MCT: Tuesday, June 4, 2019

• Dry Days
• Graduations
• Cat Sitting
• Baseball All-Stars
• Pelicans
• Bad Cold
• Bridge Celebration
• May Rain
• Logo Contest
• Chili Cookoff
• Dog Shooter
• Railroad Bridge
• Navarro Tweekers
• Film Review
• Howe Restrained
• Yesterday's Catch
• Global Deconomy
• Oriole
• Empty Stage
• Greed Crisis
• Navy Alert
• Surveillance Capitalism
• Shooting Cards
• Redwood Opera
• Whale Deaths
• Chris Albertson
• My Library
• Dear Class
• PA Meeting
• 1941 Inductees
• Witless Ninnies
• Bike Seat
• Bernie Views
• Prison State
• Joe Hiden
• Thailand Teachers
• Rural Health
• Creating Dependency
• Comments
• Oligarch 1

DRY CONDITIONS are expected to prevail through the week. Interior temperatures will warm up on Tuesday before a dry upper level trough generates cooling and blustery northwest winds toward the latter half of the week. (National Weather Service)

GRADUATION DATES

The 6th grade, presumably with a basic grasp of our lingua franca, moves to the junior high school on Monday, June 10 at 6pm.

Graduating high school seniors will attend an awards night at the high school on Tuesday June 11 at 7pm.

The 8th grade, presumably with an even firmer grasp of Gringolandia's prevalent tongue, graduate on Wednesday, June 12, at 6pm.

And on Thursday, June 13th at 7pm, high school seniors formally emerge from 12 years of instruction to confront a world of turmoil and woe.

URGENT FOSTER NEEDED. An elderly woman has been evicted from her place today. She came to us desperate with her three beloved cats. We are looking for a temporary foster spot for them. Do you have a spare room to help out with? There is one male and two female cats, ages 8 to 10. Spayed and neutered and current on shots. Her amazing caregiver is helping her out but she is basically homeless today and her biggest worry is what is going to happen to her pets. She is on an extremely limited income and we are going to be looking for donations to help these kitties. She is looking for a low-cost housing option but has not been able to find one so far.

https://www.facebook.com/coastcatproject/

2019 NCL III BASEBALL ALL LEAGUE

MVP

• Jared Sundstrom, Pt. Arena, Sr.

FIRST TEAM

• Jared Cissna, Pt. Arena, Sr.
• Liam Maizer, Laytonville, Jr.
• Logan Gamble, Laytonville, So.
• Tate Campbell, Laytonville, Sr.
• Orlando Molina, Pt. Arena, Jr.
• Alonzo Fuentes, Pt. Arena, Jr.
• Mike Hernandez, Laytonville, Sr.
• Teal Roach, Pt. Arena, So.
• Jacobi Nielson, Laytonville, Sr.

SECOND TEAM

• Bearman Freeman, Round Valley, So.
• Buster Christiansen, Round Valley, Jr.
• Noah Fisher, Pt. Arena, Jr.
• Eric Mejia, Pt. Arena, Fr.
• Ethan Luna, Laytonville, Jr.
• Riley Harris, Laytonville, Sr.
• Shobe Britton, Round Valley, Jr.
• Taylor Bowen, Pt. Arena, Jr.
• Damon Webb, Laytonville, Sr.

HONORABLE MENTION

• Carlito Delgado, Round Valley, Jr.
• Hunter Bassler, Laytonville, Jr.
• Dylan Freebainn-Smith, Pt. Arena, Jr.
• Carlos Rabano, Round Valley, So.
• Dereh French, Laytonville, Sr.
• Shawn Van Cleave, Pt. Arena, So.
• Ramiro Mejia, Pt. Arena, Sr.
• Koda Nielson, Laytonville Fr.
• Jo Jo Baker, Pt. Arena, Jr.

---

2019 NCL III SOFTBALL ALL LEAGUE

MVP

• Mercrea James, Laytonville, Jr.

FIRST TEAM

• Emily Lawson, Potter Valley, Sr.
• Mashayla Case, Laytonville, Sr.
• Cheyenne Jepson, Laytonville Fr.
• Melissa Adkisson, Laytonville, Sr.
• Matiea Taylor, Laytonville, So
• Tylo Smith, Laytonville, Jr.
• Summer Gonzales, Potter Valley, Sr.
• Angel Mann, Potter Valley, So.
• Kaitlin Espinoza, Anderson Valley, So.

SECOND TEAM

• Jazmyne Martinez, Potter Valley, So.
• Kylah Salinas-Tour, Potter Valley, Jr.
• Sydney Hance, Potter Valley, Jr.
• Marissa Gonzales, Potter Valley, Jr.
• Morgan McGrath, Laytonville, Sr.
• Taylor Felton, Laytonville, Sr.
• Milla Krigin Laytonville Fr.
• Kyllie Theiss, Anderson Valley, So.
• Lizbeth Rodriguez, Pt. Arena, So.

