MCT: Tuesday, April 14, 2020

• Warm Dry
• Pacific Coast
• Roving Doohan
• Veritable Ghost
• Contract Renewal
• Navarro Store
• Economic Recovery
• Captain Williams
• Coastal Trail
• Mule Ride
• Survival Training
• PA Lighthouse
• Tax Allocation
• Redwood Motel
• Street Race
• Ed Notes
• Among Friends
• Bostrodamus
• Superman
• Ruin Nation
• UNinvolved
• Austerity
• San Francisco
• Comments
• Boom Politics
• Love Endures
• Car Batteries
• Exit Polls
• Unclaimed Bodies

DRY AND WARMER WEATHER is expected to prevail through mid week. An upper trough may generate isolated showers over the mountains toward the end of the week. (NWS)

MENDO COUNTY'S HEALTH OFFICER FORCED TO STAY LONGER ON VACATION IN SOCAL

Despite issuing an order for no one to engage in "non-essential travel," Mendocino's "interim" Public Health Officer (Noemi C. Doohan MD) drove to San Diego to be with her husband a couple weeks ago. She was supposed to return Sunday to Mendocino County. Looks like she has to stay on vacation. An extension to her contract (to December) is on the agenda of the Mendocino Supervisors Tuesday morning. (MSP)

Due to unforeseen circumstances, Public Health Officer Dr. Noemi Doohan continues to shelter in place at her home in San Diego. While her return to Mendocino County has been delayed, we anticipate her return soon. We will share additional information as we receive it. Thank you.

UNFATHOMABLE

Dear Mendocino County Board of Supervisors,

It is unfathomable that our Public Health Officer, Dr. Doohan, would travel to San Diego for a two week “working” vacation to visit family during the worst pandemic in over a century, in direct violation of her own SIP order! San Diego now has over 1700 cases of COVID-19. Did Dr. Doohan grocery shop or engage in other public activities while in San Diego?

Dr. Doohan has not been present in Mendocino County during this pandemic crisis when the Public Health Officer, of all people, should be fully present and providing guidance and leadership.

Instead she has been a veritable ghost, only appearing for a brief once a week remote podcast. It is my understanding that she has already run through the amount budgeted for her salary by booking lots of overtime! What, exactly, has she been doing, in San Diego, with all of that overtime that benefits the citizens of Mendocino County? Or is she engaged in activities for her own personal benefit, racking up overtime, while the taxpayers foot the bill?

Most adults already are spending plenty of time keeping themselves apprised of the pandemic situation. We do not need to pay someone $200,000+ a year of taxpayer money just to surf the net and issue dictates from afar to which she herself does not even adhere. We need a Public Health Officer who is actually here engaged in positive action. Doing more testing, seeing to the distribution of free cloth face masks, and more communication with and guidance to the public on best practices for staying healthy are just a few examples.

Also, didn’t Dr. Doohan previously inform the county that she had accepted another position in San Diego? So it is curious then that she has been in San Diego for two weeks during this critical time instead of here in Mendocino County doing the job for which she is being paid.

I wonder if there is any other Public Health Officer in the entire country who has engaged in such egregiously irresponsible behavior? I believe this ill-timed trip to San Diego shows extremely poor judgement, lack of concern for the responsibilities of her position and for the safety of the citizens of Mendocino County, and is a dereliction of duty. Please consider finding a new Public Health Officer who takes the job more seriously.

Kristine Helsing

Little River

KATHY WYLIE DISAGREES:

Dr. Doohan’s Curious Absence—

I fully support extending Dr Doohan’s contract and I see no reason whatsoever why she can’t work remotely, (as have the County Supervisors and other key county personnel since the pandemic response began here locally). I expect Dr. Doohan's contract to be extended by a unanimous vote.

I have listened to every BOS meeting (for years) and each of Dr. Doohan's interviews and reports. I find Dr. Doohan to be highly competent and forthcoming with knowledgeable information in her work to protect the health of this county's residents. While it is no secret that Dr. Doohan has already accepted a job in San Diego, she has also agreed not only to keep doing this essential Public Health officer's work for our county until there is some closure to the C19 outbreak, but also to help the county to find her replacement.

