MCT: Thursday, December 19, 2019

• Warm Front
• Bill Sterling
• Scant Rain
• Phil Baldwin
• Violence Defined
• Fire Fund
• Help Sarah
• Hine Reading
• Five Fires
• Corral Convicted
• AVHC Expansion
• Golden Bong
• Hastings Book
• Nixon/Kissinger
• Job Opportunity
• Crab Feed
• Gravely Disabled
• Sailor Appears
• Fort Braggers
• Withdrawals
• Afterlife
• Reckless Evasion
• Pizza
• PG&E Praise
• Yesterday's Catch
• SMART Secrets
• Access
• Shoveling BS
• Russian Bear
• Demagogue Antidote
• Mitch McGollum
• County Vacancies
• Birches
• Niner Deal
• Country Music
• Homeless Epidemic
• Deinstitutionalization
• True Terror
• Gabbard Present
• Still Wrong
• National Schism
• Article II
• Witch Hunts
• Found Object

A WARM FRONT will generate periods of light to moderate rain through this evening. Strong and gusty southerly winds will develop ahead of a cold front on Friday. Moderate to heavy rain is expected this weekend as the cold front moves across the area. Scattered showers and high mountain snow showers are expected on Sunday behind the front. (National Weather Service)

BILL STERLING

ἄνδρα μοι ἔννεπε, μοῦσα, πολύτροπον

Sing to me of the man, Muse, the man of twists and turns

—The Odyssey, trans. Robert Fagles

Bill Sterling dedicated himself to the word in all its forms, from epic poetry, recited aloud in its native ancient Greek or Latin, to fine conversation, to the teachings of the Buddha and his disciples; from an extensive correspondence replete with limericks and riddles, to words of love and wisdom to family and friends, to the education of new generations in the communities he loved, from Andover to Anderson Valley High School. We honor his life and miss the joy of his presence.

William Wallace Sterling, known as Bill to everyone, was born July 3, 1939 in Pasadena, California. His parents were depression-era immigrants from Alberta, Canada. Bill was joined by two sisters, Susie and Judy, and spent his early years in Pasadena, where he attended Polytechnic School.

In 1948, when Bill was nine years old, his father became president of Stanford University, and the family moved to a home on the Stanford campus. Bill finished middle school in Palo Alto and then went East to Phillips Andover Academy. He loved Andover, where he discovered both true academic rigor and amateur ice hockey, and was an All-New England Lacrosse player.

Bill returned to Stanford for college. He majored in history and cultivated his life-long passion for foreign and classical languages. He spent a year in Beutelsbach through Stanford-in-Germany, learning the language with high enthusiasm for its polysyllabic compounds. Awarded a Rhodes Scholarship, he traveled after graduation to study at Brasenose College, Oxford. He left Brasenose to marry Molly Merrill, whom he had met at Stanford, and to work in Lausanne, Switzerland.

Bill attended Harvard Law School, and then took a position at Heller, Ehrman, White & McCauliffe in San Francisco, specializing in commercial real estate transactions. He and Molly built a house among the redwoods in Mill Valley and raised two children, Alinor and Maury. He was an excellent lawyer, but the practice of law did not contain his interests. Dinner parties in Mill Valley mixed scholars of classical Greek with mythopoetic thinkers like Joseph Campbell. Bill taught himself Sanskrit and extended his knowledge of ancient Greek, Latin, and mythology. When he took his family for a three-month sabbatical to Crete in 1976, Bill was not able to communicate with the Homeric Greek he had learned, but made do with his German, which the locals had learned from the occupying German army during World War II. Bill also served on the Board of Hospice of Marin. He and Molly divorced in 1981.

Bill became a practicing Buddhist, studying with teachers from Zen and Tibetan lineages. In 1983, Bill married Yvonne Rand, a Buddhist meditation teacher and settled with her in Muir Beach. Together with Yvonne, he founded The Callipeplon Society, a nonprofit organization centered on widening the understanding of Buddhism in the United States and on adapting traditional Buddhist teachings for the lives of American lay practitioners. Over several decades, he deepened his understanding of Buddhist teachings, often combining them with his interest in classical languages including Sanskrit, Pali and Greek. Bill was an amateur ornithologist and botanist, and in the many workshops and seminars he led jointly with Yvonne, he often incorporated his enthusiasm for natural history. As an outgrowth of his commitment to the practice of Buddhism, Bill supported a range of efforts to address the plight of the people and the land of Tibet. He served on the board of Tibet House in New York City and on the board of the International Committee of Lawyers for Tibet. After practicing law with Heller, Ehrman for 28 years, Bill chose to continue his legal work as a solo practitioner.

In 2005, Bill and Yvonne moved to the Anderson Valley. Bill taught himself Spanish, which enabled him to engage with the valley’s Spanish-speaking community as well as to read Cervantes in the original. He expanded educational resources in the valley, tirelessly raising money for classes, equipment and capital projects and serving on multiple nonprofit boards. The rhythm of the valley’s farming life suited him and Yvonne and their joint interest in the natural world. Dinner parties, for which Bill created and saved detailed menus, which he cooked himself, brought together students of Buddhism with new friends from the Anderson Valley. He dedicated himself to caring for Yvonne, who began during this time to suffer from Alzheimer’s disease. Bill treasured his work for the Anderson Valley, the warm local community that surrounded and supported both him and Yvonne; afternoons at Anderson Valley Panthers soccer games; and rides on the Skunk Train, in furtherance of his lifelong passion for full-size and model trains. In the last year of his life, Bill founded a new nonprofit called Wings For Learning/Alas Para Volar: Better Education for Latinos in Rural Communities.

