MCT: Tuesday, February 11, 2020

• Warm Afternoon
• 128 Closed
• Dogleg Left
• Ted Talk
• Variety Show
• FUD Antidote
• Boonmoon II
• Mental Data
• Gjerde/Peters
• Hedge News
• Smokey's Friend
• Vineyard Stop
• Waldo Affair
• Bean Court-Date
• Gowan Cider
• BOLO Earbiter
• Birthday Snapshot
• Wine Decline
• Mansion Moon
• Queenie's Return
• Selfish Men
• 10,000 Annoyances
• Export Import
• Grim Times
• Yesterday's Catch
• Battering Market
• Returned Eyesight
• Expectations
• Building Fashion
• Mind Reclamation
• Hapless Apps
• Practical Centrists
• Easy Amy
• Executive Order
• Nice Threads
• Exam Prep
• Sharky
• Educator Training
• Comments
• Paper Redemption
• Target Employee
• Dear DNC
• Found Object

EAST-NORTHEASTERLY WINDS will promote another day of clear dry conditions with interior valley temperatures climbing into the 60s and 70s this afternoon. Cooler weather is expected Wednesday as low-level winds become north-northwesterly. Otherwise, the next chance of rain will occur with a weak frontal system on Thursday and Friday, with additional rainfall expected over the weekend. (NWS)

HIGHWAY 128 CLOSED MONDAY NIGHT

CALTRANS, Monday night, Feb. 10, 2020, 7:30pm: Highway 128 closed from mile marker 00.00 – 11.68 due to flooding. Unknown eta for the road to be reopened.

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RIVER WATCH, DAVE SEVERN REPORTS:

Low River Flow—

All winter the Navarro River has been flowing below median and below mean or average.

The would be evidence that the ground water tables that empty into the river as springs have not been sufficiently recharged.

Currently this Monday afternoon the flow rate is 137 cfs (cubic feet per second) well below the 200 cfs cut off rate by the California State Dept. of Fish and Wildlife for any fishing on, not only the Navarro, but all Mendocino coastal streams.

This doesn’t mean there are no fish, I’ve seen maybe a dozen big ones, just that the conditions for them to spawn are not ideal.

Ducks are starting to show up but because I always see them in pairs they evidently have not nested and laid eggs yet.

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HWY 128 1-LANE DUE TO FLOODING

The Navarro River channel through the sandbar at the mouth has closed up and there is already partial flooding of both east and westbound lanes of 128 at the 0.18 mile marker. Caltrans crew is at the scene and is allowing controlled one-way traffic through the very short flood zone.

What happens when it gets dark? In recent past CHP has closed the lower 14 miles of 128 when there is only minor backup flooding of the roadway.

In my opinion, the sandbar is unlikely to breach before dark, and 128 will likely be closed overnight or until the sandbar breaches and the backed up water drains out.

(Nick Wilson)

THE MOUTH OF THE NAVARRO (last week)

SUPERVISOR WILLIAMS BRAVES THE UNITY CLUB

by Beverly Dutra

Fifth District Supervisor Ted Williams spoke to a large crowd at the Unity Club's annual luncheon on Thursday, February 6. Forty-five Unity Club members and guests were joined by over 30 community members.

Supervisor Williams gave a quick rundown of his first-year experiences and then entertained questions. Topics ranged from adequate ambulance service, a variety of road issues, broadband and telephone services, and the status of grading and riparian ordinances. There were special concerns expressed about the importance of measures D an E, especially with regard to the need for fire support funding. People are pretty vocal about the lack of progress on a County Mental Health care facility as promised in Measure B as well as the quality and cost of all county mental health services.

The issues of the need for successful small businesses as a broader tax base for the county were also examined. There is much support for home-based business in the community but the obstructive costs and requirements demanded by County offices defeat this wish. It was asked if some appropriate relief could be found. As one local person said, "Jobs and housing go together." Local citizens were articulate and relevant with their questions and comments and so were the Supervisor’s answers. The broad ranging and lively discussion finished off with remarks related to disaster planning and necessary changes in 911 dispatch. Supervisor Williams was specifically thanked for his radio and online reports during the PG&E power outages and for, clearly, "working his job."

Supervisor Williams welcomes further contact. He listens and will try to help. Give him a call at his County number, 972-3993, or home number, 937-3500.

VARIETY SHOW 2020. happening folks! Come be a part of The 2020 Vision at the AV Philo Solar Grange Variety Show!

Fri & Sat, March 6 and 7. Different shows each night! Pre-show Tickets Go On Sale at Lemon's Philo Market and the AV Market in Boonville, March 2-6. Tickets Will Also Be Sold At The Door. We cooperate fully with the AVFD regarding maximum legal capacity, so if we reach "standing room only," we will monitor folks who leave after an act and will let more people in, so if you get a ticket you will get in! So come join in on the fun!

