MCT: Monday, June 15, 2020

• Rain North
• Marvin Chapman
• Sunny Buck
• Trashy Rumor
• Boonville Demonstration
• Firefighter Appreciation
• Dream Small
• Mountaintop Removal
• Disappointing Bragg
• Mallory Camp
• Name Change
• Input Desired
• Comptche Barn
• Prairie Creek
• Ed Notes
• Mendocino Appellation
• Fact-Checking TWK
• Yesterday's Catch
• Courageous GOP
• Mendocino Woodlands
• Biden Slogans
• Slavery War
• Well-Hidden Militia
• Car Alarm
• Pepper Pelfrey
• Separate Control
• Old West
• White Shields
• Serve & Protect
• Slave Names
• Status Quo
• Same Inaction
• Found Object

LIGHT RAIN AND DRIZZLE are expected in Humboldt and Del Norte counties today through Tuesday morning. Other areas will remain dry, with mild temperatures expected. Clear skies are expected Wednesday through the end of the week, with much warmer temperatures expected across interior areas as well. (NWS)

MARVIN (MICKEY) CHAPMAN

Marvin (Mickey) Chapman died May 18, at the age of 88. Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania June 9, 1931 to Dewitt Talmage and Mary Teresa Chapman; he was the youngest of four siblings. Carl, Muriel and Warren, all deceased. He is survived by his wife Jo, son Carl/Lisa, daughter Dawn/Michael Senften, step children Tery/Harry Bosarge, Danny/Lucy Emmil, Danya/Manuel Mendez, Toni/Gary Patrick, Larry/Angela Larimer, David/Tarah Shook and many grandkids and great grandkids. Mickey fought in the Korean War as a Marine and stayed a Marine his whole life. (Once a Marine always a Marine) He then had a long career in law enforcement; first as a beat cop in Jersey and then became a Sheriff's deputy and later a District Attorney Investigator in Mendocino County, Ca. He loved the Marines, the Law and his family. He will be fondly remembered by his Leatherneck Club pals in Klamath Falls, Oregon; his many friends in and out of law enforcement in California and his family. We are all lucky to have had you in our lives Mickey. You're one hell of a man! Semper-Fi my Love.

WORD LEAKING IN (third hand) from the Boonville dump on Sunday says the recycling bin is completely full and no more recycling can be accepted until an empty bin is brought in sometime this week. The non-recyclable bin is nearly full and was expected to be completely full before the end of the day Sunday. According to our source, local dump manager Mike Mannix attributes the problem to Covid-19 which somehow has increased trash volume by an estimated 40% both in Anderson Valley and around the County, making it hard for Solid Waste of Willits to keep up. And most recyclables aren't recycled these dark days. 

BOONVILLE BLM DEMO #3 (Sunday)

GRATEFUL ANDERSEN VALLEY RESIDENTS expressed their appreciation to the Anderson Valley Volunteer Fire Department, Yorkville's Anderson Valley Volunteer Fire Department and CalFire by posting signs and delivering thank you cards and Ghiradelli Chocolates to their respective offices. What would we do without our firefighters? Sit back and watch our homes, lands and beautiful wild lands burn. Thank You firefighters. 

• 

• 

• 

Thanks also to assisting departments including Hopland, Santa Rosa, Cloverdale and even Chico (we heard).

— Terry Ryder

A MESSAGE TO THE CLASS OF 2020

by Tommy Wayne Kramer

A message for all Ukiah High School graduating seniors:

Because of the pandemic you leave school without a traditional graduation ceremony. That’s a big tragedy, one that ranks alongside missing the Homecoming Parade your sophomore year, and being unable to go on your fifth grade field trip to the Grace Hudson Museum Grounds & Landscape tour.

In other words, consider yourself lucky. Every person I know graduated from high school and not a single one has any recollection of the commencement ceremony other than it was too long. Not having one means you missed three hours of boredom that would have felt like three days.

You also didn’t have to listen to lots of bad advice from speakers obligated to pretend they have something of value to tell you. They don’t. These are the speakers who, every year, tell teenagers to Follow Your Dreams! and to Dream Big! Sometimes they tell kids that If You Can Dream It You Can Do It!

It’s hard to imagine worse advice to give an audience of high school grads, but it goes out every year to batches of pupae in their larval state, meaning you and your fellow grads.

Dream? Dream what? Dream you’ll be an astronaut? A Hollywood celebrity? A nuclear physicist who helps Eskimos in Omaha and invents a cure for starvation, after which your best friend, who lives in Hollywood, stars in a big movie about your life?

