MCT: Thursday, July 2, 2020

• Summer Days
• New SIP
• Special Board Meeting
• Saddle Stools
• Armed Robber
• Yorkville Market
• Mendo Moon
• Domestic Violence
• School Bus
• Reasonable Facebooking
• Hopland High
• Boycott Suggestion
• Three Deer
• Austere Budget
• Hopland Hub
• Art Exhibits
• Hopland 1900
• Madrones Reopening
• Seed Heads
• Ed Notes
• Fireworks Canceled
• Yesterday's Catch
• Reparations
• Fish Hatchery
• Hiring Scam
• Cold Creek Station
• Boys & Girls
• Auto Court
• Race Relations
• General Store
• Hasty Revolution
• New Solidarity
• Wobbly Resurgence

NEAR SEASONAL TEMPERATURES and dry weather will persist across Northwest California over the next seven days. Northwest to west breezes will continue for at least the next couple of afternoons, but will trend lighter compared to earlier in the week. Otherwise, nightly bouts of marine stratus will continue along portions of the coast and up the Eel River Valley. (NWS)

HEALTH OFFICER ISSUES NEW HEALTH ORDER

Post Date: 07/01/2020 5:44 PM

Health Officer Dr. Noemi Doohan issued a new Shelter-In-Place (SIP) Order today, Wednesday, July 1, 2020, which is slated to go into effect at 12:00 pm on Friday July 3, 2020. The new Order maintains the current stage 3 opening, but adds additional restrictions to certain sectors and activities to ensure public safety in light of the recent spike in COVID-19 cases in Mendocino County. California’s positivity rate is trending upward and Governor Newsom has made it clear to counties that following the State’s Orders and guidance is mandatory. The State is closely monitoring local counties and cities that are experiencing surges and if necessary the State will come in and require local jurisdictions to roll back openings especially for high risk business sectors. The new Order is in line with State guidance with measures to address high risk areas. 

Major changes in the Order included: 

Reorganization of the Health Order to clearly layout the information regarding “Individuals and Activities” and “Businesses” with specific mention to permissible higher risk businesses.

The Order reiterates the local and statewide prohibition of all public and private gatherings of any size except for the limited purposes expressly permitted in the Order.

Stable Bubbles is replacing the term Social Bubbles. The Household Support Unit Stable Bubble, designed for recreational activities for adults and children, has been reduced from 12 members to 6 members and the group must remain the same for at least 4 weeks. However, Childcare and Children’s Extracurricular Units remain unchanged. (Stable Bubbles Infographic) 

Work groups have been reduced from a stable group of 12 to 6 members over a 4 week time period and the order strongly encourages work places have 2 or more separate, non-overlapping Work Groups, such that, in the event one group contracts COVID-19, the other group will be protected. 

Due to issues with crowding/lack of social distancing in bars and the surge in cases locally and statewide, the new Order, makes the following changes to Restaurant and Bar operations:

Indoor and Outdoor Capacity is restricted to no more customers than available seating and accounting for required minimum social distancing between different households, living units or Stable Bubbles -- all grouped seating restricted to only customers within the same Stable Bubble. 

Encouraged to utilize available outdoor dining where permitted. 

Bars and all establishments which serve alcohol (such as tasting rooms, pubs, and restaurants) must discontinue serving alcohol by 8:00 p.m.

The Facial Coverings Order for the public has also been updated to address additional requirements for specific industries. "Facial Coverings Plus" requires employers to take extra protections for workers treating head, face or mouth (e.g., certain personal care services, facials, eyelashes, hairdressers, barbers) and also for workers consistently serving the public within less than 6 feet, e.g., cashiers, restaurant servers, and bartenders. For example additional protective measures may include installing plexiglass screens or workers wearing facial shields in addition to a facial covering (i.e., a piece of rigid, clear plastic attached to headband which covers entire face extending from forehead to below the chin at all times, including when speaking). The order also clarifies for customers and the general public a face shield is an acceptable alternative to a facial covering. The separate Medical Masking Order still applies for Medical Facilities, Congregate Care/Living Facilities and for EMS Providers and First Responders. (https://www.mendocinocounty.org/home/showdocument?id=35368).

Mendocino County’s revised SIP goes in effect Friday, July 3 at 12:00 p.m. and will be in place until 12:00 p.m. on August 3, 2020. A revised order will be released upon the expiration of this Order.

The Health Order is posted online at https://www.mendocinocounty.org/community/novel-coronavirus/health-order.

The order is enforceable by imprisonment and/or fine thus we urge all residents and businesses to closely read the order and follow it.

Businesses must comply with State and County guidelines, and file the Mendocino County self-certification form before opening, found at https://www.mendocinocountybusiness.org/.

All businesses must post additional County signage (prominently at the entrance) regarding required physical distancing and face coverings, which can be downloaded at https://www.mendocinocounty.org/business/business-resource-for-covid-19.

Additionally, all Permissible Higher Risk Businesses allowed in this SIP order must file their Safe Business Reopening Plan for publication on the Mendocino county business website.

More information on Governor Newsom’s resilience roadmap and four-staged plan to reopen California, please visit: https://covid19.ca.gov/roadmap/.

