Mendocino County Today: Tuesday, Feb. 8, 2022

Offshore Flow | Hans Bruhner | Otter Radio | FB Cannabis | Auto Detailer | Roadside Haircut | Flower Sale | Job Opportunity | Jonniespotting | Drought Webinar | PV Diversion | Ed Notes | Yesterday's Catch | Rain Outlook | Ukraine Situation | Dorothy Dodge | Nuclear Baloney | Nickel Coke | Rooftop Solar | Old Trestle | Trucker Revolt | Dangerous Men | Bored | Direct Democracy | News Flash | Mendocino Colts | NFL Backpedals | Coat Sale | Stop SMART | Hippie Watching | Macbleeech | Sheep Shade | Unvax Centers | Seed Library | Shearing School | Yippie Girl | Maga Step | Gun Violence | Sverko Book | Masked Singer | Masked Lady | Wrong World | Ball Play

A HIGH PRESSURE SYSTEM will hang out in the Northeast Pacific throughout this coming week, affecting the coast of Northwest California. Strong north winds will build into the marine waters, while offshore flow will occur at the coast. The offshore flow will aid in clearing out low clouds and warming temperatures throughout the week and into the weekend. A slight chance of precipitation is possible by early next week. (NWS)

HANS BRUHNER

One Friday night at a Comptche gathering, Hans Bruhner asked me to take a few portrait shots so that he could choose his favorite. He was so pleased to have this cat snuggled under his arm. 

Hans, with the great smile and many fascinating stories, captivating artwork, huge knowledge and appreciation of jazz, gracious host, along with lovely hostess Anne, of the infamous MLK weekend music parties, we bid you a fond farewell, free of pain and obligations. We are all richer from having known and loved you.

— Comptche resident

OTTER TALK TONIGHT ON KZYX

Tuesday evening Feb 8th at 7pm Ecology Hour will host Dr. Merav Ben David of the University of Wyoming. Dr. Ben David has done extensive research on River Otter Ecology. She will be discussing the population biology, behavior and sociology of this fascinating and playful local denizen.

DUE PROCESS IN FORT BRAGG?

Editor:

How many of you are there? No matter what your politics or how you feel about CANNABIS, two long awaited VOTER INITIATIVE PETITIONS are circulating among registered Fort Bragg voters, waiting for your signatures. One of the Petitions preserves the gravely endangered Cannabis Permit Application Review Process itself; an ordinance which included public input, and which the City spent two years and significant tax dollars to fine tune. The companion Petition calls for neighborhood protective Buffer Zones. Once the required number of signatures have been collected, each certified measure will be put to a vote by Public Referendum. As we locals would say, “this is important.”

Most of us accept the legal right of Cannabis Dispensaries to locate in the CENTRAL BUSINESS DISTRICT (CBD) of Fort Bragg. What we do not accept – is the current attempt by a bare majority of City Council members to cancel the rights of Fort Bragg businesses, residents, and property owners – to participate in how and where cannabis dispensaries should be located within the CBD.

At this very moment a small majority of City Council members are attempting to substitute their PERSONAL AGENDA CANNABIS ORDINANCE in place of Fort Bragg’s existing Inland Land Use and Development Code. The heavy handed group of politicians have instructed staff to radically trash existing code in favor of cannabis permits by “Right” rather than the more prudent cannabis permit by “Review.” This vending machine approach is a reflection of the Mayor and two Council Members’ public statements that cannabis dispensaries should be treated like “any other business.” Assaults like this on Due Process have the net result of removing Fort Bragg’s Planning Commission and everyone else from the sacred right of Neighborhood Impact Review. 

Even more disturbing, the same three public officials have indicated they plan to give the many Commercial Cannabis Applicants the expanded right to CULTIVATION, MANUFACTURE, and LARGE SCALE TRUCKING DISTRIBUTION within the Central Business District. Though previously met with large community opposition, it appears (if the Council’s new language is approved) that the first applicant in line to receive one of these easy to get permits will locate in the CBD’s epicenter (former Floor Store). The site is less than 20 feet from a densely populated residential neighborhood and its children, and around 60 feet from a federal post office, major bank, family restaurant, and popular community grocery store.

CITIZENS TAKE NOTE: By signing these Petitions (there are several floating around town) - YOU THE FORT BRAGG VOTER have the power to stop the City Council from taking away your following rights:

Right of Notification of Proposed Cannabis Businesses;

Right to Public Town Hall opportunities for neighborhoods and individuals to raise concerns or objections to case-by-case (rather than rubber stamp approval) of Cannabis dispensary applications;

Right to have detailed Planning Commission examination of Cannabis applications;

Right of City to deny cannabis applications or impose special conditions on Cannabis applications; and to publicly address neighborhood concerns regarding those applications or the applicants;

Right to environmental (organic and human) impact studies, prior to the issuance of Cannabis permits. 

The pending loss of our Due Process in this critical matter of how and where commercial cannabis enterprises are to be allocated, threatens to disrupt rather than offer an inspiring and sustainable City Plan. 

Please act now. By SIGNING THESE TWO BALLOT MEASURE INITIATIVES - You are helping all Fort Bragg voters to PRESERVE THE ABOVE STATED ENDANGERED RIGHTS. Check it out.

Respectfully,

Jay Koski, Gene Mertle, Dianna Mertle, Bill Mann, Susanne Rogers

Fort Bragg

PHILO: Brendon’s Auto detailing is booming. 

I'm getting great revues and ratings on my quality detailing job. It takes me roughly 3.5 hours to fully clean your vehicle. Dog hair is a hard one but that's no problem for me. I got the tools and the know how. PM me for more appointments! Have a great week yall God bless!

Brendon Shaw Griffin, 707-558-5301. 

WHO DUNNIT? (PG&E?)

Hello Everyone -

Big River Haul Road

I went for a walk up the Big River haul road, to find that all the trees and foliage on both sides of the road had been chopped down. Big tire tracks in the mud. Does anyone know who is responsible, what their rationale is, how far up the road the cutting goes, and if there are plans to clean up the slash? 

