MCT: Thursday, June 20, 2019

• Rick Blaufeld
• Hopland Quake
• Door Memos
• Jan & Josh
• Homeless People
• Quiz Returns
• Library Benefit
• Environmental Destruction
• Cayenne Solution
• Golden Glow
• News Advertisers
• Yesterday's Catch
• Potemkin Pete
• Sunkist
• Boho Security
• Corporate Whining
• Harmonyus Festival
• HumCo's Over
• Mooning
• Self Deceptions
• Waterways
• Ripe Boysenberries
• PicturePhone
• Science Camp
• Library Events
• Progressive Oligarch
• Organizer Wanted
• Fruit Flies
• Vacation Seminar
• Film Screening
• Diem Carpe
• Bed Craig
• Oligarch 17
• Wife Beating

RICK BLAUFELD

Rick Blaufeld has died at age 73. Ragtime Rick Blaufeld, as he was known throughout the county and the country, died from leukemia on June 8th at his daughter's home near Navarro. Blaufeld had lived in Mendocino County since 1972. He played with many famous bands and performers over the years. Known for his generosity, Ragtime Rick taught music at the Community School in Mendocino where he also co-owned Mendocino Music. A memorial gathering will be announced.

A 3.2 MAGNITUDE QUAKE near Hopland this morning (Wednesday, June 19) rattled windows in Southern Mendocino County this morning at 7:36 a.m. More than a score of reports of movement reported from as far north as Ukiah, south to Healdsburg.

A FRIEND recently sent us photographs of a doorful of memos pasted haphazardly on a door in the social services building. It reminded me of a joke I used to tell my coworkers in my office-staff days when leaving my office for a short time: "If my boss calls, get his name!"

Whoever taped these odd strips of paper on the door asked, "Supervisors, please review the attached with your staff."

This is how social service officials communicate with their “supervisors”?

One of the memos is addressed to "FCS team" (Family and Children's Services, formerly Child Protective Services). That memo is from a Jena Conner who explains, "I wanted to give you an update on several important items — staffing and who is handling the duties previously covered by Bobby Brunback and Pam St. Martin."

After listing several people with their new duties and assignments, Ms. Conner adds, "As I previously noted, everyone must be fluid, adaptable and versatile for the best interest of the department in order to meet our mandated requirements, in addition to promoting professional growth and development among our team. The FCS management team has determined a process we will use for staffing decision-making going forward that will be based on overall department needs and data."

THE ENTIRE collection of names, assignments, confusing instructions, and other information is a strong indication that the department is not only in turmoil and shorthanded, but it has no real overall management and is being forced to give people temporary supervisorial assignments which they are not qualified or trained to do.

ONE WOULD THINK this situation makes it very difficult to maintain any kind of continuity or consistency in handling child custody and related tasks when “everyone must be fluid, adaptable and versatile," and is subject to reassignment almost at whim from what passes for management in the Family and Children Services Department.

A COUPLE of years ago the Mendocino County Grand jury pointed out how understaffed and inexperienced the Family and Children Services Department was and it looks like it's only gone downhill since then. Making matters worse, is this informal door-tape method of notification: Scotch taping instructions to a door and expecting everyone to understand their new roles and assignments is not the way a department should be managed.

UNLESS it's Mendocino County.

(Mark Scaramella)

DECK CHAIRS & OTHER MOVING OBJECTS

by Bruce McEwen

Mendocino County's own travesty of President Trump's former TV persona as a corporate axman, has been adroitly upstaged by our very own great huge beauty of a CEO, Ms. Carmel Angelo.

How often and how tediously have I lectured the readership on this subject: that the county is a microcosm of the macrocosm of the national dysfunction? How many examples do I have to frog-march down a column in the Mighty AVA until you will at last, at long last, see?

Apparently, more is needed, and conveniently, more is certainly available.

A fresh example popped just this morning. Assistant Public Defender Bumstead Bumble-Butte was resigned — no-no, Mr. Editor don't tamper with the verb tense; because as Ms. Chandler-Moss, in an unrelated case going on earlier in the day, I say, as Tammy C-M made as obscure as verbosity is capable of smearing and smudging things, it turns out that the method of firing people is to deliver unto them a letter of resignation, which reminds of a line from Literature, to wit:

"…Then I got into the soup again, pretty badly this time. Happened over in France. They said, 'Now Grimes, you've got to behave like a gentleman. We don't want a court-martial in the regiment. We're going to leave you alone for an hour. There's your revolver. You know what to do. Good-bye, old chap…"

So you see, you no longer get fired, you get resigned. A Euphemism like the police use, "Interview" when they do an Interrogation; it's a new way of saying it: it's like saying Thank You when you mean Fuck You — a smug little verbal dismissal our Supes have adopted over the last year…

And so the word came down in a subtle way, via a lawyer from the Alternate Public Defender's office, Jan Cole-Wilson, who told Judge John Behnke that she would be leaving the Alternate's office July 1st, to take over the suddenly vacant Assistant Public Defender job.

Keep in mind that Ms. Cole-Wilson, some 20 years ago, was an eager young lawyer at the Office of the Public Defender, that she worked with various defense firms over the intervening years, and that it was her, incidentally, she was this newspaper's choice for the Public Defender's job when the late Linda Thompson retired, last July, and the job came open.

The new Public Defender, Jeffery Aaron had brought in a "friend" of his, a fellow who always seemed a thousand miles away, on the few occasions he made it to court. And, if I'm not mistaken, this pawn was axed by St. Angelo, and Cole-Wilson elevated to the Assistant slot to mollify the county's only critics, the Mighty AVA.

It seems like a toxic job, though, not only Linda Thompson, but Judge Ron Brown, also out of the Public Defender’s office have both gone under the sod from that job.

