MCT: Tuesday, July 2, 2019

• Jehovah Substation
• Tidal Swings
• Boonville Fourth
• Navarro Grill
• Wanda Sez
• Local Landmarks
• Bari Bomb
• Felony Stop
• Intoxicated Luna
• Pear Survivor
• Kraft Visit
• First Prison
• Pedestrian Report
• Yesterday's Catch
• Mueller Show
• How Old
• Armed Militias
• Tongue Pierced
• Money Candidates
• Fascist Dogs
• Cook Dreams
• Death Kiss
• Pot Economy
• Tech City
• Retired Teacher
• Yard Sale
• Summer Rain
• Guv Reappointments
• Bring Guns
• Assessment Appeals

MEASURE B COMMITTEE TO CONSIDER PURCHASE Of Former Redwood Valley Jehovah’s Witness Church For Combo Training Facility And Sheriff’s Substation

Mental Health Treatment Act Citizen's Oversight Committee

SPECIAL MEETING AGENDA

County Administration Center, Conference Room C July 8, 2019 - 9:00 AM

8:00 A.M. – CONVENE AT 8207 EAST ROAD, REDWOOD VALLEY

Tour of Property Located at 8207 East Road, Redwood Valley

3b) 9:00 A.M. – RECONVENE AT MENDOCINO COUNTY ADMINISTRATION CENTER

Discussion and Possible Action Regarding Proposed Recommendation to the Mendocino County Board of Supervisors for the Purchase of Property at 8207 East Road, Redwood Valley, California in the Amount of $369,000; for a Regional Behavioral Health Training Facility/Mendocino County Sheriff Sub-Station

Measure B (Mental Health Treatment Act) approved by voters in November of 2017 included a provision and funding for a Regional Behavioral Health Training Facility. Refer to Ordinance 4387, Section 5.180.040, A, 2. Property at 8207 East Road in Redwood Valley is currently on the market for sale and provides a 2,350 square foot meeting building with a stage, two ADA compliant bathrooms and parking lot. This facility would be used as a Regional Behavioral Health Training Facility for mental health professionals, first responders and members of the public.

The property also includes one 800 square foot home with a carport and garage. This home is proposed to be used for a Mendocino County Sheriff’s sub-station.

Funding would be 70% ($258,300) from Measure B funds with 30% ($110,700) from the Sheriff’s Office.

It is recommended that the Measure B Committee approves a recommendation to the Mendocino County Board of Supervisors for the purchase of this property to be used as a Regional Behavioral Health Training Facility/Sheriff’s Office Sub-Station at the next available Mendocino County Board Meeting after the July 8, 2019 Mental Health Citizens Oversight Committee/Measure B meeting.

LARGE TIDAL SWINGS

This week will bring large tidal swings due to the phase and orbit of the moon. This means the highest tide of the day will be higher than normal and the lowest tide of the day will expose more beach areas than normal. Although this can be a fun time to visit the beach, remember, a rising tide can cut off your access to safety. Use the tide predictions to plan your visit to the coast this week. Tide predictions are available at https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov.

(National Weather Service, Eureka)

OLD TIME 4TH OF JULY CELEBRATION!

Thursday, July 4th (Independence Day)

12pm-4pm

Boonville Fairgrounds

KIDS (12 & under): FREE!

ADULTS: $5

Join us for a Bouncy House, Parade, Games, Food & more! Volunteer teachers and parents will be leading a water balloon toss, tug-o-war, sack races, and a chicken “clucking contest! Our local fire trucks will be there as well as a yummy cake auction, tasty wine auction, and music from a brass band! It is sure to be a great event for all members of the family! We look forward to seeing you and your littles there!

This FUN-raiser supports our local AVUSD Wellness Committee who helps our schools provide local and healthy foods, fruits and veggies to our kids.

Many thanks to local collaboration with Pennyroyal Farms, Bucket Ranch, Paysanne, Lauren’s, Stone & Embers, Poleeko, Boonville Hotel, and Anderson Valley Brewing Company.

Want to volunteer? Contact Anya Farquhar to help with the wine auction.

TIFFANY at the grill at the Navarro Store, Fridays through Tuesdays, 10am-5:30pm. First reviews? “Best barbecue in the county!” And, “Amazing quality at people’s price.”

WANDA CLEARS A FEW THINGS UP (AVA, June 27, 1985)

Editor:

Re: Recent issues of AVA: I knew it wasn't true when they told me that B. Traven was dead.

"Cork" boots are really "calk" boots (alternate spelling: caulk) calks being those metal things like hopnails that stick out the bottoms. I think all loggers call calk boots cork boots. I wondered where the cork was for many years and hope this saves you some time and worry.

The photograph the Lewallens found is mine; I don't know how it got there. I took it in Leningrad in the summer of 1928. The little man in the middle you thought might be Trotsky is President Kalinin; he was much older and more frail looking than Trotsky, but they really did look a lot alike; in fact, we used to kid Lev about it. That is Stalin behind Kalinin. Trotsky never let Stalin get behind him. The man on the right that you thought looked like Lenin is Bukharin, and he DID look like Lenin; we kidded HIM about THAT, too. The naval officer was a Russian admiral. I never did catch his name. Who knows Russian admirals? I will be staying under the Jughandle Creek Bridge for the next few weeks and if you would put the picture in an envelope and have somebody throw it under there I would appreciate it. Although Bucky and I never made it together, we were close friends and I have no other picture of him.

