MCT: Sunday, September 8, 2019

• AVFD Henthorne
• Kelseyville Fire
• Pet
• Shutoff Legislation
• Humco Underwater
• Comptche Arts
• Census Workers
• Mendojuana
• Unjust Occupation
• Agenda Items
• Yesterday's Catch
• Las Pulgas
• Your Sign
• Crazies
• Dingalings
• Border Angels
• Library Events
• Autumn Colors
• Generator Alternative
• Firesafe Fundraiser
• Foolery
• Dem Differences
• Marcel Proust
• Expanding Base
• Channeled Scabland
• Naval Cats
• 9/11 Attacks
• 100 Years
• Planting Trees
• Found Object

AVFD [Anderson Valley Fire Department] has Engine 7471 out with Strike Team 2150C, assigned to the Henthorne Fire in a very remote area north of Covelo. Firefighter Abraham Sanchez, Firefighter Morgan Kobler, Battalion Chief Angela DeWitt, and Battalion Chief Clay Eubank are on board.

(via AVFD Facebook page)

A VEGETATION FIRE off Live Oak Dr. and Hwy 29 in Kelseyville in Lake County was reported Saturday afternoon. Suppression efforts were in still progress late Saturday night when at last report the fire was over 50% contained at slightly over 50 acres despite stiff winds. Earlier evacation orders for the area were lifted before midnight. According to one report an arson suspect was detained late Saturday afternoon.

UKIAH SHELTER PET OF THE WEEK - BUDDY

This charming, older fellow found himself at the shelter when his guardian passed away. Buddy loves to play with toys. He’s easy to walk on a leash, sweet, delightful to be around, and would love a warm bed to curl up in when you’re not out taking him for a leisurely walk. There's something wonderful about older dogs--their calm demeanor and quiet ways. Got a soft spot in your heart for the senior dogs? Come to the shelter and meet Buddy. He is a 10 year old neutered male who currently weighs 72 pounds.

The Ukiah Animal Shelter is located at 298 Plant Road in Ukiah. Our dog and cat kennel hours have changed. Please visit our website for the new hours, and information about our guests, services, programs and events: http://www.mendoanimalshelter.com For more information about adoptions please call 707-467-6453.

"PUBLIC SAFETY" POWER SHUTOFFS

Editor:

Senator McGuire's SB 560 is a good start toward recognizing and attempting to deal with the entirely self-serving plan by PG&E for widespread power shutoffs. Senator Weiner has proposed SB 378, which among other things holds PG&E responsible for the costs of shutting down power, costs which are already being born by individuals, business and government entities.

Both of these bills should be fast tracked, voted on and passed now, not next year. It is wonderful that some in the legislature have finally noticed what PG&E is attempting to do and what a monumentally stupid idea it is, but action to stop it is needed sooner rather than later.

If PG&E is allowed to proceed with this plan widespread chaos will result and there will be a public outcry unparalleled in our time. The PUC, with characteristic rubber stamp acumen, has approved this plan, showing its close ties to the industry it is supposed to regulate and removing itself from any meaningful role as far as regulation is concerned. It seems clear that swift action by the Legislature is needed.

Tom McFadden

Boonville

HUMBOLDT GRAPPLES WITH “HUGE IMPLICATIONS” OF SEA LEVEL RISE

by Daniel Mintz

Humboldt County is stepping up its planning for sea level rise in the Humboldt Bay area and is pursuing creation of a multi-jurisdictional agency to deal with it.

What was described at the September 3 Board of Supervisors meeting as the “huge implications” of sea level rise is motivating the county to form a Joint Powers Authority (JPA) with the City of Eureka and infrastructure agencies.

According to a staff report, the Humboldt Bay region has the highest rate of relative sea level rise on the U.S. West Coast. As water elevation rises, land is subsiding due to tectonic activity and soil conditions.

The county is eying a benchmark of three feet of sea level rise, which is projected to be reached in 2070 and perhaps as early as 2050 with king tides.

Lands within the Humboldt Bay Area Plan – which encompasses 20 miles of coastline and 21,500 acres of unincorporated bay territory from the Mad River to Table Bluff/Hookton Road – will bear the impacts.

“Just with one meter of sea level rise, the banks of all the sloughs within the Humboldt Bay Area Plan would be over-topped,” said Planning Director John Ford.

Sixty-two percent of the area’s agricultural lands, 32 percent of its industrial/commercial properties and 29 percent of its coastal-dependent industrial land would be inundated, he continued, quoting from a sea level rise vulnerability report by hydrologist Aldaron Laird.

Also, 17 percent of the area’s public facilities and 11 percent of its residential neighborhoods would be swamped.

“Those are pretty staggering numbers,” Ford said.

Also in the swath of sea level rise overspill is Highway 101, the Humboldt Bay power plant and its adjacent cache of stored radioactive waste, the community of King Salmon, the Humboldt Bay trail and miles of water and sewer lines.

The county is already planning its response. Work related to a $425,000 Adaptation Planning Grant from Caltrans is focusing on the Eureka Slough area and will wrap up next year.

Environmental Services Manager Hank Seemann said the resulting plan will “bridge from studies and plans to implementation measures.”

The work that will need to be done in the coastal zone is under the authority of the state’s Coastal Commission, which was briefed on the Humboldt Bay situation at its local meeting last month by Aldaron Laird.

Ford told supervisors that the presentation had a striking effect on coastal commissioners, who were “a little bit overwhelmed.”

He added, “My read of their body language was, ‘We didn’t realize that this would be happening in this measure in Humboldt County’ – I think the term that was used was that this really is ‘ground zero’ in terms of developing a model of what should be the response from around the state.”

With multiple agencies – including the Coastal Commission – having hands in permitting response actions, the concept of a Joint Powers Authority emerged. “They didn’t want to leave it to a fragmented, piecemeal approach,” said Ford.

