Mendocino County Today: Monday, Nov. 8, 2021

Wind/Rain | David Taxis | Pancake Breakfasts | Comptche Girl | Panthers Advance | Landlines Out | Gering Bulldogs | Curbing PG$E | Redbeard's Bunky | Karen Knoebber | Annexation Yes | Moto Beaks | Water Politics | Nannie Flood | Half-Baked Mandate | Ed Notes | Longbeard | Moving Experience | Suspicious | Texas Pimp | Pistol Meth | Yesterday's Catch | Forest Preservation | Big Telescope | Winter Prep | Go Slow | Alexa Bust | Not Mays | Smarter Than | Severing Marin | Mushroom | College Courses | Contrarian | Captain Cook | Polypore | COP26 Delegation

A STRONG FRONT is expected to cross the area today bringing very gusty winds along the coast, widespread moderate rain, and snow in the Trinity Alps. Showers will persist through Wednesday likely followed by warmer and drier weather. (NWS)

WIND ADVISORY: A strong storm system will bring windy conditions to Northwest California this afternoon and tonight. The coast may see gusts to 45 mph while the mountains could experience gusts to 60 mph. Power outages are possible. People are urged to secure loose object that may be blown away by the wind. Use caution when driving high profile vehicles. (NWS)

DAVID TAXIS

David O. Taxis was born in Orange, California in June, 1944 and died from pancreatic cancer in October, 2021 in Ukiah, California.

He was raised in the segregated suburban LA city of Downey, went to Cal Poly, Relands, and Stanford University(s) studying education during the idealistic and innovative days of the 1960's. He helped begin an alternative elementary school (A.S. Neill) in San Luis Obispo, taught and "principaled" in California schools for 37 years and had a long and wonderful retirement.

He travelled extensively soaking up any new exotic culture. He spoke Spanish and enjoyed Latinos in work and play. With his family, he created a home that was a delight: with sculptures, paintings, garden, swimming pool, BQ, bright painted surfaces and flowers part of his daily life. He met the love of my life in the vineyard walking one day and they remained together for years (Lisa Ray). He adored family gatherings which were generally celebrated in southern California beach cities or at his home.

His greatest contribution was the kindness and hope shared with the poor, the dying, as well as close friends. He became a part of the Trinity Episcopal fellowship, lived part-time at the Catholic Worker House in Redwood City and was a member of Veterans for Peace. He wrote sports and special features for the Ukiah Daily Journal for 12 years.

He is proud of his kids: Paul, who resides on the streets of San Francisco, Teale of Kailua, Hawaii, and Noah of Mountain View/Ukiah.

He died at home amidst friends and family and is grateful to Dr. Mark Apfel and Frank McGarvey, therapist, and the death midwives for easing him through the transition from life to death. He rests in peace. Ashes to ashes.

Eversole Mortuary is in charge of arrangements.

AV GRANGE PANCAKE BREAKFAST SUNDAY NOVEMBER 14th

We had such a good time at last month’s pancake breakfast in memory of Dave Norfleet that we decided to do it again!

There are plans afoot for a monthly breakfast the 2nd Sun. of every month. SO, for November it's coming right up on Sunday the 14th 8:30-11:00.

Covid guidelines are followed. You, and your mask will be served in the big hall with plenty of space and air circulation.

It's a welcome time to be able to visit safely with your friends and neighbors. As we learn how to cope with the lingering pandemic the Grange is looking to re-energize with YOU. New ideas, new possibilities, it's a great community space for so many things, and who knows, you might be moved to come flip a few pancakes yourself.

PS. In December we usually do the Holiday Dinner but this year it'll be the Holiday Pancake Breakfast Sun. Dec. 12th.

AV GIRLS ADVANCE! Our girls can’t be stopped! The Panthers defeated our local rivals in Mendocino High School last night in the NCS final championship game. We won on the fourth set after losing set three. We are now moving on to the NorCal regional championships. We will be hosting St. Bernard on Wednesday, November 10 at 6:00. (Arthur Folz reporting)

A READER WRITES FROM SIGNAL RIDGE:

AT&T Bites

Our land line was knocked out by the big storm two weeks ago and is still not fixed!

The entire neighborhood is out.

I’ve encountered a few technicians in the area. They were all from Los Angeles, had never worked in the woods before, and seemed to be spending most of their time lost.

