MCT: Saturday, August 1, 2020

• Seasonable Weather
• ruth weiss
• AVHC Positive
• 312 Cases
• Sherwood Oaks
• Glen Blair
• Streetscape Update
• GOP Worldview
• Dam Removal
• Logging Days
• Yesterday's Catch
• Dying
• Wolf Sessions
• Clinton's Eulogy
• Repeat
• Brain Damaged
• Frans Masereel
• Chair Lady
• Kamala AIPAC
• Alcatraz View
• People's Party
• Josef Schulz
• Funny Story
• Amazing Novel
• Bonaparte Moment
• Found Object

SEASONABLY COOL AND CLOUDY WEATHER will persist along the coast through early next week, though with at least a few hours of sunshine are expected during the afternoons for most locations. Interior areas will remain seasonably hot, sunny, and dry. (NWS)

RUTH WEISS 

by Will Stenberg

ruth weiss died in my mother’s [Anne Marie Stenberg’s] arms at 7:45 this morning. She was 92 years old and one of my mother’s dearest friends as well as a notably positive influence in my life from a young age. In a definite first for me, I spoke to her body on the phone, since she was still at home. It was a little strange, speaking to a dead woman on a telephone, but kind of a nice opportunity to say what needed to be said.

ruth — a Holocaust survivor who spelled her name in lowercase as a subversion of the law-and-order ethos of her birthplace of Germany, where nouns are capitalized — was one of the founding women of the Beat Generation, and her work with poetry and jazz in 1949 Chicago predated the later experiments on the west coast by men who were to receive the lion's share of the credit.

She came to San Francisco in 1952 and joined the nascent Beat scene there, becoming close with Jack Kerouac (though she was quick to point out that she was "never one of his ladies”).

She continued to write, perform and publish through the 60s and 70s, also working in underground film. In 1977 she published Desert Journal, usually considered her quintessential work, in which she perfected her bare, rhythmic use of simple words, utilizing both repetition and silence to create unique, mystical effects. Like all of her work, it is meant to be performed.

I don't know when she moved to Mendocino, where I'm from — must have been the 70s or 80s. By the time I knew her she had aged gracefully into elder-stateswoman status, performing occasionally to jazz accompaniment at our local coffeeshop when she wasn’t being flown all over Europe to be honored and fêted.

She was at my house a lot when I was growing up, usually with her then-husband, who was gay and painted clean, austere scenes of abstracted Southwestern landscapes with elements of UFO folklore, which everybody was into at the time in that scene. They were true bohemians, ruth probably the truest bohemian I have ever known, someone who not performatively but truly rejected all the things that her society and culture told her to value, in favor of a single-minded, relentless, but supremely relaxed pursuit of art, beauty, and transcendence.

As I entered my teenage years and began to write a lot, she was one of my biggest boosters. She always considered me a writer, and told me so. According to my mom, the blurb she did for my debut poetry collection was the last thing she wrote. She’d had a stroke recently and found that she could no longer find the inspiration to write, but put pen to paper (literally) one last time, as a favor to me. It should go without saying that to be the recipient of the last written words of a poet is a huge honor.

I am very happy that in the final year of her life she was the subject of a documentary film that celebrated her work and legacy — ruth weiss: The Beat Goddess, by Melody C. Miller — and I suspect ruth too appreciated the validation, as all artists do.

My mom was with her a lot in her final months and days, right up to the end. One story I like is that ruth would wake her up in the middle of the night to talk giddily about what kind of ice cream they were going to have the next day. Not all the stories are that fun. Death is messy and hard. My understanding is that ruth faced it as an atheist which comes with its own set of fears and challenges and takes of course incredible bravery, to which her whole life was a testament.

It was a poet’s life, lived with integrity, honesty and total commitment to the Muse.