Supervisors supported the idea of forming a JPA for sea level rise response planning and supervisors Estelle Fennell and Mike Wilson were appointed to an ad hoc committee to work on it.

Wilson is a member of the Coastal Commission and he said Humboldt’s “frank discussions” of sea level rise are unique because the real estate value in other parts of the state “can be a deterrent” in assessing risk.

He added effective policy development hinges on a united front on the cause of sea level rise. “Tracking greenhouse gases and preventing them from being created takes land use policies and that takes policy makers that believe that humans are responsible for this,” Wilson said. “I think we have to account for that and understand it and believe it to take action in those arenas.”

Supervisors directed planning staff to return at a future meeting with a presentation on forming a JPA and what Fennell described as “a strategy for moving forward.”

The state is promoting what’s known as “natural shoreline infrastructure” as a means of protecting assets. Seemann noted that in areas with salt marshes, there’s much less erosion and damage to infrastructure like the bay’s railroad grades.

“Then we can look just northward, to Arcata, and they have a large marsh plain that is providing enhanced protection to that segment of the bay trail and the highway,” he said.

The marshes reduce the height and the energy of oncoming waves, he continued. He said a grant proposal has been submitted to “develop a design and test the feasibility of creating new salt marsh” along a one-and-quarter mile segment of the bay trail south.

COMPTCHE CELEBRATES THE ARTS!

Comptche holds its 15th Annual Art Show, including Hands On Demos! & Sales plus Tasting Valley Wines, Saturday, September 28, 2-6PM, at the Community Hall On Comptche/Ukiah Rd. 1/4 Ml East of Flynn Creek Rd. Good times to be shared in this welcoming town. Join us & have lots of fun on the 28th!

KATHY WYLIE:

Coastal Mendocino County residents may soon encounter U.S. Census Bureau employees knocking on their doors as part of a national effort to ensure a complete count in 2020.

The Census Bureau recently kicked off address canvassing efforts, a process by which census workers confirm the location of houses, apartments, shelters and other lodging to ensure census lists are complete and accurate.

Now that canvassing has begun in Mendocino County, it is important to let residents know that they will be coming into their neighborhoods.

For those who have doubts about whether people approaching them for information are, in fact, legitimate Census Bureau workers, there is a three-fold way to verify that they are a legitimate census worker:

They wear a badge with their picture and name on it.

They have a laptop with the census watermark on it.

And they have a bag with a large census logo on the front.

Veronica Meter, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Census Bureau, said information gathered during canvassing is used to develop the Census Bureau’s address list.

Residences selected for verification will be contacted by a census worker, who will ask a few simple questions to verify the address and any additional living quarters on the property.

It’s a separate process from enumeration, or counting every person living within those residences, which will start in March 2020, Meter said, when invitations to respond to the Census will be mailed to households on the canvassing list.

MENDO LANDSCAPE

UNJUST OCCUPATION

Editor,

The Unjust Occupation of Mendocino’s Forest Lands MRC and its careless use of poison in our county is an example of the built in failure required by high concentrations of wealth.

The Fisher family made their billions as slave masters who profited obscenely from the tryanny of sweat shop plantations. Global corporate capitalism, falsely called the free market or globalization, is a brutal system of theft only kept under control by the US military and NATO. The fact there’re so many billionaires is based on an unjust and failed economic order, and the terrible success of US global military oppression.

Having MRC occupying our county is similar to the bad luck of having the rude US military squatting in your land. Maybe we should take note of the methods used by many countries who succeeded in evicting our destructive, disruptive, and environment fouling bases from their lands.

Japan has been trying since WWII to remove our many bases from Okinawa, same for South Korea. The list goes on and on. People get fed up with massive pollution, noise, belligerent foreign cultural supremacist invaders, rape and plunder.

Maybe there’s a legal way to remove these careless mean stupid billionaires from this county for their lack of concern for the health and safety of the area and it’s occupants. MRC and PG+E should be taken over by the state and sued for their criminal malfeasance and hubris. Just say no to bad neighbors!

Ross Dendy

Elk

THE NEWLY EXPANDED POT REGS that the Board discussed last month are on next Tuesday’s Supervisors agenda.

One of the modifications being proposed is to allow pot growers to sell their grow sites, including the permit, a long-standing request that we assume will be welcomed by permitted pot growers. We say “assume” because the language, as usual, is legalistic and confusing: “The Planning Commission … recommended that the Board allow for the transfer of existing cannabis cultivation permits issued on parcels located within CA Combining Districts.” [our emphasis]

What does that mean?

Oh, here we are. County Counsel clarifies: “The language regarding assignment of CA Combining District parcels was changed in section 10A.17.070, but corresponding language in section 20.242.040 was inadvertently not amended at the August 15 Planning Commission hearing. The redline version of the ordinance attached to this agenda packet deletes language on page 17, in paragraph (E)(3); the deleted language is highlighted and in strikethrough. This deletion removes the clause regarding the CA Combining District in essentially the same way as the language was deleted in section 10A.17.070. The clean version of the ordinance prepared for today’s meeting incorporates this deletion. It also deletes surplus language at the end of the paragraph, which is also highlighted and in strikethrough.”

And that, Dear Mendoland, is a perfect example of why Mendo’s pot program is such a failure. They can’t just say that permits can be sold with the property. They have to lard it up with bafflegab. Your basic pot grower who wants to go legit enters the system only to discover that he's faced with reams of this kind of gibberish. We’ll have to wait until Tuesday to see if this insider planner/lawyer language is clarified but turning to the County Counsel's office for clarity is to dive head first through the looking glass.