IS BOONVILLE GETTING FUDED?

Editor,

Once upon a time, when I was just a pup in the computer business, International Business Machines (IBM) often deployed a sales tactic that came to be known as Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt, or simply FUD (rhymes with mud). It worked by instilling fear, uncertainty, and doubt in the minds of customers thinking of choosing a computer system built by someone other than IBM. “No one ever got fired for choosing IBM,” is an example of this tactic.

The antidote to FUD was simple: Teach your customers to recognize it and provide them with information that combats it.

Today in 2020, the Anderson Valley Community Services District (AVCSD) is rolling out FUD to sell their water and sewer system plans to Boonville. www.sosboonville.org is dedicated to fighting AVCSD FUD by pointing it out and providing articles and discussions to inform.

Take a look at the recent mailer from the AVCSD titled, “Water and Wastewater Treatment Update #1.” In the event that you’ve consigned your copy to the trash, I’ll quote from the mailer.

”There is a public health crisis in Anderson Valley.”

Grabs you, doesn’t it? When I first read it I thought of the black plague, of carts filled with corpses, and the ringing cry “Bring out your dead.” The first aim of FUD is to get you to stop thinking critically by getting you to think irrationally about something you fear.

”In 2015 water testing detected coliform bacteria and high levels of nitrates in 21 of 23 residential wells tested in central Boonville.”

Sounds like it might be factual. What it doesn’t say is that the wells selected for testing were already strongly suspected to be contaminated. In no way was this a representative sampling of wells in Boonville. When I asked at the AVCSD meeting on 2/5/2020 whether it was fair to say that the wells to be tested were “cherry picked,” the answer given was, “Yes.”

Now that you’ve been hit with a health crisis and some cherry picked facts, comes the sowing of doubt. Hopefully you’ve been sufficiently frightened to accept this dubious chain of reasoning:

”This is a serious public health issue and could affect the greater community. The contamination could spread beyond Boonville to the aquifer of the Anderson Valley, potentially polluting everyone’s water on the valley floor.”

Notice the use of “could” and “potentially,” words that signal a speculative line of reasoning. No facts here, the intent is to sow doubt about the future, so that unless the remedies to come are taken whole and without question, terrible things might happen.

”Residents of the Anderson Valley deserve better water quality than what is normally found in third-world countries.”

This sentence is offensive. The admixture of “normally found in third-world countries” and “Residents … deserve better” comes off as xenophobic. It has no place in an official communication.

“The State funds will no longer be available if the AVCSD doesn’t act soon.”

Here’s the uncertainty. If we don’t rush into whatever plans the AVCSD and its friends in the consulting and construction industries have cooked up for us, we might not get anything. Take it or leave it.

And that is how FUD works: Fear for our health, uncertainty about funding for alternatives, and doubt about the future.

Bob Abeles, sosboonville.org, Boonville

SNOW MOON OVER BOONVILLE

FORT BRAGG ASKS THE FORBIDDEN QUESTION

February 9, 2020

Re: Redwood Quality Management Company & Redwood Community Services

Dear Mendocino County Board of Supervisors:

Mendocino County’s reliance on Redwood Quality Management Company (RQMC) and Redwood Community Services (RCS) for Behavioral Health and Recovery Services appears to increase each year. As the services that RQMC and RCS provide are expanded, the Fort Bragg City Council would like to see more data on the success of those programs locally, here on the Coast, and countywide.

Most, if not all, of the information provided by RQMC focuses on numbers served and not on measuring the improvements in the health and wellbeing of their clients.

Without compromising confidentiality, it would be helpful to know how many clients enter programs with substance abuse or undiagnosed mental health illnesses and are successfully treated.

For example, a metric that measures the baseline of clients entering the system and tracks and reports progress over time will provide accountability for County funds and a measurement to gage ongoing improvement. Although the City Council is not well versed in Behavioral Health and Recovery Services standards and metrics, we have no doubt such assessments exist to guide and evaluate these programs.

The City Council feels strongly that we should compare our local programs to others in the region and across the nation, to evaluate success and pursue means to improve our programs, not just the numbers served.

Similarly, we understand that there are limited County resources available for these services and would like to better understand the costs and the impacts to the County.

How much do we spend per person? How does this compare to other jurisdictions? How much is saved in other costs such as law enforcement and emergency health care by successfully treating an individual as opposed to a person left suffering from untreated illnesses and diagnoses?

As we all understand, Behavioral Health and Recovery Services are a vital and integral piece of the overall success of our County.

As such, the Fort Bragg City Council respectfully requests that the Mendocino County Board of Supervisors require a professional assessment of the services provided by RQMC and all of their subcontractors using an appropriate industry standard. The results of such an assessment can be used countywide to evaluate the quality of services provided and measure success and progress going forward.

