MCT: Saturday, February 29, 2020

• Cooler Weekend
• Coronas
• Closing OB
• Peace Agreement
• Blocking Brandy
• Economic Tide
• Rohnert Settles
• Potty Talk
• Stolen Quilt
• Pergunnar Spiked
• AV Village
• Yesterday's Catch
• Kobe's Send-off
• Clueless Elites
• Superdelegate Question
• DiFi Lecture
• Major Changes
• Covid Rumors
• Rent Destrucktor
• Food Handling
• Sako Interview
• PA Meeting
• SBM BS
• Crossover Bad
• Whale Run
• Blind Man
• Disease Defenses
• Inland Democrats
• Bulletproof Tests
• Huff Puffs
• Task Force
• Broadband Meeting
• Found Object

MUCH COOLER CONDITIONS can be expected today and Sunday, with perhaps some coastal drizzle and perhaps a shower or two across Del Norte County. Temperatures are likely to drop to near and slightly below freezing in interior areas tonight, and again Sunday night. Warm and dry conditions return Monday through Thursday, with rain likely to arrive Friday. (NWS)

IT’S OFFICIAL: Mendocino Coast District Hospital closes its obstetrics department effective March 31

February 28, 2020 -- to whom it may concern,

Mendocino Coast District Hospital will close its obstetrics department March 31, 2020 at 5 p.m. due to decreasing birth and increasing costs of providing the service.

The obstetrics department consists of two labor and delivery rooms, three postpartum rooms and a nursery. We have one full-time employee that this will affect. This employee has been crosstraining to another position and will be retained unless they choose otherwise.

The three nearest facilities that offer obstetric services are as follows:

Ukiah Valley Medical Center, 275 Hospital Drive, Ukiah, CA 95482 707-462-3111, 57 miles.

Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital, 1165 Montgomery Drive, Santa Rosa, CA 95405 707 525 5300, 118 miles

Sutter Santa Rosa Regional Hospital, 30 Mark West Springs Road, Santa Rosa, CA 95403 707-576-4000. 113 miles.

Interested parties may offer comments at Mendocino Coast District Hospital at 700 River Dr., Fort Bragg, California. Comments can be left at 707-961-4610. Our chief executive officer is Wayne Allen. He is at 700 River Drive, California Fort Bragg, California. The phone number is 707-961-4610.

PEACE WITH THE TALIBAN? The deal will be signed this afternoon by U.S. special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad and Taliban political chief Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar. While the agreement paves the way for the United States to gradually withdraw its troops from a conflict that has become America's longest war, many expect that talks to come between the Afghan sides will be far more complicated.

WE FORWARDED this constituent complaint to Supervisor Gjerde for comment:

Re: 4th District Supervisor Race

Good Evening,

I was advised to share my recent experience with candidate Dan Gjerde with you.

He has refused to take my calls or respond to any emails from me in the last year, and most recently blocked me from commenting on his candidate social media despite the fact that every comment has been a respectful challenge regarding his ability to fix issues in the district. The ACLU and Fourth Circuit Court have ruled that this is a violation of constitutional rights. (I intend to file against him tomorrow and will provide the complaint once I have it.)

I posted about his blocking of me on various community pages and got lots of responses about other individuals having the same issue with him.

Earlier this afternoon, I was loading groceries into my car with my 4 year old in tow when a man in a black Corvette rolled down his window and shouted at me "Back off before it gets worse." Then speeding off too fast for me to get a license plate or follow him. I am not scared, I'm encouraged. I'm a 115lb military veteran, college student, local business owner and a mother. I get shit done. And if someone like me is that much of a threat to exposing the corruption that is so intertwined with Dan Gjerde and his campaign, then I'll gladly wear that hat too.

If you feel inclined to expose Mr. Gjerde, I'd gladly provide more information, screenshots, etc.

Thank you and have a wonderful night,

Brandy Moulton, Fort Bragg

blm0424@gmail.com

ROHNERT PARK PAYS $1.5 MILLION SETTLEMENT TO DRIVERS ALLEGING POLICE OFFICERS STOLE POT, MONEY

The Rohnert Park City Council agreed this week to pay nearly $1.5 million to settle federal civil rights lawsuits lodged by eight drivers who claimed the city’s public safety officers robbed them of money and marijuana during roadside stops.

pressdemocrat.com/news/10764080-181/rohnert-park-pays-12-million

DEFENDING THE INDEFENSIBLE

We addressed Supervisor Carre Brown's unprovoked outburst in reaction to Supervisor William's attempt to overhaul the county’s failed pot permit program.

But Supervisor John McCowen was equally annoyed at Supervisor Williams' attempt to salvage McCowen’s failed permit program via expansion and overhaul, although at least McCowen didn’t claim to be personally insulted by Williams's effort. Instead, he essentially told Williams to just shut up because McCowen, Brown and Dan Gjerde have decided that their unwieldy monster of a program shouldn’t be tinkered with, much less simplified.

