THE METROPOLIS STOPS
Editor,
Thanks again to Dick Meister for his annual Labor Day reminder that labor has a lot to celebrate. Given the harsh realities of American capitalism, it's a major miracle that labor has been able to accomplish so much in a relatively short period of time.
His column reminded me of my own labor daze in 1961 after graduation from high school when I worked in a factory that manufactured the car speakers used in drive-in movie theaters (called "passion pits" in the day).
After six months I became disillusioned and joined other malcontents in an effort to unionize the company workforce. A majority of workers pledged support, but most chickened out at the last minute fearing that they would lose their jobs. So much for "solidarity forever."
My dad, a former Teamster, and an active Machinists Union member at the time, warned me about the difficulty of union organizing and the fickle finger of fate. He said that I'd understand when I had a family to support, which soured me on the idea of family if it meant being forever enslaved by the boss man.
There I was, 18 years old, at the bottom of the totem pole, one foot in the gutter and the other on a banana peel and already labeled as a troublemaker in the provincial good old boy cow town, Kansas City, Missouri, where conformity was rewarded and individuality was punished. "You can't stay afloat if you rock the boat."
Hunkering down for the long haul, I planned my escape and eventually accumulated enough savings to get me through one year at the University of Kansas where, with loans, scholarships and part-time work, I was able to eventually graduate in 1968 at which time I was a first round draft pick by Uncle Sam for his rumble in the jungle: enslavement by the ultimate boss man.
To celebrate Labor Day this year, we watched the Austrian silent film classic, "Metropolis" directed by Fritz Lang in 1927. It's a tragicomic symphonic rock opera set in a Blade Runner future where humans are divided into two groups: the thinkers, who make plans (but don't know how anything works), and the workers who achieve goals (but don't have the vision). Sound familiar? Totally separate, neither group is complete, but together they make a whole.
The son of über boss, Mr. Fedeersen dares to visit the underground where the workers toil and is transformed by what he sees. The film ends with a workers revolt which floods the underground, followed by a labor-management agreement mediated by the boss's son.
The stars of this movie look vaguely familiar. Boss Federsen looks like Norman Solomon, his son resembles Johnny Depp and the son's girlfriend, Maria, a subterranean creature, is a dead ringer for Lady Ga Ga. And the menacing Crispen Glover appears in nearly every crowd scene.
For a prescient look at our future, I highly recommend the 1910 E.M. Forster short story, The Machine Stops. And the sooner, the better.
Cheers,
Don Morris
Skunktown/Willits
PS. When is Dick Meister gonna treat us to some more baseball stories?
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SLOW DOWN
Dear Editor,
I am reading of so many traffic accidents -- some fatal. All tragic. So I just want to remind all of us (especially and including myself) that the rushing is usually not worth it. Most often we don't even need the extra few moments.
Why do we drive too fast? Often we are traveling fast out of habit and also because we entrain to the vehicles traveling near us who are also too fast. Our modern cars are designed to drive fast. So many of the advertisements emphasize faster. So it takes some conscious awareness to truly be in control of our driving.
When we are driving fast we may be feeling "in control," but I can tell you that when that control is lost -- either because the tires slip or someone else loses control and enters our path of travel -- things happen very, very, very fast.
I often find that it takes a conscious decision and effort to slow down. First I have to notice that I'm driving faster than I need to or than I should. That is when I have the choice of how fast to drive.
Please note that an accident (or a ticket) will take up a significant chunk of your time. If you are injured it could take up a lot of time to heal. If you injure someone else you may feel bad for a long long time!
Lastly, I have noticed also that when I do drive slower that I arrive at my destination more rested, calm and centered! Which is always good. Safe travels.
