MCT: Friday, April 17, 2020

• Marine Cloudiness
• Willits Sunrise
• Missing Man
• Hopper Dairy
• Road Repairs
• Mention Him
• AVFD Reports
• Birdsong
• Ed Notes
• Clouds
• Unshared Sacrifice
• Rocky Coast
• Little Wrenches
• Rev Jones
• Government Participation
• Fish Haul
• Socialist Proposals
• White Elk
• Blue-Meadow Farm
• Foodshed News
• Yesterday's Catch
• Official Guidelines
• Car Insurance
• City Lights
• Census
• Execute One
• Capitalism Exposed
• Poverty
• Philbricked
• Hill Areas
• Weren't Looking
• Entangled
• Misty Krystal
• Martial Virus
• Commodore Trump
• Youthful
• Lotta Time
• Covid Lovers
• Bernie Deactivation
• Found Object

MARINE CLOUDINESS will be more persistent along the coast today and into the weekend. Isolated showers and thunderstorms will be found across some of the interior mountains again this afternoon, and potentially again Monday afternoon. Slightly cooler temperatures can be expected over the weekend and early next week. (NWS)

FORMER SHERIFF TOM ALLMAN: Stay healthy, stay cool and stay home. Willits sunrise, 4/16/2020 6:51am:

MISSING MAN

The Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office is searching for an individual missing out of Rio Dell for approximately six days, according to Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office Public Information Officer Greg Van Patten.

Van Patten said that on the evening of April 14, 2020, a California State Park ranger found the vehicle associated with the missing individual at the Milbank Bridge on Hwy 1 just outside of Leggett. Mendocino Sheriff personnel searched the area surrounding the abandoned vehicle on Thursday, April 16 and did not find any sign of missing man.

Rio Dell Police Chief Jeff Connors confirmed that the missing man’s vehicle was located and said that more information including a photo of the man would be released tomorrow evening if it was still needed.

UPDATE 4:15 p.m.: Additional Information was just provided by Captain Van Patten. State Parks checked on a vehicle (a 2015 Toyota Prius) on the evening of 04-14-20 which was located just northeast of the South Fork Eel River bridge (Highway 1 in Leggett). The vehicle’s license plate showed it was related to a missing person. State Parks did a check around the vehicle and did not locate anyone.

1. State Parks notified the Sheriff’s Office during the afternoon of 04-15-20 and deputies responded and conducted an additional search of the area and were unable to locate Roberts.
2. Sheriff’s Office Search & Rescue searched the area again on 04-16-20 and were unable to locate Roberts or any obvious signs of his presence. The search included ground searchers, a tracking bloodhound and an aerial search by helicopter.
3. The missing man had left a suicidal note for family.

(Courtesy, Matt LeFever/KymKemp.com)

GIVE THESE GUYS A CALL - THEY’RE FIRST RATE

Hopper Dairy, could use your help now, help them stay in buisness.

You can order cheese, yogurt, cottage cheese, butter, milk, eggs and other dairy products, call to order, stop by and pick them up.

17701 CA-1, Fort Bragg, CA 95437. (707) 964-2706

SEVERAL DEEPEND AREA ROAD PROJECTS are up for routine approval by the Supervisors next Tuesday. The three projects to be funded by SB-1 (2017), the Road Repair and Accountability Act of 2017 are:

Full Depth Reclamation/Double Chip Seal of about nine miles of Flynn Creek Road from Navarro toward Comptche. Full Depth Reclamation/Double Chip Seal of about three miles of Albion-Little River Road from the Coast inland; and Single Chip Seal of about ten miles of Comptche-Ukiah Road. All three projects are expected to be completed by the End of September of this year.

AV FIRE CHIEF ANDRES AVILA told the Community Services District Board on Wednesday: “The Lodge Building/Complex [debris from the PicNPay/Lizbby’s/Apartments fire in December] was completely cleaned up last month. Other than the displaced residents and any possible new construction, this historic downtown fire has finally been wrapped up.”

And they did a good job of it: well-planned, well-executed. Now we wait to see if the owner, Mr. Johnson of Sebastopol, will propose any kind of rebuild.

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CHIEF AVILA also gave this Covid-19 virus update:

“We have been running the department at high idle for the last month. Even though AVFD staff is essential services, we are trying to work abroad. Our jobs do require us to come into the office regularly for certain work but we are attempting to maintain proper distancing. Clay [Eubanks, Ambulance Chief] is working from the Ambulance quarters while on shift, Angela [Dewitt, Boonville Battalion Chief & Administrative Assitant] uses the Training Room, and I use my office in the back area. Using the intercom, teleconferencing, disinfecting while in the firehouse, and trying to come in at different times has been working well. So far, all AVFD staff have not lost any hours nor does it look like they will in the immediate future. We had our first web-based training last night using Zoom video conferencing. It worked well for the cognitive topic but it will only be useful for some trainings. Most of troops have access to and are supportive of continuing this style of training for the month of April. Once May arrives, we plan to move outdoors in small groups and provide wildland training. These psychomotor trainings are a must for proficiency and safety as we move into another very dry summer season. During the last two weeks we have returned back to normal call volume. We have had No confirmed COVID 19 calls or transports. Several incidents required full Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) but was used out of precaution.”