On a more cheerful note, our wonderfully versatile Josh Rosenfeld is back in Mendocino County working as Officer Rosenfeld at the Willits Police Department; he has worked with the Willits PD in the past, was on the Ukiah force for a couple of years, and before that a prosecutor in the DA’s Office. He worked as a Deputy DA in Eureka, and as a cop in Fortuna. The guy is on his way to being one of the most qualified candidates for District Attorney any county could wish for.

I can personally attest that his ego is the model of modesty and his honesty as brutal as Socrates'; he has the heart of a lion, the strength of a bear, and we'll never forget how he used the speech of Mark Antony from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar to such stunning and decisive effect in his closing arguments agains the wannabe lawyer, Starsky (I shall never forget Old Whatsisname, if I live to a hundred!).

Congrats to Jan and Josh.

NOT ALL…

To the Editor:

My name is Savannah Bourne, and I’m a current resident of the homeless population of Ukiah. Three or four nights a week I spend the night in one of the trailers over there on Airport Boulevard with my daughter and her father, who is a 7 year Army veteran, and native of Willits.

The recent article about the current state of things where we live and the removal of trailers and tents, rubbed me the wrong way. I’m not a drug addict. I am a former drug addict, and I’ve been sober for 7 long years. I’m a student at the college, with a 4.0 GPA and the vice president of a student club that encourages and enables peer to peer support for substance abuse, trauma, grief, and so on. I and many others consider myself an upstanding member of this community. To see everyone who lives here purely out of necessity labeled a criminal, is extremely disheartening.

I respect the police in this town because in general, they help us. I know Detective Hoyle comes by and checks on us, and he oversees trash removal each week. Many members of the community, including medical professionals, come through offering aid, food, blankets, clothing, etc. To simplify this issue to drugs and rape is irresponsible journalism. In a small community like ours we have to communicate with everyone, and yet I have seen no attempt to actually interview or even interact, with the people who live here. It’s humiliating and dehumanizing. Please respect that some of us are trying our best in a world that we have to fight through every day. Some of us obviously manage better than others.

I am not by any means saying there is no crime here. I know many of the officers by face and name from frequent contact as I walk to and from the bus stop. I see the drug use, I hear and report domestic violence often. I was not aware there was a rape reported recently, and that makes me feel extremely uneasy, especially as there are many women here who have no other place to go. Including myself.

I beg of you to allow me to speak on this issue. I dont speak for everyone, but I do have a perspective you haven’t gathered as of yet. Please contact me as soon as possible, as the issue is only going to become worse as we get closer to the 17th.

Savannah Bourne, Students for Recovery, V.P.,

Ukiah

BOONVILLE QUIZ IS BACK: NEXT WEEK

The Fourth Thursday: At Lauren’s restaurant in downtown Boonville on Thursday, June 27 at 7pm. (Steve Sparks, Quizmaster)

FLYNN CREEK CIRCUS IS BACK with amazing feats and unparalleled artistry in their new show: Out of Hat! On Wednesday, July 3rd, the evening performance benefits Friends of the Fort Bragg Library. The Friends invite you to support the Library Expansion Project in Fort Bragg. We are building a larger library to serve patrons from Elk to Westport and beyond! Join us in Mendocino's Friendship Park at 7 pm on Wednesday, July 3rd for the time of your life.

FRANK HARTZELL WRITES:

I read for at least an hour every day. 99 percent of what I read about global warming and environmental destruction makes no sense at all. Such as blaming cattle, such as building up solar and wind without reducing demand through oil and coal taxes, tariffs or somehow making people think (increases the problem). Free trade and the consumption/trash economy is the sole cause of global warming. Here is one of the few articles that has made sense to me….

theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jun/18/fast-fashion-environmental-audit-committee-polluting-industry

FINELY GROUND CAYENNE!

Editor,

I had that cat problem myself. I was living in an apartment complex and one of the tenants, an elderly lady, was maintaining a feeding station. As time went on more and more cats came and it became an annoyance. For me the problem was the smell. My solution was to poison the feeding station. Now, I don’t suggest using a fatal poison. That would be wrong. You could poison wildlife or if a cat died from it another animal could eat it. What you need is a poison that discourages the cats from coming around and doesn’t harm them. I found that a little finely ground cayenne pepper in and around the feeding station solve the problem.

Al Martin

Ben Lomond

THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS

My morning routine includes going through the first news of the day online with the CBS Morning News in the background - on mute of course, to avoid, however fleetingly, allowing the obnoxious commercials into my head. When the occasional interesting story appears I put on my headphones. Since lately there seem to be more commercials than actual air time, I took a sample:

-The prescription drug Xarelto ("You didn't have a heart attack today"): no generic equivalent, average retail cost $553.65 a month [cost not in ad].

-The Meningitis B vaccine ("Don't send your teen to college without it"): either $320 or $345 for the series [cost not in ad].

-Twin Pines Hotel and Casino (lots of healthy, happy people jumping joyfully up and down)

-Brooklinen ("the very best sheets," a hetero couple snuggling in bed)

-Volkswagen ("There's a lot to smile about")

-Prescription drug for opiate addiction (young woman in dreads walking along texting "I am ashamed"): didn't catch the name of the drug.

-Heavenly Greens ("put your lawnmower away")

-Jeep Cherokee ("Can you feel your heart race?")

-Lindt chocolates ("Experience Lindt").

-PSA on quitting cigarettes.

-Las Vegas promotion ("Rejuvenation happens here")

-Consumer Cellular ("We trust them").

-Flavored Nicorette lozenges ("When cravings come on strong")

-Gain detergent: ("Smelling is believing," man sniffing kids' smelly sports clothes)

-Facebook Groups; ("Let's do more together").

-Purina ("Your pet, our passion").

-Graton Resort and Casino ("My moment to play").

-Comcast Business ("Beyond fast").

Whew. So all you have to do to be happy is buy a car, take your drugs, have "fun" by giving your cash to casinos, and buy fake grass. And be sure to feed your pet Purina if you really love him/her. Hit mute.

Marilyn Davin

CATCH OF THE DAY, JUNE 19, 2019

NANCY ADAIR, Willits. Hit&Run resulting in death or injury.