Sincerely,
Alan Sunbeam
Ukiah
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WHERE VIRTUE SITS
To the editor:
I know evil. I've done evil. I have looked myself in the eyes and seen evil lurking there but I have virtue. Virtue is the celebration of life and of love. The acceptance of others and the desire to grow towards goodness. It is the absence of pride and envy. It is the willingness to share our vows and to bask in the accomplishment of others. It is above justification because it is true and truly lies in each and every heart. If a person lies and is not true then let them weave their mask, but it will not hide the truth within their own heart. There is a place within each of us where we cannot hide from the truth, where virtue sits as judge. To go before that court process where good and evil enters and intent is without excuse. I have been to this place willingly and completely. I recognize within myself that this place is majestic and it is the most humbling experience to know that I am a man who is honest with myself as well as my loved ones. I go to this sacred place within my heart as often as I can in order to escape the trap of easy justification. It can be a painful place but it is only here that I may grow toward greatness, where no mask can justify an action, where we might recognize the truths of our intent and thus the truth of our actions. Only there where virtue sits as judge are real men born.
Sincerely,
Daniel Lee Woods
Mendocino County Jail, Ukiah
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“LOCALLY GROWN”?
Editor,
Keeping Your Greens Local, Really?
Have you noticed that someone in the marketing department has decided that you care — very much — about buying your fruits and vegetables from local farms? Indeed, it seems our local chain groceries are in a virtual war to “out local” each other in the produce section.
Scanning a recent newspaper insert from Chain Grocery #1 I find “Locally Grown” tags prominently affixed to much of the produce pictured, including things like the red ripe tomatoes (grown in Camarillo, down by Oxnard, the smaller print reveals), nectarines from Selma, and table grapes “grown in the San Joaquin Valley.” It seems that anything grown anywhere in California gets a “Locally Grown” tag, which is a low standard for local — especially during peak produce season. Is really plausible that, if delivering locally sourced produce was a priority, they could not find tomatoes growing closer to Ukiah than Camarillo and table grapes somewhere in the North Bay?
Chain Grocery #2 takes it a step further and has redefined its produce section as an “indoor farmers market,” a term that seemingly has no specific meaning. Needless to say, Chain Grocery #2's indoors farmers market has no farmers, something that most people would consider an important part of a farmers' market. Chain Grocery #2's definition of a “farmers market” also seems broad enough to include out of season produce gathered from any corner of the globe. In contrast, a California “Certified Farmers' Market,” has many rules including that the people selling to you at the market have to actually own or work at the farm. A “certified farmers' market” specializes in seasonal produce, grown nearby, hauled to market and proudly presented by the struggling (typically small) farm that produced it. Hopefully, Chain Grocery #2 is not expecting that people will confuse their “indoor farmers market” with the type of small farm produce customers would expect to find at a certified farmers' market.
Going further yet is an advertisement recently mailed out by our local Chain Grocery #3. Chain Grocery #3's mailer asserts that it has a special relationships with “our local family growers” of fruits and vegetables which allows it to offer produce from “farms & families living local within 50 miles.” Wondering what farms these might be I visited Chain Grocery #3 last week. I was unable to find a single fruit or vegetable from within 50 miles, and neither could the employee stocking the produce at that time. Instead, in the middle of our local apple harvest, I found apples from New Zealand, Chile, Washington State and, finally at least from Northern California, Courtland CA, South of Sacramento. I found pears with tags from Stillwater Orchards (somewhere on the Sacramento River) and Phillips Farms in the San Joaquin Valley. You get the picture.
Assuming that the marketing departments of these large chain groceries are correct, you care about supporting local farms. You can do better. If you are not finding local produce (and meats, cheese, honey, etc.) at your local chain, there are steps to take. You can request (or insist) that wherever you currently shop clearly identify what actually comes from nearby, you can seek out a market that really does carry more of what you consider local, or you can shop at one of Mendocino County's certified farmers markets. You can find out about most of our certified markets on the Mendocino County Farmers' Market Association website, which is www.mcfarm.org . All of these locally run markets could use your support, as can the many local family farms and ranches that make the effort to offer their finest to you every week.
In Boonville there is a certified market every Saturday from 10am to 12:30pm May through October. Your Mendocino County Certified Farmers' Markets, with support from the Mendocino County Department of Agriculture, work hard to ensure that you get what was advertised … and should you not, you can go back and talk to the farmers about it next week.
