MCT: Wednesday, June 3, 2020

• Above Normal
• David Summit
• Eighth Night
• False Positive
• Early Mendocino
• Jackson Search
• Lumber Ship
• Tear Gassed
• Weeping Maiden
• Poetry Celebration
• Hazel Hill
• Prison + Exile
• Pomo Wikiups
• Sheriff Statement
• Iris
• Masked Heroes
• Wind River
• Dream Deferred
• Smudge Torch
• Ed Notes
• Yesterday's Catch
• Militarized Police
• Born Black
• Cattle Drive
• Facebook Resignation
• Coastal Trail
• Planning Agenda
• Social Science
• Cop Tossed
• Switzer House
• Recognizing Bias
• Found Object

ABOVE NORMAL AFTERNOON TEMPERATURES are expected for most of the interior valleys through Thursday. Temperatures will moderate on Friday, and then plummet this weekend. A chance of showers and thunderstorms is expected this weekend. (NWS)

DAVID SUMMIT HAS DIED

David Summit's daughter announced her father's death Tuesday afternoon. The Summit family is well-known in Mendocino County. “Thank everyone so much for your love and support. My Dad has been found but not in the way we hoped. Your continued prayers are appreciated. We are really going to need them.”

---

(Earlier) BE ON LOOKOUT - MISSING PERSON IN POTTER VALLEY

From Laura Summit Perry:

Potter Valley friends, family, and acquaintances, we need your help! Around 5:30 yesterday evening, 6/01, my father, David Summit, went missing. He was wearing green denim shorts, a green t-shirt, a tan and white hat, and white shoes. He has been suffering from depression during this Covid situation, and was worried about going to a recovery center for help. He is unarmed and not a danger to anyone but himself. Many of you know him for the kind, funny, generous man that he is. If you saw him, or have any information about his whereabouts, please respond to this post, contact us at 707-743-1177, or report information to the sheriff at 707-463-4096 or 707-463-7250.

US ROCKED BY EIGHTH NIGHT OF PROTEST AND GRIEF AT GEORGE FLOYD KILLING

theguardian.com/us-news/live/2020/jun/03/george-floyd-protests-us-live-news-updates-donald-trump

LOCAL TEST RULED FALSE POSITIVE BY STATE HEALTH DEPARTMENT.

Miller Report for the Week of June 1, 2020

by William Miller, MD – Chief of Staff at MCDH

Reviewing all of the facts of a situation is important before jumping to conclusions. Last week, one of our staff who works at North Coast Family Health Center had a positive test result for COVID-19. The test was done elsewhere as part of routine pre-procedure screening. The person never had any symptoms and their last date of working in the clinic was 7 days previously. Also, the person had no patient contacts in the preceding 14 days. Given a number of aspects of the case, we suspected that this might be a false positive. We immediately conferred with the County Health Department, consulting with both Drs. Doohan and Flaherty, our County Health Officer and Deputy Health Officer respectively. When the person returned to Ft. Bragg where they live, they were immediately retested using two different brands of analyzers and both were negative. “It was the two negatives on same day [as the first test], run on two different machines, that made me think it was false positive,” stated Dr. Doohan.  We then presented the findings to the California Department of Public Health who had their adjudication team review the case and they officially declared it a false positive. 

A false positive means that the test turned positive when the infection is not actually present. It is an error. All medical tests have the potential for errors and false results. There are many reasons that a test could give such an erroneous result. With PCR tests, one potential problem can be cross contamination since PCR can detect extremely small amounts of the genetic material of the virus. Thus, even a small accidental contamination in the lab or at the testing site could turn the test positive when it should have been negative. It could also be a problem with the chemical reaction of the test itself that for some reason did not react the way it was supposed to. Another possible source of lab error is mislabeling of the sample with the wrong patient’s name. All of these errors can and do occur.

The implications for this being a false positive are important for us here on the Mendocino Coast. It means that we still have no evidence of community spread. This will help us justify carefully rolling back on some more of the shelter-in-place stipulations. We should keep in mind that will also mean opening our community back up to tourism and other influx from the outside. People who live here will also begin to travel elsewhere to visit friends and relatives or go on vacations. While opening back up to tourism is crucial for our economic survival, it will invariably also bring with it the coronavirus. It is unavoidable and there will certainly come a day, probably not in the too distant future when we will have the virus here. At that point, a strong community surveillance-testing program and contact tracing will be imperative.

