MCT: Friday (May 24, 2019)

• Interior Showers
• John Meyers
• McSolidarity
• Mize Memorial
• Environmental Scholarships
• Owl
• Ed Notes
• Sheep Auction
• Lew Welch
• Foodshed Update
• Yorkville Market
• Blackbird Festival
• Community Center
• Animaux Nuisibles
• Stuffing Party
• Museum Hours
• Fabulous Craven
• Ribbon Cutting
• Unlivable Cities
• Look
• Mental Discussion
• Yesterday's Catch
• Trump Bluff
• Capitalists
• Bridge Celebration
• Biden Dog-Whistles
• Brown Derby
• Getting Dumber
• Idiot Wind
• Found Object
• Despicable Don
• Likes Dick
• Libertarian
• Library Events
• Sequoia
• Porvenir
• Intolerance
• Improv Benefit
• Whodunit

WHILE MOSTLY DRY CONDITIONS can be expected in most areas today, isolated showers and perhaps a thunderstorm or two will be possible across eastern Trinity and Mendocino counties this afternoon and evening. Even more showers are expected late Saturday through Sunday across mainly interior areas, with perhaps another round of isolated thunderstorms possible across interior mountains Monday afternoon. (National Weather Service)

JOHN A MEYERS, DDS

John Ashley Myers of Ukiah, CA passed away gently on Sunday, May 5, 2019 after battling a variety of ailments in recent years. He was 78.

A dentist in Ukiah for more than 40 years, Myers spent a life dedicated to giving back to the community. He was active in Ukiah's chapter of Rotary International, where he worked to award Rotary scholarships to local students. He also volunteered for Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA).

He was born August 16, 1940 in Merced, CA to John Aldwin Myers and Helen Ashley Myers. After attending UC Berkeley, he graduated from UC San Francisco dental school in 1965. He married Lynda Barr Myers in 1964, and eventually settled in Ukiah to practice dentistry and raise a family. They remained friends even after their eventual divorce, and Lynda was his companion and advocate as his health declined. 

Myers had a lifelong love of the outdoors and backpacking, which began with many childhood summers spent camping in and exploring Yosemite National Park. He was an avid reader, skilled bridge player, and enjoyed spending time with family and friends. He also loved music and learning, playing guitar and studying French after he retired. Later in life, he travelled extensively, particularly enjoying his travels to France, Cuba, and South America.

He is survived by his son Patrick and daughter-in-law Natasha, of Milpitas; son Christopher and daughter-in-law Nicole, of San Jose; grandchildren Rosa, Mathilde, and Dylan; sister Marjory Pia of Madera; nephews Matthew Pia of Fresno and Giancarlo Pia of Detroit. He is also survived by his ex wife, Lynda Myers, of Ukiah.

A celebration of his life will be held at a future date. Memorial contributions may be made to the Ukiah Boys and Girls Club or Phoenix Hospice.

Eversole Mortuary is in charge of arrangements.

HAPPENING NOW: Hundreds of fast food workers and community allies are at McDonald's corporate headquarters in Oak Brook, IL protesting their poverty wages and working conditions on the day before the company's annual shareholder meeting.

INFO ON STEVE MIZE'S MEMORIAL SERVICE:

Steve Mize passed away on Sunday, May 5th. He loved Anderson Valley and the people who call this beautiful place home. 

A memorial service will be held Sunday, June 9th from 1-4 p.m. at the Mendocino County Fairgrounds picnic area. 

Please come share a memory, a story, or a photo, or bring a large index card with a special message for the family to keep (cards will also be available at the service). Beverages and the main meal will be provided, but sides and desserts will be potluck: names starting with A-J please bring a salad or side and K-Z please bring a dessert.

MENDOCINO COAST ENVIRONMENTAL SCHOLARSHIP

DONORS’ BULLETIN May 2019

Helping students today for a better tomorrow

Update on Scholarship Fund

A number of very helpful donors have found a way to increase their annual contribution over time. If you are one of the “regular” annual $100 donors, know that you are part of the MCES sails that keep us moving. This report is to make everybody feel successful, not to squeeze donors, but to celebrate our gracious givers. Since 2013, MCES has awarded 17 scholarships totaling over $27,000. This year alone, MCES awarded $7,400 in scholarships.

Donor Base: 46 (individual and local business owners)

• $1,000+ : Three donors
• $200-1,000 : Ten donors
• $100: 34 donors

Selection Committee Awards Five Scholarships

This year’s Committee consisted of Mark Quattrocchi (chair), Maribeth White-Jones, and Carol Ann Walton. I always try to select as chair someone who has served before and Mark was good enough to help out in 2016. This is Maribeth and Carol Ann’s maiden voyage, though Carol Ann has been very active with Soroptimist Scholarships over many years. As you may recall, Mark graduated from MHS in 1976 and now heads an over 60-person architectural firm that he founded, specializing in educational facilities, with offices in Santa Rosa and the East Bay. Carol Ann Walton is a long time local realtor, now with Gale Beauchamp Realty, has lived for 35 years on the coast and been an active member of Soroptimist International. Maribeth White happens to be the wife of your servant-administrator and owns and operates the Yellow House Salon in Fort Bragg. She was born in the Philippines and emigrated to the United States in 1995. Her volunteer work has included participation with the local Soroptimist chapter and the Mendocino Abalone Watch organization.

Applicants were interviewed in early May and four awards went to Fort Bragg students with one to Mendocino.

Claire Kisliuk (FBHS): Claire’s award will go toward her next year in the Environmental Honors program at UC Davis, focusing on Agricultural Sciences.

Marcos Saucedo (FBHS): Marcos will be attending HSU to study sustainable forestry and use his grant for college expenses there.

Lauren Bischop (MHS): Lauren is on her way to UC Santa Cruz, where her award will be well-spent as an Environmental Studies major with a “management and protection” sub-major emphasis.

Lucy Russell (FBHS): On her way to UC Santa Barbara, Lucy’s grant will help her pursue study combining sociology (human motivation) with environmental classes.

