MCT: Monday, June 17, 2019

• Abreu Delayed
• Opioid-Scrip Docs
• Recommended Viewing
• Gentleman Joe
• Cat Trapper
• Apprentice Otto
• Frontier Days
• Vista Point
• Next Napa
• Olvera Vendor
• Water Solution
• WineDem Resistance
• Yesterday's Catch
• Boho Security
• Anti-Depressant Treats
• Monumental Fraud
• Wild Bill
• Measles/Mumps Therapy
• Waylon Jennings
• CAAC/MEC Connection
• Oligarch 14

TAI ABREU CASE DELAYED INDEFINITELY

by Bruce McEwen

After waiting all this time to get the Tai Abreu case back on the court calendar we are reduced to reporting only that the new felony murder law, Senate Bill 1437, is still on hold as being “unconstitutional” in the opinion of some prosecutors across the state. They say the legislators passed the bill in spite of the Proposition 15 that put the felony murder rule in place.

(The felony murder rule says that if you participate in a felony that results in a murder, no matter what your level of awareness or intent, you are guilty of murder too.)

Several judges are now considering the constitutionality argument and more 1437 cases are steadily coming back into local courts, as each county has its own petitioners from the prison system trying to get hearings for reduced sentences.

Our own District Attorney doesn’t seem to care over-much about the actual facts of Abreu’s case, as DA David Eyster has taken up the “constitutionality” issue in his own right and used it to block and delay Abreu’s hearing, along with two or three other pending applications concerning people from Mendocino County serving sentences under the old felony murder rule, which said, in effect, if you were a participant in a felony and present at a murder, you would be charged with the crime of murder yourself.

Last Thursday was the same day that the lawyer responsible for Abreu’s LWOP murder conviction died. The late Linda Thompson, former Public Defender convinced the then-19 year old Fort Bragg youth to take his case to a jury then presented no defense at all, arguing only that Abreu had not been properly Mirandized before being interrogated. Abreu got Life-Without, while the other two kids who committed the crime took plea bargains for lesser sentences.

One of those kids, Aaron Channel, has been out of prison for nearly three years. The other, August Stuckey, will soon appear before the parole board.

Judge Ann Moorman recalled the case and said she’d received the People’s (Eyster’s) motion to dismiss (on the grounds of unconstitutionality), dated March 19th; and the supplemental motion to dismiss (on the same grounds), dated March 22nd; then an added supplemental added May 6th – “actually,” the judge said, “there were two on that day. What they are is opinions.”

This then, is the battle Eyster is waging: He sits in his bunker and lobs shells at Abreu’s petition for relief as various state courts supply him with more and more ammo.

The judge read a number of these – the names of the judges who had ruled that the new law was unconstitutional around the state. There were five or six, and I didn’t get the names of the judges or the counties involved, as I considered it was more than anyone but a lawyer would be interested in reading, and the same thought applied to the few cases that Abreu’s new (old) lawyer, deputy public defender Jessyca Hoagland, cited where the judges had ruled that the law was indeed constitutional, and the application in question was valid.

And that was it. Nothing substantial happened. Judge Moorman said she would take the various cases under submission, and that it would take her at least 30 days to read ‘em all, which, to me sounded somewhat disingenuous, since it is hard to imagine any judge hasn’t been following these various rulings as closely as us journalists are following the developments in the Julian Assange case.

DA Eyster said, “On behalf of the People, we have plenty [of these cases showing the State Bill is an infringement on Prop. 15] before the court, and any further argument I made would be redundant, but I stand by my assertion that it [the new felony murder Senate Bill] is unconstitutional.”

Ms. Hoagland said, “I, too, am prepared to submit on the materials before the court, and without restating the opinions of [the various judges she had named and submitted].”

As to any future dates, the judge said if she set any date for an evidentiary hearing to determine the merits of Abreu’s case, she would only have to vacate it in the event of a stay based on a ruling on constitutionality. “The issue is percolating all over the place,” Her Honor concluded, “and somebody at the appellate level will eventually cause something to happen.”

Until then, however, Tai Abreu was sent back to High Desert State Prison to wait it out.

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ED NOTE: The core of the "constitutional issue," as argued by Trumpian district attorneys throughout the state is this: The state legislature can't overturn a vote of the people with a new law that contradicts that popular vote. The state legislature, however, is also elected by popular vote with a mandate to legislate. And, for once, our state legislature, recognizing the one-size-fits-all injustice of the old California Murder Rule, has made room for people caught up in a murder they neither expected nor participated in, to appeal their convictions. How a just person could disagree, and I happen to think our DA is a just person, beats me.

