MCT: Sunday, August 11, 2019

• Lightning Fires
• Rock Picker
• Warmer Weather
• Apfel Talk
• Pets
• Flea Market
• Falling Bear
• CAAC Diversity
• Ed Notes
• Native Kids
• Getting Paid
• Psychopathic Traders
• 4,000 Miles
• Jail Harvey
• Many Colored
• Mission Quest
• Yesterday's Catch
• SMART Questions
• Turn Signal
• Comments
• McKibben Arrested
• Epstained
• Big Pharma
• BroMos
• Dem/Labor BBQ
• Marco Radio
• Found Object

AV FIRE CHIEF ANDRES AVILA REPORTS: “One small fire north of Philo in the area of the north fork of Indian creek on Friday. As of Saturday afternoon, it is boxed in with retardant and helitack crews reinforcing the line. Cal Fire crews will be making ground access for full extinguishment Sunday morning. Several other small lightning starts throughout the county on Saturday. Elk had two which had aircraft flying over Anderson Valley today as well. Things seem to be holding but access to these remote areas is a challenge. Aircraft have been an essential player in this process. We will be watching closely for new breaks over the next few days because of the possibility of holdover fires popping up with the weather changes [warmer temps].”

---

ELK FIRE RESPONDING TO FIRE AT 'CAPE HORN'

The scanner said (12:17 pm) the Elk Fire Department & CalFire air asset #140 were dispatched to a reported vegetation fire located near "Cape Horn" between Penny & Skid Gulches (off Greenwood-Philo Road).

The closest access is Mendocino Redwoods Co Road #5369.

And now (12:36 pm) a 200' spot fire was reported off Philo-Greenwood Road just east of Cameron Road in Elk.

(via MendocinoSportsPlus)

---

A NATIVE DAUGHTER of Boonville's depleted ranks of natives, Joan Burroughs, transplanted to Lake County, writes: "I am back home after being evacuated for two days. The official word stated we had to evacuate because it was a threat to life and limb. I get the life part but my limbs? I spent time with Jeff and wife Julie in Boonville, went through the thunder and lightning, and Friday night's downpours with the rest of the Boonters - all okay in spite of their scaredy cat racing in and out of their place. Lake County is dry as a bone of course. I cannot see where the fire burned on Konocti from my house, but the fire was obviously below our subdivision - we could see the water being dropped by the helicopters on Soda Bay Road. Sheriff’s Office was going house to house, finally, the UPS guy with wild round eyes, told us to get out, so when we heard that it became very official so we all immediately left."

GETTING READY FOR ROCK PICKING

A RETURN TO DRY CONDITIONS is on tap today along with temperatures warming back to near normal. These conditions are expected to continue through Monday with temperatures continuing to warm through mid week. A slight cooling trend will set in for the late week. (National Weather Service)

AV VILLAGE MEETING TODAY, SUNDAY, AUGUST 11

This is a reminder that the AVV is holding our monthly meeting tomorrow, 8/11 (second Sunday each month).

4:00 for socializing with snacks and beverages, program begings at 4:30.

This month Dr. Mark Apfel will be speaking and answering questions about "End Of Life Issues and Options".

Remember, this month’s meeting is at the Veteran's Building/Senior Center in Boonville.

UKIAH SHELTER PETS OF THE WEEK

Zion sure is a good looking boy. He doesn't mind being held and carried around, plus—he has a fun & frisky side. Zion is F.I.V. positive (feline immunodeficiency virus) so he needs a home where he lives inside only. Any other feline friends in the house should be current on their vaccines.

HEY STELLLLAAAAA! This adorable, young dog is a BIG fan of the couch. She's easy going and good with people. Stella was very playful with the dogs she met during her evaluation. Stella’s been on several Fido Field Trips, and received an excellent report card. She got a Pupacino, went swimming and was a great car companion. This fun dog is a year old, weighs a svelte 64 pounds, and is spayed, so she’s ready to hop in your car and head out for another Pupacino. P.S. Stella’s fees are waived during the shelter’s Dog Days Of Summer/Adoption Fees Waived event! (Mendocino County residents must pay the regular $25 license fee.) Visit Stella’s webpage at http://www.mendoanimalshelter.com/dogblog/stella

The Ukiah Animal Shelter is located at 298 Plant Road in Ukiah; adoption hours are Tuesday, Thursday, Friday & Saturday from 10 am to 4:30 pm and Wednesday from 10 am to 6:30 pm. To see photos and bios of the shelter's adoptable animals, and the shelter's programs, services and events, please visit us online at http://www.mendoanimalshelter.com For more information about adoptions please call 707-467-6453.

LABOR DAY FLEA MARKET!

Boonville Flea Market, Labor Day Weekend

Anderson Valley Senior Center Will Again Host The Community Flea Market On Labor Day Weekend

14410 Highway 128, Boonville CA 95415, Veterans Building

August 30 - September 2, 2018, 9 AM to 6 PM

To Sell; $20 p/day or $40 for 4 days

This will be an open air, flea market, in the parking lot of the Anderson Valley Senior Center and Veterans Building.

