MCT: Saturday, October 19, 2019

• Wet Morning
• Hundreds Dead
• Detachment Clarification
• Recent Paving
• Henriette Amade
• Ukiah Power
• Evening Sets
• Crane Case
• Museum Party
• Fallfest Benefit
• Toxic Ponds
• Bell Springs
• Lucerne Castle
• Whales Breach
• Cannabis News
• Santana
• BOS Agenda
• Yesterday's Catch
• Limitless Mischief
• Falling Photo
• Comments
• Unfettered Capitalism
• Cannabis Appellations
• American Historians
• Really Rosie
• Texas Twinkies
• Psych Team
• Impeach This
• Appellation Standards
• Found Object

RAIN LIKELY Saturday morning before 11am with slight chance after 11am. Perhaps a tenth of an inch of accumulation, if that. Then mostly sunny but cool with daytime highs in the 60s. Light winds. Saturday night lows in the 40s. Cool temps will continue Sunday, followed by a clear weather and a warming trend with daytime temps nearing 80 next week. Nights will continue cold with temps dropping into the 40s.

"DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN" —the untrue banner headline of the Chicago Daily News the morning after the 1948 presidential election — was made famous by re-elected Harry Truman grinning as he held the paper aloft for photographers at his morning-after press conference. An equally untrue headline — "HUNDREDS DEAD IN HUGE QUAKE," which the San Francisco Chronicle published the morning after the Loma Prieta earthquake — is forgotten.

This 30th anniversary of the quake has provided the Chronicle and Bay Area media with a week's worth of reminiscences and where-are-they-now stories. The Giants had been playing the Oakland A's in the World Series so the sportswriters had ample material, too. If I had saved the Chronicle from October 18, 1989, I would hold it aloft for you and take a picture. Instead, a few retro paragraphs as dispatched back then to the Anderson Valley Advertiser:

In the hours after the quake, radio and then TV reporters described the city's three obvious disaster sites — the Bay Bridge, the Cypress section of the Nimitz Freeway, and the Marina District — plus the scene at Candlestick Park. The general impression created by these scattered vignettes was that a major tragedy had been miraculously averted. The earliest estimates of how many people had died on the collapsed freeway were in the neighborhood of 40.

Around 10 p.m. the broadcasters reported that the Chronicle was about to come out with a headline reading "HUNDREDS DEAD IN HUGE QUAKE." From that point on — such is the authority wielded by the mediocrity of the morning — "hundreds dead" became the accepted story. The national anchormen jetted out, with Dan Rather in combat fatigues. The vice-president came. The president came. They all shook their heads and put on grim faces.

The fact that the death toll was lower than initially reported was not quickly acknowledged. After a week Oakland Mayor Lionel Wilson let it be known that 41 people had died on the Nimitz Freeway — much lower than the sheriff's early estimate. (It was a true miracle because that stretch of road was almost always bumper-to-bumper at rush hour. Everybody who could get off early must have been watching the ballgame on TV.)

The Chronicle responded to the emerging reality by assigning William Carlsen to write a long, analytical piece entitled "How Estimates of Quake Dead Grew in the Media." Not a word of self-criticism did it contain. "Police and rescue workers" were blamed for issuing false estimates. Singled out for responsibility was Alameda County Sheriff Charles Plummer, "whose office gave out the most-quoted first estimates after the quake, which was that 100 to 200 may have been killed."

The truth is — as we all knew from the radio, and as Carlsen's piece begrudgingly mentioned — the earliest estimate of how many had died on the Nimitz was 40. This remarkably accurate figure was used in the Sacramento Bee's morning-after story. It was the job of the Chronicle reporters to make their own estimate by first-hand observation, or to give their readers a sense of the range of estimates coming from the scene (from 40 to "100 to 200"), which would have conveyed the uncertainty of the situation. Instead they took the high end of Sheriff Plummer's tentative estimate and made it definitive. They could have but didn't use a qualifier like "Hundreds feared dead" to hedge their bet. They were poorly served by the editors working by flashlight at their bunker of 5th and Mission.

The paper came out with a magnitude 7.1 exaggeration.

The Chronicle's lead story Oct. 18, written by two capable reporters, Randy Shilts and Susan Sward, asserted flatly: "A terrifying earthquake ripped through Northern California late yesterday afternoon, killing more than 200 people…" Nowhere in the article was it noted that some observers on the scene had provided much lower estimates than the one they chose to report as fact.

(Fred Gardner)

CLARIFICATION: AVA Reader Tom Madden — one of the Orr Springs Road/Comptche residents who appeared before the Local Area Formation Commission (LAFCO) recently to request “detatchment” from the Coast Hospital District – provided some important additional information regarding the reasons the detachers want to detach. Madden said 1) Only the “Comptche” residents with Ukiah zipcodes (95482) — which are closer to Ukiah than Comptche on Orr Springs Road — have requested to be detached, not the entire Comptche area (95427). And 2) the tax rate they object to — mysteriously not mentioned in the LAFCO meeting — for those residents has gone from a modest $15 per parcel to $180 per parcel under the newly increased parcel tax rate. Further, some of the Orr Springs road property owners have mulitple parcels, meaning they may pay $1000 or more now in parcel taxes while they are in Ukiah’s zipcode and seldom use Coast Hospital. Madden also notes that since the big tax increase, they’ve all been following the Coast Hospital’s financial situation very closely and can’t help but notice how top-heavy Coast Hospital is with high paid administrators that seem be taking a disproportionate amount of that newly increased parcel tax. Madden agreed that maybe from the outside it might seem minor, but for those hit by such a large tax increase when they don’t use the Coast Hospital with its apparently admin-heavy costs much, it’s worth their effort.