For more information on the businesses/sectors that fall within the various stages of re-opening, please view the Resilience Roadmap Business Sector Chart. 

The Mendocino County approved attestation is available to view on the California Department of Public Health’s Website. 

For more on COVID-19: www.mendocinocounty.org

Call Center: (707) 234-6052 or email callcenter@mendocinocounty.org

The call center is open Monday-Friday from 8:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.

FROM SUPERVISOR WILLIAMS: I have requested a special board meeting as soon as possible to progress on health order enforcement. The governor is now “dimming” sectors and shutting down sectors. Governor Newsom ordered 19 counties to close bars and indoor dining for the next 3 weeks. The business community needs to be aware we are not far from the state taking over control. In Sonoma, there are large scale outbreaks in skilled nursing facilities. In Lake, cases have doubled in short time. Either we act now or we jeopardize health, the economy and local control.

COLD CREEK RANCH BAR

ARMED & DANGEROUSLY DUMB

On Monday, June 29, 2020 at approximately 10:40 P.M. Deputies from the Mendocino County Sheriffs Office were dispatched to an armed robbery at the Express Market located at 3141 North State Street in Ukiah.

Deputies responded to the location and contacted employees who stated a male subject entered the business and approached the checkout area. The male subject displayed a black semi automatic handgun and demanded money. The employee fled towards the back of the business and the male subject walked around the counter to the area of the cash register.

The male subject forcibly removed the cash drawer containing an undisclosed amount of US currency, and fled the area on foot.

The male subject was described as being a white male adult, approximately 5 feet 11 inches to 6 feet tall, 190-200 pounds in weight, with blonde hair. The male subject was wearing white tennis shoes, gray pants, a black long sleeved shirt, gloves, a multi-colored face mask and had a gray shirt tied around his head.

Attached are three photographs taken from the surveillance video inside of the business.

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Anyone with information regarding the identity of this subject is urged to contact the Mendocino County Sheriff's Dispatch center at (707) 463-4086.

Information can be given anonymously using the Sheriff's Office Tip Line at (707) 234-2100 or by contacting the WeTip Anonymous Crime Reporting Hotline at wetip.com or by calling (800) 732-7463.

YORKVILLE MARKET CHANGES

Hello all,

After careful consideration of the current events regarding COVID I have decided to close the deli portion of the market.

Amy and I have been having a difficult time keeping up with the multitude of tasks needed to keep the store running. The Deli takes up most of our day and we have been unable to develop other portions of the business, such as our take and bakes, online ordering system, and a catering menu. With the deli closed we are hoping to have more time to focus on these other aspects of the market. 

We will still be making some grab and go items for the deli case, and we are also working on getting a rotating schedule of food trucks to serve outside. More on this soon. 

If you would like to order some of our delicious sandwiches, you will still be able to call ahead and preorder them with 24 hour advanced notice. 

Also, this will give us more time to work on catering. Remember that we can help you make your picnic lunch, or family gathering special with a delicious assortment of homemade foods. 

We will be closing for a few days from July 5th-7th to reorganize. We will be open Wednesday, July 8th to take grocery orders.

Thank you all for your understanding as we continue to adapt to our changing world.

Wishing you all a Happy 4th of July!!

Best,

Lisa

MOON OVER MENDO 

NEUROTH? WHERE HAVE WE HEARD THAT NAME?

On Sunday, June 28, 2020 at approximately 6:30 P.M. Deputies from the Mendocino County Sheriff's Office were dispatched to investigate a domestic violence dispute which had occurred in the 10000 block of Main Street in Potter Valley.

Deputies contacted a Lake County Sheriff's Deputy, and learned that a 29 year-old female had responded to a hospital in Lake County to receive treatment from a domestic violence battery which had occurred in Potter Valley on 06-26-2020. Deputies spoke with both the Lake County Deputy and adult female and learned she and Austin Neuroth, 41, of Potter Valley, have been in a dating relationship for approximately 6 years in addition to having one child in common.

On 06-26-2020 at approximately 11:00 P.M. Neuroth entered the bedroom where the adult female and their 6 year-old daughter were sleeping. A verbal argument ensued, which escalated into Neuroth climbing on top of the adult female and striking her in the face and upper chest numerous times. The 6 year-old child fled the bedroom and locked herself in the bathroom.

The adult female sustained several injuries to her left cheekbone, as well as injuries to her upper lip and chest.

On Sunday, June 28, 2020 at approximately 9:50 P.M. Deputies located Neuroth at a motel in the Ukiah area and he was placed under arrest for Domestic Violence Battery.

Neuroth was subsequently booked into the Mendocino County Jail where he was to be held in lieu of $25,000 bail.

COLD CREEK SCHOOL BUS

FORMER SHERIFF TOM ALLMAN:

I’ve been on Facebook since it’s inception. I’ve enjoyed seeing friends pictures, hearing their laughter on videos and learning about their lives. I’ve been able to stay in-tune with the many activities in our county because of Facebook. 

But Social Media has changed how we communicate and has turned some simple conversations into strong political stances. 

I see hatred spreading because of people opposing each other’s political stances, religious views and personal agendas. We live in a country that allows us to speak our mind, peacefully protest our government and enjoy our freedoms. But with freedom comes responsibility. 