When I heard on somebody's car radio that a North Coast editor had been censured by a bunch of our Sacramento slopjaws for insulting Willie Bleep, I naturally assumed it was you, and then I was relieved to learn that it was that punk in Sebastopol (home of Charlie Bleep) even if you don't get censured by anything but the Cloverdale City Council, because Assembly Speaker Bleep is going blind, and it is definitely in poor taste to insult the appearance and whatnot of someone who is going blind, and it isn't true anyway about him being so ugly that if they dropped him through a cloud the fruit flies would die; for a politician he is not bad looking at all, and if they ever had a rainbow in Sacramento his raiment would put it to shame. Speaking as one who is really tired of Polack gags, I hope you and AVA never to descend to racial slurs, that is all too easy for an editor, since the editorial position in this respect is even better than that of God Almighty who could be suspected of having led up to his own jokes (H.G. Wells. Didn't know Wells could crack ‘em like that, did you? I could have passed that off as my own. In the same book, Wells makes what I still think is the best pun in the language when he had a Chinaman say, "I see England is still looled by mandolins.") I hope you and AVA never put people on to ways to hurt other people either. I'm sure you read that letter in the Mendocino Commentary signed "Thor" that told how to protect trees from being logged by driving spikes in them. Yuk. I can see chunks of fresh off-bearer meat flying across the sawmill. That creep "Thor" could have said that you could get the same effect easier by just telling the people involved that you spiked the trees without really doing it, anonymously, of course. "For some people, you can't be too obvious." — WT

Look, Mr. Anderson, there are a couple of things I would like to get off here about Thor since I may never have this much of an opening again:

Thor landed from Asgard in San Francisco and since he had absolutely no money for a flop he spent the night with a David Bowie type he met around Castro. On waking in the morning, the god said, "I guess I should tell you — I'm Thor." And his frail friend replied, "You're Thor!"

In Scandinavian mythology it is related that the famous Hammer of Thor (which is, incidentally, a war club, not a bungstarter or naildriver — a fact perhaps not known to those raised on Marvel comics) had a short handle. Of course there was an exegetical explanation, but this was rather obviously after-the-fact and like the cork boots I wondered about this for a half-century or so. I thought there might be the implication that Thor was overcompensating like John Wayne, but eventually I came across the answer in some book or other in some public library; it had this photograph of a Greek statue of Zeus hurling a thunderbolt which looked sort of like an old-fashioned potato masher hand grenade — definitely with a short handle. Explanation: the Viking types saw this or similar statues in Constantinople (which they called Muckleburg) and called it Thor because that was their name for the thunderbolt hurler and made up a story to explain why the "hammer" had a short handle. (For a very good explanation covering the possibility of actual extraterrestrial potato masher hand-grenade throwers of pre-history, see my book, "Chariots of the Dunes.")

Wanda Tinasky

Under Jughandle Creek Bridge

PS. If you won't consider changing the name of the Anderson Valley Advertiser to the Boonville Bugle, will you consider changing it to the Philo Vance?

PPS. There is a word for the process of deriving or manufacturing myths from interpreting paintings or statues, but I have forgotten what the word is. Robert Graves knows. Perhaps your readers know. Forgive the cliffhanger. — W.T.

---

ED NOTE: The photo referred to was found in an attic in Navarro, of all places. Its provenance remains a mystery, as does its authenticity as an original containing Stalin, Trotsky and Bukhanin. Wanda Tinasky, later revealed as an erudite old beatnik named Tom Hawkins, wrote a series of highly amusing letters as Wanda in the middle 1980s. Hawkins and his wife, a sculptress, lived on Trillum Lane in Fort Bragg when Hawkins murdered her, set their house on fire, then drove himself off into the Pacific near Ten Mile. We thought for a while that Hawkins-Tinasky was Thomas Pynchon who'd lived on the Northcoast while writing ‘Vineland,’ but we were wrong, wrong at book-length as it turned out and, unfortunately, dragged some well-known writers and academics down with us. ‘The Letters of Wanda Tinasky,’ as unamusingly arrayed and annotated by a shifty battle ax calling herself TR Factor, also formerly of the Mendocino Coast, is still available on Amazon.

HENDY & STORNETTA PUBLIC LANDS

by Anne Fashauer

The last two days that my friends were here visiting from Philly we went to a couple of local landmarks. First we visited Hendy Woods, then the Stornetta Public Lands the following day.

We took in Hendy Woods on a beautiful if slightly warm day. We parked down by the Big Hendy Grove and wandered through, hiking up to the two Hermit Huts, then back down and around the Upper Loop and eventually back to the car. I had been up to the Hermit Huts earlier this year with some other friends, while it was still wet and cool. It was nice to see that someone had finally cut the trees that had been across the path and we didn’t all have to clamber over them to get to the Huts. I am not sure when the last time I was on the Upper Loop path - I think it has been closed for a while. This is where the big trees really are and it was gorgeous. The girls really loved all of the goose pens and everyone climbed on the fallen logs and we took tons of photos.

The following day we decided to head to the South Coast. We started with a visit to Bowling Ball Beach, somewhere I had never heard of before a few weeks ago. We had such great weather - it was actually warm! There were children running all over the beach and into and out of the ocean even.

From the beach we headed back into Point Arena where we got some lunch at the Chowder House, then went up City Hall where we parked and headed out on the trail at the Stornetta Public Lands. I have wanted to get here since it opened. I was not disappointed! Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. We hiked for about two and a half miles, originally aiming for the lighthouse, but we checked the time and realized we had to turn around in order to make it home in time for dinner. We saw seals on the rocks sunning themselves, a gozzard and a snake, and, yes truly, a whale! There were many types of grasses blowing in the wind and it was like a moving painting. I am looking forward to another visit.

MAY 25, 1990 — EARTH FIRST LEADERS HURT BY BOMB — Two leaders of the militant environmental group Earth First were injured yesterday when a pipe bomb ripped through their car in Oakland, and an Earth First organizer said the police told her the two would be booked on charges of transporting explosives. Police acknowledged that Judi Bari, 40, and Darryl Cherney, 33, were being detained. Bari, who was driving her white Subaru station wagon, was in serious condition with a broken pelvis and internal injuries at Highland Hospital in Oakland.