ANOTHER AV POSITIVE

Dear community-

AVHC received a positive coronavirus test result late last night from one of our medical staff members. We have attempted to contact any patient that may have come into contact with this individual during the dates of July 20-23rd. While our building is thoroughly cleaned on a nightly basis and we are practicing stringent universal precautions throughout the day, we want to remain transparent with you, our community. We conducted extra cleaning this morning after finding out and feel our facility remains one of the safest places to visit during the pandemic. We have tested all of our staff and are monitoring for symptoms morning and evening. We thank you for your thoughts and as always feel free to call or message us with any questions. 

Anderson Valley Health Center

MENDO COUNTY ADDS 13 VIRUS CASES FRIDAY

13 additional cases of COVID-19 have been identified in Mendocino County, bringing the total to 312.

THE MENDOCINO COAST still has relatively few confirmed cases, but a large portion of the COVID-19 related deaths in the county. Sherwood Oaks in Fort Bragg, the only nursing home on the coast, is having a very hard time getting people to work there, with many of their regular employees quarantined.

They are being visited and inspected regularly by state health officials, as recently as Wednesday (July 29), and got approval for how they're handling things, according to a Sherwood Oaks public announcement.

By all accounts I have heard, they are doing their best and the people working there are heroes. Patients are in various forms of isolation and must be going through something terrible.

People still making light of this (I did see two smug young maskless goofballs in the tiny store I was in yesterday, smirks clearly visible as they were death-stared by a couple of ladies I would not mess with in a million years), this is the kind of hell on earth you are responsible for.

Yes you. Simple public health precautions - mask wearing - are beyond you. Enjoy your freedumb. You will be paying for it for a very long time.

— Chris Calder

GLEN BLAIR

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UKIAH STREETSCAPE Construction Update - August 1st - 7th 

The water lines and final section of sewer line, including testing and tie-ins, are nearly complete between Church and Henry Streets. Construction crews have not had to shift through traffic from the northbound to the southbound lanes as they have been able to mitigate construction and traffic issues. For now, the through traffic lanes will remain on the east side of the street. This phase of the project is expected to be complete within the next 2-3 weeks; then crews will shift to the south end of the project between Mill and Church. 

Pedestrian access to businesses will be maintained at all times. Please note that, while we make our best effort to forecast construction impacts, this is inherently messy work that is subject to change based on conditions in “the field.” 

Where will the work occur? 

Replacement of water lines and sewer lines and water lateral tie-ins and testing will occur on State Street between Church and Henry Streets. 

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What the heck IS a water lateral, anyways? The lateral is the supply line that goes from the large "main line" in the center of the street to each of the buildings. Here, you can see new versus old laterals; sometimes, the best equipment for the job is still a shovel. "Tie-ins" refer to the connections of the new lines. (Sewer laterals are also being replaced as part of this project. Sewer laterals take sewer FROM the buildings to the main line in the street, where it then travels to the Wastewater Treatment Plant.)

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What are the construction days/hours? 

Next week’s construction days/hours are scheduled for Monday-Friday, 6:00 a.m. - 6 p.m. 

Will there be night work?

No. There is no night work scheduled this week. 

Will there be dust and noise?

Yes. There will be ongoing dust and noise due to trenching and truck and equipment activity in the construction area. 

Will there be any disruptions to parking access or streets?

Yes. Through traffic will be maintained on State Street, but will be reduced to two lanes with limitations to parking on South State Street between Church and Henry Streets. 

There will be intermittent short-term (several hours up to full-day) closures on the east side of State Street on the following streets: Church, Perkins, Standley, and Smith. These closures are likely to impact West Standley, West Perkins, and West Smith Streets as well. At the time of this email, we are estimating that closures will affect Perkins on Monday and Tuesday, Standley on Wednesday, and Smith on Thursday. We will post updates on these closures at www.facebook.com/UkiahStreetscape. Additionally,

Portions of State Street between Church and Henry Streets will remain closed this week in the early morning from 6:00 a.m. – 7:30 a.m. 

Henry Street will remain closed this week 

More information can be found online on the City’s website at ukiahstreetscape.com, or follow our Facebook page for updates and photos at www.facebook.com/UkiahStreetscape/. 

Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions or concerns. Otherwise, have a great weekend!

