Mendocino County Today: Friday, March 12, 2021

Sunny Skies | 4 New Cases | Clinic Vaccinations | Ocean Wave | The Woods | Seen Brittany? | Yorkville BBQ | June Ranch | Sea Salts | Musical Whales | Clipper Myth | There Yet? | Bureaucratic Fear | Cannabis Management | Mendo Loggers | Training Flights | Old Homestead | Sustainable Weed | Redwood Drive | Shotgun Maple | Traffic Stop | Rough Deal | Famous Cannard | Yesterday's Catch | Biden's Address | PA Lighthouse | Entrenched Elite | Propaganda | Old Joe | Fat-alities | Army Arrogance | Bad Year | Black Reparations | Well Adjusted | Future Climate | Fast Fights | Ambassador Rahm | Patton Peptalk | NYTimes Link | Broken People | Sky Burial | Grammar Police | Basic Politics

MOSTLY SUNNY SKIES and mild afternoon temperatures will prevail through Saturday, with chilly lows expected once again Saturday morning. The next round of rain looks to arrive on Sunday. (NWS)

4 NEW COVID CASES and another death reported in Mendocino County yesterday afternoon.

LOCAL COMMUNITY HEALTH CLINICS DISTRIBUTE COVID-19 VACCINE 

Fort Bragg, CA — Earlier this year, the Biden Administration announced a new partnership with Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs) to distribute COVID-19 vaccines. A recent White House briefing reported that “given the critical role that these providers play in their communities, President Biden will launch a new program to ensure that FQHCs can directly access vaccine supply where needed. At the same time, the administration will encourage jurisdictions to engage and work closely with health centers in their community vaccination planning.”

In Mendocino County, FQHCs include community health centers such as Anderson Valley Health Center in Boonville, Long Valley Health Center in Laytonville, MCHC Health Centers in Ukiah and Willits, Mendocino Coast Clinics in Fort Bragg, and Redwood Coast Medical Services in Gualala. Nationally, FQHCs serve more than 30 million patients each year — one in 11 people nationwide. Locally, FQHCs and affiliated community health centers such as Baechtel Creek Medical Clinic in Willits, serve about two-thirds of people in Mendocino County, providing everything from medical care to behavioral health services, dental care, and some specialty services.

During the pandemic, FQHCs have been a crucial resource in delivering COVID testing and vaccines because these community health centers have trusting relationships with patients throughout the county, including in the most remote parts of our county.

In partnership with Mendocino County Public Health and Adventist Health, local community health clinics have administered more than 20,000 vaccines to Mendocino County residents.

Mendocino Coast Clinics Executive Director Lucresha Renteria said, “As soon as we receive notice that vaccine doses are coming our way, we jump into action and schedule vaccination clinics in line with the County’s vaccine distribution plan. We often have very short notice, but that doesn’t stop us from doing everything we can to get as many people vaccinated as possible.”

The County’s vaccine distribution plan can be found online at mendocinocounty.org/community/novel-coronavirus/covid-19-vaccinations. 

The County is currently vaccinating people in the first two phases of the plan, which includes healthcare workers, people 65 and older, and people in essential job sectors such as education, childcare, emergency services, and food and agriculture. In addition, people of any age with proof of the following medical conditions—those that increase vulnerability to COVID-19—are eligible for vaccination.

•Cancer

•Chronic kidney disease (stage 4)

•Oxygen-dependent COPD

•Diabetes (hemoglobin A1c > 7.5%)

•Heart disease (heart failure, coronary artery disease, cardiomyopathy)

•Immunocompromised state due to disease or medications

•Pregnancy

•Severe obesity (BMI > 40kg/m2)

•Sickle cell disease

•Physical or mental disabilities that increase risk of severe COVID or would cause problems caring for them if they contracted the virus.

The County’s access to vaccines is limited, and community health clinics can only distribute what they receive. Renteria is hopeful that with additional federal funding to increase vaccine production and distribution, local supplies will increase. Until then, she encourages people to continue to follow safety measures such as masking and social distancing.

* * *

Alliance for Rural Community Health (ARCH) is a collaboration of six community health centers in Mendocino County, California. Our purpose is to develop and expand collaborative ways of addressing community health care issues in a cost-effective and efficient manner. Learn more at ruralcommunityhealth.org 

JUST IN: A resident of The Woods on Little River Airport Road writes to say, “Might be a story: the parent SF organization, Sequoia Living, is putting The Woods in Little River up for sale.” The Woods has more than 100 home sites in a relatively small acreage a short distance north of the Littleriver Airport. 

PLEASE HELP US LOCATE A MISSING YOUNG WOMAN from Petaluma and last seen in Fort Bragg. She may be in the Garberville area. 

Brittany Adkins age 28 and her Dog Janie

If You’ve Seen Brittany Or Know What’s Become Of Her And Janie Please Contact Authorities. 

More Info Can Also Be Located Here On Facebook's Missing California Page 

Thank You For Your Help

* * *

ED NOTE: We can’t find Brittany Adkins on the Missing People in 530/Northern California/West Coast facebook page which is full of missing persons cases and not searchable. Nor is she listed anywhere else. We also have no idea which “authorities” are involved, be it SoCo, Mendo, Fort Bragg Police or the Sheriff in either Mendocino or Humboldt Counties. These people have to do a better job of asking for help.

BBQ SATURDAY 3/13 - YORKVILLE MARKET

Hello Yorkvillians and friends.

This Saturday, 3/13 we will be BBQing chicken here at the Market! We will be serving potato salad and carrot apple slaw on the side and the price per plate is $15. Take your meal with you or enjoy it on our socially distanced patio.

We will be serving from 12:30 to 4:30 or until we run out.

Also, we have Veggie Lasagna's as our take and bakes this week.

Thanks!

Lisa

JUNE RANCH TREES & FARMLAND

(Santa Rosa Press Democrat, 1964)

Ed note: The Press Democrat story on the June Ranch printed Philbrook for Philbrick, then owner-operators of the mill referred to.

HOMEGROWN SPICE BLENDS MADE BY LOCAL SIXTH GRADER

Homegrown rosemary sea salt blend as well as rosemary and jalapeño blended with sea salt is available at Boontberry. Made by local sixth grader, Cian Bouch, the salts come in sweet little jars and are $5 for a pair of both flavors. Great as gifts, easy to send, and supports young entrepreneurship. 

Rosemary salt is great on toast or meats or veggies and potatoes. The jalapeño adds a nice kick. 

Larger amounts available by request. Contact his mom, saoirse@saoirsebyrne.com for orders. 

THREE ANGELS OF MENDOCINO

The Whales: Lenny Laks, Antonia Lamb, and John Chamberlin, June 28, 2003

PERSISTENT MYTH: Richard Tower writes:

The myth that the Pan Am Philippine Clipper was on its way to an alternate landing spot on Clear Lake when it crashed near Ukiah on Jan. 21, 1943 persists, but it’s not true. The Clear Lake alternate landing location was established by Pan Am in June 1943 according to the Lake County Bee.

The CAB accident investigation report explains the Philippine Clipper arrived over San Francisco Bay from Honolulu during bad weather in the early morning hours. Captain Elzey was told conditions prevented him landing in the bay and that he should consider proceeding to the alternate landing location in San Diego or holding near San Francisco until 9:00 AM when weather conditions were expected to improve. Since he still had 10 hours of fuel, he decided to hold west of the Golden Gate and if conditions were still bad at 9:00, he had sufficient fuel to continue to San Diego. Later, probably thinking he was still over ocean, he descended to a lower altitude. But extremely heavy winds had blown his aircraft northeast over Mendocino County. Elzey did not have a proper fix on his position, and this error led to the crash in the opinion of the CAB.

The Clear Lake facility was established after the accident to give flying boat captains a closer alternative landing location than San Diego. In addition, a radio beacon was installed on the Farallon Islands to give pilots a better fix on their position.

READ NO EVIL

by Marilyn Davin

With PC outrage on the rise over several children’s books by the newly “racist” Dr. Seuss, I called up the Ukiah library to see if Dr. Seuss’s head might be next on the guillotine of political correctness here in Mendocino County. Dr. Seuss books have been staples of the children’s sections of public libraries since he published the first of his 60 books, And to Think That I Saw it on Mulberry Street, back in 1937. 