The County could use these same results to build standard requirements or metrics into their service agreements.

Thank you for your ongoing service to our County.

Sincerely,

William V. Lee Mayor

Teresa K. Albin-Smith Councilmember

Bernie Norvell Vice Mayor

Jessica Morsell-Haye Councilmember

Lindy Peters Councilmember

THE HEADLINE in last week's Advocate-Beacon read: "Meadows taking the helm at newspapers." Not just any newspapers but the Mendocino Coast's two interchangeable publications owned by the same distant hedge fund which also owns the Ukiah Daily Journal and The Willits News. The terse announcement continues: "A change of leadership is afoot at the Advocate-News and The Mendocino Beacon. Kate Lee, who has been publisher since Sharon DiMauro’s retirement three years ago, is herself retiring on Jan. 31. KC Meadows, the veteran editor of sister papers the Ukiah Daily Journal and The Willits News, will be the coast papers’ new general manager. Meadows has been managing editor at the Ukiah Daily Journal since 1997 and a reporter since 1991. She’s a former radio newswoman and congressional staffer."

THE HED shoulda been, "KC At The Bat," but I doubt the papers' remaining staffers, as they await their final execution, are in any mood for whimsey. The hedge fund ghouls, having sold off the real estate that once housed the four papers, doesn't replace departed staffers, but still squeezes enough ad revenues out of their skeleton crews to pay the rent and keep the lights on. KC Meadows now oversees the whole Mendo show, as the distant hedge boys squeeze another whole salary out of her.

BIPOLAR MOMENT ON 128 - Drives 700 feet into vineyard, leaves car running and walks away.

The scanner said the car is registered to a missing person out of Novato (we're withholding the name). She was described as a white female adult in her mid-50's wearing a white shirt who walked away from the scene on Highway 128 towards Cloverdale. She was also carrying a white trash bag. (via MSP)

SUSPECT IN FATAL MENDO HIT & RUN IN COURT TUESDAY

An MSP look at the Mendocino County Superior Court Calendar this week found the suspect in the July 18, 2019 fatal hit & run crash that Gina Bean, who killed 21-year-old Calum Hunnicut in Mendocino last will be in Courtroom A in the Ukiah Courthouse @ 2:00 pm for a hearing when a trial will be set and/or held.

MSP believes a plea deal will be worked out - with the results much the same as five years ago when Isabel Gutierrez-Villarreal of Fort Bragg hit & run - and killed - bicyclist Jacob Aaron Howard, age 36, on Highway 1. The suspect fled the scene and was apprehended days later and charged with 2000 l(a) VC: Hit and Run causing injuries or death, and 192.5 PC - vehicular manslaughter.

He had Mark Kalina for an attorney - the same lawyer Ms. Bean had at her arraignment.

MSP contacted the Mendocino County District Attorney’s Office and found out Gutierrez-Villarreal eventually ended up with no contest pleas to felony vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence and felony leaving the scene of an accident with the conditions of 5-years probation and he served 364 days in county jail. (MSP)

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Previously: www.theava.com/archives/116881 & www.theava.com/archives/114276#2

GOWAN’S CIDER BOTTLE WINS TWO BEST-OF-CLASS AWARDS in America's Biggest Wine Competition

At the largest wine competition on the continent, Gowan’s was the only one to win two Best-in-Class

https://vr2.verticalresponse.com/emails/21990232605518

MAYHEM & ASSAULT IN FORT BRAGG:

Bitten Off Ear Lobe Recovered

Sergeant Chris Awad

FG2000166

February 9, 2020 / 12:30 a.m.

200 Block of E. Redwood Avenue

On Sunday, February 9, 2020 at approximately 12:30 a.m. Officers from the Fort Bragg Police Department responded to the 200 Block of E. Redwood Avenue for a report of a fight with possible injuries. Upon their arrival, Officers contacted the victim, a 42 year old male from Fort Bragg. The victim was bleeding from the left side of his head, near his left ear. Officers saw the victim was missing his left ear lobe. The victim advised he was involved in a physical altercation with another male who was identified as a 38 year old male form Fort Bragg. The victim stated during the altercation, the suspect bit his ear off.

Officers requested an emergency medical response to the location to treat the victim for his injuries. Officers located the ear lobe, packed it in ice and provided it to medical personnel. The victim was subsequently transported to the Mendocino Coast District Hospital for treatment. Officers learned the suspect left the location prior to their arrival. Officers issued a Be On the Look Out (BOLO) message to neighboring Law Enforcement Agencies for the suspect.

