IT’S ALL QUITE farcical unless you’re the deposed racetrack proprietor Aiken or a race fan. The season was supposed to start at the end of March, but then came DirtGate, a still unknown arrangement between Aiken, apparently, and someone or someones at MTA to remove fuel-soaked dirt from an MTA construction project south of town to the racetrack north of town. When it was discovered that the MTA dirt was contaminated, it had to be moved again, this time to distant landfills.

Siegler

Rodriguez

CALL ME JUDGMENTAL, but I don’t think you want to place Ms. Siegler (arrested last Saturday in Ukiah last Saturday for probation violations and drunk in public) in customer relations. Ms. Rodriguez (arrested the same day for probation violation, possession of brass knuckles, and trespassing), on the other hand, is just the gal you want for Saturday night at the Buckhorn in Covelo.

MARILYN MARCHIONE OF AP WRITES: Coffee seems to be good for you. Or at least it’s not bad, say researchers who led the largest-ever study of coffee and health. They found that coffee drinkers seemed a little more likely to live longer than folks who drink no coffee at all. Regular or decaf didn’t matter. That’s reassuring because a few studies in the past suggested coffee might be harmful. Results of the latest study are published in Thursday’s New England Journal of Medicine. Older studies weren’t wrong: Coffee can raise cholesterol and blood pressure in the short term, which in turn can raise the risk of heart disease. But few studies have looked at coffee and the risk of dying of any cause, let alone specific diseases. Some of those that have involved too few deaths to make firm comparisons. This study involved more than 400,000 people and was done by the National Institutes of Health and AARP. Researchers also took into account smoking, drinking alcohol, exercise and other things that can skew results. Coffee didn’t make that much difference, especially in relation to bigger factors such as smoking. Compared with those who drank no coffee, men who had two or three cups a day were 10% less likely to die at any age. For women, it was 13%. A single cup a day lowered risk a tiny bit: 6% in men and 5% in women. The strongest effect was in women who had four or five cups a day — they had a 16% lower risk of death. However, watch the sugar and cream. Extra calories and fat could negate any good from drinking coffee. Doctors also suggest drinking filtered coffee — that removes the compounds that raise LDL or bad cholesterol.

THE CRACKPOT FILES 2 — EXISTENTIAL. (by Jeff Costello). Approached by a scientology guy in Boston, winter of ’68. Walking down the street near the scientology center in Kenmore Square, with holes in my shoes, cold and hungry. Guy walks up and starts talking to me, giving me the pitch. He cares about me, wants to improve my life. Right then we’re passing a burger joint called the Fatted Calf. I said, “You want to help me? Buy me a burger in there and I’ll listen to what you have to say.” Oh no, he says, I can’t do that. I said all right, see ya later. In Boston I had read The Book (On the Taboo Against Knowing Who Are) by Alan Watts. The title alone was a revelation. It was anarchy. It was also a cursory introduction to Zen, and a different way of seeing things. It was the 60s, after all. Zen, so I’d heard, was a form of Buddhism, so when I was approached by a team of tiny Japanese ladies in Times Square, inviting me to come hear about the “real, true Buddhism,” I bit and went along. What can I say, I was a rock & roll guitar player working at the Electric Circus, but there had to be more to life than having sex with Italian girls from Far Rockaway. Didn’t there? I had curiosity about deeper things. The 60s, remember? The tiny Japanese ladies led me and a few others up to an apartment just off Broadway. The place was crowded and soon one of the ladies got up and talked about the Buddha and chanting. The trick, the secret, was to chant Nam Yo Ho Ren-ge Kyo. This would put you in touch with the current of the universe, which you could then manipulate to your wishes. You just had to chant. What I remember next was a guy, a regular American guy like Archie Bunker, getting up in front of the crowd and giving us a blazing testimonial about chanting for refrigerator – and getting one. It was as if the universal current just pooped out a Frigidaire for this guy. That’s when I left. I was an only child, so fate had it that two of my best friends came from huge families. One with nine kids, and another with eleven. Eleven kids! What an impossible mess their house was. Their mother was the most harried woman I’d ever seen, not a moment’s rest. Yet she seemed somehow peaceful in the chaos. One day my dog attacked the milkman. (There used to be guys who delivered fresh milk with the cream on top to your door in glass bottles, which they took back. Later in the 70’s or thereabouts some genius invented recycling). There was broken glass all over the kitchen floor. The dog was bleeding badly from the snout. The only person I knew to call was Mrs. Shortell, the harried mother of eleven kids. And she came right away and drove the dog and me to the vet. I have to mention that the Shortells were not, like many people in the area, Catholic. The Greshes were Catholic but only had nine kids. I think maybe they just ran out of juice after the ninth, the last of three girls. All six brothers had saints’ names as proper Catholic men should. And equally proper was that one of the brothers went into the priesthood. I was their more or less official orphan, and it was decided – without my participation – that I should become a Catholic. So we all piled into the family car, and drove from Unionville CT to visit brother Ted at Maryknoll seminary in Ossining, NY. Maryknoll, I soon learned, was where missionaries were trained, and sent all over the world to convert the savages and prevent them from using birth control, so they could make more Catholics. Just when I wondering why I was there, brother Ted appeared and invited me into the library. And gave me the pitch. You can’t get into heaven if you’re not Catholic, and so on. I wasn’t buying it, but tried to be polite. And then came the heavy artillery, books. Three or four of them appeared before me on the table. Ted asked, would I be willing to read them. Sure, I said, thinking that accepting the books would get me out of there faster. But then, he named a price, he was trying to sell me the books. This was worse than being refused a hamburger, they wanted my money. The truth was, I didn’t have a dollar to my name, and I told him so. So he offered to lend me the money, like he was a real swell guy to be so concerned for my soul. I turned down the loan and once again, money ruled the moment in a religious pitch. Existentialist is a word I first heard from a musician in Boston, 1967. He was playing some free-form stuff on piano and said it was existentialist music. He asked if I knew the term and I said no. He said existentialists were people who “just don’t give a shit.” A week later he crashed a small airplane and died. Years passed and I related this to a friend in Sausalito who said, “Did you give a shit?”

CHRISTINA AANESTAD WRITES: “Many of you know my car was broken into last month and all my radio, video and photo equipment and my laptop was stolen. I lost the last four years of my work, even the back up. My roommates are organizing a raffle to raise funds for the equipment that was lost. And since my birthday is seven days away, I’m asking all of you to help make a birthday wish come true. I’ve blogged about what I’m needing to replace with a paypal link and info on the raffle here: http://mendocinocountry.com/2012/05/16/on-the-rebound/ I’m also willing to trade advertising in The Mendocino Country Independent in exchange for your generosity. — Christina Aanestad, Publisher, Mendocino Country Independent. (707) 468-1660. www.mendocinocountry.com”

TWO SAN FRANCISCO abalone poachers were convicted last week after a three-day jury trial. Coast-based Fish and Game Warden Dan Powers, an expert in the many clever forms of poaching that ab-lovers have developed over the years was the sole prosecution witness. Using binoculars Powers observed Hou N. Huang, 47, of San Francisco, diving for abs, coming up with an ab 14 times. He then observed Huang put nine of the biggest and best abs in a dive tube and toss the rest, an illegal tactic known as “high grading.” Huang then swam over to Hong Mei, 39, also of San Francisco, and gave him five of the nine. Then the two swimmers swam behind a rock, emerging a few minutes later with an unidentified woman. The nine abs had magically been divided into three for each poacher (the legal limit if done correctly). When Powers approached the trio back on land, they had three each and tried to pass them off as legal. The pair’s defense lawyers for Huang and Mei argued that Mr. Powers couldn’t have identified them positively from 130 yards with all the other poachers, er ab divers, in the area. But the jury didn’t buy the misidentification gambit and convicted both men of poaching. Fort Bragg’s Ten Mile Court Judge Clayton Brennan sentenced Huang to 24 months of court probation, 15 days in jail, court fees, a fine of $2,545, plus forfeiture of his dive gear and the seized abalone. Mei also got 24 months probation, but lower fines and jail time. Their dive gear was also confiscated.

Fairly early on, gay marriage lobbying groups realized that whatever else, they had a gigantic money-raising machine on their hands. Not long thereafter, the right wing realized the same thing. John Scagliotti, maker of Before Stonewall, says he reckons gay marriage is so potent a fundraising tool because whereas it’s hard to visualize anti-discrimination, it’s not at all hard to visualize two men or two women saying “We do.”

So Obama didn’t really have too much of a choice and it was essentially risk-free anyway. “Obama’s gay marriage stance sets off money rush” was the headline in the Chicago Tribune. According to Lawrence O’Donnell, one out of six of Obama’s fundraisers is gay. Now they’ll be toiling with tripled ardor, and Thursday’s huge Hollywood fundraiser hosted by George Clooney probably saw a last-minute surge in big contributions. Cynics suggest that the timing of Obama’s announcement that “I’ve just concluded that — for me personally, it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that — I think same-sex couples should be able to get married” might have had something to do with that event.

