MCT: Thursday, September 24, 2020

• Heat Coming
• Potential Shutoffs
• 894 Cases
• Ukiah Shooting
• Grange Movie
• Scoop McCarthy
• Ukiah Memories
• Upcoming Election
• AVFD Fundraiser
• Village Trivia
• Groundskeeping Job
• DIY Telephone
• Flag Deconstructed
• Smoke Taint
• Ed Notes
• Loud Construction
• Yesterday's Catch
• Gale Sayers
• Unimpressive Census
• No Thon
• Enviro Defeatists
• The Fool
• Gas-Powered Sunset
• Talmage Store
• Dream Gig
• Sunflowers
• LeBron's Voice
• Trailer Protest
• Mask Wearing
• Meet Me
• Corporate Media
• Found Object

A WEAKENING COLD FRONT will continue to bring some light rain to Del Norte and Humboldt counties this morning. Conditions should dry out quickly with any lingering rain ending by noon. Gradually clearing skies are anticipated as the front dissipates leaving a rather pleasant day across Northwest California.

Another quick passing front will bring additional light rain to primarily Del Norte County on Friday. The ECMWF is indicating that rain could spread farther south into Humboldt County, but if any does reach that far south rainfall accumulation will be less than a tenth of an inch from Humboldt Bay north. Following this front dry conditions are anticipated for the next week across all of Northwest California as a ridge builds over the west coast. Very hot temperatures for late September are anticipated this weekend into early next week. The model guidance is very bullish with hot weather even extending all the way to the coast Monday and Tuesday where coastal areas could see upper 70s or 80s. Warm temperatures at coastal areas in late September and October is climatologically favorable, so it wouldn't be a stunner to see temperatures like this at this time of year. However, inland highs could push 100 degrees in many valley locations Sunday through at least mid next week and heat advisories could be required. The Heat Risk is right on the edge of recommending heat advisories for all interior zones early in the week. Record highs are in jeopardy in Ukiah on the 28th, 29th, and 30th and possibly into early October. If the higher end guidance ends up being right we could even push 105F in Ukiah in the first few days of October which would be an all time record high for the month. Though there is one major factor that could impact the high temperatures, and that's smoke from fires.

Unfortunately, the building heat will also come with the development of offshore flow beginning Saturday, peaking Saturday night, and continuing through Monday morning. The strongest winds are anticipated just south and east of the forecast area, but there is increasing confidence that at least Lake County will see gusty winds over the ridge tops of the southern half of the county Saturday through early Monday morning. The easterly winds will expand north Sunday into Sunday night and both the GFS and ECMWF are showing a brief period of stronger easterlies in eastern Mendocino, southern Humboldt, and southern Trinity counties. Thus there is the potential that current active fires could grow and produce more smoke, possibly reducing high temperatures across the area and also impacting air quality and visibilities. This isn't expected to be an offshore event remotely close to the magnitude of what lead to the smoke problems a couple weeks ago but still potentially impactful.

(National Weather Service)

POTENTIAL PG&E POWER SHUTOFFS - currently zones 2 & 5 (interior NorCal/Cascades & Sierra) are in elevated status. Based on the wind forecast zones 3 & 4 may be added as well.

---

GOING DARK?

"Meteorologists at PG&E’s Wildfire Safety Operations Center are monitoring windy and hot weather forecast for this weekend with an eye on the need for preemptive power shutdowns to reduce fire risk. No shut-off alerts have been issued for the Bay Area or the North Coast, but an “elevated” status was declared Wednesday for an area including the Northern Sierra and Trinity County on Saturday and Sunday. Elevated status precedes a watch alert, typically issued two days prior to a shut-off and followed by a warning alert sent four to 12 hours prior cutting off power."

— Guy Kovner, Press Democrat

SEVEN MORE COVID CASES IN MENDO on Wednesday, total now 894.

UNEXPLAINED: Anderson Valley "South County" lost one case and now stands at 30. "North Coast" (Fort Bragg, etc.) also lost one case, down to 73.

UKIAH SHOOTING, ONE DEAD

On Wednesday, Sept. 23, 2020 at 8:07 AM the Mendocino County Sheriff's Office received a call for service in regards to a shooting that had just occurred at a residence located in the 2500 block of Twining Road in Ukiah.

Sheriff's Deputies responded to the residence along with personnel from the Ukiah Police Department and the California Highway Patrol.

Upon their arrival they contacted the identified shooter, Thomas Dean Jones, 65, of Ukiah, who self surrendered to Deputies without incident.

While at the residence, Deputies located two shooting victims, one being deceased (44 year-old male) and one having sustained life threatening injuries (28 year-old male).

The critically injured victim was transported to an out of county hospital by air ambulance.

Initial scene investigations determined the shooting appeared to be the result of a family dispute in regards to the development of the family property.

Sheriff's Detectives were summoned to the scene and are now conducting ongoing investigations into the incident with the assistance of the Mendocino County District Attorney's Office and the California Department of Justice.

Jones was transported to the Mendocino County Jail where he was to be booked on charges of murder, attempted murder, being armed during the commission of a felony and prohibited person in possession of a firearm.

Jones was to held at the Mendocino County Jail on a No Bail status.

---

FROM THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
by Nashelly Chavez

A Ukiah man was arrested Wednesday morning on suspicion of killing his stepson and seriously wounding his stepson’s husband after a family dispute over the property where the three lived ended with gunfire, authorities said.

Thomas Dean Jones, 65, surrendered himself to Mendocino County deputies and CHP officers on the front porch of his Twining Road home, located southeast of Ukiah and near the community of Talmage, Mendocino Sheriff’s Capt. Gregory Van Patten said.

Dispatchers sent authorities to the area after receiving a 911 call at 8:07 a.m. about a shooting, Van Patten said.

Jones’ stepson, a 44-year-old man who was not identified by authorities, was found shot to death at the home, Van Patten said.

The stepson’s spouse, a 28-year-old man, was airlifted to a hospital with life-threatening injuries after the shooting as well. He was still alive Wednesday afternoon, Van Patten said.

An initial investigation revealed a fight broke out on the front porch Wednesday morning about the stepson’s plans to build an additional housing unit on the property, something Jones did not approve, Van Patten said.

“There was a conversation today in which the stepson, the 44-year-old, made it quite clear that that was the direction he was going to pick and it upset the 65-year-old to where it resulted in the shooting,” Van Patten said.

While Van Patten could not provide a specific timeline for what happened during the shooting, he did say it appeared both victims were close to each other when the gunfire broke out in front of the home.

A family member was on the property at the time of the shooting, but it was not yet clear whether that person witnessed the gunfire or only its aftermath, Van Patten said.

Jones was booked into the Mendocino County Jail on suspicion of four felonies: homicide, attempted murder, being armed during the commission of a felony and possession of a firearm by a felon, Van Patten said.

Jones, who was ineligible for release from jail on bail, has a prior conviction that prohibits him from owning a gun, Van Patten said, though he said he did not know what the prior conviction was for.

PAUL ‘SCOOP’ MCCARTHY, REQUIESCAT IN PACE

by Andrew Scully

AVA Special Correspondent

September 23, 2020

In an item just before noon last Friday on Mendocino Sports Plus, the ubiquitous Elk-based news outlet with a small army of devoted followers on its ever-streaming Facebook platform, founder and Editor Paul McCarthy wrote that MSP was experiencing technical difficulties; they were having computer problems. He added, with his characteristic humor, served New-England bone-dry: “we won't be posting much today until we can get this straightened out…”

That turned out to be Paul McCarthy's last post and likely the end for Mendocino Sports Plus, the much-relied upon purveyor of “hyper-local”, tidbits, hot tips, local sports, highway crashes and fire evacuation orders followed by nearly 30,000 people on the Coast.

