Mendocino County Today: Monday, Oct. 18, 2021

Dry Returns | Yesterday's Rainfall | Dawn | Covid Slowdown | Flu Shots | Weed Fans | 1632 Casualties | Heart Events | Fog | Ed Notes | Book Throwing | Blossoming | Walk/Ride | Catamount | Sky Hawking | Yesterday's Catch | Landmark Case | Comptche School | Reparations | Just Because | Water/Housing | America Fun | General Grant | Conspirituality | Snow Angel | Podcast Tips | Classified Transport | Summer Shower | Country Road | Beloved Braxton | Covid Powell | Republicare | Spook Love | CVFD 2013 | Big Asteroids

DRIER WEATHER is forecast today through most of Tuesday. A front will generate gusty southerly winds Tuesday afternoon through Tuesday night. Most of the rain with this front will arrive Tuesday night and Wednesday morning. A wet and active weather pattern will continue through the weekend and probably into early next week. (NWS)

YESTERDAY'S RAINFALL: Leggett 1.04", Covelo .49", Willits .44", Boonville .41", Hopland .39", Laytonville .30", Yorkville .24", Ukiah .21"

MENDOCINO COUNTY has reported 220 new Covid cases during the first two weeks of October, an average of 15 per day. During the two previous months, August and September, as the Delta variant ran rampant, the daily average was 41. Deaths have also slowed considerably, with only two reported in early October. The previous two months brought 32 deaths, an average of one fatality every other day. It appears the Delta surge is behind us now.

POT GROWERS START USING WIND MACHINES

What’s Up With Henry’s Noisy Frost Fan?

by Jim Shields

Many folks have contacted me regarding the situation involving the noise generated the past week by frost-protection fans operated by Henry’s Original at their 101 Ranch site. The complaints were about a turbine frost fan that ran from early evening on Oct. 6 through early morning hours on Oct. 7. Folks from as far away as Branscomb (12 miles from Laytonville) claimed they heard what sounded like a helicopter all night long.

As most people know I’m the former International President of an airline union, so I’m somewhat familiar with the principles of propeller equipment, whether it be airplanes or in this case turbine frost fans. The working dynamics are very similar.

I’ve also discussed this issue with Mark Scaramella, of the Anderson Valley Advertiser. Mark is a retired U.S. Air Force officer, so he’s also quite knowledgeable about aerodynamics and propeller/blade mechanics. He also sued to order Mendocino County to enforce its noise ordinance as it applies to vineyard fans in the Anderson Valley. Unfortunately, he did not prevail in the litigation but he does possess all kinds of background information on agricultural frost fan practices here in Mendocino County.

Several people sent me Mr. Josh Keats’ letter to the Laytonville community concerning the operation of his company’s turbine frost fan at the 101 Ranch location. Mr. Keats describes the machines their company is using as a “Inversion turbines.” I’m assuming these are the same machines known as “inverted sink fans” or “Selective Inverted Sink” (SIS) fans or turbines.

The frost fan model used by Henry’s is a 2-bladed fan, which is old technology. According to court filings in Scaramella’s litigation, such model generate 70 to 80 dBA (dBA is a weighted scale for judging loudness that corresponds to the hearing threshold of the human ear) with some very old versions running as high at 92 dBA at 126 feet, or nearly double the county limit.

The County’s noise ordinance sets a 10 p.m. — 7 a.m. standard of no more than 40 dBA, adjusting to 50 dBA after 7 a.m. until the evening hour.

A 2-blade propeller machine produces two pressure pulses per revolution, whereas a 3-blade propeller machine will produce three smaller pulses per revolution for the same amount of total thrust. As a result, the 3-blade prop machine will be inherently smoother and therefore quieter.

The 2-bladed machine’s noise is similar to the “rotor wash” of helicopters that so many people described from last week’s event.

A number of people have told me they called Planning and Building’s Code Enforcement office but have yet to hear back from anyone.

California, like other states, has a Right to Farm Act that is intended to protect agricultural activity, and many counties have their own local right to farm ordinances as well. California’s Right to Farm Act provides:

“No agricultural activity, operation, or facility, or appurtenances thereof, conducted or maintained for commercial purposes, and in a manner consistent with proper and accepted customs and standards, as established and followed by similar agricultural operations in the same locality, shall be or become a nuisance, private or public, due to any changed condition in or about the locality, after it has been in operation for more than three years if it was not a nuisance at the time it began.”

The intent of these types of laws is to protect farmers who use accepted and standard farming practices from nuisance lawsuits in certain circumstances. In California, at the state level, cannabis cultivation is not considered “agricultural” such that it would be eligible for protection under the Right to Farm Act. But in some counties, local ordinances do define cannabis cultivation as agricultural activity, giving cannabis cultivators protection under local right to farm ordinances.

I discussed this situation with 3rd District Supe John Haschak on my Saturday radio program, and he’s also looking into it, and will get back to me.

It should be noted that last night (Oct. 11 and through this morning on Oct. 12), Henry’s once again fired up the frost fan, which led to more complaints from lots of people.

Just as a practical matter, long-time pot farmers have informed me that they are not familiar with anyone who has ever employed frost fans to protect cannabis. By the way, Henry’s turbine fan is utilized on weed grown in the ground.

Here’s a letter that was sent out by Henry’s Original executive Josh Keats a few days ago where he explains why they are using the frost fan.

Dear Laytonville Community Members,

I’ve had the opportunity to speak with some of you today regarding the inconvenience caused by our frost protection fan that ran last night. I understand the issue that it has caused and I apologize for the disturbance in your daily (or nightly) routines. It is always my hope that our farming operations are not a detraction to your quality of life here in the Laytonville Valley.