Bill died at home, suddenly and without pain, on December 1.

He is survived by his wife Yvonne; by his two children and their families, including two grandchildren and one on the way; by his two sisters, and his niece and nephews and their families; and by his two stepchildren and their families.

A memorial service will be held in the Anderson Valley in January. Contributions in his memory may be made to Wings for Learning/Alas Para Volar, at Wings for Learning, P.O. Box 853, Boonville, CA 95415, or to The Callipeplon Society, P.O. Box 678, Philo, CA 95466.

For more information, or concerning Bill’s memorial, please send an email to billsterlingmemorial@gmail.com, and one of the family will respond.

PHIL BALDWIN

Phil's friends, family, & students cherished his ability find irony everywhere he looked; and he did not disappoint, when he composed his own (lengthy) obituary just a week before his passing.

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I was born to William and Mildred Baldwin, March 25, 1947 in the tumbleweed connection of Bakersfield, known for Merle Haggard and Buck Owens, lesser known for Earl Warren, Frank Gifford, Pom Wonderful, and dubious air. Added to post war baby boom when dad got back from defeating the Nazis in Battle of the Bulge (as forward artillery observer for General Courtney Hodges) then meeting up with our Ruskie teammates near the Elbe in Germany. Mother waited near Fort Lewis, Washington studying at College of Pudget Sound.

With brother Tim and sis Jane we played as did other kids, realizing then nothing about Kern's Grapes of Wrath, de facto segregation, and looming water crises around the bend. Garnered my Eagle Scout, played BHS wingback for Driller football, then tennis a few years after Dennis Ralston and somehow got into at UC Berkeley in 1965, to study history and politics. Arriving a year after the Free Speech Movement, like many, I learned more outside of class than in. Came to Berkeley as a Lindsay-Rockefeller Republican and supporter of the Vietnam War; that changed rapidly in 1966 due to romance with intellectual Suzanne West who soon had me working for a long shot antiwar Congressional candidate. He lost but my movement to the Left continued.

After a nonviolent sit-in arrest at Sproul Hall and enduring subsequent People's Park riots yielding helicopter tear gassings and National Guard marshall law, I fininished my thesis on the pacifist colonial government of Quaker Pennsylvania. Riots continued and we chose to get out of Berkeley with our son, Jesse, and head for the hippy pastures of Sonoma State where touchy-feely Rogerians awarded me a State teaching credential.

Stupidly taking a first teaching job at a "Model High School" in old hometown we lasted two years before Suzanne justifiably up and left. I lay some blame on my fanaticism for George McGovern's dark horse candidacy in '71,'72 and my corresponding lack of quality family time . Suzanne's decision to split then allowed me to grow and realize I could survive, even thrive as a single individual. Neat concept.

She returned with kids Jesse and Erin to Berkeley, I headed to Santa Cruz to become a beach bumb/substitute teacher. Dreamt of a regular teaching job but as this was the lift off for affirmative action it heralded not well for a white dude seeking comfy government job.

So, heck, what to do? Run for County Supervisor. After helping coordinate McGovern Santa Cruz precinct operation then getting elected to an elementary school board, we decided to shoot the moon and take on an eight year incumbent 1976. As he ignored us, we emphasized populist issues and door-to-door, then took the surprise victory.

Heady time in my life. Could now pay rent on time. We began work on mobile home park rent control and achieving a general plan for the Santa Cruz mountains and unincorporated urban area - Live Oak. As soon as we instituted a land division moratorium during this interim, our speculator opposition decided to launch a campaign "Recall The Santa Cruz Three" which meant yours truly and two other Board allies. By spending $100,000 (a hella lot for mid seventies local race) and brilliantly latching to on coattails of Proposition 13, they took down two of us.

Now this put a teaching job in Santa Cruz further out of reach so I needed to head out of 'Cruzio.' I took a job in a Fresno desert purgatory village of Coalinga for two years. Got out just before Parkfield earthquake leveled 15% of that town and I ended up in Ukiah with a genuine teaching job at Potter Valley High 1982.

Supportive PVHS staff, knowing I was single, strongly recommended I get a rental in Ukiah as a key to preserving privacy. I followed that advice then began a 29 year careeer failing to indoctrinate these rural youths in my ideology. Despite my relentless sneers, chuckles, sarcasm, & charisma, the students arriving from home, Republicans invariably, left Room 202 ("Discourse Central") Republicans.

But we experienced a hell of a lot of fun and valuable debates. (And Phil losing his cool to laughter of class.) The often conservative PVHS administration and school board either ignored, tolerated, or appreciated my curriculum which paid little attention to the stultifying "State Framework" for trivial puruit in social studies. I held that in-depth analysis of fewer topics was key to better, more long-lasting learning, that is, what we would want students to remember five or twenty years later.

Conversely if we cared not that any would be remembered, why would we introduce it to these youth in the first place? So our favorites in three subjects history became Plato's "Allegory of the Metals" and "Allegory of the Cave," The Puritans "City on a Hill" leading to "Manifest Destiny" and today's "American Exceptionalism") War with Mexico & Polk's false flag to take northern half of Mexico, Teddy's "Big Stick Diplomacy" & "March of our Flag" in Philippines. And we'd finish them off at age eighteen reading orally Orwell's vital book within the book 1984. Each unit planned for a week took twelve days or more. (I am betting much has been remembered.)