I have been very neutral on my posts, because I don’t think that social media is the right place to SHOUT my opinions and assume that my thoughts are better than anyone else’s. Some of my views are very personal and they are a culmination of my upbringing, my experiences and my education. I will assume people have vastly different pasts, and as such, often have differing opinions. 

I’ve watched as lifelong friendships have been tossed aside because of Facebook postings. I’ve seen families divided because of difference of opinions (or private family matters) have been broadcast to the world. Recently, I’ve had a longtime friend walk away from our friendship because of bad police behavior that happened 2,000 miles away. Really?

I’m no better than you, we are equals. Your opinion is important to me. Please don’t expect me to change my opinion because of your opinion. I have no expectation that you will change your opinion because of mine. Social media has changed the manner in which we communicate because we can’t look into the eyes of the other person, we can’t see their expressions and we often don’t realize the passion in their beliefs. 

I welcome news of your family, I celebrate honoring people in our community and I appreciate staying current with our communities events but please, for the sake of our friendship, let’s practice mutual respect. Let’s agree that sometimes we will disagree on some things, but we agree on many more things (that’s why we’re friends).

As our country’s birthday arrives, can we please accept the fact that we are different? Your opinions are important but don’t take it personal if we happen to disagree. Let’s not allow our differences to steal our friendship. Our nation is about to have our presidential election, and emotions are bubbling to the top. Chances are, whatever you post on Facebook, will not change a single persons mind. 

Happy Birthday America, let’s celebrate and communicate responsibility. 

Tom Allman

Willits

HOPLAND HIGH, 1935

WAY TOO MANY PEOPLE get their alleged "news" from Facebook these days, and worse, many Facebook readers don't even click to read the whole post, let alone click to read any linked article - they just rush to post their already established opinion based on the first few lines.

Facebook couldn't be more divisive, couldn't be worse at spreading "telephone game" type misinformation and encouraging people to be rude and nasty to their neighbors if it was designed that way.

There's been some suggestion that all the big corporations pulling their advertising dollars from Facebook right now should instead consider advertising in their local newspapers. Now there's a suggestion I endorse!

Jennifer Poole

Willits

BUDGET DEAL SHIELDS NEEDIEST CALIFORNIANS

…middle-class families are likely to feel the biggest burden, while the neediest Californians are largely — though not completely — spared.

calmatters.org/economy/2020/06/california-budget-deal-cuts-poor-middle-class-uc-csu-seniors-medi-cal/

HOPLAND DEPOT THATCHER HOTEL

BAY AREA BASKET MAKERS. An Exhibit

Baskets and Gourds: Traditional and Beyond

Mendocino Art Center’s

Online Exhibitions

July 1 – August 3, 2020

Members of the Bay Area Basket Makers use a wide variety of materials to create their baskets, from the traditional reed, splint, pine needles, plants, kelp, paper, and gourds to more exotics like hog gut, fish skin and fish bones, horsehair, fleece, wire and wire mesh, to reusable finds of plastic bags and yarns – employed in techniques of coiling, plaiting, twining, knotting, looping, felting, randing, and more. 

http://www.mendocinoartcenter.org/babm.html

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Lynn Thompson: Cosmic Creations

Lynn Thompson is an exuberant painter. Her painting is a matter of survival for her during these difficult times. “I don’t know what I’d do without painting,” she says. A transplant from Florida to Willits she has brought the tropical colors with her. While her interiors evoke a world of comfort and stability, her abstract work goes deeper to the complex and emotional world within. “Painting is my passion and I consider it a gift waiting to be opened,” she declares. 

http://www.mendocinoartcenter.org/lynn-thompson.html

HOPLAND, 1900

MADRONES LIVES

The Madrones Village~

We are finally opening our doors this week! After a three month delay, we will be opening the new Sun & Cricket shop and our cannabis apothecary The Bohemian Chemist. 

All three tasting rooms will also be open on the property. We are still waiting for our final inspection on Wickson Restaurant (So frustrating!!!), but hope to be open in the next couple of weeks. 

Hours of operation: 

Friday- Monday. 12:00- 6:00pm. 

We will extend our hours to 7pm when Wickson opens.

ED NOTES

FROM THE TRUCKEE REPUBLICAN, 24 October 1918:

Universal Adoption of Mask Everywhere 

The Mask Declared To Be The Only Safe Method To Stop Spread

All cities and towns are rapidly adopting the use of the mask as the only safe preventative against Spanish Influenza. These masks are declared to be 99 per cent proof against influenza. Trains arrived in Sacramento last night loaded with passengers and all were masked. Sparks Reno, Grass Valley and Nevada City have all adopted the use of the mask. A public statement issued in San Francisco declares as follows: “You must wear a mask not only to protect yourself, but your children and your neighbors from the influenza, pneumonia and death. Doctors wear them—those who do not wear them get sick. The man or woman who will not wear a mask is a dangerous slacker.”

ANON ON-LINE COMMENT re no coronavirus at Mendo Jail: "Lies, there has been corona virus at the jail. They are not testing so there are no positive tests. It's a farce and manipulative to claim zero cases when the inmates know different. Why doesn't this blog talk to inmates and get the truth. Cut and paste news releases from the Sheriff is just propaganda. How about some real reporting."