Haley Hutchinson (FBHS): Heading all the way back to Vermont, Haley will use her award to defray expenses at Middlebury College.

All five recipients have strong academic records, most exceeding the standard 4.0 grade point average, based on having taken “advanced placement” college-level courses, and each demonstrated a serious commitment toward environmental stewardship in developing their careers. MCES Links to Stanford’s Environmental Leadership Field School Two Scholarship Students thrive at the Environmental Leadership Field School offered as a public service by the Stanford Inn. The School’s mission is mission is to provide experiences that mobilize future leaders from different fields to support and enhance the environment, biodiversity, and equitable relationships by helping equip participants with tools for problem solving while gaining insight to live sustainably and teach others to do so.

This year’s focal study is, “The New Age of Environmentalism: A Mindset,” and will likely run from mid-June to mid-July for a total of six weeks. Admitted students devote 30-40 hours each week and are provided lodging, food, classes and books. It is based on John Jeavons’ “Grow Biointensive”® teachings and provides a deep understanding of soil, gardening/farming, and food production/consumption, not to mention, how we go about thinking on these subjects. The program began in 2007. Both 2017 awardees – Annika Kao (left) and Emily Symonds (right, with Joan Stanford) – were were accepted into the Field School prior to beginning their college studies.

Rod Jones, Mendocino

ED NOTES

ARTURO REYES, jefe at Mendocino College, is first in line for the boss job at Rancho Santiago College in Santa Ana. Reyes' tenure at the dependably quiescent Mendo College has not been without controversy. His monarchical attempt to build a grand reception room/office for himself was slam-dunked, he beat back an unfounded campaign by white faculty that he was loading the faculty with Hispanic instructors, and he finally dumped the football program after tolerating the shabby housing for imported athletes. We've gotten our share of hit notes aimed at Reyes, none of them verifiable, but all of them indicating some serious hate aimed at the guy. According to the Ukiah Daily Journal, "Kristen Darken, acting director of public relations and marketing for MPC, said she was not aware of specific circumstances surrounding the departure, only that it was related to 'professional circumstances'.” Translation: Reyes has nailed down a new job.

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SUPERVISOR WILLIAMS tried to persuade his colleagues to "COLLABORATE NOT NEGOTIATE WITH UNIONS" failed to persuade his colleagues, falling 4-1. Nice try, Ted, to correct a typically grotesque set of only-in-Mendo circumstances. We already have 8 (count' em) County-paid lawyers who would seem to obviate the hiring, at $300,000, an outside legal firm to at last arrange a fair raise for County employees. Really, why should negotiations with County employees be adversarial? Really, do you think any of the other four Supervisors would shell out a Trumpian 300 thou of their own money for lawyers to conduct their own legal affairs? What exactly can the already-employed County lawyers do, all 8 of them? Count this as one more gift of public funds, Mendo branch.

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EVERY DAY, everywhere in America, there are several hundred violent crimes of the super-heinous type, any one of which, prior to The Fall (1967), would have been front page news for months. Today, they flit across our mind screens and are gone, every day! A man in Las Vegas beats his wife to death with an aluminum baseball bat. A convicted Texas chomo snatches a 9-year-old girl walking down the street with her mother. New York gang punks drag a 15-year-old out of a convenience store and hack him to death with machetes, later admitting the kid was "the wrong guy." The capper on the week was the guy who grabbed a 74-year-old woman off a San Francisco street and raped her over five hours before leaving her semi-conscious on the sidewalk. The old lady was also bitten by a pitbull in the rape house. Here in Mendocino County, a career criminal, of the lowest type of career criminal — drug punk, basically — marches his "girl friend" out of her house at gun point, plenty of witnesses, and she's never seen again. I'll bet half of Covelo knows exactly what happened and where what's left of her can be found. No one's saying anything. We can joke about all this as predictable of The Last Days, but there's a viciousness out there that's more prevalent than it's ever been, beyond wealth re-distribution and the gamut of social programs people like me think is the cure. There might not be a cure. 

UC HOPLAND CENTER TO REDUCE SHEEP FLOCK

For over 65 years, the Hopland Research and Extension Center (HREC) has been well known as one of the last large scale sheep ranches and research facilities in the northwest. Their woolly forms are a familiar sight against the backdrop of the 5,358 acre site, well loved by the community for school field trips during the lambing season and for the sheepdog trials during the fall. In addition, they have a long history of being on the forefront of emerging research and management strategies related to sheep for topics such as: sheep biology and management, rangeland management, livestock/predator/wildlife interactions, as well as grazing as a tool for vineyard owners, fire prevention, and noxious weed control.

This summer the HREC flock will be reduced from 500 breeding ewes to approximately 125 and their full time shepherd position will be cut. The sheep will be sold at auction on the site (4070 University Road, Hopland, CA) on June 3. The sale will allow sealed bids from 8am-11am, with a minimum lot size of 20 animals. This reduction echoes a change that can been seen across the state in flock size and management styles.

Agriculture moves in cycles, following both the seasons and market demands. The sheep population in Mendocino County has fallen from 140,000 in 1954 (UCANR) to 10,400 in 2018 (USDA), and statewide sheep numbers have fallen from 2,034,000 in 1954 (UCANR) to 550,000 at the end of 2018 (USDA). As California flock numbers have declined, so has sheep research interest and funding. 

Magnifying the impact of these changes, HREC is facing a significant reduction in funding from the University of California system. HREC is one of nine Research and Extension Centers (RECs) under the University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources (UC ANR) division which has seen significant budget challenges in the last few years due to flat state funding. Overall, budget reductions of $3.1 million from central (ANR) funding across the REC system are planned, and HREC’s share of these cuts will amount to over 30% of its budget. The scale of this budget reduction is driving a statewide reevaluation of priorities and strategic decisions about where ANR should allocate limited funds to best meet its mission of strengthening the health of California’s people, communities, food systems, and environment.