The County Health Department is working with Mendocino Coast District Hospital, Mendocino Coast Clinics and the City of Ft. Bragg, to set up such a testing program. Despite claims at the federal level that “anyone who wants to get a test can”, it remains a challenge for many rural communities like ours to have such readily available testing that would allow ongoing surveillance of the population.

So, one might say, why did we go through all of this shelter-in-place stuff if we are eventually going to have it here in our community anyway? The answer is, that by doing this, we have avoided overloading our health care system. If our health care system had become overloaded and crashed, then a lot more people would die and not just from COVID. So, while the price we have paid is high, the benefit is real. The key to keeping that benefit, which we have paid for so dearly, is maintaining social distancing, wearing face coverings and washing our hands. As simple as these three things might sound, they will absolutely have a really big effect on controlling further transmission. 

EARLY MENDOCINO

HEADS UP - SEARCHERS WILL BE OUT TODAY

Edited to Add:

Search and rescue team members will be in the area of Little Valley Road in Fort Bragg this morning (6/2/2020). The road is very narrow and there will be many vehicles and personnel there so please take extra precautions if you need to travel in that area.

Thank you.

UPDATE on Missing Person Luther Jackson

Many of you have been reaching out to us in regards to the search for Luther Jackson. Mr. Jackson has not yet been found and the Mendocino County Search and Rescue will be out searching again tomorrow, 6/2/2020.

We know there are friends and neighbors that have asked to help in the search, but only individuals that have been trained as search and rescue volunteers and are currently part of a search and rescue agency can participate. If you or someone you know would be interested in becoming part of the team, please visit mendocinosar.org. They have an application to join that you can download, complete and return.

Thank you!

---

For those of you that may have missed the original details, here's a clip from the press release that went out May 26, 2020: 

"Synopsis:

On 05-21-2020 at approximately 1:30 P.M., Deputies with the Mendocino County Sheriff's Office were dispatched to a welfare check at a residence in the 31500 block of Little Valley Road in Fort Bragg, California.

The reporting party was an employee of the Fort Bragg Senior Center, who normally visits the resident multiple times each week to deliver meals.

Deputies responded to the residence, but were unable to locate Luther Jackson. A search of the residence and nearby property were conducted, but Jackson was not located.

A report was taken for Jackson being a missing person, and Patrol Deputies continued to search for Jackson.

Jackson is described as a 77-year-old white male, approximately 5 feet 9 inches tall, 175 pounds, with blond / gray hair and blue eyes. It is unknown what clothing Jackson was wearing when he went missing.

Mendocino County Search and Rescue personnel were contacted and initiated a deployment to assist with this continuing investigation.

A more comprehensive search of the residence and property was conducted on 05-24-2020 utilizing Search and Rescue personnel, ATV's, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), ground searchers, and canines.

Search and Rescue personnel were unable to locate Jackson so mutual aid resources were requested through the California Governor's Office of Emergency Services Law Enforcement Branch.

On 05-25-2020, a total of 54 Search and Rescue personnel continued searching for Jackson as a part of this missing person investigation.

Personnel and volunteers from the following agencies responded to assist with the Search and Rescue deployment:

Bay Area Mountain Rescue Unit, San Mateo County Sheriff Search and Rescue, Napa County Sheriff Search and Rescue, Marin County Sheriff Search and Rescue, Sonoma County Sheriff Search and Rescue, Lake County Sheriff Search and Rescue, California Rescue Dog Association, and Mendocino County Sheriff Search and Rescue.

Due to the increased traffic on Little Valley Road, travelers are being requested to avoid this area unless absolutely necessary.

If you must travel on Little Valley Road, please drive slowly and be alert for pedestrians, ATV traffic, and searchers along the roadway. There are numerous vehicles and personnel associated with this search on Little Valley Road so please use increased awareness if you need to travel in this area.

Anyone with information regarding Jackson's possible whereabouts is requested to contact the Sheriff's Office Dispatch Center at 707-463-4086."

