Mendocino County Today: Sunday, Feb. 20, 2022

North Winds | Albion Fatality | Angelo Interview | Pet Denny | Joanne Frazer | Mendo Church | Forest Battle | Philo Apples | Ed Notes | Disco Ranch | Yesterday's Catch | Long Walk | No Debt | Working Stiff | SF Muralists | Exceptionally Deluded | Father Finnian | Divestment Bill | Beached Logs | NATO Expansion | Strung Up | Marco Radio | Albion Mill

BRISK NORTHERLY WINDS will increase today, accompanied by cooler high temperatures inland, and a mix of sun and clouds. Low pressure tracking southward along the coast Monday and Tuesday will bring continued chilly and unsettled weather, with showers and some mountain snow. (NWS)

ALBION FATALITY Yesterday Afternoon

CEO ANGELO DEPARTS: ‘I DID WHAT IT TAKES’

by Mike Geniella

Carmel Angelo shrugs off a chorus of criticism as she nears her final day as CEO of the County of Mendocino, the region’s largest employer.

“The day will come when the political frenzy dies down, and my accomplishments over the last 15 years as a county executive will be seen fairly,” said Angelo.

During a two-hour interview this week, Angelo’s reactions ran the gamut. Her responses were quick, and often witty. She frequently flashed her trademark smile, but the look in her eyes was sometimes piercing. The eyes hint at the toughness Angelo is known for behind closed doors.

Angelo, 65, is the county’s first woman chief executive. She believes some criticism directed at her stems from gender bias.

“Honestly, would a man be so forcefully described as vengeful, power hungry, or vindicative?” asked Angelo.

Angelo brushes aside critics’ complaints. She most recently was described by a local columnist in print as a ‘tough old broad.’

“What can I say? I know my job, and I do what it takes to get things done,” she said.

During her tenure, Angelo forged a strong central administration that she fears may be dismantled after her departure. “You can’t run an organization this large based on political changes every four years. The Executive Office has to be strong to be effective.”

Angelo said debate over whether the county Board of Supervisors should continue with a CEO type position or revert to what is often seen as a less powerful chief administrative officer (CAO) position is irrelevant.

“It takes three county supervisor votes to get anything done no matter what the title is. People seem to forget that the real power rests with the Board of Supervisors, as it should,” said Angelo.

Angelo said the fact that she has won statewide awards in recognition of her work on behalf of a small rural county eases the brunt of local criticism directed at her.

“I have always had the best interests of Mendocino County at heart, and I am grateful that is recognized beyond our borders.” 

Angelo acknowledges there have been failures, led by the county’s inability to produce a satisfactory regulatory plan for the local cannabis industry. 

“We missed the opportunity to become a statewide model,” said Angelo about a county with a long history of marijuana cultivation. 

“There are people who did not want county government to embrace legalization of marijuana, but the fact is cannabis has been part of our economy for decades. Car dealers, hardware stores, and restaurant owners certainly know that.”

Other issues that have challenged Angelo were a series of wildfires that wreaked havoc in local communities, a disputed consolidation of two key county departments, a tug-of-war with new county Sheriff Matt Kendall, and the fallout from a pandemic that disrupted daily county operations.

“Covid restrictions have prevented the current Board of Supervisors from being regularly engaged with county personnel at all levels,” said Angelo.

Angelo scoffs at the notion that she uses the pandemic to seal off staff communication with board members as part of a “power play” by her Executive Office.

“That is just not true. It does not work that way, and never has. People know how to get through to supervisors and administrators if they really want,” said Angelo.

As she prepares to step down, Angelo said she is especially satisfied that the county, facing near bankruptcy in 2010, is today on firm financial footing with $20 million in reserves in face of an annual operating budget of $340 million.

“I leave knowing the situation today is much healthier than when I was appointed CEO in 2010,” said Angelo.

Angelo, an Ohio native and nurse by profession, arrived in Mendocino County from San Diego in 2007 when she was hired to become director of Health and Human Services. Two years later, Angelo became Assistant CEO and then in 2010 was appointed to the top post by the then Board of Supervisors.

Angelo’s first act in face of a looming fiscal crisis was to impose austerity measures on county staff and reduce the then payroll of 1,400 employees. She mandated 10 percent salary cut for workers, and personally reduced her salary by 20 percent at the same time. The pay cuts eventually were restored, and salary increases under employee union contracts eventually returned. Today Angelo’s salary and benefits package totals $329,734 annually, according to TransparentCalifornia.com.

Angelo cites her budgetary successes, but she readily concedes there are lingering unresolved high profile management issues. 

Topping that list is the uncertain fate of a local cannabis industry that “We had hoped would be a significant new source of tax revenue,” said Angelo.

Angelo said it is a big disappointment that “We couldn’t find a regulatory path forward, and now everyone is hurting.”

Angelo said it is now painfully clear that county leadership including the Board of Supervisors missed an opportunity for Mendocino County to have become a model statewide after cannabis was legalized.

Instead, Angelo acknowledges that a county where marijuana has been an underground economic engine for decades ended up with a regulatory “debacle” on its hands. 

“We failed to seize the moment and even after months of review and debate we still couldn’t figure out how best to grow our own local industry. We will be paying a big price for this failure for some time.” 

Angelo believes the county’s failed attempts to forge a workable program is the result of trying to appease competing interests.

“We looked to our agricultural department when the regulatory oversight probably should have been under county planning guidelines. We wanted to bring in small local growers, but we also needed to encourage a processing industry, and make it possible for both to co-exist,” said Angelo.

Angelo said only three board members were involved at the critical juncture.

Former county Supervisor Dan Hamburg recused himself from the process because of his family’s involvement in marijuana cultivation. There also was a board vacancy in the Third District at the same time.

Angelo said Hamburg’s role was missed.

“Supervisor Hamburg understood public policy and the cannabis industry. His absence with the development of the cannabis ordinance is still evidenced by the multiple ongoing attempts to make a failing industry survive in an environment riddled with too many regulations.”