THE DEFENDANT COMMUNITY makes a lot of wild charges, but preliminarily, I say the above is untrue. From the Jail's recent press release: "5/15/20 – Tested 70 inmates for COVID-19. All neg.”

GOVERNOR NEWSOM has ordered all bars, indoor restaurant operations, movie theaters, and museums to shut down in 19 counties on Wednesday amid a surge in coronavirus cases. Mendo excepted.

UH OH. The long, hot summer is beginning to heat up. Clay County, Florida, Sheriff Darryl Daniels announced today that he will deputize lawful gun owners to help police demonstrators "who cause destruction and mayhem."

ASKED by a Fox News reporter if he had been tested for "cognitive decline," Biden barked back at the reporter that he was a "lying dog face," an odd insult that sounded like a bad translation from the Chinese, but additional confirmation that Biden isn't hitting on all cylinders. "I don't have the word recollection that I used to have," Biden said. "I forget my train of thought from time to time. I am constantly tested. All you gotta do is watch me and I can hardly wait to compare my cognitive capability to the cognitive capability of the man I'm running against." 

ACCORDING to the most recent Census stats, a little more than half of Mendocino County households — 50.3 — have reported to the national data bank, while 62.9 households statewide have cooperated.

MICK BLOYD. A fine story by Bill Kimberlin on Mick in this week's ava, a man who was in his time certainly among the most colorful characters in the Anderson Valley in the days prior to the great blanding down, which coincided with the decline of the timber and ranching as the area's primary industries, and the rise of wine, wine tourism, the boring rich people who come with wine, and the gastromania also associated with wine. "Will you have the raddichio with those salmon balls, sir?" A literary characterization of the great transition might be that we went from Flannery O'Connor to John Updike. I always got along with Mick and his brother, Skip, but tended not to linger in the old Boonville Lodge when they were in drinking and fighting mode, the accounts of which were, in their way, epic. A city friend arrived at my house late one night in a state of mild shock. "Hey, I was just stopped in Boonville because these two big guys were butting heads in the middle of 128! What's the deal?" Local boys just letting off a little steam, I explained. Everyone who lived in the Valley in the 1970s have their Bloyd stories, but all of us were shocked, and in many cases saddened, when Mick was convicted of a double murder in Yuba County and packed off to San Quentin's Death Row. Newspaper accounts of the event of were scant and incomplete. I've always thought (1) that the murders — Mick's girlfriend and her elderly father tied to chairs and shot — were out of character for the Mick I knew, and (2) his public defender put up no defense at all, judging from the accounts I've seen. I corresponded with the prison Mick. He was a smart guy who wrote a good letter, often lamenting that he'd gotten into the booze way too young and wished he'd never even heard of drugs, much less consumed them. My most poignant possessions are two small paintings Mick did in prison, one of the Little Red School House, the other of an Octopus Mountain vista, both testaments to how much he missed this place, a nostalgia most of us feel, too.

FOURTH OF JULY FIREWORKS SHOW CANCELED IN CLOVERDALE

by Phil Barber

And then there were none.

The Cloverdale Lions Club, which runs that town’s annual Fourth of July fireworks show, announced Wednesday that it has canceled this year’s event. Cloverdale was the only city in Sonoma County that had planned to move forward with a public pyrotechnics show. But with coronavirus cases peaking all over the state, local officials and event organizers became concerned Cloverdale would become a high-risk novelty attraction Saturday night.

“We’re worried about a big influx of people coming into town, not doing the COVID distancing and wearing masks, and God knows what else,” said Tex Dickens, the Cloverdale Lions Club’s director at large and chairman of this year’s fireworks show.

The city had already prohibited assembly at Jack Hoffman Field, site of the event. In an informal meeting late Tuesday, Mayor Gus Wolter and Cloverdale Chamber of Commerce Director Neena Hanchett brought their apprehensions to six members of the Lions Club at the chamber’s offices. The club agreed to put the matter to a vote by its board. The result was 17-2 in favor of cancellation, Dickens said, with two members not voting.

Though Dickens insists the city applied no pressure on the Lions Club to influence its decision, many in the town were nervous about the show.

“When the fireworks display was set up, we were kind of on, COVID-wise, a plateau,” Hanchett said. “And we’re not now. Plus the fact there were no other fireworks displays in the county. It was wacky. I’ve been doing emails for at least a week. People said they were coming in from all over Sonoma County, from Mendocino County, the coast. And there’s really no place to gather, no place to park. So people would be out on the street doing things. It just didn’t seem right.”

Cloverdale is still permitting the sale of “safe and sane” fireworks for home use, joining Rohnert Park as the only two cities in the county to legalize them in 2020. In Cloverdale, fireworks stands will remain open through 9 p.m. on July 4, or until supplies run out.

Cloverdale City Council member Melanie Bagby was opposed to the fireworks show, and isn’t crazy about the continued sale of safe and sane devices in a town nestled in the dry hills of Northern California.

