MCT: Monday, June 1, 2020

• Showers Ending
• Community Spread
• Unrest USA
• Peppered
• Hungry People
• Previous Complaints
• Ukiah Rally
• Counter Protest
• Boonville Demonstration
• Ed Notes
• PV Roadwork
• Unmasked Kids
• Inland Pomos
• Park Stargazing
• Waste Canal
• Sewer Rates
• Lake Mendocino
• C-19 Reopenings
• Hydrangea
• Modern Convergence
• Kimberlin Book
• Yesterday's Catch
• Rhubarb Pie
• Riot Prevention
• Book Event
• Worst Looting
• Whacking Miles
• Chauvin Questions
• Failing Donald
• Riled Up
• Social Problem
• 4 Ts
• Grateful Bed
• Found Object

ISOLATED SHOWERS are expected for the interior today. A few lightning strikes will be possible with some showers this afternoon over Trinity, northeast Mendocino and far northern Lake counties. Otherwise, dry weather and above normal temperatures are expected for much of the week. Significant cooling and rain showers are expected for the weekend. (NWS)

COMMUNITY SPREAD CONFIRMED: Surge Preparedness And More In Mendocino County Virtual Press Conference

On Friday May 29, 2020, Mendocino County Public Health Officer, Mendocino County CEO Carmel Angelo, and Mendocino County Sheriff Matt Kendall held a virtual press conference providing an update on the state of COVID-19 in Mendocino County. Redheaded Blackbelt and other local media asked questions about these and other concerns.

kymkemp.com/2020/05/31/community-spread-confirmed-surge-preparedness-and-more-in-mendocino-county-virtual-press-conference/

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CURFEWS FAIL TO DETER NEW WAVE OF PROTESTS ACROSS US

Cities across the US saw further unrest and demonstrations on Sunday amid another wave of protests over the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis by a white police officer.

George Floyd: Donald Trump under fire as violence flares across America

Amid rising anger and frustration at the repeated failure of America’s policing system to address large numbers of deaths of unarmed African Americans at the hands of police officers, mayors of more than a dozen cities imposed curfews and governors of six states called in the national guard.

But the move did not deter protesters from gathering again in many cities as Sunday night drew in, defying orders to disperse and ignoring the curfew orders.

In Minneapolis, where the protests began last week after video emerged of a police officer kneeling on Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes, National Guard troops were deployed as demonstrations continued. In a disturbing incident, a fuel semi-truck drove into a demonstration of thousands of people on a bridge near the city’s downtown, apparently without seriously injuring anyone.

In the Los Angeles neighborhood of Santa Monica, police fired tear gas and other projectiles at protesters blocking a main shopping road. Meanwhile, hundreds of protesters returned to the White House, mere hours after demonstrations turned violent and police used tear gas. In New York protestors were also back on the streets, marching through Manhattan during the day and later congregating again at Union Square, where numerous police cars had been torched on Saturday night.

Elsewhere in the US, looting of shops broke out again in Philadelphia and tear gas was used on protesters in the Florida city of Fort Lauderdale, apparently sparked by two police motorcycle riders driving through the crowd, according to local press reports.

Police have come under intense scrutiny and criticism for their actions on Saturday night, accused of heavy handed tactics, attacking protestors and arresting members of the media.

In Atlanta, two police officers have been fired and three placed on desk duty over excessive use of force on Saturday night. Officials say the incident came to light via a video that shows a group of police officers surrounding a car being driven by a man with a woman in the passenger seat. The officers pull the woman out to zip-tie her and appear to use a stun gun on the man. Local reporters said the police had earlier broken glass on the car and also flattened its tires.

Demonstrators also protested outside US embassies in London, Berlin and Copenhagen as the movement spread abroad.

But back in Minneapolis, authorities were determined to force compliance with the curfew on Sunday night and prevent a repeat of the looting and arson that damaged stores along a more than two-mile stretch of Lake Street, a thoroughfare of mostly locally owned businesses.

Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, whose district includes Minneapolis, said residents were feeling “terrorised”.

“When we see people setting our buildings and our businesses ablaze, we know those are not people who are interested in protecting black lives,” she told ABC’s This Week. But she said people were also fearful of the presence of police and national guard troops.

“What we are trying to do is try to figure out something between extreme aggression and ways to figure out how to not get our city burned down. And it’s a challenge,” she said.

“We are living in a country that has a two-tiered justice system and people are … sick and tired of being sick and tired. And we need to really step back and say to ourselves, where do we actually go from here? And that can’t just be getting justice for George Floyd. It needs to be bigger than that.”

Donald Trump, however, has done little to calm the situation. He labelled the protesters “anarchists” and claimed, without evidence, that political opponents were orchestrating the violence.

“The memory of George Floyd is being dishonored by rioters, looters and anarchists,” Trump said. “The violence and vandalism is being led by Antifa and other radical leftwing groups who are terrorizing the innocent, destroying jobs, hurting businesses and burning down buildings.”

“LAW & ORDER,” Trump tweeted on Sunday night.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi urged people to “ignore” the president, who she accused of “fuelling the flame”.

“To take his bait time and time again is just a gift to him because he always wants to divert attention from what the cause of the response was rather than to describe it in his own terms, sadly,” she told ABC.

George Floyd’s brother, Philonise, said he had briefly spoken to Trump.

“It was so fast,” he told MSNBC. “He didn’t give me the opportunity to even speak. It was hard. I was trying to talk to him but he just kept like pushing me off, like, ‘I don’t want to hear what you’re talking about’.”

(Guardian)

'PEOPLE ARE GOING TO GO HUNGRY': Pandemic effects could leave 54 million Americans without food

Demand for aid at food banks has soared since coronavirus has forced the economy to close and resulted in millions out of work

theguardian.com/world/2020/may/31/people-are-going-to-go-hungry-pandemic-effects-could-leave-54m-americans-without-food

THE MINNEAPOLIS POLICE OFFICER who knelt on George Floyd's neck had 18 previous complaints against him, police department says

cnn.com/2020/05/28/us/minneapolis-officer-complaints-george-floyd/

SUNDAY MORNING into the early afternoon, a rally in support of George Floyd and against police brutality and our injustice system, was held in front of the courthouse in Ukiah, pop. under 17,000, which was organized by a young woman from the Coyote Valley Tribe of the Pomo Nation who I knew when she was a student at our local high school, together with Black Lives Matter. 