ED NOTES

ESTHER MOBLEY WRITES: "Bêcheur Chardonnay Anderson Valley 2018 (price varies, 13.7%): Michael Terrien’s bulk wine brand, Bêcheur, operates on dynamic pricing, meaning that the cost per bottle increases as more people buy the wine. (To snag the best deal, buy a wine as soon as it’s released.) This initial offering is a gorgeous Chardonnay from a single vineyard (but we don’t know which one; that’s how bulk wine works!). I paid $14.50 per bottle and consider it one of the best values I’ve ever purchased. It’s got rich notes of lemon curd and bread dough but also a thrilling almond skin-like bitterness, cut through with bracing minerality."

LEMON CURD? Bracing minerality? Thrilling almond-skin bitterness? In one glass? Esther, please, hold my hand, I don't think I'm ready for this kind of excitement.

CONTRARY to prevalent reports, Americans aren't buying up more alcohol to sustain them during the coronavirus shelter in place; business is not good for small craft breweries, of which the Boonville Brewery is one.

ACCORDING to the Brewers Association recently reported these breweries, on average, anticipate nearly a 60 percent decrease in sales. More than a quarter of American breweries have stopped production, and more than 60% have already laid off some employees or anticipate needing to do so. Of the brewery owners the California Craft Brewers Association polled, 99% said their business had been negatively affected by the coronavirus closures. They also reported current sales were down 43%. Here in Northern California, brewery owners report a 42% decrease in sales.

INTERESTING story in the current New Yorker on Doc Fauci, and are we ever lucky to have this guy to offset the steady flow of misinformation from our dear leader.

EXCERPTS: “Fauci has long supported the development of an alternative: a universal influenza vaccine, which would provide lasting defense against all strains. ‘Similar to tetanus, a universal flu vaccine probably would be given every ten years. And if you get one that is really universal, you can vaccinate just about everyone in the world…. I have been saying for eight, ten years that we should make a list of microbes and try to develop a vaccine for one thing — usually that last one — and it’s a waste of time. Every time we get hit, it is always something we didn’t expect. So instead of predetermining what it is you’re going to prepare for, make universal platforms….. I give the appearance of being optimistic. But, deep down, I just do everything I possibly can, assuming that the worst will happen, and I’ve got to stop the worst from happening’.”

JACOBIN bills itself as a radical left mag, but get this craven bullshit: “Still, if Biden and Democrats of his generation could cravenly sell out their principles for political expediency and pretend to be something they’re not once, they can do it again, only for the good. For the first time in a long time, the direction things are heading mean the politically expedient thing is also the right thing to do. And if they’re as desperate as they claim to find out how to get young, left-wing voters on board, they’re now being expressly told how to do it. The ball’s in their court."

(Don't buy it, young, left-wing voters. Cave now and you'll be caving the rest of the way. November's a long way away, and Trump will beat Biden if there's an election. Build a left alternative to these vampires. The Democratic Party under people like Biden, Pelosi, Schumer and the rest of them is only a stutter step different than the lunatic presently at the power levers.)

ROUGHLY 22 MILLION Americans have filed unemployment claims in the four weeks since the plague closed large parts of the U.S. economy, with more layoffs to come. The weekly unemployment numbers from the Department of Labor showed an additional 5.2 million Americans filed claims last week. Just under 17 million workers applied for aid in the three weeks ended April 4. Before the pandemic swept across the nation in March, the largest number of Americans to ask for unemployment benefits in a four-week stretch was 2.7 million, back in 1982. “It might take until mid-May or longer before we see claims declining,” University of Michigan labor economist Daniil Manaenkov told The Wall Street Journal.

THE LA TIMES says its ad base has evaporated, vanished into the coronavirus mists, with a bunch of people being furloughed this week. The paper said it will also suspend 401(k) contributions for non-union employees.

MEANWHILE, at America's last newspaper of any consequence, a slew of our outlets have closed and circulation is down a bunch. Ad base? What ad base? The ava depends mostly on subscriptions and stand sales.

LOCAL AUSTERITY?

Editor,

The state and county coronavirus lockdown has deprived businesses of revenue to pay their employees and their bills. I read daily of CEOs voluntarily foregoing compensation. Management and employees at others have taken massive compensation cuts to try to stay in business. Banks are forbearing mortgage and other debt payments. The IRS has deferred federal income taxes. Millions have been laid off or furloughed without pay.

And the state and county? Seems like business as usual. No one has volunteered to forgo any compensation, nor did they defer property and other taxes. For the involuntarily unemployed, the greedy hand of government still demands they pay, so its employees can avoid the consequences of its own mandate.

Epidemics aren’t new to man. Those most vulnerable must take extraordinary precautions, and society must be prepared to care for the ill. (I am among the vulnerable). But there are tradeoffs between the vulnerable and ill, and the vast majority who are not. Will there still be jobs and businesses for the 99% to return?

Government must join the governed in the collective pain if there is to be a balanced discussion of the tradeoffs in a political forum. Let the discussion begin.

William Rothe

Santa Rosa

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ED NOTE: Mendocino County's hard-hitting leadership, wildly overpaid, continues to draw their big paychecks, and you tell me what exactly they've done during the crisis to soften its blow on our everyday citizens. The Supes and their CEO should, as an example of the "dedication" to us they're always going on about, immediately halve their pay.

LINDY PETERS: Good Morning Mendocino County! The sunrise hopefully represents the beginning of the end of our situation.