We hope the Snack bar will be serving breakfast, lunch and homemade goodies 9:00 to 2:00 Friday through Sunday

Antiques, household items, artist supplies, bird cages, tools, blacksmithing equipment, anvils, equipment, clothing, electronic equipment, and just about everything else you could imagine will be for sale.

FACT IS BETTER THAN FICTION

They probably don’t train people for this at the Sheriff’s Academy. A patrol car was struck by a falling bear in Humboldt County last weekend. A Humboldt County sheriff’s deputy was driving on State Route 96 on Aug. 3, answering a report of a drug overdose in the community of Orleans, when the bear fell or jumped onto the car, apparently from a steep embankment, authorities said. The bear smashed the hood and windshield. The patrol car hit an embankment, rolled onto its side and burst into flames. The deputy managed to escape without serious injury. The fire was contained to about half an acre but the car was gutted. “Don’t worry, the bear also fled the scene,” Caltrans said.

MENDO’S CLIMATE DIVERSITY COMMITTEE

by Mark Scaramella

If you were wondering whether Mendo’s recently approved “Climate Action Advisory Committee” is making any headway, you might find the following exchange at last Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors meeting instructive.

The committee, still in the early stages of formation, in typical Mendo Big Think, is charged with making recommendations to the Board of Supervisors to reduce Mendo’s carbon footprint (or something like that) and generally making the world a better place. Meanwhile, the rest of humanity faces looming extinction.

Better hurry, Mendo!

Supervisor Ted Williams: “The Climate Action Advisory appointments [there were two applicants from Supervisor Dan Gjerde’s Fourth District]. These are Supervisor Gjerde’s and I fully support him making this decision and I support the individuals he has chosen. But I believe when we approved the resolution it referenced a document that had the intention of ensuring diversity. I'm not sure with this process how we are going to accomplish that other than I can look at the current appointments and try to balance it when I bring recommendations. Is that what we had in mind? I know there was some discussion. I went back and looked at the video and I don't think we are exactly following the guidance we provided.”

Board Chair Carre Brown: “I believe when we talked further about the committee that was my point. We needed to better define what we were doing and I was the only one voting no because that was not done.”

Supervisor John McCowen: “My recollection of the discussion is that we did talk about how we would ensure that the desired interest groups or specializations and diversity were achieved. I think one way to do that would be for us to consider all of the appointments in open session understanding that it is ultimately the supervisor's responsibility to decide on their three appointments which I am sure we would all honor. But discussing those all at once rather than bringing them forward in a piecemeal matter -- I think would be the best method to assure that we are meeting the interest groups and the diversity that we supported by adopting the resolution which incorporated by reference the document that was presented by the climate action startup group. We can certainly go forward with Supervisor Gjerde’s two appointments today but ideally we might bring the rest of them all back on the same agenda and I think that would be the best method for trying to achieve what Supervisor Williams indicated.”

Brown: “For the record, I'm opposed to what you're proposing.”

Gjerde: “I do appreciate the fact that Supervisor McCowen said he supports and Supervisor Williams said he supports the two appointments or nominees that I put forward. I think they are both very strong and will be positive additions to the committee. I'm currently seeking someone with a forestry background, a forestry manager who is actively sequestering carbon. [If all 15 members of the Advisory Committee could actively sequester carbon they might make a dent in the problem!] The Redwood Forest Foundation is working with me to try to determine the right person. As you know they are sequestering carbon and I think that's an expertise and a partner that would be helpful for the committee.”

[Note to applicants: Be sure to mention that you actively sequester carbon in your application.]

Brown: “That potentially is going to be one of my appointments. I did find someone with a lot of expertise in that area [a professional carbon sequesterer?] that I think would really add to the committee. I have not brought my appointments forward because I do want to conduct interviews but there is an individual that I am strongly looking at that has that expertise area too.”

Multiply this inanity to include officials at all levels of government and, well, better re-think that 30-year mortgage.

---

There was no motion made, nor any vote taken. The two carbon sequesterers who Gjerde nominated were Fort Bragg city development Director Marie Jones, well known to readers of Rex Gressett’s Fort Bragg coverage, and Michael Potts, of Caspar, a hotbed of "big thinkers" who has absolutely zero record of interest in County affairs. Marie Jones was an outspoken and loyal defender of former Fort Bragg city manager Linda Ruffing and a critic of what she called "divisiveness" at the time that Ms. Ruffing, ahem, "retired."

Which is to say both will be carbon-stomping over the hill to Ukiah to reduce the county's carbon footprint, already invisible in the global imprints of the forces busily killing off the planet.

Enough negativity!

In his application, Potts wrote: “Climate change, whether anthropogenic or naturally cyclical, has been a deep concern of mine for more than 30 years. As a Board Member at Real Goods, and its Chief Technical Officer, I was asked to write a book, The New Independent Home, about ‘living under our own power,’ in other words, with a very small carbon footprint. Denis Hayes, founder of Earth Day, describes me as ‘a visionary with dirt under his fingernails’ and an expert on self-reliance. As a founding member of Caspar Community’s Board, I learned the importance of consensus, the best means to generate it, and the ability of small communities like mine [Caspar] to develop resilience. Resilience in the face of inevitable and possibly catastrophic change – the incidence of large firestorms is an example – requires a level of awareness and readiness that is at the center of my work.I am eager to help my County integrate this awareness, readiness, and resilience into its everyday life.”