Dream that you’ll grow up to be a cowboy?

It’s a terrible and misguided notion that you should consider your dreams as anything other than a distraction. Someone you’ve never heard of named Bob Dylan points out that you can dream big baby, but to dream you still got to be asleep.

It’s time to wake up. You’ve got what passes for an “education” although it should come with an asterisk because much of the knowledge you’ve acquired has been served up by an assembly line of local schoolteachers, none of whom were gifted, few even competent, and a handful who were an actual menace to any kind of meaningful learning.

I could have told you in elementary school that you would eventually graduate just by breathing. If you simply stand still and don’t get arrested too often, at some point you will be told to stick out your hand so you can be given a diploma.

Whee. Congratulations, Class of 2020.

With irrelevant ceremonies cancelled you can begin planning future adventures in your life, which hopefully do not include college.

College has devolved into the same effort-free, anti-intellectual waste of time that you’ve already spent 12 years loafing through. Academic challenges are few at the University level; I know a young lady at a four-year diploma mill in California who takes “movement” classes that involve nothing more than a hula hoop.

In another year or two she’ll be ready for a Master’s Degree which will include chanting free-form poetry while twirling that same hula hoop. After a few more classes in “Diversity Studies” and “A Gay Approach to Mathematical Analysis” she’ll be a Ukiah schoolteacher.

So avoid college if possible and for now be relieved you had no commencement duties. Be content with the congratulatory banners strung around town, and be grateful you weren’t subjected to a sermon from Deb Kubin, the Ukiah school superintendent who never met a scholastic platitude she didn’t adopt as her own.

Believe me, you will be able to stride into the future without being told how wonderful, creative, strong and resilient you are, especially because in your own heart you know you are not yet wonderful or creative or strong or resilient. You are a teenager.

It will be helpful to have a solid foundation and a growing sense of who you are. Hopefully you’ve read some good books, developed polite manners and haven’t a facial tattoo. At least not a big one.

My advice is that you read a lot more good books, keep your mind open to thoughts and opinions that ring true, not just the ones frequently repeated. Don’t join a mob. Don’t miss a chance to help someone who needs it. Be grateful. Have fun.

You are a youngster staring at a world of uncertainty and potential chaos. You can’t solve it and you can’t dream it into something that features you at its glamorous center.

You can pretend you have the answers but you don’t, and neither do loud people who tell you they have the answers.

Your life is not a rehearsal. You only get to go through it one time, and the decisions you make will have consequences.

Stupid choices will put you in a hole, and a series of smart, thoughtful decisions will take you where you want to go, even if you don’t yet know where it is.

(Tom Hine, who writes these columns under the TWK byline, understands that if someone had given him great advice at age 18 he’d have either ignored it or forgotten it. Special thanks to Kitti Houston for grammatical guidance.)

SIGNAL RIDGE VINEYARD

BRAXTON BRAGG. The mere mention of his name today elicits giggles and guffaws, as though his entire military career were a joke. While it is true that his battlefield command proved non-stellar, his reputation has suffered more than that of others who performed even more poorly. One reason for this may be attributed to his unfortunate personality - contentious, irascible, quarrelsome, vengeful, and quick to blame others for his mistakes. These traits, along with suffering frequent illnesses, do not make an effective leader of men. As the Civil War began, despite his cantankerousness, Bragg was held in high regard; great deeds were expected of him. Unfortunately, in the crucible of war, he did not live up to those expectations.

essentialcivilwarcurriculum.com/braxton-bragg.html

FORT BRAGG, NAMED AFTER A CONFEDERATE GENERAL, WILL CONSIDER CHANGING ITS NAME

by Matthew Tom

The California city of Fort Bragg will consider changing its name in the wake of calls to remove Confederate monuments and statues across the United States, according to a post on the city's Facebook page.

"Responding to many requests (some local and many not) that the City of Fort Bragg, California change its name to avoid any connotation associated with Confederate Army General Braxton Bragg, Fort Bragg Mayor Will Lee would like to announce that at the June 22, 2020 Regular City Council meeting, the City Council will discuss whether to place the question of changing the City’s name on the ballot in November for City residents to decide," the post reads.

Fort Bragg in Mendocino County was incorporated in 1889 and named after Confederate Army General Braxton Bragg, who previously served in the U.S. Army during the Mexican-American War.