FORT BRAGG CITY GOVERNMENT DURING PANDEMIC

by Rex Gressett

I guess it was a City Council meeting. They say it was. On Monday night, disembodied voices once more manifested themselves over crackling phone lines to the last two visible representatives of civic authority in Fort Bragg. City Manager Tabatha Miller and City Clerk June Lemos sat by themselves in Town Hall and provided a short checklist of yes and no questions to the remote voices. And Lo the voices answered. It sounded like the ghost of representative democracy pretending to be a functional city council — or possibly a phone prank — unless you listened very closely.

Stripped down to its bare essentials, political theater loses a lot of its punch. It's just like the movies. When they let us see stars in real life, they slap on a lot of glitz and glamour to avoid disappointment, lest we catch on that the creatures of our imagination are people just like us. Maybe you noticed celebrities looking tedious on social media during the quarantine. That would never have happened in the Golden Age of movies when stars were careful to remain veiled in mystery and glamour in front of the cameras.

But in respect of fakery and pretense, the Fort Bragg City Council are pros. Regular City Council meetings are masterpieces of self-promotion, judicious posturing and permanent softball. I would estimate that 90% of any Fort Bragg City Council meeting is off-topic braggadocio or braindead rubber-stamping of administration policy. Normally, the City Council does not originate or debate anything. It’s a kind of dance.

When the crisis broke, the technical apparatus of political theater went out the window. Meanwhile, professional administrators took the wheel officially. At the county level, CEO Carmel Angelo took the Supervisors by the hand and led them firmly down the road laid out by the State agencies. In Fort Bragg, the City Manager was formally declared emergency director. There was nothing like local innovation — or even common sense in the Fort Bragg emergency response. Maybe it was not the time for it.

Opinions vary. But in point of fact, the City Manager did what she was told to do and did not ask questions. That’s her job. She gave it to the Council the way she got it. The Council was formally displaced from operational control, but technically they did retain the last vestiges of sovereign authority and that’s where it got a little interesting. To wide support in the city, the stumbling telephonic City Council shot down the county policy on fining social distance violators. Then in the next meeting, the City Manager herself broke ranks with the county administration and, with Council approval, opened the Coastal Trail. It was small potatoes — but so unusual it was a little bit grand. I admit I enjoyed seeing our elected representatives throwing wrenches (little ones) into the centralized administrative agenda. It was as if at the moment they had formally ceded all authority to the “Big Machine” — the city council miraculously grew a spine or at least indicated that they might consider growing one.

Aren’t ghosts supposed to be uneasy souls who cannot accept some profound injustice in their mortal lives?

Last Monday’s meeting was brutally brief. They opened the trail and the Council dived behind the curtain to do battle in closed session with the raging wild elephant in the room — the City Manager’s instruction from the last meeting to preserve our city finances and presumably gut city personnel. Nobody said a word in the formal meeting.

Only the city employees, under attack, tried to blow the whistle during public comment with a desperate letter begging the council to walk back the last meeting’s blockbuster decision to hang on to the city's internal funds and instead mandate the City Manager to cut personnel.

I don’t say Tabatha Miller is deliberately deceptive — except in a 100% legal way. I don’t say that County CEO Carmel Angelo is. But the professional administrative class that we hired to replace a ludicrously corrupt City Council 20 and more years ago has always called all the important shots — and all the not so important ones.

The City Manager has dominated the City Council to a degree where it has become more fakery and pretense than anything else. When the epidemic got real, it was a case of the rubber meets the road. And you know what? In desperate straights, we got to see the City Council pushing back. Not to make too much of it.

If the City Council had allowed Development Department personnel to randomly fine social distancing violators it would have been gravely pernicious. The Council had to assert themselves to stop it and they did. It was a sign of life. Opening the trail was a direct response to city residents and it also bucks the county and state narrative for total lockdown. Are the ghosts returning to life?

I suppose it's too late. The rot must have gone too deep. The years and decades of behind-the-scenes capitulation to Georgia Pacific and brazen outright deception on a range of vital issues. Fake water surveys, idiot Visit Fort Bragg experiments, phony desalination projects and millions of local dollars bled into the pockets of a community of consultants that exist principally for their own enrichment and secondarily to remove the responsibility for common-sense local legislation.

Is all of that over?

Frankly, It staggers the imagination to believe that Mayor Will Lee would actually do his job and push back. But he did.

Maybe the City Council are all different people in closed session? It’s beginning to look like in dire straights they just might be. Maybe away from the critical spotlight they become innovators and engage in rigorous and principled debate. Hell, I don’t know. It could be true.

Maybe they won’t do in closed session what they always do in open session which is to sit there like privileged children shouting “we like it” or “we don’t like it” at the City Manager and bringing nothing to the table themselves.

Whatever happened in that closed session meeting is going to matter to the city - and at this moment when it could count the most, the City Council has shown more signs of independence and common sense since they ascended into the telephonic otherworld than they have at any time in my experience.

One thing we know for sure, this crisis is not going to let us go back to the way things were. Many things in our nation and our town will change forever.

Perhaps the rebirth of a strong effective city council will push aside the dreary, braindead, slow roll into knee-jerk compliance with a metastasizing administrative state.

It won't be easy keeping the city solvent after the bottom has dropped out - and making insanely hard choices to do it is WAY outside of anything the City Council has had to deal with up to now.

But just maybe the City Council, down deep in their souls, actually wants autonomous governance. Maybe they never knew they wanted it until a national cataclysm took it away from them. Maybe they even want it enough to do the impossible and become the legislating thinking representative workers that we elected them to be.