SHAWN BIAS, Fort Bragg. Trespassing/refusing to leave, resisting.

JAMES BRAY JR., Fort Bragg. Domestic abuse, failure to appear, probation revocation. (Frequent Flyer)

THOMAS BRUNDIGE, Willits. DUI.

MARCUS GREGORY, Clearlake/Ukiah. Parole violation.

DEVAUN JOHNSON, Calpella. Vandalism, failure to appear.

SHERRI NEELEY, Ukiah. Tear gas, paraphernalia. (Frequent Flyer)

NEIL WALDRON, Covelo. Burglary, attempted burglary, controlled substance, failure to appear, probation revocation.

REQUIEM FOR A LIGHTWEIGHT: The Mayor Pete Factor

by Matthew Stevenson

My first sounding, at least from the political echo chamber, of the South Bend mayor came a few months ago, when my wife announced over breakfast that some of her sisters liked the cut of his jib.

I looked him up online, came across McKinsey and the Rhodes scholarship, and, like the rest of the country that lives without television, struggled with the pronunciation of his Maltese surname, Buttigieg, until I learned that a simple “Mayor Pete” would suffice.

In the intervening two months, I thought little more about the mayor, other than to take note that his ranking in the early polls consigned him to that great electoral no man’s land of about five percent that he was sharing with the likes of Cory Booker, Kamala Harris, and Beto O’Rourke, all of whom, someday, might regret that they had only one soundbite to give for their country.

As best as I could determine, Mayor Pete was stalking a constituency of the middle ground, by uttering thoughtful clichés about the Rust Belt, the deficit, sexual equality, cops on the beat in South Bend, and the wars on terror—in which he was a deployed as an onward Christian soldier.

His dream is to survive long enough in the primaries so that as a last man standing he could offer himself as an alternative either to the Democratic Shining Path (Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders) or Joe Biden’s Walmart he’s-hopeless-but-he-can-win Amtrak centrism.

To get to the late rounds of the fight, all Mayor Pete has to do is run ahead of Beto O’Rourke (D-Vaudeville) and raise enough money (think of those earnest appeals to support public radio) to keep the campaign wolves away from the door.

---

My chance to hear Mayor Pete in front of what game-show Hollywood calls a “live audience” came when I recently flew to New York City and figured out that, while I was there, he would be speaking at the 92nd Street YMCA, which is more famous for its literary round tables featuring Norman Mailer and George Plimpton than as a place you can go….when you’re short on your dough.

I managed to get a ticket for the talk and showed up about twenty minutes before the opening bell. Already there was a long line of Buttigieg supporters queueing to get in and a few security types loitering near the front doors. But this wasn’t one of those Trump rallies from 2016 with sniffer dogs or one of those bus drivers from the movie Slap Shot denting up the campaign bus with a sledgehammer… “makin’ it look mean.” This was the Whole Foods crowd lining up for some presidential latte.

I had thought that there might be a warm-up band at the 92nd Street Y—perhaps some speeches by a few state senators already on the Buttigieg train—but instead all that greeted us on the main stage was two armchairs and a coffee table, suitable either for Gestalt therapy or a campaign rally, which in 2020 adds up to the same thing.

Once the house was full and the lights were dimmed, Mayor Pete and his questioner entered from stage left, where presumably they had been idling in a green room (that inner sanctum of the celebrity class).

Were Mayor Pete more a politician (and less a culturally sensitive icon), he would have chosen to enter the hall from the lobby and would have swept down one of the aisles with handshakes, high fives, fist bumps, and some of those Hillary finger-points for his faithful. Instead he walked on stage with that look of embarrassment and surprise that comes naturally to guests picked randomly from the crowd on Let’s Make a Deal.

Pete’s schtick is that of a working mayor, so he arrived on stage wearing a dress shirt and necktie but no suit jacket, as if maybe, just before the rally, he had been chairing a sanitation district meeting or manning a 24-hour crisis hotline. But for whatever reason—his thin frame, his diffidence in front of a crowd—Pete looks more like a floor walker at Barney’s, maybe someone assigned to men’s shoes.

The moderator this evening was Jonathan Capehart of the Washington Post editorial board and various talking head assignments. On paper, Capehart is a winner of the Pulitzer Prize and someone who can occasionally come up with primetime insights into the Mueller Report on the PBS NewsHour.

On this occasion, however, he was appearing less as a grand inquisitor and more in the cheerleader role of Ellen DeGeneres, and apparently he came on stage with the intention of “grilling” Mayor Pete on the joys of his marriage to Chasten Glezman and asking “how did it feel” to appear on the cover of Time magazine. Clearly Capehart comes out of the bended-knee finishing school of journalism.

---

Bizarrely, at least for someone who needs to win Ohio, Florida, and North Carolina to be elected president, Mayor Pete began the evening with a long description of his Rhodes scholarship at Oxford (England, not Old Miss), where he took “a first in PPE” (philosophy, politics, and economics) at Pembroke College. (William Pitt the Younger and Monty Python’s Eric Idle are among its famous graduates.)

Perhaps confusing a campaign rally with a search committee at the Kennedy School of Government, Mayor Pete painstakingly went through what was required of a Rhodes scholar to get a degree from Pembroke (he had to make up a year’s worth of economics classes in ten weeks) and what it means to be awarded “a first.” (He got his degree with “first class honors.” It means an A, although for a few awkward moments Capehart kept gushing about Pete’s brilliance for finishing “first” in his class at Oxford.)

The son of professors at Notre Dame, Mayor Pete loves academic questions and will, with very little prompting, explain to his listeners how he was always the smartest kid in the class. And if he was running for a position on the faculty senate at Oberlin College, I might report that he was qualified.

At one point, sounding as though he was at a teach-in, he said gravely, “We have to find the right kind of vocabularies to talk about progressive values.”

