by Mark Scaramella
Ordinarily, when dumb exchanges between public officials occur at public meetings, it’s just dumb, and maybe somewhat revealing about the public officials involved. But at the August 17 meeting of the Mendocino County Board of Supervisors, an exchange, prompted primarily by Fourth District Supervisor Kendall Smith’s extreme arrogance and thin skin, was not only dumb [...]
September 2, 2010 | Posted in
The Jaundiced Eye |
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by Mark Scaramella
California is in the slo-mo process of merging wine and marijuana into two branches of the same Intoxication industry. The merger is still in its early stages, but the outlines of it are starting to appear, especially with Proposition 19, California’s “Regulate, Control and Tax Cannabis Act of 2010,” looking like it will pass in [...]
August 26, 2010 | Posted in
The Jaundiced Eye |
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by Mark Scaramella
How do you estimate the commercial value of Mendo Mellow? What do you count? Plants? Processed bud? It’s a bit like counting grains of sand on the beach.
by Mark Scaramella
No, no. It’s not what you may think. This is a story told by my father about an experience he had while he was in college at UC Davis. It was 1928 and my grandfather, a dairyman with a small herd near Manchester on the Mendocino Coast at the time, had made arrangements with Professor [...]
July 15, 2010 | Posted in
The Jaundiced Eye |
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by Mark Scaramella
In a letter from San Quentin, Aaron Vargas talks prison & politics.
by Mark Scaramella
All eight of Mendocino County’s “bargaining units” are up for negotiation this year. The “Department Head” bargaining unit, an oxymoronic joke anywhere but Mendocino County, has already agreed to a 10% pay cut. This “bargaining unit” includes all appointed department heads; the elected department heads previously had a 10% pay cut imposed on them without [...]
by Mark Scaramella
Of course the “Regulate, Control and Tax Cannabis Act of 2010″ which will be on the ballot in November will not be called “Proposition 420.” But whatever number it ends up with in November, it’s likely that it will 1. pass, 2. Complicate marijuana law in California more than it is now, 3. look a [...]
by Mark Scaramella
The Mendocino County Grand Jury gets extra credit for persistence, if not effectiveness. For the fourth year in a row, the Grand Jury has concluded that Fourth District Supervisor Kendall Smith is a thief, and this time they seem to be saying that she should be removed from office. I hesitate to bore readers with [...]
June 18, 2010 | Posted in
The Jaundiced Eye |
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by Mark Scaramella
There were some interesting things about Tuesday’s very preliminary election results which should not go unnoticed.
by Mark Scaramella
Not me. I’m waiving my rights. Let’s go out on a limb and predict the outcome of the Fifth District Supervisorial Race on Tuesday. The Fifth District — those who vote anyway — is at least three-fourths lib-labs and one-quarter not. (Obama got 70% of the Mendocino County vote in 2008, and the fifth district [...]
June 3, 2010 | Posted in
The Jaundiced Eye |
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