---

MENDO IS SETTING UP YET ANOTHER COMMITTEE, this one a committee called the “Emergency Medical Care” committee. An existing committee with that title has existed for years; the re-make seems to be made in the hope that official-status will increase its influence with "formal roles and responsibilities.” (It could also give the Supervisors a convenient excuse to avoid urgent issues like the collapse of [ambulance] Exclusive Operating Area proposal that died last month when Ukiah withdrew.)

The impending end of the contract with Sonoma County’s Coastal Valley Emergency Medical Services which has become so unhelpful and expensive might also be referred to this committee for who knows how long. We’d like to think the Committee will not let themselves be used as a delaying tactic, only to be ignored like the rest of the County’s advisory committees. Among the likely members are AV Fire Chief Andres Avila and Medstar senior paramedic Terry Gowan, both of whom fully understand the problem facing Mendo’s fragile emergency services system and are not going to be easy for the Board to ignore.

---

IT ALSO LOOKS LIKE MENDO has finally figured out a way to buy back the Orchard Avenue property from Redwood Quality Management Company, which bought the property a few years ago with a special grant from the county that was aborted mid-grant before any construction began. The site is one of two primary sites under consideration for an as-yet undefined Measure B-funded mental health facility.

Consent [sic] Calendar Item 4i: “Ratification of Purchase Agreement, for the Purchase of Real Property in the Amount of $423,000 Located at 631 South Orchard Street, Ukiah; and Authorization for the Purchasing Agent or Designee to Sign and Execute Any and All Agreements, Amendments and Other Documents Related to the Purchase of Real Property at 631 South Orchard Street, Ukiah (APN No. 002-340-44-00), and Authorize Chair to Sign Same”

The item does not indicate where the $423k will come from. (Measure B?) Nor does it explain why the County has to pay for the property at all since it was paid for with tax dollars to begin with. But Mendo has never missed an opportunity to hand over large chunks of unaccounted for cash to Redwood Quality Management before —why stop now?

(Mark Scaramella)

CATCH OF THE DAY, SEPTEMBER 07, 2019

ABEL AGUADO, Ukiah. Controlled substance.

DANIEL BURKHART, Sacramento/Redwood Valley. Under influence in possession of weapon, under influence.

JORDAN BYRNS, Ukiah. Probation revocation.

JEFFREY CHENIER, Ukiah. Forged registration, paraphernalia, false ID, county parole violation, community supervision violation.

CYNTHIA DISS Ukiah. Under influence.

KENNETH ELLER, Ukiah. Unlawful display of registration, suspended license (for DUI), county parole violation.

GILBERTO GALVEZ, Fort Bragg. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

NICHOLAS GARCIA, Buckeye, Arizona/Willits. DUI.

EDWARD JOHNSON, Ukiah. Probation revocation. (Frequent Flyer)

HERBERT JOHNSON, Oakland/Hopland DUI-alcohol&drugs, misdemeanor hit&run, controlled substance, paraphernalia, false ID.

ERIC KOTILA, Fort Bragg. DUI-alcohol&drugs, under influence, paraphernalia, suspended license, probation revocation.

ERICKA LUMIERE, Ashland, Oregon/Ukiah. Controlled substance, disobeying court order, failure to appear.

BRADLEY MAXFIELD, Willits. Trespassing, false ID, probation revocation.

ERIC MCGUIRE, Fort Bragg. Criminal threats.

BRANDEN MULHERN, Roseberg, Oregon/Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

WILLIAM PIMENTEL, Nice/Ukiah. Failure to appear.

JENINE QUINLIVEN, Ukiah. Burglary, controlled substance.

LACEE ROSS, Lake/Ukiah. Parole violation.

NICHOLAS SAAVEDRA, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

BENJAMIN TAPIA, Wilson/Ukiah. DUI.

DIANE ZACCARIA, Willits. Controlled substance, paraphernalia, Disorderly conduct-under influence.

SEMPER FINE

by William J. Hughes

This is for all the former Marine Corps “grunts” who might have served at Camp Las Pulgas, Camp Pendleton, California, the gruesome high dry desert where we trained for the jungles of Vietnam.

Not the easiest process for getting back on the base. Just show my Purple Heart at the gate and I'm on? No way. There is a procedure on the web that I couldn't quite navigate, so I wrote directly to the base commander with all of my USMC specifics. A couple of weeks later I received an official letter from a full colonel Chief of Staff granting my request to come on board at Las Pulgas between dates in February and March.

Las Pulgas, worn-out and reopened in 1966, unused since World War II, Vietnam heating up, Marines ordered west to ready ourselves for much further west across the Pacific.

Visitors to the base must be accompanied by an active Marine. I guess it's all post-9/11, forever. Personally, I'm looking forward to meeting up with a current Marine to share my past, his present. I hope he comes in a jeep. Semper Fi:

I'm always in Los Angeles for Oscar weekend so since I'll be in the big neighborhood including almost Oceanside and San Diego I've added Pendleton to my itinerary, big deal memories of the grind we all went through, little to no time off base, Las Pulgas more like a post-nuclear blast site then an actual active base. Marines do more with less.

In 1966 I was a Lance Corporal transferred west from Camp Lejeune North Carolina all alone in the Los Angeles bus station. CHP motorcycle types and their high black boots, a topless pizzaria close by — lasting first memories.

Reporting in after a bus trip down, a long way from anything.

You former “grunt” Marines will appreciate the fact that I spoke with a Lieutenant Colonel and a Chief Warrant Officer in arranging my visit. I didn't know whether to salute through the phone or simply enjoy the turn of events. I enjoyed, but still, that saluting business.

I got an email from the Warrant Officer telling me there would be a "solid" NCO at the Las Pulgas gate to meet me from the 11th artillery based at Las Pulgas.

I-5 all the way down from my motel north of Los Angeles. I got my USMC with globe and anchor logo, longsleeved black shirt. "Solid."