Acting like a kindly thesis advisor during orals, Capehart carefully went through each line of Mayor Pete’s curriculum vitae, just so the audience would not miss the fact that after the years at Harvard and Oxford, Pete also got his ticket punched as a 29-year-old mayor in South Bend and as an ensign in the U.S. naval reserve, in which he was deployed as an intelligence officer to NATO command in Kabul.

Oh, and by the way, he also worked as a consultant for McKinsey and, more recently, found time to write his memoirs, Shortest Way Home. It’s painting/writing by the numbers, so any aspiring candidate can sound like the father-dreaming Barack Obama (“A river is made drop by drop”).

In this telling of American history, the president is the person with the highest SAT scores, and the best college essay.

---

For all of Buttigieg’s resumé stops—in Oxford, South Bend, Kabul, and Cambridge, Mass.—the only subject on which he can muster much passion is that of The Importance of Being Mayor Pete. (As Brooklyn advance man Walt Whitman said, “I celebrate myself, and sing myself, …”)

On Afghan politics, the in-fighting of the Democratic party, the budget deficit, or how McKinsey pads its billing hours, Mayor Pete sounds like a shy freshman, someone who has yet to finish the required reading. But on the subject of himself, Buttigieg might well be a tenured professor.

Whenever Capehart asked him why he wanted to be president or whether he was qualified, Mayor Pete’s answer was usually a soliloquy about his immaculate resumé, Ivy degrees, sexual evolution, language fluency, or the high tables at which he has dwelled on St. Augustine, Teilhard de Chardin, Gary Wills, or Graham Greene.

Pete’s big on theologists and writers agonizing about their faith, as was Jimmy Carter. After university, Pete transitioned from his childhood Gipper Catholicism to the Anglican and Episcopal churches (Rhodes scholars on their knees). When Capehart brought up the political question of faith, Mayor Pete responded brightly: “We could talk about this for an hour.”

During a conversation with Mayor Pete, you get a lot of blurbs about “changing the course of the country” and allusions to a “new generation” and the symbolism of running as the first openly gay candidate, but you get almost nothing on Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, the national debt as a payday loan, the opioid crisis, or America’s potholed infrastructure.

But then, I suppose, if you are running on a Selfie platform, those issues are as quaint as William McKinley speaking out on the tariff question or Andrew Jackson denouncing the Second Bank of the United States (“The bank, Mr. Van Buren, is trying to kill me, but I will kill it…”).

---

For a presidential candidate, Mayor Pete struck me as someone who is physically awkward, the kind of man who would prefer wandering the stacks at Harvard’s Widener Library more than he would revel in kissing babies at an Iowa county fair.

If you met Pete at work, you might think—at least from his brown shoes and reticent demeanor—that he was yet another outside auditor lost on his way to the cafeteria.

And, yes, it is difficult to imagine him taking on Vladimir Putin and the Russians. Think of Obama in Syria, but without all the backbone.

Buttigieg has the long fingers of a concert pianist and, in person, looks a bit like Mister Rogers (“It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood,” but without the cardigan), if not former Massachusetts governor Michael Dukakis (who would himself occasionally, during his failed presidential campaign, make jokes in Latin).

Mayor Pete also speaks in the halting cadences of an old man—or at least a full professor—and for much of the evening, I found myself wondering if the youngest candidate in the Democratic field wasn’t, by chance, the oldest, and one prone to the received wisdom imported from Harvard faculty lounges.

Buttigieg did warm to Capehart’s cringeworthy confession that the journalist’s mother likes Mayor Pete, but otherwise the only passion he brought to the event was during an Oprah-like moment, when he spoke in teary defense of Chasten, saying: “I think all of us have a lot to repent for…. but one thing I should absolutely not be repentant for, in the context of my marriage, is that I am in love with my husband.”

Don’t ask, don’t tell, but have ready a long rambling answer that will get the crowd on its feet. Then Capehart flashed up on a big screen tweets from Chasten’s Twitter account, many of which were photographs of GIF rodents and grumpy dogs with scarves. It wasn’t exactly a Woodward and Bernstein moment.

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Donald Trump featured in only a few applause lines, mostly when Capehart pressed Buttigieg on whether he supported a congressional resolution calling for the impeachment of the president.

Such a question was way too terrestrial for the sacerdotal Mayor Pete, but after a few go-rounds on the subject, he did say: “Yeah, I am open to that,” as if Capehart had suggested heading downtown after the event for some sushi at Sugarfish.

Buttigieg is not the kind of Democrat who would spend hours, say, with Representative Adam Schiff, plotting how to take on Trump (as when Harvey Logan asks Butch Cassidy: “Guns or knives, Butch?”)

Pete might be able to quote The Federalist papers on the impeachment articles or recall some details of Richard Nixon’s resignation, but don’t vote for the mayor if you want someone who can rein in the Pentagon, talk trash to the Saudis, or increase appropriations for more corridor rail service.

Why? Because Mayor Pete is a Potemkin candidate, a mayor of symbolism, and his constituency is one of ego and self-love. Like Jay Gatsby, of West Egg, Long Island—yet another itinerant midwesterner trying to reinvent himself in the East—it can be said of Pete that he “sprang from his Platonic conception of himself.”

Ask him about the budget deficit, and sooner rather than later his answer will allude to the fact he is neither a Millennial nor Generation X, but on the cusp of the two astrological iForces shaping the future of the country.

Ask him about Iran, and pretty soon he will switch the answer to his gay marriage and his faith.

Ask him about the economy, and eventually you will get an earful about his deployment to Afghanistan or the English town Gatsby calls Oggsford.

---

At the end of the evening, Mayor Pete exited the stage in the same direction from which he entered—from the left. By that point the house, papered with Buttigieg supporters, was on its feet, cheering for more.

All they got was some dyspeptic waving from their man, who as Capehart explained, with grave import, “had to get back to Washington.” Notice he didn’t say South Bend.

The security guards at the front of the hall admitted a few backstage from the donor class, presumably before Mayor Pete departed on his errand of state.