I now believe the rumors that AT&T wants to get rid of land lines, and customers who prefer them.

This is outrageous.

Suppose we were an elderly couple with special needs and no other means of communication?

It’s corporate malfeasance writ large.

And I’ll wager the state PUC won’t do a damn thing about it, if I complain.

JENNIFER BAIR, Gering, Nebraska/Mendocino. Petty theft, reckless evasion, resisting, and two other unspecified charges by State Parks.

KATHY JANES NOTES: "Someone else from Gering Nebraska made it to Mendo – amazing! I graduated from Gering High School. Haven’t been back since."

JOHN McCOWEN:

Sign the petition if you like but what needs to happen is for the Board of Supervisors to take a strong stand, including taking PG&E to court, to prevent the devastation of Faulkner Park. 

PG&E has clearcut large swaths of land under the guise of “line clearance” including many trees that posed no danger to the lines. Cutting redwoods in Faulkner Park is a continuation of an ongoing scam by PG&E to jack up their profits. 

PG&E is currently seeking to stick ratepayers for $1.6 billion for money previously spent on "wildfire mitigation activities" including line clearance and planning and implementing the PSPS disaster beginning in 2019. 

The initial rollout of PSPS may have been the least efficient process ever undertaken by a public utility but it is rivaled or surpassed by the current line clearance activities which has been characterized by a dramatic over-commitment of equipment and personnel. 

The cost doesn't matter to PG&E because they will recover the full amount spent plus a percentage of the cost to be retained as profit. The more money squandered by the contractors, the more work done without justification, the greater the profit will be to PG&E.

The Board of Supervisors needs to make it clear to PG&E that cutting any old growth trees in Faulkner Park is strictly off limits.

RE RED BEARD, the famous Mendo fugitive, now arrested, a reader writes: 

Evers was my cell mate/bunky in Humboldt County Correction Facility in 2002. 385 Workers Dorm. He is a really nice guy. He was a wildlands firefighter. He was going to get me a job as a firefighter but I decided to just go back into growing cannabis which was why I was in jail in the first place. I hope the best for him!

SAY YES TO FIRE SERVICES

To the Editor:

Please support the Ukiah Valley Fire District’s application to annex the City of Ukiah for fire service. Don’t be mislead by the selfish and misinformed ad campaign against the annexation being waged by Medstar Ambulance Company. Medstar is apparently worried enough about the effect it thinks the annexation may have on its business to spend heavily on direct mail ads and full-page newspaper ads. This is unfortunate because the annexation has nothing to do with ambulance service and everything to do with adequately funding fire protection services for the entire Ukiah Valley and the City of Ukiah.

Since 2015 the City and the Ukiah Valley Fire District have joined together to provide fire protection services to their residents and businesses through the Ukiah Valley Fire Authority, but only District residents and businesses pay voter approved parcel taxes, resulting in a funding shortfall. If the annexation is approved, City residents and businesses will become part of the Fire District and property in the City will become subject to the same parcel tax District residents already pay.

It will cost homeowners in the City $120 per year for parcel taxes that will cover an annual revenue shortfall of $500,000, allow the jointly operated and funded Ukiah Valley Fire Authority to fully staff its fire stations and replace antiquated equipment that is desperately needed to respond to the ever increasing threat of wild fires. If the annexation is not approved, funding for this vital public safety service will remain inadequate to man the two firehouses with 3 on-duty firefighters. At the same time, the new normal severe fire seasons have placed increasing demands on on-duty and on call staff.

Don’t be confused or mislead by Medstar’s ad campaign. Its business will not be harmed by the annexation, but if Medstar is successful in opposing it, all residents and businesses in the Ukiah Valley will be.

I am submitting this letter as a Ukiah resident and not in my capacity as the Ukiah City Attorney.

David Rapport, Ukiah

WHISKEY’S FOR WHAT?

by Jim Shields

Received quite a few comments on last week’s column about using the winter high flows of streams and rivers for water storage and recharging depleted aquifers.

George Hollister, President of the Mendocino County Farm Bureau, said, “Jim Shields makes a good point regarding California’s inability to build new reservoirs, even though it is obvious we need them. The problem isn’t a lack of money, but ideology. Jared Huffman’s desire to remove Scott Dam is a good example of this California mindset, even though Huffman’s home county is now having to get water from Alameda County over the Richmond Bridge. Ideology, faith, and religion are more powerful than money. What doesn’t seem to make sense, in reality, doesn’t make sense.”