Close to 300 mostly young people, with their imaginative home made signs took part and with an extraordinary support from cars driving down Ukiah's main street, honking loudly in support, they made if far and away the most impressive rally I have seen in the 20 years I have lived near here and the first in which youth far outnumbered the geezers and those on their way to geezerhood. It was an event to remember. Some were kneeling in honor of George Floyd. They even had begun with a nine minuted kneel, the time that it took the Minneapolis cops to murder Floyd.

(Jeff Blankfort)

A LOCAL MAN who drives an old pickup and looks like a redneck but who has liberal opinions happened to be driving past the Ukiah Courthouse early Sunday afternoon as several hundred protesters were assembling to protest the killing of George Floyd. A smaller crowd of maybe a couple dozen counter-protesters had formed across the street from the courthouse shouting taunts at the protesters. When the pickup truck driver stopped for the light he honked and gave a thumbs-up to the protesters which reportedly caused the counter protesters to start calling him names, apparently assuming he was some kind of redneck turncoat. Then they attempted to grab him and pull him out of his truck. Just then the light turned green and the pickup driver drove off, steaming, talking about what he would have done to them if they had succeeded. He later noted that he was surprised that there was no law enforcement in the vicinity even though it was right at the courthouse and the situation seemed quite volatile.

Ed note: We want to hear from anybody who witnessed this incident. Please call 895-3016.

BOONVILLE DEMO. A small group of Anderson Valley residents assembled near the Boonville firehouse Sunday afternoon to protest the murder in Minneapolis murder of George Floyd. There was no looting.

ED NOTES

NO SIGNS of civil disorder in San Anselmo this morning (Sunday) except in the mini-mart at the service station in the Red Hill Shopping Center, 10:15am. As I fueled up I could hear top decibel obscenities from somewhere beyond the pumps, and here comes a cleancut young white man, reddish-blonde hair, maybe six feet, fit-looking, spotless white t-shirt, pressed khaki trousers, back pack. Glaring at me as I walked into the mini-mart to buy my weekly losing mega-mil ticket, Mr. Psychorama followed me into the store as I think to myself, "Really? Even in America's most placid suburb?" Instantly, the young Hispanic guy behind the counter pointed at the sign on the door — No Mask No Entry — and told the guy he couldn't come in without a mask. Mr. P explodes in "bleeping spic bleep you bleepity bleep bleep" and, sweeping a rack of candy bars onto the floor, Mr. P exits, stomping off still shouting obscenities. "If that bleep comes back, shoot him," I suggest. The clerk shrugs and says, "It happens."

WHEN I SAW the notice about the George Floyd rally today (Sunday) in Willits, I thought of my old friend Stan Mack who used to do a great comic strip called Real Life Funnies, a few panels of which for the Village Voice featured several Boonville episodes, including late night head-butting contests and Deputy Squires mediating a dispute in the Boonville Hotel between Hotel staffers and a deadbeat who refused to pay for her meal because she said her steak wasn't big enough for what she paid. I'm not saying that the Willits demo will necessarily be a comic event, but...

IT'S UNLIKELY that anybody will write an Ethics Guide to Civil Insurrection since there are already hundreds of How-To guides on non-violent protest and resistance. But as civil insurrection becomes commonplace, as it will as this society continues to implode, I don't think it's fair or politically wise to physically attack the police who, compared to the psycho-heavy urban police forces of the sixties, are better trained, much more restrained and working in an impossible social context. And most people like the individual police people they come into contact with. The political problem is not a police problem. It's a social-economic problem. I couldn't do police work because I'd either be tempted to shoot, or would shoot, some highly annoying someone every night. 

HAD to google the year that the great American writer, James Baldwin, was in San Francisco, a time when writers still had enormous influence with the young, and I was young in '63 when I went to see him at the Masonic Auditorium on Nob Hill. Baldwin was mesmerizing on the theme of The Fire Next Time, his prescient essay on the black uprisings that came later in the decade. The audience was mostly white and, among the young people probably like me, a half-assed liberal who went around saying, "Golly, I wish people were nicer…” Well, I wasn't quite that far out of it, but my first demos were about integration not the overthrow of capitalism — reform demos, not yet class warfare. Baldwin said he thought there would be a black president some day "but not in a country like this one is now." (Probably not an exact quote but that's what he said.) We've managed a black president but millions of black people are still left out. The fire this time is much more multi-racial than the uprisings of the sixties, and the social context even more dire, and beyond imagining of even the best writers of times past.

SANTA ROSA? Area police issued this statement Saturday afternoon: "The majority of the crowds have dispersed at this time, however, some continue to move around the downtown area whose motives are unclear. In order to ensure the safety of our community, we advise those in the downtown area to take the following precautions: Businesses should now close for the evening and send working employees home. Residents should avoid the downtown area for the remainder of the night. Those who live in the downtown area should remain indoors for the remainder of the night. SRPD and other local law enforcement agencies are actively responding to criminal activity including assault and vandalism. We absolutely support people’s rights to free speech, however, we will not tolerate violence and destruction in our community."

INSTANT NOSTALGIA. When the governor of Minnesota blamed "outside agitators" for the violence in Minneapolis, I hadn't heard that one for years. The guv backed off it a few hours later, but the paranoid types are claiming everyone from neo-Nazis to Antifa are responsible for the arson fires and destruction. I'm sure there are people whose motives are less than pure involved, but in any mob action there are provocateurs. And it's definitely true in Oakland that a lot of the serious damage is the work of young white thrill seekers whose homes are in the serene-ist 'burbs of the Bay Area, a fact confirmed by their home addresses from demos in years past.

