Mendocino County Today: Tuesday, June 8, 2021

Chilly Mornings | 13 New Cases | Vaccine Events | Low Water | Sheriff's Message | 1906 Vacuum | Logging Moratorium | Movie Night | Walk/Talk | FB 1906 | Ukiah Mural | Scenic NWP | Marco Updates | Bird Bath | Ed Notes | Worm Away | Cape Slapped | Ranch Dressing | Hunt Popped | Didn't Wash | Sattui Says | Sattui Sued | Tip Not | Welfare Irrigators | Yesterday's Catch | Verizon Service | Heavenly Wait | Contributors Wanted | Tech Support | Recall Date | Inner Voice | Comments | Guatemalan Trumpers | Reset Thyself | R&D

MUCH BELOW NORMAL TEMPERATURES are forecast for the interior through the week. Coastal highs will remain mild after chilly morning lows. Cold air aloft will bring an increase in instability today, resulting in isolated showers over the mountains. Thunderstorms will be possible for Trinity and northeast Mendocino counties Wednesday afternoon. A frontal system will approach on Friday bringing a chance of rain to primarily Del Norte and Humboldt Counties. (NWS)

13 NEW COVID CASES (since last Friday) reported in Mendocino County yesterday afternoon.

COVID-19 VACCINE EVENTS HAVE BEEN SCHEDULED FOR NEXT WEEK

There are multiple opportunities to get your 1st or 2nd dose of Pfizer around Mendocino County!

Post Date: 06/07/2021 9:30 AM

COVID-19 vaccine 1st and 2nd dose events have been scheduled for next week. For additional location information and to register, visit the link below. 

mendocinocounty.org/community/novel-coronavirus/covid-19-vaccinations/vaccination-clinics

Vaccines are safe, effective, and free. Parents must print and sign online consent form for minors, but are not required to be present at the vaccination appointment.

(Mendocino County Presser)

MESSAGE FROM THE SHERIFF

As many of you know, last week we had an incident on the Coyote Valley Indian Reservation where a suspect barricaded himself inside a shed while our SWAT team used verbal negotiations to persuade him to surrender peacefully.

I received messages throughout that day and for several days following from many of our residents, including our partners from the Coyote Valley Tribe and the family of the suspect. We all wanted the same thing, safety for everyone involved and a peaceful resolution to the investigation. Many folks were praying for these deputies, understanding they are fathers, mothers, sons, and daughters. They were also praying for the suspect, understanding he is also a son and a father.

I found the outpouring of support to be nothing less than humbling. I am thankful to all of those who took the time to let us know they were watching and truly care.

I am extremely grateful to the men and women of the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office who are working very hard every day to serve. From the first responding deputies to our tactical dispatchers, hostage negotiators, and behavioral health personnel, we brought a team of professionals at a time we needed to.

This incident ended peacefully, but we didn’t get “lucky” in this situation. I don’t put much faith in luck. The outcome was due to hard work, training, tools and trust.

This all starts with the caliber of personnel which currently serve our residents. These folks carry with them a sense of duty which is instilled within them throughout their training. This duty is reinforced daily at briefing. These are the people who will carry us into the future and hopefully to much calmer and more peaceful times.

The tools, training, and hiring of the best personnel are not without cost. However, as we have seen time and time again, the outcome is worth the work and the price. We are facing 2021 problems and our county demands the highest quality in all we do.

In closing I would like to thank everyone who reached out to our office and to me personally during some trying times. On behalf of the brave personnel serving you today I would like to thank you.

Sheriff Matt Kendall

NORCAL COALITION CALLS FOR JACKSON STATE LOGGING MORATORIUM

A broad-based Northern California Coalition, including Tribal, local and regional environmental organizations and individuals, is calling for a 2-year moratorium on logging in Jackson Demonstration State Forest (JDSF). A petition is currently being circulated and supported by, among others, the Coyote Valley Band of Pomo Indians; The Environmental Protection Information Center; The Mendocino Trail Stewards and The Mendocino Environmental Center. The petition states: “…we are asking for a moratorium on logging in the forest until a new Environmental Impact Report for the JDSF Management Plan is completed. The old report, drafted in 2007, is woefully out of date. The new report must include:”

● Stronger protections for Native American Cultural Heritage

● A thorough consideration of climate change impacts to and mitigation potential of the forest

● The inclusion of this land into California’s 30×30 goal

● Analysis of the current biodiversity crisis and how JDSF can be part of the solution

● An acknowledgment of the changed economic reality of Mendocino County

● A guarantee of equitable access for all

● An emphasis outdoor education for youth and adults

● Additional low-impact recreation opportunity and camping where it does not pose any threat to Native American Cultural Heritage

● An end to dispersed firearm use in the forest

Protests in the Jackson forest have proliferated since April this year when the first of two tree sits went up in a two hundred-year-old tree now famously known as the “Mama Tree”. An early morning human chain blockade was formed at the entrance to the proposed logging area when operations were first expected to begin. Tribal leaders and community members have held rallies in Fort Bragg, and a 20’ by 5’ banner was hung over CA Highway 20 on Memorial Day morning, more action is expected…

Bowing to public pressure, Calfire recently unmarked the “Mama Tree” and her companion the “Papa Tree”, sparing them from being cut down. However, activists are maintaining the tree sits in solidarity with the Coalitions’ wider demands, including cultural & tribal sovereignty, unified ecosystem restoration; climate change mitigation and environmentally sustainable economics.