It is interesting that many of the armchair 'supervisors' who are woefully uninformed on this topic are so quick to cast judgement. Rather than criticize Dr. Doohan, many of the critics might instead consider what types of county services they will be able to live without, given the steep decline in county revenue, and the looming county budget discussions with their resulting county service cuts.

AT THE NAVARRO STORE

SUPERVISOR TED WILLIAMS:

Ideas for local economic recovery? Shopping local is more important now than ever. What can we do to support local businesses in a period the IMF head foresees as the worst global economic downturn since Great Depression? No matter one's perspective on the health emergency response, the economic impact is very real. The County will see substantial losses in sales tax, transient occupancy (bed) tax and potentially property tax, so unless state or federal programs backfill lost revenue, county services will be negatively impacted. (I highlight this to temper suggestions of local tax cuts in a time we might be forced to substantially reduce services just to balance the budget.) The county is contracting with West Business Development Center to assist with small business loans (debt isn't a solution, but might buy time). Ensuring those eligible for unemployment are assisted where necessary is crucial. Helping businesses with online commerce and curb-side for non-essentials when orders allow? What else can we do to help, both local government and as community?

COMMENTS:

James Roberts of Philo: I hope our county leaders will be able to have an open dialog with the many businesses that rely on tourism as we create a bridge through the transition from the current shelter in place. We would like to have a seat at the table so we can plan accordingly. The economic impact not only effects our own small businesses, but the financial outlook of the community as a whole.

Williams: I’d like for the business community to be part of the collaboration. Do you see any merit in a video conference to begin brainstorming before the (hopefully) relaxed orders are released in May?

Roberts: that would be super helpful. We just want to have fact driven roadmap that will keep everyone safe, yet move forward in a way that can kickstart our economy again.

First District Supervisor Candidate Jon Kennedy on budgeting under reduced revenues: Somewhat similar to what we had to do in Plumas County in 2011. It's a lot of work. It forces you to seriously consider priorities because cuts have to be made in order to balance the budget, using minimal fund balance, if any at all. This requires, literally line by line contemplation in each department.

Chris Calder: As many forms of outdoor work as possible opened up again. I've heard (from an employee) that the logging companies have stopped work. Landscapers. Tree services. Well diggers. Ditch diggers. I noticed the out of state tree crews kept working. Good time for brush clearing. Seems like many kinds of work outside the tourist economy should be able to get going again very soon with some common sense. … A guy who works for them told me a few days ago Anderson Logging is shut down. Maybe not true anymore. I like the 'purely cosmetic' distinction re: landscaping. Surely in the eye of the beholder.

THE OTHER TED WILLIAMS

JUST IN! The Fort Bragg City Council has announced it will re-open the Haul Road Coastal Trail, but to locals only. How this odd stipulation will be enforced will be interesting to watch. The Haul Road, it can't be said often enough, is ten miles of more or less intact pavement running along the Pacific from Fort Bragg to Ten Mile River. The road was built by the old Union Lumber Company as a straight shot to its Fort Bragg Mill, thus avoiding the public's winding and slow Highway One.

CALDER’S MULE

That is my grandfather, Reese Lane Calder, on the back of that mule, that he rode to school from his house at the Drum Power Station way up in the mountains above Auburn, back in the day. He was the genuine article, and doesn't look too happy about having to ride in back. My dad found this px. during a Lockdown rummaging session in which he also found the leather-crafting kit somebody gave him for Christmas 40 years ago. Actually he didn't find that. He said my mom just threw it down on the table in front of him.

SURVIVAL TRAINING

Editor,

Don't let them grind you down!

In light of the media driven coronavirus scare I would like to try to give a little prison wisdom to AVA readers. First of all I would like to say that I do not believe all the scare tactics the mainstream media is inflicting on the poor gullible public. But I am also not an idiot, contrary to popular opinion, so I'm being safe but sane.

Hopefully people are being smart enough to find the right balance of caution and not sacrificing their mental health by beleiving the MSM’s irresponsible fear mongering.

"Social distancing" and "sheltering in place" is something long-term prisoners are experienced at, obviously not voluntarily, but those of us who manage to survive it have learned to not only make the best of it but to actually benefit from it.