Cherney was released with facial cuts. Earth First organizers denied that the two knowingly carried the bomb and reported that the pair, two of the group’s key organizers, had received death threats. “Certainly it was planted,” said organizer Daniel Barron of San Francisco. “If it wasn’t the FBI, it could have been someone paid by the timber industry.” — Michael Taylor and Elliot Diringer, SF Chronicle

JESSICA!?

Shortly after 10am on June 30, 2019, the Ukiah Police Department was notified of a recently stolen vehicle from the QuikMart parking lot at 1105 Airport Boulevard. The subject was reported to have assaulted the registered owner prior to the theft. The subject vehicle, a red 2000 Chevrolet Blazer, was observed by Ukiah Police officers traveling on Highway 101 northbound at Perkins Street at approximately 10:08am. Ukiah Police officers attempted to pull over the Chevrolet and when the driver failed to yield they initiated a pursuit which reached speeds in excess of 80 mph. As the Chevrolet passed Lake Mendocino Drive, Ukiah Police requested CHP to respond to take over the pursuit. The CHP took over the pursuit after the subject vehicle traveled onto Highway 20 eastbound. The driver of the Chevrolet allowed the vehicle to drive on the right shoulder, crossing multiple times into the oncoming traffic lanes and traveling at excessive speeds. The subject vehicle was driven 50 feet off of the right roadway edge line where it came to a complete stop and felony stop procedures were initiated. The driver, identified as Jessica Tominia, 38, of Clearlake Oaks, was taken into custody by the CHP without incident at that time. Units responding to the incident included the California Highway Patrol, Ukiah Police, and the Mendocino County Sheriff's Office.

Jessica Tominia was charged with vehicle theft, is from Clearlake Oaks and was charged with carjacking, possession of stolen vehicle and evasion and booked into the Mendocino County jail with bail set at $75,000.

LUNA ROCKS

On June 28, 2019 at about 4:33 PM, Mendocino County Sheriff’s Deputies were dispatched to a reported vandalism in the 23000 block of Henderson Road (Yuki Trails Human Services Program) in Covelo. Deputies arrived on scene and contacted the staff who told the Deputies that they heard glass breaking. The staff walked outside and observed that Steven Luna Jr. had thrown a large rock through one of the windows of the building.

Staff attempted to contact Luna who was reportedly intoxicated, was not cooperating and that he left the area of foot. Deputies contacted an intoxicated Luna walking in the area of Lovell and Howard Streets in Covelo. Luna was subsequently arrested for felony vandalism and booked into the Mendocino County Jail without incident. Luna was to be held in lieu of $15,000 bail.

NIGHT LIGHT OF THE NORTH COAST: THE SURVIVOR

by David Wilson

‘The Survivor.’

The gnarled old pear tree was struggling to survive, hanging onto the edge of a dried embankment above a little dirt road when my family moved there over 40 years ago. It was small, not much taller than my dad, but already old, a twisted thing eking out a life on its own in the hard earth of a hot dry southern Humboldt hillside. Something in its solitary and determined struggle to survive was compelling to me, and it has always resonated with me.

After years of weathering, the crumbled soil beneath it gave out and it slid down onto the road. I found it there one day, still standing amongst the rubble of its small slide and looking a little disheveled. But it was ok. I dug a new hole and planted it across the road from its old perch in a more secure spot with the same view. I carried water to it regularly through the summer until it was able to continue on its own. That was over twenty-five years ago.

The other night I stopped by to say hi to it out beneath the stars. It was good to see the old tree under the night sky and share with it the awesome splendor of the Milky Way. I thought of all the nights the pear tree has watched the stars and planets traverse the sky. Other than a few clouds along the horizon the sky was a glittering star field. Jupiter shone above the tree as the brightest point. Across the Milky Way from Jupiter glowed Saturn. I watched them cross the sky for a couple hours before tiring, so different from the patience of the tree; from its perspective I showed up, connected briefly, took some photographs, and zipped away again. What’s a couple hours when you’ve stood watch for decades?

It’s interesting to think how the life of this stunted old pear tree and mine have become entwined, and it feels good to think that replanting it all that time ago gave it so many more years of life. I suppose I was its little angel when I came along, and for its part it has always given me a good feeling.

The tree is still small, but it’s healthy. There must be a lot of rings packed in that dense little trunk. I’m glad our paths have crossed.

(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.) .

VISITING the Anderson Valley over the weekend from his home in Bandon, Oregon, Robert Kraft stopped by to say hello. Many of you will remember Robert from his years as our go-to guy for emergency road services, which he unfailingly performed with the efficiency and discretion everyone, especially late night everyones, appreciate in a tow truck guy. Now retired after years of accident rescues, Robert, a natural archivist, dropped off some Only In Mendo photos we’ll soon pass along to the Held-Poage Library in Ukiah.

NEW PEN FOR KIDS

THE MENDOCINO COUNCIL OF GOVERNMENTS has released their year-long and county-wide pedestrian planning study. They call it the “Mendocino County Pedestrian Needs Assessment and Engineered Feasibility Study.” With a title like that you know it was expensive, but we couldn’t find the actual amount of money spent on a Bay Area consulting outfit called “Trailpeople,” along with “GHD Engineers,” to do another study of trails and bicycle improvements in Mendocino County, but they must have spent over $100k of Caltrans planning grant money for the report and the detailed set of engineered plans for walking and biking upgrades that will never happen.

IN THE STUDY, BOONVILLE was described as “the largest urban area in Anderson Valley.” Accordingly, the Boonville area got a bit of attention in the study, but Philo, Navarro, Yorkville and other areas were ignored. The consultants keenly noted that “Highway 128 features wide shoulders that serve as both parking spaces for cars and walking space for pedestrians. However, there are relatively few crossing facilities throughout this corridor.” So they recommend “two additional high visibility crosswalks be installed on the north and west sides of the intersections of Highway 128 and Mountain View Road. The crossing of Highway 128 would feature a median refuge island and user activated warning lights. An additional high visibility crosswalk would also be installed across Highway 128 on the north side of the intersection with Lambert Lane. At this intersection user-activated pedestrian lights would be added to improve visibility and accessibility of the crossing.”