SHERIFF ALLMAN told an audience gathered on June 6th at the Gualala Community Center that he has personally informed ten doctors in the County that he is aware of their opioid prescription practices, suggesting that the ten are over-prescribing pain killers. "We are third in the state for opioid overdoses," Allman said as reported by the ICO. "I see all of them. I'm the coroner." The Coast weekly quotes Allman as saying he "hand-delivered" his notices to the suspicious ten but "no doctor on the South Coast got letters."

RECOMMENDED VIEWING: "When They See Us," an absolutely brilliant Netflicks production based on the appalling (even by prevalent justice system standards) conviction of five 7th and 8th graders for a brutal 1989 assault and rape in New York’s Central Park of a 28-year-old white woman, Trisha Meili, who had been out jogging in the park only to be found nearly dead. She remained in a coma for 12 days following the attack which, fortunately she retained no memory of, but eventually made something of a miraculous recovery from. There was zero evidence against the five boys. The assault on Ms. Meili was more than a mile from the "wilding" (random, recreational youth mob violence) occurring simultaneously in which the defendants may or may not have been involved. The terrible event revived and encouraged every gruesome racial trope of this country's gruesome racial history, complete with Trump taking out full page pre-trial ads in the New York papers calling for the death penalty. The performances by Jharrel Jerome and Michael K. Williams, the latter himself a victim of a wilding night when he was a kid, hence the scar running the length of his face, are absolutely gripping, by far the best I've seen in years. (Michael K. Williams was also outstanding in the groundbreaking HBO Series “The Wire.”)

MEANWHILE, at the Fairfax Theater this weekend, adult movie goers flocked to see: The Secret Life of Pets 2 (Pets 1 wasn't dumb enough, apparently); Dark Phoenix, an ultra-vi spectacular; and Men In Black: International, whatever the hell it is. "When They See Us," directed by the obviously gifted Ava DuVernay, will stay with you for a long time.

JOE BIDEN WAGGED HIS FINGER At Me When I Asked Him About Abortion

THE STORY BEHIND THE VIRAL TWITTER PHOTO.

vice.com/en_us/article/3k3jgj/joe-biden-wagged-finger-at-activist-in-viral-twitter-photo

A DAY IN THE LIFE… Currently I am the cat trapper for the Coast Cat project. It’s something that I really, really enjoy. It takes a fair amount of driving, and a lot of patience. I find it to be what I would think hunting is like, except I’m saving lives. For example, Friday night I was heading to Boonville to catch the last two kittens that I have seen at a colony in town. They have proved to be difficult and trap savvy. On my way I was to pick up three newborn kittens. When I got there the person that had the kittens told me that she believed there was another kitten under a large brush pile. I took apart that giant brush pile but there was no kitten. Then I went down to Boonville. I set up for baited traps with bottles and strings keeping the doors open so that when the kittens went in I could pull the string. Those darn kittens stayed at the front of the traps and ate all of the food and never went in any trap. I was there for three hours. But I did come home with these babies. (via MSP)

OTTO BLUE FRASER graduated from basic training, USCG Juliet 197, on Friday June 8th 2019. Otto reports to duty in Kodiak Alaska, June 17, 2019, and will serve as Fireman Apprentice on United States Coast Guard Cutter Douglas Munro. Fair winds and following seas! Semper Peratus.

AS WE APPROACH our new exhibit opening of Frontier Days: A Collector's Journey on Saturday, June 29th, let's do some Frontier Days trivia!

Frontier Days was originally created in 1926 as a fundraising event to help build what facility in Willits?

a. High School

b. Primary School

c. Hospital

d. Fairgrounds

(Mendocino County Museum)

NIGHT LIGHT OF THE NORTH COAST: Vista Point, Humboldt County

by David Wilson

I am not a huge traveler, but I’ve seen the marked exits up and down the state for Vista Point. It’s a geographical oddity somehow accessible from anywhere, and we are fortunate be home to the world famous Vista Point here in Humboldt County.

I headed out there alone late one night to see if strange people or animals would get me, and when they didn’t I photographed some nighttime landscapes underneath the starry skies. A half moon hanging to the west spread its light over the world. It brightened the sky as well, washing out the fainter stars and removing some of the details and color from the Milky Way.