Suffering is an essential part of life and without it we don't benefit from its lessons. Isolating yourself to dodge the coronavirus may seem like suffering to some I'm sure, but don't let it drive you crazy. Even if you are alone (no cellie) you cannot surrender to the loneliness and isolation. Now is the time to make this time work for you. As foreign as it may be for some people, this is the time to strengthen your mind, discipline your body and be grateful you still have your health. This last thing is by far the most important. Being grateful and thankful is a wonderful medicine for the soul. It is the exact opposite of being selfish and bitter. Since you have to go through this segregation, why not get as much out of this time as possible?

"Don't be so hung up on where you'd rather be that you fail to make the best of where you are."

Think of this time as "survival training" and it may be. To start, be aware of your thoughts. No negative or hateful thoughts about others or yourself. Some people are more susceptible than others to depression and this is a dangerous state of mind to be conquered as soon as possible. I know, easier said than done. But start with monitoring your thoughts. It's hard to have negative feelings when you are having positive thoughts and vice versa.

This is not the time or place to get into this subject and I'm not qualified to even think in public, let alone to help someone else get their head together. That is beyond me. (Hopefully reader you are not suffering with depression.)

Next, keep busy. Don't just sit on your ass picking your nose. Find ways to flex your head and your muscles. Keep your brain working. As square as it sounds, do crosswords, Sudoku, read, whatever. Just don't let your mind dwell on negative crap. Do not watch the news! And a little extra exercise is 100% better than none at all. You would be surprised how quickly your muscles will atrophy when you are stuck on the couch doing nothing but watching TV. Whatever you do — move something.

The Department of Corrections is on statewide lockdown. I'm stuck in a 6’ x 12' cell with another person. If we can figure out how to stay active, you have no excuse. An excellent but light full-bodied exercise is the "Sun Salutation." (Look it up on the Internet.)

Take this time to help yourself. Ignore the media's attempt to scare you into submission. Instead, ask yourself why they are doing what they are doing?

Have you noticed the ridiculous things they expect you to believe? Facemasks are not as good as a bandanna blocking the virus? Really? The real issue is the average person who is social distancing should not use a valuable asset such as an N-95 mask, but instead use bandannas, scarves etc. But the MSM thinks the American public is too stupid to understand this. In some cases they may be right, but damn! Give us the benefit of the doubt.

And telling us that we need to keep buying liquor to help certain businesses stay afloat? They really just think the public with all this extra time on their hands should be intoxicated instead of clearheaded so they don't see through their weak deceptions?

Again, why is the MSM pushing all this fear at the public? I'm not going to pretend to know. But there is some reason and I'm sure it's not in our best interests.

Look at this time you've been given as a gift, not a punishment, not a do or die situation. The odds of the average healthy person dying from this virus are so low that it's almost a slight possibility. No more. More people die from hit and run accidents in Los Angeles than from this crap. So instead of huddling in fear, enjoy your vacation, get a little exercise, teach your cat to fetch and smile! You're only as happy as you let yourself be.

Remember, thoughts are things, so have positive thoughts and you will have positive feelings. Let the media clowns wallow in their own negativity. The AVA is the only news you need for now. When there's good knows you will hear about it. Meanwhile, don't let them grind you down!

Scott Pinkerton J-87837

CSP/LAC — C4/218

P.O. Box 4610

Lancaster, CA 93539

PS. Check out my blog at: betweenthebars.org/blogs/1347

POINT ARENA LIGHTHOUSE

THE OTHER DAY, we asked County Auditor Lloyd Weer:

“If the schools are closed and reduced under a limited 'distance learning' approach with a significantly reduced ADA, do they still need their full property tax allocation? Wouldn’t their budgets be reduced in accordance with the three months (approx) closure? Can’t the county juggle these allocations under the circumstances considering that other revenues are probably going to be substantially reduced?”

Mr. Weer replied, “Yes, interesting times for sure. Currently, under the Teeter Plan method of Property Tax Apportionment, the Counties must distribute to all agencies (County, Schools, and Special Districts) 100% of the secured property taxes billed. No apparent wiggle room here. I believe relief from this requirement would have to come from the state legislature or the Governor himself. More to come on that soon I hope.”