HONORABLE MENTION

• Serena Grimm, Potter Valley, Jr.
• Ava Sanchez, Anderson Valley, Sr.
• Jazmin Espinoza, Anderson Valley, Sr.
• Kaytlyn Clow, Anderson Valley, Sr.
• Shayla Buechner, Pt. Arena, Sr.
• Corina Fuentes, Pt. Arena, Sr.
• Elena Sanchez, Anderson Valley, Sr.

PELICANS AT MACKERRICHER BEACH

SETTLING IN

by Anne Fashauer

I haven’t been able to write much since I came back from the trip to Cabo. It was Pinot Fest, then I caught the bad cold that’s going around and then we had some family health emergencies to deal with. But things have settled down a bit.

In the week after I returned I was able to move my office to the Live Oak property. We’re in a little space, just big enough for Jimmy and I and some file cabinets. It’s cozy but I really love it. I look out at a tree and blue skies as opposed to looking at the side of a house. I’m planning on fixing up another, larger building on the property and moving into that down the road.

Pinot Fest was wet. We had something around 5-6 inches of rain over that weekend. I was surprised that the turn out was as good as it was; the folks putting it on were able to respond pretty quickly with tents and shoe covers and even some ponchos for attendees. It was also cold - hard to believe it was late May. The following day was better weather for the open houses. I helped my husband with his tasting room, Witching Stick, and he had his best sales day ever. I heard that other tasting rooms experienced the same thing - a very positive thing for our Valley economics.

I hope you haven’t had the cold I’m talking about. Starts with a sore throat then moves to the lungs? To make it worse, I am now fighting a sinus infection. Lots of decongestants and neti pots! It kept me off my bicycle after the rains let up and I’m still not feeling strong enough.

All in the family are doing OK now. My mother-in-law had emergency surgery but is back home. We had a couple of runs up to Cottonwood (near Redding) over the long weekend and the week after. This past weekend we attended the baby shower for my soon-to-come granddaughter. It was fun to see all the various grandparents running around getting things set up. I eventually decided there were too many people in the kitchen and headed outside to tend to drinks.

With the good weather things are warming up with showings in the Valley. My phone keeps ringing and that’s a good thing. I have a beautiful new listing just outside Boonville. Check it out on our site. I’m just so happy the sun is shining again.

MAY RAIN

After a parched first-half of May (following a dry April) the second-half downpours added to our already ample rainfall totals this year. Yorkville received 6.7 inches in May, while Boonville got 5.4 inches. Monthly totals for the 2018-19 rainy season:

Boonville (total to date: 53.1")

• 5.4" May
• 0.7" Apr
• 7.3" Mar
• 17.7" Feb
• 11.5" Jan
• 3.7" Dec
• 5.3" Nov
• 1.4" Oct

Yorkville (total to date: 71.1")

• 6.7" May
• 1.8" Apr
• 10.1" Mar
• 24.9" Feb
• 14.4" Jan
• 5.8" Dec
• 6.0" Nov
• 1.5" Oct

FLAG DAY CHILI COOK-OFF & FLAG RETIREMENT CEREMONY. Boonville Veterans Memorial Building. Saturday June 15, 2019, 1-4pm. Sponsored By American Legion Redwood Empire Post 0385. Note: No Super Hot Chili! First Prize $200. Second Prize $100. Third Prize $50. To Enter as a Contestant Call 707-895-9363 (Ray)

THIS PERSON NEEDS TO BE FOUND AND PROSECUTED

NIGHT LIGHT OF THE NORTH COAST: Eureka Slough Railroad Bridge

by David Wilson

I remember when the rails in Humboldt County rumbled to the passage of great trains rolling regularly through the county. Looking back, I took far too little advantage of the photographic opportunities they afforded while their time and mine here overlapped. Now we have them in memory only, and photographing the remnants of their steel carriages and rusting rails evokes ghosts of a bygone day.

With thoughts of capturing some of that once mighty line’s remains in the stark light of the modern night I found myself on the old railroad bridge over the Eureka Slough at the north end of Eureka, Humboldt County, California. Here the Old meets New, as this section of the former track is slated to become part of the Humboldt Bay Trail, connecting Eureka with Arcata for non-motorized traffic.

(https://humboldtgov.org/humboldtbaytrail).

In photography’s early days images were monochromatic, reproducing all the vibrant colors of a scene as a range of gray values from white to black. Film was an ideal medium for capturing history, and the early history it recorded lives on today as black and white images. For over a hundred years photography recorded a world without color for posterity.

The way images are shown us can shape how we see the times and places they portray. My own vision of our history as recorded by early photographic images seems to be in black and white. When I think of the 1800’s, I see scenes in black and white, or maybe in sepia’s warmer, but still monochromatic tones. People lived in a world every bit as colorful as ours, but my imagination of it has been influenced by my exposure to so much history presented as black and white images.