LUMBER SHIP, MENDO COAST

TEAR GAS USED ON DEMONSTRATORS IN SANTA ROSA SATURDAY

A daylong rally involving hundreds of people protesting the recent death of George Floyd and others in police custody ranged widely across central Santa Rosa on Saturday, closing Highway 101 twice before police used tear gas to disperse a crowd of several dozen protesters downtown.

pressdemocrat.com/news/10999648-181/hundreds-gather-at-santa-rosas

TIME AND THE MAIDEN

MENDOCINO SPRING POETRY CELEBRATION 2020

35th Anniversary • 15th consecutive revival

Yet another definition: a poem is a pattern of words which if struck with a little silver hammer will ring. We’ll hear such this year on Dan Roberts’ June 21 KZYX broadcast of RhythmRunningRiver, the virtual, indeed real, 2020 Mendocino Spring Poetry Celebration. But! We’re doing the open mic by smartphone mic. So rise and succeed in going to your app Voice Memo, if on iPhone, or Voice Record, if on Android. (Beguile a tech friend if phoneless.) State your name, the title, and read the poem. Then email up to four minutes -- to both: Dan Roberts <outfarpress@saber.net>Gordon Black <gblack@mcn.org>. It’s as easy as emailing photos, really! Dan will be playing them for weeks and months. The main event is Sunday June 21, but get it in by JUNE 14. Your recording comes through looking like this comprehensive instructional with Zia, at the Little River gas pump overlooking the blue Pacific: Do go for clean sound, of course, and honor the bare word. For more friendly info, try: www.outfarpress.com/mendocinospringreading2020

Gordon Black

gblack@mcn.org

(707) 937-4107

ANOTHER HISTORICAL POSTCARD

Van Zandt’s, near Philo. I have not seen this one before.

p.s. Probably not the current Van Zandt’s Redwood View Resort, but more likely the one from the late 19th-early 20th century – Hazel Hill – that later became Tumbling McD Resort and then Wild Iris Retreat.

(Marshall Newman)

PRISON PLUS EXILE

DA Eyster Announces Federal Prison Sentence For Covelo Recidvist

Defendant Luis John Oliver, age 33, of Covelo, was sentenced last Thursday, May 28th, in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California (San Francisco) to 51 months in the federal penitentiary.

Defendant Oliver was indicted by the federal grand jury this past February and thereafter convicted of being a convicted felon in unlawful possession of ammunition, said crime occurring on September 2, 2019. 

He was also indicted by the same federal grand jury and thereafter convicted of being a convicted felon in unlawful possession of both a firearm and ammunition, said crime occurring on September 26, 2019.

Unlike state prison sentences where many state inmates are given early release credits of up to 50% against the overall sentence imposed, a federal inmate (other than those serving a life sentence) is eligible to earn good time credits in an amount not to exceed 54 days for every year of their imposed sentence, or less than 15% for each year served.

Upon completion of his penitentiary time, defendant Oliver will be placed on 36 months of supervised release. One term of that release is that defendant Oliver will not be allowed to visit or otherwise return to Round Valley.

Mendocino County District Attorney David Eyster expressed his appreciation today for the legal work and effort invested in this Mendocino County case by United States Attorney David L. Anderson and Assistant United States Attorney Maya Karwande.

The law enforcement agencies that original investigated and developed the evidence to support the federal convictions were the Mendocino County Sheriff's Office, the Round Valley Tribal Police Department, and the California Department of Justice crime laboratory. The Federal Bureau of Investigations later assisted the U.S. Attorney's Office in prosecuting this matter.

Original Arrest Press Release: https://www.theava.com/archives/120676

POMO WIKIUPS

MESSAGE FROM SHERIFF KENDALL RE: RECENT EVENTS

I have received several calls and emails regarding my position on the death of George Floyd. First, I offer my condolences to, and truly feel for the family of George Floyd. I have seen the video of this incident. I would ask, we all take an honest look at what we saw. Look as human beings, not as a conservative, liberal, red state or blue, and honestly ask ourselves if we agreed with what we saw. Based on what I saw I believe it violated the ethics of the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office as well as my personal ethics. The video actually caused me to feel ill. 

I would never want to be thrust into a similar situation, or cause anyone in our communities to be. I am a father, son, brother and husband. Many of us are parents or someday will be. I always think of how I would want to see my child, siblings, parents or friends treated. I believe most American’s are viewing this situation from a similar point of view. 

Prior to making this statement, I wanted to address personnel at the Sheriff’s Office. I was able to do this and let them know the directions we would be moving from here. I encouraged all of my deputies to look at this from a human perspective.

I believe it is important to reassure the public. I also believe I would much rather speak about what we are doing than to speak empty words. Speaking and doing are two different things. That is why it was important I speak with my deputies and command staff first. I can easily condemn actions and make statements, however I best serve by working to ensure human rights are protected. 