POINT ARENA MOTEL

FROM THE UKIAH PD: "On Friday, April 10th, at approximately 11:48 am, a Ukiah police officer was travelling northbound in the 600 block of South State Street when he observed two vehicles travelling southbound side-by-side at an extremely high rate of speed. As the vehicles approached the Officer, their speed was estimated to be approximately 90 mph as they approached the intersection of South State Street and Gobbi Street.

The UPD officer immediately activated his overhead lights and siren to initiate a traffic stop on the two vehicles. The officer was able to make a traffic stop on one of the vehicles in the 800 block of South State Street.

The vehicle was a white 2009 Subaru Impreza and the driver of the vehicle, 27 year old Keoni Andrade of Ukiah, was taken into custody for Illegal street racing. Andrade admitted to the officer that he was in fact racing the other vehicle and that he was unsure of his speed but knew it to be in excess of 80 mph.

The second vehicle, a 2014 Ford Focus hatchback, briefly stopped for the UPD Officer in the 700 block of South State Street prior to the officer making contact with Andrade and his vehicle. As the officer was directing other UPD units to where the Ford Focus had pulled over, the Ford Focus pulled around the corner and into a nearby parking lot while the officer attempted to contact Andrade.

Additional UPD Officers arrived on scene and were directed to where the second vehicle was last seen. UPD officers located the vehicle in an alleyway in the 700 block of South State Street unoccupied. UPD officers searched the area for the driver of the vehicle unsuccessfully.

Approximately 45 minutes after the original violation, Ukiah CHP contacted the UPD and advised that the registered owner of the second vehicle had contacted them and was en route to their office to report his vehicle stolen.

UPD Officers made contact with the registered owner at the Ukiah CHP Office and identified him as 30-year-old Robert Mounts of Redwood Valley. Mounts was questioned and ultimately admitted to being the driver of the vehicle at the time of the incident. Mounts admitted to racing the other vehicle in excess of 80 mph.

Mounts was subsequently arrested for Illegal street racing and Resisting or delaying a Peace Officer. UPD is currently reviewing possible additional charges of violating the current order of Shelter in Place by the Mendocino County Health Officer.

Both Mounts and Andrade were transported to the Ukiah Police Department where they were booked and released for their respective charges.

The Ukiah Police Department would like to remind the great citizens of Ukiah that during the current COVID-19 pandemic we are still out in the city enforcing the law and keeping the public safe. We continue to ask residents to adhere to the current order from the county Health Officer regarding sheltering in place and ensuring any activities are of the essential nature."

ED NOTES

BERNIE GOES FROM VIABLE TO PATHETIC: "Today I am asking all Americans, I'm asking every Democrat, I'm asking every independent, I'm asking a lot of Republicans, to come together in this campaign to support your candidacy, which I endorse to make certain that we defeat somebody who I believe, and I'm speaking just for myself now, is the most dangerous president in the modern history of this country. I will do all that I can to see that that happens Joe [Biden] And I know that there is an enormous responsibility on your shoulders right now, and it's imperative that all of us work together to do what has to be done. Not only in this moment, but beyond this moment, in the future of this country."

SPEAKING for myself, Biden, given his horrific record, and his obvious senility, is insupportable. It's not enough to vote for Biden simply because he isn't Trump. The Democrats do this every election cycle. You have to vote for our candidate because he isn't the other guy. Trump is undoing himself, but I don't find him any more repellant than Biden or any other big shot Democrat you might name. I kinda liked Warren, actually, and might even vote for Biden if she were the vp pick. But she won't be because she's "too far to the left" for the Democratic shot callers who, basically, are the same billionaires pretty much who also support Trump except for the usual depraved show biz "liberals." Anyway, things are moving fast in the direction of serious chaos. The Joint Chiefs might be running the show by November. PS. It's the system. Jeez, I thought everyone knew at least that much. Trump-Biden are its natural consequences because the system doesn't produce plausible leaders anymore, it's that corrupt.