McCOWEN: "There are a lot of things in [Supervisor Haschak’s list of minor permit program adjustments] which have been debated and it's really not going to make the application process easier. This board has decided the subject of maximum grow size several times including when you've [Williams] been here and part of our protocols I believe is we advocate strenuously for what we really believe — we marshal our best arguments, we bring all the logic, all the advocacy to it that we can — and when the board takes an action we abide by the majority decision of the board and we are never going to get anywhere to making the kind of structural changes I think you are advocating for if we keep going back wasting our energy on issues that have been continually debated and decided. It's time to move on to other things. So you are actually hindering the ability of the board to fully consider your other recommendations and I think we should move on to those. I think I'm hearing clearly from three people (himself, Brown, and supervisor Gjerde) we don't support tinkering with the current hundred foot limitation for personal use. And again even if you can do it without bothering the neighbors you are undercutting the legal market.”

Supervisor Dan Gjerde: “That's true. Supervisor Haschak, I would appreciate your going on to the next item.”

Willliams was not given an opportunity to respond.

---

Earlier in the day, long-time cannabis defense attorney Edie Lehrman appeared before the Board during public expression. As far as we know this was the first time she’d commented on the County’s pot permit program. Ms Lehrman joined the ever-expanding chorus of people with first-hand experience with the program who, for one reason or another, think it’s unworkable:

"I would like to talk about how the applications currently are being processed by our Planning Department. While I think it's great that we are trying to consider all the people who have not got their applications in yet and trying to look forward to a new process, there's a lot of people who are drowning in the current application process that are being forgotten. They didn't necessarily have to spend time in jail, but they were just turned away. I have been on a regular basis to the Planning Department. And every time I'm there, people who I've never spoken to before are being turned away. Half the time when I get there and I'm trying to talk about an application they can't find the application that I'm talking about. They tell me there is no such application. Then only five minutes later to find the application. In some situations they try to return it back to me because of some minor deficiency. These situations are very concerning because these are people who have come forward and are trying to get permits and for every one of those there are 50 people sitting in the background trying to think about putting in for a permit but don't because of the frustrations. Even the fact that they have to hire a lawyer to do this process is sort of ridiculous. They should be able to do it on their own. We should be able to set up a system where the county is responsible for the applications that they have and that the system is not arbitrary and capricious. It seems like people are being turned away for minor deficiencies. For example, hundreds of applications in my opinion were turned away because there's no seller’s permit. You don't need a seller’s permit when it's going to be six months from the date and time that you are actually going to be selling anything. You have not even been allowed to grow cannabis yet! That's not even to talk about the inconsistencies with phase 1 applications versus the phase 2 application process. Basically there is no phase 2 application process. We are skipping all the way to phase 3 I guess. It seems like it's being done arbitrarily. I know there are certain people who get special circumstances and applications get pushed through. It's really sad. I see a lot of people who are not even my clients who are turned away and probably will never come back to the Planning Department to try to get their situation considered. Perhaps if we can figure out some way to cure the applications that have already been submitted it would go a long way rather than trying to start a new process.”

Supervisor/Board Chair John Haschak did not dispute anything Ms. Lehrman said and did not ask staff to respond, nor did he ask any follow-up questions. Simply the usual, “Thank you — next.”

MSP SAW THIS POSTED FRIDAY to coast social media:

"My jeep was broken into while parked at a view point. They took a Dakine black backpack with my wallet and glasses inside. They also took this quilt made for me by a friend. If you see it, please bring it to Van Damme State Park and leave at Kiosk or with camp Host. Thank you."

DRIVING WHILE BLOTTO

On Thursday, February 27, 2020, at approximately 6:31 p.m., Fort Bragg Police Department was dispatched to the 100 Block of S. Franklin Street for a report of an intoxicated male attempting to drive away in his vehicle. Officers were provided a vehicle description and license plate. They located the vehicle as it entered S. Main Street from Madrone Street. An Officer began following the suspect vehicle and identified evidence that the driver was likely impaired. The Officer attempted a traffic enforcement stop, however the suspect driver continued to drive southbound at speeds between 25 MPH and 35 MPH for several blocks, while driving erratically into oncoming traffic and off of the roadway. Believing the suspect vehicle did not intend to stop for law enforcement, Officers were sent south of the vehicle in order to deploy spike strips. The suspect vehicle was funneled onto the Hare Creek Bridge where Officers successfully deployed spike strips disabling three out of four of the suspect vehicle’s tires. With the vehicle’s tires disabled, the vehicle slowly left the roadway and came to a stop. Officers and Deputies from the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office were then able to safely remove the driver from his vehicle and take him into custody. The driver, identified as Pergunnar Guinan, 62, of Fort Bragg, provided a breath sample which showed a blood alcohol content of 0.26%.