Bill Harper pointed out, “The problem is too many people. No amount of dam building, conservation or education can keep up. Even though Shields mentions it in his article he doesn’t make the connection.”

Both gentlemen raise convincing arguments, although Mr. Harper must have overlooked my observation on “too many people” and not enough water to meet their needs currently.

I wrote, “So we have the same water storage infrastructure (actually probably less) that we had 41 years ago, but almost twice as many people living here now. Think those additional 15.36 million people use much water?”

You see, what happens locally is truly part of a much larger picture. When it rains here in Mendocino County and other parts of NorCal, we’re not the only ones who depend on it.

To a large degree, how that water is used — or not used as in mandatory conservation regulations — is really not decided by us. Those decisions are made by others, in Sacramento, and even further away in Washington D.C.

Decisions to transfer “our water” south to where two-thirds of the state’s population live and work are not made here. The quantity and end-use of the water, once its transferred, is out of our hands. Just one example of what I’m talking about:

Southern California’s reservoirs, especially during periods of below average precipitation, operate on withdrawals outpacing inflows, notwithstanding the fact that the population is not shrinking, and commercial and residential development continues seemingly unchecked. Does anyone know whether any elected official or city planner down there ever asks a simple question, such as “Do we have a sustainable source of water to support our growth?”

The answer is no and yes.

No, they don’t have a sustainable source of water in Southern California.

Yes, they have a sustainable source of water as long as Northern California water supplies remain sufficient for export to the south. Just don’t think about the day when that abundant supply of water is not there.

Now you understand the politics of California water policy.

Another person who understood California water politics was Mark Twain, who wrote about his experiences during Gold Rush times.

As the great, great writer and humorist succinctly put it, “In California, whiskey’s for drinking, water’s for fighting.”

In more recent times, the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) has also weighed in on California water politics, although with nowhere near the wit and conciseness of Twain.

I’ve summarized three key PPIC recommendations on ways to start solving California’s two-century old water dilemma:

• Managing surface and groundwater storage in a more integrated way—by capturing some water released from reservoirs to store in aquifers—can help California reach groundwater sustainability, increase drought reserves, provide environmental benefits, and enable the state’s water system to adapt to earlier snowmelt by freeing up storage capacity for flood operations. Where feasible, local water managers and state and federal reservoir operators should take steps to integrate aquifer storage into reservoir operations. Proposition 1 funding should prioritize projects that integrate reservoir and aquifer water management and storage.

• Although efforts to increase aquifer and groundwater recharge have intensified since the 2012-17 Drought, there are still many barriers to taking full advantage of this important strategy. Obstacles include permitting challenges, infrastructure constraints, and a lack of incentive programs to encourage farmers to recharge shared aquifers. While the state has begun to look into barriers to recharge, a plan of action to resolve these issues is a high priority. Recharging basins with recycled water and urban storm water runoff is an especially valuable strategy in places where this water would otherwise flow into the ocean or cause flooding, and these efforts should be ramped up where feasible.

• As discussed in last week’s column, California’s dams are showing signs of age. Half are more than 50 years old, and all were designed for the climate of the past. Some improvements can be funded under Proposition 1, a 2014 voter-approved $7.5-billion water bond, but much more needs to be done. For the longer term, California will need to modernize dams where needed and rethink how to operate dams and other flood infrastructure in response to a changing climate.

These should all be priorities in the development of workable public policies for a natural resource that we can’t live without. Which is the most important priority of all.

(Jim Shields is the Mendocino County Observer’s editor and publisher, observer@pacific.net, the long-time district manager of the Laytonville County Water District, and is also chairman of the Laytonville Area Municipal Advisory Council. Listen to his radio program “This and That” every Saturday at noon on KPFN 105.1 FM, also streamed live: http://www.kpfn.org.)