The suspect contacted the Fort Bragg Police Department to provide a statement in regard to this incident. The suspect is cooperating with this investigation. This investigation is ongoing and will be sent to the Mendocino County District Attorney’s Office to review for charges.

If you have information related to this investigation, please contact Officer Welter at (707) 961-2800 ext. 168 or awelter@fortbragg.com. Anonymous tips may be left on the Crime Tip Hotline at (707) 961-3049. Questions regarding this press release may be forwarded to Sergeant Awad at (707) 961-2800 ext. 180 or e-mailed to cawad@fortbragg.com.

NORTH COAST WINE GRAPE CROP SUFFERS SUBSTANTIAL DECLINE

The value of the North Coast grape crop slid to $1.7 billion last year, down 15% from 2018 as wine sales leveled off across the United States and wineries reacted by crushing less fruit, according to the annual California grape harvest report released Monday.

pressdemocrat.com/business/10679093-181/north-coast-wine-grape-crop

NIGHT LIGHT OF THE NORTH COAST: Snow Moon over Carson Mansion

by David Wilson

As one of the most photographed Victorian buildings in California, if not the United States, the Carson Mansion has crept beyond Humboldt’s borders to seep into our popular culture. Certainly it has added its unique presence to the horror genre; I’ve periodically encountered the mansion’s distinctive form as the architectural basis of haunted houses in scary posters or other artwork from well outside the local area.

Photographing such a popular subject is usually low on my list, but I live nearby, and the building is so powerfully compelling that occasionally a night will find me down there with my camera to add another local’s vision to the lexicon of the old Victorian. With the prospect of February’s Snow Moon rising behind the mansion, the opportunity to capture the spooky house under a full moon proved irresistible.

I scouted the scene the afternoon before photographing it to estimate where the moon would be that night, where I would have to position myself, and which lens to bring. I was there not five minutes, but in that short time two cars and one passerby stopped to take pictures of the place from outside the fence. The great pile is on private property and can only be enjoyed from afar.

Built in the 1880’s, the Carson Mansion has stood for over 130 years as a beacon of American Victorian architecture. For more on the fascinating history of the Carson Mansion, the following Wikipedia article is complete with sixteen references for the information, including Library of Congress, historical bodies, and articles from the North Coast Journal: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carson_Mansion .

Have you ever wondered how photographers get a gigantic moon to dwarf something on the horizon like a house or a tree, aside from compositing images together? The trick is to find a subject on the horizon where the sun or moon will be, and then back up so far from the subject that it will be tiny — just as small as the sun or moon appear. At that point, you would need the magnification of a very powerful telephoto lens to bring your scene up close, giving you a photo of your subject accompanied by the giant orb of sun or moon. In my image the moon isn’t nearly so large because I wasn’t able to get far enough away from the mansion to make the building appear nearly moon-size — and if I had been able to, I wouldn’t have had a lens powerful enough to bring it all in!

No doubt “Snow Moon” is a moniker slapped onto the February full moon by folks in colder climes; it’s unlikely tropical folks think of it so — maybe a Mosquito Moon? Names such as “Wolf Moon,” “Snow Moon,” “Blood Moon,” and the others do lend some good drama to an evening, though. But many of the names are seasonal and dependent on the hemisphere or the region in which one lives; ask your friends in Borneo whether they saw the Snow Moon. I prefer the generic, yet descriptive, “full moon,” for everyone knows what it is with no questions asked.

(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.)

JUST IN FROM ELK

Queenie’s reopening update

Queenie’s Roadhouse Cafe reopening update. Queenie will reopen for the season in March. Our 19th year. I know it's late. The Queen needed a little extra time off. We all miss you and look forward to many YUMMY meals together.

HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT PUPPIES? SUNSETS? BIRD SONG? DAFFODILS?

Editor,

This is the truth!!!

I just attended the forum for the candidates of District One at City of 10,000 Buddhas.

It was attended by James Green, Jon Kennedy, Glenn McGourty and John Sakowicz, who showed up 45 minutes late, without advance notice of why. I asked.

My wife and I walked out at the very end during the final statements, and my BP when I got home was 160/100.

I cursed all of the way home.

Allow me to explain why. I would first say that I have the ultimate respect for all religions.

My comments are not religion based. They are reality based.

First, the sound system had a horrific feedback that gave both me and my wife a headache.

I can assure you that we were not alone. I heard it clearly. They did not. It made me wonder what the people there were indeed hearing. This showed me that they did not even understand what they were even hearing.

I had reason to worry. This event/forum was a soft-serve ice cream melting in the summer heat, dripping on the floor.

Now, let me tell you why I am so “unhappy.” I thought long and hard about eight questions I wished to ask the candidates. I proofed them, reread them many times, ran them past people that I respect, and all were good to go.

I was the ONLY person to submit questions that were not written down just before the forum.