(Mark Scaramella)

GRATEFUL COMPTCHE RESIDENT:

It’s not often citizens want to PRAISE the county road department, but for all of us who travel Orr Springs Road there’s a big THANK YOU for recent paving. The area east of Shambala Resort was infamous for bumps and dips and ratty surface texture, but the county’s application of blacktop has been a blessing and you won’t shake your fillings in your teeth loose traversing a half mile. Good work!

(Katy Tahja)

HENRIETTE "HETTE" AMADE

1934 - 2019

Henriette "Hette" Amade was born in Surakarta, Netherland's East Indies (Indonesia) on January 14, 1934, to Ulrich and Wilhelmina Amade. She survived two prison camps on the island of Java during World War II. After the war in 1949 she moved with her family to the Netherlands. In 1953, at 19 years old, she joined the Netherlands Royal Air Force where she achieved the rank of 1st Lieutenant. Hette was the first female officer to serve as Air Traffic Controller and was honorably discharged in 1962 after ten years of service.

While serving in the Air Force, Hette became an avid sailplane pilot who worked as a flight instructor at the local soaring club in Terlet near Gilze Rijen air base. These are what Hette called her "glory days." In 1961 she placed 2nd in the Netherlands National Soaring Championships, which lasted several days and included such challenges as flying a sailplane for 8.5 hours. When she left the Air Force, Hette held all the records for female Netherland's soaring pilots including altitude, endurance, and distance.

Hette followed her passion to be a sailplane flight instructor and immigrated to California, where she met her husband, James R. Freese. They had four children and ultimately moved to Potter Valley, Mendocino County in 1972 where she lived in her dream home, a small ranch overlooking the valley. Hette brought up her children to be heavily involved in livestock. They raised cows, sheep, rabbits, chickens, horses, goats, and pigs and she served consistently as a 4-H project and community leader. She inspired many, including her daughters, with a solid foundation in responsibility, hard work, leadership, and daring to achieve goals. During this time, she also worked as the Chemistry and Biology Lab Technician at Mendocino College, a job that spanned more than twenty years. After her children grew up, Hette achieved a bachelor's degree in Zoology from U.C. Davis and returned to flying as a sailplane flight instructor and tow pilot. She lived the last fifteen years of her life avidly painting, raising sheep and dogs, traveling to Indonesia and the Netherlands, as well as being a loving and inspiring "Omi" to her grandchildren.

On October 5, 2019, Hette passed peacefully in her daughter's home in Potter Valley surrounded by her daughters and one of her granddaughters. She is survived by a large and loving family. Her daughters Karin Hennings, Diane (Paul) Johnson, and Mary Ellen Amade (Alex) Melkumian, her stepson James C. Freese and her eight grandchildren: Chayton Johnson, Chesney Johnson, Nicholas Hennings, Cooper Johnson, Katherine Hennings, Chancelyn Johnson, Armand Melkumian, and Yasmine Melkumian. She is pre-deceased by her daughter Jeannette Freese and her former husband James R. Freese.

A celebration of her life will be held in Potter Valley at the Johnson's home at 9550 Main Street on October 26th starting at 2:00 pm. All who knew her are welcome to attend. There will be an exhibition of her art, flying awards, and family photos. A perpetual award will be established in her name at the Redwood Empire Fair to celebrate youth sheep breeding. In lieu of flowers contributions to this award are welcome.

PUBLIC SAFETY POWER SHUTOFF - WHY DIDN’T UKIAH LOSE POWER?

by Justine Frederiksen

Though many of its immediate neighbors to the north, south and east lost power last week during Pacific Gas and Electric’s massive Public Safety Power Shutoff, the city of Ukiah never went dark.

When asked this week why city residents still had power while residents just to the south in Hopland or just to the east in Rogina Heights did not, Ukiah Electric Utility Director Mel Grandi said it was all about wind and hills.

“Because the city is in a valley, we were not expected to get the same strength winds as were forecast in other areas,” said Grandi, explaining that while the large transmission lines coming from Williams that usually feed Lake County, Ukiah, Willits and Fort Bragg were turned off by PG&E last week, Ukiah, Willits and Fort Bragg were still energized because “we were all switched to a distribution line further south that comes from Santa Rosa and feeds Healdsburg, Cloverdale and Ukiah.”

That line also feeds Hopland, “and their substation was energized because ours was,” but Grandi said Hopland residents still lost power because their distribution lines travel over hills and were subjected to higher winds.

“None of our nine distribution lines in Ukiah are on top of mountains,” said Grandi, adding that while Ukiah might not be spared the next time a PSPS affects Mendocino County, the way Ukiah’s system is set up means that if the city does lose power, it likely will be one of the first to get its power back.

While the shutoff was being planned, Grandi said he and other city officials “worked closely with PG&E” and were in near-constant communication. He said PG&E’s efforts to “harden its system,” by both putting lines underground and spacing them further apart, should help lessen the need for preemptive shutdowns.

“And we are also hardening our system,” he said, pointing to work currently underway to underground utilities along East Gobbi Street, work that was already completed on East Perkins Street.

“We are also using infra-red technology to identify hot spots and repair them, because any loose connection becomes hot, which can melt insulation and lead to outages,” he said. “So far, this preventative work has kept 11,000 customers from losing power.”

PG&E reported this week that it identified “more than 100 instances of damage found during inspections (after the shutoffs), including trees into lines and downed power lines. It is possible that any one of these instances could have been a potential source of ignition had a PSPS not been initiated.”

The utility also notes that “the vast majority of the 738,000 customers in 35 counties (affected) by the PSPS were restored within 48 hours.”

(Courtesy, the Ukiah Daily Journal)

EVENING SETS (photos by Dick Whetstone)

ATTENTION COLD CASE SLEUTHS!

