Letters To The Editor

SENTENCE CREEP

To the Editor,

In response to the June 13th AVA article “Two Down, One to Go: The California Murder Rule is just one example of the many questionable and redundant laws within this state's criminal justice system.

The Felony Murder Rule, for instance, states that any death resulting during the commission of a crime carries an automatic sentence of Life Without the Possibility of Parole (LWOP). This law was created by legislators as part of the “get tough on crime” policies which for the past 30 years have done very little to reduce criminal activity. Many law professors believe that it is poorly written and should be removed from the books.

The 10 to 20 Year Life Law says that if you use a gun during commission of a crime you will automatically receive a sentence of ten years in prison. If the gun discharges, it’s 20 years. If anybody — even an accomplice — is hit that's an automatic sentence of 25 years to life.

Now from the perspective of the average citizen, perhaps one of the most frightening laws is the Street Terrorism Enforcement and Prevention Act (The STEP Act). Created to combat street gangs, it basically states that if you are known to be part of a criminal organization and commit a crime for that organization, you can get convicted under The STEP Act. First, in addition to the time the crime normally carries, you will receive an extra three years. But it's the long list of enhancements that the STEP Act carries which metes out the most time. This can result in anywhere from an extra two years to 25 to life. Generally life sentences are standard. The STEP Act is given in addition to the base charge. So, if you are charged with homicide, STEP will be given to enhance your sentence. Most street level gang-bangers don't know or really care that this law can not only give them a life sentence, but also categorize them as a “domestic terrorist.” To the average political protestor, environmental groupie, or animal rights activist, this law STEP Act has chilling implications. There are now a growing number of cases where political, environmental, and animal rights activists are being viewed as members of criminal gangs or terrorists organizations. If anyone recalls, several months back Predator drones were used for surveillance of some farmers who refused to leave land the government had ordered them to vacate. This is the first time (at least recorded) that spy drones have been used against US citizens on US soil. The drones were of course loaned to local law enforcement by the military — apparently they were not needed right away in Afghanistan.

All of this falls in line with the various legislation enacted over the past several decades such as the Patriot Act, the Emergency War Powers Act, and the Espionage Act. These negate or seriously undermine constitutional rights of US citizens. All of these acts were created ostensibly for short term use in times of dire need. Yet, some have been quietly in use for 90 years — since World War I. They all give almost unbridled powers to the various branches of the Federal Government and in some cases to local law enforcement as well.

Back to the subject at hand: The problem with many of California's criminal laws is that they negate a jury's ability to determine intent or to assess the degree of a defendant's guilt. They force a court to find a defendant guilty of a charge which may be much greater than is deserved.

In fact, there are numerous cases where a person who commits what is called “pre-meditated murder” has received less time than a person who intentionally takes a life. Or where a driver of a vehicle receives more time than the actual shooter.

To support his case, District Attorney Sequeira used the example of a bunch of outlaws running amok committing crimes until one day they finally kill somebody. In this case, if the allegations are true — the charge fits — at least as far as the law is written. What is not generally known is that often a person is found guilty by proxy even though they may have just been hanging out with a friend at a party, and that friend gets into a random argument and kills someone. In this case, even though neither of you are outlaws and you are not a psycho, you could be charged with murder — wrong place, wrong time. Oh well, now you have a life sentence — it happens a lot.

With the cost to house an inmate in California Prisons now $60,000 to $70,000 per year, can California continues to sustain all these lifers year after year? There are 140,610 in the US, one-third are LWOP. In California with a total prison population of 170,000, the lifer population is 34,164 with about 4,000 LWOPs. Remember some of these people have been incarcerated decades past their eligible release dates. The financial burden? You do the math .

Amazingly, over the past 16 years, 860 lifers convicted of homicide were released on parole in California. Out of these, only five were returned to jail. There were no rapes, no child molestations, no manslaughters or murders. The worst crime was robbery. Throughout the United States, former lifers who recidivate (go back to prison) comprise a mere 1 to 2%. This means that a former lifer is less likely to go to jail for anything than our average citizen!