IF YOU'LL take my hand and again walk with me backwards through the mists of time, I was exercising my 1st Amendment rights one night across the street from the Fairmont Hotel where Field Marshal Ky or whatever the South Vietnamese fascist called himself, was staying. "Chicks," as women were known in "the movement" at the time, the only movement in world history to move steadily in reverse for the next fifty years, were "up front," sitting in a couple of peaceful curbside ranks across the street from the SF Police Department's Tac Squad arrayed in front of the hotel. The Tac boys were all big, fit dudes who enjoyed beating the crappola out of commie-hippie scumbags, my friends and comrades. I knew it was only a matter of time before the Tac Squad charged across the street to kick off the night's mayhem so I stayed to the rear so I could jump the wall of the Pacific Union Club to avoid getting clubbed by the fungo bat nightsticks the Tac Squad carried. Sure enough, a provocateur threw a couple bags of red paint up against the wall of the old hotel, and here they came, trampling the "chicks up front" and teeing off on chicks and hippie scumbags alike. The rest of the night was the usual running of the bulls up and down California and all the side streets. I don't remember how many injuries and arrests there were, but lots of people got hurt, none of them cops.

POTTER VALLEY ROADWORK

POST BY A WILLITS WOMAN: "On vigilantism/Nazism. I was shopping yesterday evening, at the south end of town when my daughter and niece (who were waiting outside), came rushing, scared into the store followed by a barrage of loud, rude remarks. The manager, who was checking the scene said that police had been called. I finished check out and went outside, where an older man with his entire face covered, told me that sure enough, he'd called the police on my kids. Well, they didn't have facial coverings on and so he took it upon himself to start berating and following them, and snapping allot of pics as they huddled together trying to decide what to do. This grown man, (smoking tobacco outside the store btw) harassing an 11 and 13 year old in a public parking lot, for lack of better things to do. When we got home, I too phoned into WPD, to let them know and was told that harassing minors is not against the law - nor is taking their pictures but that an officer had been dispatched to the site, under the auspices that people were within 6 feet of one another! Dispatch wouldn't take his license plate, even. I'm trying to make sense of this, and I have to wonder if the older (not) gentleman targeted the kids because they are "black" and did not recognize us as a family unit, when I came outside? (I am white" as was this guy) ...because there were others in the vicinity, heaven forbid unmasked but observing the law - and he's throwing a hissy fit, targeting the children who are just waiting, doing what they are told. I think he actually staged it, scaring them into the store (I was in checkout) so that he could then photograph. shout out to all the helpful, sane adults telling him off, and to the Grocery Outlet manager having to endure."

INLAND POMOS

SOCIAL DISTANCING BENEATH THE STARS: Night Light Of The North Coast

“Ah, look at that, man. The GREAT outdoors!” — Tom Skerritt, ‘Up in Smoke’

With COVID-19 jumping from person to person around you, the great outdoors in all of its purity is all around as well, and it is waiting for you. Social distancing is still necessary to protect our loved ones, but outside options are opening up as lockdown lightens and California State Parks unlocks some areas for limited parking and solo activities. Remember, though, with everyone eager to get out, your favorite destination may well become too crowded at peak times. But I have the solution.

Might I suggest stargazing at the local State Park? The Parks are generally unpeopled at night, and far enough from the glow of city lights to provide great stargazing opportunities. We are fortunate here on California’s North Coast, rich as we are with State Parks and skies that are still relatively dark. 

There are people living in cities for whom a starry sky is nothing more than a few dim points of light between skyscrapers barely seen in a night sky blasted out with city glare. I could never live like that; my insides shrivel and hurt to think of it. Even so, it is all too easy to take the night sky for granted when one lives with it. My heart is warmed remembering times with city friends or family when they have visited and beheld the grandeur of our brilliant night skies: “I can’t believe how many stars there are!”

Remember that the parks are not fully open yet. Their facilities are closed, some areas aren’t open at night, campgrounds are closed, and visitors centers are closed. What has opened is limited parking. Check with your local park before you go out to see if it is open and what visitor guidelines there are. 

Find your local State Park for park-specific information on its availability at this index: https://www.parks.ca.gov/ParkIndex

There are numerous advantages to stargazing at the Parks during the COVID-19 pandemic:

• No people, so no COVID. I rarely see anyone while I’m out.

• No people also means more parking (of course, check first to be sure your park of choice is open).

• See the stars. I mean really see them. If you give your eyes twenty or more minutes in the dark, you’ll begin to see the faintest stars. Go. You must.

• Find your night vision: you’ll even find that the surrounding area you thought was “pitch black” turns out to have detail you can see after a while. 

• Hear new things — listen to the quiet, the call of an owl, the bark or cough of an animal, the breeze in the trees. Sound travels far at night.

When you go out to stargaze, I recommend bringing a few things:

• Bring a buddy, it’s safer for all kinds of reasons.

• Flashlights: bring more than one, and some spare batteries. Make sure one of the flashlights has a red light option; you’ll want to use the red light exclusively most of the time because the red light allows you to see without blinding your night vision for minutes at a time. Headlamps often have a red light option.

• I bring bear spray — just in case. But I had an accident with bear spray the other week (see last week’s story, “Isolated Thoughts and Silver Linings”), and I now recommend bringing with you at least a gallon of water in case you, too, have an accident with it. You should bring more water than you think you should bring.

• Drinking water. I usually don’t bring snacks, in case it would attract big critters with sharp teeth.

• Cell phone. But don’t keep looking at it, because it ruins your night vision. But you might try getting a star gazing app for it to help you identify stars and other celestial objects you’ll see. Some apps even identify the satellites you’ll see in the sky. There are too many such apps to list.

• First aid kit.

• Face mask in case you get mixed up with people.

A trash bag: any trash you bring with you, take it back out with you, too (pack it in, pack it out). Otherwise, stay home. You probably won’t appreciate the stars.