I wasn’t alone at this scenic overlook; two other cars were already present when I rolled in at 10:30 pm, darkened, sleeping or enjoying the night. Who knows what happens in the dark watches of the night? At the far end I shut off the car and lights and sat in the still darkness. I thought about the other people there and wished I were alone. I didn’t want to wake up to read in the online news about something happening to me down there. I wanted to make some photographs and do the writing myself.

It took some time for my eyes to fully adjust to the low light. The redwood-carpeted hills of the Eel River valley were bathed beautifully in moonlight. The Milky Way, Jupiter, Saturn and a host of other celestial bodies hung in the moonlit sky. But there was evidence of humanity, too. I imagined a photograph showing an intersection of nature and humanity with US Highway 101 traversing the night below in the foreground. Cars traveling by would make streaks of lights with their taillights and illuminate some of the nearby features with their headlights.

The overlook’s shape is a long strip, and I found the middle had the best view up the river valley. My eyes adjusted to the night as I set up and began photographing. The other two cars remained still. I wondered what their stories were and was glad they ignored me. I could see well enough now, and I knew my camera would pick up even more of the light, detail and color in the images it captured.

A car rolled in and parked farther down the stretch from me. It shut off its lights and a figure stepped into the darkness. The night would seem dark indeed for fresh eyes, I knew, though not so much for mine, and under the “cover of night” the figure scurried across the road and stood for a minute or two before stealing back to its car and driving off. Must have been a guy.

Another car arrived at about 11:30 as I was thinking about taking my last photographs. The car parked at the far end and left its lights on inside and out, creating a glowing focal point at the convergence of lines made by the Milky Way, US 101, the grasses, the curb at my feet and the painted white line on the right. I was stoked that the car cooperated as I lined up a vertical composition and photographed it. Thank goodness for good things happening.

(To read previous entries of “Night Light of the North Coast,” click on my name above the article. To keep abreast of my most current photography or peer into its past, visit and contact me at my website mindscapefx.com or follow me on Instagram at @david_wilson_mfx .)

Why would anyplace want to be the ‘Next Napa’?

OLVERA STREET, circa 1890. Nicolas Martinez, tamale and ice cream salesman.

WATER TAX FINALLY DEAD / BOS MOTTO: DON’T ASK, DON’T TELL

by Jim Shields

While it’s never a safe bet to consider any political deal to be in perpetuity, this week’s agreement hammered out by Gov. Gavin Newsom and Democratic legislative leaders sure appears to deep-six — for the fourth time, if you’re counting — a controversial and widely despised water tax to pay for clean water in mostly Central Valley communities.

The broad strokes of the budget deal call for the state to establish a permanent safe drinking water funding solution for disadvantaged communities in California that do not have access to safe drinking water. The solution will be enacted through the 2019-’20 Budget and related trailer bill language.

The plan is to spend $133.4 million on clean water projects, with the lion’s share of the cash coming from proceeds raised by the sale of greenhouse gas emission credits.

In the first year, Fiscal Year 2019-’20, the safe drinking water funding solution will be funded with $100 million from the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GGRF) and $30 million from the General Fund. This will be part of the 2019-’20 Fiscal Year State Budget.

After the first year, the funding will be 5 percent of the GGRF on a continuously appropriated basis — capped at $130 million per year. The agreement includes General Fund funding as a backstop if 5 percent of the GGRF is less than $130 million in any year. The funding will sunset in 2030. The important thing, of course, is this proposal does not include a water tax.

Trailer bill language in the budget bill will create a safe drinking water fund and provide the framework for the funding program which most likely will become permanent or have its sunset provision extended in 2030.

As I’ve pointed out here before, there’s always been money available from other sources — such as the state’s general fund and various water bonds already issued — that could be used for contaminated groundwater remediation. Using the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund as the primary funding source makes sense and there’s an organic linkage between its objectives and the goal of cleaning up contamination in the Central Valley.

I want to thank all of you who called, texted, and messaged Legislative representatives and the Governor letting them know that this first-in-history proposed water tax bill was a very bad idea. They definitely received the message, loud and clear.