I remain flabbergasted and proud that our Potter Valley community trusted me three decades to be professional, to inculcate an interest in precision, and to present differing sides of these amazing stories. Extra curricular found me coaching tennis, advising our Mock Trial & History Day teams, and somehow getting assigned to "direct" PVHS drama. Rather proud that in 1987 (?) our Paco Juan won 1st Place in the State History Day Sacramento competition then at nationals took 4th, with his paper "Love Canal, Technology Gone Awry". We battled Ukiah High to some tense yet fun near victories in Mock Trial, but achieved our greatest success with drama, (aka "Coup de Theatre Potter Valley.)

Circa 2000, we produced Euripides tragedy "Medea," Maxwell Anderson's thriller "Bad Seed," and Aristophanes' Lysistrata (pacifist/feminist" comedy). Add one acts: "An Evening for Merlin Finch" (Charles Dizenzo), "The Dancers" (Horton Foote), "Personnal Effects & Personal Effects" (John McNamara), and the one that broke the camel's back "Secret Diary of Adrian Mole" (Sue Townsend).

A brief moment, a super run by standout Potter Valley actors generated packed crowds in our makeshift Little Theater. Our choice of esoteric, thought-provoking, yet fun scripts satisfied the community but not the mores of incoming Powers That Be. Meanwhile out of school, some of us became accomomplished barroom dancers following the Hopland/Cotati jump blue scene. Late eighties a cadre of us formed "Hedonists for Liberty and Justice" and begain producing quarterly dances at the Ukiah Grange Hall. Among the tremendous acts we offered: Terry Hanck, Earl Thomas, Mark & Pat Ford, David Raitt, Stu Blank, Starr James, then my favorite guitarist - Richie Blue who's now played Ukiah at least a dozen times. Despite our brilliant musicians and superb nightclub venue, the Hedonist gigs faded for three reasos. DUI enforcement went way up, jump blues did not transition to the younger generation, and, heck, too many die hard Hedonists found a mate, began to cocoon, stay home. And yes, we (don't you just love the "royal we") had a sixteen year run on Ukiah City Council.

Seems that if I was on the ballot (1986,1998, 2002, 2006, 2010, 2014) speculator-developer opposition made sure it was a contested race. Several other elections were canceled due to lack of contenders. When I first ran in 1986, we met a powerful team carrying a dossier on me gathered from Bakersfield and Santa Cruz who asked in public comment if I had been recalled as Supervisor there. Yep, was my answer. Case closed. But our closest race (other than two I lost) was 2006 when the opposition ran radio ads actually stating that "if Phil Baldwin is re-elected people in Ukiah will die." My goodness. If the economy heats up sufficiently and valley subdivision sprawl might we see more of that style smearing once again?

With our Council, I am most proud of working over three years to garner a 4-1 vote for mobile home park rent control, for City acquisition of 37 gorgeous acres in Gibson Creek canyon. Happy we also created the Paths, Open Space, and Creeks Commission, and for planning Perkins Street utitily undergrounding, and for Ukiah CARES electric bill subsidy to struggling seniors and working families. I remain proud too that I stood with the private property owner of the Palace Hotel who, in my view, did more than the court appointed "receiver" to save this majestic building for restoration. (Yes, a number of liberals have told me this Palace stance guaranteed my 2014 defeat.)

As we wonder if we can achieve economic democracy, let's keep in mind it cannot happen as we prosecute endless regime change wars. And it cannot happen if our public school graduates remain so ignorant of the facts and vocabulary of active citizen partipation. In social studies, the framework, the "Common Core" must be rejected because it dwells in trivia we and our leaders will never encounter again. Let's encourage teachers to pursue the love which must be in their individual disciplines and to be excited about their teaching. In the mood to consider a donation? My favorites are SPACE of Ukiah, Tulsi Gabbard for President, and the following antiwar muckrakers: Caitlin Johnstone, Kim Iversen, James Howard Kunstler, CJ Hopkins, Antiwar.com (Only SPACE is tax deductable.)"

—Phil Baldwin

BOONVILLE FIRE FUND ESTABLISHED

Between the rainstorms, a devastating fire struck downtown Boonville. The fire began on Thursday, Dec. 5 in a residence next door to the Anderson Valley Market.

Even with a fast response from the Anderson Valley Fire Department, it quickly grew to consume three homes as well as Lizzby’s Mexican Restaurant and the Pic ‘N Pay Market. The result is three local families lost everything, along with two family businesses. A large impact on a small community.

A group of caring representatives from local businesses reached out to The Community Foundation of Mendocino County to establish a way for people to give to those who lost their homes and business in the Boonville Fire. The Disaster Fund, with “Boonville Fire Fund” included in the notes section at checkout, is now accepting donations on behalf of the survivors of the fire.

The Disaster Fund, established by the Community Foundation’s Board of Directors to provide disaster relief and recovery services in the aftermath of a natural disaster, was created by a lead gift from the Community Foundation’s Board of Directors in response to the drought conditions in the Spring/Summer of 2014. The funds are primarily awarded to provide disaster relief and recovery services to households impacted by a natural disaster, which can include meals, temporary housing assistance, essential household items, medical care or counseling, and long-term housing grants. Currently, the funds are being distributed through Mendocino-ROC, the long-term recovery committees, for relief, recovery, and rebuilding following the 2017 Redwood Complex Fire and 2018 Mendocino Complex Fire.

The Boonville Fire Fund will be established within the Disaster Fund with the express purpose of supporting the families who lost homes and businesses during the fire.

To give to the Disaster Fund Boonville Fire Fund visit: communityfound.org. During checkout include “Boonville Fire Fund” in the notes section.

Donations can also be mailed to: The Community Foundation, 204 S. Oak St., Ukiah, CA 95482 with “Boonville Fire Fund” in the memo line.

