MCT: Tuesday, November 26, 2019

• Batten Hatches
• Bill Baker
• Road Closures
• Rainfall Predictions
• Bombogenesis
• Forecast
• McGourty Correction
• TG Plans
• Streetscene
• Doctor's Logbook
• Flying Boat
• Unicorn Shower
• Ed Notes
• Sharpshooters
• Verdicts In
• Short Week
• Behavioral Health
• Unstill Life
• Road Workshop
• Yesterday's Catch
• Responsible Drinking
• Armistice Celebration
• Gaslight Follies
• Assange Indicted
• Dem Disgust
• Healthcare Saboteurs
• Fuzzy Baby
• Cannabis Appeal
• Farmworker Bill
• Student Protest
• Do Nothing
• Holiday Trolley
• El Patio
• Ceramics Sale
• Family Gathering
• Austerity Shock
• Mountains
• Marco Radio
• Bracero Justice
• Found Object

ONE OF THE STRONGEST WINTER STORMS over the last several years is expected to affect NW CA on Tuesday and Tuesday night. Main impacts will be very strong winds to the coast and coastal mountains, high elevation snow, low elevation rain, coastal small hail, and very high surf with potential for localized coastal flooding. This storm will significantly impact pre holiday travel. Colder temperatures are expected through the end of the week, potentially very cold Thursday through Saturday. (National Weather Service)

BILL BAKER

Sept. 4, 1943 — Oct. 26, 2019

Bill Baker was born in Grayling, Michigan to Margaret Criffield Baker, while his father Earl Baker served in the military. Billy grew up in the Dearborn area, and attended college at Williams, studying Physics. He dropped out, moved to NYC to work in the Garment District, then took off for Berkeley CA where he lived for many years. He worked at Moe’s books, and after his first marriage to Bitsy ended in amicable divorce, he moved to Mendocino County.

During his early years on the coast, Bill worked for CalTrans as an Equipment Operator of gravel rakes, dump trucks, and bulldozers. He returned to college, earning several teaching credentials. In Lake and Mendocino counties, he worked with students from middle school up, teaching math and science, including several years of Remedial Math at Mendocino Community College. He helped many older students understand what they missed the first time around, like how to add fractions or borrow during subtraction.

Bill married computer programmer and teacher Annie Gould in 1991. Son Peter joined stepson Andrew. Bill and Annie spent 28 great years together, working outdoors at their pond and enjoying other wet adventures. Bill enjoyed writing, especially the classes and groups he was part of in Fort Bragg. He was an active member of both the Ukiah and Fort Bragg United Methodist Churches, serving on committees and cooking for fundraisers. He prepared a big pot of chili every week for Fort Bragg’s Hospitality House, and was known locally as “Chili Billy.”

Bill had many hobbies and interests, and fishing was always #1. He was trained to the rod by his maternal grandfather and uncle at their fishing resorts near Grayling. After retirement, he moved to Fort Bragg so he could fish on a whim, which he did. In light of the many fish he caught in his 76 years, it is fitting that his life ended with a fish bite. On a “bucket list” trip with brother Earl to the 10,000 lakes of Minnesota, Bill was bitten by a Big Mouth bass as he removed the hook. They ate the fish for dinner, and more than three weeks later the bite turned septic. After 73 days in the hospital battling the infection, he died at home. Bill donated his body to the UCSF Medical Center.

He will be remembered for his knowledge and intelligence, his kindness, big heart, warm hugs, humor, and his commitment to family, friends, and communities.

Two memorial services will be held for Chili-Billy: One in Fort Bragg on Friday Dec. 6, 2019, at 2 pm, at the Evergreen Methodist Church, Laurel and Corry; a second in Ukiah on Saturday, Dec. 7, 201919, at 2 pm, at Ukiah United Methodist Church, Pine & Smith. In lieu of flowers, please donate to either of the churches or to your local Hospice.

FROM SUPERVISOR WILLIAMS:

Due to the approaching storms, The Mendocino County Department of Transportation will lock closed the following road segments beginning November 27th, 2019 until further notice.

Fort Bragg / Sherwood Rd CR# 419 MP# 5.08 - 27.54

Ten Mile Rd CR# 506 MP# 0.18 - MP# 1.68

Navarro Ridge Rd CR# 518 MP# 8.82 - 13.10

Usal Rd CR# 431 MP# 6.26 - 24.30

MSP HEARS PG&E 'STAGING' IN FORT BRAGG FOR TUESDAY STORM

MSP received a message from a viewer Sunday saying, "Someone observed that PG&E is staging at the GP property/coastal Trail. I wonder what that's about. Any ideas? They wondered if the coming storm will be generating some winds. I don't know and was hoping that you might."

All we know is we saw this post Sunday from a person in-the know:

"Mendo and Humboldt, a monster storm will be hitting on Tuesday. Make sure you have gas, money, flashlights etc. We have not had a storm this size in two years. Also, we haven’t had any small storms so all the loose limbs and trees will give way. Be prepared and stay safe.'

On the MCNlistserv a person posted: "The prediction I am seeing is wind speeds up to 35-40 mph around Fort Bragg. Tuesday’s North Coast wind storm now on the event horizon of the shorter range models. Rapid cyclogenesis (aka bombogenesis) to 967 mb estimated prior to reaching the coast."

So, as the Boy Scout motto says, "Be Prepared!"

(Courtesy, MendocinoSportsPlus)

CORRECTION: Glenn McGourty does not live in Potter Valley. He lives on Old River Road between Ukiah and Hopland.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

by Anne Fashauer

I’m hosting this year and I’m super excited about it. It’s a lot of work, but I like to cook and make yummy things. I’m going to use some of the same recipes I used a few years ago that everyone liked and add a couple of new ones that sound good. I’ve got a couple folks helping - my sister-in-law is doing a vegetable dish and my daughter-in-law is doing a stuffing. Van will do the turkey on the grill, leaving me the oven to do the rest.

