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Mendocino County Today: Tuesday, May 20, 2014

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TUESDAY'S (TODAY’S) SUPE'S MEETING consent calendar includes a proposal to crack down on, ah, the least desirable members of what you might call the County's, ah, tonsorially incorrect leisure class. The more unkind members of our communities call them "bums." The board will adopt three new policies for the county's libraries, developed by former County Librarian Mindy Kittay, the Mendocino County Library Advisory Board and the County Counsel's Office that includes a Standards of Behavior Policy, a Computer Use and Internet Policy and a Privacy Policy, all aimed at, ah, the obnoxious strata of unfortunates who camp out in the goddam libraries annoying hell out of everyone else, staff especially.

THE STANDARDS OF BEHAVIOR POLICY includes prohibitions on using the public restrooms for “shaving, bathing or as laundry facilities; selling, soliciting, panhandling or mass distribution of unapproved materials; loitering in or around the library; creating a nuisance to those who are trying to enter or exit or use library resources; sleeping, moving or putting feet on the furniture, harassing behavior, excessive noise, stalking other patrons, trespassing, unattended children and smoking within 20 feet of the building,” and whatever other unsocialized behavior the tonsorially and behaviorally incorrect might engage in, and these sumbitches just might do literally anything.

THE PROPOSED POLICY, obviously the work of the worst kind of “liberal” candy asses, gains hilarity with every chaste euphemism. “Anyone whose bodily hygiene is offensive so as to constitute a nuisance to other persons shall be required to leave the building.” Strong perfume or cologne is also discouraged, and patrons are required to be “fully clothed, including shirt, shoes and pants, dress or skirt. Sleeping bags, bedrolls and packages in bulk or quantity that cannot be stored entirely under the owner's chair are prohibited and shouldn't be left unattended.”

THE BOARD will also hear a third-quarter budget report on the county departments' finances and consider the County CEO's recommendations for the 2014-15 budget.

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THE PRESS DEMOCRAT after decades — at least back to the 1950s — no longer maintains a news bureau in Mendocino County. The PD closed its Ukiah office without so much as an adios anywhere in its pages. Glenda Anderson was moved out of the last PD office at 315 Standley St. Ukiah and was told she either had to travel to the main office in Santa Rosa to work, or work out of her home in Ukiah. No more bureau. Mike Geniella said Monday, “As a former bureau chief, it saddens me greatly. The bureau's presence was huge all those years, symbolic of the PD's commitment to being the regional newspaper on the North Coast. I wished the PD would have just announced the closure, just as it would have demanded from anyone else in the public or private sectors. Instead, it's typical of the current back door policies of a once justifiably proud newspaper. So long PD bureau. It was a great ride.”

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THE DOC'S DUI. No official confirmation yet, but the three judicial colleagues of newly appointed Mendo Superior Court judge Jeanine Nadel, have upheld Nadel's ruling that Ukiah Police officer Murray who arrested Dr. Nayak, also of Ukiah, for drunk driving did not have reasonable cause to detain the doctor. Dr. Nayak, represented by Lake County attorney William Conwell, had appealed her conviction and Nadel found in Dr. Nayak's favor. The DA's office appealed Nadel's decision, and the case went to an in-house trio of Nadel's peers who have now upheld Nadel's decision that Officer Murray's original stop of the doctor was arbitrary. The doctor, for all legal purposes, was not driving under the influence.

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VaccineCoverageRE THE GROWING Northcoast trend of young parents not vaccinating their children: “This is just a tragedy! These little babies have no vote! Their parents think they know better than proven science; know better than trained physicians; know better than anyone. They get their information on the world wide web — an unreliable source for medical information! All the while, putting their babies at risk and putting other vulnerable folks at risk. Too bad they didn't grow up like I did when children were in Iron Lungs before we all got that first sugar cube! As a former nurse, too bad they haven't seen an infant struggling for a breath with whooping cough! I used to work for docs in the 70s and when parents refused to immunize because it ‘wasn't natural’ they simply reminded these ‘educated parents’ about nature and about survival of the fittest! They got it — most of them.”

