MCT: Saturday, August 8, 2020

• Building Heat
• 380 Cases
• Covid Network
• Story Discrepancies
• Incumbents Only
• Mill Roundhouse
• Popping Ma
• Ed Notes
• Cherry Street
• Bridge Dedication
• Myopic Focus
• Streetscape Update
• Stone Birdhouse
• Yesterday's Catch
• Homer Hints
• Anchor Inn
• Hollywoke
• Marco Dreams
• Auto Court
• First Impression
• Field Worker
• Gualala Mill
• NCAA Reckoning
• Ferlinghetti 101
• Coomb's Store
• Internet Infrastructure
• Embarcadero Freeway
• Insurance Deadline
• Hellcat
• Grovel Towns
• Daddy Longlegs
• End Times
• Hurt Feelings
• PA Agenda
• For Mari
• Found Object

BUILDING HEAT is expected over the weekend and early next week throughout inland areas, with mild but sunnier conditions along the coast as well. Slight chances for thunderstorms exist across interior mountains Monday. (NWS)

COVID-19 DAILY UPDATE – 8/7/2020

17 additional cases of COVID-19 have been identified in Mendocino County, bringing the total to 380.

COVID NETWORK

Concerned individuals on the Mendocino Coast have formed the Covid Response Network to encourage everyone to Wear your Mask and Maintain Distancing. 

We are also looking at strengthening the network of existing efforts, and improving the resilience of the coastal community

State and County statistics are no longer accurate. Timely tests and test results are not available.

Our hospital has very limited personnel and ICU/CCU ability. 

To join the effort or learn more please contact: info@CovidResponseNetwork.net

Also, the flier/sign/handout we helped instigate, about wearing masks, with the County logo, is here in english: https://drive.google.com/file/d/12o_sG6yey6hsz51g6g_4Cjic8v_KRkI1/view?usp=sharing

A READER WRITES: I don’t know where Mr. Scully got some of his information in his recent report on the Marc Lucas incident outside Albion, but several statements in his article contradict the Sheriff’s Press Release on the incident and locals here in the area. When it comes to statements reported as facts, while you might be able to claim that certain things may have been left out of the Sheriff’s press release, I put more faith in the Sheriff’s account than a non-eyewitness reporter. First, the person who suggested using a firehose was not a local fireman, but a local deputy who had previously been a Coast Guard fireman. Supervisor Ted Williams, former Albion-Little River Fire Chief, brought the firetruck over and fired it up after the decision was made to use it. Second: Mr. Lucas broke out his own window, not “a rear window was smashed” by the responders. In fact, these mistakes now make me wonder if Mr. Scully quoted CEO Angelo correctly about the crisis van. Mr. Scully said that the CEO said that the Sheriff “has at his disposal two fully equipped mental health crisis response vans funded by Measure ‘B’ revenues,” and she “did not know why they were not deployed in the Lucas incident.” Surely CEO Angelo, an active member of the Measure B Committee, knows (or should know!) that while the Measure B committee and the Supervisors approved funding for the Mobile Outreach Service Vehicle a few years ago, it has not been staffed since then and there is no crisis van or MOPS program to call on at the moment. (I doubt it would have made any difference in this particular case anyway.) Perhaps Sheriff Kendall will get one going soon, but if he does it will be without much help or cooperation of anyone in the CEO’s Office or on the Measure B committee. And the CEO’s reported claim that Sheriff’s deputies “do what they do” without oversight, implying they’re somehow in need of oversight, doesn’t sound like the CEO at all. If anyone needs oversight, it’s the CEO, not the Sheriff.

TWO INCUMBENTS ARE ONLY CANDIDATES FOR CITY COUNCIL. Council May Vote to Appoint the Incumbents and Cancel the Election 

The nomination period for two open seats on the Fort Bragg City Council officially closed at 5:00 PM on August 7, 2020, with only two candidates qualifying to run on election day – both incumbents. The County Clerk has certified to the sufficiency of the nomination papers of Mayor William V. Lee and Vice Mayor Bernie Norvell. No other persons were issued papers. 

The City Clerk has posted a Notice that There are Not More Candidates than Offices to be Elected and has set a special City Council meeting for Thursday, August 13, 2020 at 6:00 PM via Zoom. The California Elections Code provides that the Council can either appoint the two incumbents to the open seats and cancel the election, or direct that the election be held. By cancelling the unnecessary election, the $10,000 budgeted for the November election can be returned to the General Fund. 

The general election, which includes federal, state and county matters, will be held on Tuesday, November 3, 2020. Polls will be open from 7:00 AM to 8:00 PM. 

The last day to register to vote is October 19. Citizens can register to vote online at the Secretary of State’s website, https://registertovote.ca.gov/, or pick up a voter form at the Post Office. Mail-in voter registration forms are also available by contacting the City Clerk’s office at (707) 961-2823 ext. 104. Sample ballots will begin to be mailed out on September 24. 

(Fort Bragg City Presser)

ROUNDHOUSE, FORT BRAGG MILL

SHERIFF’S OFFICE’S ROLE IN MENDO’S CHINESE GANG MURDERS CASE & CAPTURE

Victims: Cindy Bao Feng Chen (38 year-old female from San Francisco); Jim Tat Kong (51 year-old male from Richmond)

Suspect(s): Wing Wo Ma (53 year-old male from Oakland)

Updated Press Release:

On Sunday, October 17, 2013 at 2:35 PM, Mendocino County Sheriff's Deputies were dispatched to a suspicious vehicle parked in the 31000 block of Highway 20 in Fort Bragg.

Upon their arrival, Deputies located a mini-van near the area of the "Bark Dumps". The van was parked in a manner which prevented it from being clearly seen from Highway 20.

Deputies checked the interior of the van and discovered the bodies of a deceased male and a deceased female. Both victims were subsequently identified as Jim Tat Kong and Cindy Bao Feng Chen.

Both were determined to have been killed by gunshots to the back of their heads.

The Mendocino County Sheriff's Office was assisted by the California Department of Justice Criminalists and the Mendocino County District Attorney's Office. The investigation lead Mendocino County Sheriff's Detectives to the Bay Area where they worked largely in partnership with the Federal Bureau of Investigations (Asian Organized Crime unit out of San Francisco).

On Thursday, October 22, 2015, the suspect, Wing Wo Ma was arrested by Mendocino County Sheriff's Detectives and the FBI outside his home in Oakland, for a federal arrest warrant alleging manufacturing and distribution of a controlled substance,; an enhancement for the previous section with more than 100 marijuana plants; and conspiracy to commit above charges.

Ma was held without bail in Federal custody, and on Thursday, April 6, 2017, a Federal Grand Jury gave a superseding indictment on Ma for two counts of being a person, who, in the course of a violation of [sub-section] causes the death of a person through the use of a firearm. Additionally Ma was federally indicted for multiple counts of corruption, bribery of officials and conspiracy.