Les Crane Killers Remain At Large More Than 7 Years After Murder

by Linda Williams

(January 3, 2013)

Les Crane was gunned down in his Laytonville home just after 2 a.m. on November 18, 2005, and his murder remains an open case today.

Crane was 39 when he was killed; he arrived in the Mendocino County area only a few years before his death.

Family friends told media at the time that Crane had arrived in Mendocino County with “$100 and a dog” after the passage of Measure G, the marijuana semi-legalization initiative. He turned this small stake into two marijuana dispensaries, one in Laytonville and one in Ukiah.

According to the official Mendocino County press release, four masked men armed with guns and a baseball bat broke into Crane’s home at 2 a.m. The intruders beat two persons also present in the home with the bat, while Crane was shot and killed. The motive for the invasion was determined to be robbery “as the intruders stole processed marijuana and US currency from a safe inside the residence.”

Crane's companions who survived the home invasion on County Road 307 were somewhat more forthcoming about the details. Jennifer Drewry and Sean Dirlam, aka ‘The Count,’ were asleep in different rooms in the home when the invaders broke in.

Drewry told the media at the time she awakened to the sound of footsteps as four to six men dressed in black broke down the front door yelling, “This is a raid, this is a raid.”

She said that first one of the men walked in and began to beat Dirlam as he slept; when she opened her bedroom door one of the men not wearing a mask hit her over the head.

“I was on my hands and knees praying to God, too loud I guess, so the one guy told him to shoot me, but he missed, and then I heard five or six other gunshots. I was too scared to look up after that, so I waited until it was quiet, and then I ran into Les’s room. He was lying there; he could still talk. There was a lot of blood.

“The Count was hiding, talking to 911. It had to be 15 minutes before anyone showed up. It was a long time I was out of my mind,” said Drewry to a Ukiah Daily Journal reporter.

“As he was breathing…after he had been shot several times, I asked him, ‘Who did this to you?’ and he said, ‘They came to see The Count today’.”

Drewry's arm was broken in the assault. She said Crane was shot in the back of his head, in the arm and his abdomen. Dirlam suffered facial injuries.

Several of Crane’s friends told reporters they were convinced at least one of the invaders knew the layout of the residence, and sheriff’s deputies at the time agreed with their suspicions.

In May 2002, deputies raided Crane’s property, seizing 5,000 marijuana plants and $6,000 in gold. He told reporters at the time that deputies raided him after he called police about an attempt to rob his house. Crane said they took all his information about the attempted robbery and then came back with a search warrant. Crane said at the time that he filed charges to get his marijuana and gold back.

Then-District Attorney Norm Vroman filed marijuana cultivation charges in October 2002, denying any prior agreement with Crane. Crane was arraigned on November 8, just days before his murder.

Anyone with information regarding the murder of Leslie Crane is asked to contact the Sheriff's Office Tip-Line by calling 234-2100.

(Courtesy, the Willits News)

THE BOARD MEMBERS of the Anderson Valley Historical Society are pleased to invite all AV Historical Society members, and all of our museum docents, to a Members and Docents Appreciation Party at the Little Red Schoolhouse Museum on Sunday, October 27 from 3:00 to 5:00. We’ll have food and drinks for you and a great assemblage of Anderson Valley folks who all share a love of our history and our beautiful museum.

Without our members, who contribute financial support that makes possible our physical upkeep, capital improvements, new exhibits and outreach, we would not be able to provide this great cultural resource to our community and to our county’s many visitors. And without our precious docents, who volunteer weekend afternoons to serve as such knowledgeable and gracious hosts, our museum would not be the welcoming, accessible spot that it has been for so many years.

Non-members who would like in on the fun are certainly welcome. All you have to do, of course, is to become a member as you come in the door, or sign up to be a docent. So to one and all, this is a chance to get fed and feted as an AV Historical Society supporter. That’s what we call immediate gratification!

That’s all for now. Hope to see you at the Membership and Docents party! For more information, please contact Sheri Hansen at 272-7248.

RETRACTION REVISION

by Rex Gressett

Over the last two weeks, thousands of people in our small community of Fort Bragg have read about Georgia Pacific’s threat to bring down the city's financial house of cards. In a leaked private letter to exMayor Lindy Peters, GP claimed that Fort Bragg is on the hook for half the cleanup of the mill ponds. If GP’s assertions are true it could explain a few things.

You won't get the explanation from Lindy Peters. Officially he is not answering any questions. No interviews, no emails. But in faraway offices, powerful bureaucrats were reading the article right along with you and apparently freaking out. Barbara Zumwalt, top administrator for the Fort Bragg mill site cleanup, threatened legal action.

Zeroing in on one sentence she pointed out that the sentence lacked scientific precision. I said that it was DTSC’s determination if people "did not walk past the pond more than (I think it was) two times a week they probably would not get cancer," a fair characterization of a firehose of convoluted equations interpretations and quasi informational spin. Nobody could untangle it. There were a hell of a lot of dire warnings. If you increase your exposure to pond 4 from 12 days a year to 50 days a year you have a 400% increased chance of getting cancer.

And worse, Pond 4 is the safest pond, 7 and 8 are many times more toxic.

I was not inaccurate but I was as confused as the rest of us by the firehose of numbers, exponents and public relations spin. Mostly like the rest of Fort Bragg I was trying to get to the bottom of their decision to fence off the mill ponds/wetlands forever.

Spinning the risk factor in her email to the AVA demanding a retraction, Ms. Zumwalt said DTSC evaluations determined that being near the ponds presents no risk to human health (a clearly inaccurate assertion). She continued, It is only if people disregard the fences and enter the ponds that they face a slightly elevated cancer risk by coming into contact with the sediment.

Actually, that’s not accurate either. Going into the mud would increase your risk but not going into the mud does not eliminate it. The fences will be there for a reason. The wallowing in the mud argument is a recent addition to DTSC spin, floated after public reaction brought them back to the city in repentance of their too candid first disclosures.