In a moving and eloquent post on the MSP site Saturday, Shane McCarthy announced that his father had died sometime Friday night. He was 66 years old. Shane remembered his Dad's sense of humor, his happy outlook on life, his inquisitive nature, and his seemingly boundless energy.

Paul McCarthy was born in Lawrence, New Hampshire, and grew up in Salem, a blue-collar exburb of Boston. The Yankee background left an indelible mark on Paul in the form of his unforgettable accent and his bone-dry witty worldview. It was there that McCarthy first got printers ink on his hands, working as a cub reporter and staff writer in New England, learning the journalistic trade, including the standards and ethics that guided his life. This was in the early '80's, before the demise of printed-on-paper newspapers. One of Paul's colleagues, a fellow writer, took to calling him “Scoop”, the coveted handle of young reporters.

Of those early days, Shane remembered his father saying that he “attended countless pointless meetings and and pointless countless meetings.” That humor was vintage Paul McCarthy. And it is tempting to simply paint him as a happy-go lucky Irishman who navigated by the seat of his pants.

But the underlying reality was a bit more nuanced, as is often true. Shane said that his Dad's ready sense of humor and easy-going vibe belied a intelligent and highly analytical mind. He was a stickler for details and accuracy, often obsessing over and revising a story online to reflect new information. McCarthy closely scrutinized data analytics on the MSP site, identifying precisely which posts had the most reader engagement and views, which piece was liked and forwarded to others, and many other metrics.

Paul McCarthy met Shane's mother through a mutual friend in the early 1990's, and Paul followed his love and left the east coast for Santa Rosa. He lived there for a few years before settling in 2000 in tiny Elk, at the sprawling Beacon Ranch, working as a hand and caretaker. He came to the Mendocino Coast, as many have, a transplant from another place who found a home among the beauty and the solitude and most certainly the eccentric people.

He raised Shane as a single father, attending all of his many games, as Shane grew up. It was attendance at these games, Shane said, that reawakened the dormant journalist in his father - the “sleeper cell” as he called it. Paul felt that the coverage of these events in the local papers was pathetic, far below the standard he had known in New England. It irritated him that the effort that the kids made on the field was in no way matched by the writers covering the events, nor by the editors and owners at the papers who would hack a game story down to one paragraph to accommodate more ad space.

So he started writing again.

Shane remembers that the idea for MSP began to take shape in his Dad's mind shortly after he entered Mendocino High School as a freshman and became an integral player on the re-constituted Cardinal football team. (Mendo High had mothballed the football program some years earlier due to lack of interest.) As Paul continued to submit his work to local papers, he became increasingly dissatisfied with coverage space and so launched a Facebook page, Mendocino Sports….Plus in 2012. Shane said for his Dad, the “Plus” in MSP was his license to pursue any story that was relevant and of interest to his readers.

McCarthy would attend all the Mendocino games home and away, often traveling many hours round trip, to Laytonville for example, and back to Elk, to cover the event for his followers and of course for the benefit of the kids involved, and their parents. McCarthy also arranged to have Programs printed for these games with each players photo, name and stats. He did this for the kids and their families. And he did it anonymously. Later, as MSP grew in size and influence, McCarthy developed a small network of financial donors to fund these gifts, sponsoring worthy kids and events.

It was the “Plus” side – the non-sports content – that became the focus of the site as time went on. After Shane graduated Mendocino High School and went on to St. Mary's College (where he subsequently graduated Cum Laude, and now works as the Director of Information Technology) Paul began covering more non-sports stories, although Mendocino Coast High School sports remained a mainstay of the channel.

The Coast and all its many happenings - both curious and peculiar, and profound and tragic – found their way onto his feed – usually sooner than later – a result of his never-ending curiosity. If it happened in Mendocino county, or it was happening, MSP covered it all, from car chases to high school volleyball games to social happenings. McCarthy was a news hound and adrenaline junkie, relentlessly following raw news feeds on police and fire scanners, monitoring local news outlets, and perhaps most importantly – gathering intelligence from his devoted legion of followers along and about the Coast.

MSP was fueled by a combination of old school pioneer values – the neighborliness and community of isolated places – and new technology. McCarthy had a close back and forth with many of his followers, who eagerly supplied him with streetwise tips and leads on breaking stories. MSP was a comforting presence to many in a lonely and isolated place

In MSP, Paul McCarthy found an outlet for his creative and inquisitive nature and his seemingly boundless energy and irreverent good humor. For many people starved for information and sometimes even for human interaction, he became the favorite chatty neighbor at the fence-line, always ready with a good laugh and useful information. And, facilitated by interactive technology, his followers rewarded him with their trust, and became a network of tipsters that provided him with a steady stream of leads for stories on his ticker. It was a lively back and forth between McCarthy and his followers in which information flowed in both directions.

He was quite the modern day Town crier of the Mendocino Coast who with MSP carved out a niche for himself and over the years developed the channel into a source that became the trusted authority on real time events occurring in the coastal County area by many thousands of people.

I will always remember the Paul McCarthy that I met a few years ago, in 2017. It was a cold and blustery January night and I walked out of the howling wind and slanting rain and darkness into the warmth and light and noise and colors of the Mendo High School Gym. The two varsity girls teams had taken the court, and I was there to cover the game for a local paper, just beginning to write again myself after a long “dormant phase”. Of course the kids and the parents and families were in the spartan bleachers, and there on the stage was the official scorers table and KAKX's broadcast table, and what appeared to be a radio announcer, a man about my age, about to call the game live on-air. I decided against going up on the stage and opted to cover the game from the court perimeter.

But I thought it wise to go up at half time to introduce myself to the people on the stage. What stood out is that no one stood out. Except Paul. Paul McCarthy was the virtual antithesis of the laid-back hippie California image one conjures up about residents hereabouts. This was the Paul that I met: booming voice that spoke of New England and Boston; a beaming smile and and a ready, booming laugh. In a world that sometimes seems a bit black and white, Paul McCarthy was in Technicolor.

UKIAH MEMORIES

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

THE NOVEMBER 3, 2020 ELECTIONS

(Presser from County Elections Office)

We have received a few phone calls asking similar questions about the upcoming November 3, 2020 election. I hope this helps with your questions – and remind you of a few standard items related to your ballot. 

• Official Ballots will be mailed October 5, 2020 to all registered voters in the State of California, including Mendocino County voters. If you do not receive your ballot by October 15, 2020, please call our office so we can get you out a replacement ballot.

During this pandemic, we encourage you to stay home, stay safe, vote the ballot you receive in the mail and return your ballot either through the mail or a Ballot Drop Box Location (listed below) at your earliest convenience. With this election, we can open and process your ballot as soon as we receive it. We cannot upload any results until 8 pm on Election Night.

• When returning your voted ballot – NO postage is necessary, whether you mail your ballot/envelope or deposit it into a Ballot Drop Off box. Unless otherwise noted*, the drop off locations are available 24/7.