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GETTING TOWED IN SAN FRANCISCO

When a vehicle gets towed due to the City’s Department of Parking and Traffic violations, AutoReturn takes the vehicle to the storage lot at 450 7th St. and Harrison. The towing fee is $472, and you get a DPT citation on top of that. For example, if you were not paying attention to the time, it is 3:05pm and you are parked in a “Tow Away No Stopping from 3-6pm Zone.” And SFMTA proposes fare, fee, and fine increases for Fiscal 2015-2016. The above document gives details and the breakdown of fees: MTA charges a $254 administrative fee and AutoReturn Tow fee is $208.75. Total for car tow: $462.75, not including the DPT citation. The same page: “SFMTA’s towing and storage administrative fees partially recover the cost of SFMTA’s towing and storage administrative oversight at this time.” What does “administrative oversight” mean? DPT officer gives a citation, calls AutoReturn and watches the car getting towed. AutoReturn takes the vehicle to the storage lot. They release the vehicle only after you pay the towing fee of $462.75. Then you have 30 days to pay DPT for the citation. AutoReturn does all the work for $208. While MTA collects $254 per tow for no work at all. MTA is a welfare organization. They need a cost of living adjustment to increase their towing fees by $9, from $254 to $263 starting July 2014. When a car gets towed in Houston, San Diego, and Chicago the towing fee is between $100 and $150. These cities don't have a bloated MTA that is hungry for money.

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POLICE CALLS AS OF TUESDAY MORNING

VEHICLE PROWL -- Caller in the 1000 block of North Pine Street reported at 4:41 a.m. Friday that someone broke into a car parked next door. An officer responded and took a report.

SHOPLIFTER -- An officer responded to Walmart on Airport Park Boulevard at 11:58 a.m. Friday and arrested William H. Flubacher, 26, of Little River on suspicion of possessing a controlled substance for sale and for theft.

DUI ARREST -- An officer stopped a vehicle in the 1200 block of Airport Park Boulevard at 2:34 a.m. Saturday and arrested Cody Martin, 21, on suspicion of driving under the influence.

TRASH IN SKATE PARK -- Caller in the 1000 block of Low Gap Road reported at 6:21 a.m. Saturday that a 16-year-old boy was behind the locked gate of the Ukiah Skate Park, which was full of trash. An officer responded but no prosecution was desired.

ORANGE CONE IN ROAD -- Caller at 10:37 a.m. Saturday reported that an orange cone was in the road for an unknown reason. An officer removed the cone.

PARK WATER RUNNING DOWN THE ROAD -- Caller at Observatory Park reported at 10:44 a.m. Saturday that the water was on at the park and it was running down the road. City employees were contacted.

SLIDING GLASS DOOR BROKEN -- Caller in the 300 block of North Main Street reported at 12:18 p.m. Saturday that someone broke his sliding glass door with a rock.

SHOPLIFTER -- Caller at Kohl's on North Orchard Avenue reported at 12:18 p.m. that someone tried to steal a ring. An officer responded and arrested a 22-year-old Ukiah woman for theft. She was cited and released.

ROOSTERS IN VAN -- Caller in the 1200 block of Airport Park Boulevard reported at 2:05 p.m. Saturday that a van parked in the parking lot had roosters in cages inside it. An officer checked the area but did not find it.

GIRL WITH BLACK EYE -- Caller in the 300 block of South State Street reported at 3:05 p.m. Saturday that a girl had a black eye. An officer responded and contacted the girl, who was fine.

SHOPLIFTER -- An officer responded to Kohl's on North Orchard Avenue at 4:50 p.m. Saturday and arrested a 23-year-old Ukiah woman for theft. She was cited and released.

WANTS TO ARREST SPEEDER -- Caller in the 700 block of South Dora Street reported at 8:08 p.m. Saturday that she wanted to make a citizen's arrest of someone that just sped by her house in a car.

BURGLARY -- An officer responded to the 1200 block of North State Street at 8:36 p.m. Saturday and arrested Douglas P. Kenyon, 47, of Ukiah, on suspicion of burglary and petty theft.

The following were compiled from reports prepared by the Ukiah Police Department regarding calls handled by the Fort Bragg Police Department.