It all started in 2017 when DTSC said they were done with the mill ponds. Screw cleaning up a wetland in the heart of the city even if it is in the middle of Fort Braggs's most popular park. Fence it off.

The people of the city reacted with understated wrath. The City Council reacted with explicit policy passing a resolution that demanded a full cleanup and the “dismantling” of the ponds. GP fired back privately to Mayor Lindy Peters reminding the Mayor that the city had a deal with GP to pay for any mill pond cleanup. The council resolution was instantly a massive embarrassment.

Marie Jones took the City Council resolution to a not-public meeting with DTSC and a collection of suits that called themselves the Agency Stakeholders. She didn’t tell anyone she was going except possibly her boss, Linda Ruffing. She definitely did not tell the City Council. GP was heavily invested in extensive lobbying of course, and the Stakeholder Agency meeting was GP’s big chance to wrap up the cleanup.

DTSC, the state's blue-ribbon agency entrusted by the people with their protection from toxic exposure, signed on to a GP proposal that left the toxins where they are and only required GP to construct a dam to keep the toxic mud from leaching out into the ocean. Game over. Everyone went out for drinks (one supposes).

Marie Jones quietly filed the City Council resolution in the circular file. She said she did not report at all to the Council. We know she did not tell the people of the city. The plan for a toxic containment dam fell through when the state started planning for sea-level rise. The best-laid plans of mice and men, and even of mega-corporations and so forth. Nobody knows what the next move is.

Suffice to say GP still wants out of the cleanup. They claim they have spent $38 million doing it. DTSC clearly wants the same thing. Ms. Zumwalt is suggesting that Fort Bragg should go along without quibbling and I should shut up. Practically speaking it is DTSC’s position that a little fencing will solve whatever problems with carcinogenic toxins still exist. That’s bad. When the agencies that protect us from the corporations and the corporations that don’t have to care are on the same side we only have the City Council and ourselves to protect our interests. Once the Council tried to demand a clean up that would allow public access to the wetlands. GP slapped them down. If the city is hiding a deal with GP we are screwed.

Maybe the leaked GP letter actually clarifies why the City's current plan is to keep two-thirds of the mill site a fenced off, undeveloped, a wasteland of rubble forever. Understandably the Council does not talk about the Local Coastal Plan (LCP) in those terms but that’s exactly what it gives us. Maybe that one leaked page gives us a hint of why DTSC is still demanding that Fort Bragg keep what could be verdant wildlife-filled wetlands in the heart of the city permanently fenced off. Keeping us off the mill site is the common thread. Maybe the City Council, DTSC and GP have it all worked out.

BELL SPRINGS HOTEL [photo from the collection of the J. Johnson family]

LUCERNE, LAKE COUNTY'S SWISS VILLAGE

Re: Professor Cosmos’s comment late last evening, on the October 17, 2019, on-line AVA edition:

"I have been following the developing classes and monthly speakers at the New Paradigm College since the start and it seems viable as a vehicle not only for quality education but community regeneration. It is located at the Lucerne Castle in Lucerne. They are trying to crowdfund. So far, I have only heard one local radio station report on NPC, so let the word get out, pass it on: https://npc2020.causevox.com/blog/any-29647”

Betsy Cawn replies:

The NPC utilization of the former hotel in Lucerne is a community service for the “woke” and literati in Lake County, but it is not, nor has it ever been, a “castle.” The use of this romanticism by marketeers and “branding” experts is an affront to the residents of the second-largest “severely economically disadvantaged” population center in this county, which has only recently discovered that the absence of communication services — such as delivery of FCC-regulated Emergency Alert System bulletins in the event of predicted weather-related disasters by the National Weather Service — impedes the ability of residents to safely navigate our highways and byways during extreme weather situations, as well as their contact with local emergency service providers.

The cost of utilities alone, for the former “hotel” (which operated as such for only one year after its construction), is ~$78,000 per year. Participation in the monthly delivery of “wisdom” from creators of futuristic social system thinkers, plus subscription to vaguely useful curricula, will not fund a “college” that educates practical public administration and social services management leaders in this entrenched, retrograde backwater, but it means well.

The previous iteration of this “higher education” model, created as an extension of Marymount College (a Catholic — thus “charitable” — institution), graduated a handful of new local Bachelor of Arts students, whose contribution to the improvement of local “community regeneration” is marginal at best. Meanwhile, the fruits of the County of Lake Redevelopment Agency that were intended to draw higher levels of business investment and displace the “blight” of very low income residential occupancy in what was intended (circa 1950) to be a glamorous, golf-course-based retirement community, complete with promenade (13th Avenue), new shoreline attractions, and off-highway residential comforts, have yet to occur.

The “town” of Lucerne (named by the county’s fantasists as the “Switzerland of America”) is plagued by vandalism, abuse (of many kinds), homelessness, addiction (ditto), and general depravity — an older adult who was beaten severely by neighboring thugs was unable to get the county’s District Attorney to prosecute the perpetrators, even with witnesses and documented injuries, and the loss of respectable citizens of his ilk are the visible results of management lassitude that are the purported target of the new “paradigm” institute.

The paying public has sunk around $6 million into the purchase and refurbishment of the Lucerne Hotel, leaving still needed upgrades with costs estimated as $3 million to bring its unusable space up to health and safety code standards. Along with the highly questionable purchase of the Nice “marina” — which needed $2 million in repairs at the time of its sale, to the county — and the failure to maintain the Lucerne harbor facilities — the community lost its only dedicated “community center” (donated to the community in perpetuity) along the lovely shoreline, when an unfulfilled development proposition (from Day’s Inn) required demolition of the modest structure for requisite parking space and now sits empty, along with the adjacent property, whose dilapidated “for sale” signage has deteriorated beyond legibility.