YES, they actually suggested a “median refuge island” for Boonville. Which, given the volume and speed of through traffic we now suffer may not be as wacky as it sounds.

A MULTI-USE PATH on the outskirts of Boonville, mostly along Anderson Valley Way, is also proposed, along with some downtown sidewalk improvements.

ANDERSON VALLEY WAY has long served as the only mostly car free two miles in the Boonville area available people to get there from central Boonville involves the harrowing stretch from town to and from AV Way.

TO READ THE ENTIRE humongous county-wide report go to: https://mendopedestrian.org

(EVERY DAY when I see the dual inspirational sights of Lindsay Clow and Jan Wasson-Smith pedaling their bicycles along 128 and through Boonville, I think to myself there go Intrepid and Fearless, intrepidly committed to physical health, fearlessly making their way through a vehicular minefield.)

THERE’S NO MENTION of how these desired bike and pedestrian amenities would be financed. To be fair, a few of the improvements would only involve Caltrans changing some striping along Highway 128, but even that is unlikely without preliminary years of study.

CATCH OF THE DAY, JULY 1, 2019

THOMAS BADER, Ukiah. Protective order violation, probation revocation.

CARRIE CORDOVA-DALSON, Covelo. Under influence, felon/addict with firearm.

JESSE HARNETT, Ukiah. Ammo possession by prohibited person, probation revocation.

JADEN LUNDY, Fort Bragg. Vandalism.

JESUS MACIAS, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

JACOB MCGREW, Hopland. Probation revocation.

DENA MORRIS, Ukiah. Parole violation. (Frequent flyer.)

JACQUELINE OATES, Willits. DUI.

JESSICA TOMINIA, Clearlake Oaks/Ukiah. Carjacking, stolen vehicle, evasion.

STAGECRAFT

by James Kunstler

The playwrights of yore had a neat way of resolving sticky plots: when it seemed all was lost among the confounded mortals on stage, a supernatural figure would descend from the riggings above the proscenium, lowered in a basket on a cable — Moliere liked to use an actor playing Louis XIV, his patron — to resolve, untangle, forgive, and pardon all the complications of the story. This device is known as the Deus ex Machina, God in a machine.

Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) announced last week that ex-Special Counsel Robert Mueller has agreed to descend from on-high into the witness chair of Mr. Nadler’s House committee chamber on July 17, presumably to resolve all the conundrums left by his semi-inconclusive RussiaGate report. Remember, in his nine-minute homily on May 29, Mr. Mueller said that if called to testify, he would only answer by referring to the text of his report — hallowed in Wokesterdom until its disappointing release.

Mr. Mueller’s notion of testimony-by-script is at least as unorthodox as his innovation of pronouncing the object of his criminal inquiry “not exonerated,” an unprecedented and certainly extra-legal spin to the prosecutorial standard of finding an indictable offense or not — without added aspersions, insinuations, and defamations. Meanwhile, Mr. Mueller’s standing as a potent God figure has eroded badly. He started out in 2017 as the Avenging Angel in a Brooks Brothers suit, morphed into Yahweh as the RussiaGate Mob patiently awaited his Last Judgment, and then got demoted to mere Sphinx-hood after his Sacred Text failed its basic task: to oust the Golden Golem of Greatness from his unholy occupation of the White House.

Did Mr. Nadler summon Mr. Mueller from beach or lake-side to just recite chapter and verse from his report? What would be the point of that? Well, perhaps to whip up enough media froth to refresh the public’s memory of how Comrade Trump stole the 2016 election at the bidding of his Russian handlers. Is that all? Could be. The problem is that Mr. Nadler’s majority Democrat members are not the only ones who get to ask questions. Did the Chairman forget that? Or did he think the minority — including Reps. Collins, Jordan, Gohmert, and Gaetz — would just lob softballs at the witness?

I can think of a few 90-mph sliders I’d like to pitch to Mr. Mueller, some of them already floated in the press: like, why did you allow the GI cell phones of Peter Strzok and Lisa Page to be destroyed shortly after you were informed about their unprofessional and compromising text exchanges, for which they were fired off your “team?” When did you learn that international men-of-mystery Stefan Halper and Josef Mifsud, whose operations spurred your prosecutions, were not Russian agents but rather in the employ of US and British government intel agencies? Your deputy, Andrew Weissmann, was informed by Deputy Attorney General Bruce Ohr in the summer of 2016, months before your appointment, that the predicating documents for your inquiry, known as the Steele Dossier, amounted to a Clinton campaign oppo research digest — when did he happen to tell you that? You devoted nearly 20 pages of your report to the Trump Tower meeting between the president’s son, Donald, Jr., and two Russians, lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya and lobbyist Rinat Akhmetshin. Why did you omit to mention that both Russians were in the employ of Glenn Simpson’s Fusion GPS company, candidate Clinton’s oppo research contractor, and met with Mr. Simpson both before and after the Trump Tower meeting? How did it happen that you hired attorney Jeannie Rhee for your team, knowing that she had previously worked as a lawyer for the Clinton Foundation? Under what legal standard did you pronounce Mr. Trump to be “not exonerated” in the obstruction of justice matter, considering you told the Attorney General, Mr. Barr, that it was not based on findings by the DOJ Office of Legal Counsel concerning presidential immunity from indictment?

The public has been well-distracted by the Democratic Party primary circus, and all reporting about the aftermath of RussiaGate has vanished from the front pages of the news media. Ostensibly, Hillary Clinton is enjoying her solitary walks in the Chappaqua woods and all seems well in the Deep State world. Yet, consider that wild things lurk in those thickets. The DOJ Inspector General, Mr. Horowitz, is overdue with his own report — perhaps stymied by a lack of cooperation in wringing declassified documents from the hands of the many intel agencies involved… while Mr. Barr and his deputy, John Durham, are at work in the background on their own investigation. There will also be repercussions upcoming in the matter of General Flynn, who switched attorneys recently and may be reconsidering his guilty plea based on Mr. Mueller’s prosecutorial misconduct in withholding exculpatory evidence from Judge Emmet Sullivan’s court.