If they try it, they are going to have their work cut out for them.

JIM JONES IN REDWOOD VALLEY, 1960s

FORT BRAGG OFFERS NEW ONLINE PUBLIC COMMENT FEATURE FOR CITY COUNCIL MEETINGS

The City of Fort Bragg will roll out a new online public comment feature at the next special meeting of the Fort Bragg City Council on Monday, April 20, 2020. This new option, called “eComment” allows members of the public to submit comments to the Council, state their position on an item (Support, Neutral, or Opposed), and include attachments with their comments.

Due to the current County and State COVID-19 Shelter-in-Place orders, all meetings are closed to the public. Councilmembers appear telephonically and meetings are live-streamed on the City’s website, city.fortbragg.com and on Channel 3. To be as accommodating as possible during this period of meeting closures, the City will accept public comments made in any of the following ways:

Through the City’s new online eComment agenda feature;

By emailing the City Clerk, June Lemos, at jlemos@fortbragg.com;

By submitting written comments through the utility bill drop box at City Hall, 416N. Franklin Street; or

By leaving a voicemail message at (707) 961-1694 by 5:00PM on the day of the meeting.

To use the new eComment module, go to the Agenda Calendar page, which is organized by meeting date. Click on the eComment link on the far right to view the agenda. This takes you to the SpeakUp platform where you can review the current agenda items with eComment activated and register or log in to submit an eComment. The first time you use eComment, you will be asked to register as a user. You do not have to provide your name, but it is helpful for the Councilmembers to know who is speaking when the comments are read into the record by the Clerk. Look for the chat bubble icon labeled “Comment,” and follow the steps to leave your public comment on as many items as you desire.

The City appreciates your patience and willingness to protect the health and wellness of our community and staff by submitting your public comments through one of the above methods.

Questions regarding this information should be directed to June Lemos, CMC, City Clerk, jlemos@fortbragg.com, at (707) 961-1694.

MARK SCARAMELLA WRITES:

I enjoyed Jonah Raskin’s profile of Upton Sinclair and his run for governor of California.

But while I noticed Mr. Raskin’s mention of Sinclair’s loss to Republican Frank Mirriam and some minor personal quirks Mr. Sinclair may have had which contributed to his loss, I did not see any mention of the real reason the self-described socialist Sinclair lost: The libs — then calling themselves “the Commonweath/Progressive Party” — ran a “moderate” named Raymond Haight (largely sponsored by Hollywood) who siphoned off about 13% of the anti-Republican vote, leaving the final tally as Mirriam: 49%, Sinclair: 38% and Haight: 13%. So, in effect, the libs defeated Sinclair because they didn’t want a “socialist” governor.

Sinclair ran during the depression in the 30s when Wall Street and the reckless big banks basically killed the economy and put millions of people out of work. Given that we face a similar depression in the wake of the corona virus, it might be instructive to know what Sinclair proposed to “end poverty in California” (EPIC).

A key provision of the EPIC platform stemmed from a survey Sinclair’s team did showing how many empty factories California had in a broad range of what would now be called “essential” industries: Food, textiles, forest/construction products, printing and publishing, chemical plants, petroleum, iron, steel, machine tools, etc. In addition, many plants that remained open were operating at limited capacity determined by the banks and owners.

Sinclair declared to the industrialists: "Gentlemen, we will consider renting your factory for three years, paying you a negotiated price sufficient to cover your overhead. We will be pleased if your executives will remain at their posts, receiving their present salaries and operating the factory under the supervision of the State. You may call in your old workers and put them at the machines. We ask and expect your loyal cooperation as citizens and patriots to help us over this emergency. If, as you expect, prosperity returns, you may have your factory back. If, on the other hand, your hope is disappointed, the State of California will enter into negotiations to purchase your factory at the end of the rental period."

To the extent that such idle factories and capacities exist now due to banks, owners, and the virus, wouldn’t an updated version of that “socialist” proposal (updated to include any required “distancing” rules) be worth bringing back since it’s unlikely the banks will do it on their own? Or is California so afraid of “socialism” that they will allow millions otherwise employable people to sit idle?

Although I could not find any mention of it in Sinclair’s proposals, the 30s also saw the rise of producer/farmer co-ops, a few remnants of which remain today in several ag categories. This could also help re-employ a lot of people as well, but the state would have to provide the financing.

BLUE MEADOW FARM OPENS with tomato and pepper starts

Cherry Tomatoes — Sungold, Super Sweet 100, Beam’s Yellow Pear

Large Red - Brandywine, Greek Domata (similar to Brandywine, but earlier & more prolific), Cosmonaut Volkov (particularly tasty), Delicious (was favorite at now defunct Bountiful Gardens)

Medium Red — Ramepo (hybrid — bred for old fashioned New Jersey goodness. Similar to Early Girl. Unfortunately no Early Girl starts this year), Costuluto Fiorentino (more fluted than C Genovese!), Cuor di Bue (great all-purpose tomato)

Black — Black Krim, Black from Tula, Cherokee Purple, Paul Robeson, Japanese Black Trifele

Yellow/Orange/Striped - Striped German, Old German, Gold Medal, Golden Jubilee

Bell Peppers - Gourmet (ripens yellow/orange), King of the North and Buran (ripens red), Purple Beauty

Corno di Toro Peppers — Cheverna Chuska, Golden Treasure, Gatherers Gold

(more next week)

Open daily at 10 am

Corner of Holmes Ranch Rd and Hwy 128, Philo 707-895-2071

Please bring boxes. Checks appreciated.