And, after a decade plus of effort, the NPC’s executive director will somehow spin straw into gold with permaculture classes?

Think again, people.

The County of Lake holds an obligation to the public for its failed real estate “investments” and the cronyism that robbed Northshore residents of even its modest attractions when the wished-for makeover of the Nice Harbor/Marina into a “Cannery Row” model of upscale tourism faded from administration wet dreams.

[See the Lake County Grand Jury Report 2016-2017, Page 21: http://www.lakecountyca.gov/Assets/County+Site/Grand+Jury/Final+Reports/2016-2017+Final+Report.pdf?method=1

And that vacant hulk of an ugly former “Christian” academy looms high above the sunken hopes and dreams of unsellable parcels whose real estate disclosures include the buyer and seller acknowledgement that the cost of water services is astronomical, and the ability of low income residents to realize adequate revenue from selling their shady shacks and escape this poverty trap are slim to none.

Lead on, MacDuff.

WHALES BREACH WILDLY IN MONTEREY BAY AFTER MAGNITUDE-4.7 EARTHQUAKE STRIKES

sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Whales-breach-earthquake-Monterey-Bay-14542636.php

HEMP CANNABIS NEWS OVERVIEW

by Pebbles Trippet

Hemp Prohibition Ended In The Farm Bill

Hemp prohibition officially ended in the 2018 Farm Bill by lifting the ban on 0.3THC hemp or less. Republicans get credit for this as a singular achievement in an otherwise grim landscape. Cannabis prohibition remains intact.

Safe Banking Vs All Cash

The SAFE Banking Act has bi-partisan support and is an unofficial companion to the Farm Bill in the sense that Hemp Legalization needs an unencumbered field to grow economically. No access to banking services is impractical for an expected blockbuster. Mitch McConnell is behind both in a win-win for Kentucky.

Changing Marijuana's Schedule I Drug Classification

There is movement toward a 'federal reckoning on the dangerous conflict between state and federal law' that 'leaves federal regulators on the sidelines', according to ex-FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb. He proposes changing marijuana's Schedule I status, taking it out of the existing paradigm for drug scheduling, leaving the door open for 'uses outside FDA approval', such as 'vaping hardware' and control of 'THC potency'. The growing vape-related injuries, they argue, demonstrate the need for regulations, citing 'unsafe practices such as vaping concentrates' + 'contaminants in THCartridges'.

CBD vs THC

It appears the powers that be are considering ceding CBD as a non-drug in order to control 'THC potency'…perhaps 'outside of FDA-approved drug indications.' If federal prohibition will end in a 'reckoning of the conflict' between state and federal cannabis law, what does that look like? Several Democratic Party candidates plus Adam Schiff came out for 'marijuana reform with equity to have priority over industry stakeholders'. Be open to diverse opinion, make the paradigm shift inclusive rather than exclusive, is the standard.

Seeded And Seedless

How can seeded hemp survive in the seedless flower-friendly Emerald Triangle? There is currently a moratorium on cultivation of hemp in Mendocino County, while the BOS is tasked with figuring out how to reconcile seedless with seeded, how to share space and place. A tightly controlled large indoor facility in Willits is under consideration as a compromise, since a hemp ban in the cannabis friendly Emerald Triangle would be economically harmful, as well as extremely ironic. II's the same plant, different uses. Banning your cousin is uncool.

Forces Arrayed Against The Cannabis Community

Governor Gavin Newsom is providing state leadership to thwart a fair shake for rural weed, as we transition to legalization and complex regulation based on going after "unpermitted grows". He equates 'unpermitted' with illegal, but actually many of those gardens are non-commercial, i.e., not for sale -- permits don't apply. That does not make them 'illegal' or 'non-compliant'.

Governor Newsom provides bravado and troops, waving his tax payers' wand.

He brought soldiers up from the US-Mexican border where they were not needed to Northern California's famed weed stronghold where a militarized solution is the last thing we need. Do the troops know they're attacking home weed gardens, not criminals, and that they are not needed here?

Whose policy is this newly energized war against the cannabis community as we usher in legalization? All relevant agencies are arrayed ready to pounce for their pound of cannabinoids -- water, fish & game, health, agriculture, planning & building, law enforcement, local fees and fines, state fees and fines and the like. With no guidance and zero incentives, the stage is set for maximum exploitation of formerly prohibited people, gardeners, farmers and manufacturers, who want to come out of the shadows, but is this sunlight?

Satellite Surveillance

It gets worse locally. The Mendocino County Board of Supervisors has thrown itself into the forefront of the community conflict by promoting mass satellite surveillance and intrusion, curtailing of privacy rights of cannabis people, under the guise of “streamlining cannabis regulations”' with grows of every size accounted for by eyes in the sky. Why is this necessary? We need to change the underlying assumption that being unpermitted is de facto illegal and punishable. How can one think this is a model way to welcome formerly prohibited weed people after 80+ years of prohibition?

Commercial Permits Are For Commercial Activity — but large numbers of homegrown gardens are merely for home use, not for sale. Commercial permits are not required. There is nothing illegal about being “unpermitted.” It is a broad net for cultural cleansing, not streamlining.

Elders Councils Will Connect Us

We need serious cannabis policy and support networks designed to share ideas. stories, plans; to create our own long range programs to preserve cannabis culture and grassroots perspectives, combining those who've been there and those who are living it now into a bird's eye view. Elders Councils represent roots and connectedness, guided by steady hands.

As an amorphous borderline-legal community, barely accepted. Elders Councils will enhance cooperation, lines of communication and greater effectiveness. Try to imagine Standing Rock without an Elders Council that guided the tribe thru the ordeal of Water Protectors being fired on with water blasts, sound blasts, tear gas and rubber bullets as they stood unprotected in freezing water for hours. Elders Councils in each community will create buffer zones to guide us into the unforseen future.