Uh, applying a loose class angle glance to the wealthy little enclave of Caspar whose collective carbon footprint is at least twice the size of the Circle Trailer Park, Ukiah, resilience would be much easier to achieve.

Marie Jones, Fort Bragg: “I am the Community Development Director for the City of Fort Bragg. I have prepared a greenhouse gas inventory and a Climate Action Plan for the City of Fort Bragg. [Has Fort Bragg implemented any of these plans? You’d think she’d have mentioned it if they had.] I am also very knowledgeable about climate adaptation strategies and the impact of climate change on natural communities, sea level rise, sea acidification, agriculture, water availability, etc. I welcome the opportunity to serve on this board.”

As is every other reasonably informed global resident.

Diversity? Do the math. Two well-heeled Coasties should be offset by the first people likely to suffer the effects of climate change: five random residents of an inland trailer park, two indigenous citizens of Covelo, five Mexican immigrants (unpapered), and ten residents of Fort Bragg and Ukiah homeless shelters.

But seriously, the Climate Action Advisory Committee is shaping up as yet another collection of the usual suspects who will talk about good things and attempt to arrive at a "consensus" among people like themselves who can meet in the middle of a work day to talk nice thoughts and, like the many municipal advisory committees and the mental health advisory committee and the library advisory committee and the in-home services advisory committee and the health and human services advisory committee and the museum advisory committee and the resource advisory committee and the tourism advisory board and several others whose titles escape us at the moment, they will produce nothing — absolutely nothing — not even a single plausible recommendation. And even if they did, the board would say there’s no money in the budget or they are not of sufficient benefit, or are already doing something like it, not to mention the likely push back from the wine industry or the local timber industry or other farming activities if the committee managed to aim any recommendations at a Big Mendo Target.

We fondly recall Mendo’s grading ordinance advisory committee from a few years back, which was charged with achieving consensus before submitting their recommendations to the supervisors. Because some of the committee members were dead set against any kind of grading ordinance which might affect grape growers in Mendocino County, most of the pro-ordinance advisors resigned after a year or two of getting nowhere and the rest were unable to achieve consensus, thus there were no recommendations for the board and no grading ordinance to this day (except the state buildling code), leaving Mendo as the only northern California county not to have even a modest ag-related grading ordinance.

(Little Harvey Havoc, the tech mogul recently in the news for re-arranging a sizable area of Laytonville's topography to accommodate his grape vines, maintains a large-scale vineyard on precipitous slopes at Nararro, which would not be permitted in any other area of the state.)

In more than 30 years of following County affairs we have yet to see one single specific recommendation from an advisory committee that was implemented by the Supervisors. Not One. We will happily take any bets any reader would like to make at 10-1 odds that the Supervisors will never implement a single recommendation from this jive committee of carbon sequesterers, if they even make any, and we will even put a generous deadline on the bet of December 2020.

Any takers?

ED NOTES

THE DELUGE of opinion at the announcement of the suicide death of international cho-mo, Jeffrey Epstein, ran almost unanimously to, "He was murdered," and "The Clintons got him." Epstein now moves to the very top of the Grassy Knoll Roster, which begins with the Kennedy assassination and Lee Harvey Oswald, winds on through 911 and the collapse of Building 7 before disappearing into the far reaches of mass paranoia that includes vaccination and contrails as government conspiracies.

---

PG&E has not publicly estimated how often or severe the shut-offs will be as the globe warms and walls of flame devour California where power decisions are made by a handful of wealthy individual shot-callers sitting in the executive suites at PG&E. If ever existed a stronger argument for PG&E at last becoming a publicly-owned utility, name another one.

ADDING MAJOR insult to likely mass injury in the hot, hot, hot summers to come, PG&E says, “It’s good that local governments are talking about all these things, because that’s what we’re encouraging people to do,” said company spokesman Jeff Smith. “But in terms of being able to provide advance information — this many customers are likely to be affected, or this many of any particular county or it’s going to happen this many times per year — it’s just impossible to predict.”

---

FRONTIERS OF FREE ENTERPRISE: The Press Democrat was predictably thrilled: "The traditionally hidebound North Coast premium wine sector had held the emerging cannabis industry at arm’s length, especially in Napa County, because of the stigma of stoners [sic] as well as state and federal regulatory concerns. 'We jumped into the cannabis world. Will it work? I’m not sure. But we are willing to take that chance,' said Corey Beck, the chief executive officer and winemaking boss for The Family Coppola, which includes the iconic Geyserville winery."

