our misery is the rebirth of the Dodgers, who have a brilliant new outfielder in rookie sensation and Cuban refugee, Yasiel Puig, the bigs’ best hurler in lefty Clayton Kershaw, and an operating budget that rivals the NSA’s. Charlie, can you break out that blues harp and summon the spirit of Sasquatch? Even big feet feel better when they dance. (Z)

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SYRIA FOR POTHEADS

By Fred Gardner

“Our” government is lying about Syria in the same blatant way that they’re lying about marijuana. The split within the Obama Administration gave us hope for a while, but the Hawks —like the DEA— seem to have triumphed again. Why must the US rush to inflict what mild-mannered Wolf Blitzer called “a punishing attack” on Syria?

Bashir Assad, MD, is an Oxford-trained opthalmologist who presided over a functioning secular state. His government has successfully defended itself against a swarm of rebel militias —one al-qaeda, one led by a warrior who eats the heart of people he kills, one invented by the U.S. State Department and named “The Free Syrian Army,” probably by some Clintonite who had a vague memory of Peter Rowan’s song, “The Free Mexican Air Force”. The Assad government would not have used chemical weapons because to do so would give the US, France, and England an excuse to intervene. That’s the obvious, common-sense context to the events of recent days. Apparently a cache of industrial chemicals was hit by a crude missile launched by parties unknown, providing the pretext the U.S. and its imperialist allies wanted and/or created.

Pretexts ‘R’ us. To attack Iraq they said Saddam Hussein had imported “yellow cake Uranium from Africa” and some aluminum rods that could only be used, supposedly, in weapons of mass destruction.To escalate the War in Vietnam they trumped up an attack on a warship called the USS Maddox in the Gulf of Tonkin. Marijuana doesn’t impair the longterm memory.

Fifty years ago today I was at the Lincoln Memorial. Lincoln said the United States aspired to “government of the people, by the people, and for the people.” But after the Civil War the bankers and manufacturers imposed government in the service of the corporations, and that’s how it has been ever since in the United States of Amnesia. We, the people, have won some small victories for here and there, but the rulers have steadily increased their reliance on militarized police (privileged labor) to maintain the corporate state and its spiral of material inequality.

Martin Luther King, Bayard Rustin and many other organizers of the 1963 March for Jobs and Freedom would, in the days to come, oppose US intervention in Vietnam’s Civil War. But that aspect of King’s politics is downplayed, ignored. The synergy between the civil rights movement and the peace movement strengthened both. Equality for women, an end to discrimination against gays, all our demands re-enforced one another… and the lunch counters were integrated and the war finally ended, but ever since, the police state has been strengthening its grip.

Syria is “an incredibly beautiful country,” says the filmmaker Saul Landau, who made an informative documentary called Syria: Between a Rock and a Hard Place in 2006. Anyone wanting background on the current nightmare should check it out. Landau told your correspondent that he could not understand the U.S. neocons’ fierce desire to depose Assad. Syria was not threatening to reclaim the Golan Heights from Israel; its intelligence agency had cooperated in finite ways with the Bush Adminsitration’s “War on Terror.”

It seems like only a few years ago that Morley Safer was in Syria respectfully interviewing Dr. Assad. We thought at the time that Gavin Newsom, then mayor of San Francisco, now lieutenant governor of California, could be his body double.

On Saturday, August 24, the US and its allies demanded that Syria allow UN inspectors in to determine the nature of the deadly chemical exposure. On Sunday the Syrian government agreed. On Monday the inspectors arrived. Also on Monday Secretary of State Kerry put on a phony show of moral outrage —as if “we” didn’t supply Iraq with chemical weapons to use against Iran in the 1980s— and announced that the US was going to respond militarily. Why not give the UN inspectors a chance to inspect? Are the Hawks afraid the UN observers will do what Hans Blick did a decade ago when he concluded that Saddam Hussein did not have weapons of mass destruction? (Blick had gone on his mission believing he would find weapons. When the great UCLA pulmonologist Dr. Donald Tashkin reported in 2005 that smoking marijuana did not cause lung cancer, his position was exactly analogous to Blick’s, as we noted at the time.

The underlying way in which the U.S. attacking Syria and banning marijuana are analogous is that we, the people, don’t really understand who is calling the shots, and a large majority of us don’t agree with the shots they’re calling. We want peace and we want safe access to cannabis. We want clean water to drink and nutritious food to eat and air that doesn’t cause cancer. We want free public education and meaningful work and security in old age. What a nerve our masters have to call this society a “democracy.” The only bigger lie is when they say “we” and kill people in our name. Hands off Syria, you mad dogs!

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MLK’S DREAM INSPIRES A NEW MARCH, AND A PRESIDENT

By Suzanne Gamboa & Nancy Benac

Standing on hallowed ground of the civil rights movement, President Barack Obama challenged new generations Wednesday to seize the cause of racial equality and honor the “glorious patriots” who marched a half century ago to the very steps from which Rev. Martin Luther King spoke during the March on Washington.

In a moment rich with history and symbolism, tens of thousands of Americans of all backgrounds and colors thronged to the National Mall to join the nation’s first black president and civil rights pioneers in marking the 50th anniversary of King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. Obama urged each of them to become a modern-day marcher for economic justice and racial harmony.

“The arc of the moral universe may bend toward justice but it doesn’t bend on its own,” Obama said, in an allusion to King’s own message.

His speech was the culmination of daylong celebration of King’s legacy that began with marchers walking the streets of Washington behind a replica of the transit bus that Rosa Parks once rode when she refused to give up her seat to a white man.

At precisely 3 p.m., members of the King family tolled a bell to echo King’s call 50 years earlier to “let freedom ring.” It was the same bell that once hung in the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala., where four black girls were killed when a bomb planted by a white supremacist exploded in 1963.

Georgia Rep. John Lewis, a former freedom rider and the sole survivor of the main organizers of the 1963 march, recounted the civil rights struggles of his youth and exhorted American to “keep the faith and keep our eyes on the prize.”

The throngs assembled in soggy weather at the Lincoln Memorial, where King, with soaring, rhythmic oratory and a steely countenance, had pleaded with Americans to come together to stomp out racism and create a land of opportunity for all.

White and black, they came this time to recall history — and live it.

“My parents did their fair share and I feel like we have to keep the fight alive,” said Frantz Walker, a honey salesman from Baltimore who is black. “This is hands-on history.”

Kevin Keefe, a Navy lawyer who is white, said he still tears up when he hears King’s speech.

“What happened 50 years ago was huge,” he said, adding that there’s still progress to be made on economic inequality and other problems.

Two former presidents, Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, spoke of King’s legacy — and of problems still to overcome.

“This march, and that speech, changed America,” Clinton declared, remembering the impact on the world and himself as a young man. “They opened minds, they melted hearts and they moved millions — including a 17-year-old boy watching alone in his home in Arkansas.”

Carter said King’s efforts had helped not just black Americans, but “In truth, he helped to free all people.”

Still, Carter listed a string of current events that he said would have spurred King to action in this day, including the proliferation of guns and stand-your-ground laws, a Supreme Court ruling striking down parts of the Voting Rights Act, and high rates of joblessness among blacks.

Oprah Winfrey, leading the celebrity contingent, recalled watching the march as a 9-year-old girl and wishing she could be there to see a young man who “was able to force an entire country to wake up, to look at itself and to eventually change.”

“It’s an opportunity today to recall where we once were in this nation,” she said.

Obama used his address to pay tribute to the marchers of 1963 and that era — the maids, laborers, students and more who came from ordinary ranks to engage “on the battlefield of justice” — and he implored Americans not to dismiss what they accomplished.

“To dismiss the magnitude of this progress, to suggest — as some sometimes do — that little has changed, that dishonors the courage, the sacrifice, of those who paid the price to march in those years,” Obama said.

“Their victory great. But we would dishonor those heroes as well to suggest that the work of this nation is somehow complete.”

Civil rights activist Myrlie Evers-Williams, whose husband Medgar Evers was murdered in 1963, said that while the country “has certainly taken a turn backwards” on civil rights she was energized to move ahead and exhorted others to step forward as well.

King’s eldest son, Martin Luther King III, just 5 when his father spoke at the Mall, spoke of a dream “not yet realized” in full.

“We’ve got a lot of work to do but none of us should be any ways tired,” he said. “Why? Because we’ve come much too far from where we started.”

Organizers of the rally broadened the focus well beyond racial issues, bringing speakers forward to address the environment, gay rights, the challenges facing the disabled and more. The performers, too, were an eclectic crowd, ranging from Maori haka dancers to LeAnn Rimes singing “Amazing Grace.”

Jamie Foxx tried to fire up a new generation of performers and ordinary “young folks” by drawing on the example of Harry Belafonte, who stood with King 50 years ago.

“It’s time for us to stand up now and renew this dream,” Foxx declared.

Forest Whitaker told the crowd it was their “moment to join those silent heroes of the past.”

“You now have the responsibility to carry the torch.”

Slate gray skies gave way to sunshine briefly peeking from the clouds as the “Let Freedom Ring” commemoration unfolded. After that, an intermittent rain.

Obama spoke with a bit of a finger-wag at times, saying that “if we’re honest with ourselves, we’ll admit that during the course of 50 years, there were times when some of us claiming to push for change lost our way.” He spoke of “self-defeating riots,” recriminations, times when “the bigotry of others was reason to give up on yourself.”

But the president said that though progress stalled at times, “the good news is, just as was true in 1963, we now have a choice.”

“We can continue down our current path, in which the gears of this great democracy grind to a halt and our children accept a life of lower expectations; where politics is a zero-sum game where a few do very well while struggling families of every race fight over a shrinking economic pie — that’s one path. Or we can have the courage to change.”

Among faces in the crowd: lawyer Ollie Cantos of Arlington, Va., there with his 14-year-old triplets Leo, Nick and Steven. All four are blind, and they moved through the crowd with their hands on each other’s shoulders, in a makeshift train.

Cantos, who is Filipino, said he brought his sons to help teach them the continuing fight for civil rights.

“The disability rights movement that I’m a part of, that I dedicate my life to, is actually an extension of the original civil rights movement,” said Cantos. “I wanted to do everything I can to school the boys in the ways of the civil rights movement and not just generally but how it affects them personally.”

D.C. plumber Jerome Williams, whose family tree includes North Carolina sharecroppers, took the day off work to come with his wife and two kids. “It’s a history lesson that they can take with them for the rest of their lives,” he said.

It seemed to work. His son Jalen, marking his 17th birthday, said: “I’m learning the history and the stories from my dad. I do appreciate what I do have now.”

Performers included Peter Yarrow and Noel Paul Stookey, their voices thinner now than when they performed at the original march as part of the folk trio Peter, Paul and Mary. They sang “Blowin’ in the Wind,” as the parents of slain black teenager Trayvon Martin joined them on stage and sang along. The third member of the trio, Mary Travers, died in 2009.

Also joining the day’s events were Lynda Bird Johnson Robb, daughter of Lyndon Johnson, the president who signed the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act, and Caroline Kennedy, daughter of John F. Kennedy.

High profile Republicans like House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, and Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., had been invited to speak at Wednesday’s ceremony but declined, according to aides.

Boehner had participated along with other congressional leaders at a July 31 event marking the anniversary of the march while lawmakers were still in Washington. Congress currently is on a five-week recess and lawmakers aren’t scheduled to return until Sept. 9. Cantor joined Rep. John Lewis earlier this year in Selma, Ala., to honor King’s legacy.

Former President George W. Bush didn’t attend, but said in a statement, Obama’s presidency is a story that reflects “the promise of America” and “will help us honor the man who inspired millions to redeem that promise.” A spokesman said the former president declined to attend because he was recovering from a recent heart procedure.

(Courtesy, the Associated Press, with writers Darlene Superville, Brett Zongker and Andrew Miga.)

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NATIONAL ALLIANCE ON MENTAL ILLNESS (NAMI) TO HOLD 12-WEEK FAMILY-TO-FAMILY COURSE BEGINNING TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 24TH

NAMI Mendocino is sponsoring a free comprehensive 12-week course in Ukiah, designed specifically for families of persons with serious mental health issues. The class is structured to help family members better understand and support their relatives while maintaining their own wellbeing.

Do You Have a Family Member or Friend with a Serious Mental Illness?

A FREE class for family members of individuals struggling with mental illness is starting Tuesday, September 24^th in Ukiah. The “Family to Family” classes are provided by the Mendocino chapter of NAMI, National Alliance on Mental Illness. The instructors are local NAMI members who have received facilitator training.

Each week a different topic is covered: symptoms of major mental illness, medications and side effects, empathy, self care, communication skills, crisis interventions, and setting limits. Each meeting builds on the previous one, and each participant will have a binder of resources at conclusion. The weekly meetings also provide opportunities to learn with others going through similar life experiences.

If you would like more information, have questions, or wish to sign up for the class, please contact: Jan (707) 468-8632 or Diane (707) 467-9798

AVA, MARCH 2013 — This rumor is making the rounds on the Mendocino Coast: The sprawling (by Coast standards) Heritage House, recently purchased by a certain Mr. Greene out of Florida who flies in and out of Albion in a private jet, is a front man for the Koch Brothers who plan to use the place as a kind of junior varsity Bohemian Grove, the Bohos being too liberal for the Kochs. Could be. The Kochs already own the invalu¬able Fort Bragg Mill property just up the road.

Heritage House

AVA, JUNE 2013 — Dogged investigations by Frank Hartzell of the Fort Bragg Advocate reveal that a mega-bucks Florida man named Jeff Greene has bought and will re-open the Heritage House, the once glorious inn just south of Mendocino. In anticipation of his restoration effort, Greene has purchased a liquor license owned by the Carvajal family of Point Arena who’d operated the Arena Cove Bar and Grill at the Point Arena Pier. According to Hartzell, “parties unknown paid $8 million for six parcels of Heritage House property on March 27, 2012, county records say, then another $470,000 to add a new parcel next door.” Those parties unknown seem to consist solely of Greene.

FROM THE HH WEBSITE: The Heritage House Resort, now reopening summer 2013, is well-known as the location for the acclaimed classic motion picture, “Same Time Next Year” starring Alan Alda and Ellen Burstyn. Located in Little River California, next to Mendocino, this resort is a classic gem and a place like none other. The scenic setting on 37 expansive acres along the Pacific Ocean allows for a truly rewarding experience. The guest rooms all feature majestic views of the Pacific along with the soothing sounds of the sea. The gardens, grounds, and wooded trails along the coast afford opportunity for a wonderful engagement with nature. The Heritage House Resort features stylish Pacific contemporary accommodations that make for a very warm, cozy, and comfortable stay. Rooms and suites feature fireplaces, seating area, and outside decks for viewing and tasting the freshness. The Ivy covered, New England style, main building built in 1877 sits atop a collection of unique cottages each with their own character and memorable setting. It is hard not to find peace and tranquility at the resort while being served by a seasoned and attentive staff. Long after a visit the Heritage House Resort will be part of your most relished times. For Farm-to-table gourmet dining during all three meal periods, please visit the award winning Heritage House Restaurant and Lounge with sweeping views of the Pacific Ocean and resort grounds. While the resort still finishes the revitalization over the next 12 months, please come to visit our pre-opening with new luxury rooms & suites, an amazing restaurant and lounge and soon-to-be-open Spa, Tennis Courts, Fitness and Wellness Center with state of the art equipment, yoga studio and Pilates classes overlooking the Pacific Ocean and world class organic nursery not to mention the upcoming meeting facilities and outdoor/tented reception areas perfect for the ideal destination wedding or corporate outing.

AUGUST 29th 2013 — The Heritage House has been red tagged and is bouncing checks to several dozen employees and to the contractors and their employees who’ve been working for months on the famous Mendocino Coast inn which was supposed to re-open “late summer.” Which is now, but it all seems to be flying apart. Mr. Greene had everyone sign secrecy agreements, as in Don’t Talk About Anything That Goes On here, but it’s hard not to talk when your paychecks bounce and you’ve got families to feed.

LET’S HOPE Mendocino County wasn’t budgeting much revenue from anticipated bed taxes from the Heritage House.

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WENDY ROBERTS WRITES: “As a small lodging owner and former board member of Mendocino County Lodging Association, I have a small bone to pick…or perhaps I could frame that as ‘an offer of information clarification’ on the subject of the County’s investment of $325,000 in tourism marketing. That budget item represents a tiny fraction of the 10% Transient Occupancy Tax that is collected by lodging owners from visitors. Lodging (not restaurants or any other business) also collects 1% of these visitors’ room charges through the Business Improvement District assessment. The county is committed to a .5 match of each BID dollar. For the current period, Lodging guests contributed $6.5 million to the County General Fund and collected an additional $650,000 to be spent on county-wide tourism marketing. The County added the .5% match of $325,000. Taxpayers can only dream that the County will find other opportunities with that kind of return on investment. That said, the incisive minds behind Off the Record got it all so right in the juicy rant on a different aspect of Mendocino County’s destination marketing organization. If it were any more top heavy it would be buried head first and to the knees. It shouldn’t take multiple boards with dozens of volunteer members and financial reviews to oversee the paid professionals who actually design and implement the county’s award winning marketing program. Kudos and God speed to the current board members who are working to address this wasteful structure and other issues resulting from too many cooks and the bitter aftertaste of mistrust among various visitor serving entities.”

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A PETITION is circulating in support of popular Fort Bragg Senior Center director Charles Bush, which is odd because Bush is currently the director and no one among the actual Seniors is unhappy with him. So, who’s unhappy with him? A couple of meddling board members and a paid staffer who don’t know to let well enough alone.

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IT SEEMS that Ms. Hecox popped her boyfriend one across the cheek as they stood alongside 101, thus attracting attention, thus attracting the law, thus resulting in the arrest of Ms. H for misdemeanor battery, bail set in the unserious amount that bail is set for in unserious matters at $10,000.

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ROSEANNE BARR TO FEATURE JEFF BLANKFORT SATURDAY MORNING, SEPTEMBER 1 AT 11AM (PACIFIC TIME). SUBJECT: SYRIA AND THE MIDDLE EAST

KCAA Radio (1050AM, Loma Linda) Presents Co-Hosts Roseanne Barr and Kathleen Wells Sunday September 1, 2013 2pm Eastern / 11am Pacific discussing Syria and the Middle East with Experts Jeff Blankfort and Gilbert Mercier

Barr, Wells, Blankfort, Mercier

Jeff Blankfort is a Middle East analyst who has written extensively on the Israel-Palestine conflict. He is a former editor of the Middle East Labor Bulletin, a photojournalist and currently hosts a program on international affairs called “Takes on the World” for KZYX, the public radio station of Mendocino County in California. Blankfort participated in a conference on Israel’s nuclear weapons held at the Spy Museum in Washington DC and sponsored by the Institute for Research: Middle East Policy. Jeff is a frequent guest on The Kathleen Wells Show and Palestine Today — both of which air on KCAA.

Gilbert Mercier is a French journalist, photojournalist and filmmaker based in the US since 1983. He is the co-founder & editor in chief of News Junkie Post.

Gilbert frequently appears on RT (Russian Today Television).

For more information go to www.roseanneworld.com

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FROM THE HUMBOLDT COUNTY DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES:

Officials with the Humboldt County Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) are urging users of the Mad River to avoid contact with algae in the lower Mad River in the area above the Blue Lake Bridge and below the Mad River Hatchery. This week, a dog wading in this area suffered symptoms consistent with those of ingestion of toxic blue-green algae. The dog survived and is recovering.

“A blue-green algae bloom can present a health hazard to those swimming or playing in the river, especially children and pets. We recommend that people stay out of the water where significant algae are present, and keep their dogs out of this part of the river at this time,” said Kevin Metcalfe, Consumer Protection Unit supervisor of the DHHS Division of Environmental Health. Other areas that are warm, slow, stagnant and muddy are to be avoided, especially areas with floating algal mats.

DHHS is aware of 11 dog deaths which may have been caused by blue-green algae poisoning since 2001. The dogs died shortly after swimming in Big Lagoon, the South Fork Eel River and the Van Duzen River. A nerve toxin associated with blue-green algae was found in the stomachs of the dogs that died on the South Fork Eel River in 2002. The same toxin was found in water samples from the South Fork Eel and Van Duzen rivers in 2009 just after two dogs died. This poison is the most likely cause of the dog deaths on these rivers. Dogs are more vulnerable than people because they may swallow the toxin when they lick their fur. The onset of symptoms can be rapid; dogs have died within 30 minutes to one hour after leaving the water.

Blue-green algae can be present in any freshwater body. It looks like green, blue-green, white or brown scum, foam or mats floating on the water. Usually, it does not affect animals or people. However, warm water and abundant nutrients can cause blue-green algae to grow more rapidly than usual. These floating algal masses or “blooms” can produce natural toxins that are very potent. Dogs and children are most likely to be affected because of their smaller body size and tendency to stay in the water for longer periods.

Potential symptoms in dogs following exposure to blue-green algae toxins can include lethargy, difficulty breathing, salivation, vomiting, urination, diarrhea or convulsions. People can experience eye irritation, skin rash, mouth ulcers, vomiting, diarrhea and cold or flu-like symptoms.

This summer, increased algae in the Mad River may be due to warmer coastal temperatures, low flows, added nutrients and warmer water temperatures.

DHHS officials recommend the following guidelines for recreational users of all freshwater areas in Humboldt County:

Keep children, pets and livestock from swimming in or drinking water containing algal scums or mats.

• Adults should also avoid wading and swimming in water containing algal blooms. Try not to swallow or inhale water spray in an algal bloom area.

• If no algal scums or mats are visible, you should still carefully watch young children and warn them not to swallow any water.

• Fish should be consumed only after removing the guts and liver and rinsing fillets in tap water.

• Never drink, cook with or wash dishes with water from rivers, streams or lakes.

• Get medical attention immediately if you think that you, your pet or livestock might have been poisoned by blue-green algae toxins. Be sure to tell the doctor about possible contact with blue-green algae.

Human activities can have a big effect on nutrient and water flows in rivers, streams or lakes. Phosphorous and nitrogen found in fertilizers, animal waste and human waste can stimulate blooms. Excessive water diversions can increase water temperatures and reduce flows. People can take the following measures to prevent algal blooms in our waters:

• Be very conservative with the use of water, fertilizers and pesticides on your lawn, garden or agricultural operation.

• Recycle any “spent” soil that has been used for intensive growing by tilling it back into gardens. Or protect it from rainfall to avoid nutrient runoff.

• Plant or maintain native plants around banks. These plants help filter water and don’t require fertilizers.

• Pump and maintain your septic system every three to four years.

• Prevent surface water runoff from agricultural and livestock areas.

• Prevent erosion around construction and logging operations.

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ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY:

Let’s see – no approval from the U.N. (admittedly a waste of time), no approval from Congress (required), against the will of the American public, no “international coalition”, no clear objective, and no clear winner.  You better ask yourself why the Obama Regime is pushing this agenda and who stands to benefit from it.  We need regime change now, right here at home.

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STATEMENT OF THE DAY:

At some point in the next few hours or days, it is likely that deeply damaged collection of moral cretins known as “Western leaders”, will sit down behind the gargantuan phalanxes of heavily armed security that keeps their well-wadded rumps safe and cozy and give the nod to some close-cropped flunky laden with medals for mendacious time-serving and relentless butt-covering to launch the airstrikes that will kill a large number of human beings. Poor souls who had absolutely nothing to do with the alleged chemical weapon attacks allegedly carried out by Syrian government forces. (Chris Floyd)

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WHILE CAMERON DEFERS TO PARLIAMENT, OBAMA LOCKS INTO WARFARE STATE OF MIND

By Norman Solomon

The British Parliament’s rejection of an attack on Syria is a direct contrast — and implicit challenge — to the political war system of the United States.

“It is clear to me that the British Parliament, reflecting the views of the British people, does not want to see British military action. I get that, and the government will act accordingly,” Prime Minister David Cameron said Thursday night. At least for now, Uncle Sam’s poodle is off the leash.

Now all eyes turn to Congress, where the bar has suddenly been raised. Can the House of Representatives measure up to the House of Commons?

It’s a crucial question — but President Obama intends to render it moot with unwavering contempt for the war authority of Congress. Like his predecessors.

Even with war votes on Capitol Hill, the charade quotient has been high. The Gulf War began in early 1991 after the Senate vote for war was close: 52 to 47. But, as the PBS “Frontline” program reported

<http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/gulf/script_a.html>

years later, President George H.W. Bush had a plan in place: if Congress voted against going to war, he’d ignore Congress.