Calls to rename the city come after George Floyd’s death at the hands of Minneapolis police. The protests that have followed Floyd's death have spurred efforts to question any statues, monuments or historical names that have links to racial injustice.

The Navy, the Marines and NASCAR have embraced bans on the display of the Confederate flag, and statues of rebel heroes across the South have been vandalized or taken down, either by protesters or local authorities.

On Wednesday night, protesters pulled down a statue of Confederate President Jefferson Davis in Richmond, Virginia, the former capital of the Confederacy. The 8-foot bronze figure had already been targeted for removal by city leaders, but the crowd took matters into its own hands.

Elsewhere around the South, authorities in Alabama got rid of a massive obelisk in Birmingham and a bronze likeness of a Confederate naval officer in Mobile. In Virginia, a slave auction block was removed in Fredericksburg, and protesters in Portsmouth knocked the heads off the statues of four Confederates.

(Courtesy, the SF Chronicle)

GOOD AFTERNOON CITY OF FORT BRAGG. There is a lot going on right now in our great city. One hot topic is the name of our city and what it represents.

Everyone is speaking up and this is great, this is exactly how it is suppose to work. The mayor has asked for the council to discuss whether or not to place the item on the ballot. Let’s be clear on one thing, the item for discussion is not whether we should change our name, but if we the council should be the ones to decide if it should be on the ballot.

All of the discussion on social media is good and should take place. It should be known that social media discussion will not be part of the official record on the item. To achieve your goal of being heard, please write the council. This can be accomplished several ways. The easiest is to email the council directly or to email our city clerk and ask her to forward to council. We will also be back in Town Hall on the 22nd so if you are comfortable coming to the podium, that is great as well.

I hope to hear from each and every one of you, regardless of where you stand on this discussion. See you on the 22nd. I am placing a link to city page where you can find all of our email. Be well

— Bernie Novell, Vice Mayor, Fort Bragg City Council

COMPTCHE BARN

NIGHT LIGHT OF THE NORTH COAST

The Arc of Night over Prairie Creek

by David Wilson

It was approaching 12:30 a.m. at Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park as the Core of our galaxy began to crest the redwoods beyond the meadow, anchoring the band of Milky Way that stretched across the sky from horizon to horizon. But close behind it was the moon, which, though waning, was still 74% large, and bright enough to wash out the Milky Way once it had risen. At that point I had only a few minutes to shoot before I lost the sky to the moon. But I had come for this.

Shortly after shooting the panorama, the moon crested the horizon and washed the color and detail from the Milky Way, and a subsequent panorama was less satisfying. The moon’s pale glow can be seen in the center of the accompanying image as it rose behind the redwoods. Also rising behind the Milky Way were the planets Jupiter and Saturn, but the moonlight had dominated the sky before they cleared the redwoods. Those two planets will be following the Milky Way across the sky all season, and I plan to bring images of them to you in the coming months.

Prairie Creek Redwood State Park is located about 50 miles north of Eureka. It is one of several parks along California’s north coast that is co-administered by both the National Park Service and the California Department of Parks and Recreation. As with other state parks, Prairie Creek is only open for day use due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Parking is limited, and there is no camping. Visit the State Parks COVID-19 Resource Center during the pandemic for the full status of specific parks and for visitor guidelines: https://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=30350 .

The Milky Way soars over Giant redwood trees across the meadow at Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park.

If your mind bends thinking you recalled the road as straight passing this area, you are correct. Lines are warped due to the extremely wide field of view, which covers fully 180º from left to right. Standing at the edge of the straight road, the left end of the image shows the road leading straight toward the bright light at my left, while the right end shows the road leading directly away from the lights to my right (note the shadows of my tripod and myself on the road to the right, cast by the lights on the left). The Milky Way rose from one horizon, and stretched across the sky to the other. Optically, capturing all of this and displaying it in a rectangle necessarily warps straight lines. Photographed on June 10, 2020, at about 12:30 a.m. in Humboldt County, California.

Annotations showing some of the more recognizable objects in the view. Antares on the right is at the head of the constellation Scorpius, but most of the constellation is hidden just beneath the trees, as are the planets Jupiter and Saturn. As the year progresses, all of these will be higher in the sky at this time, and also earlier in the evening; I will catch them at that time. The moon was also rising, and by the time the planets and Scorpius had crested the trees, the sky was too bright. Photographed on June 10, 2020, at about 12:30 in Humboldt County, California.

(To keep abreast of David Wilson’s most current photography or purchase a print, visit or 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.)