JOHN MCCOWEN:

RE: “Many Ukiah Businesses Not Posting Signs Declaring Their Covid 19 Vaccine Policy”

The headline is misleading because Dr. Coren’s “mandate” only applies to food service businesses. I’m vaccinated and I wear a mask when entering any business but there is no data or science that justifies singling out restaurants to be the enforcers of a half-baked mandate. My risk of getting covid from a restaurant employee is no different (maybe less) than getting covid from a retail store employee. Can Dr. Coren show any documentation that a single patron has contracted covid from a restaurant employee? The risk comes not from the employees (if they are masked and not hanging out at your table) but from the people you are dining with. This ill considered mandate places an unfair burden on local businesses that are already struggling to survive. And it undermines Public Health by detracting from efforts to educate people about the need for vaccination while doing nothing to protect people from covid.

ED NOTES

A MAJOR STORY this week illustrates why newspapers are still important and how diminished we will be when they disappear into the Meta maw of social media. We've reported for years on various aspects of what we saw (and see) as a major scam pulled off by former congressman Doug Bosco and his many Democratic Party enablers as Bosco arranged for the allegedly state-owned North Coast Railroad Authority (NCRA) to fund his privately owned, mostly by him, Northwestern Pacific Railroad Company (NWP). Literally millions of tax dollars have been filtered through the former to the latter.

THE WAY BOSCO has arranged all this — nobody ever said he was stupid — is comprehensively laid out in an excellent investigative piece by Will Carruthers in the current North Bay Bohemian weekly out of Marin and Sonoma counties. The story is called, "Railroaded: Behind the Scenes of SMART’s Freight Takeover."

“…Remember, the NCRA was theoretically created for the purpose of saving the publicly-owned railroad, but it became, in effect, forever indebted to Bosco's privately owned company…”

AND TAKE this taxpayers: “When (State Senator Mike) McGuire introduced Senate Bill 1029 in 2018, it needed language to effectuate the closure of the NCRA's debts and business relationships with its contractors, chief among them was Bosco's NWP Co.

“EMAILS show that Bosco was involved in crafting the legislation. On June 27, 2018, [SMART Train Director] Mansourian emailed [PR Man Darius] Anderson [co-owner of the Santa Rose Press Democrat with Bosco] for an update on the legislation: ‘Did you talk to Doug? Should go and see Governor's chief of staff on SB 1029?’”

ANDERSON responded the next day: “I did talk to Doug. Once they have language solidified, they will go to the Governor's office.”

“WHAT language? Who is working on that?,” Mansourian asked. (Farhad Mansourian is director of the heavily tax-subsidized SMART rail system. Mansourian assisted the Bosco apparat to get railroad right of ways in Petaluma they had no standing to obtain.)

“THERE is language being worked on to pay off the debts and liabilities. I am sure Jason [Liles, a McGuire staffer and former Bosco aide] will be sharing with us all before it moves forward. It's the same language that you are working on with Jason,” Anderson wrote. Jason Liles, the McGuire aide working on the legislation to close down the NCRA, is also a Bosco alumnus…”

THE BOSCO GROUP has even ripped off the Indians.

“NOTABLY, in 2017, San Francisco Superior Court found that Anderson and Doug Boxer, the son of former U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer, had defrauded the Federated Indians of the Graton Rancheria while working as consultants to the tribe's casino venture in the early 2000s. Anderson was ordered to pay $725,000 to the tribe to cover its legal fees and arbitration costs in the civil action…"

STATE GOVERNMENT is a Democratic Party operation. They select the state reps for the Northcoast, and they dominate the politics of this area right down to their gofers in Ukiah — John McCowen and former Superior Court Judge Dave Nelson, to name the two most prominent. Supervisor Mulheren, probably an unwitting accomplice, is used by State Senator McGuire to cheerlead for his bogus Great Redwood Trail which, inevitably, will depend on funneling tax money to Bosco to buy the old rail line's right of way for the Trail which will never happen.

BOSCO and Friends also own the Santa Rosa Press Democrat and several other Sonoma County publications. None of his rail deals would have been possible without the active assistance of the California Democratic Party.

WHERE'S GAV? Newsom was last seen in public on October 27 when he received a COVID-19 booster shot in Oakland. He said it was painless and then flexed in celebration, urging others to get boosters as well. Two days later, his office issued a statement citing unspecified family obligations, abruptly cancelling his plans to attend the global climate conference in Glasgow. Since then, Newsom has been seen only in prerecorded video statements, and in family Halloween photos posted on Monday in costume as a pirate with his wife and four young children.