It is odd that we as a nation can be so sanctimonious about law and order, supporting the “war on crime” and branding street criminals as terrorists when our “get tough” policies have done practically nothing to reduce crime. The imprisonment of over two million of our people — the largest number in the whole world — is merely breaking the bank while not reducing crime one bit. In California we spend $10 billion a year on prisons. Are we suffering more from crime or from the “war on crime”?

It seems we try to police the world but then invite all the “gansta-rappers” to attend our Grammys and give them visibility at other similar awards events. I wonder why during the commercial breaks between all the violent crime programs and the trailers for violent films, they never think to advertise the costs of all this exciting and glamorous violent criminal behavior. With around 13,000 gun murders per year in this country, doesn't the public need to be reminded of the consequences of violence? Maybe the lawmakers think that Americans do not care or maybe they have concluded that the crime business is too good and it’s not in their best interests for us to know more about its penalties.

Name Withheld

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SELF-RELIANCE

Editor,

Many in the valley grow food. A few of us grow food as a business. We provide seasonal, local, fresh food to those who don't produce their own, as well as to restaurants, B&B's, and events.

It is true that some things don't grow in the valley and that the vagaries of weather sometimes make the supply uncertain and it becomes necessary to order outside the valley. But we, the valley farmers listed below, request that you, the caterers, restauranteurs, B&B proprietors, and event coordinators, call us first for fruits, produce, flowers, eggs, meats and grains before calling further afield.

We also request that menus be built on what is available in season and locally...in the style of Alice Waters. Our prices are probably higher than Safeway's or Harvest Market's, but the food is fresher and tastes better, and staying local is the right thing to do. If you call us when you first hear of a need, usually several months before an event, most likely one or more of the farmers listed will be able and willing to plant, harvest, save or slaughter specifically for your event, and there would probably be a price discount for large orders.

The farmers are:

1. Petit Teton Farm — Nikki & Steve — 895.3683

2. Navarro Ridge Roots — Andy & Rachel — 937.2763

3. Yorkville Olive Ranch — Ron — 894.0530

4. McEwen Family — Bill & Bebing — 895.9348

5. Brock Farms — Vickie & Mike — 895.3407

6. Blue Meadow Farm — Pam — 895.2071

7. Boontberry Community Farm — Tim — 831.332.5131

8. Shine N'Star Farm — John & Regine — 894.2931

9. Mendocino Grain Share — Doug — 621.0972

The people listed above would love to hear from you at any time of the year.

Expanding the definition of local to the whole county, one can look at the McFarm website at http://www.mcfarm.org  which is linked with the Mendocino Local Food Guide website at http://www.mendocinolocalfood.org  Both of these include farmers in all of Mendocino county. The AV Foodshed Group is another source of information on local food and farmers. Call Cindy Wilder at 895.2949.

And by all means, come to the Boonville Farmers' Market at the Boonville Hotel and support your local growers of the food variety. See you there this Saturday from 10-12:30!

Nikki Ausschnitt

Yorkville

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NOT ‘PREDATORY’

Editor,

Mark Scaramella's “Pay Us, Mendo, And Together We'll Rip Off Everyone” asserts that Partnership Health Plan is a predatory organization. However he does not demonstrate this in his article, nor does he really try, other than putting a few words in quotes like “non-profit,” and, “health insuring organization.” This usage of quotes is a cheap journalistic trick — the grammatical equivalent of a smirk. But other than telling me that Partnership's spokesman was a bureaucrat who uses jargon, the author does not really advance an argument that tells me in any way how and why it is a pernicious organization.

He is correct in stating the obvious, that our healthcare system is not a system at all. Some people ride Rolls Royces, some used chevrolets, some bicycles, and a lot of people walk. My impression of Partnership is that its function is to make sure that a lot of poor people have a Kia sedan. If Mr. Scaramella has some evidence that Partnership is a pirate organization that profiteers in exploits, I await a follow-up article.