ED NOTES

A UKIAH WOMAN who describes her bona fides merely as "community activist," wants to form a Citizens Police Oversight Committee for Mendocino County cops, nevermind that police violence is rarely in dispute around here and any citizen with a beef can walk into any police headquarters in the county and talk to the boss. And we have a grand jury, and we have print media standing by to interview and write-up any person or persons who claim they have been victims of gratuitous police violence. (As it happens, the ava is presently watching a federal excessive force complaint against a Ukiah police officer, the first such complaint in years.) In other words, in this place at this fraught time, the police are well-known and mostly regarded as friends and neighbors by all of us except, of course, the loose affiliations of slo-mo criminals and miscellaneous scumbags rotating in and out of the Mendocino County Jail. 

Anyway, here's Ms. Tognoli:

“The goal of the Citizens Police Oversight Committee is to review the training practices, the tools, and leadership of our local law enforcement community and to help develop and establish the use of force guidelines and monitor the effectiveness of those guidelines. We would also like to support the development of crisis intervention training through policy, practice, and procedure. We would also like to resolve the issues around inequity in hiring. We would like to identify and support legislation that includes the revamping of the Police Officer Bill of Rights and the Police Officer Association. We would like to look at and disaggregate local policing data by race through legitimate and evidence-based inquiries and to review the outcomes and stop some of the disparities. After we do this, we intend to take our stances to all domains within the community including schools, housing, and other areas of concern.” kymkemp.com/2020/06/14/mendocino-county-resident-pushes-for-creation-of-citizens-review-board-of-law-enforcement/

TWO ON-LINE REACTIONS:

Bring it on. It'll be as inert as the Measure B Committee or the Climate Action Committee and no one will notice their existence. Matter of fact, why not just merge the Climate Change Committee and Measure B and have them do all three things? Same people. They could have a joint meeting and have a nice politically correct chat about all three things once a month, save on gas. Nobody’d notice. Nobody’d care.

The proposer hasn't even tried to make the case that a review board is even necessary in Mendocino County. Let's see a list of things that need fixing in Mendo with data and a rationale. All they've offered so far is just a rote opinion of the moment.

AS THOMAS PIKETTY points out in his master work, Capital, there are really only two ways to beat back inequality — violent revolution or taxation. In this seethingly unhappy country, it's a good idea to avoid violence, but heading towards justice via tax reform is doable. And desirable. So let's return taxation on wealth to 1940 levels when it hovered around 90 percent on the rich who, natch, were still able to work around it, but that perfectly fair tax policy funded a number of programs that lifted all boats, including black boats. So far, the national demonstrations we've seen are without specific goals. Walking around shouting Black Lives Matter might feel good but it doesn't get US anywhere.

THIS HEADLINE got me up outta my Lay Z Boy and walking around my office muttering to myself: "How America Fell in Love with the Long Ball." Not me. I hated it as the perversion of the game it was. I think the entire steroid era ought to be asterisked as the perversion of the sport it obviously was. I once saw Orlando Cepeda at Candlestick hit a ball so hard in batting practice it knuckled all the way on a line to the left field fence. Hank Aaron hit legit homeruns. There's two real ballplayers right there. It used to annoy me no end at AT&T whenever Barry Bonds came up. Thousands of Karens and Joshuas would leap to their feet making animal sounds. And Bonds, swollen to about twice his normal size, would duly jack one into McCovey Cove. Ho hum. Bonds was just about the best ball player I've ever seen prior to chemically enhancing himself. Seen the guy lately? About 180, hat size medium. 

AS NATIONAL events just drift catastrophically along, with covid deaths rising, neighborhoods burning, unemployment rising to about forty percent, and the national anxiety among affected and unaffected alike almost palpable, where's it all headed? Not to a good place, obviously, and using Mendo as a metaphor for government at all levels — only marginally competent in the most serene times — Mendo continues to operate as if there's going to be a magic bounce-back to pre-March lotus-eating. Instead of worst case planning we get, at the county level, so many side contracts they can't be counted and the top dogs — Karen squared — give each other bonuses and operate on the undoubtedly false premise that the feds will dump a ton of reimbursement money on Ukiah at some future hoo-rah date. Maybe. The Fed's printing presses are rolling round the clock, but there's going to be big time demands for all that funny money, with Mendo, bloated, bumbling, unaccountable, and oblivious, on the very bottom rung of the national priority list. 