ASSIGNMENT: UKIAH - OUR VERY MOVING EXPERIENCE

by Tommy Wayne Kramer

You learn things by moving, and the first thing you learn is to never do it again. The second thing is that you don’t have as much money as you thought you did.

TIP: Sell your old house, buy a doublewide trailer, fill it with all your belongings and drag it to the new place. Empty furnishings into your new house, burn the trailer and collect insurance. Otherwise you move into the new joint with nothing but some suitcases and a toothbrush.

Filling an empty house with the assorted stuff that makes it livable is something none of us have ever done before, except for A) your college dorm, and B) a rental unit that at least had a ratty couch, a few dishes and a lamp. All you had to do was tack up your posters, buy some sheets and remember your toothbrush.

Trying to fill your new empty house by going to the store one trip at a time is like trying to fill Grand Canyon with sand one bucket at a time. You’ll finish the same year the Cleveland Browns win the Super Bowl.

Someone told us to get everything at Goodwill. Nice try. Go to Goodwill for, say, silverware, and you’ll come back with 26 pieces, only four of which are forks, all small, and weird batches of spoons that don’t match. Some spoons we bought have teeth marks bitten into them.

The Goodwill table wobbles. The chair smells funny. You go to an antique store to buy dishes and wind up with grandma’s set of China from the 1920s that can’t go in the dishwasher, at least not twice, nor into the microwave oven we don’t have.

After the stores all close you realize you don’t have a corkscrew and you’ve never needed one more. You also don’t have toothpaste. You heard baking soda works but you don’t have that either.

Tomorrow’s to-do list: Coffee maker, toothpaste, vacuum cleaner, TV set. This is why you don’t have as much money as you used to think you did.

Now it’s tomorrow and it starts without coffee. At least our teeth won’t get stained. At Best Buy we get a TV set with a screen two inches wider than the space on the wall it‘s supposed to fit into. The 11-year old “sales associate” then steers us over to the vacuum cleaners and picks us out the same one he picks out for everybody.

Because you’re old you haven’t bought a vacuum cleaner in 40 years, back when they weighed 35 lbs and had names like Electrolux and Kirby. Now they weigh 12 ounces, come from China in a cardboard box and are 100 percent plastic, including the silver aluminum tube that is both a handle and suction piece.

Did you know you now have to assemble them? Dump the parts out of the box onto the floor and you’ll have a big pile of black and yellow plastic Legos to snap together. A few others you screw in place with the screwdriver you don’t have, along with pliers and toothpaste. When finished it makes a whirring sound similar to a Kirby but that’s the only thing it has in common with a real vacuum cleaner. We take it back and exchange it for one capable of sucking up little things like dust, but not big things like cigarette butts.

The TV sits in a box in a corner for a few weeks until a team of 11-year old “assembly technicians” can have their parents drop them off at our house to plug everything in, and that’s when we find out we don’t have an extension cord, or a screwdriver. Back to the store for another bucket of sand.

DARE I DONATE?

We’ve attended performances of a terrific Symphony Orchestra that plays monthly at a local theater. It’s great, blah blah, etc., and it’s the first High Culture I’ve experienced since Demolition Derbies out at the Redwood Empire Fairgrounds.

The local nonprofit that puts the shows on got my email address and sent a pitch asking if I’d like to become a (capital D) Donor in support of the orchestra and other productions.

Symphony orchestra? I reached for my checkbook…and a tiny voice whispered “Beware!”

NOTE: You should always listen to the voices inside your head except at 4 a.m. when they chatter about taking all that money doing nothing in your pension fund and putting it to work betting on the Browns to win the Super Bowl.

Symphony Orchestras are one thing, but what if Donors are also expected to attend wine and cheese fundraisers? What if my money goes to funding performances outside the safe zone of symphony orchestras?

I’ve spent a long time in California and I’m suspicious that any “community arts” organization will likely involve itself in all kinds of mischief I’d be horrified to pay for.

Examples?

—Children Dance Ensembles where little kids jump around and bang on things, a few older ones display breakdancing techniques, and teenage narcissists do Michael Jackson impersonations.

—Performance Art practitioners wearing capes while moving around the stage striking poses and demanding that audience members re-examine their empty, meaningless lives.

—Poetry readings by people who call themselves poets because they don’t want to list “Unemployed” on applications.