Scott Cratty
Manager, Ukiah Certified Farmers' Market
Co-owner, Westside Renaissance Market
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GIMME MY PAPER
Editor,
I first espied your fine rag at the Newsbeat in Davis one morning on me way to work. Above the fold was an eye catching image of a large fan of cannabis leaves, it was captioned - Mendocino shamrock. For fifty cents, I took it with me. And wasn't I delighted by the content! Here was Alexander Cockburn's column, which I'd been reading as Beat The Devil in The Nation, spending much more money for fewer of his words. Convert. Outside of Cockburn's column, The Nation had been profoundly depressing me for a good while, and the AVA was able to tease a smile.
I miss Alexander's rapier and cudgel, and I also miss getting my AVA regularly. Coming all the way across the mountains and through the valley and up into the Sierra foothills, I could rely of it being in the box by Sunday, sometimes earlier. Postal Inspectors have jobs to look for problems such as yours. After 'bout a dozen clicks, I arrive at the comments to the USPS and leave them: "The subscribers to the Anderson Valley Advertiser in Booneville, CA have experienced inordinate delays in delivery for the past month. Normal operations will delay delivery infrequently by a day or so. But this is widespread and persistent. I really like the rag. Please fix."
I rilly like sitting by the creek, with the new AVA in my physical hands. At the bleeding new edge of communications is the radio technology labeled whitespace radio. which is being deployed in a test in the hilly Yurok - and they all read the AVA. It is quite crafty in its reuse the tv channels freed up with digitalization, and it looks quite promising for us rural folks. I've been suffering here with a satellite connection and would like to know how the new technology is working there.
Living in Fairbanks, I saw a village elder quizzed on the news about RCA's demonstration deployment of satellite tv to the bush of Alaska; He said the shows were great, "but we don't like no talking heads." David Byrne ran with it.
Is cannabis POW Chris Diaz getting your paper? And has Bryan Epis' subscription lapsed? Expiring minds want to know.
Yours & etc.
Jay Bergstrom
Forest Ranch
Ed note: 1. Yes. 2. Mr. Epis’s sub is good through Feb. 2013.
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WILLFUL STUPIDITY
Mr. Anderson:
Recently I had an exchange of opinion in the September 5th incarnation of Black Agenda Reports with an ignoramus who denies the validity of evolution and excoriates atheism. I offer it here in the hope you will find it worthy to appear among the letters in the next edition of the AVA.
* * *
Your Response Borders On Incoherence:
Like it or not, humans share about 98% of their genes with chimpanzees. This doesn’t bother me. I’m more disturbed by sharing about 60% of my genes with fruit flies.
If chimpanzees had the opportunity to observe Orthodox Jews bobbing up and down like geese while babbling their prayers before The Wailing Wall, or six million Muslims walking in circles around The Kaaba, or flocks of Christian faithful straining to hear the words of wisdom of the latest Grand Poobah in Saint Peter’s Square in Rome, it is they that would have reason to feel shame about sharing so much genetic material with humans.
Perhaps the African atheists you fret about were among the authors whose works were destroyed when Christian savages burned the Library of Alexandria. Or perhaps their scrolls were destroyed in subsequent Christian bonfires incited by the latest version of the Catholic Church’s Index.
Do not forget that even the works of those pre-Christian era thinkers that have survived had to be hand-copied by Christian scribes and are thus tainted by Christian theology.
Christian power and influence continue to cause the repression of thinkers who deviate from Christian orthodoxy. How many books of d’Holbach, Meslier, or Feuerbach can be found in your local library? In your local bookstore?
I’ve passed through North Africa. I imagine that Morocco, Tunisia, and Algeria owe their modern, technologically sophisticated societies to Islamic culture. But perhaps I over-generalize on too few examples.
There are so many other shining examples of the excellence of Islamic civilization: Indonesia, Somalia, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, The United Arab Emirates, Pakistan, and Uganda to mention a few, where you can still buy your wives on an auction block or have your mother-in-law stoned to death by accusing her of witchcraft.
Spanish journalist Rosa Montero of El País once wrote a column in which she bemoaned illiteracy in Catholic Spain. In she posed, “the old and sad question of whether a people are ignorant because they’re Catholic or Catholic because they’re ignorant.” The same may be asked of Muslims.