As luck would have it, the woman who answered the phone was the children’s section librarian, Samantha White, on the job at the Ukiah Library for two years now. I first agreed at her request to refer to her only as a “library staffer” but am using her name now since it appeared in subsequent emails from both White herself and a library director. We spoke for several minutes about the Dr. Seuss flap. “I learned to read by reading the Dr. Seuss books,” White told me. ”There’s lots of emotional attachment to Dr. Seuss in the community, and if the community loves [his books] it’s our job to provide them.” She went on to state (with to my ears admirable conviction and passion), that, “We’re not in the business of censorship,” and added that the library “makes its own decisions and neither promotes nor discourages” the reading of specific books. She sensibly advised those opposed to the beleaguered Dr. Seuss’s books to simply not read them. What a concept. 

White’s comments support the American Library Association’s Bill of Rights, first drafted in 1938, which speaks out against the “growing intolerance, suppression of free speech and censorship affecting the right of minorities and individuals.” Her comments similarly support the American Library Association’s Freedom to Read Statement, which states, in part, that “the freedom to read is essential to our democracy.” It was reassuring to hear from White that the county’s central library is apparently staying true to those ideals in these polarizing times instead of taking the easier path of knuckling under to the politics du jour. 

As I sat down to write the story my iPhone dinged with a series of puzzling emails from the library. The first was from White herself, who had somehow unearthed my email address. She had clearly not been congratulated by her higher-ups on her decision to share her outspoken and courageous views on free speech and censorship with me during our very brief phone conversation. She wrote that she was not aware that she had been speaking to a reporter for the Anderson Valley Advertiser (though the first words out of my mouth were my name, the purpose of my call, and that I write for the AVA – I never disguise my identity). She went on to request that I “go through official channels” to speak with “the Library Director,” that she had spoken “off the record” to me (never mentioned during our conversation), and further requested that I “pull any notes I might have taken.” Totally blindsided by this, to say nothing of totally flummoxed, I responded briefly that I did in fact fully identify myself and my purpose in calling, and that I couldn’t imagine what she could possibly be so afraid of. 

I concluded that “It’s scary that county employees have been this thoroughly muzzled.” Doesn’t free speech work both ways? Not only to the books coming in from the outside but also to library employees on the inside? Library, heal thyself!

I next heard from Deborah Fader Samson, according to her email Director, Mendocino County Cultural Services Agency Libraries/Museum/Parks. She wrote, “When Samantha answered your call she took you to be a patron with questions. I wouldn’t know what the AVA was if you phoned me and started asking questions. Sam isn’t muzzled; she’s just conscientious about spreading misinformation when facts are called for, as are most Library workers. We have a strong commitment to the truth. That’s why Sam requested you contact me for an official statement.”

Translation: the only truth is the truth created and vetted by library/county higher-pay-grade handlers. 

Sam had described principles in her comments to me, principles in line with the country’s nearly century-old codified commitment to freedom of expression in American libraries. Nothing required fact checking; there was no “misinformation.” She did a fine job without prompting or oversight (dare we say censorship?) from above and should have been spared this after-the-fact hand wringing. Funneling information through an “approved” source is one of the most insidious forms of censorship and is frequently justified from on high under the guise of the need to “tell the truth.” 

It gives me no pleasure to share this email trail. The library is apparently doing the right thing in defending not only the principle and practice of free speech but also condemning censorship, which has most recently ensnared Dr. Seuss in its grubby clutches. This is good news and would have been a fairly run-of-the-mill tale had it run its natural course. But its bizarre follow-up (don’t use my name, my comments were off the record, lose your notes) ethically demanded inclusion in the story. 

It’s an all-too-familiar textbook example of how politics ─ as changeable and fickle as the latest hair color and descriptors of ethnicities and sexual orientation ─ can chip away at even our loftiest ideals, in this instance freedom of expression in our libraries. It’s also a timely reminder that this freedom doesn’t apply solely to books, but also to those who read them, write them, and, yes, ensure their existence in our libraries. To be cowed into silence by the shifting political judgments of the day is akin to empowering a blowhard bully to keep right on truckin.’ 

On a broader scale, there’s this contemporary notion that kids shouldn’t be exposed to out-of-political-fashion ideas, that they should learn about the world in a sort of pleasant, lulling ambiance undisturbed by either judgment or disagreement, where politeness is all. This is ultimately crippling, and is certainly not an atmosphere where tomorrow’s critical thinkers have the opportunity to stretch their minds. Conflict and differences of opinion, freely expressed, are what create the perspectives and knowledge that the next generation will hold to be true. Just like White illustrated in her condemnation of censorship. The late author David Foster Wallace captured this well in writing that “Good fiction’s job is to comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable.”

My greatest role model was my father. He followed a sort of Atticus Finch-style of parenting. A lawyer, he believed passionately that a book never corrupted anyone, a belief he lived by buying me any book I wanted that might not be available to me either in the library or by virtue of my age. If there was something I wanted to read I wrote its title down on a piece of paper that he took with him to his office; at noon he walked a block down Market Street to Stacey’s bookstore and bought it for me. In this way I read Lolita (among many other books) and shared it with my friends, many of whose parents forbade it as “unsuitable” for kids. Then at the dinner table we talked about those books, demystifying the forbidden and robbing it of its power while simultaneously creating a challenging intellectual environment where no subject was off limits. 

Dr. Seuss would certainly have agreed with this unfettered intellectual freedom. Theodor Seuss Geisel (his actual name) wrote in his last book, Oh the Places You’ll Go,” published in 1990, that “You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose.”

SUPES HIRE ANOTHER POT PROGRAM MANAGER

Based on experience and qualifications, it appears that the Supervisors have made a good choice in hiring Ms. Kristin Nevedal of Garberville, ground zero for the Northcoast's industry, as Mendo’s new Cannabis Program Manager.

The County has not issued an official presser, but Supervisor Williams wrote on facebook:

“I’m pleased by the unanimous Board of Supervisors support for hiring Kristin Nevedal as our next Mendocino County Cannabis Program Manager. Eyes wide open for recruitment, I spotted her engagement at a state-level committee meeting. In subsequent conversation, I gained confidence from Kristin’s sagacious awareness of our local ordinance challenges coupled with vast state policy literacy. She will join us as a direct report to the Board of Supervisors, a somewhat unorthodox arrangement, but suited given the eventuality of the program. The dual and largely disjointed state license / county permit dynamic is one of the most complex technical problems the county faces. Kristin joins as the looming State sunset of (temporary) provisional licenses jeopardizes $5.5 Million annual county revenue, environmental and neighborhood protection. I expect she will hit the ground running and accelerate both application processing and expectation-setting outreach. Subset of Kristin’s pertinent background: 

Governor Appointee, Bureau of Cannabis Control, Cannabis Advisory Committee 

• Chairperson for the Subcommittee on Cultivation 

• Chairperson for the Subcommittee on Laboratory Testing 

• Member of the Microbusiness Subcommittee 

• Member of the Year End Report Subcommittee Board Member, California Cannabis Industry Association Co-Founder & Executive Director, International Cannabis Farmers Association Director Of Education, 

The Emerald Cup Co-Founder & Vice President, 

Humboldt Growers Association Board Member, 

Interim Executive Director & Senior Advisor, 

Coalition for Cannabis Policy Reform”

* * *

Supervisor Williams notes that Ms. Nevedal will be “a direct report to the Board of Supervisors, a somewhat unorthodox arrangement, but suited given the eventuality of the program.”

We have no idea what “the eventuality of the program” means. We doubt that Williams knows either. Whatever it means, it’s hardly a reason for such an “unorthodox arrangement.” To us, it’s worse than “unorthodox,” it’s unworkable. 

Imagine yourself working for five different people with varying degrees of knowledge about “your program” who cannot meet or talk among themselves without complying with the Brown Act and who each have political constituencies who don't hesitate to offer their strong ideas about how “your program” ought to work. Oh, and did I mention that the program is a hot mess to begin with?

I had a job something like this once and at the time I used to joke whenever I left the building, “If my boss calls — get his name!” But in my case I really did act almost entirely on my own authority, not my various program manager bosses. When my father was manager of America’s largest ag-co-op, he had the “Challenge” of working for a board made up of people who he bought produce from. It’s a management arrangement that is fraught with problems in the best of circumstances.