Angelo’s tenure, however, has involved grappling with more than failed marijuana initiatives.

Newly named Sheriff Matt Kendall clashed with Angelo over his personal demand for private legal representation he claimed he needed in a tug of war over his department’s internal communication system. 

Kendall’s refusal to allow a county audit of his department’s operations was the final straw.

Angelo said 10 years ago retired Sheriff Tom Allman agreed to such an audit, and “it ended up supporting his contention that the department had a serious shortage of deputies.”

“Why won’t the current sheriff allow an outside look into the department’s operation,” asks Angelo.

Then there is the high profile falling out with former Supervisor John McCowen, once one of Angelo’s biggest political allies. 

“I feel like I have gone through a divorce,” said Angelo about their public spat.

Angelo credits District Attorney David Eyster for helping to ease tensions between her and McCowen and end a standoff over his access to office files. “David listened to both of us, and he helped John and I find our way out.”

While McCowen continues to publicly denounce Angelo for her “power plays,” the departing CEO praises him, and former Superior Carre Brown’s “constant teamwork to do what is best for our community.”

Angelo also singles out former county Supervisors John Pinches, and Michael Delbar for their honesty and dedication. “There was never any doubt where they stood on the issues,” she said.

Angelo also cites retired Sheriff Tom Allman and his advocacy for Measure B, a sweeping taxpayer funded mental health program that was passed by a two-thirds majority.

Measure B plans stalled, and the main thrust of providing law enforcement assistance in handling cases involving mental health issues have yet to be fully implemented but Angelo said, “I am confident we will get there.”

Angelo said her record will stand the test of time.

“Mistakes were made but I am leaving with the satisfaction I have done a decent job for the people of Mendocino County.” 

Angelo said she will spend her final month on the job helping interim county CEO Darcie Antle transition into the position.

She is relocating to be with family in San Diego but will be in and out of town through July while she finishes, including the sale of her Ukiah house.

“No, I don’t live in Marin, or have a plane that flies me to San Diego and back,” quipped Angelo.

“As a matter of fact, since 2010 I have lived in a blue-collar neighborhood at the south end of town where few people know or care that I am the county’s CEO.”

Angelo is confident history will give her high marks.

“I have always had Mendocino County’s best interests at heart, and whatever I do in the future and wherever I am, I will have memories of living in this rural community with me. For that I am grateful,” said Angelo.

FORT BRAGG SHELTER PET OF THE WEEK 

Delightful Denny is a guest at the Mendocino County Fort Bragg Animal Shelter. He's a long-stay dog who got to spend time at the wonderful CASA de LAURA. Laura told us lots about Denny's visit, and you can read about him on his personal webpage here: http://www.mendoanimalshelter.com/available-in-ft-bragg/denny

Denny is 2 years old and a svelte and athletic 54 pounds.

While you’re visiting Denny, check out both shelters' canine and feline guests, services, programs, events, and updates: mendoanimalshelter.comFor adoption information at the Ft. Bragg Shelter, call 707-961-2491

JOANNE MARY FRAZER

Joanne Mary Frazer passed away peacefully in her family home Monday morning, February 7th, 2022.

Born on November 24th, 1952, she spent virtually her entire life living in and giving back to the local Fort Bragg community. Her parents, Thomas David Cooney and Mary Lucia Cooney, raised her to love this town and its people as they had, both being known and respected in their own realms. She is survived by her older brother, Thomas D. Cooney, and younger sister, Cathy M. Grisdale, who always loved and supported her. In 1972 her father passed away, and she helped to take over Cooney's Sporting Goods, the family store. However, a lifelong wanderlust led her to buy and maintain a new business, Fort Bragg Travel. This allowed her to follow her passion, travel the globe, and help countless others do the same.

For over 30 years she worked tirelessly to help everyone she could to explore the world, and make their fantasies real. She was a vibrant woman, full of life and love. She had a passion for dance, whether ballroom or tango that never left her. She even cultivated an organic farm for many years on the family property, helping new life and possibilities bloom. Together with her former husband, Noel C. Frazer, she raised two children, Scott T. Frazer and Juliana M. Frazer. She was a devoted mother, always willing to help, listen, or give advice in any way she could. Through all this she continued to give back to the community and volunteer through volunteer through Soroptimist International. She was a strong feminist, always willing to help out struggling women everywhere. As such, in lieu of flowers please feel free to give any donation to Soroptimist International of Fort Bragg via paypal.

There will be an outdoor Celebration of Life ceremony this Saturday, February 12th, at 2 p.m. for family, friends, and anyone who wishes to pay their respects at 401 N Harbor Drive in Fort Bragg.

A WAR TO HALT LOGGING IN NORTHERN CALIFORNIA REIGNITES. Will It End Differently This Time?

by Lila Seidman

Michael Hunter slammed a mallet onto a hand-held drum, the beats ringing out in rapid succession.

Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam! “The drum is always loud enough it seems like,” he said, “where people rally around the drum.”

Hunter is tribal chairman of the Coyote Valley Band of Pomo Indians, and on this sunny Sunday, dozens of people clamored around him in the parking lot of Jug Handle State Natural Reserve. Across Highway 1, nearly 50,000 acres of stately redwoods rose like a chorus of elders: Jackson Demonstration State Forest, the Pomo people’s ancestral land.

Hunter was kicking off a series of demonstrations here along the Mendocino Coast to protest the redwoods’ destruction from state-sponsored logging and research.

The Jan. 23 gathering was the latest rallying cry in a decades-long war over Jackson’s trees, a battle that has pitted environmental activists against state and timber industry leaders. At the heart of the dispute are differing opinions about the best use of public land and who should steward the precious resource.

Those who oppose logging call it a greed-fueled operation that runs contrary to climate goals. Supporters see it as pragmatic management of a renewable resource.

Now, Native American tribes indigenous to the area have joined the fray, demanding a say in the fate of their ancestral homeland. And state officials are listening.