We are experiencing a relatively cold early October, and as we, like many in the valley, suffered severe crop loss due to early freezes in 2019, we have implemented the standard Ag practice of running turbines as a frost protection measure. Inversion turbines are used throughout the county on other agricultural commodities such as grapes, apples and pears during the fall, prior to harvest, to prevent crop loss. As cooler air settles in the valley at ground level, the warmer air rises, and the turbine works by creating a draw that pulls the cooler air up and mixes it with the warmer air that has risen. This can offset ambient temperatures by as much as 10 degrees and is quite effective in preventing crop loss.

We intend to only use the fan at the absolute bare minimum, when nighttime frosts are imminent over the next 10-14 days, as provided by the Farm Bureau’s daily report. It appears that this event may again occur Sunday, Monday or Tuesday nights.

I truly appreciate any allowance the community would provide me so that my business can remain solvent in these trying times and continue to provide local well paying employment with benefits and bring economy to the local businesses we work with here.

If anyone would like to speak one on one about these issues, or any others, please do not hesitate to email me at joshua@henrysoriginal.com

Thank you for your patience.

Sincerely,

Joshua Keats

The following email is an example of one of the many I have received from local folks:

“Spoke with the sheriff, said they would pass it along to the pot people. Talk about bull**** Jim. 5 a.m. those things went off. If I can hear it out here it must be a war zone where you are. Here is the real question. What can be done about it? If Hashack had a set maybe he could do something but when it comes to Laytonville,,,,him and everyone else in county falls a bit short. We are a third world nation no one gives a s*** about and we can’t even sleep. Oh happy day.”

I’ll update you as soon as there are any developments.

IF THERE’S AN AUTOPSY, ADD THIS REPORT

by Tommy Wayne Kramer

TOPIC: Heart Attacks

Q: Which one is not like the other two?

A: The third one.

For me at least. I know for some people the first heart attack is the worst because that’s the one that kills them. Sorry ‘bout that, my condolences to the dearly departed, grieving family, etc. And yes, the second one could be the worst, and for the same reasons.

For me the first two heart attacks were just rehearsals, little warmups intended to get my attention and have me ready for the main event, the big beast that clobbered me about a month ago, exactly three days after we’d arrived in our new town, our new house and our newish lives. It was my third and yeah, maybe it’ll be my last. (No column next Sunday would be a sign.)

If it turns out I’m gone, thanks very much for your thoughts, prayers, cards, flowers and checking out the Daily Journal obits every morning. I haven’t written a farewell piece yet, and I won’t leave it to just anyone. 

All my “heart events” as the euphemists label them, have been surprises, as in “Dude, seriously—me again?” I just don’t profile; check out any “Healthy Tips for Active Adults” article in a magazine at a medical office and you won’t find me. 

 My weight and diet are wrong, I walk a bit daily. My mother and father, excellent smokers both, took the cancer express to the cemetery, but before them who knows? My grandparents could’ve gone down with the Titanic and no one would have told me.

But I get heart attacks like some people get new summer outfits or rotate their tires. (JOKE, more or less: I’m in my doctor’s office on South Dora a year or so ago, and we’re chatting and he’s scribbling and I say “Uh, should I go get one of those liver scans? Been a while, whaddya think?” 

He doesn’t even respond. I wait. Thirty seconds pass and I renew the query: “Liver scan? Last time was a few years ago, right?” My doc sighs, turns and says, “Why are you so worried about your liver? Heart attack is what’s going to take you out.”

Let’s see your MD do that.

My recurring reality: All too often I stand in dread, knowing precisely what’s coming (another heart attack) and what a rotten week I’m about to have, unless it turns out worse. Twice I was in the living room, once out on Smith Street when the slow, semi-painful horror of a locked up and loading chest, a carbonated left arm telegraphed that I was in trouble. Again.

Well, you can’t say the doctor didn’t warn me.

For me the big telltale sign is always when I start looking around for a nice place to lie down. First time I was all alone at the ER at UVMC, not sure if I was checking in or checking out, gazing glassy-eyed at a patch of fairly clean grey carpet in the lobby that I thought would make a nice nest to crawl onto. 

On the other two “events” I sank onto living room carpets, feeling pretty good about my choice of lodging for the night, or maybe longer. All three wound up with me incarcerated, but for the third one I took the scenic route.

I lied to Trophy about my symptoms, got up off the floor and told her I was feeling pretty good after all, and didn’t to the hospital until the next morning. Waiting to go to the hospital when you’ve had a heart attack is like waiting to call the fire department when your house is on fire.

All three highly unpleasant evenings had me in uncomfortable beds with beeps, chimes and dull lights winking and whirring me to sleep, plus some help from our friend Mr. Sedative.

Everything else is a blur, including the previous paragraph. Eventually they turn me loose, if “loose” is how I emerge and it’s not. I emerge from hospitals (three different ones so far) numb, stupid and afraid. Then I get tired.

Right now, as in today at 10:07 a.m. I’m exhaustercated. I’m marrow-deep tired from the time I wake up until I stagger onto the couch before going back upstairs for a proper nap. Later I’ll read myself to sleep using the same two sentences I read yesterday. Maybe I’ll try to walk tomorrow, all the way back to that nice couch. 

Writing a column has never been so hard. It takes twice as long to get half as far and the results are 80% worse. This week’s, for example.

I’m going to ask Mr. Anderson if I can start getting paid by the hour. Maybe I can turn a profit on these “events.”