I think gay marriage is an incredibly boring subject, though I do like to hear right-wingers say that it will bring the whole edifice of western civilization crashing down. It’s hard these days to find such messages of good cheer. I don’t yearn for such a union, so have no personal stake in the issue. Occasionally my gay friends tell me they’d got married, perhaps remembering my denunciations some years ago of the whole campaign for being essentially conservative.

So the liberal progressives glory in Obama’s “courage” and many a doubting heart about the President’s betrayals is lighter and more forgiving. Trashing the constitution, green-lighting torture, claiming the unilateral right to order the execution of anyone, anywhere on the planet… wiped clean off the windscreen.

Romney the Bully 

Start with the classic schoolbully, Flashman, of Hughes’s Tom Brown’s Schooldays:

“Flashman, be it said, was about 17 years old, and big and strong of his age. He played well at all games where pluck wasn’t much wanted, and managed generally to keep up appearances where it was; and having a bluff, off-hand manner, which passed for heartiness, and considerable powers of being pleasant when he liked, went down with the school in general for a good fellow enough. Even in the School-house, by dint of his command of money, the constant supply of good things which he kept up, and his adroit toadyism, he had managed to make himself not only tolerated, but rather popular amongst his own contemporaries; … Flashman was a formidable enemy for small boys. This soon became plain enough. Flashman left no slander unspoken, and no deed undone, which could in any way hurt his victims, or isolate them from the rest of the house.”

So now we find that while at Cranbrook, an elite prep school in Bloomfield Hills, Romney recruited a small gang to ambush a schoolboy called John Lauber who had died his hair bleached-blond. Led by Romney they threw him to the ground, and Romney forcibly trimmed his hair. Then, after this assault, they swaggered off in triumph to Romney’s room. Four of the ambushers contacted by the Washington Post remembered the episode with shame. Lauber died in 2004. In a chance encounter with another Cranbrook alumnus who had witnessed the ambush Lauber said, “It was horrible… It’s something I have thought about a lot since then.”

Romney’s campaign initially said that the Gov hadn’t a mean bone in his body and it didn’t sound like him. Later Romney said he didn’t remember the incident but apologized for pranks he helped orchestrate that he said “might have gone too far.” By bullying standards of the early 1960s in some British schools, the Lauber episode was par for the course. Romney seems to have had a thing about hair. Later he organized another prank at Stanford which involved kidnapping some UC students, shaving their heads and painting their skulls red. There is a nasty streak in the man. I’m not surprised one of his kids ratted him out on the dog episode, which won’t go away because it symbolizes so much about the Mormon millionaire.

Tumbril Time!

A tumbril (n.) a dung cart used for carrying manure, now associated with the transport of prisoners to the guillotine during the French Revolution

My brother Patrick sagely observes:

In the wake of the Hollande victory there may be excessive demand for tumbrils in Paris to cope with those partisans of the Sarkozy regime unwise enough to delay too long their flight across the Rhine or to the Channel ports. This is a frustrating time, of course, for Fouquier-Tinville, wishing to push ahead with his good work, but perhaps a moment also for reflection and even a more “nuanced” approach on his part. For instance, were all those condemned in the past equally guilty? The phrase “bottom line” is overused, but is there an alternative carrying the same meaning? “Please come to a conclusion” sounds too starchy and dull, “Get on with it” too rude. Perhaps there should be a separate category of words and phrases in danger of the fatal blade but might still be saved. There is “nuanced,” as used above, which was a perfectly good word until journalists started using it to suggest (with a slight touch of self-preening) that there might be more than one reason why something is happening. “Remnants” had been doing no harm until it was used in phrases like “the remnants of Saddam Hussein’s regime” or “al-Qaeda remnants” to explain why people whom Washington had claimed were dead and buried still seemed to be in business. For F-T, surely, not just a challenge but an opportunity.”

* * *

In our latest Newsletter we print Vijay Prashad’s terrific Libyan Diary. From the opening paragraphs:

“For over a week, the oil workers of the Arabian Gulf Oil Company (Agoco) have been on strike outside its offices in Benghazi, Libya. Fifty workers and unemployed youth brought their frustration with the new Libyan authorities to the gates of Agoco, a subsidiary of the National Oil Company. This is not the first protest in Benghazi. In January, protestors occupied the National Transitional Council’s headquarters, trapping its chairman, Mustafa Abdul-Jalil, in the building. Last month, fighters from Zintan captured the Tripoli Airport to highlight their demand for jobs. The protests at Agoco have forced the oil company to cut back on oil production by almost 100,000 barrels per day. Indications are that if the protests continue, Agoco might be forced to shut down all production.

“Early in the rebellion, in March of last year, Agoco’s leadership hastened to the side of the rebels. They pledged to allow production to continue as quickly as possible and to use the oil revenues to finance the rebels. “Agoco is now part of the revolution,” an official told the Financial Times on March 10, 2011, “so, we are trying to get money from the oil.” A year later, the former rebels are back at the gates. This time their grouse is not with Tripoli but with Agoco itself. They have come to redeem the promises made by the oil bureaucracy to them. Unemployed youth and exploited workers believed that their blood would produce a new dispensation in Libya. It has not come to pass.”

Bruce Jackson and Diane Christian dissect arguments for the death penalty, old and new. Sample, from a political scientist of high reputation:

“In 1979, political scientist Walter Berns told us Mill needn’t have worried. The issue, Berns said, wasn’t whether or not the death penalty deterred crime or whether or not it could be administered fairly, but rather that the death penalty lends majesty to the law because it is the only punishment in the criminal justice armamentarium that is absolute and irreversible. The accidental execution of someone guilty of nothing, said Berns, is small price to pay the death penalty’s ratification of a procedure that demonstrates the majesty of the law so well.”

Carmelo Ruiz Marrero digs into one of the most deadly operations in the world in the past few years:

“Between June 2010 and June 2011 world grain prices almost doubled. Wheat went up 70 per cent between June and December 2010, and by June 2011 its price was 83 per cent higher than one year before. During the same 12-month period corn went up 91 per cent…

“This does not affect everyone in equal measure. The average American family spends no more than 10 per cent of its budget on food, whereas the world’s poorest two billion spend between 50 per cent and 70 per cent of their scarce income on food.

“The political consequences of these price hikes can be explosive. During the 2010-2011 period several governments around the world were overthrown, there were riots in cities from Kyrgyzstan to Kenya, and three wars started in the Middle East: Syria, Yemen and Libya.

“The ‘Arab spring’ has not been just about democracy, but also about access to food. The rise in wheat prices between 2010 and 2011 was simply devastating for Egyptian families, who on the average spend 40 per cent of their income on food.”

And finally, as a new French president takes over, Serge Halimi evokes the glorious and successful mutiny of Argentina against the world’s most powerful financial institutions.

Alexander Cockburn can be reached at alexandercockburn@asis.com.

Before there was an Occupy Hendy Woods movement, before there was a Hendy Woods State Park, there was Hendy Grove. When my parents, siblings and I first came to Anderson Valley in the spring of 1957, two years before we became full-time valley residents, Hendy Grove was a spectacular stand of virgin redwoods on the property just northwest of where we would eventually live.

“State and local environmental requirements are preempted, because by their nature they interfere with interstate commerce.” — “Notice of Removal,” North Coast Railroad Authority, filed in United States District Court, Northern California Division on Aug.19 2011.

Nothing the North Coast Railroad Authority does should come as a shock anymore. This, after all, is the state agency that for years ran around telling everyone fantastical and contradictory stories — often pulling facts straight out of thin air — in order to gain whatever momentary financial or political advantage it could. This is the agency that, behind closed doors, awarded a 100-year operating lease to a private party for the grand total of no dollars and zero cents — a giveaway of public assets, for all intents and purposes. The bid went to a former Congressman; the person the NCRA sent to negotiate on its behalf previously served as that Congressman’s aide.

It is far and away the most corrupt arm of government currently operating in Humboldt County, at any level. And it has a nearly unblemished 13-year record of failure to show for it.

It’s truly amazing that a body with such a deep history of incompetence and dishonesty can still find fresh outrages to perpetrate. This week, news emerged that the NCRA now maintains that it does not have to comply with California environmental law. This despite the fact that it has taken millions of dollars from the California Transportation Commission under the pretense that it needed those monies to comply with that law. This despite the fact that it is, in fact, a direct arm of the state of California itself!