First a stop in Laguna Beach — my Marine Corps brother — yes, him too — hung out here when at Pendleton — so I'm at the White House Restaurant & Bar where he hung out for my breakfast stop.

Laguna Beach is what the south of France or the Costa del Sol wish they were.

Okay, main gate Oceanside to check on Las Pulgas gate. Shotguns and 45s, nobody getting by. Okay, back up I-5 and there is Las Pulgas Road — got to be.

Young Marine, of course, at the phone booth entrance gate. Can't decide if I like the camo fatigues look compared to my straight up green.

He's all business, holding my driver’s license after I show him my official entrance letters. He's not impressed, holding my ID until my escort arrives.

And here he is, right on time, young, in his camos, in his own vehicle. Good handshake and in we go, into those now green hills that broke our backs, the whole south state all bright blue sky, crisp cold, snow on the higher hills, crisp cold surf nearby.

The corporal is from New Mexico. Wanted to be a force recon Marine — the baddest dudes that you've never heard of — but he couldn't swim well enough. He’s clerking, supporting; so I'm sort of a South Pacific World War II grunt compared to him.

And here it is, Las Pulgas, "The Fleas" — mission accomplished. And wouldn't you know it, the office the Corporal takes me to is in one of the old barracks where I had collapsed on my bunk, promoted to Corporal for staying the course.

Two senior Marines to greet me, a full gunnery sergeant and a second lieutenant, the gunny totally squared away, Tie, full service ribbons, power sidearm in duty belt. He is going to be my guide — like a bishop showing you a church.

He’s cordial and receptive to my tales, just a short walk past the worn parade ground, artillery reservists getting ready for a training exercise, all trucks and artillery. It all comes back to me as if it has never left.

The gunny’s been to Iraq and Afghanistan, more support than combat, so again, I'm a warrior come among them. Photos of each other and I've got all that I’ve come back for. He will drive me back.

I'm in the hallway waiting for him. He comes out of the worn out office (Marines do more with less) and says, "Sir, for you—" and, he's got a military folded stars and stripes and a formal written citation of welcome and thanks for me. The flag flew over the base just the day before I arrived. For me.

I'm speechless. I am. And I'm from Metro New York so that's hard to do.

Pride doesn't cover it. I'm sure they are proud that I made the effort to get here. And of course my service. Proud of my Vietnam service. Who else asks through the command for Las Pulgas? Proud Marines all around. Semper Hi-Fi.

CRAZY, DUMB & STUPID

Editor,

To Mr. Herald Prednander from Willits. You are a sick old man. You are crazy. Your brains left your head and gone down to where your bowel movements are and your bowel movements have gone up to where your brain should be. So you should just shut up. I hope you understand this. See, when you open your mouth to talk you have a bowel movement and when you have a bowel movement your brains go out. Think that over and choose your words a little more wisely.

How crazy and how full of bullshit are the people who believe in climate control and global warming? It's all a political arm to screw the American people. How dumb can people be to say some things? How dumb can people be to believe them? Dumb and dumber. Almost unbelievable. People are so stupid that they actually drive cars and doing stuff like -- I can't say how stupid these people are that believe this shit. California Air Resources Board. Millions and millions of dollars of trucks! MILLIONS! These people are just rotten liberal political advocates screwing the American people.

People scream about gun control but they don't say anything about Chicago and the mass killings going on there every weekend. Last weekend there were seven people killed and 36 wounded. Not a word. Not a single word. But if anything happens on conservative ground or any other area they scream gun control. People who believe in gun control are absolutely full of SHIT! It's not the gun’s fault, it’s the people holding the gun. The only way we will ever get the best of this bad deal is to be careful and watch what you're doing. Keep your head on a swivel and don't bring it on yourselves. Watch out for people who make threats with weapons that might be talking about going and killing somebody. If you think I do that, no. I might talk about getting rid of them some way but not by shooting them — yet.

Everybody in the United States to take a good long hard look at the people running for president and the things they say and how stupid they are. Cortez and the Green New Deal is absolutely completely out of this world stupid! Stupid people and dumb people and crazy people will believe what they are doing. The crazy and the dumb and lead by the crazy and the dumb and the stupid.

Jerry Philbrick

Comptche

ENOUGH

Dear Editor,

Really, it's time to say enough is enough. Either put that troglodyte Philbrick’s name on the masthead (I see Washburne has made room) and print his insane diatribes elsewhere in the rag or, better yet, relegate his National Socialist ass to the inter-web edition. (Or the compost heap.)

And Jerry, if you hate your fellow Californians and the people we choose to govern us so much, why don't you move to Montana or Idaho where there are thousands who think as you do? Join the militia and sit around fondling your firearms every evening, pretending you're not crazy as shit-house rats.

Dump Trump.

D. Bullock, Loyal Subscriber

Chowchilla

PS. Seldom have I heard such grandiose blather as that currently being spewed by "The Hebrew Hammer." Come to VSP, pal. We have a nice EOP cell awaiting you.

PPS. Will someone inform Pebs (okay, I will) that the insipid song "My Dingaling" was the biggest hit (go figure) that Chuck Berry (not Little Richard) ever had.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED VIEWING:

CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE Workshop and Live Reading With Author Katherine Factor

Children and their caregivers are invited to join us on Sunday September 22nd at 2pm for a very special reading of Choose Your Own Adventure: Spies: Mata Hari by Katherine Factor— an interactive middle grade story told from the perspective of the young Margaretha Zelle, an icon of the glamourous Belle Époque a century ago. Katherine will read while incorporating the groups’ choices to decide what happens right up until “The End”.

There will be a short Q&A after the reading, in which Katherine will discuss how her approach to writing a children’s book differed from writing poetry, as well as how it works to write a book with multiple storylines and endings.

