Mendocino County Today: Monday, Feb. 14, 2022

Valentine Goodies | Cloudy Cool | Missing Hollie | House Protest | Solidarity | Free Lunch | Be Mein | Honeybee Heist | Bright Light | Cash Crop | Albion Wharf | Public Criticism | Canclini 93 | Ed Notes | Satchel Paige | Student Debt | Yesterday's Catch | Hotsky | Comfortably Numb | Garden Masterpiece | Disgusting PG&E | Straw Capes | Carpool Lane | DC Convoy | Staffing Crisis | Albion 1911 | Fultan Allen | Life Saver | Retired Philanthropy | Railway Ties | Pandemic Politics | Break Glass | Killing RFK | Quit Stalin

MAKE SURE TO PICK UP SOMETHING FOR YOUR VALENTINE AT AV MARKET TODAY!

All proceeds benefit the AVHS Floriculture students.

SPORADIC LIGHT RAIN AND DRIZZLE is expected today along the Humboldt and Del Norte coasts with cool, cloudy weather for the interior. But that's them, not us here in marvey Mendo. Gusty northerly winds will build in along the coast Tuesday and Wednesday. Cooler, moister conditions will gradually give way to warm, dry weather by Wednesday into the weekend. (NWS)

‘PATRIOTS’ BESEIGE DR. COREN

Demonstration organized by the Mendocino Patriots

by Justine Frederiksen

The group calling itself the Mendocino Patriots protested Mendocino County's Covid-19 health orders, which include keeping a mask mandate in place for at least another month, by gathering outside the Public Health Officer's home Sunday afternoon.

Before the protest began around 2 p.m. Feb. 13, Chief Executive Officer Carmel Angelo said Dr. Andy Coren was aware that the group planned to demonstrate outside his home, and that county officials had notified both the Ukiah Police Department and the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office.

“Dr. Coren is a big believer in everyone’s rights to their beliefs and to protest, and he did not request a response,” Angelo said. “He plans to spend the afternoon as he normally would on a Sunday afternoon, which is at home.”

Anne Molgaard, who was recently appointed the county’s Director of Public Health, said that “actually, Dr. Coren has been spending his Sunday afternoons working in the office with me, but we agreed he needed a week off. I tried to convince him to go to the coast for the day.”

Angelo said the group has protested outside Coren’s home in the past, but the latest event seemed different.

“I think the group has gotten larger and more organized,” she said. “Previously, about five or six people showed up and stood in the street for a couple of hours, then just left.”

Though there hadn’t been any major disruptions in the past outside Coren’s home, Angelo said she found it “egregious” that the group would choose to protest the county-imposed mandate outside an individual’s home.

“If you want to protest, protest outside the Public Health building, or outside the county administration building,” she said. “Dr. Coren is a fine individual, and he should not have this happening at his house.”

Late last year, the group began staging protests of the county’s mask mandate at local businesses such as Ukiah Natural Foods, Michaels and Black Oak, prompting several calls to the Ukiah Police Department due to reported disruption of commerce and other actions.

The protest began Sunday with at least a dozen people standing relatively quietly on the street directly in front of Dr. Coren’s house, many holding signs decrying mask and vaccine mandates. One sign read: “Love Thy Neighbor. Don’t fall for the ‘Divide’.”

At least one of Dr. Coren’s neighbors tried to persuade the group to protest elsewhere, but they remained.

On the Mendocino Patriots’ website, the protest is described as a “Rally at our PHO’s (Public Health Officer’s) house, and Dr. Coren is described as the person responsible “for our county orders/mandates. The Board of Supervisors should be voting on them, but they have decided to skip that step, and given Coren all the power. Our silence is prolonging the nightmare. We need everyone to stand TOGETHER and say enough!”

Dr. Coren reported Sunday that he had been outside gardening during most of the protest, which he described as beginning with about 15 people, and that by 4 p.m. the numbers had dwindled to about five.