To break this down: On the one side you have the Friends of the Eel and Californians for Alternatives to Toxics alleging that the authority’s Environmental Impact Report (quoted above) is inadequate. On the other side, you have the authority and the aforementioned Congressman, Doug Bosco, alleging that the state’s environmental laws do not apply to them, and that the Environmental Impact Report it spent all that public money to prepare is meaningless, on the grounds that only the federal government may regulate interstate commerce.

(It’s worth noting this same Bosco currently serves as chair of the California Coastal Conservancy, believe it or not. It’s also worth remembering that the citizens of our great district booted him out of office after he was caught kiting checks all around Washington, D.C.)

Did I say that this was a “fresh” outrage? Not quite. The NCRA tried to pull the same stunt when it got sued by the city of Novato back in 2008. In that case, the Superior Court judge told the authority to get bent:

“NCRA argues strenuously that the petition for writ of mandate is preempted by the Interstate Commerce Commission Termination Act of 1995. Without conceding that point, the Court finds that NCRA is judiciously estopped from claiming federal preemption, based on NCRA’s repeated and consistent representations that this project is subject to the California Environmental Quality Act.”

But like The Little Engine That Could, the authority is now attempting another run up that same hill. Will they succeed? Who knows? The bigger question is whether the state legislature will ever take notice that their creature has gone rogue.

And locally we have to wonder whether the local Democratic machine — “environmentalists” all, and Assm. Wes Chesbro and his now-aide John Woolley first among them — has any qualms about the efforts of the ridiculous body they have so long championed to run roughshod over California’s most basic environmental regulations.

* * *

Remember back in the fall, when the state agency known as the North Coast Railroad Authority started asserting that it wasn’t bound by state environmental law, despite having applied for and received state money for the purpose of complying with state environmental law?

Well, on Tuesday U.S. District Court Judge Joseph Spero told the NCRA to STFU and GTFO of his courtroom.

Spero’s decision was based on what one might call a technicality, rather than the meat of the matter. The coalition of environmental groups battling to force the railroad authority to perform a proper environmental impact report argued that the case couldn’t be taken federal, as the NCRA wished, because another body — Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit — owns a portion of the tracks, and that agency evinced no wish to move the dispute out of the California justice system. (Download a complete copy of the ruling here.)

But it’s a victory for the enviros nonetheless, because now the NCRA will be forced to place the same limp arguments before a judge sworn to uphold the laws of the state of California. Good luck, guys!

* * *

Press release from Friends of the Eel River below:

Federal Court Rejects North Coast Rail Authority’s Claim That It is Exempt From Environmental Review

A federal court has rejected the North Coast Rail Authority’s claim that it is exempt from review under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). Magistrate Judge Joseph Spero ordered a case brought by two North Coast citizens’ groups returned to a state court for review of the NCRA’s compliance with California’s basic environmental law.

Friends of the Eel River and Californians for Alternatives to Toxics challenged the adequacy of the Environmental Impact Report (EIR) filed by the NCRA as it moved to reopen the southern end of the rail line (which the California state agency calls its Russian River Division) and reopen tracks from Windsor to Willits.

Judge Spero’s decision affirmed that the NCRA must abide by a state court’s review of its June 2011 Environmental Impact Report (EIR). The environmental issues raised by CATs and FOER were not addressed by the federal court.

“NCRA didn’t reveal the environmental impacts of its proposal to get this decrepit railroad operating again and, when challenged, tried to hide behind federal railroad law,” said Patty Clary of Californians for Alternatives to Toxics. “That tactic has failed, and we look forward to taking our claims back to state court where review of the merits will be open to the public.”

“A federal court has now agreed that the NCRA, as a California agency which took California taxpayer funds to do environmental review under California law, cannot walk away from its responsibilities,” said Scott Greacen, executive director of Friends of the Eel River. “This ruling brings us a step closer to protecting the Eel River Canyon and its imperiled salmon and steelhead.”

I was wrong of course. It turns out one of these classes were a non-negotiable requirement for the graduate program which would afford me the career I have wanted to get into since high school.

All I had to do was enroll and pass with a “C” or higher and I was golden. Sounds easy enough, right? Maybe for you. For me it was my own personal road to psychological Mordor. It was that which I was most reluctant to face. It was something stupid but over the years it had grown large and frightening in my mind. Sounds kindof funny. It was a class, not a warzone. So I did something new. Instead of not trying to get into that program or getting around it somehow I enrolled in the class and then:

I asked for help.

Then universe did that thing where it conspires to make it happen because you have been humble enough to ask. A tutor of great patience and experience was willing to help me. He told me to stop whining about my early-childhood issues with this particular subject and get back to the matter at hand. He was in the ring after every fight (test) offering me water (coffee) and reminding me to keep light on my feet (did you do your homework?).

Why is this story important to you? In my view it is because I could have saved myself literally half a lifetime of stress if I had gotten to this class sooner. The amount of psychological space in my brain dedicated to perseverating in depressed moments about what a dork I was for not implicitly knowing this stuff is absurd. I don’t know where I got the idea you had to know something before you studied it but that was a bunch of crap.

I get wrapped up in fear sometimes. I get so tied up sometimes that I can’t make a choice of my own free will and the universe has to blow me off the fence, to one side or another. When I am on the ground it doesn’t matter what side I am on, just that I am no longer gripping the fencepost with wide fearful eyes. I may not even know it yet, but the world has become my oyster (in a non-manifest destiny, sustainable kind of way).

I am probably not the only one who has some secret they have been running from. I suspect there are more of us out there. I not gonna say everything got hunky dory all of a sudden there is a sense of relief because I worked my way through the woods and found out it wasn’t Mordor after all. It was just a Statistics class.

So go do what you’re afraid of already. We don’t have much time.

Planting sugar snap pea seeds yesterday, I was thrilled to find the raised bed rife with earthworms, young and old. We garden in soil known hereabouts as pygmy, which left to it’s own devices will not grow vegetables or much of anything except bonsai pines and huckleberries and the nefarious Scotch Broom. Thus we have eight raised beds in boxes and four beds in the ground, all requiring manure and compost in addition to the local soil to give us a decent harvest.

This past fall I scored a truckload of rabbit manure and I surmise it is this precious poop that has proven such an elixir to the worms. When I moved here six and a half years ago and set up my above-ground composting bin (and before the bears demolished that flimsy plastic thing) I was dismayed to find nary a worm coming up out of the ground and through the slots in the floor of the bin to gobble the tasty leftovers and give birth to myriad wormlets. In Berkeley where I gardened a small plot for eleven years, my composting bin (a gift from the city to encourage us to do the rot thing), produced gazillions of worms in collaboration with the local ground. But in pure pygmy soil, earthworms are as scarce as pumas, and it took a good three years of feeding massive amounts of worm food to the soil before any sort of worm population took hold.

This rabbit poop is apparently some sort of earthworm Viagra, for now when I turn the soil, the good earth literally dances with hundreds of little wigglers. May they grow large and happy, and may our vegetables and flowers and herbs thrive on their castings.

“Once you are in the midst of delusion, there is no end to delusion.” — Shunryu Suzuki 

One sunny day in my Berkeley garden, about ten years ago, I was enjoying eavesdropping on the conversation raging among three teenaged boys and one seventeen-year-old girl gathered around a table on the deck that jutted out from our house and looked down on my garden, the girl being my de facto daughter Ginger, a beautiful and sociable young woman who attracted males as catnip attracts cats and pineapple sage attracts hummingbirds. As a consequence of Ginger’s charms and sociability, our house was frequently overrun by young men, many of them from good Berkeley homes and heading for college, if they were not already in college. Of these three on the deck that day, one was bound for Harvard, one for Stanford, and the third had recently matriculated at the Berklee College of Music in Boston.

When Ginger sashayed into the house to fetch drinks for the thirsty lads, two of them came to the railing of the deck and peered down at me as I thinned carrot seedlings in ground next to my verdant broccoli.

“Is that…” began Jeremy, the Harvard-bound Physics major, “…um…hey, excuse me. Is that like broccoli in those little bushes?”

“Yes, it is,” I said, smiling up at him.

“Oh my God,” he said, his jaw dropping. “Jason, you gotta come see this. Broccoli is like growing on a little bush right in their garden.”

Soon to be studying politics at Stanford pursuant to becoming a lawyer, Jason joined Jeremy and Raul at the railing. “Where?” he said, looking down on the mass of greenery. “I don’t see anything.”

“There,” said Jeremy, pointing emphatically at a head of broccoli. “Right fucking there, man. I never knew it grew like that.”

“Me neither,” said Jason, shaking his head. “Jesus. Look at all that food. Is that like lettuce?”

“Indeed,” I replied, wondering if perhaps they were spoofing me. “Would you like a garden tour?”

“I would,” said Jeremy, skipping down the stairs, “but those guys are like totally fixated on you-know-who.”