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Déjà Vu All Over Again

In Mark Scaramella’s weekly report on the Board of Supervisors, he noted that, “NOT ONE COUNTY OFFICIAL, Supervisor, CEO or Department Head, however, asked about workload or backlog or what effect the hiring freeze would have on services. Supervisors Ted Williams and Dan Gjerde noted that Mendo has more employees per capita than other rural counties — without wondering why (the board never gets any staffing level reports by department) — although Supervisor Williams seems to think that if the County upgrades its computers it would somehow save lots of work and positions. (Studies have shown that the opposite is true.) Williams said that County staff is stressed because of not enough automation and too many people and too much paperwork. But Williams did note that upgrading the computers to the tune of upwards of $4 million is also necessary to replace obsolete equipment and help respond to emergencies.”

You should know this is not the first time that the issue of Mendocino County’s workforce ratio compared to other rural counties has been a budgetary and negotiations topic.

Nearly 20 years ago, County Administrative Officer Jim Anderson (there was no Chief Executive Officer model of government back then, thank the heavens) told the Supes in the lead-up to budget hearings, that Mendocino County had the highest ratio of employees per population among California’s rural counties. So county staffing has always been on the high side compared to other rural counties. These discussions occurred in the midst of the infamous “Slavin Study” fraud where management and labor colluded on a back-scratching exercise to justify raising their respective salaries and pay rates.

The question that was never answered back then or now, is how are these other rural counties able to — apparently — provide the standard array of constituent services with fewer employees?

You would think there would be at least one official down in the county seat whose curiosity would prompt him or her to ask that fundamental question.

Obviously, for those of us who think that is a relevant query, we just don’t understand how local government works here.

The motto seems to be: Don’t ask, don’t tell. It all will just go away if you give it enough time.

(Jim Shields is the Mendocino County Observer’s editor and publisher, and is also the long-time district manager of the Laytonville County Water District. Listen to his radio program “This and That” every Saturday at 12 noon on KPFN 105.1 FM, also streamed live: http://www.kpfn.org.)

TRUMP HAS FINALLY GONE TOO FAR for several local Democrats who have courageously called on President Trump to “do all you can to support the international competitiveness of US agriculture.” By doing what?

INCREASE price supports for food crop growers? Approve the long-delayed Farm Bill? Lower taxes on cannabis? Increase funding for the Department of Agriculture?

NO, of course not. Last week Congressmen Jared Huffman and Mike Thompson and Senator Diane Feinstein — and 16 other elected Democrats — asked Trump to remove the wine tariffs that Trump has imposed on wine exports to China.

THE WINEDEMS — Thompson and Pelosi own vineyards and wineries — claim that the tariffs “make it hard for US wineries to compete." The Winedems say that unless Trump lifts the tariffs “U.S. wine will not be able to maintain a long-term Chinese presence…” which, as everyone knows, is an essential component of Agriculture in the United States. (NOT)

ALSO SIGNING on to “support agriculture” (by removing wine tariffs) were: Senators Kamala D. Harris (D-Calif.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.). And, Representatives Suzanne Bonamici (D-Ore.), Julia Brownley (D-Calif.), Salud Carbajal (D-Calif.), Judy Chu (D-Calif.), Jim Costa (D-Calif.), Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.), Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.), John Garamendi (D-Calif.), Doris Matsui (D-Calif.), Jerry McNerney (D-Calif.), Jimmy Panetta (D-Calif.) and Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.).

(PS. THE “NEWS” of the Winedems' bold stand in support of Agriculture appeared, natch, in the Press Democrat on June 11, but was drawn entirely from a press release out of Senator Diane Feinstein’s office, although (natch), the PD failed to mention Feinstein's presser as their source.)

— Mark Scaramella

CATCH OF THE DAY, JUNE 16, 2019

DENNIS ANDERSON, Willits. DUI, use of watercraft while under influence of drugs and alcohol, probation revocation.

THOMAS CUTHBERT, Ukiah. Domextic abuse, battery with serious injury, child endangerment, witness intimidation.

TINA DAVIS, Glendora/Boonville. Fugitive from justice.

FRANCO DEMATTEI, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

THOMAS GALINDO, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol. (Frequent flyer.)

MARK JOHNSON, Willits. Under influence, controlled substance, probation revocation.

LAMONT JONES JR., Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol, probation revocation.

MICHAEL PELKEY, Ukiah. Battery.

MACIANO PICENO, Ukiah. Controlled substance.

CASANDRA RAWLS, Calpella. Suspended license (for DUI).

CARL SERR, Ukiah. Under influence, probation revocation.