If you have questions, or would like to learn more about the Disaster Fund, contact Rose Bell at (707) 468-9882 ext.101.

MELISSA BLAISDELL WRITES:

Many of you may have heard that our dear friend Sarah Ryan lost her house and just about everything she owns yesterday due to a freak fire. She is going to need a lot of help as she lost her home (for herself and her 14 year old), her place of business, and valuable musical equipment which she (and we) use for our musical career.

If you want to help, here's how:

• Send her a note at P.O. Box 976 Boonville, CA 95415
• Support the GoFundMe Campaign linked below: gf.me/u/w7s8sr
• Help her find a new home for herself and her preschool business.
• Keep her in your thoughts, send her a message of support, and envision the best possible path forward.

Thanks in advance for any way you can be of support!

LONGTIME UKIAH DAILY JOURNAL COLUMNIST TOM HINE will read from his newest collection of stories tonight, Thursday, 6 p.m., at the downtown Mendocino Book Company.

“Happy to Be Here (Tall Tales of Fact and Fiction)” is his second book and contains 80 or so stories, of which two or three have previously appeared in different form in Sunday TWK columns.

Hine has been writing under the Tommy Wayne Kramer byline since the early 1980s.

“Happy to Be Here” has 10 sections on topics that include Home Life, Pets, Sports, Money, Rock ’n’ Roll and Travel. All are fresh and funny except for the somber ones about Old Age or his 35 years as a criminal defense investigator. And even some of those are amusing. Sort of.

The event is free and refreshments will be provided. Books are available at $14 each. Anyone requesting the author sign a book will result in one dollar off the sale price donated (from his own pocket!) to the Ukiah Animal Shelter.

Questions and comments are invited. Attendance will be taken.

IN THE LAST THREE WEEKS there have been five fires in Anderson Valley that resulted in the loss of homes and businesses. This many structure fires in such a short time is some sort of record for us — and not one we're glad to see set.

For the record: none of these fires were suspicious, and there is no connection between the events. Laundry, cooking, wood stoves, and other every day factors contributed to these incidents.

Thanks very much to our volunteer firefighters and supporters for answering the call to duty so frequently over the last few weeks. Thanks to the network of support that is coalescing around the families who have suffered losses.

Stay safe, and in an emergency, do not call your firefighter friends until after you CALL 911!

(AV Fire Department Chief Andres Avila)

SOCAL MAN CONVICTED OF REDWOOD VALLEY ATTEMPTED MURDER

With the two victim deputies looking on, defendant Joseph Anthony Corral II, age 27, of Los Angeles, was convicted by early plea Wednesday afternoon in the Mendocino County Superior Court of attempted murder in the second degree. This crime involved the defendant firing on two Sheriff's deputies with the intent to kill one or both on Uva Drive in Redwood Valley on October 10, 2019. 

The defendant also admitted that he personally and intentionally discharged his .50 caliber handgun during the commission of the attempted murder.

As part of the negotiated settlement, the defendant was required to accept and stipulate to the aggravated term of 9 years in state prison for the attempted murder. He also was required to accept and stipulate to a consecutive term of 20 years for the intentional discharge of the firearm, for a total sentence of 29 years in state prison. 

Because the necessary incoming inmate classification and risk assessment work done at San Quentin is assisted by a local background study, the matter was referred to the Mendocino County Adult Probation Department for preparation of that study. 

The defendant will be formally sentenced to the 29 years on January 16, 2020 at 9 o'clock in the morning at the Ukiah courthouse. 

Because this crime is defined as a violent felony in the California Penal Code, any and all credits the defendant may attempt to earn against his 29 year commitment will be limited to no more than 15% of the overall sentence.

The local law enforcement agencies that gathered the necessary evidence to support today's conviction were the Mendocino County Sheriff's Office and the District Attorney's own Bureau of Investigations. 

The prosecutor who is handling this case is District Attorney David Eyster.

Mendocino County Superior Court Judge Keith Faulder was the bench officer who queried the defendant today and accepted his admissions of criminal liability, as outlined above. Judge Faulder is expected to be the sentencing judge in January.

To view Sheriff Tom Allman's critical incident video release of the crime, please click on the following URL: youtu.be/5iszbmRLZgE

AV HEALTH CENTER director, Chloe Guazzone, confirms that the Center has purchased the house almost directly opposite the AVA bunker. The new quarters will be used for admin space and the cabin to the rear of the house for visiting medical personnel. "We have outgrown our building and have a dental and medical expansion soon to start. We looked for office space in town but in the end, we found it a better choice to invest in a property that could serve both needs. This will save us quite a bit of money in the long run."

AT THE RECENT Emerald Cup, Mendo, traditional home of excellante zonk weed, only produced one winner in one category, Solventless, whatever that is, but Brett Byrd of Mendo got himself a golden bong for "Personal Use: Ice Cream Cake."

RECOMMENDED READING, " Vietnam: An Epic Tragedy" by Max Hastings, a Brit historian who, as a young journalist, worked off and on as a correspondent in Vietnam where his first hand experience, some of it in combat, surely helped him grasp the true nature of the conflict as he recounts events as seen from both sides. I also recommend Hastings' histories of the Korean War and "Armageddon: The Battle for Germany." But in the Vietnam book Hastings has outdone himself with, as he says, much help from latter day archives released by all parties to the tragedy, as he rightly summarizes the entire event. "Tragedy" is not propaganda. The utter ruthlessness of the NVA and Viet Cong, romantically viewed as atrocity-free idealists by young commies like me and the circles I traveled in, are viewed much more as they really were by Hastings as he, of course, concedes that as nationalists fighting in and for their own country they had the advantage over the American forces piled in-country in ever increasing numbers to prop up a succession of unpopular and corrupt South Vietnamese puppet governments. Americans were, like the French before them, inevitably viewed as invaders. This book was a major learning experience for this reader. For instance, I didn't know that the French and the British employed Japanese POW's to help fend off Ho Chi Minh's popular forces in 1945-46 in an attempt to reinstate Vietnam as a French colony. There's so much interesting stuff in this book you'll send me five bucks (cash only) for my recommendation.