Sadly,

Holly Tannen

NOW HIRING - Open Recruitment (Internal & Outside) Sheriff's Lieutenant (Field Services Division) Minimum Qualifications Required

Education and Experience:

High school diploma or GED; and, at least three (3) years of experience as a Sheriff's Sergeant; and,

Must be able to meet and maintain the minimum standards for selection, education, and training of California Peace Officers as specified by California law and the regulations of the California Commission on POST; must obtain POST management certificate within two (2) years of appointment; must not be prohibited in any way from possessing a firearm; or,

A combination of education, training and experience which provides the required knowledge, skills, and abilities to perform the essential functions of the job.

Licenses and Certifications:

Valid Drivers License - Class C or better

CPR Certificate

POST Management Certificate within two (2) years of appointment.

Further Sheriff's Lieutenant (Field Services Division) job information including an online application can be found on the Mendocino County Human Resources Department website at the following link: governmentjobs.com/careers/mendocinoca/jobs/3412338/sheriffs-lieutenant

HERE’S JONNIE

On Friday, February 4, 2022 at approximately 4:32 P.M., Mendocino County Sheriff's Deputies were patrolling the 200 block of Brush Street (Ukiah) when they observed a person, subsequently identified as Jonnie Mize, 46, of Ukiah, walking on the street.

Deputies knew Mize from prior law enforcement contacts and knew she had an active felony arrest warrant. Mize was detained and a records check confirmed the existence of an outstanding Mendocino County felony warrant for her arrest.

Mize was arrested and booked into the Mendocino County Jail where she was to be held in lieu of $25,000. bail.

MENDOCINO COUNTYWIDE DROUGHT TASK FORCE

Date: 02/10/2022 4:00 PM - 5:30 PM

Please click the link below to join the webinar: mendocinocounty.zoom.us/j/88971765675?pwd=Ty9Nczk4MlVGSjlxaE82Slc2YndhQT09

Passcode: 665233

Or Telephone (for higher quality, dial a number based on your current location): US: +1 669 900 9128 or +1 346 248 7799 or +1 253 215 8782 or +1 301 715 8592 or +1 312 626 6799 or +1 646 558 8656

Webinar ID: 889 7176 5675

THE POTTER VALLEY DIVERSION, Part Of It Anyway

ED NOTES

REPORTS of shots fired at Rancho Navarro Saturday about 7pm saw several Sheriff's cars, lights blazing and sirens blaring, hurtled through Boonville soon after. These shots fired must have been particularly menacing because the less menacing are not responded to so urgently, if at all.

THE NERVE. The farewell tribute to Dr. Mark Apfel is certainly well deserved if majorly hypocritical coming from the AV Health Center's treacherous board of directors who knifed the doctor a few years ago in the usual “liberal” sneak attack when they tried to forcibly retire him. We're all going to miss the last doctor who not only turned out in the middle of the night to make house calls, as he did to my home several times to care for my disabled sister, but his hundreds of private mercy missions in the Anderson Valley went mostly unheralded, not that Apfel seemed to expect or need them. 

ME and two of my heirs and assignees, daughter and granddaughter, visited the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco. I hadn't been there since the famous Tomb Soldiers exhibit, which I'd found disappointing because the replicas weren't painted as the originals were and there were too few of the emperor's army to convey the monstrousness of his memorial. Granddaughter especially enjoyed a wrap-around butterfly light show, which in us old acid trippers was so thoroughly enveloping it might have induced serious flashbacks, and she often paused to take long looks at complicated Hindu statuary and, of all things, a case of Malay krises, curved executioner's daggers. I found the exhibits short on historical explanation resulting, to me, in a lot of interesting stuff out of any context. And at $15 per for adults and $10 for children the museum is too expensive for young families, although there were many milling around the covid-culled floors. Old timers will remember the site as the old San Francisco Library. They've kept the long stairway, I was happy to see, with the exhibits leading from it. 

HAD TO LAUGH at a trendy exhibit called Seeing Gender, “the museum’s first exhibition to explore the collection through the lens of gender.” It consisted of several pieces of chaste statuary that made no gender-bending point visible to me, but I'll assume that “These four emerging curators have placed artworks from disparate cultures and periods side by side to show how gender — whether fluid or fixed, divine or sensual, subversive or orthodox — is constructed, performed, and depicted throughout Asian art in provocative and inspiring ways” know their genders. (How many genders are there these days, anyway?)

RECOMMENDED VIEWING. I never thought Bill Cosby was funny — all that cutesy mugging — and only caught glimpses of him, not being a sitcom guy. The whole Cosby phenomenon passed me by. But Kamau Bell's four-part documentary, We Need to Talk About Cosby, is absolutely riveting. Who knew he was a major pervert and rapist? Well, lots of people knew, as it turns out, and didn't say anything. The film features women telling their harrowing stories of being drugged and assaulted by Cosby as his groundbreaking career and heroic status with all people exempted him from, well, all sanctions. Cosby was eventually convicted of sexual assault, but his conviction was recently overturned after a court found that prosecutors were bound by a weird agreement not to pursue charges. Cosby, a true psychopath, has denied everything, but given the irrefutable evidence against him I suppose that's all he can do as he enters the Perv Hall of Fame. 

CATCH OF THE DAY, February 7, 2022

TADIOUS BROWN, Ukiah. Riding bicycle under influence of drugs or alcohol, probation revocation.

PATRICK GAIA, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol, probation revocation.

MIGUEL LOPEZ, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol, felon-addict with firearm.

PUTIN IS PLAYING STRONG HAND ON UKRAINE — AS LONG AS HE DOES NOT INVADE

by Patrick Cockburn

Doomsday predictions by the US and UK that Russia is about to invade Ukraine are rejected by military experts in Kyiv, who deny that the Russian army has the numbers or the equipment to stage such an attack.

“What we currently have,” writes Andriy Zagorodnyuk, the former Ukrainian defence minister, and military specialists, in a report by the Centre for Defence Studies in Kyiv, “is the military threat posed by about 127,000 Russian servicemen along Ukraine’s borders, in the occupied territories of eastern Ukraine, and in Crimea. This number has not increased since April [2021], and is not enough for a full-scale offensive.”

The report states categorically that Russian forces are not in a position to invade in the next two or three weeks and are unlikely to be able to do so in 2022. It points to the absence of ammunition and fuel along with field hospitals and trained up-to-strength military units essential to a modern army going to war. This negative judgement about the prospect of a Russian offensive is confirmed by Ukrainian ministers and defence officials who politely downplay the war hysteria in Washington and London.