ED NOTES 

CHILDREN AS WEAPONS. California parents, cretin branch, opposed to the Governor's vaccine mandate, plan to keep their children home from school October 18 in protest. Event flyers are circulating everywhere electronic, although we haven't seen one in the Anderson Valley whose cretin population exists but is minimal.

REBECCA BRENDLEN is retiring after nearly four decades as multi-tasking school secretary with Anderson Valley Unified. And she's still smiling. The exhausted cliche about school secretaries is that they truly manage the schools while school chiefs and school boards come and go. And a whole lotta them came and went during a tumultuous period of constant turmoil and turnover, one interlude featuring perhaps the craziest superintendent in the history of the profession, the legendary Wobbling Eagle who went from Boonville to become a rolling statewide scandal. Through it all, including the day students ran wild while the superintendent locked himself in his office with a fifth of whiskey — the Hayward boys were on the roof shooting fire hoses down through the vents into the classrooms while their peers cheered them on — it was probably Rebecca — or the equivalently essential Judy Groves — who called the County Office to restore order. Rebecca calmly went about her work in the midst of the turmoil and never once, despite my pleas, would say a single insider word about this or that scandal. She may be leaving her job but, fortunately for us, she won't be leaving Boonville where, when we see her, we'll thank her for her years of true service to this community.

A READER WRITES: “We also enjoyed the Chappelle special last night. I still consider Dave to be America's most honest and courageous social observer but I think his humor has lost a step recently. Raging success will do that to you. There are many great comics out there, even though they fall short of Chappelle on social critique. (I think Carlin was even better as he also fearlessly attacked politics head on — Carlin said he educated himself by reading Counterpunch.) I'd rate Bill Burr as the closest second. Tom Papa and Brian Regan (earlier stuff is better, he's also lost a step) are great observers of human nature but don't go nearly as deep on socio/political commentary."

BETH BOSK with a sensible re-districting idea: “A better solution than any of those maps: Move Caspar back to the 5th. Subtract Hopland: add Hopland to the 1st where it belongs. For the next 10 years make the numerical adjustment needed between the 4th and the 3rd, keeping in mind the population in Fort Bragg will increase very rapidly once new housing development is permitted on the G-P lands now blocked by the Skunk train fiasco.”

RECOMMENDED VIEWING: COLONIA DIGNIDAD, a revelatory Netflix documentary about a German sect run by a Nazi pedophile under “Christian” auspices that settles in the Chilean outback where it becomes a combination staging area for the overthrow of the elected Allende goverment, then a torture center and killing ground for the Pinochet regime. BTW, it doesn't seem to be widely known but there are international war crime warrants for the arrest of Henry Kissinger for his pivotal role in the coup that removed Chile's democratically elected government and establishing Pinochet's fascism in Chile, Of course here in Amnesia Land Kissinger is regularly feted as some kind of elder statesman cum wizard. 

The docu-series is based on the testimonies of people who went through the torture camp. They relate how the sect functioned and describe the scandals that were unleashed there, such as cases of pedophilia, arms trafficking, murders, kidnappings and slavery.

The interviewees say that at that time, Schäfer was a friend of the last Chilean dictator, Augusto Pinochet, who knew what was going on in southern Chile.

Between forced labor and torture, some of the victims explain some of the chilling scenes to which they were subject to at the hands of the preacher and his sympathizers.

“I had always thought he was like Adolf Hitler,” explained a German woman. In the trailer, viewers see another victim who reveals that “there are hundreds of people” who were murdered. 

The “Colonia” case was uncovered years ago and is generating a stir thanks to new pieces of visual media that denounce what happened 50 years ago.

IS JOE ALL THERE? Tuesday, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki, responding to a reporter who asked for Biden's health records, “I promise you they will be made available.” Psaki repeated her previous promise that once the president gets a physical — which she said in May would be before the end of 2021 — the administration would be “transparent” about the exam's findings. The obviously impaired Biden has not released a medical report since the last update in December 2019.

FOR YOUR FEEDING TRUMPISM FILE: Katie Couric, tv chatterer, reveals in her new memoir — which muy sophistico ava people will refuse to read on principle — that Couric chose not to air controversial comments made to her five years ago by sacrosanct Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. RBG, Couric reveals, was critical of NFL players like Colin Kaepernick kneeling during the national anthem. Couric says she was “conflicted” because she was a “big RBG fan,” so she only aired some of what RBG said about football players refusing to stand for the national anthem. Couric said after talking with New York Times columnist David Brooks (pause here for at least one quick recitation of the Jesus prayer) Couric concluded that Ginsburg — who was on the Supreme Court at the time — was “elderly and probably didn’t fully understand the question.” Couric writes that she “wanted to protect” Ginsburg and felt that the issue of racial justice was a “blind spot” for her.

LARRUPIN' LATEEFAH

On Friday, October 15, 2021 at around 12:00 PM Mendocino County Sheriff's Deputies were dispatched to a domestic disturbance at an apartment complex in the 300 block of Brush Street in Ukiah.

Deputies contacted an adult male and Lateefah Glover, 40, of Ukiah, at the apartment complex. Deputies conducted an investigation and learned the adult male and Glover were involved in a domestic cohabitant relationship.

Earlier in the day the couple were involved in an argument which escalated into a physical altercation. Deputies learned Glover had thrown books at the adult male and struck him several times with a metal rod which caused visible injuries.

Glover was arrested at the scene for Domestic Violence Battery and Assault with a Deadly Weapon other than a Firearm and booked into the Mendocino County Jail where she was to be held in lieu of $25,000 bail.