MONDAY'S NEWS CYCLE began with Trump re-tweeting a recommendation that he fire Fauci, which even Trump seemed to understand would be a big mistake given the doctor's popularity. By noon, Trump had said he had no intention of dumping Fauci. Seems that Trump would like to but when he floated the idea the answer came back a resounding No.

HAVING been through a medical exam where a doctor tested my remaining cognitive abilities, the medical man said, "You passed." Hoping the pathos wasn't audible, I asked, "With flying colors?" He paused, "You did fine." I really wanted flying colors, and not those faded, hanky-looking Tibetan peace flags you see around hippie enclaves. I wanted high praise that I was fully capable of my duties at Boonville's beloved weekly! The senility exam was pretty basic — count backwards from twenty, mom's maiden name, fill in the hours on a blank clock, ass from elbow. But watching Trump's press conferences I wondered if he (or Biden) could manage a passing grade?

AMONG the ever-growing casualties of the end of the world, or whatever it is we've got going, count the likely disappearances of Macy's, the GAP (same people who own the Mendocino Redwood Company) and Kohl's. They've closed half their stores and those remaining are quivering.

ON FACE THE NATION Sunday, Neel Kashkari said projections for a quick economic turnaround were overly optimistic unless a vaccine for COVID-19 became available in the next few months. “It would be wonderful if some new therapy were developed in the next couple months,” Kashkari said. “Then potentially we would have a V-shaped recovery” — a term which describes a steep market decline followed by a quick resurgence. But Kashkari, who oversaw the Troubled Asset Relief Program that the US implemented in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, added: “Barring some health-care miracle, it seems we're going to have various phases of rolling flare ups.”

WHAT’S IT ALL ABOUT, RALPHIEEEEEEE!

Editor,

When we last encountered our westbound contestant La Gringa Grandota (aka Anne Fashauer) she was on her bicycle coasting south through the Japanese islands. Everything southbound in Japan is downhill. Whenever she stopped at a small village people gathered around her. They wanted to know everything about the Donarold, sometimes confusing him with mak-koo Donarolds.

The eastbound contestant, the Scarmellah Fellah was trying to figure out how to get away from Nantucket. He knew that Paul Thoreau had written in his book "Fresh Air Fiend” about paddling his kayak between Nantucket and Cape Cod, not that the Marquis S. was afraid to try it, but his bag of clubs wouldn't fit in a kayak.

Anchored a few yards from the dock in Nantucket was a big yacht belonging to the Robert Mercer family which was about to leave for Bermuda. A crew member told the S’mellah Fellah that they needed a galley man to peel the potatoes, wash the pots and pans, mop the deck. Marquis S. thought he could handle that and was excited about Bermuda, home to many golf courses. Guests on the yacht included Marie Le Pen, Steve Bannon, Newt Gingrich, Arriana Huffington and Al Sharpton.

Arriving in Bermuda our eastbound contestant found that all golf courses in Bermuda had signs: "members only." After hauling his bag of clubs from Boonville to Bermuda the Marquis decided to give up golf, perhaps singing would be a better hobby.

After the Robert Mercer party headed back to Long Island, the Mellah Fella was stranded in Bermuda.

In 1607 the Spanish galleon “Nuestra Barca Ultimo Feo y Sin Verguenza” loaded with silver bars ran aground in the Bahama passage and sank. Recently divers located the ship which seemed to be in good condition. A Dutch seagoing tugboat from Rotterdam got a line on her and proceeded to tow her to Cadiz. While stopping in Bermuda for supplies our hero told the tug’s crew that he was forbidden to travel by air and requested a ride. "Nothing doing," said the Dutchman, “but you can ride on the hulk we are towing but keep your hands off the plata.” Marquis S. secured some beans and rice, some reading material (James Boswell's Life of Johnson) and jumped aboard.

In Japan the Gringo Grandota continued coasting — looking for a three-star restaurant. In the provincial city of Yokobama the Gringa was offered a one hour TV show "Rachel Maddow at Pearl Harbor" in which she bobs and weaves, flails her arms and hands about and comments on controversial subject matter in Japan before.

A pause in the Boonville to Boonville race is expected as our contestants will probably not leave Spain and Japan for some time.