The renewed debate playing out behind the so-called redwood curtain could deliver the first agreement with Indigenous tribes to co-manage a state demonstration forest, according to officials at the California Natural Resources Agency.

It’s a historic path supported by stakeholders on both sides. But there’s a wrench in the works: State and tribal leaders don’t see eye to eye on important aspects of Jackson’s future. It’s not yet clear how the chasm between their visions will be reconciled.

“Those redwoods are our relatives,” Hunter said. “When they’re cut, it’s painful.”

The timber industry casts a long shadow in Mendocino County. Though dozens of mills have closed over the decades, trucks still hurtle down Highway 20 carrying stacks of hulking redwoods, easy to distinguish by their crimson heartwood. Many here know someone in the timber industry, or have worked in it themselves.

Jackson is the largest of the state’s nine demonstration forests, living laboratories for scientific study. It’s managed by the California Department of Forestry and Fire Prevention, or Cal Fire, one of 26 departments, conservancies and commissions overseen by the California Natural Resources Agency.

Cal Fire officials create Timber Harvest Plans, commercial logging sites that are put up for sale at several demonstration forests, including Jackson. A sawmill might purchase a plan, or part of one, and then hire a licensed timber operator to fell the trees.

Kevin Conway, Cal Fire‘s state forests program manager, said harvests are an important tool to improve forest health and reduce fire risk. Among other things, he said, strategically removing trees can promote growth by controlling forest density and reducing competition for light, water and nutrients.

Most years, they also bring in money — nearly $8.5 million annually, a majority from Jackson — which funds operations at the demonstration forests.

But on Jan. 19, Cal Fire announced that there would be no additional timber sales in Jackson during 2022.

Some loggers bemoaned the decision. Protesters who call themselves “forest defenders” take credit for the stoppage.

About 10 months earlier, the protesters had embarked on a David-and-Goliath-scale battle to stop commercial logging in the forest. They erected tree sits, used their bodies to shield redwoods from logging equipment and amplified their cause on social media. Several were arrested. One was hit by a car but managed to walk away.

Those rallying to halt logging at Jackson argue that the threat of climate change is of top importance. Cutting swaths of enormous, carbon-sequestering trees, they say, isn’t conducive to an environmentally sound future.

Logging was halted in some areas amid the protests. It was deemed too dangerous to have people running around as chainsaws whirred and behemoth trees toppled.

It’s not the first time tensions have boiled over. A series of lawsuits halted logging in the forest from 2001 to 2009. Judi Bari, a legendary environmental activist, led Earth First! campaigns against logging in the region in the 1980s and 1990s.

Myles Anderson, co-owner of a logging company in Fort Bragg, Calif., blames state officials for siding with demonstrators in the latest uprising. He defends logging operations and criticizes the recent tactics used to stop it. Protesters, he said, put themselves and loggers in danger in an effort to stop a legal enterprise.

“No one wakes up in the morning and says, ‘I want to fell a tree and squish someone,’” Anderson said. “It’s their biggest fear.”

Timber business leaders view activists’ tactics not only as life-threatening and illegal but economically harmful. The latest anti-logging movement can seem like watching a rerun of the same old movie. But some see the tribes’ emerging role as a game changer, potentially offering a new ending to an oft-repeated tale.

Linda Perkins, 81, initially resisted getting involved with the recent protests at Jackson. She first took on the timber industry in the early 1990s as part of Bari’s campaign, known as the Albion Uprising. She’s been around long enough to see all kinds of approaches fail.

“This is different,” she said during a recent demonstration near a logging site off Highway 20, which winds through Jackson Demonstration State Forest. “We’re going to succeed this time.”

Success, Perkins said, is however the Pomo define it.

Amid the protests, the Coyote Valley Band of Pomo Indians stepped up to initiate government-to-government consultations with the state. Then-Gov. Jerry Brown outlined tribes’ right to the high-level talks in policy matters that affect their communities in a 2011 executive order.

Gov. Gavin Newsom has since built on Brown’s order. In September 2020, he issued a policy statement encouraging all state entities “to seek opportunities to support California tribes’ co-management of and access to” state-owned lands within the tribes’ ancestral territory.

Newsom acted, he wrote, “in the spirit of truth and healing in recognition of past harms” done to the tribes.

Tribes, in effect, have access to a seat at the table. “We have leverage,” said Polly Girvin, an advocate for the tribe.

Talks are underway with local tribes to formalize their role in managing Jackson, and agreements could be realized “in months, not years,” said Wade Crowfoot, secretary of the state’s Natural Resources Agency.

Protecting cultural and historic resources is of top importance, but what co-management would look like in practice is still taking shape.

Genevieve E.B. Thompson, the agency’s assistant secretary for tribal affairs, is “working with sleeves rolled up” to determine what’s important to various tribes, Crowfoot said. It could entail implementing tribal methods of prescribed fire and allowing access for cultural practices such as acorn harvesting.

But the Coyote Valley Band of Pomo Indians is pushing for bigger change.

Girvin said they envision a future for the forest based on conservation. Trees wouldn’t be cut. Studies carried out would be in service of healing the forest. Nothing would be done for profit.

“We don’t put a value on our relatives,” she said. “We wouldn’t want to put a price value on your mom or something.”

The tribe has experience with forest management. Priscella Hunter, the tribe’s former chairwoman, heads an intertribal council that manages more than 4,000 acres of land on the North Coast. Save the Redwoods League recently transferred more than 500 acres along the dramatic Lost Coast to the InterTribal Sinkyone Wilderness Council.

Tribal co-management is an emerging concept, and it’s never been implemented in one of California’s demonstration forests.

Matt Simmons, an attorney for the Environmental Protection Information Center, described it as “a sort of a brave new world of possibilities.” The center, based in Arcata, Calif., is part of the coalition pushing to stop logging at Jackson.