“The president privately, with the most inner circle, made absolutely clear he was going to go forward with this action even if he were impeached,” said Robert Gates, who was deputy national security advisor. “The truth of the matter is that while public opinion and the voice of Congress was important to Bush, I believe it had no impact on his decision about what he would do. He was going to throw that son of a bitch [Saddam Hussein] out of Kuwait, regardless of whether the Congress or the public supported him.”

By the Pentagon’s estimate, the six weeks of the Gulf War took the lives of 100,000 Iraqi people. “It’s really not a number I’m terribly interested in,” the Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, Colin Powell, said at the time.

Eight years later, the War Powers Act’s 60-day deadline for congressional approval of US warfare expired on May 25, 1999 — but large-scale US bombing of Yugoslavia continued. Bill Clinton was unable to get authorization from Congress but, like other wartime presidents before and since, he ignored the law that was passed in 1973 to constrain autocratic war-making. Republican Rep. Tom Campbell said: “The president is in violation of the law. That is clear.” Democratic Rep. Dennis Kucinich said: “The war continues unauthorized, without the consent of the governed.” And President Clinton said, in effect, *I don’t care.*

In October 2002, President George W. Bush won congressional approval for an invasion of Iraq, waving the fig leaf that passage would strengthen his hand at the bargaining table. Of course Bush got what he wanted — a full-scale war on Iraq.

“The president’s ability to decide when and where to use America’s military power is now absolute,” pundit Michael Kinsley observed, writing<http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,443202,00.html> in *Time* magazine in mid-April 2003, just after the US occupation of Iraq began. “Congress cannot stop him. That’s not what the Constitution says, and it’s not what the War Powers Act says, but that’s how it works in practice.”

*That’s how it works in practice.*

We’ve got to change how it works in practice.

During the next few days, a huge and historic battle will determine whether President Obama can continue the deadly record of presidential impunity to ignore Article 1 Section 8 of the Constitution (“The Congress shall have Power … To declare War”) and the War Powers Act as well as public opinion, now strongly against an attack on Syria.

In recent days, perhaps as a tactical matter, some progressive groups and members of Congress have focused on urging that Congress get to vote — or at least play a role — in the decision on whether to bomb Syria. But we should not imply that we’ll be satisfied as long as the matter comes to a congressional vote. Time is very short; we should cut through the preliminaries and get to the point: *No attack on Syria!*

Since mid-week, more than 20,000 people have sent this email message to Congress: “No Attack on Syria. As a constituent, I am writing to let you know that I oppose a military attack on Syria. Creative diplomacy is the best way to respond to the alleged use of chemical weapons. I urge you to work for a ceasefire, to pressure Saudi Arabia, the Gulf states, and Turkey, to halt the flow of weapons, and to pressure Russia and Iran to do the same.” (To join in sending that email message to your senators and representative, click here.<http://act.rootsaction.org/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=8463> )

Will the president again be able to order a military attack on yet another country — on his own say-so?

That is Obama’s intention. “Administration officials made clear that the eroding support would not deter Mr. Obama in deciding to go ahead with a strike,” the *New York Times* reported on Friday morning. “Pentagon officials said that the Navy had now moved a fifth destroyer into the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Each ship carries dozens of Tomahawk cruise missiles that would probably be the centerpiece of any attack on Syria.”

In the next days, history will be made. Let’s make it for peace.

(Norman Solomon is co-founder of RootsAction.org and founding director of the Institute for Public Accuracy. His books include “War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death.” Information about the documentary based on the book is at www.WarMadeEasyTheMovie.org<http://www.warmadeeasythemovie.org/>)

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FIRST FRIDAYS FREE CARTOONING WORKSHOP AT GRACE HUDSON MUSEUM

Enjoy unleashing your creative genius with a free public art workshop at the Grace Hudson Museum on Sept. 6, the eve of First Fridays Ukiah Artwalk. The workshop will take place from 5:30 to 6:30 pm. Titled “Cartooning With Pen and Brush,” and led by professional illustrator and artist Surya O’Shea, it is inspired by the work of Milford Zornes, whose work is currently on display at the Grace Hudson Museum’s Main Gallery.  Workshop participants will have an opportunity to experiment with traditional methods of quill pen, brush and ink to create simple cartoon characters or striking line drawings. Hailing from Northern California, O’Shea has taught numerous classes for Santa Rosa’s Charles M. Schulz Museum and is also a fantasy illustrator with a line of greeting cards and prints. Materials for the workshop will be provided, and participants should wear clothing that can get stained with India ink.  In addition to the workshop, Sept. 6 will be the night the winning ticket for an art quilt will be drawn. This lovely fall-themed art quilt, “Quiet Morning,” is by celebrated local artist Laura Fogg. Drawing tickets for the quilt are still available at the Grace Hudson Museum. All proceeds from the drawing benefit the Grace Hudson Museum & Sun House.  The Grace Hudson Museum is at 431 S. Main St. in Ukiah. For more information please go to www.gracehudsonmuseum.org <http://www.gracehudsonmuseum.org/> or call 467-2836.

SPIKE’S FINEST HOUR. Obama’s missile blitz of Syria seems to have stalled, with even conservative liberals like our Congressman Huffman falling in behind Barbara Lee of Oakland and John Garamendi of Sacramento County in demanding that the president make his case for aerial war on Syria to Congress, which is the way war is supposed to be authorized.

GARAMENDI: “The prime minister of the United Kingdom went to the elected representatives of that country to ask them their opinion. The president of the United States should have sufficient respect for Congress to do the same. … I also heard the war in Iraq was going to be over in 60 days. And I heard people say there were weapons of mass destruction that were going to be coming at the United States. I am a serious skeptic when people want to go to war, whether it’s President Bush or President Obama.”

Huffman

HUFFMAN, wishy-washy and only partially coherent, is at least troubled by yet another unilateral attack on another country: “I am very troubled by the way the administration is proceeding,” Huffman said. “I think we need to learn from our mistakes in the past. Clearly something should be done, but just because something should be done doesn’t mean anything can be accepted.”

IT ISN’T AT ALL CLEAR that “something should be done,” and as the Hope and Change Gang back down from their flat assertions that the Assad government launched a chemical attack on its own people, a move so dramatically against the tactical interests of the Assad regime it would be insane, Congress, for once is gearing up to at least debate the facts as they are known, or partially known since the UN investigation has not yet revealed what it has found.

EVEN MIKE THOMPSON said he thinks Congress should vote on an attack on Syria, adding that he thinks Obama might not have Congressional support for a war on Syria.

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Turner

EARLY THIS WEEK, a Humboldt County man named Bruce Wayne Turner was arrested for marijuana cultivation and booked into the Humboldt County jail a little after 4pm. Earlier, law enforcement — reportedly from the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office, the Drug Task Force and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife — raided his place off of Dootyville Road where Turner is suspected of pumping from Mattole Canyon Creek which is crossed by the Dootyville Bridge and feeds the Mattole River. When water is sucked out of low creeks and summer nursery pools, federally protected fish can be endangered. Below is a 2012 image from Google Maps. A pushpin has been stuck in at the approximate place that the pump is believed to have been located this year.

The photo below shows the creek has nearly disappeared. The photo shows the last remaining pool near the Dootyville Bridge.

Observers say that a month ago the creek extended all the way down towards the bridge and had thousands of steelhead parr and several second-year steelhead juveniles. This photo was taken Thursday after the pump and waterline was removed.

Friday, a puddle with a few young steelhead and water striders remains. A strong smell of decaying algae creeps up from the dying creek.

Photos taken just before the pump was removed show the Dootyville Bridge in the background.

HUFFMAN to the rescue! Although the above atrocities occurred in Humboldt County, they occur everywhere on the Northcoast, including Mendocino County.

LATE TUESDAY AFTERNOON, under an agenda item called “legislative updates,” the Supervisors considered a request for a letter of support for a bill co-sponsored by Congressman Huffman.

HUFFMAN’S BILL asks that the state’s Sentencing Commission review the penalties for marijuana trespass grows, especially those grows that deploy hazardous materials, divert water, poison wildlife and streams and otherwise deal severe insults to the health and welfare of the natural world.

THE IMPETUS for Huffman’s action is the alarming number of Humboldt County grows, trespass and non-trespass, that not only use loads of pesticides, but help themselves to stream water to which they do not have legal access.

NATCH, no mention is made by Huffman of the practices of the wine industry of Mendocino and Sonoma counties, his major funders.

IN MENDOCINO COUNTY industrial wine grape production is massively dependent on chemicals. The marijuana industry probably is, too, and both help themselves to our overdrawn streams and rivers, with the wine industry legally sucking up acres of water they’ve mostly gotten riparian access to by buying land from old guard non-grape farmers who used very little of the County’s finite waters. In Mendo, pot water diversions occur certainly, but the big draw on our streams is by the wine industry, and that draw is unregulated, basically unmonitored.

SINCE 1970, there are several thousand more wine straws in Mendo’s streams than there were before 1970. How much water is illegally diverted by Mendo dope grows is not known, but you don’t hear the despairing, pot-gro eco-stories prevalent farther north in HumCo.

THE WINE INDUSTRY is not big in Humboldt County, but the dope industry is big and so prevalent in HumCo that its abuses, now that the timber industry has faded into economic insignificance, have become HumCo’s primary land use controversy.

AND REGULARLY we read reports like the one Fish and Game, in tandem with the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Department, published just this week:

On August 27, 2013, at approximately 10am the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office and Humboldt County Drug Task Force assisted Game Wardens with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife with two search warrants in the Dootyville area of Humboldt County. Fish and Wildlife Wardens had received complaints regarding the dewatering of Mattole Canyon Creek which is a spawning ground for Salmon and Steelhead. A Fish and Wildlife Warden obtained a Humboldt County Superior Court Search Warrant after learning of stream diversion and water pollution occurring near two parcels of property. Officers went to the two different locations and served the warrants at approximately the same time. One of the locations was in the 1800 block of Dootyville Road. When officers arrived they located two people at the residence, Bruce Wayne Turner, 63, and his 56-year old girlfriend. Officers located a pump in Mattole Canyon Creek which was being used to pump water to the marijuana plants the couple was growing. The pump was pulling water from pools where Salmon and Steelhead Smolt were living causing the water level to drop and water temperature to heat up killing the young fish. Officers also saw there were places near the intake pipe where there was live fish. The Wardens also believed the pipe was sucking in and killing the Smolt. The officers located where oil was spilled in the riverbed near the pump and saw where the suspects were storing oil and gas cans in the river bed. Officers located 877 growing marijuana plants located in two greenhouses on the property. The plants ranged in size from approximately 8” to 6’. They also located approximately $198,000 in cash, scales and evidence the marijuana was being sold for profit. Turner was arrested for cultivation and possession for sale of marijuana, allowing a place for drugs to be stored (all felonies) and Fish and Wildlife code violations for altering a streambed without a permit and polluting a streambed (both misdemeanors). He was transported to the Humboldt County Correctional Facility where he was booked and his bail was set at $50,000. Turner’s girlfriend was not arrested due to health issues. Charges are being sought against her through the Humboldt County District Attorney’s Office.

At the second location in the 3100 block of Dootyville Road, officer’s located another pump in the Mattole Creek riverbed removing water from the creek to water marijuana plants. That pump was also creating the same environmental issues and damage as the first location. Officers located a 59 year old male and his 56 year old wife living on the parcel in a residence. Officers searched the property and located 172 growing marijuana plants in two greenhouses ranging from 1’ to 6’ in height on the property. They also located approximately 4 lbs of marijuana bud and 25 lbs of processed marijuana along with four handguns, one shotgun and two rifles. Charges are being sought against the couple through the Humboldt County District Attorney’s Office for cultivation of marijuana, possession for sale of marijuana, allowing a place for drugs, possession of a loaded firearm in the commission of a felony stream diversion and polluting a stream. They were not arrested at the time due to logistical issues with transporting them to jail. Anyone with information for the Sheriffs Office regarding this case or related criminal activity is encouraged to call the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office at 707-445-7251 or the Sheriffs Office Crime Tip line at 707-268-2539.

THE SUPES FINALLY AGREED, 3-2, with Hamburg and Pinches opposed, to support Huffman’s legislation aimed at beating back toxic grows.

HAMBURG TALKS a good game about being opposed to trespass growers that trash the environment, but can’t bring himself to ever against them. Pinches said he was opposed to more laws on the dope issue.

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ANOTHER NOTEWORTHY occurrence at Tuesday’s meeting of the Supervisors was the slapstick appearance of an SEIU rep named Meredith Staples (yep, another new one) during Public Expression who tried to explain where the hidden pots of money are that SEIU says are being withheld by the Supes from the pay packets of County workers.

WE’LL SOON give you, dear readers, a complete transcription of the dope pollution discussion and the SEIU’s presentation, but for now what was interesting about the SEIU’s presentation by Ms. Staples was how many time Chairman Hamburg had to shut her down, not because of what she was saying but because he kept forgetting both her name and the fact that he’d just seconds before told Ms. Staples her time was up.

MS. STAPLES’ FIRST REMARKS ran over time and she had to be closed off then, after she returned to her seat, picked up a speaker’s slip, she was again called to the speaker’s podium, this time to be ruled out of order. She again went back to her seat and again Hamburg called her name as if hearing it and seeing her for the first time.

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Editor:

PROTESTING PROTESTORS

Regarding John Arteaga’s letter (The AVA, August 30, Online) protesting the Willits Bypass protestors. Arteaga first tells them to “get a life” and then proceeds to roll out some of the same hackneyed, retread arguments that have been used down through the decades against those working for social, environmental, and political change. His points can be summed up as 1. let democracy work, 2. love it or leave it, 3. the ship has sailed, 4. it’s a done deal, 5. it’s divisive, 6. we need the jobs.

Let me remind the writer that nonviolent direct action and civil disobedience have been a vital part of democracy even before Ghandi, Martin Luther King and Cesar Chavez. The underground railroad, women’s sufferage, labor movements, liberation movements, anti-nukes, civil rights, farmworkers organizing, anti-war, environmental protection… have all, with varying successes and failures, been a living part of democracies. It’s the way democracy works.

Nonviolence asks its practioners to sacrifice their own time and their own bodies to encourage progress rather than blowing up things and killing people… by sitting in trees, jail cells, politicians’ offices, and courtrooms; by chaining themselves to equipment; by braving wind, rain and cold; by accepting beatings and shootings; and by suffering harassment by passersby and letter writers. That is how they “get a life.”

In our most recent local past, nonviolent protestors tried to save our forests for long term sustainability, warning that the jobs created by raping the forests would soon be gone, and any chance of living-wage, sustainable, long-term jobs would be lost in the process. They were right. We lost the trees and the jobs. So arguing for short-term jobs building massive cement structures for our rapidly obsolescing, car-centric, nature-killing, climate-changing economy rings hollow.

I am honored to live in a community with neighbors like Will Parrish and Sara Grusky who care enough about our future to go beyond verbal, written, and marching protests and accept being extremely uncomfortable. Yes, it can be divisive, and no, it’s not a done deal.

Dave Smith, Redwood Valley

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SEAMUS HEANEY 13 APRIL 1939-30 AUGUST 2013

Requiem for the Croppies

The pockets of our greatcoats full of barley…
No kitchens on the run, no striking camp…
We moved quick and sudden in our own country. The priest lay behind ditches with the tramp. A people hardly marching… on the hike…
We found new tactics happening each day: 
We’d cut through reins and rider with the pike / 
And stampede cattle into infantry, 
Then retreat through hedges where cavalry must be thrown. Until…. on Vinegar Hill… the final conclave. Terraced thousands died, shaking scythes at cannon. The hillside blushed, soaked in our broken wave. They buried us without shroud or coffin / 
And in August… the barley grew up out of our grave.

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THE JURY GOT ROBBED

by Bruce McEwen

The courtroom can be better entertainment than cable TV. Tragedy, comedy, and everything in between plays every day all day at the County Courthouse, sometimes in one guy — one guy like Marc Radcliffe.

Radcliffe

Mr. Radcliffe has made something of a career out of home invasion robberies. He was looking at life in prison for his latest caper, which wasn’t what you would call well planned. The guy already had two strikes, and this one, because it was semi-violent, would have gotten him a third strike, 25 years to life.

So when the prosecution offered Radcliffe 18 years instead of a jury trial that would find him guilty in about 30 seconds, Radcliffe grabbed 18 years.

Radcliffe, in his latest crime, had let himself in to the apartment of a retired couple on Waugh Lane in Ukiah while both residents, Mr. and Mrs. Dotson, were at home. No one knows how long Radcliffe was in the apartment before he presented himself to the shocked couple, but it was long enough for him to sort through Mrs. Dotson’s underwear drawer and outfit himself in her underwear, stockings, and one of her wrap around skirts. When his ensemble was complete, Radcliffe came up behind the unsuspecting Mrs. Dotson as she sat watching TV and working a crossword puzzle and started rubbing her arms and whispering in her ear.

Mrs. Dotson shot out of her chair and screamed for her husband who came running from the computer room. An altercation ensued and Mr. Dotson tore his wife’s dress off Radcliffe who then fled the residence in Mrs. Dotson’s underwear, grabbing Mrs. Dotson’s purse as he exited the premises.

The next day Mrs. Dotson found her driver’s license, social security card and Medicare card scattered along the abandoned railroad tracks behind her apartment. Her cash, about a hundred bucks, was gone. The tracks func­tion as a kind of alternate travel route for inland bums who shuffle to and from central Ukiah on booze and dope runs.

The situation the Dotsons found themselves in with Radcliffe was eerie and bizarre in the extreme, which may explain why Mr. and Mrs. Dotson didn’t agree in all the details of their adventure with the intruder-beast. The prosecution felt that given the inconsistencies, it would be better to get the defendant put away for definite 18 years rather than risk a possible acquittal, and there goes one more free range psycho out onto the streets of Ukiah.

Radcliffe was already on parole before his excursion into grandma’s underwear drawer; he was going back inside either way, jury trial or plea deal.

But there was enough evidence presented in the pre-trial hearing that we can give the reader a condensed ver­sion of the testimony.

Neither Mr. or Mrs. Dotson had noticed Radcliffe’s tattoos.

The people who decorate themselves with this kind of “art” are inordinately vain about the permanent doo­dling they’ve inked into their skin. They seem to think we all notice. We don’t. We especially wouldn’t be apt to notice the skin art on a guy who suddenly looms up in our face in our own house wearing our underwear.

If a leopard had you cornered, would you check to make sure it wasn’t a mountain lion?

Thompson

But Public Defender Linda Thompson thought she could use Radcliffe’s tattoos to make the Dotsons look like doddering old fools who’d imagined the whole thing.

Also, Mrs. Sandra Dotson had described the intruder as heavyset while Mr. Darrel Dotson described him as tall and thin.

Mrs. Dotson is a small, petite woman and all she could really see was Intruder-Beast in her clothes. I-B is over six feet tall. He would have appeared huge to a small woman, especially in a small woman’s clothes.

Public Defender Thompson, a cross-dresser herself, latched on to these body art and sartorial inconsistencies despite Mrs. Dotson’s statement that she was “100 per­cent sure” Radcliffe was the man in her apartment wearing her underwear that February night.

Nobody in the courtroom laughed at any of this weird testimony. The bailiff has to keep a straight face, so it’s understandable that he would be the last one to laugh out loud. But what about the clerks and court reporter? What about the newspaper correspondent? Why are they all looking away, or down at their shoes? Even the judge often had her face averted. Maybe because, in a way, the whole episode was so sordidly unfunny that nobody saw anything amusing in it. And, as any cop will tell you, they deal with the bizarre all the time and, when you get a steady diet of it, it’s more tire­some than funny.

Ms. Thompson took off her man’s suit coat and hung it on the back of a chair, apologizing to the judge for not wearing it, blaming the hot August weather for her informality even though the courtroom is air-conditioned and even though male dress protocols have nothing to do with women who dress in men’s suits.

Ms. Thompson: “I see you wear glasses; do you wear them all the time?”

Mrs. Dotson: “Yes.”

Thompson: “Are your glasses 20-20?”

Dotson: “I don’t know.”

Thompson: “I notice you have a muscular tick at the corner of your left eye…”

Dotson: “Yes, that’s true.”

Thompson: “Does that affect your vision?”

Dotson: “No, not really.”

Thompson: “When this man leaned over your left shoulder, rubbing your arms and whispering in your ear — do you recall what he said?”

Dotson: “I couldn’t understand what was said.”

Thompson: “Well, did you notice any scars, marks or tattoos?”

Dotson: “No, I just jumped up and screamed for my husband.”

Thompson: “And he came out of the computer room?”

Dotson: “Yes.”

Thompson: “Were you — well, let me ask you this: Were your husband and the intruder ever, at any time, face-to-face?”

Dotson: “Yes.”

Thompson: “How did you know the intruder was wearing your red underpants?”

Dotson: “He had on one of my skirts, the kind that wraps around and ties, and he had it tied wrong, so the underpants were showing; then when I told my husband, That’s my skirt!, He (Mr. Dotson) grabbed it and ripped it off.”

Thompson: “Did you see the intruder take your purse from near the front door as he left?”

Dotson: “No.”

Thompson: “You later found a pair of sweat pants in your home?”

Dotson: “Yes. It was two or three days later. I found them in the bathroom.”

Thompson: “And where was your underwear kept?”

Dotson: “In a dresser drawer.”

Thompson, having established exactly nothing beyond the fact that two senior citizens had been terror­ized in their own home, said, “That’s all I have.”

The prosecutor was new, like a relief pitcher in a base­ball game. Last week’s Mr. Damon Gardner, the starting prosecutor, had been replaced with this week’s Ms. Shannon Cox, ace reliever.

Deputy DA Cox called Darrel Dotson, 66, to the stand.

Mr. Dotson said that on the night of the incident he was in the computer room when he heard his wife scream for help. He ran to her and saw “a gentleman” in his house facing his wife.

DDA Cox: “What did you do?”

Mr. Dotson: “I said, ‘Hey, who the hell are you? Get the hell out!”

Cox: “Do you recall what he was wearing?”

Dotson: “At the time he had a white skirt on. I didn’t know it was my wife’s until she told me.”

Cox: “What did the defendant do?”

Thompson broke in to say, “I object to the suspect being referred to as my client.”

Moorman: “Sustained.”

Cox: “What did the ‘suspect’ do?”

Dotson: “He just looked at me so I repeated what I’d said, Get the hell out!”

Cox: “Was he still wearing the skirt?”

Dotson: “No, I grabbed it and ripped it off when my wife said it was hers.”

Cox: “Can you describe him?”

Dotson: “About six-one, kinda on the slender side.”

Cox: “Any facial hair?”

This happened in February. Radcliffe, on a major tweek binge, was probably fairly slender at the time. Like lots of dopers away from their appetite-suppressing go-fast powder, he’d bulked up in jail.

Dotson: “Seems like I noticed some, but I couldn’t say what color it was.”

Cox: “Did the defendant leave when you told him to get out?”

Dotson: “He headed toward the door.”

Cox: “Did you stay with him?”

Dotson: “Yes. When he got to the door, he reached to get a bag by the door and as I was closing the door, he tried to pick up another bag and I slammed the door on his arm.”

Cox: “Did he drop the second bag?”

Dotson: “Yes.”

Ms. Thompson began her cross-examination.

Thompson: “Do you wear glasses?”

Dotson: “Yes, ma’am.”

Thompson: “All the time?”

Dotson: “Pretty much.”

Thompson: “Were you wearing them at the time of the incident?”

Dotson: “No. When she called me I took ‘em off.”

Thompson: “When you talked to Officer Delapo, you described the shirt the suspect was wearing as yellow…”

Dotson: “Yes, ma’am.”

Thompson: “Are you sure about that?”

Dotson: “Yes, ma’am.”

Thompson: “Did you see his arm when you slammed it in the door?”

Dotson: “I’m not sure.”

Thompson: “But you told the officer you didn’t see any marks, scars or tattoos, didn’t you?”

Dotson: “Yes, ma’am.”

Thompson: “You said the suspect was wearing pant­ies — well, let me put it this way, do you recall telling Officer Delapo he was wearing gray briefs — do you use the word ‘panties’?”

Dotson: “Not anymore I don’t. I say briefs.”

Thompson: “But you recall ‘em being gray?”

Dotson: “Yes, ma’am.”

Thompson: “And your wife, do you know if they were hers?”

Dotson: “She’s got so many clothes, I couldn’t say if they were hers or not.”

Thompson, gratuitously, “Yes, I saw her closet, and she sure does have a lot!”

During the recess, the prosecution offered Radcliffe the 18 years. Sandra Dotson had said the ‘briefs’ were red and the ‘shirt’ was pink when the shirt worn by Intruder-Beast was yellow, the briefs not red. The prose­cution seems to have felt there were ID probs. The Pub­lic Defender, defending the indefensible, agreed on 18 years.