Nor are the Ukrainian military experts alone in saying that Russia has not taken the practical military measures necessary for an invasion. Senior French officials express similar doubts: “We see the same number of lorries, tanks and people [as before],” one official told Le Monde. “We observed the same manoeuvres, but we cannot conclude an offensive is imminent.”

Contrast this view that nothing much is happening with what British and American officials are telling the world. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman said on Wednesday that the United States sees “every indication that he [Russian President Vladimir Putin] is going to use military force sometime perhaps [between] now and the middle of February”.

An anonymous senior British intelligence official speaking three days later was even more specific, being quoted as saying that six Russian amphibious warfare ships could seize the Black Sea port of Odessa as part of a multi-front offensive aimed at occupying the whole of Ukraine. “It’s not just a negotiating tactic or an idle threat when you deploy this many troops with this capability,” he said.

On the contrary, this is precisely what Russia would do in order to give their unspoken threat of invasion substance so that it can be a powerful lever in any negotiations. Going by reports from Kyiv, the Russians have in reality done surprisingly little to make the prospect of their launching a multipronged blitzkrieg more credible.

But then they do not have to because the US and Britain are doing the Kremlin’s work for it. They compare the deployment of 127,000 troops – far too few to occupy Ukraine, which is larger than France – with the 11 million strong Red Army at the end of the Second World War. The intelligence official cited above sought to drive home the analogy by pointing to the transfer of Russian forces from the Far East, saying that this had not happened since 1941 and was “unprecedented in the modern era”.

If a grand Russian offensive is not in the offing, could they not stage a more economical attack, perhaps confining it to seizing big cities like Kyiv, Kharkov and Odessa? In practice, this would be a recipe for disaster since it would leave great tracts of Ukrainian territory unconquered, and capable of resistance, in the rear of Russian tank columns.

The only Russian advance that has military credibility would be in the far south-east of Ukraine between the Russian separatist self-declared republics of Donetsk and Luhansk and Russian-annexed Crimea. It would be possible for Russian troops to seize Mariupol on the Sea of Azov, a city with a population of 565,000 and two of Europe’s largest steel mills, which is only 15 miles from the separatist republics.

But analysts with good sources in Moscow tell me that the Russians would not do this, even if the crisis escalates dramatically. Seizing even a sliver of Ukraine would precipitate an avalanche of Western sanctions, halt the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline from Russia to Germany, and drive Ukraine closer to Nato – things which are the opposite of what the Kremlin wants to get.

Looked at from Russia’s point of view, the threat of an invasion is a strong card – but only if it is never played. To play it would be to start an unwinnable war which would be political suicide for Putin and his government. Western media may suggest that he is isolated in the Kremlin, his judgement eroded by two decades in power. But this should probably be dismissed as crude propaganda. Verifiable evidence, going by previous military interventions from Chechnya in 1999 to Ukraine in 2014 and Syria in 2015, is that Putin is cautious in using force. Had he wanted to take Mariupol and a chunk of Russian-speaking south-east Ukraine, he could have done so far more easily in 2014.

Assuming that Putin has not gone mad, he will avoid an invasion but seek to use the threat of one to secure a neutral Ukraine in which the Russian enclaves will have federal status. He may not obtain anything like his maximalist demands, but this will not damage him much with Russian public opinion so long as he avoids fighting a war.

More mysterious than Russian objectives is the war hysteria gripping political, defence and intelligence elites in the US and UK. Probably one should take the crisis mood at face value, and assume that the panic is real, even if the explanation for it is less than clear.

One conspiratorial explanation for the American and British overreaction to a not-atypical bit of Russian sabre-rattling may have something in it. This holds that Western intelligence services are neither stupid nor ill-informed enough as to not know that Russia is not going to invade Ukraine. But they are cunningly pretending to believe in the threat to provide an excuse for the West to expand its military presence in Eastern Europe.

This sounds too subtle, though America would dearly like to sink the Nord Stream 2 pipeline project between Germany and Russia.

Domestic political advantages clearly play a role in deepening the crisis. Security and foreign policy elites in Washington and London enjoy waging cold wars and Britain always wants to secure its status as the closest US ally.

Democratic Party politicians detest Putin for having supposedly helped Donald Trump to win the presidential election in 2016 and have long portrayed him as Putin’s puppet, sparse though the evidence is for this. Biden wants to wipe away the memory of the final debacle in Afghanistan by displaying statesmanlike determination in the Ukraine crisis.

Though Putin may never have intended to invade, his failure to do so can easily be presented as proof of him quailing before the iron wills of Biden and Johnson.

(Patrick Cockburn is the author of War in the Age of Trump (Verso). (Courtesy, CounterPunch.org)

RIP DOROTHY DODGE, a newspaper editor of the old school. 

Dorothy was my first newspaper editor, a patient but no nonsense mentor who helped me learn the rules of the trade when the Marysville paper decided to take a chance by hiring an uneducated hometown boy. 

From Dorothy I learned a craft that I practiced for 40 years. Dorothy also became our good friend, visiting Terese and I when we lived in Hawaii, Colorado and here on the North Coast. In recent years, our contact became less but a few months ago with the help of newspaper colleague Eric Grunder, we reunited via email. Let me share just one of many memories: I was 20, brash and full of myself when I was invited to join Dorothy and the Appeal Democrat gang at the Hotel Marysville bar after work. I sidled up to her, and suggested I was ready for a more important beat to cover. What could I do to make that happen, I demanded. “Shut up and learn what we're trying to teach you,” Dorothy snapped. It was a while before I moved on from the Lions Club luncheon beat. 

Thank you, Dorothy Dodge. You were a huge influence. I'm deeply grateful.

— Mike Geniella

NUCLEAR BALONEY

There are geniuses amongst us. We just didn’t know it. They are the supporters of nuclear power, who, according to the Associated Press, “say the risks can be minimized” when it comes to the perpetual and unsolved problem of long-lived, high-level radioactive waste — the main by-product of generating electricity using nuclear power.

beyondnuclearinternational.org/2022/02/06/nuclear-baloney/

BILL KIMBERLIN: 

Why The Price of Coke Didn't Change For 70 years.