Add to this the fact that Ms. Nevedal will have no direct subordinates or staff of her own and will have to have to seek staffing from one department head or another, presumably under the authority of the Board, but which in fact will be controlled by CEO Angelo and her Yes, Ma'am chorus. Then you have the accumulated expectations that will be imposed on Ms. Nevedal who seems to have been appointed to do an impossible task under a tight deadline. 

We understand that the Supes were probably unhappy with previous cannabis organizational structures. After all we’ve had, what? six cannabis program managers since Prop 64 so far, and each in a different place in the County’s organization — all of them unable to make any headway on permit approvals, provisional or otherwise.

On its face, this “unorthodox arrangement” of five supervisors supervising her seems to be the worst. We agree with Williams that Ms. Nevedal seems quite knowledgeable with pot and pot admin and pot regs. But since she’s obviously qualified to do pot admin somewhere other than Mendo, and people like her are in demand both as government workers and consultants in the pot legalization biz, we doubt Ms. Nevedal will last very long in Mendo. If she can untangle the Mendo mess she will be considered a miracle worker. The Supes need to rethink this. They’ll never ask us, of course, but we’d be happy to suggest a more conventional management arrangement.

(Mark Scaramella)

THE APPENDED TWO COMMENTS appeared on the essential Redheaded Blackbelt website. Both reminded me that nighttime military air maneuvers were also common at the higher elevations of the Anderson Valley, often startling early rising hill people when large, silent planes appeared in the valleys beneath. The Clow Ridge area was a popular training site. There was an incident where a piece of a plane fell onto the property of a local. A Korean War-era pilot told me that he often trained in Mendocino County because the terrain resembled Korea:

(1) I tried to submit a cracked thermal window claim from sonic booms in the early 80’s, which was denied, because our mailing address is Garberville…and when working at Mattole School, there were jets LOWER than the school who were training to get under the radar at Centerville, coming in from the mouth of the river. I haven’t heard a sonic boom in years. Many folks were up in arms in those days. I did see one of those planes yesterday afternoon going north above Honeydew toward the mouth – seemed a little low, and wondered if it was taking photos, though I have no idea, and it was too high to see any numbers or even the color.

2) Nothing new. They always do training flights over mendo and humboldt, especially at night. Also the kc-10’s are almost always doing fighter jet and transport refuels on a pattern similar to the one pictured. Most common i see are stratotankers and Northrop T-38C Talon trainer jets. Hell the navy owns all the airspace over mendo to a certain altitude for training purposes. Occasionally you can track the Northrop Talons over us as well.

I watch them all the time on a few tracking websites, also listen to their comms. Did you know the navy seals and the marines use lake sonoma for training? Some nights you can see a few C-130s in line for crew drops into that lake. They use it since it's so straight and the aircraft can get a good run on it.

FROM SUPERVISOR WILLIAMS:

University of California presentation tomorrow by video: 

The new frontier of cannabis production represents a large, lucrative, and rapidly expanding industry in the Western US, and particularly in Mendocino County. But what consequences does this agricultural boom have on the environment? A research team from UC Berkeley's Cannabis Research Center is starting experiments at Hopland Research and Extension Center and Angelo Coast Range Reserve to study the effect of light and noise from cannabis farms on surrounding wildlife, including insects, birds, and mammals. This work builds off of multidisciplinary research on wildlife response to outdoor cannabis farms, interviews with farmers on their relationship with the land, and discussions with regulators from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. This research aims to promote sustainable cannabis production that can support both human and animal communities.

Phoebe Parker-Shames is a PhD candidate at the University of California at Berkeley in the Environmental Science, Policy, and Management Department. She is taking an interdisciplinary approach to studying the ecological outcomes of cannabis legalization, and is broadly interested in wildlife in working landscapes.

Register at: https://ucanr.edu/survey/survey.cfm?surveynumber=33356

ELDER ABUSE, COVELO STYLE

On Tuesday, March 9, 2021 at about 3:28 PM the Mendocino County Sheriff's Office received a call of a subject, later identified as Randy Maple, 51, of Covelo, walking around a property in the 76000 block of Henderson Lane in Covelo.

The caller advised Maple was armed with a shotgun and had discharged it numerous times. While responding to the location a Round Valley Tribal Officer was able to observe Maple from a distance and also provided updates to the Sheriff's Office.

Upon Sheriff's Deputies arrival Maple turned towards the Deputy and discharged the shotgun into the air. Maple attempted to reload the shotgun but was detained prior to being able to reload the firearm.

Maple was found to be in possession of a single shot shotgun, with a pistol grip and an 18.5 inch barrel. A records check on Maple revealed he is prohibited from possessing firearms or ammunition. Maple also appeared to be under the influence of a controlled substance during this event.

During the investigation, Sheriff's Deputies learned Maple entered the residence of an elderly couple (his parents) ages 71 and 78, and took the shotgun and ammunition from a rear bedroom.

Maple argued with the residents and then exited the house and then shot one time through the front door. The pellets went through the door and impacted a wall inside the residence in close proximity to the occupants.

Maple also shot a gate which was on the deck of the residence. On the property, Sheriff's Deputies located more recently spent shotgun shells.

Maple was arrested for shooting into an inhabited dwelling, Elder Abuse, Possession of a firearm by a prohibited person, Possession of ammunition by a prohibited person and possessing a firearm while under the influence of a controlled substance.

Maple was booked into the Mendocino County Jail where he was to be held in lieu of $100,000 bail.

THE MOST USUAL OF THE USUAL SUSPECTS

On Tuesday, March 9, 2021 at 8:22 P.M. a Deputy from the Mendocino County Sheriff's Office conducted a traffic stop on a vehicle for a vehicle code violation in the 1700 block of North State Street Ukiah.

The Deputy contacted the male driver and male passenger inside the vehicle. The passenger was later identified as being Bobby Lee Hill, 32, of Ukiah.

The Deputy had knowledge Hill had an active Mendocino County Superior Court felony warrant for his arrest. The Deputy confirmed the warrant with Mendocino County Sheriff's Office Dispatch and Hill was arrested on the warrant and taken into custody without incident.

Hill was subsequently booked into the Mendocino County Jail where he was to be held in lieu of $15,000 bail.

DOUBLEHEADER MARIJUANA BEAT DOWN (COVELO)

On Tuesday, March 9, 2021 at about 4:02 PM, Deputies from Mendocino County Sheriff's Office were responding to Covelo for an unrelated incident when they were flagged down by a motorist on Highway 162.

The motorist, an adult male, age 30, was bleeding from his facial area and was covered in blood. The adult male informed Deputies he had been physically assaulted by two adult males (described as being in their 30's) while in the area of Main Street and Howard Street in Covelo.

Deputies learned the physical assault took place during a prearranged drug transaction involving the sale of marijuana.

It was reported that during the initial assault, one of suspects produced a fixed blade knife and demanded the adult male enter the passenger seat of his own vehicle.

After being forced to enter into his own vehicle at knife-point, the adult male was driven away from the assault scene to another location in Covelo, where he was physically assaulted again by both suspects.

The adult male reported the two suspects demanded all of his money, to include the marijuana and any other drugs he might be in possession of at that time.

After being assaulted the second time, the adult male was allowed to leave resulting in him fleeing the scene in his vehicle until he flagged down a Deputy on Highway 162.

Deputies, along with the Mendocino County Sheriff's Office Investigations Bureau continue to investigate this incident.

As a result of the assault and kidnapping, the adult male sustained moderate facial injuries that required treatment at a local hospital.

The Mendocino County Sheriff's Office is requesting anyone that might have information regarding this incident to contact the Sheriff's Office Tip-Line by calling (707) 234-2100 or the WeTip anonymous crime reporting hotline by calling (800) 782-7463.

ORGANIC FARMER BOB CANNARD Grows Vegetables, Not Marijuana, and He Isn’t Sorry

by Jonah Raskin

If you want to know a place, get to know and listen to the folks who have been around for a long time, the people who have deep roots in a community, and yes in the soil itself. In Sonoma County there are several prime candidates: Mike Benziger, Phil Coturri and Bob Cannard, all of them men of the soil who collectively grow marijuana, grapes, fruits and vegetables.