Tonight I’ll put together the shopping list and tomorrow I’ll hit the stores with my mom in tow to pick everything up. I’ll spend Wednesday prepping as much as I can and cooking what can be made ahead. I’ll also get the table set and decorated. Honestly, that’s my favorite part, setting a pretty table. I found some pictures of mums in arrangements that has me inspired.

I spent the day with a friend picking up a new horse on Sunday. We drove from here to Napa to get him. It was a gorgeous day - from the mists rising over Toulouse Vineyards as I headed to Boonville to the fall colors all around. It was a 2.5 hour drive with the trailer, so we got to catch up and exchange news.

One topic was, of course, real estate. Lately, when I’m asked what the market is like I just say “weird.” It seems like there’s no rhyme or reason to it, though certain things seem clear. No one wants to be far out and homes in or near town move fairly quickly. But one example of weird - I have a property that has been sitting and I’ve not had many calls or showings for a while. I called the seller and we discussed this and some ideas on generating interest. No sooner had I hung up that I had three showings scheduled. All we needed to do, apparently, was talk about it!

I hope you enjoy the day on Thursday whatever you end up doing. Hopefully we will have received some rain and the ground will be damp, the grass glistening and the air smelling like Fall.

Happy Thanksgiving!

YESTERYEAR’S MEDICAL MAYHEM

by Katy Tahja

Putting away research materials now that my new book “An Eclectic History of Mendocino County” is done I got to thinking about how I came to be writing local history themed newspaper columns and books. It all started with Mendocino’s Dr. Preston in 2006.

Docent at any museum and you’ll find its archives being presented with objects of debatable value. One man’s trash may be another man’s (or museum's) treasure…or worthy of a quick trip to a recycle bin. The Kelley House Museum was given a musty box from a basement in town of Dr. Preston’s papers. The treasure in the box was his medical records of dealings with Mendocino Lumber Company’s employees.

Remember, for 70 years there was an active timber harvest operation on the coast with logging camps, timber falling, railroads, mill work and shipping and innumerable ways to hurt yourself. There wasn’t a week that newspapers didn’t publish a short notice of who got injured (or killed) and how. So here I share Dr. Preston’s observations of injuries occurring while working for Mendocino Lumber Company.

Some injuries are obvious…but how do you go about fracturing your nose at work? What crushed the end of a man’s foot in the Caspar woods? How do you contuse an ankle…or your eyeball? What was a worker doing when he tore the tendons in his ankle? (He was given crutches and told to be back at work in three weeks.) Mill equipment put steam burns on one man’s back and amputated the end of a thumb on another man.

Puncture wounds were common as shreds of wood and splinters flew off the saw blades in the mill. Getting stuck between rail cars when they started moving crushed the life out of more than one logger. Hurt yourself in the woods? If you were lucky a bus on rail wheels designed to haul workers had a fold down stretcher in it so you could be shipped to the doc in town.

Dr. Preston did good recordkeeping. His logbook identified the injured person and the nature of his injury. There were notes on the actions the doctor took, and most importantly, when the worker could return to his job full time. A visit to the doctor cost two dollars and I expect the company paid for that. He did not list fatalities, only the walking wounded who came, or were carried through his office door. The tattered logbook was dated 1926.

I wondered how many of the men listed by name in this ledger were the grandparents of elders on the coast today.

So, for me, that’s what started me writing about local history…a box of musty junk. One interesting thing I did learn, that others might enjoy noting, is to always check out postage stamps on old mail. There was no value to Dr. Preston’s old Phi Beta Kappa magazines but there WAS value to the stamps on the envelopes the magazine came in. We sold the stamps at a later silent auction and made money from them so I now always save old stamps

NIGHT LIGHT OF THE NORTH COAST: Looking for a Monocerotid Unicorn

by David Wilson

Last week I was finally made aware of the existence of an elusive annual celestial phenomenon nicknamed the Unicorn meteor shower, or Alpha Monocerotids. So dubbed in part no doubt for its mercurial habits, the name is also eponymous for the constellation Monoceros, the Unicorn, from which the meteors appear to radiate. The constellation itself is faint and difficult to see, and the shifty meteor shower can vary widely in its intensity from one year to the next.

The Alpha Monocerotid shower occurs when Earth’s orbit takes it through the trail of debris left by an unknown comet at some point time in the past. It’s a narrow trail by cosmic standards, and we don’t always intersect with it perfectly as we ride our planet around the sun. This year Earth was predicted to hit the thick of it, but because the trail is so thin we would pass through it quickly and enjoy only a short window of possibly intense meteor action.

I’m not an astronomer, just an observer with an imagination. I imagine a comet’s trail of particles to be similar to a stream of water from a hose, except that it is fairly straight rather than bending down to the ground, and it’s not flowing because it was left behind by a comet rather than forced out of a hose. The debris trail is not absolutely straight, of course, as the comet is orbiting the sun, but still it is a path of particles that Earth passes through. Also, although water comes out of your hose in a solid column, the path of cometary particles is far less dense.

Now imagine passing a globe of Earth through the stream from your hose. As the stream of water splashes down onto the globe, so, too, does the stream of debris left by a comet. From the point of view of someone standing on Earth’s surface, this “stream” of particles will radiate from the point in the sky where the path is entering the atmosphere, which is called the radiant. What we see as meteors are the particles from the comet’s trail of flotsam burning up in our atmosphere. The radiant moves across the sky with the rest of the stars as the Earth revolves on its axis.

This year the Monocerotid meteor shower was predicted to be fairly intense, but our part of the globe wasn’t predicted to see the best of the action. The radiant would be far out over the Atlantic during the shower, and the show would be over before it would rise here on the west coast of North America. The shower would begin around 8:15 p.m. for us and only last about an hour as Earth intersected the debris trail. The radiant, located in the constellation Monoceros beneath and a little to the north of Orion, wouldn’t rise in the east until around 9:30 p.m., after the shower’s peak. I knew we wouldn’t get a view of the radiant itself, but I had hopes that some outlying “earthgrazer” meteors would still be visible for us as they streaked a glancing arc through the atmosphere.

But in the end, my own tale of the meteor shower would reflect only the chase of a unicorn’s tail.