“While we must strategically adjust to financial realities and changes in research and extension priorities, we are sad to see the flock reduced and to face the coming loss of our dedicated and talented shepherd Jim Lewers. The smaller HREC flock will continue to fulfill an important role at the site, allowing us to continue to offer sheep focused educational programs and events, and to share our experience and research with sheep owners. The flock is a key tool in reducing the risk of wildfire through grazing for fire fuel reduction. Targeted grazing also helps to reduce invasive species and provides food and fiber. We plan to continue to welcome our community youth to “meet the lambs” and celebrate the services and products provided from the HREC flock at our events, for example our Wool Growers Field Day which takes place on June 1” said John Bailey, Interim Director at HREC. “We are also working to pivot our livestock programs to meet a broad array of identified research and extension needs. This will include working with private producers and potential diversifying into other species such as cattle.” 

Although sheep have been considered a core feature of HREC, many other aspects of natural resource management and education are offered at the site. The diverse landscape offers oak woodland, chaparral, and riparian areas, as well as the ability to compare areas affected and unaffected by the 2018 River Fire. This landscape provides an important site for researchers from across the University of California system and beyond to study diverse aspects of the ecosystem services and working landscapes that makes California the wonderfully productive and diverse state that it is.  Currently 19 research projects are studying topics including: climate change effects on soils and oaks: to tick-borne diseases: to wildlife ecology and management: rangeland ecology: fire science and sustainable land management practices. 

In addition to diverse research opportunities, HRECs Community Education Specialist, Hannah Bird, has built and continues to develop a rich portfolio of extension and education events including workshops, field trips, and field classes. With the goal of educating and inspiring connection to and knowledge of diverse aspects of agriculture and natural resources, program offerings include not only sheep and wool focused events but also naturalist trainings, fire science education, birding trips, a youth summer camp, and extensive field trips which have brought over 2000 community members to the site in the past year. 

“We are excited to share this wonderful site and extend the deep and broad knowledge which researchers and passionate individuals have developed about California ecosystems and agricultural systems. In this era of increasing focus on digital devices, we offer an alternative of hands-on, science-based educational opportunities for youth and people of all ages to engage with and deepen their love for our rich environmental and agricultural heritage.”

Despite the system-wide budget challenges, HREC continues to build its research and educational programs. Donor support and grants have become an integral part of their future. “Over the last year, we have been successful in obtaining grant awards from the Environmental Protection Agency with our partner REC in the Sierra Foothills for $100,000 to support fire education for middle school youth and adults, local grants to support youth education from the Mendocino Community Foundation, and individual donors have supported us with over $18,000 in 2018. Never has there been a time when such support is more needed at HREC to help us to continue to fulfill our important role in northern California.” commented Bailey in closing.

For further information regarding the sheep sale on June 3^rd please visit http://bit.ly/HRECSheep . For information regarding the Wool Growers Field Day on June 1^st please visit http://bit.ly/WoolGrowers . To find out more about HREC or donate to their work visit: http://hrec.ucanr.edu/ or call Hannah at (707) 744 1424 ext 105.

ANDERSON VALLEY FOODSHED WEEKLY UPDATE

• Boonville Farmers' Market
• Local Beef for Sale
• Free Horseradish
• Blue Meadow Farm now Open
• Not-So-Simple is Back! 
• Farming Family Seeking New Home

mailchi.mp/a5cba2a383e7/december-delectables-1753373?e=b052c613bf

AT THE YORKVILLE MARKET

Happy May!

Come join your neighbors and friends this month in downtown Yorkville for a glass of wine, a delicious dinner, a game of scrabble or listen to some lively tunes.

Friday, 5/24, Meet local artist Sterling Hoffmann and see his beautiful plain air oil paintings. Reception begins at 4:00pm with wine and hors d'oeuvres, and we will be serving a BBQ dinner at 6:00pm.

We have a few new items here at the Market - In addition to our produce and dairy section, we are now selling farm fresh eggs from the Hill Ranch for $5.50 a dozen.

Also, we are happy to help you with your catering needs - from small intimate dinners to large gatherings.  Please call to discuss the many options available!

Thank you all for your continued support and I look forward to seeing you this month here in beautiful Yorkville.

Best,

Lisa

Yorkville Market, (707) 894-9456

BLACKBIRD FARM SPRING FESTIVAL

Blackbird Farm will be having an Open House and Spring Festival open to the community on Saturday May 25th. We will have fun activities for all ages, a walking tour of our program, and free, farm fresh, finger foods. Please let me know if you have any questions and we hope to see you there!

OPEN HOUSE AT THE COMMUNITY CENTER OF MENDOCINO

This SATURDAY, MAY 25 Noon til 4:00 at the Community Center of Mendocino 998 School Street. Our annual Open House with lots of great activities, music, and food!! THE SUN PROMISES TO BE PRESENT!!!

This is going to be an awesome day for everyone! At noon there will be a pet parade with great prizes. FREE! Registration begins at 11:30 for our four-pawed friends.

The SWING DOCTORS will be playing lively music from 1-4, there will be a dance floor available outside to accommodate dancers of all ages and capabilities. FREE! Bring your dancing shoes!

A community Bar-B-Q will be available for your enjoyment all afternoon. Where else can you get Roundman's Smokehouse sausages with homemade coleslaw and a drink for $8.00??? Only at the community center of Mendocino, of course. There will also be hot dogs and chips for the kiddos for $5.00, vegan sausages and GF buns with coleslaw for $8.00, and desserts for a suggested donation of $2.00 a slice. All proceeds benefit the Community Center.

A beautiful Manhattan, Green 3 bike which retails for $425.00 has been generously donated by one of our After School Program families, the Berna's. This bike is currently being raffled, you can get your tickets any weekday between 10:00 and 5:00 at the Community Center of Mendocino where the bike is being displayed. The cost of raffle tickets is $10.00 each or 5 for $40.00. This bike is a beauty, get your tickets while you can! All proceeds will go to our After School Enrichment Program. NOYO Marine Center will be there with great educational displays about the wildlife on our coast. Healthy Families of Mendocino will also have an educational exhibit. We are having PEG'S POP-UP JEWELRY SALE featuring donated pieces from artisans and our very own community!

Flockworks will be onsite to offer art and craft opportunities for kids of all ages.