“They’re mostly peaceful and they don’t bother me,” said Coren, explaining that while he both supports the group’s right to protest and understands how uncomfortable it can be to wear a mask, “I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t try and protect people with these health orders.” 

(Courtesy, the Ukiah Daily Journal)

FREE FOOD PHILO (formerly known as Love to Table) is distributing meals in town to those in need. We cook nourishing meals using produce from our farm and others, and would love to offer you a warm lunch on Monday Feb 14. This week’s menu: Meat & Mushroom Ragu over Polenta. If you could use a home cooked meal, or have a friend in mind who does, please reach out to Arline (415) 308-3575 call or text, who will head up distribution in town.

THEFT OF BEE COLONIES NEAR HOPLAND PART OF INDUSTRY TREND

by Colin Atagi

Millions of honeybees mysteriously vanished around the end of January from a Hopland property in Mendocino County. There was little indication, though, that the colonies just flew away and took their hives with them.

Sometime between colony inspections on Jan. 19 and Feb. 1, it became clear that Sonoma County-based Tauzer Apiaries, which owns the bees, had fallen victim to a thief or thieves who made off with 384 colonies.

By several accounts, the theft reflects a consistent burden members of the apiary industry face, especially during this time of year when bees are pollinating and in high demand by growers.

Around 600 hives were stolen across California last year and more than 800 have been taken so far this year, said Butte County Sheriff’s Deputy Rowdy Freeman who is not only a law enforcement liaison to the California State Beekeepers Association and president of the California Rural Crime Prevention Task Force, but also and a fellow beekeeper.

The average person may find honeybee thefts highly unusual, but those within the industry say this type of crime has been common for years. Often, they’re committed by other companies or at least people who know how to handle bees.

“It’s bad beekeepers stealing from good beekeepers,” Freeman said. “It’s all driven around the opportunity to make a lot of money fast.”

A Tauzer Apiaries employee discovered the Mendocino County theft on Feb. 1. But, one day later, the hundreds of hives were recovered after an anonymous tip led investigators to agricultural property two hours away in the Yolo County town of Brooks.

All but four of the hives, which house a single bee colony, survived.

"The bees were definitely damaged and traumatized in the process of the theft,“ said Claire Tauzer, the family-owned company’s director of brands and process improvement.

Mendocino County Sheriff’s Capt. Greg Van Patten said the Tauzer case is being investigated as a grand theft and the Yolo County Sheriff’s Office is participating in the investigation.

No suspects have been identified and investigators suspect the theft required large trucks or trailers to haul away the wooden boxes containing the hives.

“This is the first of at least this magnitude I’ve ever experienced,” Van Patten said of the theft.

Around two-thirds of the produce grown in California, including almonds, apples and citrus, depend on bee pollination, said Freeman, adding that while such thefts create an immediate hardship on beekeepers, they can have a significant impact on the agricultural industry.

According to the 2020 Sonoma County crop report, local apiary production value was $306,100 that year. That’s down from $564,600 in 2019 and $422,000 in 2018.

The dip is attributed to conditions from COVID-19 pandemic restrictions that affected farmers markets and reduced bee activity due to California’s drought and that year’s wildfires.

Beekeepers participate in various business practices, including honey sales and providing bees for other businesses.

A California Farm Bureau story from 2019 says California honey bees can produce approximately 40 pounds of honey per hive per year.

“Most of it is people’s livelihoods. It’s their business,” Freeman said. “When honeybees are stolen, it affects a lot more than the beekeeper.”

Tauzer estimated her theft involved anywhere from 40,000 to 60,000 bees per hive and that the total loss came to about $154,000.

During their recovery, however, investigators also found a Tauzer forklift that was stolen in January 2021 from property in Woodland.

“That was a cherry on top of things,” Tauzer said of her $50,000 forklift, which had been kept in storage.

Yolo County Sheriff’s Lt. Juan Ceja said a 40-year-old suspect was arrested on suspicion of possessing the stolen forklift.