TRUMP ILL? Cameras had filmed Trump gingerly walking down the lengthy ramp after his speech, during which he seemed to be having hand-eye trouble in failing to take a drink of water, all of it sparking speculation online that he has health issues, to which Orange Man replied via tweet: “The ramp that I descended after my West Point Commencement speech was very long & steep, had no handrail and, most importantly, was very slippery. The last thing I was going to do is ‘fall’ for the Fake News to have fun with. Final ten feet I ran down to level ground. Momentum!”

A READER COMMENTS: "Excuse my inelegant language but I hope the shit doesn't hit the fan when the gates to tourism are thrown open in Mendocino County June 12 at 3 p.m. We've done a good job sheltering, masking, distancing for 3 months here… Now we invite the world to rush back to a favorite tourist destination. Only 38 people in the county have had covid-19 and no one died. What will we be saying a month from now?"

THE MENDOCINO RIDGE AVA is an American Viticultural Area located in coastal Mendocino County, California. The boundaries of the AVA include a range of coastal mountains adjacent to the Pacific Ocean. Although the area included in the AVA is over 250,000 acres (1,000 km2), the only land suitable for grape cultivation lies above 1,200 feet (366 m) in altitude, above the coastal fog. Most of the land is unsuitable for grape growing, and currently less than 75 acres (30 ha) are under vine. Nearly all of the plantings in this area are Zinfandel, and grapes have been planted in the valley since the late 19th century. Much of the non-planted land is covered by Redwood and Douglas Fir trees.

signaturewines.com/appellation/125-mendocino-ridge

MUZZLING KRAMER

Dear Editor,

While I have found his writing occasionally touching and heartfelt when he has eulogized a departed friend or lovingly described a favorite pet, too often, the columns of Tommy Wayne Kramer are at best vacuous and at their worst, insensitive, offensive or marred with mistruths. A few times over the long years of his appearance in your paper, like many others, I have written to ask you to take a higher road regarding what ideas your newspaper chooses to promote. More recently, after regretting wasting the ten minutes I spend reading the “Assignment: Ukiah” column, I generally grumble and move on to more respectful, thought-provoking and intellectually honest columns like that of Mr. Kramer’s Sunday neighbor, Crispin Hollinshead. But after the Kramer column of June 7, I feel I must speak out because as the inspiring protesters of the past few weeks have taught us, “silence is compliance.” 

Playing armchair epidemiologist, Mr. Kramer has criticized public health experts and assuming he knows better, has complained about our local stay at home orders in place during the pandemic. While I find his pseudo infectious disease expertise to be arrogant and reckless, it was his recent analysis of the Black Lives Matter protests that prompts me to write you.

While praising peaceful participants at our local protest regarding the Minneapolis police murder of George Floyd, Kramer makes the fallacious comparison to large scale protests in bigger cities that were in his view, dominated by “leftists” looters who were burning down neighborhoods. The investigations into the identities of the looters who infiltrated otherwise peaceful protests are ongoing, but have thus far revealed that some of the violence was incited by non-black participants, in particular, the far-right group known as the Boogaloo Bois, who dress in Hawaiian shirts and advocate civil war. Sure, unable to contain their rage, many of the participants who rioted and looted during the early days of the protests took the opportunity to get free stuff from stores behind broken windows. But as copious video footage showed us, the overwhelming majority of protesters across the racial spectrum in numerous cities around the world were absolutely peaceful and contrary to Mr. Kramer’s unhinged assertion, were clearly not “faking concern for Mr. Floyd’s plight.”

In his June 7 column, Mr. Kramer goes on to make the ludicrous statement that “a white cop killing a black man is rare.” What universe is he living in? Likely one that plays Fox News on his television for hours a day denying the reality of an epidemic of police murders of unarmed black men and women. 

Relying on the racist trope that many more black people are killed by other black people than by the police, Kramer attempts to shift the focus away from the culpability of out of control police in order to demonize the protesters crying out for justice for the victims of police violence. Yes, black on black crime does exist but so does white on white crime. And that is because many people live in neighborhoods with those of their same race. But in most instances when black people kill or assault other black people, the actors are prosecuted and convicted. Contrast that with the police officers who commit crimes against black people and are seldom convicted, let alone investigated or charged and often remain in their jobs. 

If Mr. Kramer is so concerned about crime against black people, perhaps he could focus his columns on injustices such as high unemployment, disproportionate access to health care (as we have painfully seen during the pandemic), poverty, addiction, redlining, predatory mortgages, voter suppression and mass incarceration.