Radcliffe’s two strike priors were serious robberies, but they were not violent, so only one of the strikes would be counted if Radcliffe pled to this one. He would have to serve 85 percent of the 18 years. Eighteen years sounded better to the guy than putting his non-defense in front of a jury and risking 25-to-life. He took the offer.

The feeling was that this agreement spared Sandra Dotson the ordeal of repeating the story in front of a jury, and got Intruder-Beast put away. He’ll do 85 percent of the 18 years.

LABOR DAY WEEKEND in a country where less than 15% of people who work for wages are represented by a labor union, and less than that in Mendocino County unless you’re a teacher or a County worker bee. And the wage slaves who are represented are mostly paying dues to people who take their dues and run, run to the anti-labor Democrat Party, anti-labor in practice, not theory. The Mendo Democrats will throw their annual Labor Day picnic heavy on trustafarians, wealthy bureaucrats, liberal judges, miscellaneous personages who have never worked, never lived with the wolf at the door, content and very pleased with their NPR-selves in a County where unemployment is the norm and, unless you hook on with some government job, you’ll be paid an unlivable minimum wage if you do find work. The Democrats will be drinking wine produced by non-union workers who, the one time they did try to unionize at Roederer in Philo, Roederer — employing a union-busting law firm out of San Francisco and in-house snitches who i-deed the union guys — had the union crushed faster than the fall harvest, blacklisting and blackballing the union people who’d dared not accept a sudden and inexplicably petty field wage reduction by the French-owned firm, one of the richest in the world.

Bridges

HARD TO BELIEVE that a mere 75 years ago unions were led by people like Harry Bridges, that a whole city could be shut down if Big Capital messed with Harry’s ILWU.

SEPTEMBER 6, 1938: Labor was on the march yesterday. Hour after hour, mile after mile, the men and women who man San Francisco’s industry marched up Market Street under a broiling sun. In solid phalanxes they marched from the Embarcadero to Civic Center in what was probably San Francisco’s greatest Labor Day celebration. Led by uniformed bands, 85,000 unionists swept up the streets in a mighty tide of moving humanity that flowed unceasingly for more than five hours. The vanguard of the parade was followed by a massed band of 120 pieces from Musician’s Union Local 6, and thereafter came probably the most amusing part of the show — the members of the American Federation of Actors, some in costume, all with some kind of act. The largest single unit was the International Longshoremen’s and Warehousemen’s Union (ILWU), led by their militant leader, Harry Bridges. Bridges, dressed in jeans, a hickory shirt and white cap, as were his legions, was singled out by the crowd for countless calls of “Hello, Harry, how’re ya doin’?” He laughed. Block after block, by the thousands, the longshoremen marched, laughing and calling to friends in the crowd.

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IS JOHN STAHL the latest addition to Mendocino County’s roster of world class maniacs? Well, he’s not a killer, certainly not in the Jim Jones or even Charles Manson class, both of whom graduated from Mendocino County to grander things. He is, however, in the Mendo tradition of Tree Frog Johnson and Kenneth Parnell, both of whom took advantage of the County’s long history of Do Your Own Thing-ism. But even here where tolerance of aberrant behavior seems infinitely elastic, Stahl flourished much longer than he should have. And although Stahl isn’t accused of murdering anybody, you can make a strong case that child molestation is indeed a kind of murder, the spiritual murder suffered by its victims. By that standard Stahl has killed a lot more people than Manson has. Once again, evil gets over because people, for whatever reason, don’t go to the cops, forever the Blue Meanies in some neighborhoods. The following is a fuller account of Stahl’s stay in the North County than we’ve so far been able to muster. The writer is a resident of the infected area.

“GRANTED MENDOCINO COUNTY provides a buffet of strange happenings on a daily basis, I’ve yet to hear anything of the county’s most wanted and now captured pedo-villain John Stahl of Leggett. I pray at night that your crack court reporter will be on the case. Tell me it is so. Not often one of our own go on the lam across international borders fleeing child molestation charges, never mind that that destination is the center of the pedophile’s universe.

“JOHN STAHL graduated from ivy league (Brown), fancies himself a visionary of all matters of men (and boys) via his self-published meditations tree.org. In contrast to the sinister liberties he’s taken with a number of children over the years, he’s a master craftsman and for years was the resident luminary among the Bell Spring’s hippy community. He’s a master craftsman of milled paper and early printing techniques and is widely recognized for securing one of the first permits to grow hemp from the DEA since prohibition (which was revoked shortly after).

“AS THE ESTEEMED wise man of the Bell Springs royalty he had free access to their young flock of boys. When it was discovered what John was doing to their kids many years after the fact, he was exiled from the group and I hear the worse cases were never brought to the attention of law enforcement. To the hippy royalty on the hill, exile from their clan was punishment enough, I guess. I’m not sure of the case he caught charges for, but there was a silent murmur of satisfaction at his capture which rippled through the Leggett and Bell Springs area. John defended himself to these people by preaching the historical provenance of man-boy love, which by his hand was a harmless exploration; a mutually beneficial experience of man’s loving nature. After his exile he holed up in the hollow of his Leggett house, which was always open to a steady stream of very young runaway drifters that nobody in Leggett ever knew. They were only ever seen riding shotgun on his daily trip to the post office. I believe it is from these homeless youths that the current charges he faces arise.

“AS REPORTED, STAHL FLED to Sihanoukville, Cambodia. In the years since his hurried departure he seems to have built a good life for himself there. He opened a cafe/youth hostel in the seedy beachside provincial capital called Cafe Noir. The place was really popular and widely rated as ‘excellent’ on the Trip Advisor website as having the best coffee in Cambodia and being a wonderful place to stay. He was well-liked by the Sihanoukville community as the local expat happenings website noted.

“AS YOU KNOW, it all ended when a very influential area NGO (dedicated to helping the children of Cambodia’s rampant child sex industry) got wind of his wanted status and persuaded the US embassy in Phnom Penh to petition for the arrest of John for extradition. The Cambodian government is all too happy to make public examples of foreigners like John, people of whom there are far to many making Cambodia a new home. Oddly, it does not seem that he kept at molesting children while in Cambodia, but I think most people who know John have their doubts about that. Perhaps more victims will come forward. At one time he had volunteered for an orphan’s art program there, but I heard he was fired for being incredibly flaky, but my details on that are shaky. He had another project at some point teaching paper-making to orphan children that made their livings digging rubbish from a dump. I almost smashed my computer when I found the webpage where he touts that project. What are the odds that parentless children, children whose survival depends on rummaging through trash heaps, file an abuse report with local authorities?

“ANYHOW, it’s a fascinating story and as vile as a character John presents by the fact of his crimes, he’s an incredibly charismatic charlatan of sorts. Another homegrown wierdo for the county record I guess. I think the case will make interesting fodder.

“I ORIGINALLY thought I had tracked him down singlehandedly, but I learned from a contact in Shihanoukville that the word had already gotten out to the local police. These are the links I found when I was originally hunting his web trail if you are interested:

“I FOUND that rat bastard! I check John Stahl’s church of the tree website a couple times a year to see if I can figure out where he is since he continually updates his news. For eight years I’ve been waiting for some hint to find out where he’s hiding at. In this latest update he finally said he was working on a pulp mill somewhere in southeast Asia. The thought of this pissed me off imagining all the kids he’s molesting. It took me a couple hours but I found his address, name of his business in Cambodia, phone/fax/cell number, multiple fictitious business names, data in TradeKey he’s been soliciting for imports on and he’s employing poor children and working with a poor kid’s art foundation — classic chronic child molester profile. He’s calling himself Roland Stahl these days, operating a coffee shop/organic bakery/holistic health/ arcane knowledge school in Sihanoukville, Cambodia. I’ve been there and remember billboards warning foreigners to stay away from kids. Anyhow, I let the Mendo County sex crimes detective know I had this information. Maybe they can send his file to the Sihanoukville police who can make sure they keep an eye on him since I doubt they can muster the brainpower or funds to extradite him. I’ll bet Cambodia would arrest him and send him home for free if they asked! I have no doubt he’s serially molesting poor children over there, no doubt whatsoever.”

http://dardhunter.blogspot.com/2009_03_01_archive.html

http://www.trademart.in/lead-0310351_rolandsholistichealth.html

http://rolandsholistichealth.com/

http://www.diytrade.com/china/manufacturer/1150545/main.html

http://www.sareka-cambodia.org/index.php?content=SCCA_paper_project&side=side_main

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Sanchez

IVAN ACOLTZI SANCHEZ, 22, was arrested on Monday the 26th of August on charges of beating and stabbing his 20-year-old girlfriend at an intersection in the middle of Fort Bragg. He’d pummeled the kid in their home for two hours before she was able to run outside, which is when Sanchez caught up with her and beat her and stabbed her again. Sanchez is looking at multiple counts of attempted murder, assault with a deadly weapon and domestic battery. The question is why is this roving menace was out of jail to commit his latest atrocities.

SANCHEZ’S ARREST HISTORY:

2/4/09: Probation violation, age: 18 (no bail)

6/19/09: Assault with a deadly weapon (ADW). Bail: $50k

7/11/10 ADW, Bail: $30k

10/20/10: ADW, Bail: $30k

12/10/10: ADW, Bail: $80k

5/18/13: ADW, Bail: $55k

1/1/2013: Contributing, obstructing, destroying evidence, Bail: $15k, $15k, $15k.

THIS PUNK, a member of a Fort Bragg street gang known as such to the Fort Bragg Police, has five assaults with deadly weapons plus two other lesser offenses. Hmmm. Let’s guess who the judge has been. The offenses have all occurred in Fort Bragg. The judge of Fort Bragg’s Ten Mile Court is Clay Brennan. It’s almost impossible to unseat a sitting judge in Mendocino County, but someone ought to at least have an electoral go at Brennan. Somehow, Sanchez keeps getting out of jail after he’s done dangerous crimes, and only a judge can release a person from custody.

HOW IS SANCHEZ coming up with bail money? If he’s coming up with bail money. Maybe Brennan is busting the bail down to zero when Sanchez appears, maybe the DA’s office is asleep. Sanchez’s bail this time for nearly killing his girlfriend is $500,000. We’ll see what we shall see.

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ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY (From an LA Weekly article about Burning Man.)

Burning Man is little more than a caricature of itself. The core values — gifting, decommodification, inclusion, leaving no trace and running around naked (except for the body paint) — is exactly the type of hippie crap that nostalgic white-collar professionals gab about on their Bluetooths. If I wanted to hang out around a bunch of pseudo-bohemian trustafarians and smug yuppies slumming it, I’d move back to Portland.

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BILL ALLEN WRITES: The notion that all possible consequences and effects arising from an attack on Syria have been anticipated and can be countered is ludicrous and borders on delusional. The entire Middle East is a toxic cauldron of simmering sectarian hotspots that could explode into serious war fighting on multiple fronts. Obama and the Pelosi warhawks are willing to risk that in order for “red line” Obama to save face, or to maintain the tattered “credibility” of a declining empire? I’m no strategic war-gamer, but I can predict two effects we will assuredly see should there be an attack: 1) The gold plated cash register at Raytheon Corp. (maker of Tomahawk cruise missiles) will ka-ching a million dollars each every time one of those birds is launched. That’s how much each missile costs the taxpayers. Few people are aware that the Navy fired more than 200 of them into Libya in 2011 (another undeclared, illegal war.) $200 million just for one kind of missile used in that campaign. 2) Within hours of an attack, we’ll see gas prices at the pump shoot up like a rocket by at least a dollar per gallon, and after that the sky’s the limit, for there are several scenarios that could unfold that might strangle a huge portion of world oil shipping, including but not limited to Iran (an ally of Syria) attempting to shut down tanker traffic through the Persian Gulf, etc. Do you think the Interventionists in DC have contemplated the disastrous effects on our barely-treading-water economy, or on 40 million citizens barely making ends meet, that $7.00 a gallon gas would precipitate?

“…we prepare for war like precocious giants and for peace like retarded pygmies.” — Lester Pearson

Onward!

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ANOTHER READER WRITES: Just a quick correx. The Indians called (and probably still call) the John Day River what they always called it, the Mah Hah River. Mah hah loosely translated means “place of plenty fish and game.” Mau Mau? What’s Patterson smoking?

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ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE APPROVES ‘WOEFULLY INADEQUATE’ FRACKING BILL

by Dan Bacher, September 1, 2013

The Assembly Appropriations Committee voted 12-5 on Friday, August 30 to approve a weak fracking bill, Senate Bill 4 , strongly opposed by over 100 groups that are calling for an immediate moratorium on the environmentally destructive oil extraction method.

The passage of the controversial bill, sponsored by Senator Fran Pavley, D-Agoura Hills, clears the way for the full Assembly to approve regulations for hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”), acidizing and other unregulated oilfield practices, according to a news release from Pavley’s Office.

The weak bill was the only fracking legislation to pass through the Legislature’s Committees. Other bills, including one calling for a moratorium on fracking in California, were defeated under intense pressure by the Western States Petroleum Association, the most powerful corporate lobby in Sacramento. The bill was weakened during the legislative process because of pressure from the oil industry and pro-Big Oil lawmakers.

Ironically, in one of the greatest conflicts of interest in California history Catherine Reheis-Boyd, the President of the Western States Petroleum Association, chaired the Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative Blue Ribbon Task Force to create alleged “marine protected areas” in Southern California. Senator Pavley, the author of the fracking bill, was a big supporter of the oil industry lobbyist-overseen MLPA Initiative.

These questionable “marine protected areas,” falsely described by corporate “environmental” NGOs and state officials as “Yosemites of the Sea” and “underwater parks,” fail to protect the ocean from fracking, offshore oil drilling and spills, pollution, wind and wave energy projects, military testing and all human impacts other than fishing and gathering.

While California is often portrayed by the mainstream media as a “green” state and an “environmental model” for the nation, the reality is much different. Unlike at least 14 petroleum producing states including Texas and Wyoming, California does not currently regulate fracking.

Fracking involves the injection of water, sand and chemicals underground to crack rock formations and free up oil and gas – with disastrous results for groundwater supplies and fish and wildlife populations. The state also lacks regulations for “acidizing,” the use of hydrofluoric acid and other corrosive acids to dissolve shale rock.

Oil companies have predicted that acidizing could be the primary tool for accessing the Monterey Shale, the nation’s largest shale oil deposit with an estimated 15.4 billion barrels of recoverable oil. This oil is located both offshore, in and near the MLPA Initiative’s so-called “marine protected areas,” and onshore in Kern County and coastal areas.

Fracking has already been conducted at least 12 times already in California ocean waters in the Santa Barbara Channel, due to the lack of oversight by state and federal regulators – and their cozy relationship with the oil industry.

What would the legislation do? “SB 4 would require permits for fracking, acidizing and other oil well stimulation practices,” according to Pavley’s office. “It would require notification of neighbors, public disclosure of all chemicals used, groundwater and air quality monitoring and an independent scientific study. The study would evaluate potential risks such as groundwater and surface water contamination, greenhouse gas emissions, local air pollution, seismic impacts, and effects on wildlife, native plants and habitat.”

“This bill will address serious unanswered questions about the safety and environmental risks of fracking and acidizing,” Senator Pavley said. “California needs strict regulations to hold the oil industry accountable for the true costs of its activities.”

Pavley’s bill gives the green light to expand fracking

However, anti-fracking activists strongly oppose Pavley’s “green light for fracking” bill. A broad coalition of environmental, health and progressive groups released a letter on Wednesday, August 28 calling SB 4′s regulations “insufficient” and demanding that Governor Jerry Brown immediately impose a moratorium on fracking in California.

More than 100 groups, including CREDO, Food and Water Watch, Center for Biological Diversity, MoveOn.org, California Water Impact Network (C-WIN), Environmental Protection Information Center, Butte Environmental Council and Physicians for Social Responsibility-Los Angeles, signed the letter.

“The fight to protect California from fracking has reached a critical juncture,” the letter stated. “But Senate Bill 4′s effort to fill the legislative void on this dangerous practice is insufficient to protect our state, our people and our climate from the myriad dangers posed by fracking.”

The majority of Californians support a moratorium on fracking – not weak regulations giving a green light to fracking. A University of Southern California/Los Angeles Times poll in June found that 58 percent of California voters favor a moratorium on fracking.

Fracking opponents described Pavley’s legislation as “woefully inadequate,” “faulty,” and “weak” – and argue that the bill will actually allow the oil industry to expand fracking in Kern County and coastal areas.

“SB4 is woefully inadequate in addressing the threat that fracking poses to Californians’ air, water, health and highly valued industries like agriculture and tourism,” said Food & Water Watch California Campaign Director Adam Scow. “If we attempt to fill the legislative void with a faulty bill, we’re essentially paving the way for fracking and other disastrous extraction methods. Instead of quibbling over the details of SB4, the conversation needs to focus around the reasons we need Governor Brown to issue a moratorium on fracking as soon as possible.”

“It’s a sad day when we have to protest what was supposed to be an environmental bill, but SB 4 simply won’t protect us or our water from the dangers of fracking,” said Becky Bond, CREDO’s Political Director. “This weak bill will allow the fracking industry to massively ramp up fracking in California. What we need is a ban on fracking.”

“Gov. Brown and state lawmakers need to halt fracking now to protect California’s efforts to fight climate change,” said Kassie Siegel, director of the Center for Biological Diversity’s Climate Law Institute. “When it comes to climate, there’s just no safe way to frack our state’s dirty oil deposits. If we’re going to preserve a livable future for our children, we need a moratorium on this inherently dangerous process.”

You can read the full letter, along with all the groups signing on in support, here: https://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.credoaction.com/images/SB_4_statement.pdf

In related news, the Los Angeles City Council’s Rules, Elections and Intergovernmental Relations Committee approved a resolution endorsing Senate Bill 4. The resolution will be considered by the City Council on Tuesday.

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NOTATIONS ON THE NO-PATH

Washington DC streets are still, humid air is everywhere

The resounding echo of two hundred Occupy protesters

Chanting “Whose streets?” “Our streets!” is now unheard

Traffic drones by the Capitol building, Supreme Court steps

Are empty once more, the shadows have also left

The federal sinkhole within the beltway looks weighty

Airplanes, limousines, taxis, tour buses, all head for the center

With the Washington monument being the central point

And the rest of the district radiates out from it

Three temples have abandoned the region

Three occupiers, three moving temples of light,

Are on the road, seeking way stations on the no-path,

Resting today in Fort Worth, Texas (which is keeping its wealth)

The present is bright and the future is unknown

Tibetan lamas call this “braving the path of the wandering yogi.”

I don’t know what Chenrezig’s compass reading is this afternoon,

But I would advise him not to follow any ley lines

Leading toward the federal sinkhole within the beltway

Clouds drift past the house in Fort Worth

A large orange butterfly flutters overhead

Summer flies alight on this writing tablet

Money arrives on Wednesday, automatically deposited

The journey without destination is renewed

Green energy ensures mobility in the situation

With time aplenty for new creative writing

Today and every day; we are beginning to understand!

What is very important is “writing down the bones”

Sending out the message of the instant to the

Global audience. There is power in the immediate

That does not wait, much like lightning bolts

This is what creative writing is: a continuous flow of

Electricity that emboldens and uplifts, charges the

Individual reader and leaves the writer unharmed,

Delivering messages from a nameless source which

Has no limit, wellspring of knowledge and bliss

The message source, the message, and the messenger

Are unaffected, yet the philosophic current continues

To go out to internet websites, newspapers, magazines,

Recited on the radio, posted onto blogs, and emailed far and near

A continuous stream of primordial energy manifests

Literarily and is transmitted around the world, then

Copied, microfilmed, archived, and filed away

In a box at the Library of Congress in Washington D.C.

It is there, according to some estimates,

Forever! Or at least until the end of the

Kali Yuga, when everything is dissolved

Back into the originating source, prior to creation,

Demonstrating the inherent emptiness of all phenomena

So the writing goes on and on and on, impelled by

An electrical impulse that manifests as a thought form,

Which becomes words that form sentences which

Convey a critical message, instructions to be carried out

On the earth plane, in accord with a divine plan,

Prior to everything, prior to the third dimension itself,

Continuous, unstoppable, a powerful current like a river

Coming down from the mountains, just flowing endlessly

Toward the sea, enlightening all, enlivening all,

Serving all but beholden to none, this river

Performs its task perfectly, and without effort, it shines.

— Craig Louis Stehr, Unnamed Emerging Artist Compound

Leander, Texas

KARMA MITE? Area pot farmers are in a major panic at the appearance of the hemp rust (or hemp russet) mite. If this new pest gets into your pot garden, your garden is gone in a week or two. The hemp rust mite has been confirmed in Lake County where it has infected, we’re told, large-scale grows and amateur grows, the ying and yang of the pot business.

An extremely toxic substance called Avid, which is banned in California, is nevertheless being sold for upwards of $500 a gallon under the counter at LA garden stores catering to pot growers. In California, Avid comes in film containers without any warning labels. We haven’t heard of any Avid being sold north of San Francisco, but it’s bad mojo, basically an agent orange knock- off.

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A WRITER says the Navarro River is running low and toxic because of vineyard chemicals, but I’ve asked people who might know if they think Anderson Valley’s streams are ill in the way that some of Humboldt County’s rivers are ill. (HumCo’s public waterways are tested by their Health Department, and their health department is warning people to keep their dogs and children out of streams where there are algae blooms.) Dave Severn dives into the Navarro every morning. He says there is indeed plenty of algae blooms, and says the water is quite murky. “I’d like to be able to say the wineries are guilty but I don’t think so. And I don’t think this algae is chemical algae.” Bill Allen writes: “I can only tell you what I’ve observed from the Greenwood Rd. bridge, and points northward toward the mouth. At the end of June the river looked more like one would expect to see in late August or September: the flow was very low, slow, and there were already large algae blooms. In addition to growing in fairly warm, slow moving water, algae blooms can be an indicator of high nitrate concentration, i.e., fertilizer run-off. Unless someone will go down there and test random samples from various spots along the river, who knows? Of course, it looks even worse today.”

WHO KNOWS how the rivers of Mendocino County are being affected by a long dry spell like this year. So many more people have legal draws on the Russian, the Navarro and our many lesser streams, all of it occurring in a context of no monitoring, that most of these neo-straws in the streams have the riparian right to go on sucking up the water until at least mid-March. So, even though it hasn’t rained, really rained, since December of 2012, the Grape Gang has helped itself long after there was any precipitation. They aren’t supposed to store riparian water in the hundreds of ponds they’ve built, maybe thousands of ponds by now, who can tell where all the water in these ponds comes from?

THE SAME WRITER says little Hispanic kids are being taught to hate Whitey. I’ve asked the young, and I’ve asked the not-so-young among local Hispanics about it. They say they haven’t heard of any local families who might be propagating this particular form of mental illness in their children. I seriously doubt anybody is. Seems to me that we all get along pretty well these days, but I can remember when the first immigrants, circa ’75, were often on the receiving end of crumb bum behavior from the more primitive sectors of the gringo community. But that’s long over, not that there isn’t an episode now and then. If there was any kind of racism prevalent in the schools we’d be the first to hear about it (and expose it.) If you’ve got names and specific episodes, we’re all ears.

IT’S A DRAG to have to do this, but the inland libs, especially Hamburg, keep bringing it up, not directly to me of course because they don’t have the cojones for that; they say the AVA is funded by Oracle money, that any paper critical of them in all their wonderfulness couldn’t possibly be self-supporting. But the AVA is self-supporting. We sell enough papers every week to pay the print, postage and rent bills with enough left over to pay the writers a pittance. We are self-sustaining. If we weren’t we’d be gone. By prevailing newspaper standards we’re more solvent than, say, the Press Democrat, the Ukiah Daily Journal or the SF Chronicle, all of them running at big deficits. If Frisco’s and Sonoma County’s free weeklies had to sell their papers they’d have been long gone. Of course we’re a much better newspaper than any of those enterprises because we work harder at it than they do. “Work? Did someone say ‘work’? Quick! The smelling salts! The 5th District supervisor has just passed out!”

WHICH ISN’T to say we aren’t feeling the pinch all papers are feeling. We are struggling, and in January we’ll be raising prices, retaking control of our website and generally battening down the economic hatches. But if we have to ask for handouts, we are finito because I won’t do it. My paper in Oregon failed for lack of capital. If I had access to Oracle money, I’d still be in Eugene.