Guinan’s arrest record revealed a recent conviction for driving under the influence of alcohol. Guinan was transported to County Jail on charges related to this incident. The Police Department would like to thank both the initial witness who reported this intoxicated driver to law enforcement, and to the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office for their immediate assistance during this event.

(Fort Bragg Police Presser)

ANDERSON VALLEY VILLAGE, MARCH 2020

We currently have 46 members and 45 trained volunteers ready to lend a hand.

AV Village Monthly Gathering, Volunteer Training and Activities See these AV Village and other local events listed on the Events Calendar on our website: https://gmail.us3.list-manage.com/track/click?u=cea1e601922fa82e47579cc80&id=aa8a43d981&e=358077c1c9

Volunteer Training: We have a volunteer training Sunday March 8th 3 to 4 pm (right before our monthly gathering) at Lauren’s — we ask each new volunteer to complete this short training; please RSVP with our coordinator (contact info below) if you will attend. Thank you!

March Gathering:

Join us for this month’s gathering "Meet Matt Kendall, the new Sheriff!" on Sunday March 8th 4 to 5:30 pm at Lauren's. Refreshments provided. Welcome the new Sheriff and help introduce him to the Anderson Valley! As always, all are welcome! And we are always looking for people to bring finger food, if you would like to bring food to this gathering let us know — thank you!

Activities:

Mind Body Relaxation Community Group March 2nd (RSVP please): Meets weekly on Mondays from 4 to 5:30 pm at the Teen Center behind the Methodist Church in Boonville, starting March 2nd, 2020 and runs to the end April 2020 with TBD for holiday weeks. Lucinda Walker has graciously offered to continue this wonderful group! Note this group will only happen if there is enough interest - so please Contact us ASAP; Lucinda Walker, MSW/ILS @ mscwalker@att.net (mailto:mscwalker@att.net) to sign up or for further information. It is a wonderful practice for people of all ages. Simple to learn, use and is free and open to everyone! It’s not meant to be drop-in but, it can be both. Those who commit to 8 weeks to learn and use on their own and those who need a space that week to integrate their mind and body, using their focused breathing, to relax from their stress, pain, or life events. See our events calendar for more info.

Coffee with the AV Village Coordinator:

Join us Thursday March 26^th 10:15 to 11 am at the Mosswood Market in Boonville. Come down for an informal chat with Anica (the AV Village coordinator) and other AV Village members, volunteers and supporters. Ask questions, share concerns, share ideas for improving our Village/ community or simply visit with your neighbors. I plan on holding these every 4th Thursday through May.

Book conversation:

Our next AV Village Book Conversation is Tuesday March 31st at 1:00 pm at Lauren’s. The current book is still ‘Enlightenment Now - The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress’ by Steven Pinker. We are now covering chapters 16-21. Contact Lauren for questions. laurenk@pacific.net (mailto:laurenk@pacific.net)

Carpool to the Gym and Silver Sneakers info:

If you would like to carpool to gym contact Mary O’Brien mheobrien@gmail.com (mailto:mheobrien@gmail.com) or cell 707-367-9728.

To be eligible for the Silver Sneakers Program, you must be 65+. Ukiah Valley Athletic Club (formerly Redwood Health Club) accepts Blue Cross/Shield Plan F and G and AARP Supplemental (United Healthcare Insurance). If you have the latter, you need to call UHC at 1-800-523-5800 and ask a representative who will give you a personal code for their program called My Renew Access. Once you have the code, you need to go to the club and register with Denisse Randolph. There are no initiation fees or monthly fees for this program.

If you’re not 65+ and/or don’t qualify for the Silver Sneakers Program, you can join the club for $47/month, plus a one-time $225 membership fee. Day use is $20/day, regardless of age.

Go to Ukiah Valley Athletic Club’s website to view amenities, classes, hours, or to ask questions. Denisse’s phone is 707-468-044, ex. 3.

Activities in the Works:

Coming this Summer or Fall a Community Enrichment class about tech/computer troubleshooting could be designed to fit the needs/interests of the student (as well as the interest/availability of the instructor), with infinite possibility! For example, it could be a drop-in evening just once each month, or it could be a structured session that meets weekly for a number of weeks or months. The fee would vary according to the duration of the course. Let me know if you know of a great instructor for this class. Stay tuned as this unfolds.

We are talking about forming a Grief Support Group with some possible help from the AV Health Center and we need your help - please let us know if you are interested in attending such a group and/or you would be willing to facilitate it with resources from the AV Health Center.

Anderson Valley Village

P.O. Box 576 Boonville, CA 95415

707-684-9829, andersonvalleyvillage@gmail.com

CATCH OF THE DAY, February 28, 2020

ROBERT BELL, Laytonville. Elder abuse, interfering with police communications, probation revocation.