California State Parks general COVID-19 pandemic statement:

As of May 21st 2020, California State Parks will be increasing access to all state parks in the North Coast Redwoods District. Limited parking will now be available in state parks in Humboldt, Del Norte, and Mendocino counties. Campgrounds, museums, visitor centers, and other facilities remain closed at this time. Please keep in mind the following guidelines when visiting the parks: 

· Stay Local: Stay close to home. Walk or bike into the park. Parking is very limited. Do not take road trips to parks and beaches or to neighboring states.

· Stay Active: Keep walking, jogging, hiking and biking. Watch for one-way trails.

· Stay Safer at 6 Feet: Maintain a physical distance of 6 feet or more. Gatherings, picnics and parties are not allowed. Visitors will be asked to leave if there are too many people at the park, beach or on trails to allow for the required physical distance.

· Stay Clean: Be prepared. Bring soap/sanitizer and pack out all trash.

· Stay Covered: If your county health orders require it, please be sure to wear face coverings when you cannot maintain a safe 6-foot distance from others.

Thank you for your patience and continued support of California State Parks as we work to limit your risk for exposure to COVID-19 in the outdoors. For more information, please visit parks.ca.gov/FlattenTheCurve .

State Parks COVID-19 Resource Center page: http://parks.ca.gov/?page_id=30350

Foggy skies aglow over Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park, a few minutes drive north of Orick. My buddy Ryan is seen photographing a safe social distance down the fence line. Obviously, one is never guaranteed clear skies... Check the weather before you go. May 27, 2020. Humboldt County.

The Eel River glides between Redwood-covered hillsides beneath a magical night sky. This is a composite image: the sky was exposed for about 25 seconds, but to capture the dark foreground I left the shutter open for about 4.5 minutes. July, 2019. Humboldt County.

To keep abreast of David Wilson’s most current photography or purchase a print, visit and contact him at his website mindscapefx.com or follow him on Instagram at @david_wilson_mfx, or follow me on Instagram at @david_wilson_mfx and on Twitter @davidwilson_mfx.

POTTER VALLEY WASTE CANAL, 1926

MONEY SWIRLING DOWN THE SEWER

by Tommy Wayne Kramer

The city of Ukiah plans to raise the cost of flushing your toilet, and to help sell the notion it enlisted its Director of Finance to write a persuasive letter explaining the history, needs and benefits a rate increase will bring.

It had to have been a difficult letter to write. It is certainly a remarkable letter, in that it manages to explain why the city needs more money for sewers without acknowledging the many years of budget drain that has resulted from the city being sued by its own Sanitation District.

To explain Ukiah’s sewer rate crisis without reference to the Sanitation District lawsuit is like telling the tale of General George Custer’s downfall at the Battle of Little Bighorn while neglecting to mention the Indians.

That lawsuit has cost perhaps $100 million or half that or twice that, and is merely a squabble among two taxpayer-funded agencies. A current council member once said the dispute could be settled over a cup of coffee. That was many years and millions of dollars ago.

This bitter joke seems a hoax dreamed up by mischievous lawyers, carried out by incompetent bureaucrats, inflicted on innocent bystanders. And here’s the punchline: The Sanitation District suing the City of Ukiah boils down to Me and You suing I and Yourself.

If we win we lose, and if we lose we have to jump off Squaw Rock.

To hear Daniel Buffalo tell it (he’s Director of Finance) the new rates “may vary, with some increasing and some decreasing.” He suggested the new rates “likely may benefit low income households and seniors.”

We don’t know, and Mr. Buffalo probably doesn’t either, who these “low income” beneficiaries might be, but perhaps they’re the same low income people getting free (Section 8) housing and free (EBT card) food and free medical care. I doubt many of them worry about the price of another flush or an extra watering of their orchids and koi ponds.

Nobody knows what the city of Ukiah spends its money on. The people running the city probably don’t know. But there is a deep suspicion that many of those programs that require many employees (along with their paychecks and pensions) are kept busy on projects of little or no value to 90 percent of the citizens.

Instead of paving the roads or adequately funding the fire department, the city has people building and hosting haunted houses at Halloween, organizing Pumpkinfests, ice rinks and “Madness” movie nights.

There are so many employees the city bought the old BofA building for more office space because who knows when it might decide to hire another 50 or 60 of them? If the city needs more money for salaries it can always raise the sewer rates.

Great Name

Best retail business sign I’ve seen in a long time is over on North State Street near Mill. It’s a beauty salon called “Haute Mess” and the name checks all the boxes: Cool, Saucy, Hep, Unpretentious.

Let’s hope it reopens once the PanicDemic subsides.

Dances With Butterflies

One of my favorite things is the springtime thrill of the two butterflies who appear annually in our back yard. I almost hate to mention it for fear I’ll jinx the magic.

It has happened at least a dozen or more years in a row, and a quieter happy is hard to dream up. Here they come, just like last year and the years before that, a pair of Swallowtail butterflies who flutter about our smallish back yard as if they were household pets. I wonder if Rainbow Ag stocks Butterfly chow.

This year’s Swallowtail model comes in a slightly darker shade of yellow, with gaudy black trim and all the options. They float, dip and dive solo, then they pair up to do the dance they always do: A spinning, spiraling vertical whirl, like stripes on a barber’s pole, upward in a tight cylinder of butterfly beauty.

Then they fall apart and disappear, only to flit back into view alone or together.

How does this happen? Is it the same pair, 10, 12, 15 years later? That seems nearly impossible. Or do successive butterfly mates opt to move into our back yard every spring because it’s on the fashionable west side, close to schools and shopping?

Is there a lepidopterist in the house? I got questions.

Darkness Drops Again

He must spend at least a few nights a year awake at 3 a.m., staring at the black ceiling and wonder how different and better his life would have been if it had never crossed paths with Jim Jones.

Tim Stoen has suffered much.