Mario Varela

San Francisco

PS: I am a retired non-medical professional and have no connection with any health insurance organizations, other than receiving my MediCare benefits.

ms replies: The whole US insurance industry, whether it’s commercial or “non-profit,” is predatory and a rip-off. They are completely unnecessary yet they soak up at least 30% of healthcare dollars (on marketing, executive and administrative salaries, reams of pointless forms, lawyers, etc.) and deliver an inferior service, with arbitrary exclusions, arbitrary denials, arbitrary fees and prices, and no accountability. I doubt Partnership Health is any worse than any other “insuring organization,” but calling yourself a “non-profit” is galling when you’re doing basically the same thing the predatory for-profit insurance companies are doing.

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INDEPENDENCE FOR SOME

Dear Editor:

As July 4 approaches and we prepare to celebrate Independence Day with parades, picnics and patriotic speakers we need to remember and reflect on the fact that independence did not apply to a significant portion of the population. The slave population in 1776 totaled 500,000 and represented 20% of the total population of 2,500,000. All the inspiring words in the Declaration of Independence had no meaning for those held in slavery. They were chattel and had very limited rights and would remain so until the Emancipation Proclamation and the adoption of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the Constitution. While we should celebrate the 4th we should also remember the institution of slavery represents a very dark chapter in our history

In peace,

James G. Updegraff

Sacramento

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WHAT GOOD IS SEIU?

Editor,

I work in Child Support Services, one of the few departments that does not cost the County any general fund money and yet we were made to take the same cut in salary as everyone else. Now that the election is over maybe we can focus on what really happened with the labor negotiations which, I agree, were a fiasco. And I agree that SEIU and the County both screwed up.

The County should have done a better job of working with the employees and explaining why they needed the 10% cut. But where things really went downhill was when SEIU removed Jackie Carvallo from the negotiations. We had always been told she would be here until the negotiations were over. Instead, they brought in Crystal Padilla who seemed very bright and charismatic, but also was very confrontational. I think a lot of us were wowed by Crystal when she first showed up. But looking back she was just brought in here by SEIU to stir things up. She tried to make us think the County was trying to break the union, take away our rights to collective bargaining and break our spirit. At one of the meetings when someone asked why they would do that the answer was something like, They want to show you who's boss. They made it sound like it was all a power play. All rhetoric, no facts.

A friend of mine who was close to the negotiations says the union never tried to fix the things that were wrong with the County's proposals. Instead they got as much public relations mileage out of them as they could. Child Support and Air Quality got caught in the crossfire. We get no funding from the general fund, so cutting us saved the County nothing. The union played that up to make the County look stupid and mean, but I am told SEIU never put a proposal on the table to exempt us, like the county agreed to do when we did furloughs. We were just cannon fodder for SEIU's media campaign against the County.

Same thing with the part-time workers. When the County said everyone would be part time under the 36 hour proposal, that meant a small number of 32-hour workers would no longer be covered for health insurance and retirement. Instead of making a proposal to resolve that issue, the union blew it up and made it sound like everyone in SEIU would lose healthcare and retirement. So instead of trying to resolve issues and reach an agreement, the union just kept driving a wedge in deeper between the county and the employees.

I won't even comment on the effort to run one of their bargaining team members for Supervisor, one of the ones who screwed up the negotiations, except to say that I know many County employees who were not impressed with this waste of our union dues. Maybe it is time to decertify them like the Head Start workers did a few years ago after SEIU threw them under the bus. SEIU managed to get us a 12.5% cut when the County only wanted 10%, did nothing to resolve issues that were fixable, and drove employee morale into the sewer.

We are paying dues to the tune of $500,000 a year for this?

County Employee (Name Withheld)

Ukiah

PS. I am one of many who is not happy with SEIU.

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REMEMBERING JUAN LERMA

Editor,

Thank you so very much for you help in locating the family of Juan Lerma.

My heart goes out to this family in a time of tremendous grief.

Life is full of wonderful moments that fill our hearts with joy and tragic moments, such as this, that put a mark on her heart forever. Life will never be the same for this family. They will heal, after much grieving, but never the same.