FOODSHED NEWS

Our amazing local farmers & food producers are still here for you during these uncertain times!

We are beyond lucky to live in an area abundant in local food production. Be sure to check in with our local farms, markets and eateries to see the wonderful ways they are still working to get food on our tables during this difficult time. The following includes details about some of the businesses and farms that are still actively selling food in our area. Please feel free to reach out if you would like to add details for any other food-related efforts to this list.

The Boonville Farmers' Market is Back Again!

We will have our first market on Friday May 1st in the parking area of Disco Ranch. Market will be every Friday from 4-6 pm. We will be offering plant starts, fresh veggies, meat and eggs, mushrooms, olive oil and natural body care products. In an effort to keep our community safe, we will not have a children's area or live music and we request that you come wearing a mask and maintain appropriate social distancing.

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GROCERY MARKETS:

AV Market is still open daily from 10-6, and can make special product orders and orders by phone: (707) 895-3019

Boont Berry is open for take out food from their deli, curbside delivery and regular shopping. They can also do special orders, and there has been a pop-up "Love Table" there in recent weeks offering free homemade bread and other items. (707) 895-3576

Lemons Market is still open daily for groceries, meat, fish and deli. (895-3552)

Yorkville Market still open for take-out and groceries. (707) 894-9456

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FARM STANDS & PRODUCTS:

4 Bar K Ranch still taking orders for local beef (see information below).

Boonville Barn Collective still selling olive oil, chile powders and salts.

Bramble Family Farms still selling olive oil (see information below).

Natural Products of Boonville still has mushrooms and more each week, plus veggie starts! (see information below). (707) 684-0182 or keepertrout@gmail.com.

Petit Teton remains open, selling a wide selection of produce, meat, eggs, plants, and canned food. Can prepare a grocery bag in advance (see details below). (707) 684-4146 or farmer@petitteton.com.

Yorkville Olive Ranch still selling olive oil

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RESTAURANTS:

Boonville General Store is still serving take-out.

Lauren's is still open for takeout and curbside pick up. Call (707) 895-3869 to make an order. Website: http://www.laurensgoodfood.com/

Mosswood Market is still open, serving homemade empanadas, pastries, coffee and tea.

Buy Local Plant Starts!

Natural Products of Boonville is growing transplants again, for the Boonville Market that will be resuming this year.

Only a few flats are large enough for transplant now, but in 2 to 3 weeks they’ll all be ready. Some varieties will be very limited - only 5-12 plants; others there are 15-30 of.

Here’s the list I put together for folks who want to plan ahead.

It’s OK to contact me early and reserve plants. Maybe could meet in town before then to get some. [geoffrey@naturalproductsofboonville.com]

Should anyone prefer to call and talk with me, my cell is 707-272-3494.

However, service here is iffy, so email is better - and i check it a couple of times most days.

Heirloom tomatoes:

• Japanese Black Trifele
• Cherokee Purple
• Black Krim (only 5 of these)
• Yellow Brandywine
• Pineapple

Tom Wagner ‘Modern Heirlooms':

• Green Brandy - (Green Zebra X Black Brandywine, selected for green fruit, some striped, some not)
• Sweet Green Striped - (sweeter striped Green Brandy selection)
• Big Sky Brandy (Green Brandy x Skykomish) - Late-fruiting orange with great taste
• Skykomish - (Large yellow w red heart & late blight resistance) outstanding flavor but produces late
• Green Zebra x Stupice grex - (delicious taste, variable coloration)
• Red Lightning - (GZ x Stupice selection - red w/ green stripes)
• Striped Students - (GZ x Stupice selection - red, yellow, orange stripes)
• Chef Hubert (Red with blue shoulders. “Unique taste when ripe”)
• Clackamas Blueberry - semi-determinate ‘Blue’ salad type, excellent flavor ("perhaps the best tasting of the blue tomatoes")
• ‘Black’ Clackamas Blueberry - a more determinate selection with deeper pigmentation in fruit and plant
• Matt’s Folly (Matt's Wild x Casady's Folly) - Red cherry-to-plum size with stripes and great taste
• Fahrenheit Blues - dark blue cherry tomatoes
• Elberta Leeway - striped paste type tomato similar to San Marzano. fruits are fuzzy like a peach; whole plant has white fuzz so looks cool in the garden
• Betimes Macbeth - (compact/low growing early cherry-paste novelty. best for container culture. shiny crimson fruits with very high lycopene. productive, keeps awhile, good flavor for an early type)

Exotics:

• Pink Berkeley Tie Dye - Perhaps the best known of Brad Gates’ “modern heirlooms"
• ‘Boonville Brown’ - (beautiful brown fruit & great taste)
• ‘Brown Lightning’ - ( BB ‘sport’. brown with green stripes and flecks)
• Momotaro - Japanese pink with green shoulders, extremely popular in Japan
• Sun Gold - very sweet gold Cherry. Japanese F1 with very high sugar levels. ‘Most popular tomato’ in many areas
• Siberian Tiger (yellow) - Blue shouldered yellow with sweet flavor

Name unknown heirlooms (seed from great-tasting store-bought fruits):

• Yellow heirloom
• Golden Yellow heirloom
• Gold/orange heirloom (superb taste)

Peppers:

• Red Mini peppers
• Orange Mini Peppers
• Shishito peppers
• Ethnobotanicals:
• Nicotiana excelsior
• Nicotiana gossei

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Stock up at Petit Teton

Petit Teton would like to thank the locals who have stopped by in the past several weeks, and invite the rest of you to call us for veggies, canned goods, and meat. The greens continue to grow…celery, scallion, leek, spring onion, fennel, herbs (dill, thyme, rosemary, chive , garlic chive, mint, chocolate mint), watercress, lovage, parsley, chard, kale, radicchio, endive, escarole, baby artichoke…in varying amounts, and if the weather ever settles down, the farm will continue to add to production.