On Thursday, November 07, 2019, Ma was found guilty of all counts after a lengthy federal trial in San Francisco.

On Wednesday, August 5, 2020 The Honorable Charles R Breyer, US District Judge, sentenced Ma to life in prison.

The Honorable Judge Breyer, in handing down the sentence, called the murder of Jim Tat Kong and Cindy Bao Feng Chen a "Cold-blooded assassination." Ma remained remanded to Federal Custody.

This case was prosecuted Federally by the United States Attorney's Office in San Francisco due to the far reaching crimes connected to the murders committed in Mendocino County.

The primary agencies involved in the investigation were the Mendocino County Sheriff's Office, the Mendocino County District Attorney's Office and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

ED NOTES

AS THE DOG DAYS kicked in I found myself hankering for Santa Rosa plums, and making a mental note to myself to call Patty Langley to get permission to raid her Gravenstein trees. And darned if Peter Lit didn't drop a whole bag of homegrown SR's on us, sun-basted straight offa Greenwood! Mr. Lit, not so-incidentally, deserves special mention for all the years he brought quality entertainment and general merriment to all of Mendocino County at his iteration of the Caspar Inn. Now if Ms. Langley comes through…

DISGRACEFUL sign of the times, and one of many, is Dr. Fauci getting so many death threats aimed at him and his family that he's had to hire round-the-clock security. Prior to the internet the keyboard psychos had to put pen to paper, a major deterrent to woofing.

RENT MORATORIUMS expired this week in lots of places as did the $600 unemployment bonuses. Aggressive rent strike demos had commenced prior and will now become even more aggressive, maybe even here in Mendo when the marginally sheltered community realizes it's up to themselves to keep themselves indoors.

100 MILLION PEOPLE don't vote, and never have. Can either Biden or Trump mobilize the indifferent? Doubt it. Just the other day I asked a young couple if they were registered. “No. How do we do it?”

THE ELECTION probably depends on who Biden's handlers select as his running mate because that person will mos def be president, assuming Biden can beat back the Orange Beast even with a plausible VP. At some point Biden will have to emerge live at five from his basement, at which time his, uh, verbal incontinence will make the OB sound like Churchill. 

DRIVING THROUGH UKIAH Thursday morning, I didn't see a single unmasked person. Even the street yobs were masked and, natch, CostCo was a sea of masked consumers, one of whom I failed to recognize when she greeted me. "Sorry," I said, "I couldn't see you through my mask." Hah-hah, she said, scurrying off as if regretting the encounter and fearful of prolonging it.

BARBARA LAMB of Yorkville tells us that there are removable speed bump strips on Marshall Street in Ukiah that are put out during weekdays and removed at night which seem to slow down through traffic. And indeed, we found some for sale on line. But who’s responsible? And would Caltrans allow them on Highway 128?

NO, CALTRANS would not. We've danced this dance before, circa '96 when, some of us will recall, a young mom carrying her infant, and holding a toddler by the hand, was struck by a truck that had stopped for them but was rear-ended by a speeding dump truck pushing the parked truck forward as the young mom and her two kids were crossing 128 from the old Philo Post Office to Lemons. Her infant was killed, she was injured, the toddler spared. A series of protest events ensued, inspired by Boonville's beloved weekly which included three late night guerrilla crosswalk installations followed by Philo's largest ever (and only) demo, the point of which was Slow Down Traffic Through All of the Anderson Valley, especially Philo. The upshot? Caltrans reluctantly installed radar speed signs and lowered the speed limit to 30 but no crosswalk. CalTtrans said a study from 1955 established that crosswalks instill "a false sense of security" in pedestrians. And, a few years later, Big Orange raised the speed limit through Philo to 35, again citing a nebulous and highly disputed study.

Back in 2017 when the Supervisors discussed Caltrans proposal to raise the speed limit in Philo, former/then-Anderson Valley Resident Deputy Craig Walker told the Supervisors: "I am here as a Philo resident not necessarily as a Sheriff's deputy. I do not represent the Sheriff's office in this. I will draw on eight years of experience as a resident deputy in Anderson Valley to inform some of my comments. We expect considerable development in Philo in the coming years. There is plenty of congestion in that area. The Caltrans traffic engineer pointed out that his survey was done during the week. As a deputy working at one time or another every day of the week, I can say that traffic patterns vary dramatically between the weekdays and the weekend. That's largely a function of what we call the weekend commute to and from the coast. People go west on Fridays and return on Sundays, all of which has a dramatic impact on the congestion in Philo and by extension on traffic patterns. As a deputy with eight years experience in the Sheriff's office and 18 years in total, I have done more than probably anyone in this room traffic related. I am not a traffic engineer. But I can tell you from my experience that when you say it's 30 mph, that really means it’s 40. Every degree that you raise it you are really adding on another five or ten miles per hour. I understand the minutia of the vehicle code. But the vehicle code is a document, a cold piece of paper. It does not speak to the reality on the ground in Philo. We all know that Philo is a small, fairly compact environment. There is very little infrastructure in terms of pedestrian walkways and the like. I understand that before my time there was a crosswalk that is now long since gone. There is also an issue with enforcement. Frankly, I think the only person who has done any enforcement there in recent years is me. And 99% of that is warnings. I try to encourage people to slow down by contacting them or by simply being in the area. There is very little interest on the part of the Highway Patrol to be there. I don't know if that's always been the case, but I think it will always be the case. So I would encourage this board to resist the temptation to raise the speed limit."

(ED NOTE: Caltrans soon raised the speed limit from 30mph to 35mph in downtown Philo despite unanimous local opposition.)

SPEAKING of Caltrans, it took four bright shiny CalTrans trucks to install one of those greenish crosswalk fixtures in central Boonville while one guy did the installation. Which, of course, will immediately be run over and destroyed by both drunks and people who enjoy running over stuff, as have innumerable prior installations. How about a stop light and a traffic cop? Mendocino County could damn near fund itself writing speeding-through-Boonville tickets.

CURIOUS about how on-line learning will work in the Anderson Valley, I asked high school principal Jim Snyder: "Every student is going to receive a laptop computer to use. In terms of connectivity, we are going to be providing internet hot-spots for any students who do not have internet access." Unless I hear otherwise from Sid Frazer, Elementary School principal, I'll assume the same for the ninos. 