Katherine Factor is a writer, editor, and educator. She has mentored young writers for decades. Awe, music, travel, and ancient cultures inspire her work—a likely outcome of avidly reading Choose Your Own Adventure books.

Sponsored by the Mendocino County Library and Friends of the Ukiah Valley Library.

For more information, please contact the Ukiah Public Library at 463-4490.

---

ART WALK UKIAH AT THE UKIAH LIBRARY

Celebrating our Agricultural Heritage: A Photography Exhibit from the Mendocino County Historical Society

On Friday, October 4th from 5:00-7:00 pm, the Ukiah Branch of the Mendocino County Library is hosting Art Walk Ukiah, Celebrating our Agricultural Heritage: A Photography Exhibit from the Mendocino County Historical Society.

This month’s exhibit will explore the Ukiah Valley’s agricultural past with photos from the Mendocino County Historical Society’s extensive collection. Pianist Charlie Seltzer will be the evening’s musical entertainment while guests create seasonal acorn jewels and peruse the monthly book sale. Refreshments will be available.

This event is for all ages, is free to the public, and sponsored by the Mendocino County Library and the Friends of the Ukiah Valley Library. For more information, please contact the Ukiah Library at 707-463-4490 or email lyonj@mendocinocounty.org.

GOOD NEWS, BAD NEWS

Editor:

The good news is that people are getting the message that public safety power shutoffs during extreme fire danger weather could de-energize the county for a week or more.

The bad news is that they are turning to diesel generators as a solution. Diesel generators are so loud and generate such polluting exhaust that they may not even be legal to operate in a given area. Carbon monoxide fumes from generators kill about 65 people per year. Gas pumps don’t work during power outages, so generator users will need to have enough fuel safely stored on site for the duration of the power outage. Transfer switches need to be installed in advance by qualified electricians.

There is an alternative. Portable power stations are silent and clean. They can be used indoors by plugging appliances and devices directly into them. They can be charged in advance from a wall outlet and recharged from a portable solar panel. They are price-competitive with diesel generators.

We can respond to the impacts of climate change (power outages caused by the risk of megafires) without making climate change worse by burning more fossil fuels.

Cate Steane

Santa Rosa

FESTIVE FUNDRAISER FOR WESTERN HILLS FIRE SAFE COUNCIL

The Western Hills Fire Safe Council is hosting a fundraiser Sunday, Sept. 29th from 4-7 p.m. at Barra of Mendocino Wines, 7051 N State St, Redwood Valley. The Back Porch Project offers a musical extravaganza with their foot-stomping, rambunctious music. Neighbors enjoy food, grill, drinks, desert, and an opportunity to meet each other and mingle with community leaders.

The Western Hills Fire Safe Council (WHFSC) was created a year ago to mobilize residents of the Western Hills and educate them about fire-hardening homes and creating defensible landscapes. WHFSC has worked on evacuation routes and communication networks essential for surviving a disaster. Working in alliance with CalFIRE, the City, County, and Fire Chief Kevin Jennings, residents have been clearing brush, cutting trees, creating the recommended 100-foot buffer zones and hardening homes. However, not all residents have the income to hire workers for fire-hardening tasks, or the physical strength to undertake these tasks themselves. Monies from the Fundraiser will go toward hiring workers to assist residents in fire safety precautions, including vulnerable populations such as elderly, infirmed, and low-income.

Come party with us, help build our fire-conscious community, and raise funds for this critical work. The more homes and landscapes that are fire-hardened, the better chance for survival for all of us.

Tickets are $15.00 in advance through BrownPaperTickets.com and Mendocino Book Company. $20.00 at the door

Charitable Donations Welcome!

Make checks out to Mendocino County Fire Safe Council and in the Subject line put Western Hills FSC

Send checks to Kim Huffman, P.O. Box 1182, Ukiah, CA 95482

Questions? Contact Jeanne Wetzel Chinn at 415-672-1580 or jeanne@beingwithwolves.org.

“No one of us is safe until all of us are safe.”

THE STEADY ADVANCE OF COMMON CONVENTIONAL POLITICAL WISDOM

by Jim Luther

If you once forfeit the confidence of your fellow citizens, you can never regain their respect and esteem. It is true that you may fool all the people some of the time; you can even fool some of the people all the time; but you can’t fool all of the people all the time.

—An American President speaking in the 19th Century

But just fool 40% of the people every four years or so and you can get away with anything. Plus you can get the 40% to forget that you fooled them, and you can even get most of the other 60% to forget it too.

—An American Voter ranting in the 21st Century

CNN'S CLIMATE FORUM SHOWED DIFFERENCES BETWEEN DEMS

2020 Democrats range in how they see nuclear power, abolishing the filibuster, and accountability.

thinkprogress.org/cnn-climate-forum-democrats-biden-sanders-warren-nuclear-goldman-fundraiser-d82db97b413c/

MARCEL PROUST WITHOUT THE YOUNG GIRLS IN FLOWER

by Manuel Vicent (translated by Louis S. Bedrock)

My destination was the Grand Hotel Cabourg in Normandy. After crossing hills of succulent pastures populated by moist cows, I made a stop in Rouen to pay tribute to Gustave Flaubert; in his honor, I had a Calvados distilled from Benedictine apples on a terrace in front of the cathedral that Monet had once painted.

Any one of the provincial women crossing the plaza might have been Madame Bovary. Later, during a long low tide on the beach of Deauville, horsemen galloped against the setting sun and there were swimmers surrounded by blond children and beautiful dogs beneath their orange beach umbrellas. When I passed through Honfleur, I remembered the music of Eric Satie. At last, on the banks of a misty sea stood the establishment of the baths, the Grand Hotel Cabourg, the Balbec of Remembrance of Things Past.