So I gave Jeremy a ten-minute tour of my patch of vegetables and herbs. He pulled a carrot for the first time in his life, washed it in the hose while watering the parsley, took a bite and declared, “God, that is so sweet I never would have known it was a carrot.” Then he smiled beatifically. “I’m blown away. I never knew how any of this stuff got here. What a trip.” Then he frowned and shook his head. “Hey, not to change the subject, but we were just arguing about the Vietnam War. Jason said it was kind of an extension of World War II and was about trying to get their resources, and Raul said, ‘Like what resources?’ and I thought it was like to stop the communists. But was it the Russians or the Chinese we were trying to stop? Or…like…do they have oil in Vietnam? I mean, if they had oil wouldn’t they be like rich today?”

“Buddha was more concerned about how he himself existed in this moment. That was his point. Bread is made from flour. How flour becomes bread when put in the oven was for Buddha the most important thing.” — Shunryu Suzuki

I just returned from the farmers’ market in Mendocino with two vibrant young tomato plants, Sun Golds, orange cherry tomatoes with delicious flavor; cherry tomatoes being the only kind of tomato we can grow in our cool clime without the sheltering warmth of a greenhouse. Buying Sun Golds at the Mendocino farmers’ market has become a tradition for me, five years running now, and though I could easily start my own Sun Golds from seed, I prefer to buy my starts from a grower at the market. I suppose if I had a greenhouse, I would be more likely to start my own tomato plants from seed, but maybe not. I like the tradition of going to market to get plants, and I look forward to hunting for the most promising ones, speaking to the growers as I search, maybe sharing a tomato growing story or two. All of which begs the question: why don’t I have a greenhouse, even just a little one, to enhance my gardening experience?

I have now been a renter for eighteen years following fifteen years as homeowner following ten years as a renter, and for all twenty-eight years of my life as a renter some part of me expected to become a homeowner any day now. When I rented my house in Berkeley for eleven years, I did not plant a lemon tree for the first five years because I was convinced that if I were destined to live in Berkeley for more than a few years, surely I would find a way to buy a place and plant a lemon tree there. And now I have lived for six years in this wonderful house we rent on a piece of paradise a few miles from the village of Mendocino, and though my rational mind knows we may never own a house in this kingdom of expensive houses, I have yet to plant blueberries or grapes or fruit trees, or to build a small greenhouse because of that same expectation of possibly owning a home one day. Of course, what makes my reluctance to build a greenhouse entirely silly is that I could easily build the greenhouse to use in our garden now and take the blessed thing with us should we ever fulfill our dream of owning our own place.

“When we become truly ourselves, we just become a swinging door, and we are purely independent of, and at the same time, dependent upon everything. Without air, we cannot breathe. Each one of us is in the midst of myriads of worlds. We are in the center of the world always, moment after moment. So we are completely dependent and independent.” — Shunryu Suzuki

I vow to be more consciously a swinging door, to do the things I want to do now and with much less care for what may or may not happen in the future. I vow to plant a lemon tree if a place in the ground calls out to me and says, “Hey you with the arms and legs and shovel. We could use a lemon tree right here, whether you stick around after you plant it or not.” I vow to live in this house we rent as if we may never leave here until we die. The moment, as Shunryu Suzuki would say, is what we’ve got. The rest is illusion.

I’ve been here before and made similar vows, which I am just now remembering. Five years ago I was quite ill and wondering if I would be around in this body much longer. I had long been planning to publish my book of short stories Buddha In A Teacup, and I kept saying to Marcia, “I will, I will…after I’m completely well.”

Marcia was wonderfully patient with me through my long ordeal, but one evening she said, “By waiting until you think you are completely well, might you be suggesting to your body and the universe that you don’t entirely believe you will get well? Why not go ahead and publish your book and trust that in doing so you will speed the process of your healing?”

So with great trepidation, I followed her counsel and published my book, and in the process of bringing forth Buddha In A Teacup my health improved and life became rosy again, rosy and suffused with the energy of no longer waiting around for some other moment than this one. And because everything is connected, I have since received a good many letters from people who read Buddha In A Teacup and wanted to thank me for reminding them that when we live in the past or dwell in the future, we aren’t really here; and what fun is that?

Todd’s web site is UnderTheTableBooks.com.

Rebellion was not as it seemed

Witness to a ravaged whore

His mother pounding at his door

Ignoring her as his mind burned

Poor heart dribbles at the stern

* * *

I’m reading The Day on Fire by James Ullman, a novel written in 1956 inspired by Arthur Rimbaud’s life. Rimbaud, born in 1854, was raised in Charleville, Ardennes France. He was a brilliant student who won awards but who later turned into an infant terrible. He had been raised by a single mom who nagged him to death and he would put a chair up against the door to keep her out of his bedroom while he wrote. Rimbaud quit sharing his writing before he turned 20 and became a wanderer and an adventurer. Still young, someone asked him if he was still into writing. The person who asked the question wrote later that Rimbaud gave him a look as though he had been asked if he still played with hoops. He died from cancer at age 37.

And so, perhaps inevitably, your Quotes of the Week are all concerned with my third favorite animal: the pig. “Think P.I.G. — that’s my motto. P stands for Persistence, I stands for Integrity, and G stands for Guts. These are the ingredients for a successful business and a successful life,” from American businesswoman and inspirational speaker, Linda Chandler. Then let’s go to “The difference between involvement and commitment is like ham and eggs. The chicken is involved; the pig is committed,” from former tennis star Martina Navratilova. I like this from Albert Einstein: “Well-being and happiness never appeared to me as an absolute aim. I am even inclined to compare such moral aims to the ambitions of a pig.” Next up it’s, “I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig — you get dirty; and besides, the pig likes it,” from the Irish playwright and author, George Bernard Shaw. And finally this proverb and its wise and hopeful thought: “Even a blind pig finds an acorn every once in awhile.” Now go eat some pork at the Barn Sale!

Public Service Announcements. Calendars and pens at the ready. #72. Grange Groove has returned to, where else?, The Grange, on Hwy 128. It’s always the 3rd Friday of the month, in this case May 18th, and the ‘free-dance for all’ runs from 8pm on. This month it features dancing and gyrating to the sounds played by D.J. Stevie D, whose actual grown-up name is Steve Derwinski. (So now it’s Derwinski the DJ.? Who knew?) Anyway, it’s an evening of family fun that is drug and alcohol free (and yet I’m sure it’s still lots of fun! (I’m kidding!)) #73. The annual Pinot Festival takes place this weekend from May 18th thru 20th. #74. The Vets from the Mendocino Animal Hospital will return to the Valley twice more this month, Thursdays, May 24th and 31st. They will be at the AV Farm Supply on Hwy 128 from 2-3:30pm on each occasion but have asked me to inform you that you do not have to arrive early and then wait a long time; everyone showing up at anytime before 3:30pm will be seen. And if you call 48 hours in advance (462-8833) you can ensure that your pet’s medical charts are brought over and order any meds that may be needed. #75. The Guest Chef Dinner benefiting the Senior Center this month will feature Maple Creek Winery owner and chef, Tom Rodrigues. It’s Friday, June 1st and Tom will be serving an Hawaiian-style bbq, featuring pork ribs marinated in pineapple, mango, tamari, shallots, and garlic; chicken thighs marinated in ginger, pineapple, mango, fruit juice, citrus; a fresh green salad with lots of goodness and Hawaiian herbs; and Fresh Tropical Fruit with homemade whipped cream for dessert. Tropical attire is requested! Call 895-3609 to get tickets. This event will sell out.

Topics and Valley events under discussion this week at The Three-Dot Lounge — “Moans, Groans, Good Thoughts, and Rampant Rumors” from my favorite gathering place in the Valley.

…The AV Farm Supply, as owned by Dave and Nancy Gowan, will be gone within a month. Last I heard there were still some positive developments on the possibility that the new owners, who are to be the locally-based Ardzrooni Vineyard Management, will to some degree keep the current operation as it is, while also “doing their own thing.” Along with many other Valley folks, I certainly hope they manage to be successful at doing both.

…Good reports on the 1st Annual Fish and Chips dinner to benefit Youth Footballers who next season will be playing on the new High School JV team. Around $1700 in profit was raised and this should go a long way in covering the new helmets and uniforms that the newly formed team will need.

…The 16th Annual AV Beer Festival — same as always. Great fun for many; excessive drinking for some; ridiculous stupidity by a few. For some of us it was a case of “done it, seen it, enough is enough.”

…Members of the AV Unity Club stopped by at The 3-Dot last week and reminded us that they meet at The Fairgrounds at 1:30pm on the first Thursday of the month. Dessert and tea or coffee is served to accompany the business meeting and a guest speaker or some form of entertainment. I informed them that I’d be there and then read in their leaflet that “all ladies in the community are welcome.” I fully understand. A male in the room would create a different “vibe” — just as a woman in attendance at the local Gentlemen’s Military History Book Club would. Some things should not be messed with simply to address political correctness and surely there is nothing wrong with that.