• CITY OF WILLITS (open 24/7) 111 E Commercial St – Willits

• CITY OF FORT BRAGG (24/7) 416 N Franklin St – Fort Bragg

• CITY OF POINT ARENA (24/7) 451 School St – Point Arena

• MENDOCINO CO ADMIN BLDG (24/7) 501 Low Gap Rd – Ukiah

• MENDOCINO CO FAIRGROUNDS (Open 9AM–4PM Monday–Friday) Fairgrounds Office – Boonville

• ROUND VALLEY JUSTICE COURT (Open 7AM–8PM Election Day Only) 76270 Grange St – Covelo

You are welcome to call our office and verify your residence address, to make sure we have your most current information.

When returning your ballot - don’t forget to sign the back of the return envelope, we can’t count your ballot if it doesn’t have your signature. If you forget to sign it, we will contact you by mail so we can get a signature from you.

If you are worried that your signature has drastically changed, please re-register at www.registertovote.ca.gov or call our office, we will be happy to mail you a new voter registration card.

We check every signature – if your signature does not match, we will contact you by mail so it can be corrected.

We will have “In-Person Polling” locations throughout the County for those voters who need assistance or need to visit a polling location. You can drop your ballot off at any polling location in Mendocino County on Election Day – we have changed a few locations, they are marked with **. Because we are following our traditional polling place policy, our polling locations are only required to be open on Election Day.

If you are mailing your ballot through USPS, it must be mailed by Election Day. If mailing on Election Day, be sure to get it postmarked. If you use a Ballot Drop Off Location, please drop it off by 8 pm on Election Day. 

• All of our “In Person” Polling locations will follow all Public Health Orders, including social distancing, wearing facial coverings, and having hand sanitizer and gloves available.

If you have any questions, please call the Elections office at (707) 234-6819 or email us at mcvotes@mendocinocounty.org

BIG DRAW! Only 300 tickets available - find a firefighter and get yours today! $20/ticket

FOUR picnic table winners will be selected on October 16th. Each table comes with a bonus gift:

• Two will come with a household AVFD Ambulance Membership

• One will come with a gift basket donated by the Farmhouse Mercantile

• And one will come with a BBQ and briquettes for the full picnic experience

Look at this beautiful redwood picnic table! Hand made by a few of AVFD's finest. 

The drawing will be held 10/16 and streamed on Facebook Live. Chief Colin Wilson (retired) has agreed to pull the winning tickets. 

For more info call 707 895-2020

AV VILLAGE GENERAL TRIVIA WITH THE COORDINATOR TUESDAY SEPTEMBER 29TH, 4:30 pm

Join us for General Trivia with the AV Village Coordinator. Want to have a little fun and learn some new useful facts?! Zoom link Below. Please RSVP with the coordinator so we can get an idea of attendance, thank you.

Anderson Valley is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting. Topic: General Trivia with the AV Village Coordinator. Time: Sep 29, 2020 04:30 PM Pacific Time (US and Canada)

Join Zoom Meeting: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/4343376734?pwd=WTV0L0ZNemh2MS8wdmYvYTQ2NXNxUT09

[1] Meeting ID: 434 337 6734

Passcode: avv

One tap mobile

+16699009128,,4343376734#,,,,,,0#,,490940# US (San Jose)

+12532158782,,4343376734#,,,,,,0#,,490940# US (Tacoma)

Dial by your location

+1 669 900 9128 US (San Jose)

+1 253 215 8782 US (Tacoma)

AND

The AV Senior Center could use some volunteer help in the kitchen – if interested please contact Renée Lee: 707.895.3609 avseniorcenter@pacific.net

AND

I would love for folks to share with me fun and interesting UPCOMING ZOOM/ONLINE ACTIVITIES TO POST ON OUR CALENDAR - political, age related, nature, theater, art, music, film, fitness, etc. Things that you have been enjoying - with as much advanced notice as possible.

Thank you

Anica Williams
Anderson Valley Village Coordinator
Cell: 707-684-9829
Email: andersonvalleyvillage@gmail.com
Mailing address: Anderson Valley Village
P.O. Box 576 Boonville, CA 95415

NAVARRO VINEYARDS is looking for a friendly, physically fit and hardworking Groundskeeper to assist at two locations (Boonville & Philo) with ornamental and vegetable garden maintenance, including: grounds keeping, landscaping, mowing, planting, cultivating and irrigation. We offer competitive wages based on experience. This is a full time, permanent position with medical, dental, and paid vacation. We require a clean driver's license, and the ability to use wide range of horticultural machinery and powered hand tools. Bilingual English/Spanish helpful. Se habla Español.

Email resume and brief cover letter to hr@navarrowine.com or call 707-684-0028.

BILL KIMBERLIN WRITES: The fiber cable that was laid through the valley many years ago now, reminded me of how things used to be.

In the old days the phone only went to Boonville. Beyond that, we had what was called, "the farmer's line", which was a community built and operated phone line from Boonville to Navarro.

The community line only went along 128. Each group of neighbors was responsible for the wire and poles to their houses, and everyone together took turns maintaining the basic Hwy. 128 line.

It was a party line as I remember. If you picked up the phone and someone was talking, you had to wait your turn. In the winter, it would often go dead as falling tree branches busted the wires. This meant jumping in the truck and driving slowly along, from pole to pole, looking for the break.

I can't remember ever actually going out in a storm to fix it. I don't think we thought the phone was quite that important. We would wait for a break in the weather, and then go.

Today, we probably feel like it's worth going out in the rain to stay connected. Not us personally, of course, but certainly for the people who fix the phone, the television and the electricity.

Still, it was exciting to have the phone ring. Especially in winter. Our entertainment was pretty much limited to the arrival of the Monkey Wards catalogue and news about how high the river was getting.

Well, I'm still interested in how high that river gets, but now I'm also interested in who else wants to know.

Copyright Bill Kimberlin September, 2020, billkimberlin.com

DIVISIVE?

Editor: 

The design of the Thin Blue Line Flag is very simple. The iconography of the Thin Blue Line flag is obvious. The Thin Blue Line is a Dividing Line. The Men in Blue represent the line between "Us" and "Them." The Men in Blue protect "Us" from "Them." Who are these two groups? "Us" and "Them"

There are only three colors on the Thin Blue Line Flag: Black, White and Blue. The colors on the Thin Blue Line Flag which are not Blue are Black and White. Therefore, according to the Thin Blue Line Flag, the groups being separated by the men in Blue are obviously racial: Black and White.

The Thin Blue Line Flag is a flag of division, not unity. Because the Thin Blue Line flag is based on the Stars and Stripes, the Thin Blue Line Flag is nationalistic. It references nationalistic signals. The Thin Blue Line Flag incites fear. The Thin Blue Line Flag is not a productive social icon.

— Stewart Dickson, Fort Bragg

---

Ed note: I'd say this is reading a little too much into what is, for most people, merely a gesture of support for police departments, many of which are being falsely and unfairly maligned. For people with a political ax to grind and grind and grind, they can find malevolent symbolism virtually everywhere.

CALIFORNIA'S WINERIES TOSSED INTO CHAOS WITH BACKLOGGED TESTS FOR SMOKE TAINT

If wines reflect the unique attributes of the year in which they were made, then California’s 2020 vintage may carry the distinctive notes of uncertainty, confusion and chaos.

sfchronicle.com/wine/article/California-s-wineries-tossed-into-chaos-with-15588780.php

ED NOTES

A RECENT scare story in one of the international tabloids warned that there's been a “time bomb explosion” of super pigs who can reproduce at 3 months and grow to 400 pounds. The alleged monster oinker “eats livestock and destroys thousands of square miles.”