THEY WALK AMONG US

Hello Community,

Caspar Dog walker and rides to senior center wanted.

We are looking for some help during the day. Our needs include driving a family member to the senior center lunch (in Fort Bragg) and back to Caspar and also walking our two new pups for a short walk and visit. This can be the same individual or two separate ones. Our preference that it is someone local to Caspar, so that there will be a little less environmental footprint. The work is intermittent and we are looking to pay $20/hr, if possible.

Please be willing to provide a couple of personal references. Call me if you have questions or availability.

Thanks, Ava 

Avamir Nasoff <mnasoff@gmail.com>

707/961-6181 home

937-767-9100 cell

THE HAWK SOARS!

Finding New Ground:

A Conversation With Chris Skyhawk And The Sacred Sounds Of Mendocino Sound Healing 

Friday Oct.22, 7pm 

Kama Loka Bookstore 

335 N.Franklin St. Fort Bragg 

$5-$20 donation

While running for County Supervisor in June 2018, Chris suffered a near-fatal hemmorraghic stroke, and had a Near Death Experience, his philosophy in life has always been embedded in his family, community, and this little piece of earth called northern ca. Through poetry, anecdotes, and sacred sound, we will explore the many issues the earth and its life forms face at this critical juncture.

He will be joined by Audrya Maria and Sara Bassindale of Mendocino Sound Healing (mendocinosoundhealing.com 

They will be offering their sacred sound in conjunction with the talk

---

PS. THE HAWK NEEDS A NEST

Hello friends, 

I am in search of a room to rent on the mendo coast, preferably in fort bragg where i have happily ensconced for the past year, although at least between mendo and FB. As many of you know I have made great strides since my 6/2018 stroke. my needs are simple - some kitchen access (i get some In home Health help 3 x/week, delivered meals, other than that i do VERY light cooking, bathroom of course), and a room to put my bed into. My twin 13 y o twin daughters visit me 1 afternoon/week, they are very respectful, polite, and low impact.

My involvement in the community remains vigorous, I have returned to monthly time slots on KZYX public affairs, have moved into a leadership position with the Coalition to Save Jackson State Forest (https://savejackson.org) where direct action has managed to hold off the bulldozers and chainsaws for now, as we work toward a logging moratorium as a policy in Sacramento. It is a very exciting campaign as it is bringing in elements of cultural reconciliation with displaced tribal nations that are finding support from the European-American community.

I have also begun a children's youtube channel called Mr. Skyhawk’s Nest, we have recorded 2 episodes but not uploaded them yet, the show will be a combination of story/song and enrichment pertinent to children and the adults that love them, basically we are carving a safe online space for kids.

Oh, yeah about my housing needs - i‘ve been in Fort Bragg the last 14 months, but my roommate is aging and needs my room for a live in caregiver, thus I’m looking. I’m quiet, respectful, and as you can see - busy!

I would love to stay in Fort Bragg as I have an electric scooter that gets all over town; if have to move further out I have a line on one with greater range, I also anticipate getting my drivers license back this coming year, as i am passing through my tests well, but it’s bureaucracy hell.

email hawkwork@mcn.org 

phone 707-409-4789

Thank you for all and any help.

CATCH OF THE DAY, October 17, 2021

FRANCISCO ANAYA, Ukiah. DUI, no license.

ANNELISE BECK, Willits. DUI, suspended license.

ELIZABETH CAMPBELL-TOWNSEND, St.Petersburg, Florida/Laytonville. DUI.

LUIZ GONZALEZ JR., Covelo. Under influence with firearm, felon-addict with firearm.

CODY MENDEZ, Ukiah. Protective order violation, contempt of court.

CARLOS OGAWA, Ukiah. Under influence with firearm, ammo possession by prohibited person, loaded handgun not registered owner, felon-addict with firearm, alteration of firearm ID, probation revocation.

LUIS OLIVER-ALARCON, Ukiah. DUI, no license.

JACOB PARMELY, Ukiah. Parole violation.

ANGELA RIVERA, Ukiah. Under influence, controlled substance, evidence destruction.

CHERRI ROBERTS, Ukiah. Failure to appear, probation revocation. (Frequent flyer.)

CHARLES TURNER, Kelseyville/Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

SOVEREIGN CITIZENRY

Editor,

You took an interest in my case in the beginning after I shot my abusive son and his partner. That is now going to trial, scheduled for September 18. I am now acting as my own attorney, in the eyes of many just playing the part of the fool to the extreme while facing 189 years to life without parole.

However, if I get to argue my intent, the mitigating circumstances will turn this into a landmark case to re-forge the Liberty Bell and restore the union between the federal, the states and the people's spheres of governmental powers created by the Confederated States in the United States Congress when they deemed it necessary to form a more perfect union and put the draft of our Constitution before conventions of delegates in each of the several states chosen by the people therein, for the people to redivide sovereignty which each member of a society gives up to get the protection of living in a civilized society. No person gives up all of their sovereignty or they would be nothing more than slaves. My making more of a fool out of myself might be newsworthy too.

New Guard & Executive Officer

Thomas Dean Jones

Mendocino County Jail, Ukiah

THE SINS OF THE GRANDFATHERS

Editor,

If my great, great grandfather was a pedophile and abused children, should I pay reparations to the great, great grandchildren of those children? I don’t believe I should.

I came to the United States as a 12-year-old in 1958, and I make a point of treating people decently, as I would like to be treated, regardless of their ethnicity, race or religion. I have a responsibility for my own behavior but I don’t feel responsible for what people in this country did in the past, and I don’t feel I should have to give money to others for behavior I am not responsible for.