SUMALEE FOLGER, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

PERGUNNAR GUINAN, Fort Bragg. DUI with priors, evasion, probation revocation.

SKYLAR HENDERSON, Willits. Domestic battery, trespassing, petty theft.

CASEY IRELAND, Willits. Parole violation.

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

CARLEY SCHLAPKOHL, Willits. Protective order violation, probation revocation.

STEPHANIE STUTSMAN, Ukiah. DUI.

JOSEPH WOODEN, Fort Bragg. Controlled substance, failure to appear.

THE BEEF WITH KOBE

by David Yearsley

Great teams have great benches. So strong was the musical squad assembled for Kobe Bryant’s send-off at Los Angeles’s Staples Center on Monday, that even Hall of Famer Jennifer Lopez didn’t rate any playing time. All the megastar got was a couple of call-and-response notes in the massed sing-along to Beyoncé’s XO, claimed by that singer to be Bryant’s all-time favorite song. Beyoncé called the tune, not JayLo.

Lopez didn’t even get the musical equivalent of a few layups during the warm-up. She had to sit and watch other—inferior!—talents hog the limelight and pad their stats. JayLo’s agony must have been akin to that of the young Bryant when he was forced to come off the bench in his first two seasons with the Lakers, the years just prior to the construction of Staples Center, the cathedral in which his hardwood heroics—including Monday’s posthumous ones—were recorded and have now been enshrined. Jerseys and Jumbotron are the relics and icons of our Age.

At least JayLo had someone to hold on to while riding the bench. Her grip around boyfriend Alex Rodriguez’s arm tightened noticeably during Christina Aguilera’s rendition of Franz Schubert’s Ave Maria at the close of the ceremony. JayLo clung fervently to those infamous bi- and triceps as if they were steroid-enhanced rosary beads.

As for Aguilera, she stood saintly still during her performance even while her voice shimmied and shook. Aguilera’s funerary showboating ran up the score on bespectacled and beleaguered Franz—and JayLo, too.

Had there been a scorers table, Aguilera might have tried to jump onto it as Bryant had done near that very spot a decade earlier after Game 7 of the NBA Finals when he won his fifth championship at Staples Center. Atop his spontaneous plinth, the demi-god extended his arms with basketball in one hand like Hercules’s club, as if to gather within his mighty wingspan all the confetti and adoration raining down on him.

All Aguilera could do after her star turn was beam and bask. Emcee Jimmy Kimmel then mounted the podium to remind her to stand down, making a lame joke about her singing in Italian. Mr. Kimmel take note: half-Latina Aguilera sang Schubert’s wedding warhorse fully in Latin, as it’s always done. Because Aguilera didn’t vacate the stage expeditiously, she alone got a double ovation. However odd at a memorial service, ovations at Hollywood ceremonies, whether Oscars or obsequies, come with the territory in Tinseltown.

Perhaps Lopez’s antics at the recent Super Bowl in Miami had disqualified her from ascending the altar and lifting a hymn to the departed. On that Sabbath Day earlier in the month, she got vertical and twirled on a stripper’s pole doubling as the antenna of the Empire State Building. Hers were the motions of a slo-mo sex-copter enacted while Bryant’s ongoing period of mourning was still in effect. There were three songstresses Monday morning: besides Beyoncé and Aguilera, Alicia Keyes appeared at the event. All had appeared in variable states of provocative undress on previous Super Sundays. But these vocal and dance athletes have been on the bench for a string of state and civic rituals. It was their time to score some points.

Beyoncé opened the observances with XO and the suitably heavenly Halo. But over the ensuing two hours it was to be classical music, a confirmation of the prematurely departed Laker star’s own classic status.

Before Aguilera’s Ave Maria, an even bigger hit had been heard: Beethoven’s “Moonlight” Sonata. It was fitting that the piece should be called on, and not just because of its somber C-sharp minor ruminations. Beethoven, too, was given a huge public funeral, estimated at some 20,000 people, about the number of people who gathered in and around Staples Center, thus a much larger percentage of Vienna’s population in 1827 than Bryant’s rites tallied in LA in 2020.

Like incense, an unsettling synchronicity hung in the air of Staples as Bryant was sainted. One expected the Zeitgeist to appear on the Jumbotron, or at least see an ad for Hegel’s Drive-Thru-World-of-Spirits on Hollywood Boulevard. 2020 marks the 250th year since Beethoven’s birth, and no one could have expected that the most famous piano piece this side of Für Elise would reach its biggest ever global audience thanks to the untimely death of a basketball star.