Bagby also grew frustrated about the city’s lack of jurisdiction over the public fireworks display, which she characterized as largely an agreement between the Lions Club and the Cloverdale Fire Protection District, an entity that covers unincorporated county areas as well as the city of Cloverdale. The fire district receives its funding directly from taxes and does not answer to city officials.

“There was no chance for public comment or input,” Bagby said. “There are residents right across the street from the new location, and there was no public outreach. They had no mechanism by which to lobby the powers that be.”

She added: “We’re talking about a holiday that is supposed to be celebrating the formation of our democracy.”

While many Cloverdale residents are relieved at eliminating the likelihood of outsiders streaming into town Saturday night, no one is thrilled about canceling a big event for local families.

“We normally have several thousand people out there,” Bagby said. “And I gotta tell you, it’s a blast.”

Dickens was also concerned about the $9,500 nonrefundable deposit the Lions Club had made with Pyro Spectaculars, the huge company hired to execute the fireworks. It’s a significant sum for a nonprofit organization that, as Dickens put it, supports “every organization in town.” He mentioned Little League, the Ponytail softball league, the Boy Scouts and CARE as examples.

“We have a banner we put up at events, and we list all the things we sponsor or contribute to,” Dickens said Wednesday morning. “It’s literally 14 feet long and 3 feet wide, and it’s full of 2-inch letters. … What we’re concerned about is, if we’re out $9,500, we’re gonna have to not donate to something. How do you decide which one?”

But also on Wednesday, Hanchett said, someone walked into the Cloverdale Chamber of Commerce and presented her a check for $10,000 to cover the expense. The donor requested anonymity.

“They said they did it because the club did the right thing for the community,” Hanchett noted, adding that she had previously received about $2,000 in contributions earmarked for the Lions Club.

That was a ray of sunshine for Dickens. On a personal level, he had already begun to come to terms with the loss of an event he had been working on for months.

“The way I look at it, I’ve been doing it for 38 years, and I never had a year where I could spend it with the family,” Dickens said. “Now my kids are all grown, my grandkids are grown. And I’m gonna have family time on the Fourth of July.”

Those sentiments don’t surprise Bagby. She, too, must find a new way to mark Independence Day, one that doesn’t involve grand pyrotechnics or carefree hobnobbing. She says it’s worth it if Cloverdale can reduce the dual threats of fire and contagion.

“A lot of us want to hold onto these traditions, but the fact is the world has changed,” Bagby said. “We don’t drive around without seat belts anymore, we don’t drive around in the backs of pickup trucks. We don’t let kids trick or treat by themselves, like I did. And we have other ways to celebrate the Fourth of July.”

(courtesy The Press Democrat)

CATCH OF THE DAY, July 1, 2020

JAVIER CARRILLO, Ukiah. Domestic battery.

KEITH GILCHRIST, Santa Rosa/Ukiah. Inteimate touching against the will ofp the victim, resisting.

JOSEPH LEGGETT, Willits. Probation revocation.

BENJAMIN LOPEZ, Cloverdale/Hopland. Unlawful display of registration, contempt of court, probation revocation.

JEREMIAH MCOSKER, Ukiah. Petty theft with priors, probation violation.

BRANDON SCHIMKA, Potter Valley. Pot cultivation for sale, child endangerment, controlled substance for sale while armed, conspiracy, probation revocation.

SKYLAR VINCENT, Willits. Controlled substance for sale, paraphernalia, probation revocation.

ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

I’m all for ending racism of every sort; be it systemic, structural, residual, or whatever we call it.

But as H.L.Mencken once said: “For every problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.”

Reparations for black people fits Mencken’s model; simple, neat and WRONG.

Why? 

Because black people are not the only demographic exploited and ground into the dust by greed and lust. Slave-owning plantation operators certainly exploited slaves to the max; that’s the clearest example, and by far the worst.

But business and corporate entities are almost as guilty. American labor history is replete with horrors perpetrated against people regardless of sex, race, national origin and age. Read “The Jungle” by Upton Sinclair.

– Lads of nine or ten were used in the mine operations.

– Women were locked into fire-trap sweatshops.

– Rockefeller kept his CFI miners segregated by country of origin and paid them slightly different to keep them at each other’s throats so he could play one against the other. Divide and conquer works to this day.

People of color have had it hard in this country, often to grievous levels. But take it from a white guy who grew up dirt poor, the same sort of big money that ran slavery and the big money that runs capitalist concerns will abuse and exploit anyone they can — color of skin be damned. Plantation owners conned and suckered an army of poor white boys to take up arms against the USA to perpetuate slavery. 

Point of all this is to say that ALL poor working stiffs in this country have been used and abused and if “reparations” go only to black people then that is preferential treatment and is DOA in Congress — as it should be.

Further, it’s a fools errand to try and calculate what’s a ‘fair’ reparation? How do we measure the harm done? How can we put a price on it? Who deserves it? Who doesn’t? It would be a never ending shitshow of slicing and dicing and pricing with a cast of characters clamoring for more more more — the hubbub will never end.

People of any race, age or sex have been used and abused for generations by toxic capitalism (slavery being the worst example) and if we are to be fair then all of aggrieved peoples deserve consideration. 

But what form of consideration? 

Reparations are politically DOA, not only because it focuses on only one group, but also because it’s backwards focused — we can’t fix the ancient crimes.