The images I am sharing here were photographed with a modern digital camera, which of course records a scene in color. But to present them here in black and white it helps bridge the gulf of time between my recent night on the bridge taking pictures and the days of yore, not all that long ago, when the trains whistled and chugged through the towns and countrysides of our North Coast.

When I become absorbed in a black and white photograph I can feel my mind processing in the background, asking whether the image is grayscale (black and white) because it was captured that way, perhaps before color film, or whether it had been created in color and then made into a black and white as these photographs were. It’s not important to the image itself, but the history is something that interests me.

(To keep abreast of David Wilson’s most current photography or peer into its past, visit or contact him at his website mindscapefx.com or follow him on Instagram at @david_wilson_mfx .)

AV HAS LOST resident deputy, Craig Walker, who left for a job in the Bay Area. In his absence, the tweeker colony at Navarro has expanded and has been emboldened by the deputy vacuum, much to the unhappiness of Navarro residents. The tweekers tweek and engage in all manner of motorized hijinks and misdemeanor criminal activity. It's a bad situation for everyone because some of these characters are vindictive, meaning people are afraid to call them in. Craig Walker, AV's departed and much missed lawman, kept them in check. They're wayyyyyy outta control at present, especially on the weekends when their numbers are reinforced by yobbos from other areas of the county. It’s past time for a major crackdown.

FROM WILLIE BROWN'S column in the SF Chron: "….Windows on the World, Chronicle columnist Leah Garchik gets it right: This story about the lives affected by 9/11 should blow the hinges off the doors at festival competitions. It's co-written by our own independent filmmaker, Robert Mailer Anderson, and hurray for him."

WINDOWS was screened at the Anderson Valley Grange on Sunday afternoon to a small but appreciative gathering of perhaps forty or so locals. My nepotistic take on it? I liked it with two caveats — one scene depicted some kind of degenerate’s bar where the young hero is directed to investigate the whereabouts of his missing brother. We all know our culture is seriously on the skids but a hellish depiction of the absolute dregs at play didn’t fit the rest of Young Werther’s otherwise wholesome quest. My second caveat was a graphic sex scene. Most people over the age of ten (probably younger given modern media) understand the basics of reproduction, but sex scenes now appear as a matter of filmic course, but why? The story line featuring a handsome, lovestruck couple implies consummation, doesn’t it? Like, we need documentation when the implications of their relationship are obvious? I loved the scenes featuring Anderson Valley’s very own Rene Auberjonois, a performance worth the price of admission all by itself. And all the old beatniks in the audience were delighted to see an unbeatable rendition of New York, New York from the Last Poets as performed by Abiodun Oyewoke.

BARBARA HOWE, head of Mendo Public Health, has received her walking papers. The highly respected Ms. Howe was summarily dismissed last week in the now familiar Give me your keys and leave massacre style we’ve often seen in Mendocino County. Ms. Howe was given ’16 minutes,’ we understand, to clear out. Dr. Gary Pace has resigned in protest.

A READER NOTES: “Of course there’s a story underneath this no-doubt-sordid-action, and it brings to mind others (Diane Curry for one) who have been abruptly forced out. The allied resignation of Dr. Pace speaks to the wrong that has been done here. It’s yet another dictatorial act by Carmel Angelo that harms the functioning of the County workforce. It’s a shameful thing, and one wonders how long the BOS will continue to allow it to happen. It’s the ‘highly respected, long-time employees' who somehow keep the County going through all manner of mistakes and misdeeds by upper management. I wonder if Ms. Howe would offer an interview to the AVA about what really happened here. More folks who leave need to speak-out very clearly about what goes on beneath the surface of County government.”

MS. HOWE has not only been summarily dismissed from her position as head of Mendo Public Health, she has now been legally restrained from contacting Tammy Moss-Chandler, boss at Mendo Health and Human Services. What the heck is going on? We'll have a look at the TRO and report back.

CATCH OF THE DAY, JUNE 3, 2019

BLUE ABREU, Lakeport/Ukiah. Parole violation.

REGAN AYALA, Fort Bragg. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

CHRISTOPHER BRADLEY, Laytonville. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

CHARLES HASKINS, Redwood Valey. Suspended license (for DUI).

URIEL HERNANDEZ, Willits. Petty theft.

JUSTIN HIETALA, Blue Lake/Ukiah. Resisting, probation revocation. (Frequent flyer.)

MONICA LOPEZ, Calpella. Domestic battery.

RODNEY PROCTOR, Fort Bragg. Disorderly conduct-alcohol, probation revocation.

CARLEY SCHLAPKOHL, Willits. Tear gas, probation revocation.

KEITH WAGNER, Sacramento/Ukiah. DUI with blood alcohol over 0.15%.

STEVEN ZIMMERMAN, Covelo. Controlled substance, paraphernalia, suspended license (for DUI), failure to appear.