Shannon Riley, Deputy City Manager

City of Ukiah

300 Seminary Avenue

Ukiah, California 95482

w: (707) 467-5793

IS DAM REMOVAL REALLY THE ANSWER?

To the Editor:

On July 15, the Ukiah Daily Journal published an opinion piece written by representatives from Cal Trout and Trout Unlimited recommending the removal of Scott Dam to restore salmon and steelhead populations. Here are some additional points that should be mentioned.

A Million Fish?

The earliest data related to fish counts in the Eel were based on the numbers of fish processed at the multiple canneries in Humboldt County. Early accounts of the mass canning of salmonid species lead to the ban of commercial fishing directly in the Eel River estuary in the 1920s.

The only long-term record of direct fish counts on the Eel River comes from data collected since 1933 at the Van Arsdale Department of Fish and Wildlife station, which is on the Upper Main Fork of the Eel River. Almost no physical data exists on fish counts for the North Fork, Middle Fork, South Fork or other major tributaries. This lack of data makes it a challenge to clearly understand where fish go after they migrate into the estuary from the ocean at Fortuna or historically, how many there may have been in each tributary of the watershed. Therefore, it is difficult to fathom how the authors of the previous article arrived at their assumption that “A century ago, as many as one million salmon and steelhead returned to the Eel to reproduce annually.”

Not Just Wild

Currently, there are no hatcheries on the Eel River; however, the limited historic fish count data available was most likely influenced by the return of both wild and hatchery-raised fish. Hatcheries on the Eel River date back to 1897 and remained through the later part of the twentieth century. Some of these included the Price Creek Hatchery/Eel River Hatchery about 12 miles above mouth of the Eel, the Fort Seward Hatchery near Alderpoint, several on the South Fork, the Snow Mountain Egg Collecting Station (later renamed the Van Arsdale station) and others.

Lots of Impacts, Alternative Solutions

We agree with the authors of the previous article that various events and circumstances impacted the Eel River ecosystem. The massive floods of 1955 and 1964 decimated the watershed and efforts to rebuild infrastructure such as railroads and highways also reduced fish habitat. To this day, it is unknown how much spawning habitat in the tributary networks of the Eel remain partially or fully blocked. Might there be value in investing in mitigation for this damage?

Even after discussing all the impacts to the watershed, dam removal proponents continue to argue that the habitat blocked by Scott Dam is the most important reason for the demise of the Eel River fishery. Although the lack of a fish ladder at Scott Dam denies fish access to the upper-most section of the main stem Eel River, it is still not completely clear how many miles of prime spawning habitat were cut off to migration. In fact, many scientific studies over the years have referred to a range of from 30 miles to hundreds of miles, which clearly shows that the “experts” disagree. As part of the relicensing, PG&E was in the process of finally determining the actual miles and quality of the habitat that would result from the removal of Scott Dam. This analysis will continue as part of the current study plan proposal.

Finally, we take issue with estimates in the prior article regarding the value of the water supply made possible through Lake Pillsbury and the amount of water diverted through the Potter Valley Project. 

Lake Pillsbury provides water for the fishery in both the Eel River and the Russian River, for wildlife populations in both rivers, for fire suppression purposes (recent fires in Lake and Mendocino County come to mind, including the Redwood Valley Complex and Mendocino Complex fires), for recreation, for agriculture, and for 600,000 people. All this benefit is provided by an average of less than a 2 percent diversion of the annual water supply of the entirety of the Eel River watershed. A quick look at a watershed map of the area clearly illustrates that the Potter Valley Project diversion point cannot possibly influence water flows in the South Fork, North Fork, Middle Fork or major tributaries, such as the Van Duzen.

A true two-basin solution

We’re glad Cal Trout is participating with the partnership that is currently working toward a two-basin solution connected to the licensing of the Potter Valley Project. As part of that project, all participants agreed to conduct detailed studies to 1. Broadly analyze the potential effects of the removal of Scott Dam and 2. Address uncertainties regarding water supply reliability related to the removal of Scott Dam. The parties also agreed that they may modify the proposed project to advance their shared objectives as they undertake further studies and proceed toward the development of a new license application.