---

THE MENDOCINO REDWOOD COMPANY is a lot like Trump, in that they create trouble for themselves where trouble need not exist. (It's Saturday afternoon and Trump just seconded a tweet that the Clintons did in Epstein.) Back to MRC. For instance, take the case of the venerable Anderson Valley business, Frank's Firewood. Frank and his small crew of well-paid workers used to be able to take commercially un-viable trees off MRC's vast Mendo holdings and render them as fire wood. Then MRC began poisoning their unwanted trees instead of allowing locals in to harvest them, thus complicating Frank's business because Frank would not pass on poisoned firewood to his customers. In the relative halcyon big timber days prior to the Fisher Family's assumption of Mendo's forests, even L-P and, before L-P, Masonite, allowed locals to not only take firewood but hunt! It's as if MRC deliberately alienates local public opinion — everyone from gyppo loggers to tree huggers is united in their contempt for the company — but it's really simply a matter of contempt from the Fisher Family. As another oligarch, Charles Hurwitz, famously put it to a gym full of his workers whose pensions he'd just ripped off, "He who has the gold, rules."

KYM KEMP OF THE WONDERFUL REDHEADED BLACKBELT WEBSITE:

I’m a little frustrated, so I'm going to vent. Scroll past if you don't want to see me get a little salty.

A regular reader insists that as I'm providing a free service, "It’s crappy to expect others to pay for it, especially through guilt like NPR/PBS affiliates do."

Just so everyone is clear:

I’m not providing a free service. I want to get paid and I know not everyone can afford to pay but I also offer a donate button. Like the rest of humanity, I like to get recompense for the work I do.

As I said to the reader…

If you want a service, how do you think it is going to keep being there if you don’t help it stay? Just realistically…ask yourself, how does Kym Kemp stay in business if no one contributes…? How is she going to pay reporters and photographer to make sure that you get the news you need about wildfires and road closures?

Neither NPR or I are providing free services. We provide services that we ask those that can pay for to chip in to support.

I mean, NPR has to pay reporters, pay for computers, etc. So do I. Do you think money just appears from God? It doesn’t. You use our services, presumably they are helpful and would be missed if they were gone, so why not chip in?

Maybe you don’t have the money…hey, when I was a student first listening to NPR, I didn’t either. But as soon as my husband and I got a little on our feet, we began pitching in some once or twice a year. Later, as we got more money, I tried to figure out what it was worth to me personally. How much would I pay to get behind a paywall? Then I pitched in that much per month.

You probably throw your change on the dresser and don’t count it but, you know that if every time someone clicked on an article, they gave me just one dime, I’d make well over $15,000 a month on average, closer to $17,000 other months. (That would pay for a heck of a lot of reporting.) Maybe you can get a roll of dimes next time you are at the store and then every time you click on an article, decide if I deserve a dime. Put it in a pile and then donate when you get to $10.

And it seems like the amount of information/interest provided is worth at least a dime. Same with NPR, if you listen for a half hour a day, could you give them $.50 per day you listen? That would add up to some great reporting, if even half the people did that.

Think of how many reporters we could hire. Think of how much corruption we could expose. Think of the photographers we could encourage. Think of how much we could give back to our communities.

Now, you don’t have to pay but don’t fool yourself it’s because I don’t wish you would.

(Also, it’s crappy to expect others to work for you without paying for it and then get righteous about how they are guilt tripping you when they mention they’d like to get paid. We do the best we can to cobble together a living here with advertisers — bless them and please support them if possible — but I pay my reporters and photographer terrible wages only exceeded by the terrible wage I pay myself. We really love what we do but we'd love it more if we were able to cover more stories, provide more consistently good photography, and pay ourselves a living wage.)

Rant over. I'm going back to a job I love, helping a community I love, and I know I'm lucky to be where I am. Thanks for letting me vent a little.

ROBERT D. HARE, C.M. is a researcher in the field of criminal psychology. He developed the Psychopathy Checklist (PCL), used to diagnose cases of psychopathy and also useful in predicting the likelihood of violent behavior. Hare advises the FBI's Child Abduction and Serial Murder Investigative Resources Center (CASMIRC) and consults for various British and North American prison services. http://www.hare.org/

4000 MILES, A REVIEW

Presented by Mendocino Theatre Company

4000 MILES by Amy Herzog

directed by Betty Abramson

Cast: Jimmy Betts as Leo, Ann Woodhead as Vera, Laurel Livezey as Bec, Sidney Droz/Heather Gealey as Amanda

a Review by Marylyn Motherbear Scott

MTC’s mid-season presentation, “4000 Miles,” by Amy Herzog, is poignant, reflective, and intimate. Relative to earlier-season plays, it’s a quiet presentation, with inherent hints of revolution, political and personal. The title, “4000 Miles,” describes a journey longer than the breadth of America; more so, a life journey that is connected by the uncharted map of two family members, seventy years between them. A grandmother, Vera, who is 91, and her grandson, Leo, 21. The expanse of at least a couple generations lies between them.

It had been a decade since Vera and Leo spent time together. The last time was when Vera’s husband, Leo’s grandfather, died. Vera has lived alone since then. Leo, having ridden a bicycle to New York from the west coast, shows up in the middle of the night, at Grandma’s iconic ’60 style apartment in Greenwich Village.