Instead of reparations I prefer we “pay it forward” (PIF) as the saying goes. The PIF that I favor is to pay for college for all citizens who live in households below a certain financial level — regardless of color. IMO this is the best we can do, the best way to be fair to all.

Let’s take Bernie Sanders’ idea to fund college educations, up to $50k per person, to build an educated population going forward. Reparations is backward looking while college (and trade school) funding is forward looking. We can’t fix the past; but we can and must build a much better future nation if all poor kids can get a break. I know grinding poverty from the inside, poor kids have to have someone in their corner since most parents aren’t able to help them.

The alternative of keeping the status quo, to do nothing, means we will keep spending $100k per person, per year, to incarcerate the poor. 

We can pay it now or we can pay it later, but for damned sure are going to pay — one way or another.

Choose wisely.

COLD CREEK FISH HATCHERY

ON LINE WARNING: I read a story this morning about a scam where a person looking for work, having been laid off due to C19 restrictions, found an online ad about working from home, thought it was from a well known company, was sent a certified check to buy the equipment he needed. Turned out that the check was a forgery meanwhile he had transferred the difference between the cost of the equipment and the check to the fraudster. It was a new variation on the scheme to get people to send money on the belief that the certified check covered it.

COLD CREEK

INCREDIBLE!

Editor: 

Boys and girls compete in sports on their respective teams, not only for safety sake, but to ensure fairness. The male body has obvious natural physical advantages — males are typically taller, heavier, stronger and faster than their female counterparts. Acknowledging this fact, two sets of world records are maintained, one for males, the other for females.

The propriety of this practice has recently been questioned with the emergence of gender identity and biologically males who identify as female demanding to compete against biological females. In Connecticut, during the 2017-18 season, two biologically male transgender students began competing against female students in track and field. They dominated the season and took state titles and scholarships set aside for female competitors.

California passed a law that enshrines such unfairness against female athletes. Not only that, Attorney General Xavier Becerra just added Idaho to a list of 11 other states where state-funded travel isn’t allowed because he decided those states violate California law against discrimination based on gender identity. Those states simply require that all members of a women’s sports team be biologically female. Incredible.

Vic Suard

Santa Rosa

HOPLAND AUTO COURT

AMERICA EXPLODES

by Adam Shatz

Trump’s domestic war

In July 1999, the writer Joe Wood vanished while attending a conference of journalists of color in Seattle. He was 34, a brilliant essayist, ferocious in his critiques of racism – not least as he experienced it in the “liberal” publishing world. The last time we met, a week before his trip to Seattle, he was wearing a Malcolm X cap and carrying a well-worn copy of William Gaddis’s novel ‘The Recognitions.’ On July 8, after a breakfast with the Democratic presidential candidate and former basketball star Bill Bradley, Joe went to Mount Rainier to do some birdwatching. He never returned. The most likely explanation is that he fell down a ravine and lost consciousness (he had a heart condition), but Washington is a very white state, and some of his friends and family suspected racist foul play. At the time I doubted this; now I’m not so sure. One of his friends told a reporter that he hadn’t packed any provisions because he was only “going out for a couple hours … sort of like going to Central Park.”

I thought of Joe when I read about Christian Cooper, the black birdwatcher who crossed paths with a white woman and her dog in Central Park on the morning of May 25, the same day George Floyd was killed when a police officer in Minneapolis knelt on his neck for nine minutes. There are “white spaces” in Central Park, and the Ramble, a wooded area popular with birdwatchers, is one of them. Cooper is 57 – almost exactly the age Joe would have been – a Harvard graduate, a member of the Audubon Society and a civil rights activist. He politely asked the woman to put her dog on a leash, as is required in the park. She refused and grew increasingly aggressive, eventually calling the police to report that “there’s an African American man … threatening me.’ As W.E.B. DuBois wrote in a 1932 essay for the Crisis: “Nothing in the world is easier in the United States than to accuse a black man of crime.”

The same could be said today, more than half a century after the end of legal segregation. In 1989 five black and Latino teenagers, described by the police as a pack of “wilding” youths, were wrongfully convicted of the assault and rape of a white female jogger in Central Park. At the time, Donald Trump took out advertisements in four New York City newspapers calling for the death penalty to be reinstated in New York; although the men were later cleared of all charges, he continues to insist on their guilt. Amy Cooper may have known to use the polite expression “African American,” but she grasped intuitively that in the eyes of the police Christian Cooper would be guilty until proved innocent. In fact, as Ida B. Wells pointed out in 1895, black women “have always had far more reason to complain of white men in this respect than ever white women have had of Negroes”: one of the engines for maintaining the supply of slave labor was the rape of black women. (The fact that Christian and Amy Cooper have the same surname is a reminder that many white and black Americans have mixed ancestry.) But the idea of the violent, rapacious black male is deeply embedded in the American unconscious, and Cooper tried her best to tap into it, even if, this time, the strategy backfired: she lost her job at an investment firm, and her dog. But her performance provided an extraordinary demonstration of the way the myth of white female fragility is used against black men.