We sent out our letter from the Workers' Memorial Fund to offer a one time grant to the family for immediate expenses. We know this will not ease any pain, but just knowing our Community is there to be supportive helps in ways we can't image for some families.

Thank you again.

Shari McAsey

Workers' Memorial Fund Committee

Ukiah

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TOM & CREW DO IT AGAIN!

To the AV Community,

Thanks to many of you, once again the recent Guest Chef Dinner, this time featuring an Hawaiian-style Bar-b-q and benefiting the Senior Center, was a great success. Almost $1400 was made as a result of the event held at the appropriately decorated Veterans Building in Boonville. The special evening featured Maple Creek Winery owner and chef, Tom Rodrigues, who served the 62 guests delicious pork ribs, marinated in pineapple, mango, tamari, shallots, and garlic; chicken thighs marinated in ginger, pineapple, mango , fruit juice, citrus; a fresh green salad with lots of goodness and Hawaiian herbs; and Fresh Tropical Fruit with home made whipped cream for dessert. Along with beer donated by the AV Brewery, wine was provided by Tom from his winery in Yorkville and the guests, most of whom wore tropical attire, each received a complimentary glass to begin the evening as they were entertained by the tropical music provided by The Stevo Trio (Steve and Jill Derwinski along with Fred Wooley) plus a short set by Rod and Judy Basehore. Tom was full of praise for his cooking crew, without whom he could not have pulled off this wonderful evening. These included Cindy Hollinger, Jared Titus, and Maia, plus servers Saffron, Otto, Angus, and J.T. and as always a number of Senior Center Board members and staff also played their part. Events like these are true Valley gatherings. With the Seniors as the beneficiaries it is no wonder that they always sell out. The next one will take place on Friday, July 27th when the Guest Chef will be Jared Titus who will be serving an Italian Summer Grill. Order your tickets ASAP by calling Gina at the Senior Center, 895-3609.

Regards,

The Senior Center Board.

Boonville

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DEFENDING ASSANGE

Dear Mr. Anderson:

Julian Assange lost his final appeal to the United Kingdom Supreme Court. The Court says he must be extradited to Sweden by midnight, July 7.

Mr. Assange has been detained under house arrest without charge for 550 days and will be imprisoned — still without being charged with anything — while awaiting questioning regarding two allegations of sexual misconduct. He has repeatedly requested that he be questioned by Skype, by telephone, or at Scotland Yard or the Swedish Embassy as is customary when a European arrest warrant is issued. But the Swedish prosecutor has refused to do so.

My great aunt Sophie of Ilkey Moor, West Yorkshire has been writing letters in defense of Mr. Assange to her member of Parliament, Fair Trials International, and the Swedish prosecutor general. Here is a letter she sent to the Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe, Mr. Assange's last hope of intercession in a trial that seems jerry rigged to send him on to the United States. A secret grand jury has been meeting in Alexandria, Virginia, for the past 18 months in hopes of convicting Mr. Assange of conspiracy to commit journalism.

Keep fanning the flames,

Emma Goldstein

San Francisco

Attached: To Mr. Thomas Hammarberg, Office of the Commissioner for Human Rights, Common Council of Europe, F 67075 Strasbourg Cedex, France

Dear Mr. Hammarberg:

I am an 85-year-old English woman living in a cottage outside Postlethwaite, miles from any other human habitation. My nearest neighbors are the farmers across the way whom I watch every day herding their cows and repairing their drystone walls. The closest pubs are the Inseminator's Elbow in Farmington, 20 kilometers, and the Cracked Code in Hackerdale, 35 kilometers — neither, it goes without saying, an establishment suitable for a lady.

Life would be bleak indeed were it not for my internet connection. I used to spend hours numbing out with Monty Python reruns, Sex In the City and The Tudors. To keep my mind sharp I watched those TED talks. Then I saw one filmed in Oxford, an interview with a nice young man with white hair.

Three minutes into the young man's talk, his mobile phone went off. “God damn it,” he said, blushing and giggling, all legs and elbows as he reached into his pocket to retrieve the fiendish thingy. The host ad-libbed, “It must be the CIA calling to ask about the code for a TED membership.”