AV VILLAGE WEEKLY WALKING GROUP, Every Tuesday, 10 AM

Meet at the Community Park (near the AV Health Center). For more info contact: Kathy Cox kcox@mcn.org.

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AV VILLAGE BOOK CONVERSATION, Tuesday June 8th, 2 to 3 PM

The book is "The Righteous Mind - Why Good people Are Divided by Politics and Religion" by Jonathan Haidt and we will cover chapters 3 & 4. If you are interested, please contact Lauren for more details
laurenk@pacific.net.

LAUREN SINNOTT: 

I'm back at work completing the big local history mural on the north wall of the Ukiah Valley Conference Center and delighted to invite everyone to stop by on the Ukiah's First Friday Art Walk tomorrow! The mural has over 100 portraits so far, and most of them are people, possibly some you know. Come see the process, where I'm resuming work, and why Nixon is on a coin-operated TV in the lobby of the Palace Hotel. 

There are so many stories behind all the images. See them here on the mural's dedicated website www.goddess.graphics

MARCO MCCLEAN:

SPEAKING OF BAD NEWS, AND WISHES, news of the real world, rather: Juanita's car is beyond reasonable repair. She can drive it but there are time-and-money-consuming hoops she has to jump through now to keep doing that. Probably I'll be going to her place inland and letting her use mine to get to her job until she can get a car loan and buy a better used car, which this turns out to be the worst time in history to have to do. My car has accumulated a few thousand dollars' of needed work, though much of that is cosmetic and deer-related. I'm still paying off the loan I got to replace the catalytic converter thieves stole at Xmastime. 

I'm not far from my work when I'm in Albion, but train and/or bus service doesn't get Juanita to and from work where she is, and the rent-a-ride services add up to more than either of us earns. 

So I'm thinking, if someone has a decent used car on your hands to let go of for free or cheap that you don't need anymore because your uncle died, or you won the lottery or something, I'm not picky about looks or style or even gas mileage, it just needs to go and the wheels not fall off. I'd be grateful, and I'd keep whichever was the poorer one (of yours and mine) and give Juanita the better one. And everybody could keep their jobs and continue to live almost like a person. 

Also, and don't let this influence your decisions, I hurt my back again. Not as badly as last summer, thank Jebus, when I had to miss an airdate for the first time in my life, but it limits, very temporarily I hope, what I can force myself to accomplish. 

BRIEFLY BACK TO THE ANTI-VAX BUSINESS: Joseph P. Kennedy, well-funded fountain of anti-vax propaganda, hobnobbed with literal white-supremacist Nazis to promote his anti-vaccination cult at a rally they put on; essential news site DailyKos published an independent report about this by someone whose anonymity is arguably protecting his or her life, so now Kennedy has engaged his entire legal team, because he has one, into tying DailyKos up in court, to sue them out of existence, you know, the way you do in America when someone hurts your credibility feelings by telling the truth about you where people can hear. 

ED NOTES

ANDERSON VALLEY HIGH SCHOOL, CLASS OF 2021

Awards Night was Wednesday evening at the high school gym. Graduation, the following night, also in the high school gym.

• Alarcon, Alec
• Delgado, Heidi
• Douglass-Thomas, Sam
• Espinoza, Candy
• Espinoza, Kaitlin
• Ferreyra, Norymar
• Flores, Ximena
• Gonzalez, Cristobal
• Kehl, Lucas
• Kephart, Gabriella
• Malfavon, Yareli
• Mata, Brianda
• Matvieieva, Valeriia
• McEwen, Shekina
• Mendoza, Derek
• Ocampo, Erik
• Padilla Murillo, Juan
• Parra, David
• Pereda Zavala, Mariermily
• Perez Hernandez, Clara
• Perez-Marin, Irlen
• Peters, Shasta
• Ruiz Martinez, Cecilia
• Sanchez, Bianca
• Talavera, Pedro
• Theiss, Kylie
• Tovar, Alexandre

THE ANDERSON VALLEY POETRY CLUB has produced a unique collection of their work, unique in that it is pseudonymous, and odder yet, the anonymous writers give us an afterword containing their pseudonymous biographies. I suspect Steve Derwinski is the editor of this hugely amusing little book since he dropped it off at the ava office. I hope copies appear in convenient public places around The Valley so we can all enjoy this only in Mendo document.

LEW CHICHESTER with the smartest analysis you’ll read of the County’s proposed pot ordinance: 

 I’ve read through the proposed cannabis ordinance enough times now to have a few reasonable comments. The intent of the ordinance, the scope, the restrictions, the description of administrative processes, and, for the most part, the allowable size of cannabis cultivation areas for the various types of grows and land use types seem to correspond with what I perceive to be the intent of the general public. Expansion of size of grows beyond what is presently allowed is on AG land and Rangeland. Both of these land use types are allowed up to ONE ACRE of cultivation with a major use permit.

Rangeland which can have a permitted grow must have demonstrated previous actual farming with tilling, ploughing, harrowing, etc. within the last ten years. No hayfields or grazing land would be considered as appropriate conversion to cannabis. This provision is for the grape growers who want to get into the cannabis business. Maybe that’s OK.

AG land with a one acre allowable grow, with a major use permit, might also be OK.