Later that day, in Minneapolis, there was a harrowing demonstration of black fragility, which is all too real and has been magnified by the Covid-19 pandemic. The “crime” that cost George Floyd his life was (reportedly) buying a packet of cigarettes with a counterfeit $20 bill. (No wonder if he did: he was one of the forty million Americans who have lost their jobs since the pandemic began.) Derek Chauvin, the white police officer who knelt on Floyd’s neck for eight minutes and 46 seconds as he complained he couldn’t breathe and called for his dead mother, had faced at least 17 previous misconduct complaints and taken part in three police shootings, one of them fatal. His three fellow officers also applied pressure to Floyd’s neck and protected Chauvin while he stared defiantly at a woman filming the incident. Police officers in Minneapolis are seven times as likely to use force against blacks as against whites; while the city’s population is only 20 per cent black, they represent 60 per cent of those subjected to physical force on the part of the police.

In his letter from Harlem in 1960, ‘Fifth Avenue, Uptown,’ James Baldwin writes that the police officer moves through the inner city

“…like an occupying soldier in a bitterly hostile country; which is precisely what, and where, he is, and is the reason he walks in twos and threes ... He can retreat from his uneasiness in only one direction: into a callousness which very shortly becomes second nature. He becomes more callous, the population becomes more hostile, the situation grows more tense, and the police force is increased. One day, to everyone’s astonishment, someone drops a match in the powder keg and everything blows up.”

The killing of George Floyd falls into the gruesome pattern Baldwin described, but it’s also different; and the difference helps explain why the explosion has spread to three hundred cities and developed into a near insurrection. The Black Lives Matter movement, which emerged during the Obama presidency, succeeded in drawing attention to police violence against black people, but the protests against the killings of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown and Freddie Gray were mostly confined to the cities in which the deaths had occurred. Obama was seen as sympathetic to BLM’s concerns, even if he offered little more than memorable speeches. Floyd’s death not only follows the killings of Breonna Taylor, an emergency medic shot dead while asleep in bed in her home in Kentucky by police officers looking for drug dealers operating out of a different house, and Ahmaud Arbery, a jogger murdered by a group of men who claimed to be making a “citizen’s arrest” (a term that harks back to slavery, when any white person could arrest any black person), but it took place under a president who has made white supremacy a pillar of his administration’s domestic and international outlook. White nationalism has found expression not merely in Trump’s defense of the Charlottesville white nationalists as “very fine” people, or in the building of the wall against migrants from Mexico and Central America, but in his attack on “shithole countries” and his decision to remove the US from the World Health Organization in the middle of the pandemic – “white flight” translated into foreign policy.

(London Review of Books)

METZLER STORE, HOPLAND

TOO MUCH HASTE! The hovering sense of panic drives it and drives us to act before thinking. If there's a revolutionary rush, I'm all for it, but most revolutions fail, badly. "One percent-bad; 99%-good" is ridiculous. "Democrats and Republicans are the same" is ridiculous. We won't get anywhere with ridiculousness except to an entertaining show on MTV. We have chances and choices now the likes of which I've never seen, but the AOCs and the Bernies and the Leftwing shock troops need to cool their jets.

Listen to what the opposition is saying. Go past the part that makes you grind your teeth. Is there a kernal of useful material in there? Do we want an outcome that strips the successful of their gains and gives them all to the losers? The question answers itself. Shall we put the greedy out to plant beans, shorn of their fortunes and standing? China did that under Mao and plunged itself into a damn-near terminal abyss. So, no. Of course not.

Should we force the high & mighty to debase themselves and remain spectacles for everybody to mock? Did we start a new world in this hemisphere to replace the Old World plutocrats with a new batch of high & mighty? Were Malice and Vindictiveness the inspirations for the new enterprise? Are they now?

Don't bother to answer. Instead, consider what steps must be taken to "refresh the tree of liberty." Not until we have set achievable goals, fought and laughed together over them, and, sooner rather than later, shaped them into a platform and a plan, not until then have we done anything more than scream, shout, march and put everybody on notice that we're mad as hell--an understandable mood but not a good room to work in.

What are our core values? Are they different from those of other times? Are they real, concepts we truly mean and can defend?

Tales of goodness overcoming evil and everybody living happily are for kids. Evil is totally fluid. Good is restrained (you don't kill, you don't lie, cheat and steal). Restraint, for the common good, limits choices. How can it prevail against an opposing force that recognizes no rule or restraint?

It has to be smarter--WAY smarter. How do you do that, act way smarter, on the fly? You stop, take ten, sniff the rose, talk about the weather, pause, and then agree to get back to work.

For good or ill, humanity will probably survive. Whether it survives our current and pending crop of ailments and disasters in a debased form or a splendid one is what's at stake, right now, nothing less. Things will not continue as they have--authority misused, natural world abused, private property, success, achievement and influence worshiped, hatred merchandised, violence elevated for thrills--obviously this is not the right formula, and this is the time to change it. I don't mean "moderation." Screw moderation! That's a mealymouthed way of saying stop. I DO mean DELIBERATION. I've never stopped at a sign that said PROCEED WITH CAUTION, but I've never been buried in a landslide or quicksand, either. We have to look hard at what we're doing and why.