This is one of our main fundraisers for the year, you can see that it is truly a community effort. Please come join us and have a fun-filled afternoon!

WOODLANDS WILDLIFE NEWSLETTER--STUFFING PARTY

Woodlands Wildlife is getting our newsletter ready to put in the mail, and we need help. We're going to have a 'stuffing' party at the Little River Museum, Tuesday, May 28th at 1 p.m. We have seating for 8. Everything is ready to go into envelopes and be stamped. Tea and refreshments will be served. Should take about 1 hour. Please let me know if you can help: woodlandswildlife@mcn.org

Museum is the little white house with the red flowers in the window and Little River Improvement Club & Museum sign Highway One immediately north of Van Damme Beach, Immediately South of Glendeven Inn and across the Highway from Cobbler's Walk Inn. 8185 S Hwy One. Parking in front or across the street.

YES, WE HAVE A COUNTY MUSEUM. WHY DO YOU ASK?

New Hours at the Mendocino County Museum

Effective June 1, 2019, Mendocino County Museum will be open Wednesdays through Fridays from 10:00 am to 5:00 pm, and Saturdays and Sundays from 12:00 pm to 4:00 pm.

Mendocino County Museum is located at 400 E. Commercial Street in Willits, California. Admission for Adults is $4; Students 7-18 $1; Children 6 and Under are FREE; Mendocino County Library Card Holders FREE. For more information about programs, hours, and admission visit us on our website, www.mendocinocounty.org/museum, or call 972-6458.

WATER PROGRAM RIBBON-CUTTING

Good Afternoon,

Anderson Valley Unified School District and Mendocino County Resource Conservation District are excited to invite you to our DROPS Rain Garden/Rainwater Catchment Ribbon-Cutting Ceremony at Anderson Valley Unified Jr/Sr High School. The event will happen on Tuesday, June 4, 2019, from 2:30 p.m. - 3:30 p.m. on the Anderson Valley Jr/Sr High School Campus, 18200 Mountain View Rd., Boonville. Festivities include a tour and explanation of the new gardens and rainwater catchment systems by project leads and students, brief comments by organizers, education about low impact development stormwater strategies, and general information about the project.

What is the DROPS project?

AVUSD received a State Water Resources Control Board grant called DROPS (Drought Response Outreach Program for Schools) to install stormwater pollution prevention infrastructure at Anderson Valley Jr/Sr High and Elementary School campuses. The purpose of the project is to protect water quality in Robinson and Con Creeks, and the Navarro River. Anderson Valley Unified School District is one of 32 schools statewide to receive this grant. During the summer of 2018 and winter 2018/2019, AVUSD installed 6,030 square feet of filter strips/raingardens, and three rainwater catchment tanks totaling 9000-gallons of storage capacity between the two AVUSD campuses.

What will it do?

Rain gardens and filter basins are vegetated areas designed to intercept flowing water and clean it of pollutants, such as oil, gas, heavy metals and litter. The rainwater catchment systems demonstrate the passive collection of rainwater during the rainy season for use during the summer dry season months. The stormwater elements installed at AVUSD campuses will capture and clean up to 1.5 million gallons of stormwater each year! AVUSD faculty and students have been integral to the implementation of the grant, assisting with the installation of California native/Mediterranean, drought tolerant, pollinator friendly landscaping, conducting water quality monitoring, creek clean-ups, and designing murals for the rainwater catchment tanks.

We are overjoyed to complete this project and feel great that we are doing everything we can to improve our impact on the environment. This project provides ecological benefits, campus beautification, and it engages our students. Please join us for our celebration!

Sincerely,

The AVUSD DROPS Project Team,

Linda MacElwee (MCRCD), Michelle Hutchins (MCOE), Jim Snyder (AV Jr/Sr High School Principal)

AMERICA’S CITIES ARE UNLIVABLE. BLAME WEALTHY LIBERALS.

To live in California at this time is to experience every day the cryptic phrase that George W. Bush once used to describe the invasion of Iraq: “Catastrophic success.” The economy here is booming, but no one feels especially good about it. When the cost of living is taken into account, billionaire-brimming California ranks as the most poverty-stricken state, with a fifth of the population struggling to get by. Since 2010, migration out of California has surged.

nytimes.com/2019/05/22/opinion/california-housing-nimby.html

AS SEEN IN SAN FRANCISCO AT THE CASTRO

A DISCUSSION ON MENTAL HEALTH IN CALIFORNIA

by Ben Christopher

A physician, an advocate, a public health specialist, a suicide-attempt survivor and a California state lawmaker gathered in downtown Sacramento this week to offer their diagnosis of the state’s mental health system. The consensus was summed up by Sen. Jim Beall: “We need to start from scratch.”

A physician, an advocate, a public health specialist, a suicide-attempt survivor and a California state lawmaker gathered in downtown Sacramento this week to offer their diagnosis of the state’s mental health system.

The consensus was summed up by Sen. Jim Beall: “We need to start from scratch.”

“I haven’t heard a lot of cheerleaders for the status quo,” said Beall, a Democrat from San Jose and the author of several bills that would expand access to mental health treatment. “If you think the system works, you’re dead wrong.”

The panel discussion, hosted by CALmatters and the California Health Care Foundation, builds off an ongoing CALmatters reporting project by Jocelyn Wiener and Byrhonda Lyons on the state’s fragmented, sometimes fatally dysfunctional mental health system.

Who are falling through the cracks? What is the state doing right? And where can policymakers improve?

Wiener put those questions to the panel, and then asked them to share solutions. Despite their array of professional and personal backgrounds, everyone agreed that the state is repeatedly failing to ensure quality care to those who suffer from mental illness.

Kelechi Ubozoh, the co-author of the book, “We’ve Been Too Patient,” spoke from personal experience as someone who attempted suicide in the past and was involuntarily hospitalized.

“The mental health system keeps doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result,” she said. “Which, unfortunately, as we all know, is the definition of a very stigmatizing word called ‘crazy.’”

Ubozoh, peer and community engagement manager at the California Mental Health Services Authority, said the system prioritizes crisis treatment over early intervention, treats the criminal justice system as a provider of first resort and ignores the voices of those who experienced the system first-hand.