KING LIB wrote to me earlier in the year that he hoped “the good people of Mendocino County will send you down the road like the good people of Oregon did.” This from a guy who’s never worked a day in his trust fund life. Unacquainted with the world of work all his days, Hamburg also contacted us last year wanting to know how to get his hand into the Oracle purse so, as usual, and not to be too judgmental about our fave limo lib, the guy’s deep into his usual double standards. Just to be clear (sic), I think Hamburg is a crook and a nut case. Only in this odd little sanctuary of the 5th District of Mendocino County could he possibly be elected to office. Ditto for his lunatic predecessor, Dr. Colfax.

THE REAL PROB, which is a universal newspaper prob, is this: people under the age of fifty aren’t reading in the newspaper format anymore. People under the age of thirty aren’t reading anything longer than a tweet or less interesting than a twerk. Print is doomed in non-electronic formats. Print and postage prices continue to go up and up, and for the small fortune we pay for our weekly mail dispatch we’re paying more for less timely delivery. All us print people are being shoved into cyber-space. It’s only a matter of time before we’re also forced into the ethers. But for now, Mr. Entitlement Guy, Mr. Doobie Brain, gitchy-gitchy goo!

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OCEAN FRACKING IS NO SURPRISE

By Dan Bacher

The California Coastal Commission and other state officials recently expressed “surprise” after they read an Associated Press report documenting that at least 12 fracking operations have been conducted in the Santa Barbara Channel in recent years. Under pressure from legislators, they called for an investigation into fracking operations off the California coast.

However, the failure of the state and federal governments to stop or even regulate the environmentally destructive practice of fracking in California’s ocean waters is no surprise to those of us familar with the corrupt Marine Life Protection Act Initiative.

Catherine Reheis-Boyd, the same lobbyist now pushing fracking in California, apparently used her role as a state marine “protection” official to increase her network of influence in California politics to the point where the Western States Petroleum Association has become the most powerful corporate lobby in California. The association now has enormous influence over both state and federal regulators – and MLPA Initiative advocates helped facilitate her rise to power. (http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/08/07/the-ocean-frackers/)

Oil and gas companies spend more than $100 million a year to buy access to lawmakers in Washington and Sacramento, according to Stop Fooling California, an online and social media public education and awareness campaign that highlights oil companies’ efforts to mislead and confuse Californians. The Western States Petroleum Association (WSPA) alone has spent more than $16 million lobbying in Sacramento since 2009.

The association spent the most of any organization in first six months of 2013, $2,308,789.95, to lobby legislators and other state officials, according to documents filed with the California Secretary of State.

When the oil industry wields this much power – and an oil industry lobbyist oversaw the process that was supposed to “protect” the ocean – it shouldn’t be a surprise to anybody that California’s ocean waters are now being “fracked.” Both the state and federal regulators have completely failed in their duty to protect our ocean, bays, rivers and Delta.

At the same time, Governor Jerry Brown, a strong supporter of the oil industry, is fast-tracking the Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP) to build the peripheral tunnels under the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. The tunnels will be used to export massive quantities of water to corporate agribusiness interests and oil companies seeking to expand fracking operations in Kern County and coastal areas. The construction of the tunnels will hasten the extinction of Central Valley salmon and steelhead, Delta and longfin smelt, green sturgeon and other fish species.

For more information about the MLPA Initiative, go to: http://intercontinentalcry.org/the-five-inconvenient-truths-about-the-mlpa-initiative/

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OBAMA WILL LAUNCH A HUGE PROPAGANDA BLITZ — and May Attack Syria Even If He Loses the Vote in Congress

by Norman Solomon

Grassroots pressure has forced President Obama to seek approval from Congress for an attack on Syria. But Obama is hell-bent on ordering a missile assault on that country, and he has two very important aces in the hole.

The administration is about to launch a ferocious propaganda blitz that will engulf a wide range of U.S. media. And as a fallback, the president is reserving the option of attacking Syria no matter what Congress does.

Until Obama’s surprise announcement Saturday that he will formally ask Congress for authorization of military action against Syria, the impassioned pitches from top U.S. officials in late August seemed to be closing arguments before cruise missiles would hit Syrian targets. But the pre-bombing hyper spin has just gotten started.

The official appeals for making war on yet another country will be ferocious. Virtually all the stops will be pulled out; all kinds of media will be targeted; every kind of convoluted argument will be employed.

Hell hath no fury like war-makers scorned. Simmering rage will be palpable from political elites who do not want to see Congress set an unprecedented precedent: thwarting the will of a president who wants Pentagon firepower unleashed on another country.

President Obama and top Democrats such as House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi will twist every arm they can to get a “yes” vote for attacking Syria. Meanwhile, most mainline media pundits, numbingly addicted to war, will often chastise and denigrate foes of authorization.

But we have a real chance to prevent a U.S. attack. One cogent argument after another, from intelligence veterans and policy analysts and weapons experts, has debunked the messaging for war on Syria. And some members of Congress — not nearly enough, but some — have begun to speak up with cogent opposition.

One of NPR’s inside-the-box hosts of “All Things Considered” on August 30 asked Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) about the Obama administration’s claim that missile strikes on Syria would be “a limited action” and not “war.” Congresswoman Lofgren replied: “I think that anyone who argues that shooting missiles and dropping bombs on another country is not an act of war has got some further education warranted. If somebody shot cruise missiles at Washington for only one day, we would still consider it an act of war, wouldn’t we?”

Not many members of Congress have Lofgren’s clarity, and many of their votes on authorization are up for grabs. Each of us can help affect the outcome by demanding that our senators and representative oppose the war resolution. We should make our voices heard in all sorts of public venues.

The president’s move for a congressional vote should cause a major escalation of anti-war activism. A straw in the wind: during just a few hours after Obama’s announcement on Saturday afternoon, nearly 10,000 people took the initiative via RootsAction.org to email members of Congress with a “No Attack on Syria” message.

National opinion polling and momentum inside Congress indicate that we can defeat Obama’s war resolution. It’ll be a tremendous fight, but we can prevail.

But even if Obama loses the vote in Congress, there’s a very real danger that he will proceed with ordering an attack on Syria.

Burying the lead almost a dozen paragraphs into a September 1 news story, the New York Times mentioned in passing: “White House officials indicated that Mr. Obama might still authorize force even if Congress rejected it.”

A careful reading of Obama’s Rose Garden announcement on Saturday verifies that he never quite said he will abide by the decision of Congress if it refuses to approve an attack on Syria. Instead, the president filled his statement with hedging phrases, detouring around any such commitment with words like these:

* “I have decided that the United States should take military action against Syrian regime targets. … And I’m prepared to give that order. But … I’m also mindful that I’m the President of the world’s oldest constitutional democracy.”

* “I will seek authorization for the use of force from the American people’s representatives in Congress.”

* “Over the last several days, we’ve heard from members of Congress who want their voices to be heard. I absolutely agree. So this morning, I spoke with all four congressional leaders, and they’ve agreed to schedule a debate and then a vote as soon as Congress comes back into session.”

* “And all of us should be accountable as we move forward, and that can only be accomplished with a vote.”

* “I’m ready to act in the face of this outrage. Today I’m asking Congress to send a message to the world that we are ready to move forward together as one nation.”

At the grassroots, people across the United States will be working very hard to prevent congressional approval of an attack on Syria. That activism is imperative. But we should also understand that Obama has not committed himself to abide by the decision that Congress makes.

(Norman Solomon is co-founder of RootsAction.org and founding director of the Institute for Public Accuracy. His books include “War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death.” Information on the documentary based on the book is at www.WarMadeEasyTheMovie.org.)

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BETH’S FRONT PORCH

Three travelers on the no-path take refuge

On the front porch of an Austin area artist’s

Compound (near Lake Travis), in its construction phase

Everything here is big, just like the Lone Star state’s

Website says it is. Huge sky with puffy white clouds

Slowly, and I mean very slowly, drift past the front porch

It’s summer and the air is hot and the ground is real dry

Hummingbird feeders are visited, and a circling hawk

Is watching us. Nobody is moving…only this writing pen

Moves…everybody is slouched into the comfortable

Wicker furniture, following an evening of soft partying

It is quiet here, save for the cooler air which streams through

I took an outdoor shower this morning surrounded by

Red cardinal birds, which are sharing the compound with

A dozen cats, all scampering around over and under

The picnic table, as I got revived from the early morning heat

By clear southwest hill water at the shower station

Hooray for friends! This would be impossible except that

We all made friendships along the life highway,

Proving that everything good just keeps increasing in value;

Key to removing the hellacious enigma of postmodernism

We create our collective social reality together

Every day. The result may or may not be “society”,

But it’s cohesive right now on Beth’s front porch

OMing on the outbreath, I watch backing being glued

To an art sculpture, some sort of moonscape looking

Surface that fits together puzzle-like, maybe destined

For the bottom of an aquarium, this witnessed by two new friends

And one true comrade and fellow traveler on the no-path

As three clouds have now fused, and are barely moving

Past us, like a huge pearl colored ship in the sky

OMing on the outbreath, we are encircled by trees on the surrounding

Hillsides, we sit at the bottom of a shallow bowl in the bush,

The main house is in a Texas forest, grasshoppers are many

But the rattle snakes and scorpions are few; there is

An intensity hereabout that balances the pervasive calm

I glance at my wristwatch, observing that the time is 4:20 P.M.

Where did the slow moving day go? Everything changes here

Just barely, but yet the morning has disappeared altogether

And the afternoon might be next. It looks fairly stable

Right now, but insect noises are beginning further down

In the trees, and this signals the oncoming of the evening

OMing on the outbreath, OMing on the outbreath…

Craig Louis Stehr, Leander, Texas

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WINDS OF CHANGE

Editor,

Warren Buffet is asking each addressee to forward this email to a minimum of twenty people on their address list; in turn ask each of those to do likewise. At least 20 if you can. It has to stop somewhere. In three days, most people in The United States of America will have this message. This is one idea that really should be passed around. *Congressional Reform Act of 2013 1. No Tenure / No Pension. A Congressman/woman collects a salary while in office, and receives no pay when they’re out of office. 2. Congress (past, present & future) participates in Social Security. All funds in the Congressional Retirement Fund move to the Social Security system immediately. All future funds flow into the Social Security system, and Congress participates with the American people. It may not be used for any other purpose. 3. Congressmen/women can purchase their own retirement plans, just as all Americans do. 4. Congress will no longer vote themselves a pay raise. Congressional pay will rise by the lower of CPI or 3%. 5. Congress loses their current health care system and participates in the same health care system as the American people. 6. Congress must equally abide by all laws they impose on the American people. 7. All contracts with past and present Congressmen/women are void effective 12/31/13. The American people did not make this contract with Congressmen/women. Congressmen/women made all these contracts for themselves. Serving in Congress is an honor, not a career. The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators, so ours should serve their term(s), then go home and back to work. If each person contacts a minimum of twenty people then it will only take three days for most people (in the U.S. ) to receive the message. Don’t you think it’s time? This is how you fix Congress! If you agree with the above, pass it on.

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LABOR DAY IS A TIME TO MOBILIZE

Shining Light on the Rights and Plights of Workers

By Ralph Nader

For far too many Americans, Labor Day is simply another day off, another store sale and another small parade. The meaning of the holiday has been dulled by both rampant commercialism and public apathy. Where is the passion for elevating the wellbeing of American workers? Shouldn’t Labor Day be a time to gather, contemplate and celebrate more just treatment of all those who toil without proper recognition or compensation?

Labor Day is the ideal time to highlight the hard-fought, historic victories already enjoyed by American workers, and push for long-overdue health and safety measures and increased economic benefits for those left behind by casino capitalism. After all, it was the labor movement in the early 20th century that brought us such advances as the minimum wage, overtime pay, the five-day work week, the banning of child labor and more.

The reality is that big corporations have abandoned American workers by taking jobs and industries to communist and fascist regimes abroad — regimes that oppress their workers and enforce serf-level salaries and hideous working conditions. America’s working men and women have also largely been abandoned by the corporate dominated Republican and Democrat two-party duopoly, whatever their rhetorical differences may be. The federal minimum wage has been allowed to languish far behind inflation as corporate bosses’ pay skyrockets. The gap between worker salaries and CEO pay widens, even as worker productivity rises. Corporate CEO’s in America make approximately 340 times more than that of the average worker. In 1980, by comparison, CEO pay was 42 times greater.

Look to the fast food strikers around the country for inspiration. Backed by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), workers in cities across America are demanding fair pay at $15 an hour and the right to unionize. Beginning in New York City and spreading to other major cities, workers are beginning to rally and speak out against their poverty wages from hugely profitable fast food chains. Willietta Dukes, in a piece for The Guardian, writes:

Burger King says they can’t pay employees, like me, higher wages because it would force them out of business. Yet last year it made $117m[illion] in profits and its CEO took home $6.47m[illion]. It would take me 634 years to earn that much. I’ve worked in fast food for 15 years, and I can’t even afford my own rent payments. We just want fairness and to be able to provide for our families. No one who works every day should be forced to be homeless.

Where are the other advocates for American workers? Now is the time to speak out and push for long-overdue action.

Where is President Obama? Candidate Obama promised that he would press for a $9.50 federal minimum wage by 2011. Now, in 2013, he has settled for $9 by 2015. This is far less than what workers made in 1968, adjusted for inflation. If the minimum wage had kept up with inflation, it would be $10.70 today. If it kept up with worker productivity in the corporate sector, it would be $22.

When Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed the Fair Labor Standards Act into law in 1938 — which established the federal minimum wage amongst other things — it was in the face of considerable opposition and criticism from Big Business, not to mention in the midst of The Great Depression. This is the type of courageous leadership we need from the White House today.

A recent piece in the Wall Street Journal cited an analysis by Mark M. Gray, a researcher at Georgetown University, who found that President Obama “mentions the poor in his speeches less than any other president in decades” — even Ronald Reagan mentioned the poor in his speeches and public statements about twice as frequently.

What of the AFL-CIO, which represents 13 million American workers? I recently wrote a letter to its president, Richard Trumka, asking for his leadership in pushing for more attention about the plight of workers on this Labor Day. No response. The AFL-CIO has an opportunity for a major showing with rallies before the White House and Congress. Some reporters in the mainstream press have indicated they do not think the push for a higher minimum wage is serious without Mr. Trumka, President Obama, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid exerting serious efforts.

What of former President Bill Clinton? In his speech to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington, President Clinton made passing rhetorical reference to “building a modern economy of good jobs and rising incomes.” But the time for simply talking about these issues is long past. What about publicly supporting Rep. Alan Grayson’s bill in Congress (H.R. 1346) which provides for a $10.50 minimum wage to catch up with 1968, and allow $30 million workers to afford more of life’s necessities for themselves and their children? The support of Mr. Clinton might help galvanize the media and those in Congress to make this into the front burner issue it deserves to be.

And, what about the leading Democratic Presidential candidates for 2016 — Hillary Clinton and Vice President Joe Biden? Why aren’t they seriously championing this important cause that is both good for the economy and for workers and their children?

In an ideal world, the Sunday political shows the day before Labor Day would feature various prominent labor leaders and discuss key issues like the minimum wage, income equality, trade and more.

Labor Day should be a moment for the nation to shine a light upon the rights and plights of the nation’s workers and recognize the need to reform restrictive labor laws, such as the notorious Taft-Hartley Act of 1947. After all, workers are the backbone of the economy.

(See here for facts and information on our efforts to raise the minimum wage to catch up with 1968, inflation adjusted, and find out how to get involved.)

Ralph Nader is a consumer advocate, lawyer and author of Only the Super-Rich Can Save Us! He is a contributor to Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion, published by AK Press. Hopeless is also available in a Kindle edition.

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THANK YOU, GEORGE PULLMAN

Labor Day & ‘Bloody Chicago’

by Clancy Sigal

I was born on Labor Day in Chicago, the Paris of the American labor movement, the cool place to be if phrases like “class war” didn’t bug you. My home town should have been called “bloody Chicago” for its violent history of riots, massacres and pitched battles between workmen and National Guard scabs. The city’s secular shrines include Haymarket Square, the site of an 1886 workers’ protest meeting where a bomb was thrown at the police and four anarchists wrongly hanged for the crime (and where a statue to the dead cops was blown up so often it’s now housed inside police hq.)… the field in south Chicago where police shot down ten strikers at the 1937 Republic Steel massacre (my mother nursed some of the wounded)… the convention hall at Clark and Erie Streets where in 1905 “Big Bill” Haywood founded the anarchist IWW- International Workers of the World, Joe Hill’s “One Big Union”. Indeed, Chicago’s elegant, lake-facing Sheridan Road, today lined with luxury condos, originally was paved to rush Federal troops to break an 1894 railway workers strike.

That Chicago-based Pullman railroad cars workers’ strike is the reason we enjoy Labor Day’s jamboree of barbecues and shopping sprees. In 1894 company boss George Pullman slashed the pay of 4000 of his lowest-paid workers who lived in his “model village” (company town) on Chicago’s outskirts. The men struck spontaneously “wildcat”.

America’s labor saint, Eugene Victor Debs, co-founder of the new American Railway Union (ARU), called for a boycott which mushroomed into a national stoppage of all the railroads west of Detroit. Vicious guerrilla war between workers and their families against local and federal militias erupted all along the railway tracks.

Class war! Rebellion! Anarchy!

The Democratic president, Grover Cleveland, sent in federal troops and marshals who shot and bayoneted the strikers and their friends. There had been plenty of violent boss/worker confrontations in America before. But for some reason, this particular incident touched public opinion. President Cleveland, fearing a voter backlash, to conciliate organized labor, in a panic designated Labor Day as a federal holiday.

Thank you George Pullman.

(Clancy Sigal is a screenwriter and novelist. His latest book is Hemingway Lives.)

IT COULD HAPPEN HERE! The Albany County (New York) sheriff says a 50-year-old man is dead after being nearly decapitated by a wire he had strung on his property to protect a marijuana crop from intruders. Sheriff Craig Apple said the man was driving an all-terrain vehicle in his backyard Saturday afternoon when he ran into the nearly invisible wire. Apple said there also were other fortifications including barbed wire and a leg-hold trap. The sheriff said alcohol is believed to have been a factor in the accident. The man’s name hasn’t been released.

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A DISEMBODIED hand apparently connected to the Mendocino County Superior Court has written a press release saying that a disembodied voice  “announced last week the election of new Presiding Judge David E. Nelson, who will take office Jan. 1. He was elected by his judicial colleagues to serve in the role. Judge John A. Behnke will serve as the new assistant presiding judge. Both judges will serve two-year terms. Judge Nelson will replace Judge Richard J. Henderson as presiding judge.”

“Judge Henderson has provided strong and steady leadership for our court during difficult financial times,” Nelson said. “We are grateful to him.” We are? You may be, Judge, but the rest of us could care less. Judge Nelson will lead the court’s nine (count ‘em) judicial officers in the supervision of the Superior Court’s activities within the two-branch court with its 59 employees, the largest judicial presence in the state in proportion to Mendocino County’s sparse population. Presiding Judge-elect David Nelson was appointed to the Superior Court bench in 2003 and has been elected twice since then. Judge Nelson spent three years as a deputy public defender in Contra Costa County. He moved to Mendocino County in 1974 and opened his own practice in Ukiah in 1975. Nelson is a past president of the Mendocino County Bar Association, a collection of annual binge drinkers, and the Mendocino County Criminal Defense Bar Association. Judge Nelson has presided over criminal cases and is currently assigned to hear juvenile matters and serves on the court’s executive committee. He is married to Judith Fuente and they have two grown children. Judge Behnke was appointed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2005 and elected to an additional term in 2008. Judge Behnke is a 1971 graduate of Lawrence University and a 1977 graduate of the McGeorge School of Law. Judge Behnke served as a US Peace Corps volunteer in Afghanistan from 1971 to 1973. He served as a deputy district attorney in Mendocino County throughout 1978 and 1979 before entering a local private practice. The last 21 years of his private practice were with the civil firm of Carter, Behnke, Oglesby and Bacik. Judge Behnke and his wife Marie have three grown children.”

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THE SENATE RESOLUTION authorizing President Barack Obama to use military force against Syria would bar American ground troops for combat operations and set a deadline for any action. The Associated Press obtained a copy of the draft resolution that the Foreign Relations Committee will vote on Wednesday. The measure would set a time limit of 60 days and says the president could extend that for 30 days more unless Congress has a vote of disapproval. Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey, chairman of the committee, and Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee, the top Republican, agreed on the measure late Tuesday. (Courtesy, AP)

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ON-LINE STATEMENT of the day: “Ain’t it strange that the only time we can forge a consensus in Congress is when the position is diametrically opposed to what most Americans, and the rest of the world want. These bozos in Washington are mindless and spineless. Run, don’t walk away from Syria, and for that matter, all of the middle east.”

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ANOTHER ON-LINE COMMENT of the correct-thinking type:

“There is no scenario in which attacking Syria with missiles or bombers improves its situation.”

Several commenters suggest this is madness: I agree.

I hope the missile-strike does not go forward.

But, if it does, I foresee it doing further damage to our Nation’s reputation throughout the world, and speeding the end of the political careers of all who support it.

This is the textbook definition of “hubris” — extreme pride or arrogance.

“Hubris often indicates a loss of contact with reality and an overestimation of one’s own competence, accomplishments or capabilities, especially when the person exhibiting it is in a position of power.”

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THE REDDING RECORD SEARCHLIGHT reports that today’s Siskiyou county supervisor meeting in Yreka was packed full of those in support of separating themselves from the rest of the state. Also in attendance was a staff member serving congressman Doug LaMalfa — who represents that district — who spoke in favor of secession. In the end, the board voted 4-1 in favor of pursuing such an idea.

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GARBERVILLE: GOING TO HELL?

by Daniel Mintz

The effects of Garberville’s transient population are said to have reached a critical point and merchants have appealed to the Board of Supervisors for help in dealing with a variety of social problems related to homelessness.

But short of infusing the Sheriff’s Office with money for deputies, supervisors had no immediate ideas for responding to the complaints and a Sheriff’s Office official said resources are too limited for foot patrols.

Garberville business owners described incidents of harassment, health and safety threats and confrontational behavior during the public comment session of the August 27 supervisors meeting.

Blake Lehman, owner of Lehman Real Estate Appraising on Redwood Drive, told supervisors that “I’m sick of watching my community turn into a cesspool — the transient population in Garberville and Redway is completely out of hand.”

An under-staffed Sheriff’s Office is struggling with the situation, Lehman continued, and he said residents and visitors are dealing with ongoing serious impacts.

“We’ve got human feces, dog feces, garbage on our public lands and in our water sources,” he said, adding that community fire departments are impacted by transient-related 911 calls and fires in transient camps and Jerold Phelps Community Hospital provides unpaid medical care to transients.

“It’s physically and mentally exhausting — we’re losing our tourists and they’re not coming back,” Lehman continued. He said open use of drugs and alcohol, “vomit and other bodily fluids in public places” and the recent parvo canine virus epidemic are health and safety threats caused by transients.

“Our town’s filthy because of this population,” he said.

Lehman gave supervisors photographs documenting the problems he described. He asked that the county boost its funding of the Sheriff’s Office and direct it to “legally and effectively” remove transient camps.

His portrayal of the situation was backed up by Charlotte Silverstein, owner of The Garden of Beadin’ and Community Credit Union of Southern Humboldt President Shon Wellborn and vice president Sharon Toborg.

They gave accounts of repelled tourists, confrontational loiterers and an atmosphere of social decline.

Supervisor Estelle Fennell said the situation is “really, really troubling — I can attest to that.” She asked Sheriff’s Office Operations Lieutenant George Cavinta to talk about it and he said policing resources are limited but there have been enforcement actions at some camps.

Cavinta said the same issues are being dealt with in Willow Creek and other areas. “It doesn’t have to be said that we have a harvest moon coming real soon and things get a lot worse in the next couple of months and we’re ready to step to that the best we can,” he told supervisors, referring to imminent marijuana harvests and the trimming work that attracts homeless travelers.

When Fennell asked about assigning foot patrols to Garberville, Cavinta said “resources are limited and our officers are responding call to call.”

The Garberville Sheriff’s Substation is staffed by Sergeant Ken Swithenbank and Cavinta said that “all too often, now, he’s running out to Shelter Cove and up to Alderpoint and other areas to respond to calls for service.”

Foot patrol capacity is “very limited,” Cavinta continued, as deputies are needed for call responses to the outlying areas.

Supervisor Rex Bohn said struggling with the impacts and behavior of homeless people seems to be a widespread trend. He read from news reports on how mentally-ill and drug-addicted homeless people are increasingly causing problems in Redding, Ukiah and Grants Pass, Oregon.

“The problem is so deep-rooted, with drug abuse and the mental health issues … we have so many services out there that deal with it but it doesn’t seem like we’re getting anywhere with it,” said Bohn.