ANOTHER GUITAR PLAYER IN SF. This time in the Mission, Cinco de Mayo 1988.

BOARD OF SUPERVISORS MEETING AGENDA - OCTOBER 22, 2019

The Board of Supervisors Meeting Agenda for the October 22, 2019 meeting is now available on the County website: mendocino.legistar.com/Calendar.aspx

Please contact Clerk of the Board at (707) 463-4441 if you have any questions regarding this message.

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PUBLIC HEALTH & SAFETY [meeting] CANCELED

Public Health, Safety, and Resources Standing Committee – October 21, 2019 - Cancelled

The Board of Supervisors Public Health, Safety, and Resources Standing Committee meeting for October 21, 2019, has been cancelled.

Please contact Clerk of the Board at (707) 463-4441 if you have any questions regarding this message.

CATCH OF THE DAY, OCTOBER 18, 2019

SCOTT CHAPMAN, Fort Bragg. Disorderly conduct-alcohol, probation revocation.

JA GEE, Clearlake/Ukiah. Criminal threats, parole violation, failure to appear.

SELENE GONZALEZ, Ukiah. Camping in Ukiah, probation revocation.

ALDEN LARVIE, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

ANGELIA LINA, Fort Bragg. Domestic abuse.

ANDREW MAYNARD, Fort Bragg. Disorderly conduct-alcohol, probation revocation. (Frequent flyer)

DIANA RODRIGUEZ, Ukiah. Domestic abuse.

MALISSA WARNER, Ukiah. Parole violation, failure to appear.

HARLEY WILSON, Ukiah. Smuggling controlled substance or liquor into jail.

THE FATAL LOOP OF RECURSIVITY

by James Kunstler

Here’s one big reason that America is driving itself batshit crazy: the explosion of computerized records, emails, inter-office memos, Twitter trails, Facebook memorabilia, iPhone videos, YouTubes, recorded conversations, and the vast alternative universe of storage capacity for all this stuff makes it seem possible to constantly go back and reconstruct reality. All it has really done is amplified the potential for political mischief to suicide level.

It’s a major unanticipated consequence of the digital “revolution.” It has gotten us stuck looking backward at events, obsessively replaying them, while working overtime to spin them favorably for one team or the other, at the expense of actually living in real time and dealing with reality as it unspools with us. If life were a ballgame, we’d only be watching jumbotron replays while failing to pay attention to the action on the field.

Before all this, history was left largely to historians, who curated it from a range of views for carefully considered introduction to the stream of human culture, and who managed this process at a pace that allowed a polity to get on with its business at hand in the here-and-now — instead of incessantly and recursively reviewing events that have already happened 24/7. The more electronic media has evolved, the more it lends itself to manipulation, propaganda, and falsification of whatever happened five minutes, or five hours, or five weeks ago.

This is exactly why and how the losing team in the 2016 election has worked so hard to change that bit of history. The stupendous failure of the Mueller Investigation only revealed what can happen when extraordinary bad faith, dishonesty, and incompetence are brought to this project of reinventing “truth” — of who did what and why — while it provoked a counter-industry of detecting its gross falsifications.

This dynamic has long been systematically studied and applied by institutions like the so-called “intelligence community,” and has gotten so out-of-hand that its main mission these days appears to be the maximum gaslighting of the nation — for the purpose of its own desperate self-defense. The “Whistleblower” episode is the latest turn in dishonestly manipulated records, but the most interesting feature of it is that the release of the actual transcript of the Trump-Zelensky phone call did not affect the “narrative” precooked between the CIA and Adam Schiff’s House Intel Committee. They just blundered on with the story and when major parts of the replay didn’t add up, they retreated to secret sessions in the basement of the US capitol.

Perhaps you can see why unleashing the CIA, NSA, and the FBI on political enemies by Mr. Obama and his cohorts has become such a disaster. When that scheme blew up, the intel community went to the mattresses, as the saying goes in Mafia legend and lore. The “company” found itself at existential risk. Of course, the CIA has long been accused of following an agenda of its own simply because it had the means to do it. It had the manpower, the money, and the equipment to run whatever operations it felt like running, and a history of going its own way out of sheer institutional arrogance, of knowing better than the crackers and clowns elected by the hoi-polloi. The secrecy inherent in its charter was a green light for limitless mischief and some of the agency’s directors showed open contempt for the occupants of the White House. Think: Allen Dulles and William Casey. And lately, Mr. Brennan.

The recently-spawned NSA has mainly added the capacity to turn everything that happens into replay material, since it is suspected of recording every phone call, every email, every financial transaction, every closed-circuit screen capture, and anything else its computers can snare for storage in its Utah Data Storage Center. Now you know why the actions of Edward Snowden were so significant. He did what he did because he was moral enough to know the face of malevolence when he saw it. That he survives in exile is a miracle.

As for the FBI, only an exceptional species of ineptitude explains the trouble they got themselves into with the RussiaGate fiasco. The unbelievable election loss of Mrs. Clinton screwed the pooch for them, and the desperate acts that followed only made things worse. The incompetence and mendacity on display was only matched by Mr. Mueller and his lawyers, who were supposed to be the FBI’s cleanup crew and only left a bigger mess — all of it cataloged in digital records.

Now, persons throughout all these agencies are waiting for the hammer to fall. If they are prosecuted, the process will entail yet another monumental excursion into the replaying of those digital records. It could go on for years. So, the final act in the collapse of the USA will be the government choking itself to death on replayed narratives from its own server farms. In the meantime, events are actually tending in a direction that will eventually deprive the nation of the means to continue most of its accustomed activities including credible elections, food distribution, a reliable electric grid, and perhaps even self-defense.