During these desperate times in which we now find ourselves, with a president who lies incessantly and incites violence against those who oppose him and a group of sycophantic Republican elected officials not daring to question his overt corruption, we need newspaper columnists who analyze issues honestly in a fact-based manner. Perhaps you can offer a fact checking service for each of Mr. Kramer’s columns. Short of that, Ms. Editor, please consider how your providing a platform for Mr. Kramer contributes to the dissemination of a racist ideology steeped in misinformation. Your readers and this community deserve better.

Susan Sher

Ukiah 

---

SUSAN SHER is one more illiberal local liberal calling for Tommy Wayne's head. She cites the narcoleptic opinions of Crispy Hollinshead as more acceptably correct, although to this reader Hollinshead is more like the prose equivalent of Advil PM — one sentence and it's nighty-night. Received opinion is boring opinion and, with the Mendo exception of the brilliant Mr. K, liberal opinion, as expressed in this county via, for handy instance, KZYX, is tiresome unto torture. The neo-insistence on uniform views is taking the whole Americano show in a dangerous direction, and the libs are as guilty of lock-step righteousness as the maga hats, but while claiming the high ground.

USED TO BE that liberals were dependable voices against censorship. No more, and I speak as a forty-year target of lib ire as the publisher of Boonville's beloved weekly.

BEFORE I head back over the hill, Sher's citation of black-on-black murder is not, as she claims, "a racist trope" unless, of course, she cites it only because the paleface Tommy Wayne has cited it. In fact, every black mayor in the country has lamented black-on-black mayhem, whose end is unlikely until there's economic justice, which we haven't seen an attempt at since Franklin Roosevelt and, later, the much maligned LBJ.

CATCH OF THE DAY, June 14, 2020

SEBASTION FARR, Ukiah. DUI.

TRAVIS HUMPHREY, Redwood Valley. Indecent exposure, probation revocation. (Frequent Flyer)

LEVI LAMOUREUX, Laytonville. Domestic abuse, county parole violation.

ROBERT LOTT, Ukiah. Domestic battery.

ALTERNATE CANDIDATE

Editor,

Throughout his tenure, Donald Trump has evidenced ignorance and disdain for the multi-faceted functions of our government and the behavioral norms expected from a chief executive. His unwillingness to embrace dissenting points of view and his inability to retain qualified advisers have fostered distrust in our institutions at home and diminished our diplomatic standing in the community of nations.

Now, with the twin crises of the COVID-19 pandemic and the violent unrest following the homicide of George Floyd, Trump’s imprudent actions have intensified our divisions and drawn ire from respected former members of his Cabinet. All of which points to this: Trump is unfit to serve as president of the United States and certainly isn’t worthy of a second term.

The Republican National Committee can do something about this. In a brokered convention, the GOP can nominate an individual better suited to take on the task of leading this nation and healing the rifts wrought by Trump. I am confident that party leaders could quickly identify a number of strong and stable candidates.

Our republic is at a crossroad. So is the Republican Party. A courageous GOP can be part of the solution.

Dave Delgardo

Cloverdale

MENDOCINO WOODLANDS

SUGGESTED SLOGANS FOR THE BIDEN CAMPAIGN

newyorker.com/humor/daily-shouts/suggested-slogans-for-the-biden-campaign

ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

The simple fact of the matter is America has never come to terms with the fact that half this country fought a war for slavery. They fought a WAR. We’re the only country that took a civil war to get rid of slavery. The only one. We wanted slaves that badly. You would have thought some Southern senator or representative would have gone on record saying do you realize how bad this is going to look 100 years from now. Crickets. We have to pay reparations to these people. $100,000 to every black man, woman or child. They have never been compensated for building this country. We stole the fruits of their labor and called it our own. This must be fixed.

CAR ALARM

One of Laurie Anderson's spoken-word musical things from forty years ago is called The New Jersey Turnpike. It isn't just about that road. Here's one of the middle parts of it: 

"There was an old couple who decided to drive cross-country in their car. Both of them were almost legally deaf. 

About ten miles away from home, the burglar alarm for their car door went off and got stuck in the /on/ position. They drove all the way to San Francisco like this. You could hear them coming from three miles away. 

The alarm didn't bother the old woman at all. She thought it was sort of pleasant. Near Chicago she said to her husband, "It sounds like -- faraway bees -- on a summer day." 

Her husband said, What?" 

(He says it not like What sounds like bees? but more like Did you say something?) 