According to another of the speakers, Bryant’s best friend and one-time agent (now the General Manager of the Lakers), Rob Pelinka, Bryant was always dreaming up romantic gestures for his wife, Vanessa, who stoically, touchingly delivered the morning’s first address. Pelinka related how Bryant once found himself in a hotel suite with a piano and seized the opportunity to learn the opening bars of Beethoven’s sonata by ear so that he could play them for his spouse.

Pelinka then introduced the performer Alicia Keyes—like Beyoncé and Aguilera, a Grammy winner—and the piece she was about to play as the “Moonlit” Sonata. Pelinka’s unwitting grammatical transformation of the nickname was strangely appropriate, as if that musical moon were a klieg light on the movie set that is LA. At least visibility was good.

The sobriquet “Moonlight” for this sonata goes back to an 1823 story by the Beethoven admirer, poet and music critic, Ludwig Rellstab. Here is the scene he sets to Beethoven’s piano celebrated piece: “A lake reposes in the faint shimmer of the moon; the waves lap softly on the dark shore; gloomy wooded mountains rise up and cut off the holy region from the world; swans glide like spirits through the water with whispering rustles, and an Aeolian harp mysteriously sounds laments of yearning lonely love down from those ruins.” The passage’s portent now extends to a mountainside in southern California. (In Staples the harp would have to wait until Aguilera’s Ave Maria.) Keyes’ Romantic surges and shifts were more dramatic than even the impetuous Beethoven might have countenanced.

She played the piece on a piano that was purple—like the face of the new moon before a solar eclipse. Keyes was clad in matching color, her singing voice silent for these musical reflections: contemplation not cantillation was called for at this juncture in the mournful rites. An all-black string quartet made sure the sonata became a safe space by adding a shimmering halo of musical and moral support for Keyes’s Beethovenian encounter. Ludwig Van’s production design was deemed insufficient on its own. (Aguilera’s string quartet was made up exclusively of white players with that heavenly harp thrown in just in case the conjuring of the pearly gates wasn’t clear enough already. Separate but equal obtained among the Staples fiddlers.)

Purple piano and purple planets had aligned. A coast away from the Staples solemnities, Harvey Weinstein got done on two out of three charges—at 66%, a damn sight better than the abysmal free-throw percentage of Bryant’s former Lakers teammate and the last of Monday’s eulogists, Shaquille O’Neal. Weinstein could never soar through the air and thrill crowds, make people love him even for one magical moment.

In drop-stepping away from rape charges back in 2003, Bryant’s defense team had followed the tried-and-true game plan of slut-shaming the accuser and leaking her identity to the press. The nineteen-year-old woman subsequently refused to testify in court and the Colorado prosecutors dropped the charges just before trial, even though the case had looked strong. There had been blood on her undergarments and on his shirt; the woman had bruises on her neck and tears in her vaginal wall. Bryant had admitted that he had not received explicit consent from her. She later brought a civil case against him and received an undisclosed settlement. Though he publicly apologized, Bryant maintained that he had believed the sex consensual.

In the aftermath of the rape charges, Bryant shed the skin of his previous brand (Kobe Bryant) for that of Black Mamba—the lethal, phallic snake that strikes in the movie, Kill Bill: Vol. 2 by Quentin Tarantino, the filmmaker whose work helped make Harvey Weinstein into a Hollywood mogul of power and prestige. The first installment of Kill Bill came out in 2003, the year of Bryant’s alleged assault.

With charges pending, MacDonald and Coca Cola cut ties with him, Nike did not. Bryant’s Mamba shoe deal with that company brought him some $16 million annually.

Even for all his moves, Bryant could not completely shake the past. In 2018, after the advent of the #MeToo movement that Weinstein’s depredations had ushered in, Bryant was dropped from a film festival jury. Aside from that lone referee’s whistle, Hollywood embraced Bryant, even as it turned on Weinstein.

In basketball, as in life and death, there are winners and losers. Weinstein received the first installment of his earthly judgement the same day Bryant was being sanctified in Staples and his constellation spread across the firmament, Beethoven’s music rising up towards the darkened vault from which shone the gold and purple stars 8 and 24.

Beethoven did not connect his famous sonata with “moonlight.” He called the piece Sonata quasi una fantasia—“sonata in the manner of a fantasy.” The phrase bespoke freedom from constraining rules, yet the composer’s admirers heard a profound unity across the work’s three movements. One can also hear dark urges in this music. Beneath its uncanny calm lurks danger, even violence, however hard the maudlin string quartet of Keyes’s rendition worked to diffuse the threat.