"LIKE it or not, the imperative of defeating Trump is directly in front of us. To make a progressive future possible, beating Trump is absolutely necessary while very far from sufficient. To organize against a government headed by Trump is to push against a thick stone wall. To organize against a government headed by Biden holds out the real potential of progressive breakthroughs." — Norman Solomon

MUCH as I like Norman, old war horse that he is for the good and the true, Biden inspires zero optimism in this reluctant Democrat and, true to his reactionary instincts, Biden is already muttering about the party's "left," i.e., the only principled people in the party, most of them only "left" in the Bernie sense, meaning FDR reform types. There is no left in the Democratic Party, and there's no left in this country in any true sense of the term. There are millions of people who want a social welfare state, not the destruction of capitalism. If nothing else comes out of the current catastrophe, we might at last get single payer and a few social welfare basics like guaranteed shelter and fairly compensated work.

HOW ABOUT THE EAST SIDE?

To the Editor:

Has anyone besides me noticed that the street improvements are always on the West side of Ukiah? Has anyone besides me noticed the terrible shape that some of the other streets are in? Take a look at Cherry Street! I am sure you have gone to UPS, or perhaps had some business or friends on that end of town. Please, City Planners, please drive down Cherry Street and make it a priority to perhaps address the neighborhoods of the less priviledged. I am sure the pipes are old, and I am sure the street is in awful shape.

Janet Mendell

Ukiah

DEDICATION, TEN MILE BRIDGE

WHERE’S THE MAP?

To the Editor:

Does our Public Health Officer have a road map to guiding the county through the COVID morass? Does she have sign posts to guide her? Is she even ‘following the science’? If so, what science?

Back in February and March when we were getting horrific news from Italy, our public health officials and political leaders at the highest levels took the prudent step of shutting much of the activity in the country down in order 1) to ‘flatten the curve’ so ICUs would not be overwhelmed, and 2) have time to better understand the viral interaction with the human population. Few disagreed with this drastic approach assuming it would only be for a few weeks.

In just a short period of time, through study of each of the individuals case deaths in Italy, Spain, and our country, we came to understand that the greatest risk of grave consequences were for those with compromised immune systems and other health issues. Well over 99% of the rest of us will either have no symptoms or very mild symptoms and recover. As always, there are a small number of exceptions, but nothing that most of us should cause us to live in fear.

The virus, like all viruses, and unlike a swarm of locusts, was never going to go away by itself. No one should be surprised that the number of cases has gone up dramatically. Much of this is due to increased social activity (humans are social animals by nature) and increased availability of testing. This good news is that daily deaths in the country are way down numerically and significantly down as a fraction of confirmed cases.

If you believe our President, a vaccine may be available in a few months. If you look at history, it can take a year or more, if ever. Even if there is a vaccine, we know from experience that flu vaccines are not even close to 100 percent effective. For the majority they are, for a large percentage they aren’t, and for a small percentage, there are undesirable side effects. While it would be great to have a vaccine, the plan to end the pandemic cannot be based on something that is in the future and uncertain.

So, this brings me back to our Public Health Officer. If you are ‘following the science’ and are aggressively contact tracing, where is the evidence that COVID has spread like wildfire at restaurants, health clubs, and places of worship? There may be one off instances at each, but we know the proprietors have since taken significant precautionary measures to remain open. To issue a blanket order for shutdown, there should be evidence of widespread incidents, and so far, the public has not heard of these.

We have been told that the virus has spread due to social gatherings, such as parties for birthdays, graduations, and quincinieras. We have also seen other types of gatherings such as ‘mostly peaceful protests’ in full public view where masking and social distancing have been ignored by both the participants and political/public health leaders. This really causes us to question the efficacy of a shutdown of businesses and churches!

While most people still buy in to 1) washing hands, 2) maintaining social distance, and 3) limited mask wearing when in and around others, like at a grocery store, there is a growing number who feel that they are being told that the way to protect the few vulnerable is to inconvenience the majority instead of having the vulnerable self-isolate while everyone else can go about their business. So, I am asking the Public Health Officer to treat us like responsible adults instead of like children. Explain, with real data and evidence, why certain restrictions need to remain in place or need to go back in place. Tell us the signpost which will say the pandemic is over.

There is significant collateral damage happening in the lives of many people and their families due to the myopic focus on preventing the spread. The commitment to following instructions is waning…especially instructions issued from afar in Sacramento and San Diego.

D. E. Johnson

Ukiah

UKIAH STREETSCAPE CONSTRUCTION UPDATE - August 8-14

First of all, THANK YOU for your patience. In terms of traffic interruptions and street closures, this is by far the most invasive stage of the project--and we’re getting near the end of it! 

Construction Update: August 8-14 

The water lines and final section of sewer line, including testing and tie-ins, are nearly complete between Church and Henry Streets. This phase of the project is expected to be complete within the next 2 weeks; then, the utility crews will shift to the south end of the project between Mill and Church. At that time, the second phase of the project will begin on the east side of State Street between Perkins and Henry Streets. This phase will include sidewalks, irrigation, curb and gutter, and more. Landscaping and paving will occur at the very end of the project (next year); more details about this second phase will follow. 

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.” 

Important note: There is another project—not related to the Streetscape Project—that is occurring near Alex Thomas Plaza. This project will upgrade the electric infrastructure at the park to better serve future events and activities. Additional disruptions related to this project may occur. 

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. 

What are the construction days/hours? 

Next week’s construction days/hours are scheduled for Monday-Friday, 6:00 a.m. - 5 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: 

Southbound through traffic will be maintained on State Street all week. 

Northbound traffic will be detoured to Main Street between Perkins and Norton. 

There may be intermittent closures on East Standley and East Smith; however, all west-side streets will be open except Henry. 

Parking will continue to be impacted on State Street between Church and Henry Streets. 

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

If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact me directly. Otherwise, have a great weekend!

Shannon Riley
Deputy City Manager
City of Ukiah
300 Seminary Avenue
Ukiah, California 95482
w: (707) 467-5793

SPOTLIGHT ON THIS STURDY TREETOP PROPERTY... ✨The Dunham Birdhouse✨ 

You can huff... and you can puff... but you will never blow this house down! This coastal enchanted Stone Birdhouse will certainly bring a charming touch to your home or backyard. The stone covered facade lends a rustic feel to the house. A bit of whimsy will welcome your feathered friends to visit and check out a new comfy habitat.

The annual Birdhouse Auction is happening now! BID NOW:https://events.readysetauction.com/…/birdho…/catalog/item/29

Mendocino Coast Botanical Gardens

http://www.gardensbythesea,org/

CATCH OF THE DAY, August 7, 2020

JAMES ANDERSON JR., Ukiah. Ammo possession by prohibited person.

ISIAS CASTILLO-PACHECO, Ukiah. Domestic abuse.

NICHOLAS DELEON, Navarro. Probation violation.

ROYCE FULTON, Fort Bragg. Trespassing, resisting.

MAYK GARCIA-ROQUE, Chicago Heights, Illinois/Ukiah. Loaded firearm, manufacture, possession or sale of large capacity magazine.