Marcel Proust was an asthmatic child in a white straw hat when he arrived here for the first time in 1881, hand in hand with his grandmother and the maid, Françoise. During his adolescence and adulthood, he never missed spending summers in the Grand Hotel Cabourg. Lying in a canopy bed, overcome by melancholy, he used to hear the brass orchestra playing waltzes on the bandstand. On the boardwalk of the beach, strolled the young girls in flower, Albertina, Andrée, Gisèle, and Rosemunde, with their golden braids and their golden cheeks.

At dinnertime, Proust would go down to a dining room converted into a remarkable aquarium. There, the aristocrats, the bourgeoisie with their rings, the ladies in their Pamela hats with fruit decorations, the little girls with ribbons, all swayed like exotic fish and crustaceans in an underwater phosphorescence. Sheltered by the night’s darkness, fishermen and laborers of the village would press their noses against the windows to contemplate the luxurious life of these aquatic fauna and wonder if the wall of glass would protect their banquet forever.

It wasn’t the social wrath of the poor that invaded that aquarium: it was the blood bath of World War I in 1914 and, later, the hail of lead from the Normandy landing by the allied troops in World War II.

By the time I arrived, the assault was being carried out by a hundred executives from a computer science multinational firm that had invaded the fish tank, all of whom were behind computers on tables that were shaped like horseshoes and were covered with notebooks. The executives were watching a huge screen that was controlled by an instructor.

But the ectoplasm of Marcel Proust seems to still be wandering through the rooms, chambers, game rooms, dance floors, the old casino theater, and the blue and white bathhouses on the beach. At the reception desk, there is a bust of the writer. While the receptionist was opening his file, a straggling executive entertained himself by caressing the mustache and dark bronze orchid of the bust with his finger tip. He didn’t not know the name of the writer.

—It’s Marcel Proust. It’s right there on the pedestal —said the receptionist, enlightening him.

—The founder of the hotel, right?

—No sir. Marcel Proust was a famous writer.

—I’m sorry Miss. I spend the day selling machines. I guess I’ve made a fool of myself.

—Oh no sir!

—Did this gentleman write something important?

—I must confess that i haven’t read anything by him either. We have the bust here because he was a good client of the hotel. I think he wrote a story about a madeleine.

—Really? As a matter of fact, I’ve just finished computerizing a factory that makes cookies, madeleines, and biscuits—to bring them up to date.

—What an interesting coincidence! Here’s your key, sir. Room 216. It has a magnificent view of the sea. Welcome!

The hotel retained the decadent splendor that clings to the bevelled mirrors, the frescos of dancing nymphs, and the apple-green velvet curtains. In the fish tank cafeteria, the old crustaceans—the aristocrats and bourgeoisie of the interwar period, had been replaced by executives, computer programmers, and electronics salespeople, who, after each session of work, invaded the halls and continuously spilled their laughter on the flowery carpets; slouching on the couches with a drink in their hands, they followed with gluttonous eyes the dark-skinned, bikini-clad girls that pass through the room, although, by then, not one of them was Alberta, Andrée, Gisèle, or Rosemunde, those young girls in flower who have disappeared along with the ghost of Proust.

THE CHANNELED SCABLAND

by Pat Patterson

“Our people are river people. Plateau culture is shaped by the big river—Nch’l-Wana—the Columbia and all her tributaries. Salmon, the river, the land, and all things related are so central to our culture that we honor and pay respect to them every year in age-old ceremonies.”

--Donald Samson, Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla

“Dah. . . Scabb. . . landdd.” the coffee barkeep dreamily rasps, her sky blue eyes on the faraway. I’d just told her we were heading northwest up to the Grand Coulee and I guess she’s tired of seeing coulees and, by extension, tourists drawn to them. Camped in a ghost town’s downtown storefront overshadowed by towering new grain silos, warehouses and railroad sidings, I took her for a home girl who likes spreading her wings. Not least because it feels so fine getting back to the nest where she belongs.

We talked some about the wheat harvest and she told how, once it really gets going it gets exciting, what with the high-balling machinery and the harvest gypsies camping out. Need a place to unwind after a twelve hour shift? Do it under the stars of a black night sky: make some music, drink beer, nip on some Bourbon and dance if you like. She’s always loved harvest time. Bringing in a bumper crop is one excellent way to welcome the winter (Odessa is just 90 miles south of British Columbia). Everybody expects this year’s crop will be a very good one and she’s confident they’re right.

“Me, too,” I second as Trish and I exit her store and step out into the soft morning light. We’d left Prineville the previous sunrise, we were 300 miles from home and, excluding the short stretch of the Interstate Freeway we’d joined just north of Pendleton and exited just north of Washington’s Tri Cities, we’d seen maybe a dozen vehicles.

Virtually the entire Northeast quadrant of Oregon is mountains and steep, grassy, hog-backed hills separated by deep valleys, canyons and gorges, and getting over the Ochoco Divide and Sutton Mountain and then twisting down to the bottom of the painted gorge dug by the wild John Day River means getting surrounded by spectacularly ancient, varied, rugged and beautiful terrain existing in all but total seclusion. Cattle and horses far outnumber the people and, even traveling the bottomlands flanking the river, you won’t see many of them.

My dad was a bomber pilot who re-upped after WW2 and, after spending 18 months in Munich, Germany with my mom and big sister, got stationed at an airbase outside Spokane. When I was a boy I saw a B&W photo of the three of them atop Grand Coulee Dam on the Columbia River, my sister cradled on my dad’s arm. I’ve never forgotten that image or lost the urge to maybe someday see what they’d seen. While I don’t believe monumental architecture is inherently beautiful—what struck me most about the Palace of Versailles was its obscene wastefulness combined with the ungodly vanity of kings—I had to see the monstrosity (twelve million cubic yards of poured concrete) simply because it was just a bit downstream of, and 800ft below, our main objective: the high and dry, 60-mile-long, miles wide and up to 1,300-foot deep and rimrocked Grand Coulee: ancient lava lands scoured out and blasted away by scores of gigantic Ice Age floods carrying 40-ton granite boulders out of the Rocky Mountains and giant tumbling icebergs out of Canada. Occurring between 18,000 and 13,000 years ago, each flood carried roughly 500 cubic miles of water moving at up to 70mph and, at its release point, 2,000ft tall (the water was impounded behind a series of ice dams destined to fail once pooling meltwater undermined and overtopped them).