AVUSD EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY at AV Elementary School

Title: School Administrative Assistant

Salary: $18.92-$20.02 Based on Experience

Work Hours: 8hrs/day, 5days/week, 11months/year

Benefits: Retirement Plan, Health/Dental/Vision Insurance

Call 707-895-3774 for more information

CONSERVATORSHIPS

By the way, I am in complete agreement with Mr. Marmon’s opinion that:

”Charles Hensley, who died neglected on the streets of Ukiah, and who, in my opinion, should have been placed in a Conservatorship and housed in a secure treatment facility. Mr. Hensley was what we in the mental health and rehab field call ‘Gravely Disabled’ due to his chronic alcoholism, and he should not been left on the streets to die.”

The LPS Conservatorship process for gravely disabled (due to a mental disorder or chronic alcoholism) must be initiated by a judge’s order for a conservatorship investigation conducted by the Public Guardian’s Office. That typically occurs when either an attorney, a hospital psychiatrist, or a jail staff petitions the court for the investigation or the judge him/herself issues the investigation order without a petition. Please notice that none of these parties are Behavioral Health or RQMC/RCS.

J, Holden, PhD

“Civilization is measured by how it treats its most vulnerable people.” —Gandhi

SHIP FOUND WITH NO CREW ABOARD; COAST GUARD SEEKING INFO

The Coast Guard is seeking information on the Free Spirit, a 40’ sailboat found underway off Fort Bragg last night with no crew aboard. The vessel was recently sold to a Mr. Robert Dorris of Eureka who reportedly had planned to sail from San Francisco to Humboldt Bay. Anyone with information regarding this vessel is requested to contact Coast Guard Sector Humboldt Bay at 707-839-6113.

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Update: GOOD NEWS! EUREKA SHIPOWNER FEARED MISSING SAILS INTO HUMBOLDT BAY

This afternoon, Robert Dorris of Eureka who had been considered missing after his ship, the Free Spirit, was found underway off Fort Bragg last night with what appeared to be no crew aboard, sailed into Humboldt Bay and docked his vessel.

Britni Anderson who works at the Humboldt Bay Harbor Recreation and Conservation District sent us the above photo and said in an email at 2:36 p.m., “The…Free Spirit just pulled into Woodley Island Marina. Robert is soaking wet and exhausted but he’s okay.”

We were unable to reach Mr. Dorris, but Anderson said, “It was a really rough trip from SF to here. He took two big waves over the boat. His radio went out. It was so rough he was hiding out down below so the coast guard didn’t see him and Robert couldn’t hear them.”

HAPPY HOLIDAYS FROM OUR FAMILY TO YOURS

(City of Fort Bragg)

HERE WE G(R)O(W) AGAIN, PART II

by Flynn Washburne

Well, a promise is a promise, and I suppose that being clean and reforming myself includes doing my best to keep them, and thus—the timeline.

Day Two- I mentioned in my last transmission about the drug not working any more and that was true, but immediately following that my mind and body reset itself, effectively rolling me back to a condition of Day One usage. This phenomenon is not unknown to me and has heretofore been a signal to open the floodgates and bask in unfettered tweakeristic abandon, but I chose, oddly, to interpret it as a gift and a blessing in the form of a possible amelioration of withdrawal symptoms should I instead go forward with my plan to curtail the madness. I was correct, I think, in that I don't feel quite so disgusting as a barrel of toxic sludge from a rustbelt manufactory circa 1955, nor quite so worthless as a business concern associated in the slightest with the name Trump about two years from now, but that could've been for any number of reasons. Fairies, benevolent gremlins, who knows? I’m not a— what’s the guy who wants a reason for things?—a, a, dammit, a causality whore, for fuck’s sake. I’m just trying to get through this week.

Day the third: I hope I didn’t give the impression that this is shaping up to be a cakewalk in the park with duck soup for lunch and beer and skittles to follow (Beer and skittles: an obsolete reference to a life of ease and leisure, not an answer to the question: what does a teenage alcoholic have for lunch?), because I assuredly am not in the anywhere near pink. I’d say I’m in the about middling portion of the beige spectrum. I’m eating well, if by well you mean a lot, which is to say that anything within a certain size range goes into my mouth (insert dick joke here) NOW and gets classified as food/not food LATER. I don’t have time to figure that shit out, I don’t want to get up and turn on the lights, and my body is smart enough to expel anything toxic or undigestible.