Mendocino County Farm Bureau supports the efforts to retain local control of the Potter Valley Project and encourages all parties involved to continue to work in good faith as they collect and examine data so that a true two-basin solution is developed to address the needs of families, fish, and farms in our region.

Devon Jones, Executive Director Mendocino County Farm Bureau

Ukiah

EARLY SOUTH COAST IMAGES

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CATCH OF THE DAY, July 30, 2020

DAVID BIVINS, California City (near Mojave)/Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

ANTHONY DAHL, Fort Bragg. Under influence, resisting, probation revocation.

ALFREDO GARCIA JR., Windsor/Ukiah. Vandalism.

ALEJANDRO HERAS-ROJAS, Morgan Hill/Ukiah. Grand theft-firearm, loaded handgun-not registered owner.

FERNANDO JOAQUIN, Covelo. Controlled substance for sale, parole violation, evasion by reckless driving, assault on police officer.

CODY KILLION, Fort Bragg. Disorderly conduct-alcohol, probation revocation.

NOAH LAUGHTON, Ukiah. Controlled substance for sale, solicitation of minor for drug trafficking, armed with firearm in commission or attempt of felony.

IMANI LOCKETT, Willits. DUI, suspende license, child endangerment.

NGHIA LU, San Jose, San Jose/Ukiah. DUI-alcohol&drugs.

MIGUEL MARIN, Ukiah. Probation revocation.

LILLIAN MADDOCK, Redwood Valley. Robbery, paraphernalia, resisting.

JULIE MARRS, Ukiah. Probation revocation.

DENA MORRIS, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol, paraphernalia, parole violation. (Frequent flyer.)

JUSTIN OVERHOLT, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

DAVID SIMPSON JR, Ukiah. Failure to appear.

DYING

The idea of the proximity of death, appearing more clearly than in other recent similar circumstances, causes me no fright, no fear, and isn't even a real hindrance in my daily activities. The hindrance is physical and great: I am afraid of wondering at random, not knowing whether the dizziness will appear unexpectedly. I feel myself to be in a state of readiness, ready to leave, and to disappear simply. Not without effort, I tried to attain and thought I had attained this state of calm readiness at the internal prison of the GPU in Moscow in 1933 when I envisioned my execution. Today I think that at the time I believed I had attained it more than I attained it in truth, and I succeeded in achieving a calm more apparent, more superficial than profound.

Now, whether from the wearing down of life or from a more assured serenity (with its deep down dose of despair), my readiness is more sure. Enough, in any case, that I do not feel any obsessive anxiety and have not lost the case for anything I love: those close to me, life, ideas and work… A sensual attachment to life, even in its details, its dailiness, a ceaseless curiosity about the earth and ideas. The wish to see better days, or at least the beginning of better days. The frustration at being interrupted in the middle of my activity, with a matured mind, a personality filled with detritus but somewhat purified. The disagreeableness of not holding out until some form of victory in the long combat.

— Victor Serge

THE LONDON HOWLIN' WOLF SESSIONS is an album by blues musician Howlin' Wolf released in 1971 on Chess Records, and on Rolling Stones Records in Britain. It was one of the first super session blues albums, setting a blues master among famous musicians from the second generation of rock and roll, in this case Eric Clapton, Steve Winwood, Charlie Watts, and Bill Wyman. It peaked at #79 on the Billboard 200.

BILL CLINTON was in full-triangulation mode at John Lewis’s funeral, invoking cancel culture and dissing black power movement in one sentence: “When he could have been angry and determined to cancel his adversaries, he tried to get converts instead. He thought the opened hand was better than a clenched fist.” (This is, of course, a largely accurate description of Lewis’ timid and accommodating political career and a major reason for his split from Stokely Carmichael and the other radical leaders of SNCC.)