THE ZEITGEIST KNOWS

by James Kunstler

Who said the global economy was a permanent installation in the human condition? The head cheerleader was The New York Times’s Tom Friedman, with his 1999 book, The Lexus and the Olive Tree, the trumpet blast for the new order of things. Since then, we partied like it was 1999, with a few grand mal seizures of the banking system along the way, some experiments in creating failed states abroad, and the descent of America’s middle-class into a Disney version of Hieronymus Bosch’s Last Judgment — which is kind of what you see on the streets of Los Angeles these days.

Guess what: the global economy is winding down, and pretty rapidly. Trade wars are the most obvious symptom. The tensions underlying that spring from human population overshoot with its punishing externalities, resource depletion, and the perversities of money in accelerated motion, generating friction and heat. They also come from the fact that techno-industrialism was a story with a beginning, a middle, and an end — and we’re closer to the end than we are to the middle. There will be no going back to the prior party, whatever way we pretend to negotiate our way around or through these quandaries.

The USA-China romance was bound to end in divorce, which Mr. Trump is surreptitiously suing for now under the guise of a negotiated trade rebalancing. The US has got a chronic financial disease known as Triffin’s Dilemma, a set of disorders endemic to any world reserve currency. The disease initially expressed itself in President Nixon’s ditching the US dollar’s gold backing in 1971. By then, the world had noticed the dollar’s declining value trend-line, and threatened to drain Fort Knox to counter the effects of holding those dollars. Since then, all world currencies have been based on nothing but the idea that national economies would forever and always pump out more wealth.

It turns out that they pump out more debt in the pursuit of that chimerical wealth until the economic viziers and banking poohbahs begin to declare that debt itself is wealth — and now all the major players around the world are choking to death on that debt, especially the USA and China, but also Japan and the dolorous commune known as the EU. Everybody’s broke, one way or another, even though they are up to their eyeballs in products designed to fall apart in a few years. Better learn how to fix stuff, especially machines, because a lot of it won’t be replaced going forward.

Notice that Mr. Nixon’s escape from the dollar gold standard coincided with America’s first oil production peak. It was actually more than a coincidence, though it is unclear that anyone but James Schlesinger (then head of the Atomic Energy Commission, and later Secretary of Defense, Secretary of Energy, and CIA Director) understood what that signified. Now America is back at a second and even higher production peak thanks to the illusory boom of shale oil. The difference now is that only 10 percent of the companies producing it make a red cent. For the rest, the main result is just more and more debt, contributing to the larger global debt fiasco. It’s now down to a race between the sensational depletion rate of the shale oil wells and the country’s flagging capacity to generate more debt with a dim prospect of it ever being paid back.

Who knows whether the Golden Golem of Greatness and the people advising him in the White House get where all this is taking us in the history of the future. One might suppose it’s behind Mr. Trump’s wish to Make America Great Again, the vision of a return to the economy of 1955, of men toting lunchboxes through the factory gates, and 70 million boomer schoolchildren dreaming of trips to the moon, and the hard-fought, transient blessings of Pax Americana.

All that is a comfort to simpletons, no doubt, but not wholly consistent with what can be observed actually going on — which is a culture and a political system seemingly bent on suicide.

The zeitgeist knows something that we don’t. The arc of this story follows the breakup of old arrangements, including trade relations, alliances, nation-states, and widespread expectations about what ought to be. Some observers claim the US will be the “last man standing” in this journey to the post global economy. (We surely would want to avoid a situation where nobody is left standing.) But all the participants in the orgy now ending will be left at least cross-eyed and flummoxed in the new cold dawn of a world without the old mojo. If the center is not holding, better look for a place on the margins as far from the emerging economic black hole as possible.

(Support Kunstler’s writing by visiting his Patreon Page.)

"BULLOCK ORIOLE IN HIS FIRST SPRING"

THE CONQUERING HOARDS

They look harmless enough. The guy who sits to my left shaved his head and is pretty convinced that he has seen Jesus (and is pretty secure in his lengthy friendship) talks about him as though his lives on as a colorful character from back in the day. Tonight, we all ate turkey/pastrami sandwiches with potato salad and strawberry ice cream for dinner. Not your standard revolutionary image of what it looks like to sit down to eat.

The room aspires to elegance, but it is pretty used-looking these days. There's a low stage with a polished black baby grand piano that looks as though it has never been played. There is a seat for another musician out near the front edge of the stage. But the bench and the seat have remained empty the couple of times that I have seen them.

It is an innocent-appearing place to bide one's time away from prying eyes. Nearly every one of us is pretty pleased to forget them. Many never come out, in spite of the brochures about outings to the coast and drum circles, and such. But then there's that strikingly handsome old coot at the next table with the labyrinthine tattoo on his left forearm. He spilled gravy on his good shirt at dinner last night. Tonight, he was down to a t-shirt advertising Frederick's of Hollywood. A strange and supremely clever way to allow the revolution to mature. And sharpen its knives…

(Bruce Brady)

DOOMED AS A SPECIES?