Likewise, in Bryant’s life, work, and death one can trace intersecting lines, tragic vectors. Bryant was a self-styled Romantic of the hopeless variety. Dear Basketball, the short-animated film that Bryant wrote, won an Oscar in 2019, the retired star taking full advantage of his Hollywood homecourt advantage. The movie was shown again at Monday’s ceremony. To his own voice-over a cartoon version of Bryant is artfully portrayed accomplishing one of his greatest athletic feats. He flies through the air, spins, and completes a reverse dunk. It’s a rapturous, godlike act, the very embodiment of imagination and skill, desire and gratification—of fantasy and fulfillment. Icarus without wings, Bryant seems to defy gravity, launched as if to fly on forever. But after attaining his seemingly impossible goal of putting the rock in the hole he crashes back to earth.

Bryant’s legacy escapes those forces. For that to happen he had to have teammates who would sing his praises—in, on, and off court.

(David Yearsley is a long-time contributor to CounterPunch and the Anderson Valley Advertiser. His latest book is Sex, Death, and Minuets: Anna Magdalena Bach and Her Musical Notebooks. He can be reached at dgyearsley@gmail.com.)

EVEN WALL STREET PLUTOCRATS CAN'T BURN BERNIE

America's plutocrats and their media allies are certain that US presidential candidate Bernie Sanders is unelectable, or that, if somehow elected, he would bring about the collapse of the republic. This disdain is both telling and absurd.

commondreams.org/views/2020/02/26/even-wall-street-plutocrats-cant-burn-bernie

WHAT WILL YOU DO IF THE DEMOCRATS STEAL IT FROM SANDERS?

I find myself wondering how those voters will respond to the brazen theft that we’re about to witness. “What happens to a dream deferred?” asked the poet Langston Hughes. How will the young people of America—-the idealistic anti-Carvilles among us-—react on that day, when they see the last pretense of American democracy stripped away to reveal the huge and reeking meat factory that’s owned and operated by the Mike Bloombergs of this world? What about the older ones among us, lying dormant in cynicism for decades, who’ve dared to awaken to at least a flicker of hope? Will this blatant death-blow to democracy send us, at last, into the streets? Will we finally rain hell down on these monsters?

“Maybe it just sags, like a heavy load,” wrote Hughes, speaking of that dream deferred. And that would be the most heartbreaking of outcomes. The outcome that James Carville, and Hillary Clinton, and Chris Matthews, and Joy Reid, and the CIA, and Wall Street, are all calmly expecting, as they lie back, smiling in the absolute certitude that they’re always right.

“Or does it explode?”

counterpunch.org/2020/02/25/what-will-you-do-if-the-democrats-steal-it-from-sanders/

MAJOR CHANGES HAVE TAKEN PLACE in the global order in the past quarter century. By 1970 the "affluent alliance" of the post-war years was running on to the rocks, and there was growing pressure on corporate profits. Recognizing that the United States was no longer able to play the role of “international banker” that had been so beneficial to the U.S.-based multinationals, Richard Nixon dismantled the international economic order (the Bretton Woods system), suspending the convertibility of the dollar to gold, imposing wage-price controls and an import surcharge, and initiating fiscal measures that directed state power, beyond the previous norm, to welfare for the rich. These have been the guiding policies since, accelerated during the Reagan years and maintained by the “New Democrats.” The unremitting class war waged by the business sectors was intensified, increasingly on a global scale.

Nixon’s moves were among several factors that led to a huge increase in unregulated financial capital and a radical shift in its use, from long-term investment and trade to speculation. The effect has been to undermine national economic planning as governments are compelled to preserve market “credibility,” driving any economies “toward a low-growth, high-unemployment equilibrium,” Cambridge University economist John Eatwell comments, with stagnating or declining real wages, increasing poverty and inequality, and booming markets and profits for the few.

—Noam Chomsky (1999)

ANTI-VAX GROUPS on social media are claiming that the spread of coronavirus will lead to mandatory vaccinations and 'unlimited surveillance.'

vice.com/en_us/article/m7q5vv/anti-vaxxers-are-terrified-the-government-will-enforce-a-vaccine-for-coronavirus

I HAD THIS MINI-MARTINI GLASS. I have a thing for glass, and the mini-martini sparkled nice and gave the desired elegance to a sip or three without the bucket o' booze that some martini glasses hold. They're for younger guys. I don't need that much akkahall nowadays.

Polly the Cat, aka DESTRUKTOR, liked it, too. She likes to spread stuff out a little, see what it's made of. She likes doors open and things on the floor, where they belong.

If you have anything you wanna get rid of, I'll rent her to you. You have to return her in purfect condition. Ellie and I are (yes) her slaves. Who needs a dumb ol' glass, anyway?

Mitch Clogg

ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

If you had any idea of what goes on behind the curtain in the food industry you’d never eat anything again that you didn’t grow yourself.

I have some examples from stories told to me by various friends

– a niece who worked for KFC said that sometimes at night after closing the workers there would get into food fights throwing pieces of raw chicken at each other. In the end it all when back into storage.