Our response will be to provide our employees with updated and ongoing training focusing on such areas as use of force, de-escalation of force and racial relations. This will better prepare our employees in interacting with the public as time goes on and will give them additional tools to keep them serving the public with a high level of professionalism.

Normally I am not a person who would jump to conclusions regarding guilt or innocence. This is because I believe in our system and truly believe justice must be served in the courtroom, not on social media or the nightly news. Our system is not perfect, however I think with enough work it could be. We all have to work together on this to make it happen. With the Police and the District Attorney we have public safety, however without our judges and defense, we will never have justice.

Sincerely

Sheriff Matt Kendall

MASKED HEROES

Editor,

What does wearing a mask indicate about a person? Are they a wimp, or behaving like sheep, allowing themselves to be told what to do? Or are they being superheroes, willing to be uncomfortable so that others might live?

Growing up, I admired Superman, the man of steel, and Wonder Woman, with her lariat of truth. How about having spidey sense when it comes to keeping people safe, or moving like Flash to protect others?

When I see someone shopping and wearing that mask, I want to tell them that they are my superheroes. They are as heroic as our front-line workers, our first responders, our nurses, doctors, respiratory therapists and all the people who keep us healthy.

So when you wonder if it’s worthwhile to steam up those glasses, or have hair getting tangled up in the mask strings, remember you are a superhero.

Helen Salemi

Santa Rosa

"WHERE FIVE-MILE CREEKS JOINS BOYSEN RES. (Wind River)"

Caught a 19-pound channel cat on the bare peninsula near the center left edge of the snapshot in the summer of 2013. This spring is the first spring since about 2015 that the water has been low enough to expose the peninsula.

Photo/Note by Harvey Reading

DOES IT EXPLODE?

Mighty Editor,

If we all worship at the altar of consumer capitalism then looters are the ultimate sacrilege. In late stage capitalist America I’ve heard more and more espousal of atheism, so why doesn’t anyone embrace these atheists? 

Moving into the third calendar month of the quarantine I was feeling a bit of the dread of expectation that gathers when the news cycle gets stuck on the same page for too long. Is it just me or is it easy to feel like Larry David when there’s a huge shift in the news cycle — I immediately think “hmm what does this get me out of?” Not that I was eager to go from quarantine to civil unrest, but who saw it coming?

Ok, back to the streets. So these little atheists who’ve had the carrot wand waved before their eyes by the whore of Babylon in every form she takes ad nauseam are now running around destroying the buying temples we were all so thirsty to return to. 

Meanwhile the cops are busy kneeling on some more necks, linebacker chop blocking 16 year old waif protest girls, ramming groups of protesters with their vehicles nearly running people over, committing felony assaults on “Protesters,” yes protesters, ideological young high school and college kids who have the audacity to think that another world is possible. 

I hate to view law enforcement as cowardly but they have sure painted themselves with that brush when they are cowed to powerlessness and abrogation of enforcement of the law by their stated fear of roving groups of cars with gangsters/committed criminals out looting. They exclaim, “but this is planned criminality.” And I say, “Guys you’ve clearly underestimated your abilities, and don’t let Bill Barr tell you to attack kids as a diversionary tactic.”

At this they throw their hands up but go full Iraqi occupation on political protesters and marchers. 

It makes me think that the looting and lawlessness is easily Inspired by the Right if it serves to bolster further repression, a move to the right nationally, or a guaranteed reelection of Donald Trump. The Right has always claimed maintenance of liberty is their prime directive, yet it is their guy who is ready to take away the liberty of Americans.

Any optic we see of Law Enforcement genuinely helping people, showing genuine equal concern, humility, graciousness, just humanity is fantastic and everyone responds to that, but at this point it has to be more than an optic. There needs to be a socio-economic basis to that concern and to that service and to the whole concept of how we re open our society.

We could probably just as easily throw the whole thing away, quite surreal. 

The interruption of life through the virus and quarantine has indeed produced a feeling of life being somewhat of a dreamed experience, life but a somnambulant slumber, but we have been jolted awake by the vivid hallucinatory covid nightmare of our racist past. Faces of Death anyone? 

Why, because racism is viscerally repugnant and fundamentally inhuman to 99.9% of us. The thing is I truly believe anti-racism is as American as apple pie and inextricably woven into our narrative throughout our history. Most of us know that story. Then what is it? Dr. King was at the root of it and so he got rooted out, it is that Socio-Economic aspect that we’ve failed to integrate. 