NOT OK is footnote *6 in Appendix A “Parcels in the AG or RL zoning district that have a minimum parcel size of ten (10) acres or larger may cultivate up to 10 percent of the parcel area with the issuance of a Major Use Permit.” This is the Ted Williams sponsored controversial item which has almost universal rejection by the public and the item which should be subject to a referendum ballot. I think the referendum should be limited to this one line, not the entire ordinance.

Yes, there are some land use zones which are being allowed some expansion in the new ordinance. The majority of the varieties of grows and land use types are staying at the existing limits.

What I like about the proposed ordinance are the restrictions which include a requirement for ON SITE WATER SOURCE, NO GENERATORS, NO GAS POWERED WATER PUMPS, NO VISIBLE ILLUMINATED GROWS, SECURITY LIGHTING ON MOTION SENSORS AND POINTED DOWNWARD, NO CUTTING DOWN OF TREES TO CLEAR A PATCH. I am not a cannabis farmer. My concerns have been with the lack of enforceable limitations on grows, legal, permitted or completely outlaw.

This new ordinance has flaws, limitations and doesn’t begin to address various mechanisms which will likely be utilized to get around the acreage limits on AG and RL. There are other shortcomings, but I presently see all this as a process. 

The county does not have much credibility right now, has done a terrible job of dealing with Phase 1 applicants, and a worse job in dealing with all the outlaw grows. I don’t know if the mess is from simple incompetence or a carefully orchestrated intent to sabotage the whole thing over the last four years. It doesn’t matter right now what was the reason this got so fouled up. I think we have to move forward. A referendum on the 10%, start using this proposed ordinance, stay involved, and get this cannabis thing moving along. It takes up way too much of the oxygen and there are a lot of other pressing issues. YES, we could have an initiative petition to require a cumulative impact EIR for all the proposed/possible cannabis cultivation, and that might be a good idea. I am open to any counter arguments as to why the entire ordinance should be rejected.

ELLEN DRELL and Kate Marianchild, among others, are gearing up to put the pot ordinance, as it’s proposed, to a county-wide vote. Ms. M convened a meeting at the Yorkville Market on Monday afternoon to plan signature-gathering.

I AGREE with Mr. Chichester that the ordinance is ok so long as the Supes withdraw the misguided stipulation that parcels in ag or rangeland zoning of ten acres or larger can cultivate up to 10 percent of their parcel area via a major use permit. Ten percent of large parcels means huge grows, which mean corporate grows which, even with a major use permit would festoon Mendo’s already grape-battered landscape with thirsty, chemically dependent pot plants.

LONG-DISTANCE AMBULANCE CHASERS: Although the Great Redwood Trail exists only and forever in the calculating eyes of State Senator McGuire, a couple of Show Me State legal hustlers are already fishing for clients claiming to be injured by the chimerical rails to trails fantasy cooked up by Northcoast Democrats.

STARVING attorneys Lindsay S. Brinton and Meghan S. Largent from law firm Lewis Rice, based in Missouri but willing to travel if enough suckers sign up with us, “will host educational meetings in Eureka, Bayside, Fortuna and Willits June 28 and 29 to discuss the potential compensation claims of landowners who own property adjacent to the railroad line in Willits, Samoa, Korbel and Korblex that is expected to be converted to a hiking trail under the rails-to-trails program....” 

KEY PHRASE here is “expected to be.” You put up your dollars and I'll put up my Redwood Drive-In donuts — the best donuts in these untied states — that enough saps will sign up to bring these vultures winging westward.

I GOT a kick out of this description of the Kansas City mothership: “About Lewis Rice,” and noting the pretentious missing hyphen as I read, “Throughout the Firm’s history, Lewis Rice attorneys have made excellence the foundation of their practice. Founded in 1909, more than a century of service gives the Firm [sic the capital 'F'] the experience, resources and tools to serve their [our?] clients’ dynamic needs....” Dynamic needs? Excellence? 

THE RUN-UP to Sunday’s midterm elections in the next door failed state of Mexico has been spectacularly brutal, even by Mexican standards. As of the end of last week, 97 politicians were reported to have been assassinated and over 900 assaulted. Election day itself was no different. According to Reuters, a man flung a severed human head at a voting station in the city of Tijuana, and plastic bags filled with human remains were found at multiple polling places. Authorities were unable to decode the message of the severed head or the body parts other than to speculate that groups of someones are very unhappy with the process. But mayhem and all, the Associated Press reported that President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s more of the same party and its allies are set to keep their majority in Mexico’s lower chamber of the congress despite the loss of about 50 seats, falling short of the two-thirds majority needed to pass constitutional reforms.

A CONTRACTOR FRIEND works all over the county. His anecdote from memory: “I see places where the whole neighborhood is pot grows but maybe one guy is ‘legal,’ i.e., signed up with the county. Guess who catches full hell from the authorities while his neighbors clearcut hillsides and commit all kinds of environmental atrocities?”

CAPE CAPPED

On Thursday, June 3, 2021 at approximately 9:54 PM, Mendocino County Sheriff’s Deputies were dispatched to a domestic violence incident at a residence located at the 3100 block of Ridgewood Road in Willits.

Deputies contacted an adult female and Anthony Cape, 29, of Willits, in front of the residence. Deputies learned the adult female and Cape lived together romantically and were involved in an argument early in the evening that escalated into a physical altercation.

During the argument Cape started pushing the adult female and eventually tackled her to the ground causing visible injuries to her hands and knees. Cape also slapped the adult female in the face during the argument causing visible injury to her face.