So no, thanks. Sorry Vivaldi. My apologies, J.S. Bach. Instead I mailed a check to the Ukiah group sending those young baseball players off to Indiana’s Field of Dreams camp. I hope they learn about the Infield Fly Rule.

(Tom Hine wonders if Ukiahans have started grumbling yet about how they’re just so sick of all this rain. Tommy Wayne Kramer, whose name appears on this column but doesn’t know qwerty from dirty, barks a friendly hello to all his friends in Mendotopia.)

PROSTITUTION EXTRADITION

On Thursday, November 4, 2021 Mendocino County Sheriff's Deputies received information that wanted person Daniel Cook, 52, of Laytonville, was residing at a residence located at the 59000 block of Bell Springs Road in Laytonville.

Deputies were informed Cook had an extraditable outstanding felony arrest warrant from the State of Texas for a prostitution related crime.

At about 1:30 PM Deputies went to the listed residence and located Cook. Cook was taken into custody for the warrant and transported to the Mendocino County Jail were he was to be held without bail pending extradition to the State of Texas.

TCB

On Saturday, November 6, 2021 at about 6:08 PM Mendocino County Sheriff's Deputies served a search warrant at a residence in the 100 block of Agency Road in Covelo.

Deputies contacted Lawrence Frease, 30, of Covelo, inside the residence. During the search of the residence, Deputies located a hidden 9mm pistol loaded with live cartridges.

A search of Frease's person revealed an extra 9mm pistol magazine that belonged to the found 9mm pistol. Also in Frease's possession was plastic bag containing suspected methamphetamine.

Frease was evaluated and determined to be under the influence of a controlled substance.

Frease was arrested for the listed violations and booked into the Mendocino County Jail where he was to be held in lieu of $25,000 bail.

CATCH OF THE DAY, November 7, 2021

LAWRENCE FREASE Covelo. Felon-addict with firearm, controlled substance while armed with loaded firearm, ammo possession by prohibited person, under influence with firearm.

PEDRO LOPEZ-GARCIA, Fort Bragg. Disorderly conduct-alcohol, trespassing-refusing to leave.

LUIS PARRA, Hopland. Disorderly conduct-alcohol, resisting, probation revocation.

KYLE PINCKNEY, Fort Bragg. DUI causing bodily injury, assault weapon, loaded firearm in public.

COLTER REYNOLDS, Covelo. Probation revocation.

ADELE WAGNER, Ukiah. Protective order violation.

VIA DAVE SMITH: 

So, possibly one of the biggest events to happen during our lifetime is about to happen on Dec. 18th of this year, yet I’m surprised to see that no one in the press seems to be talking about it. The James Webb Space Telescope is scheduled to launch on that very day. What is that? It’s the successor to the Hubble, only 3 times as large and 100 times more powerful. NASA has been working on it for 25 years and it’s a miracle they were able to complete it. It was almost canceled in 2011. 

The technology on this telescope will launch nothing short of an astronomical revolution and two major historical events:

- We will be able to see if there is life on the exoplanets we’ve discovered and detect whether the atmospheres of those planets are being modified by that life.

- We will be able to see the first stars and galaxies ever created from the Big Bang.

That’s right, this telescope will literally look back in time to view the very first galaxies and allow us to witness the birth of our known Universe. 

That’s some crazy stuff, man. 

Crazy, crazy stuff.

ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

Yesterday, in Glasgow, but also in London, Melbourne and Toronto, hundreds of thousands of Young Activists were in the streets protesting … to what end? Well, for governments “to do more in the fight against Climate Change”. In fact they were in the streets demanding a lower standard of living, inveighing their govts to choke off energy supply.

The standard responses are (a) it will cost nations far more if they don’t transition to carbon-neutral clean energy in the next few decades, and (b) the green revolution will lead to thousands of good-paying satisfying careers.

There is certainly merit in both those arguments, but for me the reality remains that Global Warming is a thing, but isn’t the highest priority for most nations – poverty, pollution, over-population, energy, water, and food security … and so on … are much more urgent.

And secondly, you can’t “transition” to a clean energy future by cutting off your current fossil-fuel-based energy and transportation systems too quickly. But I think a lot of currently wealthy Western nations are going to find that out the hard way.

The tough nuts in China, Russia, India, Brazil, etc … they’re not having any of it. The US will continue to say the right things, but not really do much.