DREAM DEFERRED. 

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up

Like a raisin in the sun?

Or fester like a sore-

And then run?

Does it stink like rotten meat?

Or crust and sugar over-

Like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags 

Like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

— Langston Hughes

— Nate Collins

Oakland

ED NOTES

AN IMPLAUSIBLE conversation between Rush Limbaugh and Charlamagne tha God on Monday perfectly illustrated the great racial divide we suffer in this country. Limbaugh said he doesn't believe that white privilege exists, that it is a "construct" of the Democratic party "to get people to admit they're guilty of doing things they haven't done."

CHARLAMAGNE THA GOD pointed out that "the powers that be don't want to change this system,” and said that Limbaugh, the dirigible of drivel, as Alexander Cockburn memorably described him, was “delusional.”

UNDETERRED, LIMBAUGH went on to say, “I don't think I'm a white supremacist and I don't think there's a lot of white supremacy going on out there. This is one of the divides. Look at you [Charlamagne]. How did you do it? What did you have to overcome to become the Breakfast Club? What did you have to do to become dominant in morning drive and American radio? Who held you back or what were you able to overcome to do it? The opportunity is there is the only thing I'm saying.”

CHARLAMAGNE: “This is a country that denies black people plain decency and then acts like we're supposed to be happy to be here because it allows a few of us to make a few dollars while the majority of us are out.”

LIMBAUGH, talking past his debate partner, claimed that if George Floyd had been a white man, “We never would have heard of his death,”

TO WHICH Charlamagne replied that was because the police officer “would have been arrested, charged with murder before this all happened, before the video hit social media. As long as there's a system of white supremacy, there will always be these types of situations. As long as that person is not willing to dismantle the white supremacy. We've seen this a million times. We need to stop pretending was isn't done by design. It's damn hard to get any 80-year-old man to change a system that has been working for him and his family for years. I don't care if it's Biden or Trump.”

LIMBAUGH asked why black people would continue voting for Democrats if “they haven't done a damn thing or haven't even punished the people you claim have been doing the same thing?”

“I’m not letting anybody politicize black pain,' Charlamagne said.

SO FAR, the insurrection lacks revolutionary direction, by which I mean the intellectual framework that (1) points out that the nut of the prob is systemic, not merely a matter of persuading while people to be nicer. (2) the black intellectuals who agitate for meaningful, fundamental social-economic change are kept off stage. Have you heard from Cornel West, or Adolph Reed or Glen Ford on CNN or any other major media platform? No. But to do what’s necessary to beat back racism means a total reorganization of predatory capitalism that gives everyone an inalienable right to decent housing, education, real equality of opportunity, none of which exist now. And the three named are among a number of intellectuals (white ones, too) who can articulate a big picture strategy. Kumbaya rallies are swell, but the ante has to be upped to tangible economic-social goals which, if achieved, would benefit us all.

THIS NOTICE wafted in out of cyber-space this morning: “Mendocino Indivisible — Hello All! Local students have called for a Black Lives Matter gathering today at 4:30 at Town Hall in Fort Bragg. Wear a mask, bring a sign, and be prepared to let the youth and people of color lead. Our role is to support and protect them if necessary. Please tell your friends and SHOW UP.”

UH, can we dial down the drama, please? A bunch of BLM kids are in danger of being bull-rushed by the magas? “Yes, you sir, the elderly white man in the back there waving his palsied, liver-spotted paw, you have something to say, gramps?” Yes, my dear, I want to know how it has come to be that I'm required to listen to cossetted teenagers on any subject, let alone subjects this weighty? Your credentials, punk?

CATCH OF THE DAY, June 2, 2020

KYLE COHN, Willits. Domestic battery.

SEAN HAMMON, Willits. County Parole violation. (https://www.theava.com/archives/68186/comment-page-1)

SCOTT HERSMAN, Willits. Shoplifting with larcenous intent, resisting.

JOHN MURPHY, Ukiah. Failure to appear, probation revocation.

DANIEL RISCH, Arcata/Ukiah. Attempted car theft.

CHRISTOPHER WEISS, Sacramento/Ukiah. Domestic abuse.

ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

Relationships with the police started going downhill once they started getting all the military goodies. Folks picked up these dudes were going to war in serious way. With who? Why that would be you. That spelled the end of community policing in a big way.