Yes, there have been local women imbued with lore and legend. Many of them, including my friends, Anne Teller and Pat Eliot, have passed, though not before they lived full, rich lives and told riveting tales.

Bob Cannard is famous. At least he was when Chez Panisse was up and running. Cannard supplied vegetables, fruits and herbs to Alice Waters legendary Berkeley restaurant. She and her chefs turned curly cress, baby Brussels sprouts, celery root and bok choy into sumptuous dishes that appealed to foodies from near and far.

Alas, Chez Panisse has been shuttered during the pandemic and Cannard has been happy growing vegetables for masked cooks who arrive at Green String—his flagship farm—eager for fresh produce. They leave with baskets filled with their favorite seasonal fruits, vegetables, cheeses and meats from pasture-feed cattle. Green String is a paradise for omnivores.

Long ago, Cannard made a conscious decision not to grow cannabis. If he had chosen to grow it, he would probably be a wealthy man today, though he doesn’t believe in owning land and property. He leases and rents. Nor did he encourage others to grow weed. When young guys enrolled in his classes on agriculture at the Santa Rosa Junior College and wanted information about cultivating “plants,” (wink wink), he advised them to steer clear of weed.

“I told them they would be better off if they grew things to eat like broccoli and zucchini,” Cannard tells me on a sunny afternoon at Green String on the outskirts of Petaluma, once the self-proclaimed chicken and egg capital of the world, where the rolling hills are green right now.

Most of the young men didn’t listen to their venerable teacher. Why should they have? In the hip capitalist culture of California, in which cannabis, not broccoli and zucchini, has been idealized, romanticized, fetishized and vilified, young men parted company from Cannard and chose to worship at the altar of “demon weed.” They went into the hills and the valleys all over the Golden State, adhered the California Dream and grew very potent marijuana that sold for thousands of dollars a pound. Decades later, the price per pound has dropped, but a pound of marijuana still fetches far more than a pound of zucchini.

Cannard isn’t a foe of marijuana. “A puff now and then is fine,” he says. “But what started out as something joyful turned into something else.” He pauses a moment and adds, “I never saw marijuana do anyone any good.”

I might have argued with Cannard. He knows I grow weed and he has no problem with that. He knows, too, that some of his contemporaries, including Mike Benziger and Phil Coturri grow spectacular weed.

Weed isn’t Cannard’s way of being in the world. I don’t take issue with that. As a culture, we have made far too much of weed. Put that in your pipe and smoke it. Sometimes I wish the whole cannabis conundrum would go away. I have even heard lifelong cannabis activists make that very point, though they also know that weed as a social and political issue won’t go away as long as it is illegal in the eyes of the federal government.

Cannard has gone on doing what his father, Bob Cannard, Senior, did, and what he himself started to do as a boy and continued to do as a young man. Now on the cusp of 70, he’s still growing organic vegetables at Green String, where he has a large crew of Mexicans, both men and women, who labor in the fields, and mostly young white women, like jovial Erin, who work in the Green String store and seem to love what they do. “I show the Mexicans what I’d like them to do,” Cannard says. “When they arrive at the farm they’re already good workers and they all know how to use a hoe without me telling them.”

Green String employees make between $15 to $17 an hour, they get regular breaks and they all learn how to drive the farm trucks and tractors safely. Cannard doesn’t pay himself. He can’t afford to, but he gets all his food for free. “I love what I do,” he tells me. “Not matter what kind of work it is, you have to love doing it or there’s no point.”

Erin and her sisters, who smile nearly all day long, six days a week, sell beets, radishes, cabbages, herbs such as thyme, mint and parsley, olive oil, vinegar, honey, raw milk, raw kefir, duck eggs, all kinds of cheeses. Three days a week, there is wholesome bread from Revolution bakery. Shoppers can also grind red corn and make their own polenta.

On a recent Saturday morning, Erin stood at the front counter in the little store, which is heated by a small wood-burning stove on chilly days. I bought two pounds of mustard greens, a flank steak which I selected from the freezer, and two dozen ripe clementines, which Cannard insisted I eat skins and all.

Cannard eats when he’s hungry, which is most everyday. He also eats to be healthy. “Nutrition is the best defense against illness and disease,” he tells me. “I don’t go to doctors. I take responsibility for my own health.” He adds “I’m in the sun when the sun is shining and I eat mineral-rich plants.”

How much longer Cannard will be able to work at Green String he isn’t sure, not because he’s aging, but because water is in short supply. By the first week of March 2021, all of the reservoirs were already empty, and very little rain was in the forecast. One day soon he may have to move to a part of California such as Yolo County, where water is far more abundant than in Sonoma. That would mean uprooting and tearing himself away from the land that he loves.

On the day I visited, Cannard had more work to do, namely put several thousands baby plants – sixty different kinds of vegetables — in a greenhouse. “We have to keep the spirit of diversity alive,” he tells me. “We have to share our love with plants and with customers, too. We have to maintain joyousness.” In the week ahead, he would get on a tractor and till, and also make his own compost. When the plants would go into the ground there would be a full moon. That much he knows. But the future is uncertain. “We have some wells,” Cannard told me. “But they won’t last long. This summer we might not be able to grow here.”

Uncertainty is an integral part of Cannard’s life. Rain might not fall, plants might not thrive, and crops might not make it to the Green String Store. Perhaps Chez Panisse will reopen soon and Alice Waters will want fresh fruits, vegetables and herbs from Sonoma.

(Jonah Raskin is the author of For The Hell of It: The Life and Times of Abbie Hoffman and American Scream: Allen Ginsberg’s ‘Howl’ and the Making of the Beat Generation.)

CATCH OF THE DAY, March 11, 2021

ANDRES EMERY, Ukiah. Protective order violation, probation revocation.

MICHAEL FREEMAN JR., Covelo. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

VICENTE GONZALEZ, Redwood Valley. Counterfeit bill, suspended license, failure to appear.

JAIME GUTIERREZ, Hopland. Assault with deadly weapon not a gun, domestic battery, vandalism.

DARIN HAMMOND, Ukiah. Probation revocation.

AARON ORESCO, Redwood Valley. Probation revocation.

SAMUEL SANCHEZ, Ukiah. Parole violation, resisting. (Frequent flyer.)

FABIO SILVEIRA, Modesto/Ukiah. Conspiracy.

CHRISTINA TORRES, Hopland. Domestic battery, controlled substance, failure to appear, probation revocation.

IN NATIONAL ADDRESS, Biden tells states to make all adults vaccine eligible by May 1

President warns Americans ‘this is not the time to let up’ in first prime-time address on pandemic anniversary

by David Smith

Joe Biden has directed states to make all American adults eligible for coronavirus vaccines by 1 May and set an audacious goal of 4 July for gatherings to celebrate “independence” from the deadly pandemic.

But in his first prime-time address, which marked the anniversary of America’s shutdown, the president warned that restrictions could be reinstated if the nation lets down its guard against the virus.

“Tonight, I’m announcing that I will direct all states, tribes and territories to make all adults – people 18 and over – eligible to be vaccinated no later than 1 May,” Biden said in the east room of the White House. “That’s much earlier than expected.”

He went on to make clear that this does not mean every person can get their shot in the arm by then but they will at least be able to join a waiting list. It signified the growing confidence of an administration that Biden said remains on “a war footing to get the job done”.

The president said his target of 100m vaccine doses in his first 100 days has already been exceeded, with the US now on track to achieve that figure on his 60th day.

In a 24-minute speech that carefully balanced caution and optimism, Biden also announced that the federal government will create a website before 1 May to help people find vaccination sites and schedule appointments. He promised he would “not relent” until the virus is beaten but he needs every American to “do their part”.

He then offered a tangible target with emotional resonance: “If we do this together, by July the fourth there’s a good chance you, your families and friends, will be able to get together in your back yard or in your neighborhood and have a cookout or a barbecue and celebrate independence day.”

He added: “After this long hard year, that will make this independence day something truly special, where we not only mark our independence as a nation, but we begin to mark our independence from this virus.”

Trump was frequently criticised last year for setting wildly optimistic dates for reopening businesses and schools. With many states already lifting restrictions again, Biden was at pains to say the fight is far from over. “Because if we don’t stay vigilant and the conditions change and we may have to reinstate restrictions to get back on track,” he warned. “Please, we don’t want to do that again. We’ve made so much progress. This is not the time to let up.”