Cape was arrested at the location for felony domestic violence battery. Deputies learned Cape was on Mendocino County misdemeanor probation and he was also charged with violating the terms of his probation.

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

RACHEL WRESTED FROM SHANGRI-LA

On Saturday, June 5, 2021 at about 9:56 AM, Mendocino County Sheriff's Deputies conducted an arrest warrant service at a residence in the 29600 block of Shangri La Drive in Fort Bragg.

Deputies made contact with Rachel Hunt, 35, of Fort Bragg, who had outstanding warrants for her arrest. The warrants were a felony warrant for unlawful marijuana cultivation and a misdemeanor warrant for violation of probation.

Hunt was arrested on the two warrants and booked into the Mendocino County Jail where she was to be held in lieu of $15,000 bail.

CASTELLO DI AMOROSA & ANDERSON VALLEY

Editor,

The castle in Napa Valley owns three vineyards (one jointly with V. Sattui Winery) in the Anderson Valley. They total 95 acres of grapes and 171 acres of land.

Why did we buy in property in Anderson Valley? I really like the quality of the resultant wines, and I love Anderson Valley. I have visited the area for over 50 years. whereas Napa Valley is over built with sprawl, in my opinion, with traffic and congestion problems, Anderson Valley is probably like Napa was in the 1950’s. It possesses beautiful, pristine nature which I adore.

I am aware that some Anderson Valley residents do not like the fact we cut down trees near the highway above Elke’s vineyard at the Dennison Ranch (mostly planted by owner I purchased property from) to plant grapes, which we shall do soon. We presently are recontouring the hill to make it less steep, and we are implementing good erosion control measures.

Let me assure you that I am also a conservationist/environmentalist and have been so since my early twenties. I belong and contribute to many wildlife and environmental organizations and have done so for over forty years. I lament the fact that Napa County has grown so much. I have put my money where my mouth is. I put well over 600 acres into conservation agreements with the Napa County Land Trust never to be built upon. I frown on developers who despoil the environment for profit and have never done so. 

In June, we will put the 77.5-acre Dennison ranch into the Anderson Valley Land Trust, of which I have been a member for years. I have the right to build three more houses and guest houses on the property but will give up this right to preserve the beauty. There is an existing home there.

In Boonville, adjacent to the brewery, we bought 54 acres of land about 15 years ago and planted 36 acres of vineyard although this property contains a mobile home for a vineyard worker, I have the right to build a home on this property, but I never have, and I vow that I never will. I do not wish to be part of the problem despoiling nature. 

The third property is near Navarro, the Morning Dew Ranch. It contained a home when we purchased it. We will never build another home there either.

To some, what I pen may seem self-serving, however, everything I have written in the foregoing is true, and I invite the citizens of the area to check out the facts for themselves. Further, we have complied with all laws.

I wish to make great wines in the Anderson Valley, but foremost in my mind is preserving the bucolic, unspoiled beauty of the area. Vineyards are also quite beautiful and harmonize with nature and they serve as a wildfire block.

Dario Sattui

Napa

WELFARE IRRIGATORS

Editor: 

I find it ironic that 1,400 irrigators in the upper Klamath Basin who use Klamath River water to irrigate their potato and alfalfa fields are ready to incite violence to protect their federally created water rights. They seem willing to wrest control of and open the head gates of irrigation canals administered by the feds. 

These irrigators have a myopic vision, limited by an understandable self-interest. However, their welfare is one part of a huge ecology revolving around Klamath River water, a small part. Should Klamath Basin grown potatoes and alfalfa disappear there would be no impact on America’s food supply. None. 

As a proactive response to climate change, the feds should help these 1,400 families develop new skills, perhaps to move on to new homes. It’ll take a generation to do so. Today’s drought is a harbinger of things to come. Water is a precious resource. Potatoes and alfalfa supported by man-made irrigation are not. The families growing these crops are. 

Jeffrey J. Olson

Santa Rosa

CATCH OF THE DAY, Wednesday, June 7, 2021

TRACI HERNANDEZ, Ukiah. Disobying court order, resisting.

ARELI OLVERA, Willits. Felony warrant.

EDWARD STEELE, Ukiah. County parole violation. (Frequent Flyer)

TASHINA TILLMAN, Willits. Attempt, aid, counsel or procure arson.

CHRISTINA TORRES, Hopland. Disorderly conduct-alcohol, disobeying court order, probation revocation.

ANTONIO VELOZ, Los Angeles/Ukiah. DUI.

THE AGONY OF ACCESSING VERIZON

by Ralph Nader

Who hasn’t had difficulty just getting through the multi-layered, often automated call center of your telephone company? Never mind getting a solution to your problem in due time.

I’d like to share with you our experience with Verizon. We have a simple residential landline with no bells and whistles. We started getting calls every day that went “Ping, ping, ping, ping,” with no robocaller trying to sell anything. It began with a “ping” and ended some 90 seconds later if we didn’t hang up.

The other problem was that we were cut off in the middle of a conversation with a human being on a 1-800 line.

So, I embarked on the journey of getting answers from Verizon. It took about 90 minutes. As usual, if you ask sequential questions, you learn a lot despite the frustration.