Fennell said what’s happening in Garberville is indeed a health and safety issue and she pledged that supervisors will “do whatever we can to make something work here.”

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‘CLEAN’ VERSION OF THE DELTA PLAN ISN’T FOOLING ANYBODY

by Dan Bacher

The Delta Stewardship Council Wednesday released what it described as a “clean” version of the Final Delta Plan, a controversial document now being contested in seven lawsuits by diverse parties ranging from the Winnemem Wintu Tribe to the Westlands Water District.

“A clean version of the Final Delta Plan, including an Executive Summary, easy to read text, informative graphics, and decorative photographs, is available for review and downloading by clicking http://deltacouncil.ca.gov/delta-plan-0,” the Council proclaimed.

So does that mean that the previous version of the plan was “dirty,” as in obscene, corrupt, poorly written, ill-conceived and driven by dirty corporate money?

Apparently, the “clean” the Council is referring to is the “cleaning up” of the documents that previously featured a lot of crossed out and added on language.

Bill Jennings, Executive Director of the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance and a board member of both the California Water Impact Network (C-WIN) and Restore the Delta, wasn’t impressed by the “clean” documents.

“The Council can put all of the lipstick they can on the pig, but it is still a pig, a plan that perpetuates the status quo,” Jennings quipped. “The plan will not reach either of the coequal goals of restoring the Delta or providing water supply reliability.”

The same Delta Stewardship Council website lists a number of “stakeholders” gushing about the “wonderful” Delta Plan. However a quick review of the web page proclaiming “What they’re saying about the Delta Plan” displays comments only from pro-peripheral tunnel politicians, water contractors and NGOs.

Natural Resources Secretary John Laird, Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinbeg, Ellen Hanak, Sr. Fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California, Tim Quinn, the Executive Director of the Association of California Water Agency, Dave Zelzulak of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife and others opine about the “glories” of the terminally flawed Delta Plan. (http://deltacouncil.ca.gov/sites/default/files/documents/files/What%20They%27re%20Saying%20About%20the%20Delta%20Plan.pdf)

Steinberg, who was responsible for pushing through the Legislature the water policy/water bond creating a clear path to the construction of the peripheral tunnels, claims, “The Delta Plan moves the state into the 21st Century of sustainable water management.”

Actually, the Delta Plan relies on outdated 19th Century “solutions” led by the peripheral tunnel plan to export northern California water to corporate agribusiness and oil companies looking to expand fracking in California.

Jennings added, “Relying on these politicians and water contractors to drum up support for the Delta Plan is like Richard Nixon’s cabinet members advising him to not worry about the Watergate hulabaloo – it will be all right.”

“It is also akin to King George’s advisers telling him not to worry about that little revolt in the colonies,” Jennings noted.

The seven separate lawsuits challenging the Delta Plan include one by Westlands Water District; another one by the California Water Impact Network (C-WIN), California Sportfishing Protection Alliance, AquAlliance, Restore the Delta, Friends of the River and Center for Biological Diversity; and yet another one by the North Coast Rivers Alliance, Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations, San Francisco Crab Boat Owners Associations and Winnemem Wintu (McCloud River) Tribe. (http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/06/27/1219548/-Avalanche-Of-Lawsuits-Challenges-Delta-Plan)

The City of Stockton; Save the Delta Alliance; Central Delta Water Agency, South Delta Water Agency, Local Agencies of the North Delta and Lafayette Ranch Inc.; and the State Water Contactors are also suing the Council over the plan.

“The Delta Plan violates CEQA in ten different ways,” explained Mike Jackson, attorney for C-WIN, Restore the Delta, California Sportfishing Protection Alliance, and AquAlliance. “It fails to achieve the co-equal goals of Delta ecosystem restoration and water supply reliability established by the Act.”

Jackson said the plan ignored three critical documents they were obligated to use: a State Water Resources Control Board water flow recommendation; a Department of Fish and Wildlife report on biological objectives for Delta fish and wildlife species; and the Delta Protection Commission’s economic sustainability report. “In all three cases, the documents were inconvenient to the approval of the tunnels,” he noted.

Yet in spite of the seven lawsuits and widespread opposition to the poorly conceived and written Delta Plan, Phil Isenberg, Chair of the Delta Stewardship Council, and other members of the Council continue to forge ahed with the plan’s implementation.

Isenberg is no stranger to overseeing badly flawed “environmental” processes that violate numerous state and federal laws.

He chaired Arnold Schwarzenegger’s corrupt Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Blue Ribbon Task Force for the Central Coast. This privately funded process created so-called “marine protected areas” that fail to protect the ocean from fracking, oil spills and offshore drilling, pollution, wind and wave energy projects, military testing and all human impacts other than fishing and gathering.

His colleague on that task force, Catherine Reheis-Boyd, ended up chairing the Initiative’s task force for Southern California. Reheis-Boyd is a curious type of “marine guardian,” since she serves as President of the Western States Petroleum Association and is leading the effort to expand fracking in California, build the Keystone XL Pipeline and to eviscerate environmental laws.

Isenberg also chaired Schwarzenegger’s equally flawed Delta Vision process that recommended the construction of a peripheral canal or tunnels.

Nobody sums up the threat that the peripheral canal or tunnels present to the state better than Caleen Sisk, Chief of the Winnemem Wintu Tribe.

“The common people will pay for the canal, and a few people will make millions,” said Sisk. “It will turn a once pristine water way into a sewer pipe. It will be all bad for the fish, the ocean and the people of California.” (http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/article/delta-tunnel-costs-are-2.5-times-the-benefits:-study-125611)

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WATER SAVING SECRETS — SEPT 21ST 9AM-11:30AM

You’re invited to join a walking tour of water saving secrets, sponsored by the UCCE Mendocino County Inland Master Gardeners. Ukiah neighbors will share their tips and techniques for having a beautiful yard with a lower water bill. View and learn about legal grey water systems, drip irrigation, mulching, and water thrifty plants. You can grow herbs, fruit trees, flowers, and vegetables using less water. Meet Saturday, September 21, 9 am at the Ukiah United Methodist Church parking lot, on Bush and Standley. The tour will last until 11:30, covers about 1.5 miles, and will also end at the Method­ist Church. This event is co-sponsored by the City of Ukiah Water Utility. Contact Louisa 707-485-1290 for more information.

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CALIFORNIA COASTAL CLEANUP DAY, an annual beach and inland watershed cleanup, is coming Saturday, September 21st.  In 2010, over 82,500 volunteers removed more than 1.2 million pounds of trash and recyclables from California’s beaches, lakes, and river systems. When combined with the International Coastal Cleanup organized by Ocean Conservancy (taking place on the same day) California Coastal Cleanup Day is part of one of the largest volunteer events in the world.

California’s coast and watersheds are collecting spots for annual accumulations of trash and debris, especially after summer vacation.  If not removed, the trash can be harmful and even fatal to plants, birds, fish, invertebrates and marine mammals.  Coastal Cleanup Day is a great way for families, students, service groups, and neighbors to join together, show community support for our shared natural resources, and learn about the impacts of marine debris and how we can prevent them.

“Our beaches, harbors, and rivers collect so much debris during the summer months.  Cleaning up after ourselves is the least we can do to make sure they remain safe, clean, and beautiful,” said Alyson Blair the coordinator for CCCD at Mendocino Land Trust, “plus it’s a chance to have some fun!”

Mendocino Land Trust has added Soda Creek, a new location for inland cleanup this year through partnerships with Navarro Resource Center and Anderson Valley Land Trust.   Volunteers can find a complete list of all 27 countywide cleanup sites at: MendocinoLandTrust.org.

If you need a place to stay during the event, Mendocino Land Trust is partnering with the Weller House Inn (an elegant Fort Bragg B&B) where you can receive a discount for volunteering the weekend of September 21st.

To book the Weller House Inn at 20% off your stay for two nights or more call 877-8-WELLER or email innkeeper@wellerhouse.com.

Without volunteer support, this event will not succeed.  Please mark September 21^st on your calendar as your day to celebrate Mendocino County watersheds and keep our one-of-a-kind paradise beautiful!  For questions regarding Coastal Cleanup Day in Mendocino County, please contact Mendocino Land Trust at admin@mendocinolandtrust.org or 707-962-0470.

Coate

KZYX’S SELDOM SEEN station manager, John Coate, is in Australia to attend a radio conference, and news blurb guy Paul Lambert is on vacation. Lambert’s interim replacement is a fellow called Michael Kisslinger of Ukiah. Kisslinger has no radio experience but Coate has previously paid Kisslinger to attend station board meetings to fend off the one person, Shiela Dawn, who asks Coate questions he’d rather not answer. Coate’s probably paying him to the read press releases in lieu of a real news show in Lambert’s absence.

Aigner

IF THE AVA were the only people saying it, we’d have to re-think our opinion.

But we, like many County residents, would like to see an end to Coate and station hatchet lady Mary Aigner.

The two of them don’t have one People Skill between them.

Both are gratuitously nasty to even their mildest critics.

.

.

Kisslinger

WE UNDERSTAND that pleasant, capable people are rare anymore, but a tiny outback radio station should be able to manage at least one in an up-front position.

We’d also like to have real news programming, which ended when Coate, in a thuggish firing of Christina Aanestad, ended with Aanestad.

As it is, mention KZYX most places and all you get is despairing groans. (By the way, is Public Radio Mendo paying for Coate’s trip to Australia?)

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LOW INCOME people have been evicted from the Eastridge Building (aka “Abalone Arms”) on the west side of Main Street, Point Arena. The sagging structure has been red tagged, but a red tag in Mendocino County seldom results in actual evictions. If a red tag meant evictions, several hundred more Mendolanders would be homeless. The folks in Abalone Arms were warned ahead of time but the building inspectors showed up a couple days early and several residents, suddenly without a roof over their heads, were shocked, one into real trauma who had to be driven to the hospital in Ukiah by the Point Arena City Clerk.

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FIRST WE STEAL THEIR MINDS, THEN THEIR DRINKING WATER

Press release from the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office:

On September 3, 2013, approximately 12:20pm, the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office received a call from the superintendent of Bridgeville Elementary School reporting a water theft. The superintendent reported that about 5am on Tuesday, September 3, 2013, a maintenance worker went to the school and noticed there was no running water. When the maintenance worker checked the onsite 20,000 gallon water tank which stores water for the school, the worker discovered there was no water in the tank, it was completely drained. The school had to be closed due to no running water. Further investigation into the incident revealed tire tracks in the field on the south side of the school. School staff believes someone climbed the fence surrounding the enclosed school grounds and took a garden hose from the school which they used to drain the water tank. It is believed the suspect(s) had a water truck or large truck and trailer with water tanks which allowed them to steal the water from the school’s water tank. Anyone with information for the Sheriff’s Office regarding this case or related criminal activity is encouraged to call the Sheriffs Office at 707-445-7251 or the Sheriffs Office Crime Tip line at 707-268-2539.

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A COMMUNITY HARVEST DINNER AND FUNDRAISER for the Will Parrish Defense Committee, Save Our Little Lake Valley, and Little Lake Grange takes place on Saturday, Sept. 21st from 6pm to midnight at Little Lake Grange, 291 School Street in Willits. This event features a photographic display of the Little Lake wetlands before the bypass (photos by Steve Eberhard), a dinner featuring food from local farms, inspirational words (featuring Amanda “Warbler” Senseman” and Will Parrish), music and dancing (Dirt Floor Band, The Raging Grannies, and Blue Sky Pie). Dinner & Music tickets: $25. 
Discount tickets: $15 (if you bring a dish or just come for music &
dancing). 
Children under 12: $10.

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TOM STIENSTRA WEED ARREST: SF CHRONICLE COLUMNIST SUES BLOG OVER THREE-YEAR-OLD REPORT

Steinstra

The Trout Underground is a really good blog out of Siskiyou County. Tom Stienstra is an outdoor columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle who was arrested in Siskiyou County three and a half years ago, after cops found 60 plants and 11 pounds of processed weed at his home, which was in the town of Weed. The Siskiyou County District Attorney declined to bring charges in the case. Stienstra filed a small claims lawsuit against The Trout Underground a few weeks ago, the Underground reports. Why? According to the Underground, Tom Stienstra is alleging that the Underground’s report of his arrest defames his character. Why does Stienstra bring this suit three and a half years after the fact? Why does he sue the Trout Underground when major newspapers, including the one Tom Stienstra writes for, covered substantially the same facts (though in a less lively manner)? Underground publisher Tom Chandler has a theory: “The real difference between the Underground’s article and the mainstream media versions mentioned above — which enjoyed much wider circulation than the Underground’s — is that mine appears on the first page of Google results for ‘Tom Stienstra.’ The next mention of Stienstra’s arrest doesn’t appear until the bottom of page 3.”

— Hank Sims (Courtesy, LostCoastOutpost.com)

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“WHEN IT COMES TO THE WAR IN IRAQ, the time for promises and assurances, for waiting and patience is over. Too many lives have been lost and too many billions have been spent for us to trust the President on another tried-and-failed policy, opposed by generals and experts, opposed by Democrats and Republicans, opposed by Americans and even the Iraqis themselves. It is time to change our policy. It is time to give Iraqis their country back, and it is time to refocus America’s effort on the wider struggle against terror yet to be won.” — Barack Obama, Jan. 19, 2007

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BOARD OF SUPERVISORS CALL FOR AMENDMENT TO US CONSTITUTION — The Mendocino County Board of Supervisors unanimously passed a resolution calling for an amendment to the US Constitution at its August 27 meeting in Ukiah. Their resolution called for an amendment that said only human beings are endowed with Constitutional rights and that donations to political campaigns are not free speech and can be regulated. The Supervisors’ action was called for by citizens’ Measure F that county voters passed by a 74.71% to 25.29%. Measure F was put on the ballot by citizen initiative and signatures to put Measure F on the ballot were gathered by volunteers of the Move To Amend Coalition of Mendocino County. Mendocino County was the first county in California to pass a call for a Constitutional amendment that was put on the ballot by citizens. The Board of Supervisors also voted to support Move To Amend’s Amendment, Joint House Resolution HR 29 (The We The People Amendment), that was introduced in to the House of Representative on February 14, 2013 by Representative Rick Nolan of Minnesota. Contacts: Margaret Koster (mkoster@pacific.net), 459-5970 Carrie Durkee (cdurkee@mcn.org), 937-2554

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Roberts

ON AUGUST 25, 2013, at approximately 3am Mendocino County Sheriff’s Deputies were dispatched to an assault victim who was at the Ukiah Valley Medical Center. The victim reported her ex-boyfriend, Joshua Roberts, 26, of Ukiah, held her captive in a tent during the evening hours of August 24. The tent had been located in a vacant field near the 300 block of Ford Road. During the incident Roberts bit, punched and slapped the victim several times over a four hour period. During the same time Roberts sexually assaulted the victim. The victim was able to leave the tent briefly, however Roberts chased her down on foot and dragged her back to the tent by her hair. The victim was later able to escape after Roberts fell asleep. The victim sustained numerous bite marks, lacerations, abrasions and bruises during the physical assault. Deputies responded to the tent where Roberts was found asleep. Roberts was arrested and physically resisted Deputies several times prior to being booked into the Mendocino County Jail on the charges of torture, battery with serious bodily injury, sexual assault, false imprisonment, criminal threats, domestic assault, and resisting arrest. Bail was set at $50,000.

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Scroggins

ANOTHER SIGN OF THE END TIMES — On August 30, 2013 at approximately 2:45pm, deputies from the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office initiated a traffic stop on a silver Chevrolet Tahoe on Highway 162 near the Redwood Oil Station in Covelo. The vehicle had license plate tabs which expired in 2010. As the Deputy contacted the female driver, Melody Scroggins, 36, of Covelo, he noticed she exhibited symptoms of stimulant influence, leading the deputy to investigate further. Scroggins admitted to recently using methamphetamine. Scroggins’ seven year-old daughter was also in the vehicle at the time. A plastic container in her purse held four small baggies of suspected methamphetamine. Elsewhere in her vehicle a pipe used to smoke methamphetamine and a straw used to snort methamphetamine were located. Because the drugs were readily accessible to her child inside her car, Scroggins was also arrested for child endangerment. Scroggins was lodged into the Mendocino County Jail with bail set at $10,000. The child’s father responded to the scene and took custody of his daughter.

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Wilson, Lynch

ON SEPTEMBER 2, 2013 at approximately 9am, Deputies from the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office contacted a couple parked in a dirt turnout in the 500 block of Muir Mill Road in Willits. Both the female, 29 year-old Falon D. Lynch of Willits and the male, 41 year-old Sean M. Wilson, also of Willits, exhibited visible symptoms of stimulant influence. During the contact the Deputies noticed that Sean Wilson was making an effort to keep the right side of his body concealed from view. A pat search of Wilson revealed a methamphetamine pipe. Wilson was arrested for possession of drug paraphernalia. A search of his person incident to arrest discovered nine hypodermic syringes and approximately 1.2 grams of suspected methamphetamine. Wilson and Lynch were evaluated and found to be under the influence of methamphetamine. Lynch was on Mendocino County Probation for drug related crimes. She was arrested for being under the influence of a controlled substance and violation of probation. Based on the evidence at the scene and suspect statements, Wilson was arrested for possession of a controlled substance for sale, being under the influence of a controlled substance and possession of drug paraphernalia. Both suspects were transported to the Mendocino County Jail, with Lynch’s bail set at $7500 and Wilson’s bail set at $25,000.

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LADIES! PLEASE! On September 2, 2013 at about 10pm Deputies from the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office were detailed to a residence off of Barnes Lane Covelo regarding an assault with a vehicle. Deputies learned Bridgette Frank, 23, of Covelo, had been driving through the neighbor’s yard at a high rate of speed intimidating a female at the location and endangering her children who had been playing in the yard. Deputies responded and upon arrival found the front porch of the residence had been struck by a vehicle. Further investigation revealed the victim had been standing on the porch involved in a verbal altercation with Frank, when Frank suddenly rammed the porch with her vehicle. The force of the vehicle collision caused extensive damage and the victim received injuries from the collision. The victim was flown to a trauma center for treatment. Frank had fled the area prior to deputies arrival. On September 3, 2013 Deputies were able to locate Frank and placed her under arrest for assault with a deadly weapon, felony vandalism and driving on a suspended license. Frank is held on $45,000 bail.

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Hamilton

LADIES! PLEASE! II! — On August 30, 2013, at approximately 10:40pm, Deputies from the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office responded to the Creekside Cabins, 29801 N. Hwy 101 in Willits to investigate a reported assault. Veronica Hamilton, 36, of Willits, told Deputies that she had argued with a neighboring couple. As she focused on the argument with the couple, another female she described as blonde and heavy-set, punched her from the side. Deputies were unable to locate the female suspect at that time. Approximately two hours later Deputies were again dispatched to the Creekside Cabins. It had been reported that a woman had been stabbed in the chest by Veronica Hamilton. As the Deputies pulled into the trailer park, they heard shattering glass and found Veronica Hamilton hiding in her trailer as multiple individuals shattered every window on her trailer. Hamilton was secured in a patrol car and the female stabbing victim was contacted in a nearby cabin. Jennifer Divine, 25, told Deputies she fought with Hamilton and was then stabbed in the chest by her. There was a four inch long, one inch deep wound to her left chest area. Two neighbors who attempted to break up the fight were also injured by Hamilton’s knife. A 30-year-old female had a small cut to her left bicep area. A 21 year-old man suffered a significant laceration to his right forearm. He and Jennifer Divine were transported to Howard Hospital for treatment. None of the injuries sustained in this incident were considered to be life threatening. Hamilton was arrested and lodged into the Mendocino County Jail for assault with a deadly weapon. Additional charges are under review for other involved parties in this incident for misdemeanor battery and vandalism. Veronica Hamilton’s bail is set at $30,000.

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ON SEPTEMBER 2, 2013, at approximately 1:45pm, Deputies received a call for service regarding suspicious circumstances at mile post marker 83.30 on North Highway 1 in Westport. Upon arrival Deputies contacted a California Highway Patrol Officer and the female who initially reported the observed incident and summoned law enforcement. Deputies learned that at about 1330 hours, the female discovered that the engine was running in an unoccupied white 1999 Cadillac Deville in the pullout along the highway at the above location. The female observed the same vehicle parked at the same location at about 1000 hours. The female attempted to locate the person associated with the vehicle without success. With the assistance of the California Highway Patrol, Deputies searched the area and were unable to locate anyone associated with the vehicle. Deputies attempted to make contact with Patrick Guzman, the registered owner of the vehicle, at his place of residence in Fort Bragg without success. On September 23, 2013, Deputies were still unable to locate Guzman or make contact with any of his family members. Based on the circumstances, Deputies generated a documentation report for a missing person. Guzman’s whereabouts are presently unknown and the circumstances surrounding his vehicle are unknown. Anyone with information that could assist Deputies with this investigation is asked to call the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office at (707) 961-2421.

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WHITE HOUSE DOCUMENT ‘PROVING’ SYRIA¹S GUILT DOESN¹T PASS SMELL TEST

Obama’s & Kerry’s Big Lie

By Dave Lindorff

The document released on the White House web site to “prove” to the American people that the Syrian government had used poison gas — allegedly the neurotoxin Sarin — to kill hundreds of civilians, is so flawed and lacking in real proof that if it were being used to make a case against a terrorist group it would be too weak to justify an indictment.

For starters, there is no documentary proof offered. Only assertions about evidence which is never actually shown. No maps. No satellite or aerial spy-plane or drone surveillance photos. No identified witnesses with verifiable expertise. All there is in this document is a narrative with assertions like: “The United States Government assesses with high confidence that the Syrian government carried out a chemical weapons attack in the Damascus suburbs on August 21, 2013.”

There are coy explanations for the lack of any hard evidence, like: “To protect sources and methods, we cannot publicly release all available intelligence – but what follows is an unclassified summary of the U.S. Intelligence Community’s analysis.”

Remember, we’re talking about a debate over whether to have the US launch a war of aggression against a sovereign nation that poses absolutely no risk either to the US or even to its allies directly abutting Syria. The reality is that this is about launching a war against a country wracked by civil war, not a country that is threatening its neighbors, or US interests and citizens. And make no mistake, a major US bombing campaign against Syria will not be clean and precise. Hundreds, and perhaps thousands, of innocent Syrian men, women and children will be killed, whether by errant bombs and rockets, or by accurate ones that hit targets located near residences.

The first section of the report is devoted to trying to make the case that poison gas, and specifically Sarin, was used in a suburb of Damascus. No actual evidence is presented, though certainly there is evidence available — specifically the reports of physicians working in Syria with Doctors Without Borders. Why those doctors are not identified is never explained, but perhaps it is because to do so would make the lack of identifiable sources for the rest of the argument all the more blatant. In any event, it is probable that Sarin was used and that a considerable number of people were killed or injured by the chemical, but that is no casus belli, since it is not at all clear who is responsible for the release of the deadly chemical–the Syrian government, the rebels, or, as retired Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Bush Secretary of State Colin Powell has suggested, Israel.

Moving along, the White House document becomes even more opaque and useless.

In the “proof of use” section of the precis, the White House writes: “A large body of independent sources indicates that a chemical weapons attack took place in the Damascus suburbs on August 21.”

Not one of those independent sources is identified. Yet on the basis of this vague assertion, the document goes on to say: “We assess with high confidence that the Syrian government carried out the chemical weapons attack against opposition elements in the Damascus suburbs on August 21. We assess that the scenario in which the opposition executed the attack on August 21 is highly unlikely.” Lest anyone think that this falls a good deal short of “proof” or “certainty” or, to use a phrase from the Bush-era campaign for an invasion of Iraq over non-existent Weapons of Mass Destruction, a “slam dunk,” the White House goes on to say: “ Our high confidence assessment is the strongest position that the U.S. Intelligence Community can take short of confirmation.”

Actually, what they are saying here is that they do not have confirmation. The rest of the section is just obfuscatory verbiage.

The next section, headed “Background,” makes the entirely circumstantial argument that the Syrian government, and specifically President Bashar al-Assad, was responsible for a Sarin attack in Damascus on Aug. 21 because a) Syria has stockpiles of gas weapons, b) it has used small amounts of poison gas against rebel fighters (no examples given), c) it uses gas when it is caught in a battle stalemate (no examples given), and d) the opposition rebels have never used Sarin (this last point is a deliberate falsehood, since the administration certainly is aware that Carla del Ponte, chief investigator with the UN Human Rights Commission, has reported publicly that Syrian rebels used Sarin gas against civilians last March).