CATCH OF THE DAY, April 15-16, 2020

KRISTOFER ANDERSON, Fort Bragg. Stalking in violation of restraining order, protective order violation.

CHRISTOPHER COFFEY, Willits. Probation revocation.

ROBIN GONSALVES, Lakeport/Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

CLINT HARBOUR, Willits. Domestic battery, probation revocation.

JUAN JAREGUI, Ukiah. Probation revocation.

JEFFREY MURRAY, Ukiah. Protective order violation.

WILLIAM WILLIAMS JR., Willits. Probation violation.

THE OFFICIAL CORONAVIRUS GUIDELINES

1. Basically, you can't leave the house for any reason, but if you have to, then you can.
2. Masks are useless, but maybe you have to wear one, it can save you, it is useless, but maybe it is mandatory as well.
3. Stores are closed, except those that are open.
4. You should not go to hospitals unless you have to go there. Same applies to doctors, you should only go there in case of emergency, provided you are not too sick.
5. This virus is deadly but still not too scary, except that sometimes it actually leads to a global disaster.
6. Gloves won't help, but they can still help.
7. Everyone needs to stay HOME, but it's important to GO OUT.
8. There is no shortage of groceries in the supermarket, but there are many things missing when you go there in the evening, but not in the morning. Sometimes.
9. The virus has no effect on children except those it affects.
10. Animals are not affected, but there is still a cat that tested positive in Belgium in February when no one had been tested, plus a few tigers here and there…
11. You will have many symptoms when you are sick, but you can also get sick without symptoms, have symptoms without being sick, or be contagious without having symptoms. Oh, my..
12. In order not to get sick, you have to eat well and exercise, but eat whatever you have on hand and it's better not to go out, well, but no…
13. It's better to get some fresh air, but you get looked at very wrong when you get some fresh air, and most importantly, you don't go to parks or walk. But don’t sit down, except that you can do that now if you are old, but not for too long or if you are pregnant (but not too old).
14. You can't go to retirement homes, but you have to take care of the elderly and bring food and medication.
15. If you are sick, you can't go out, but you can go to the pharmacy.
16. You can get restaurant food delivered to the house, which may have been prepared by people who didn't wear masks or gloves. But you have to have your groceries decontaminated outside for 3 hours. Pizza too?
17. Every disturbing article or disturbing interview starts with "I don't want to trigger panic, but…"
18. You can't see your older mother or grandmother, but you can take a taxi and meet an older taxi driver.
19. You can walk around with a friend but not with your family if they don't live under the same roof.
20. You are safe if you maintain the appropriate social distance, but you can’t go out with friends or strangers at the safe social distance.
21. The virus remains active on different surfaces for two hours, no, four, no, six, no, we didn't say hours, maybe days? But it takes a damp environment. Oh no, not necessarily.
22. The virus stays in the air - well no, or yes, maybe, especially in a closed room, in one hour a sick person can infect ten, so if it falls, all our children were already infected at school before it was closed. But remember, if you stay at the recommended social distance, however in certain circumstances you should maintain a greater distance, which, studies show, the virus can travel further, maybe.
23. We count the number of deaths but we don't know how many people are infected as we have only tested so far those who were "almost dead" to find out if that's what they will die of…
24. We have no treatment, except that there may be one that apparently is not dangerous unless you take too much (which is the case with all medications).
25. We should stay locked up until the virus disappears, but it will only disappear if we achieve collective immunity, so when it circulates… but we must no longer be locked up for that?

CITY LIGHTS BOOKSTORE:

"We are so overwhelmed & humbled by the response to our campaign, but realize that so many other people are struggling out there, and we hope they will get the help that they need."

— Andy Bellows, General Mgr City Lights https://bit.ly/3egD7DF

DEAR CALIFORNIAN,

As of last week, more than 46% of all households across California have responded to the 2020 Census! That’s 6.9 million households — making California the state with the most households that have already responded to the census.

But, we still have millions more California households to go to achieve a fair and accurate count.

If you still haven’t responded to the 2020 Census, it’s not too late. Households that have not yet responded to their census invitation should have started to receive a paper questionnaire in the mail as of April 8.

That means, while Californians are at home social distancing, they can now respond to the census by mail, online or by phone.

To complete the census online, go to my2020census.gov.

To respond by phone, call 844-330-2020. Or go to https://2020census.gov/en/contact-us for non-English.

Completing the census only takes about 10 minutes and will help your community for the next 10 years! Census participation determines each community's share of federal funding for healthcare, schools, roads, and more for the next decade.

When you complete the census, make sure that everyone who lives in your household is counted. That includes all children and any extended family or friends who are living with you (regardless of immigration, citizenship, or voter registration status -- everyone needs to be counted).

Remember, participation is simple, quick and confidential. To learn more about your rights, you can read California’s Census Bill of Rights.