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Additional reading:

The Unicorn, or Monoceros, is a “modern” constellation made in the 1600’s, not one of the Greek constellations: Read Ian Ridpath’s Star Tales for more information on it: http://www.ianridpath.com/startales/monoceros.htm

Sky and Telescope article on the Monocerotid meteor shower: https://www.skyandtelescope.com/astronomy-news/observing-news/intense-meteor-outburst-expected-alpha-monocerotids/

Reflections at Moonstone Beach. While we waited for meteors, a pair of helicopters skimmed the horizon as blinking dots sliding toward Trinidad’s glow. The rest of the galaxy hanging overhead didn’t notice us. Humboldt County, California., November 21, 2019.

Hoping with family members to see the edge of the Monocerotid meteor shower from Moonstone Beach, instead we came back with the makings of our next album cover. (Not really.) We saw a couple meteors, maybe, but we missed the shower. Humboldt County, California. November 21, 2019.

A few annotations to help you find your way. Trinidad, California glows to the north. November 21, 2019.

To keep abreast of David Wilson’s most current photography or peer into its past, visit or contact him at his website mindscapefx.com or follow him on Instagram at @david_wilson_mfx .

ED NOTES

HARWOOD JUNE, writing from Boonville in December of 1958: "…the days are hot and dry and not too cold during the night. About three weeks ago we had one of the coldest nights I have ever experienced in this area. It got down to 18 one night and sure did flatten things. After that it warmed up and has been that way since. The creeks are barely running on account of very little rain; consequently, the salmon fishing has been poor in all the coast streams…” Sixty-one years later, Mendo is again parched, and today (Monday the 25th of November) a brisk "wind event" presaged the first rain of the season.

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GRAIL DAWSON of Mendocino has died at age 99. A tall, courtly, old school gentleman of liberal perspectives, Grail and his wife Betty Barber, who survives her husband, anchored much of the frenetic oppositional energy characteristic of Mendocino County from the 1970s through the early 2000's.

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"TRUMP needs to lose the election, and badly. But it seems like a lot of Dems think that everything was pretty much OK until Trump took office, and if we can just get back to the status quo ante, everything will be all right. Add to that the fact that impeachment is making liberals celebrate spies, prosecutors, and heavily medaled soldiers—people no one on the left should have any warm feelings towards—and you get a serious feeling of derangement." — Doug Henwood, Left Business Observer

SPEAKING of derangement, it's long been apparent that leftwing fascists of the antifa type are, in their way, as bad, if not worse than fascist-fascists. There they were the other night in Berkeley howling for the ghastly Anne Coulter to be shut down. I think you'd have to go back a ways in American history to find rightwing mobs breaking up leftwing speeches, leaving out of course the rightwing terrorism visited upon black people over much of the nation's bloody life. Personal note: My own experience with being shouted down has come from left-fascists of Mendo and Bay Area sub-species, who always travel in packs of short, slovenly little things that look like a jail break in Munchkinville. I think it was Norman Mailer who noted that beautiful women always seem more attached to the fascisti than they are to the left, such as it is in its time of invisibility in the U.S. except for these antifa creeps. Maybe the attraction is to the rightwing's money. I can't imagine Melania running off with Bernie.

ON THE SUBJECT of fascism, Trump's denunciation of Schiff and Pelosi as "human scum" is, ah, setting the insult bar pretty low for "the leader of the free world." Of course Donny Babe gets it round the clock from every corner of the globe.

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THE GENTLEMAN to the rear of the room. Yes, you sir. You have three minutes to address the Boonville School Board. "Thank you, your excellencies, a modest proposal to please consider. Re-institute Arbor Day, never more pertinent than today as the temps rise on us unsuspecting frogs in the global pan. Used to be, said the palsied old fella to the five distracted citizens responsible for educating our nation's future, that on Arbor Day every little bas— er, every child, got a seedling tree to take home to plant, along with a lesson on how trees are the world's lungs, and the more there are the better the air we breathe, not to mention the net reduction of global temperatures even in the hot countries. Our Boonville campuses are darn near tree-free, which is a helluva note considering that the planet is on life support and the young people presumably educated in the medium security prison-like structures thereon are going to step out into a globally-warmed inferno, well, hells bells, school trustees! There are a bunch of places where you can get free seedlings so, like how about it?

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DAN REED, the personable Lula Cellars (deep Philo) rep passes along a scent tip having nothing to do with vino but unique to the Anderson Valley — the brewing of Boont Berry paella on Tuesday mornings out in front of Boont's Boonville store. I've noticed the vat, noted paella maestro Carlos tending the magic brew, and by golly tomorrow morning I'm a'gonna take a whiff my ownself.

SCENTS. Talk of which always reminds me of the gripping novel "Perfume" by the German writer Patrick Suskind. You'll never sniff White Shoulders the same again after this one.

THE 12 RUSSIAN WOMEN in this photo had 775 confirmed nazi kills.

CONGRATS TO TWO SANTA ROSA LAWYERS Who Try A Lot Of Cases In Mendoland And Serve The Interests Of Justice: Andy Martinez And Chris Andrian

The two trials started last week ended today, Monday, November 25, in a remarkable flurry of NOT GUILTY verdicts; the first in was the jury in the case that started last, the one in Judge Keith Faulder’s court, the case against Pablo Gonzalez, alleging three felony counts: Count One, a prohibited person with a firearm; Count Two, assault with a deadly weapon, a firearm; Count Three, theft of a firearm: All three verdicts came in: NOT GUILTY; this, after 45 minutes, which is generally reckoned a quick decision, and it is not uncommon for the press release composers at the DA's Office to maybe put too fine a point on the celerity of verdict when it falls to their advantage, suggesting, perhaps, that superior lawyering and a solid case always tells in the end; but when it goes the other way, and defense wins within an unusually short time frame (barely enough time to pick a foreperson) the prosecutors don’t seem to crow quite so loud.