Trust me. I gave more thought around this forum than did anyone else there, except for most of the candidates.

Not one single well thought out question of mine was asked.

First, this means that I was not, or my concerns were not addressed. This is bias, plain and simple.

A rigged event, biased against tough questions, and oriented towards pablum. Poi.

All questions asked were redundant, already answered in many venues.

There was no meat on any bones here. Sure it was cute. Little girls smiling, and directing traffic, and showing you where the ice cream and lollipops were.

What a travesty. I am embarrassed for them. This was not an honest or truthful or transparent event.

Are you telling me that none of the eight of my vetted questions were worthy of being asked?

Well, here is what I heard.

Hey, how do you like puppies? What are your feelings about puppies? How about flowers? Flowers are good. Do you like the way flowers smell? You have one minute to answer.

And what was really gained by this event? Well, nothing really. It was chewed up and spit out bubble gum. Rechewed.

Look, you can all BS yourselves all day long, should you wish.

Here is what I know. We are in decline. We are clearly focused on certain things while wearing beer goggles.

Our politicians need to get their house in order.

I will say it again. Our best thinkers, our best doers are planning on leaving the area, or retiring.

Trust me on this. I can name names.

Unless we start to voice our concerns more, and do more, and show up, and vote,..

You all are on your own. I have written many articles forewarning all.

If you wish to wade in quicksand, then maybe there will be no one left to pull you out.

Do not look to me. I have better plans. Make no mistake.

Johnny Keyes

Ukiah

POLITICAL & PERSONAL

Dear Last Newspaper:

I have missed the too few impeachment charges debacle, the so-called peace deal that pushed the Palestinians out, the Shadow ap that Hillary helped with and who funded and is trying to slow down Bernie after the Des Moines Register wouldn't tell us what's next. This morning the news was that China probably didn't reveal the coronavirus when first known and that every statistic is over double the amount of sick, or dead; and the possibility that one can catch it more than once because our immune systems have trouble overcoming this one. And what about the accurate and ready nuclear-outfitted submarine positioned presumably to get Iran or…?

Why doesn't the Tom Hartmann show ever highlight the plight of the Palestinians and whistleblower journalists like Julian Assange, etc. It's hard to hear that old gas plants are going to be replaced in Southern California. I wish we could get a full swing effort with green power and jobs and a bullet train revival.

Things are grim. No wonder I can't throw off the remnants of sickness. What we are dealing with now is worse than just being hungry.

Sincerely,

Susan Knopka

Berkeley

PS. Looking for a single healthy, nonaddicted, easy to live with, grounded, financially stable senior with house who can fix things joyfully, take care of a car, help with a garden who likes physical science (but not data), classical music especially early music, camping on the Lost Coast, sledding, skating in some quiet place near Tahoe in a rustic cabin. Bonus if dyslexic. I have met some measure of success, I'm in my late 60s, not bad looking, brunette, shapely, similar to above but not a fixer upper. Also no money and no car.

CATCH OF THE DAY, February 10, 2020

JOHN ALAMEDA, Lakeport/Ukiah. Probation revocation.

TYLER FELICIANO, Houston, Texas/Ukiah. Pot possession for sale.

THOMAS GALINDO JR., Ukiah Disobeying court order, failure to appear, probation revocation. (Frequent flyer.)

JODI HODGES, Ukiah. Disoderly conduct-alcohol. (Frequent flyer.)

NICHOLAS LANZIT, Ukiah. Petty theft with priors, failure to appear, probation revocation.

MICHAEL PARAVICINI, Fort Bragg. DUI, probation revocation.

MARK SPITSEN, Ukiah. Controlled substance, disobeying court order, probation revocation.

CHRISTOPHER VANDERPLOEG, Fort Bragg. DUI, disobeying court order.

JIMMIE WEBB, Redwood Valley. Domestic battery.

BERNIE, PLEASE

The degree to which we are battering the Earth we are also battering the human psyche.

The root cause for both disasters can be found in free market, self-interest capitalism.

Bernie Sanders!

For President!

Please!

David Severn, Philo

MARCO ON THE MOON

I keep my brand-new distance glasses in the car, to see to drive. I just got out of the car and looked at the moon and saw it clearly for the first time in years not on a screen or in a book but in the cold sky, among stars that are points of light again. And I'm reading Roger Zelazny's Chronicles of Amber books over again for the many-th time.

He wrote ten in the series by the time he died of everything going wrong at once because of cancer. A few years go by and I find another set (lately I just got them and put them in my phone) and it's the same wonderful experience as the first time through when I was a young. There's a part in the second book, Guns of Avalon, where Corwin, having grown new eyes back during years in a dungeon after being blinded with red-hot irons, and having escaped, is on the move, formulating a new plan and gathering forces for another attempt at what he was horribly blinded to punish him for in the first place, and he looks up and there's the moon, sharp and clear, in his fully returned eyesight. This is like that.