El Dia del Cuarto: ¡ai caramba! Why is it getting worse? I don’t remember the inane apothegm being “time heals all wounds except self-inflicted tweakier complaints,” it was “time heals ALL wounds.” Fuck this noise, I’m going to go score a bag. No I’m not. But it would feel so good. But I don’t want to go back to prison or the earth from whence I came. But-but-but, repeat ad nauseam and then eat until I pass out. Morning will bring:

Day Five: is that the figurative sun I see peeking around the edge of that metaphorical thunderhead like a tweaker at the drapes, or is it just another emblematic bomb coursing through the allegorical atmosphere on a Potter Valley vector? Too soon to tell, but this is not my first bingo night and it’s right around this time that the what I like to call “false dawn” phenomenon turns up, where you get about two hours of feeling pretty much fine on waking and then back to the torture/torment. Never let it be said that I ever did anything to a horse’s mouth besides shove a carrot in, though, so I’m going to enjoy it while it lasts. Having an interesting thought (first one in a blue moon): Trump, no dummy he (he’s THE dummy), in his pardon of that disgraced SEAL who was rightfully stripped of his benefits and insignia and his continual and ongoing blowjob of all things military, is paving the way for an eventual coup. Believe it, campers. If you consider that an absurd proposition, I ask that you consider two things: the endlessly mounting cascade of absurdity that characterizes his administration and the historical precedent of every military-backed coup ever, in which the heads of state did exactly the sort of sycophantic pandering at which our dickweed-in-chief so excels. I would never promote or encourage assassination of anyone, Mr. Government Spy, but that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t get a tattoo of the person’s name who finally shut that disgusting mouth up for good, right next to MOM and BUCKY FULLER.

Day Six: It’s not a train loaded with earth-moving equipment bearing down on me and no place to run! It is that storied light as the tunnel finally manifests its non-infinite nature. God bless time, sleep, and solid food in its manifold diversity. I do believe I shall live, and in living thrive, and in thriving not act as if I didn’t give two hoots about the carcass I’m lugging around. It’s not like I haven’t said this or something like it pretty much every week for the past 40 years but eventually it’ll be true, is my thinking. This doesn’t mean that things are back to normal, though. Next stop on this infernal voyage is a period of emotional instability that would make a teenage girl with weight issues on her period look like the Dalai Lama getting a massage. The very best thing I can do for myself for the next two weeks is to keep all sensory input within an extremely narrow range of the banal and mundane, because anything even remotely positive or negative is going to make me cry. Now, even on my sanest days my feels are layered pretty thinly, epidermically speaking, and I’m not shy about sharing my extremes of temperament with the world at large. I’m no stoic, is what I’m saying, but this is ridiculous.

Here is but a small sampling of the things that have induced tears today: 1. Coffee commercial jingle. 2. Picture of a bear. 3. A hole in my sock. 4. Passing thought about Gwen Stefani. 5. The river rushing by. 6, and I’m not kidding, considering the phenomenon of crying. This is what I’m up against and it may give you some insight about why I choose to apply the numbing balm of intoxicants so liberally. I’m not unique in being the sort of person who frets and fusses and worries and wails (internally) about every little thing nor in empathically absorbing whatever artful emotional trigger emplaced in whatever thing I’m likely to see or hear, and I’m sure not the first to take the easy way out in dealing with it, but in fairness to me and all the other supersensitives, it’s a load.

Day 7: I seem to remember something about someone resting on this day. Seems like a good idea.

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Addendum in re my above observation about Trump’s probable plan to maintain residence at 1600 Penn in perpetuity: I have not served in uniform nor taken up arms to kill my foes, but I do know a little something about being a warrior, of sorts, and one concept I think all true warriors — those of courage and character — hold inviolable is respect for one’s enemy. You respect his sacrifice and ideals, however contrary they may be to your own, and honor his defeat as well as your own victory. You do not piss on him, you do not fashion jewelry from his parts, and you do not dishonor your cause by dishonor of his. Period. Fuck that dude.

RUN CARLEY, RUN!

ON MONDAY, December 16, 2019 at 9:32 AM, a Mendocino County Sheriff's Deputy attempted a traffic stop of a vehicle in the 7600 block of North State Street in Redwood Valley. The vehicle failed to stop after the Deputy activated their patrol vehicle's emergency lights and siren. The Deputy pursued after the vehicle as it traveled north on North State Street traveling recklessly onto Highway 101. During the pursuit, the vehicle continued northbound on Highway 101 to Willits at a high rate of speed. The vehicle went off the roadway into a ditch before becoming disabled at the 23000 block of North Main Street in Willits. The driver, Carley Schlapkohl, 33, of Willits, was subsequently arrested with the assistance of the Willits Police Department and the California Highway Patrol.

Schlapkohl was transported to the Mendocino County Jail where she was booked on charges of Reckless Evasion and Violation of Probation. Schlapkohl was to be held in lieu of $35,000 bail.

NOT THE STATE

Editor:

My house was recently surrounded by the Kincade fire. We were without electric service for 13 days. I was amazed by the response from PG&E. While the stumps around us were still smoldering, PG&E had crews here surveying the damage and marking trees that had to be removed and poles that had to be replaced. Soon other crews followed. All the crews worked diligently and efficiently to restore our power. I cannot thank PG&E enough for its amazing efforts.

If you think PG&E is bad now, wait until the state takes over. I don’t think you want the people who can’t fix your roads (in spite of some of the highest fuel taxes in the nation) in charge of our utilities. These are the same people who can’t build water storage to help us through droughts. How many state run agencies have you seen that are run responsively and efficiently?

The best part about the possibility of the state taking over PG&E: you can look forward to higher rates and poorer service. Do not worry if the state runs into problems running your electric and gas facilities, it can always raise our taxes; that’s an unending supply of revenue.

Bill Munselle

Geyserville

CATCH OF THE DAY, December 18, 2019

RUBEN AGUILAR, Willits. DUI.

SHAWNA BRITTON, Covelo. Vandalism.

MICHAEL CARLSON, Covelo. Failure to appear.

JASON COLSON, Fort Bragg. Controlled substance, failure to appear.

ZEBULON COUTHREN, Willits. Disorderly conduct-alcohol probation revocation. (Frequent flyer.)