RULING CLASS COHESIVENESS:

Sonoma County Cops Guard Sexist Racist Bohemian Grove, Again

by Jonah Raskin

Bohemian Grove, which was founded in 1878, has operated for the last 141 years as an all-male, private preserve. For the past 15 years, Sonoma County sheriff’s deputies have policed the area during the annual retreat. Now, at long last, two county supervisors, both of them women, have posed the big question, “Why should public funds go to pay cops to protect wealthy, powerful, famous men, along with 2,700 wooded acres where women and girls are excluded?”

The Sonoma County sheriff’s department described the deputies who work at the Grove during the retreat, as “rental public safety officers.” The deputies are mostly stationed at the main gate; the Grove hires private security guards to patrol inside.

I lived in western Sonoma County for 30 years and always knew when the Grove was meeting. Helicopters flew overhead, ferrying guys from the airport in Santa Rosa to the enclave near Monte Rio on the Russian River. One day, I’d see the ‘copters. The next day I’d read the local daily newspaper and learn that George Herbert Walker Bush, or some other head of state, had arrived at the Grove. Sometimes I'd see a fossilized celebrity like Art Linkletter having supper at River's End, a restaurant on the coast.

For a couple of years, I also protested outside the main gate, along with friends from Occidental and Cotati, some of them Peace and Freedom Party members who disliked the idea of the power elite meeting in our hippie, countercultural, anti-establishment backyard. It was eye opening to watch the arrival of men in their BMWs, Mercedes Benzes and Jaguars. It was also eye opening to meet some of the workers in the sex industry who came to service the Grove guys. For a short time the women made good money. They made sure they were paid upfront so they weren't stiffed.

I’ve also learned a great deal by reading G. William Domhoff’s excellent 1974 book, The Bohemian Grove and Other Retreats: A Study in Ruling Class Cohesiveness. Domhoff nailed it forty-five years ago. More recently, Domhoff has written and published, Who Rules America? The Triumph of the Corporate Rich (2013). Wanna see what he’s talking about? Go to the Grove. Crash the party if you have to. Some intrepid reporters have done that in the past.

In The L.A. Times, Julia Wick, the author of the Essential California newsletter, recently wrote that “Bohemian Grove is a place where men who grew up with their names on buildings can pee on trees and perform bacchanalian rites, unfettered by the pesky presence of women, un-landed gentry or any loser who doesn’t know that ‘the game’ obviously refers to Harvard-Yale.”

If you’re a woman, or a guy eager to end sexism and elitism, it’s easy to ridicule the Grove, which seems in some ways like a relic of the past, but that is, in fact, in keeping with the principles of Trump’s patriarchal, misogynist and racist America. Lynda Hopkins, the country supervisor who represents the district in which the Grove sits, issued a long public letter in which she noted that, “The Grove is part of a paradigm that has disempowered women for hundreds of years.” Hopkins addressed the men directly and said, “The most powerful thing you can do is to acknowledge that fact — and as you continue to have your fun in the redwoods, try to do other things in your life to help out those who aren’t ‘lucky enough’ (either anatomically or socially speaking) to be members of your precious Club.”

At a recent public meeting, Third District Supervisor Shirlee Zane asked her colleagues, “How can we contract tax-funded services with a club that openly discriminates against women?” Zane added, “Women’s rights are being shredded throughout the country, and we are kept out of decision-making. This is another way it’s happening in our own backyard.” Zane is running for reelection and has needed a cause. The Grove is a good one.

Despite all the hoopla, the five county supervisors voted to pay the wages—about $150,000—for four off-duty cops who will guard the Grove during the summer encampment—July 10 to July 26—when adult males can act like adolescent boys.

Why did the supervisors vote yes? They said they didn’t want to pull the rug out from under the cops and end a tradition, without meeting face to face with representatives of the Grove. The issue is far from being resolved.

“150 years after the Grove was founded,” Hopkins said, “We women can vote and own property and pay our own bills, but when it comes to politics, it’s still a man’s world.”

What she might have added and didn’t is that, despite the three women supervisors, it’s still largely a man’s world in Sonoma County where fat cats rule and cops protect them.

ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

The descent into madness has been long apparent to anyone with eyes and ears. And so now the Oberlin court case brings into focus the state of the liberal order of things. But it’s not just the progressive intelligentsia that’s way off its rocker.