Coca-Cola was originally a company that sold a type of concentrate syrup to soda fountains all over the country and then the world. The soda fountains mixed the syrup with their own carbonation. 

Coke did not believe the cost of selling a bottled version would make sense so they refused all offers. But one man was so persuasive that they agreed to a contract with him. However, in order to protect their market (the fountains) they insisted that he could not sell a bottle of Coke for more than five cents, which was what the fountains charged. 

So for about 70 years, from 1886 until the late 1950's a bottle of Coke cost just a nickel. The contract was finally broken as inflation started to rise.

SAVE ROOFTOP SOLAR

Editor: 

Jan. 27 was the largest turnout ever for public comments at a California Public Utility Commission meeting. Public comments usually last 30-45 minutes. The comment period on Jan. 27 lasted more than 7½ hours. Each commenter was given 60 seconds. More than 99% of them opposed the proposal to allow utilities, including PG&E, to impose an annual average charge of $684 on those with rooftop solar. Only four callers out of 460 supported the utility’s position. 

If the CPUC approves this proposal, it will kill the financial and payback incentives for investing in rooftop solar. It will destroy the solar installation industry and the jobs of as many as 70,000 Californians employed by this industry. This charge for rooftop solar threatens California’s climate change goals and efforts to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions. 

The CPUC has postponed a decision until at least Feb. 10. Please call Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office and say, “I oppose the CPUC’s NEM3 proposal.”

Joel Chaban

Gualala

TRUCKERS ARE STARTING A WORKING CLASS REVOLUTION

“A working-class revolution led by the working class is the left’s worst nightmare because the working class doesn’t want what the left wants. The working class wants jobs, a stable economy, safe streets, low inflation, schools that teach things and a conservative, non-adventurous foreign policy that won’t get a lot of working-class people killed. It’s not excited about gender fluidity, critical race theory, “modern monetary theory,” foreign adventures and defunding police.” 

nypost.com/2022/02/03/truckers-are-starting-a-working-class-revolution-and-the-left-hates-it/

“THE MOST TERRIFYING FORCE of death comes from the hands of men who wanted to be left alone. They try, so very hard, to mind their own business and provide for themselves and those they love. They resist every impulse to fight back, knowing the forced and permanent change of life that will come from it. They know that the moment they fight back, their lives as they have lived them, are over. The moment the men who wanted to be left alone are forced to fight back, it is a form of suicide. They are literally killing off who they used to be. Which is why, when forced to take up violence, these men who wanted to be left alone, fight with unholy vengeance against those who murdered their former lives. They fight with raw hate, and a drive that cannot be fathomed by those who are merely play-acting at politics and terror. TRUE TERROR will arrive at these people’s door, and they will cry, scream, and beg for mercy… but it will fall upon the deaf ears of the men who just wanted to be left alone.” 

– Alexander Solzhenitsyn

BY THE PEOPLE

The presidential nomination
Sucks up all the news
To help but half the country
To vote with half a chance to lose.
A vote that's whittled down some more
By superdelegates in tow
To PACs and super-oligarchs
With tons of cash to blow.
It used to seem so easy
To pick one from the pack
But anymore the pack's divided:
They stab each other in the back.
Now each Party's lost its clout
Conventions will be moot.
One man, one vote is sacred
Give other Rules the boot!
Dump the College, dump the Court
A representative's a hack.
Here's my man (or here's my woman)
Direct democracy is back.

— Jeff Brainard
Shreveport, Louisiana

NEWS FLASH: BILLIONAIRES DON’T LIKE SOCIALISM

In response to a rising progressive tide in the United States, a new genre of stories has emerged in corporate media: rich guys warning against taxing them, or really changing anything about the system at all. Just as the press are keen for you to know that Medicare for All is a very bad idea (FAIR.org, 4/29/19), they are equally anxious to make sure that the voices of beleaguered, unheard plutocrats are given as much of a boost as possible. A case in point is CNBC’s recent article (1/22/20) headlined, “BP’s CEO Chides AOC and Bernie Sanders for Their ‘Completely Unrealistic’ Green New Deal Ideas.”

popularresistance.org/news-flash-billionaires-dont-like-socialism/

THE NFL’S SHIFT ON THE FLORES LAWSUIT BETRAYS ITS VULNERABILITY

by Dave Zirin

Just three days after issuing a statement that Brian Flores’s racial discrimination suit was “without merit,” the NFL and Commissioner Roger Goodell are oafishly changing tactics. Following a backlash both inside and outside the league against their initial hardline stance, Goodell has now lurched toward a more conciliatory position. Don’t trust it. Goodell’s new letter is a display of gaslighting and corporate doublespeak that takes great care to not expose “the Shield” to more lawsuits. This missive from the desk of Roger Goodell begins by saying, “I want to address a subject that many of us have discussed together, not only this week but for many years.”

Translation: “Oh. You’re upset that there is only one Black head coach among the 32 teams? Well, we’re upset too! All on the same side in the long march against racism.”

He then ups the ante: “Racism and any form of discrimination is contrary to the NFL’s values.” This is a lie, clear to anyone who knows the mathematics of the NFL’s hiring patterns. No, this is a league that fetishizes the projection of Black talent and Black bodies under the rule of white authority. The statement is also a cowardly broadside at Flores. “How could anyone accuse the NFL of such a thing given our values. Haven’t you seen the ‘end racism’ decals on the helmets?”

But then Goodell makes a clumsy pivot toward reconciliation, saying that the NFL recognizes that there are “concerns” and that it would enlist a super-special outside committee to “reevaluate and examine all policies, guidelines, and initiatives relating to diversity, equity, and inclusion.” This is on the face very confusing. If three days ago the lawsuit was “without merit,” then why is there now a need for an outside committee to investigate? If racism and discrimination are “contrary to the NFL’s values,” then why, 30 years after Art Shell broke the coaching color line, is this display of apartheid athletics getting worse? Goodell should not be permitted to speak about “the NFL” as if that Park Avenue entity is somehow divorced from the 32 people who run the franchises and whose employment patterns created this crisis.