I called Verizon and was put on hold. A person comes on and asks for my PIN number for “safeguarding my privacy.” I was told all calls are recorded. No PIN number was readily available. She said, “OK then,” she would have to call me back for verification. She called back and asked, “Are you migrating to fiber?” “No, we have a copper line.” I asked: “What’s this got to do with my two problems that I had described to you?” She said that her office could only handle complaints from copper lines where fiber optic was not available to the customer.

“Are you trying to push us into fiber optic?” I inquired, recalling friends who complained of such pressure tactics. She said something like fiber-optic provides better service at no extra cost. If I agreed, she could then send a “troubled ticket” to the repair station. Otherwise, she would have to send me over to the “Business Office.”

At the “Business Office,” a recording comes on saying that “due to the high volume of calls,” I’d have to wait 8 to 10 minutes to get a call back if I didn’t want to hold on. Ok, later a robot came on and asked for my “10-digit phone number.” Three times, I gave it and three times it was rejected.

Finally, “Michelle” came on, again asked for the PIN number, again had to call me back for “safeguarding your account.” She looked over our accounts and asked about moving to fiber optic. “It costs only $20 plus taxes,” she said, contradicting the previous Verizon person. She added, “if you don’t want to migrate to fiber, no problem, but why don’t you want to go fiber?” Again, I said we were satisfied with the copper line. Then she tried to address our problems by transferring me to “Tech Support,” because “she didn’t have the tools to fix it.”

Anticipating losing contact and having to start all over, I asked Michelle if she would stay on the line until another human being from Tech Support came on. She agreed. Then began a series of waiting periods because Michelle herself couldn’t get through. Music started playing and every three or so minutes, Michelle would come back on to reassure us that she was still trying. After a few of these holds with music, I asked her if she could record a flamenco for a change. Rare spontaneity – she laughed and said she wasn’t in charge of the choice of music.

Finally, she got through to a Tech Support staffer named “Andi.” Michelle stayed on the line while “Andi” was reviewing Michelle’s notes. I felt ever more sympathy for these Verizon employees after Michelle plaintively declared: “My goal today was to provide you with outstanding service.” She thanked me, waiting for my concurrence, mentioning she needed it “for my files.” The “performance evaluation” dragon, no doubt.

“Andi” confidently came on the phone. She says the problem with the beep could be a “network problem coming from Verizon” or could be “a wiring problem” down the street. It could be either a physical issue or a signaling matter. If the latter, she might be able to fix it from her computer. She asked me to wait some minutes for the results of the test. She returned to say that it doesn’t seem to be a physical problem. She’ll have “to escalate” to the “central office” for a “definite not temporary fix.” Meanwhile, she’ll keep trying to fix it herself, advising that the “central office” will call me once they do some tests. (For you readers, the direct tech support number, to save you time, is 1-800-922-0204).

So as not to lose contact (they don’t give their extension) and have to start all over, I asked her for my repair ticket number, which she gave me. Whew! She concluded by saying that a robot would come on, ask whether our line is “copper” or “fiber,” and then a human being comes on.

Two hours later, a man phones. He seems really experienced, speaks down to earth without jargon. He gives me a contrary “Tech Support” opinion. Namely, there’s nothing Verizon can do about the beeping calls. Millions of customers get these calls. It’s part of the robocall, spam calls, beeping calls assault. He gets them too. Been going on for years. Every attempted fix is circumvented by the outlaw telemarketers who keep doing this. But I noted, that’s not what “Andi” was telling me. What gives?

He responded by saying that Verizon has a “special group” that deals with automated calls, but neither they nor anyone else, have succeeded in developing software that can end this daily harassment of telephone customers. He agreed that putting the beeping phone down until it ends persuades the computer’s algorithms that you’re not a worthwhile call and lets you off – for a while.

As for being cut off in midst of a conversation on a 1-800 line, he suggested asking whether the person is using a cellphone or a cordless phone, to possibly find the cause.

With some prompting, he related that the structural problem is rooted in (1) reducing the needed number of employees, (2) less reliable outsourcing, and (3) top executives who are “so far removed” from the activities of their staff-customer relations. He added that not only is this robo nightmare making people not answer their phones, but that Verizon itself when responding to customer complaints can’t get through for the same reason. Quite an irony, I noted, describing “the old rotary phone days” when it was so much easier to get through to one another, including the phone company.

I concluded with the suggestion that Verizon’s CEO Hans Vestberg (Corporate Office: 908-559-2001) should spend a couple of days “playing customer” calling with a variety of complaints or questions and learn the agonies, if only in a simulated manner. He sighed, as I assured him that this is the kind of experience, we and many others will be demanding from this very highly paid CEO! A new horizon for Verizon’s boss.

CONTRIBUTORS WANTED

by Matt Taibbi

Encouraged by the response to videographer Ford Fischer’s new series, “Activism Uncensored,” I’m putting out a general APB for new contributors. However, because I’m trying to stick to a specific theme with outside contributions, please read the following description before replying. I would like this site to be a place where subscribers can get reporting and analysis they can’t get from mainstream commercial press sources.

Therefore, I’d be especially interested in someone who has experience in a certain field and is frustrated by how their sphere is covered. It could be any area: medicine, law, policing, education, real estate, lobbying, finance, lion-taming, dentistry, whatever.