— Marco McClean

BATS IN HIS PELFREY

"Saturday, Sonoma County deputies working together with Ukiah Police Department arrested Anthony Pelfrey, 43 years old, Ukiah, for a hate crime, felon in possession of pepper spray, and illegal use of pepper spray.

The incident unfolded at approximately 10:18 am when deputies were dispatched to Pinnacle Gulch Trail in Bodega Bay for a male intentionally pepper-spraying people.

The first victim, an Asian male, was sprayed in the face with Bear Deterrent spray by Pelfrey for no apparent reason in the parking lot. The second victim, a Hispanic male, was walking out of the restroom and was sprayed as well. Pelfrey walked to his car, a white Honda Civic, as witnesses took photos of him and his car.

Witnesses at the scene recognized the male as Pelfrey from their Yoga class. Pelfrey was at the location, attending an outdoor Yoga session. Pelfrey left the scene in his car.

A records check revealed the car belonged to Pelfrey with an address in Ukiah. Ukiah Police Department was notified and conducted surveillance at Pelfrey's home. Pelfrey was arrested at his home.

Ukiah Police Department and Mendocino County Sheriff's Office were both investigating two similar incidents involving Pelfrey, where earlier in the week, he used bear Deterrent spray on people.

In 2009, Pelfrey was convicted of attempted murder in Mendocino County after attacking two men with a machete.

Pelfrey was arrested and later transported to the Sonoma County Jail and booked for a hate crime, felon in possession of pepper spray, and illegal use of pepper spray. Pelfrey is currently in custody and being held on $50,000 bail after a judge approved a bail enhancement.

We want to thank the community members who called us with information. This case is another example of how we can better protect our community when we all work together."

MALCOLM X ON SEPARATION OF THE RACES:

The black man that you’re not familiar with is the one that we would like to point out now. He is a new type. He is the type that seldom the white man ever comes into contact with. And when you do come into contact with him you’re shocked because you didn’t know that this type of black man existed. And immediately you think, “Well here’s one of those black supremacists or racists or extremists who believe in violence and all that other kind of…” Well, that’s what they call it.

This new type of black man, he doesn’t want integration; he wants separation. Not segregation, separation. To him, segregation, as we’re taught by the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, means that which is forced upon inferiors by superiors. A segregated community is a Negro community. But the white community, though it’s all white, is never called a segregated community. It’s a separate community. In the white community, the white man controls the economy, his own economy, his own politics, his own everything. That’s his community. But at the same time while the Negro lives in a separate community, it’s a segregated community. Which means it’s regulated from the outside by outsiders. The white man has all of the businesses in the Negro community. He runs the politics of the Negro community. He controls all the civic organizations in the Negro community. This is a segregated community.

We don’t go for segregation. We go for separation. Separation is when you have your own. You control your own economy; you control your own politics; you control your own society; you control your own everything. You have yours and you control yours; we have ours and we control ours.

They don’t call Chinatown in New York City or on the West Coast a segregated community, yet it’s all Chinese. But the Chinese control it. Chinese voluntarily live there, they control it. They run it. They have their own schools. They control their own politics, control their own industry. And they don’t feel like they’re being made inferior because they have to live to themselves. They choose to live to themselves. They live there voluntarily. And they are doing for themselves in their community the same thing you do for yourself in your community. This makes them equal because they have what you have. But if they didn’t have what you have, then they’d be controlled from your side; even though they would be on their side, they’d be controlled from your side by you.

So when we who follow the Honorable Elijah Muhammad say that we’re for separation, it should be emphasized we’re not for segregation; we’re for separation. We want the same for ourselves as you have for yourselves. And when we get it, then it’s possible to think more intelligently and to think in terms that are along peaceful lines. But a man who doesn’t have what is his, he can never think always in terms that are along peaceful lines.

(SOURCE: X, Malcolm. “The Race Problem.” African Students Association and NAACP Campus Chapter. Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan. 23 January 1963.)

WHITE SHIELDS

(Neve Gordon, Nicola Perugini)

At a protest in Louisville, Kentucky, last month---the city where Breonna Taylor was murdered by police on 13 March---Chanelle Helm, a leading organiser in the local Black Lives Matter group, turned to the white protesters with a loudhailer. ‘If you are going to be here,’ she said, ‘you should defend this space.’

The white protesters---most of them women---linked arms and formed a line between the black protesters and the police. 

Tim Druck, a local photographer, took a picture. It went viral after the Kentucky National Organisation for Women and other groups shared it on social media.