Herzog created this script out of the fabric of her own life, based on her real life grandma, and other family members. They are a vital, living part of the play, heard of or heard from, but not seen — the Grandfather, a communist, professor and writer; the next door neighbor, Ginny with whom Vera shares the Entertainment section of the newspaper (when Vera’s done and not before); Leo’s sister, Lily, who is adopted and Asian; Leo’s mom, with whom Leo is not speaking; his close friend, Micah. who shared Leo’s bicycle journey.

The play overall is marked by pauses, and over-lapping, often dropped, conversation; frequently by Vera’s lapses in memory. Unable to recollect a word she knows she knows, the frequently used Whaddayacallit comes into play and promises to become a beloved household word to those who see the play. Vera’s lapses are mirrored in Leo’s unwillingness to reveal his mind and heart, to process what has become a solitary vigil in the plight of life and death that marks the expanse of even a young life.

The continent of Leo and Vera is bridged by their day-to-day experience of living together, and by what Leo finally reveals. In that particular moment, words said and not fully heard, remind us of the importance of our voice, of releasing the grief and pain. In the context of wisdom missed, how often do we wish that a moment could be dog-ear’d, like in the pages of a book, to remember and remind others that something important has been said; that the lives of people ordinary, and not so ordinary, pass in precious moments of things said and done, even when there’s no audience to witness. Herzog has created that tender witnessing.

Under the astute direction of Betty Abramson, and in communion with Herzog’s goals, MTC’s 4000 Miles brings generations into relationship while honoring the transmission of political ideals. Leo, the self-proclaimed hippy, spontaneous, impatient and forgiving is sensitively portrayed by Jimmy Betts. Vera is a calmer, more seasoned, version of those same traits. Ann Woodhead gives an amazing performance of this beloved elderly character. The supporting characters, Bec (Laurel Livezey) & Amanda (Sidney Droz) offer the sometimes controversial aspects of young women in today’s world,

Vera would have been born shortly after communism was born in America. She was (as was Herzog’s grandma) a card-carrying communist. Vera would have been a young adult in the fifties, a time when personal intellect blooms. The 50’s, an era when intellect burgeoned with attempts to examine governmental and social systems that were overseeing our lives. A more effective freedom was sought.

One of my dog-eared moments, by Vera, about communities, lest we forget:

… I believe in a … a society where … here I go with my words. The point is you help people, it’s about the community, it’s not about I do what’s best for me and you do what’s best for you, because …

And thus, the seeds of his grandparents revolution are steeped into Leo’s more social freedom of expression, into his expressions of free love, free will, into the Love not War movement of the 60s. The map of Vera and Leo, boundaries challenged, pushed, tolerated and endured, resolve in an undefined now-ness of love and healing. The ultimate message — Keep on keeping on. Do not be deterred from working toward a better end. Do something that honors the struggle and the beauty of sharing lives.

People say about this play — tender, touching, a beautiful story, moving. Great acting. Everyone should see this play.

Runs through September 1, 2019

For tix and info: call (707) 937-4477

LITTLE HARVEY HAVOC

Editor:

Hmmm. Kevin Harvey, a presumably rich Silicon Valley tech entrepreneur and winemaker destroyed protected wetlands, streambeds and, as the accompanying photo showed, used huge earth-moving equipment to change the shape of the Mendocino hills.

The consequence? What I assume for him is a tiny fine. And he gets to keep the vineyard with the environmental destruction left unchanged.

My point is that $3.7 million is nothing compared with what has been permanently ruined. Perhaps this is all the water regulators were able to do under their regulations. But to me it really doesn’t matter. Harvey should be in jail.

We should all pay more for our roles in the rapidly declining health of our planet, and big destroyers should pay something that hurts and deters others. The message here (as elsewhere in our society): If you are rich, don’t worry about the consequences. You just have to pay a fine.

What many scientists are now calling “anthropomorphic climate disruption” is at or near the tipping point. And it is produced by every greedy step Harvey and the rest of us take. And the bigger the destroyers, the greater should be the consequences. We cannot afford business as usual.

Charles S. Little

Petaluma

SIETE COLORES, CHILE

DO YOU HAVE A MISSION?

by Chris Skyhawk

“Do you have a mission?” He startled me with his point-blank question.

I had just entered the room. As part of my work with Passage to Manhood I had come to the school this young man in Point Arena to tell stories.

Not children’s stories, but ancient stories filled with mystery, dilemma, and wisdom. Stories designed to provoke young men into thinking deeply about the journey upon which they are about to embark, the journey of maturing into the men they will become. Stories designed to allow mentors such as myself to open up discussion, to learn from the young men and to share what I have already learned. The type of stories that let them know that others have gone before them; that someday it will be their turn to be the helpers, witnesses and guides as the next generation unfolds to its own destiny.

I took the question very seriously even though I did not immediately know at what level it was meant. Perhaps there was some video game he had been playing that involved a mission. Perhaps he was the clown of the group who tests the newcomer to see how he responds. So I carefully inquired what he meant and he said, ”You know, a mission”.

“Do you mean in life?” I asked.