Tom Hine, a former journalist and longtime local private investigator, now retired, has lived in Ukiah so many years he’s to the point of giving up the notion he’ll ever get out. But if he does escape he wants to first make sure to thank Dr. Qi Zhang, an ENT over at 1165 South Dora for waving her magic wand, fixing his dead ears and quelling his maddening brain pain. (TWK, who gets credit and / or blame for writing this column, is both deaf and mute. Need cheering up? We’re more than halfway to the 2020 Holiday Season!)

LAKE MENDOCINO

NEWSOM LIFTS LID ON C-19 ORDERS

by Jim Shields

The Great Experiment is now underway across this pandemic-stricken nation of ours.

I’m talking about the relaxation of COVID-19 Stay-At-Home Orders in all 50 states that now allow the reopening — gradual and otherwise — of shuttered local economies.

Here in California, Governor Gavin Newsom recently loosened the strings and untied the knots in some instances on one of the country’s strictest C-19 orders.

First on Monday, May 18, and then on Tuesday May 26, Newsom eased the criteria that counties must meet before they apply to reopen local economies.

Newsom gave an update at his daily C-19 press briefing on Tuesday, May 26. The briefing came after the state issued new guidelines for churches and in-person, inside retail shopping on Monday.

“We are very close to reaching a milestone in this country —100,000 lives lost,” said Newsom.

Newsom said while a lot of people enjoyed themselves while respecting social distancing guidelines over the three-day Memorial weekend, some did not.

Newsom said experts believe a “second wave” of C-19 virus is months away and that California is still experiencing a first wave.

“By no stretch of the imagine is this virus behind us,” said Newsom.

According to Newsom, 47 counties, including Mendocino County, have self-attested for regional variance, meaning they can move further into the reopening process.

On Tuesday, Newsom offered good news to everyone who needs a haircut after announcing he’s cleared the way for barbershops and hair salons to reopen in counties that have been given the go-ahead to proceed further down California’s reopening roadmap. Newsom said hair salons and barber shops can re-open with a safety plan when a county grants approval

He joked about his three daughters cutting his hair with craft scissors, and his wife saying he was sporting a “mullet.”

“Along those lines, they (counties) will be able to add in barber shops and hair salons to those regional variations starting today,” Newsom said, adding that the businesses will have to operate with substantial safety modifications.

“We put those guidelines out … and those counties will begin to allow for those kinds of operations with meaningful modifications, with the appropriate protective gear, particularly face coverings that are so essential in that environment, sanitation requirements and the like.”

The state is expected to release guidelines for youth summer camps later this week.

Newsom said most businesses have cooperated with health orders and that it’s made him proud to be a Californian.

“The vast majority [of businesses] have been incredibly cooperative,” said Newsom.

On Monday, Newsom’s office issued guidelines for churches and other houses of worship to safely re-open amid the ongoing pandemic. The rules published Monday include a 21-day period during which attendance must be limited to 25% of building capacity or 100 attendees —whichever is lower. The guidelines also include an array of recommendations for maintaining social distancing and discourage singing and other group activities that may increase the likelihood of transmission.

The state announced Monday that retailers will once again open their doors to shoppers as the state emerges from shutdown orders enacted to slow the spread of the coronavirus. In new guidelines released Monday, the re-opening of retail stores for socially distanced shopping remains subject to approval from officials in each of the state’s counties.

On May 22, Mendocino County’s about-to-depart Health Officer, San Diego-based Dr. Mimi Doohan, issued an amended Shelter-In-Place Order that will allow shoppers inside retail stores, diners inside restaurants, and allow kids in “Social Bubbles” (so-called stable groups of 12) to expand recreational and sporting activities.

“The bottom line is, people can go at their own pace, and we are empowering our local health directors and county officials who understand their local communities and conditions better than anyone,” Newsom said.

Fauci Warns About Lockdowns Lasting Too Long

Dr. Anthony Fauci, immunologist and director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and until recently prominent member of the now inactive White House Coronavirus Task Force, said last week that there could be “irreparable damage” if lockdowns due to the coronavirus pandemic went on too long.

Fauci, explained during a segment of CNBC’s “Fast Money Halftime Report” that there could be numerous unintended consequences to keeping the country shut down longer than necessary.

Fauci began by saying that his position had always been that states and regions should open as they passed certain benchmarks and could do so safely while still protecting the more vulnerable populations.

“We can’t stay locked down for such a considerable period of time that you might do irreparable damage and have unintended consequences, including consequences for health,” Fauci explained, adding, “We are enthusiastic about reopening. I think we can do it in pace that would be reasonable and would get us back as a society from a morale standpoint as well as the economy.”

“I don’t want people to think that any of us feel that staying locked down for prolonged period of time is the way to go,” Fauci continued.

“We had to do that when we had the explosion of cases, but now is the time depending upon where you are and what your situation is, to look at reopening the economy, reopening the country to try to get back to some degree of normal. I’m totally in favor of that if it’s done in the proper way in the appropriate setting.”

Fauci concluded by saying that he did still have concerns that some areas might bypass the benchmarks for safe reopening and cause an unmanageable spike in cases, but reiterated that it was time to consider taking steps to reopen as soon as an area could do so in a safe and responsible manner.

Schools Face Ticking Funding Time Bomb

One of the most common questions people ask me is when do I think schools might reopen. By the way, many parents have expressed their unhappiness with so-called distance learning. They all say about the same thing, that the social interaction between stodent and teacher and student-to-student is noticably and detrimentally absent.

On Wednesday, State Superintendent of Education Tony Thurmond (disclosure: my son works for him) gave a presentation of what reopening schools in California might look like. Thurmond said the Department of Education plans to release reopening guidelines in early June.

“I often refer to it as a guidebook, it is our attempt to do a kind of ‘how to,’ and to help school districts answer questions that they have about how to reopen,” he said.