Self-described “conservatives” had been devoted for decades to a framework of ideas on economics and government and society underpinned by preposterous illogic but nonetheless stoutly defended by people presenting themselves as accomplished in various fields, for example serious intellectuals from the academic world but also in practical areas like business and, not least, by churchmen ostensibly concerned with spiritual and moral issues. The mystery for the ages is how such nonsense got a toe-hold in the first place never mind such a long life in the public realm.

What it all required was blind adherence to a set of notions which bore no remote relationship to what existed on the ground for real people in real families living in actual towns and cities, and none of which addressed real individual and societal needs as they’ve been at least since Sapiens started making cave paintings.

And nobody with an ounce of sense believed any of it, legions of Republican supporters voting GOP out of tribal affiliation rather than out of any real belief in the poppy-cock spouted by political charlatans.

And so it didn’t take much to blow down the whole stupid contraption, just Trump with a few huffs and puffs on the campaign trail. And the Flakes and McCains and Romneys and Ryans were left fulminating in outrage but floundering with no valid responses, the cause of their lives exposed with no real effort by a multiple bankrupt and show-biz buffoon to have been nothing but a low-down con. Because what it all boiled down to, once you got past the economic baffle-gab and the born-again pieties and gun-rights patriotism, was enrichment for a small coterie of insiders and ruin for everyone else. That’s all it was.

Yeah, yeah, I know, Trump is one reprehensible human being on multiple levels, unqualified for the august position he holds. But he did the USA a great service in calling bullshit on the “globalist” agenda that not only the Republican political elite but also their Democrat counterparts worked for two generations to put into effect.

Conservatism, in the Republican incarnation, is a monumental fraud, unworkable, absurd, illogical, designed from the beginning for the benefit of a few, those entrusted with selling it either in the political realm, or from an academic standpoint, or from perches in think-tanks, or as media pundits, fraudsters on a truly impressive scale.

What I’d like to see is what Republicans spout when the Age of Trump is over. Economic nationalism? A chicken in every pot? A car in every garage? I give it even odds that once Trump retires the Republicans Party gives up the ghost, collapsing like Soviet communism, nobody believing its lies or even pretending to.

WILD BILL HICKOK BOWS OUT — FOR GOOD

In the early 1870s, soon after Wild Bill Hickok declared that he was finished with the production of the stage play "Scouts of the Plains" in New York, he pocketed a thousand dollar gift that he received from his fellow actors and took the train out of Rochester where he had been appeared in his last performance of the ridiculously melodramatic play that he had gone along with to make some badly needed money.

He had received the thousand dollars as a going away gift from his fellow thesbians because he had lost most of his earnings from the play with high stakes gambling and expensive booze in New York City.

Then he was informed that a production of Scouts of the Plain with even fewer theatrical standards than the original had sprung up in Binghamton New York with an actor billing himself as Wild Bill Hickok. Incensed, he took a train to Binghamton. Indeed, he discovered, such an imitation was being performed there. Hickok attended that night, sitting in the first row. He was appalled by what he saw, not just that it was a second-rate version of what had been a third rate play to begin with, but seeing it from the perspective of the audience, Hickok was intensely embarrassed to have been in it.

During a scene when Hickok was fighting off several make-believe Comanche warriors, the real Wild Bill could not take it anymore. He jumped up onto the stage. A manager rushed to the stage to stop him. Hickok tossed the manager into the orchestra pit. He then punched his impersonator in the face sending him crashing through the cheap background scenery. As the curtain came down, Hickok stepped off the stage and went back to his seat announcing to the audience that it was now okay for the show to go on. The cast, however, was too frightened to reappear and they all stayed in the wings.

A policeman came down the aisle and told Hickok he was under arrest. Insulted that there was just the one police officer, Hickok told him he would need help with the arrest. The cop believed him and waited until another officer arrived. "Better get more help," Hickok told the uniformed duo. Finally a sheriff showed up and asked politely, "Now, Mr. Hickok, will you accompany us to jail?"

He did. He spent the night in the Binghamton brig. The next morning a judge fined Hickok three dollars and then Wild Bill Hickok headed to the train station. Wild Bill Hickok was done with show business for good.

— Tom Clavin, “Wild Bill”

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Background:

https://legendsplay.wordpress.com/tag/scouts-of-the-plains/

MEASLES, AN EXCHANGE

Measles protects against heart attacks and strokes—

Inger Grape wrote: It's hard work to stay ahead of Robert Spies' insisting on reposting the daily measles propaganda on ListServ, but there is no lack of science. The highly esteemed journal Atherosclerosis found that men had 29% fewer heart attacks & 17% fewer strokes if they had a history of childhood measles and mumps.