AND THEN in the other trial, covered in here up to the point of the issues, two counts of assault with a deadly weapon, a .40 Cal. Glock, only the lesser count, Count Two brought in a GUILTY verdict and on the crucial issue, whether the defendant, Jim Nix, used the Glock to jab the complaining witness Pete Voldenik, with said Glock, in the chest multiple times; and it was on this point, on this particularly fine point, the jury deadlocked, causing Judge Cindee Mayfield to declare a mistrial.

A civil trial also ended Monday, and although I did not attend it, I know one of the Plaintiffs as my trusty Bartender, Lacy, co-owner of All Things Remote, on No. State St., who was suing Crush Restaurant over back wages along with a co-Plaintiff (whom I don’t know, but in passing, met her Dad in the Halls of Justice where he told me he was eager to go settle the matter man-to-man, so to speak, on his daughter’s behalf — there was a sexual harassment allegation stigmatizing the case), but Dad was told, by his daughter, he said, to stand down, and let the law take its course: the jury decided in favor of the Plaintiffs, and I’ll have some of the juicier details as soon as my bartender comes back on duty next week. Congrats to counsel for Plaintiff, John Henning.

(Bruce McEwen)

LEAGUE OF WOMEN VOTERS OF MENDO COUNTY MEETING IN CASPAR — BEHAVIORAL HEALTH FORUM

"The meeting will be held today @ the Caspar Community Center - 6:00 pm

Please join us for this important conversation. Learn where we are going with MEASURE B and with Mental Health Services in our community.

The participants:

• Dan Gjerde – CO-MODERATOR Mendocino County, Supervisor, District Four
• Ted Williams – CO-MODERATOR Mendocino County Supervisor, District Five
• Tammy Moss-Chandler - Director, Mendocino County Health & Human Services Agency
• Dr. Jenine Miller - Director, Mendocino County Behavioral Health Services
• Mark Mertle - Measure B Committee Member
• Emily Strachan - Vice-Chair, Mendocino County Behavioral Health Board
• Camille Schrader – Chief Program Officer, Redwood Quality Management
• John Wetzler - Former Chair of Mental Health Board & caretaker for an SMI family member."

FREE WORKSHOP on Improving Rural Roads for Watershed Health. Mendocino County Resource Conservation District and Pacific Watershed Associates will be hosting a free Road Improvement Workshop on Thursday, December 12, 9:00 to 4:00, beginning at the Lyme Redwoods Conference Room in Fort Bragg. Attendees will receive a copy of the Handbook for Rural, Ranch, and Forest Roads (2015) and the The Watershed Guide to Best Management Practices for Cannabis and Other Rural Gardeners (2018). Participants will learn about progressive road design and maintenance strategies to reduce road-related erosion-while protecting habitat for fish and wildlife. The goal of road sediment reduction is decrease runoff to streams within our coastal watersheds, with the added benefit of lower annual maintenance costs! The full day workshop will include a visit to recently completed road work in the Usal Forest near Rockport. The class and field tour will be led by Colin Hughes, Engineering Geologist at Pacific Watershed Associates. For further information, please call: Patty Madigan at 462-3664 ext. 102.

CATCH OF THE DAY, November 25, 2019

ZEBULON COUTHREN, Ukiah. Robbery, probation revocation. (Frequent Flyer)

JESSE DUGGER, Ukiah. Controlled substance, under influence.

SEAN HAMMON (See note below), Willits. Stolen vehicle, county parole violation. (Frequent Flyer)

KARLY HAWTHORNE, Ukiah. Contempt of court, disobeying court order, probation revocation.

CRYSTAL HOAGLIN-PIKE, Ukiah. Domestic battery, protective order violation, probation revocation.

JODI HODGES, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

ROBERT HURT, Covelo. Under influence in possession of weapon.

WILLIAM JACKSON IV, Ukiah. Controlled substance, paraphernalia, ammo possession by prohibited person, marijuana possession while driving, probation revocation.

RAMON MACIEL, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol, probation revocation. (Frequent Flyer)

LUIS PARRA, New Hall/Ukiah. Suspended license (for DUI), disorderly conduct-alcohol.

GONZALO SAEZ-MARTINEZ, Madrid/Ukiah. DUI, no license.

(Note) Sean Hammon background: www.theava.com/archives/68186

A VILE ACT

Editor:

Both ends of California have had an unpleasant welcome to the holiday season. Northern California dealt with the wind-whipped Kincade fire in Sonoma County while blowtorch-like winds in Southern California fueled the Maria fire in Ventura County.

Holiday gatherings will happen, nevertheless. Some drink for fun, to interact socially or maybe to drown their sorrows. Whatever the reason, take caution. Drinking has dug up many social evils. One vile act is driving drunk.

A drunken driver hit me when I was 16 in 1992. My hearing, talking and walking were damaged.

Alcohol rapidly moves throughout the body once swallowed. You aren’t to the point where you are falling off the earth, but you feel warm and bubbly. If you feel different, you drive different. A drink may be one too many. Buzzed driving is drunken driving.

Show appreciation to the first responders’ service by following laws. If you are a little tipsy, don’t drive. Taking busy roads or secret pathways to get home after drinking is foolish. Avoid dreadful consequences and impress people by having a sober person drive you. Do not end the year with an arrest or death.

Be the drinker who follows my words and saves lives. Happy holidays.

Lori Martin

Tracy

IMPROMPTU CELEBRATION of the end of World War I, downtown Los Angeles, November 11, 1918.

THE RESISTANCE DIGS THEIR HOLE DEEPER

by James Kunstler

“No, you don’t understand. It was the Russians, I tell you, the Russians!” And so, with a holiday recess for Adam Schiff’s impeachment soap opera, and news that DOJ Inspector General Horowitz will unload in early December, the media vassals of the Deep State are giving you their own turkey gristle to chew on: “The Russians did it! Yes, really, they did! Believe us!”

Perhaps The New York Times has hooked up to a direct line of Burisma’s product as they flood the darkened arena with eerie blue gaslight. Friday, they featured a story — Russia Inquiry Review Is Said to Criticize F.B.I. but Rebuff Claims of Biased Acts — geared to make readers think that the entire FBI FISA warrant hair-ball came down to one lowly lawyer chump named Kevin Clinesmith messing with an email. Later, Times reporter Adam Goldman, posted this howler on Twitter.