I was charmed. I was not the only one.

This woman AA, for instance — right piece of work. Calls herself a lesbian, runs a lesbian nightclub called Fever. She invites the nice young man to give a talk, tells him she'll be gone, he can stay at her flat. Comes back a day early and offers to take him to dinner. Afterwards he can share her bed or sleep on a mattress on the floor. Not the most difficult choice he'd ever had to make.

At some point they get into the tussle over the condom. We've all been there. Most of the time you give-in because it's a turnoff to fight before you make love. It's also a turnoff to worry about getting pregnant or catching a disease, so you feel bad afterwards.

But that's not “rape.” I read that neither the lesbian nor the cashmere sweater girl used that word. The police used it, and leaked the story to the tabloids. They wanted to stick it to the nice young man because he said they weren't holding corporations and governments accountable. So they outed him — and the women. Once one paper cried rape, all the others took it up without examining the evidence. Proving his point that they had no interest in “scientific journalism.”

I showed Gertie from Wensleydale a video of the nice young man accepting an award at the Oslo Freedom Forum. He wore jeans and a white shirt and carried a small laptop. He was so tall he had to bend over the microphone, shifting from leg to leg. His hair flashed silver against the blue backdrop.

An old man came up to him afterwards. “You are the only one who is sounding like a pure angel.”

“A pure angel? Me? No, it's just the hair.”

Gurtie laughed and laughed. “That man never had to rape anyone,” she said. “That man is fighting them off with a stick.”

If you are determined to put someone in prison, why not that vacuous yank hacker who turned in the gay bloke? Says he's a minister, rats on the kid, turns them over to the feds to be tortured, then claims it's the fault of the nice young man.

Who is paying him, I wonder? They should put him in a cell with the Swedish lesbian. He would be a puddle on the floor in three days. Judas.

In closing, I beseech you to follow your conscience and do the right thing. You are going to have to live with this decision for the rest of your lives. US government officials say the nice man has “blood on his hands” — talk about pots and kettles! I pray you won't end up with blood on yours.

Your most humble and obedient servant, Sophie Goldstein, RN, MSW (retired), DSFA

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MAKEPEACE IS GREAT!

Editor,

A Stellar Play in Mendocino!

I had the opportunity to see MAKEPEACE last night at the Matheson Center for the Performing Arts and it was a truly riveting experience. Stephen Burleigh not only wrote this insightful play, but gave a masterful performance starring in it. Our own Beth Richmond gave a brilliant performance as a woman trapped in a nightmarish dilemma. This play brings the horrors of war down to a very personal level of understanding. The effort and passion that went into the production of this remarkable play is evident in the superb casting, the exquisite set and Steven Siler’s directorial expertise. What makes it all the more exciting is that this marks the world premiere of this original play. It runs Thursday-Sunday until July 9. Don’t Miss It!

Margaret Paul

Fort Bragg

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 NO MONEY, NO LUCK

Editor,

Again I am on campaign contributions. But it deserves much discussion and change on this fraud perpetrated on the citizens of the United States. My great idea is and has been of a $50 limit by any one person, corporation or legitimate organization. For instance, a corporation could have one $50 contribution and each person in that business could have only one $50 contribution. For those who think how can they campaign on such a small amount, my answer is, There are some 50 million Democrats and some 50 million Republicans. If just one million of either party gave $50 each, that would be $50 million dollars each. That’s more than enough money to tell the people of one’s idea on how to run the country. I do not know how the many countries of the world spend money on campaigns. But I am sure, like many other things, we spend way more than any other country and campaign way longer than almost any other country. If anyone has those figures it would be a nice service to put in this or any other paper to see how ridiculous our elections are.

As I have said before campaign contributions are extortion and people convicted of extortion go to jail for many years. We complain when extortion is practiced in other countries but all our politicians do it and it’s called freedom of speech by our god like Supreme Court who are supposed to have no bias.

Our President goes around in his two 747 airplanes (two of the biggest airplanes in the world) openly extorting campaign contributions and openly brags about raising this money with taxpayers’ money.