CHRISTOPHER COWAN, Modestoy/Ukiah. Probation revocation.

JARED HAWKINS, Bakersfield/Ukiah. Failure to appear.

LUNA MAGDALENO, Ukiah. Probation revocation.

JESSE MARTINEZ, Fort Bragg. Domestic battery.

MICHAEL MITCHELL, Lakeport/Ukiah. Probation revocation.

MIGUEL MORA, Ukiah. Stolen vehicle.

RYAN ROYDOWNEY, Covelo. Probation revocation.

DANIEL THOMPSON, Ukiah. Failure to appear.

SMART HIDES THE NUMBERS

Editor:

With the disclosure that SMART refused requests for daily ridership statistics, it is apparent that SMART is failing to meet its predictions (“SMART not disclosing weekly, daily rider data,” Thursday). We have been told by many that SMART collects a negligible 3% to 5% of operating costs out of the farebox. This compares with anywhere from 25% to 50% for other public transit systems.

The extension to the Larkspur ferry terminal is most likely going to be a much-hyped but little used service. Especially for Sonoma County residents who will not spend two to three hours commuting to San Francisco with three transfers. Not to mention a quarter-mile walk downhill (and uphill returning) to get to the ferry terminal.

Since SMART has never disclosed its true cost to taxpayers, we just guess that the subsidy per passenger, for every trip, is between $25 and $50, depending on length. A SMART disclosure on these actual figures would be helpful.

Withholding the facts would seem to constitute a coverup of some nature. We cannot vote to give SMART any more money until it proves itself to be a transparent and successful venture. Until that time, vote no on the sales tax extension.

Wayne Diggs

Cloverdale

ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

There’s a lot of ways of characterizing the current incarnation of the Democratic Party, few of them good. You wouldn’t be remiss in seeing their recent proclamations as a collection of silly-assed ninny-isms posing as lofty principle, for example, this idiocy of condemning “cultural appropriation” being just one of a large sub-catalog of follies falling under the rubric of “woke-dom”. But this is just one of the ideas orbiting so far out in the far-reaches of nonsense, threatening to jump into the hyperspace of the too-absurd-for-comment.

Russian Collusion is one of those notions achieving escape velocity, so bereft of sense and evidence, a preposterous shambles that would make even the more creative writers of Pravda blush. And to think that it was based on a comedic work of fiction – the Steele Dossier – probably put together by the masters of slapstick in the GRU.

You can imagine the boys in the Kremlin daily laughing into their vodka as the Three Stooges Schiff-Shumer-Nadler episodes unfold. You cringe. You sigh. You slap your forehead. It doesn’t help. Because it ain’t over, the farce not yet done, more installments in the works.

And all this while the urgent affairs of the republic fester in the bottom-most drawers in the bottom-most basement offices of the bottom-most congressional aides. Nope, the heavy-weights of the ruling class have other business, shoveling bullshit into the ravenous maw of the DC-Manhattan media, which works mightily to re-shape it into easily digestible portions for the credulous creative-class clerisy.

The interests and viability of the country be damned. It doesn’t matter that none of it makes a stitch of sense, as long as it accords with the interests and predispositions of highly self-regarding Democrat followers. You would implore them to pull their heads out of their asses but you know you’d be wasting your time.

SOMETHING HAS CHANGED: not just in the UK and the US, but in many parts of the world. A new politics, funded by oligarchs, built on sophisticated cheating and provocative lies, using dark ads and conspiracy theories on social media, has perfected the art of persuading the poor to vote for the interests of the very rich. We must understand what we are facing, and the new strategies required to resist it.

theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/dec/18/demagogues-power-rewilding-party-trust-power-government?

MEET EXCITING NEW PEOPLE!

Subject: Boards and Commissions Vacancies as of December 18, 2019

Supervisors, Community Partners, and Interested Parties:

The list of vacancies, due to term expirations and/or resignations, for County Boards and Commissions has been updated. A list of all new and existing vacancies is available on the County Website at:

https://www.mendocinocounty.org/government/board-of-supervisors/boards-and-commissions

• Mendocino County Business Improvement District (2) Coastal and Inland Representatives-
• First 5 Mendocino. (2) General Representatives
• Mendocino Council of Governments (1) Public Appointee

Anticipated vacancies include expiring terms: the incumbent of the expiring term may apply for reappointment and/or may continue to serve in their capacity until replaced. California Government Code requires public noticing for all expiring terms regardless of the incumbent’s intention to apply for reappointment.

If you are interested in serving on this Board, contact your Supervisor, or the Clerk of the Board of Supervisors, at 501 Low Gap Road, Room 1010, Ukiah, CA 95482 or (707) 463-4441.

Last Date For Filing: January 7, 2020, or until filled.

THE SAN FRANCISCO 49ERS are raising ticket prices by 13% but giving season ticket holders free food and soda, which I guess means 49ers fans will be spending most of games from now on pigging out on all-you-can-eat nachos instead of watching the action on the field. Also, you can’t get the free food if you buy tickets on the secondary market, only if you’re the original season ticket holder. Or, I guess, borrow the season ticket holder’s free-food card? Or have a season ticket holder go up to the counter for you and get your nachos? I don’t live anywhere near Santa Clara and hate football, but I am very excited at seeing how fans figure out how to game this system.