These truthless assertions are meant to let both the CIA and the FBI off-the-hook for opening the “Crossfire Hurricane” investigation on bogus evidence they furnished to the FISA judges. Both Goldman’s news story and his tweet omit the name of the company that packaged and retailed the Russia Collusion narrative: Fusion GPS — the company that Robert Mueller testified to having no knowledge of in his July House appearance.

That oafish attempt to get out ahead of the IG’s report was followed by, whaddaya know, a Times op-ed penned by none other than Glenn Simpson, the impresario of Fusion GPS (and his partner Peter Fritsch), The Double-Barreled Dream World of Trump and His Enablers, aimed at re-selling their shopworn Russia collusion story to distract from any attention that voters might be paying to Ukraine’s collusion in the scheme to overthrow the 2016 US election and the Bidens’ grifting operation following the 2014 CIA / State Department sponsored overthrow of Ukraine’s government.

CBS 60-Minutes joined the gaslighting rotation Sunday night with a reality-optional Russia Hacked Our Election story. This was another obvious attempt to deflect attention from the actual story, which is how the company named Crowdstrike, owned by Ukrainian oligarch Dmitri Alperovitch, cooked up the Russian hacking story in the first place. Crowdstrike, you see, had been hired by the Democratic National Committee, and their nominee, Hillary Clinton, to interfere in the 2016 election. Crowdstrike later became the sole entity that was allowed to perform a forensic inquiry on the DNC’s server. Somehow, they persuaded the FBI to not look into the matter. In other words, the DNC’s contractor investigated its own mischief. Does anyone wonder how that worked?

NBC joined the gaslighting brigade Sunday, hauling Fusion GPS’s Simpson & Fritsch on Meet the Press, with talking cockatoo Chuck Todd, to pimp their new “book” extolling the most excellent British spy Christopher Steele, the designated patsy for the notorious dossier composed by Simpson himself, with help from others, including Fusion GPS contractor Nellie Ohr, wife of former associate deputy attorney general Bruce Ohr, who funneled all the Fusion GPS “product” into the RussiaGate coup-stream. Two notes here: 1) the dauntless Mr. Steele has by now fessed up to federal attorney John Durham and flipped on his former associates, who made him the bag-holder for their deeds. And 2) during the Meet the Press interview, no one on-screen (Todd, Simpson, Fritsch) mentioned that Fusion GPS had been hired by Hillary Clinton and the DNC to compile said dossier, a curious omission.

Yes, I know this sounds complex and convoluted. Part of the media campaign this week is to absolutely confound the American public as to what happened the past three years. Obfuscation has also been, in part, the mission of Mr. Schiff in his impeachment hearings. And they may all believe that it is working because the numbers show that the public is losing interest in a story being made to appear incomprehensible at best, while it is utterly false at bottom (and at worst). In the process the American news media is committing suicide along with the Democratic Party.

The CIA, the FBI, the State Department have all been players in the coup to overthrow Mr. Trump and the news media played along the whole way. They doubled, tripled, and quadrupled down on their dishonest narrative and now they are trapped in it. They are desperate to evade responsibility for all this. Many people think they will succeed. Many people want to believe the story that Russia hacked the 2016 election to help Mr. Trump defeat Hillary. The story is not true. The perps are finally being found out. They are willing to bring the country down rather than face the consequences.

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

JULIAN ASSANGE DESERVES A MEDAL OF FREEDOM, not a secret indictment

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has been secretly indicted by the Trump administration’s Justice Department, “a drastic escalation” of the feds’ efforts against him, the New York Times reported. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has denounced Wikileaks as a “non-state hostile intelligence service” and labeled Assange a “fraud,” “coward,” and “enemy.” But rather than a federal indictment, Assange deserves a tweaked version of one of Washington’s hottest honorifics.

usatoday.com/story/opinion/2018/11/20/julian-assange-indictments-whistleblowers-medal-freedom-wikileaks-manning-trump-column/2055900002/

ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

I quit the Democratic party the night Hillary Clinton went on TV and declared herself the candidate. She wouldn’t even wait for the convention. It does not mean I became a Republican that night and I voted for a third party candidate rather than either Trump or Hillary. I’m sure many people shared and still share my disgust. I look at even the “smart” Democrats and hear crazy things coming out of their mouths. Bill Maher said in this interview with Larry King that a person wearing a t-shirt that says they like Putin better than Pelosi is guilty of treason!! A t-shirt. Here’s a link to the interview: youtu.be/ZCtiGIrT86Y

THE ARMY BUILT TO FIGHT 'MEDICARE FOR ALL'

The top health industry lobbies have joined forces to take down socialized medicine — or anything that looks like it. Will they succeed?

politico.com/news/agenda/2019/11/25/medicare-for-all-lobbying-072110

MENDOCINO COUNTY CANNABIS PROGRAM – CANNABIS TAX APPEAL NOTIFICATION

Date: 11/25/2019 11:00 AM

Mendocino County Cannabis Program – Cannabis Tax Appeal Notification

Released Nov. 25, 2019

The Mendocino County Treasurer Tax Collector is mailing out Cannabis Cultivation Business Minimum Tax Due Notices for Tax Year 2018 on November 25, 2019.

Pursuant to Resolution 19-372, adopted by the Mendocino County Board of Supervisors on October 22, 2019, if no cannabis cultivation occurred during the tax period indicated on the invoice attached to this notice, you may appeal the imposition of the minimum tax imposed as stated in the invoice.

To appeal, you must submit and the Department of Planning and Building Services (“PBS”) must receive a complete appeal packet by no later than 5:00 p.m. on December 16, 2019.

Your appeal packet must include:

• a completed Notice of Appeal,
• a copy of the attached invoice,
• any and all other documentation supporting your appeal, and
• the initial appeal fee of $341.81.

Incomplete appeals will not be considered, nor will any appeals received after 5:00 p.m. on December 16, 2019.