Juan Manuel Vargas Ceja, who is not related to the lieutenant, could face additional charges pending further investigation, officials said.

While the health of the recovered bees was being evaluated last week, Tauzer remained hopeful that her company’s supply wouldn’t be in jeopardy.

The average bee lives 45 days, but the colony inside a hive is constantly replenished by a queen that lays 1,500 to 3,000 eggs per day.

“This is a big hit to our company, but luckily we’re diversified enough that this won’t put us out of business. But it’s very serious,” Tauzer said.

(pressdemocrat.com)

SOPHIA BATES (Sunday, Feb. 13, 2022): Anyone else see a brighter than a star light on the eastern horizon over Boonville early this morning? (I noticed at 5:30) 

It slowly got higher in the sky and I could still barely see it at 7:30am.

---

Ed Note: likely Venus theava.com/archives/177874#5

KIRK VODOPALS: Re: grapes and weed… One of the biggest differences in cultivation of those two crops is that grapes are a perennial that are planted directly into terra firma. Weed is annual that, until lately, fetched a high enough price to justify hauling in soil and amendments at very high prices. The whole weed terroir thing is a joke if you plant it in imported dirt and into pots. Probably 1% of outdoor weed growers actually operate like agriculturalists and plant directly into native soil. The rest are just playing the cash crop game, which seems to be collapsing. But insiders like LegalLettuce on kymkemp.com will say that the black market is thriving if you wanna do a lot of driving yourself. Hey honey, let’s take the kids on a road trip to Utah with 500 pounds in the car. Great idea. Others say that indoor is booming again. Anyone who claims the weed is an agricultural endeavor is high as a kite. Maybe the next wave of the weed economy will remind growers what it really means to be a farmer. But I doubt it. Most will bail when they see how much work it is.

HATE SPEECH?

To the Editor:

I wonder if any people who object to John McCowen’s critique of the public service of a public official on the grounds that it’s “hate speech” have considered this: if criticism is considered “hate speech,” then isn’t their accusation of McCowen also “hate speech,” directed at him? Accusing someone of hate speech is pretty … well …seriously hateful, don’t you think? Now, if they don’t like John’s critique of the public official, then they should — rightly — criticize his criticism, but not his person.

When a person accepts a position in public government — hired and paid, appointed, or elected — that person is accepting work supposedly in service of The People who they’re sworn to serve, and if they’re paid, it’s The People who pay them through taxes. Those officials are accepting that their job performance will be judged by The People who employ them. To my mind, unless someone criticizing the public official’s job performance in service Of The People strays into making personal attacks on the Public Servant (referring to their gender, religion, ethnicity, personal life, character, etc. in a disparaging way), it’s not called hate speech, it’s called Good Citizenship, or Participatory Democracy.

Without taking sides regarding John McCowen’s critical appraisal of Carmel Angelo’s job performance, I find no trace of his straying into such personally-directed hate speech. If we don’t speak up regarding Our Business, we’re not taking our citizenship seriously. If we’re just calling people names, or accusing them of hateful behavior, then we’re straying into questionable territory, in my opinion. And, we’re avoiding talking about the actual issues at hand by “making it personal.” It’s dangerous to confuse public criticism with personal attacks, thereby denying out of hand the validity of the arguments. It’s anti-democracy.

James (Jamie) Connerton

Ukiah

ED NOTES

IF THE DEMOCRATS had an issue other than Trump, they might be doing better in the national esteem. Thousands of media hours were devoted to Trump's alleged collusion with Russia which, as anybody blessed with the powers of minimal skepticism knew, was non-existent. 

JUST THIS WEEKEND Trump has accused Hillary Clinton's election campaign of “treason” because Special Counsel John Durham has confirmed that Team Clinton had tried to spy on his White House servers to find ties to Russia to smear him with, as if Trump's own daily behavior wasn't egregious enough. 