“Yes.” He answered quickly, with a light in his eyes, as if I had lit a fire in his mind.

“I believe I do.”

My answer hung in the air. For a few moments he just silently looked at me. I wondered if he was going to ask me what that mission was and I was not entirely sure what I would say if he did, so I just held his gaze. Without further inquiry, he gave me a look of satisfaction and took his seat.

But that exchange continued to resonate for a long time.

“Do you have a mission?”

What prompts a young man to make that inquiry of a man he has never met before? It was a beautiful question and one that he needs to answer for himself in order to grow into his own identity, clarity, and sense of self. I was profoundly moved by the wisdom that was revealed in our brief exchange.

Young men are looking for clues and guidance about how to proceed along the passage to manhood. Our society has reduced the role of elders to the point that they often take their cues from peers or males only a few years older than themselves. These males may (or may not) be excellent role models but they have not yet been seasoned by the storms of life and tempered by the flames of difficult circumstance where every man will eventually find himself.

“Do you have a mission?”

Yes. And it changes over time. You start out thinking that you can change the world and you end up finding out that the world can be a stubbornly intransigent place. There is profound strength in youth and it must be nurtured and honored. But then there is the deeper strength that comes with the experience of loss. There is a deeper resilience in a man once he learns to grieve his circumstances, his own failings, his own faults; grieve his betrayals both committed against him and his own against others. Humility comes but it takes time and it is different than humiliation. There is a grand design but it is not easily revealed and anyone that tells you that it will be is not a helpful person.

“Do you have a mission?”

It must be said that we cannot help a young man find his mission if we do not have some sense of our own. It does not have to be absolutely certain within ourselves, but there needs to be some core solidity that we can fall back that guides us in troubled times. Mentors are elders who have survived difficulty. They come out on the other side of the trouble with wisdom and joy that cannot be taken away by the eventual frailty of the body or the prevailing winds of a shallow culture.

There are some truths that are nearly universal. Young men get to a certain age and they know they are about to step into a larger world. To move forward into that adventure is hard-wired into their circuitry. They will leave the nest and embark on some great adventure so that they can learn about themselves and the world. There are stories throughout the ages that speak to this universal passage.

“Do you have a mission?”

Do we ask that of young men today? Not often enough. In our hyper-competitive corporate driven society we prepare our young people to fit roles that are mostly pre-ordained. We rarely allow them to unfold from the inside out because all too often we have not done that ourselves. We are currently medicating a record number of our children. We are coming up with new psychological diagnoses while we wring our hands and wonder what is wrong with our young men. Our society offers them video game fantasies that take the place of real risk and real reward. I believe that much of the angst we see in young men today is simply derived from the fact that their spirits are at odds with their circumstance.

I think that young man was testing me, and likely without knowing he was doing it. Adolescent boys test because they are hard-wired to seek authenticity. Like a surging river the longing for greater life carries them along the same paths that the ancient stories tell us men have been traveling for eons. Defined societal roles and rigid fundamentalist thinking may eventually prevail for some, but these rules often contradict the natural impulses of soul that define our psychological transitions throughout life. Young men call all of us to remember our quest and to recall what our reason for being here is. If we fail them in this, if we can not look in the mirror and answer the ”mission” question, we will be ineffective in our attempts to help them find their own way.

“Do you have a mission?”

What he was really asking was ”Do you have passion? Do you have a zest for being alive? Are you willing to meet life on its own terms and accept the joy, sorrow, and challenges that it brings?” May we all be able to hold the gaze of our young people as they directly and indirectly ask us that question in a thousand different ways.

CATCH OF THE DAY, AUGUST 10, 2019

ERIC BRENNER, Redwood Valley. DUI.

DARRELL CARADINE, Ukiah. Controlled substance, suspended license (for DUI), probation revocation.

BRANDON CLELAND, Willits. Probation revocation.

CHRISTOPHER DOTTERWEICH, Ukiah. Probation revocation.

ANDREW FLOWERS, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol, failure to appear.

JUSTIN FRICKER, Fort Bragg. DUI.

DAVID HALL, Willits. Assault with deadly weapon not a gun, false report of crime.

JACOB HEATH, Ukiah. Trespassing.

RICHARD HINOJOSA, Ukiah. Resisting, probation revocation.

WILLIAM HUTCHINS, Ukiah. DUI.

JORGE MARTINEZ, Ukiah. Possess/purchase for sale controlled substance, resisting.

CHRISTOPHER MCDONALD, Lakeport/Redwood Valley. DUI with priors, suspended license (for DUI), probation revocation.

JULIEN MICLETTE, Boonville. DUI.

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

JAMES NEGRON, Livermore/Ukiah. Controlled substance where prisoners are kept.

SPENCER NOEL, Gualala. DUI-drugs&alcohol.

MICHAEL OLSON, Ukiah. Probation revocation.

MINDY PRATT, Ukiah. Probation revocation.

SEAN SHANNON, Redwood Valley. Parole violation.

RICHARD STANISLOO JR., Ukiah. Unspecified offense, probation revocation.

RUSSELL TAYLOR, Redwood Valley. Domestic abuse, resisting, probation revocation.