Ralph Bostrom

Willits

RUIN NATION

by James Kunstler

The ruins of Mary McClellan Hospital stand on a hill overlooking the village of Cambridge, New York, in what was a “flyover” corner of the country until the planes stopped flying. The hospital cornerstone was laid July 4 1917. The USA had entered the war against Germany a few months earlier. The “Spanish” flu pandemic kicked off in January, 1918. The hospital opened in January 1919. The flu burned out a year later. The hospital shut down for good in 2003.

I’ve lived around here for decades and never actually got a look at the place until I went up there on a blustery spring Saturday before Easter to look around. I like to read landscapes and the human imprint upon them. This one is a ghost story, not just of the bygone souls who came and went here, but of an entire society, the nation that we used to be and stopped being not so long ago.

This is the old main building today. It’s astounding how quickly buildings begin to rot when the human life within them is gone. The style was Beaux Arts Institutional, seen everywhere across America in that period in schools, libraries, museums, and hospitals, an austere neoclassicism that radiated decorum in a confident and well-run society – because that is what we were then. Note especially, the entrance and the beautiful bronze marquee above it. The message is this: You enter through a portal of beauty to a place of hope and trust.

This is Mary McClellan Hospital not long after it opened. The site itself, on its hill, with views east across the state line to the Green Mountains, speaks of authority and command. The America of 1919 was a deeply hierarchical society. Today we regard hierarchy as a bane and a curse. The truth is, it is absolutely required if you expect to live in a well-run society, and proof of that is the disordered mess of bureaucratic irresponsibility we live in today, with virtually every institution failing – well before the Covid-19 virus arrived on the scene — and nobody called to account for anything anymore. Hierarchy must be fit to scale to function successfully. In small institutions like this, everybody knows who is responsible for what. That’s what makes authority credible.

These are the ruins of the nursing school associated with the hospital (and also associated with Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, 25 miles west). The nurses lived here, in Florence Nightingale Hall. In the early 20th century, the profession favored young, unmarried women whose allegiance and attention to the patients would not be distracted by the needs of a family. Was that exploitation? Or was it simply an intelligent way to organize a hospital subculture? The nurses lived here very comfortably. The institution cared for them, literally.

There’s no record available of what exactly these buildings were for. The one in the foreground has a cut stone sign that says “The Junior” on it. I infer that this may have been where a couple of young, staff, resident physicians lived, young men probably, just out of their internships, close at hand and on-call for emergencies. The building in the background is a rather grand country cottage, possibly the residence of the chief surgeon or the hospital director. The hospital was, after all, a community unto itself, and it was important that authority have a visible presence there all the time. Both buildings display architectural grace-notes that humanized and dignify that resident authority. We no longer believe in grace-notes for the things we build, so is it surprising that we live in a graceless society?

This is the power plant for the whole operation, on the premises, ensuring that the electricity would stay on at all times. In the early 20th century, electric power was the new sine qua non of advanced civilization. America’s rural electrification program really didn’t get underway until the 1930s, so it’s likely that many of the farms outside the village were not hooked up to a grid. The hospital generators must have been driven by coal, or perhaps oil. Somebody had to attend to all that machinery. The laundry – hospitals produce a lot of that – was also on-premises, as was all the meal preparation. The hospital maintained a large garden to furnish some of the food. All these tasks required crews of people working purposefully and getting paid. The hospital was a complex organism, a world within a nation within a world.

Things rise and self-organize beautifully into fully-formed systems and after while they run down, even while they over-grow; authority starts working more and more for its own sake and its own benefit; hierarchy breaks down into disrespect, lack of trust, fear; and then society loses its vital institutions, which is exactly what happened at Mary McClellan Hospital in little Cambridge, New York. It dwindled and then quickly collapsed. The town lost a part of itself, the part that welcomed people in a particular kind of trouble and cared for them, as it cared for those who did the caring. By the way, in 1919, a private room was $7-a-day (a bed on a ward was $3). Imagine that! The town also lost a vital component of its economy. And that was all of-a-piece with its decline into the flyover place it became in our time.