We should be open and transparent in acknowledging bad behavior past and present, and deal appropriately with bad behavior currently being experienced, but I don’t believe in just handing out money to people today based solely on the color of their skin or for grievances that their ancestors experienced many generations ago.

John O’Hare

Moraga

WATER IN SHORT SUPPLY

Lots of people these days refer to the insanity of pushing for more housing when we have no assurance of enough water to supply it.

I live where the Carmel River used to provide half of our water supply, but that will be stopped this year for past overuse, and despite 25 years of advance notice of the stoppage, no new water sources have been developed (planned, yes, but not yet here).

How enthusiastic am I supposed to be at the prospect of more housing when new neighbors will threaten my own ability to live here?

Pam Rolph

Pacific Grove, Monterey County

ON OCTOBER 16, 1863, one of the most impactful decisions of the American Civil War was made - the promotion of Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant to command of the newly created Military Division of the Mississippi. The new command, officially established on October 18, would encompass the Departments of the Ohio, the Tennessee, and the Cumberland and included all Federal armies between the Mississippi River and the Appalachian Mountains and give Grant control of the U.S. Army in the Western Theater. While many of his early supporters wished him to go to the East to take the Army of Northern Virginia under Gen. Robert E. Lee to task, Grant refused, declaring, “I can do more with this army than it would be possible for me to do with any other without time to make the same acquaintance with others I have with this. I know the soldiers of the Army of the Tennessee can be relied on to the fullest extent. I believe I know the exact capacity of every general in my command to command troops, and just where to place them to get from them their best services.” 

What followed was a cataclysmic chain reaction throughout the Confederacy and a string of defeats that would cripple the rebellion’s war efforts. Eventually, Grant’s success in reorganizing the army in the West and capturing Chattanooga led to his promotion to Lieutenant General and command of the entire U.S. Army on March 2, 1864. A little more than a year later, Grant and Lee would meet at Appomattox Courthouse to sign the surrender documents of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia and, as historian H.W. Brands referred to “The Man that Saved the Union,” Grant would emerge victorious.

THE DARK SIDE OF WELLNESS: the overlap between spiritual thinking and far-right conspiracies

Extreme right-wing views and the wellness community are not an obvious pairing, but ‘conspirituality’ is increasingly pervasive. How did it all become so toxic?

theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2021/oct/17/eva-wiseman-conspirituality-the-dark-side-of-wellness-how-it-all-got-so-toxic

ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

Podcasts: The trick is finding the good stuff. 

There's two avenues (ignoring the popular catalog or algorithm ranked).

1. Competent hosts. If a host is good, he can squeeze gems out of the densest guests. Look for the competent host, but also, I would argue, don’t dismiss amateurs - you can’t hold it against them, and consider if any misses are circumstantial. Nobody is perfect.

2. Excellent guests. Probably easier. Find the cast that has the guest you are looking for. 

I guess there is a hidden #3: don’t be a dumb asshole who only looks for perspectives he wants confirmed. Don’t be that schizoid, one-man Glee club who just wants to cheer-lead their side’s public relations talking points, and sing along with the canonical bullshit.

Of course your results have a lot to do with your personal taste. Many don’t understand the appeal of listening to people talk just like many don’t read books. 

It also helps to have the right equipment. For example, I mentioned wireless headphones. A real game changer, over the old wired headphones. Any old second hand cellphone with bluetooth is as good as an iPod. Fill that baby up and charge it from the solar panel. You are going to want company when the lights go out.

SUMMER SHOWER

A drop fell on the apple tree,
Another on the roof;
A half a dozen kissed the eaves,
And made the gables laugh.

A few went out to help the brook,
That went to help the sea.
Myself conjectured, Were they pearls,
What necklaces could be!

The dust replaced in hoisted roads,
The birds jocoser sung;
The sunshine threw his hat away,
The orchards spangles hung.

The breezes brought dejected lutes,
And bathed them in the glee;
The East put out a single flag,
And signed the fete away.

— Emily Dickinson

REWRITING LOCAL HISTORY

Dear Editor,

I have been totally peeved at the Press Commie Democrat for about the last 10 years. I have only been reading their sports section lately and that is on the blink too. They used to post both Fort Bragg and Anderson Valley high school sports highlights, now nothing. Plus, their articles are often duplicated by the Ukiah daily Journal (I will refrain from fascist Journal bias at this time), and a lot of the page's previous sports are reruns. Are they too lazy to research new sports trivia? I particularly do that well in my sleep!

Now after all that, the AVA’s falsehoods are really starting to irk me. The imbecile commie crank monster statue bashers seem to now be looking for a new fad. They'll probably try next to massively tag buildings with spray paint. Hey, be my guest. Open season on Ukiah buildings as the town has become a cesspool of crime anyway. About 10% of crime in Ukiah even gets reported and that's a no-brainer why!

To begin with, I will not quit in my march on helping to restore the good name of certain American patriotic heroes. This statue bashing crew never presented me or the AVA with any facts concerning our great and beloved General Braxton Bragg. I doubt if anybody in Mendoland knows his date of birth and I hope somebody can provide me with the heroic general's place of birth. This all proves me correct by stating the remarkable (about ten US cities are named for him) Braxton Bragg never owned one slave. As for Fort Braggsville, it should have been named New Greenwood or Old Mendoza years ago. Ukiah’s got a Gibson Creek, so why not rename Fort Bragg for Gibson? Since it actually was old Lt. Gibson who named Fort Bragg. as Fort Bragg to begin with. Didn't old Gibby inventively even help construct the Fort Bragg Guest House Museum?