Again, all the arguments are fact and evidence-free, and the inclusion of a falsehood should make any reader particularly skeptical. Besides, there is an excellent, well sourced report from a US publication, Mint Press News in Minnesota, that suggests it was rebel forces which were responsible for the Aug. 21 poison gas, which may have been unintentionally detonated by fighters who didn’t know how to handle toxic weapons allegedly provided by Saudi Arabian intelligence sources.

Under the section titled “Preparation,” the document says” “We have intelligence that leads us to assess” that the Syrian military was preparing to use Sarin gas.” This 
so-called intelligence includes: “streams of human, signals and geospatial intelligence” allegedly indicating that military personnel were active in an area said by the administration (again on the basis of no evidence offered) to be where Sarin stocks were stored, and that they were wearing gas masks. Not a single photo, reported “signal,” or identified source was given to substantiate these evidentiary claims.

Finally, under the heading “The Attack,” the administration writes that: “Multiple streams of intelligence indicate that the regime executed a rocket and artillery attack against the Damascus suburbs in the early hours of August 21.” That fact in and of itself would mean nothing as Syrian forces have been using tactical rocket fire and artillery against rebel forces for two years running. But then the White House writes, ominously, that these rocket and artillery attacks included “rocket launches from regime controlled territory early in the morning, approximately 90 minutes before the first report of a chemical attack appeared in social media.”

Let’s think about that a moment. 90 minutes is a long time. We’re talking about rockets that land within seconds of launch, and explode on impact. In an age of cell phones and other “social media,” why would it take 90 minutes from that particular rocket launching event for a “first report” of a chemical attack? Is that remotely credible? Why didn’t the administration at least address that peculiar time lapse?

The paper goes on to offer as evidence, some 100 videos it collected from the internet purporting to show visual evidence of the poison gas attack. It goes on to say, “We assess the Syrian opposition does not have the capability to fabricate all of the videos, physical symptoms verified by medical personnel and NGOs, and other information associated with this chemical attack.”

Reading between the lines here, we can assume with, as the White House would put it, “a high degree of confidence,” that many of those videos are in fact fabricated. Since we are not offered even one to view, the assumption might be reasonably made that none are reliable.

In fact, there is no evidence presented in this administration document to support the whole poison gas attack scenario; only assumptions and assertions by the administration based upon evidence which we are told exists but that we cannot see. We are, in other words, being expected to trust the White House. As the administration puts it: “As indicated, there is additional intelligence that remains classified because of sources and methods concerns that is being provided to Congress and international partners.”

Except that at least when it comes to those foreign “partners,” Washington is still not sharing the classified evidence. We know this because in the Aug. 29 presentation made by British Prime Minister David Cameron in his failed attempt to win parliamentary approval for the UK to join the US in a Syrian attack, there was no hard evidence provided, and certainly if any foreign country would have been privy to any hard evidence in the hands of US intelligence, it would have been Britain, and it would have been used by PM Cameron to win the support of Parliament. As well, Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that his US “partner,” in a presentation made to the Russian government, provided no evidence to support the charge that Syria had used Sarin gas.

In a statement made after the US released its intelligence report, Putin said: “I am convinced that (the chemical attack) is nothing more than a provocation by those who want to drag other countries into the Syrian conflict, and who want to win the support of powerful members of the international arena, especially the United States.” He went on to scoff at alleged US intercepts of Syrian communications, saying that such flimsy, ambiguous evidence should not be relied upon in making “fundamental decisions” about using military force against another nation.

As for Congress, after a closed session Sunda in which the White House made its case for war, members reportedly exited the room with some saying the case had not been made and that the evidence presented was sketchy. As Rep. Bennie Thompson, top Democrat on the House Homeland Security Committee put it, “”In terms of whether not a lot of questions were really answered today? I’d say no.”

Something smells here. If this is the best the White House can come up with to make a case for starting a war with a country that poses no threat to the US, at a time when a majority of Americans opposes starting yet another war in the Middle East, and when most of the world, including America’s closest allies, are backing away from support for an attack, the conclusion has to be that there is no real case against Syria.

Rather, President Obama appears to have oratorically backed himself into a corner by saying he would bomb Syria for what he insists is a war crime it has committed, and now he feels he has to attack, committing an even more serious war crime, in order to defend his “credibility” as a leader.

(Dave Lindorff is a founding member of ThisCantBeHappening!, an online newspaper collective, and is a contributor to Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion; AK Press.)

THE PRESS DEMOCRAT announced Wednesday it’s going to charge for its on-line edition. Bad idea. The PD doesn’t do anything worth paying for. The SF Chron just tried a pay-to-read scheme the Chron abandoned after a couple of weeks, and the Chron does have news worth paying for. The PD, believe it or not, was once a very good regional newspaper, providing real coverage of events north of Marin County. But when the paper was sold to the NYT and became simply a cash cow for the mother ship, with a cringing crew of incompetent editors, it was over as a Northcoast must-read. Since former congressman Bosco and an assortment of Democratic Party hacks took the paper over it’s even become worse than it was in its Times period.

“I THINK we have real value in the content of this newspaper,” said Steve Falk, CEO of Sonoma Media Investments, which owns The Press Democrat. “Simultaneously, we are following our readers to digital applications as more and more people appreciate the convenience of iPhones and iPads and tablets. But at some point we have to keep the journalism healthy financially, and the way to do that is to begin putting a value on the content.”

WELL, STEVE-O, you’ll soon find out the value of your content, not that you’re likely to be humbled by the assessment. It’s a shame, too, because like a lot of failing papers the PD has a stable of pretty good reporters who, allowed to report the Northcoast news, could do it right.

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INTERESTING STATS from a piece by Tiffany Revelle in a recent Ukiah Daily Journal: CalFire Dispatch, Mendo, takes 10,000 calls a year at its office on the Willits Grade. Three operators, one of whom is always on duty, sort out 20-40 calls a day, which they re-direct to one or more of the County’s 22 fire departments and five ambulance services.

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CONGRESSMAN SPIKE HUFFMAN’S latest thoughts on war on Syria. Spike is quoted in Thursday’s SF Chron saying that he wants “a fundamentally different approach” than Obama’s. “So far we’re basically being presented with only two choices: support immediate, unilateral action by the US without a clear sense of where it takes us and the region, or, you do nothing and be accused of acquiescing in the use of chemical weapons.”

SPIKE DID NOT SAY what his approach would be, but the AVA fully expects him to vote Yes for whatever monstrously hair-brained scheme the White House and its military masterminds come up with.

THE ONLY TWO NorCal Democrats who are unequivocally opposed to an attack on Syria are Barbara Lee and John Garamendi. Lee, some of us will recall, was the only person in the entire Congress with the courage to vote no on the infamous WMD invasion of Iraq.

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THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION is not disputing the findings of Avalere Health’s just published study that analyzed 11 states, including California, of what consumers of Obama’s mandatory health coverage can expect to pay. The scheme kicks off October 1st and, by January 1st, you are either signed up with a private insurer or you’re looking at painful fines.

AVALERE found that the average 21-year-old can expect to pay $270 a month, less possible discounts based on income.

A 40-YEAR-OLD will pay an average of $330 a month, a 60-year-old will pay an average of $615 a month.

WE THINK these prices are crazy. Most people will not be able to afford them, and we hope to see a mass opt-out movement.

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THE STATE PRISON hunger strike is over. Inmates called it off Thursday after two months. More than 30,000 inmates began refusing meals in July, but that number dwindled to only those relatively few prisoners held for years in solitary confinement.

A STATEMENT by an attorney associated with the resisting inmates read: “Our goal remains: force the powers that be to end their torture policies and practices in which serious physical and psychological harm is inflicted on tens of thousands of prisoners as well as our loved ones outside.”

ASSEMBLYMAN Tom Ammiano, D-San Francisco, and Sen. Loni Hancock, D-Berkeley, last week called for legislative hearings to address inmate complaints about conditions in maximum-security prisons.

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REGARDING KZYX boss John Coate’s trip to Australia, the station’s program manager, Mary Aigner writes that the station did not pay for the trip: “My but that rumor mill is creative. That’s a no. I’m concerned about the AVA publishing this while John is out of town for reasons of security. John was very concerned the last time he was away to give a keynote speech and someone talked about it on the air. I ask that you please wait until he returns later this month to address this. It would be most unfortunate if someone broke into his house while he was away. Thank you.”

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THE STATE’S DEPARTMENT of Toxic Substances Control have announced that the abandoned Georgia-Pacific mill site at Fort Bragg is just about all cleaned up. The old mill pond and the powerhouse area remain “areas of concern.” The rest of the sprawling 420-plus seaside acres are A-OK.

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MEN ARE SO LOGICAL. I think this calls for another beer and additional conversation. What deep thinkers men are. I mowed the lawn today, and after doing so I sat down and had a cold beer. The day was really quite beautiful, and the drink facilitated some deep thinking. My wife walked by and asked me what I was doing and I said “nothing” because saying “just thinking” would have produced, “about what?” At that point I would have to explain that men are deep thinkers about various topics which would lead to other questions. Finally I thought about an age-old question: Is giving birth more painful than getting kicked in the nuts? Women always maintain that giving birth is much more painful than a guy getting kicked in the nuts. Well, after another beer, and some heavy deductive thinking, I have come up with the answer to that question. Getting kicked in the nuts is more painful than having a baby  because a year or so after giving birth, a woman will often say, “It might be nice to have another child.” On the other hand, you never hear a guy say, “You know, I think I would like another kick in the nuts.” I rest my case. Time for another beer.

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THE OCEAN FRACKERS

Oil Lobby Pours Money Into California

by Dan Bacher

Some may consider California to be a “green” state and the “environmental leader” of the nation, but that delusion is quickly dispelled once one actually looks at who spends the most on lobbying in California – the oil industry.

The Western States Petroleum Association spent the most on lobbying in Sacramento in the first six months of 2013 of any interest group, according to quarterly documents released by the California Secretary of State.

The association spent $1,023,069.78 in the first quarter and $1,285,720.17 in the second quarter, a total of $2,308,789.95, to lobby legislators and other state officials.

Because of the enormous influence exerted by the group and the oil companies themselves in the Capitol, all but one bill to regulate or ban fracking was defeated in the Legislature this year. The only bill that has passed through Legislature’s Committees is the weak bill to “regulate” fracking sponsored by State Senator Fran Pavley.

The association’s members are a “who’s who” of big oil companies, including BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillip, ExxonMobil, Navajo Refining Company, Noble Energy Company, Occidental Oil and Gas Corporation, Shell Oil Products US, Tesoro Refining and Marketing Company, U.S. Oil & Refining Company, Venoco, Inc. and many others.

The top 20 interest groups who spent the most money in the first six months included labor unions, the California Chamber of Commerce, Chevron and health care corporations.

The latest report on spending on lobbying emerged as the Associated Press revealed that companies prospecting for oil off California’s coast have used the controversial practice of fracking (hydraulic fracturing) on at least a dozen occasions to force open cracks beneath the seabed.

Now regulators are investigating whether the environmentally destructive practice, one that threatens fish and wildlife populations in the state’s marine waters, should require a separate permit and be subject to stricter environmental review.

“Hundreds of pages of federal documents released by the government to The Associated Press and advocacy groups through the Freedom of Information Act show regulators have permitted fracking in the Pacific Ocean at least 12 times since the late 1990s, and have recently approved a new project,” wrote AP reporters Jason Dearen and Alicia Chang.

“Companies are doing the offshore fracking — which involves pumping hundreds of thousands of gallons of salt water, sand and chemicals into undersea shale and sand formations — to stimulate old existing wells into new oil production,” they said.

“Federal regulators thus far have exempted the chemical fluids used in offshore fracking from the nation’s clean water laws, allowing companies to release fracking fluid into the sea without filing a separate environmental impact report or statement looking at the possible effects. That exemption was affirmed this year by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, according to the internal emails reviewed by the AP,” Dearen and Chang stated.

Big Oil Lobbyist Oversaw Creation Of Marine Protected Areas

While federal regulators allowed oil companies to frack offshore, state officials have also left the door open for fracking and offshore oil drilling.

Inexplicably missing from the mainstream media and even most “alternative” media reports on this issue is any mention of one of the biggest environmental scandals of the past decade – the alarming fact that Catherine Reheis-Boyd, the President of the Western States Petroleum Association, CHAIRED the Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Blue Ribbon Task Force that created the alleged “marine protected areas” that went into effect in Southern California waters in January 2012. She also served on the task forces to create “marine protected areas” on the Central Coast, North Central Coast and North Coast.

Grassroots environmentalists, Tribal leaders, fishermen and advocates of democracy and transparency in government blasted the leadership role of the oil industry lobbyist in creating these “marine protected areas,” but state officials and representatives of corporate “environmental” NGOs embraced her as a “marine guardian.” MLPA Initiative advocates refused to acknowledge the overt conflict of interest that a big oil lobbyist, who supports fracking and offshore oil drilling, had in a process allegedly designed to “protect” the ocean.

You see, the “marine protected areas” created under Reheis-Boyd’s leadership weren’t true “marine protected areas” as the language of the landmark Marine Life Protection Act of 1999 called for. Reheis-Boyd, a marina corporation executive, a coastal real estate developer and other corporate operatives on MLPA Initiative task forces oversaw the creation of “marine protected areas” that effectively allow fracking and offshore oil drilling to continue and expand.

These “marine protected areas” fail to protect the ocean from fracking, oil drilling and spills, pollution, wind and wave energy projects, corporate aquaculture, military testing and all human impacts other than fishing and gathering.

As I have pointed out in article after article, Reheis-Boyd apparently used her role as a state marine “protection” official to increase her network of influence in California politics to the point where the Western States Petroleum Association has become the most powerful corporate lobby in California. The association now has enormous influence over both state and federal regulators – and MLPA Initiative advocates helped facilitate her rise to power.

Fracking Sacrifice Zones In California.

Oil and gas companies spend more than $100 million a year to buy access to lawmakers in Washington and Sacramento, according to Stop Fooling California, an online and social media public education and awareness campaign that highlights oil companies’ efforts to mislead and confuse Californians. The Western States Petroleum Association (WSPA) alone has spent more than $16 million lobbying in Sacramento since 2009.

Peripheral Tunnels Will Provide Water For Fracking

Not only do the association and oil companies buy access to lawmakers, but they exert enormous control over Governor Jerry Brown, who is currently fast-tracking the Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP) to build the peripheral tunnels. The water destined for the tunnels will go to corporate agribusiness and oil companies seeking to expand fracking operations.

Nobody knows exactly how much water is used specifically for fracking in California now, since reporting by the oil companies is voluntary. One thing is for certain – oil companies use big quantities of water in their current oil drilling operations in Kern County. Much of this water this comes through the State Water Project’s California Aqueduct and the Central Valley Water Project’s Delta-Mendota Canal, the canals that will export the water diverted through the tunnels.

“In the time since steamflooding was pioneered here in the fields of Kern County in the 1960s, oil companies statewide have pumped roughly 2.8 trillion gallons of fresh water—or, in the parlance of agriculture, nearly 9 million acre-feet—underground in pursuit of the region’s tarry oil,” according to Jeremy Miller’s 2011 investigative piece, “The Colonization of Kern County,” in Orion Magazine. “Essentially, enough water has been injected into the oil fields here over the last forty years to create a lake one foot deep covering more than thirteen thousand square miles—nearly twice the surface area of Lake Ontario.”

Governor Brown has pursued an increasingly cozy relationship with oil companies, leading many to believe that he is going to promote the practice of fracking, in addition to pushing for the construction of the tunnels that will provide more water for fracking.

“A state senator has told me that Brown has cut a deal with the oil companies – he’ll push fracking in exchange for campaign contributions to his 2012 Proposition 30 and his 2014 reelected,” said RL Miller in her recent article on Daily Kos.

She cited as evidence for a deal the $27,200.00 that Occidental Petroleum Corporation contributed to Brown’s 2014 campaign. That’s the maximum allowable under California law.

Miller also noted the roughly $1 million that oil companies – members of the Western States Petroleum Association – contributed to Brown’s Proposition 30 campaign. These contributions include the following:

Aera Energy (Exxon-related), $125,000

Berry Petroleum, Denver, $35,000

Breitburn Operating, Houston, $21,250

CA State Pipe Trades Council (usually the pipeline union supports Big Oil), $100,000

Conoco Phillips, $25,000

E & B Natural Resources Management, Bakersfield, $20,000

MacPherson Oil Co., $50,000

Naftex, $10,000

Occidental Petroleum, $500,000

Plains Exploration & Production, $100,000

SoCal Pipe Trades Council, $125,000

Signal Hill Petroleum, $10,000

Vaquero Energy, $35,000

Venoco, $25,000

There is no doubt that the powerful oil industry and its chief lobbyist are going to use every avenue they can to divert more water for fracking, including taking Delta water through the peripheral tunnels proposed under the Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP). The industry will also use its increased power in California politics and environmental processes to expand fracking in the ocean unless Californians rise up and resist these plans.

It is time that Californians question state officials and MLPA Initiative advocates about why they supported the leadership role of an oil industry lobbyist in creating so-called “marine protected areas” off the California coast. After all, oil and water don’t mix!

(Dan Bacher is an environmental journalist in Sacramento. He can be reached at: Dan Bacher danielbacher@fishsniffer.com.)

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WILL 1000 AMERICAN ‘HUMAN SHIELDS’ STOP ANOTHER CRIMINAL WAR?

By Franklin Lamb

Damascus — A sort of roller coaster atmosphere pervades Damascus these days with “good” and “bad” news rising and falling, often by the quarter hour. Much of the population is monitoring closely the news and quickly expressing their interpretations of the latest media reports and rumors as well as predicting the fairly precise timing of the now assumed American attack on their country.

In the very popular, and normally crowded Abaa Coffee House on the edge of the old city in what is called the Sarugha section, students and others enjoy the fine cool mist, as Damascenes have done for years, that is sprayed from ceiling pipes to provide welcome relief from the 37 degree Celsius (98 degrees F) outside temperatures. Many are clued to their laptops and/or in animated conversation analyzing the likely extent and timing of the soon believed to be arriving American missiles.

This observer often meets interlocutors in the Abaa because it’s very pleasant, large with dozens of tables, cheap and two blocks from my hotel. I have noticed that common greetings are changing from “kif hallack” ” (how are you?) and “Arak lahekan” (see you later) to “Get home safely” and “Good luck with the checkpoints.”

But there is also a distinct growing esprit de corps and a broad coming together of much of the population here as the countdown to the American attack on Syria begins. An evident rallying around the Assad regime, which one presumes is the opposite of what the White House was hoping would result from its threats.

A good friend from the Syrian Arab Red Crescent Society (SARCS) an humanitarian organization doing amazing rescue, and medical services for Syrians and Palestinians during this expanding crisis, described one way that her friends are preparing for the American attack. “We gathered our important documents, birth, marriage certificate and passport and made photo copies. Then we leave them with friends in “safe” areas or even bury them somewhere. No one knows how bad the Americans will bomb us. At work we have been told during our final practice drill last saturday that the next siren will be the ‘real thing’ and we will do as we have planned for.” She added, “Many of my friends and family are leaving but it’s not easy and is very expensive now to go to Lebanon and they don’t want us– and my family has decided to stay in our home no matter what happens in the coming days.”

One common topic being discussed is the reluctance of the American public to attack Syria and how Obama can ignore it. “What kind of Democracy do you have that your President can ignore the will of the American public?” this observer is frequently asked. One soldier who is stationed with his unit just outside my hotel seemed to speak from his heart: “You Americans claim you are trying to help the Syrian people. Every child knows, both here and in your country I think, that the coming attack will make things much worse for the Syrian people and many others. The American people are good and we hope they can control their government, but we are preparing for the worst and there will be consequences you will come to regret as with Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya.”

The government here is assuring the public that Syria is ready for the American attack and that public services will continue. TV channels show around the clock images of heroic Syrian army exploits with marital and patriotic music. Youngsters, students and workers are gathering at presumed targets offering themselves as Human Shields in solidarity with their countrymen while challenging President Obama to bomb their beloved Syria.

Interestingly, an International Human Shield movement is coalescing according to informed sources here and abroad. One initiative is to bring 1000 Americans and thousands of others, to Syria within the next ten days to guard likely bomb sites reminding one of the International Solidarity Movement international volunteer’s efforts in Occupied Palestine in order to try to protect homes of Palestinians from Government bulldozing.

Some redacted specifics have been disclosed to this observer from an international organizing committee working around the clock on this Human Shield initiative.

Some descriptive excerpts:

International Human Shields are planning on coming to Syria in solidarity with the Syrian people and in an effort to send a global message and hopefully deter an American attack next week…

Timing – While moves can be made fast and with all other key elements in place, time is not in our favor. Ten mores days for preparation would be ideal. The HS initiative assumes that it must be done in such a way that very little time lapse from the official announcement of the action to the actual arrival of the Human Shields on the ground in Syria…

Impact – In order to achieve a significant impact having at least 1000 Americans and several thousand international Human Shields deployed in Syria is the objective. With ideally at least one representative from every UN Member State, as evidence of the true ‘international community’ opposing the American attack.

The US activist-based steering committee is quickly bringing together professionals in IT, marketing, logistical planning and implementation, spokesperson(s), public relations, accounting, documentarians, and experienced project managers. Ferries from European ports are to be arranged to carry significant numbers of Human Shields from Major European cities. Ideally, several jumbo jets will be chartered to carry human shields from some of the world’s major cities and use of land convoys are under consideration.

An excerpt:

HS/Government Relations – The first objective of the enemies of Syria will be to portray Human Shields as nothing more than pawns of President Bashar al-Assad. This was precisely what the mainstream media did in 2003, presenting Human Shields as pawns of Saddam. In order for the Human Shields to have power they must be seen as independent supporters of the people of Syria who represent the will of the vast majority of people around the world who oppose the pending US-led western attack. The HS should however work with prominent leaders in the civilian sector of Syrian society and great effort should be made to produce daily news stories of the Human Shields and Syrian people working together to protect Syria from the ongoing foreign instigated aggression. There are once again many details here and these would need to be discussed and agreed if any action will be able to reach its full potential.

Strategy – The sites that Human Shields deploy to must be very well publicized and these sites must be identified as protected sites under the Fourth Geneva Convention. The White House is saying that they are not going to attack infrastructure (as they did with Iraq in 2003), but they must attack the infrastructure as the goal is to drive Syria into the stone age and make it so weak that Israel will through its agents eventually take Syria over. They know that the Syrian people and military cannot be defeated without massive attacks on the infrastructure.

So it is absolutely vital that all power plants, water treatment facilities, bomb shelters (if they exist), civilian communications sites, food storage sites and other such sites that are critical to the civilian population are the primary if not sole focus of sites for the HS to deploy. They cannot deploy to military sites, although I personally feel this is morally defensible, it will neutralize the power of the HS in the public relations realm and intelligent public relations is absolutely critical.

A comprehensive list of protected sites is to be produced immediately and these sites will need to be verified by the most independent sources we can manage to obtain. UN representatives or former representatives would be great, human rights attorneys, legal experts and others of this type are very useful.

There will be room to deploy to sites not specifically listed in the Fourth Geneva Convention, such as with ethnic and religious minority communities who are deathly afraid of the foreign invaders/terrorist. Special emphasis should be placed on Christian populations as the western audience sadly has more sympathy for Christians than Muslims.”

Our goal is to personalize the people of Syria and show their suffering through the eyes of the HS with effective daily reports to be uploaded on the Internet and reported by legitimate news agencies such as Press TV, RT and Telesur. A massive effort must be made to educate the public about the reasons for the Fourth Geneva Convention (FGC) and the imperial powers undeniable record of knowingly destroying the lives of ‘protected persons’ as defined in the FGC. There must be high quality, well-spoken Arabic/English speaking spokespersons.

We should be ready to provide evidence of any attack on such sites the moment it happens and have legal briefs prepared to immediately charge the aggressors with war crimes. This is why it is critical that the HS are almost exclusively at sites that are protected by the FGC.

The Action Plan concludes:

We cannot necessarily stop them from doing what they intend to do, but we can make their aggression harm them far more than Syria and its people in the end. Herein lays the power, using the enemies momentum against him in the most powerful way possible.

Time will tell which Americans will arrive first in Syria, the military or the American public. Many Syrian are today praying it will be the latter and have pledged to join them to defeat the coming aggression.

(Franklin Lamb is doing research in Syria and Lebanon and can be reached c/o fplamb@gmail.com)

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MARY MOUNTCASTLE EUBANK’S ‘EDGES AND FLOWS,’ JANE INGRAM ALLEN’S ‘FOR THE BIRDS,’ & CANDACE LOHEED — Exhibitions October 25-December 1

Reception for the artists October 27, Sunday 3 to 5 pm. Salon December 1, Sunday, 4 to 5 pm. Materials and Motives (artists talk and discussion). For more information go to: http://galleryrouteone.org.