American health care, as we call it today, and for all its high-tech miracles, has evolved into one of the most atrocious rackets the world has ever seen. By racket, I mean an enterprise organized explicitly to make money dishonestly. This is what we’ve become, and the fact that we seem to be okay with that tells you more about what we have become. The advent of Covid-19, along with the extreme economic disorders it has triggered, will probably be the beginning of the end of that racket. We have no idea how medicine will re-organize itself, but I’d guess that it will happen at a much more primitive scale – because that’s usually what happens when human societies overshoot badly. Alas, history is not exactly symmetrical.

But read these photos and meditate on what we were once capable of putting together in this land, and maybe you will find some clues about what was truly admirable about the American condition before we stopped caring.

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

ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

Much too late to complain about corporate bailouts now after the horse has long since left the barn. No doubt we’ll like the coming “belt-tightening” even less. Get ready for it. This was nothing less than a declaration of full scale war on any nascent socialist tendencies in the US. All the good little capitalists should just love what’s coming next.

TOP OF THE MARK, San Francisco

ON LINE COMMENTS OF THE WEEK

[1] Yesterday I learned that Linn County, among the 99 counties in Iowa, has the most Covid 19 cases with 184 patients testing positive for the virus that causes the disease. Of those 184, there are 77 in a single long-term care facility, that is, a nursing home. This confirms what I have known since my 10 days in a nursing home following my heart surgery in November 2018. We should all do everything we can to go directly from our own home to the funeral home. Avoid going to a nursing home unless you want to be given “care” by incompetent staff who hate their work. Avoid going to a nursing home unless you enjoy losing your dignity. Avoid going to a nursing home if you want to keep any of your money. After 10 days as an inmate in a long-term care (nursing) facility, I had to be readmitted to the hospital that did my surgery for another week, to get 14 lbs. of fluid removed from my tissues. The weight gain resulted from the nursing home botching my medication. There’s a lot more to tell, none of it good. Stay away from nursing homes, everyone.

[2] A Banquet of Consequences— I was visiting with my sister’s in-laws when at the conclusion of a fine dinner I picked up a crust of bread or some such and began to eat it. Her mother-in-law, who happened to be Russian, became agitated and exclaimed, in Russian, “A hungry man is a dangerous thing!” We had to calm her down and assure her that I had indeed had my fill and my interest in the morsel was of no consequence. Obviously, the memory of the Nazi invasion of Russia was still clear in her mind, as was that of her husband who, upon our meeting, made a point of showing me the scars from a dive bomber attack.

There’s a saying that might be attributable to a Russian. The revolution is only nine meals away. There’s another attributed to Lenin that goes something like, ‘decades of history can happen in a few weeks.’ We’re not out of the woods on this coronavirus thing. The so-called leadership has dropped the ball. Upon hearing of it and it’s character they should have pounced with everything at their disposal to contain it. Things that spread exponentially have a way of getting out of hand very quickly. However, they chose to err on the side of indolence. Churchill said the Americans will do the right thing after they’ve tried everything else. This current crisis is not the sort where delays play out well. It should be obvious they’re not in control. They had the chance and they lost it in bureaucratic inertia and inane bravado.

AT THE WWII DESERT TRAINING CENTER 
NEAR BANNING

Today from somewhere in the Mojave 
my wife sent me a photo:

a cactus flower

blooming 
in a bed of needles --

a metaphor for love, I suppose.

Not a metaphor for what is, 
but for what is not --

for love endures what is not;
love endures the desert.

Like the cactus flower

blooming 
in the sandy-rocky nothingness,

blooming 
in the burning-disappearing air,

love endures a necessary death
every time it flowers,

exhausted by hunger and thirst
but irradicable by its presence.

— John Sakowicz

AND DON'T FORGET…

Editor:

Just in case no one else has written about this, we all need to remember that car batteries can run down over prolonged periods of nondriving, as may well be the case for many of us during our sheltering at home. Every 10 days or so, taking your vehicle out for a spin of 5 miles or more to do a little sightseeing, even if you don’t get out for any reason, should keep things in good working order for a time when you may have an urgent need to drive somewhere.

Jim Lobdell

Santa Rosa

BERNIE CHEATED?

Not exactly: factcheck.org/2020/03/no-huge-red-flag-that-fraud-occurred-in-mass-primary/