Editor:

Life is no longer safe; it is scary. I worry about the possibility of firestorms every year, while my daughter deals with the deadly threat of tornadoes. Governments no longer seem capable of making reasonable decisions. Our world is getting hotter, and our oceans are over-fished and filling with plastic. We march toward extinction while our leaders fail us.

Care for the common man is disappearing. The rich are getting richer as the poor get poorer. Stress is overwhelming. I have lived through many crises including the Korean War, the assassination of JFK, the Vietnam War and the Watergate scandal. I have endured many incompetent presidents. But I kept hoping mankind would learn from its mistakes and try to pull together to make the world a better place for everyone.

Today it appears that making money is our goal. We aren’t led by the best and the brightest. We are led by those with the most money and power, even if they are ignorant, unqualified and inept.

Now as the planet and all of its creatures race toward extinction, I wonder if the human experiment on Earth was just a big joke. Is there any hope?

Patricia Lawrence-Dietz

Healdsburg

ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

The technology that was supposed to liberate the individual becomes his cage. We are all algorithms now.

A few years ago after the 2008 financial crash Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone described Goldman Sachs, that great titan of financial capitalism, as a “great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money.” Fast forward almost ten years and you could say the same, and much worse, about surveillance capitalism, according to Shoshana Zuboff author of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power.

This time though the squid is even bigger and it is jamming its blood funnel, via smart phones, smart TVs, tablets & soon even smart homes, into every last nook and cranny of our individual & collective privacy. The very thing that was suppose to set us free and serve us, as internet creator Tim Berners Lee had hoped, has now evolved as Lee said “into an engine of inequity and division; swayed by powerful forces who use it for their own agendas.” The capture & commodification of our data, the predatory construction of user profiles and surveillance is in the DNA of surveillance capitalism. Cambridge Analytica is only the tip of the iceberg.

Zuboff points out in her brilliant book that all pervasive, stealthy and omnipresent surveillance capitalism has exploited human experience to collect free raw material for translation into behavorial data. The behavorial surplus-our emotions, fears, our voices and our personalities-is then fed into thinking ‘machine intelligence’, and then reconfigured into predictive products. Products specifically designed to anticipate what you will do today, tomorrow, and next week by means of behavorial modification. But not only does surveillance capitalism predict it also nudges us, influencing our behaviour through personalised and intrusive targeted advertising.

As she memorably puts it: once we searched Google, now Google (and the rest) searches us. We have been digitally dispossessed by the remorseless logic of big tech’s profit imperative. Whereas before it was the social and natural world that was subordinated to the market dynamic now, as she puts it, it is our very human experience that is ripe for extractive profit.

Our data, remorsely collected in recent years, without our true consent, has been weaponised against us with military efficiency, as stated by Tim Cook that is, of Apple, no less-creating a digital profile that lets companies know us better than we know ourselves.

ARIAS ANYONE?

Redwood Opera Workshop Performances

The Redwood Opera is coming soon. Young singers from all over the US will participate in a free evening of opera arias at the Stanford Inn on June 20 at 5:00 and the acclaimed scene performance on June 23 at 7:00. ($15)

Tickets available at Out of the World and Harvest Market.

WHALE DEATHS. WHY?

latimes.com/science/la-sci-gray-whale-deaths-unusual-mortality-event-20190531-story.html

I WOULD NOT HAVE FOUGHT ANY OF AMERICA’S WARS. In most of them, I would have fought on the other side. Screw The Maine, The Lusitania, Pearl Harbor, and the 911 attacks—they were all false flag events to justify expansion of the Evil Empire. God screw America.

This morning I received an e-mail that contained this obituary for my friend Chris Albertson.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/09/obituaries/chris-albertson-dead.html

Chris is one of two old friends who died in May. We were friends for more than ten years. He hadn’t been returning my phone calls or e-mails for the last two months and I was worried about him. Now my fears have been confirmed. The other friend, Caterina Ritchie, died May 29 after suffering cardiac arrest. She was the wife of my friend David; the mother of my charismatic yoga teacher, Blair. She seemed to be in good health. Her death was unexpected. David and I walk two miles together almost every Sunday. We used to run three miles (and walk one mile) every week but have switched to walking as a concession to our aging bodies.

Caterina was a gourmet cook, an opera fan who infected me with her passion for opera, and a frequent dinner companion along with David. We celebrated our birthdays in some of the area’s best restaurants. My extended family is rapidly shrinking. You still need two hands to count the survivors—but barely. It goes with the territory. Many years ago, when I taught ESL at Fairleigh Dickinson University in Rutherford, NJ, one of my colleagues and friends was Stanley Radhuber. Stanley was a poet. He once shared this poem with me, which he wrote:

The Other

Death comes by in long black cars

Shiny as shoes, then the lesser cars,

lights blazing in the gauzy afternoon.