THAT WAS A 400-POUNDER struck and killed recently by an unlucky driver just north of Boonville at the little red school house, probably a matriarch (I think it was female) of the drove we've seen for years wandering the Peachland area. I've seen them early in the morning in the vicinity of the Elementary School, whole families of as many as thirty or so. Used to be, way back, herds of pigs were driven south, hence “drove,” by local ranchers to the railway at Cloverdale, driven by dogs like sheep. Of course some of them escaped into the hills where they've prospered ever since. Around '70-'71 I managed to catch a baby pig that we raised to adulthood as a pet. Called him Wilbur, tame as a dog. But when he grew larger than a dog, so big and so hungry he once turned over the dinner table, Wilbur had to go. Somehow we got in touch with Harold Hulbert and Ernie Pardini, expert pig butchers. The kids froze wide-eyed as Harold and Ernie deftly rendered Wilbur as carcass, fully prepped to become pork chops and sausage, which we subsequently accomplished at a home butcher in Potter Valley. As the Wilbur adventure turned out, we had to give all his memorial meat away because none of us city people could forget that we were eating him. Having known him so well we felt like cannibals.

WHEN I FIRST SAW my friend TJ Bird's little leather helmets and chest shields, TJ explained they were protective gear for his pig dogs. I thought TJ was funnin' me, but he explained that he'd spent a lot of time and energy training his dogs to run down pigs, and that a pig cornered by dogs could, and some time did, kill their canine tormentors. The miniature catcher-like protective gear designed for pig dogs ensures the dog's safety until his owner can arrive, at which time the owner, if he's the real deal, and TJ is the real deal, jumps on the pig's back and cuts his throat. 

IN FULL garrulous old coot mode this afternoon, I feel compelled to mention a guy I met in Hawaii in 19 and 63 named Ray Arujo who hunted pigs up close and personal in the wilds of the Waipio Valley, so this method of pig knife hunting is not particularly new. Not a sport for everyone of course, but it sure puts to shame these boys with high powered, scoped rifles that do their hunting from a thousand yards away.

AND ONE MORE pig story: I can't remember whether he told me or someone else did, and Tommy Lemons Sr., being a modest fellow unlikely to brag on himself, someone else must have mentioned it. The way I remember the story, Tommy once shot a large tusker that disappeared into the underbrush. Tommy, not a man to let an animal suffer, crawled in after him to finish him off, only to have the old boy come lunging at him in one final retaliatory burst. Tommy lived to tell the tale, but just barely.

SAY CHEESE! Costco has removed the pimento cheese brand nearly a month after its big cheese founder, Brian Henry, who is also a South Carolina mayor, described BLM as a "terrorist organization." It's a toss-up who's lamer, CostCo or this cracker and its pimento.

FOR THE FIRST TIME in years, maybe ever, there is competition for the three at-large seats on the Anderson Valley Community Services District board of trustees. Stacey Rose, of Boonville, will try to unseat one of three incumbents — Hanelt; Soderman; Christen. The Rose insurrengency has inspired some grumbling among the trustees who point out that Rose has never indicated any interest before or since signing up to run for election, an election which will cost the CSD roughly $4,000 as its share of the cost of Boonville participation on the November ballot. It is assumed that Rose, “retired military,” represents Boonville locals opposed to a water and sewage project wending its inexorable way to a likely vote if the opposition is large enough to force one. At its meeting last week, the CSD board received but ignored as irrelevant an anonymous letter strenuously denouncing Rose. 

NIGHT NOISE ROAD CONSTRUCTION IN WESTPORT

How is it possibly legal for them to be doing extremely loud construction just now starting at 1:30am in the middle of town in Westport. Full on chainsaws and constant blasting and grinding and reversing constant beeping and huge lights. Huge generators. It is louder right now than any construction they seem to do in the day anywhere ever. Full shouting. They've been doing this often til about midnight but this is just insane.

— Sarah Stevenson

CATCH OF THE DAY, September 23, 2020

JOHN BOLTON IV, Willits. Disorderly conduct-alcohol. (Frequent flyer.)

TABETHA CONNELL, Fort Bragg. Domestic battery.

JETHRO LLOYD, Crescent City/Ukiah. DUI.

JULIAN SALAZAR IV, Rio Linda/Ukiah. Domestic battery, county parole violation, community supervision violation, failure to appear.

RICHARD SUGGS, Ukiah. Controlled substance, parole violation.

CHAD TURLEY, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

CHICAGO BEARS' HALL OF FAME RUNNING BACK GALE SAYERS DIES AT AGE 77

Former Chicago Bears star Gale Sayers, considered one of the greatest running backs in the history of the NFL despite a career cut short by knee injuries, has died at age 77 after living with dementia.

Known as the "Kansas Comet," Sayers was voted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1977 despite playing just seven seasons, all with the Bears. At 34, he was the youngest player ever inducted.

"All those who love the game of football mourn the loss of one of the greatest to ever play this game with the passing of Chicago Bears legend Gale Sayers," Hall of Fame president and CEO David Baker said in a statement. "He was the very essence of a team player -- quiet, unassuming and always ready to compliment a teammate for a key block. Gale was an extraordinary man who overcame a great deal of adversity during his NFL career and life."

Sayers was a five-time All-Pro who averaged 5 yards per carry for his career and twice led the league in rushing, including in 1969 (1,032 yards) after having torn the ACL and MCL in his right knee late in the previous season.

"Will miss a great friend who helped me become the player I became because after practicing and scrimmaging against Gale I knew I could play against anybody," said Hall of Fame linebacker and former teammate Dick Butkus. "We lost one of the best Bears ever and more importantly we lost a great person."

Butkus said he hadn't even seen Sayers play until a highlight film was shown at an event in New York that both attended honoring the 1964 All-America team. He said the real-life version of Sayers was even better.

"He was amazing. I still attribute a lot of my success from trying to tackle him (in practice)," Butkus said at the Bears' 100th anniversary celebration in June 2019.

"I never came up against a running back like him in my whole career, as far as a halfback. And that was counting O.J. (Simpson) and a couple of other guys," he added. "No one could touch this guy."

The Bears drafted Sayers and Butkus with back-to-back picks in '65, taking Butkus at No. 3 and Sayers at No. 4. It didn't take long for Sayers to win over veterans who had helped the Bears take the NFL championship in 1963.

"We were both No. 1s, so they're going to make it hard on us and show us the ropes and everything else," Butkus said. "But Gale just ran circles around everybody. Quickly, they adopted him."

Commissioner Roger Goodell said in a statement Wednesday, "The NFL family lost a true friend today with the passing of Gale Sayers. Gale was one of the finest men in NFL history and one of the game's most exciting players.

"Gale was an electrifying and elusive runner who thrilled fans every time he touched the ball. He earned his place as a first-ballot Hall of Famer. We will also forever remember Gale for his inspiration and kindness. Gale's quiet unassuming demeanor belied his determination, competitiveness and compassion."

Bears chairman George McCaskey noted there was more to Sayers legacy than playing football.

"Football fans know well Gale's many accomplishments on the field: a rare combination of speed and power as the game's most electrifying runner, a dangerous kick returner, his comeback from a serious knee injury to lead the league in rushing, and becoming the youngest player inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. People who weren't even football fans came to know Gale through the TV movie"Brian's Song," about his friendship with teammate Brian Piccolo. Fifty years later, the movie's message that brotherhood and love needn't be defined by skin color, still resonates," McCaskey said in a statement.