Those who “are in the system” and their families “have a lot of feedback” and “should be included at every level,” she said.

“We have got to roll things back in our country to focus on people as human beings,” said Kerry Morrison, who spent two years studying different ways of providing mental health treatment to chronically homeless people as a fellow of the Los Angeles-based Durfee Foundation.

She pointed to Trieste, Italy, where the public mental health system is recognized by the World Health Organization as the gold standard.

“The police are never the first responders,” Morrison said. “They are the last person you would call into a crisis situation. You would call in peers or psychologists.”

Other panelists said that the source of the problem is a lack of leadership—and the difficulty of coordinating programs in 58 counties.

“It’s like trying to play the piano with 58 fingers,” said Thomas Insel, a neuroscientist and former director of the National Institute of Mental Health, who currently is president of Mindstrong Health. He said the state ought to adopt concrete statewide goals, such as reducing the total number of suicides by a target percentage, or cutting the share of mentally ill Californians behind bars by a certain year.

“What is the state trying to accomplish?” he said. “You can’t manage what you don’t measure.”

“We need a top-notch mental health czar,” said Beall. “We need Governor Newsom to continue to be a leader—and maybe to be a profound leader, possibly—and not get diverted and not get drawn down by the inertia that exists.”

(Update: One day after the panel met, the governor announced his appointment of Insel as a key mental health adviser—his office said Insel’s expertise “will inform the state’s work as California builds the mental health system of tomorrow…”)

Newsom made expanding access to mental health services and improving the quality of treatment key components of his election campaign.

“Only 24 counties out of 58 have any comprehensive mental health services,” Newsom told CALmatters during the campaign. He said he would “focus on screening, on prevention, intervention,” rather than criminalization.

Since inauguration day, the governor has proposed a budget that includes $500 million for supportive housing for homeless Californians with mental illness and $100 million for county-run “whole person care” program, along with $150 million to train mental health professionals.

But the problem is not simply a lack of funding, but where the money goes, said Alex Briscoe, former director of the Alameda County Health Care Services Agency and now principal at California Children’s Trust.

“If you think of mental health only as a response to pathology, you get what we’ve got,” he said. A mental health system that prioritizes early intervention might direct resources towards screening at public schools, after-school programs and even prenatal care—“and the system currently doesn’t pay for those….There is no Medicaid reimbursement system more complex, more arcane and less aligned with best practices than behavioral health.”

The timing of the panel gave Sen. Beall an opportunity to vent. Last week, both chambers of the Legislature churned through hundreds of bills in a bonanza of procedural votes in which a majority were quietly shelved. One of those casualties was Beall’s SB 11—his fourth unsuccessful attempt to add new guarantees that health insurers meet their legal obligation to offer equivalent standards of care for physical and mental illnesses.

“My own colleagues killed the bill,” he said. “The Democrats have to have a message, if they’re going to be in charge of this state, that mental health has to be a priority.”

(courtesy Lake County Record-Bee)

CATCH OF THE DAY (May 23, 2019)

ANDREW BARR, San Francisco/Ukiah: failure to appear

CHARLES HENSLEY [Frequent Flyer], Ukiah: disorderly conduct; probation revoked

AUDREY HERNANDEZ, Ukiah: inflict injury/etc upon child; willful cruelty to child

CORNELIO MARTINEZ, Ukiah: disobey court order; DUI alcohol/drug; possess controlled substance; possession of drug paraphernalia; use/under influence of controlled substance; drive w/o license

RUTH MARTINEZNAJERA, Fort Bragg: DUI alcohol

AUGUST MCKEE, Redwood Valley: false ID to police officer

NICOLE MILLER, Ukiah: battery against person defendant had dating, engagement, marriage or domestic relationship

DANIEL REBOCA, Ukiah: DUI alcohol

LEE RUPERT, Fort Bragg/Ukiah: probation revoked

DANIEL TAYLOR, Ukiah: threaten crime with intent to terrorize; probation revoked

ERIC WEITZ, Las Vegas/Redwood Valley: DUI alcohol/drug

DO IT, DEMS

Editor:

What are House Democrats waiting for? Donald Trump has made it crystal clear he won’t cooperate with any investigations into his administration’s myriad crimes. His lawyers’ refrain, again and again, is that Democratic oversight efforts “serve no legislative purpose.” That defense — about the only one Trump has — goes away if impeachment proceedings begin.

No, Trump will not “self-impeach” — desirable as that might be for cowards in Congress. And, yes, Trump seems to be goading Democrats into impeaching him.

But if that goading gives them pause, they should consider the strategic “genius” behind it — the same genius who racked up, year after year, some of the biggest business losses in history, who is wrecking the U.S. economy with self-harming trade policies, who thinks climate change is fake and Fox News is real. Rather than cowering, Democrats should stand tall and expose the truth.

It’s time for congressional Democrats to call the bluff of Donald Trump, the biggest bluffer in world history.

Maria Behan

Healdsburg

HISTORIC ALBION RIVER BRIDGE set to celebrate 75 years of continued service connecting the world to the Mendocino Coast

The Albion River Bridge is the only remaining timber trestle bridge along California's scenic Highway 1 and most likely the only significant timber trestle highway bridge in use in the United States. It is listed in the National Register of Historic Places and the California Register of Historical Resources. Professional independent engineers who are world-class experts in timber bridges report that the Albion River Bridge is “Safe for continued use” and “in remarkably good condition”. The Albion Bridge Stewards, members of the Albion community and beyond, have spent much of their time communicating with Caltrans and the Coastal Commission in the hope that this gem of a bridge will be maintained, repaired and will get a seismic retrofit.