I know this formality well

that makes us wait on corners as it passes,

the processional faces of mourners,

some hermetic as glaciers,

some full of grief or greed;

yes, I have ascended

behind weaving motorcycle cops

to some cemetery with a view,

I have ridden in the black car

behind my father—

that makes a father, an uncle, two aunts,

and three dear friends…

I set down my packages

and rock on the soles of my feet.

This is only the death

that makes the traffic pause.

I can feel the sidewalk through the holes in my shoes as I think, there is the other, the other.

Carpe diem, brothers and sisters.

Carpe-effen-diem.

—Louis Bedrock

A LETTER TO THE CLASS OF 2019

by Michelle Hutchins, County Superintendent of Schools

Dear Class of 2019,

Congratulations! High school graduation day marks a special occasion. It represents the culmination of years of hard work, late nights, success and failures, perseverance, and dedication to academic pursuits and personal growth. Although graduating from high school does not guarantee success in life, it does indicate a commitment to learning and bettering yourself, a commitment that is likely to lead to a longer, healthier, happier life.

As you walk across the stage to receive your diploma in your cap and gown, you’ll join millions before you. Graduation is a significant milestone, and whether you end up at the top of your class or at the bottom in many ways makes no difference. Graduation empowers you to excel. I hope it gives you a sense of pride and confidence, knowing you can achieve the goals you set for yourself. As Henry David Thoreau said, “What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as who you become by achieving your goals.” By graduating, you have proven to yourself and everyone who knows you that you are capable of success.

The question is: where do you go from here? Whether you continue on a path of formal education or join the workforce, I hope you consider reaching for new heights. I hope you contemplate what makes you happy and then spend time pursuing it. I hope you are willing to take risks, because it is only then that you discover your true potential.

When you challenge yourself and believe you can do anything you set your mind to, more often than not, you succeed; because each and every time you overcome a challenge—something you’re scared of—you become stronger and more confident. Don’t let fear stand in your way. Be courageous! Remember, courage doesn’t mean you aren’t scared. It means you feel the fear and jump in anyway.

Life will undoubtedly throw up roadblocks. It is your response to those roadblocks that will determine the course of your life. Do you give up at the first sign of difficulty or do you figure out how to go around or over or under or through that roadblock? Do you label yourself the victim, or do you do everything within your power to take action?

So much of life is determined by your attitude. There is a Cherokee saying about the battle each person wages within, the two wolves we all have inside us. One wolf is full of anger, jealously, fear, doubt, greed, sorrow, resentment, false pride and ego. The other is full of joy, peace, love, hope, humility, generosity, forgiveness, truth, compassion and faith. When a grandson asked his grandfather which one wins, the grandfather replied, “The one you feed.” Your future truly is in your hands. Feed your good wolf. You have the power to overcome obstacles, to succeed in all the ways that are most important to you. Be persistent and believe.

The trappings of graduation—the gown, tassel and hat—connect you with graduates around the world as well as to the future and past generations of students who graduated from your high school. Graduation day is the last day we call you “high school student.” Tomorrow we will call you “friend.”

POINT ARENA: Parks, Trails & Open Space Community Meetings

What's Your Vision for Parks in Point Arena?

Share your ideas for the Downtown Park and Arena Cove. Your input is vital as the city creates a Parks, Trails & Open Space Plan, which will guide the City's efforts to obtain funding for park improvements.

WHAT: Parks, Trails & Open Space Community Meetings

WHEN: Saturday, June 8 -- 3-5pm, Saturday June 29 -- 3-5pm

WHERE: Point Arena City Hall/Veteran's Building, 451 School Street

JIMMY STEWART and other US Army inductees on the Red Car, 1941. (Photo Los Angeles Times.)

ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY #2

What we’ve got isn’t education but rather its opposite. People who have a high school diploma have gone to school for thirteen years including kindergarten and yet are considered uneducated. How can that possibly be? It’s largely true given rampant underachievement, but given the vast expenditure of time and money, how is such a result possible? What we have here is a colossal failure by not only the educational establishment but also parents. How can so many people have failed so miserably? Given the gigantic sums pissed away on college, how can it be that grads are such knowledge-less, clueless, witless ninnies, especially in the arts and humanities? And you ask, what good is it to write a great essay and have no idea as to live in the real world? The answer is none whatsoever.

BERNIE, PRO AND CON (Coast Listserve Exchange)

Re: New York Times against Bernie Sanders

https://portside.org/2019-05-29/new-york-times-vs-senator-bernie-sanders

Alan Haack: If discretion is the better part of valor, speaking out on national issues as a small town mayor is pointless and not politically wise. It will be remembered, as it has been with Bernie Sanders. My point here is that if you're elected mayor, take care of your community, don't go blasting away at national policies that your office doesn't cover at all. You certainly can have an opinion but it's taking care of your town that you should be talking about, not national issues. Bernie is a lightweight, has a very closed mind and thinks he's truly wonderful. Seeing him on stage with Hillary Clinton in 2015 enlightened me. Here were two of the biggest egotists in American politics talking past each other. Let's hope the DNC has something better than Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden to offer us suffering Americans. I remain hopeful but doubtful, given their recent history, and, like many others, am preparing for another four years of Trump.