Wearing a black mask, dark suit, white shirt, striped tie and white handkerchief in his breast pocket, Biden walked up a red carpet flanked by flags to make the address – the first on live television from the east room since Donald Trump falsely claimed election victory at 2.20am on 4 November.

In remarks that were rooted in empathy and appeared to include some ad libs, the president took some shots towards his predecessor’s downplaying of the virus and dithering over mask wearing – though he did not mention by Trump by name.

“A year ago, we were hit with a virus that was met with silence and spread unchecked, denials for days, weeks, then months,” Biden said. “That led to more deaths, more infections, more stress and more loneliness. Photos and videos from 2019 feel like they were taken in another era. The last vacation, the last birthday with friends, the last holiday with extended family.

“While it was different for everyone, we all lost something – a collective suffering, a collective sacrifice, a year filled with the loss of life and the loss of living for all of us. But in the loss, we saw how much there was to gain in appreciation, respect, and gratitude. Finding light in the darkness is a very American thing to do. In fact, it may be the most American thing we do.”

Biden reached into his pocket and took out a card on which he keeps a running total of the virus death toll. He said 527,726 Americans had lost their lives to it as of Thursday night. “That’s more deaths than in world war one, world war two, the Vietnam war and 9/11 combined.”

Early White House projections based on expert modeling had suggested that 100,000 to 240,000 Americans could die from the virus.

Biden, whose own life has been scarred by tragedy, also reflected on the impact of job losses, business closures, evictions and children going a year without attending school. “It’s the details of life that matter the most, and we miss those details, the big details and the small moments, weddings, birthdays, graduations, all of the things that needed to happen but didn’t.

“The first date, the family reunions, the Sunday night rituals. It’s all has exacted a terrible cost on the psyche of so many of us … The things we used to do that always filled us with joy have become things we couldn’t do and broke our hearts.”

The president condemned the partisanship that has hurt America’s pandemic response and led to racist violence. “Too often, we’ve turned against one another. A mask, the easiest thing to do to save lives, sometimes it divides us. States pitted against one another instead of working with each other. Vicious hate crimes against Asian Americans who have been attacked, harassed, blamed, and scapegoated.”

Biden did not acknowledge the previous administration’s investment in Operation Warp Speed to produce vaccines, a sore point among Trump alumni. Kayleigh McEnany, a former White House press secretary, tweeted: “Even the media acknowledges the Trump administration’s role in spearheading vaccine development and procurement … but President Biden REFUSES to say the truth.”

Biden spoke hours after signing a $1.9tn coronavirus relief bill passed by Democrats in Congress with no Republican votes. Striking another positive note, he said: “After long, dark years, one whole year, there is light and hope of better days ahead if we all do our part. This country will be vaccinated soon. Our economy will be on the mend. Our kids will be back in school.”

(TheGuardian.com)

ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

“Does anyone seriously believe that the husk of Joe Biden will remain in office more than another few weeks? It’s obvious that he doesn’t have the mental mojo to work an authentic press conference, and surely not the customary address to a joint session of Congress. Even the news media may seek to know who is actually in charge of the executive branch before much longer”

People who do not know, are either not paying attention, or are fearful of being marginalized as a conspiracist for speaking the truth that not only the executive branch, but the entire U.S. government, is lead by an entrenched elite straddling the executive offices of bureaucracy (most importantly the CIA with the Department of State a close second), 501c/3 and 501c/4 bill-mills AKA “think tanks”, consultants, lobbying firms, and the C-suites of business and finance (the revolving doors at Goldman, JP Morgan, Boeing, Monsanto/Bayer).

Presidents who did not capitulate to this arrangement (FDR, JFK, Trump) either died before they were killed, murdered on parade, or found themselves a victim of a relentless 4 year long coup involving the aforementioned along with the 4th estate (also controlled by the aforementioned). 

Does anyone seriously believe that Biden is making decisions? Does anyone believe that he is making the decision to bring onboard the people that are making the decisions?

Sustain your disbelief, just like bad theatre, or a bad film, you lack the courage to stand up and leave and it’s so much easier to endure, to hold out a little while more.

CONSENT MANUFACTURED BY PROPAGANDA IS NOT INFORMED CONSENT

Caitlin Johnstone digs into the dishonesty of a recent tweet by the top U.S. diplomat.

consortiumnews.com/2021/03/10/consent-manufactured-by-propaganda-is-not-informed-consent/

POOR OLD JOE

(Miranda Devine)

....America is waking up to what anyone paying attention during the election campaign knew was Biden’s biggest problem, the taboo topic of his cognitive fade-outs. 

Whatever the cause, the pandemic gave him cover, but now that vaccines are kicking in and herd immunity is on the horizon, the oldest president in history soon will have nowhere to hide. 

Already, voters have picked up that something is not quite right at the White House. 

More than six weeks since his inauguration, Biden has not held a press conference, or the customary first-year address to a joint session of Congress, and a Rasmussen poll this week shows that more than half of voters are worried about his ability to do the job. 

Only 34 percent of voters are “very confident” that Biden is “physically and mentally up to the job of being president,” while 14 percent are “somewhat confident.” 

Fully one third of Democrats are at least “somewhat concerned” that Biden has not yet held a press conference, as are 56 percent of ­independents. 

Whatever his handlers are hiding, even his trusty teleprompter can’t fill in the gaps. 

At the podium this week to announce two new women generals, Biden forgot the nameof his secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin, as well as the name of the building where Austin works — the Pentagon. 

“I want to thank the, uh, the uh, the former general . . . the guy who runs that outfit over there.” 

Time for a new Loader of the Teleprompter. 

On the rare occasion an unscripted comment slips out, it is off-key, like when he told a group of NASA engineers that Indian-Americans are “taking over the country.” 

In recent days he has lost track mid-speech and blurted out: “What am I doing here?” 

He told People magazine that he is confused each day when he wakes up in the White House. 

“I wake up every morning, look at Jill, and say ‘where the hell are we?’” 

If his wife isn’t by his side answering policy questions on his behalf, it’s Vice President Kamala Harris hovering nearby. 

Unusually, she has stood in for Biden on six solo phone calls with foreign leaders. 

In a rare outing this week, to the DC hardware store to which Cummings was referring, reporters yelled questions to the president about the border crisis before his wranglers shooed them away. 

Biden avoided the hairy topic by looking blank. 

It’s not good enough. 

America needs to know who is making the decisions at the White House. 

If it really is Biden, then let him off the leash to explain if there’s method to the madness. 

It matters who is in charge because the Biden administration is enacting radical nation-changing at breakneck speed. 

Someone needs to be account­able. 

People voted for Biden because they believed he was a moderate who would fulfill his campaign promise to unify and heal a fractured nation. 

That is the opposite of what his presidency has delivered. 

Nowhere is the contrast between promise and reality starker than at the southern border, now a self-inflicted humanitarian, natural-security, public-health disaster. 

From Day 1, Biden signed a flurry of executive orders to dismantle hard-won Trump-era border protections that had slowed illegal border crossings to a trickle. 

The result was an inevitable magnet. Of the tens of thousands of illegal migrants flocking to the border, some wearing Biden T-shirts, only one in three is intercepted, according to Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick. 

An estimated 6 percent have tested positive for COVID-19 but have been allowed to melt into the country. 

Biden has handed people-smugglers a lucrative incentive to prey on vulnerable children. Already, 3,250 migrant children are being housed in hastily constructed tent cities in Texas. They reportedly are arriving at triple the rate of two weeks ago, and yet Biden’s immigration spokespeople refuse to take responsibility. 

They blame Trump, hurricanes and the pandemic for the post-election surge, anything but the “pull factor” of Biden’s open-border message. 

“This is a full-blown disaster that they’ve created,” Patrick told Fox News Wednesday. “There is no end in sight to these people who are coming over the border. We are talking millions . . . 

THINNING THE HERD

ARMY ARROGANCE

by Phillip Murphy

“My God, what a beautiful day” I thought to myself as I was flying southbound in my 1954 Piper because for once the California Central Valley was absolutely crystal clear. It was only about 8:30 in the morning, but I had already flown over 150 miles and dropped-off my wife at the small mountaintop airport in the town of Paradise. Now I was halfway back to my home base, a small private field called Sunset Skyranch, about 15 miles south of Sacramento.