A major injury to Sayers' left knee in 1970 was too much for him to overcome, and he retired in 1971.

His career numbers of 4,956 yards and 39 touchdowns on the ground came primarily over five seasons, as he played sparingly in 1970 and '71.

As a returner, Sayers was also devastating, scoring six touchdowns and averaging more than 30 yards per kickoff return, with two touchdowns and 14.5 yards per punt return.

Legendary Bears coach George Halas, as he presented Sayers for his Hall induction, said, "If you want to see perfection as a running back, you best get ahold of a film of Gale Sayers. He was poetry in motion. His like will never be seen again."

Sayers was born in Wichita, Kansas, and was an All-American at Kansas. He was a first-round pick of Bears  in 1965 and once scored six touchdowns in a game.

Yet it was his rock-steady friendship with Brian Piccolo, depicted in the film "Brian's Song," that marked him as more than a sports star.

The friendship between Sayers and backfield mate Piccolo began in 1967, when the two became unlikely roommates. Sayers was Black and already a star; Piccolo was white and had worked his way up from the practice squad. Early on, they were competing for playing time and carries.

But when the club dropped its policy of segregating players by race in hotel room assignments, they forged a bond. In 1968, Piccolo helped Sayers through a tough rehab process while he recovered from a torn ligament in his right knee. After Sayers returned the next season to become an All-Pro, he made sure his friend shared in the credit.

They became even closer after Piccolo pulled himself out of a game early in the 1969 season because of breathing difficulties and was diagnosed with cancer. That phase of their friendship was recounted first by Sayers in his autobiography, "I Am Third," and then in the 1971 movie "Brian's Song."

With actor Billy Dee Williams playing Sayers and James Caan in Piccolo's role, the made-for-TV movie was later released in theaters.

Sayers stayed by Piccolo's side as the illness took its toll, donating blood and providing support. Just days before Piccolo's death age 26, Sayers received the George S. Halas Award for courage and said: "You flatter me by giving me this award, but I can tell you here and now that I accept it for Brian Piccolo. ... I love Brian Piccolo and I'd like all of you to love him, too. Tonight, when you hit your knees, please ask God to love him."

Williams said Wednesday: "My heart is broken over the loss of my dear friend, Gale Sayers. Portraying Gale in Brian's Song was a true honor and one of the nightlights of my career. He was an extraordinary human being with the the kindest heart. My sincerest condolences to his family."

Sayers was named to the NFL's 75th Anniversary Team in 1994 at halfback and kick returner, the only player named at two positions.

Sayers' family earlier this year discussed his experience with dementia.

His brother, Roger Sayers, told the Kansas City Star in a phone interview that it's "tough to build memories all your life, and the next thing you know, you don't remember anything."

After his playing days, Sayers served as athletic director at Southern Illinois University-Carbondale and founded several technology and consulting businesses. He was also a philanthropist for several inner-city Chicago youth initiatives.

(espn.com)

ON-LINE COMMENT ABOUT THE CENSUS:

I have never experienced such a mismanaged government procedure, filled with many duplications of effort, misinformation, and a woeful lack of information they should have known. I filled out the report online when it was first issued. Since that time, no fewer than five (5) different people have come to my house, not knowing that I had already successfully completed the census online and asking the same questions that I had answered to the census takers preceding them. At least one of them referred to a living space that was on the property of a neighbor across the road.

How much did the county have a part in this?? Whoever was/is in charge of planning this operation with its lack of competently reported, retained, and/or shared information is responsible for wasting a great deal of the taxpayers money through poor communication and tracking within the system.

ARE ENVIROS TOO COMPROMISED TO FIGHT FOR REAL SOLUTIONS?

by Howie Hawkins

A group of aging environmentalists is out with an Open Letter telling people: Don’t vote for the Green Party. As the aging environmentalist who is the Green Party candidate for president, let me respond.

The role of the environmental movement should be to make its demands on every candidate, not make compromises to provide cover for a candidate like Biden with a feeble environmental record and platform. By settling for Biden without making any demands or getting any commitments, they have given away their power. As President, Biden will ignore them because they settled for nothing.

Black voter suppression, not the Greens, elected Bush and Trump

Punching down and to their left at the Green Party, the Open Letter blames Green presidential candidates Ralph Nader for electing Bush in 2000 and Jill Stein for electing Trump in 2016. It’s the same scare-mongering smear we hear every election.

It was Black voter suppression and the Electoral College that put the popular vote losers Bush and Trump in the White House, not the Green Party.

Florida Governor Jeb Bush and Secretary of State Katherine Harris, co-chair of George W. Bush’s Florida campaign, suppressed tens of thousands of Black voters and ballots in Florida in 2000 through voter roll purges and disqualified ballots. Black people who were able to vote in Florida went 93% for Gore. The “official” victory for Bush was 537 votes. Republican voter suppression in that election should be a notorious national embarrassment. Instead of fighting the Republicans for stealing that election, the Democrats have spent 20 years blaming Ralph Nader and the Green Party for “spoiling” it. That narrative hides how the election was stolen by the Republicans. It demonizes Nader and the Greens for exercising their First Amendment rights of free speech, assembly, and petition to run against the two-party system of corporate rule.

It was Jill Stein of the Green Party, not the Democratic Party, who went to court in 2016 to get over 75,000 uncounted ballots from mostly Black and likely Clinton voters in Detroit counted. Trump won Michigan’s electoral votes and the presidency by 10,704 votes in Michigan. The judge ruled that Stein had no standing because she could not win the election if those ballots were counted. Clinton did have that standing and her lawyers were present at the hearing, but they refused to agree to a count of those votes (Greg Palast, How Trump Stole 2020, p. 122). Yet Democrats blame the Greens for Trump.

Moreover, exit polls in 2016 show that 61% of Stein voters would have stayed home and only 25% would have voted for Clinton if Stein had not been on the ballot. Plug those numbers into the close battleground states of Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin in 2016 and Trump still wins in those states. Yet Democrats blame the Greens for Trump.

It is the Green Party, not the Democratic Party, that has been campaigning since the before 2000 election to replace the Electoral College with a ranked-choice national popular vote for president. Bush and Trump lost the popular vote when they were first elected. The Electoral College put them in the presidency. The Greens didn’t do that. After twice getting winning the popular vote and losing the presidency due the Electoral College, one would think the Democrats would have embraced this proven nonpartisan solution to the problem of center-left vote splitting that has put right-wing losers in the White House. Instead, Democrats work to keep Green Party instead of the Electoral College off the ballot.

Party suppression is a form of voter suppression

The same day that this Open Letter was released, the Wisconsin Supreme Court suppressed the Green Party, which has had its presidential ticket on the ballot in Wisconsin in every election since 1996. Democrats challenged the Green ballot access petition. The Democratic members of the Wisconsin Elections Commission blocked the Greens from presenting their documentation that they had met all the ballot access requirements in the hearing on the challenge. The review of the facts and the law in the dissenting court opinions show that the Greens were undoubtedly ballot qualified. But the majority of the court disregarded the merits of the case in order to end the delay in the mailing of absentee ballots that the Democrats’ anti-democratic actions had precipitated.