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

STANLEY FORMAN’S FAMOUS PHOTO of a Woman Falling From Fire Escape — 1975

Forman was a well-known photographer working for the Boston Herald when he attended the scene of a fire. What began as him documenting the rescue of a young woman and child quickly took a turn when the fire escape collapsed.

The pair began to fall and he continued shooting as they were falling. He captured them swimming through the air. Forman only lowered his camera and turned at the last moment when he realized what would happen next.

This famous photograph won Forman a Pulitzer prize. But its interesting legacy raises ethical questions about when a photographer should stop shooting and whether it is appropriate to publish disturbing images. It also caused many municipalities to enforce stricter fire-escape safety codes. So you decide.

ON LINE COMMENTS OF THE DAY

[1] The thing about the middle east is that before we went into Iraq, based on lies by Bush, Saddam Hussein was keeping the terrorists completely under control. If he thought somebody was a supporter of Bin Laden, he would kill him, his family, and probably everybody else on their block. Saddam didn’t want any competition when it came down to who was gonna run the country. If we would have left him alone, we wouldn’t have had to send our guys over there, or spend over 5 Trillion Dollars, or anything else. I was against sending our guys over there at that time.

After that debacle, it pretty much prompted the upheaval that we see now over there. If Trump had just left our guys in place, the Turks would have never attacked. Call me cynical, but I think he did it just to take the attention away from the coming impeachment. He’s used that misdirection trick before, and it has worked, but not this time.

You Trumpeters can try to spin it any way you like, but what he did to the Kurds was dishonorable. The funny thing is, there’s never been any surprise to me on the things he has done. From the time of the election till now, he has made no attempt to hide what he is, or what he was willing to do, and that includes the same types of betrayal he has pulled on members of his own administration, right along with the Kurds. He’s not trying to fool anybody, and you people all go along with it. All I have to say is: you’d better hope he doesn’t decide that it’s better for his family if the country disintegrates, because I believe he’s enough of a madman to do it.

In short, electing “W” wasn’t bad enough, you guys really screwed the pooch this time. Wait and see, this will not end well.

---

[2] It really is interesting times that we live in. I knew Trump would be the man to drive this country off the cliff at full speed while blowing off his mouth about his own greatness. However, at the time of his election I didn’t realize he would get so much help in reaching that destination from the corrupt system itself. Now we have two competing teams of corrupt, incompetent people fighting each other over who gets to press the pedal to the floor.

On one side we have team Trump opening his mouth and removing any ounce of respect or dignity this country once had in the world. On the other side we have team The System on full display showing us that corruption is its standard operation procedure and destroying its credibility. Decline and collapse aren’t measured purely in monetary units.

“LET’S TAKE A DEEP BREATH. Take a look at this opioid epidemic. You have executives, CEOs of major pharmaceutical companies, making tens of millions of dollars a year. And in this particular case with the opioids, they knew that they were selling a product to communities all over this country which were addicting people and killing them. And last year, the top 10 drug companies made $69 billion in profit. This is what unfettered capitalism is doing to this country. And it’s not just the drug companies. Right now, the CEOs in the fossil fuel industry know full well that their product is destroying this world. And they continue to make huge profits.”

— Bernie Sanders

ONE MORE SMALL STEP TOWARDS THE UNENFORCEABLE

Sacramento, CA – Consumers have come to trust appellation labeling with wine. The appellation system is an indicator of quality here in the United States, focused on specific geographic regions where the wine grape crop was grown. For years, cannabis farmers have been wanting to secure the same protections and transparency the California wine industry implemented decades ago.

Last week, Governor Gavin Newsom signed Senator McGuire’s bill – SB 185 – which establishes for the first time in history, appellation protections for cannabis.

Now law, SB 185 expands the prohibitions already in statute on improperly using county names for cannabis products to include appellation protection based on specific geographic regions and/or using any similar sounding name of appellations on the product label.

“This law will prevent cannabis manufacturers from claiming, for example, their product is grown in the emerald triangle, when in fact it was grown in Sacramento. The law takes into account the critical ingredients to a successful appellation designation such as geographic location, soil types, farming techniques and microclimates,” Senator Mike McGuire said. “Customers have come to expect truth in labeling in wine and this critical bill ensures manufacturers market products that meet similar appellation requirements with Cannabis.”

SB 185 was endorsed by Secretary of State Padilla, the California State Association of Counties, Humboldt County Growers Alliance and the California Cannabis Industry Association. Governor Gavin Newsom signed the bill into law on October 12.

(Presser from Senator Mike McGuire’s office)

“IT IS TRUE that I rejected election to the Society of American Historians, but I am no less a historian than those who are paid to keep the two essential facts of our condition from the people at large: the American class system (there is no such thing, we are flatly told) and the nature of the US empire (no such thing, either). Apparently, it is perfectly natural for a freedom-loving democracy, addicted to elections, to have bases and spies and now FBI terrorist fighters and drug hounds in every country on earth.”

— Gore Vidal

FINAL WEEKEND FOR REALLY ROSIE!

Don't miss our production of Really Rosie! Only three performances left!

Really Rosie is the genius collaboration from the writers of Where the Wild Things Are and Beautiful. Based on Maurice Sendak’s timeless children’s books with a score by Carole King. In this upbeat and imaginative musical, Rosie, the self-proclaimed sassiest kid on the block, entertains her friends by producing an imaginary movie based on the exciting, dramatic, funny (and slightly exaggerated) story of her life.

Before Really Rosie became a stage production, the Carole King-Maurice Sendak collaboration was a beloved half-hour cartoon television special. Inspired by Sendak's Nutshell Library series of children's books, the work musicalized classics like "Pierre," "Alligators All Around," "One Was Johnny," and, perhaps the best known, "Chicken Soup With Rice."