One of those questions is when school districts can reopen. Thurmond said he’s hoping for late August or early September, but that there won’t be a common opening — it will be up to individual districts. “We’ve got 10,000 schools. There is no one size fits all for our schools, and so local school districts and school boards make decisions about when schools open,” Thurmond said. “What we do at the department of education is we try to guide our schools.” That guidance will include safety measures like face coverings, physical distancing in classrooms and on school buses, and temperature checks for students and staff. Thurmond said it also likely involves a so-called ‘blended’ instruction model…a mix of in-class sessions, and distance learning.

On another front, a recent study by a national education association estimated that due to crisis in state funding caused by the pandemic, it may cost 300,000 teachers their jobs. Also, school districts are finding themselves in a classic double-bind: A reduction in funding from states and an increase in costs to operate under C-19 guidelines and special state health rules mandated for schools to reopen.

Economic Crisis Not Known Since The Great Depression

Ironically as more and more Americans are going back to work under vastly different circumstances and unilaterally issued rules by the governors of 50 states, the federal government is mostly missing in action.

Most alarming of all, and as I have been warning for the past two-plus months, we are now looking at worker unemployment numbers not seen since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

Even as we now begin lifting restrictions on economies across the United States, the day after the U.S. recorded 100,000 deaths from COVID-19, the Departmentof Labor reported an additional 2.1 million unemployment claims last week, meaning more than 40 million Americans have applied for unemployment in just 10 weeks.

Jerome Powell, the chair of the Federal Reserve, said last week that the United States was experiencing an “exceptional shock in the coronavirus pandemic, and that it was wildly unclear when and how low unemployment and widespread prosperity would return.”

He also warned the economy is in a “downturn without modern precedent.”

“In the best of times, predicting the path of the economy with any certainty is difficult,” he added. “We are now experiencing a whole new level of uncertainty, as questions only the virus can answer complicate the outlook.”

The Census Bureau just released a survey that showed 47 percent of adults said they or a member of their household had lost employment income since mid-March, and nearly 40 percent expected the loss to continue over the next four weeks.

And staring us right in the eyes are plummeting sales and income tax revenue that are deimating state and municipal government budgets.

As I’ve said many times during this new era of C-19 Orders, we are now living in a state and in a nation that is experiencing an economic crisis not known since the Great Depression.

Well, we know it now.

We need to understand that we’re in a fight in a twin Pandemic war against virus and economic collapse. It’s a two-front war that must be waged simultaneously. Most likely if you lose one, you end up losing both.

So right now, we have no other option but to carefully and incrementally open the closed economy, while at the same time continue to live and work under some pretty stringent coronavirus regulations.

If we stick with this strategy, we’ll win. It’ll take time, but we’ll win.

(Jim Shields is the Mendocino County Observer’s editor and publisher, and is also the long-time district manager of the Laytonville County Water District. Listen to his radio program “This and That” every Saturday at 12 noon on KPFN 105.1 FM, also streamed live: http://www.kpfn.org)

YUP

“Imagine the great depression, the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic and the tumultuous 1960s but like all at the same time.”

— Kyle Kulinski, Secular Talk (Twitter)

LOCAL BOY MAKES GOOD

Visual Effects Artist Bill Kimberlin’s Memoir Pulls Back The Curtain On ‘Star Wars’ Empire

by G. Allen Johnson 

Growing up in Marin County, Bill Kimberlin remembers his mother taking him to visit the set of “Blood Alley,” a 1955 Cold War adventure set in China starring John Wayne and Lauren Bacall, back in the days when set security wasn’t so tight.

“We walked onto the set — there was a big pile of boulders to one side, and I bumped into a boulder and it moved,” Kimberlin recalled. “And I thought ‘How could it move? I barely touched it.’ And then: ‘Oh, I see. It’s fake. This is all special effects.’ That got in my brain.”

And how. A quarter of a century later, not far from the old location of the “Blood Alley” set, Kimberlin was solving one of the biggest special effects shots of all time. Dubbed “SB19,” it was the 19th shot in the climactic space battle of “Return of the Jedi” that brought the original “Star Wars” trilogy to a conclusion.

That was near the beginning of a 20-year run as a visual effects guru at Lucasfilm’s Industrial Light & Magic. “SB19,” which has a flurry of spaceships attacking a partially built but fully operational Death Star, adorns the cover of Kimberlin’s memoir, “Inside the Star Wars Empire,” which comes out in paperback on Monday, June 1.

The book details not only his work on such blockbusters as the ’80s “Star Trek” franchise and Steven Spielberg films such as “Jurassic Park” and “Schindler’s List,” but also his brush with personalities such as Harrison Ford, Eddie Murphy, Tim Burton, Ron Howard and Paul and Linda McCartney.

Kimberlin also writes with warmth and honesty about his nontraditional upbringing in Marin County, his student days during campus unrest at San Francisco State University, and his struggling years an an independent filmmaker in the 1970s.

During a recent Skype conversation with Kimberlin from his home in Kensington, he told The Chronicle it was ironic his memoir was being published during a time when the only movie theaters open in much of the United States during this coronavirus pandemic are drive-ins, which are so important to his life.

“My mother would take me to see ‘War of the Worlds’ or ‘The Creature From the Black Lagoon’; when the polio (epidemic) hit we had to go to drive-ins,” Kimberlin said.

Later, Kimberlin scored his biggest success as an independent filmmaker with his documentary about drag racing culture, “American Nitro,” which made most of its money on the drive-in circuit. That was during an era when drive-ins were a legitimate way for cult and independent films to find a following.

“The studios would call them ‘ozones,'” Kimberlin said. “Regular theaters were called ‘hardtops’ and drive-ins were ‘ozones.’ ”

The “ozone” success of “American Nitro” essentially got Kimberlin his job at Industrial Light & Magic. When he screened the film there, he recalled someone saying, “Did George see this?” Soon after, he was hired.

If it seems odd that a documentary filmmaker — Kimberlin’s other film was on the pioneering African American boxer Jack Johnson — would get hired in the special effects department of a film company, Kimberlin said Lucas, and by extension his company, appreciated people who knew how to make movies.