POSEY GREAT, BUT NO MAYS

Editor,

I thoroughly enjoyed Ann Kil­lion’s tribute to Buster Posey in the Chronicle. Three World Series wins and his accolades all speak to Posey’s excellence on the baseball field.

I take exception to the assertion that Posey was a player in a class with Willie Mays. Those of us who were privileged to watch Mays play beginning in 1958 know that there has been no one else in his class. Mays was the epitome of the “five-tool player.” Not only could he run, throw, field, hit and hit with power, he was one of the best in the history of the game in all five of those categories. Posey a great baseball player? Of course. In a class with Willie Mays? Never.

Kenneth Jones

San Francisco

THE END OF HUFFMAN?

by Richard Halstead

A state panel has released a second potential redistricting map that, like the first, puts Marin County in a different congressional district.

The new map released by the California Citizens Redistricting Commission on Tuesday proposes a new district containing Marin, Lake and Napa counties and a slice of Solano County.

A new Assembly district depicted would place western Marin in a North Coast district and the bulk of Marin in a Sonoma-Marin Assembly district that would include all of Santa Rosa. For state Senate, Trinity and Lake counties would be removed; Marin, Mendocino, Sonoma, Del Norte and most of Humboldt counties would remain.

The commission is re-evaluating the boundaries of all of the congressional, state Senate, state Assembly and State Board of Equalization districts as required by law following the 2020 census. As it does so, it is posting alternative maps on its website for consideration.

At this point all of the prototype maps are hypothetical. Draft maps will come out on Nov. 15.

The 2nd Congressional District consists of Marin, Mendocino, Humboldt, Del Norte and Trinity counties, plus portions of Sonoma County.

The first redistricting map, released last week, merged Marin County with Rep. Mike Thompson’s 5th District, which includes Napa and Santa Rosa. The map also moved Lake County into the 2nd District.

After the first map came out, the Marin County Board of Supervisors sent a letter to the commission urging it to “retain Marin’s community of interest with neighboring Sonoma County and coastal counties that share many of Marin’s interests.”

The commission is required to seek to unite “communities of interest,” which are defined as groups of people who live in a common geographical area and share common political, social or economic interests.

“Marin County has much more of a community of interest with Sonoma County and other coastal communities than with Napa and Solano counties to the east,” the supervisors wrote in the letter. As examples, the supervisors cited such community issues as water, transportation, coastal tourism, agriculture and sea level rise.

The supervisors also wrote that the proposed boundary changes would result in “a harmful change for representation of Marin County residents and their interests in our nation’s capital.”

The changes proposed in both maps would result in Marin’s representative in Congress, Jared Huffman, D-San Rafael, being written out of the 2nd Congressional District.

Commissioner Pedro Toledo said the map posted on Tuesday was shaped primarily by the requirement that each district have the same number of residents and input from residents in Lake County.

“The North Coast did not grow as quickly as the rest of the Bay Area,” Toledo said.

Under to a new state law, inmates at San Quentin State Prison and Pelican Bay State Prison in Del Norte County are only counted as residents in the county where the prison is located if they resided there prior to incarceration.

The commission is reallocating the districts’ populations at a time when the state lost a congressional seat because of new census numbers.

Toledo said one solution might be to combine Marin with parts of San Francisco, but he said most commissioners oppose that idea because San Francisco is much more urban than Marin.

Toledo said the commission is trying to find a way to create a district that consolidates wine country interests and another district that joins agricultural interests.

“It may mean,” he said, “that Marin County will be in two congressional districts instead of one to make the numbers work.”

Toledo said that after the commission posted its first prototype, which moved Lake County into the 2nd Congressional District, it received “a significant amount of testimony from Lake County” that it wanted to be in a district with Napa County.

“Areas that raise their voices are the ones who are going to, when possible, get the changes they want,” Toledo said. “There is still quite a bit of time for community input to help us in drawing these maps.”

Bill Kier of San Rafael, a science adviser to the Institute for Fisheries Resources, played a vital role in helping to conserve much of the California coast in the 1970s when the Coastal Act was being drafted. He said edging out Huffman would be “downright tragic” because Huffman is chairman of the House Subcommittee on Water, Oceans and Wildlife.

“It’s hard for me to see the North Coast dismembered by folks who don’t know us,” he said.