Each flood picked up and transported roughly five cubic miles of earth to the Willamette Valley, the banks of the lower Columbia and the depths of the Pacific Ocean (the river mouth was 30 miles further west: a trench in the continental shelf now deep underwater). The biggest floods carried roughly ten times the combined outflow of all the rivers on earth.

One thing that’s amazing about the Grand Coulee (French for “channel”) is how straight it is. The nearby river and dry coulees are full of bends, here the floodwaters have straightened things out. Towering floods blast their way following, and creating, paths of least resistance. Riverbeds erode upstream: cascades and waterfalls retreat upstream. Up on GC’s vertical rims are the carved-out dimples of dry coulees (the deluges entered the channel from its head and sides) and the white stains on the red cliffs left by now dry or ephemeral waterfalls are reminiscent of the cliffs of Yosemite Valley notched with the lips of hanging valleys.

By shrinking distances, automobiles distort our sense of scale. By encapsulating us in luxury accommodations, they make it so we lose all but our visual sense which itself is radically diminished. We were made for living in nature and not to be boxed inside dwellings and machines. That twice a day a huge percentage of us are stuck in three or six lane “freeway” traffic: loners alone behind stalled steering wheels, their mighty horsepower hobbled and head tied, shows how far they’ve fallen. It’s like they’re wired for everything except real life: earthbound creatures born to use all of their senses: seeing, hearing, smelling, touching, tasting, learning and remembering.

I pull off the highway and take the dirt road leading into an empty Steamboat Rock State Park. After I cut the engine and we step outside, the sunrise silence washes over us. Total silence except for two red-winged blackbirds singing. I see lakeside trees and shallows full of reeds and that we’re at the head of a glassy pink and turquoise cove of a huge blue green glassy lake touching the toes of a huge, flat-topped mesa: one dwarfed by its rimrock backstop sprawling the length of the horizon. We haven’t been here but a minute when two white Sandhill cranes lift from the glass and take slo-mo flight as if to avoid disturbing the still sleeping air. Later, strolling along the fisherman’s path, we see a half dozen snowy white egrets and a solitary blue heron resting in the shade of a tiny inlet and, away from shore, trout jumping.

The previous afternoon, on the river below the Tri-Cities’ ports and shipyards at a place called Sacagawea State Park, we’d seen white California seagulls riding the wind and white California pelicans bobbing in the wide choppy river. Located at the point of the peninsula marking the confluence of the Snake and Columbia, we’d been wanting to get there and finally got it done. To walk where Sacagawea had led Louis and Clark and their band of bewildered seekers, to know it as a power place like all such in the world, except here extra powerful and no doubt a ceremonial site the instant the first human happened upon it, realized what he, she or they had found, and returned to tell the others what they’d discovered.

According to the latest scientific evidence, it’s impossible to rule out the possibility that when the last of the great floods washed through here—mega-floods came down the Snake River, too, Hells Canyon being one outstanding result—people witnessed it. And, if that’s true, then some must’ve survived. Within Washington’s the 2,000 square miles of scabland there are plenty of highlands the floods never touched, and you can bet those who survived to tell the tale told it more than once.

We see white California seagulls and pelicans at the glassy lake in the Grand Coulee, too, and I wonder at so much whiteness in a land of reds, greens and blues. White as camouflage in the polar and alpine regions, certainly, to keep cool in the more temperate regions an added benefit if, as some birds are wont to do, flying away to the next place when the time comes feels natural to you. These interlopers don’t go north to south and south to north. They follow the great river upstream and downstream, roosting or floating where they will. Maybe the ocean they’ve never known: maybe they’re river birds and always have been river birds. Maybe the ocean is just a feeling of possibility: a collective dream showing the way it’s supposed to be according to some, a story carried in the genes that remind them of how, why, when and where they belong. Having evolved from dinosaurs, they hold the wisdom of the ages. They can fly, they can swim and they can walk.

The coulee’s most famous bit of scenery is its belt buckle: Dry Falls State Park. During the great floods it retreated some 15 miles upstream and lost more than half its height. Still it’s three and a half times as wide as Niagara Falls and more than twice their height. Then, in terms cubic feet of water discharged per second, there’s no comparison. Ever try throwing a bucket of water into the face of a tsunami?

It’d be many more miles before we finally left the flood channel and rejoined the Columbia River. After crossing it and summiting its western canyon wall, northward we catch sight of the pinnacles of North Cascades National Park. A bit south of due west, the flat white cap of Mt. Rainer, at 14,411ft one of the planet’s great prominences, peeks over the lofty Pacific Crest. At Ellensburg we turn south on the interstate following the Yakima River and spend the night in Yakima City. The next morning we leave the interstate and mosey through the vast farmlands of the sprawling Yakima Indian Reservation, climb up the Horse Heaven Hills and then twist down and down before rejoining the Columbia at the head of the gorge the great floods had blasted clean through the Cascade Mountains.

After crossing the draw bridge over to Biggs Junction, we make a pit stop. Anxious to get home, we climb up into the rolling plains of Oregon’s breadbasket—creamy hog-backed hills with watercourses at right angles to the river. Up and up we go, then down into gentle swales, then up some more for 60 miles until we reach the summit that divides the waters that flow directly into the Columbia from those that don’t.