Then at the end of the letter, there are three sentences that reveal an even deeper owner’s-box vulnerability than decades of racist hiring practices. As a part of Flores’s lawsuit, he tells the story of Miami Dolphins franchise owner Stephen Ross offering him $100,000 for every loss in order to secure a high draft pick—money that Flores refused. For Flores, this is part of a consistent pattern of having Black head coaches helm disasters and then firing them at the first opportunity of a high draft pick and possible turn around, something Flores knew could, and eventually did, happen to him. But that part of it is not what upset Goodell. At a time when the NFL is cozying up to the gambling industry like a pair of united lost loves, any idea that these games are not being played on the up-and-up could affect that partnership. After waxing rhapsodic about diversity and inclusion, Goodell writes bluntly, “We also take seriously any issue relating to the integrity of NFL games. These matters will be reviewed thoroughly and independently. We expect these independent experts will receive full cooperation from everyone associated with the league or any member club as this work proceeds.”

Flores’s lawyer responded by pointing out that Flores has not heard from Goodell despite efforts at direct contact. He finished with the kind response, “On the surface, [this is] a positive first step, but we suspect that this is more of a public relations ploy than real commitment to change.”

Of course, it’s a public relations ploy. After the “without merit” response fell flatter than a medical lecture from Aaron Rodgers, Goodell saw a need to tack away from the charges of racism and game-throwing and toward the Super Bowl and the easily digestible, family friendly story lines that come with what is traditionally the most watched spectacle in the United States. Now, every time a reporter asks about these issues, instead of sweating under the hot lights, he can say, “That’s why we have an outside committee.” For Goodell, these kinds of embarrassing, risible contortions are why he’s makes a staggering $64 million a year. It’s not proud work to front for billionaire racists by proclaiming a commitment to fighting racism or to commit your league passionately to a lucrative industry that will send new generations into fits of financial duress or even addiction, but it certainly does pay.

A COAT SALE IN COPENHAGEN, DENMARK, 1936. The store, Troelstrup, which still exists, had overstocked with winter coats. A scaffolding was erected around the building and covered with the coats. This attracted so many people that police were summoned and ordered it down. All coats were still sold.

SHUT DOWN SMART

Editor,

As you know, a cancer continues its proliferation until it overwhelms one or more organs. The various medical treatments either remove the cancer cells entirely through surgery or kill them by various means. No one would ever ignore cancer — or worse, feed it. Yet that seems to be precisely the strategy in approving expansion of the Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit lines and the operating management.

Clearly, it was ridiculous to approve SMART in the first place. Passenger projections were obviously exaggerated in hopes of winning support. SMART’s financial statements show that passenger revenues support only 10% of operating costs. Most of the other 90% offset is funded by sales taxes. An extension to Cloverdale won’t fix that.

Recently, SMART acquired a freight line without proper financial analysis. It could ultimately lose several hundred thousand dollars a year. I think it will become a drain on taxpayer dollars. Officials should have analyzed (pre-purchase) the two-sided issue of freight revenue from hazardous-materials storage. They also should have considered the decision to burden the company by outsourcing management.

The current plan is to extend the line to Solano County. Given the record, should we expect this section of the line to be profitable?

These moves do nothing to improve SMART and simply allow this financial cancer to grow. We need to destroy the cancer. Shut down SMART, by whatever means necessary,

Richard Peterson

San Rafael

JOEL COEN'S “THE TRAGEDY OF MACBETH”

Reviewed by Ethan Coen [or not]

More like Macbleeeech!

In The Tragedy of Macbeth, long-time Hollywood presence Joel Coen — who has 18 prior films to his credit — takes sole creative control of a project for the first time. The result, not unlike the tale of Macbeth itself, is a tragedy of epic proportions.

In the interest of full disclosure, my editor has requested that I mention that I was Mr. Coen’s writing partner, producer, and creative collaborator on the aforementioned 18 films. I am also his brother. We parted ways prior to Macbeth in a split that the press described as completely amicable. Despite my prior association with Mr. Coen, I feel that I am entirely capable of reviewing his work in a fair and objective way.

Macbeth is Joel Coen’s shittiest movie by several billion light years. If all the elephants in all the world crapped into the same canyon for 100 years, you would still not have a pile of shit half a large as Joel Coen’s dumb-as-a-dog-dick rendering of this classic tale. One can’t watch Macbeth without getting the sense that something is missing; some inspired element that gave Mr. Coen’s earlier work an aura of ebullient genius is absent this time. The wit, verve, and undeniable rugged machismo that characterized the other 18 films in which he happened to be involved are nowhere to be found here. Ultimately, one must conclude that what’s lacking is talent itself.

Consider the very decision to adapt Macbeth. The choice belies deep insecurity; Mr. Coen seems, on some level, to understand that he has the talent God gave a balloon full of piss, and therefore needs to latch onto more talented artists like a lamprey sucking the life out of a majestic blue whale. A less insecure director might have been satisfied with a less esteemed piece of intellectual property, but Mr. Coen glommed onto perhaps the best known play by the world’s most renowned playwright in a move that screams “HELP! THE NO TALENT POLICE ARE RIGHT AROUND THE CORNER! PLEASE, SOMEONE RESCUE ME BEFORE I’M EXPOSED AS A FRAUD WHO SOMEHOW FELL ASS-FIRST INTO A MOVIE CAREER!”

If the decision to take on Macbeth suggests that Mr. Coen is a sad wannabe flailing for credibility, the choice to film in black-and-white proves the case beyond any reasonable doubt. In a move that would get you kicked out Film 101 at the DeVry Institute of Mediocrity, Mr. Coen renders the Bard’s tale in black-and-white using a 4:3 aspect ratio, as if that alone makes you Akira fucking Kurosawa. Though black-and-white can occasionally be an inspired choice — 2001’s The Man Who Wasn’t There comes to mind — the only way in which this gambit might have been anything other than a desperately pretentious ploy is that it’s possible that Mr. Coen was simply too dumb to know that color film exists. Or, perhaps he thought “Hmm — Shakespeare’s old, black-and-white is old…I’ll film in black-and-white, just like they did back in Shakespeare times!”

Fucking moron.