An alderman who’s got a decade of frustrations about how his or her own city is run (and insight into the decisions of other municipal leaders) would be welcome, for instance. Or: someone in the military contracting world, who follows what the Pentagon’s buying and at what price. Maybe you’re an expat in a faraway country and tired of reading the botched reports the Western press is sending home, or work in FinReg and have an eye on the indulgences bank lobbyists are asking for (and probably getting) in DC. I would publish letters from a prison inmate, ravings from someone with a mania for public records searches, or observations from someone who follows Delaware Chancery Court cases and can explain what the rulings mean for ordinary people.

The kicker is that contributors must also have a sense of style or an innovative presentation. In an effort to avoid inundating subscribers with material, contributions have to be unique/unusual and in the spirit of the site. Submissions don’t need to be articles: they could be infographics, videos, panel cartoons, even monologues or a podcast — anything.

Ideally, you should send a polished sample of whatever it is you’re proposing to contribute. Anything that’s good or funny or informative will be considered, and we don’t discriminate against the eccentric. 

Those interested should write to taibbi@substack.com.

WHEN IS THE NEWSOM RECALL ELECTION? Maybe Sooner Than You Think

Californians will almost certainly vote this year whether to throw Gov. Gavin Newsom out of office. But when?

There’s surprisingly little certainty about the date of an election that has the potential to upend the leadership of the world’s fifth largest economy and disrupt the lock Democrats have had on the state Capitol for the last 11 years. 

The range of probable dates is shaping up as a Tuesday between mid-September and early November — with signs pointing to the likelihood of an election sooner rather than later.

lostcoastoutpost.com/2021/jun/7/when-is-the-newsom-recall-election-maybe-sooner-th/

ON LINE COMMENTS OF THE WEEK

[1] RE MENDO'S POT PERMIT PROGRAM: The frantic years-long attempt to rescue a sinking pot licensing program has long since progressed past the old comparison of rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. The Stupes have imported deck chairs, debated the merits of various deck chairs, and are frantically searching for more and different deck chairs. Meanwhile, the pot legalization program in Mendoland continues its inevitable Titanic descent into the depths of fumbled legalization. 

[2] “Does Memorial Day 2021 seem an unusually grim lull between spring and summer this year?”

Memorial Day is not solely about the military. Memorial Day is a time intended to… REMEMBER. To remember LOTS of things.

These days, we can reach back in our minds and hearts (if we are of sufficient pre-Woked-Up age) to remember the kind of Country we used to have. To remember the kind of people we used to be. To remember all the souls we’ve lost along the way. To remember and mourn all the values we’ve discarded along our way. To remember a Nation that was been blessed more than any other in human history and to reflect on how poorly we’ve maximized all those incredible blessings. And to remember how so many of us just ignore those blessings or take them all for granted or peddle some narrative nonsense on how we are somehow ‘entitled’ to them because we are so ‘special’. And if we ARE so special, was it not those very Blessings that were GIVEN to us and not something we did to earn such a lofty status?

“Despite the torrents of mendacious narratives and fogs of gaslight deployed in this campaign, a substantial chunk of the public resists suffocation and has finally begun to fight back…”

The way to ‘fight back’ is grounded in our ability to remember the best of who and what we were… and want to be (or become) again. The ‘torrents of mendacious narratives and fogs of gaslighting’ will be poured down upon us without end as we continue our journey groping our way through Today’s Conjured Darkness. And it is our response to that societal poisoning that will determine if we will exist as an America we want to be… or if the Name will live on like a failed brand but the ideals and foundation that defined the America We Want To Be are snuffed out and erased and buried under the weight of all those mendacious narratives and fog of gaslighting… and worse. 

When we take a wrong turn on the highway and head off in a wrong direction, the only way to get back to where we intended is to REMEMBER where we want to go. If we are to have a future worth living in, the only way to find it is to REMEMBER the kind of Country and People we want to be. That’s the enduring message of Memorial Day.

 [3] Well, don’t get mad… Like I always say, some things you just can’t control…

If people won’t get their vaccine, they can’t win the $1.5 Million!

If people won’t get their vaccine, they will likely be wearing masks forever!

Got to move forward now, we got an extreme, historic drought threatening to kill your valuable cash crop, we got shortages of everything from rental cars and houses to good sense, we got people shooting other people for no reason, we got the Mangroves dying in Senegal…

And guess what ? The Chinese say: Go ahead and have 3 kids! Whoa!

The biggest problem in Humboldt, is the folks there are unable to move forward, to evolve!

Pay attention! Wander outside the walls of the asylum occasionally!

People don’t want weed, they want lots of alcohol, Ecstasy, Cocaine!

People want to buy a house, get a great job, have a nice life! They don’t want to sit around smoking a plant that is 60 years ago…

Move on, and to the 10 or so people who regularly post the same comments:

1) There’s no little microchips in the vaccine

2) There’s only a tiny chance of a “breakthrough infection”

3) Your DNA can’t possibly be changed by an mRNA vaccine, no matter what you read on the internet or saw on YouTube

4) Churches who preach anti-vax, are full of vaccinated people

5) “Counterfeit Vaccine Cards don’t exist, and if they do, only a very silly person actually carries one

 [4] Actually attended a funeral dinner today. Seniors love ’em, regardless of who died. They don’t have to make supper and it’s a chance to shoot the breeze with Republicans and Democrats alike Everyone seemed to have reverted to their “old roles” Pandemic…what pandemic? Who is Darnella Frazier, anyway?