The rest of the crowd drifted onto Lexington Avenue or disappeared into the Uber night, no doubt a little underwhelmed that their man had not shaken any hands or signed autographs. But then the last thing Bernie Sanders wants to do is to mix with his supporters, and look at his favorable poll numbers.

Presumably the Buttigieg campaign enthusiasm will last as long his donors can make the lease payments on the NetJet, or whatever he uses for his magic carpet, and at that point Mayor Pete and Chasten can head back to South Bend and get serious about coaching Little League, to fill in those blanks on the CV. (They already have the obligatory dogs, Truman and Buddy, and their picture on the cover of Time.)

In the end Mayor Pete will fall victim to what so far has delivered him to the presidential jamboree—the paper chase of credentialism.

Without Harvard, Oxford, McKinsey, and Afghanistan on his resumé, Mayor Pete would look more like an overly bright Jeopardy! contestant than a presidential candidate. (Alex Trebek: “He’s the mayor of a midwestern city and in his spare time he wants to be president. Let’s give a big welcome to Pete Buttigieg….”)

But with so many golden tickets in his background, after a while, when voters ask about what it will take to cut the $1 trillion blown on Homeland Security or the best way to lower carbon emissions, they will want to hear more than Pete’s self-directed love songs. Whitman said, “I and this mystery, here we stand,” but he wasn’t running for president.

(Matthew Stevenson, a contributing editor of Harper’s Magazine, is the author of many books including, most recently, Reading the Rails. Courtesy, CounterPunch,org.)

BOHOS

Editor,

I just read that the Sonoma County supervisors approved security for the Bohemian Club summer encampment this summer.

This group has been around well over 100 years, mostly very wealthy, all men, including many politicians. There are no women allowed. It’s doubtful there any openly LGBQT members. For an organization that has its headquarters in San Francisco, this is mind-boggling.

Could you imagine if President Donald Trump attended this function? I bet almost every major news outlet would be covering it for weeks.

I hope Sonoma County continues to fly the rainbow flag and trying to get equal pay for women, but please practice what you preach.

Raleigh Chaix

Willits

IT'S THAT TIME AGAIN

Harmonyus music festival June 29th

It's time for the 4th annual HarmonyUs Music Festival, Saturday June 29, 2-9pm at the Caspar Community Center. Join us for Mendocino’s most celebrated musicians and inspiring speakers on two stages with fun for everyone!

All day music outside, with unique vendors, massage, and fun stuff for kids including a bounce house, speakers and workshops inside, a HUGE Silent Auction, ALL you can eat tasty vegan Nepalese food, salad, rice and bean bowls, snacks, beer and wine, coffee, tea and hot chocolate bar, and scrumptious desserts.

Opening ceremony is at 2 with Ron Nadeau of Spirit House

On our outside stage-

• Mama Grows Funk
• Steven Bates
• Marcus McCallen
• Sally Wells and Harmonyus Band
• Kids performances

Inside presentations-

• Chris Skyhawk
• Micah Sanger
• Peter Wells
• Sally Wells
• Intro to Community Resiliency Model
• Yoga, roll, reset self massage

Be the change you wish to see in the world! — Ghandi

Tickets on sale now at Out of this World and HarmonyUsOnPurposeEvents.com

$20 advance. $25/door

Kids are FREE

Check out the Facebook event with schedules, bios, and info about our sponsors. Please select GOING and INVITE your Friends to this commUNITY Celebration!

https://www.facebook.com/events/2569979839687512/?ti=icl

Vendor spaces available: 10x10 includes admission for 1 person $50

Volunteers Needed: Concessions, front gate, bounce house attendants, silent auction attendants, setup, cleanup…

Online Vendor and volunteer applications are on our website: HarmonyUsOnPurposeEvents.com

ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY #1

HumCo’s Over. I worked in the unpermitted dispensaries in San Deigo. Years ago, my boss had 15 store fronts and its just a whack a mole game. They hit a few, they close, then he throws a few more up. Shit sometimes they just re open the same store after enough time passed. He made millions and is still doing it to this day. Most of the people down there dont know or care which store front is the actual state regulated. Most just care about cheap prices. Humboldts over they are coming after everyone with abatements don’t matter how small they will get you. I thought I was so small I never would get a notice, small fish big pond. Time to leave this place the original market lives on and the road is bright ahead and they will never end the original market. We found a nicer place in Oregon where we can live in peace and grow our crops and raise animals and homestead. Have fun with the poisoned environment, and corporate grows. We want community where we can share resources and live off the land. The back to the land movement is over in Humboldt and all that is left is competition, greed, poisoned watersheds, and divided communities.

ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY #2

Hall of mirrors? Echo chamber? You bet. Pretty soon they’ll be wearing virtual-reality headsets feeding carefully curated “truth” from data centers so as to not disturb their easily upset equilibrium.

It’s tempting to think that it’s “progressives” that have a reality problem but I think the malady is just as severe on the other side. You would see this on TV talk shows where pundits on the “left” are pitted against those of the “right” with both taking regular excursions into the unreal. Or read both left wing and right wing publications and you’ll see that the relationship of both with the objective truth is tangential at best.

Of course if you’re one of the gun-clutching, hard-bitten “Right” or if you’re sympathetic to the aggrieved and victimized and Wishing-I-Was-Born-Black “Left” then you have got non-negotiable beliefs and what I just wrote is in itself a yawning untruth. Because there is TRUTH and they own it. THEY own it, not someone else. And it doesn’t matter how out of whack it is with actual happenings.

But it’s funny how these contending opposites manage to come down on the same side of an issue in practical terms even while hurling vicious invective across the uninhabited no-man’s land between them. “Progressives” know in their guts that their political opponents are racist to their core and not only that but wage a pitiless war on women. And with “conservatives” it’s an article of faith that those leaky motherfuckers on the “left” are country-destroying perverts for whom no nakedness and sexual degradation is out of bounds.