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Carol Mattessich: Bernie must not have neglected his constituents or they would not have elected him so many times. Seems he can be both local and international at the same time. Who knew? Meanwhile your deep rooted visceral animosity towards him “personally” is hard for me to understand given you claim to be a person of the left; and he is the first person of the left to run for president in my lifetime. Most people on the left of Bernie appreciate him for opening the door to a real left in this country. Your ad hominem attacks on him make no sense to me. Perhaps you will be happier with one of the Obama clones the DNC has trotted out to continue the neoliberal agenda. They would rather shut Bernie down than Trump.

WHY JOE BIDEN WAS AFRAID TO FACE CALIFORNIA’S DEMOCRATIC PARTY

by Norman Solomon

Joe Biden’s glaring absence from the California Democratic Party convention has thrown a national spotlight on his eagerness to detour around the party’s progressive base. While dodging an overt clash for now, Biden is on a collision course with grassroots Democrats across the country who are learning more about his actual record and don’t like it.

Inside the statewide convention in San Francisco over the weekend, I spoke with hundreds of delegates about Biden while leafletting with information on his record. I was struck by the frequent intensity of distrust and even animosity; within seconds, after glancing at his name and photo at the top of the flyer, many delegates launched into some form of denunciation.

I often heard delegates bring up shameful milestones in Biden’s political history -- especially his opposition to busing for school desegregation, treatment of Anita Hill in the Clarence Thomas hearings, leading role in passage of the 1994 crime bill, career-long services to corporate elites, and powerful support for the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

It may have been a dumb tactical move for Biden to stay away from the convention. Its 3,400 delegates included core Democratic activists and leaders from around the state. Even some of the pro-Biden delegates said they were miffed that he wasn’t showing up -- in contrast to the 14 presidential candidates who accepted invitations to address the convention. (Biden chose to be in Ohio instead, speaking at a Human Rights Campaign gala in support of LGBTQ rights.)

Nationwide, Biden generated headlines like this one in USA Today: “Biden Faces Stiff Criticism from Democrats for Skipping California Convention.” Interviewed for that news story, I said: “He was not going to be very popular at this convention, but his refusal to show up only reinforces the idea that he’s an elitist and he is more interested in collecting big checks in California than being in genuine touch with grassroots activists and people who care about the Democratic Party’s future.”

Yet if Biden had shown up, it’s quite likely he would have been met with a storm of protest on the convention floor. That’s because so many of the state’s Democratic delegates are vocally opposed to the root causes and effects of institutionalized racism, war, systemic assaults on the environment and overall corporate power.

Looking ahead, Biden will strive to avoid, as much as possible, any uncontrolled situation that could disrupt his pose as an advocate for the middle class and the poor. He least needs wide circulation of accurate information about his political record.

I worked with a few other delegates to blanket the convention with a RootsAction flyer that included some revealing quotes from Biden and facts about his record. We got some pushback from people who didn’t like seeing distribution of such critical material. But many more said that they appreciated it.

Polls show that Biden has little support among young people. Many share the basic outlook of a 19-year-old Sanders supporter at the convention, Yvette Flores, who told Bloomberg News: “Everything he stands for is against the interests of the working class and young Democrats.”

While a dozen of the presidential contenders who spoke were unimpressive or worse, two were far and away the progressive standouts.

Bernie Sanders (whom I actively support) delivered a cogent and fiery speech on Sunday. “There is a debate among presidential candidates who have spoken to you here in this room -- and those who have chosen for whatever reason not to be in this room -- about the best way forward," he said. “In my view, we will not defeat Donald Trump unless we bring excitement and energy into the campaign, and unless we give millions of working people and young people a reason to vote and a reason to believe that politics is relevant to their lives.” And: “We have got to make it clear that when the future of the planet is at stake there is no middle ground.”

The other great speech came from Elizabeth Warren, who also deftly skewered Biden along the way. “Big problems call for big solutions,” she said. “And some Democrats in Washington believe the only changes we can get are tweaks and nudges. If they dream, they dream small. Some say if we all just calm down, the Republicans will come to their senses.” Warren added: “Here’s the thing. When a candidate tells you about all the things that aren’t possible, about how political calculations come first . . . they’re telling you something very important -- they are telling you that they will not fight for you.”

Her reference to the distant Joe Biden was crystal clear.

(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.")

"I TAUGHT ENGLISH in Thailand for a year, and I tried to continue in education when I returned to the United States, but it wasn't nearly as fulfilling for me. In Thailand, teachers are really revered. In the hierarchy of prestige, it goes: kings, then monks, then teachers. Parents would always be asking for advice.

My students would come up and hug me in the streets. It was almost like I was being welcomed into the families of my students, and we were working together toward education. Back in America, it felt like Home and School were two different zones. It felt more isolating. In Thailand, I definitely felt like I was making a difference. In America, it felt like 'maybe' I was making a difference."