– a friend who worked in Stein’s pickle factory cautioned that you never want to eat pickle relish

– a co-worker whose wife worked in a chicken factory strongly advised you never want to buy a packaged cut up chicken. He said you should always be able to see the whole bird. When dead chickens move down the production line where workers hack them into pieces, as chickens with pussy infections and other nasty lesions come along the bad parts are cut away and discarded but the remaining good appearing ones are kept.

– my worse tale came from a friend who was a truck dispatcher where trucks with produce came to discharge their loads. This guy was a big flannel shirt wearing meat and potatoes type who loved hamburgers but would never eat ketchup. One day a truckload of tomatoes dumped its load over the collection hopper. He said there were always left over crushed tomatoes in the bottom of the beds when the trucks were set aside for the remainder of the day. On this one occasion when the truck returned to the hopper so the crushed tomatoes could be scooped into the hopper when they went for use in ketchup he saw that to bottom of the bed had a blue sheen over the entire surface. It was from all the blue bottle flies that had collected and died on the surface during the day. The whole mess went into the Ketchup hopper.

– I’ve seen some awfully disgusting food handling with my own eyes waiting in the back of a tavern where a friend used to work.

– A prosperous restauranteur in our city was once asked where his favorite place to eat was in our town and he replied “The Mongolian Grill because you can see what you eat before it is cooked.”

SAKO LIVE!

Here's the link to my interview with The Mendocino Voice. It's 47 minutes in length: mendovoice.com/2020/02/meet-the-candidate-interview-john-sakowicz-is-running-for-district-1-supervisor/

Mendocino Voice's editor, Editor Adrian Fernandez Baumann, did a good job.

Finally, kindly note that during the interview I plugged alternative media, including Mendocino Voice and the Anderson Valley Advertiser's "Mendocino County Today". I should have included Redheaded Blackbelt.

The point is, with print media struggling, digital media will have to step up.

Thomas Jefferson said it best: "The cornerstone of democracy rests on the foundation of an educated electorate."

John Sakowicz, Candidate, Mendocino County, 1st District Supervisor

https://johnsakowicz.org/

A FAINT WHISPER FROM OUT OF THE FOG….

City Council Meeting March 4, 2020

From: City of Point Arena

mailchi.mp/0959fc3ff668/city-council-meeting-march-4-2020

A READER NOTES:

I looked at the website, Science-Based Medicine (SBM), recommended in MCT's “a reader writes” post [yesterday] and after just a few minutes of browsing several red flags began waving. First of all, SBM does not divulge who their funders are, and importantly fails to reference legitimate research to support its claims which are loaded with unscientific hyperbole such as the frequent use of the term “quackery.” In the few instances when SBM actually does refer to a medical journal, it is only a link to an editorial, opinion piece, NOT actual, relevant research. The site is chock full of biased, unsubstatiated OPINION lacking in objective scholarship and put forth as scientific debunking to save us all from "superstitious quackery." You would have to have a malfunctioning BS detector to fall for this obvious manipulation.

For example, what Science-Based calls “superstitious quackery” is Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), which includes acupuncture. TCM has been (interestingly by SBM's own admission) accepted by the World Health Organization. Science-Based Medicine then attacks the WHO for including TCM. As Science-Based funders are completely hidden, I would not be surprised at all if this is yet another pseudo-medical site, set up to produce hit pieces for Big Pharma.

To recommend a site that dishes out unsubstatiated opinion dressed as legitimate medical advice is actually lazy — perhaps “stupid” would be more appropriate here. Yes, let’s save old folk’s money by steering them in this direction. No doubt SBM has a pill to recommend for your pain which'll cost you a pretty penny under today’s for-profit healthcare extortion system.

I recommend comparing SBM with the balanced and objective, lacking in hyperbolic, assessment of TCM from the National Institutes of Health who by the way have been doing some very interesting and fruitful research on the clinical potential of psilocybin mushrooms as a treatment for mental health conditions. I can only imagine what SBM would say about using halucinogenic mushrooms.

WHY CALIFORNIA'S CROSSOVER PRIMARY IS BAD FOR DEMOCRACY

California’s crossover presidential primary — touted as empowering the states’s 5.3 million unaffiliated, No Party Preference voters — actually disenfranchises them and others, by perpetuating a winner-take-all duopoly of limited choices, and getting little in return. In the process, it distracts from needed reforms that could actually enable a more vibrant democracy.

foxandhoundsdaily.com/2020/02/why-californias-crossover-primary-is-bad-for-democracy/

"WHALE RUN AND WALK" whalerun@mcn.org

To ensure getting a fabulous Whale Run & Walk T-SHIRT register by March 7 to ensure a T-shirt — T-shirts only available at the race

NOW IS THE TIME…. Annual Whale Run & Walk

Saturday March 21, 2020

10 Mile - 10K Run - 5K Run Start > 9 am

5K Fun Walk Start > 9:05 am

Kiddies Race (Ages 4-10: ½-mile run) Starts > 8:30 am

REGISTER NOW:

Go to the Whale Run Website and find links to register on-line or by mail: soroptimistfortbraggca.org/whalerun/

Or Google Whale Run

For more information email whalerun@mcn.org sifb@mcn.org

Sponsored by Soroptimist International of Fort Bragg

soroptimistfortbraggca.org

Improving the lives of Women and Girls in our Communities, Nation and throughout the World.