The Albion Bridge Stewards are inviting the community, to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the iconic Albion River Bridge on Sunday, June 9 from 12:30pm – 3:30pm at the Albion River Inn. Come enjoy the beautiful views of the historic timber bridge from the restaurant and grounds of the Albion River Inn. Featured are local musicians extraordinaire Karl Schoen, Lynn Kiesewetter, Mark Gauche, Martha Smith and Miguel Elac. Two short films, one by Laurie York and Carmen Goodyear "Bridging the Gap", as well as another one by Jim Heid called "Albion Flight" will be shown. Master of ceremonies will be Joe Seta; Peter Temple will be in charge of sound; and Julie Apostolu (Julie’s Trips & Tours) will provide shuttle service. There will be a no-host bar.  Please carpool as there is limited parking. For more information visit https://www.facebook.com/savethealbionbridge/ or send e-mail to <albionbridgestewards@mcn.org>

WILL BIDEN’S DOG WHISTLES FOR RACISM CATCH UP WITH HIM?

by Norman Solomon

In a party that officially condemns dog-whistle appeals to racism, Joe Biden is running on Orwellian eggshells. Whether he can win the Democratic presidential nomination may largely depend on the extent of “doublethink” that George Orwell described in 1984 as the willingness “to forget any fact that has become inconvenient.”

It is an inconvenient fact that Biden has a political history of blowing into dog whistles for racism. More than ever, the Democratic electorate is repelled by that kind of pitch. If his dog-whistling past becomes a major issue, the former vice president and his defenders will face the challenge of twisting themselves into rhetorical pretzels to deny what is apparent from the video record of Biden oratory on the Senate floor that spanned into the last decade of the 20th century.

Biden is eager to deflect any prospective attention from his own history of trafficking in white malice and racial division. When he tweeted this week that “our politics today has become so mean and petty -- it traffics in division and our president is the divider in chief,” Biden was executing a high jump over the despicably low standards set by Donald Trump.

A key question remains: Does it matter that Biden was a shrill purveyor of tropes, racist stereotypes and legislation aimed at African Americans? During pivotal moments in the history of race relations in this country, from the 1970s to the 1990s, Biden’s hot air manifested as pitches to white racism. From the outset of his career on Capitol Hill, he even stooped to reaching out to some of the worst segregationist senators from the South to advance his legislative agenda against busing.

As Adolph Reed and Cornel West noted this month in the Guardian, Biden began his racially laced approach to lawmaking soon after arrival in the Senate, when he “earned sharp criticism from both the NAACP and ACLU in the 1970s for his aggressive opposition to school busing as a tool for achieving school desegregation.”

That was no fluke. “In 1984,” Reed and West recount, Biden “joined with South Carolina’s arch-racist Strom Thurmond to sponsor the Comprehensive Crime Control Act, which eliminated parole for federal prisoners and limited the amount of time sentences could be reduced for good behavior. He and Thurmond joined hands to push 1986 and 1988 drug enforcement legislation that created the nefarious sentencing disparity between crack and powder cocaine as well as other draconian measures that implicate him as one of the initiators of what became mass incarceration.”

It's likely that no lawmaker did more to bring about the mass incarceration of black people during recent decades than Joe Biden. In an understated account last week, The Hill newspaper reported that Senator Biden “was instrumental in pushing for the [1994] crime bill, which critics have said led to a spike in incarceration, particularly among African Americans.”

Yet Biden is now eager to project an image as a longtime ally of people of color. In short, journalists Kevin Gosztola and Brian Sonenstein wrote recently, he is in a race between his actual past and his PR baloney .

As the leading advocate for what became the infamous 1994 crime bill, Biden stood on the Senate floor and declared: “We must take back the streets. It doesn't matter whether or not the person that is accosting your son or daughter or my son or daughter, my wife, your husband, my mother, your parents, it doesn't matter whether or not they were deprived as a youth. It doesn't matter whether or not they had no background that enabled them to become socialized into the fabric of society. It doesn't matter whether or not they're the victims of society. The end result is they're about to knock my mother on the head with a lead pipe, shoot my sister, beat up my wife, take on my sons.”

And Biden proclaimed with fervor that echoed right-wing dogma: “I don't care why someone is a malefactor in society. I don't care why someone is antisocial. I don't care why they've become a sociopath. We have an obligation to cordon them off from the rest of society.”

Paste writer Shane Ryan pointed out the unsubtle subtexts of Biden’s speechifying: “This is the language of demonization, and even without the underlying racial element, it would be offensive to describe Americans this way, and to brush aside the societal conditions that lead to violent crime as though they're irrelevant. But, of course, the racial element is not just present, but profound. It's impossible to read these remarks, complete with dehumanizing rhetoric, without coming to the conclusion that Biden is, in fact, talking about black crime.”

At the time, even some of the members of Congress who ended up voting for the crime bill loudly warned about its dangerous downsides. One of them was Bernie Sanders (who I actively support in his run for president). While swayed by inclusion of the Violence Against Women Act in the bill, Sanders said in an April 1994 speech on the House floor: “A society which neglects, which oppresses and which disdains a very significant part of its population -- which leaves them hungry, impoverished, unemployed, uneducated, and utterly without hope -- will, through cause and effect, create a population which is bitter, which is angry, which is violent, and a society which is crime-ridden. And that is the case in America, and it is the case in other countries throughout the world.”

In 2016, Biden was continuing to defend his key role in passage of the landmark crime bill. During recent months, gearing up for his current campaign, Biden acknowledged some of the law’s negative effects while still defending it and denying its huge impacts for mass incarceration. And Biden has avoided copping to -- much less expressing remorse for -- the toxic, racially laced rhetoric that he used to promote the bill. He simply refuses to renounce the Senate-floor oratory that he deployed to propel the legislation to President Clinton’s desk.

Unfortunately for Biden, online video is available that conveys not only his words but also the audibly arrogant tone with which he delivered them.

What does all this add up to? Anyone who doubts that Biden methodically mined racist political shafts for decades should read the well-documented New York magazine piece “Will Black Voters Still Love Biden When They Remember Who He Was?” It’s devastating.

The New York article, by journalist Eric Levitz, begins with the tip of a very cold white iceberg: “Biden once called state-mandated school integration ‘the most racist concept you can come up with,’ and Barack Obama ‘the first sort of mainstream African American who is articulate and bright and clean.’ He was a staunch opponent of ‘forced busing’ in the 1970s, and leading crusader for mass incarceration throughout the ’80s and ’90s. Uncle Joe has described African-American felons as ‘predators’ too sociopathic to rehabilitate -- and white supremacist senators as his friends .”