Marco McClean

memo@mcn.org

https://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com

CHRIS SKYHAWK WRITES:

Bernie Sanders - Zen Warrior

I continue to be exceptionally impressed with the skill level of Sanders in electoral combat. before the so-called “debacle” in Iowa I was already impressed with his rise in the polls despite the verifiable Bernie blackout “in the main stream news — I developed a theory that the blackout worked for him in that it proved the point he had been making all of these years, all he had to do was sit back, let the silence speak for itself, while his supporters coalesced in their mutual outrage.

Brilliant Bernie, and well-played.

This past week the so-called debacle in Iowa the corporate and corrupt instrument of the oligarchy known as the DNC got caught red-handed with their hands in the cookie jar, and mayor Pete is exposed as the favored candidates of billionaires, all these narratives are carrying themselves with nary a word from him - he does not need to say a damn thing about it - the media that ignored his message is now glibly carrying it daily. If this political thing does not work out for him perhaps he can become a zen martial arts teacher!

NEVADA DEMOCRATIC PARTY UNVEILS "APPLESS" APP FOR CAUCUS DAY 02/22/20

The Nevada Democratic Party was planning to use an app for their Feb 22 caucus that was written by Shadow, the company who wrote the buggy Iowa Democratic caucus app that crashed the Iowa caucus. NDP did fire Shadow immediately after the Iowa debacle. However it is rushing out a replacement iPad app (that they say isn’t an app) for the caucus on Feb 22. This is absolutely begging for disaster.

Hello, if it’s on an iPad it’s an app. Period. Pretending it isn’t is silly as well as deliberately evasive. I’m a software developer. Sounds like they are rushing out an app with no beta testing and little less training. And didn’t ask end users what they want, and what they will be able to easily use during the tumult of early voting and caucus day. I hope this doesn’t end up a smoking crater.

The new tool will help precinct chairs fold in the results from people in their precinct who chose to caucus early with the preferences of in-person attendees on Caucus Day by calculating the viability threshold and carrying out the two alignments in the caucus process, according to the volunteers and the video recording.

Asked by a volunteer whether results would be transmitted from one place to another, the staffer demurred.

Volunteers said they received little information at the training beyond a rough outline of how the tool is supposed to function. They also were unsure how the party plans to carry out its four-day early voting period, which previously relied on the use of an app to capture people’s preferences.

(polizeros.com)

ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

I’m voting for Amy somebody…the least problematic.

She’s, by the way, a former prosecutor for the county that houses Minneapolis (her daddy’s old position), and then a Senator.

She’s just a regular gal from Wayzata High School (a top 5 statewide ranked school district) and worked her way up the MN DFL graft of county, then state, office.

Being a resident of said school district for my first 18 years of life, she legitimately has no animus towards anyone by virtue of growing up in the safest space ever for affluent white people. Her naivete makes her trusting and open to all. But she’s not regular, she doesn’t “know you” like she says. Her life was/has been easy.

She’ll get run over by the indecent & corrupt people of the globe.

She’s the soft landing, but assured Federal collapse, candidate.

Though she has none of the skills necessary to be a fighter for America, she might be the least corrupted. Jimmy Carter 2.0

EXECUTIVE ORDER

by James Kunstler

In this pause between past and future Deep State seditions, and the full-blown advent of Corona Virus in every region of the world, we pause to consider Mr. Trump’s executive order requiring new federal buildings to be designed in the classical style. The directive has caused heads to explode in the cultural wing of Progressive Wokesterdom, since the worship of government power has replaced religion for them and federal buildings are their churches — the places from which encyclicals are hurled at the masses on such matters as who gets to think and say what, who gets to use which bathroom, and especially whose life and livelihood can be destroyed for being branded a heretic.

The religion of Progressivism (under various names) has been growing for over a century, based on the idea that the material abundance of techno-industrial societies should be centrally managed by national bureaucracies, finally leading to a nirvana of perfect fairness. The part that’s always left out is that this is accomplished by coercion, by pushing people around, telling them what to do and how to think, and by confiscating their property or docking their privileges if they seem to have too much of either. You can observe the operations of this doctrine in the current crop of Democratic Party aspirants to the White House.

The architecture that expressed all that is loosely called “Modernism” mostly because it was supposed to represent the distilled essence of everything that is up-to-date, and the idea of coercing an unfair world toward universal fairness has ruled the elite managerial class ever since Karl Marx lanced his boils of social grievance on the printed page. The First World War really sealed the deal for Modernism. The industrial-scale slaughter — well-depicted in the recent movie, 1917 — so horrified the elites that the architecture branch of elite-dom decided to shit-can all the offensive claptrap of history as expressed in buildings and replace them with bare boxes of one kind or another. A whole metaphysical theology was constructed to justify this attempt at a totalistic do-over for the human race. “Less is more…” et cetera.