TEAM CLINTON'S election campaign paid money to a tech firm to “infiltrate” servers that were at Trump Tower, and later the White House. According to a filing from Special Counsel John Durham the aim was to try and smear Trump by linking him to Russia, which had been accused of meddling in the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election. None of it was true, and Trump emerges with another big boost from the Democrats. 

I'M SURE I'm not the only registered Democrat bombarded daily with nauseating messages asking me for money: 

“I'll be straight with you: 2022 isn’t going to be a walk in the park. If we lose just five seats in the House or one seat in the Senate, everything we’ve fought so hard for could be in jeopardy. A strong DNC is critical to building the nationwide party infrastructure we need to elect more Democrats and keep making meaningful progress for the American people. So, I have to ask: Will you renew your DNC membership with a gift of $10 today? When you pitch in, you’ll also reserve your very own Official 2022 DNC Membership Card to show just how committed you are to electing Democrats nationwide.”

AND THEN they ask me for ten bucks. Me, a member of the DNC? What an insult, and what sentient adult could possibly want a membership card? 

THIS ONE ARRIVED under the hed, “Will you be my Valentine?”

“Bruce, roses are red, violets are blue, we need your support in 2022. To show our appreciation this Valentine’s Day, we’re offering folks a free sticker. Because you’re a dedicated Democrat, I wanted you to be the first to get access to yours.”

SAN QUENTIN'S DEATH ROW - which once housed some of America's most infamous monsters, including Charles Manson - is being closed and, prison officials have announced in language consistent with the prevailing rhetorical euphemism, turned into a “positive, healing environment.” A lot of these boys will nevertheless remain isolated from the general prison population because they'd soon be killed if they were free to mingle with the other, less bad boys. An infamous chomo like Richard Allen Davis, who raped and murdered the 12-year-old Polly Klass wouldn't last long out in the yard. 

UNSURPRISINGLY, there's a Mendo angle in the shocking murder of Polly Klass. Davis, a Native American with a connection to the Coyote Valley reservation where he had been staying when the CHP arrested him for drunk driving near the rez just north of Ukiah. Davis was already on parole, and should have been held in the Mendocino County Jail from where he would have been shipped to San Quentin for parole violation. But he wasn't held because Mendo wasn't aware of his parole status, and a few days later he kidnapped Polly Klass and murdered her.

MIKE WILLIAMS WRITES: “Regarding the Super Bowl halftime show, compared to the 1994 show featuring country music headliners vs this year's show featuring several rappers. Seventy percent of NFL players are black, only one black head coach, zero black team owners.”

I SERIOUSLY DOUBT that anywhere near a majority of black people approve of either rap “music” or Snoop Dog. Ditto for NFL players. And us pale faces get Justin Beiber? The assumption seems to be that football fans are morons. I think it's insulting that the NFL assumes that this kind of alleged entertainment is what fans want. I don't know anyone who doesn't turn the half-time show off, or at least mutes it.

JAY WILLIAMSON WRITES: “As you approach your death, as one dying day slides into the next, as one brain cell after another becomes incorporated into amyloid, you rage against the presumed meaningless inevitable by adopting the latest shiny objects of cleansing and restorative ultravi fantasy, Feldmarschal Malm’s Army of Ecowarriors, who alone at this late date leap into the ranks of last ditch planet savers, who, fearlessly purified by baptisms of incontrovertible righteousness, will sacrifice themselves upon the altar of salvation through violence to save us all from the satanic killers of Life! It all must be true, because “smart” people think so. “Operation Planet Save,” your ass. I thought you had more sense than this, Mein Redaktor. When you sober up, write a column about what will actually happen when the demented eco-heros start smashing stuff up. Remember what Ken Kesey said to Tim Leary after the latter embraced political violence (“Dynamite is the White Light of the Void.”): “You’re just another nut with a gun.”

YEAH, coulda phrased it better, but I was only passing along notice of Malm's opinions about what's next in the environmental movement, that being the inevitability of “direct action” of the felonious type. If one assumes the earth is being murdered by capitalism, as I do, it's logical to stop both, wouldn't you agree, Mr. Williamson?