It’s passing strange then how each side views the issue of national borders. Both come to the same policy conclusion even while pretending to be violently at odds. Hillary tells us that Democrats are all for bridges, not walls. And guess what? Both Democrat supporters in Silicon Valley and the Republican Chamber of Commerce want exactly that. Both sides advocate for open borders for the sake of their own power and wealth and to hell with the wider public good or anybody else’s interest in the matter.

Who was it that de-regulated Wall Street? And who declined to regulate derivatives? That paragon of progressive thought, Horn Dog Bill, that’s who. Who was it that shepherded China into the WTO and who did the same for NAFTA? Again, Billy Boy himself. How was this any different than what the Republicans would have done? Who saved Wall Street after the 2009 debacle? Why goodness me, it was that exemplar of everything that Democrats want in a President, the cerebral, analytical cool-man himself, Barry Oh. Who was it that declined to prosecute those Manhattan miscreants that took down so much of the economy? Again, Barry and his boys. Who was it that hired Wall Streeters to regulate Wall Street? You know who. How was any of this different than what the Republicans would have done?

Of course all of the foregoing policy choices were built on misapprehension, on a framework of ideas underpinned by illogic and ignorance. Did they seriously think that China would have free elections and fall in line in the neo-liberal American-led order of things? Did they really think that the American economy could indefinitely run trade deficits in the hundreds of billions and government deficits topping a trillion? Doesn’t the “right” think that indolence is a defining characteristic of the Deplorable? Isn’t it their life goal to live on disability benefits? So how is this different from what a “progressive” thinks? Does anyone on either side notice or care how at odds they are with reality?

Both sides of the spectrum create fog-banks of mis-information, deception and nonsense and it’s apparent and highly alarming that they believe their own bullshit. Deception is one thing but self-deception is something else. A civilization indulging in the latter is not long for this world.

THERE ARE SO MANY AMAZING TRAILS on which to see the redwoods in Mendocino County – and some of the best are on the water! This fantastic shot from Liquid Fusion Kayaking showcases one of the incredible waterways in the County! Do you have a favorite spot to kayak or canoe?

RIPE BOYSENBERRIES!

Kokopelli Farm's first pick of boysenberries for the season has started. They have been grown with artisan, holistic, permacultural, regenerative, organic, and sustainable practices. We are now accepting orders for this and coming weeks.

We are also looking to hire pickers. If you know anyone who might be interested in being paid to pick, have them send me an email and I will send them a list of 15 benefits for picking berries, including cash on the day of picking, free apples and plums, camp out spaces, and fertile ground for them to plant organic food.

We are still setting the exact price, by consulting other growers. Current prices vary from $41 to $52 for a 12-basket flat, depending on whether we pick or U-Pick and how many flats you order. We also sell by the half flat, but not by the basket. Prices may change.

The best way to make an order is to call us at 707-829-8185 after 7 a.m. and before 9 p.m. Please leave a detailed message regarding when you want to pick them up or U-Pick and how many you want. We start picking at sun-up and pick only in the morning. We prefer that people pick their orders up during the morning or early afternoon, when possible. We are located slightly south of Sebastopol, up from Hard Core Coffee.

Please spread the word. The harvest only lasts about 5-6 weeks. Then we will have blackberries and raspberries later in the summer.

Shepherd Bliss

DEPICTING THE FUTURE Of Communication (early 1930's)

SCHOOL’S OUT but the learning continues at Hopland Science Camp

by Hannah Bird

HOPLAND, CA - The 4-H Sustainable You! Adventure Science Camp for children 9 to 12 years old will be offered at the UC Hopland Research and Extension Center (HREC) from 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. July 8-12.

Camp participants will learn about the planet and its resources with fun, hands-on activities in the beautiful oak woodlands on this 5,358 acre research facility. Each day campers will consider how we use the earth’s resources including water, land, air, food and energy and the importance of scientific investigation in making decisions concerning these resources.

This is the third year that HREC has run the camp. “We love seeing new campers, and now have some great teen counselors joining camp who have been with us every year. The 2019 camp is supported by a $5,000 grant from the Mendocino Community Foundation, Environmental Education and Conservation fund. The fund has allowed us to: offer scholarships to some campers; purchase materials for camp, including solar car kits and garden boxes; and to employ Taylor Woodruff, a Mendocino College student, as our camp intern for the summer,” said Hannah Bird, HREC Community Educator.

With growing access to technology, the average 8-18 year old spends 30 minutes outdoors and a staggering 7 hours indoors, in front of a screen (American Heart Association).

“A summer camp is a perfect way for kids to get out and experience the natural world without it feeling like a chore,” said HREC intern Taylor Woodruff. “Kids have filled their natural curiosity of the outdoors with a digitized version of it, but there are social benefits and health benefits to spending time outside that technology lacks. Time spent outside in sunlight can reduce nearsightedness and increase Vitamin D levels. Outdoor learning can improve relationship skills, and even help to reduce stress, aggression, and anger.”

Registration is $300, including all materials, and an optional overnight is available on July 11th for an additional $50. Registration closes on June 28. “Sustainable You! Adventure Science Camp” will be held at the Rod Shippey Hall, 4070 University Road, Hopland, CA 95449. For more information or to register for HREC’s “Sustainable You! Adventure Science Camp” please visit http://bit.ly/SustainableYou2019 or contact Hannah at (707) 744 1424 ext 105, hbird@ucanr.edu.

KIDS' FARMERS MARKET, AND STORYTIME WITH NATASHA YIM

Kids' Farmers Market

Wednesday, June 19th

11:00 AM-1:00 PM

Kids, bring your homegrown produce, eggs, honey and handmade crafts. Have fun with other young farmers while learning money handling skills as you display and sell your products. For kids ages 5-17.

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Storytime With Natasha Yim

Saturday, June 22nd

11:00 AM-12:00 PM

Kids and families can join us for a special storytime with local author Natasha Yim. Natasha will be reading from her new book out from Disney, Mulan’s Lunar New Year.