DUMB SMART

Editor:

I have taken one ride to San Rafael and back on the SMART train. I found it to be very quiet and comfortable. I even enjoyed a glass of wine during the trip.

If the SMART directors want me to pay for a tax extension they will need to make another disclosure about the ridership. I want to know the exact number of actual commuters vs. other riders who use the service. I also want to see full ridership income as a percentage of total expenses.

My concern is that even with all the track extensions this train is no more than a tourist attraction to wine and cannabis country. I, for one, am not willing to pay for any more tourist attractions.

Mike Tuhtan

Sebastopol

ON LINE COMMENTS OF THE DAY

[1] As a young dog I worked in a high end hotel as a bellhop for a while. Once a Mr. Thomas Twinings flew into Seattle to be on TV to talk about tea. Then he flew home. My job paid a buck fifty-five an hour or something, the minimum wage for tipped work at the time. Tips were how I really got paid. Thomas arrived with a TON of luggage. I am not exaggerating. Dripping sweat, I worked for 45 minutes moving this motherfucker’s luggage. At the end Thomas said thank you and gave me 50 cents. I was not on shift when he checked out the next day.

---

[2] A friend and I went to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame a few years back. We drove in and stayed overnight in a hotel in downtown Cleveland. By the time we were ready to leave the next day, we had just walked back from spending hours at the HoF and still had the drive back to look forward to. The parking valets were lined up to bring up people’s cars from wherever they were parked, and this youngster went and brought up mine. I didn’t have a five on me, and was too tired to think to ask my friend, so we drove away and I stiffed the kid. I’ve felt bad about it ever since — bad enough that I still remember it, anyway. Long story short: tipping sucks and should be abolished. Pay a living wage.

CLIMATE ACTIVIST BILL MCKIBBEN ARRESTED PROTESTING TRUMP'S IMMIGRATION POLICIES

“The climate crisis and the immigration crisis are tightly linked,” McKibben said

rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/bill-mckibben-arrested-at-ice-protest-869666/

BIG PHARMA: GOUGES, CASUALTIES & THE CONGRESSIONAL REMEDY!

by Ralph Nader

The Congress can overturn the abuses of Big Pharma and its “pay or die,” subsidized business model for its drugs.

Big Pharma’s trail of greed, power, and cruelty gets worse every year. Its products and practices take hundreds of thousands of lives in the U.S. from over-prescriptions, lethal combinations of prescriptions, ineffective or contaminated drugs, and dangerous side-effects.

The biggest drug dealers in the U.S. operate legally. Their names are emblazoned in ads and promotions everywhere. Who hasn’t heard of Eli Lilly, Merck, Pfizer, and Novartis? Big Pharma revenues and profits have skyrocketed. In 2017, the U.S. consumers spent $333.4 billion on prescription drugs.

There are no price controls on drugs in the U.S. as there are in most countries in the world. Senator Bernie Sanders just took a bus tour to a Canadian pharmacy where insulin cost patients one tenth of what it costs them in the U.S. Yet, remarkably, drug companies, charted and operating in the U.S., charge Americans the highest prices in the world. This is despite the freebies our business-indentured government lavishes on Big Pharma. The FDA weakly regulates drugs, which are supposed to be both safe and effective, before they can be sold. Who funds this FDA effort? The drug industry itself— required by a law it has learned to love.

The Big Pharma lobby doesn’t always get what it craves. In the nineteen seventies, Dr. Sidney Wolfe, director of Public Citizen’s Health Research Group, produced two paperbacks for a wide television audience (e.g. he appeared on the Phil Donahue Show). They were titled, Pills That Don’t Work and Over-the-Counter Pills that Don’t Work. Because of Dr. Wolfe’s tireless efforts, hundreds of different pills were removed from the market, saving consumers billions of dollars and sparing them the side-effects.

Big Pharma’s greatest strength is its hold over Congress. That is where it gets its huge bundle of subsidies and monopolistic privileges. During the first term of George W. Bush, the drug companies got the Republicans and some spineless Democrats to forbid Medicare from negotiating volume discounts with the drug companies, as the Pentagon and VA have done for years. Big Pharma had over 1,200 lobbyists swarming over Capitol Hill to get these handcuffs on Uncle Sam. Lobbyists combined with campaign cash donated by Pharma industry players sealed the deal.

Your Congressional representatives gave the drug giants much in return: Lucrative tax credits to pay Big Pharma to do what they should do anyway—engage in research and development. Drug companies are profitable recipients of taxpayer-funded government research on developing new drugs – and then given monopolies that enable them to impose sky-high prices, even when the purchaser is the very government that funded the invention of the new drugs in the first place.

The drug industry has also made sure there are no price controls on their drugs—whether gifted to them by NIH or developed by drug companies internally. The absence of price controls accounts for new “blockbuster drugs” going for $100,000, or higher, per patient per year. Many drug prices generally increase faster than inflation.