It’s just possible that Robert Mueller will not be reading chapter and verse from his sacred report, like an old-school Episcopal priest, but rather pleading the Fifth Amendment to avert his own potential prosecution.

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

ON LINE COMMENT OF THE WEEK

Now, in case somebody thinks things can’t possibly turn kinetic, we have the spectacle in Oregon, where a Democrat governor is threatening to have state police do a round-up of recalcitrant Republican state legislators. And, guess what, militia groups are giving the Republicans armed protection.

Don’t say I didn’t tell ya, because I did tell ya, that these armed fellas out there in the vast expanse between the coasts would become a factor to be reckoned with. And now it appears they’re taking their first tentative steps out of the shadows. It was just a matter of time. People don’t get gunned-up because they’re happy campers, they do it because they’re not. For one thing, moving people’s livelihoods overseas and ruining their lives and then pissing on them and insulting them is just a sure-fire way to get trouble of the high-velocity type.

So, where does this take us? It takes us to a place that was easily avoidable, but wasn’t avoided. As I’ve been saying, economic class is one fracture line, another is the age-old fissure between North and South, but we have to give reality its due, so is the racial divide lovingly stoked lately especially by “wokesters” for the purposes of their own self-glorification but especially their own power.

It really is like somebody said not long ago on this site, sooner or later you’ll have to choose sides. And it won’t be a surprise that I have one in mind but I would prefer that it not be racially segregated because that falls into the hands of people that would divide and conquer, people that I have no time for given that they ruined not only the US but much of the formerly prosperous West.

You can’t replay history. It would have been better that slaves weren’t taken. The conquest by Mexico of the west and southwest happened and so did the conquests by the USA of 1848 or thereabouts. All these things left effects still evident today, none of which can be wished away. All you can do now is make the best of it. But choosing sides based on race is in my view making the absolute worst of it.

AFTER BIDEN’S SHARP DECLINE, WALL STREET INVESTORS REASSESSING OTHER BLUE CHIPS

Like any other stock, Wall Street is looking for a winner it can own

by Norman Solomon

Investors are pondering where to put their money this week after the sudden decline in the assessed value of presidential candidate Joe Biden.

On Wall Street and in other corporate quarters where financiers were heavily invested in Biden, hopes have eroded in recent days amid reduced investor confidence. Some prominent donors began to openly question the wisdom of devoting more capital to the national marketing campaign for the former vice president.

After the leading blue chip closed sharply lower at the end of last week, even declaring “my time is up,” many top investors felt overexposed and looked for shelter. Gathering new topline data and considering several prospectuses that had been previously submitted, investors are now reassessing assets and liabilities as well as potential growth in market share during the next quarter and beyond.

Venture capitalists, hedge fund managers, powerful CEOs and other wealthy individuals—sensing a political emergency that may require swift and decisive action—are moving to widen financing spigots for Kamala Harris. With contingency planning, there is elevated interest in Pete Buttigieg. One previously hot startup, Beto O’Rourke, is now considered to be too underperforming to warrant reinvestment.

The overarching goals are to quickly shore up capitalization of aligned political products and to implement sustained brand enhancement. While great appreciation remains for Biden’s nearly five decades of massive financial benefits to investors, some have concluded that he is now unreliable in view of current political turbulence.

Yet Biden is hardly in penny-stock territory. Many rich investors remain bullish on the former vice president. Politico reported Sunday that “sources say Biden walked away with a $1 million haul after two fund-raisers in San Francisco alone this weekend.” One of those gatherings drew about 200 wealthy guests to the backyard of a former Twitter vice president for global media, Katie Jacobs Stanton.

But an erstwhile Biden fundraiser, Tom McInerney, didn’t show up at the Stanton poolside event, even though he was listed on the invitation. McInerney, who was a member of Biden’s national finance committee, said he notified the Biden campaign on June 20 that he would no longer fundraise for it, citing the candidate’s recent fond comments about segregationist senators. (Actually, Biden had been on the record for many years with such warm reminiscences. And in a report first published on April 11, CNN had exposed Biden’s letters to racist senators in 1977 and 1978, seeking support for his legislation against school busing for desegregation.)

Quoting McInerney as saying that “I would imagine I’m not alone,” CNBC reported on the day after Biden’s debate pratfall: “While McInerney is the first financier to publicly withdraw his support after Biden’s controversial round of comments, the loss is significant because it could be a harbinger of further defections.”

Overall, market conditions have abruptly changed, in the midst of fierce competition for big-investor dollars.

The New York Times did some candid reporting in mid-June under the headline “Wall Street Donors Are Swooning for Mayor Pete. (And They Like Biden and Harris, Too.)” The story explained that “the behind-the-scenes competition for Wall Street money in the 2020 presidential race is reaching a fevered peak . . . as no less than nine Democrats are holding New York fund-raisers in a span of nine day.” And, “with millions of dollars on the line, top New York donors are already beginning to pick favorites, and three candidates are generating most of the buzz”—Biden, Harris and Buttigieg.

The Times reported: “Interviews with two dozen top contributors, fund-raisers and political advisers on Wall Street and beyond revealed that while many are still hedging their bets, those who care most about picking a winner are gravitating toward Mr. Biden and Ms. Harris, while donors are swooning over Mr. Buttigieg enough to open their wallets and bundling networks for him.”

At the same time, the newspaper noted, “Not everyone is chasing Wall Street cash: Two candidates in the top tier of polls, [Bernie] Sanders and Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, have railed against the financial industry and opted against the kind of fancy fund-raisers with catering and $2,800 admission prices that lubricate the donor industry.”