SARAH HARWOOD, Willits. DUI.

RACHEL HUMECKY, Fort Bragg. Disobeying court order.

JORDAN LUNA, Ukiah. Toluene with intent to inhale and become intoxicated, child endangerment, county parole violation.

DEBORAH MCCLOUD, Covelo Leaded cane or similar, controlled substance, paraphernalia, suspended license, probation revocation.

BOBBY MILLER, Fort Bragg. Under influence.

ADAM NOTT, Crescent City/Ukiah. Assault with deadly weapon not a gun.

JASON RAY III, Fort Bragg. Disobeying court order, failure to appear.

RYAN ROYDOWNEY, Covelo. Controlled substance, false personation of another, probation revocation.

SILVIA SOLARES, Willits. Disorderly conduct-alcohol, controlled substance, paraphernalia. 

JUAN VARGAS, Ukiah. Probation violation.

HINTS FOR HOMER, THE DIY HOMEBODY

by Bruce McEwen

Hello, Homer! How ya been, buddy? Doin’ well, I hope. Now, I know that Simpson’s caricature has given you a bum rap, but I’m of the opinion that your reputation can be rehabilitated. How would like to save a bunch of dough and at the same time put a glow of pride on your spouse’s sour old puss every time she sees your ugly face?

Here’s what we’ll do: Let’s put a new coat of paint on the entry hall! After all, it will be the first thing visitors see when the lockdown eases up and people start coming by again and, well, we wouldn’t want any idle speculation that you spent the last six months indulging your celebrated sloth, would we? 

So finish your mush and coffee and go change out of those squalid old sweatpants into some old jeans that a little paint won’t hurt. First we’ll take down the pictures and mirror and take out all the furniture and roll up the rugs, then cover the floor with drop cloths… 

The No.1 tool for the housepainter is the putty knife. It is so intrinsic to the housepainter’s craft that all painter’s coveralls have a special pocket for it, along with a loop for a hammer, reminding us, Homer, that the finish carpenter is grossly misnamed, unless he happens to be a carpenter from Finland. 

Nails will have to be set or drawn, wildly mismatched miter cuts will have to be caulked, chips and splinters patched – bringing us back to the putty knife and the need to go over the walls and carefully fill every nail hole; and yes, Homer, even the little pinholes – but be careful not to leave a huge swatch of spackle over a hole a flea couldn’t hide in! Just stuff it with bit of spackle on the corner of the knife.

We don’t want to spoil the pattern of the texture with hillbilly-style patches under the finish coat. Nor do we wish to give some self-styled hillbilly grounds on which to later litigate. All we want is to maintain, if not increase, the value of the estate, and thereby elevate you, Homer, as the sterling bloke who got ‘er done, at least in the real estate appraiser’s estimation.

Take your time, Homer. Make sure you get every little nick and gouge filled; use your trusty putty knife to cut away at wallboard paper torn loose from the sheet rock. 

But wait, Homer, I see you’re having difficulty with those sliding doors in the garage where you keep your tools. The problem, you see is the last painter gobbed paint all over the rails and those big ungainly press-wood doors derail and crash every time you try and open or close ’em. Take your trusty putty knife out and scrape all that old paint and dried-out masking tape off those rails, like this, then sprinkle some of these old birthday candles under the doors, for the weight to glide on, run them back and forth a few times and a kid could open and close it with ease.

Homer, get out the caulking tube and trim the tip of the nozzle off about a quarter-inch, at a 30-degree angle. Use an old paint brush to dust the tops of the baseboards and door and window casings. Keep a wet rag, wrung once or twice, a bucket of water handy to rinse it with since you don’t want to leave any excess caulking on the woodwork or the wall. Lay a bead of caulk along the crack then lay it off with your forefinger, pressing the caulking down into the crack and wiping up the excess with the handy wet rag. And thank you for being careful to check the bottom of your shoes before you step off the drop cloth onto the floor. 

Now, Homer, we’ll take a lunch break while the caulking and spackle dry. When we get back we’ll run a pole-sander over the walls – marvelous work-out, Homer, your physique will profit from it (much to the delight of your vanity, if not your spouse), and it’ll be a chance for the Covid-19 mask to do some real good, filtering out some of the sanding dust. Do a thorough job, Homer. Use 150-grit paper, and make it all match. If you get carried away and burn through the texture in one spot, sad to say, you’ll just have to sand 20 times as much to make it all match; so, again, do be careful, Homer!

When it’s all uniformly sanded, take an old paintbrush and dust off the baseboards and casings again; shucks, Homer, why not go ahead and dust down the walls, too… W[where]TF you goin’? Were in lockdown, remember?

Let’s open the paint. Geeze, Homer, I personally wouldn’t have picked that particular color, but, hey, what do I know? But I do recall an incident when I was at the impressionable age of 14 and my cousin Joe got me on as Brush Boy to the celebrated Master Painter George Hollidick of Encinitas. As I recall, Old Hollidick chased his apprentice, Cousin Joe, off the job site with a claw hammer for opening a can of paint that very hue back in 1967.

But the color of the paint is irrelevant to the procedure, Homer, so let’s roll on a nice even coat, being careful not to get any ridges from the roller edges. Dip often, take long sweeps, go over and over until it’s thoroughly covered, always keep a wet edge, and as soon as you are done pick up a two- or three-inch brush and cut it in to the woodwork and ceiling before the edge ridges dry. Catch any drips, runs or misses while you’re at it, then you can go on break for a couple of hours while the first coat dries. Come back, do the same thing all over again and, by then it should be getting on towards 4:20, so go down to the shop for a safety meeting. Then come back and clean up so you can clock out at 5 and go home to a well-earned dinner.

Next week, we’ll do the woodwork.

ANCHOR INN, FORT BRAGG

THERE'S NOWHERE MORE 'WOKE' than Hollywood. The self-righteous censorious bleating from that part of the world is so ferocious, unrelenting and aggressive that it's a wonder anyone is deemed morally suitable enough to work there. Those who do now live in constant abject terror of being canceled. This week alone, there's been an outpouring of abject apologies from actors who've fallen short of the ultra-strict new woke cop rules and are now gripped in a pitiful orgy of self-loathing and hand-wringing about everything they've ever said, written, done and performed. Top of woke Hollywood's hate list is President Trump, a man who never says sorry, and who they deem to be the world's worst sexist, racist, transphobic, authoritarian pig. But what do you think would happen if the same actors all lived in China and spoke that way about President Xi? Stars who tried to abuse the Chinese president in public like Hollywood actors abuse Trump would very swiftly find their acting careers summarily ended, and prison warders would be the only audience they would ever see again. The extraordinary, shocking truth is that Hollywood isn't just silent in its critiques of the Chinese Communist Party, it is now actively stifling its own freedom of speech to appease them. In the damning document, titled Made in Hollywood, Censored by Beijing: The US Film Industry and Chinese Government Influence, PEN lists a number of examples of censorship. In Marvel's 2016 movie Dr Strange, a significant Tibetan character's role is whitewashed out and replaced by Tilda Swinton as a Celtic. In Top Gun 2, a Taiwanese flag that appeared on Tom Cruise's flight jacket in the first movie mysteriously disappears in trailer flashbacks. I don't want to hear any more actors bang on about the importance of 'speaking truth to power', 'free speech' and 'tolerance' if they're not prepared to say it about China with the same enthusiasm that they say it about Trump. 