His opponent, Mr. Romney, does not say a word of this way of raising election money and goes right along with this out-of-control crime. Then they talk about ethics.

Local elections would also have this $50 limit and the amount would be according to the size and population of that election.

They put Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens on trial for lying when it’s no business of the government. If the paying public is OK with them taking steroids, fine. If not, they can boycott that sport. That’s the American free enterprise way.

Our State lawmakers have put together a supposed balanced budget. They did this knowing it was a lie and if put on trial for lying would be convicted immediately and off to the pokey they would go. But alas, no such luck.

Emil Rossi

Boonville

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SYMPATHY FOR MY DAD

Editor,

We want to thank all of you who thought to send a card, surprised us with flowers, stopped us on the street and in the stores to let us know that you were sad for us after the passing of my father George Bennett.

Thanks to everybody at the Senior Center in Boonville, especially Terry the bus driver who so faithfully came and picked up my dad twice a week. Thank you to Dr. Apfel and the nurses at the health center who always treated my dad with kindness and dignity.

Special shout to Steve Sparks for his lovely eulogy and a gift only a true brit knows how to appreciate! Spotted dick in a can!

Love, Life, Happiness,

Beverley Bennett / Monika Fuchs

Philo

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 HACK&SQUIRT 2012

Mighty AVA,

From a ridge in Rancho Navarro, we enjoy a small view of the Coast Range. Looking northeast, we see a series of ridges, the nearest runs from Comptche toward Ukiah. The north branch of the north fork of the Navarro River, our local watershed, snakes through the area. Beyond that are distant slopes that feed the Big, Russian, and Eel Rivers. It's a beautiful, rugged forest terrain.

Recently, in this familiar vista, we witnessed something strange. A large swath of trees all turned brown, quickly and in unison. We called who we thought the owners might be, MRC (Mendocino Redwood Company), and asked if they knew what happened. They did. They were poisoning tanoak.

They call the procedure "hack and squirt," because they hack into the bark to squirt an herbicide (imazapyr) into the wound. The tree absorbs the toxin and dies. Imazapyr is a non-selective broad-spectrum systemic herbicide, which means it is not particular about what it kills. You can imagine the potential for collateral damage. Europe wisely banned imazapyr back in 2003.

According to the Journal of Pesticide Reform, imazapyr is corrosive to the eyes and can cause irreversible damage to the cornea. But that's small potatoes compared to its more lethal effects:

"Adverse effects found in laboratory animals after chronic exposure to imazapyr include the following: fluid accumulation in the lungs of female mice, kidney cysts in male mice, abnormal blood formation in the spleen of female rats, an increase in the number of brain and thyroid cancers in male rats, and an increase in the number of tumors and cancers of the adrenal gland in female rats." Imazapyr has been found to persist in the soil for at least a year, doesn't politely stay put, but readily moves through soil, and there is documented proof that it has contaminated surface and ground water following both aerial and ground forestry applications (including hack-and-squirt). And imagine the healthful smoke produced when one of these dead zones burns.

The other major problem with imazapyr is its breakdown products. When the chemical is exposed to light, it transforms into quinolinic acid which is irritating to the eyes, the respiratory system, and the skin. It is also a known neurotoxin that can cause nerve lesions and symptoms similar to Huntington's disease, a neurodegenerative disorder that affects muscle coordination and leads to cognitive decline and psychiatric problems.

How much of this goes on around here? Mendocino Redwood Company owns nearly a quarter million acres: one tenth of all the private land in Mendocino County. According to their website, over the past 13 years (1999-2011) they have unleashed 50,352 pounds of this highly concentrated toxin into our environment. That's about two tons per year. To kill tanoak. Which could be used for many other things (firewood, lumber, energy). Because they say they can't afford the alternatives (wouldn't leaving them alone be cheaper?). Someone has determined that poisoning us is most cost-effective.