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Tech Help

Saturday, June 22nd

1:00-3:00 PM

www.mendolibrary.org

MICHAEL KOEPF WRITES:

Know your progressive oligarchs. George Soros, $8.3 billion.

FORD HOUSE ORGANIZER

Help Wanted!

The Ford House is looking for help in organizing their office/storage space.

We are looking for someone with experience and references as an Organizer who can look at what is and envision what can be. Contact fordhouse@mcn.org

GETTING RID OF FRUIT FLIES

James Kachik: There’s fellow at the Fort Bragg farmers market who sells carnivorous plants. We got a “honeydew” type plant and it just loves fruit flies — great little plants, decorative, and they work for a living. What’s not to like? :-)

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Andrea Ambler wrote:

Hi, I too had a bad gnat/fruit fly problem, and got rid of them. Here's what I did. Yes, the Apple Cider vinegar (I get from the $ store) and a couple drops of dish soap works. Just fill with ACV to cover the bottom of container and soap. I use a Gatorade bottle, then plastic wrap with a couple of holes. It works very well. For the ones that aren't going for the trap I sprayed them with Lysol. You can also set out some old fruit and when they gather, spray. Hope this is helpful, happy hunting

JAYE ALISON MOSCARIELLO is pleased to be offering a "soft" screening of her short film "From the Ashes" which is about how some of the Redwood Valley community responded to the wildfires in 2017. The showing is at 8650 East Rd., Redwood Valley, 4 PM Sat 21 June, 2019. Ms. Moscariello is still in production of the film, and excited to share with you her progress.

Thank you for joining us. The film screening is free and food will be available for purchase to benefit the Grange Hall's putting on a new roof! After over 50 years, it is probably time:)

After a preview, Bill Taylor says "the film is very well crafted and a profound view of a community coming together".

Jaye thanks the Redwood Valley community as well as the funding community for their support!

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Here is more information on the larger event of which the screening is part:

Raising the Roof, a Fundraiser for the Redwood Valley Grange

–– by Katarzyna Rolzinski

Everyone is invited to enjoy a dance and solstice celebration to benefit the Redwood Valley Grange for a Raising the Roof fundraiser on Friday, June 21st and Saturday, June 22nd.

The dance and all of the activities for this two-day fundraiser will be held at the RV Grange located at 8650 East Road, Redwood Valley. On Friday the doors will open at 5:30 and the music will be from 6:00 to 11:00pm. Saturday, activities will begin at noon until 5:00pm with a BBQ and live music. The documentary film, “Redwood Complex Fire” will be shown at 4:00pm.

The Redwood Valley Grange is considered by many as the heart of the community, especially since the Redwood Complex Fire, when the RV Grange served as the main meeting place for information, services, and support. The funds from this benefit will be targeted soley for the needed new roof. The last new roof was installed in 1967, and in more recent years it has been an ongoing project of patching the roof. A new roof is the only feasible option, and the goal is to have a new roof installed before the next winter rains.

Tickets for the Friday night dance and activities, $20, are available at brownpapertickets.com, Ukiah Natural Foods, and Mazahar in Willits, and there may be tickets at the door. Children 12 and under will be admitted for a donation. Pad Thai meals, drinks, and desserts will be available for purchase. Music will be provided by The Live Oaks, a throwback folk and roll band from Oakland that pays homage to late ‘60s, early ‘70s pop music, music that gets you movin’; another Bay Area group, SpeakEase, a blend of soul, funk, rock, blues, and folk into ‘a curated hot plate of musical vibrations that will be sure to move your soul and leave you dancing’; and music by Friends of the Grange. There will also be a children’s area for their enjoyment.

The Saturday activities are free with a BBQ of baby-back ribs, chicken, salad, potatoes and yams offered at $15 per person. A bake sale, beer and wine will also be available. Live music will be presented by a Mendocino County group, The Eclectic Coyotes, described as old school country blues with some boogie punk.

Raffle tickets will be available for sale both days for an array of exciting prizes and winners will not have to be present to claim their winnings. Among the many raffle items to be won will be:a Husky rolling tool tote, Skikes cross-country ski skates, Big Sky Nursery plants, five yards of old garden compost delivered, cases of wine, and more. Sponsors for both days include: Apperson Energy Management, Little Bakers Market, Mendo Mill, Down to Earth Landscaping, Mendocino Greenhouse, Friedman Brothers, Frey Vineyards, Flow Kana, North American Organics, Lagunitas Brewing Company, and Barra of Mendocino. For further information or donations, contact Jini, 485-0902.

COUCH SURFING WITH CRAIG

Is it possible for me to get anything intelligent from the SF bay area for one week?

For quite awhile I have been receiving emails from residents of the San Francisco bay area asking me when I might be returning there. The obvious implication is that y'all would like to socialize, possibly go out for a beer, exchange some stories, and so on. I have been helping out at a friend's place in Redwood Valley since March 20th, and the place looks real good both inside and outside. There is no reason for me to be here any further. Therefore, I would like to pay a visit to the San Francisco bay area mostly for social reasons. I need to be given a place to stay for one week.

Please contact me at craiglouisstehr@gmail.com, or leave a message with my friend Chester at 707-513-3590.

KNOW YOUR OLIGARCHS (#17)

LETTER TO A WIFE-BEATER

by Dayla Hepting

Break the cycle—Does anyone wonder how I became some sort of authority on the behavior patterns of the gutless wonders to smack women around when they get a tank on?

What if I were a little rotund bespectacled professor of behavioral sciences at UC Berkeley and I had recently published an academically acclaimed study on Domestic Violence in 20th Century American society? Then I could speak, right?

The fact is I am a little rotund bespectacled loudmouth bitch from Navarro. I got a degree in zip. I am an ex-dope fiend (I said ex, my friends), ex whore, come up from the streets of the Tenderloin from the corner of Stockton and Broadway, from the sideways of Cadell Alley. So don't run any bullshit on me. I'm not stupid.