But there was something else besides the clear skies that was unusual, and that was the number of large aircraft in the sky that weekday morning. It was shortly before the first Gulf war, and you would have thought the battle was going to take place in Stockton. As I looked out my left window I could see a F-117 stealth fighter shooting an approach at Beale Air Force base, two F-111 fighter bombers were departing McClellan Air Force base in north Sacramento, east of Sacramento a flock of B-52 bombers were shooting approaches at Mather Air Force base, a lone C-141 transport was shooting an approach at Sacramento International airport, and C-130 and C-5 transports were in the pattern at Travis Air Force base in Fairfield. It was an aerial armada the likes of which I had never seen before in hundreds of hours of Central Valley flying, but at that point I had no idea my contact with military aviation was about to get much closer in the next few minutes.

When I arrived at my home field I noticed a two-seat ultralight aircraft was in the pattern for the dirt runway which paralleled the paved runway, and made a mental note to keep track of the small aircraft as I entered the 45 degree leg of the traffic pattern for the paved runway. The landing was uneventful, and except for a couple of people in the transient parking area the airport was deserted as I pushed my plane back into its hanger. As I closed the hanger doors, I could hear a distinct whop-whop-whop that I knew without looking was being generated by the two bladed main rotor of a military UH-1 Huey helicopter.

As I locked the hanger doors, I looked up and saw the little ultralight climbing steeply after just having completed a touch-and-go on the dirt runway, then another aircraft burst into view from behind a stand of trees; it was the Army Huey and he was headed straight for the ultralight at a slightly higher altitude. I watched in a state of shock as the Huey blew right through the traffic pattern and passed directly over the ultralight with an alarmingly small distance of about 40-50 feet separating them. Just as the helicopter whop-whopped right over the little plane, the ultralight went from a steep nose-up attitude to an even steeper nose-down orientation, and the engine began to scream as the craft hurtled towards the ground. The ultralight disappeared behind a hanger and a sickening crashing sound confirmed the fact that the landing had indeed gone very badly.

I dashed across the parking lot past the two other stunned witnesses to the accident and hopped over the barbed wire fence, landing in a field of corn stubble. The ultralight was standing on its nose, its wooden propeller shattered into splinters. A few yards in from of the plane was one of the former occupants, laying motionless face down on the ground. The other occupant was slumped over in the crushed cockpit, but was making faint sounds that confirmed that he was still alive at that point. I went to the man on the ground first, assuming that that he had hit the propeller as he was thrown from the plane and that he was dead. As I hesitatingly turned him over, I was greatly relieved to see that he had not gotten a face-full of propeller and that he was able to make a quiet groan.

By now the two other witnesses had arrived on the scene, and I sent one off them to the field back to call 911. We couldn’t do much for the man on the ground, so we turned our attention to the man still trapped in the wreckage. As we tried to figure out how to remove him and how bad his injuries were, we noticed the Huey had returned and landed about 200 feet away and a very young Airman jumped out of the passenger area of the helicopter and ran up to us. He asked if there was anything they could do, and after we informed him that an ambulance was on the way he quickly ran back to the chopper, which departed as quickly as it came. Finally the fire department, CHP and an ambulance arrived, but only the paramedics, the two other witnesses and myself seemed interested in removing the pilot from his mangled craft. The aluminum tubes and sheet metal that comprised the nose of the aircraft had wadded-up into a ball, with the pilot’s feet in the middle of it. 

After some improvising and applying some brute force we managed to at last free the pilot’s feet from the twisted metal, and I helped load him onto a stretcher and carried one end of the load a couple hundred yards to the highway and waiting ambulance, as the CHP officers and firemen stood nearby cracking jokes. I found out later that both men survived the ordeal, but both of them were crippled for life, with the pilot being paralyzed for life from the waist down. 

But that wasn’t the end of the story. The cause of the accident was painfully obvious to me, and I was the only witness who had seen the entire event unfold. As the helicopter passed over the small plane the downwash from the rotor blades caused the ultralight to stall, and there was not enough attitude to make a recovery. That was the story I was going to tell the FAA/NTSB, and I left my name and number with someone at the airport so they could contact me.

So I was very surprised when the airport manager called me a few days later and said that I better keep my mouth shut or there would be serious trouble of an unspecified nature if I didn’t. Apparently the ultralight pilot was suing everyone in sight including the airport, so I caved-in and bit my tongue, selfishly putting my desire to keep my treasured hanger ahead of being truthful.

I have wondered about that decision ever since, because I found out that both of the pilots involved were jerks. The ultralight pilot had been illegally giving dual instruction at the time and had been shunned at a couple of local airports for making a habit of doing low level aerobatics near airport traffic patterns. A friend of mine said he had been flying alongside this guy at 500’ in another ultralight right over ARCO arena during a Sacramento Kings game, when all of a sudden this guy decided to do a snap roll and would have collided with my friend if he had not made an instant avoidance maneuver.

The Army pilot kept a Cessna at our field, and at a rare appearance at one of our airport association meetings I listened to him brag about how he would take Army Blackhawk helicopters on joy-rides to do errands for himself and his friends. The unanimous decision among the regulars was that he was the epitome of a first rate military pilot asshole. In the end the FAA blamed the accident on the ultralight pilot, even though he was only partly to blame for not avoiding the helicopter’s downwash when so close to his stall speed. Most of the blame should have gone to the Army pilot, who flew right trough the traffic pattern and should have seen and avoided the smaller aircraft, but did neither.

I never saw the official report, but I can say one thing for certain — it must have had some very big lies and omissions in it.

CHICAGO SUBURB to become first city to provide reparations to Black residents for housing

These reparations are being funded by marijuana taxes! I guess that means sales tax....don’t remember Chicago having a pot growing kinda climate. 

theguardian.com/us-news/2021/mar/11/chicago-suburb-reparations-black-residents

I'M NOT SURE I've ever met a complete person. I've met many people that seemed well-adjusted, but I'm not sure that to be well-adjusted to things as they are is a desideratum--is that the word? that which is to be desired. I'm not sure I would want to be well-adjusted to things as they are. I would prefer to be racked by desire for things better than what they are, even for things which are unattainable, than to be satisfied with things as they are. I don't think the human race should settle for what it has now achieved at all, any more than I think America must settle for its present state.

--Tennessee Williams, Interview with Studs Terkel/1961/Photograph by Michael Childers.

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA OFFERS NORCAL CLIMATE FUTURES SERIES

UC Hopland Research and Extension Center (HREC) is hosting a series of events related to climate change adaptation in Northern California. The series will consider what climate change impacts can be expected in Lake, Mendocino and Sonoma counties, and how we can build our knowledge and resiliency to face these changes. This is a series of free online events, online registration is required .

“These events are meant as a space for beginners and experts alike to discuss and learn more about climate change in Northern California and how we can manage it together. I’ll be interested to hear everyone’s questions and meet some of my neighbors. We hope these conversations bring some new faces to the table.” commented Mona Latil-Quinn, HREC Grizzly Corps member, who is planning the series.

The first event of the series is March 25 from 6:00 - 7:00 pm PST. The series begins with an open Q&A and discussion about climate change in Northern California. There will be an expert panel including Dr. Ted Grantham, who was the lead author of the Climate Change Assessment for the Northern California Coastal Region. The panel will also include representatives from the Mendocino County Resource Conservation District, the National Resource Conservation Service, and Climate Action Mendocino.

To prepare participants for the first event, HREC will send out short videos which explain the predicted effects of climate change on Northern California and existing community resources that people can plug into. 

The full list of events in the series is as follows:

· Climate Change Q&A - Thursday, March 25, 6-7pm PST.

· Forest Health and Fire Preparedness - Thursday, April 15, 6-7:30pm PST.

· Post-fire Land Recovery - Thursday, May 20, 6-7:30pm PST.

· What is Carbon Farming? - Thursday, June 17, 6-7:30pm PST.

· Water Resources in Northern California - Thursday, July 15, 6-7:30pm PST.

To learn more about the series and to register visit http://bit.ly/hrecevents. For questions or comments please contact mailto:mona_latil@berkeley.edu?subject=NorCal Climate Futures.