TOM BRADY PLAYED UNTIL HE WAS 44. Satchel Paige almost played at 60. September 25, 1965.

SENATOR BERNIE SANDERS: How does it happen that SoFI, a student loan re-financing company, could spend $625 million to put its name on the LA Rams football stadium when 45 million Americans are drowning in $1.8 trillion in student debt? Today would be a good day for the President to cancel student debt.

CATCH OF THE DAY, February 13, 2022

DAVID BORUP, Willits. Controlled substance & organic drug transportation & for sale, failure to appear.

GRANT BURNHAM, Ukiah. DUI.

TERRY COUNTERMAN, Fort Bragg. Saps&similar weapons, tear gas, criminal threats.

KIERSTIN FERNANDEZ, Garberville/Ukiah. DUI w/Blood-alcohol over 0.15%.

FORTUNATA IANNETTA, Ukiah. Grand theft of access cards (four or more), under influence, contempt of court.

ANTHONY KELLY, Willits. DUI.

ANTHONY LANCE, Calpella. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

JORGE MARTINEZ, Ukiah. Under influence.

NAOMI MENDEZ, Fort Bragg. Domestic battery.

AARON ORESCO, Redwood Valley. Vandalism, burglary tools, probation revocation.

DANNY ORESCO, Ukiah. Domestic battery.

JORGE RAMIREZ-VELAZQUEZ, Ukiah. Domestic battery.

JASON RINDAL, Mount Vernon, Washington/Ukiah. Battery on peace officer, resiting.

SHANNON SCOTT, Ukiah. Controlled substance.

SPENCER WILLIAMS, Clearlake/Ukiah. DUI.

MORE TOYS WOULD ONLY MAKE THINGS WORSE

by Tommy Wayne Kramer

Remember those bumper stickers years ago that read “He Who Dies With the Most Toys Wins”? It was a catchy, relatable sentiment that appealed to the acquisitive, competitive beast within us all, especially at a young(er) age.

Innocence, meaning naive and susceptible to social pressures, advertising and hormones, made the notion plausible. But today owning lots of shiny possessions, or being subject to the whims of fame or notoriety ought to repel any sensible soul. I’d truly rather be a phone booth in Cleveland than Mayor of San Francisco, even knowing the last phone booth in Cleveland was dragged away 20 years ago.

These days I look at life both forward and backward and see that my Toy Chest doth runneth over. There were times in the old days when I envied others, but I laid such idiocies to rest many years ago. I wouldn’t trade lives, places or experiences with anyone today, and I’m relieved God and the world didn’t allow me to make those kinds of mistakes 50 or 30 years ago.

The notion it would be cool or thrilling to be, say, Bill Gates now seems an invitation to madness. The Positive: You’d have enough money to pave California in hundred dollar bills six feet deep. The Negative: You’d spend five hours a day talking to accountants, lawyers, bankers and other criminals. Protecting your assets would be Job Number One in life, and also Jobs Two and Three. 

So what if Bill Gates owns nine planes and a hundred cars? He can only drive one at a time, and probably has a chauffeur so he can’t even do that. And he can only eat three meals a day no matter how expensive. Bill Gates can fly to Greece tomorrow? So can you.

Trade places with Mick Jagger? I’d jump off the Noyo Bridge first. The poor guy has sung ‘Satisfaction’ 63,000 times in his life and he’s got to sing it again tonight in some stadium in Brazil while prancing around stage shaking a 90-year old fanny tightly wrapped in yellow lycra. Is that something you’d be willing to do? 

Life as a Rolling Stone could not possibly be enjoyable beyond age 50, but accountants, bankers, lawyers and other criminals have the band members hemmed in, forced to keep touring so they can earn yet another 100 million superfluous dollars.

I might like pretending to be Joe Biden for a couple hours but I don’t think I’d be able to endure the lobotomy and electroshock treatments. 