RURAL HEALTH ROCK STAR HONOREES ANNOUNCED

Ukiah, CA –On June 15, the Family Medicine Education for Mendocino County (FMEMC) will award the title of 2019 Rural Health Rock Star to five individuals who have demonstrated exemplary service to medical patients in Mendocino County. FMEMC will present the awards at their annual fundraiser, “Music is Medicine,” the fourth annual Rural Health Rocks concert and farm-to-table dinner. This year’s winners are:

Advocate/Leader: Luchresha Renteria, Mendocino Coast Clinics

Physician: Mills Matheson, MD, Baechtel Creek Clinic, Willits

Physician Assistant - Certified: Justin Ebert, MCHC Health Centers, Ukiah

Paramedic: Chris Ottolini, MCC, Gualala

Chiropractor: Audrey Jade, Laytonville

Sponsored by Fowler Subaru, the event will honor local rural health rock stars celebrate the inaugural class of the Adventist Health Ukiah Valley (AHUV) Family Medicine Residency.

"It's going to be extremely festive,” said Noemi "Mimi" Doohan, M.D., Ph.D., director of the AHUV Family Medicine Residency Program, “The community has been waiting for this first group of residents for a long time." Music Is Medicine will include a farm-to-table dinner catered by Black Dog Farm followed by a rockin’ concert in the Mendocino College Center Theatre highlighting the incredible talent we have right here in Mendocino County under the musical direction of local legend Alex DeGrassi.

Tickets for the event are available at https://musicismedicine.brownpapertickets.com/

FMEMC is a community-based, non-profit organization that serves as an independent advisory board to the family medicine residency (doctor training) program starting at Adventist Health Ukiah Valley in 2019. FMEMC also improves local health care through its support of the street medicine program and local nursing.

For more information about FMEMC, visit www.fmemc.org or find it on Facebook at www.facebook.com/fmemc. To learn more about Rural Health Rocks, visit ruralhealthrocks.com.

ON LINE COMMENTS OF THE WEEK

[1]

• Changing weather patterns
• Trade wars
• Middle East powder keg
• Superbugs–failing antibiotics
• Open borders–migrations of the poorest, least capable.
• Ungovernable populations
• Massive reliance on computers
• Disastrous economy
• Divisions by race, religion, sexuality, ethnicity, agendas
• Failed public education system/failed any type of system
• Disappearing middle class
• Thousands of store closings
• Medicare/Social Security broke
• Unreliable news media
• Ongoing attempt to overthrow sitting president
• Opioid epidemic
• Obesity epidemic
• Suicides dramatic increase
• Over half of babies born to single mothers
• Divorce rates above 50 percent
• Pornography addictions
• National debt
• Spent nuclear fuel fires
• Biowarfare (poor man’s WMD)
• Disease pandemic (flu?)
• Asteroid strike
• Solar flare strike
• Activist judges
• Cyberwarfare
• Endless wars

Talk about a long emergency. It is with us. But don’t worry, be happy. We have a strong military and by gosh we are democracy incorporated. The good news for me is I won’t live long enough to see most of the above come to their end result. Our children and grandchildren are screwed. The critical issue though is tariffs messing with Xmas decorations from China.

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[2] Here in the San Francisco Bay Area, last November 2018 was when we got a taste of the hells to come, when the Camp Fire burned up over 18,000 structures, destroying the town of Paradise, California. We usually have fantastically fresh air in San Francisco, but for a two-week period, the city and surrounding counties choked on sooty poisoned air. I hunkered down at home and tolerated the heat as best I could (no air conditioning), but eventually I ventured out — foolishly, without an N-95 smoke mask. My eyes stung, my windpipe tightened and my chest hurt for days after that. And yet what could I do — I had to get on with life, work, family. It was then I realized that some of us may face a calamity where we die like beached fish, simply unable to breathe.

About ten years ago I had a marijuana-induced paranoid daydream, set in the near future. In the dream, I was at a party like the one where I had just gotten so untenably stoned, and we were talking about how hot it had gotten. “Remember when we were learning that global warming was going to change the weather?” “Yeah, and wow that happened really fast. Now it’s hot nearly all the time.”

After the climate chaos of the past couple years, I have only dread for the years to unfold. I don’t know how we’ll explain this mess to the young ‘uns in our midst… we burned up the planet so we could drive ourselves around in SUVs, fly ourselves around for cheap thrills, stuff ourselves full of cheap meat, entertain ourselves with glowing screens.

My 84 year old mother, born to East European immigrants on a North Dakota wheat farm but who eventually “made it” to the East coast post-war suburbs, hems and haws when we talk about the ecological bind we’re in. How strange it must be to know that her “upward” trajectory, from farm girl to college graduate to suburban household, was part of a pattern that leaves few options for those to follow.

KNOW YOUR OLIGARCHS (#1)