More on the University of California Hopland Research and Extension Center:

The Hopland Research and Extension Center is a multi-disciplinary research and education facility run by theUniversity of California Agriculture and Natural Resources. As stewards of more than 5,300 acres of oak woodland, grassland, chaparral, and riparian environments we aim to maintain and enhance ecosystem integrity through:

· Applied research

· Adaptive management

· Educational activities

while also supporting working landscapes, with diverse agricultural products and recognized ecosystem services derived from these landscapes.

More on the University of California Cooperative Extension:

UC Cooperative Extension is best described as a vast network of UC researchers and educators who work together to develop and provide science-based information to solve locally relevant economic, agricultural, natural resource, youth development and nutrition issues.

UCCE advisors live and work in every California county, applying research from the University of California to help local businesses and entire communities thrive. In turn, our experts partner with local innovators to develop and disseminate best practices through UC’s expansive local and global networks. Some of our programs include 4-H Youth Development, UC Master Gardeners, California Naturalist, Expanded Food and Nutrition Education, and the Statewide Integrated Pest Management Program.

Hannah Bird, Community Educator, Hopland Research & Extension Center

I WAS A MINER and I was a cowboy but mostly I was a hobo. I fought wherever I could, in school halls, outside saloons, any place they were putting up a purse. I once walked thirty miles across the desert to a town called Goldfield in Nevada so I could fight for twenty dollars.

I got beat a lot. I improved. But I remember the beatings I took. Once I got beat so bad they had to take me out of the ring in a wheelbarrow. Later some said I was a killer in the ring. They got that wrong. I killed nobody. But I took out other guys quick. That much is true. I got more one round knockouts than anybody, sixty knockouts in the first round. 

I beat a good Heavyweight in New Orleans once in fourteen seconds. I knocked out Fred Fulton, six-foot-four, 250 pounds, in nineteen seconds. How come? Not because I was a killer. Other way round. I was always afraid that I'd be the one who was killed. Get 'em quick and you live to fight another day.

— Jack Dempsey

RAHM EMANUEL IS IN THE RUNNING for a Top Ambassador Post. The Prospect Is Appalling. 

by Jeff Cohen & Norman Solomon

Rahm Emanuel has never been associated with the word “diplomatic,” but news reports say that President Biden is seriously considering him for a top position as U.S. ambassador to Japan or China. Naming Emanuel to such a post would be an affront to many of the constituencies that got Biden elected. The saga of Emanuel’s three decades in politics is an epic tale of methodical contempt for progressive values. 

One thing Emanuel can’t be accused of is inconsistency. During his political career, he has steadily served elite corporate interests, and rarely the interests of the broad public or the causes of racial justice or peace.

Emanuel rose to prominence as the finance director for Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign. He excelled at pulling in large checks from super-wealthy individuals. As a high-level Clinton administration aide, he played a major role -- and bragged about it -- in the passage of the disastrous NAFTA trade bill, which was strongly opposed by unions, environmentalists and most Democrats in Congress. He also was a sparkplug for passage of the mass incarceration-oriented 1994 Crime Bill, with prison term-lengthening provisions like “three strikes.”

In 1996, Emanuel boasted to a Washington Post reporter of the administration’s “tough” policies on “wedge issues -- crime, welfare, and recently immigration.” In a memo that year, he urged Clinton to move rightward on immigration policy by working to “claim and achieve record deportations of criminal aliens.” The next year, Emanuel’s approach was explained by a senior staffer at the Immigration and Naturalization Service who worked closely with him: “As long as we dealt with illegal immigration, we could be to the right of Atilla the Hun. Rahm felt that Americans believed too many people were coming into this country, too many foreigners, so he wanted to show the administration returning people, deporting them, putting up bigger fences, sending them back.”

In July 1996, the Republican-controlled Congress pushed through its punitive "welfare reform" bill that ended the Aid to Families with Dependent Children program, added work requirements and gave states the power to slash support. In the intense White House debate over whether to sign the bill, Emanuel was one of the strongest voices urging Bill Clinton not to veto the bill, as the president had done with earlier GOP welfare bills. Clinton signed the “Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act of 1996,” prompting an outcry from anti-poverty activists and high-level administration resignations. 

After leaving the Clinton administration in 1998, Emanuel made a quick $18 million in two and a half years as managing director of the Wall Street investment bank Wasserstein Perella, working out of its Chicago office.

Elected to Congress in November 2002, Emanuel supported George W. Bush’s disastrous Iraq invasion, and defended the war after most Democrats in Congress and most of the public had turned against it. As head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in 2006, Emanuel seemed oblivious to the change in public opinion. While he took credit for Democrats regaining the House majority, his selection of right-leaning candidates, including Iraq war supporters like himself and former Republicans, ultimately led to GOP gains.

While serving as President Obama’s chief of staff in 2009 and 2010, Emanuel argued for mollifying healthcare reform opponents by significantly weakening Obamacare. (He acknowledged years later it was a good thing Obama didn’t listen to him.) In a 2010 meeting with liberal leaders who planned to publicly pressure the Democratic Party’s conservative wing into supporting healthcare reform, Emanuel famously called them “fucking retarded.”

Emanuel was known in D.C. for hyper-combativeness (earning him the nickname “Rahmbo”) and his ability to gain positive spin from corporate media: “He is on a first-name basis with every political reporter in Washington,” a Washington Post columnist asserted.

After being elected mayor of Chicago in 2011, Emanuel’s administration faced a series of scandals that included concerted warfare against the teachers’ union and the closing of 49 public schools, many in black neighborhoods.

In his 2015 bid for re-election, he was forced into a runoff by progressive challenger Jesus “Chuy” Garcia, a contest that would be decided largely by African American voters. Emanuel very likely would have lost the election except for the fact that for 13 months, through the duration of the campaign, his administration suppressed a horrific dashcam video showing the death of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald, an African American who’d been shot 16 times by a police officer as he walked away from the officer. (The city had paid $5 million to McDonald’s family without a lawsuit having been filed.)

Soon after a judge ordered the city of Chicago to release the video, polls found that only 17 percent of Chicagoans believed Emanuel when he said he’d never seen the video and that most city residents wanted him to resign as mayor. 

When it was reported last November that Biden was considering him for a cabinet post, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tweeted: “Rahm Emanuel helped cover up the murder of Laquan McDonald. Covering up a murder is disqualifying for public leadership.” Then-Congressman-elect Mondaire Jones added: “That he's being considered for a cabinet position is completely outrageous and, honestly, very hurtful.”

Emanuel’s 30-year campaign against pro-working-class policy reforms is unending. Asked last August how he would advise the Biden administration, he told CNBC: “Two things I would say if I was advising an administration. One is there's no new Green Deal, there's no Medicare for All.”

If Rahm Emanuel becomes the ambassador to China or Japan -- countries with the world’s second- and third-largest economies -- he will gain new leverage in a region bristling with ethnic and military tensions. Everything about his record indicates that such power would be vested in the wrong hands.

Days after Biden’s election, AOC told the New York Times that Emanuel’s inclusion in the Biden administration “would signal, I think, a hostile approach to the grassroots and the progressive wing of the party.”

We’ll soon find out whether Biden is willing to send such a signal.

(Jeff Cohen is an activist, author and co-founder of RootsAction.org. He was an associate professor of journalism and the director of the Park Center for Independent Media at Ithaca College and founder of the media watch group FAIR. In 2002-2003, he was a producer and pundit at MSNBC. He is the author of "Cable News Confidential: My Misadventures in Corporate Media." Norman Solomon is the national director of RootsAction.org and the author of many books including "War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death." He was a Bernie Sanders delegate from California to the 2016 and 2020 Democratic National Conventions. Solomon is the founder and executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy.)

KEEP YOUR HEAD OUTSIDE the hatch so you can see where the hell you’re going and where the Krauts are shooting at you from. Give the sons of bitches a target so you can see where they are and go kill them. Never button up a tank in Third Army and blind yourself. When you attack be fast and violent. The more violent you are, the fewer of your men get shot. Forget everything you learned at Fort Knox about conserving ammunition. Shoot. Fire scares the Heinies. A mortar or an artillery piece that isn’t firing is just Junk. Shoot off your ammo. I’ll get you some more. Remember I expect you to move forward rapidly. A pint of sweat saves you a gallon of blood.