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Marco McClean: Oh yeah? Well, the number of letters in the winning word of spelling bees correlates like a glove with the number of people in the world killed by venomous spiders. And the age of Miss America, year after year, correlates with murder by steam, vapor, and hot objects. These are facts. Face it. Think of the lives that could be saved by deliberately choosing and using shorter words, and choosing Miss Americas in diapers.

https://www.tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations

Also, Inger, speaking of hard work, for years you've been advertising using electricity in your placebo therapy scam, as though electricity is harmless as a fluffy bunny. Do you have any idea how many people are killed by electricity every day, including by lightning and copper theft? It's a lot. It's a huge number. I'll spare you the list of doctors' quotes about dangers of electricity, which your magical medical device and computer are jazzed with as well as their working parts being joined together with enough toxic lead to damage the brains of a whole nursery school full of incipient Miss Americas.

And tularemia is commonly known as rabbit fever. Rabbits equal bunnies. Fluffy, fluffy bunnies. Tularemia!

JUNE 15, 1937: WAYLON JENNINGS is born in Littlefield, Texas.

CAAC-MEC CONNECTION

To The Editor:

As a follow up to Supervisor McCowen's red faced phone call to the AVA, it's important to pause and to note this latest display of bullying behavior by Supervisor McCowen. He named two women, Erica Cooperrider and Alicia Bales, who were never identified in print by the AVA, as being his possible paramours. Very embarrassing for these women. Very unprofessional for a public servant and county representative.

James Marmon posited an idea that Supervisor McCowen may not be running again. And, that McCowen may be readying the position to be available for himself after he is no longer a paid supervisor. Intention is nearly always implied by someone's behavior. Good or bad. So, what is Supervisor McCowen's plan in seeing the decision to downsize the Climate Action Committee budget overturned? The BOS vote was a clear 3-2. Yes, $7500 in the budget, instead of McCowen's proposed $110,000.

Mr. Scaramella, in your response, you mention Alicia Bales (she's no longer using her former CB radio name "Littletree") may be better suited for KZYX than CAAC with her thespian credentials. Did you read the blurb about her on the KZYX website?

Two things stand out in her reported successes while serving as president at the MEC (2017-2019): I quote the KZYX website: "Bales’ experience there both with fundraising and with coordinating volunteer programmers will help her substantially in her new role at KZYX."

As a former MEC board member and a KMEC programmer, I was purged by Bales because, to quote Bales, I "wasn't a good fit" despite 20+ years as a non-profit middle and senior manager who spent many the hour with board development, direct mail, supporting executive committees, special events and coordinating volunteers, including at Nashville Public Radio.

I sat in MEC board meetings where Bales passed a hat to pay for the light bill. Maybe $32 was raised. Hardly dynamic fundraising. In fact, it felt more like being pressured to bail out the MEC. The MEC is broke, there is no plan to fix it, the website provides no information on public documents/files, no published board agendas, no minutes all housed in property owned by Supervisor McCowen.

As far as "supporting volunteer programmers…" Bales looked the other way when Sid Cooperrider, the gatekeeper for the KMEC equipment and software, unilaterally removed my show, Heroes and Patriots, from the KMEC program schedule without board knowledge or board approval.

I wanted our program to air on KMEC. I asked that our program be reinstated. Bales said no.

In May 2019 , John Sakowicz and I, and a good soul named John Mayfield, became the smelling salts for those who might not be paying attention to the efforts of Alicia Bales and John McCowen to create and fund a fluffy, redundant, totally unnecessary county program that smacks of self interest -- that being, the CAAC.

You have to wonder what the three remaining all-female MEC board members must be thinking now after they and about 30 people stood behind Alicia Bales this past March to create the CAAC, a McCowen initiative. Bales sat there with her teenage son, Jude Bales as a prop to her formal presentation. Watch the video of the meeting. It's disturbing.

Now, Bales is gone after using the MEC to gather so-called credentials to gain her new position with KZYX.

After reading about Supervisor McCowen's profane and unprofessional phone call to the AVA, the remaining BOS members should call for his resignation.

Sincerely,

Mary Massey

Ukiah

KNOW YOUR OLIGARCHS (#14)