The current crop of looters and budding arsonists is exactly what you get when the rule of law has taken a vacation. Why should they worry? Much bigger crimes happen without much of a penalty. Corporations pay a small fraction of their ill gotten gains in fines and of course, nobody ever goes to jail.

MY DUNGEON SHOOK by James Baldwin

Dear James: 

I have begun this letter five times and torn it up five times. I keep seeing your face, which is also the face of your father and my brother. Like him, you are tough, dark, vulnerable, moody—with a very definite tendency to sound truculent because you want no one to think you are soft. You may be like your grandfather in this, I don’t know, but certainly both you and your father resemble him very much physically. Well, he is dead, he never saw you, and he had a terrible life; he was defeated long before he died because, at the bottom of his heart, he really believed what white people said about him. This is one of the reasons that he became so holy. I am sure that your father has told you something about all that. Neither you nor your father exhibit any tendency towards holiness: you really are of another era, part of what happened when the late E. Franklin Frazier called “the cities of destruction.” You can only be destroyed by believing that you really are what the white world calls a nigger. I tell you this because I love you, and please don’t forget it. 

I have known both of you all your lives, have carried your Daddy in my arms and on my shoulders, kissed and spanked him and watched him learn to walk. I don’t know if you’ve known anybody from that far back; if you’ve loved anybody that long, first as an infant, then as a child, then as a man, you gain a strange perspective on time and human pain and effort. Other people cannot see what I see whenever I look into your father’s face as it is today are all those other faces which were his. Let him laugh and I see a cellar your father does not remember and a house he does not remember and I hear in his present laughter his laughter as a child. Let him curse and I remember him falling down the cellar steps, and howling, and I remember, with pain, his tears, which my hand or your grandmother’s so easily wiped away. But no one’s hand can wipe away those tears he sheds invisibly today, which one hears in his laughter and in his speech and in his songs. I know what the world has done to my brother and how narrowly he has survived it. And I know, which is much worse, and this is the crime of which I accuse my country and my countrymen, and for which neither I nor time nor history will ever forgive them, that they have destroyed and are destroying hundreds of thousands of lives and do not know it and do not want to know it. One can be, indeed one must strive to become, tough and philosophical concerning destruction and death, for this is what most of mankind has been best at since we have heard of man. (But remember: most of mankind is not all of mankind.) But it is not permissible that the authors of devastation should also be innocent. It is the innocence which constitutes the crime. 

Now, my dear namesake, these innocent and well-meaning people, your countrymen, have caused you to be born under conditions not very far removed from those described for us by Charles Dickens in the London of more than a hundred years ago. (I hear the chorus of the innocents screaming, “No! This is not true! How bitter you are!”—but I am writing this letter to you, to try to tell you something about how to handle them, for most of them do not yet really know that you exist. I know the conditions, under which you were born, for I was there. Your countrymen were not there, and haven’t made it yet. Your grandmother was also there, and no one has ever accused her of being bitter. I suggest that the innocents check with her. She isn’t hard to find. Your countrymen don’t know that she exists, either, though she has been working for them all their lives.) 

Well, you were born, here you came, something like fourteen years ago: and though your father and mother and grandmother, looking about the streets through which they were carrying you, staring at the walls into which they brought you, had every reason to be heavyhearted, yet they were not. For here you were, Big James, named for me—you were a big baby, I was not—here you were: to be loved. To be loved, baby, hard, at once, and forever, to strengthen you against the loveless world. Remember that: I know how black it looks today, for you. It looked bad that day, too, yes, we were trembling. We have not stopped trembling yet, but if we had not loved each other none of us would have survived. And now you must survive because we love you, and for the sake of your children and your children’s children. 