The antipathy is mutual: Wall Streeters understand that Sanders and Warren would be bad investments anyway.

In sharp contrast, the Times summarized a bit of the investment frenzy: “Hamilton E. James, the executive vice chairman of Blackstone and a top fund-raiser, hosted Mr. Buttigieg at his home on Thursday. The short-selling hedge fund manager James Chanos will hold an event for Mr. Biden on Monday. And on Tuesday, Marc Lasry, the hedge fund manager and co-owner of the Milwaukee Bucks, is gathering checks for Ms. Harris. Co-hosts of that event include Blair W. Effron, an investment bank co-founder and an influential Democratic financier, and Ray McGuire, vice chairman of Citigroup.”

Deep-pocket investors are lined up from coast to coast. The night before she gave a speech at the California Democratic Party convention a month ago, Kamala Harris held a campaign fund-raiser at the San Francisco home of oil billionaires Ann and Gordon Getty, with the price of admission reportedly up to $28,000. While Harris was attending that fund-raiser, the San Francisco Chronicle observed, “Sanders was stopping by the Latino and labor caucuses at the convention.”

For his part, Biden skipped the California state party convention entirely. But the same weekend, he sent top aides to the same city to meet with “more than two dozen bundlers—people who raise money from high-dollar donors—at the San Francisco home of Sandy Robertson, co-founder of private equity firm Francisco Partners,” CNBC reported. “Other financiers at the private huddle included Richard Blum, an investment banker and husband of U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein; veteran trial lawyer Joseph Cotchett; Steve Westly, founder of tech investment firm the Westly Group; Denise Bauer, former U.S. ambassador to Belgium; and Wade Randlett, the president of Dashboard Technology.”

Eager for lucrative stability in the electoral marketplace, corporate Democratic investors are keen to block threats to their dominance from the Sanders and Warren campaigns. Now that Joe Biden is looking shaky—with a damaged brand and a faltering business plan—prudence requires a new set of calculations. Biden may have outlived his usefulness. If “politics ain’t beanbag,” neither is political investment.

KITCHEN CONFIDENTIAL

Technical Difficulties

Meredith Smith wrote: Flow couldn’t open this evening because of two no call no show kitchen positions. Compounded by my poor choice of a chef who threw everything away not on “Her” menu which did not (I realized too late) consider any of my own input or experience. She did leave a very clean restaurant in her wake but decimated the Flow of Flow.

---

Marco McClean: Merrie, I'm not offering to work for you, because I'm not a versatile cook nor at all still in practice, except for cooking for myself and Juanita, but I just learned that your new restaurant is upstairs where Brannon's used to be and that perked my ears up. I worked there from '79 through the early '80s. I started washing dishes, busing tables, and also janitoring after closing both upstairs in the restaurant and down in the deli/bakery. After a few months they changed me to cooking.

Breakfast (all the different egg dishes including omelets, bacon, sausage, French toast, oatmeal, waffles, fruit) and lunch (giant toasted Kaiser roll burgers, sausage and sauerkraut sandwiches, hot meat-and-cheese sandwiches* (including toasted cheese, tuna and crabmeat salad sandwiches, Reuben sandwiches), French fries, fat onion rings. And tempura vegetable and artichoke heart shish kebabs that looked as disgusting as they actually were if they didn't go right out; they'd deflate under the heat lamps and be shriveled lumpy vegetable snakes on a stick. But they cost a lot of money and vegetarians would pay for them, so.

It's almost forty years later and I still often dream about it there. Just today, for example; the last dream before I woke up: The place was a lot bigger than in real life, big enough to rollerskate around in, and there was a third floor with some kind of department store offices up there, and a flat roof (I somehow knew) that you could get up on top and sit on the asphalt edge of, and I didn't know the current menu, nor where all the prepped food and ingredients and tools were stored -- the walk-in fridge was shelves and shelves of unlabeled white buckets, but it was almost opening time and I just got there and I could have sneaked out but instead determined to make a brave stab at getting ready to cook for a big crowd of people who were somehow already inside, in the dining room, ordering. I lit the flatgrill burners with a match, turned the deep fryer knob up to to the red line, ran into the walk-in, discovered the buckets, see above, and I woke up not actually having to go through with any of it, and I was both relieved and disappointed.

In real life the breakfast cook was supposed to be there half an hour before opening time and I always showed up only 5-10 minutes before, turned everything on at once to heat up and threw everything into place and filled the fridge-table bins on the line in an efficient hurry and a great clatter and it always went fine. Every day, I taped a paper placemat to the front of the microwave to write down ideas for plays and stories and I filled it up by the time I could go home at like 3pm. Often on the way home I'd go to Mendosa's and get like a half-pound salami to take home and eat whole like an apple and/or cut it into a salad. I never was a no-show, nor did I ever show up drunk or stoned nor drink on the job, though the first and only time I ever took acid I had to work the next morning and I was exhausted from walking around Fort Bragg all night talking with Julie and I didn't feel much like singing /Pepino The Italian Mouse/ in the kitchen that day. That would have been 1981, I think.

I invented a number of shortcuts to use in busy times. One was to bring the breakfast potatoes to /almost/ finished in the deep fryer before pressing them on the flatgrill and loading on the colored spice mix. Another was to cook up to six orders of bacon at once in fifteen seconds in a deep fryer basket. All the extra oil drained off instantly when you dumped it out onto the flatgrill for a moment. Perfect, safely cooked-through, crispy bacon. Since then, I read that a couple of big chain restaurants got in a lot of trouble with Muslims and Jews and vegetarians by doing something very like that and so contaminating everything cooked in a four-gallon deep fryer with a few molecules of pig fat. That quasi-ethical issue never even occurred to me at the time. If it had I would have done it anyway. I'd never work in a place with a deep fryer now, because of the burn danger and the slipping danger and the choking smell, so it doesn't matter anymore that I have no scruples in that regard. The Jews don't believe in Hell any more than I do, but I might have kept a few Muslims away from their 72 virgins and a put a few vegetarians permanently at odds with the Earth Mother. Um, checking… Nope, still don't care.