Anyway, in the October 6 issue of the AVA there was an article about ex-(finally) Sheriff Tom Allman that accused Aaron Bassler (RIP) of being a double murderer. I would challenge any Mendo legal beagle to show AVA readers where Aaron was ever convicted of murder. I knew Aaron as a youngster and I don't believe he was a murderer! I doubt if he was ever convicted of any crime!

If memory serves me, wasn't it Tom Allman (not his brother, the illegal cannabis grower) who tried to take credit for the "Bassler manhunt," and also tried to turn a dime on a book about it? What a joke. Mr. Allman definitely doesn't have the brains to write a book! And the AVA would do better to look into his crimes. Maybe we can hear some more about "Polly-Pure" John "Greasy Thumb" McCowen. Tom Allman doesn't fool me about the reason he moved to Shelter Cove. That will be exposed in the future. And speaking of Polly, does anyone know the true story of the Polly Klaas kidnapping or the true story behind the Bassler manhunt? I would like to hear from you with the facts about anything I write.

Also, if you don't agree with this summation, you can man up and write me at

David Giusti, Inmate #3979, 

PO Box 300211, PMB 35903, 

Durham, NC 27702

PS. I have no clue why, but that’s bigshot Detective Youngcault’s new address. Praise the Lord! 

ED REPLY. Boldly manning up here, sir, to inform you that Braxton Bragg was not only a slavemaster, he was a brutal slavemaster, not that I think Fort Bragg should be re-named or history be re-written simply because slo-mo candyasses don't understand that history is history just as it's a fact of Ukiah history that you beat that bum to death then put a cigarette out on his exposed skull. Hey! Nobody's perfect! Moving along here, Bassler didn't go to trial because a hit team was brought in to off him before he could murder any more people like he murdered that ranch manager then defecated on the poor man's chest. He then murdered the former mayor of Fort Bragg. There was no trial, ergo no conviction. I hope there's enough testicularity in this response to satisfy your manly requirements. PS. I enjoy your sports writing. You oughta stick to what you know.

COLIN POWELL, WHO SHAPED U.S. NATIONAL SECURITY, DIES AT 84

A former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, secretary of state and national security adviser, Mr. Powell died on Monday of complications from Covid-19, his family said.

nytimes.com/2021/10/18/us/politics/colin-powell-dead.html

YES, VIRGINIA, THERE IS A DEEP STATE

A major untold story of the Trump era has been the political comeback of the CIA, NSA, and FBI, who thanks to an ingenious marketing campaign now enjoy widespread support among young liberals

by Matt Taibbi

On The Young Turks the other night, during a segment called — this is not a joke — “RebelHQ,” commentator Ben Carollo extolled the virtues of the CIA. In one section, he described how intelligence officials responded to “Donald Trump trying to plan some ridiculous scheme to maintain himself as president”:

"It’s not a conspiracy theory to say that these government officials wanted to listen to congress and cared about Democratic norms and respected the constitutional structure of the way the United States is today."

When I first heard Carollo talking about the desire of intelligence officials to “listen to congress,” I thought he was being literal.

Maybe, I thought, he meant that time in 2014, when the CIA spied on the the Senate Intelligence Committee’s investigation into its torture program, wiring up Senate computers and reading staffers’ emails. Or perhaps he meant that time in 2015, when the Obama administration was using the NSA to listen to Israeli critics of his Iran deal, and ended up with “inadvertent” access to phone calls back and forth with political opponents in the U.S. congress, on both sides of the aisle.

Or, maybe Carollo also meant that time when the CIA intercepted communications between the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community and congressional staff, about pending whistleblower complaints. As the ICIG put it in one of its declassified notifications, “CIA security compiled a report that includes excerpts of these whistleblower-related communications, and this report was eventually shared with CIA management.” This way, the CIA bosses could know ahead of time who was going to congress with complaints about abuses! Good times.

Alas, Carollo didn’t mean intelligence officials are listening to congress in that sense. His video essay entitled, “Fact-checking Glenn Greenwald’s stunt on Fox News,” was designed to refute the apparently ridiculous notion that “there’s some sort of secret deep state working behind the scenes.” A central part of his argument is that unlike agencies like Homeland Security, formed under the Republican administration of George W. Bush and designed to be “far more shielded from congressional oversight,” the CIA reports to congress and basically does what it’s told. 

The agencies with the real power to color outside the lines, Carollo tells us, are DHS-sub-operations, “specifically ICE, and Customs and Border Control,” which “have far less congressional oversight and far less structure in place for there to be those checks and balances.” Because of that, Carollo says, “Donald Trump was more than capable of enacting an extremely racist border policy.”

Even the Pentagon and the defense intelligence agencies are less of a concern, he said, because “when it comes to something like the military, there’s a long history of deep congressional oversight,” and “many checks and balances that are put into place.” 

Carollo looks like he’s about six, and I say that fully conceding jealousy over his full head of hair. It’s relevant only because he’s representative of a generation of young, left-leaning intellectuals who grew up in the Trump years believing the CIA, FBI, NSA, and other such agencies to be trusted, straight-and-narrow defenders of democratic “norms.” These credulous kids with piercings and chin-beards who think the secret services are on their side are the fruits of one of the great P.R. campaigns of our time.

Six or seven years ago, “Deep State” was a term you would only see in left-leaning media. Bill Moyers explored the theme on his site from time to time, and when The Nation asked Edward Snowden about it, he said, “There’s definitely a deep state. Trust me, I’ve been there.” 