FIRECRACKER IN MAILBOX -- Caller in the 400 block of South Lincoln Street reported at 9:58 a.m. Friday that someone set off a firecracker in her mailbox.

WOMAN IN VAN WITH A CRACK PIPE -- Caller on Noyo Point Road reported at 2:54 p.m. Friday that a red van had been parked there for a week, and a woman with a crack pipe was inside it. An officer responded but did not see the van and could not contact the caller.

KIDS THREW ROCK AT TRUCK -- Caller on Hull Road reported at 4:45 p.m. Friday that kids threw a rock at his truck and chipped the paint. An officer responded and took a report.

WOMAN HIT IN PARKING LOT -- An officer responded to Safeway on South Main Street at 5:46 p.m. Friday and took a report for a woman being hit by a car in the parking lot.

KIDS PULLING UP PLANTS -- Caller in the 300 block of South Lincoln Street reported at 5:41 p.m. Saturday that boys were pulling up plants in the school garden. An officer responded but did not find any boys or any damage.

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A 20-YEAR OLD MAN was arrested Saturday on suspicion of driving under the influence after nearly colliding with a police officer's vehicle, the Fort Bragg Police Department reported. According to the FBPD, a caller in the 100 block of East Chestnut Street reported at 9:29 p.m. Saturday that a car was speeding in the area and may have hit something. When an officer responded to the area, the alleged drunk driver, identified as Aaron E. Koski, Jr, of Fort Bragg, reportedly nearly hit his vehicle and fled the scene. Officers then pursued Koski for several blocks before stopping him. Determining he appeared to be under the influence of alcohol, officers had Koski perform sobriety tests, then placed him under arrest. He was booked into Mendocino County Jail on suspicion of evading a peace officer, reckless driving and driving under the influence.

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530 VEHICLES were stopped at Sunday's abalone checkpoint on Highway 128 at the  Boonville Fairgrounds parking lot. and checked for abalone by California Fish and Wildlife officers. 13 citations were issued, mostly for abalone violations, but tickets for having too many mussels and starfish were also issued. Ab divers need a fishing license and an abalone report card. Each diver is allowed to have three abalone which must be at least seven inches long and "properly tagged and recorded."

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Cole
Cole

CAUGHT COLE. On May 10, 2014 at approximately 6:22pm, Mendocino County Sheriff's Deputies contacted 35 year old Joshua Cole of Ukiah sitting in his vehicle at the 1300 block of N. State St. Ukiah. During the contact Deputies detected the odor of marijuana coming from Cole's vehicle. Deputies conducted a search of the vehicle and located approximately 11 grams of marijuana, approximately a gram of methamphetamine and a glass methamphetamine pipe. Cole was arrested for Possession of a controlled substance and Possession of drug paraphernalia and was transported to the Mendocino County Jail where his bail was set at $10,000. (Sheriff’s Press Release)

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Yam
Yam

YAM CAN STAB: On May 12, 2014 at approximately 10:20am, Mendocino County Sheriff’s Deputies were dispatched to the Mendocino Coast District Hospital, located at 700 River Drive, Fort Bragg, to contact the victim of a stabbing. Mendocino County Sheriff’s Deputies arrived at the location and contacted the victim, Kein Gonzalez, 36, of Fort Bragg, who was being treated for a stab wound to the forearm and several lacerations to the hands. Deputies learned Gonzalez and the suspect, Esau Yam, 28, of Fort Bragg were both employed by a local fishing business, located in the 32000 Block of North Harbor Drive, Fort Bragg. On May 12, 2014, in the morning hours, Gonzalez and Yam engaged in a verbal argument at their place of employment. The argument escalated and the two challenged each other to fight outside the business. Gonzalez and Yam initiated a fight outside the business and at some point during the altercation, Yam withdrew a knife and stabbed Gonzalez in the forearm. A struggle then ensued over the knife resulting in both Gonzalez and Yam acquiring laceration injuries to their hands. Gonzalez was taken to the Mendocino Coast District Hospital where he was treated for his injuries. Deputies attempted to locate Yam without success. At approximately 2:45pm, Deputies received information that Yam was located in the 300 Block of Redwood Avenue, Fort Bragg. Due to a high volume of calls for service, Deputies requested assistance from the Fort Bragg Police Department, to respond to the location and attempt to locate Yam. At approximately 3:15pm, Officers with the Fort Bragg Police Department responded to the location and detained Yam until Deputies arrived. Yam was placed under arrest for Assault with a Deadly Weapon and was transported and lodged into the Mendocino County Jail in lieu of $30,000 bail. (Sheriff’s Press Release)