THE ORACLE SPEAKS:

The AVA emailed KZYX General Manager John Coate on Thursday:

Hello, Mr. Coate:

Is your trip to Australia funded by our public radio station?

Thank you,

Bruce Anderson, AVA

* * *

Mr. Coate replied on Friday:

Certainly not. I am here speaking at a conference related to my previous work with online communities.  They paid my way here, not KZYX.  The rest is out of my own pocket.

John Coate, General Manager, KZYX

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LET’S HAVE IT

Letter to KZYX Requesting Policies

From: Dennis OBrien

TO: Board of Directors, Mendocino County Public

Broadcasting

September 3, 2013

P.O. Box 1, Philo, CA 95466

Re: Request for MCPB/KZYX Policies and Procedures

Members of the Board:

Article VI of the bylaws of Mendocino County Public Broadcasting states, in part, that:

“The Board shall develop and maintain written such policies and procedures as the Board deems necessary. A copy of these

policies shall be available to any Member upon request.”

I am currently a member in good standing. Please send me a copy of all of the policies and procedures of Mendocino County Public Broadcasting and its radio station, KZYX.

Please include the board of directors’ decision-making policies and procedures.

You do not need to provide anything that is already on the kzyx.org website. In order to avoid the expense of copying and mailing, I am willing to accept electronic copies sent via email to dennisobrien@sharejerusalem.com.

Thank you very much for your timely compliance with this request.

Sincerely,

Dennis O’Brien, Ukiah

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RANDOM THOUGHTS. What’s unique about Public Radio Mendocino County is how much unnecessary trouble it makes for itself, alienating possible listeners as it blunders from one self-inflicted wound to the next. All the energy that current management, and the many managements of yesteryear, put into a truly nutty fear-driven secrecy, a reasonably sophisticated management would divert into expanding the membership the way sophisticated non-profits do most places. They put an amiable, pleasant, smart person up front. That person spends a lot of time smacking up to both potential donors and the tons of service clubs — Rotary, Lions and so on, all of which now consider KZYX, if they consider it at all, as some kind of raggedy-ass hippie music station, which it only partly is. A professionally done daily news show would do wonders, but having alienated so many people, KZYX can’t afford one. But in lieu of a real news show they could at least do a daily call in, the next best thing. McWhat’sHisFace and Steffan ought to be able to handle something like that, as could John Sakowitz and, say, Jeff Blankfort. These guys are smart and reasonably articulate. (Uh oh. Here come the PC Police! Nicole Sawaya, a woman, and the only truly capable manager the institution has had, was the only manager who could handle Mendo’s lunatic population — all of whom seem to think they should be live at five — with real aplomb. As a person of ability, she had other options and exercised them to get out. A steady interface with nuts and idiots makes for brief tenures many places, but especially here. There are lots of smart women around who could manage the place much more effectively than it’s managed now, and some very smart women who could do a first-rate news show. Natch, KZYX permanently alienated one of them, KC Meadows of the Ukiah Daily Journal, who made the pot brigades unhappy one night by — gasp! — expressing her own opinion on the air. That was not “objective,” you see, as you also see the kind of cretinism one faces at the station. But the way KZYX has been structured — poisoned in the well by both its mercenary founder and its foundation in the one-inch-deep talent pool of Anderson Valley, and overseen by an eternally inept management (save for Ms. Sawaya) and a stooge board of cringing directors, makes a competent, civilized manager even more crucial. Won’t happen, though. Maybe we ought to start thinking low power along the lines of KMEC.

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MORE RANDOM THOUGHTS: If the Hope and Change Gang had solid proof that Assad had used chemical weapons they would have brandished it the same day. Even though it looks like Congress will resoundingly vote to oppose an attack on Syria, it’s obvious that the Obama Administration will proceed to inflict even more damage on Syria and create even more refugees for Syria’s hard-pressed neighbors to somehow accommodate. Here at home, of course, thousands of minimum wage workers are striking WalMart and McDonald’s in desperate bids for a living wage. Foreign wars are more indefensible than they’ve ever been given the unraveling condition of our own country

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Torango

BENJAMIN ‘GENTLE BEN’ TORANGO, 36, of Fort Bragg isn’t exactly a poster boy for Governor Brown’s “realignment” program by which, in theory, the less volatile felons do their time in county jails. Although Torango, a felony offender, was released Monday from the state pen, he’s classified as a realignment guy, and he’s about to be realigned straight back into the state system because, this morning (Friday, Sept. 6), Torango got into a loud beef in the 100 block of Laurel that he punctuated by “brandishing an edged weapon.” When the Fort Bragg police caught up with him, Torango, who is not supposed to be anywhere in Mendocino County as a condition of his parole, was so “combative that they placed him in a restraint device that binds his limbs tightly to his body.” Torango is being held in the Mendocino County Jail on suspicion of making threats to an officer, brandishing a weapon and being an ex-felon in possession of a dangerous weapon. (Glossary: “edged weapon” = knife. “Restraint device that binds his limbs tightly to his body” = straight jacket.)

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ACCORDING to the The Del Norte Triplicate, the barnacle-covered fishing boat confirmed as the first debris from the 2011 tsunami in Japan to reach California’s shores at Crescent City, is returning home. Barnacle Boat is scheduled to leave from the San Francisco Bay Area for Japan by ship on Sept. 16. Free transportation is being provided by the shipping company, Yamato Transport. The 20-foot boat washed up in Crescent City on April 7. It belongs to a high school in the city of Rikuzentakata, which was devastated by the earthquake and tsunami.

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ARNIE GUNDERSEN re Fukushima. KZYX Renewable Energy Show 9/9, 9-10am Discussing dangerous situation at Fukushima plant/fuel-storage towers and Pacific Ocean contamination. The Renewable Energy Show airs this Monday 9:00-10:00am on KZYX 91.5FM or streamed* on the internet. Mark your calendars and listen in or Pod Cast at your convenience. This interview should not be  missed.   Arnie Gundersen Chief Engineer and co-founder of Fairewinds Energy  Education and leading authority on nuclear energy safety will be  returning to the show to expand on Fukushima and the current  situation of global nuclear safety. We will have time for call-in  questions and concerns.

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A FEDERAL DISTRICT COURT today maintained conservation protections for marbled murrelets, a unique coastal bird in the Pacific Northwest. The court rejected the remaining claims in a timber industry lawsuit that sought to expand logging of the seabird’s old-growth forest nesting habitat. The lawsuit was the timber industry’s fourth attempt in the past decade to eliminate protections for the old-growth forests that marbled murrelets call home, despite undisputed scientific evidence that murrelets are continuing to disappear from the coasts of Washington, Oregon, and California.

“It is time for logging interests to move on,” said Kristen Boyles, staff attorney with Earthjustice.

“Science, law, and public opinion do not support their demand to log the old-growth forests that marbled murrelets call home.”

The marbled murrelet is a shy, robin-sized seabird that feeds at sea but nests only in old-growth forests along the Pacific Coast. Murrelets don’t build nests, instead laying their single egg on natural, moss-covered platforms where large branches join the tree trunks of old growth Douglas fir, Sitka spruce, western hemlock, and redwood trees. In 1992, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service protected marbled murrelets in Washington, Oregon, and California as a threatened species due to logging of coastal old-growth forests. The timber industry has repeatedly set its sights on the small seabird in order to increase logging of some of the last-remaining mature and old-growth forests.

“Today’s decision ends a dark chapter in the effort to ensure the survival of the highly endangered marbled murrelet,” said Noah Greenwald, endangered species director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “Now we can move forward with recovering these unique seabirds.”

The district court rejected logging industry claims that murrelets in central California could not be considered part of the protected population. The court also refused to eliminate murrelet critical habitat protections during a three-year period when the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will re-examine its 1996 critical habitat designation.

“The marbled murrelet is most endangered at the southern extent of its range,” said Gary Graham Hughes, executive director of Environmental Protection Information Center. “The court’s decision keeps the murrelet protected down here in the redwood temperate rainforest.”

“There is strong scientific consensus that without old-growth forest protection, murrelets will disappear from our coast,” added Dave Werntz, science and conservation director with Conservation Northwest.

“It’s time to stop fighting over who will get to log the last of our old-growth, and focus on science-based management of our forests that improves habitat for wildlife, protects clean water, and safeguards the scenic beauty, outdoor recreation, and quality of life that drives Oregon’s modern economy,” said Steve Pedery, Conservation Director for Oregon Wild.

Represented by Earthjustice, Audubon Society of Portland, Seattle Audubon Society, Center for Biological Diversity, Conservation Northwest, Environmental Protection Information Center, Oregon Wild, and Sierra Club intervened in the lawsuit to defend the murrelet listing and critical habitat. (Environmental Protection & Information Center (EPIC), Redway)

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REPUBLICANS TO MEET IN FORT BRAGG. The Mendocino County Republican Central Committee will meet Saturday, September 21, 2013, 10:00 AM  – 12:00 Noon at Moura Senior Housing, 400 South Street, Fort Bragg, CA 95437.  For further  information contact: Stan Anderson, 707-321-2592.

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STATEMENT OF THE DAY: The lies being told by Obama and Kerry are so transparent that it makes one wonder if their strategy is to make such a poor case for war that the control Israel and the neocons have over US foreign policy will be broken. What else is one to make of such absurd statements as John Kerry’s claim that “this is our Munich moment!” There is no comparison between Assad’s defensive effort to prevent the overthrow of the Syrian government by foreign jihadists supported by Washington and Hitler’s aggressive stance toward Czechoslovakia. The Syrian government has initiated no war and has threatened no one. America as my generation knew it no longer exists. Criminals have taken over and now rule. Financial policy is in the hands of a small handful of banksters who control the US Treasury, the Federal Reserve, the financial regulatory agencies and who run the world for their own greed and profit. Foreign policy is the preserve of the Israel Lobby and the neoconservatives, every one of which is tightly tied to Israel. Americans have no voice, and no representation. Whatever America is, the government is not influenced by the voices of the American people. Whatever America is, it most certainly is not a democracy in which government is accountable to the people. America is a country where a tiny elite has all power and does as it wishes. (Paul Craig Roberts)

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THE WALL

by Miguel Lanigan

“The Wall” in Washington, DC. is a sacred place to Vietnam veterans. Built with private funds and spearheaded by ex-enlisted man Jan Scruggs, it represents all that has come to be known as the Vietnam era. This is hallowed ground for all those who went to war in Vietnam and who left their youth and many of their buddies behind there.

On Veterans Day in 1993, the President and the Commander-in-Chief of the United States did the right thing, he went to “The Wall” and paid his respects to the nearly 58,000 Americans enshrined on the dark granite, and to those veterans who survived to return to a divided and seemingly ungrateful country.

Some vets resented President Clinton coming to their holy-of-holies. They felt he had not

earned the right to be there. Some said, “I went and he didn’t. My buddies went and now they are names on “The Wall” instead of having careers and wives and kids. Now, this draft-dodger, this non-combatant, is here defiling these grounds paid for in American blood. How can he be Commander in Chief when he never served, not even as a Private?”

Two decades had come and gone, but not the deep-seated acid-anger still seethed in some of the Vietnam vets.

Seeing the ragtag bits of uniform worn by the vets at “The Wall” flashed me back to an event that happened over twenty years before on this same Mall where the Vietnam Memorial now stands.

The year was l972 and a group calling themselves Vietnam Veterans Against Foreign Wars (VVAFW) showed up l5,000 strong and set up a tent bivouac on the Mall in front of the Capitol Building. These were no wild eyed, radical, long-haired, draft-dodging hippies. These were bemedaled veterans of the Vietnam war who had fought some of the most horrifying battles in the history of America. They had faithfully served their nation in combat and now they were met at their nation’s Capital to protest this non-war/war that was continuing to kill and maim their generation in that killing-field they called “The Nam”.

Federal workers watched in amazement as squads of vets, armed with toy guns and dressed in bits of uniforms, once worn proudly, now ran mock search-and-destroy missions up the steps of Federal buildings and across the grass of the Mall. They were shocked to see these heroes removing their medals and tossing them over the temporary fence hastily thrown up around the Capitol.

“Why were these men throwing away their honors?” they asked. The rest of the nation asked the same question.

Some senators and congressmen came out to mingle with these returned warriors. Some even went up on the platform to give speeches.

At the time I was working for the Red Cross as disaster relief coordinator. I had been a Lance Corporal in the Marine reserves, had spent two years in the mountains of Colombia, South.America. as a Peace Corps community development volunteer and I was greatly confused about the war and curious to hear what these protesting war veterans had to say . They had walked the walk, they could talk the talk. I was there to listen.

By l972 , the fighting had already gone on for more than a decade and there still was “no light at the end of the tunnel.” By now there were hundreds of thousands of angry and disillusioned vets. There were millions of angry and active anti-war protesters. The country was being divided by massive anti-war demonstrations.

A friend of mine, who had been a forward observer with the 101st Airborne and had fought in the Tet offensive, said to me one night, “They don’t seem to be running that war to win. Body counts is what they’re into . . . BODY COUNTS and not real estate. That’s no way to fight a war. Hell I don’t even know what I was fighting for . . . except to stay alive!”

A speaker got on the P.A. system and asked for a volunteer driver to take some of VVAFW guys out to the giant Walter Reed Hospital to donate blood. Blood is about neutral, so I went over and volunteered my red Mustang convertible for their use.

Five vets piled in and, with the top down, we set off across Washington to donate blood. A former Marine, three ex-Army guys and a former Lieutenant from the Coast Guard. They talked about old units and where they had served in “The Nam”.

It was shortly before five when we pulled into a parking space at Walter Reed . We were be-

tween the two story wings that housed the blood-bank. A young 2nd Lieutenant on duty freaked out to see this potentially explosive political-event happening on his watch. He started giving reasons why we couldn’t give blood.

“Are you telling me that just because we are protesting this war, our blood is no longer any good?” said the former Coast Guard Lieutenant.

“No, I’m not saying that.” stammered the rattled 2nd Lieutenant, “it’s just that . . . that . . .” He held up his hand and dialed a number to reach his superior.

Two of the vets and I went back outside to the car. We stood smoking and discussing the 2nd Lieutenant’s reaction.

Above us, on the second floor of the wing behind us, faces of wounded soldiers started showing at the windows. They, of course, had been keeping track of the VVAFW thing on TV. and couldn’t believe that some of them were right there at their hospital. They didn’t like it one little bit. They deeply resented it.

“Hey you Communist,” shouted one of the patients, “what are you doing here?”

“Get out of here you pinkos.” shouted another.

“F–k you.” shouted yet another.

Soon all the wounded vets were yelling and shooting the bird at us.

“Get out of here, you f–ing traitors!” came another angry shout.

A nurse Captain, in her starched white uniform, came running out of a side-door and up to us.

“What are you people doing here? You’re upsetting the troops. I want you out of here. . .NOW.”

“We came here to give blood to our brothers.” said one of the VVAFW guys.

The nurse was dumbfounded. She said not another word. She whirled and quickly

disappeared back thru the same door she had come out of.

The heads at the windows above turned to get the word from her, then turned to look back down on us. The rest of the VVAFW guys, by now, had come out from the blood bank with appointments to give blood the following day. The two groups of vets stood looking at one another. There was total silence. Then , from one of the windows above, I heard ,

“Right on,” spoken quietly.

Then came more “Right ons.” but louder now.

Then I heard a shouted, “Right on Brother.”

Soon both groups of vets were shouting “Right ons.” and shaking upraised fists at each other, but these were the right-on-good kind of shaking fists.

We piled into the convertible and drove away to the fading shouts of the wounded vets. I tried to hide the tears in my eyes.

So, twenty years later, the non-veteran Commander-in-Chief and some veterans and through the TV. , all of us, met at “The Wall” and perhaps put some much needed medicine on the still open wound that is known as “The Nam.”.

PS. A LITTLE HISTORY MOST PEOPLE WILL NEVER KNOW.

Interesting Veterans Statistics off the Vietnam Memorial Wall!

By Patrick Lanigan

There are 58,267 names now listed on that polished black wall, including those added in 2010. The names are arranged in the order in which they were taken from us by date and within each date the names are alphabetized. It is hard to believe it is 36 years since the last casualties.

The first known casualty was Richard B. Fitzgibbon, of North Weymouth, Mass. Listed by the U.S. Department of Defense as having been killed on June 8, 1956. His name is listed on the Wall with that of his son, Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Richard B. Fitzgibbon III, who was killed on Sept. 7, 1965. There are three sets of fathers and sons on the Wall. 39,996 on the Wall were just 22 or younger. 8,283 were just 19 years old.

The largest age group, 33,103 were 18 years old.

12 soldiers on the Wall were 17 years old.

5 soldiers on the Wall were 16 years old.

One soldier, PFC Dan Bullock was 15 years old.

997 soldiers were killed on their first day in Vietnam ..

1,448 soldiers were killed on their last day in Vietnam ..

31 sets of brothers are on the Wall.

31 sets of parents lost two of their sons.

54 soldiers attended Thomas Edison High School in Philadelphia.

I wonder why so many from one school.

8 Women are on the Wall…. NURSING the wounded!

244 soldiers were awarded the Medal of Honor during the Vietnam War;

153 of them are on the Wall.

Beallsville, Ohio with a population of 475 lost 6 of her sons.

West Virginia had the highest casualty rate per capita in the nation.

There are 711 West Virginians on the Wall.

The Marines of Morenci – They led some of the scrappiest high school football and basketball teams that the little Arizona copper town of Morenci (pop. 5,058) had ever known and cheered. They enjoyed roaring beer busts. In quieter moments, they rode horses along the Coronado Trail, stalked deer in the Apache National Forest. And in the patriotic camaraderie typical of Morenci’s mining families, the nine graduates of Morenci High enlisted as a group in the Marine Corps. Their service began on Independence Day, 1966.

Only 3 returned home.

The Buddies of Midvale – LeRoy Tafoya, Jimmy Martinez, Tom Gonzales were all boyhood friends and lived on three consecutive streets in Midvale, Utah on Fifth, Sixth and Seventh avenues. They lived only a few yards apart. They played ball at the adjacent sandlot ball field. And they all went to Vietnam. In a span of 16 dark days in late 1967, all three would be killed. LeRoy was killed on Wednesday, Nov. 22, the fourth anniversary of John F. Kennedy’s assassination. Jimmy died less than 24 hours later on Thanksgiving Day.

Tom was shot dead assaulting the enemy on Dec. 7, Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day.

The most casualty deaths for a single day was on January 31, 1968 — 245 deaths.

The most casualty deaths for a single month was May 1968 – — 2,415 casualties were incurred.

For most Americans who read this they will only see the numbers that the Vietnam War created. To those of us who survived the war, and to the families of those who did not, we see the faces, we feel the pain that these numbers created. We are, until we too pass away, haunted with these numbers, because they were our friends, fathers, husbands, wives, sons and daughters. There are no noble wars, just noble warriors.

Please pass this on to those who served during this time, and those who DO CARE!

I’ve also sent this to those I KNOW do care very much, and I thank you   for caring as you do!

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COLLATERAL DAMAGE

Dear Editor:

In all the discussions about a proposed military strike against Syria I have heard very little about collateral damage. Collateral damage is the term used by the military to describe the deaths of innocent people killed during a military action. Without a doubt some if not most potential targets will be located where civilians live and work and there will be collateral damage. The question is what level of collateral damage is acceptable if we go ahead with a miltary strike? Is President Obama willing to accept say 500 or 1, 000 or 2,000 dead innocent men, women and children? It is a question that the President needs to answer but undoubtedly will not answer.

In peace, James G. Updegraff, Sacramento

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JANIE REZNER’S GUEST on Women’s Voices, KZYX, September 16th, 7 pm PT will be independant researcher, author, speaker and activist Genevieve Vaughan.  Genevieve has been working on the theory of a maternal gift economy as an alternative to Patriarchal Capitalism for many years and her books include  “For-giving, a Feminist Criticism of Exchange” and “Women and the Gift Economy: A Radically Different Worldview is Possible.” Consider that we humans have lived successfully without money or the concept of exchange for most of our 100,000 years on earth. Money, i.e. the exchange paradigm, is the cornerstone of patriarchal domination.  Genevieve writes, “The gift paradigm has the advantage of restoring mothering to its rightful place in the constitution of the human. What has been wrongly proposed in the construction of gender, with devastating effects, such as the promotion of the values of dominance, competition and hierarchy (which are non nurturing values) can be countered by re introducing gift giving as a social value and interpretive key. Both male and female human beings are basically nurturers. One gender is not the binary opposite of the other. If we reintroduce the gift paradigm into our interpretation of the world, we will find our “gift-giver within” which will then be acknowledged and validated.” The show will air 7 PM at 90.7 FM Philo, 88.1 FM Fort Bragg, and 91.5 FM Willits and can also be heard live at www.kzyx.org It will be archived at http://www.radio4all.net/index.php/contributor/4206 or Google Janie Rezner radio.

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CONGRESSMAN JARED HUFFMAN posted the following on his congressional facebook page on Friday.

With Senator McCain’s amendment yesterday, the Senate’s proposed authorization for use of military force in Syria now articulates a policy of trying to help the rebels win the sectarian civil war, as opposed to just responding to/deterring chemical weapons use by Assad. This puts the US further out on an untenable, slippery slope of military involvement. I deplore the actions of the Assad regime, but this NY Times article should be mandatory reading for anyone who thinks it’s a good idea to team-up with the radical jihadist rebels on the other side of this terrible conflict. Note: the article indicates the “vetted” Free Syrian Army which Sen. McCain supports provided the weapons used in these executions.

IMMEDIATELY comments came flooding in, most of them agreeing with Mr. Huffman. Then came a dozens of identical pro-intervention comments posted apparently from Syria with various different Arab-sounding names which prompted the Congressman to comment again:

FOLKS: I have been getting deluged with duplicate comments and posts from Syria, apparently from both sides in the Syrian civil war. This has forced me to temporarily disable public FB comments. I hope to re-enable that function soon. While I have nothing but respect and good wishes for the people of Syria who are suffering in a brutal sectarian civil war, I have no intention of getting drawn into that war — either militarily, or via social media. Thanks for understanding.

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ON THE OTHER HAND, a reader writes:

You know, I ran into this web site, Covered CA, a State of CA website re: new ACA/Obamacare the other day, and they have this cost calculator:

http://www.coveredca.com/fieldcalc/#calculator

and if the results are anything like accurate, my god, man, it’s crazy how low my costs might be to actually have health care/insurance as a self-employed person.

This is what it tells me about the two plans I am eligible for, and what my costs will be: Bronze plan: Zero monthly costs (with higher copays, higher deductible, and higher total maximum out of pocket cost every year, but still relatively minor: $6,350. This apparently is the plan for people (young people) who don’t anticipate getting much healthcare) or Enhanced Silver plan: $46 to $65/month (Kaiser HMO is $121, but too far to travel), with very low co-pays and only $2,250 maximum out of pocket cost each year, only $500 annual deductible.

http://www.coveredca.com/fieldcalc/#healthplans

Now, hopefully I’ll be making a bit more $$ next year! But even so, my costs will still be low.

And, according to this website, it’s not a ‘tax credit’ in the sense that I have to pay the monthly and then get a refund later, which is what I was worried about, the subsidy gets paid every month.

So, again, whether the calculator is accurate or not, whether it depends on whether everybody signs up or not, I do not know, but if it’s anywhere even approaching accurate, I don’t care if it’s a Ponzi scheme, I don’t care if it’s not “Medicare for anyone who wants it,” which is the policy I support, I say AMEN, at least on a personal level.

“BUT IF THOUGHT CORRUPTS LANGUAGE, language can also corrupt thought.” — George Orwell, 1984

IN THE FOLLOWING, Mendocino County manages to corrupt both language and thought.

* * *

THE FIRST ITEM on next Monday’s (Sep 9, 2013) Board of Supervisors agenda: “9:30am: Presentation of the County Leadership Philosophy by Representatives of the County Leadership Team.”

“SUMMARY OF REQUEST: Approximately two years ago, the County Executive Office launched a leadership development initiative that initially included County Department Heads, members of regional leadership training events, and “up and coming leaders” on the recommendation of their Department Head. Today, this group encompasses over 60 individuals, representing over 18 County departments, ranging from line staff to our CEO, to our elected officials. At its core, the purpose of the leadership development initiative is to transform our organizational culture by cultivating ‘leaders at all levels’ within the organization by engaging, developing, supporting, and utilizing our employees to their fullest potential. Today’s team presentation represents the culmination of 18 months of focused collaboration within the organization, and with our regional partners, in sharing with the Board Our Leadership Philosophy [emphasis in original]. In the coming months, the elements of our leadership philosophy will be realized through employee training and development, shared personal and professional commitments, and a pledge to embrace best practices in superior public service. We invite all members of the organization to join with us in transforming our organizational culture through active participation and engagement in upcoming initiatives.”