Mr. Coen’s obvious hackery drags the actors down. Denzel Washington delivers a fiery performance, but it’s worth noting that Mr. Washington makes fun of Joel behind his back and says that he walks funny. One would think that Frances McDormand might deliver the performance of a lifetime, considering that she — much like Lady Macbeth — is married to a deceitful loser who can only get ahead by cheating (Joel Coen). And yet, McDormand is far from her best. She’s been excellent before; she was great in Fargo, outstanding in That One Where She Shits in a Bucket, and brilliant last Thanksgiving when we were playing Cranium and she and I got all the “Star Performer” ones, like, immediately. One can only assume that she was dragged down by the oppressive weight of being married to a man whom all the kids used to call “Soggy Bottom Joel” because of the time he got diarrhea on the monkey bars. 

If one looks closely, signs that this abomination was coming from Mr. Coen were there. Few hints can be found in his film work — some benevolent force was clearly papering over his incompetence — but anyone familiar with Mr. Coen’s long-established patterns of behavior could see that this was due. The Tragedy of Macbeth is the work of a fraud and a narcissist, a man who deceives others to serve his own needs. These habits don’t emerge, fully formed, in adults; they can be found in childhood. Early childhood. For example: September 1963, when I happen to know that Mr. Coen borrowed a Lite Brite that a family member just gotten for his birthday, and then fucking broke it, and blamed it on the dog. And he didn’t even get in trouble for it!

Consider what total bullshit that is. This family member had just gotten that Lite Brite. And I don’t mean “just got a month ago”, or “just got last week” — I mean literally just got earlier that day. The unnamed family member hadn’t even really gotten to play with it yet — he’d done one pattern (choo-choo train) during the day in the kitchen where it’s sunny, which barely even counts. He let Joel borrow the Lite Brite even though Joel never let him borrow his Frank Gifford Electric Football game, because Joel is a mean jerk. Then Joel broke the fucking Lite Brite and blamed it on Mandy, as if a King Charles Spaniel can put a hole in a Lite Brite exactly the size and shape of a human foot. Besides: I fucking heard you jump off the top bunk and go “OOWWW!”, and then you limped around all day like a total dork! I can’t believe Mom and Dad bought your story. Although, I guess I actually can, because you’re Little Mister Perfect who always gets his way.

In summary: Joel Coen’s The Tragedy of Macbeth is a bowl full of lizard jizz from history’s greatest sociopath. One wonders if a UN Resolution calling for the phrase “ART HOUSE HACK” to be forcibly tattooed on Mr. Coen’s forehead might be called for. Joel Coen has so thoroughly put his foot through this “piece of art” that it’s really more of a “piece of FART”, but this time, he can’t blame his fuckup on the dog.

My rating: 1/2 a smashed Lite Brite out of five

SEEING AS THE UNVACCINATED are precipitating the collapse of our medical infrastructure. And seeing as the unvaccinated are indirectly killing nearly a million innocent victims of curable acute illness and injury, by denying the access to essential medical services. And seeing as these folks are attacking hospitals and hospital workers, up to and including lawsuit, for not giving them what they want... We should just give them what they want. 

We need to build “Freedom Centers” basic palliative care tents, with large portable morgues for storage. next to conservative churches and operated by those churches who've committed themselves to filling heads and filling beds, with homicidal disinformation. We can help them stock all the Horse Paste (Ivermectin), Hydroxychloroquine, Urine, Zinc, and Vitamin C, they can hold, and push them stat unto the sick that flood the centers, making sure they get precisely what they've been demanding all along. 

Families can take care of their own, and we can support Doctors and Nurses who are also anti-vaxxers to work in these centers. We could even even subsidize these centers at say 25% - 35%, knowing that the reduced strain on our medical infrastructure, the increased availability of ICU beds, and the reduced spread of disease outside of these localized communities will pay for themselves nearly overnight. We want to keep these things around for ongoing health conspiracy whackloons, religious nutjobs, and political fringe wingnuts. 

A couple pandemics down the road, these folks should have all DARWINed themselves out of the genepool, and attained their FREEDOM to enter the fossil record. I feel bad. I have family, who would spend their last days there. I just need to know, they won't kill innocents because of their silliness.

— Marie Tobias 

APPLY FOR SHEARING SCHOOL AT UC HOPLAND RESEARCH AND EXTENSION CENTER

The UC Hopland Research and Extension Center (HREC) is accepting applications for its annual sheep shearing school, which will hold two courses in April. The week-long school will focus on immersive hands-on shearing training in a small group setting (8-12 students), with additional lecture and discussion time to consider the many elements surrounding sheep handling, husbandry, flock health, running a mobile shearing service, ethical shearing, grazing for fuel reduction and climate beneficial ranching practices.

Alumni from past classes frequently work with smaller sheep flocks for which it is not economical to employ traveling shearers, who are used to shearing flocks of hundreds or thousands of sheep. The numbers of small flocks are increasing across Mendocino County and the need for qualified shearers who are sympathetic to the needs of small producers is high. 

“One of my favorite things about sheep shearing school is the range of people who come together for such an intensive experience,” commented Hannah Bird, HREC community educator. “At the end of the week you always see such pride in their achievement, and the addition of a new skill which might be built upon as a small business”.

This course is very physically rigorous, requiring students to hold their bodies in uncomfortable positions for extended periods of time while shearing. Guidance will be given to reduce discomfort, but registrants should be aware of the physical nature of the class and come prepared to work hard. The class will also adhere to appropriate COVID safety measures, all participants are strongly encouraged to be fully vaccinated (including boosters).

Two separate courses will be offered April 10-16 and April 17-23, with up to 12 students per class. Registration will begin with an application process, priority will be given to those who intend to work in the sheep shearing world, either as producers or to provide services to producers. All further selections will be made by lottery. 

The full course cost is $980. Two full scholarships are available and flexible equity pricing options are also made possible due to the generous support of Fibershed and donors to the Hopland Scholars Fund. 

The deadline for applications is 5 p.m. on Sunday, Feb. 13 (PST). Successful applicants will be notified on Feb. 18. To apply for the UC Hopland Research and Extension Center sheep shearing school, visit https://bit.ly/applyshear22. 