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GRIJALBA ALGEBRA. On May 15, 2014 at approximately 10:45pm, Sheriff’s Deputies initiated a traffic enforcement stop on a vehicle in the 17900 block of Ocean Drive after observing a false registration tab affixed to the rear license plate. Deputies contacted the driver, Alejandro Grijalba, 23, of Fort Bragg, and three other passengers in the vehicle. Deputies learned that Grijalba had a suspended and revoked California driver’s license and is on felony probation with terms including search and seizure weapons possession prohibition. Deputies directed Grijalba to exit the vehicle and informed him he was under arrest for driving while having a suspended and revoked driver’s license. After Grijalba exited the vehicle, and while Deputies were in the process of placing him into handcuffs, Grijalba became confrontational with Deputies and non-compliant with their directions. Then without notice, Grijalba broke away from the Deputy's grasp and fled on foot. One Deputy pursued Grijalba from a distance and eventually caught up to Grijalba after he stopped at a residence and retrieved a garden hose. The garden hose had a large plastic spray nozzle attached to the head. Grijalba began swinging the hose in a circular fashion as he was preparing to strike the Deputy who was directing Grijalba to drop the hose. Grijalba then advanced on the Deputy and attempted to strike the deputy with the hose. The Deputy was able to move abruptly and avoid from being struck. Grijalba fled on foot again and was pursued a short distance before Deputies lost sight of him. Deputies conducted a search of the area and were unable to locate Grijalba. The other three passengers present in the vehicle were ultimately released at the scene. Grijalba's vehicle was searched and found to contain a concealed weapon near the driver's seat, a violation of Grijalba's probation.

Grijalba, Specie-Day, Chiles, Pineda
Grijalba, Specie-Day, Chiles, Pineda

On May 17, 2014 at approximately 6:30pm, Deputies arrived at a residence located in the 17900 block of Oklahoma Lane in Fort Bragg with information that Grijalba was present at the location. Deputies also sought and obtained an arrest warrant for Grijalba before their response. Upon their arrival, Deputies located and arrested Grijalba inside the residence. Also present at the location were the three passengers inside Grijalba’s vehicle on May 15, 2014, identified as Cheyenne Specie-Day, 20, Chrystal Chiles, 38, and Luis Pineda, 21, all of Fort Bragg. Deputies arrested Specieday, Chiles and Pineda after they all made an overt attempt to conceal Grijalba’s presence from Deputies and after knowing that Grijalba was wanted for assaulting a peace officer. All four suspects were transported to the Mendocino County Jail. Grijalba was booked Assault of a Peace Officer with Deadly Weapon, Resisting Arrest, and Violation of Probation with bail set at $50,000. Specie-Day, Chiles and Pineda were booked for Harboring and Concealing a Principal of a Felony with bail set at $15,000 each. (Sheriff’s Press Release)

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A READER WRITES: “The ‘Bob Bushansky,’ who recently used the MCN community listserve to launch an attack on beleaguered KZYX Board member and popular radio show host John Sakowicz (as reported in a recent “Mendocino County Today”), is not only on the station's Community Advisory Board, but he is also rumored to be the live-in boyfriend of KZYX Board member, Meg Courtney. (In fact, Bushansky and Courtney are listed together in the on-line white pages.) This raises three questions. Is the KZYX Board, and the station's notoriously oppressive and paranoid management, now stacking the Community Advisory Board with family and friends? Isn't that an obvious conflict of interest? And does a live-in boyfriend like Mr. Bushansky, pay his fair share of the mortgage or rent? Or is Mr. Bushansky a freeloader? Sorry. That's four questions.”