ONE OF THE KEY PRESENTATIONS that Mendo’s unwieldy “leadership team” absorbed was from Steve Zuieback, a Ukiah-based one-man company he calls “Synectics LLC.” Mr. Zuieback, you might recall, prompted much merriment when the warmer, fuzzier members of the Ukiah City Council and their city manager thought Zuieback’s “Process Enneagram, a Journey Map” just might steer Ukiah away from the fiscal rocks.

ZUIEBACK’S “PROCESS ENNEAGRAM” is an amorphous amalgam of abstract whatever they ares, but don’t take our word for it take a look and a listen for yourself at

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcCUeJNE6FA

HERE’S Zuieback-think as presented to Mendocino County’s leaders:

“Building High-Performance Organizations — The organizational change approach that forms the basis of this seminar seeks to ‘cast a net’ over what has been learned from the past 100 years [!] of academic theory and practical organizational applications and to synthesize that knowledge base into a diagnostic change model explaining why some organizations are high performers while many are not. The seminar does not [emphasis in original] attempt to ‘tell an organization what’s wrong with it’ or to deliver a ‘cookbook’ of what to do to improve it. Rather, the seminar introduces a series of ‘lenses’ through which participants can view their own organizations and decide for themselves what changes may be necessary to improve their own performance.”

NOT A SINGLE word about Mendocino County, no mention of management, but lots of passive-aggressive jargon about cooperation and listening and blah de blah.

FOR EXAMPLE, the next item on Monday’s agenda is entitled “Adoption of Proclamation in Recognition of September as School Attendance Awareness Month in Mendocino County …”

“The Board routinely adopts proclamations in recognition of significant events and accomplishments … Throughout the month of September, many communities across the nation will embrace National Attendance Awareness Month by focusing on school attendance rates and ways to improve them. In Mendocino County, local nonprofit groups and educational coalitions have put out a call to action to take a hard look at unacceptably high rates of truancy in some areas of the County. Specifically, the Board of Supervisors is requested to recognize the month of September as School Attendance Awareness Month in Mendocino County, in recognition of National Attendance Awareness Month, and to focus on what can be done to reduce chronic truancy problems within our County.”

ALTHOUGH BOARD CHAIR DAN HAMBURG ruled John Sakowicz out of order a few weeks ago for trying to complain about a Ukiah City bureaucrat because said bureaucrat was “not within the County’s purview,” the Board can go on at length about school attendance over which it has no control because… ?

ANSWER: “…a focus moving forward for these Mendocino County organizations will be to enhance the representation of key Public Safety agencies, such as the District Attorney’s Office, Child Protective Services, and the Probation Department, at three County School Attendance Review Board (SARB) meetings annually to show that Mendocino County is committed to keeping its children in schools to learn and prepare themselves for a productive adulthood.”

MENDOCINO COUNTY is committed to no such thing because truancy is way beyond the Board’s purview.

ANOTHER “LEADERSHIP” EXAMPLE:

“Agenda Title: Discussion and Possible Direction to Staff Regarding Coordination of the October 21, 2013, Board Goal-Setting Session … Summary of Request: At its July 16, 2013, meeting, the Board approved in concept, scheduling a Board goal-setting workshop to be held in the fall, and directed the Executive Office to work with Supervisors Gjerde and Hamburg to develop a proposed workshop framework. The general purpose of the workshop as envisioned would be to engage the Board of Supervisors in a proactive discussion of long-term fiscal forecasting, identification of methods to reduce expenditures, and identify/prioritize organization-wide initiatives to achieve the County’s fiscal and performance goals. Executive Office and Board representatives met on July 30, to share ideas and discuss the proposed workshop format including consideration of potential facilitators and an off-site location suitable for the workshop. As envisioned, a component of the workshop would also include participation by County Department Heads/representatives. Subsequent to this meeting, the date of October 21, was established as the preferred workshop date. The purpose of today’s update is to provide the Board with additional developments, and to receive Board approval to proceed with finalizing plans for coordination of an October 21, off-site facilitated workshop.”

“LEADERSHIP” takes a lot of time and deliberation, apparently, because navigating an entire Process Enneagram Journey Map is a slow and painstaking (and costly) process.

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BUT MURKY AS MENDO-THINK can be, the Los Angeles Unified School District has just set a new low for mindless extravagance. (And we hesitate to mention it here for fear of giving our local educrats ideas, but…)

ACCORDING TO THE LA TIMES: The Los Angeles Unified School District will “distribute Apple iPads to 650,000 students, from kindergarten on up over the next year or so. The district is paying $678 per device — higher than tablets cost in stores — with pre-loaded educational software that has been only partially developed. The tablets come with tracking software, a sturdy case and a three-year warranty. The district is using school construction bonds, approved by Los Angeles voters, which didn’t mention the purchase of iPads. This factor raised questions among members of the appointed Bond Oversight Committee.”

THAT’S RIGHT. In July LA Unified’s School Board approved the spending of $1 billion of borrowed school construction bond money to give overpriced iPads (i.e., touchscreen tablet computers) to 650,000 school kids!

A TRUSTEE OF THE LA Unified School Board is a woman named Tamar Galatzan. She declared, “This is an amazing adventure we’re about to embark on, so hopefully [!] we’re making the right choice. Nothing is perfect, but we’ve made the best choice possible, based on the advice that’s out there. This is the least-expensive option and, hopefully [!], we’re in for a fruitful relationship.”

LET’S SET ASIDE the fact that these touchscreen computers have no real educational value despite the yahoo chorus of edu-techno idiots who say they do.

INSTEAD, LET’S LOOK ONLY at a few confirming conventional aspects of LA Unified’s decision:

• The iPads are overpriced to begin with and will be doubly overpriced because they’re being paid for with borrowed money over the standard 30-year bond period.

• The iPads will be obsolete in three years but they’ll be paying for them for 30 years.

• The so-called “educational software” isn’t even developed yet, but they’re claiming it has educational value.

• The kids will be allowed to take their iPads home and used for whatever silly thing the kid wants to use it for.

• Many of the iPads will be sold by the “students” on the street for a quick buck because, according to the terms of the contract, Apple will replace 5% of iPads that are lost, broken, stolen or malfunctioning at no additional cost. “Hey Teach! Somebody stole my iPad! Get me a new one!” After that, the School District is on the hook for replacements. (Note: At a similar pilot program in the UK recently, the breakage rate alone was 50% in the first year.)

• Not to mention that an LA Unified student with an iPad is much more likely to get mugged for his iPad than his fancy sneakers.

• The iPads don’t have keyboards. Just last week, the LA Unified Board realized their “oversight” and approved the expenditure of millions more to buy keyboards for all the iPads!

• One of the claimed cost-savings for the iPad is that over time using them for e-textbooks will be cheaper than real textbooks. But, as several commentators have noted, the e-textbooks cost $15 per year per iPad (or more) whereas conventional textbooks stay in circulation for at least seven years, therefore, costly as they are, textbooks are cheaper than e-texbooks over seven years.

• According to a prior LA Times article by Steve Lopez, LA Unified “has billions of dollars in deferred maintenance, with no fewer than 35,000 unresolved calls for basic repairs and service, with broken air conditioners, leaky roofs and crumbling bleachers, among other problems.” (Much of which construction bonds are supposed to be used to replace or upgrade.)

• And finally, this paragraph in the LA Times’s lame coverage of the first Phase of the iPad giveaway program: “Students drew a bucket on their iPads with a finger, then typed in what they wanted it to contain. It’s the kind of activity that could be done with paper, pencil and crayons, but the teacher was excited by the potential of the device.”

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MEMO OF THE WEEK

Mendocino County Fire Chiefs’ Association

President: Larry Tunzi; Vice President: Mike Suddith, Secretary/Treasurer: Jeff Schlafer

PO Box 164, Comptche, CA 95427

September 4, 2013

TO: Carmel J. Angelo, Chief Executive Officer, Mendocino County, 501 Low Gap Road, Ukiah, CA 95482

Dear Ms. Angelo,

The Mendocino County Fire Chiefs’ Association (MCFCA) has read the July 29, 2013 Fitch Report and is providing the following comments. First, the MCFCA commends the Board of Supervisors for recognizing that the emergency medical services system in Mendocino County is at a critical stage. As identified in the Fitch Report, there are significant areas of Mendocino County that are underserved or are facing significant future staffing and financial challenges. The MCFCA does not challenge the report’s findings of inconsistency, unreliability, and instability in the county’s EMS system. As has been noted before, the volunteer agencies in this county fulfill a vital role in providing critical emergency services. Changing social structure, increasing workload, additional training demands and fiscal limitations are pushing the volunteer agencies to the breaking point.

A single failure in the existing system will have a domino effect that will impact the entire county. Unfortunately, the general public does not realize the fragile nature of the system. It is the responsibility of both the MCFCA and the County to ensure that the system is sound and sustainable. It is critical that the board and MCFCA work together to develop a plan of action that will resolve the current issues and provide a foundation for an inadequately funded system that meets the public’s expectations for quality service.

The MCFCA has found that there are a number of factual errors in the statistical data supplied in the report. However, none of these errors detract from or alter the findings within the report. Therefore, we will not attempt to enumerate each error. Clearly, as identified in the report, the costs associated with providing EMS in the county far exceed revenue generated. Not noted in the report is the fact that the future margins between revenues and costs will only deteriorate. An example of this trend is the recent announcement of a 10% reduction in Medi-Cal reimbursements.

The MCFCA recognizes the historical contribution of the County’s ambulance providers. These providers have operated under very challenging conditions and have shown a commitment to providing the best possible service to the citizens of the county. Nevertheless, we feel that the present operational model for the county is not sustainable over the long haul. The report pointed out the extremely varied level of service in the county and identified large areas of the county that operate at a minimal basic life support level. The report states, “patients who require ALS interventions when ALS is unavailable are less likely to have positive outcomes.”

The MCFCA believes that Advanced Life Support should be the standard throughout the County of Mendocino.

The report identifies the fact that, “in many areas of Mendocino County, residents cannot reliably expect an immediate ambulance response to the 911 request.” We recognize that few areas within the county have call volumes which will independently support a 24/7 ALS provider. We also recognize that the areas outside the main population centers do not have the private or public organizations that can financially sustain an ALS service. The California Health and Safety Code section 1797.200 states that, “each county may develop an emergency medical services program.” The MCFCA believes that the county has committed to a program through its agreement with Coastal Valleys EMS as its EMS agency. It is further stated in section 1797.206 that, “the local EMS agencies shall be responsible for implementation of advanced life-support systems.”

The MCFCA believes it is the obligation of the County of Mendocino to implement and support a reliable advanced life-support system in all areas of the county.

Mendocino County has a long history of community independence and self-sufficiency. The historical economic base and social structure of the county his change significantly over the past 20 years. The more rural of the county’s communities no longer have the local job base for economic stability to maintain independent EMS systems. The MCFCA supports the report’s finding that, “It is clear that without action, there will be a continued disintegration of the Mendocino County EMS system and that the result will be lower levels of care, and in many instances, extremely long response times to emergency events.”

The MCFCA supports an EMS system that integrates the strength of a locally based provider with the economic stability of a countywide system.

The report has recommended the establishment of exclusive operating areas (EOAs) as an operational model for the county. The report further identifies the need for the selected providers to work with existing ambulance services to develop agreements that will provide for the utilization of local resources.

The MCFCA supports the concept of establishing an exclusive operating area for ALS response and ambulance transport. The MCFCA supports the establishment of a single exclusive operating area with the inclusion of cooperative agreements with the existing EMS providers in the underserved areas.

The MCFCA recognizes that funding is the key issue in any attempt to bring Mendocino County EMS system up to an acceptable standard. The report concludes with the statement, “In order to ensure access countywide to reliable responses and access to advanced life support level of care, it will be necessary to develop a long-term funding solution.”

The MCFCA and county staff worked for a number of years to develop a countywide funding source for emergency services. This Ad Hoc committee, established by the Board, identified the same issues that have been included in the two Fitch Reports. The committee held numerous meetings over several years and had developed specified recommendations. Ultimately, funding became the key elements that needed to be resolved before any progress could be made. The committee reviewed a number of options including Proposition 172 (Prop 172) funding, a parcel tax through County Services Area #3 [areas of the County not already covered by existing fire taxes/fees], and a Sales Tax increment. In 2011 the committee was prepared to recommend to the Board of Supervisors that they implement County Service Area #3 and establish a parcel tax. Unfortunately, at the same time, the State Legislature imposed within the County the State Responsibility Area (SRA) fee. It was then the decision of the committee not to make the recommendation based on the unlikely approval of the parcel tax by the voters.

The committee had also considered a sales tax increment. State law does not allow the establishment of a county sales tax that does not include the incorporated cities. At the same time, each of the cities within the County had a reliable ambulance service and a local sales tax. It was the conclusion of the committee that the inclusion of the cities would make it impossible to establish a countywide emergency services sales tax.

During the early phases of the committee, the MCFCA had recommended a revenue-sharing plan for Proposition 172 money. In 1993 the Local Public Safety Protection and Improvement Act was approved by the state’s voters. This Act established a statewide half-cent sales tax dedicated to local public safety including fire and EMS. In Mendocino County, the entire proceeds from the tax have gone to law enforcement. The MCFCA proposal was to allocate the annual increase in revenue to fire and EMS. The existing law-enforcement portion would have stayed constant until the Fire-EMS portion reached a cap at 25% of the total revenue. This proposal was not pursued because of opposition by the Sheriff and county staff. The MCFCA believes but a revenue-sharing plan for Prop 172 money remains the most appropriate method for funding emergency services.

The MCFCA maintains its long-held position that Proposition 172 money should be shared. This is consistent with the intent of the proposition to support the County EMS system. The Fitch Report findings substantiate this allocation of these funds.

In 2011 Measure A was placed on the ballot to add a 1/8¢ sales tax to support the library. This measure passed with a 75% approval. The sales tax was estimated to raise $1.3 million. A similar sales-tax dedicated to emergency services would provide funding to adequately support a countywide ALS system.

As an alternative to the appropriation of Proposition 172 funds, the MCFCA proposes the county place before the voters a proposal to adopt a 1/8¢ to 1/4¢ sales tax for emergency services. The MCFCA further recommends that the Board of Supervisors take the necessary steps to place this proposal before the voters at the earliest possible date.

The MCFCA recognizes that the establishment of an exclusive operating area will represent a significant departure from the historical participation of the county in providing emergency services. The increasing number of calls for service, the evolving expectations of the public, and the social changes with within our communities leave us with few alternatives. Ensuring that the citizens of Mendocino County have access to the best possible emergency medical services should be one of the county’s highest priorities.

As an initial step, the MCFCA recommends that the Board of Supervisors reconvene the joint County/Fire Chiefs committee to develop a specific plan for the implementation and operation of a sustainable countywide ALS system.

The MCFCA recognizes that the county has entered into an area that will be extremely challenging. However, we feel that at this time there is no choice but to address these issues and to develop a new system in the shortest possible time. The MCFCA looks forward to working closely with the county toward the development of a quality EMS system that will best serve the public.

Sincerely, Larry S. Tunzi, President, MCFCA

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DOG DAYS OF SUMMER

Dearest Editor:

Why do people allow their pooches to poop, in public, and then don’t pick it up?

Puzzled, Fort Bragg

ED REPLY: Because they’re slobs, and we’ve become a nation of slobs. Feel free, ladies and germs, to ask Mr. Wizard any old question vexing you.

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HUGO OLEA-LOPEZ, 23, of Upper Lake was found shot to death in a Spy Rock marijuana garden back on June 17th. The Mendocino Major Crimes Task Force, armed with three search warrants and accompanied by Probation and Fish and Game officers, raided the remote neighborhood northeast of Laytonville on August 29th, hoping to find evidence helpful to the ongoing investigation into Olea-Lopez’s murder. The Task Force commander, Rich Russell, said the police turned out in force because the area is considered so dangerous the usual door-to-door investigative work is not safe for detectives. From one location, the raid team seized eight guns including an assault rifle, a new Subaru and $25,000 in cash.

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AT ANOTHER POT OP, Garland M. Reid, 29, of Laytonville, and Virginia E. Keehne, 38, of Laytonville were arrested on suspicion of possessing marijuana for sale and cultivating marijuana. At another, Justin W. Roberts, 37, of Laytonville, was arrested on suspicion of possessing marijuana for sale, cultivating marijuana and being armed with a gun. At yet another site on Registered Guest Road off Spy Rock Road, Michael E. Griffin, 45, of Redding, was arrested on suspicion of possessing marijuana for sale, cultivating marijuana and being an ex-felon with a gun. Mason D. Arnold, 37, of Phoenix, was also taken into custody on suspicion of possessing marijuana for sale and cultivating marijuana.

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THE NEXT DAY, pot raiders confiscated 454 marijuana plants from three different gardens north of Van Arsdale Road in Potter Valley. No one was arrested.

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NEW ENVIRONMENTAL SCHOLARSHIP PROGRAM LAUNCHED

In August, and just in time for the new school year, eight coastal residents launched the Mendocino Coast Environmental Scholarship – a new scholarship program designed to foster interest in majoring in college environmental studies and environmental careers along with grassroots activism. They already fundraised over $4,000 for the first year. Keystone grants were provided by a number of individuals as well as Out of this World and Jeff & Joan Stanford of the Stanford Inn. The most recent grant was for $1,000 from an anonymous Fort Bragg donor. The MCES governing committee is comprised of Louisa Morris, Tom Wodetzki, Chuck Greenberg, Pete Kalvass, Warren deSmidt, Lee Edmundson, and Deborah Kettner, along with Rod Jones who serves as interim program administrator.

MCES committee members will be seeking additional donors who are willing to participate by contributing $100 or more and who will consider pledging a minimum $100 for subsequent years. The initial focus was for students in the Mendocino Unified School District but MCES is seeking donors and participants to help expand fund coverage to all coast schools and then possibly to extend county-wide. With the most recent grant from the Fort Bragg donor, MCES is already on its way in that direction. Interested parties may drop a note to P.O. Box 189, Mendocino, 95460, email rodjones@mcn.org, or call 937.3725.

Seen here at their breakfast meeting at the Raven’s Restaurant are MCES Committee Members (left to right) Tom Wodetzki, Pete Kalvass, Deborah Kettner, Rod Jones, Chuck Greenberg, Warren deSmidt, and Louisa Morris.

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AUDITIONS FOR THE FIRST PLAY OF THE 2014 SEASON: Other Desert Cities!

The Mendocino Theatre Company will be holding auditions for the first play of its 2014 Season, Other Desert Cities, by Jon Robin Baitz. The production will be directed by veteran company member, Bob Cohen. “You know that sign on the highway where you can either turn off for Palm Springs or keep going to “Other Desert Cities”? I’m always so tempted to just keep on driving. Christmas Eve, 2004, writer Brooke Wyeth arrives at the Palm Springs home of her parents Lyman and Polly, former Hollywood Golden Era Republicans and personal friends of the Reagans. As family tensions begin to rise, it becomes clear that Brooke has arrived for more than just a family visit. Known as one of the most complex and sophisticated American plays of the current decade, Other Desert Cities is a bitingly funny comedy/drama that takes a razor sharp look at familial responsibility, family secrets, and the objectivity of memoir. Auditions will be held on September 23rd and 24th at 6:30pm at The Mendocino Theatre Company, 45200 Little Lake Street, Mendocino. Casting is open for the following roles: Brooke Wyeth, Female, mid to late 40s; Lyman Wyeth, Male, 70s; Silda Grauman, Female, 60s; Trip Wyeth, Male, mid to late 30s; The role of Polly Wyeth has been pre-cast. Other Desert Cities runs February 27th-April 6th, 2014, with a total of 21 performances over six weeks. Perusal scripts are available at the MTC box office at 45200 Little Lake Street in Mendocino. If you wish to check out a script, please contact the MTC box office at 707-937-4477. If you are unable to make an audition time or would like more information, please contact Director Bob Cohen at 707-937-1949.

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STATEMENT OF THE DAY: What a sick, twisted system. 12 million people can’t find work, wages have been stagnant for over a decade, 47 million people are on food stamps, household income is down more than 8% since 2000, consumer spending is on the ropes (personal spending rose a meager 0.1% in July), the homeless shelters are bulging, the food banks are maxed out, and the unemployment rate just dropped to 7.3% because — get this — another 312,000 workers threw in the towel and gave up looking for a job altogether. Get the picture? The US economy is in the shitter! Meanwhile — while the financial system teeters and the country goes to hell — the geniuses at the Central Bank keep juicing the money supply and boinking rates to help their rich slacker friends get richer still. What a racket. (Mike Whitney)

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JOHN SAKOWICZ WRITES: Here’s my updated post on yesterday’s show on “Articles of Impeachment,” including quotes from four sources with national reputations. All four sources are law professors and constitutional law experts.

http://www.kzyx.org/index.php/talk-shows/politics-and-public-affairs/all-about-the-money/entry/syria-and-qthe-business-of-warq-on-kzyx-friday-sept-6—9-am-pacific-time

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THE REPETITION COMPULSION FOR WAR

and How It Might Fail This Time

By Norman Solomon

No matter how many times we’ve seen it before, the frenzy for launching a military attack on another country is — to the extent we’re not numb — profoundly upsetting. Tanked up with talking points in Washington, top officials drive policy while intoxicated with what Martin Luther King Jr. called “the madness of militarism,” and most media coverage becomes similarly unhinged. That’s where we are now.

But new variables have opened up possibilities for disrupting the repetitive plunge to war. Syria is in the crosshairs of US firepower, but cracks in the political machinery of the warfare state are widening here at home. For advocates of militarism and empire by any other name, the specter of democratic constraint looms as an ominous threat.

Into the Capitol Hill arena, the Obama White House sent Secretary of State John Kerry to speak in a best-and-brightest dialect of neocon tongues. The congressional hierarchies of both parties — Nancy Pelosi, Steny Hoyer, John Boehner, Eric Cantor — are on the same page for an attack on Syria. And meanwhile, the U.S. mass media have been cranking up the usual adrenalin-pumped hype for war.

More than 10 years ago, American media outlets were filled with breathless idolatry of the latest U.S. weapons poised to strike Iraq. Now, the big TV networks are at it again – starting to hype the Pentagon’s high-tech arsenal that’s ready to demolish Syrian targets. Of course the people at the other end of the weaponry aren’t in the picture.

The Media Education Foundation has just posted a two-minute montage of coverage <http://vimeo.com/73969073> from MSNBC, Fox and CNN idolizing the latest Pentagon weaponry for use in the Iraq invasion a decade ago — as well as Walter Cronkite doing the same on CBS during the Vietnam War. As a present-day bookend, a CNN clip<http://www.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/international/2013/09/02/lead-live-russia-ships-give-syria-us-warning.cnn.html> from a few days ago provides a glimpse of how little has changed (except for slicker on-screen graphics).

But the usual agenda-building for war may not work this time.

The first week of September has stunned the military-industrial-media complex. It began with a familiar bellicose call for action from the president, seconded by leaders of both parties on Capitol Hill and echoed by mass media. And yet by the end of the week, grassroots opposition had interrupted the war momentum.

Senators and members of the House are being overwhelmed with anti-war messages via email, fax and phone. People are rising up to demand that Congress vote against launching a war on yet another country.

Whether Obama would actually abide by failure to gain congressional “authorization” to attack Syria is by no means clear. But our immediate task is to create such a failure.

This is a pivotal juncture of history in real time, an “all hands on deck” moment to exert enough public pressure to prevent a war-on-Syria resolution from getting through Congress. Such an outcome would thoroughly delegitimize any order from Obama to attack Syria. In the process, we would make real progress against the masters of war.

There’s an antidote to the repetition compulsion for war. It’s called democracy.

(Norman Solomon is co-founder of RootsAction.org and founding director of the Institute for Public Accuracy. His books include “War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death.” Information about the documentary based on the book is at www.WarMadeEasyTheMovie.org

SAN FRANCISCO SPEAKS OUT AGAINST THE BOMBING OF SYRIA

THE EDITOR attended today’s rally and march and will be writing about it for tomorrow’s posts.

PEACE ACTIVISTS from the San Francisco Bay Area demonstrate against the announcement by the Obama administration that it intends to bomb Syria, at Justin Herman Plaza on the city’s waterfront.

Photos by David Bacon