No, I’m thrilled, if that’s the word, to be where I am and who I am, even if A) I’m in Ukiah, and B) Poor company. I’ve got a nice house or two, I’ve been married to the World’s Best Wife 25 years in a row, my kids are smarter, happier and better looking than me, and my very excellent dog still hasn’t died yet. Yeah I’ve had three heart attacks, but I don’t care so why should anyone?

Plus, being retired makes living in the midst of a pandemic really easy and almost relaxing; I might as well be quarantined for all the socializing I do, and self-isolation means no one notices when I start drinking in the afternoon. They just think I’m lazy, which is true, and which I also blame on being retired. 

Most retired guys around my age feel the same. Our lives have settled into warm, fuzzy, comfortable ruts where petty concerns and constant jousting seem pointless and rarely worth the effort. Launching a fancy endeavor at this stage of my life would be strained and faintly comical. 

Polls say old people are the most satisfied and least stressed in America, despite our splotchy skin, aching knees, dementia and, for some, three heart attacks. Of course those pollsters never interview dead people, the elderly homeless or all the sad souls locked away in nursing homes. 

But hey, if your house has heat and you’re not having cans of dog food for lunch, life can be pretty good even if you’re as old as Mick Jagger or as lazy as me. 

Our generation’s got nothing left to prove and we couldn’t prove it even if we did. (What? Huh?) So the caravan rolls on, the dogs keep barking.

We’ve only got a short time left (maybe just months) and there’s no point in fussing over complicated hairdos, color-coordinated wardrobes, nice lawns, standing in line for more than two minutes, or fashionable anything. 

I suppose we could worry about the future but we’ve been worrying about the future for half a century and look where it’s gotten us, and the world. 

Instead, count your toys and your blessings, smell the roses, go out to admire all that sunshine, and mix your first gin and tonic of 2022. Enjoy!

Your dementia probably won’t get much worse for a few more weeks.

(Just don’t grumble about everything like TWK does; frankly Tom Hine grows weary of his endless complaining about inflation, the high cost of Coors these days, youngsters with all those tattoos, lack of rain, Joe Biden, and this year’s Super Bowl halftime show.)

“MY GARDEN is my most beautiful masterpiece”

― Claude Monet

PG&E'S TREACHERY

Editor: 

In a 2015 report to Congress, the U.S. military said climate change was a growing threat to national security. Yet with massive California wildfires on a yearly scale never before seen, PG&E continues without change.

Once again, PG&E needs a quick profit influx to cover attorneys, fines, shareholder dividends, grid maintenance and subsidizing clients. Its lobbyists enlisted the California Public Utilities Commission and Gov. Gavin Newsom to tap solar owners to satisfy PG&E’s greed while crippling solar fabrication, installation and jobs. Done and done.

I’m disgusted at PG&E’s unwillingness to change. PG&E fought hard to kill California counties’ clean power initiatives.

Monopolies are not healthy, and this is not a zero-sum game. We can devise plans to increase solar installation and power walls with incentives available to homeowners, apartment building owners and businesses.

Defeating our increasingly warming climate means encouraging solar reliance and production. PG&E is not participating in good faith. Smaller grids must replace monolithic grids and archaic thinking as we create a healthier climate solution. We all deserve decent energy prices.

Other countries have done this. We can too.

Pamela Hom

Santa Rosa

CHILDREN WEARING STRAW CAPES on their way to a New Year's event in Niigata, Japan in 1956. 

SET FOR LAST STAGE OF NOVATO NARROWS WORK

Editor,

After waiting for years, drivers in vehicles on Highway 101 (aka the Novato Narrows) to Petaluma will see construction of the last link of about 6 miles from northern Novato to the Marin-Sonoma county line beginning soon.

Caltrans will open bids for this project on Tuesday. Caltrans allotted $90 million for the work and stipulated that the job be completed within 1,000 working days. When completed, the freeway will have a continuous carpool lane from the Golden Gate Bridge to Windsor.

I support the project and look forward to its completion.

George Juilly

Novato

THIS MEME has begun to circulate on rightwing websites.

ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

The reason that we are having all these issues with our hospitals is Staffing crisis. People want to get paid more, they follow the money. The rural hospitals and counties do not pay enough to hold staff. The root of our major crisis. Traveling out of County for well paying employment or quality healthcare that’s been going on forever. There are no doctors, look at how many empty former doctor’s offices and complexes there are in Mendocino County. Even the County employees are forced to go to Sonoma for health care because no one takes their County Insurance, or practices are full, no more new patients being accepted. Way more to it than they care to admit.

KEEP ON TRUCKIN’ MAMA!

Today in Music History -- On today’s date 81 years ago, Thursday, the Ides of February (February 13), 1941, legendary African-American Blues guitarist & vocalist Fultan Allen (1907-1941), better-known as “Blind Boy” Fuller, met his untimely earthly demise at the age of 33 when he died from the effects of septicemia at the town of Durham in Durham County, North Carolina.

Rest In Peace, Blind Boy Fuller.

As a boy, Fuller learned to play the guitar & also learned from older singers the Field Hollers, Country Rags, & traditional songs & Blues Music that were popular in poor, rural areas.

Allen began to lose his eyesight in his mid-teens, & by 1928 he was totally blind. After losing his sight, he turned to whatever employment he could find as a singer & entertainer, often playing in the streets. By studying the records of Country Blues players like Blind Blake (1896-1934) & the “live” playing of Blind Gary Davis (1896-1972), Allen became a formidable finger-picking-style guitarist, playing a National resonator guitar. He developed a local following of Blues guitarists, including Floyd “Dipper Boy” Council (1911-1976), who along with Pinkney “Pink” Anderson (1900-1974) is one of the two namesakes of the progressive English Rock band The Pink Floyd.

In 1935, Allen secured a recording session with the American Recording Company. He recorded several tracks in New York City, including the traditional “Rag, Mama, Rag.” It was during this time that Allen adopted his moniker “Blind Boy Fuller.” Over the next five years, Blind Boy Fuller recorded over 120 sides, & his recordings appeared on several different labels. His style of singing was rough & direct, & his lyrics were explicit & uninhibited as he drew from every aspect of his experience as an underprivileged, blind Black man on the streets -- pawn shops, jailhouses, sickness, & death -- with an honesty that lacked sentimentality.

Fuller’s repertoire included a number of popular double-entendre “Hokum” songs such as I Want Some Of Your Pie, Truckin’ My Blues Away -- the origin of the popular catchphrase Keep on Truckin’, & Get Your Yas Yas Out -- later adapted as the title of the Rolling Stones album Get Your Ya-Yas Out.

In 2004, The Blues Foundation in Memphis, Tennessee posthumously inducted Blind Boy Fuller into the Blues Hall of Fame.

STEPHEN ROSENTHAL:

I’m grateful to have Social Security and Medicare, but… There’s always a but, isn’t there?

…But I resent having to pay taxes on my Social Security income after paying into the program for my entire working life.

…But I deeply resent ever-increasing Medicare premiums being deducted from my Social Security despite paying into the program for my entire working life.

…But I resent having to pay for expensive Medicare supplemental insurance to partially cover what Medicare doesn’t in the event of a serious illness.

So I’ve already “donated” more than a third of my income into these programs and will continue to do so for the remainder of my life. Guess that makes me a philanthropist.

THE BUCK DOESN’T STOP HERE

by Jim Shields

Well, well, well, California will end its indoor masking requirement for vaccinated people next week but masks will still be mandated for schoolchildren, state health officials announced Monday, Feb. 2, due to dramatically falling coronavirus cases.

California has seen a 65% drop in case rates since the peak during the wintertime Omicron surge, according to the California Department of Public Health (CDPH).