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HUMCO OK’S ATTENDANCE INCREASE FOR REGGAE FEST

by Daniel Mintz

Convinced that the Mateel Community Center has addressed parking and security concerns, the Board of Supervisors has approved a 1,000-person attendance increase for the Reggae on the River music festival.

The Mateel’s appeal of a Planning Commission decision to limit the event’s attendance to 8,000 people was approved by the Board of Supervisors at a May 13 hearing.

Supervisors granted the Mateel’s request to bring attendance to 9,000 people, consisting of 500 staffers and volunteers and 500 festival-goers. With that, the number of staffers and volunteers will total 2,500 at this summer’s event.

The Mateel has a five-year permit to hold the festival at French’s Camp but annual reviews of the event’s operation are required. Last year was the first time that the Mateel held the popular event at French’s Camp, its original site.

Senior Planner Michael Richardson described some of the management shortfalls that troubled the Planning Commission. He said the Mateel “didn’t handle parking as well as it could have,” as a last minute need for overflow parking led to use of the Caltrans lot just south of the festival site.

People walking to the site from that lot trespassed on private property, Richardson continued, a problem compounded by lack of communication between security personnel.

“They didn’t have good communication between the heads of the security team and the people on the ground,” he said. Though “part of the problem was out of control of the applicants” due to transmission tower disruptions, “There was some lapse in communication and that ended up causing some problems.”

But Justin Crellin, the Mateel’s general manager, said this year’s festival will include three additional parking lots, including the Richardson Grove RV Park and Family Camp and a lot adjacent to it. Day use parking will be at the Benbow golf lot and the County Line Ranch property – formerly the Dimmick Ranch – will offer plentiful additional parking if needed.

Crellin also detailed how the Mateel is addressing security concerns – there will be “additional posts” on the private properties that saw problems last year as well as throughout the greater area of the project site.

He said there will be “increased river patrol,” as well as “more security on Highway 271 and throughout the Piercy community.”

There will also be more onsite security, Crellin continued. He said that at last year’s festival, some attendees set up “unreasonably-sized camps” and security staffers will make sure campsite footprints are fair this time.

During public comment, Jesse Parsons, the property owner affected by last year’s trespassing incidents, said he’s now in favor of allowing the attendance increase. His tenant, Season George, had also commented at the Planning Commission hearing and told supervisors that the Mateel has made a “big effort” to correct problems and she can support the increase.

Brett Fabbri, the commander of the California Highway Patrol’s Garberville station, said his meetings with the Mateel’s staff have convinced him that this year’s festival will see improved management.

Supervisor Estelle Fennell’s motion to approve the increase but freeze it for next year’s event was questioned by Supervisor Mark Lovelace and eventually struck. Board Chairman Rex Bohn noted that he was the only supervisor who “voted against the whole darned thing” last year, but added that the festival is important to the community and its non-profit groups.

All the festival’s food booths are operated by non-profit groups. Although Bohn said that “if there’s any hiccups, don’t look for any more (attendance) next year, he believes the Mateel deserves a chance to prove itself.

“Justin’s been great to work with and the CHP and the Caltrans meetings have gone great and I think we’ve made a lot of headway,” said Bohn.

Supervisors unanimously approved the amended motion. It included the deletion of a clause stipulating that the festival would be cancelled if another one is held simultaneously on County Line Ranch. But the owner of the ranch has submitted a letter saying there’s no intention to hold a competing festival. A five-year festival permit for the County Line Ranch site expires this year.

The Mateel’s five-year permit includes a 10,500 attendance limit. Mateel Board President Garth Epling had called attention to an influx of letters of support for the event and said the maximum attendance level “strikes a great balance” between revenue generation and maintaining a comfortable atmosphere.

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DEMO DRIVEL

Editor,

I just read the AVA’s voting recommendations, forwarded from Tom Wodetzki after I sent him a rant about the Antler/Courtney insipid, brain-dead recs.

Thank you for what you wrote. Clearly, most of Mendocino County and most of America have been inhaling methane for too long if this is what passes for “progressive” thinking in the words of the headless Antler. Really, Jerry Brown — the environmental turncoat and pseudo-populist poser — and Huffman, friend to Israeli apartheid and genocide? I am resolute in my opinion that the greatest danger to the world are the sheep in America who continue to support the neoliberal Democrat agenda — having drunk from the fount of Obama, they have forever lost their minds.