This innocent country set you down in a ghetto in which, in fact, it intended that you should perish. Let me spell out precisely what I mean by that, for the heart of the matter is here, and the root of my dispute with my country. You were born where you were born, and faced the future that you faced because you were black and for no other reason. The limits of your ambition were, thus, expected to be set forever. You were born into a society which spelled out with brutal clarity, and in as many ways as possible, that you were a worthless human being. You were not expected to aspire to excellence: you were expected to make peace with mediocrity. Wherever you have turned, James, in your short time on this earth, you have been told where you could go and what you could do (and how you could do it) and where you could do it and whom you could marry. I know that your countrymen do not agree with me about this, and I hear them saying “You exaggerate.” They do not know Harlem, and I do. So do you. Take no one’s word for anything, including mine—but trust your experience. Know whence you came. If you know whence you came, there is really no limit to where you can go. The details and symbols of your life have been deliberately constructed to make you believe what white people say about you. Please try to remember that what they believe, as well as what they do and cause you to endure, does not testify to your inferiority but to their inhumanity and fear. Please try to be clear, dear James, though the storm which rages about your youthful head today, about the reality which lies behind the words acceptance and integration. There is no reason for you to try to become like white people and there is no basis whatever for their impertinent assumption that they must accept you. The really terrible thing, old buddy, is that you must accept them. 

And I mean that very seriously. You must accept them and accept them with love. For these innocent people have no other hope. They are, in effect, still trapped in a history which they do not understand; and until they understand it, they cannot be released from it. They have had to believe for so many years, and for innumerable reasons, that black men are inferior to white men. Many of them, indeed, know better, but, as you will discover, people find it very difficult to act on what they know. To act is to be committed, and to be committed is to be in danger. In this case, the danger, in the minds of most white Americans, is the loss of identity. Try to imagine how you would feel if you woke up one morning to find the sun shining and all the stars aflame. You would be frightened because it is out of the order of nature. Any upheaval in the universe is terrifying because it so profoundly attacks one’s sense of one’s own reality. Well, the black man has functioned in the white man’s world as a fixed star, as an immovable pillar: and as he moves out of his place, heaven and earth are shaken to their foundations. You, don’t be afraid. I said that it was intended that you should perish in the ghetto, perish by never being allowed to go behind the white man’s definitions, by never being allowed to spell your proper name. You have, and many of us have, defeated this intention; and, by a terrible law, a terrible paradox, those innocents who believed that your imprisonment made them safe are losing their grasp of reality. But these men are your brothers—your lost, younger brothers. And if the word integration means anything, this is what it means: that we, with love, shall force our brothers to see themselves as they are, to cease fleeing from reality and begin to change it. For this is your home, my friend, do not be driven from it; great men have done great things here, and will again, and we can make America what America must become. It will be hard, James, but you come from sturdy, peasant stock, men who picked cotton and dammed rivers and built railroads, and in the teeth of the most terrifying odds, achieved an unassailable and monumental dignity. You come from a long line of poets, some of the greatest poets since Homer. One of them said, The very time I thought I was lost, My dungeon shook and my chains fell off. 

You know, and I know, that the country is celebrating one hundred years of freedom one hundred years too soon. We cannot be free until they are free. 

God bless you, James, and Godspeed.

FACEBOOK ENGINEER RESIGNS TO PROTEST ZUCKERBERG & TRUMP

A Facebook software engineer has resigned over Mark Zuckerberg’s decision to allow Donald Trump to use the platform to threaten violence against protesters, an escalation in the unprecedented display of dissension roiling the company.

Timothy J Aveni announced his resignation Monday on Facebook and LinkedIn, as hundreds of other Facebook employees were engaging in a “virtual walkout” or speaking out against Zuckerberg’s decision on Twitter.

“Mark always told us that he would draw the line at speech that calls for violence,” Aveni wrote. “He showed us on Friday that this was a lie.”

Aveni connected Facebook’s accommodation of Trump’s violent rhetoric to the company’s track record in Asia, where Facebook has been implicated in ethnic cleansing in Myanmar, mob violence in Sri Lanka and the rise of a demagogue in the Philippines.

“Facebook, complicit in the propagation of weaponized hatred, is on the wrong side of history,” he wrote. “Facebook is providing a platform that enables politicians to radicalize individuals and glorify violence, and we are watching the United States succumb to the same kind of social media-fueled division that has gotten people killed in the Philippines, Myanmar, and Sri Lanka. I’m scared for my country and I’m done trying to justify this.” 

— The Guardian

FORT BRAGG FIELD

OF COURSE WE HAVE PLANNING. WHAT A SILLY QUESTION.

Planning Commission agenda for June 4, 2020, is posted on the department website at: mendocinocounty.org/government/planning-building-services/meeting-agendas/planning-commission

Please contact staff with any questions.