General George Patton (Outdoor peptalk for the US 10th Armored Division), November, 4 1944, 

MANUFACTURING CONSENT

Letter to a Friend in the Beginning of the End:

Thanks for farm update. I figured I’d better at least give you my short version response to the NYTimes link you sent. I’ve been plowing through this specific numbers game since it was floated into the line of the day. I don’t want you to think that you’ve stumped or trumped me with this fantastic piece of schlock.

Do you remember a book published quite awhile ago by some social scientist called: The Bell Curve? In it these so-called scientist “proved” that black folk were inherently inferior mentally to white people. Of course it caused quite a stir and was later shown to be not science but racist invective. However the book continued to sell and did a lot of damage to race issues thanks to the gullible fools who fell for all the lies. This NYT non-scientific and non-journalistic “analysis” is in good company with The Bell Curve. This article is like some Big Foot screed from The National Inquirer. It is scientific only in the sense of being a rather crude example of the science of propaganda and mind control. You may want to research how much money Big Pharma pumps into this shameless rag.

I’ve been tracking this fear campaign and have come to the conclusion that either Americans are the stupidest people in the first world, or that their masters are getting really desperate. The blatant fraud of these covid-19 death counts is so obvious it’s embarrassing and would be a joke if not for their criminal intent to coerce the population using fear. According to the US Patriot Act section 802 this kind of fear mongering is domestic terrorism.

Only in a propaganda model could the US at 5% of the worlds population have nearly 25% of covid-19 deaths. That’s quite an insult to our celebrated health care system. It’s beyond incredible that poor India with 5x our population and crowded filthy social groupings and a 2nd world health system, could have only 6% of the total count. This is far to insulting and stupefying to be considered serious.

Imagine how many people with impaired empathy, morals, and ethics must work in a Pravda like shit hole like TNYTimes. What kind of dehumanized monster shows up for work each day to harm the peace with the bio-weapon of fear produced by their lies? Every person who contributes to this kind of poison should be arrested and cured of their sociopathy before being brought back into civilized society, or not.

It’s truly astonishing how many little Eichmann’s there are all doing their little compartmentalized work to insure that the covid-19 jihadist trains run on time. By the time this covid-19 medical experiment is over and all the criminals from Fauci and Gates on down are in prison it will take a new Nuremberg trial and Geneva Convention to protect society in the future from the banality of evil embodied in the covid-19-industrial-complex with its A-list of sociopaths.

And now we have to listen to this failed scientist lying fool Fauci trying to blame these entirely cooked death tolls on evil people who didn’t behave like sufficiently servile lab rats by wearing a mask or is it two! This is the same asshole who seems to to have forgotten that back in April on 60 Minutes he told the world that healthy populations should NOT wear mask, HELLO! These mother fuckers are so full of shit they can’t even come close to keeping track of their own lies, and don’t even need to as they know the average American is brain dead and illiterate and not paying attention.

By the way. Don’t ever call me a “conspiracy theorist” again. And don’t insult me or any of the real fact checkers that you refuse to listen to, with the KGB propaganda from the bought and paid for opinion curating not independent, not fact checkers who couldn’t find a rest room in a research library let alone a relevant fact. And please don’t feed me anymore illogic from the mainstream bullshit factories, I’ve heard it all and seen it all. What you continue to fail to notice is that I’m looking behind the puppet master stage curtain to get a take on things that isn’t the for profit “news” of the day. You are not doing this and only scoff and scorn people I send your way to rescue you from the polluted main stream where Hightower’s poor fish is by now floating belly up.

At some point Jack, you’ll have to stop using belief to uphold your denial of what is so clearly going on. Sooner than later this hideous covid-19 crime is going to be exposed and you’re going to be looking like a serious fool for choosing complicity over dignity and rage against this tyranny.

Here’s a problem you have. One of us is very wrong about this “pandemic”. As we have worked through our dialogue you have become less open to facts or to people whose views are not sanctioned by the official McCarthyite censors. You claim to be curious and open minded but keep pushing the cancel button pre-emtivley based on nothing but prescribed mainstream corporate misinformation in a closed loop.

So one of us is way far off base and if you haven’t considered that it may be you, you are in a compromised position. I truly hope that the covid-19 jihad hasn’t damaged your mind with it’s fanaticism and dogma. I’m seeing a lot of covid-19 propaganda damage even out here in our so-called liberal alternative lifestyle community. Can you imagine organic non-GMO hip folk taking “vaccines” which have ZERO to do with the known facts regarding what a vaccine is and what it does? Who in their right mind would take a 100% experimental, 100% synthetic chemo-gene-therapy barley tested on humans and NOT APPROVED by the FDA? The Pfizer+Moderna “vaccines” by their own admission DO NOT in any way protect from infectious pathogens or transmission, they give ZERO immunity to any virus. Calling them vaccines is a CRIME under Federal Trade Commission statutes regarding deceptive medical labeling. It follows that any medical person using these mislabeled products is committing medical malpractice. “Oh I don’t eat GMO food, but I’ll let a bunch of liars and greedy creeps put gene-therapy straight into my blood stream, turning by body into an experimental pharmaceutical factory”. I guess people who allow fear and shame and group-think to run their lives don’t have to use logic or critical thinking anymore. They can just tune out and be good little lab rats in their self imposed prisons all the while being poisoned in the gas chambers of TV and the internet. What could possibly go wrong?!!

Git-a-life!!! 

Ross Dendy 

Elk

IF PEOPLE bring so much courage to this world the world has to kill them to break them, so of course it kills them. The world breaks every one and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills.

Ernest Hemingway 

MARCO ON DEER

"Trapped deer I don't like deer. Just the design -- their heads and weird toothpick legs are too tiny for their fat bellies. They're mobile rugs teeming with ticks, they eat everything in your garden, they run right in front of your car on the highway and wreck your headlights and fenders; for insurance purposes that's totaled your car, right there. I like birds way better, especially the sound they make when they're big and their wings slowly go whufhhh... whufhh... whufhhh... over you. The really big black ravens.

Here's something neat that some smaller birds do:

https://www.neatorama.com/2021/03/06/A-Murmuration-in-the-Shape-of-a-Bird/

And here's an interesting kind of bird I had never even heard of before seeing this-- a ghost bird:

https://boingboing.net/2021/03/10/see-close-up-video-of-this-incredibly-camouflaged-ghost-bird.html

I read an article where a funeral home person was complaining because people try to, in his words, weasel out of paying the full fee, nickel-and-diming him down as he puts it, by for example not paying for the first hour of a memorial (so they only get an hour to stand around and comment on the cosmetology) but then showing up a little early anyway and pissing him off, even if they drove like five hours to get there and there's nobody else there and nobody's being inconvenienced. He feels cheated, and they suck, and so on. I wrote to comment:

If the bereaved are that respectful of putting time into it, what does anybody need /you/ for? They should have the event in their house or church, or in the park, or maybe out in the forest and bury (or immolate, or traditionally sky-bury) their loved one themselves. They can take all the time they like and spend the money on the kids' education, or a hamburger, or six or eight months' rent, or a perfectly decent car.

Look up sky burial in Wikipedia. That's what I'd like, for me. Out in the sun and weather, picked apart by birds. Way better than burdening the family with paying thousands and thousands of dollars to pickle you with poison, shuffle you into and out of a dark-paneled room, seal you up in a heavy box and bury the box in really just a landfill of corpses.

Marco McClean

BASIC POLITICS: A FABLE

by Jim Luther

For a long time there were only two major political parties, The Smart Asses and The Dumb Asses. 

The Smart Asses weren’t really very smart. They were just trying to act cool because they felt uneasy about being a little overprivileged. So they behaved like smart asses, strutting around and showing off by going to college and getting advanced degrees and good jobs and calling The Dumb Asses demeaning names, like “those stupid ass dumb asses.” 

The Dumb Asses weren’t really dumb, but they worried that they might be. They weren’t doing as well as The Smart Asses and The Smart Asses’ trash-talk about them was getting them down. So they tried to get back by acting tough and burly and picking on The Smart Asses and calling them disparaging names, like “those silly ass smart asses.” 

It went on that way until one early January day when The Smart Asses and The Dumb Asses were suddenly and viciously attacked by The Really Bad Asses and had to quickly learn to understand and respect each other enough to jointly defend themselves against the Really Bad Asses’ violent assault. 

And that’s how the country was saved.