After Feb. 15, according to a Q&A-formatted statement issued by CDPH, unvaccinated people still will be required to be masked indoors, and everyone — vaccinated or not — will have to wear masks in higher-risk areas like public transit and nursing homes and other congregate living facilities, officials said. County Public Health Department are allowed to continue their own indoor masking requirements. Already it appears most counties in the state, including all in the Bay Area (with the exception of Santa Clara), have indicated they will end local masking rules in accordance with the new state policy. Los Angeles County’s health officials said they intend to keep theirs in place beyond the state deadline. It plans to keep indoor mask requirements in place until the county has two straight weeks at or below a “moderate” rate of 50 new cases per 100,000 people and there aren’t any reports of a new variant on the loose.

Gov. Gavin Newsom, brought back the masking mandate in mid-December as Omicron gained momentum and last month extended the requirement through Feb. 15. California passed 80,000 pandemic deaths and 8 million confirmed positive cases last week but new cases, hospitalizations and ICU admissions have all continued trending downward and, as projected by Dr. Anthony Fauci, all things Pandemica are expected to decline at a rapid clip.

Before resuming the masking requirement in December, California had lifted the requirement for people who were vaccinated as of June 15, a date that Newsom had described then as the state’s grand reopening. However, many counties soon reinstituted local mask orders as the summer delta surge took hold.

Newsom, a Democrat, has been beaten like a piñata by Republicans, anti-maskers, anti-vaxers, anti-government-has-no-right-to-infringe-on-my-constitutional-freedoms, and other assorted critics to terminate the mandates. He repeatedly argues the state is planning for the day when the Pandemic can be considered an “Endemic,” with rules and regs that reflect the reality it is here to stay but can be handled reasonably and cautiously.

I don’t dispute his argument or logic, but why doesn’t he reveal what his “Endemic Plan” is, so everyone can have the opportunity evaluate it.

Instead Newsom has passed the buck to California’s 58 counties and told them to figure it out.

This is the kind of problem — after all it is called a Pandemic for a reason — that calls for a unified, cohesive, internally consistent solution. Is it really a good idea to have 58 counties deciding whether or not they’re going to have one set of rules or another, or maybe no rules at all.

Is Omicron or COVID-19 going to stop spreading because of a boundary line separating one county from another?

It’s clear Newsom’s kitchen is too warm for him because of Pandemic politics.

Well, the heat in that kitchen is what he signed up for when he was elected governor.

President Harry Truman had a sign on his desk with “The buck stops here” inscribed on it.

Truman said it meant that he didn’t pass the buck to anyone else but accepted personal responsibility for the way the country was governed, and it is a promise that responsibility will not be passed on to anyone else.

Newsom should check that sign out.

(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.)

‘HEROES AND PATRIOTS,’ a program about national security, intelligence and foreign policy, recently uploaded its February 3, 2022, program on YouTube: https://youtu.be/n2BGl7O5isU

In addition, John Sakowicz and Mary Massey, co-hosts, wish to share the link from guest Denise Bodhan to her website: justiceforrfk.com

Also appearing on the one-hour program was Lisa Pease, author, “A Lie to Big to Fail”: https://www.justiceforrfk.com/media/kmud.mp3

Both Lisa and Denise have spent many years investigating the cold-blooded murder of Robert Kennedy, the only sitting U.S Attorney General to be killed in U.S. history.

In January 2022, Governor Gavin Newsome denied parole for Sirhan B Sirhan, who is now believed to have been the fall guy after being a part of the CIA's mind control program MK-ULTRA.

The distraction that Sirhan created gave Thane Eugene Cesear, a CIA operative, the opportunity to shoot Kennedy in the head, just directly BEHIND the right ear. 

This was the fatal bullet that killed RFK when it entered his brain. Sirhan, by all eyewitness accounts, was almost three feet in FRONT of RFK at the time of the shooting.

Following RFK's death, great efforts were made to destroy evidence, intimidate eyewitnesses, lose autopsy photos, break the chain of custody of evidence, and otherwise obstruct justice.

In January, Sirhan was not given an evidentiary hearing during his appeal of Newsome's parole denial, even though by law, Sirhan was entitled to one.