James F.Feenan

Commission Services Supervisor

Mendocino County Planning & Building Services

feenanj@mendocinocounty.org

SOMETIMES IT APPEARS that we're reaching a period when our senses and our minds will no longer respond to moderate stimulation. We seem to be reaching an age of the gross, persuasion through speeches and books is too often discarded for disruptive demonstrations aimed at bludgeoning the unconvinced into action. The young—and by this I'd don't mean any stretch of the imagination all the young, but I'm talking about those who claim to speak for the young—at the zenith of physical power and sensitivity, overwhelm themselves with drugs and artificial stimulants. Subtlety is lost, and fine distinctions based on acute reasoning are carelessly ignored in a headlong jump to a predetermined conclusion. Life is visceral rather than intellectual. And the most visceral practitioners of life are those who characterize themselves as intellectuals. Truth is to them revealed rather than logically proved. And the principal infatuations of today revolve around the social sciences, those subjects which can accommodate any opinion, and about which the most reckless conjecture cannot be discredited. Education is being redefined at the demand of the uneducated to suit the ideas of the uneducated. The student now goes to college to proclaim, rather than to learn. The lessons of the past are ignored and obliterated, and a contemporary antagonism known as "The Generation Gap." A spirit of national masochism prevails, encouraged by an effete core of impudent snobs who characterize themselves as intellectuals. 

— Spiro T Agnew

ATLANTA COP SHOVES BLACK WOMAN WITH HIS BICYCLE; WHITE WOMAN SHOVES COP ONTO THE GROUND

A black woman in Atlanta was protesting the police killing of George Floyd on Friday when she was hit and shoved by a police officer using his bicycle. In response, a white woman grabbed the officer’s bicycle and shoved him onto the ground.

lawandcrime.com/george-floyd-death/atlanta-cop-shoves-black-woman-with-his-bicycle-white-woman-shoves-cop-onto-the-ground/

SWITZER HOUSE, 1884

RECOGNIZING OUR OWN BIAS

by Michelle Hutchins, County Superintendent of Schools

Since late March, our county has come together to focus on health and safety issues related to pandemic guidelines and interventions. However, the troubling events surrounding the death of George Floyd also demand our attention and thoughtful response as a community. State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond responded to the death of Mr. Floyd by calling on communities across the state and nation to take action to dismantle institutional racism and inequities in public schools. 

We each have a role to play to combat police brutality and the responses to it that lead to more violence and tragedy, like those in Minnesota and Georgia. This is a call to action to educate friends, neighbors, colleagues, and children, to voice our outrage regarding injustice and to demand respect for every human being, regardless of race, ethnicity, or economic status.

In Mendocino County, those of us in education and law enforcement participate in ongoing cultural competency trainings to identify and understand the structures that support racial profiling and to hold ourselves to a higher standard through anti-bias training to promote respectful, inclusive, and equitable practices. Thousands of individuals in Mendocino County have been trained to recognize bias in themselves and in others, and to work toward eliminating bias with their voices. It is time for us to use these tools to act.

Now is the time for us all to join together to do our part. Peaceful protests showing solidarity in our commitment to “be the change” are critical. There is no room for the violent and destructive behavior currently occurring across the United States.

The first step we can take is to educate our children and to raise our voices on their behalf. As adults, we are horrified to see the violent and unnecessary media footage. Imagine how the children are feeling. It is our job to model a unified America and to teach our children to embrace the task of making equity a human right.

Here are some concrete ways to curtail racism and injustice. For links to specific resources, visit www.mcoe.us and click on About MCOE. Then click on the Superintendent’s Blog.

Talk to your children with compassion about the pent-up frustration of the protesters so they can better understand that the actions they are witnessing are a direct result of historical injustices. Visit www.tolerance.org/topics/race-ethnicity for resources to have a good conversation.

Read books together as a family to support conversations on race, racism, and resistance. Visit www.todaysparent.com and search for the April 18, 2020 post titled, “27 Books to help you talk to your kids about racism.”

Speak up when you witness an injustice or some form of racism. Silence only serves to support and promote deplorable acts. 

Volunteer in diverse settings. This can help build a cultural competency and a more inclusive society. Consider local opportunities that can build relationships and support people in need.

North Coast Opportunities Schools of Hope 

Plowshares 

Your local food bank

Your local senior center

Your local animal shelter

Your local Red Cross

A house of worship you don’t belong to

Educate yourself through the eyes of those most impacted. Start here: www.raceconscious.org

Please continue this conversation and take action. Contact the Mendocino County Office of Education with your questions, recommendations, and actions for our community. 

FOUND OBJECT