Once you complete the census, help us spread the word. Forward this email to your family members, friends, neighbors, and coworkers and remind them that it’s critical that everyone participate in the 2020 Census.

Let’s get counted, let’s get funded, and let’s continue to stand up for democracy!

With appreciation,

Alex Padilla

Secretary of State

ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

It takes a virus to strip away the veneers, focus everyone’s attention, and reveal capitalism in all its repulsiveness. It’s shown that, in these times of COVID-19, millions of people are worrying about how to survive as the flimsy structure of finance finagling, otherwise called the “economy”, is falling down around the ears of everyone except the rich who have personal fortunes bigger than the GDPs of many countries, and that those most afflicted are vulnerable people who are copping all the associated injustice and grief.

TONE IT DOWN, JER

Editor,

Please renew my subscription.

But please be aware that this year I considered not renewing because of your enthusiastic showcasing of Jerry Philbrick's letters. While I believe the rationale has been explained as the writing being refreshing or triggering libs or something, to uninitiated readers it simply looks like you are making cruel fun of an elderly man with dementia.

More concerning, though, are the study stream of death threats he makes. Though you and I don't take them seriously, you must have noticed that there are people out there who, exposed to constant goading like Philbrick's, end up shooting people.

May I suggest you kindly but firmly let Jerry know that letters (his and anybody else's) will be edited to remove frank incitements to violence that could be taken literally by the sheltered, the dim, or the intoxicated?

Ralf Burgert

Oakland

WHILE YOU WEREN'T LOOKING

While you weren't looking: wars prevailed, plagues rose, climate changed.

We jailed ourselves, afraid to touch, careful to not breathe each other's air.

While you weren't looking: we lost each other and achieved the identity of self through fear, illness and despair. The self is gained at the loss of the other.

While you weren't looking: they picked your pocket by privatizing profits and publicizing the cost.

While you weren't looking: they sold you short when desire folded its dream. The lawmakers hold themselves harmless. The rich indemnify their wealth.

While you weren't looking: Robots replaced you. The computer implemented man. Self driving trucks went to empty stores. The toilet paper run proved the world is full of assholes.

While you weren’t looking: Reality ruined the party. The bullshit regained its odor. The virtual world of wonders vanished.

While you weren't looking: Reality caught you by the throat. Home alone with humans you’re not certain you really like or understand.

Dave McCain

Richmond

BE CAREFUL, CODGERS

Editor,

What kind of websites have you been visiting? Surely you must know about tracking and profiling. That is why “Misty” and “Krystal” appear on your computer. Seniors need to be especially careful in times like these accessing the internet.

Shelly Hepburn

Boulder Creek

IF TRUMP WAS CAPTAIN OF THE TITANIC

There isn't any iceberg.

There was an iceberg, but it's in a totally different ocean.

The iceberg is in this ocean, but it will melt very soon.

There is an iceberg, but we didn't hit the iceberg.

We hit the iceberg, but the damage will be repaired very shortly.

The iceberg is a Chinese iceberg.

We are taking on water, but every passenger who wants a lifeboat can get a lifeboat, and they are beautiful lifeboats. Passengers need to ask nicely for the lifeboats if they want them.

We don't have any lifeboats; we're not lifeboat distributors.

Passengers should have planned for icebergs and brought their own lifeboats.

I really don't think we need that many lifeboats.

We have lifeboats, but they're supposed to be our lifeboats, not the passengers' lifeboats.

The lifeboats were left onshore by the last captain of this ship.

Nobody could have foreseen the iceberg.

"WHY, MARCO, WHY" (A DIALOGUE, Coast Listserve)

The Fear (and) My dreams from Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.

gyork@mcn.org wrote:

Marco, Why are you so relentlessly picking on Inger? Granted she has devices that make her a target. She also recommends fresh air, and other good things. She's no different than you: talking to her captive audience that soaks it all up. BTW, what was that parable about the cheap or clever grandfather? Forget how to speak regular English? And dreams (everyone's) are weird, just that most folks don't remember them. Anyone who is publishing dreams apparently needs a good hobby.

---

Marco McClean:

Gyork, apparently you're just jealous, and by that I mean envious. And projecting a bit. And again: Read aloud to yourself what you write, as though someone else were saying it to you, and notice how many posts you spread it across. Maybe the nickel will drop.

We're all announcing our creativity and knowledge and needs, such as they are, in our way. Inger Grape is a loonball antivaxxer; stating facts to her doesn't work, pointing to true information doesn't work, debunking propaganda doesn't work, listing dry points of reason doesn't seem to work either; poetry might, a little, I dunno. I'm just trying to help, and I like her funny name. It makes me think of one of my favorite movies ever; I think you know what one that is, like Beverly's email address, /bevodill/, makes me think of the line from /Ya Got Trouble/ in the /The Music Man/: "They'll be tryin' out Bevo, tryin' out cubebs, tryin' out tailor-mades like cigaret fiends!" And I see that you're writing poetry again; I'm happy to read it on the radio, even though, especially though, it isn't regular English.

Fresh air and other good things? Okay. Promoting drinking hydrogen peroxide to cure AIDS, a magic Russian pebble to sew to your shirt to protect you from psychic attack or a jade egg to jam up your cooch to prevent menopause, religious exemptions for children from important vaccinations, holding up public works communications projects by spreading anti-science fearmongering lies, subtly less okay.