I don’t live in Mendo any longer, but still recall the pep rally for pro-NAFTA, pro-Iraq war, pro-corporate, crushed grape-head Mike Thompson about 11 years ago in Little River, with the likes of Antler and Dave Turner falling over themselves to lick Thompson’s shit-stained shoes. And the Democrats keep on ticking, in lockstep with fascists and imperialists like Obama, Feinstein, Boxer, and Huffman.

I appreciate that the AVA frequently re-prints columns by Norm Solomon, Ralph Nader, Andrew Levine, and other real progressives. If you haven’t done so, I think the recent piece by Paul Street on the vindication of Nader would be timely to post before the next election — the first time in my 61 years that I won’t vote.

While I strongly disagree about Eyster, with his thuggish prosecution of Will Parrish in evidence, I’m encouraged enough by the lucidity of your column that I should soon get off the schneid and re-up my ante for an AVA subscription.

Peter Warner, (formerly of Elk)

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YOUR CALL IS IMPORTANT TO US

by James Kunstler

Funny how, in the current national rapture of techno-narcissism, it is harder than ever to do something that for generations used to be as simple as pie: to get somebody on the telephone. It’s especially funny in a time when phones have become a prosthetic extension of every human hand and pretty much the be-all and end-all of human culture. I hold a phone, therefore I am!

It’s not so funny that the places where it is most difficult to connect to a live human being are among the most critical activities, most particularly every branch of health care. Hospitals now operate under the entirely false and obviously dishonest premise that a robotic phone routing system is the best way to handle communications. Notice that, in the logic of this system, no distinction is made between mundane business and medical emergencies. Everybody who calls get’s the same perky robot — always a woman, by the way, in a dishonest attempt to provide false reassurance that a “caring” presence (Big Sister) is at the other end of the line. Whether you call about a billing error or having just shredded your foot in a rototiller, the message at the other end will always be democratically the same: “Your call is important to us.” (Not.)

I dwell on these matters because I spent an inordinate amount of time last week calling around to several hospitals and doctors offices to get some of my medical records for a lawsuit I am prosecuting against the manufacturer of a defective hip implant that gave me cobalt / chromium poisoning. Note also that we have contrived to make it nearly impossible to obtain our own medical records.

Now I am, going to reveal to you why it is so difficult to get a live human being on the telephone at these important places: because the more of a racketeering matrix medicine becomes, the more it seeks to evade responsibility for the consequences. That is, the more medicine becomes a criminal enterprise, the less it wants to hear from its client/victims. The same ethos is at work in just about every other realm of corporate enterprise in the USA. Our problem in the USA is not “capitalism,” it’s racketeering. Why we fail to comprehend it is one of the abiding mysteries of contemporary life.

The biggest offender after medicine, of course, is banking. They don’t want to hear from you either. They enjoy the privilege of swindling you by both tiny-and-large increments on transaction payments and near-zero interest rates and mortgage contracts where no title record of collateral can be located, and that all works very nicely for them. But they’re too busy creaming off profits to talk to their customers. In both medicine and banking, even the few remaining human secretaries to whose answering machines calls are torturously routed will not return those phone calls. “Your call is important to us.” (Not.)

Now all of this raises a couple of questions. How did we get to this sorry place? And why are citizens not violently angry about it?

To some degree, this situation represents the sheer diminishing returns and unintended consequences of technology. In a nation infatuated with technology, these entropic effects are always ignored. We just don’t want to hear about it, and our related infatuation with feel-good public relations bullshit spews a fog of concealment over it. We apparently like being deceived and don’t mind being tortured.

Robot phone answering systems also allowed corporations to off-load the cost of doing business onto their customers, mostly in the form of wasting vast amounts of their customers’ time. Included in the off-load was the cost of paying receptionists (as telephone answerers used to be quaintly called) and all their medical and retirement benefits — just another manifestation of the vanishing middle class, by the way, since a lot of women used to be employed that way (let’s skip the gender equality side-bar for now). After a while, the added privilege of companies being able to evade responsibility for their actions hugely outweighed the cost-saving advantage of firing some lower level employees.