Claims surface and submerge concerning the discovery of Eden, the Shroud of Turin, the tomb of Jesus, images of the Virgin Mary that weep real tears like a Barbie doll, and instances of stigmata. All these claims evaporate under the scrutiny conducted with scientific tools like carbon dating and x-ray machines, to name but a few.
Rant on if you wish, but my argument is complete. I am no longer paid to teach science to fourth and fifth graders or their intellectual equivalents. Teaching exhilarated me. Dealing with willful stupidity and ignorance does not.
Louis S. Bedrock
Roselle, New Jersey
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SERVICE
Dear Editor,
The commonly used word ASSHOLE is merely an acronym: A Simple Soul Having Obscure Literalistic Enhancements.
Carl Flach
Alameda, CA
PS: I usually receive my AVA on Fridays, sometimes Saturdays. Good service by the USPS meaning the papers do flow through Petaluma on time, I guess. :)
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A SHUT OUT
Dear Editor:
Three cheers for KZYX&Z and Mendocino Public Broadcasting! Yesterday, the station whisked a bus full of station supporters to a Giants v. Dodgers game at AT&T Park, where KZYX&Z Program Manager Mary Aigner hit a home run. She proved that in addition to being a radio whiz, she's also a magical events producer, conjuring up gorgeous weather for our ferry ride from Larkspur Landing to the stadium in San Francisco, catering yummy food and drink, and providing a 4-0 Giants win over those pesky Dodgers. What a day, what a team, what a station! Thank you, Mary, and KZYX&Z.
Sincerely,
Jane Futcher & Erin Carney
Willits
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CORRECTION: The Postscript attached to Elizabeth R. Mitchell’s letter last week concerning postal delivery delays was mistakenly attributed to Elizabeth R. Mitchell when it should have been a separate letter by Elizabeth Ryan (regarding the Aaron Bassler case) of Fort Bragg. Our apologies to both writers for the mistake.
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PROBLEM SOLVED
Editor,
Bukowski said the days run away like wild horses over the hills and I see it's true. I have to admit that it's me who is causing the postal malaise in your area. I have sent back every Mitt Romney envelope (postage guaranteed) filled with rocks so there is a strain on the system it can't take. I will lighten up for a while.
Check for subscription renewal enclosed.
Credit Hephalumpe (even though I'm buying) and keep feeding the manbeaters.
Love your shoes! Banzai!
Perry J. Mills, aka. Ignatzio Hephalumpe
Bellingham, Washington
PS. Neither rain nor snow nor fiscal blight will stay these couriers from their entitlement as powerful and grudging civil service drones. — Frank Dearth Fourthclass, founder, Dead Letter Department, Paphlagonia, Turtle Island, "An equal opportunity shuck" — when you couldn't care less.
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DEFENDING THE INDEFENSIBLE
Dear Editor,
I really don't understand why you get so bent out of shape about little old NPR (AVA, 8/15/12). A "fealty to militarism, market fundamentalism, consumerism, conformism to hugely corrupt politics," etc. Good grief! If you are talking about Karl Rove's superpac or the devil incarnate I could understand it, but this seems over the top. If you were to find a place for a "lengthy historical critique of NPR news," perhaps the scales would be lifted from my eyes.
I had a different "take away" from the NPR story about "the predicted increase in surveillance drones over the US," which you say is a good example of NPR's "obtuseness." They interviewed a scientist who was in the business of researching and developing them, right? Naturally, he thought they were a wonderful thing and he did, as you note, tout the cost savings benefits to law enforcement agencies and even their investment potential. This was what the scientist said. Let me repeat: this was the scientist's opinion whose views do not necessarily, and in this case did not, reflect those of the station. Yet you seem to think, correct me if I'm wrong, that NPR thinks that having 20,000 drones in the air would be just ducky and fully endorses the idea. How on earth did you come to that conclusion? I was glad that NPR aired the story at all and brought the issue, with all its obvious, sinister implications, into greater public awareness. It would have been great if the interviewer had asked the scientist if he thought we were heading for a police state with weaponized drones to keep the populace under control, but he wasn't the guy to ask. He was just a grown-up kid, still playing with the remote control model airplanes. The "take away" is for us to ask that question ourselves.