Lately I've been reading YA science-fiction books by relatively little-known authors on the subject of either 1. asteroid mining, including space pirates, or 2. time travel with pretzel loops of ever more unwanted results. There's a surprising lot of these around now, and there doesn't seem to be any dreamlike component to any of them; they're formulaic, as though the writers are following a plan they learned in a writing class, or stepping through filling out a form in a writing program, which they probably are doing, and that interests me; I think it's why they're good and entertaining but not great. One of my favorite writers from the so-called golden age of science-fiction was A.E. van Vogt, who wrote hundreds of books by a method he invented: For all his adult life he set a timer for 45 minutes when he lay down to sleep. When it rang he got up, wrote notes on whatever he'd been dreaming, set the timer again and went back to sleep. All his wonderful books are his published dreams. It might be that the better part of every great book and film and teevee show and play is dreams. Where did you think all that material comes from? I guess all those thousands of writers just needed a hobby; it would have saved them a lot of time and trouble and aggravation and paper and pencils and stuff, and we wouldn't have to waste our precious time looking at it and reading it all.

That reminds me: one time maybe twenty years ago I went down to the Albion Grocery on a break from my day job and there were those people, not old, mostly men, maybe ten or twelve in all, but three or four or five at a time, in rotation, who used to sit all day there, day after day, with their backs against the telephone pole or against the building and just, I don't know, smoke weed, drink out of a paper bag? They were always just sitting there, and I knew a lot of them; they weren't homeless; they had places to live and a couple of them had a car or a truck. So I went by and one of them uncharacteristically looked me in the eye and just then I remembered, and stopped and told them, showed them, what I'd discovered earlier, which was that when I washed my face with too-hot water and gritted my teeth and held my face muscles in a certain way it looked surprisingly red and funny in the mirror, a pretty good funny face, like a puppet. I didn't have the hot water there but told them about it and showed them the face as best I could, using the glass of the window to get it right. They didn't laugh or anything; they just waited. When I continued into the store one of them growl/mumbled derisively, "/Somebody's/ got a lotta time on his hands."

This is like that, from both directions.

MAGRITTE ON CORONA VIRUS

BERNIE’S PIVOT FOR BIDEN ISN’T PLEASANT. BUT TRUMP MUST BE DEFEATED.

by Norman Solomon

This week, soon after Bernie Sanders suspended his campaign, one of its most effective message-crafters summed up a vital challenge ahead. “The best hope to defeat Trump is to positively and constructively motivate a large Democratic turnout,” David Sirota wrote. “The best way to do that is to show progressive voters they are actually valued, rather than taken for granted. And the best way to show them that they are valued is to actually embrace an agenda that they want.”

Progressives should never stop fighting for policies that truly represent our values. And activists, unlike even the best politicians, can avoid the pitfalls of making diplomatic statements that aren’t true.

While announcing the deactivation of his campaign on April 8, Bernie said that Joe Biden is “a very decent man.” But decency is not a word that remotely applies to Biden’s political record that spans several decades (as I’ve described in one article after another after another after another after another after another after another).

Ironically, at this historic juncture, Biden -- a longtime eager corporate tool -- is now the only electoral implement available to progressives for preventing the re-election of Trump. At this point, there’s simply no other plausible way to prevent this monstrous president from winning a second term.

And so, in an interview with The Associated Press on Tuesday, Bernie spelled out a choice: “Do we be as active as we can in electing Joe Biden and doing everything we can to move Joe and his campaign in a more progressive direction? Or do we choose to sit it out and allow the most dangerous president in modern American history to get re-elected?”

Bernie started this week by endorsing Biden in an awkward video duet with the presumptive nominee. Symbolically, if not intentionally, when the video went to full screen while Bernie spoke, one object was clearly visible behind him -- a chessboard.

There are reasons to criticize some of Bernie’s recent tactical moves. (I wish he hadn’t suspended his campaign before the end of primary voting.) But, looking ahead, he’s being sensible about current political realities.

Crucially in swing states, Trump can only be defeated by votes for the Democratic presidential nominee, who’s now virtually certain to be Biden, and there’s no point in pretending otherwise. Magical thinking might be a wondrous literary device, but it’s useless -- or worse -- in politics.

“We had a contentious campaign,” Bernie told AP as he noted differences with Biden. “We disagree on issues. But my job now is to not only rally my supporters, but to do everything I can to bring the party together to see that (Trump) is not elected president.”

(A bit paradoxically, Bernie said that he’s hoping people will vote for him in the 20 or so states that have upcoming primaries -- so that there’ll be more Sanders delegates for the Democratic National Convention in August. More of those delegates will increase progressive leverage when the convention adopts a platform and sets future party rules.)

If anyone thinks it doesn’t matter much whether Trump is re-elected, they’re living in some kind of bubble. To those outside of such a soundproof bubble, Bernie is now sending an unequivocal message: “I believe that it’s irresponsible for anybody to say, ‘Well, I disagree with Joe Biden -- I disagree with Joe Biden! -- and therefore I’m not going to be involved.’”

Bernie Sanders is saying that progressives have a profound responsibility to fight against -- and oust -- the extreme right-wing forces that have gained control of the U.S. government’s executive branch and, increasingly, the federal judiciary. Of course, in political terms, progressives wish that we were in a very different place. But this is where we are.

(Norman Solomon is co-founder and national coordinator of RootsAction.org. He was a Bernie Sanders delegate from California to the 2016 Democratic National Convention. Solomon is the author of a dozen books including “War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death.”)

FOUND OBJECT