—Field of Schemes

A PRESS DEMOCRAT reader comments on the homeless camp strung out along Santa Rosa's Joe Rodota Trail:

Here is my take on why so many of us don't like nor do we feel sorry for the current population of homeless. Many of us had parents that grew up during the depression of the 30s. We see photos of men in crumpled suits, worn out shoes, standing in long lines waiting for an opportunity to get those 3 or 4 jobs that were available that day. Flash forward to today and jobs are abundant. The casino is always hiring, grocery stores like Olivers, Safeway etc have signs out looking for help. Construction sites abound but there aren't enough laborers to fill the needs. But this group of homeless would rather sit by the trail side open a bottle of beer, smoke a joint, bum enough for a burger (and throw the wrapper on the trail) and wait for something better to happen. They almost seem to be homeless just to spite society. I know housing prices and rentals are high here. If you have no money why would you relocate to somewhere so expensive? It would be interesting to interview these people and see where they originated. And, yes, I do realize that Governor Reagan made a big mistake by trying to "save money" by closing down State mental facilities. It bit us in the butt in the long run. Another interesting project would be for someone to approach the people living on the trail and ask them, in trade for campsite fees, to do 4 hours of clean up work everyday. They wouldn't need special clothes, training or equipment. Let's see how that would go over.

HOMELESSNESS, GENESIS OF

• salon.com/2013/09/29/ronald_reagans_shameful_legacy_violence_the_homeless_mental_illness/

• sites.psu.edu/psy533wheeler/2017/02/08/u01-ronald-reagan-and-the-federal-deinstitutionalization-of-mentally-ill-patients/

• nytimes.com/1984/10/30/science/how-release-of-mental-patients-began.html

TULSI GABBARD, DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATE FOR PRESIDENT, VOTES 'PRESENT' ON IMPEACHMENT

Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii, voted "present" — rather than for or against — both articles of impeachment, a surprise move from the Democratic presidential candidate.

Gabbard is the only White House hopeful eligible to vote on impeachment Wednesday and one of few House Democrats publicly undecided on the issue. She is the only member to have voted present.

"After doing my due diligence in reviewing the 658-page impeachment report, I came to the conclusion that I could not in good conscience vote either yes or no," she said in a lengthy statement issued immediately after her vote was cast.

"I could not in good conscience vote against impeachment because I believe President Trump is guilty of wrongdoing," she added.

"I also could not in good conscience vote for impeachment because removal of a sitting president must not be the culmination of a partisan process, fueled by tribal animosities that have so gravely divided our country."

MY DISCOMFORT in the last few years, first with Russiagate and now with Ukrainegate and impeachment, stems from the belief that the people pushing hardest for Trump’s early removal are more dangerous than Trump. Many Americans don’t see this because they’re not used to waking up in a country where you’re not sure who the president will be by nightfall. They don’t understand that this predicament is worse than having a bad president.

The Trump presidency is the first to reveal a full-blown schism between the intelligence community and the White House. Senior figures in the CIA, NSA, FBI and other agencies made an open break from their would-be boss before Trump’s inauguration, commencing a public war of leaks that has not stopped.

— Matt Taibbi

WITCH HUNTS, THEN AND NOW

The Other Is Innately Depraved. The theme of ‘innate depravity’ joins Salem and Washington.

by Lance Morrow

Draw back the American veil, and you shall behold innate depravity. That idea connects two disparate works that concern themselves with sin in America: Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short story “Young Goodman Brown,” published in 1835, and the impeachment of Donald Trump.

In Hawthorne’s story, a young man leaves his wife, Faith, in the safety of Salem Village, Mass., and walks alone at dusk along a gloomy forest road. There he encounters Salem’s most respectable citizens convened to worship Satan among trees that have burst spontaneously into flame. His parents are among the worshipers, and so is Faith. It is revealed to Young Goodman Brown that all of society, from the official to the intimate, is lost to sin and corruption. Cotton Mather’s “errand into the Wilderness” has turned diabolical. Thus begins the American project.

Americans are a touchy people, given to extremes of self-consciousness. They imagine they must be either the greatest people in the world or the vilest. Since Vietnam, the left has made a sacrament of national self-accusation, which over decades has led on to the mobilizing of sexual and racial grievances—a transformational emphasis that has generated immense social change and immense political power.

It’s in that context that the founding Calvinist idea of mankind’s innate depravity due to original sin has been reborn in the 21st century and adapted to the left’s insistence on the innate depravity of the ruling class: the wickedness of the patriarchy, of “white privilege,” of “white supremacy” and of the nation’s entire past. To make a clean sweep, they have anathematized all of Western civilization. Even atheists and agnostics have prospered politically on the idea of innate depravity, borrowed from the theology of the country’s earliest zealots. The left has grown comfortable in practicing theology without benefit of God. If the entire American project was depraved from the beginning—Columbus was a louse, the Constitution countenanced slavery, and Washington and Jefferson owned slaves—then the whole thing may be, without qualms, damned absolutely and dismantled at will, so that it might be replaced by a different country, one more virtuous and just.

Sin unredeemed by grace or merit resonates with the left’s ideology of a debunked America. It was that ideology that brought on the Trumpian uprising of 2016 and, three years down the road, has set the stage for the impeachment. Mr. Trump represents, in the left’s mind, everything that Young Goodman Brown encountered in the dark forest: personal depravity and civic demonism.

It is proper that Mr. Trump and his defenders have so often repeated the term “witch hunt.” Unrestrained demonizing takes Americans back to the 17th century, where Hawthorne set his story. Nineteen “witches” were hanged in Salem; one was suffocated under the weight of heavy stones. Cotton Mather felt sheepish about it later on.

In the 2020 election, two American religions are at war—that of the Trump base, with its Old Believers (a fusion of the MAGA set and evangelicals) and, on the other side, the Progressive Woke. Each side considers the other to be innately depraved.

(Mr. Morrow is a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center.)

FOUND OBJECT