How shall we convene? The Internet possesses the tools but not the will. It has been largely co-opted. I use the Internet in a confetti-storm of distractions, popping up wherever I turn. 

I'm old, not convinced I need all the e-toys, not a user of apps, slightly luddite and averse to any more chaos than I already produce for myself. How can we convene? How can we tame this digital environment (it has shown it favors haste and sloppiness) and put it to work? What could be the Bohemian Grove for the good people?

Help me out, amigos. How do we go from here to God's ear? What cards do we hold? What legislators, devoted celebs, brave and dedicated citizens, media? How does one invite a sense of unity in such disparate groups? It's too much for me. 

— Mitch Clogg

ATHLETES ARE TAKING THEIR SOLIDARITY TO THE STREETS

by Dave Zirin

On Juneteenth, two young Black men led a demonstration down the streets of Washington, D.C., megaphones in hand, chanting that Black Lives Matter, and that without justice, there would be no peace. This has become a familiar sight in the nation’s capital over the last month, since the police murder of George Floyd.

Less familiar were the two people leading the charge. Their names are John Wall and Bradley Beal, and they make up the All-Star backcourt for the NBA’s Washington Wizards. In an example of a remarkable recent development at the intersection of sports and politics, Beal spoke out at the rally. He recalled an interaction with local police that he had in 2018.

“Two years ago, I got pulled over on 495 [the D.C. Beltway] and the officer asked me to step out of the vehicle. We are literally on the side of the highway. My wife, me, and one of my friends. The officer comes up to me and says, ‘What if I fuck up your Monday, and put you in a headline and arrest you right now?’”

We’ve become used to seeing athletes, particularly Black athletes, over the last decade using their platform to amplify messages of protest and dissent. We’ve also been used to an athlete’s using the field or court as a legitimate site of protest during the national anthem, taking a knee or raising a fist in silent protest. But seeing athletes themselves take to the streets recalls a previous political period. As sports historian professor Louis Moore—author of the utterly indispensable book, We Will Win the Day—said to me, “What’s different today is the numbers."

Wall and Beal fit in a tradition of athletes, like 1960 Olympic hero Wilma Rudolph, for example. She was arrested in 1963 for taking part in a sit-in. Or Bill Russell, who helped lead protests in 1963, while Jackie Robinson and Floyd Robinson went to Birmingham. But what’s different today is the amount of athletes we see. It’s all over, seemingly in every major city. My guess is that we can count on hands how many pros in the past were marching on the front lines. Jackie wanted more, and in today’s players, we’re getting more.”

Times have certainly changed. In the late 1960s, when the protests turned to urban rebellions, particularly after Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination in 1968, it was more common to see Black athletes used to try to quell protests. On college campuses, as detailed in the book Sports Wars: Athletes in the Age of Aquarius, by David Zang, which I highly recommend, “athletes, particularly the football team, were often used to harass anti-war activists and even form picket lines to keep food and supplies out of buildings being occupied by demonstrators.”

The contrast between that scene and seeing Black college athletes today, particularly football players at powerhouse schools like Texas and USC, making anti-racist demands of their school, and also taking the time to hit the streets and protest, is a generational shift and a statement about consciousness in 2020 that cannot be ignored. Then there is Kansas State, where athletes are refusing to play unless the school deals with a prominent racist student who tweeted something vile about George Floyd.

If one person could be credited for a catalyst for bringing athletes into the struggle, that would be former NBA player Stephen Jackson. Captain Jack, as he is known, was friends with George Floyd—looking so similar to one another that their mutual nickname was “Twin.” Jackson has openly opposed reopening of the NBA season, calling it a distraction from the struggle, saying, “None of these white owners are speaking up. None of them are taking a stand. Playing basketball ain’t going to do nothing but make them money and take the attention away from what we’re fighting for.”

Jackson is drawing current and retired NBA and WNBA players into the struggle, on a street level, having a rally, in just one example, with former NBA player Rasheed Wallace. Jackson has made clear that this isn’t just about George Floyd, posting constantly about other cases, most notably that of Breonna Taylor in Louisville, promising to go to Muhammad Ali’s birthplace and bring protesting players with him.

In addition to Jackson and the NBA players, many women athletes are in the streets. Coco Gauff, the 16-year old American tennis star, spoke at a protest in her hometown of Delray Beach, Fla., last week. She said, “I think it’s sad that I’m here protesting the same thing that my grandmother did, 50-plus years ago. So I’m here to tell you guys that we must first love each other, no matter what. We must have the tough conversations with our friends. I’ve been spending all week having tough conversations, trying to educate my non-Black friends on how they can help the movement.”

If one thing bonds all of these athletes, it is the fact that they are not there merely because of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, or Breonna Taylor. It’s because, like Bradley Beal, they or their family members have experienced their own run-ins with police that have either turned violent or existed on a knife’s edge, where tragedy and yet another hashtag could’ve been on the agenda. Being a star athlete hasn’t protected them. In some cases, like with Beal, it seems to have made them the target.

That’s why today’s athletes are part of the anger we see breaking out across the country. Athletes are following the will of the streets, which allows them to use their stature to puncture privilege, and forcefully tell white sports fans that this is no longer a game.

WOBBLY RESURGENCE