Simmons said some agreements have worked better than others. And there’s often pushback from those who don’t want to cede control.

It’s “still in its early phases,” Simmons said, “but it’s really hopeful, and I think, for a lot of people, it’s sort of the moral obligation for these lands.”

(Courtesy, the Los Angeles Times)

ANDERSON VALLEY EPHEMERA, FROM EBAY (via Marshall Newman) an apple box label

ED NOTES

IT'S AN UNFUNNY joke, certainly, to the families of the missing, but the joke is that if all the murdered people buried in their unquiet graves deep in the hills of the Emerald Triangle raised up and began walking south on 101 they'd stretch from Eureka to the Golden Gate Bridge. 

MOST of these lonely dead — the contemporary dead — began to be murdered when marijuana became worth killing for, but if you include 19th century outlaws and Indians, the body count runs into multiples of a thousand. Mendocino County was a literal free fire zone from the early 19th century until 1880 or so. Humboldt and Lake counties, too. And, to some extent, the vast Triangle remains an area where bad people do bad things.

CHRIS GIAUQUE was 36 when he disappeared in 2003. He'd accumulated money and land growing and selling marijuana. He'd been married for two weeks when he went missing. Her new husband's sudden absence was reported by his bride to the HumCo Sheriff's at the Sheriff's Garberville sub-station. She made the report accompanied by longtime Southern Humboldt attorney Ron Sinoway and a fellow named Ben Lomax, the last person, other than his killer or killers, to see Chris Giauque alive.

THE PRESUMABLY GRIEVING bride spoke once to her father-in-law. The second time he called she said that on the advice of her attorney she would not speak to him again. The widowed Mrs. Giauque was duly awarded the couple's property. 

LOMAX has stuck to his initial statement that he saw Chris at a place on Spy Rock and then never saw him again.

WE ALL HEAR that fatuous term, “closure” applied to the families of victims. “We're just looking for closure,” they say, not insincerely but because closure is the term these days for wanting to know what happened to the murdered loved one. But there's never closure. Grief is unending and families grieve forever, among them Chris Giuaque's father.

ROBERT ‘BOB’ GIAUQUE is an old man pushing 80. He devotes all the time he has left trying to find out who disappeared his son. He stopped in the other day, brought us some apples and talked about his unending quest for his son. He's convinced he knows who murdered his son, but knowing who did it and proving who did it have stymied law enforcement and everyone else who's tried to find out.

THIS ANONYMOUS on-line comment sums up what likely happened to the missing man and many other people who've disappeared in the Emerald Triangle:

“Chris got out of jail and went to Island Mountain [Spyrock] to check on his mega diesel grows. Chris would put properties in other partner's names, once he got out of jail he went to collect his share of a 400 light mega indoor grow that was operating for over a year while he was in jail. The operators of this farm simply killed him instead of paying him what was owed. Chris’s light blue Toyota Tacoma was taken back thru Dyerville Loop Road and dumped on the Avenue [of the Giants] to make it look like the crime occurred near his Salmon Creek properties. People already know what happened to this guy, but there is no evidence to arrest the people he was working with.”

TODD LANDS, mayor of Cloverdale, recently distinguished himself by running down out of the stands at his daughter's basketball game to threaten a referee, “I'll see you out in the parking lot.” Lands was apparently worried that his daughter would be injured as Cloverdale was being handily drubbed by visitors from Middletown. High school refs take a lot of abuse, and it is now common for parents to heap abuse and even threaten high school kids picking up a few bucks refereeing little kid ball games. My granddaughter, age 8, plays in a softball league where the parent of a hulking child whose age was challenged by the coach of an opposing team. Dad's answer? He knocked the opposing coach out.

DISCO RANCH IS NOR-CAL’S ONE-STOP-SHOP FOR AFFORDABLE LOCAL WINE GEMS

by Kim Westerman

Wendy Lamer is the most unpretentious wine genius you’ll ever meet. Don’t let her casual nature fool you: She knows all the stories about each wine on her shelves — what soil it grew in, who made it, and what you should cook to eat with it. Her roadside shop on Highway 128 in Boonville, Disco Ranch, is the heartbeat of this tiny community of artisans, craftspeople, and creatives of all types, who are equal parts native and urban self-exiles. There is more seriously good food in the five miles between Boonville and Philo (to the north) — The Boonville Hotel, The Bewildered Pig, Wickson, and Redwood Drive-In — than most towns 10 times the size can brag about. The area feels like a glam hippie spot (Philo used to house a famous lesbian commune) or maybe Sonoma before it got so fancy. Let’s just say it’s the anti-corporate balm we all need right now, whether we know it or not. There’s even a groovy cannabis dispensary, The Bohemian Chemist, that seems more like a spa-apothecary.

This coming weekend is the Anderson Valley White Wine Festival, and so I’ve got Boonville on the brain.

In addition to a curated selection of European wines, Lamer has a whole section in her small shop devoted to local wines, and I recently asked her to list her top 10 wineries from the Anderson Valley (and Mendocino County’s other nearby AVAs) that are so small they don’t have tasting rooms. These are the hardworking artisans of wine whose bottles you won’t see on restaurant menus or city shelves. They’re all as minimal-intervention as possible, from full-on biodynamic to made with native yeasts. Collectively, they have the character of terroir-driven wines that speak of this peaceful place. In no particular order, with Lamer’s notes, they are:

Minus Tide

“The wonderful threesome that met in college went on to see their dream realized, which inspired me to do the same. It was my business model to focus on small wineries that did not have a tasting room. The quality and price point were exactly what I was looking for. I am now on their third vintage of Pinot Noir, and it’s still my top seller. Look for Minus Tide’s Carignan rosé from Feliz Creek Vineyard’s 114-year-old vines.”

Read Holland

“Ashely Holland is known for sleeping in the vineyards to insure that she gets the best sites picked at the correct time. I love the fact she answered a small add in the paper selling old-vine Riesling from Wiley Vineyard — her third vintage in tank is truly liquid sunshine. Ashley is also the winemaker for several other wineries, including the new Brashley Vineyards in Philo, whose tasting room is now open.”