Meanwhile, along came Stalin and Hitler who persisted in the dirty business of neoclassical architecture, and they screwed the pooch on that theme for all time, while the Second World War reaffirmed the urge to cleanse the world of all that filthy symbolism. By the 1950s, Modernism ruled the scene as the architecture of Decency and Democracy. It very quickly became the architecture that glorified corporate America, viz., the rows of glass box skyscrapers hoisted up along the grand avenues of midtown Manhattan, and then every other city center in America. Before long, as the old government buildings of yore grew obsolete, they too were replaced with confections of Modernism, and then the university libraries, and finally… everything.

The trouble with being up-to-date in architecture is that buildings last a long time and dates fade into history, and if you hate history you have created a problem. The world is a restless place. The main feature of this particular moment is that techno-industrial society has entered an epochal contraction presaging collapse due to over-investments in hyper-complexity. That hyper-complexity has come to be perfectly expressed in architecture lately in the torqued and tortured surfaces of gigantic buildings designed by computers, with very poor prospects for being maintained, or even being useful, as we reel into a new age of material scarcity and diminished expectations — especially the expectation for reaching that technocratically engineered nirvana of fairness.

Of course, the mandarin uber-class among the elite, especially the poohbahs in the architecture schools, can’t bear the thought that things are tending this way. Their theology of up-to-date-ness, of “the cutting edge,” is all about fashion. That things go out of fashion has given them the opportunity to create and cash-in on ever more new fashions, to keep up the pretense of perpetually surfing that cutting edge, from which they derive their status. And this incessant reach for status, and the power it confers, belies and betrays the whole business of representing the ultimate nirvana of fairness, revealing them to be the mendacious frauds they are.

The Trumpian reach backward toward classicism is certainly a quixotic move, even though one can make a case for it being a national style, at least in the early years of the USA when that mode of building was supposed to represent the democracy of ancient Greece and the dignity of the Roman republic — hence, Greco-Roman architecture. Some things to consider: We’re going to have to reduce the scale of the things we build. The cutting edge grandiosity of today is about to go out of style. National bureaucracies will shrink, if they don’t vanish altogether, and so will the buildings that house their operations.

We’re going to need buildings that don’t go out of style, so you can forget about the cutting edge, and classicism does have the virtue of timelessness — or at least it did, for a long time. These new buildings ought to have the capacity for adaptive re-use over generations, even centuries. They will probably have to be made out of non-exotic materials, namely, masonry and wood, since the scarcities we face will include a lot of modular fabricated materials ranging from plate glass to aluminum trusswork to steel I-beams, to sheetrock — all things requiring elaborate, complex mining and manufacturing chains.

A virtue of classicism is that it employs structural devices that allow buildings to stand up: arches, columns, colonnades. These are replicable in modules or bays along scales from small to large. These devices honestly express the tectonic sturdiness of a building within the realities of gravity. A hidden virtue of classicism is that it is based on the three-part representation of the human figure: the whole and all the parts within it exist in nested hierarchies of base-shaft-and-head. This is true of columns with capitols set on a base, of windows with their sills, sashes, and lintels, and the whole building from base to roof. Classical architecture follows proportioning systems universally found in nature, such as the Fibonacci series of ratios, which are seen in everything from the self-assembly of seashells to the growth of tree branches. Thus, classicism links us to nature and to our own humanity.

Classical ornaments — the swags, moldings, entablatures, cartouches, corbels, festoons, and what-have-you — are not mandatory, but, of course, they also provide a way of expressing our place in nature, which is a pathway to expressing truth and beauty.

Modernism doesn’t care about truth and beauty; it cares about power, especially the power to coerce. Many people detect that dynamic, and that is one reason they loathe Modernist buildings. The main imperative of Modernism was to separate us from nature, since it was human nature that brought about all the horrors of the 20th century and so revolted the intellectual elites. The result of that was a denatured architecture of the machine and an animus against what it means to be human located in nature.

We’re probably not going back to anything like formal classicism because the contraction ahead will leave us in a world of salvage, of cobbling together whatever we can from the detritus left over. But sooner or later — surely well after Mr. Trump has decomposed into his constituent molecules — we will get back to an architecture that is based on our place in nature, so don’t set your hair on fire over this new executive order, no matter how much The New York Times wants you to.

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

THE EQUIV

GED/High School Equivalency Prep

Take control of your future!

Mendocino College is offering a class to prepare students to take a high school equivalency exam. If you do not have a high school diploma and are 18 years of age or older or within 60 days of your 18th birthday, you are eligible to take the exam.