PAUL KRUGMAN

From the day Donald Trump was elected, some of us worried how his administration would deal with a crisis not of its own making. Remarkably, we’ve gone three years without finding out: Until now, every serious problem facing the Trump administration, from trade wars to confrontation with Iran, has been self-created.

But the coronavirus is looking as if it might be the test we’ve been fearing.

And the results aren’t looking good.

The story of the Trump pandemic response actually began several years ago. Almost as soon as he took office, Trump began cutting funding for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, leading in turn to an 80 percent cut in the resources the agency devotes to global disease outbreaks.

Trump also shut down the entire global-health-security unit of the National Security Council.

Experts warned that these moves were exposing America to severe risks. “We’ll leave the field open to microbes,” declared Tom Frieden, a much-admired former head of the C.D.C., more than two years ago.

But the Trump administration has a preconceived notion about where national security threats come from — basically, scary brown people — and is hostile to science in general. So we entered the current crisis in an already weakened condition.

INLAND'S SLAM DUNK DEMOCRATS

Please join the Inland Mendocino Democratic Club at their next meeting on Thursday, March 12th at 5:30 pm at Slam Dunk Pizza. This meeting we will be having an important discussion on the results of Super Tuesday. Super Tuesday is the day the largest number of US states, including California hold their primary elections and caucuses. Winners of Super Tuesday are usually propelled to the Democratic nomination. Again, please join the Inland Mendocino Democratic Club at their next meeting to discuss the results of Super Tuesday on Thursday, March 12th at 5:30pm at Slam Dunk pizza.

We look forward to seeing you!

TESTING BULLETPROOF VESTS, 1923

HUFF PUFFS

Dear Friend,

Many people have asked me what our government is doing to respond to the global spread of the coronavirus (COVID-19) and what can be done to keep our families and communities safe. Click here to learn more about the coronavirus, including tips for how you can stay safe.

I believe Americans deserve a coordinated, comprehensive, whole-of-government response to prepare for the possible spread of coronavirus within the United States.

I am working with House leadership to swiftly advance a strong, strategic funding package that fully addresses the scale and seriousness of this public health crisis. In the meantime, I want you to know that my office will continue to stay in close contact with the local, state, and federal stakeholders to asses our preparedness and ensure that California is prepared should an outbreak occur.

Below are some important reminders from the Centers for Disease Control on how to prevent the spread of coronavirus. These are also posted on my website, huffman.house.gov, where I will regularly post any relevant updates for California’s second district.

Recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control:

There is currently no vaccine to prevent coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). The best way to prevent illness is to avoid being exposed to this virus. However, as a reminder, CDC always recommends everyday preventive actions to help prevent the spread of respiratory diseases, including:

Avoid close contact with people who are sick.

Avoid touching your eyes, nose, and mouth.

Stay home when you are sick.

Cover your cough or sneeze with a tissue, then throw the tissue in the trash.

Clean and disinfect frequently touched objects and surfaces using a regular household cleaning spray or wipe.

Follow CDC’s recommendations for using a facemask.

CDC does not recommend that people who are well wear a facemask to protect themselves from respiratory diseases, including COVID-19.

Facemasks should be used by people who show symptoms of COVID-19 to help prevent the spread of the disease to others. The use of facemasks is also crucial for health workers and people who are taking care of someone in close settings (at home or in a health care facility).

Wash your hands often with soap and water for at least 20 seconds, especially after going to the bathroom; before eating; and after blowing your nose, coughing, or sneezing.

If soap and water are not readily available, use an alcohol-based hand sanitizer with at least 60% alcohol. Always wash hands with soap and water if hands are visibly dirty.

To receive more updates directly to your inbox, you can subscribe to my newsletter here.

With Best Regards,

Jared Huffman

Member of Congress

BROADBAND ALLIANCE'S QUARTERLY PUBLIC OUTREACH MEETING - Friday, March 6th, 10 a.m.

At the Community Foundation of Mendocino County

204 S Oak St, Ukiah, CA 95482

Draft March 2020 Agenda - Broadband Alliance Public Outreach Meeting

mendocinobroadband.org/wp-content/uploads/Draft-March-2020-Agenda-Broadband-Alliance-Public-Outreach-Meeting.pdf

Read more about our ongoing work at our website

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Read prior report here

FOUND OBJECT