Time to take my leave. Keep the Faith; be careful out there; stay out of the ditches; think good thoughts; and may your god go with you. One final request, “Let us prey.” Humbly yours, Turkey Vulture. PS. Contact me with words of support/abuse through the Letters Page or at turkeyvulture1@earthlink.net. PPS. On the sheep, Grace. PPPS. Despite what many of you may think, it’s not all glamour being a Turkey Vulture, but I must say we do get many compliments. My favorite, that has no doubt been mentioned here before, comes from no less an expert than the naturalist of Evolution fame, Charles Darwin, who said about us Turkey Vultures, “A disgusting bird whose bald scarlet head is formed to wallow in putridity.” Thank you, Charles, you’re very kind.

IF CONGRESSIONAL CANDIDATE HUFFMAN has any friends in Mendocino County, that person might want to let him know that his list of endorsers including Supervisor Smith and Superintendent of Schools Tichinin will cause voters to scream and run directly to another candidate.

GOVERNOR BROWN has proposed a $544 million whack to the courts, meaning, we hope, an end to the construction of new courthouses. Responding to the prospect of a big whack to the robed ones’ budget, Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye predictably, and with maximum delusion, commented, “The proposed cuts to the judicial branch are both devastating and disheartening. They will seriously compromise the public’s access to their courts and our ability to provide equal access to justice throughout the state.” Since when did “the public” have equal access to the courts? If you can pay you can play. Otherwise, go directly to jail. But think of the public good that will come from no new courthouse for Mendocino County, no mammoth eyesore for Ukiah!

AS THE PRESIDENTIAL race heats up, you are certain to hear Mendolib’s herd bulls — Joe Wildman, Rachel Binah, Val Muchowski, Maryann Villwock, and all of Westside Ukiah except for Tommy Wayne Kramer — going on about how Ralph Nader cost the Democrats the 2000 election, and how you’ll be throwing your vote to Romney if you don’t vote for four more years of Obama. (Clearheaded Mendolanders are, of course, supporting Rocky Anderson of Colorado for president.) Ralph Nader did not cost the Democrats the 2000 election; the Democrats did it to themselves by running the uninspiring Gore who couldn’t even carry his own state. And 250,000 registered Democrats in Florida voted for George Bush, as did nine million registered Democrats across the US. Democrats elected Bush, and they’re probably going to elect Plasto-Man this time around, politically a lateral move from Wall Street’s Obama.

THE SUPERVISORS have unanimously approved a ban on disposable plastic shopping bags, joining bans about to be in place in Ukiah and Fort Bragg. Mendocino County’s ordinance requires a second, final vote before its imposed but that’s assumed to be a done deal, with the ordinance to go into effect in six months. Ukiah gave final approval to its ordinance earlier this month while Fort Bragg’s city council was expected to finalize its vote Monday night. Sonoma County is also discussing a countywide ban.

• Claude Hooten, the new owner of KMFB — now KUNK — set free ten people who had been there for a total of a couple hundred years. He converted the station to a more conventional sports-and-pop-music outlet, bearing slight resemblance to the distinctive, one-of-a-kind “renegade radio” that listeners and sponsors heard for decades, through several earlier changes of ownership.

Thomas Plowright & Bob Mariano

“I hope you print the truth,” Mrs. Plowright said as this reporter left the courtroom.

I didn’t have time to ask what she meant by that remark, but I’ll bet she thinks her son is seriously misunderstood.

The record shows that Thomas Plowright III was charged with a whole lot of drug-fueled crimes committed over a relatively brief period of time, including crimes against nature at the Plowright property on Nash Mill Road, Philo.

Not those kinds of crimes against nature — crimes against the natural world, sometimes called the environment. Defendant Plowright plowed up a blue line stream, Mill Creek, near Philo, that many people have labored long and hard to restore.

* * *

Over the last six months and in as many articles on the parks closures, you might think we are getting some real answers out of elected officials, the Department of Parks and Recreation, and the California State Parks Foundation about what is really going on. WRONG!

We all want to believe that our system of governance really has our best interests in mind and will not willfully harm them. DON’T GO THERE!

For six months, I have been asking elected officials, bureaucrats, and self-appointed “people’s advocates” what is going on and how they propose to avert the train wreck that is in sight. The standard answer given is, “We are doing our best.” DON’T YOU BELIEVE IT.

Half way through this draft article the realization came to me that much of it is by way of review of what has already happened and facts that many readers are already familiar with. Perhaps, then, it is best to deal here with the real threat to the future of state parks that no one wants to talk about: privatization. Of course, if you ask state elected officials about it they claim to be ignorant of any pending takeovers of state parks by private for profit companies. Ask the professed professional advocates for the parks, The California State Parks Foundation, and the answer is “Don’t Go There.” Ask the Parks Department officials and have your phone calls and e-mails ignored. Let’s give the elected officials, such as Jared Huffman and Noreen Evans, the benefit of the doubt. Jared Huffman says he is in the dark. Noreen Evans, as of May 14, responds that our concerns are right on target. But if so, ask how and why? Who, after all, is in charge? Are nameless bureaucrats in charge, some of whom may see their future out of government service and into one of the for-profits that is seeking to take over state parks? We all are aware how the revolving door mechanism works.

What we do know, as acknowledged by Roy Stearns at California Parks, is that The State Public Works Board on February 1st issued Requests for Proposal to for-profit concessionaires to bid on 21 parks. Included on the list four in Mendocino Mendocino (Hendy Woods, Russian Gulch, Westport-Union, and Stankish-Hickey (see RFP # 2 & 3). Also at risk of being turned over to for profits on the North Coast are Castle Crags SP, Grizzly Creek Redwoods SP, and Benbow SRA. Proposals are due by May 29 at California Deparetment of Parks and Recreation, Concessions, Revervations and Fees Division. (http://www.parks.ca.gov/concessions .)

While we cannot say with certainty that the for-profit entity seeking to take over these four parks is indeed The California Parks Company, it is not unreasonable to assume just that. This company, founded in 1975, is seeking fresh opportunities to take over some of our most precious state parks, those Jared Huffman calls “low hanging fruit.” By “low hanging fruit” what Huffman and others mean is those parks with the most attractive targets for profiteers—established camping facilities. The bundling proposal said to be in the works for Hendy Woods, Russian Gulch, Standish-Hickey, and Westport-Union is just that, “low hanging fruit” ripe for a for-profit picking.

What might it mean if The California Parks Company takes these four parks over? Consider what the company is already doing at Big Basin State Park. While there are “primitive campsites” available on hiking trails, these have no water, no bathrooms, no picnic tables, no grills, and allow no fires. As for the main campground, tent-cabins are available for a minimum of two nights (three on holidays) for between $75 and $125 per night. And if you need supplies of any kind, why go into town? There is a store and gift shop on site. Most of the operations are run by non-professional, low wage workers who have no stake in the park or its precious resources. It is no stretch to assume that a for-profit company to maximize its profit potential on the North Coast would want to put in place such a gentrified operation. Only the well-heeled, urbanized camper type need apply. Reservations only. On a budget? Forget it.

What can one learn from the website for The California Parks Company? The message from John Koeberer, CEO, is that “Increased public funding of the parks just isn’t an option.” To his way of thinking, “voters declared their opposition to increasing taxes to maintain state parks…” He wants you to “consider these private sector alternatives.” He claims, by the way, to be a park professional. As a former president of the California Chamber of Commerce, and currently Co-Chair of the Tourism Committee of the Chamber, and former member of the California Travel and Tourism Commission, he should know what his chances are to maneuver the State Parks into his orbit.

Mr. Koeberer says quite openly that “some parks don’t belong in the state park system. Most of these are among the smallest of our parks (note how he calls them our parks) and lack any semblance of statewide…. significance.” His solution? “California needs an independent task force (similar to the Defense and Realignment Commission) to assess which parks should be retained and which should be buttoned up and maintained until times are better.” Would any of us want such pro-business, in it for the money, type deciding which of our parks to save and which to condemn? Keep in mind that no ordinary citizen, and almost no professional wildlife management professional, biologist, or the like is ever likely to see the inside of the conference room of such a commission. Case in point, The California State Parks Foundation has 30 members on its board. They are to a person from banking, commercial real estate, corporate law, wealth management, PG&E, and the Disney Company.

According to John Koeberer (just Google The California Parks Company to see), “Many parks could be packaged on a regional basis for private-sector management…” “Private enterprise has shown it can accrue operating savings on an average of 30% better than government…” Of course, he ignored the fact that the State Parks Districts are indeed regionally based operations, such as the Mendocino District.