— Piers Morgan

HERE ARE A FEW THINGS I THINK WE CAN ALL AGREE ON:

Safe vaccines that stimulate the body's natural defenses against disease without having to maybe be killed or crippled by actually getting the disease are preferable to brute-force drugs, but when you need drugs, and they're proven to do something and not just be a poisonous placebo, you should have access to them without paying pharmaceutical stockholders $22,000 a pill, when it only costs a buck-fifty for the ingredients and our taxes already paid the company to invent it and tool up to make it in the first place.

Full-ride education in the humanities and science and to be a real doctor should be free to anyone who can keep his or her grades up. Common and emergency medical care should be a right. Face-lifts and nose-jobs and boob jobs and vaginaplasty are extra. You should have to pay for that. You can do a web-begging campaign. You shouldn't have to beg for money or lose your living situation for a broken arm or heart meds and diet advice or to get a tooth filled.

Sex education and safe cheap scientific birth control minimize abortion and save medical money. Simply making safe abortion illegal or otherwise unavailable doesn't stop abortion; it just gets women killed in the most horrible way.

The practice of medicine should no more be a casino for maximizing corporate profits than should the fire service, police, control of information media, or the military. And police shouldn't be armed and armored like soldiers. When you put people in military outfits and give them deadly weapons and put them out there on an imaginary line to defend they act more aggressively and people get hurt. We've known this for hundreds of years. There are still places in the world where the police aren't armed at all and they're fine. (I'm not counting places where the police are religious mobs. See below.* That's not fine.)

Speaking of which, everyone who is a millionaire because of war is what we used to call a war profiteer and should be stripped of money, property and freedom and also put to work cleaning toilets or pedaling a generator. When you can't become or stay rich by starting wars anymore we'll start a lot fewer wars and save enough money to pay for universal basic income, free education, and medicare for all. Just the attack on and occupation of Iraq has cost the U.S., at a conservative estimate, more than three trillion dollars. And that's a single unnecessary war. When was the last necessary war? Three trillion dollars is enough dollar bills to fully shingle every house in America -- not with shingles, but with dollar bills. We could have done that instead. Or we could have just paid every man, woman and child in Iraq $120,000 instead of killing them by dropping bombs on them and kicking their house doors in and kidnapping them and torturing them and so on. Now, which seems like the better course of action, the money, or the other stuff? It's the same amount either way. I can confidently say that we all agree the endless war is stupid. We can stop anytime.

President Ass-clown has zero redeeming value and must go. The three branches of the U.S. government are co-equal, meant to provide checks and balances against each other. No-one is above the law. When a person in government -- elected or not, with police powers or not -- breaks the law, he should be tried fairly, convicted if guilty, and treated as far as possible the same under the law as anyone. If the president steals money he stole money. If he orders his underlings to shoot choking gas bombs and rubber bullets at people who are standing there singing and holding signs, and they do it and someone chokes to death or gets blinded, he and his co-conspirators are all murderers and blinders and they should go to prison. If he orders troops to kidnap children and then the children are lost in the system (!), that's kidnapping, child abuse and also potentially child murder. Add it all up, arrest him, put him in cuffs, frog-march him out to the Crown Victoria, don't be too gentle when you push his head in -- that's how he told you to do it -- and take him away. And find all the kids and the parents and get them back together.

The poem at the base of the Statue of Liberty should be the first thing at the top of the page of any immigration policy.

*Magical thinking, superstition and religion, organized and popular or not, has no place in government. No more White House Prayer Breakfasts, no more swearing oaths on holy books of children's stories, unless it's The Giving Tree, or A Wrinkle In Time, or A Deepness In the Sky, or something like that, some better book that actually teaches you something and doesn't just order you to never shave your face nor cut your hair, and not to wear clothes made of two different kinds of fiber nor have eggs and chicken to eat because that's an abomination to the sky god, nor impregnate somebody else's slave girls (your own are perfectly fine for that, it says, if you captured them fair and square from far enough away), nor make art that looks like a real thing or person, nor lie down. That was the one that surprised me: you're not even allowed to lie down. What a stupid rule.

Maybe we can't agree so quickly on this one, but this is an idea I had: As long as everyone's going around carrying guns with them, on their hip, or in their underpants or purse, or slung over their shoulder, or in their boot, people who ever raise a gun without really good cause should be rounded on by all nearby armed people. And then they should all stand there sweating, with their guns pointed at each other like in Reservoir Dogs, until the A.B.C. can drop sleep-gas balls on the neighborhood and safely disarm everyone. If they want another gun they should all have to buy it back and take a class, like when you get a traffic ticket for doing something dangerous and idiotic with a car. Also no-one who even has access to a gun and/or has car keys should be allowed to buy or have alcohol. Remove alcohol from the picture and car crashes and gun incidents, including suicides, would drop to nearly nothing. Also fires; drunk people are way more likely to start a fire. And domestic violence, of course. Take away the alcohol and non-religious domestic violence dries up and blows away. If people want to drink alcohol and throw up on themselves, that's their business, but they can't have a gun or a car or any matches or children or a girlfriend. They can decide what's more important. It's up to them.

And science has just established that there's less depression and a lower incidence of suicides wherever there's just a few more molecules of lithium in the water supply. Maybe they should add lithium too when they put the fluoride in, where there isn't enough, and more people could have nice teeth and also not spray their brains all over the wall and make a mess with a pistol or shotgun, whether they drink alcohol or not, nor set themselves on fire with gasoline, nor sink into a stupor in front of the teevee and spontaneously combust, like that 720-pound woman in Ohio did last week. Her abdomen, inside, ignited and the smoldering spread from there. At least the cats are okay. When someone spontaneously combusts, the damage is often eerily limited to the barcalounger and surrounding floor (and grease smoke on the ceiling and walls). Unless the rendered grease soaking into the cushions and floor catches fire, that's the end of it, and the place can be cleaned up and rented out again, to the next person and teevee and barcalounger.