I never cooked dinner there, but I did at Carole Hall's Creole restaurant that was in the Old Coast Hotel and was very fancy. Juanita was a waitress there, too, for awhile. And when I was in high school I worked in a pizza and beer restaurant in a brick basement in Auburn; pizza is technically dinner when hot, and becomes cold pizza for breakfast.

My favorite sandwich at Brannon's was the Mendo Cristo. Two slices of bread, one side of each dipped in leftover French toast cinnamon-egg batter with some more eggs added, goes on the flatgrill, big wad of paper-thin sliced deli ham goes next to it. Flip the ham, add two slices of muenster or swiss cheese, tiny bit of water splashed on the grill from the edge of covering it with a pan lid to melt the cheese, hot mustard on the bread, spatula ham and cheese on one bread, cover with the other bread, cut diagonally, fancy toothpicks to keep it all from slumping sideways, plate it beside sliced pickles. Oh, yum. And you could do all that with roast beef or pastrami if you wanted. And pepperoncini peppers. And sliced onion.

Here's a lovely ad for a sandwich shop, that I've just blown the game for you by telling you what it's an ad for. You never would have guessed:

http://misscellania.blogspot.com/2019/06/this-movie-is-ad.html

ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

The legal cannabis market is new.

The predictions for State revenue through taxes have fallen way short.

But if you were following market prices of any cannabis pre-64, it was freefalling way below what analysts were using as pricepoint.

Which brings up a really conflated issue that I barely scratch the surface of here;

What is the price of cannabis?

Why was it in freefall for years?

Supply and demand is the short answer.

In the 1980-early nineties, prices were exuberant for a consumer.

The War on Drugs was a big reason for this. Also, not a lot of people were growing commercially back then. Surely, only a handful of people had 100ish plants. No one grew 1000 plants in the 80s.

The Green Rush of post 96 medicinal had effects.

Not only did the price of pot go down slightly, but real estate went up. Supply and demand again. More people growing meant more pot.

Suddenly little stores that did a couple hundred bucks a week in sales, now were selling $5,000 a day. They needed more employees, etc. Development continued in what alternatively would have been cheap timber or ranch land.

Somewhere after then California's pot production exploded to the point there was no demand, and too much supply.

The only thing keeping prices up for some, is out of State sales.

It’s easy to forget, but the War on Drugs continues everywhere, in different fashions. Interstate commerce of pot is prohibited, currently. Many other States still lock people up for simple weed possession.

So what is the price of cannabis?

And what was built on a likely inflated bubble created by Government prohibitions?

What may make some people say the pot economy is collapsing could just as easily make other people say that its correcting.

These transition years are tough.

Lots to consider.

'WE ALL SUFFER': WHY SAN FRANCISCO TECHIES hate the city they transformed

San Franciscans have long complained that tech workers ruined their city, driving up rents and homelessness and eliminating diversity. Now even the tech workers agree

theguardian.com/cities/2019/jul/01/san-francisco-big-tech-workers-industry

PACK RAT YARD SALE - DONATIONS ACCEPTED

Don’t miss the Friends of the Gardens annual Pack Rat Yard Sale! Join us at the Mendocino Coast Botanical Gardens (sale will be held in the North Parking Lot) this Saturday, July 6 from 8AM to 4PM. Donations are being accepted NOW! Donations for the sale may be made at the Gardens daily from 9AM to 4PM July 1st through Friday, July 5th (but not on Thursday, July 4th as we will be celebrating the holiday with family and friends). Community donations result in a huge inventory of all kinds of items, priced fairly and with quality service provided by the all-volunteer staff. This annual fundraiser has earned its recognition as the “greatest garage sale on the coast”; 100% of the proceeds benefit the Gardens and enhance visitor experiences.

More details at gardenbythesea.org/calendar/pack-rat-sale/

NEWSOM REAPPOINTS BONHAM AS FISH & WILDLIFE DIRECTOR, KARLA NEMETH AS DEPARTMENT OF WATER RESOURCES DIRECTOR

by Dan Bacher

Governor Gavin Newsom today reappointed three of Governor Jerry Brown’s most controversial, least popular and most environmentally questionable appointees – Karla Nemeth, Cindy Messer and Chuck Bonham – after in February refusing to reappoint Brown’s best appointee, Felicia Marcus, as Chair of the State Water Resources Control Board.

He reappointed these three officials in spite of growing opposition to their reappointment by fishermen, conservationists and environmental justice advocates. He reappointed Nemeth as Department of Water Resources (DWR) Director, Messer as DWR Chief Deputy Director and Bonham as California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) Director.

The Governor’s Office stated, “Governor Gavin Newsom today announced several appointments, including the reappointment of several of the state’s top water policy officials at the California Department of Water Resources and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, which are critical to build the Administration’s water resilience portfolio in the coming months, as directed by the Governor’s executive order, and to advance Voluntary Agreements regarding water management for the Sacramento and San Joaquin river systems.”

Fishermen, Tribal leaders, conservationists and environmental justice advocates must wake up and see what Newsom is really doing. I have been the voice in the wilderness on Newsom’s questionable appointments and actions to date – and other people must pull the blinders off their eyes and acknowledge that Newsom is just a slicker version of Governor Jerry Brown.

Under Newson, Nemeth, Messer and Bonham, the environmentally destructive Delta Tunnel is still on the table as part of Newsom’s “water portfolio.” It is only the twin tunnels that the Governor has abandoned.

Newsom is promoting the “voluntary agreements” on the San Joaquin River that will result in much less water than the increased flows that would be provided for salmon, steelhead and other fish by the State Water Resources Control Board’s decision in December 2018.