I challenge you to detect the differences between Clinton’s eulogy for John Lewis and the speeches he gave after Nixon and Reagan died. Like Obama, there’s really only one Clinton speech, he repeats endlessly, occasionally re-arranging the order of the platitudes of compromise and capitulation… 

— Jeffrey St. Clair

ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

I have a hunch there will be no Bonaparte ruling in the US of A. There is one thing the Americans share with the Russians, and that is abhorrence of Bonapartism, and military rule in general. (Remind yourself that Trotsky meekly accepted his exile to the Kazakh steppe by Stalin in 1925, in preference of toppling him in a “bonapartist coup”, even though the Red Army he created was still very much loyal to him). The near American future is a dense fog, but a day in Brumaire with a junta led by a Corsican likely will not emerge out of it to save the day. The Democrats will sweep in November, (as abhorrent as the idea is), and after some wrangling the Great Imposter will disappear into one of his estates, heavily guarded but without his Twitter account. And that will be that. The riots will abate in exchange of a wagon of promises by the Dems to remake the U.S. into a Nanny-State-In-Toto. Open borders, universal health care, forgiveness of student debt, defunding the military, and reparation will be on the wagon, maybe even surtax on the rich (albeit calibrated to cause only a shrug.) There will be intense infighting among the Dems, with the GOP completely sidelined (I predict one or two assassinations of some leading GOP figures, after which the Republicans will become the Clueless Party of the Rich on the style of Mitt Romney). The “moderate” Dems will try to re-fashion the more inane planks of the platform which will likely cause new mob urban entertainment. Obscure “Grey Eminences” from the Deep State will run the show with little success. Biden and his heiress-apparent will be largely irrelevant. No counter-revolution will take place, because the Trump base is incapable of organizing around a political program and the fringe militia illiterates appeal to no outsiders. Trump himself sits in the WH only as a witness to the fact that the right-of-centre politics in the US collapsed and have no substantive ideas beyond exciting the anti-social part of the electorate. If the Czech president Zeman estimated a one-seventh of the Czech electorate as brain-damaged, in the US it must be a majority. So, in my reckoning, there will be no counter-revolution. The U.S. will simply collapse as just another “granfaloon” (as Kurt Vonnegut predicted).

BORN FRIDAY JULY 31 IN 1889: ARTIST FRANS MASEREEL

I DON'T KNOW what this is actually called, but I call it, "The Chair Lady". It is a kind of 3-dimensional art piece that I photographed out at the Hunter's Point Artist's Studio open house one year. Note her purse. All the studios are open twice a year and well worth a visit when we get back to normal.

— Bill Kimberlin

KAMALA HARRIS, my early prediction to be Loathsome Joe's running mate, has the most pro-Israel creds in the field but, perhaps, the most baggage, with Susan Rice running a close second.

Harris promoted a resolution in January 2017, days after she was sworn in as a senator, that opposed Obama’s UN Security Council condemnation of Israel during his last weeks in office. She was joined by Sen. Marco Rubio and a large group of senators to promote that resolution.

“[The Senate] Object[s] to United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334 and to all efforts that undermine direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians for a secure and peaceful settlement,” the text reads. It never got a vote on the floor, but it was the first resolution she had cosponsored as a senator.

“I believe that when any organization delegitimizes Israel, we must stand up and speak out for Israel to be treated equally,” she explained a few weeks later during her AIPAC speech. “That is why the first resolution I cosponsored as United States senator was to combat anti-Israel bias at the United Nations, and to reaffirm that the United States seeks a just, secure and sustainable two-state solution.”

— Jeff Blankfort

"SAN FRANCISCO WHARF - Day Alcatraz" oil on canvas, 28" x 36" (view from my window) 

— Nancy Calef

BERNIE GROUPS BREAK FREE OF DEMS: NEW PARTY RISING?

When will the organized Bernie Sanders base lose patience with the Democrats and strike out on its own? That question has captivated the independent left in the US since the 2016 election. Now, in the wake of Bernie Sanders’s second presidential primary loss, and as hopes of progressives taking over a largely impervious Democratic Party have dimmed accordingly, the long awaited moment may finally be approaching.

counterpunch.org/2020/07/31/bernie-groups-break-free-of-dems-new-party-rising/

A YOUNG GERMAN SOLDIER (pictured center left, without helmet) refuses to participate in the execution of 16 Yugoslav civilians. He positioned himself within the group and was executed for disobeying his NCO. 