Another tweet that went viral at the end of May was by Virgil Cent:

I think the craziest thing I witnessed today on the frontlines was Black People yelling ‘White Shield’ when the police were blocking and pushing us back. The white people moved to the front and protected us + the cops became less violent like wow wtf

Human shields used to be known as ‘human screens’, and they are screens in a double sense: not only a form of protection, but a surface on which something can be projected and made visible. 

The appearance of human shields can help to illuminate the political and legal order---and thus the inequities---of any society...

---

Rob Anderson's comment:

In a few anti-war demonstrations during the US attack on Vietnam, I heard the call by some guys as the police approached, "Chicks up front," as a tactic to mitigate potential police violence. 

But the call was seen as a joke and greeted with laughter. In my experience, unlike the above, it was a tactic never actually implemented by the anti-war movement.

---

ED NOTE: We were at all the same demos, but only one that I recall where the chicks were up front, and that one was at the Fairmont Hotel at the protest against the Vietnamese fascist, Ky. The Oakland Induction Center actions I remember many women getting arrested and manhandled by the Oakland PD, but it wasn't a chicks-up-front event, that I recall.

WHAT'S IN A NAME?

Amy Sarisky wrote (Coast Listserve):

Hello all, I’m wondering if any of you could recommend a dog trainer for basic obedience work in the Fort Bragg/Mendocino area. I have a little girl who could use some etiquette lessons. Thank you!

---

Marco McClean here. I think we should rename all the dogs. All dogs' current names are their slave names. They should have their real names in their own language or none. Ralph. Barf. ReeEEEeeen. Uff. Buh. AROOoo. Nok. Boowh. (And in seventh grade I once rode my bike past a dog that enunciated clearly, "VEET'n... VEET'n-VEET'n!") 

Man gave names to all the animals, and he did it arrogantly as he does everything. Pig! Cow! Bug! Snake! No, just no. They're derisive, mean names and it's not too late to fix that. 

And we should rename all human nation names and tribe names and place names to the original name in the original language, and failing that then at least the nearest modern-language translation of it. All groups of people everywhere called themselves The People and called others The Others. All places with plenty of food are called Plenty of Food (or Plenty of Fish, or of whatever). Where the water is easy to cross is Ford, and where it's muddy is Muddy Water, and wherever there's a big rock should be respectfully changed back to Big Rock. North Fork, South Fork, The Dalles, This-Or-That Down or Falls or Land or Cliff or Smell or Disease: places like that are all fine, as well as Siberia (Sleeping), Gobi Desert (Gobi means desert, so Desert Desert), and so on. 

Places where there used to be trees before we cut them all down to make fires and poles and bows and trebuchets and pubs and hovels and skids for standing stones should be renamed Trees (or the kind of tree or plant: Cedars, Pines, Redwoods, Yews, Oaks, Ficuses, Reeds, Tules, etc.). Certainly every place called Castle should be Field again, or Heath or Moor or Bog. Maybe put a number after all of these to tell them apart so you don't get confused. 

Place Where The People Were Victorious Over The Previous Occupants is not good enough. We should do the work, smoke the mushroom and find out from the Machine Elves what the previous occupants called it, and the occupants before them. 

Until this is done we are disrespectful, ignorant oppressors of dogs, other animals besides dogs and long-dead The Peoples everywhere, not to mention existing The Peoples, and we deserve it when we have a bad dream where they're all looking at us with big sad eyes and we wake up sputtering and hit the back of our hand on the wall and say OW! FUCK!, which is a good name for most injuries, for medical schools to change the names of injuries back to, including the color: red, if bloody or merely florid; nacreous if appropriately bruised; and the original word for psychosomatic, which might be just a gesture and a facial expression, and then a hand forward, palm up, and expect. 

— Marco McClean

“I READ THE REPORT of the 1919 riot in Chicago, and it is as if I were reading the report of the investigating committee on the Harlem riot of ’35, the report of the investigating committee of the Harlem riot of ’43, the report of the McCone Commission on the Watts riot. I must again in candor say to you members of this Commission – it is a kind of Alice in Wonderland – with the same moving picture re-shown over and over again, the same analysis, the same recommendations, and the same inaction.”

— Dr. Kenneth Clark, a social scientist whose research informed the US Supreme Court’s ‘Brown v. Board of Education’ decision, giving evidence to the Kerner Commission that had been established by President Johnson during some of the most severe urban rioting in America in 1967 

FOUND OBJECT