Waits-Mast Family Cellars

“Another excellent trio, Jennifer Waits and Brian Mast, along with winemaker Shalini Sekar, produce small lots of single-vineyard Pinot Noir. I tasted these wines just before I opened Disco Ranch in 2019, and they were immediately in my top three to source. With a growing cult-like following for their Pinots, don’t delay in buying up any whites they make. Shalini had her first release under her own label, Ottavino Wines, last year with a stunning Gruner Veltliner from Santa Cruz, and I look forward to her new release this year.”

Yamakiri Wines

“One of the best values from the area, Yamakiri also makes Sin Eater ciders and excellent pet-nats. I’m sorry to report that the 2019 vintage will be the last produced.”

Maggy Hawk

“I met winemaker Sarah Wuethrich more than two years ago, and she has quickly gained the respect of the Valley, such that she’s now the president of the Anderson Valley Winegrowers Association. Sarah has a passion for Pinot Noir — she listens to the vines and walks the vineyards weekly. It is amazing to taste her four Pinot Noirs side by side and see how different they are all coming from the same 58 acres. Happy to have Maggy Hawk as new neighbors filling the old Balo tasting room space, which just opened to the public.”

Dupuis Wines

“Nice to see Wells Guthrie making small lots again without intervention from others. His Pinots have a restrained, old-world style.”

Quigley Family wines

“One of the most elegant, seamless wines I have had in quite some time — I wish they [brother Patrick and Jack Quigley, along with father, Jim] had made more! I bought 25 of the 42 cases produced, and I’m looking forward to the 2021 vintage. Also try Quigley’s beautiful red blend from the Lunatic Fringe block of Alder Springs Vineyard.”

Lussier

“It is a shame people can’t see my facial expressions when describing G.W. Lussier’s Roma Vineyard Pinot Noir. This old-school style wine is 100% basket-pressed and will stand up to Pinots twice the cost. I’m looking forward to buying more of these wines.”

intent wines

“I tasted with Patrick Callagy and quickly asked where he worked prior to launching this fantastic label, just to make sure his wines were not a one-hit wonder. Patrick spent 11 years as assistant winemaker at Radio-Coteau, so he’s the real deal. Both his Pinot Noir and Pinot Blanc are from Filigreen Farm and are organically grown and biodynamically farmed.”

Unturned Stone

“I am keeping an eye on this couple, Erin Mitchell and Randy Czech, who recently purchased a few acres in Comptche. I tasted their 2020 Chardonnay over four days, and it reminded me of the first time I tasted Stony Hill Chardonnay. Anyone with a cellar and patience should secure a few bottles to see how it develops.”

In case you’re wondering about the Disco Ranch name, it comes from Lamer’s Atlanta days when, after hosting a neighborhood party, she went to bed and the guests stayed and had a disco party (sounds like a true 80s tale). In homage, the guests hung a disco ball in her living room that inspired the current store’s name (and still spins here).

Next time you’re in range, stop in at Disco Ranch. Come for a lovely tapas-style lunch on the patio, and stay for a laid-back wine education. And of course, take home a few bottles to compare and contrast. Soon, you’ll be talking like a local, well-versed in the sensory nuances of the wines of the Deep End and Mendo Ridge.

Tickets for this weekend’s Anderson Valley White Wine Festival can be purchased here.

(forbes.com)

CATCH OF THE DAY, February 19, 2022

AURUELIO BARRAGAN, Ukiah. Vandalism.

JOELLE BURGESS, Ukiah. Domestic battery.

KILIAN COCHRAN, Gualala. Assault with deadly weapon with great bodily injury, battery, criminal threats, probation revocation.

JASON HARLAN, Willits. Parole violation.

OLIVER HOLLOWAY, San Jose/Ukiah. Fugitive from justice.

CODY LADD, Ukiah. Parole violation. 

TODD MARSHALL, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

MATHEW RILEY, Ukiah. Narcotics/controlled substance for sale, sale of organic drugs, transport of controlled substance, controlled substance while armed with loaded firearm, pot possession for sale, concealed firearm in vehicle with prior, loaded firearm with felonious intent, loaded firearm in public, “pistol grip that produced conspicuously beneath action of weapon,” large capacity magazine, removal/alteration of firearm identification.

JONATHAN YOUNG, Willits. Under influence, more than an ounce of pot, probation revocation.

GOING PLACES: SAM TIDWELL’S AMERICAN JOURNEY

A Cautionary Tale for a Generation

by Jonah Raskin

I’m a walker, not a hiker, though my preference for walking over hiking hasn’t prevented me from admiring Sam Tidwell, who went on a long road trip, solo, soon after his 21^st birthday and who is now a teacher in a California classroom and embarked on yet another journey into the unknown. Tidwell’s students (97% Latinos, 60% English learners) at Mary Chapa Academy—a public school in Greenfield (population 7,000)—know their thirty-year-old-teacher as “Mr. Tidwell.” They also know that after he graduated from Lewis and Clark College he went on the road for a year and racked up 5,200 miles. Unlike the Latino parents of his students, who came to the US from Mexico and Central America, Tidwell wasn’t looking for work, running from a firing squad or escaping a bleak life without a future. 

But like many hip, cross continental travelers, he was inspired—“fed” he calls it—by Jack Kerouac's iconic novel about Sal Paradise and Dean Moriarty, two hipsters who roar across the country by car, barely stopping for food and gas, though they drove to bebop and carouse with friends in Denver and elsewhere. Tidwell first read Kerouac’s On the Road when he was a college student. He was “swept away,” he says, by the author’s invocation “to break boundaries and seek adventures.” He reread the novel on the long-distance hike that took him off the beaten track. Still, the more he traveled, the less appealing the novel. Other millennials have said much the same thing. On the Road doesn’t punch the wallop it once did. Indeed, Tidwell began to find inspiration in the pages of his own journey, and in the faces and the lives of the people—most of them strangers—who extended, he says, “great kindness.” 