True, the state rangers have to divide their time between the “low hanging fruits” and those small units that in his estimation “don’t belong.” Nor does Mr. Koeberer acknowledge that the only way to achieve savings is to ignore “deferred maintenance (that $1.3 billion backlog in current terms) as well major repairs. On good authority, it is common knowledge that the State Parks Department will still carry the burden of major repairs at state parks, even if they are run by a for-profit. In return, the state might receive up to 3% of the revenues. Talk of low rent? As for Koeberer’s glancing comment about better times, any for-profit agreement is very likely to be for a minimum of 5 years, and in many cases 10 or more years, else why would they do it. Options to renew might effectively remove a state park permanently from state control.

There is one thing that Mr. Koeberer says that I agree with: “The California State Park funding crisis has given our state the opportunity to redefine how our parks are managed in ways that will assure their quality, relevance and access for Californians now and into the future.”

However, Mr. Koeberer’s solution is to gentrify the most profit making potential parks, effectively shutting off access to those with more modest means, while at the same time Balkanizing a system that to this point has remained whole and undivided.

Mr. Koeberer lists some of his (Innovate(ive) Revenue-Generating Solutions” as automated fee collection at park entrances, parking lots and showers that could collect revenue 24/7, more privately owned and managed tent-cabins, park models, yurts and other popular new forms of alternative camping, and special events (concerts, competitions and spectator events). In short, he advocates more revenue collection opportunities at every step of the way and a Disneyland atmosphere replete with competitions and spectaculars. If your idea of a state park is that of a refuge from the frenetic pace of life outside its borders, forget it if Mr. Koeberer has his way. Can you picture it: Hendy Woods Futurama! What is Mr. Koeberer’s defense for his ideas of innovation? “It is in the DNA of entrepreneurs to invent new ways to stimulate revenue.” Has he no clue that State Park custodians, our park rangers and administrative staff of the system, should have in their DNA the instincts to protect, preserve, and leave nature as much alone and without modification as is humanly possible?

Well, at this point, perhaps it is best to reserve a discussion of the current wave of legislative initiatives for another week. Let’s leave it that you, the reader, now have a better idea what is in store if private for-profit companies end up running our state parks, any of them. It is up to you now to press our elected officials and the Department of Parks and Recreation for answers. It is up to you to make them understand that for-profit operators are not the solution to our current fiscal problems in maintaining state parks. What might you say to Jared Huffman, Wes Chesbro, and Noreen Evans? Tell them to keep pressing for the right solutions and not to close our parks. As for privatization initiatives: tell them “Don’t go there!” These parks belong to 35 million California citizens, and are not for sale.

ONE MIGHT WONDER why it’s taken 20 years to “review” and update the Plan. The answer to that one is right there in this week’s agenda. “If there is general community consensus…” the Plan can be amended.

THERE WOULDN’T BE “’CONSENSUS” on a guarantee of eternal life from this gang, but the nut of the prob is “Visitor Serving Facilities.”

VSFs ARE DEFINED as hostels, hotels, inns, b&bs, motels, student/instructor temporary housing (at the Art Center), single unit rentals, and vacation home rentals, which pretty much covers most structures in Mendocino’s pseudo-Victorian theme park. But the County collects bed tax on these little rental money machines so the County has a direct interest in knowing how many of them there are — ka-ching! ka-ching!

BUT, AS WE KNOW, Mendocino Village also contains among its small permanent population an overabundance of pickers of microscopic nits. These people will spend hours on how thick an asphalt patch on a sidewalk should be and what color to paint a window frame, never mind something as daunting as defining a “rental unit.”

SO ASKING THESE PEOPLE to reach “general community consensus” on which units are B&Bs and which are vacation home rentals and which are some petty chiseler’s spare bedroom that he occasionally rents out to touri is like trying to get Bill Clinton to define a sex act.

AN EARNEST YOUNG WOMAN out of the Fort Bragg Planning Office tried to inventory Mendocino’s rentals a few years ago and was roundly denounced by nearly everyone at the first Supes meeting when the poor thing presented the fruit of her labor.

A PROVISION in the 1992 Town Plan says, “The total number of rental units allowable, 234, shall remain fixed until the plan is further reviewed and a plan amendment is approved and certified by the California Coastal Commission.”

SO WHAT do people do who want to rent out their garage or that extra bedroom when the number of rooms has been fixed at 234 since 1992? They rent it anyway but they don’t list it, which means the County gets no bed tax.

THE MENDO Grand Jury wrote the County up back in 2008 for failing to update its Town Plan, the Fort Bragg planner’s valiant attempt to enumerate rentals having gone nowhere. The Grand Jury’s 40-page report was called “Byzantium By The Bay,” that title nicely summarizing the prevailing reality. The GJ went on to say that its investigation had found that “the County of Mendocino has failed, since 2001, to administer licensing of Vacation Home Rentals and Single Unit Rentals in the Town of Mendocino as required by the Mendocino Town Plan.” In other words, a whole lotta people were renting off the books.

THE COUNTY asked the same Fort Bragg planner to respond to the Grand Jury’s criticism, but not being much of a writer, she ended up making things murkier.

NOW A NEW BOARD OF SUPERVISORS has decided to take another whack at the Mendocino Town Plan. We suggest that all of Mendocino Village become a “Visitor Serving Facility” with every third structure designated a visitor serving facility.

ANOTHER OPTION might be to urge the Town of Mendocino to incorporate, thus relieving the rest of us of responsibility for endless discussions of definitions, thereby ensuring in perpetuity an objectively crazy dispute that only the town’s residents enjoy.

MENDOCINO FILM FESTIVAL Kicks Off Take 7 — Celebrate Mendocino Film Festival’s seventh year of bringing independent films to the Mendocino Coast at our Kickoff Party on Wednesday, May 23 from 5 to 8pm at the MacCallum House Restaurant and Bar in Mendocino. We expect festival tickets to sell out and this is your chance to purchase tickets to the Film Festival before the box office opens. We are counting down to the Mendocino Film Festival, June 1 through June 3, in Crown Hall, Arena Theater, and Coast Cinemas. Film Festival board of directors, programmers, and friends want to celebrate the best Festival ever—with you. Join us in the Bar & Cafe for drinks and casual cafe dining or in the dining room for a gourmet dinner — all exquisitely presented and prepared by Executive Chef Alan Kantor. All proceeds benefit the Mendocino Film Festival and help bring films and filmmakers to the coast. For dinner reservations call 937-0289 or visit www.MacCallumHouse.com. Bar opens at 5pm. Dinner is served 5:30 to 8:30pm. For more information about the Mendocino Film Festival selections visit www.MendocinoFilmFestival.org.

]]> http://theava.com/archives/15581/feed 0 http://theava.com/archives/15565 http://theava.com/archives/15565#comments Mon, 14 May 2012 04:47:41 +0000 The AVA http://theava.com/?p=15565 PIXIE WATCH, A READER WRITES: “Driving into Fort Bragg Saturday noon, south end of town, near Hare Creek Bridge, I was shocked to look left and see Ms. Audet calmly strolling along the highway with a large dog. The experience was much like the shock of spotting a celebrity, or an animal in the wild, where the actual siting doesn’t quite match up to the pictures one has seen, where the real thing actually seems a little larger than life (more true for wild animal spottings, less true for celebrities, who often seem smaller than their reputation). The big dog/petite waif visual brought to mind Little Orphan Annie, although Ms. Audet looked neither drunk nor angry but, rather, quite happy and content. This morning I read that she had recently written you from jail, which makes me wonder if she has a twin or doppelganger roaming the area.”

Audet

MISS AUDET wrote from the County Jail early last week where she was, as always, briefly incarcerated for drunk in public: “Dear People of Concern and Interest, God Bless you all! We all live our lives according to what we’ve learned and picked up throughout it all. For me I have a kinda rebellious manner; with the only wish to live off the land and my group of close friends and family, outside of this too populated and corrupt system. If I could share anything of importance to anyone it would be about love and goodness through the Christ and Great Spirit or whatever you may believe in; it is the love and forgiveness that we’ve been given that I’m proud to know in myself and proud to see it throughout this community. I’ve lived here for the winter and living here and experiencing the good and the bad is what I needed to learn and keep myself strong to continue on in my life as I leave and continue on in my journey that God has given me. Many people help me out every day with money or food or even concern. Thank you. I can’t offer the same, but I would love to give you encouragement. I encourage everyone throughout the good and bad. Everything happens for reasons in life and I pray for you to learn and get stronger through these things. Don’t let the world break you down. Thank you Great Spirit for another day to be with you. — Jacqueline Audet (Pixie), Mendocino County Jail, Ukiah”

CALLING the allegations in the recently filed lawsuit to stop the Willits Bypass “misconceptions and misinformation,” Caltrans issued a press release last week to “clarify” things. According to Caltrans District 1 Director Phil Frisbie, the bypass will “relieve congestion, reduce delays, and improve safety for traffic currently passing through Willits.” Well, duh. That’s what bypasses are supposed to do, Phil. Frisbie says the lawsuit filed by Willits-based enviros “has not put the project on hold.” In fact, “this important project,” Frisbie insists, is right on schedule with bids going out this very week on May 14, and a “Mandatory Pre-Bid Meeting” on June 13 “for all contractors who wish to submit bids or participate as sub-contractors.”