To obtain a Notice of Appeal form and additional information, please visit https://www.mendocinocounty.org/cannabistaxappeal, contact PBS at by phone at 707-234-6680, or contact PBS in person at 860 North Bush Street, Ukiah, CA 95482.

'CLOSE TO SLAVERY' OR LEGALIZATION? THE FARMWORKERS' HARD CHOICE

A bipartisan bill now in Congress would legalize undocumented agricultural workers—but also bring in wage-depressing foreign contract workers with no rights.

prospect.org/labor/close-to-slavery-legalization-undocumented-farmworkers/

HARVARD AND YALE STUDENTS STORM THE FIELD FOR FOSSIL FUEL DIVESTMENT

by Dave Zirin

The oldest rivalry in college football took a back seat to a 21st-century movement aimed at saving the future on Saturday. Hundreds of students stormed the New Haven field at this year’s Harvard-Yale game, aka the Yale Bowl, delaying the second half by roughly an hour. The students, who represented both schools, were protesting the universities’ investments in fossil fuels and Puerto Rican debt holdings.

This occupation of the football field started with fewer than 100 students, but then more protesters joined from the stands, creating a visual of more than 500 young people filling the gridiron, chanting in defiance as security encircled them. The crowd responded with a mix of cheers and extremely angry boos. After a rush by security, many students dispersed. Some remained and were arrested. As the on-field action continued, ESPN (which was broadcasting the game) cut away from the protest. That didn’t stop it from making international news.

The protest enjoyed the support of some of the football players, who wore orange armbands in solidarity with the struggle. Harvard’s captain, defensive back Wesley Ogsbury, filmed a viral statement of solidarity that said:

“Today, we faced off in the game, competing with our great rivals from New Haven, Yale. But at this moment, both our institutions continue to invest in the industries destroying our futures. And when it comes to the climate crises, no one wins. Harvard and Yale can’t claim to truly promote knowledge while at the same time, supporting the companies engaged in misleading the public, smearing academics and denying the truth…. That’s why we’re joining together with our friends at Yale to call for change. In solidarity with my friends at Fossil Fuel Divest Harvard and Fossil Free Yale, who disrupted today’s proceedings, many of my teammates and I are wearing orange wristbands, the color of the Divest movement…. We’re coming together to call on Presidents [Lawrence] Bacow and [Peter] Salovey, to divest from the fossil fuel industry now, for the sake of our generation.”

Josephine Ingall, a protesting student at Yale university, told The Nation magazine that this was part of “a long term strategy of escalation” of struggle at both universities. “Harvard and Yale are complicit in the climate crisis and have never instructed their fund managers to divest from Puerto Rican debt. We believe that business can’t go on as usual. Nobody wins when we’re complicit in crisis…. We have thousands of people sitting here in the Yale Bowl ready to enjoy a game and continuing to go about their daily lives as if the climate crisis is not actively encroaching, that it’s not already having a disparate impact on marginalized folks all over the world, especially people of color, especially people in the Global South, especially in places like Puerto Rico whose precarious position is being exploited by institutions seeking to profiteer off their debt—like Harvard and Yale are. We know we can do better. We see an opportunity to do better and we need to pressure our universities to do that.”

As for the scattered boos in the stands, another student protester from Yale, Jordi Bertrán, said, “I definitely expected to have mixed reactions, for sure, but I think it’s a sacrifice that I know I’m willing to make because I think our message is important and clear. Even though we’re privileged enough to not feel the effects of climate change to the extent that people in the Global South do, we want to bring this to attention to people who maybe won’t feel affects with climate change until much, much later.”

Both students wanted to make clear that this was not a protest for “weekend activists.” It was an event part and parcel with a much broader struggle to disrupt “business as usual” on campus, and they would be back. Sports, beware: This is far from over.

HOLIDAY TROLLEY IS AN ENDURING FAMILY FAVORITE

For 22 years, Mendocino Transit Authority’s Holiday Trolley has puttered around an hour-long circuit route through Ukiah, packed to the gills with children and parents, everyone singing along to Christmas carols broadcast on the trolley’s sound system. Before the hour is up, many riders will have sung their hearts out, rung the brass bell, and called goodbye to the Santa-capped driver who gave them a candy cane as they stepped down to the pavement.

The 2019 Holiday Trolley will begin its annual embodiment of old-time Ukiah holiday spirit on the day after Thanksgiving, Friday, Nov. 29, following a loop route from Ukiah’s downtown Alex Thomas Plaza to the Pear Tree Shopping Center, Slam Dunk Pizza on the north end of town, Walmart and El Azteca restaurant on the south end of town. Sponsored by Savings Bank of Mendocino County, Greater Ukiah Business and Tourism Alliance, MTA and generous small businesses, it will run through Sunday, Dec. 22.

“My wife and I have a warm feeling for the MTA trolley because we both loved Mr. Rogers growing up, and the trolley was always there to take you on a fun adventure,” said James Snidow, a Willits radio deejay who has brought four generations of family to ride the trolley for several years. “It doesn’t really matter what is going by: The good energy is in the trolley. There can be pressure around holiday time, so to do something that’s pure fun like riding the trolley and singing Christmas songs with the children, it’s a celebration. It helps.”

The “antique” green and red Trolley (it was purchased new in 1997) has big side windows, polished wood paneling, twinkling lights and garlands of festive greenery. It can be standing room only on board. Dawn White, MTA operations supervisor and former trolley driver, said the hardest part of driving the Holiday Trolley is sometimes having to turn people away when it has reached maximum capacity. Though patrons can catch a ride or disembark at many stops on the route, White said the best place to ensure a ride is at Alex Thomas Plaza.

“MTA is so happy to be able to celebrate the holidays with our community through the trolley, and many of our drivers look forward to it,” said Carla Meyer, general manager of MTA. “We applaud the generous local businesses who support the free rides that bring people such joy and holiday spirit.”

Look for the MTA Holiday Trolley in the Parade of Lights on Saturday, Dec. 7 this year at 6 p.m.

Mendocino Transit Authority provides safe, low-cost and convenient public bus service throughout Mendocino County.