Both parties contributed to the absentee ballot delay. The 4-3 Republican majority court waited a week to render its decision. This is what we get in a country where partisan hacks of the two governing parties administer elections for their own parties. That is is how they do it in Russia and China but not in legitimate electoral democracies around they world where independent nonpartisan agencies administer elections.

The Democrats think that by suppressing the Green Party, they will get more votes for Biden. What they have really done is alienate progressive voters, particularly voters in Black Milwaukee who have just seen the Democrats throw their native daughter, Green vice presidential candidate Angela Walker, off the ballot. Walker received 67,000 voters in an independent socialist run for Sheriff of Milwaukee County in 2014. She has a base in Milwaukee. Instead of advancing policies that will appeal to those working-class Black voters, the Democrats think that by eliminating the Green Party competition to their left they have these voters captive. Instead, the Democrats gave those voters another reason to be disgusted and sit out the election.

The Open Letter feeds this divisive narrative by vilifying the Greens as spoilers. A vote for the Greens is not a vote for Trump. A Green vote goes into the Green column, not Trump’s. The Greens are a second front against Trump.

The question for environmentalists is: How are you going to vote against Trump? For Biden who won’t even say Green New Deal? Or for the Green ticket and a full-strength Green New Deal? No one will know an environmentalist wants the Green New Deal if they vote for Biden. They get lost in the sauce. Everyone knows a Green vote is for the Green New Deal.

Instead of urging environmentalists to demand policies to address the climate emergency, the Open Letter targets the one party that is advancing real solutions. Their rationale is that environmentalists will “have a seat at the table” with Biden that they don’t have with Trump. But having given away their votes without making any demands on Biden, their “access” to Biden brings no power with it.

Environmental Lobbyists vs. Grassroots Environmentalists

The Open Letter starts by presenting its signer’s credentials. They are mostly affiliated with professional environmental lobbies and many identify with early Earth Days. I have been around since then as well as a grassroots environmentalist. I organized the activities at my high school for the first Earth Day in 1970 and went to other celebrations and teach-ins at nearby colleges.

The Open Letter claims that some of them helped organize the occupation of the Seabrook nuclear power plant construction site in 1977. I was in the middle of the forming of the Clamshell Alliance in 1976. I don’t recognize any of the signers from that organizing. One of the signers lists for identification “Clamshell Alliance, 1979,” a time when we were divided over direct action tactics. Some of them may have been among the thousands we mobilized for anti-nuclear actions in the 1970s and 1980s. But whatever anti-nuclear credentials they may have, they are supporting a pro-nuclear candidate in Biden. The Democratic platform is pro-nuclear for the first time in 50 years.

As a teenager, I followed David Brower out of the Sierra Club into Friends of the Earth (FOE) in 1969 over the Sierra Club board’s decision to support the Diablo Canyon nuke. David Brower is considered to be the father of the modern environmental movement by many, including no doubt many signers of the open letter. His resolute environmentalism is not reflected in their compromising Open Letter.

It was grassroots environmentalists who organized the Clamshell Alliance with no support from the professional environmental lobbies. After our big occupation of the Seabrook nuclear plant site in 1977, the grassroots anti-nuclear movement exploded across the country. Then the big environmental groups finally got on board. No new nuclear power plants were ordered in the US after 1414 of us were arrested at Seabrook in 1977…until the Obama/Biden administration offered the nuclear industry loan guarantees for new nukes in 2010.

In 1990, in order to fight back against the growing corporate sponsorship and commercialization of Earth Day, I participated in the organizing of the Earth Day Wall Street Action by a network of grassroots environmental groups including the Clamshell Alliance, Earth First!, Left Green Network, and Youth Greens. We attempted to shut down the New York and Pacific stock exchanges. The big environmental lobbies denounced us. They wouldn’t let us speak at their Earth Day rallies. But our actions captured the headlines. We got our message across that corporate polluters were the problem, not the solution. Our action handbook explained why we have to bring production under social ownership and democratic administration in order to have the power to choose ecological production systems. The mainstream environmental groups still haven’t caught up with that ecosocialist message, although many of the younger activists of the climate justice movement are embracing it today.

I was on the same page with David Brower again in 1996 in supporting Green Party presidential candidate Ralph Nader. Brower penned his own open letter that year in support of Nader, “Why I Won’t Vote for Clinton.” The letter enumerated the myriad ways in which the Clinton/Gore administration “has done more to harm the environment and to weaken environmental regulations in three years than Presidents Bush and Reagan did in 12 years….Nader understands that until we rein in the far-flung empires of multinational corporations and subject them to international sustainable environmental standards, the planet will continue to suffer.”

I was opposed by the Sierra Club in 2010 for calling for a ban on fracking in my Green New Deal campaign for New York governor. The Sierra Club and other mainstream environmental groups were calling natural gas the bridge fuel to renewables. We said that bridge is out and we’ll plunge into the chasm of catastrophic climate change if we take that road. It turned out that the Sierra Club was taking tens of millions of dollars from the gas industries’ biggest frackers. Its executive director at the time was Carl Pope, one of the signers of this Open Letter. Our demand for a fracking ban caught on and the environmental movement, including the Sierra Club, came around to support a ban on fracking. After I received 5% of the vote for governor in 2014, Governor Cuomo could not take our voters for granted anymore and adopted several of our campaign demands that he had never supported before, including the ban on fracking as well as the $15 minimum wage, extending the millionaires tax, and paid family leave.

This Open Letter is not the first time I have been in a movement on the receiving end of criticism by liberal “realists.” In the mid 1960s, we were a vilified minority against the war in Vietnam. In the mid 1970s, we were told our occupations against the Seabrook nuclear power plant would alienate potential support. In the mid 1970s to mid 1980s, we were ridiculed for thinking we would ever get the US to impose economic sanctions against apartheid South Africa. In the 1990s, we were told our global justice movement against corporate trade pacts in the 1990s was too anti-capitalist to win broad support. After 9/11, we were told our protests against the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq would alienate the political mainstream. In 2008, when we raised the demand for a ban on fracking, we were told our demand for a ban on fracking was undermining the mainstream environmentalists’ campaign to go “Beyond Coal” to supposedly safer gas.

Over time our positions in these movements came to be embraced by majorities. In the environmental movement, I’ve repeatedly seen the professional lobbyists in the big environmental groups denounce the uncompromising grassroots environmental movements, only to see the pros come running to get back in front of the parade later on.

What hasn’t happened yet but I am confident will in time is that the majority positions that the Green Party stands for – Green New Deal, Medicare for All, ending the endless wars – will be reflected in voting for Green Party candidates up and down ballots. In this election, the Green Party is fighting for its survival on the ballot. Although we are on the ballot in over 30 states, our ballot access petitions are under legal challenge by Democrats in several states. In 40 of the states, the presidential vote determines whether a party has a ballot line for the next election cycle. In most states, that threshold is 1%, 2%, 3%, or 5% of the popular vote. In New York, the Democrats passed a law while public attention was focused on the Covid crisis that tripled the number of votes the Greens need to stay on the ballot after this election. When it first got wind of this move, the NY Times story ran with the headline “Democrats Secret Plan to Kill Third Parties.” The Open Letter reinforces this plan to kill the Green Party.

Green New Deal

The letter says the signers are inspired by the movement for a Green New Deal. You’re welcome. I was the first US candidate to campaign for a Green New Deal in 2010. Jill Stein ran on the theme of “A Green New Deal for America” in her 2012 and 2016 presidential campaigns for the Green Party. It has been the Green Party’s signature policy over the last decade.