He choose death instead of killing hopeless civilians. His name was Josef Schulz.

YES, YES, it's the most comical thing in the world. And we laugh, we laugh, with a will, in the beginning. But it's always the same thing. Yes, it's like the funny story we have heard too often, we still find it funny, but we don't laugh any more.

— Samuel Beckett

WHEN THE GOING GETS WEIRD, THE WEIRD GET PUNKED

by James Kunstler

Did you happen to view the Attorney General being assailed by lunatics in the House Judiciary Committee Tuesday? It kind of looked like a scene from the French Revolution acted out by a road company touring Alice in Wonderland. Mr. Barr stolidly endured their orchestrated calumnies as though he had larger matters on his mind. Do not suppose it will end there, or end well for this shabby claque of mutts and harpies.

There is the rectified essence of your Democratic Party circa the awful year 2020, spreading its poisons into every organ of society like a fungal overgrowth, making the nation crazy as the old economy of cheeseburgers and happy motoring disintegrates under the spell of a mystifying plague and the peoples’ zombie indifference turns to epic woe and fury.

If the forlorn homunculus Chairman Nadler accomplished anything, it was to ratchet up Mr. Barr’s determination to round up and indict the figures behind the years-long campaign of sedition waged against the public interest and decency. Sometime before Halloween, an awful wrath is going to befall Barack Obama’s wingmen and handmaidens, and it will be a supremely sobering moment.

It’s the elected Democrats of Oregon — Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler and Governor Kate Brown — who have turned the Federal Courthouse there into a new Alamo by ordering their police to stand down. And isn’t it rather strange that they’ve gotten The New York Times and CNN rooting against the tiny crew of federal officers bravely defending the place? In a sane country, these politicians would be indicted as accessories to riot and insurrection. And the same goes for elected Democrats in Seattle, Minneapolis, Chicago, Richmond and other cities where the Antifa freaks are allowed to run wild.

Meanwhile, there was an odor of desperation at the funeral for Rep. John Lewis in Washington as Mr. Obama inveighed against the use of tear gas on “peaceful demonstrators” — the big lie of the season. Who has not seen the many videos of these masked freaks launching mortars and smashing things in the streets? Such a naked hustle suggests that the former president is using the mobs to mau-mau the country while he maneuvers to keep a legion of his former lieutenants out of jail. The screws are turning, as Attorney General Barr’s unflappable demeanor implied during the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party on Tuesday.

The election itself is another front in this undeclared civil war. How exactly did the Democratic Party come to settle on a candidate with no credible capacity to serve as president? Who is Joe Biden fronting for, and who do they think they’re fooling? How can he possibly deliver an acceptance speech three weeks from now without giving away the game? That will be something to see — but I doubt we will actually see it. If the Dems don’t switch him out, there is no way Mr. Biden can survive the three-month homestretch of an election campaign. He can barely make it through a ten-minute appearance in front of twenty-three hand-picked partisans in a TV studio. Life imitates art, as Oscar Wilde tartly observed. The Manchurian candidate is truly here.

Mr. Barr is quite correct when he avers that an election by mail-in ballots is an invitation to fraud. The parallel campaign by the news media to ramp up extra hysteria over the corona virus is designed to ensure that scam. Keeping kids out of school is another angle on it, to plant a narrative that parents can’t possibly leave the house to go to a polling station. Wait for it. The result would be an election that can’t be resolved even by the Supreme Court. What will happen then?

I’ll tell you how it goes: Donald Trump will stand aside and yield to the military, to some general or committee of generals, and the country will be under martial law until the election is sorted out or re-run. And by then, the election may be the least of our problems, with tens of millions out-of-work, out-of-business, penniless, homeless, and hungry. That’s when they’ll truly be selling postcards of the hanging, as the old song goes. Then comes America’s Bonaparte moment. Yes, things can get that weird.

(Support Kunstler’s writing by visiting his Patreon Page.)

FOUND OBJECT