---

IN OTHER NEWS: My dreams from Tuesday, 2020-08-04:

First dream. I'm in Fort Bragg at night, where you go around the block of buildings to get from the parking lot in the back to the front of KNYO. In the dream the building on the alley has a decorative low ledge of bricks, and football-size rats are following a stuffed-looking pet-like rodent --like a fat little shiba inu puppy/chipmunk-thing-- in a line on the ledge. I half-remember reading somewhere that that's happening in more places now.

Up the alley and on Franklin, the art gallery is a busy dark bar with a crowd bulging out across the sidewalk. Something exciting/dangerous spooks the crowd and people start to run both north and south. I choose south. A little girl running next to me grabs my hand. The man in front of us goes in a door and shuts it. Instantly it's quiet. Everyone in the panic is gone. I'm left standing here holding hands with a little girl. Back at the bar everything looks the same as before-- people out on the sidewalk as though nothing happened. Uh-oh. People look this way. The little girl sneers calmly/evilly up at me.

Next dream. There's a train-horn/bowed-strings drone sound that's the musical theme of this story about the wreckage left behind in space by a vanished race. Self-powered machines make little drones that were originally meant to search for ships that went out and didn't return. It was for the children, who would normally get old enough to make spaceships to fly around in, and these drones would keep track of when one left, and wait awhile, and then go looking, just in case.

But it's much later now. That race is gone and the machines were all dormant until humans came along and repurposed everything from drone-making to instead build cities in space out of space junk and metal rocks and ice. There's a big city nowhere near any planets. Every once in awhile the machines making and sticking on more city parts sneakily make an drone or two or three, the way they used to, and shoot them off in random directions. There's nothing ominous about this; they're still doing their old job, looking for the children. They don't mind building cities. What's time to them?

The theme drone/song morphs into /Jealous Guy/ by John Lennon, played by massed strings and a slightly warbly tuba. The music gives the impression of a half-deflated musical beachball slowly deflating the rest of the way with someone absentmindedly pushing gently down on it every once in awhile.

Next dream. In the dream the apartment where Juanita's mother used to live in Rohnert Park is instead in a bleak industrial East Coast or Midwest city, like the place where the girl from Eastern Europe came to live with her cousin in /Stranger Than Paradise/. My point of view flies out the back window into a vague adventure involving a gray sewing machine that, in the back-story of the dream, I've been using somehow to [write a book? solve a crime? expose malfeasance?], but other things keep happening --an abandoned school or sweatshop collapses and slides sideways into a construction ditch, etc.

I'm spending all my time just trying to find the sewing machine, or get out of this or that obligation of pretending to work in this or that place, or avoid capture by gangs of Dickensian/Great Depression street people who don't know that I'm trying to save them...

(The neighbors woke me up with their leftover holiday fireworks.)

Marco McClean, memo@mcn.org https://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com

NOYO AUTO COURT

I RETURNED TO CIVILIZATION shortly after that [the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki] and went to Cornell to teach, and my first impression was a very strange one. I can’t understand it any more, but I felt very strongly then. I sat in a restaurant in New York, for example, and I looked out at the buildings and I began to think, you know, about how much the radius of the Hiroshima bomb damage was and so forth… How far from here was 34th street?… All those buildings, all smashed — and so on. And I would go along and I would see people building a bridge, or they’d be making a new road, and I thought, they’re crazy, they just don’t understand, they don’t understand. Why are they making new things? It’s so useless. 

— Richard Feynman

A MIGRATORY MEXICAN field worker's home next to pea field. Imperial Valley, California. Dorothea Lange, 1937. 

You can just make out the Triton Motor Oil box used to construct part of the home's exterior. The presence of a baby in this photo makes it that much more dramatic. What an image of pure humanity it is.

GUALALA MILL

• 

• 

THE NCAA FINALLY FACES A RECKONING

by Dave Zirin

The top college athletes in the revenue-producing sports knew which way the wind was blowing as soon as word of a deadly pandemic hit the airwaves. They knew that even if there were no vaccine, even if the rest of the campus were shut down, even if they had to be sent to a hermetically sealed bubble, they’d have to play. If they were to catch the virus, then “next man up,” and the train would keep rolling on. That’s the reality of the modern neoliberal campus; that’s the reality of NCAA; and no one knows that better than the college athletes themselves.

But these are not ordinary times. Discussions about the sundry injustices college athletes face have been on the fringes for decades—and now they’re entering the mainstream. Work stoppages, economic rights, and racial justice are now topics up for consideration. It is a startling reflection of our political moment, which has the potential to harpoon the NCAA.

In the Pac-12 conference, which includes teams like UCLA and USC, players have put forward a series of demands challenging the status quo of their assumedly powerless reality. The debates and discussions about what to push for began with concerns about reopening amid Covid-19, but after the police murder of George Floyd, they also became about racial and economic justice. Speaking to ESPN’s Bomani Jones, Jake Curhan, a redshirt senior football player at Cal, said,

“When we first got started, our only thought was coronavirus. We started talking to some of our teammates, and they said, ‘What about the Black Lives Matter issue? We don’t want to detract from their issue.’ The more we started talking with them, it became clear the two were the same issues.”

Valentino Daltoso, Curhan’s teammate, put it this way to Jones:

“Coronavirus is the most pressing issue of the moment, but it’s just put a spotlight on how college athletics works. They rely so heavily on us to bring this money in, and we don’t see a penny of it.”

They are talking strike if their demands are not met.

Now the Big Ten—the power conference of iconic programs like those at Ohio State and Michigan—is organizing as well. In an open letter called “#BigTenUnited,” authored by “Players of the Big Ten,” on the Players Tribune website, a thousand athletes signed on to demand input in the opening of any kind of a season. They wrote,

“We are deeply disappointed with the lack of leadership demonstrated by the NCAA with respect to player safety during the COVID-19 pandemic. We believe that the NCAA must—on its own and through collaboration with the conference—devise a comprehensive plan to ensure the safety and well-being of players leading up to and during the upcoming fall season.”

They also called for more economic support, including,

• Coverage for all out-of-pocket medical expenses related to Covid-19 (both short-term and long-term) incurred by active college athletes

• Scholarship protections (including room, board and stipend) in the event that the season is canceled due to COVID-19

• An adjustment to the cost-of-living stipend to account for the increase in personal expenses related to limited access that players have to facilities

• Reimbursement for stipends that were reduced during the summer

They referred readers to the website www.collegeathleteunity.org.

All of this comes after a summer when high-profile coaches like Mike Gundy of Oklahoma State and Clemson’s Dabo Swinney found themselves in hot water with their players and programs for being, at best, tin-eared about the demands and aspirations of the Black Lives Matter movement and, at worst, preening from the wrong side of the police line. All of a sudden, they were on the hot seat, the power dynamics dramatically altered at long last.