The billionaire Fisher family, of San Francisco, are primary owners of MRC. They made their fortune from The Gap clothing business, which also includes Banana Republic, Old Navy, Piperlime, and Athleta. If you any have thoughts about MRC, and the Fishers, poisoning our environment for their profit, give them a buzz: mrc.com or 707-463-5110.

Mike and Elaine Kalantarian

Beyond the Deep End (Navarro)

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MEMO OF THE WEEK

To: Jared Huffman <assemblymember.huffman@assembly.ca.gov >

Mr. Huffman,

With your bill (AB1589) scheduled for a hearing before the Senate Natural Resources and Water Committee today, it is coming down to the wire (July 1st). We have a new article on the parks closures in the works. Your input is requested on the following key questions.

1. How will AB1589 serve to stave off the wave of privatizations that are in the offing? News broke last week of Benbow State Part being taken over by American Land and Leisure for 5 years, as of August 1. The same company, it is reported, is also proposing to take over at least 3 Delta area parks. The State Parks Department, ala Roy Stearns, has ignored every request for information regarding “takings” by private companies of state parks units. In the past, you have characterized private company initiatives as the taking of the “low hanging fruit” within the park system. This is precisely what seems to be happening.

2. The Department of Parks and Recreation has already signaled that it will take additional staff to administer the dozens of new agreements being made between the department and donor/volunteer groups. This indicates that one result of the closures will be more, not less, administrative burden that will cost considerable expense to an already critically stressed Parks Budget.

3. It was announced this week that Auburn SRA has entered into a 25 year agreement (with U.S. Bureau of Reclamation) to increase boat launch, camping, and parking fees. If the Parks Department has the authority to find solutions of this nature for one park, why not do so on a broad scale to achieve revenue neutral solutions, thus avoiding both privatization of selected units and the nightmare scenario of dozens of community based volunteer groups struggling to find donor monies and volunteers for the forseeable future?

The latest article will be published on July 3, responses to the above questions by Friday will be very much appreciated. Thank you.

Thank you.

Franklin Graham, Parks Closures Study Group

Navarro

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 ANGER MANAGEMENT

Letter to Editor

Final haiku to Nate Collins, who called the AVA not once, not twice, but three times to curse versions of “F___ you and your paper,” all about trivia, and wonders why people think he might be a bit unhinged:

Seriously, man -

get a grip; my prescription:

anger management.

Steve Heilig

San Francisco

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REGGAE WARS VII

AVA,

First off, HONOR-REBEL greetings and welcome to the man Jimmy Cliff who will be headlining at the Mendo County Fairgrounds this Saturday.

I come in the spirit of Ivan “Rhyging” Martin, original rude boy, hot skull, folk hero of the great island of Jamaica, the black Robin Hood, the original black dillinger, who escaped from prison, avoided a massive dragnet aided by the people, and went down in a blazing last stand. Jimmy Cliff’s character in the famous 70's movie “The Harder They Come” is based on the real Ivan Martin. (a must see film and must hear soundtrack)

Second, this is what we call a COUNTERACTION…

To: Steve Heilig

Why'd you call for a battle?

Then say, “Oh nevermind”

When you run up your mouth

Saying things so unkind

 

Cuz you ain't no rude boy

And that is for sure

And you ain't no mystic man

Cause they're clean and pure

 

Get it straight likkle boy

I burn you, I burn Rome

I burn your shitstem policies

Abroad and at home

 

You're an SF yuppie

Who likes to boogie woogie

An uptight Democrat

Who used to be a hippie druggie

 

You're a lukewarm lib lab

Died in the wool

A gentrifier, a yes man

With middle class pull

 

The best you could be

Is a stinkin' apologist

Stop fakin' the funk

Like yous an ethno-musicologist

 

Lissen me Boy!!!

When you cried out for battle

I circled the armada,

Got the horses and saddles

 

You can't call for a fight

Then bow down in submission

Cuz then you're a bowcat

It's yourself that you're dissin'

 

So to the Vulture of Culture

I'm not your comrade nor brother

Your veracity was tested

Now go suck yu m………

 

Coppershot

Nate “Strikkly Wellred” Collins

Berzerkeley