FRISBIE says the proposed Bypass has been “thoroughly investigated,” and that Caltrans has conducted “rigorous analysis by traffic engineers,” that the 2006 EIR has been “revalidated and supplemented” and that the entire project has received the blessings of the California Department of Fish and Game; National Marine Fisheries Service; North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board; US Environmental Protection Agency; US Army Corps of Engineers; and the US Fish and Wildlife Service.

WE DON’T DOUBT that Caltrans has its enviro paperwork in order. After all, Big Orange has spent millions of taxpayer dollars on it over several decades. And some of the so-called mitigations — new culverts, wetlands protections, fencing, and so on — are standard for highway projects. But to call their own “clarification” a response to their critics is a stretch. Traffic is down and there’s little likelihood, given the price of fuel and the general decline of the economy, of a significant increase to justify a four-lane bypass upgrade.

IF CALTRANS CARED about local concerns they’d use the money earmarked for possible expansion to four-lanes to reinstate the Highway 20 interchange, which they deleted for budget reasons, effectively routing Coast traffic back through downtown and largely defeating the purpose of the Bypass.

AND CALTRANS still hasn’t addressed the huge issue that the pilings supporting the overhead viaduct will gradually sink into the Little Lake Valley fill, thus destroying the Bypass or damaging it and costing more millions to maintain it.

THE BOARD of Supervisors is taking another crack this week at convincing Caltrans to make the eastbound turn off Highway 20 to Potter Valley, the site of many accidents over the years, less hazardous. According to the meeting agenda summary, “County residents living and traveling in the area where State Highway 20 has a highway at grade intersection, located at the Potter Valley Road turnoff, have experienced horrific and unsafe travel conditions since the reconstruction by the State of this particular roadway. Highway 20 is a major connector between Highway I-5 and Highway 101.

“Most recently, an accident occurred where a local resident was t-boned crossing the intersection that finally led other residents to take serious action, calling attention to the unsafe conditions for all travelers, not only at the intersection, but within the entire stretch of the bypass going east and west. High incident rates of serious accidents have occurred over the last decade. Local residents are asking the Board of Supervisors to assist their effort in advocating to Caltrans the seriousness of this dangerous stretch on Highway 20, and to make the needed changes to guarantee safer travel of this stretch of major roadway. A draft letter will be made available upon discussion of this item at the Board meeting on May 14, 2012.”

FROM THE LONDON EVENING STANDARD: “France’s new Socialist president owns three holiday homes in the Riviera resort of Cannes, it emerged today. Francois Hollande, 57, who ‘dislikes the rich’ and wants to revolutionize his country with high taxes and an onslaught against bankers, is in fact hugely wealthy himself. His assets were published today in the Official Journal, the gazette which contains verified information about France’s government. To the undoubted embarrassment of the most left-wing leader in Europe, and a man who styles himself as ‘Mr Normal,’ they are valued at almost £1 million. It will also reinforce accusations that Hollande is a ‘gauche caviar,’ or ‘Left-wing caviar’ — the Gallic equivalent of a champagne Socialist.” And our limo libs.

Audet

THIS JUST IN from Ms. Audet, presently cooling her troubled heels in the Mendocino County Jail on a drunk in public charge: “Dear People of Concern and Interest, God Bless you all! We all live our lives according to what we’ve learned and picked up throughout it all. For me I have a kinda rebellious manner; with the only wish to live off the land and my group of close friends and family, outside of this too populated and corrupt system. If I could share anything of importance to anyone it would be about love and goodness through the Christ and Great Spirit or whatever you may believe in; it is the love and forgiveness that we’ve been given that I’m proud to know in myself and proud to see it throughout this community. I’ve lived here for the winter and living here and experiencing the good and the bad is what I needed to learn and keep myself strong to continue on in my life as I leave and continue on in my journey that God has given me. Many people help me out every day with money or food or even concern. Thank you. I can’t offer the same, but I would love to give you encouragement. I encourage everyone throughout the good and bad. Everything happens for reasons in life and I pray for you to learn and get stronger through these things. Don’t let the world break you down. Thank you Great Spirit for another day to be with you. — Jacqueline Audet (Pixie), Mendocino County Jail, Ukiah”

GOVERNOR BROWN SAID SATURDAY the state is looking at a $17 billion deficit. The Governor has made a career of talking left, acting right and, true to form, his initiative goes heavy on ordinary Californians, light on the rich.

BROWN SAYS if voters don’t approve his November tax initiative he would take revenge on the children of the state, aka schools, higher education and social services.

THE GOVERNOR CLAIMS he can raise $9 billion by a “temporary” quarter-cent increase of the state’s sales tax and by imposing a tiny tax on incomes of $250,000 or more.

A SECOND initiative led by wealthy LA attorney Molly Munger is a little more fair. It would raise income taxes on a sliding scale for everyone.

IF BOTH INITIATIVES fail or, as expected, are combined into one and still fail, Brown says it would mean the K-12 school year would be cut by several weeks and college tuition fees would be again raised. Public schools, including the state university system, would be cut nearly $5 billion if the tax plans fail. And there would be reduced funding for courts.

WHICH COULD be a good thing for Mendocino County if it puts an end to the palatial new County Courthouse our eight judges and a magistrate yearn for but is fiscally nuts and aesthetically and practically undesired by anybody but them. The state deficit might also result in a whack to the overlarge Mendo judicial contingent itself, which would be another desirable local outcome of cuts to the state’s judicial budget. But Brown’s proposals are mostly bad for everyone except, of course, the One Percent, in whose interests America is run.

OPPONENTS of an expanded rock quarry on the Ridgewood Grade between Ukiah and Willits off Highway 101 have filed suit to prevent it from operating.

THE LAWSUIT brought by neighbors of the quarry maintains that the environmental impact report for the project, approved by the Board of Supervisors last month, is inadequate and that a county zoning change to allow asphalt plants at existing quarries on rangeland is illegal. Opponents contend the expansion would create noise, water and air pollution and create traffic hazards. They say an expanded quarry operation and asphalt batch plant proposal is inconsistent with the County’s General Plan.

AL KUBANIS, attorney for accused Redwood Valley killer Billy Norbury, said last week he’s having trouble getting Norbury’s files from the Public Defender’s office. Norbury, 33, is accused of shooting to death Jamal Andrews, 30, also of Redwood Valley, the night of January 21st. The case has attracted widespread attention because, many friends of the popular Andrews allege, the murder was committed out of Norbury’s racist rage. DA Eyster says there is no evidence that race was a factor in the shooting which, it is believed, arose out of a drug dispute.

NORBURY was initially represented by Public Defender Linda Thompson, whose slovenly record keeping and poor trial preparation is widely assumed in the County Courthouse. Judge Behnke has had to order Thompson to turn over Norbury’s files to private attorney Kubanis.

Thompson

THOMPSON REPLIED to the judge’s order with this whopper: “I just want to make it very clear on the record that this is the first time a private attorney who is substituted in … has indicated that there was a question about whether everything was present in the record.”

NO IT ISN’T. In 2010 Thompson had to be ordered to hand over the files belonging to defendant Glen Sunkett, and later in the year, ordered again to turn files over to Sunkett’s new attorney, David Eyster just before Eyster became District Attorney. Sunkett was eventually convicted of a brutal Fort Bragg home invasion, but while Thompson functioned as his attorney he complained that he was basically unrepresented, and that when Thompson finally gave him his files so he could briefly represent himself, “She just threw them all over the place in a cardboard box,” Sunkett said. “I never did get everything.”

THE POSTAL SERVICE has announced that rural post offices, of which there are many in Mendocino County, will see their hours of operation cut two to six hours a day. When these changes will go into effect has not been revealed. The farflung rural communities of Mendocino County are certain to be dramatically (and negatively) affected, as they double as informal community meeting centers.

REITER SAYS his telephone exchanges with Warrick made him unhappy to the tune of $250,000. Reiter also claims that he is owed another $101,837 because of “refusal of building inspector [Guy Parry] to attend scheduled inspection…” and  “including voice mail left on claimant’s phone, were vulgar and abusive.”

OK, SO NOW WE’RE up around $350,000 for Parry’s alleged non-appearance and the alleged voice mail insults. “Fuck you,” Warrick said, “you city syphilitic. We’re not meeting you, buttface, at your building site today or any other fuckin’ day because we don’t fuckin’ feel like driving over there.”