“I was a college grad and didn't know what I wanted to do,” he tells me. “I grew up sheltered and privileged. I wanted to see America and learn its essentials.” 

Unlike Kerouac—whose picaresque novel, is a lament for the end of the road and the end of America—Tidwell made his secular pilgrimage into a quest for the wellsprings of “grace, fortitude, perseverance and resilience.” While he saw great darkness, he also saw great light. “Nihilism is the enemy,” he says. “I want people to defy it.” 

Kerouac traveled across the country mostly by car and usually as a passenger, and not as a driver. Tidwell walked across the US with poles, a backpack, a phone, a tent, water and food. Henry David Thoreau might have called what he did, “sauntering.” 

Tidwell was 21 and 22 years old. His slow, steady journey began in California on November 1, 2013. It ended on November 1, 2014. Nearly a decade later, he’s still processing what might be called an epic chapter in his life that was filled with excitement and also with what he calls “empty time” when he reflected at the end of the day on the distance he had traveled. Mostly, Tidwell walked alone, though for stretches, friends joined him and shared the kind of camaraderie that Walt Whitman celebrates in “Song of the Open Road,” in which he extols his “great Companions,” and explains “I carry them, men and women, I carry them with me wherever I go.” 

Tidwell says he might have ended his trek before the calendar read November 1, 2014, but he aimed for the symmetry that a journey can provide: beginning, middle and ending. Along the way, he wrote copiously in his journal, describing what he saw and heard and how he felt. At one point, he looked back and explained, “I didn't feel special at all and I think it's because I could see how all this walking was one step on the way to being the person I wish to be.” 

Tidwell also made short films; by the end of the trek he had hundreds of them, plus hundreds of pages in his journals, which I read and which brought his journey into focus. I was there, albeit vicariously, and doing what I never would have done myself. In the summer of '74, I drove across the US with my then girlfriend, Maisie, and our dog Lilly. Once was enough for me. 

Tidwell’s journals read like a series of mirrors carried along hundreds and hundreds of miles of rural roads, urban streets, super highways and unpaved paths and trails, including parts of the famous 2,200-mile Appalachian Trail. His journey took him away from Greenfield, California, across the desert, through the Deep South and to New York City where family and friends greeted him.

“I wasn't the first twenty-something-year-old to walk across the country, and I won’t be the last,” Tidwell tells me. He’s right. From 1973 to 1979, a college graduate named Peter Jenkins journeyed from New York to Oregon, and wrote about his experiences in A Walk Across America, which became a bestseller. Jenkins made walking and driving great distances a profession. He has ten road books to his name. Tidwell was strictly an amateur who walked for the love of walking and not to make a career of it. He was the only person in his cohort of college friends (all of them millennials) who didn’t buy a house and start a career, but rather he pulled up stakes, left home and walked for a year. It’s an uncommon experience in any generation, including Henry David Thoreau’s. No one, including Ralph Waldo Emerson, his Transcendental friend, joined Thoreau when he explored his neck of the woods in and around Concord, Massachusetts and wrote about it in the essay “Walking,” an American classic.

Tidwell visited historical landmarks, albeit not by design, but by accident. “Sometimes famous places, like where Jefferson Davis and Ulysses S. Grant met to end the Civil War, and sometimes obscure sites of some unknown person's birthday,” he says. In the South, with its echoes of William Faulkner, he noticed the power of a family name built up over years and then destroyed in a flash. “I saw that society will slam you, like an accusatory mob kind of thing,” he says. 

In Arizona, he met John, a homeless man struggling with addiction, who walked with him from Phoenix to Las Cruces, New Mexico where he decided to go into rehab. “John saved himself,” Tidwell tells me. 

Tidwell also saved himself, not from an addiction but from a predictable middle class California way of life. Along the way, he found towns that were dying, others that were thriving and still others which were doing both. “I saw patterns of light and patterns of darkness,” he says. “The side of town with the railroad, which was no longer in use, would be dying, while the side of town with the new highway would be growing.” He adds, “Some towns were struggling to recreate themselves when mining and logging ended.” 

Several times, he encountered the police, including once in the cold New Mexican desert. There was no place to take shelter and hide, though for a night he camped behind what he describes as “a pile of dirt.” In the morning, cops arrived and explained they would find him a room in a hotel, at no expense to him. He declined the offer and went on his way. 

Later, in Louisiana, he camped in an open field where sugar cane had been harvested and where he was visible from nearly all sides. A farmer called the police, one of whom approached Tidwell with a Taser, but he came away from that encounter unharmed and with a banana in hand, thanks to the sugar cane man. 

“I felt safer when I was in nature and around trees than when I was in the open,” Tidwell tells me. He adds, “I discovered that I like solitude. When I felt lonely, which is something else, I would meditate or talk to myself and find out what was bothering me. Sometimes, I closed down for the day, went into my tent and fell asleep.” 

At home in Greenfield after a year in near constant motion, he unpacked his bags and settled down. “I don’t miss the road,” Tidwell tells me. “I learned what I needed to.” He went to work at Mary Chapa Academy, and learned that he had to discover how to teach, how to interact with students and how to express himself. “Now I’m digging down deeply in one place,” he says. 

Many of his students come from indigenous families who have migrated from Oaxaca, Mexico, and who speak four and five languages, including Zapotec, Mixtec and Trique. Thrown into the classroom, Tidwell stressed. But the kids grew on him, and he on them.

“They are beautiful,” he says. “They are a joy to be with, though many of them have lived with darkness as well as light.” Tidwell is growing day by day and learning as much as he is teaching: how to listen, observe and ask questions. “I don’t really tell students what to do or not to do,” he says. “I’ll say something like ‘I notice,' or 'I wonder.' It seems to work. I never say, ‘Be quiet!’”