[5] Yep, when you allow corporations to decide policy and buy politicians, when the rich get richer, when the minimum wage hasn’t changed with current costs, when you create a divide and conquer political landscape, when cheating and lying become the norm, when the population is fixated on their phones and celebrities, when White Nationalism rears its ugly head, when education is defunded for over 50 years, when just about every facet of a person's life is a corporate grab for their money, when the military industrial complex is handed an obscene amount of tax payers money, when a fraudulent professional bullshitter is elected as if he’s god's gift, when equality and justice have to be fought like a war, yeah, this country is going down the tubes. No amount of flag waving is gonna bring it back, it’s too far gone. There is too much that needs fixing and there’s a contingent of citizenry that love the old antiquated status quo even though it’s killing the good old USA. 

 [6] So how do you distract the public? They’ve tried different ploys over the past few decades most of which fit under the caption “culture wars”. 

In my books the Democrat faction of the governing elite has been the most inspired and creative as they deploy one sexual derangement and behavioral lunacy after another, depicting each as the latest in “progress” in enlightened thinking. And just when I think they can’t get any crazier, they get crazier. 

But the Democrats have got more than one playbook and for this I give them credit. They’ve far outdone their Republican rivals with the ability to dazzle and energetically at that, with the “race” thing going full tilt, and they’ve been nothing but amazing with AGW, strenuous and impassioned with both issues with their exaggerated posturing and thundering denunciations.

The Republicans ought to have been able to easily out-flank and out-run and out-maneuver all this phony baloney, and for a while Trump, for all his other deficiencies, did exactly that by addressing material issues directly affecting livelihoods of the vast American middle. And much to the consternation of anybody who’s anybody, managed to win in 2016. 

But Trump, while pointing the way to electoral victory, had to overcome the active hindrance not only of Democrats but of his own party of traditional Republicans, plus the non-stop opposition of the Deep State. It was quite a feat and for that he deserves a tip of the hat. Because when Trump talked about real issues, all the razzle-dazzle distractions weren’t much good.

So, what’s next? How about a fun war? That usually works. There’s problems galore that need attention but all those are major boring. Nobody who’s anybody can be bothered. 

If Wall Street goes tits up nobody in the real America of dollar stores and payday offices much gives a shit. I mean, what has Wall Street done besides “asset stripping” flyover America as our esteemed host puts it? But what about when the local mill shuts down? Oh, sorry, that’s already happened, that was part of the asset stripping, which is why we saw the improbable rise of The Donald. 

So back to the question, what’s next? Black lives don’t matter, never have, because if they did matter to the legions of race hustlers and legislators and bureaucrats and academicians and theoreticians and the panoply of ‘ologists of the past hundred years, Black people wouldn’t be in the disastrous state they’re in. 

Hispanics don’t matter either, their situation may be a bit better than Blacks but not by much. Gays and trannies don’t matter because for all the sound and fury, they’re a small proportion of the population. 

Is AGW the crisis all the leading lights say it is? I doubt they even believe it. Koonin doesn’t. A lot of other guys of the scientific variety don’t think so either. They just can’t say it out loud. In any case you will see noise on this and nothing much else. 

So who or what really matters? I mean really?

No matter, a distraction is needed, one to divert the mob’s attention. People get desensitized to all the nuts ‘n’ sluts stuff. 

I think it will be war, maybe of the civil variety. I doubt the Chinese will want to fight. I mean, why interfere while Americans are busy ruining themselves? Neither will the Russians want to fight. Same reason. Plus it’s bad for business. Canada is ripe for the plucking but that’s a war that won’t last more than a couple hours. 

But I think a civil war fits the bill. If you can’t find someone to fight outside the country, find someone inside.

 [7] And lofty, high-minded types sneer “White Grievance”. You hear it all the time usually from somebody who doesn’t know what they’re talking about, like somebody from a coastal enclave or another country altogether, or somebody well off, maybe younger and so with no knowledge of the downward path of so much of the country. If it had been their own families and hometowns subjected to asset stripping, the attitude might be different. 

No matter, White Grievance has got legitimacy given the last 30 years of predations. It’s unbelievable, first they ruin people and then they insult them. If that isn’t looking for trouble I don’t know what is. And if you look for it you generally find it. Anyway this “White Grievance” might be the most potent force of all of them, still awaiting a leader with the right chops.

After all Deplorables are the backbone of the US military with millions of veterans and those in active service. They know leadership, teamwork and how to fight. Stay tuned. 

Time will tell. If you had told somebody in the year 1900 what was coming they wouldn’t have believed it. Yet it happened.

[8] STEPHEN GLOVER: Did the Covid virus, which has already killed more than 3.5 million people and devastated the world's economy, escape from an internationally renowned laboratory (inset) in the Chinese city of Wuhan? For the best part of a year, the idea that it might have done so was treated with almost as much incredulity as the notion that the moon is made of cheese or that Stonehenge was built by aliens. Facebook even took down posts claiming the virus was man-made. The social media giant, which has cheerfully tolerated all manner of political mendacity over the years, drew the line at upsetting the Chinese government. As for the Western scientific community, it overwhelmingly rubbished the theory that Covid was man-made, and accepted Beijing's contention that it had somehow jumped from animals to humans. What was once regarded as a crackpot theory has become mainstream. In an interview last month, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the widely respected director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, agreed that a lab escape was 'a possibility'. He said he would back a second investigation by the WHO. Two weeks ago, 18 biologists, immunologists and other scientists criticized the WHO's findings in a letter to the journal Science, and called for a more thorough inquiry. Then, just over a week ago, the Wall Street Journal reported that three researchers from the Wuhan Institute of Virology became so sick in November 2019 that they sought hospital care, according to a confidential U.S. intelligence report. Beijing claims the first Covid case was on December 8, 2019.”