These are my credentials: I am the daughter of a man who beat his wife on a regular basis in between bouquets of roses, beautiful dresses and silver and gold boxes with "in love with you" written on gilt edged cards strung with red ribbons. He choked her, he left black handprints on her face, he made her neck swell up (just like you sometimes). He never could remember any of it on Sunday morning — that's only one of my documented credentials.

I am in fact the ex-girlfriend, ex-wife, ex-hitchhiker who was on the receiving end of plenty of violent acts. It taught me a few things along the way about what to look for, what kind of behavior was likely to result in bodily harm (to my body, which is the one I was most concerned about).

The very first time I got raped was with a gun to my head in the midnight desert. I was 14 years old. This guy was probably 45. I was hitching, running away from a fight with my dad where he called me a fucking whore, busted my nose with his fucking ruby ring fist. He threw me out into the world with a paper bag full of clothes. I was a pissed off unrepentant little girl with a bruised face and broken bones — 14 years old.

Got lucky. Got a ride first thing out of that fucking Moab Valley. We sped up over the canyon rim in this old guy’s big Chevy truck and then he pulled off onto a dirt track out in the dark sagebrush. He put a big gun right up above my left ear and he said, "Take your pants off girl and I might not kill you." Well, I made it to California a couple of days later and I never spoke to my dad again for many years, much as I loved him, because it wasn't so much the broken bones. It was calling me a whore, having that much contempt for me, that hurt the most. Bones can heal, but knowing your daddy hates you that much — that takes a long time to get over.

Many long years down the road we got drunk together, he and I, and I told him the story of what happened that night. He said, "You should have let the son of a bitch kill you. I would have!"

Yeah, macho man, since you're the one always doing the punching and pulling guns on your womenfolk, I guess you'd know just what to do about it, huh?

Denial is a part of the pattern that men go through and their women often support them.

You say you don't remember attacking your ex-girlfriend on New Year's Eve and that the court dismissed the charges, so they must agree with you. You really didn't do anything wrong, just a little squabble, that's all.

That's denial. No, let's not use that word — denial is one of those words that makes us all go glassy eyed and intellectual. It ain't about denial, it's about running yourself a whole lot of shit. And then buying it. That's dangerous because you can't learn that way and not learn that it could be fatal. One day you could hurt somebody real bad and some bitch will get fed up with your funky ass, stick a butcher knife in your belly — don't laugh. It can happen. Look at Lorena Bobbitt. I bet he never would have expected that out of her, not in a million years, because all poor pitiful Lorena ever did was cry and then one day she just didn't cry anymore. It was John's turn to cry then.

The reason the court didn't rack your butt up is: you looked so sorry and you are good looking sorry. I imagine you've been practicing all your life. They didn't rack you up because you're white, you've got a job, you don't go around robbing 7-11s and you look a whole lot different sober and sorry than you look when you're a drunked up arrogant, pissed off son of a motherfucker.

I was there. I saw how terrorized everyone felt, not just your girlfriend. She wasn't the only witness, you know. I saw the condition of the property, bearing testimony to your state of mind. I marveled with fear and awe at the degree of rage that generated the strength to hurl appliances out of walls, stoves, hot water heater, propane tank, spewing water lines gushing, metal bent with your fists, doors kicked in, broken cabinets, glass everywhere. I helped clean it up. Don't try to fake me out. Maybe you've got blackout, but I don't. I saw where you pulled out all the gas cans like you're going to torch the place. That was something scary man, that you went so far as to think of doing that. I saw her bruised face, her swollen neck.

Don’t bullshit me about "The court said." You call that "dirty laundry." I call it something scary man. Real scary.

I suppose that you will find I really am not qualified to speak on the subject because I have been a victim. That disqualifies me. I could not be objective enough. Better go find your little fat dude with a briefcase full of case studies. The closest he ever got to real violence was beating his pud to The Story of O when he was an undergraduate at some fake school. He will tell you what it is, based on scientific truth — no emotion.

But what you did is all about emotion. That emotion is rage and you've got to plenty of it and you haven't got a clue how to handle it.

Another observation on men who batter women —

Not all, but many (among them you and my father) have very high standards of behavior towards women when they are sober. They have complete contempt for men who hit women. When they drink, something else happens. All this rage comes up. They are not just mad at women. They get in trouble in bars. They are looking for trouble. But usually it's when they get home from the bar that the real trouble starts. Usually it's the woman who gets the brunt of it. Because she said the wrong thing or didn't say the right thing.

It's like two people in one. The next day the other guy is back, can't remember, would never harm a woman, never has, never will. My mother even made a tape recording of the other guy (the wife beater) and played it for Mister Nice Guy the next day when he was god awful hung-over and sorry. He said that it didn't even sound like his voice on that tape. But it wasn't long after that he went away for a few years. He came back sober, never took another drink, never raised a hand to his wife or anyone again. When he got fed up with domestic nitpicking he would sign on for back-to-back long hauls, crisscrossing the country in his big truck. When he came home, his anger would have all dried up and he'd be happy to see her for a while. He learned how to stop hurting us.

But it took so long! So fucking long. His kids were all grown by then and they had a bellyful of old scars, crusted up old wounds that never heal. He was a wonderful man yes, all the grandkids knew it, and we knew too. But we still had visions of loaded guns on the table, him drunk and saying he would kill us all before it was done. He was a good man, would have given the shirt off his back to anyone who asked. But in the old days when you saw him take that first drink you best get out of the way because trouble was likely coming. The black marks on her neck, the broken bones.

Booze is the trigger, rage is the gun.

You lost the love of your life because you attacked her in a drunken rage. She lost her job because she could not recoup after the emotional devastation of that night. She could not function anymore.

Neither one of you tried to get the help you needed. You (who should stop drinking if you are truly sorry) are still drinking and justifying yourself.

Booze is the trigger, rage is the gun.

You don't have to drink and you can learn to channel anger in other ways. But first stop lying about it, will you?