It ought to be self-evident that this could only happen in a profoundly corrupt, dishonest, and degenerate society, because it took the form of a social compact that accepted this sort of behavior as okay. Doctors especially don’t want to be accessible to their customers. It enhances their aura of supernatural authority to be as unreachable as possible — and most of them these days are safely embedded in the protective corporate matrix one way or another as well. I suppose you can always pray to them and hope for a reply, since that is obviously the system they are trying to emulate. And, after all, this is an especially pious society. But try asking a plain question like, “how come you charged me $34,000 for four hours of anesthesia?” and you will be hung out to dry until the end of time.

As for outrage, I am frankly amazed that the various armed lunatics at large in America are so busy shooting up schools when many more people are actually being harmed, indeed ruined, by the health care “industry” and the banks.

If you have a theory about all this, please offer it up in the Comments department.

8 Comments

  1. Bill Pilgrim May 20, 2014

    I don’t envy the staff at public libraries. It got so bad in the men’s bathroom at the Ukiah branch they installed signs reminding users, in rather terse language, that the floor drain is not for pissing or shitting in. The real question is not whether to restrict the malodorous mendicants from public facilities, it’s why don’t we have any dedicated public facilities that compassionately provide for their basic sanitary needs. The US is getting more medieval by the day.

    • jimmy September 19, 2014

      I couldn’t have said it better.

  2. Harvey Reading May 20, 2014

    “… fully clothed, including shirt, shoes and pants, dress or skirt …”

    Huh? No shorts? In a climate with high summer temperatures? Sounds like some Christofascist morons had a hand in drumming up this nonsense. This goes far beyond democrapic psuedoliberalism. Will they require that library patrons swear an oath to god, too? Will they lift skirts and pull down pants to check for underwear? This country is doomed, owing to its willful ignorance.

  3. Bruce Anderson May 20, 2014

    When it comes down to it, and it came down to it years ago, for all its preening liberalism, Mendo does nothing imaginative, nothing “progressive” in any social way. Of course bathrooms and showers should be part of Plowshares, Ford Street, the Methodist church, and other do-good programs. Why aren’t they? The County also needs a mandatory County farm for its habituals, which the judges and the libs (interchangeable except for Mayfield and Henderson) could accomplish if there was the will to do it. “Why are you always ragging on the libs, Bruce” I’m often asked. Because they claim to occupy the political high ground but don’t.

  4. Lazarus May 20, 2014

    Social issues are a joke……I had a Willits City Council member tell me he was going to get the “winos” either cleaned up or run out of town……I walked him 10 feet to a crumbling piece of lawsuit ready sidewalk and remarked, “You guys can’t even fix the concrete on Main Street and you’re running your mouth about social issues……? ”
    There is no answer, and there is no fix.

  5. Jim Armstrong May 20, 2014

    There is something creepy about automated telephone systems.
    It is hard to understand why they all seem the same. Does some company have a monopoly on providing them?
    This goes for business and government entities alike.
    “Please listen carefully as our menu has changed.”
    This means if you don’t have a successful experience, it is your fault.
    I don’t think I have ever had the robot understand my spoken response to a prompt. Again this is my fault.
    The whole practice speaks of uncaring arrogance and all of us should make a point of telling that to the first real person we talk to in every call.

  6. Rick Weddle May 20, 2014

    [There’s a line forming at Mr. Kunstler’s site comments section, so let me respond here in the AVA, where I feel more comfy, anyway…]