Kier said he recently tried to comment during a commission hearing but gave up after spending nearly five hours on the phone on hold.

“It’s maddening to watch commissioners unfamiliar with the North Coast talk about putting Marin and Lake counties together and severing Marin from Sonoma, Mendocino and the rest,” he said.

(Courtesy, the Marin Independent Journal.)

MENDOCINO COLLEGE COURSES, Spring 2022

AOD-166 Marijuana: An Overview (2 Credits)

This course will provide a balanced overview of marijuana, including its pharmacological effects; the history of its medicinal, recreational, agricultural and industrial uses; prevalence and social attitudes related to its use; criminalization and drug control policies; and behavioral health concerns. An emphasis will be placed on contemporary issues regarding decriminalization and legalization of its use as a medicinal and recreational drug.

AOD-153 Physiology/Pharmacology (3 Credits)

This course will provide the student with a basic understanding of the physiological and pharmacological actions of psychoactive drugs. Psychological, sociological and biological perspectives will be presented. The course will provide detailed information on the following groups of drugs; stimulants, tobacco, depressants (including alcohol), opiods, hallucinogens, marijuana, over-the-counter (OTC) drugs, and other selected psychotherapeutic drugs.

THIS WAS THE KOHALA COAST, just north of Kealakekua Bay, where Captain Cook was clubbed to death in February 1779. It is impossible to travel in the Pacific, even for a short time, and not develop an admiration for this hero of navigation and discovery, who was – amazingly, for a great captain – a thoroughly good man.

Having sailed from Niihau some nine months before to look for the Northwest Passage – a sea-route to the Atlantic – Cook had been resting in Hawaiian waters after finding only dangerous ice and mountainous shores” His two ships had returned to Hawaii, but this time to Maui, and Cook bitterly logged the fact that the pox they had left in Kauai and Niihau had reached this island. They sailed on to the island of Hawaii and made contact. The islanders were harder to read than any Cook had met before – their behavior threw him. The Hawaiians still seriously wondered whether this was the god Lono, on his floating island.

What followed was a chaotic interaction, a clash of cultures, with blundering on both sides which made violence almost inevitable. Was this haole really Lono? Were these sailors dangerous? Cook met the aged King Kalaniopu’u, who treated him as an equal. Meanwhile William Bligh and others were making charts, collecting artifacts, sketching pictures of landscapes and ceremonies. But the pilferage by islanders – their passion for pieces of iron undiminished – was unceasing. There were random desecrations and casual cruelty by Cook’s men. The ships were besieged for iron, and the islanders even devised ways for winkling nails out of the ships’ timbers.

This situation continued for just under four months and then at last, with the theft of his best cutter – an important boat to the expedition – Cook was so exasperated he went ashore to take the King hostage until the vessel was returned. The King was at first friendly. There was a conversation. But a misunderstanding arose, and soon panic. The islanders became menacing – Cook’s frightened men fired their muskets. A thousand islanders had gathered on the beach. Many of them began to throw stones. Cook was struck by stones, and then clubbed and held under water, and stabbed, and drowned.

“Justifiable homicide,” Mark Twain snarls in the Big Island chapter of Roughing It – he felt that Cook had been ungrateful and belligerent, that he had asked for it by pretending to be Lono. But poor Cook had died in an almost meaningless scuffle, an incoherent event, an accident of panic and riot. It was an unacceptable way for a hero to go, and yet human and horrible, a bit of bad timing, just the sort of end you predict for yourself. And though the conflict was later patched up, the next day some islanders dressed themselves in the breeches and shirts of the men they had killed and went to the beach and showed their buttocks to the seamen, mooning being a traditional Polynesian way of taunting an enemy.

The beach at Kealakekua Bay is still strewn with stones, the right size and shape to use as weapons.

— Paul Theroux, The Happy Isles of Oceania: Paddling the Pacific (1992)

COP26: FOSSIL FUEL INDUSTRY HAS LARGEST DELEGATION AT CLIMATE SUMMIT

Campaigners led by Global Witness assessed the participant list published by the UN at the start of this meeting. They found that 503 people with links to fossil fuel interests had been accredited for the climate summit. These delegates are said to lobby for oil and gas industries, and campaigners say they should be banned....

bbc.com/news/science-environment-59199484