Mendocino County Today: May 28, 2012

FRONT PAGE HED from the Thursday, May 24th edition of the Ukiah Daily Journal: “100 pot plants found in Willits home.” In other news that day, the sun rose in the east and the dish ran away with the spoon.

GREAT MOMENTS In Public Radio, KZYX, May 15, 2012. Mind, Body, Health, Politics. Host Dr. Richard Miller with guest author Kristina Wright.

Miller: “Kristina Wright is the author of Dream lover: Paranormal Tales of Erotic Romance, Stream Lust, Steam Punk: Erotic Romance, Lustfully Everafter, Fairytale Erotic Romance and on and on. Kristina has written many books about, um, sexual behavior, and, um, this one, The Best Erotic Romance which I have before me is a collection of erotic romance stories that feature the best of the genre. So we're going to be talking about sex! We are talking about erotic romance, lustfully ever after. So we are going to have to be very careful here today, aren't we folks? Why is that? Why do we have to be careful? Because we live in a country where we can talk about almost anything on the air except certain categories and certain words. Sex is one of those categories. Sex. Sex is repressed forcefully in the United States, that literally if we use the wrong words, or the word, not the wrong word, words that are prohibited, the station could be taken right off the air! How is that, folks? How do you feel about living in a country where when we talk now, if we use mis-words, words that are prohibited, we can lose the entire station? Words! We are not talking about behavior. We're not talking about ingesting anything. We're not talking about touching another human being. We are not talking about flying a plane or driving a car. We're not talking about revolting against the United States government or any other government. But the possibility of using words that are prohibited could literally take this station right off the air! What an interesting thing! How do you feel about that? I know how I feel about it. I feel repulsed by it. It makes me shake my head, scratch my head, and wonder, Will Kristina Wright, my guest today, possibly say a word that is prohibited and all of a sudden we are going to be in great trouble? Kristina, watch out!”

Wright: “I did not get the list of prohibited words so I will not try to be careful.”

Miller: “Well, I am not allowed to say them so I can't tell you so you are just going to have to guess! Let's just say—"

Wright: “I will do my best.”

Miller: “Do your best to stay — to be as formal and civil as possible.”

Wright: “I certainly will, Dr. Miller.”

Miller: “You can call me Richard, and thank you.”

Wright: “I have been interested in the idea of sex and sexual fantasy since I was in high school, and I don't know if I can actually say that I was not yet 18. But I actually did a book report in biology class — which was a sexual fantasy.”

Miller: “I have to interrupt. Did you say, you don't know if you are allowed to say if you were interested in sex before you were 18?"

Wright: “Yes.”

Miller: “Omigosh. Well, you have admitted it now!"

Wright: “For the whole world to hear!"

Miller: “All right, everybody. I want everybody listening to hear that this world-famous author who has written, how many books have you written Kristina?"

Wright: “I have edited, I'm on my ninth anthology, and I've written a few by myself. They are all my own work.”

Miller: “Okay, we want the whole world to know right now that Kristina Wright, who has edited or written into her 10th book was actually interested in sex before she was 18 years of age. If the CIA is listening, you now have a record…”

IT WENT ON LIKE THAT. Then a woman called in.

Woman caller: "What's the difference between erotica and pornography?"

Miller: "Great question. What's the difference? What's the difference, Kristina? What's the difference between erotica and pornography?"

Wright: "I feel like pornography has so much baggage attached to it that a real quick simple answer would be that I think pornography is generally more visual where erotica is primarily written."

Miller: "So we might say pornography is for men and erotica is for women? Because women tend to read more?"

Wright: "No, I don't know about that. The idea that men are visual and women are not. No. I don't buy into that. Pornography continues to be a derogatory word. But I don't buy into that."

Miller: "We won't have time today but at some time in the future I want all of those of you who love pornography to call in and say that you love pornography, all six of you. Hot. What a joke. Pornography is the biggest selling — I think it's the biggest selling product on the entire globe! We all know that. And we make believe it isn't true, but the reality is there. I know your husband is in the Navy. Maybe he can call in and let us know if he likes your books. Really! Do these books make your submarine periscope go up? Am I allowed to say that? Oh, be careful there Richard. What are you doing?"

A FLURRY of worried stories, which seemed to have been inspired by the Farm Bureau, conclude that there's a looming shortage of ag workers. Fewer immigrants are coming across the border because of immigration crackdowns, an aging Mexican population, and drug wars that make the border areas even more hazardous than they normally are for people coming across hoping to find work in Gringolandia add up to a shortage of exploitable farm workers.

ACCORDING to the Pew Research Center, of the 1.2 million people employed in agriculture-related jobs in the United States, 70% are undocumented, but only an estimated 375,000 people left Mexico for the United States from November 2010 to November 2011 compared to the 1.05 million people who made the journey five years earlier.

THE PEW CENTER says it costs an immigrant $2,500 to $3,000 for a coyote or guide to get them across the border in one piece.

WE KNOW that County grape growers had trouble last season filling harvest crews because farm workers only tend to do the work for one generation. Their American born or American-ized children find better paid labor. The Farm Bureau types claim that Americans won't do field labor even at triple the minimum wage.

A PRESS RELEASE from the crucial Held-Poage Memorial Home and Research Library in Ukiah reminds us that Mendocino County's only comprehensive historical archive is open to the public Wednesday through Friday, from 1 to 4 p.m. The library is located at 603 W. Perkins St. in Ukiah. Held-Poage not only contains most if not all the books ever published about Mendocino County, it houses family histories, genealogical research, the personal accounts of County veterans of the Civil War, World Wars I and II, a large collection of historical photos, and much material on Native Americans and local history. The library also has microfilm for county newspapers and census records. The computers have databases of birth, deaths, family histories and burials for Mendocino County. For more information, call 462-6969 or visit the Historical Society Web site at www.pacificsites.com/~mchs/.

SUPERVISOR KENDALL SMITH will be leaving the Board at the end of the year, having decided to depart under a cloud of her own making. Insisting for years she hadn't chiseled the taxpayers out of several thousand dollars in deliberately falsified travel reimbursements, Smith had to be threatened with prosecution by DA Eyster before finally re-paying the County some $3300, an amount estimated by successive grand juries to be much less than she actually owed. Fellow Democrat and former DA Meredith Lintott never quite got around to pressuring Smith to return the money.

LAST WEEK, Smith got off a final bogus travel request, basically the same request that got turned down last year 3-2. She wants to go out of state to the upcoming annual meeting of the National Association of Counties in Pittsburgh, PA. Natch, she wants Mendo to pay her way. Last year only Hamburg had agreed that Smith should go and be reimbursed for her travel out of County funds. Smith is expected to put her request on a forthcoming agenda for a vote, which we assume will again be 3-2 against.