    Mr. Kunstler, re: your call for theories…
    Thanks for asking. I’ll try to brief here, and I ask that you, and anyone, respond to these comments in turn if you’ve the time and inclination; there’s not much I’d like more than to be shown the error of my conclusions.
    I did have a ‘theory’ I thought might be helpful here (and elsewhere), but I’m afraid it’s progressed on past the theory stage. (The ubiquitous roboticism, ‘your call is important to us’ in fact means, ‘don’t call us, we’ll call you,’ as is becoming clearer by the moment. It’s a ‘friendly’ way of silencing People, minimizing our personal power.)
    A lot of what’s been visible for us is merely a great deal of smoke and a few well-placed mirrors. Trying to peer through the smog and around the mirrors led me to that original theory, a most disconcerting set of probabilities. Composed of several elements, that very disturbing theory might be condensed to:
    1. The ‘evolution’ of corporations in North America in the early 1800’s from temporary utility-oriented systems, limited in purpose and duration, to permanent, synthetic organisms bent on gain WITHOUT LIMIT, if you please, or even if you don’t.
    2. The ‘enthronement’ of the corporations by 1865, as announced then by Abraham Lincoln days before he was murdered by a ‘lone gunman.’ That covert, hostile takeover marked the END of our democratic Republic, victim of a successful sneak attack, left with the barest scrim of false ‘democracy.’
    3. The prompt recognition by the Supreme Court of corporations as ‘persons,’ welcoming those unhuman creatures into our midst, and further, making room for them at the Head of our Table.
    4. The almost total inability, persisting through today, of the Public to recognize the emergence of that synthetic species, corporations, not only as competition in the Real Evolutionary sense, but as Dominant Species on planet Earth. It’s hard (HARD) for us Humans to think we might have been so displaced in such a way, for some very good reasons:
    a. The magnitude of such a surprise simply doesn’t compute for many…it’s too big to focus upon, sort of.
    b. The success of the corporations’ camouflage and public relations gear, posing them as ‘just plain folks.’
    c. Diversions by the carload; Just being busy living takes a good deal of time and effort, leaving little attention to spend on more remote events; entertainments and techno-novelties like our ‘love affair with the automobile,’ which has us Over the Barrel as much as any other single factor; wars here and there, locking us up directly in conflict, or in ‘debate’ about conflict;…the list of diversions is near infinite.
    d. Wishful thinking and ‘creative nostalgia;’ We ARE the Good Guys,…aren’t we? Remember when Roy Rogers could solve Everything with his trusty sixshooters? Remember the ‘good’ War? Aren’t any who disagree with us the Bad Guys, by definition?
    All this has resulted in a populace supine and compliant, eager to identify themselves with their covert, unlawful rulers, the corporations (and the ones behind them). None of us Human members of the ‘free world’ want to see ourselves as merely cannon-fodder, or corrections-grist, or taxyax. Nobody wants to admit that what we fear most about offshore ‘terrorists’ has already been accomplished here and around the world, and is still being perpetrated upon planet Earth by these paper species, the corporations; our forms of government have been corrupted, subverted and commandeered, our economies wrecked, our resources up in smoke and lots more.
    e. Our willingness to be put on HOLD, indefinitely.
    It says all over our money, ‘In God We Trust,’ yet this sentiment is expressed almost nowhere else. America’s most notable products lately have been surveillance systems, razor wire, and weaponry, from personal arms to those of mass destruction. When our currency makes this fervent statement of faith, it’s actually addressing the two-faced demon, Mammon/Mars, repeatedly. If this is not so, I’ll kiss your ass in downtown Jerusalem at rush hour, and give you another 2,000 years to draw a crowd.
    So, Greed itself has been institutionalized, its successful blindside assault crowning it as our unlawful ruler; so what?
    Correctly describing the symptoms does us little good unless there’s a doctor in the house. May I invite you — implore you — to visit amrevcom.blogspot.com, and to peruse the somewhat awkward ‘petition’ here in the pages of the AVA, dated Feb 6, titled ‘Declaration of Emergency,’ and to respond as you see fit in both places? These unilateral, elementary efforts are meant as sparks struck at what I see as a world ass-deep in political kindling, and will mean next to nothing unless taken up by others and added to in sober, determined, concerted ways, defined by them.
    Thanks again for the query, and again, let me know what you think.
    Quite sincerely,

  7. jimmy September 19, 2014

    hey some of the homless fell on hard times mr.above everyone else,i cannot tolerate people who look down on the less fortunate as trash, that yuppy uptown attitude “sucks” so clean up your wording, by the way you are no better then they are its just you either was a pampered momas boy or a spoiled kid born with a golden spoon in your mouth.

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