He called Lucas a “real filmmaker.”

“A lot of filmmakers, including Spielberg, you could give them a couple of hundred pounds of film and they couldn’t come back with a movie,” Kimberlin said. “George could. He could shoot it, he could edit it, he could do the sound effects — he could do the whole thing.

“So that meant that he would cut World War II planes in the original ‘Star Wars’ print because he didn’t have the ships done yet.”

The ability to be a total filmmaker really meant you were a problem solver, and Kimberlin said that was key at Industrial Light & Magic. There was no research and development department; the special effects team would be presented with real problems, then they would go about solving them.

Like “SB19.” It was one of Kimberlin’s first assignments at Industrial Light & Magic. No pressure.

“That was the largest, most complicated visual effects shot ever done on an optical printer,” Kimberlin said. “The same type of printer that was used to open the Red Sea in ‘The Ten Commandments.’ … I put together a version I thought would work. Somebody called George, ‘Come over and look at it.’ I ran it for him on the Moviola, and he said ‘Great,’ turned around and walked out.

“That was the highest compliment you could get from him: ‘Great.'”

So that meant Kimberlin could stay.

“You didn’t want to make a mistake,” he said. “You didn’t want to disappoint every little kid in the world. These had become more than just movies. They were social phenomena events.”

Kimberlin’s favorite project, to which he devotes a whole chapter, was “Who Framed Roger Rabbit,” a groundbreaking film that married live action and animation. A piece of cake in the computer-animated world of today, but really hard to pull off in the handmade world of the 1980s.

Working closely with director Robert Zemeckis, Kimberlin and his team helped make it into a blockbuster for Disney that renewed interest in animation, won an Oscar for visual effects and in 2016 was selected for the U.S. National Film Registry by the Library of Congress.

Kimberlin is now mostly retired, although he runs a vibrant video business with “American Nitro” through a Facebook fan page. He and his wife, screenwriter and computer programmer Beverly Conner (they’ve been together for 50 years), split their time between Kensington and a house in Anderson Valley.

He said he doesn’t begrudge the new era of computerized special effects but is instead proud to be a part of Northern California’s special effects innovation that he traces back to 19th century stop-motion pioneer Eadweard Muybridge.

“Why did this happen in Northern California? Starting with Muybridge and through to (Francis Ford) Coppola and Lucas, they really pulled Hollywood kicking and screaming into the modern world,” Kimberlin said. “Certainly, George did. He once told me that ‘editing on film was like scratching on rocks.’ He was always looking for a better way, a faster way.”

“Inside the Star Wars Empire: A Memoir”

By Bill Kimberlin

Lyons Press

(272 pages, $19.95)

CATCH OF THE DAY, May 31, 2020

DANIEL RISCH, Fortuna. False personation of another, county parole violation.

JESSE SMALLEY, Ukiah. Burglary, resisting.

RYAN TRUEBA, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol, resisting.

DAVID WORTHY, Ukiah. Domestic battery. 

ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

If there was ever a time for Garrison Keebler to come out of his #MeToo cancelled purgatory and speak to the rioters of Minneapolis it is now! A story of a warm rhubarb pie cooling on a windowsill would be just the thing to speak to black America and get them deeply introspectively looking at each other and saying “This isn’t right, I’m not mad at this AutoZone” whilst dropping the bricks.

LET ME SAY as I've always said, and I will always continue to say, that riots are socially destructive and self-defeating. ... But in the final analysis, a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it that America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the plight of the Negro poor has worsened over the last few years. It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice, equality, and humanity. And so in a real sense our nation's summers of riots are caused by our nation's winters of delay. And as long as America postpones justice, we stand in the position of having these recurrences of violence and riots over and over again.

From “The Other America,” Martin Luther King Jr.’s speech at Stanford University on April 14, 1967

WINDOWS ON THE WORLD, THE BOOK

Hello Friends and Family,

I hope this email finds you well, despite the morning news and the ongoing pandemic. We all may be needing some distraction and stories of hope at this time. Some of you may know that our film, ‘Windows on the World,’ was also made into a graphic novel that will be released this week by the esteemed publisher in this medium, Fantagraphics. We were looking forward to a national book store publicity jaunt to help support the release, but here we are in the age of COVID-19, so in lieu of that, we are very pleased to come to you VIRTUALLY, thanks to our amazing friends at City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco.

This coming Tuesday, author Robert Mailer Anderson and his friends, including illustrator Jon Sack, actress Jacqueline Obradors and musician Jay Walsh of the Douglas Fir, will all be joining in to tell tales, sing songs and dive into the making of this graphic novel and film and why stories like this are so important right now. We do hope that you can join us for what will be a one-of-a-kind evening. This event is FREE but we ask that you please follow this link to register now. I believe that these things run smoother when they have a clearer idea of how many people to expect. Please support us and CITY LIGHTS LIVE by tuning in and helping to spread the word.

Again, as always, thank you for all the support on this project. 

Sending love and strength,

Jai (and Robert)

“This heart-wrenching 9/11 drama draws back the curtains on American myths, revealing a global and complicated world”

— Publisher’s Weekly

“REMEMBERING MILES DAVIS, and remembering the long history of black men being brutalized simply for being. For those don’t know the history, on August 25, 1959–eight days after the release of his “Kind of Blued album—Miles was performing at Birdland, recording an Armed Forces Day broadcast for Voice of America. In between sets he had escorted a friend out and put her in a cab and was relaxing in front on the club having a smoke. A police officer approached him and asked him to move on. Miles pointed to the marquee, explaining to the officer that he was performing inside and that it was his name on the marquee. Still the officer persisted, not caring who he was or what he was doing. While Miles was trying to explain to the police officer that he was making a mistake when a detective, drawn by the crowd that was starting gather, blindsided him and hit him in the head a few times with a billy club, drawing blood. He was then arrested and taken into custody, and after going to the hospital to get his head stitched up was charged with felonious assault on an officer.”