Really Rosie runs through October 20th at Eagles Hall in Fort Bragg. Show times are Friday-Saturday at 7:30, and Sunday at 3:00. Tickets are just $18 for adults, $16 for seniors, $10 for youth (17 and under) and children under 5 are free (with purchase of an adult ticket). Tickets can be purchased by visiting www.gloriana.org or Harvest Market in Fort Bragg.

Gloriana Musical Theatre, info@gloriana.org

PREVIEW OF A CST

To the Editor:

Julia G. sat fiddling with her pencil, waiting for all the teams to gather. The teams were new with only 31 clients between them with an overall capacity of 150 plus her 5.

She had four referrals to be assigned to the members of her teams. However, they had to go over all the cases to be sure that everyone was up-to-date and any problems could be brought to task.

The process was designed so that all the members of the teams had access to a licensed social worker.

Julia looked up from her notes, “Seems like we’re all here at last,” looking at Jean P. who had just come in. “I’m wondering, rather than assign the new referrals to any of you, that I might just start a new team. I have two interviews today, one a psych-tech and the other a BA level therapist from the Los Angeles area. It seems like our ad is starting to get some potential candidates for our teams. With that said, perhaps it is time to ask if any team member has a client behavioral problem to discuss.”

Jean was an LVN who had worked on the PHF (Psychiatric Health Facility) before it had closed several years ago. She had a BA in psychology and had recently been working in a Day Treatment program that had been discontinued. Jean raised her hand, “I have one client that refuses to take medication orally and seems receptive for an IM (intramuscular) route. She has had prolixin in the past before coming here and I am wondering if the doctor would interview her?”

Julie flipped through records she had pulled before the meeting, “Yes, I see that she had had good results with prolixin injection without tardive dyskinesia (relates to a movement disorder for those taking long term psychotropic’s). I can make an appointment with Doctor C., how about tomorrow at 2 p.m.?” Julie suggested. Jean flipped through some papers and looked at her appointment book, “Sure, I can make it.”

Julie looked around the room, “Anyone else?”

John R. raised his hand, “I have a client which I would like to get some feedback on. I will pass out a copy of the intake and my most recent progress note.” John passed his intake material to everyone. This was the process that each CST worker had access to which gave the client the best chance for treatment success, even though it is well known that many illnesses may have no cure, especially schizophrenia..John passed out the paperwork:

It was headed: Initial Intake for admittance to CST

Identifying Data: This is my initial contact with this 25-year-old Caucasian female who is approximately 5’5”, buxom, blond with a pallid complexion. She is dressed in appropriate attire for her age. She is admitted post status on a 5150 after discharge from the hospital to this clinic due to a serious suicide attempt for further evaluation and/or treatment.

History of Presenting Problem: Chief complaint, feeling sad last several weeks after returning from college where she was majoring in chemistry. She was in her third year and seemed stressed out over her workload. She revealed that a romance at college had gone bad.

When spring break came she returned home. One morning her mother found her unconscious with an empty pill bottle of an unknown amount and prescription. She was rushed to the hospital and treated. After her discharge to home a referral was made to CST by the hospital social worker who did follow-up on her case.

Mental Status Exam: This patient has some pressure of speech and often looks down into her lap. She is oriented times three and does not intend to internal stimuli. She is above average intelligence, but due to her emotional distancing seems almost retarded in affect. There is no evidence of memory impairment, confusion, clouding of sensorium, or other signs of organic brain disease or schizophrenia.

There is evidence of a major depression that seems to be brought on by an event having to do with her recent time at college. However, she will not relate the precipitating event nor identify any person within this time frame.

Treatment Plan: 1. Medication: Trial with Pristiq 50 mgm QD AM. 2. Referral to CST team for follow-up and assignment to a team member to complete intake process. 3. Therapeutic Community Group. 4. Monthly appointment with Doctor for six months, then evaluate. 5. Suggest home visits twice weekly to begin with. 6. Place on suicide risk list. Addendum: After three home visits Intake completed with the following treatment objectives: 1. Take medication as prescribed. 2. Attend therapeutic community group meetings twice a week. 3. Monitor blood pressure and learn biofeedback techniques. 4. See Doctor C. as directed. 5. No alcohol or drugs.

William J. Russell, BA Psych, MA.Ed,LVN

Ukiah

SB-185 CANNABIS: MARKETING

Last week, on October 12, Governor Gavin Newsom signed Senator McGuire’s bill – SB 185 – into law. It establishes for the first time in California's history, appellation protections for cannabis.

Now law, SB 185 expands the prohibitions already in statute on improperly using county names for cannabis products to include appellation protection based on specific geographic regions and/or using any similar sounding name of appellations on the product label.

“This law will prevent cannabis manufacturers from claiming, for example, their product is grown in the emerald triangle, when in fact it was grown in Sacramento. The law takes into account the critical ingredients to a successful appellation designation such as geographic location, soil types, farming techniques and microclimates,” Senator Mike McGuire said.

He continued, “Customers have come to expect truth in labeling in wine and this critical bill ensures manufacturers market products that meet similar appellation requirements with Cannabis.”

SB 185 was endorsed by Secretary of State Padilla, the California State Association of Counties, Humboldt County Growers Alliance and the California Cannabis Industry Association.

The statute empowers cultivators to draft petitions with region specific standards, practices and cultivars for their own appellations – so these groups of farmers are empowered to set the bar as high as they would like, for their own appellation standards.

It's important to note that SB 185 doesn’t compel any cannabis farmer to put any label on any product. The only thing SB 185 does is keep people from misinforming others about the origins of a cannabis product.

For more, please see: http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=201920200SB185

-- John Sakowicz, Candidate, 1st District Supervisor, and proud member of the Mendocino Cannabis Alliance

FOUND OBJECT