And the Delta smelt continues to move closer and closer to extinction, with zero smelt reported in the CDFW’s fall 2018 midwater trawl survey, This is the first time this has ever happened in the history of the survey, not a good sign for the future of the smelt, an indicator species that is only found in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River

In addition, the expansion of oil and gas drilling in California continues under Newsom. And California continues to promote oil industry-written cap-and-trade (carbon trading) policies that attack Indigenous Communities and ravage the earth.

We need change, not more of the same old Big Oil, Big Ag and Big “Green” environmental policies of Jerry Brown.

The reappointment of Nemeth, Messer and Bonham takes place in an administration that has gone to great lengths to appease corporate agribusiness interests in the San Joaquin Valley. On February 12, California Governor Gavin Newson announced the appointment of William Lyons, 68, of Modesto, to serve in a new position — the Agriculture Liaison in the Office of the Governor.

Lyons, a San Joaquin Valley grower who has opposed increased San Joaquin River flows, has been chief executive officer of Lyons Investments Management, LLC since 1976. He previously served as Secretary of the California Department of Food and Agriculture from 1999 to 2004.

It is no surprise that Big Ag was a major contributor to Newsom’s 2018 campaign. Newsom received a total of $637,398 in campaign contributions from agribusiness, including a total of $116,800 from Beverly Hills agribusiness tycoons Stewart and Lynda Resnick, the largest orchard fruit growers in the world and owners of The Wonderful Company.

Could those contributions have influenced Newsom’s decisions to not reappoint Felicia Marcus as Chair of the State Water Resources Control Board, to appoint Mike Lyons as the new “Agricultural Liaison” to the Governor’s Office, to reappoint the agribusiness-controlled Nemeth, Messer and Bonham, to go ahead with a one Delta Tunnel plan and to back the voluntary agreements promoted by Lyons and other agribusiness leaders? For more information, go to: https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/03/08/governor-appoints-san-joaquin-valley-grower-william-lyons-to-new-agriculture-liaison-position/

With the latest appointments, it’s clear that nothing has really changed under Newsom. As The Who said so well, “Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss.” I evaluate politicians on their actual policies and actions – and the corporate money behind them – not the pretty words that they tell the media and the gullible public.

If people want Newsom to do the right thing, they need to stop playing nice and start confronting and challenging him, like the courageous María Xiomára Dorsey of Idle No More SF bay did last weekend in questioning his support of environmentally unjust carbon trading policies while Newsom was walking to and from a conference in San Francisco. We need more people like Maria to show courage – and far less NGO representatives collaborating with the Governor and his staff so they can get a “seat at the table.”

You can get a “seat at the table” and still be on the menu in the corrupt world of California politics.

Here are the bios of Nemeth, Messer and Bonham:

Karla Nemeth, 48, of Sacramento, has been reappointed director of the California Department of Water Resources, where she has served since 2018. Nemeth was deputy secretary for water policy at the California Natural Resources Agency from 2014 to 2018. She was Bay Delta Conservation Plan program manager at the California Natural Resources Agency from 2009 to 2014, environmental and public affairs director for Alameda County Flood Control and Water Conservation District, Zone 7 from 2005 to 2009 and was community affairs manager at Jones & Stokes from 2003 to 2005.

Nemeth was a legislative assistant at AESOP Enterprise from 2001 to 2003 and legislative assistant and program manager for Kings County from 1998 to 2000. Nemeth earned a Master of Public Administration degree from the University of Washington. Nemeth was confirmed by the California State Senate as director of the Department of Water Resources in 2018 and the compensation is $202,384. Nemeth is a Democrat.

Cindy Messer, 50, of Sacramento, has been reappointed chief deputy director of the California Department of Water Resources, where she has served since 2017. Messer was assistant chief deputy director of the California Department of Water Resources from 2016 to 2017, deputy executive officer of planning at the Delta Stewardship Council from 2012 to 2016 and assistant executive officer of the San Joaquin Delta Conservancy in Sacramento from 2010 to 2012.

Messer was senior environmental scientist and specialist for the Division of Environmental Services at the California Department of Water Resources from 2009 to 2010 and an environmental program manager from 2008 to 2009. She was senior environmental scientist and supervisor at the Department of Water Resources from 2005 to 2008 and Range A-C environmental scientist for the Water Resources Department from 1999 to 2005. Messer earned a Master of Science degree in conservation biology from California State University, Sacramento. This position does not require Senate confirmation and compensation is $176,244. Messer is a Democrat.

Charlton “Chuck” Bonham, 51, of Berkeley, has been reappointed director of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, where he has served since 2011. Bonham was the California director and senior attorney for Trout Unlimited from 2000 to 2010, governing board member of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta Conservancy from 2010 to 2011 and an instructor at the Nantahala Outdoor Center from 1994 to 1997.

He served as small business development agent in Senegal for the U.S. Peace Corps from 1991 to 1993. Bonham earned a Juris Doctor degree from the Northwestern School of Law of Lewis and Clark College. Bonham was confirmed by the California State Senate as director of the Department of Fish and Wildlife in 2012 and the compensation is $189,090. Bonham is registered without party preference.

Valerie Termini, 43, of Davis, has also been appointed chief deputy director of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. Termini has been executive director of the California Fish and Game Commission since 2016 and acting chief deputy director at the California Department of Fish and Wildlife since 2018. She was fisheries policy director for the California Ocean Protection Council from 2007 to 2016.

Termini earned a Master of Arts degree in international environmental policy from the Middlebury Institute of International Studies. This position does not require Senate confirmation and the compensation is $151,608. Termini is a Democrat.

TRUMP DELEGATES: WE’RE BRINGING GUNS TO CLEVELAND

"They say they are worried about possible violent protest and even an attack from ISIS."

motherjones.com/politics/2016/07/pennsylvania-gop-delegates-plan-bring-guns-cleveland/

ASSESSMENT APPEALS BOARD MEETING AGENDA for the Monday, July 15, 2019, meeting is available on the County website:

https://mendocino.legistar.com/Calendar.aspx