Greed is infinite for Big Pharma. In addition to tax credits, free drug R&D (compliments of the federal government), and no price restraints, the drug companies have moved much production to China and India. No antibiotics are manufactured in the U.S.—a clear national security risk to which the Pentagon and Trump should pay heed. Two new books, China Rx and Bottle of Poison, document the safety risks of poorly inspected labs in those countries exuding pills into your bodies without your minds being told of “country of origin” on the label.

The great hands-on humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders, operating in 70 countries often under dangerous armed conflicts, lists “Six Things Big Pharma Doesn’t Want You to Know,” in its recent alert letter.

They are:

One. Costs of developing new medicines are exaggerated tenfold or more.

Two. You’re paying twice for your medicines—first as taxpayers and second as consumers or through your government programs.

Three. Drug companies are not that good at innovation. About two thirds of new drugs (called “me-too drugs”) are no better, and may be riskier, than the ones already in pharmacies. But they are advertised as special.

Four. Monopoly patents are extended by clever lawyers to block more affordable generic versions. This maneuver is called “ever greening.”

Pharma bullies low and middle income countries like South Africa, Thailand, Brazil, Colombia, and Malaysia that try to curb its rapaciousness. These drug companies use trade rules and the U.S. government towards their brutal goals.

One. In the 1990s, a small group of consumer advocates led by Jamie Love, Bill Haddad, and Robert Weissman persuaded Cipla, an Indian drug firm, and Ministries of Public Health to lower the price of AIDS medicines from $10,000 per patient per year price down to $300 (now under $100). The U.S. drug companies were quite willing to let millions die because they couldn’t pay.

Two. Big Pharma always says they have to have large profits to pay for R&D and innovation. Really? Why then do they spend far more on stock buybacks (one of the metrics for executive compensation), on marketing and advertising than on R&D? Dr. Wolfe exposed this malarkey years ago.

Yet exposure has not stopped the worsening behavior of Big Pharma. Good books by Katharine Greider (The Big Fix) and Dr. Marcia Angell (The Truth About the Drug Companies) are devastating critiques of Big Pharma’s practices. Despite this, the books reach small audiences and are brushed off by the drug giants. Big Pharma is able to ignore these books because it controls most of Congress—candidates rely heavily on the industry for campaign budgets.

But the American people outnumber the drug companies and only the people can actually vote come election time. Focused voters mean more to politicians than campaign money. The August recess for Congress means your lawmakers are back home having personal meetings. Visit them and make known your demands against the “pay or die” industry. Tell them your own stories.

Or better yet, make them come to your town meetings. Remember: “It’s your Congress, people!”

One galvanizing move by an enlightened billionaire could establish a 20 person advocacy group on drug pricing, focusing on Congress and mobilizing citizens back home. Its effect would be decisive for taming the drug industry’s gouging. Any takers: if so contact Public Citizen at medsaccess@citizen.org.

(Ralph Nader is a consumer advocate, lawyer and author of Only the Super-Rich Can Save Us!)

ANNUAL DEMOCRATIC UNITED WITH LABOR BBQ, September 2 in Todd Grove Park

Democrats of Mendocino County and the Inland Mendocino Democratic Club present: UNITED WITH LABOR BBQ, Democrats TURN OUT 2020

Todd Grove Park, Monday, September 2, 2019, 11-3 pm

BBQ burgers, dogs, bean burgers and chicken - grass fed / organic

Donation at the door

Zero waste event- bring plate, cup, utensils for yourself. Pot luck salads and desserts.

Speakers include Representative Jared Huffman, Senator Mike McGuire, Assemblyman Jim Wood, and various candidates running for local office.

Entertainment by Paula Samonte, the Raging Grannies, and others.

Beer and wine for sale.

Water is free. (No plastic bottles; bring a cup)

Sponsored by the SEIU local 2015, SEIU local 1021, AFL-CIO Northbay Labor Council, Teamsters Local 665, and Union of Operating Engineers.

Booth space & volunteering - call Helen 367-0250

MEMO OF THE AIR

Back in Nagasaki. Fellas. Tobaccy. Women. Wickee wacky woo. The recording of last night's (2019-08-09) Memo of the Air: Good Night Radio show on KNYO-LP Fort Bragg and KMEC-LP Ukiah is available by one or two clicks, depending on whether you want to listen to it now or download it and keep it for later and, speaking of which, it's right here:

https://tinyurl.com/KNYO-MOTA-0345

Besides all that, at http://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com you can find a fresh batch of dozens of links to not necessarily radio-useful but nonetheless worthwhile educational items I set aside for you while gathering the show together. Such as:

The centrifuge brain project. Nice stills, but if the ten-minute-or-so video is still available, you should see that.

https://tinyurl.com/CentrifugeBrainProject

BenJammin - Spring. Who hasn't had this dream?

They all look like most of a contact sheet I saw once of an Afghan hound shaking off in front of a powerful fan.

A Wonderful Photo Series of Beach Sand Being Tossed in the Air Transforming Into Mysterious Creatures

And beautiful time-lapse storms, twisters saved for the end. Appropriate music.

Vorticity – A Time-Lapse Storm

Marco McClean, memo@mcn.org,

https://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com

FOUND OBJECT