Democrats took the slogan but diluted its content after the 2018 mid-terms. The progressive Democrats’ watered-down, nonbinding resolution for a Green New Deal dropped the essential immediate demand for a ban on fracking and new fossil fuel infrastructure, eliminated the rapid phase-out of nuclear power, removed deep cuts in military spending to help fund the program, and extended the deadline for zero carbon emissions from 2030 to 2050.

Democratic Speaker Pelosi never let the House vote on it. Republican Leader McConnell did bring it up for a vote in the Senate. All the Democratic Senators voted “present” except for the four who voted “no” with the Republicans. The Green New Deal is not mentioned in the Democratic platform. Its Democratic proponents like Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez have not developed as promised a substantive Green New Deal plan as our campaign has. There will be no Green New Deal from Biden and the Democrats.

The Open Letter tells us without any specifics that Biden “nudged President Obama toward better environmental policies.” Would those include the “all-of-the-above” energy policy, which was a euphemism for fracking the hell out of the country, approving arctic drilling, and subsidizing the construction of new nuclear power plants?

Obama now brags about making the US the world’s top oil and gas producer. Biden’s climate policy continues reliance on fracked gas for generating power and heating buildings. It proposes to make gas burning acceptable by carbon capture and sequestration at power plants, an environmental nightmare that would require a massive new infrastructure system that would price gas out of the market without huge federal subsidies.

Biden also wants to build more nuclear power plants. How did that go when he was vice president? Four of the six nukes started with federal loan guarantees in South Carolina and Georgia have been been abandoned due to cost overruns and construction delays. The two remaining under construction in Vogtle, Georgia face the same problems. Construction only continues because Georgia ratepayers are being gouged courtesy of Brian Kemp, the governor from Georgia Power and the Southern Company who stole the election from Stacy Abrams in 2018 because he ran it as Secretary to State and suppressed the Black vote.

Nukes are dirty, dangerous, and uneconomical. Their power costs two to three times more than most forms of solar and wind power. Why does Biden want to waste money on these economic failures and environmental monstrosities?

The Open Letter touts Biden’s commitment to spend $2 trillion over four years on clean energy. Few details have been forthcoming, but one specific commitment coming out of the Biden/Sanders Unity Task Force on climate that made it into the Democratic platform is net-zero carbon emissions for all new buildings by 2030 and retrofitting four million old buildings in five years. Huh? That doesn’t even add up. There are 120 million buildings in the US. At that rate of retrofitting, it will take 150 years to retrofit all buildings for net-zero emissions.

It should be noted that their term “net zero” is a fossil fuel industry favorite because it allows the continued fossil fuel burning. Carbon emissions will supposedly be offset by carbon drawdown measures like afforestation for “net-zero” emissions. The problem is that we not only have to stop carbon emissions, we have to draw carbon out of the atmosphere by restoring forests, soils, and other natural carbon sinks in the biosphere in order to preserve a livable climate.

$2 trillion for clean energy is not a serious climate program. My campaign estimated the costs of transforming our economy to zero-to-negative carbon emissions and 100% clean energy by 2030. Our ecosocialist Green New Deal budget comes to $27.5 trillion over ten years. It emphasizes public enterprise and planning in the energy, transportation, and manufacturing sectors in order to transform all productive systems to clean energy and zero emissions, not just power production but also transportation, manufacturing, agriculture, and buildings. It requires this ecosocialist approach in order to coordinate and carry through the reconstruction of inter-related production systems on a rapid timescale.

Trump may call climate change a hoax, but Biden acts as if it is a hoax. The 2020 Democratic platform is a retreat from 2016 Democratic platform on climate change. After removing the “all-of-the-above” language on energy in 2016, the Democratic National Committee explicitly recommitted to that policy in an August 2018 meeting where they also reaffirmed their commitment to take fossil fuel industry money. The Biden climate policy is an all-of-the-above recommitment to fracking for oil and gas and wasting money on nuclear power boondoggles.

Two days after the Open Letter was released, House Democrats released a bill that put Biden’s energy and climate policy into legislation, The Clean Economy Jobs and Innovation Act. Mitch Jones, policy director for Food & Water Watch, responded, “This proposal fails to deal with the climate crisis. It attempts to greenwash carbon capture, advances policies that would actually increase oil production, seeks to release new sources of methane from our ocean floors, and promotes ‘advanced’ nuclear power as a so-called climate solution. This package would lock in continued extracting, processing, and burning of fossil fuels for decades to come. As climate policy goes, it is beyond inadequate.” Food & Water Watch is an environmental group that doesn’t compromise its demands. That is the kind of environmental leadership we need.

Environmentalists should stop calling defeats like these victories. We should stop limiting our demands to what Democratic politicians are willing to do. We should demand real solutions and make the politicians come to us. As the African anti-colonial leader Amilcar Cabral counseled: “Tell no lies. Claim no easy victories.”

OVER THE WEEKEND, Republican Steve Schmidt, who ran John McCain's 2008 campaign for president, was interviewed on MSNBC.

In response to a very general question regarding the Trump Presidency, Mr. Schmidt spoke for two solid minutes and gave the most insightful and brutally honest response of what the Trump Presidency has done to our great country.

"Donald Trump has been the worst president this country has ever had. And, I don't say that hyperbolically. He is. But he is a consequential president. And, he has brought this country in three short years to a place of weakness that is simply unimaginable if you were pondering where we are today from the day where Barack Obama left office. And, there were a lot of us on that day who were deeply skeptical and very worried about what a Trump presidency would be. But this is a moment of unparalleled national humiliation, of weakness."

"When you listen to the President, these are the musings of an imbecile. An idiot. And I don't use those words to name call. I use them because they are the precise words of the English language to describe his behavior. His comportment. His actions. We've never seen a level of incompetence, a level of ineptitude so staggering on a daily basis by anybody in the history of the country whose ever been charged with substantial responsibilities."

"It's just astonishing that this man is president of the United States. The man, the con man, from New York City. Many bankruptcies, failed businesses, a reality show, that branded him as something that he never was. A successful businessman. Well, he's the President of the United States now, and the man who said he would make the country great again. And he's brought death, suffering, and economic collapse on truly an epic scale."

"And, let's be clear. This isn't happening in every country around the world. This place. Our place. Our home. Our country. The United States. We are the epicenter. We are the place where you're the most likely to die from this disease. We're the ones with the most shattered economy. And we are, because of the fool that sits in the Oval Office."

CALIFORNIA MOVES TO END SALES OF NEW GAS-POWERED CARS by 2035

California will halt sales of new gasoline-powered passenger cars and trucks by 2035, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Wednesday, a move he says will cut greenhouse gas emissions by 35% in the nation’s most populous state. His plan would not ban people from owning gas-powered cars or selling them on the used car market. But it would end the sales of all new gasoline-powered passenger cars and trucks in the state of nearly 40 million people.

pressdemocrat.com/article/news/california-moves-to-end-sales-of-new-gas-powered-cars/

TALMAGE STORE & PO

DREAM GIG, SOUTHCOAST

Worker Wanted

From: "Yasmin Solomon" <sisteryasmin@hotmail.com>

I am still in need of a Great Worker for Firewood, Brush, Roof, Gutters, Garden, and other Land Work.

You need transportation, a working phone and be a nonsmoker. I live in Anchor Bay, so you need to live near me. I can pay $20 an hour for a GOOD WORKER.