The “deep state” was on the liberal left’s front burner then because a spate of horrendously ugly revelations put it there. We learned via Snowden that the NSA was collecting the communications of people all around the world in secret (Carollo might want to mark down that congress wasn’t informed) in a program the U.S. Court of Appeals just last year declared illegal. 

We found out top intelligence officials like CIA chief John Brennan and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper lied to congress, among other things about the warrantless surveillance program, and got away without perjury charges despite a furious outcry from legislators (another useful factoid for Carollo, on the oversight front). We learned about the CIA’s systematic use of torture techniques, ranging from anal feeding to threatening to rape and murder relatives to induced hypothermia, another fun set of pastimes the agency decided not to burden congress with knowledge of.

Worst of all, we learned Barack Obama and his staff held regular “Terror Tuesdays” meetings to decide who they would and would not kill by secret drone assassination, a program which many Americans were surprised to learn was run not by the military but by the CIA. Obama — who would eventually be quoted joking that it “turns out I’m really good at killing people” and “I didn’t know that was gonna be a strong suit of mine” — widened the secret “kill list” to include Americans. 

The Justice Department managed this by writing a secret legal memorandum asserting that even though the Fifth Amendment of constitution guarantees “due process” for every American before so extreme a punishment as execution, that requirement, as the New York Times described it, “could be satisfied by internal deliberations in the executive branch.” In other words, you get to have due process, just not due process in which you yourself participate. 

I once sat in a federal courtroom and listened to a Justice Department lawyer named Stephen McCoy Elliott tell a judge that when it came to the question of whether or not an American citizen could be targeted for “lethal” action, “the executive gets to make that determination, not a court.” Another tidbit on the oversight front: in that case, Elliott responded to one of judge Rosemary Collyer’s queries by saying he would “have to ask my client.” But nobody knew who the client was, not even the judge. I asked the Justice Department what agency or agencies Elliott was arguing on behalf of that day, and they refused comment. I tell this story to stress the degree to which programs like “targeted killing” exist almost completely outside of any notion of checks and balances.

Pre-Trump, all of this spoke to the worst nightmares of American liberalism. Millions of Boomers and Gen-Exers alike had grown up worshipping at the altar of Miranda and Mapp v. Ohio, believing the ideas of due process and transparency inviolable. After the Church Committee hearings on intelligence abuses in the seventies, blue-staters also tended to believe the CIA had been chastened at least somewhat when it came to the really nasty stuff, like assassination, domestic spying, etc. After 9/11, though, all this was brought back on a grand scale and, worse, given a brilliant legal makeover to keep congress, judges and the press locked out this time. 

Targets of the FBI’s “National Security Letters” could not by law be told they’d been searched. You couldn’t find out if you were on a watch or no-fly list. Those scooped up as enemy combatants (so named to eliminate Geneva Convention oversight) and renditioned to God Knows Where had no habeas corpus rights, a fact a lot of Americans were fine with, so long as the prisoners were al-Qaeda suspects and random Afghan cabbies. 

However, the clear implication of the Snowden revelations was the next step in the “War on Terror” was turning all of these new powers inward, starting perhaps with a new, turbo-charged version of giant domestic surveillance operation the CIA was exposed for running back in 1974. By 2015 old-time liberals like Walter Mondale, Gary Hart, and Daniel Ellsberg were calling for a “new Church Committee” to investigate the increasingly obvious overreach of the intelligence services. 

Then Trump arrived. Almost immediately, it was obvious his historical destiny was to be the best thing that ever happened to the secret services. In the same way hydroxychloroquine became snake oil the instant Trump said he was taking it, the “Deep State” became a myth the moment Trump and his minions started talking about it. Deep state warriors like Brennan, Clapper, and former CIA chief Michael Hayden, held in near-universal disdain before as some of the world’s most loathsome people, people so morally ugly it showed on their hideous faces, became immediately respectable by rebranding themselves as Trump critics. The early Trump years, in fact, made heroes of every tumescent peeping-Tom creep and spook in the federal register, now cast in the press as democracy’s infantry, saving the world through intercepts, informants, and leaks. 

In a flash, programs that terrified American liberals previously, like FISA, became weapons of Holy War, in the ongoing campaign to Oust Trump via a succession of investigations and impeachment bids. When it came out that a known FBI informant spied on presidential candidate Trump, pundits not only cheered, they refused outright to call it spying. The openly illegal leaking of secret intercepts from intelligence sources to the country’s leading newspapers, with the aim of impacting domestic politics, was lauded. When David Ignatius of the Washington Post ran a story detailing onetime Trump National Security Adviser Michael Flynn’s conversations with Sergei Kislyak, leading to his resignation, it happened because “a patriot did leak this to the Washington Post,” as MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough put it. 

This was an enormous story of the Trump years, about the collective decision of intelligence officials — both active and former operatives, if such distinctions exist — to involve themselves in domestic politics in ways not seen since the Hoover days. No one covered it, but it was obvious. The news cycle was dominated by intelligence leaks for all four years of Trump’s presidency, from before inauguration with the Ignatius story, through the leak-to-recusal comedy involving Jeff Sessions, through secret meetings in the Seychelles, through the “intelligence whistleblower” saga, through Bountygate and beyond. 

Before 2016, the FBI, CIA, and NSA already had most major news agencies eating out of their hands, mainly by feeding certain journalists scoops. In the Trump years that model was dismissed as too slow and cumbersome, and, as mentioned here before, intelligence officials accelerated things by physically mass-replacing both print and TV journalists with ex-spooks. Now, just like any other tinpot third-world country, we get our news directly from secret agents. I made a list once.