Part of the reason for our disconnect may be that the only NPR news programs I get on my local Hawaii public radio station out here in the boonies are "Morning Edition," and "All Things Considered." Most of the rest is classical music. Does NPR show its true colors in all the programming I don't hear? I can never tell what they might think of next in California!
Aloha
Bill Brundage
Kurtistown, Hawaii
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A FOURFER
Dear Editor,
I would like to share with your readers that on Saturday evening, Sept. 29, The Alexander Quartet returns to Ukiah to open the fifth season of the Deep Valley Chamber Music Series. The acclaimed San Francisco group will be performing the Mozart String Quartet, K. 590; Shostakovich String Quartet No. 7, and the Beethoven String Quartet, Opus 127. The concert will be held at the First Presbyterian Church, at the corner of Perkins and Dora and begins at 7:30pm. Tickets are $25, $10 students (8-18). Tickets are available at Mendocino Book Co and on-line at http://www.brownpapertickets.com.
Regards,
Linda Malone
Deep Valley board member
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SEA CHANGE
Editor and fellow AVAers,
Each year thousands of whales, dolphins and sea turtles die as bycatch; animals injured or killed in fishing operations. The Hawaiian name for the monk seal is "ilio-holo-i-ka-uaua," or the dog that runs in rough seas. Starfish have an eye spot at the end of each arm that can sense light. Three quarters of the world's coral reefs are gone. An aluminum can takes 200 years to decompose in the ocean. A cigarette filter takes 23 years to begin to decompose on land. Fish farming accounts for 40% of the world's seafood consumption. 12% of the Earth's land is protected but less than 1% of the ocean. In California the landmark Marine Life Protection Act creates a system of marine protected areas along the state's coastline. From Baltimore to Bangladesh, Ocean Conservancy leads the world grass-roots cleanup effort. 100 countries remove millions of pounds of trash from beaches and waterways. In 2009, coastal cleanup volunteers picked up 2,189,252 cigarette butts. On 18 October 2012, Clean Water Act 40th anniversary. On 21 October 2012, Marine Mammal Protection Act 40th anniversary. Whales use "nets" of air bubbles to herd fish. In Florida, the Tortugas Ecological Reserve, depleted lobsters and reef fish now show signs of recovery. And Northwestern Hawaiian Islands established one of the world's largest marine reserves. Marine reserves produced 166% increase in plants and animals. On 28 December 20 12th, Endangered Species Act 39th anniversary. Air temperatures in the Arctic warm twice as fast as the rest of the planet. A sea change, as I stand beside the ocean.
Diana Vance
Deadtree, Mendocino
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NOT JUST SAN DIEGO
Dear AVA,
Today, September 7, I received the August 29th edition of the Advertiser. I’m complaining again only because I read in Off the Record that it’s not just me down here in San Diego getting a late paper. Before July 4, I was consistently getting the AVA on the following Saturday from Wednesday’s publication day, and more often than not, on Friday. Maybe it’ll help if we complain to the inspectors at the Petaluma P.O. where Off the Record pointed out was the source of the problem.
Regards,
John Wester
San Diego
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SAFETY TOUR
Letter to the Editor,
WE NEED YOU.
To: All Parties Interested in Student Safety (i.e., soccer moms and players, yard duty teachers, families, Neighbors on AV Way, AV COC, Taxpayers, etc.
Wed., September 12, 5:00 PM @ Elementary School Lower Field
Join your School Board of Trustees for a tour of Student Safety and Maintenance at the school site. Meet at Lower Field Cliff to observe imminent hazards. Don’t go too close to the cliff! Observe undermining of large madrone tree and (District-funded) fence in the vicinity of the inviting (Volunteer-built) Nature Trail Classroom.
This area is described by Watershed Curriculum advisor as “Doing what meandering creeks do… moving debris from upstream to down”.
See what you think of safety here at the Elementary School.
PUBLIC WELCOME.
Patricia Beverly
Boonville
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