This all comes at a time when sports on college campuses could not look more imperiled. Earlier this summer, the Ivy Leagues and many historically black colleges and universities canceled fall sports. This week, the NCAA’s Divisions II and III have canceled championships in fall sports: The University of Connecticut has announced that football will be canceled; Louisville has announced that it will be suspending all activities for four athletic teams after 29 players tested positive for Covid all linked to one off-campus party. UCLA just announced that 10 football players have tested positive. There are similar stories peppered across the landscape. This is creating a reckoning for the plantation system of college football like we have never seen before. It’s the pandemic. It’s the racism. It’s the absence of economic justice. And it’s a volatile combination that could change the system forever.

THIS PAST MARCH 24, Poet and founder of City Lights Books in San Francisco, turned 101. 

Here he is recorded a few years back by Maria Gilardin, host of TUC Radio and an old friend of Ferlinghetti who, as an officer in the USN in WW2, had visited Nagasaki after the bombing and came away a committed foe of nuclear weapons and war itself.

tucradio.org/podcasts/2013/lawrence-ferlinghetti-poet-laureate/

SILAS COOMB’S STORE

ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

Ever seen the equipment vaults and rows up on rows of humming servers, switch’s, routers and infrastructure it takes to run even a small sized business much less something like internet?

I assure you it's all very delicate and sensitive to power fluctuations, heat and moisture.

One of my servers has gone through four hard drives in less than three months I am constantly reaching out to Dell for replacements and that is just one of my servers I have fifteen more buzzing away all across Southern California.

One of my sites in El Centro has had the fiber run into the building severed at least five times in the last decade! It takes AT&T for ever to make those repairs and why? Because the fiber run is as big around as your thigh and it is composed of thousands of strands little larger than a human hair. Having had to make fiber connectors I can’t even imagine what it took to effect that repair. Back in the day making one connector took hours of polishing and getting it just right.

THE OLD EMBARCADERO FREEWAY. Ramps to Washington and Clay Streets. (1965)

COVERED CALIFORNIA HEALTH INSURANCE EXTENDS DEADLINE TO AUGUST 31

Fort Bragg, CA — The spike in unemployment caused by COVID-19 has left many coastal residents without employer-sponsored health insurance, a situation mirrored statewide. In response, Covered California recently extended its health insurance enrollment deadline to August 31, allowing more time for Mendocino Coast Clinics (MCC) to help local people register for health coverage for themselves and their families.

“Under the best of circumstances, choosing and enrolling in health insurance programs can be confusing. With COVID-19, the need for insurance has become urgent and figuring it all out can feel overwhelming,” said MCC Executive Director Lucresha Renteria.

At Federally Qualified Health Centers like MCC, patient advocates offer a free service to support patients through the process of enrolling in whichever health insurance program is most appropriate for them, whether it is Covered California, Medi-Cal/Partnership HealthPlan, choosing Medicare supplemental plans, and other insurance types. All three of MCC’s Patient Advocates are bilingual in English and Spanish. Most of the services are currently provided over the phone with the only need for a visit to the clinic being for signatures or delivery of necessary paperwork.

Covered California

Covered California is California’s answer to the national Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 (sometimes called Obamacare). Covered California is a health insurance exchange offering many options and it can be difficult to know which one is best, both in terms of cost and with regard to which programs local care providers accept.

Partnership HealthPlan of California (Medi-Cal)

Medi-Cal is California’s version of the federal Medicaid program, which offers health insurance for people with incomes below 138 percent of the Federal Poverty Level ($17,237 for an individual; $35,535 for a family of four) or for those who meet strict disability criteria. In Mendocino County, Partnership HealthPlan is the company that administers Medi-Cal benefits.

Medicare

For those 65 and older, MCC patient advocates can help U.S. citizens and qualified immigrants enroll in Medicare, the federal health insurance program for older adults. MCC Patient Advocate Albert Anderson said, “People who are *not* on Social Security should look into applying for Medicare three months before their sixty-fifth birthday, because they will not receive a Medicare card automatically.”

Medicare has three parts:

1. Part A provides inpatient/hospital coverage.

2. Part B provides outpatient/medical coverage.

3. Part D provides prescription drug coverage.

There are two types of supplemental plans available to fill the gaps and deductibles in Medicare coverage. MCC’s patient advocates can help people decide which options best fit their individual needs.

Other Support

In addition to health insurance, MCC’s patient advocates assist with other types of support, such as CalFresh (formerly called SNAP or food stamps) and Social Security benefits. Advocates can explain correspondence from the government about health-related programs and assist with permanent federal disability applications for Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) and Supplemental Security Income (SSI). During the annual enrollment for medication benefits associated with Medicare, they assist with Medicare Part D screenings. 

For uninsured or underinsured patients who qualify, MCC’s patient advocates can reduce healthcare costs by applying a sliding fee scale to the care provided at MCC. For most low-income patients, enrolling in a federal or state health insurance program provides peace of mind and more affordable health care. 

Renteria said, “If you are currently uninsured or looking for options for your healthcare coverage, call us at (707) 964-1251 and schedule an appointment with one of our patient advocates. Their services are free and confidential. You may be surprised what you qualify for and how inexpensive some health insurance programs can be.” 

ONLY HOLLYWOOD movie studios require a comparable degree of groveling. That’s because Hollywood and Washington are one-industry company towns where advancement through the ranks is a by-product of sucking up. Granted, talent counts for something, but the most useful skill is knowing how, where, and when to kiss ass. On Capitol Hill, the challenge can be immense. Since anyone could someday reign supreme, kissing all ass is the operative rule of thumb. 

— Bill Thomas, Club Fed

THINGS GOING BY

by James Kunstler

If this (first?) summer of Covid-19 has revealed anything about the current version of civilization, it’s the profound exhaustion of a culture reduced to going through the motions of its once-vital activities. A lot of things that we hope will come back are probably gone forever in the form we knew them, though they will eventually return in another configuration, reduced in scale, but perhaps finer in quality.

I miss baseball horribly, and its sad, half-assed attempt to present a rump season with no live bodies in the seats only amplifies the loss. But then, I haven’t gone to a stadium in twenty years, and I certainly won’t pay a hundred bucks or more to sit in Fenway Park. I used to go to night games there all the time when I was a starving bohemian writing for the Boston hippie newspapers back in 1972. You could get a decent field-level seat behind first base for five bucks. When I was a kid in Manhattan in 1960, a bleacher seat in the old Yankee Stadium was a quarter (plus 30 cents round-trip on the IRT subway).