JUDY GUMBO’S CULTURAL REVOLUTION

by Jonah Raskin

Reading Judy Gumbo’s fast-moving, action packed, thoughtful memoir, Yippie Girl (Three Rooms Press: $18) felt like meeting and getting to know a longtime friend and comrade all over again. Let me explain and please allow me to introduce myself. I have known Gumbo, aka Judith Clavir, aka Judy Albert since 1970 when I was a Yippie and running in some of the same circles in which she was running. In those days we were always running.

I have known three of her four husbands, including her present partner, Art Eckstein, a retired professor and the author of a book about the Weather Underground and the FBI which says in a scholarly way, “a plague on both your houses.” I also knew, very well, Gumbo’s second husband, Stew Albert, my consigliore, with whom I traveled to Algiers on a mission from Bernardine Dohrn who was then on the “FBI Ten Most Wanted List.” I was to tell Eldridge Cleaver not to trust Timothy Leary, a slippery fellow if ever there was one. It was Eldridge who gave Judy Clavir her moniker, Gumbo. She was the female version of Stew. Get it?

Eldridge over-reacted to my message and placed Leary under house arrest. Later, he sent Leary and his entourage to the Middle East to befriend the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), an expedition that turned into a fiasco. Years later, Leary and Cleaver both surrendered to the authorities and both named names they should not have named. Yes, they informed on former comrades and betrayed confidences. Leary snitched on his own lawyer, Michael Kennedy.

Betrayal is probably the last thing that Gumbo would ever do. The daughter of Canadian Communist Party members, she regards ratting as one of the most despicable acts a human can perform. She stops far short of ratting. She also chooses not to say things that might reveal some aspects of the Yippies and their friends in a less than flattering light. Or something illegal.

In the author’s note at the back of the book she writes, “of all the questions I faced writing Yippie Girl, I agonized most over how much information to disclose.” I know where off she speaks. I agonized over the same questions when I wrote and published in 1974, Out of the Whale, an autobiography, chose to omit or else disguise my connections to the Weather Underground. My FBI files report that agents purchased two copies of the book.

In the author note at the back of her book, Gumbo writes what I did not write: “I have a duty to history, but I feel even more strongly that I not betray the confidence of friends.”

I have been told that her decision not to betray confidences delayed the publication of this book and prevented it from going into print from a bigger and more prestigious press than Three Rooms who have done everything to make this book attractive and to bring it to the reading public.

Yippie Girl is not a perfect memoir of the Sixties. Probably there will never be such a thing. Yippie Girl leaves much unsaid. But it’s the best account in existence of what life was like for a woman in the theatrical, goofy, messianic world of the Yippie boys: Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, Phil Ochs, Paul Krassner, Stew Albert and others. There were Yippie females besides Gumbo including Anita Hoffman and Nancy Kurshan but they didn’t kiss and tell.

Yippie Girl is a fun read and a valuable political document, long overdue. It’s cause for celebration. Abbie and Jerry, those two sibling rivals, wrote their best selling Yippie books—Revolution for the Hell of It, Do It, Woodstock Nation and We are Everywhere—in the late 1960s and early 1970s when they were in the news and the stars of the circus they invented.

The Yippie females were there, playing key roles, though at the time they were rarely acknowledged. The culture at large, which the subculture sometimes mimicked, was so fixated on the male animal that females were overlooked, excluded and covered up, though they were allowed to appear as sex symbols.

Gender matters greatly. That’s clear from reading Yippie Girl, which adds enormously to the picture of the American counterculture that has already been depicted in books in bits and pieces.

In her memoir, Gumbo is both a participant and an observer, an insider and an outsider, an actor on the stage and a critic of her own performances. She takes herself back into the past and she also locates herself in the present day, which is far more cognizant of gender, ethnicity and class than ever before in recent history.

The original Yippies were aware of sexism and racism, but they were also creatures of the time and place in which they lived: racist, sexist America during the Vietnam War.

Gumbo and Stew Albert were, like many others in the movement and the counterculture, under the surveillance of the FBI. Agents kept tabs on me and my family, and on my friends, including Jennifer Dohrn, Bernardine’s younger sister; one agent, Mark Felt, the original Deep Throat, even removed Jennifer’s underwear from a dresser in her bedroom. Kinky.

Gumbo offers a passage from an FBI file about her that states “of the individuals connected with the anti-war movement… the subject… is considered to be the most vicious, then most anti-American, the most anti-establishment and the most dangerous to the internal security of the United States.” FBI agents made similar statements, no less false, misleading and libelous about many anti-war activists and radicals, including the members of the Beat Generation which Hoover described as one of the greatest threats to the U.S. along with the Communist Party, the Black Panthers and more.

Invasions of privacy and violations of civil rights by the FBI were rife. Lives were disrupted. Individuals were afraid of a knock on the door and an inhospitable visit. Still, I think Abbie and others were correct when they insisted that what Hoover wanted more than anything else was good press and ample funding to keep hundreds of men employed.

Apprehending criminals was secondary. Agents filed reports with information tailored to meet Hoover’s needs and wants. The FBI spread the rumor that I died in the explosion that demolished a New York townhouse in 1970 and led to the death of three members of the Weather Underground.

Still, in my experience it was relatively easy to out fox the flatfooted FBI. Watch enough movies about crime, criminals and cops and you learn how to change trains and buses and alter one’s appearance, too. Gumbo and Stew outsmarted the G-Men and caught them red-handed, bugging them. Someone put a device under their car.

But the phrase in the subtitle of this book, “defeating the FBI,” doesn’t sound right to me. Gumbo and Stew won a battle. The FBI won the war against the Left through COINTELPRO and the like. Gumbo includes passages from her FBI files, and while they can be illuminating, the documents that mean the most to me are from the letters she received from the man she initially calls “her lover” and later identifies as Do Xuan Oanh, a Vietnamese Communist and diplomat. He fraternized with her and she fraternized with him near the height of the “American War” as the Vietnamese have called it, to distinguish it from the War with the Japanese and the War with the French.

One might say that Gumbo and Xuan Oanh both slept with the enemy. The parts about their romance would make for a Hollywood thriller, along with the time when Gumbo and Stew defended the Weather Underground’s bombing of the US Capitol and said publicly and fearlessly, “We didn’t do it but we dug it.” That took balls or whatever it is that Amazon warriors possessed.