In the classroom, he recycles his journey. “I describe the walk,” he says. “I want the students to know who I am and to trust me. For first graders, I wear the clothes I wore when I was walking. I set up my tent and sleeping bag and invited them inside. The idea is that when they’re older, they’ll respond to the call of adventure and take the leap.” 

Tidwell has suggestions for adult wanderers, walkers and explorers. “I think the most important thing is to have a sense of purpose,” he tells me. “If you’re doing it just for yourself, for status and reputation, I don’t think that’s enough to keep you going for hundreds if not thousands of miles. At the start of my journey I was thinking of stopping and turning around and going home. But when I got out of California, I knew I could go all the way.” He did that indeed, all the way from coast to coast.

(Jonah Raskin is the author of Beat Blues San Francisco, 1955, a novel.)

HOW INFLATION WORKS

Editor: 

When prices go up in the normal course of events it is called economic growth, and it is considered a good thing. When wages go up, and business then raises prices to get a share (and more) of the wage increase, it is called inflation, and it is considered a bad thing warranting measures that result in wage decrease or stagnation. I am still waiting for someone to convince me that the deck is not stacked against the working stiff.

Patrick Coyle

Santa Rosa

JONAH RASKIN: Walking on Valencia Street toward Mission Street in San Francisco, I ducked into an alley and saw two young muralists painting on a wall. A sign read, “Private Property.” It didn't deter them. The odor of the paint in the spray can was powerful. I understood why the woman wore a mask. (Sorry I don't have an image of her behind her mask.) 

The figure in the mural belongs to a real person, though I didn't recognize him and said so. The woman mentioned his name. I've already forgotten it. “Not my generation,” I said. She added, “He was on Saturday Night Live.” That's a ticket to ride. A mural in the Mission is another ticket to ride.

AMERICAN EXCEPTIONALISM assumes a Manichean world in which good is pitted against evil, with our side assumed to embody good. Packaged with highfalutin sentiments of the sort to which recent US presidents (except one) routinely — and perhaps even sincerely — pay tribute, American exceptionalism justifies American global primacy. But we Americans have a problem. Of late, the United States has not appeared especially exceptional. If anything, the reverse is true. Who in their right mind would identify with a nation that has in the not-so-distant past engaged in a costly and arguably illegal war in one country (Iraq), while waging a 20-year-long war in another (Afghanistan) that ended in humiliating defeat? In what sense does a nation that loses over 900,000 of its citizens to a pandemic, whose dysfunctional central government annually spends trillions more than it takes in, and that cannot even control its own borders qualify as exceptional? Can a nation in which the richest 1 percent control 16 times more wealth than the bottom 50 percent be deemed exceptional? Or one in which a major political party characterizes violent insurrection as “legitimate political discourse”? As for a nation that elects Donald Trump president and may do so again: The term “exceptional” hardly seems appropriate. “Reckless,” “incompetent,” “alienated,” “extravagantly wasteful,” and “deeply confused” more accurately describe our predicament.

— Andrew Bacevich (thenation.com/article/world/ukraine-biden-putin-exceptionalism/)

STATE SENATOR LENA GONZALEZ INTRODUCES FOSSIL FUEL DIVESTMENT BILL IN CA LEGISLATURE

by Dan Bacher

On February 17, Sen. Lena Gonzalez (D-Long Beach) introduced a bill in the California Legislature that would mandate that California’s public pension funds stop investing in fossil fuel companies.

SB1173, the Fossil Fuel Divestment Act, would require these state pension funds to make no new investments in fossil fuel companies and to divest existing fossil fuel investments by June 2027. Senator Scott Weiner (D-Sacramento), is co-sponsoring the bill.

The California State Teachers’ Retirement System (CalSTRS) and the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS), the largest non-federal pension funds in the country, have over $9 billion invested in fossil fuel companies and related energy sector industries. CalSTRS has about $469 billion in assets, while CalPERS has $327 billion in assets.

A recent report estimates that out of these funds CalPERS invests $5.5 billion in fossil fuel companies and CalSTRS invests $3.4 billion.

For decades, predominately black and brown, low income communities have suffered from the harmful health effects of living in communities surrounded by oil and gas wells in California, a state that styles itself as a “green” and “progressive” leader but still does not have setbacks from oil and gas wells like other states like Colorado, Pennsylvania, North Dakota and even Texas do.

For Nalleli Cobo of Los Angeles, the need for divestment from fossil fuel companies is very personal. When the California State Teachers’ Retirement System (CalSTRS) met publicly with advocates of fossil fuel divestment at a virtual Sustainability Symposium on February 9, Cobo shared her experience growing up near an oil well.

“My health declined,” she testified. “I started getting body spasms so severe I couldn’t move. My mom would have to carry me from one place to another. At the age of 19, I was diagnosed with stage 2 cancer.”

“It’s important that teachers’ money doesn’t go to killing kids, it doesn’t go to damaging their organs or their health; it goes to protecting them and guaranteeing a beautiful life for them,” Cobo said.

Likewise, Lizbeth Ibarra, a 17 year old climate activist who grew up near the Chevron refinery in Richmond, asked CalSTRS, “How much more does my community have to suffer, how much does my future have to be in question for you to decide that your moral responsibility is to pull support from those causing the suffering?”

“Do teachers know that you’re investing their money in supporting destructive projects, from Line 3 to the East Africa crude oil pipeline?” she asked.

Accompanying the introduction of the bill, Gonzalez held a press conference Thursday that featured Miriam Eide, Coordinating Director, Fossil Free California; Carlos Davidson, Professor Emeritus, San Francisco State University and California Faculty Association member; Raven Fonseca Jensen, Member, Youth vs Apocalypse;

Senator Gonzalez, who as a mother of three and a resident of a district where residents suffer from exposure to toxics, knows first hand about the impacts of fossil fuel corporations on frontline communities.