We stop to stretch our legs and take in the vast panorama. Standing 3,000ft above the river and 1,000ft above home, and we see all the Cascadian peaks from Mt. Bachelor to Rainer (a swing of 205 miles). Totally alone, we feel like we’ve got company.

WHY I DON’T BELIEVE THE 9/11 COMMISSION’S OFFICIAL CONSPIRACY STORY AND WHY I BELIEVE THE 9/11 ATTACKS WERE A FALSE FLAG OPERATION

by Louis Bedrock

These are just the ten top reasons. There are many more. http://www.ae911truth.org

1. The three World Trade Center Buildings did not collapse. They exploded and disintegrated. They collapsed into their own footprints as in other cases of controlled demolition.

Don’t take my word. Check out the videos. For example, check out 911 Mysteries: Demolitions

Office material and concrete were pulverized. Steel beams were shot 400 feet into other buildings.

"We know that it is strictly impossible for any building, much less steel columned buildings, to 'pancake' at free fall speed. Therefore, it is a non-controversial fact that the official explanation of the collapse of the WTC buildings is false." http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/…

“The buildings in New York were heinously, gloriously, dramatically…cinematically… exploded…

These buildings were detonated, violently, sending four-ton steel girders 600 feet and embedding them into the face of a nearby skyscraper. …

Watching the videos again and again, a sober viewer can see the buildings explode downward, upward, and outward. The mass of concrete that forms the top layer of each floor is nearly aerosolized. It goes up into a pyroclastic cloud, like Mount St. Helens and comes down to blanket lower Manhattan, making it look like the surface of the moon. These floors did not ‘collapse’. They were not there to ‘pancake’ at the bottom of the building in a broken stack as happens with buildings in an earthquake.

And by the way, the official version agrees—the floors did not pancake. The floors went away. The floors were made into dust and then thrown into the sky as toxic clouds. New Yorkers were breathing the guts, blood, and bones of the buildings for months and probably years.”

Official Stories, Liam Scheff, pp.40-41

https://video.search.yahoo.com/yhs/search?fr=yhs-Lkry-SF01&hsimp=yhs-SF01&hspart=Lkry&p=911+Mysteries--the+collapse#id=8&vid=058d88f0915dbedc363c6cc2dc05ad62&action=click

2. When a Learjet 35 carrying two pilots, golfer Payne Stewart, and three other passengers, went off course (everyone aboard had been asphyxiated from lack of oxygen), the plane was intercepted within 20 minutes. A total of five F-16s followed the aircraft until it crashed.

I find it impossible to believe that the two 767 airplanes that went off course for over an hour were not intercepted before entering NYC airspace.

3. I cannot believe that any airborne object, even a parrot, could penetrate the airspace of Washington D.C..

The formidable defenses of the Pentagon include its own missile system and a radar system employing IFF—Identify Friend or Foe. No one could have gotten in unless they were allowed in.

4. I don’t believe amateur pilots trained on Cessnas could fly a 767. I asked a friend, who recently retired as a pilot for Iberia and British Airlines, his opinion.

“No way,” he responded.

“For a guy to just jump into the cockpit and fly like an ace is impossible,” said Wittenberg, recalling that when he made the jump from Boeing 727s to the highly sophisticated computerized characteristics of the 737s through 767s, it took him considerable time to feel comfortable flying.” (Capt. Russ Wittenberg, U.S. Air Force – Former Air Force fighter pilot, who flew over 100 combat missions, and commercial pilot for Pan Am and United Airlines for 35 years.)

5. The 911 Official Report was a bad joke. It doesn’t mention Building 7, whichcollapsed because of magic. The story of hijackers taking over planes with boxcutters makes no sense and defies credibility. There are several measures pilots could have taken to alert air controllers of a hijacking.

6. That there were a series of military exercises and war-games involving aircraft attacking buildings on the same day of the actual attacks is beyond belief.

The war games (Northern Vigilance, Vigilant Guardian, Global Guardian, and Tripod II took place on the Atlantic seaboard and commandeered the defense capacity of this country’s mach speed airborne killing force sending them on errands to nowhere…Vice President Cheney was apparently in charge of ALL of the war games and coordinated the government's "response" to the attacks

7. New York Mayor and Mobster Rudolph Giuliani destroyed forensic evidence by sending the structural steel to China and India on ships in record time. 99.5 percent of the steel was then melted, after being sold at a bargain rate of $120 per ton, rather than the going market rate of at least $150 for especially high-grade steel.

8. There are eyewitness reports of multiple explosions by first responders and people who were in the buildings. http://www.911hardfacts.com/report_10.htm

9. Suspicious insider trading and put options.

10. The Project for A New American Century published a 76 page pamphlet called “Rebuilding America’s Defenses”. It called for a “New Pearl Harbor”.

"Further, the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor." (page 52)

PNAC got their new Pearl Harbor and exploited it for war profiteering, the destruction of several countries and the theft of their resources, and the forging and imposition of the repressive, misnamed Patriot Act.

Addenda:

1. What happened to the “black boxes” that contain recordings of flight data? Ground Zero rescue worker Mike Bellone says they were confiscated by FBI.

2. What happened to the more than 80 video cameras and the information they contain that were confiscated from buildings and businesses near the Pentagon?

3. Did P-tech sabotage communication between the FAA and NORWAD?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LDdRVthqQU.

GABRIEL GARCIA MARQUEZ'S '100 YEARS OF SOLITUDE' WILL BECOME A NETFLIX SERIES

cnn.com/2019/03/06/entertainment/100-years-of-solitude-netflix-trnd/index.html

PLANTING MORE THAN 500 BILLION TREES could remove around 25 percent of existing carbon from the atmosphere, a new study has found.

ecowatch.com/climate-change-planting-trees-2639092782.html

FOUND OBJECT