This is short term class. BSK-502-0084 High School Equivalency Exam Prep runs from March 2, 2020 - May 19, 2020.

The class meets Mondays from 4:00PM-8:05PM and Tuesdays from noon-3:35PM.

It is an open enrollment class. Accommodations can be made if you are unable to attend both Mondays and Tuesdays.

If you are interested, please contact Mendocino College Coast Center at 707-961-2200.

Hi-SET tests are given each month in Fort Bragg.

Mendocino College offers the Hi-SET exam which is very similar to the GED but is created by a different company. Hi-SET certification is " recognized and accepted by every state, territory and jurisdiction, as well as by the U.S. Department of Education, the U.S. military and federal programs.”

(https://hiset.ets.org/about/credential)

FROM STAN GOFF ON TWITTER …

PROJECT LEARNING TREE EDUCATOR WORKSHOP

Saturday February 29, 10AM-4PM

At the UC ANR Hopland Research & Extension Center.

$10. Please bring a packed lunch. Coffee/tea and snacks provided.

Become a Project Learning Tree certified educator

Be engaged in a hands-on workshop for both formal and non-formal educators

Investigate environmental topics in the oak woodlands with indoor and outdoor activities adaptable to all ages

Receive PLT's PreK-8 Environmental Education Activity Guide, correlated to national and state academic standards

No dogs: Due to our management of sheep with guard animals on this site. Instructors include UC ANR Community Education Specialists Hannah Bird (Hopland Research & Extension Center) and Brook Gamble (UC California Naturalist Program). Please contact Brook Gamble707-744-1424 x108 for details.

ON LINE COMMENTS OF THE WEEK

[1] The battle is not between Republicans and Democrats – that one is lost – Republican ruthlessness and corruption has trumped Democrat commitment to fair play mixed with naive incompetence, plus the decline of its union base.

The battle is not between “Progressive, One-World, Globalist Socialists” and “Freedom-Loving, Small-Government Conservatives” either … another total myth that might play night after night on Fox News, but hardly anywhere else.

Anyway – the US doesn’t have a social-democrat worthy of the name, let alone a genuine “socialist” – in many Western countries including mine, Backdoor Bernie would be indistinguishable from the local conservative Tories.

No – the battle is between decent people who care about the 75% of the population who do it tough every day, and those whose attitude seems to be “I’ve got mine (usually through daddy, like the Dumpster), go get yours!”.

Sure they wrap themselves in the flag and preach about individual freedom and individual liberty, but in fact it’s the wealthy who gain the most from government – they get far more.

They are the kiddies who read Ayn Rand at 18, had a few dorm sessions in college, and then never ever grew up. Trump is one of them … and he has surrounded himself with the swampiest cabinet and administration possible … he’s shit-scared because he knows he is unfit for the job.

But I don’t think anyone in the Democratic circus is fit for it either.

---

[2] I did not attend my precinct caucus here in Des Moines, Iowa. If it had been a normal primary election, I would have voted. Voting takes only minutes, not hours like a caucus. And the caucuses are an unreasonable challenge for citizens with a mobility problem, like I developed recently. (No, not a stroke, for which I am thankful.)

So Nancy Pelosi is disgusted with our President’s State of the Union speech to the point that she tore up her copy of it. Well, Nancy, I am disgusted with your “Democratic” Party, which conducts this travesty of democracy called the Iowa Caucuses. Your party could not manage a kindergarten classroom, let alone a national government.

Computer applications must be tested, and people must be trained in their use. Who doesn’t know that?

And why do the caucuses not have a secret ballot? No good reason comes to mind, only bad ones.

Why is the caucus procedure so complicated and error-prone? Any good reason?

Iowa has the caucus system so that we do not compete with New Hampshire for the first in the nation primary. That’s not good enough. The Iowa Caucuses should be abolished and replaced with a normal primary election.

The news media will oppose this change because they are addicted to the advertising revenue they get from the campaigns.

IN SAVING A CALIFORNIA NEWSPAPER, A WIDOWER SAVES HIMSELF

nytimes.com/2020/02/10/us/california-newspaper-sierra-messenger.html

THE 23-YEAR-OLD IS TRYING TO BE RESPONSIBLE. How I Get By: Two Weeks in the Life of a Target Employee

During the last semester, he worked nights five days a week at Target. On his days off, he went to class.

vice.com/en_us/article/g5xyyw/how-i-get-by-two-weeks-in-the-life-of-a-target-employee

OPEN LETTER TO THE DNC From an American Centrist

I respectfully encourage the DNC to abandon its corporate allegiance, re-configure its membership and shift into alignment with the will of the people.

commondreams.org/views/2020/02/04/open-letter-dnc-american-centrist

FOUND OBJECT