Such clear overviews of Biden’s racial behavior in politics have been rare. And news media have not illuminated what all this has to do with “electability.” Turnout from the Democratic Party’s base will be crucial to whether Trump can be defeated in November 2020. Biden’s record of dog-whistling is made to order for depressing enthusiasm and turnout from that base, especially among African Americans.

Apt to be a big political liability among voters who normally vote Democratic in large numbers, Joe Biden’s historic dog-whistling for racism is an incontrovertible reality. Denial of that reality could help him win the party’s nomination -- and then help Donald Trump get re-elected.

(Norman Solomon is cofounder and national coordinator of RootsAction.org. He was a Bernie Sanders delegate from California to the 2016 Democratic National Convention and is currently a coordinator of the relaunched independent Bernie Delegates Network. Solomon is the author of a dozen books including War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death.)

THE WORLD IS GETTING INCREASINGLY DUMBER

The trend has been well-documented across Western Europe, and could soon carry over to the US as well. Which means the data have confirmed what millions of Americans who have watched cable news or logged on to twitter over the past three years probably already suspected: The world is getting dumber.

zerohedge.com/news/2019-05-22/world-getting-increasingly-dumber-study-finds

IDIOT WIND [Song for America]

Someone’s got it in for me, they’re planting stories in the press
Whoever it is I wish they’d cut it out but when they will I can only guess
They say I shot a man named Gray and took his wife to Italy
She inherited a million bucks and when she died it came to me
I can’t help it if I’m lucky

People see me all the time and they just can’t remember how to act
Their minds are filled with big ideas, images and distorted facts
Even you, yesterday you had to ask me where it was at
I couldn’t believe after all these years, you didn’t know me better than that
Sweet lady

Idiot wind, blowing every time you move your mouth
Blowing down the backroads headin’ south
Idiot wind, blowing every time you move your teeth
You’re an idiot, babe
It’s a wonder that you still know how to breathe

I ran into the fortune-teller, who said beware of lightning that might strike
I haven’t known peace and quiet for so long I can’t remember what it’s like
There’s a lone soldier on the cross, smoke pourin’ out of a boxcar door
You didn’t know it, you didn’t think it could be done, in the final end he won the wars
After losin’ every battle

I woke up on the roadside, daydreamin’ ’bout the way things sometimes are
Visions of your chestnut mare shoot through my head and are makin’ me see stars
You hurt the ones that I love best and cover up the truth with lies
One day you’ll be in the ditch, flies buzzin’ around your eyes
Blood on your saddle

Idiot wind, blowing through the flowers on your tomb
Blowing through the curtains in your room
Idiot wind, blowing every time you move your teeth
You’re an idiot, babe
It’s a wonder that you still know how to breathe

It was gravity which pulled us down and destiny which broke us apart
You tamed the lion in my cage but it just wasn’t enough to change my heart
Now everything’s a little upside down, as a matter of fact the wheels have stopped
What’s good is bad, what’s bad is good, you’ll find out when you reach the top
You’re on the bottom

I noticed at the ceremony, your corrupt ways had finally made you blind
I can’t remember your face anymore, your mouth has changed, your eyes don’t look into mine
The priest wore black on the seventh day and sat stone-faced while the building burned
I waited for you on the running boards, near the cypress trees, while the springtime turned
Slowly into Autumn

Idiot wind, blowing like a circle around my skull
From the Grand Coulee Dam to the Capitol
Idiot wind, blowing every time you move your teeth
You’re an idiot, babe
It’s a wonder that you still know how to breathe

I can’t feel you anymore, I can’t even touch the books you’ve read
Every time I crawl past your door, I been wishin’ I was somebody else instead
Down the highway, down the tracks, down the road to ecstasy
I followed you beneath the stars, hounded by your memory
And all your ragin’ glory

I been double-crossed now for the very last time and now I’m finally free
I kissed goodbye the howling beast on the borderline which separated you from me
You’ll never know the hurt I suffered nor the pain I rise above
And I’ll never know the same about you, your holiness or your kind of love
And it makes me feel so sorry

Idiot wind, blowing through the buttons of our coats
Blowing through the letters that we wrote
Idiot wind, blowing through the dust upon our shelves
We’re idiots, babe
It’s a wonder we can even feed ourselves

—Bob Dylan

FOUND OBJECT

WHAT AND WHO GAVE US TRUMP?

by Ralph Nader

Donald J. Trump’s presidential ambition has simmered for decades. He was and is a regular TV watcher and saw the changing political landscape. One by one, previous presidents diminished the integrity of the presidency and violated the rule of law, paving the way for Trump’s candidacy.

Bill Clinton was exposed for serial adulteries and abuses of women and lied under oath. This perjury led to him being impeached in the House (though he was acquitted in the Senate). “Hmm,” thought Donald, a serial abuser of women, “Clinton got away with it and was elected twice.” One potentially career-ending violation no longer had the weight it once did.

Then came George W. Bush – selected by the Electoral College and a Republican Supreme Court. “Hmm,” thought Donald to himself, “Even though Gore won the popular vote, Bush won because of Electors in swing states.”  Despite Gore’s crushing loss, the Democratic Party refused to support ongoing Electoral College reform (see nationalpopularvote.com). Once in office, George W. Bush and Dick Cheney lied repeatedly to start an unconstitutional illegal war with Iraq, which caused huge Iraqi and U.S. casualties and wreaked havoc on the U.S. budget. Bush and Cheney not only got away with these atrocities, but were reelected. A majority of voters believed their lies.  Violating the laws did not matter. “Hmm,” thought Donald to himself, “The President is above the law.” Positions of power and the trampling of laws appealed to Trump, a lawless, failed gambling czar.