“Investing billions in the fossil fuel companies that are polluting our environment while at the same time trying to meet ambitious emissions reduction goals is contradictory and incongruous,” she said. “SB 1173 will ensure we remain true to our values and honor our commitment as a State to protecting the environment and the health and future of all Californians, including historically disadvantaged communities of color that are disproportionately impacted by the hazardous pollutants released into our communities by these companies.”

In response to my question about how divestment bill proponents will overcome the grip that the oil industry lobby has on the Legislature, she said the Legislature passed a similar bill in 2015 requiring CalPERS and CalSTRS to divest from coal companies.

She also noted that an estimated 1,500 institutions with over $39 trillion in assets have already committed to divestment, including the University of California, the California State University, the State and City of New York, the State of Maine, the Vatican, and the province of Quebec.

“I think the political appetite is out there now for this bill,” she said.

Miriam Eide, Coordinating Director at Fossil Free California, said after eight years of CalSTRS and CalPERS ignoring the calls of students, teachers, and state workers to divest their pensions, her group is “grateful to Senator Gonzalez for leading the way in today's legislative push for pension divestment.”

“Divestment is the right thing to do for climate change and is a smart financial move for our pensions,” echoed Carlos Davidson, CFA Peace & Justice Committee member and retired San Francisco State professor. “We have to stop pretending that fossil fuel companies are good corporate citizens. Their own scientists knew their product was causing climate change, but the companies kept it secret.”

“CFA wields a powerful credential in California, and we can best serve our principles of social and racial justice by taking a lead in climate justice for future generations of students, families and communities,” said Davidson, who helped organize the campaign for CFA to vote for CALPERS divestment last year.

Another CFA member, Anne Luna-Gordinier, a sociology professor at Sacramento State who is of Cherokee and Choctaw ancestry, emphasized SB 1173 is urgently needed now, since “we are facing an existential crisis.”

She cited a recent scientific journal article revealing that the drought in the Western states that started in 2000 represents the driest two decades in 1200 years, in addition to citing a NOAA report stating that coastal areas in the U.S. will see frequent flooding due to climate change.

Finally, Anaya Sayal, a member of Youth Vs Apocalypse, also urged support for SB 1173.

“Divestment is essential to the wellbeing of the large community of people of color being affected by fossil fuel investments, along with the entirety of the planet, which is being greatly harmed,” stated Sayal. “Fossil fuels are heavily contributing to the climate crisis, placing future generations in a horrible situation, even though the current generation could make great strides towards solving this issue so the burden does not completely fall on them."

A FORMERLY CLASSIFIED 1991 document retrieved from the British national archive shows Western states did commit to the non-expansion of NATO eastward, Germany’s Der Spiegel reports. The document depicts the talks between the then-US Secretary of State and former foreign minister of the UK, France, the USSR, the German Democratic Republic (GDR) and the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) in Bonne on March 6, 1991. According to the newspaper, it provides evidence that the Western states agreed that membership of Eastern European states in the alliance is unacceptable, meaning that Russia’s current grievances with NATO’s expansion eastwards are totally justified. “We made it clear during the talks NATO will not expand beyond the Elbe. Therefore, we cannot [offer] membership in NATO to Poland and others,” FRG’s foreign ministry spokesman Jurgen Chrobog reportedly said in a statement cited by Spiegel. ...The US’ Raymond Seitz reportedly agreed with Chrobog, saying, “We made it clear to the Soviet Union that we will not [capitalize on] the withdrawal of the Soviet troops from Eastern Europe...NATO must not expand eastwards neither officially, nor inofficially.”

A SNOOK IN THE DRAIN.

"Don't hand me golabki and tell me it's cabbage!"

Here's the recording of last night's (2022-02-18) Memo of the Air: Good Night Radio show on KNYO-LP Fort Bragg (CA): https://tinyurl.com/KNYO-MOTA-0476

Thanks a lot to Hank Sims for all kinds of tech help over the years, as well as for his fine news site: https://LostCoastOutpost.com

And thanks to the Anderson Valley Advertiser, which provided almost an hour of the above eight-hour show's most locally relevant material, as usual, without asking for anything in return. Though I do pay $25 annually for full access to all articles and features, and you can too. 

As well as go to KNYO.org, click on the big red heart and give what you can. Radio is cheap to do but it isn't free, so we'd all appreciate you to do you part. As Doug Piranha pleasantly menacingly said in Monty Python's Flying Circus, "You've got a nice shop, here, Clement. Now, you bought one of our fruit machines, would you please pay for it." Also email me your work on any subject and I'll read it on the radio this coming Friday night. You are a real radio writer now, or will be when you do.

BESIDES ALL THAT, at https://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com you'll find a fresh batch of dozens of links to not necessarily radio-useful but nonetheless worthwhile items I set aside for you while gathering the show together. Such as:

Google Earth fractals. (via Clifford Pickover)

http://paulbourke.net/fractals/googleearth/

An essay on Cowboy Bebop and Blade Runner.

https://theawesomer.com/cowboy-bebop-x-blade-runner/658297/

I think a situation like this next one has something to do with brain-to-body mass ratio. Generally when a creature's brain to body mass ratio is high, like in a pig or a human or a dolphin, the creature demonstrates higher intelligence than a similar-size creature with a smaller brain. (Birds' brains are made better, so they can be lighter and smaller and still work great, and an octopus' brain is distributed. Like all rules it isn't perfect.) But when you get behind the wheel of a car the vehicle becomes an extension of your body, so the brain-to-body-mass ratio goes critically down to like a dinosaur with a brain the size of a walnut, so you're kind of an impulsive, irresponsible idiot, but you're a person so you can still talk, and then talking makes it worse. (You might have to click the sound on.)(via b3ta)

https://twitter.com/mattDCLXVI/status/1492667852272259073

And 1950s atomic bomb tests as seen from L.A.

https://www.amusingplanet.com/2016/09/how-atomic-tests-looked-like-from-los.html

— Marco McClean, memo@mcn.org, https://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com