WE HAVE NO IDEA what Warrick or Parry may actually have said, but we can’t imagine them being anywhere near this abusive, and even if they’d gone temporarily off message, $350,000?

BUT REITER wasn’t finished toting up his injuries. No sir. $350,000 was not enough for the abuse he’d suffered, the insult of the no-show. He says Interim Planning Director Roger Mobley, Warrick and Parry then triple-teamed him by “retaliation by Building Department officials for reporting their previous retaliatory conduct. Threats to cause damage to project, actions that caused damage.”

THIS THIRD ALLEGED assault by Mendocino County Planning and Building is valued at $275,000 because Reiter says he has suffered “monetary loss of project estimated, intentional infliction of emotional distress.”

BY THE TIME Planning and Building was finished verbally abusing him and not showing up to sign off on Villa Candy Ass, Reiter says he’d been insulted and stood up to the tune of $931,938.

McGourty

UKIAH’S SCHOOL BOARD handed off responsibility to an expensive team of edu-talent (sic) scouts to find Ukiah a new superintendent, and you’re excused if you wonder why the Ukiah School Board had to pay someone else to do the job they’re elected to do.

GLEN McGOURTY of the Ukiah school board told the Ukiah Daily Journal that the hiring search he and his fellow trustees had paid someone else to do had been “exhaustive and exhausting.” But, his pudgy little fingers bloodied to the bone at the pure effort of paying someone to find — ta da! – Deb Kubin at Willits Unified, McGourty soldiers on.

PREDICTION: As the Willits School Board now commences its own “national search for educational excellence,” Ms. Kubin will be paid slighty more than the Socrates of Talmage, Paul Tichinin, County Superintendent of Schools. Tichinin will surely now turn to his board of trustees to demand that as Mendocino County’s senior educator he simply can’t endure the niggardly $120,000 he makes a year plus and a free car and fuel to commute back and forth to his Fort Bragg home in.

Kubin

THE UKIAH SCHOOL BOARD hired, at a fee not yet revealed, Jim Brown and Mike Escalante, “consultants” from the “firm” of Leadership Associates to locate ol’ Deb in Willits.

LEADERSHIP ASSOCIATES advertises itself as “Providing the highest quality candidates to meet the needs of your district.” They say they are “California’s premier executive search firm,” which “has assisted school boards in their selection of superintendents in more than 200 California school districts and organizations since 1996.” They go on to talk about their own “integrity” and blah, blah, honkety honk, bleepity bleep.

THE POMPOUS hi-ho’s of the McGourty type get their jive selves elected to Mendocino County school boards where they buy this consultant bushwah for top dollar rather than assume hiring responsibility themselves, dollars that come right out of any hope you might have for a decent education for your kid. And wasn’t it this same consulting firm that inflicted mega-feeb Lois Nash on Ukiah?

Brown

Escalante

EMPHATIC that the Palace’s owner, an eccentric and scattered Marin County woman named Eladia Laines, was doing nothing to either reboot or otherwise properly care for the building, the City of Ukiah has declared the Palace a public nuisance.

THE PUBLIC NUISANCE declaration was, it seemed, a large step towards demolishing the old hotel. But Ms. Laines, to everyone’s astonishment, hired a local contractor, Norman Hudson, to get to work cleaning up the premises, which Hudson has quickly and efficiently been doing, but not, it seems, to the satisfaction of the City of Ukiah, which has now red tagged the building, meaning Hudson must stop work because, the city says, he doesn’t have a permit to work inside the building. That permit must clear bureaucratic hurdles not simply negotiated.

BOTTOM LINE: A typical Mendo snafu. The city wanted something done about the Palace, the owner finally begins to do it, the city says stop.

DIRT GATE. When fuel-contaminated earth from construction of the Mendocino Transit Authority’s lavish new bus barn and office complex at the south end of Ukiah was moved to the Ukiah Speedway on the Ukiah Fairgrounds at the north end of town, it soon developed that somehow MTA and the race track’s proprietor had arranged to move the dirt outside normal processes, and the dirt, at huge expense to whom is still not known, subsequently had to be trucked outtahere to distant landfills licensed to take contaminated materials.

THE UKIAH FAIRGROUNDS is now in a hassle with Blair Aikin, the man who runs the popular racetrack, which remains closed while the dispute between Aikin and the Ukiah Fair Board is sorted out.

FREDDY CHAMPAGNE of the Champagne Racing Team told the Ukiah Daily Journal, “The decision to delay or suspend operations at this track has cost all of us in the community many dollars in preparation of our race season. The promoters are losing money, the fair is losing money, and the racers and sponsors are losing money.”

AIKIN LEARNED that the Fair Board was poised to terminate his lease from the Board’s meeting agenda, prompting him and more than a hundred racing fans and race drivers to show up at the meeting to complain that this was a heckuva underhanded thing to do to Aikin, a long-time NorCal fixture on the stock car circuit and a productive Fairgrounds tenant.

RACING WAS SUPPOSED to start at the end of March, but the whole annual show at the Fairgrounds Speedway is on hold. As Aikin and his supporters point out, before Aikins stepped forward the track at the Fairgrounds had been unused for years. The Ukiah-based entrepreneur created a valuable and popular business where there had been none, but then here comes Dirt Gate and the rug is pulled out from beneath the guy.

AS IT STANDS, Ukiah Fair officials and the feckless management at MTA each claim they didn’t know (1) the dirt was contaminated (2) who authorized it being trucked from one end of town to the other, (3) who’s going to pay for it being trucked from the Fairgrounds to distant landfills? The Fairgrounds people claim they didn’t even know the dirt was being hauled to the racetrack from MTA.

EVERYONE ELSE wonders, so what? Fuel-laden earth packed beneath a racecar track? It’s not like atomic fuel rods had been plunked down in an organic garden.

SO, WHO ARRANGED for the soiled soil to be hauled from MTA to the racetrack at the Ukiah Fairgrounds? Glenna Blake sits on the Ukiah Fair Board and she’s a long-time employee of MTA. Someone might ask her.

THE COMPLICATED plan to prevent the closing of 50 state parks freshly devised by state senators Joe Simitian and Noreen Evans seems unlikely to fly. It would route funds from a federal water quality program, state transportation and another state parks account to provide the millions needed to keep the parks open. A lot depends on the forthcoming state budget Governor Brown presents next week, and the Evans-Simitian plan is on hold anyway pending a vote that may never come. Meanwhile, in Mendocino County, community-based groups, such as the one formed in Anderson Valley to keep the economically essential Hendy Woods up and running, are working on their own plans to spare local state parks.

FROM A CHP Press Release issued May 9, 2012: “The California Highway Patrol will be sending out extra officers targeting DUI drivers during the 16th annual Boonville Beer Festival on Saturday May 12, 2012. The added enforcement, which begins at noon, is part of the California Highway Patrol’s effort to remove drivers from the highway who are impaired from alcoholic beverages and or drugs.”

THERE IS NO question that the evictees, among them a number of small children and a dead woman, are Indians, and that’s where a lot of these terrible arguments, exacerbated by casino money, begin, with claims by dominant tribal councils declaring that this or that Indian cannot legitimately claim membership in this or that tribe because his or her ancestors had not lived in the area.

HISTORICALLY CONSIDERED, Tuesday’s Robinson reservation deracination, you might call it, negates an old agreement that homeless Indians could always claim a home on the new reservations, many of which formed in the fairly recent past. But since the advent of casino income, the question of who belongs and who doesn’t belong to this or that tribe, has been suspiciously arbitrary, often coming down to ancient feuds between families lately expressed in bitter tribal elections.

THE ROBINSON REZ lies astride Highway 20 between Nice and Upper Lake. Reservation housing is located near the casino, both of which are visible from the highway. The casino seems to do a big business.

THE NEWLY HOMELESS at Robinson said they’d first been kicked out of the tribe and now they’ve been removed from their homes of many years. Currently, there are 477 members of the Robinson tribe, of whom 166 live in reservation land.

TONIA RAMOS, speaking for the evicted, among them her mother, said the families had been removed from the rez simply because the present tribal council desires more casino income for themselves and their supporters.

IN ANOTHER TUESDAY catastrophe, the destructive Artesa timber-to-vineyard conversion near Annapolis, the largest in state history, has won state approval. It will convert 324 acres of second-growth forest and meadow to wine grapes and vineyard support structures. Artesa is owned by a Spanish conglomerate called Grupo Codorniu with offices in Napa.

A LARGER, even more destructive wine grape and McMansion project is proposed for the same neighborhood. It’s the work of CalPERS, the state pension fund. Cynically called Preservation Ranch, the CalPERS monstrosity would level 1,769 acres of meadow and forest for vineyard and home development spread over 19,652 acres.