They weren’t writing $100-million-plus player contracts until fairly recently, either, and of course that’s been a symptom of pro sports’ slide into fatal decadence. If baseball does try to stage a full season in 2021 or 2022, they will not be selling many hundred-dollar seats to an economically demolished middle-class. The teams will be functionally bankrupt by then and if they survive restructuring, there won’t be many million-dollar players. Maybe none. Carl Furillo, the veteran right-fielder for the 1955 World Series champion Brooklyn Dodgers, used to work construction in the off-season. He was on the crew that built New York’s Verrazano Narrows Bridge. Imagine Mike Trout hanging sheet-rock (if sheet-rock even exists as a product a few years from now).

I can imagine baseball reorganizing into two separate East and West leagues for a while, to reduce costly airplane travel, but even that might not last very long. If pro sports survives the political turmoil ahead, it will come out the other side as a strictly local and regional thing — and that will be the theme for all the things we like to do and must do. The idiocy of pro football will not survive at all. Its farm system (college sports) will be long gone.

Higher education committed suicide with its dual racketeering model. First was the college loan racket, in which schools colluded with the federal government to jam too many “customers” through the pipeline who didn’t belong there, and who buried themselves under a lifetime debt obligation they could never escape. The second was the intellectual racket of creating sham fields of study that contaminated all the other “humanities” with poisonous bullshit theory, and eventually even invaded the STEM disciplines. Covid-19 screwed the pooch on all that, scotching the four-year party-hearty in-residence part of the deal. For now, who needs an online class in Contemporary Sexual Transgression ($2000-a-credit) when you can just click on Porn-hub for free? Hundreds of colleges and universities will be going out of business in the years ahead.

The outlook for the big centralized high schools is also pretty dark. The teachers’ unions’ insatiable needs are only part of the picture. Consolidating many smaller schools to save on administrative costs seemed like a good idea at the time. But we ended up with thousands of gigantic schools that looked like insecticide factories and felt like minimum security prisons. They all depend on the costly yellow bus fleets to collect the kids from far and wide. The whole scheme ended up as an elaborate day-care operation that actually retarded the development of young people into functional, autonomous adults.

Covid-19 and the economic collapse it triggered will put an end to all that. How will the school districts cope with an epic loss of tax revenue from all the homeowners defaulting on their mortgages? They won’t. Schooling will have to reorganize, and probably at a very grassroots level, with home-schools evolving into neighbor-pods of tiny schools, and only among parents who have the literacy and numeracy to pull it off. We’ll be lucky if, years from now, we’ll see something like local academies spring up that can handle a few hundred students. I’d also warn you about assuming that the Internet is a permanent installation of the human condition. It depends utterly on a pretty fragile electric grid. We do, after all, have libraries, and maybe they can be persuaded to stop trying to get rid of all their books.

These Covid months have prompted Americans to pass the idle hours of joblessness and anomie with Hollywood’s canned entertainments. Could that all be over, too? The theaters were already sucking wind before the virus landed — relying on an ever more brain-dead repetition of comic book movies — while the quality product moved to Cable TV. Now that’s saturated, with the newer product fermenting into garbage. But who is going to keep paying for all that with unemployment at 30 percent, and moving higher?

Are you already bored out of your skull with reruns of the old classics? People truly need narrative art forms to make sense of reality, but they have to be tuned to the times we live in. My bet would be on the eventual return of live theater on local stages for original stories keyed to the new post-collapse reality — which will not be understood via Star Wars or Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Broadway is finished, with its endless reiterations of old hits, and also, of course, because New York City itself is only beginning a long journey down the drain before it can be reorganized into a functioning entrepôt. I’ve got half a mind to invest in an outfit that can put on puppet shows in my little flyover town.

As you can surely tell by now, the trend is local and smaller for all of these things. That may even be true for national elections and the venerable thing called the United States of America. The Democratic Party was initially only striving for mere suicide, but lately it looks like they want to destroy the country altogether — and they may succeed beyond their wildest dreams. Fifty years from now, several separate American nations may be sending their own regional baseball league champions to some kind of World Series, if we’re not still at war with each other.

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

BE THERE!

City Of Point Arena City Council Agenda 

 August 11 at 5PM 

 Instructions for the public to access the teleconference are at the end of this agenda. Public comment will be solicited during the meeting. Those wishing to comment on an agenda item by email should submit comments by 4pm the day of the meeting to meeting@pointarena.ca.gov. 

I Call To Order & Roll Call 

Ii Approval Of Agenda 

Iii Mayor’s Reports/Announcements 

IV Council Reports – Items in this agenda section are informational or scheduling purposes only. 

A) City-Related Meetings 

B) Council Committee and Commission Reports 

Ordinances A) Introduction of Urgency Ordinance 238 Establishing Interim Restrictions on the Use of the Point Arena Pier and Adjacent City Parking Area 1) Receive Report on Ordinance 238 

2) Discuss reopening the Parking Lot at Arena Cove 

3) Approve Urgency Ordinance 238 

B) Revocation of Urgency Ordinance 236 1) Discuss revoking Urgency Ordinance 236 

2) Revoke Urgency Ordinance 236 

Recommended Action: 

A) Exclusion from Ordinance 238 for Restricted Pier Access Pass Holders for Sport Fishing Vessels 1) Receive Report on Local Sport Fishing Launches 

2) Discuss & Consider Action Adding Sport Fishing Launches to Allowed Operations Under Ordinance 238 

3) Direct Staff 

B) Allowance for Arena Theater Proposal for Drive-In Movie at Arena Cove 1) Discuss the most recent Drive-In Theater Proposal 

2) Approve or Disapprove the Proposal 

3) Direct Staff 

Recommended Action: 

Future Agenda Items (next 45 days) A) Next Meeting: August 25, 2020 

B) Uniform Building Code 

C) Wastewater Rate Update 

VOTE FOR MARI RODIN

To the Editor:

As we approach the November election, I want to note how impressed I was early on during the pandemic with Mari Rodin’s efforts to support and protect the more vulnerable members of our community.

Getting clear information about the dangers of the coronavirus pandemic can be more challenging for some people our community. Unfortunately, for a number of reasons, Spanish language speakers have not always had ready access to real time information from public health and safety officials. When I heard that Mari prioritized creating Spanish and English informational videos and outreach to Spanish-speakers, I was thankful for those efforts to help assure that all members of the community could stay informed. It increases my own sense of safety to see us, as a community, work towards closing the divides that occur because of racial and social disparities.

Of course, COVID-19 continues to test our county’s ability to meet a number of other critical needs. Clearly, we all need to make use of our talents and opportunities to benefit the community during this crisis, however we can. Since the outbreak of the pandemic Mari has used her talents as a grant writer to help win funding to increase access to food and pandemic assistance for vulnerable populations.

There are many other reasons having to do with the match between her experiences and skills and the most urgent issues facing our community, but the above represents additional reasons why I am supporting Mari Rodin for Supervisor with real confidence that she will represent all of her constituents to the benefit of everyone.

Sincerely,

Vivian White

Ukiah

FOUND OBJECT