PAY IT FORWARD AT EL PATIO

Editor,

There are wonderful people in this world. I am sitting at El Patio on 4th street Santa Rosa next to a park many homeless folks hang out in. A tattered looking fellow comes in. He says to the cook and waitress ," I just got out of jail and don't have a Penny to my name. If you can give me a meal I will come back and pay you when I can. I promise ". The cook doesn't even question him except to ask "beef or chicken" and gives him dinner. After the man left I asked them if I could pay for the man's dinner. They said no need and told me that people from the park come in often. He says if they have to come ask for food I feel they must need it. By this time I am crying. So next time you have a Mexican food craving come to El Patio and give them something extra to feed someone next time they ask.

They not only have healthy food options, they have healthy hearts for the needy in Santa Rosa ! Feel free to share this.

Debra Merritt Bruflat

Santa Rosa

HANDLE WITH FLAIR: Ceramics Club sale at College

On Friday, December 6, the Mendocino College Ceramics Club will host its annual holiday sale in the Lowery Student Center at the Ukiah campus from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. The primary goal of this event is to fundraise for student scholarships to help pay for art materials, travel to exhibitions, and to offset costs for visiting lecturers and demonstrators.

The works of 12 advanced students from the ceramics department will be offered for sale and will include hundreds of ceramic objects, from small to large and from simple to ornate.

This season, several Mendocino College clubs and departments including Math Engineering Science Achievement (MESA), Horticulture, and Culinary Arts will be offering food, wreaths and other items for sale.

For more information please call (707) 468-3207 or email gallery@mendocino.edu.

CRAIG'S TOUGHING IT OUT

A Few Observations from The Magic Ranch~

Exchanged messages with a friend in Honolulu regarding my Return there, although there is not presently sufficient money To pay for my spot in a pod at the alternative hostel on Piikoi St. Swami Chidananda said that God would take care of all secular And spiritual needs of anyone who acted without thought of self. Everything is gone but the automatic writing. 40 years of peace & Justice & radical environmental activism done. America's experiment With freedom and democracy offers me no place to live, and I am not Respected as an elder. It is insane that I am homeless after 70 years of Living for the sake of goodness. But do not pity me, because if you wish To see whom the joke is really on, look into a mirror. Swami Krishnananda said to me in India that there are only two ways to come to the spiritual life. You either come to it by your own free will, or you get shocked! OM Shanthi

Craig Louis Stehr

Email: craiglouisstehr@gmail.com

ZEPPELIN SPY BASKET

"And then she was in the sky! And he picked her up! And then she was awake again! And then…" -ecstatic little girl to her mother, walking past me, going the other way, across the parking lot of the theater multiplex and the FoodMAX, last Monday when I went for salad parts and oranges, cheap olive oil, etc. I had just been in the Salvation Army store and passed up a chance to buy, for a measly ten dollars, an antique pneumatic chord organ just like the one my cousins had in their basement in Ohio when I was six years old, and I'm still kicking myself about that, but it's not like I don’t have enough musical toys. I just love the design and the sound, especially the thrumming whirrrr of the air pump, and the way everyone in the place jumps and/or cringes and/or merely turns to stare when you hold down all the keys at once. But ten dollars is ten dollars, as you'll recall from the punchline of that old joke about Fred and Edna at the State Fair. I always felt that if Fred and Edna loathed each other's company that much why did they stay together so long in the first place… Ya know what? The instant I press send on this I'm putting my street clothes on and going back over there to see if it's still there.

The recording of Friday night's Memo of the Air: Good Night Radio show on KNYO-LP Fort Bragg and KMEC-LP Ukiah is available by one or two clicks, depending on whether you want to listen to it now or download it and keep it for later and, speaking of which, it's right here:

https://tinyurl.com/KNYO-MOTA-0360

This is a pretty coherent show, as these things go. It has a kind of flow to it. I worked hard and played hard and did a good job of it. That's what comes of a routine. Everything went right, including taking quite a bit of time out to help search for Juanita's Dickens Faire costume corset when she was frantic and stuck and late to prepare and unable to progress. It's the element that ties the whole room together, so to speak. I put my fingers on it in one of the stuffed bags and /knew/, and pulled it out and held it on display, and she was so incredibly happy, hopping-up-and-down happy, all better, the world wonderful again. “Now,” I said, “Kiss me like I just found your corset.” You're welcome to use that line in your own life; I'm not proprietary about a gift from the gods.

A lot of the show's break-time music is related to Shakespeare-flavored subjects: Shakespearean HipHop, Green Eggs and Hamlet, Tesser singing the famous Five-Minute Hamlet, Bluegrass Lady MacBeth, and so on, because of the show at Mendocino Theater Company's little theater the Helen Schoeni Theater in the middle of the Art Center in Mendocino, running 7:30pm Thursdays through Saturdays and 2pm Sundays, through December 8 (707 937 4477 for info and tickets). Also, if you get this tonight (Nov. 23) it's not too late to see the locally produced extravaganza /Aladdin/, not at all the Disney version but written and directed by Felicia Felicich of Fort Bragg and choreographed by Amanda Ficili of Albion, starring a bunch of the kids who were so great in /Really Rosie/ last month, and that's 2pm Sunday Nov. 24 in the Matheson theater downhill and across the street to the east from Mendocino High School.

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

We go forward. We go back.

http://tywkiwdbi.blogspot.com/2010/08/joy.html

You know how sometimes you see a recording of an act that's not going over well, for whatever reason, and the stereotypically ugly audience expresses displeasure by silent physical and psychic withdrawal, and the performer nervously jokes, "Tough crowd." This scene is what the polar opposite of every part of that looks and sounds like.

https://tinyurl.com/YeahTheyRollin

And there you have it.

Why Rick of ‘Rick and Morty’ Struggles to Understand the World’s Distaste for Highly Intelligent People

Marco McClean, memo@mcn.org, MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com

TIME IS RUNNING OUT FOR THE BRACEROS

by Jorge Macias, CALmatters

Oscar Serna is still waiting for wages he is owed from working in the farm fields of California and Texas more than 70 years ago.