Then along came Obama. He too got away with all kinds of slaughter abroad without authority of the Constitution, statutes, or international treaties. He too was reelected. Domestically, Obama did not prosecute any of the big Wall Street crooks that brought down our economy in 2008-2009, even though a vast majority of the population loathed these reckless financiers. With all of these misdeeds and violations of law on full display, Trump a big business crook himself, must have thought that he would not be held accountable. Even better, he knew how to use television to manipulate the media to his advantage. These examples are just some of the major ways that past presidents, Democrats especially, handed Trump his opportunity. I describe these and other presidential abuses of power in my recent book, To the Ramparts: How Bush and Obama Paved the Way for the Trump Presidency, and Why It Isn’t Too Late to Reverse Course.

Given these inoculations for breaking social norms and laws, Trump felt he could break additional norms and laws and still secure the Presidency. It almost didn’t work – Hillary Clinton’s campaign bungling lost three key states, which provided Trump a path to the White House. The crazy, antiquated Electoral College sealed the deal.

Trump has always known how to use power to get more power. He went after his opponents with harsh nicknames, repeated verbatim by a supine press. The name calling stuck and influenced voters. Democrats did not reciprocate with nicknames like “cheating Donald,” “corrupt Donald,” “Dangerous Donald,” etc.

Emboldened, Trump, with his television knowhow, grasped that many people prefer fiction to non-fiction. Fantasy is big business and it can serve to distract from grim real-life injustices.  Day after day, the mass media proved this point by giving huge time to entertainment compared to news and civic engagements locally and nationally.

Donald, through his daily tweets and assertions, shaped a story – true or not, that would help him win the White House. Reporters have collected over 10,000 of Trumps lies and seriously misleading statements since he became President (see the complete list here via the Washington Post).

But Trump, with his 50 million Twitter followers, has his own media machine, which grows because the mass media replays so many of his fictions as if they were real.

Still, the Democrats should have defeated him handily and, failing that, should have since driven his poll numbers below 40 or 42 percent, where they hover.

Democrats having lost the crucial election of 2010 in Congress, most state legislatures and governorships, Democrats lost the gerrymandering battle. This set the stage for Republicans to seriously suppress the vote in many ways documented by the League of Women Voters and the Brennan Center. Some of this suppression occurred in key swing states like Wisconsin.

Today, Trump seems impervious to the many accurate accusations of corruptions and impeachable offenses. He ruthlessly scuttles lifesaving health/safety protections for the American people, undermines law enforcement, and breaks his repeated promises to provide “great” health insurance, “pure” clean air, and jobs for workers displaced by globalization. The norms that restrain politicians and their constitutional duty to “faithfully execute the laws” have been deeply eroded.

Trump is undeterred by the hundreds of syndicated columns and the regular television commentary by leading conservatives who despise him. George Will, Michael Gerson, Max Boot, David Brooks, Bret Stephens, and others have gone after Trump repeatedly. The attacks on the Prevaricator in Chief are like water off a duck’s back. Even Trump’s trail of broken campaign promises is routinely overlooked by the press and the Trump base.

Next week my column will address what to do to make Trump a one-term President. Only a landslide defeat in 2020 will keep Trump from tweeting “fake election” and demanding a recount.

“If you care about other people, that's now a very dangerous idea. If you care about other people, you might try to organize to undermine power and authority. That's not going to happen if you care only about yourself. Maybe you can become rich, but you don't care whether other people's kids can go to school, or can afford food to eat, or things like that. In the United States, that's called libertarian for some wild reason. I mean, it's actually highly authoritarian, but that doctrine is extremely important for power systems as a way of atomizing and undermining the public.”

—Noam Chomsky

LIBRARY EVENTS

Summer Reading Kick-off Party at Alex Thomas Plaza
Saturday, June 8, 2019
1:00-3:30 PM

Join us for a party to kick-off Summer Reading! There will be a free, live
performance by Flynn Creek Circus, several activity stations, free pizza
for kids and teens courtesy of Slam Dunk Pizza, and Summer Reading
sign-ups. Free and open to all ages.

Makerspace: Decorated Hats
Saturday, May 25, 2019
2:00-4:30 PM

Join us to decorate hats! Open to ages 12+. Sign up at the Ukiah  Library
or call 707-463-4490. All supplies provided.

One Seed, One Community
Ongoing Program

When you participate in this statewide program, you will receive 1 packet
containing 20 Cherokee Trail of Tears bean seeds to plant in your home
garden. You will also receive support emails to help with the process of
growing, harvesting, saving, sharing, and returning bean seeds to the Seed
Project at the Ukiah Library. To participate, please visit the Ukiah
Library and ask for Jen Lyon, or email Jen at lyonj@mendocinocounty.org
for more information.

PORVENIR
by Angel Gonzalez
translated by Louis S. Bedrock

They call you porvenir*
Because you never come.
They call you: porvenir
And hope you will arrive,
Like a tame animal
to eat out of their hand.
But you remain
Beyond the hours,
Crouching who knows where.
…Tomorrow!
And tomorrow will be another quiet day
A day like today, Thursday, or Tuesday,
An ordinary thing and not what
We are expecting, even now, forever.

*Porvenir means the future in Spanish.  However, por venir means “to come”.  Mr. González is punning on the components of the word porvenir. 

HIT & RUN THEATER--SENIOR CENTER BENEFIT

Dear Mendocino Coast Denizens,

Greetings from Doug Nunn. Hit and Run Theater will return to the stage Saturday, May 25, 2019 at 7:00pm at the Redwood Coast Senior Center at The Fort Bragg Middle School, 490 N. Harold St., Fort Bragg, CA 95437. This show will benefit the Senior Center and raise funds for their various actions. The Senior Center Benefit will follow on Hit and Run's first show at the Senior Center last spring. Scheduled for Saturday evening, May 25 at 7:00pm the show will be fully improvised with all skits and songs based on audience suggestions. For this evening, Hit and Run Theater will include Jill Jahelka, Ken Krauss, Doug Nunn, Kathy O'Grady, Christine Samas, Dan Sullivan, and Steve Weingarten. For ticket information, please call the Senior Center at 964-0443. We look forward to a lively evening to benefit the Senior Center.

All the best

Doug Nunn and Hit & Run Theater

WHODUNIT?