GUATAMALAN TRUMPERS

RESET YOURSELF!

by James Kunstler

If Quentin Tarantino made a James Bond movie, the villain would be a maniac named Klaus Schwab, played with a light touch by Christoph Waltz, leading a SMERSH-like org bent on turning the world into a utopia of robots, and, of course, absolutely everything would go wrong, leading to a joyously comical bloodbath in the climax. Are we living in that movie, one wonders?

In real life — is there even such a thing anymore? — Klaus Schwab is the octogenarian head of the World Economic Forum (WEF), the NGO that hosts the annual cavalcade of global villains at Davos, Switzerland, held every January in perfect designer snow, with the raclette melting temptingly on the hearth, endless flutes of Bollinger R.D. Extra Brut making the rounds, and plenty of pretty young things on hand, only some of whom know a reverse repo from an Appenzeller Sennenhund. Must be fun as all git-out.

The Davos meeting is ostensibly called to improve the state of the world (ha!), and thereby inspires countless paranoid fever dreams in the minds of many who would prefer to be spared utopian social experiments, especially from plans drawn by billionaire bankers who view the present surfeit of mankind on this planet (some 7.6 billion) as cluttering up the joint — all these unnecessary hoi polloi filling the oceans with their yukky plastic, making navigation difficult for the Davos yachting crowd… or something like that.

Klaus Schwab has been shockingly literal about his wished-for utopia, summing up his vision as, “You will own nothing, and you will be happy about it.” Hmmm, no property… and then what? Logically, no corpus of contract law to regulate it? Farewell pesky US constitution. (Let’s face it, it’s been falling apart lately, anyhow.) How’s that going to make folks happy? Can I at least keep my Waterpik and my flyrod?

And what about your property Klaus? And the property of your nonagenarian buddy George Soros, including all the cash money he’s been sprinkling around the USA to fund the election of utterly incompetent Attorneys General and District Attorneys, so as to sow chaos in America’s streets? What about your pal Bill Gates’s property… those hundreds of thousands of acres he’s buying up across the American grain belt? And the half that goes to Melinda under California divorce law. Will the poor girl have to make those dreary trips to the Safeway on her own? Will there even be supermarkets? Or just distribution depots like the old soviet glory days, with long lines for schmoozing?

A few other particulars from Klaus’s 2030 agenda: No more meat-eating for you! It’s a waste of energy and a carbon spewer. You will eat artificial “plant-based meat” from Bill Gates’s soybean fields, self-propagated like giant boneless garden slugs on Bill Gates’s factory walls. Pass the Sriracha, Klaus! Next, no more national borders. The teeming poor evacuating their wretched overpopulated homelands must be free to overpopulate your homeland and make it equally wretched. Of course, no more fossil fuels! The planet is overheating so badly that there may not be any snow in Davos, and the Davos elect do not intend to don lederhosen and march up and down the bare Jakobshorn ski trails yodeling like goat-herds.

There is considerable unease among the sentient hoi polloi about the WEF exercise going forward this summer called the Cyber Polygon simulation. The idea is to game-out a cyber-attack aimed at bringing down the global financial system. The reason folks are nervous is because the WEF held a somewhat similar simulation in October 2019 for a hypothetical pandemic disease outbreak, and, guess what? We got the Covid-19 pandemic outbreak a few months later. This has led some observers to hypothesize that Klaus and his WEF might have had something to do with the Covid-19 outbreak, and that an actual global financial train-wreck will be in the works shortly after Cyber Polygon, opening the door for Klaus’s heralded Great Reset.

Personally, I have no data to suggest these things are linked to one another. What’s more, if ever a complex system had evolved to self-destruct spectacularly on its own, it would be the global financial system, but especially the parts of it currently running in the USA and in Euroland, based on the Big Rock Candy Mountain economic model: Need money to run your society when your standard of living has outrun your productive capacity? Just pick hundred dollar bills off the money trees! That’s how we roll.

America’s empty suit, “Joe Biden,” travels to Euroland this week to confab with his supposed counterparts. He’ll drop into the G-7 meeting in Cornwall, UK, where the head honchos of foreign lands will perhaps get a chance to size him up for twenty minutes between naps; he’ll meet Queen Elizabeth, who was appointed a Counsellor of State before “Joe Biden” was out of his diapers (will she appreciate his wit?); he’ll drop into a NATO Summit in Brussels and meet with Turkey’s President Erdogan — better wear protective head-gear, Joe — and finally, the main event on June 16, Mr. Biden will meet with Vladimir Putin, wherewith, we’re given to believe, Mr. B will “discuss matters of mutual interest” with the Russian president. Oh, to be a fly on the wall in that room!

Meanwhile, speaking of crashing financials, the Bank of International Settlements’ (BIS) Basel 3 net stable funding requirement goes into effect before the end of June. That’s a mouthful, I know, but the net effect will be the demise of the “paper” gold markets that have been used by interested parties to queer the gold price and thus protect the value of the dollar for decades. Combine that move with the — what? — $11-trillion that “Joe Biden’s” handlers seek to print-up and distribute the next year or so and it kind of looks like the US dollar should be given last rites. Prepare to reset yourselves to flat broke.

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