In 1995 when I traveled to Hanoi, I carried a message from Gumbo to Xuan Oanh. I also delivered a fifth of Johnny Walker which we sipped little by little over the course of an afternoon while talking about Vietnamese and American literature, including The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn which he translated.

In one chapter of her memoir, Gumbo offers Xuan Oanh’s criticisms of the Yippies and his suggestion that they ought to have been better organized and more serious and not aim to make a revolution for the hell of it.

Excuse me! The Yuppies were great because they weren’t SDS or the MOBE. They were freewheeling rebels. They have not been accorded their rightful recognition by historians of the 1960s. Not until now. Yippie Girl honors the Yippie past, even as it acknowledges the flaws of Yippie. I’m sorry that Stew, Abbie, Jerry, Phil, Paul, Anita and more aren’t around to read Gumbo’s book. But there are tons of survivors from the Sixties who have remained true more or less to their youthful selves and can and should read Gumbo’s honest to goodness account of her wild days as a Yippie girl, and a Yippie woman who became a Yippie wife, a Yippie mother (of Jessica Albert) and a devoted Yippie grandmother, too

You’ve done it all, Gumbo. After Yippie, you played a big part in that section of the 1970s women’s movement that opposed the American War. The cover photo on your book shows you with your sisters in the street, where all good revolutionaries belong at some time or other.

Gumbo, near the end of the book, you quote Stew who wrote with prescience, “Judy is so good she might cheat fate,/she might get justice, get what she deserves/get recognition/get appreciation.” I am not sure about the justice part. Justice is hard to come by in America now as ever before. Still, Gumbo has cheated Fate for decades. Hopefully, with her memoir she will receive the recognition and appreciation she rightfully deserves.

Jonah Raskin is the author of Beat Blues, San Francisco, 1955.

KILLINGS BY GUN VIOLENCE

Dear Editor,

Recently a trainee police officer was shot and killed driving his car home on a Bay Area freeway from one of his Alameda County Academy’s final training classes. 

While it appears we, as a state and nation, are making slow, steady progress in dealing with the Covid pandemic, when it comes to curbing deaths and injuries from gun violence, we are losing the battle. Whether one looks at “ARCHIVE Evidence Based Research since 2013” or the “CDC, the Center for Disease Control” the recent facts on gun violence are sadly staggering. 

ARCHIVE lists the total deaths from all causes of gun violence for this year so far on February 7, 2022 at 4,352. This includes homicides/murders of 1,844 and suicides of 2,308. It also includes 30 deaths of children. At this rate by Dec. 31, 2022 the US will have lost 52,224 persons. 

The CDC lists the current C alifornia death rate at 7 per 100,000 population. These deaths are preventable since everyone is accessible to calling 9-1-1. Why has Congress done nothing to date to help? 

Frank Baumgardner

Santa Rosa

THE MASKED SINGER JUMPED THE SHARK

Editor,

After six successful seasons of television entertainment on the foreign-owned Fox Network, the producers of the hit show “The Masked Singer” have taken the concept of “jumping the shark” to a whole ‘nother level by including (of all people) the soon-to-be indicted enemy of the people and star of the movie Borat 2, Rudy Giuliani in the show’s season seven cast.

The Masked Singer’s season seven premiere episode will not air until March 9th, in which right-wing Republican reprobate Rudy Giuliani is the first costumed singing contestant voted off the show by the studio audience and the panelists including Ken Jeong, Jenny McCarthy, Nicole Scherzinger, and Robin Thicke. Two of the panelists - Jeong and Thicke - reportedly walked off the set in protest of Giuliani’s performance.

The only TV show characters that should be unmasking an old, greedy, dishonest, crazy crook like Rudy Giuliani are Fred, Velma, Daphne, Shaggy and Scooby-Doo! (Rudy Giuliani is every bit as ridiculous and transparently guilty as your classic Scooby-Doo cartoon criminal, after all.)

And I thought half-term Alaska Governor and failed Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin’s previous appearance in a pink and blue bear suit in season three singing Sir Mix-A-Lot’s “Baby Got Back” accompanied by the show’s host Nick Cannon as her hype man was awful enough already, but “The Masked Singer” truly has “jumped the shark” with janky Giuliani’s inexplicable inclusion on the show. Perhaps Henry Winkler as Fonzie from Happy Days would be proud? Probably not. 

Just saying. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VLDER6GP30c

Sincerely,

Jake Pickering 

Arcata

THE LIGHT, THE LOVE, THE PEACE

Warmest spiritual greetings, 

Woke up this morning mentally repeating Catholic prayers. Hail Mary's are what was happening in the mind. This continued through the morning ablutions, and then afterwards had a chat with A.C. at the apartment in Garberville, California. I said that it is time for me to move on in the fullest sense, insofar as life on earth is concerned. I am essentially homeless, with $1300 in the bank plus food stamps. This is ridiculous, following 72 well lived years, and the past 50 years were committed to frontline peace and justice radical activism, which included 23 unpaid years with Catholic Worker. 

I have no idea where I am going in the immediate future. I am certain that I am NOT going to a sports bar for beer, whiskey shots, and all of the rest of the Super Bowl revelry. I quit drinking alcohol beverages recently in order to ease my mind and to get more firmly spiritually anchored. Also, am dropping the supplemental spiritual practices from other traditions because they have served their purpose.

Took a walk to the computer store and paid for an ACER DC jack to replace the faulty part. We discovered that the replacement DC jack does not fit the computer, and needs to be soldered to the mother board, which cannot be done by anybody nearby.

Meanwhile, this morning while walking along Redwood Drive saying Catholic prayers, I was conscious that Jesus Christ and the entire heavenly pantheon were right there with me. I could feel the holy family, the Paraclete, and the archangels all around me. The earlier sense of nervousness due to the usual uncertainty faded, replaced by a stable feeling of being at ease, and certainty.

This has been a very long time in coming. Aside from extraordinary experiences that spiritual practices confer, along with realizations, ordinarily I feel like I am living in the wrong world. Alone, detached from the constantly changing situations around me, and repulsed by the craziness and chaos reported by the news media, indeed, where is there to go but within? 

If this message resonates with you, please remain friends. I would like some company here on the planet earth, before going up, forever. Thank you very much. 

Craig Louis Stehr

Email: craiglouisstehr@gmail.com