If you don’t think modern America is funny, you must not have a sense of humor:

Tonight on MSNBC: debunking ‘deep state’ talking points, the new book that debunks Trump’s deep state conspiracy, and Trump’s bizarre new deep state conspiracy theory. For more, let’s go to our in-house national security analysts John Brennan, Clint Watts, Frank Figliuzzi, and Jeremy Bash…

An even funnier symbol of the media reversal on intelligence involves the onetime Pentagon Papers publisher, the Washington Post, which of course is now owned by one of the CIA’s biggest contractors. The Post recently held an “Are you an insane conspiracy theorist?”-type quiz that flatly graded you incorrect if you thought a “deep state” that “operates in secrecy and without oversight” existed. 

This of course contradicts the paper’s own reporting over the years on countless issues, from the intelligence community’s “black budget” to its evasion of congressional oversight on torture to abuse of the FBI’s National Security Letter program, but who cares? Trump obviates any need for logical consistency. 

During the Trump years you could wake up on any given day and see the former head of the CIA’s drone program or the architect of the NSA surveillance program — literally those people — reading the news on commercial television about anything from the pee tape to the Ukrainegate impeachment (started by anonymous intel officials) to the letter signed by 50 of the country’s leading spooks denouncing (falsely, we now know) the Hunter Biden laptop tale as having the “classic earmarks of a Russian disinformation operation.”

The overtness of the intelligence community’s interference in domestic politics, combined with its astonishing record of unpunished, systematic lying to everyone — congress, judges, the United Nations, the International Court in the Hague, and especially the American public via the media — is driving people to real insanity. As podcaster Darrell Cooper put it earlier this year, in an essay attempting to explain the thought process underlying “Stop the Steal”:

"Many Trump supporters don’t know for certain whether ballots were faked in November 2020, but they know with apodictic certainty that the press, the FBI, and even the courts would lie to them if they were."

Media fawning over agencies like the CIA mightily exacerbates this phenomenon, and I shouldn’t single out Carollo or The Young Turks, because this is the norm in most mainstream press organizations; Carollo is just the tadpole version of someone like the Post’s Glenn “I’m not sure if banks really count as ‘Wall Street’" Kessler. Young or not, the average commentator now is both committed to forgetting the sordid history of agencies like the CIA, and perfectly equipped mentally to keep that commitment. 

The cultural memories of the coming wave of media professionals extend back a few years at most. Most have read thousands more tweets than book pages. Their opinions come mainly from the dung-pile of popular news and are in sync with most Democrats, whom polls consistently show to have strong majority favorable views of the CIA and the FBI, a dramatic turnaround from the pre-Trump years. In fact, now that the War on Terror has ostensibly been reconfigured to target gun owners, white supremacists, and “insurrectionists,” they can scarcely remember why they ever felt negatively about the NSA or the folks at Langley, which of course makes them perfect for their jobs. In a dystopia, a good memory is just an inconvenience.

A SERIES OF ASTEROIDS BIGGER THAN THE GREAT PYRAMID OF GIZA IS PASSING BY EARTH

Multiple asteroids will pass close by Earth in the next few weeks — and one that passed on Friday was around the size of the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt, with a diameter of 525 feet. 

On Friday, Asteroid 2021 SM3 passed within 3.5 million miles of Earth, according to data from NASA's Center for Near Earth Object Studies. The asteroid was only first observed a few weeks ago.

The asteroids that are expected to pass Earth, along with 2021 SM3, are classified as Near Earth Objects. NASA said that NEOs are "comets and asteroids that have been nudged by the gravitational attraction of nearby planets into orbits that allow them to enter the Earth's neighborhood." 

NEOs formed in the cold outer planetary system are normally "water ice with embedded dust particles," while asteroids formed in the warmer inner solar system "between Mars and Jupiter" are more rocky. Since they were formed from largely untouched debris from when the solar system formed 4.6 billion years ago, scientists believe NEOs hold information about the beginning of our universe. 

"If we wish to know the composition of the primordial mixture from which the planets formed, then we must determine the chemical constituents of the leftover debris from this formation process - the comets and asteroids," the Center for Near Earth Object Studies said. 

On Wednesday, Asteroid 1996 VB3 will come within 2 million miles of Earth, about 8 times further away than the moon. While that may seem far, it's significantly closer than our nearest neighbor, Mars, which is 33 million miles away. Asteroid 1996 VB3 is estimated to be up to 690 feet in diameter — about half the height of the Empire State Building.

Then, Asteroid 2017 SJ20 is expected to pass Earth on October 25 slightly further away, at around 4.5 million miles. The asteroid is estimated to be up to 600 feet wide. 

These asteroids aren't coming close enough to hit Earth, and the NASA center said not to worry.

"No one should be overly concerned about an Earth impact of an asteroid or comet. The threat to any one person from auto accidents, disease, other natural disasters and a variety of other problems is much higher than the threat from NEOs," the center said.

However, the possibility of an asteroid hitting Earth is not zero. 

"Over long periods of time, however, the chances of the Earth being impacted are not negligible," the center said. But since around 90% of NEOs with a diameter greater than half a mile are already discovered, the NASA center is focused on identifying the NEOs larger than 490 feet — which would pose the most threat. 

"At the moment, our best insurance rests with the NEO scientists and their efforts to first find these objects and then track their motions into the future. We need to first find them, then keep an eye on them," the center said. 

cbsnews.com/news/asteroids-bigger-than-the-great-pyramid-of-giza-passing-earth/