— Steven Abbate

ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY #2

I have a new theory to explain the curious behavior of officer Derek Chauvin.

But before I get to it I have an observation to ask about. In all the video of the event I have viewed, George Floyd is either standing up, or face down on the ground; where is the video of him being taken down to the ground, because I have not seen it?

Does it exist?

Was it cut from the original video in order to give the appearance he did not resist arrest?

Did he resist arrest?

Or did he collapse/fall to the ground?

Anyway my theory on Chauvin’s behavior is, he got caught up in a grudge match of sorts with the “civilians” witnessing the arrest, and the more they asked Chauvin to ease up on Floyd, the more Chauvin resisted doing so; to the extent that Floyd became a type of prop of sorts in a grudge match between two groups of people, the arresting officers VS the witnessing civilians.

The more the civilians ask/told Chauvin to get off him, the more entrenched Chauvin became in his “you don’t tell me how to do my fucking job, I’ll show you…!”

Chauvin got so caught up in this grudge match that he killed a man without really intending to?

His intent was to demonstrate his power and authority, not to Floyd, but to the black people watching the arrest, as a warning to them: “see, look what our blue gang can do. We run these streets and don’t you fucking forget it… (cough, niggers)”

Unfortunately, in the process, he forgot that the man he pinned to the ground with a knee on his neck, who was formerly gasping for air and crying out for his mama, had gone strangely silent and limp.

So,

according to my theory, if this arrest had taken place away from witnesses, George Floyd might be alive today? Because the death of George Floyd may have had nothing to do with George Floyd, and EVERYTHING to do with “sending messages” to the people witnessing it?

Finally, regarding the charge of attempting to use a counterfeit $20 bill?

Well, unless it was really obvious, its not really a crime to be in possession of a counterfeit $20 bill. I don’t study every federal reserve note I get, and even if I did, Im not sure I could tell the difference VISUALLY, since they make changes all the time?

Especially with the $100 dollar bills. I would probably be tipped off more by feel than by sight?

Regardless, I get all my currency from some other person/machine; just like everyone else; so the fact George Floyd may have been in possession of a fake $20 bill is no PROOF he was engaged in criminal activity; but that he may have been punked by the person who passed it to him?

Either he produced it, or he was PAID with it by someone else?

I tend towards the latter; if its true at all that he tried to pass a fake $20?

I will end with this question: If you found yourself alone, in an elevator with officer Derek Chauvin, and you could only ask him one question; what one question would you ask him?

---

Ed note: Responses included, "Got any naked pictures of your wife?" to "How do you pronounce your name?"

THE SOROS CONSPIRACY

Editor,

It's a shame to see the mess in the United States is in now and how people can get riled up by something. Thank the liberal TV stations and even Fox news which is becoming more liberal than anything which showed that a policeman with his knee on the fellow’s neck for at least 24 hours in one day. That would wind anybody up. That was the foulest thing I've seen one human being do to another human being. I don't know how a guy could do that and look at the camera. They showed it over and over and over again. It really wound people up, especially after being indoors for three months. They needed something like that to light them up and it did and it's not over yet. Before long we will get the order to shoot to kill. Civilian against civilian. That's coming. 

God bless Donald Trump. 

Jerry Philbrick 

Comptche 

PS. These protests are being put on by George Soros, Mike Bloomberg, Bill Gates and Tom Steyer — billionaires who want to take down Donald Trump at any cost. They are to blame for the protests along with the media. They have their people in every major college town and their scumbag antifas are threatening to go right after the throat of President Trump any time something goes wrong. When that cop put his knee on Mr. Floyd's neck it was on TV for so long that everybody knew about it and people were fired up. Perfect for Soros & Co. to call out their troops and lead the anti-Americans in our colleges and universities to make all this trouble. They include people who will cause trouble in a heartbeat. It was all a set up started by the knee on the neck plus Soros & Co. who want to make President Trump look bad for the next election. 

THE COVID GANG

Dear Neighbors:

Our community is in the early stages of being attacked by a lethal gang of microscopic organisms called COVID 19. Let us make no mistake: this gang is out to maim and kill us.

We are being challenged to stand up and fight or some of us will go down.

There are those still hoping the cavalry will save us with a vaccine. These people are sadly ignoring the stark reality that between now and when the vaccine comes, if it comes, many of us will die waiting.

There are those who think local, state or federal government, should, and will, come to our aid. Try using that thinking on the families of the 100,000 Americans who have already died.

We can kill this gang of killers without the government or the vaccine. Working together we can stop COVID 19 in its tracks. In order to kill the COVID gang it is imperative that we team up and act now.

To eradicate the COVID gang we must team up and take the following 4 steps: The 4 Ts.

T1-Teach ourselves what COVID symptoms to look for so we can test, trace and isolate COVID carriers. Teach ourselves to wear masks and social distance to slow the spread of the virus.

T2-Test us all so we can isolate those carrying the virus for at least two weeks. By isolating carriers we stop the spread of the COVID gang.

T3-Trace every single case of COVID 19, isolate those exposed, and quarantine them for 2 weeks.

T4-Treat people with symptoms and keep them alive until their bodies are strong enough to heal.

By doing the 4 Ts we will stop the spread of COVID and it will die and we will live.

Please join me in this fight. Together we can win.

E pluribus unum.

Your neighbor,

Richard Louis Miller, M.A., Ph.D., Clinical Psychology 

Fort Bragg

FROM THE BED

I'm mostly stuck in bed because of pain, but grateful as heck to have a bed, and a roof over the bed, and somebody who wants to help me when I need it. 

Latest MOTA post is up, explaining everything and including a smaller than usual but adequate infotainment of links, and it's all right here: https://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com

PS. If this is the second notice of this kind that you got from me today, completely ignore the previous one. I didn't know that you have to put an extra line between paragraphs when you send email from my phone. The links that didn't work in that one will work in this one, and of course the ones at my weblog work fine. 

Marco McClean, memo@mcn.org

FOUND OBJECT