Also, please REGISTER TO VOTE right away if you haven't yet. If you have moved or changed your name or wish to change your political party, you must RE-REGISTER.

Go to: www.registertovote.ca.gov and DO IT TODAY!

More: Is anyone going to LA and can give me a ride very soon. Can help with gas and driving. Trying to see my Mom before she dies. Also need a ride back to Mendo. after a few days. Are you coming back up here?

All of the above, please phone me at: 707-884-4703 and let ring 5 times. No computer in my home; only a LAND LINE.

Thank you.

HOPLAND SUNFLOWERS

WHY LEBRON JAMES SCARES THE RACIST RIGHT

by Dave Zirin

LeBron James matters in a way that few athletes have ever mattered in the history of sports. This is because he manages to combine the rarest of combinations: He is arguably the best to ever play his sport, he gives a damn about social issues, and his media reach is unlike any athlete before him.

That last point is perhaps the most decisive in understanding the power of LeBron and why he has become a target of the white nationalist right-wing. It’s not only that LeBron started a public school—not a charter school as Jared Kushner lied on CNN—for underprivileged kids in Akron, Ohio. It’s not only that he has been consistently outspoken for a decade on questions of racist vigilantism and police violence. It’s not only that he is part of a program right now called More Than A Vote that is attempting to register voters and “combat systemic, racist voter suppression,” something that has earned him the ire of the scummiest dregs of right-wing sports media. It’s his reach when attempting to perform these tasks.

Because of social media, LeBron has a measure of power that previous athlete-activists could not touch. Muhammad Ali always had to go through the filter of the sports media, and at times the right-wing Beltway media, in order to be heard. Michael Jordan was only heard through the prism of corporate salesmanship. We could hear what Michael was saying, but it usually involved Nike or Hanes underwear. LeBron James has 47.4 million twitter followers. On Instagram, he has 72.3 million. Those totals exceed the combined “following” of Donald Trump, and he doesn’t resort to appealing to people’s basest instincts in order to get there.

Trump has mocked LeBron’s intelligence, but no one, not even Trump’s powerful lizard brain, uses their messaging more effectively. Trump insults legions of people to the point where it’s all become “white noise.” When LeBron called Trump “u bum” after the President disinvited the Golden State Warriors to the White House, it was a news event unto itself.

With this voice that is capable of reaching more than 100 million people, LeBron has shown a remarkable discipline in trying to uplift community and openly criticize a US police force that is off-the-rails. The latest slander he has had to endure from the white nationalist right, which seethes over the fact that he has such a platform, is that his activism has encouraged violence against police officers. The LA Sheriffs’ Department, the same LASD that’s being sued by Kobe Bryant’s widow Vanessa for taking pictures of Kobe and their daughter Gianna at the site of their helicopter crash for personal use, challenged LeBron to put up a reward to capture the shooter of two police officers.

It was a cheap stunt and the right treated it as a gotcha moment. But LeBron did not bite, saying, “I have zero response on the Sheriff.” Instead, speaking to reporters this week, he spoke about the outlandish allegations that daring to raise your voice against police violence is somehow an invitation to assaults aimed at police. “Not one time have I ever said let’s act violent toward cops,” he said, continuing:

I just said what’s going on in our community is not okay. And we fear for that, and we fear for our lives. It’s something that we go through every single day as a Black man, a Black woman and a Black kid and a Black girl, we fear that moment where we’re pulled over.

He also said:

I’ve never in my 35 years ever condoned violence. I never have. But I also know what right is right and what wrong is wrong. I grew up in the inner city and the Black community in what we call ‘the hood’ or ‘the ghetto,’ however you want to picture it. I’ve seen a lot of accounts first-hand of Black people being racially profiled because of our color. I’ve seen it throughout my whole life. I’m not saying that all cops are bad. Throughout high school and things of that nature, and I’m around them all the time, and they’re not all bad. But when you see the videos of that’s going on, and you see them not only in my hometown, but all over America, you continue to see the acts of violence toward my kind, I can’t do nothing but speak about it and see the common denominator.

LeBron then spoke about a recent event in Monona, Wis., where a Black man, Keonte Furdge, was handcuffed in his own home by police at gunpoint for the crime of sitting on his porch, to the alarm of his neighbors:

Police came in the house without a warrant, without anything and arrested the guy, a Black man, because he was sitting out on the porch. If you can’t tell me that’s not racial profiling, then what the hell are we looking at? But I don’t condone violence toward anyone, police, Black people, white people, anyone of color, anyone not of color. Because that’s not ever going to make this world or America what we want it to be.

LeBron will always have his detractors: people on the right who want to silence him and then those on the left who wish he would use his immense cultural capital to push even harder for systemic charge. But that misses the broader point: LeBron is not going to change the world for us. That’s our job. But he has been—and can be—one of the great amplifiers in history for what the movement is saying.

The streets want police accountability, as witnessed by the largest protests this summer in the history of the United States. LeBron can get that message in front of the eyes of white fans and puncture the privilege that protects the majority of this country from having to reckon with racist police abuse. That makes him powerful. That also makes him dangerous to those with a vested interest in systemic oppression; people like Florida Governor Ron DeSantis who is pushing a bill that would criminalize protest to a degree that would lock up anyone participating, organizing, or deemed to be supporting acts of protest that they deem to be civil disobedience. LeBron needs to be supported in the face of these attacks and, when necessary, defended. That’s the reality of the United States: Ppposing the bigotry coming from the highest levels of government is a responsibility. It is also done at his—and our—own risk and even peril.

ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

Regarding the efficacy of face masks – for what it's worth (probably not much):

I have read so much conflicting info about face masks that it has left me very much a skeptic about their efficacy.

We keep several face masks hanging from key hooks near the front door. When I'm going out I usually grab one of these masks since I know it will be required wherever I'm headed, such as Stop and Shop or the Drug Store. Any mask I grab has been used over and over and I have even detected residual 'mask breath.' Yuck! I put it on at my destination but I often cheat by not covering my nostrils because, frankly, when I wear the thing properly I feel like I'm gonna suffercate.

In the midst of my mask dilemma the pro football season got started and I've watched several games. I wondered what precautions they would take. Some games have no fans in the seats while others have greatly reduced fan seating (15 – 20K) socially distanced. I forgot to look and see if these fans were wearing masks but I presume, yes.

The interesting part was the protocols along the sidelines among players and coaching staff. I would call the adherence to proper mask wearing at best perfunctory. Key amongst these 'for show only' wearers was Pete Carroll, the Seattle Seahocks head coach. It was on and off at least a hundred times during the game. If Carroll was heatedly yelling at an official he would rip the mask from his face so as not to impede his volume. This was exactly when the mask was most needed to thwart outbound water droplets.

If a youtube of this game exists, take a gander. Seattle played the NE Patriots. Google it.

THE US IS USING THE GUARDIAN TO JUSTIFY JAILING ASSANGE FOR LIFE. WHY IS THE PAPER SO SILENT?

These failings are not about the behaviour of any single journalist. They reflect a culture at the Guardian, and by extension in the wider corporate media, that abhors the kind of journalism Assange promoted: a journalism that is open, genuinely truth-seeking, non-aligned and collaborative rather than competitive. The Guardian wants journalism as a closed club, one where journalists are once again treated as high priests by their flock of readers, who know only what the corporate media is willing to disclose to them.

jonathan-cook.net/blog/2020-09-22/guardian-silent-assange-trial/

FOUND OBJECT