Serna was 16 when he came from Mexico and was hired under an agreement between the U.S. and Mexico governments to work in the fields, where he picked oranges and grapefruit. Now 90, he already has started to forget things, but he remembers this: The governments put 10% of their paychecks in “savings funds” without the workers’ knowledge.

Serna and about 36,000 other elderly migrant laborers are still waiting to be reimbursed by Mexico, even though a court settlement was approved 21 years ago.

Sick with prostate disease, Serna knows he doesn’t have much time to keep fighting for his lost wages.

“Our money was stolen, what are we going to do?” he said. “They haven’t given me anything. They owe me my money.”

Serna was part of the Mexican Agricultural Labor Agreement, known as the Bracero Program. While American soldiers fought in World War II, about 4.5 million Mexicans were brought in to temporarily work in U.S. farm fields and railroads. The bilateral guest worker agreement between Mexico and the United States lasted from 1942 to 1964.

At least $32 million was deducted from the workers’ wages and put into Mexican savings accounts under the labor agreement. The promise was that the workers would receive their money once they returned to Mexico. Many of the workers couldn’t read and were unaware of the deductions.

“The deal between the two governments was that they were going to discount the tithe as an incentive for them to return to Mexico at the end of the contract and the Mexican government would disburse them the withheld money,” said Professor Gaspar Rivera, Director of Academic Projects at UCLA’s Center for Labor Research and Education.

“Now, many elderly men are still waiting for their reimbursement, he said. “That illustrates the tragedy of the braceros who were part of an exploitative program.”

All of the braceros are now in their 70s, 80s and 90s, and many are sick like Serna, who is torn between life, poverty and ignominy of the country where he was born.

Sitting in a plastic chair in the front yard of his son José’s house in San Bernardino and leaning on a mesquite cane, Serna said he suffers from prostate problems and has a catheter and bag for emptying his bladder, but cannot afford doctors. Born in Huatusco, Zacatecas, he is still undocumented; he never wanted to apply for US residency.

“The first time I came to the United States, I crossed the Rio Bravo a la brava [illegally],” he said. “Then I was hired to work at the field.”

The bracero program guaranteed workers a minimum wage of 50 cents per hour, insurance and safe, free housing. However, farm owners frequently failed to live up to these requirements. Housing and food routinely was well below standards, and wages were not only low, but also frequently paid late or not at all.

In 2001, the braceros filed a class action lawsuit in the Federal District Court in San Francisco against the governments of the United States and Mexico, along with Wells Fargo Bank, where the money deducted from their paychecks was deposited and then transferred to the National Rural Credit Bank of Mexico. The U.S. government and the bank were later dismissed as defendants.

In 2008, the Mexican government agreed to pay $14.6 million to the braceros who worked during World War II and live in the United States. Each one was awarded 38,000 pesos, which currently is about $2,000 U.S.

“It was a very difficult lawsuit to litigate,” recalled Jonathan Rothstein, a Chicago lawyer who represented the braceros. “It is a tragedy that all the workers have not gotten paid yet, but sometimes the fight for justice is a long battle. Sometimes you take steps forward and sometimes you go backwards.”

About 36,000 ex-braceros still have not received the money, a third of them living in California, said Baldomero Capiz, coordinator of the Binational Union of Ex-braceros.

“We have been struggling for the past 20 years to recover the savings fund for farmers,” Capiz said.

The money was included in the Social Support Trust established by former Mexico President Vicente Fox. It was continued by his successor, Felipe Calderón, but President Enrique Peña Nieto, who served from 2012 to 2018, did not assign money to comply.

Mexico is still debating whether to recognize the “historical debt,” as it is called. The current administration of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador would have to recognize the debt in order to return the rest of the money to the braceros.

“What they have done with the seniors is a violation of their human and constitutional rights as Mexicans residing in the United States,” said Rosa Martha Zárate, leader of the Ex Braceros del Norte Alliance.

“When we requested that social support of 38,000 pesos, we had to take the old men to Mexicali to notarize their letters, obtain more documents, apostilles and a whole tangle of procedures.”

Edna Silva, a spokesperson for Wells Fargo, said that the bank sent wages for the Bracero Program to Mexico totaling $34.7 million, an amount based on reports from the Mexican government.

Silva said that under diplomatic agreements between the U.S. and Mexican governments, it was the Bank of Mexico’s responsibility to distribute the funds to local Mexican banks for the braceros, with Wells Fargo having no role in the savings fund reconcilement process in Mexico.

At the end of October, Oscar Rafael Novella Macías, Mexican secretary of the Committee on Migration Affairs in the House of Representatives, said in an open parliament session that the government should waste no more time because the braceros “are sick, old and in poor health and we have to make political-legislative efforts.”

Mexican representative Julieta Kristal Vences Valencia, president of the committee, requested 500 million pesos ($26.3 million US) in the 2019-2020 budget to make the payments. Vences Valencia did not respond to numerous requests for an interview with La Opinion.

But the promises made by politicians do not convince ex-bracero Nicolás Martínez, a Nahuatl indigenous man from Coyotepec, Puebla, who lives in Los Angeles.

“Let me get back what they took away from me,” said Martínez.

Now 90, his wrinkles and calloused hands reflect the hardness of having worked in the fields of California and Arizona picking tomatoes and cotton between 1942 and 1947.

“Government has always ignored us and kept us in poverty on purpose,” he said.

At his home in Lincoln Heights, another ex-bracero, Leobardo Villa, a native of Zacapala, Puebla, said that at his age, he is tired of so many protests. He is 87.

“I came to work in the fields of California and Yuma, Arizona, at the age of 18 to sow watermelon, cantaloupe, all kinds of vegetables,” he said. “Like all my coworkers, we left our skin in the furrows and railroad tracks.

“We are not asking the government for a gift,” he said, “but for what belongs to us.”

(Jorge Macías is a freelancer at La Opinión, the only Spanish newspaper printed in Los Angeles. This article is part of The California Divide project, a collaboration among newsrooms examining income inequality and economic survival in California. CALmatters.org is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media venture explaining California policies and politics.)

FOUND OBJECT [you supply the caption]