Mendocino County Today: Wednesday, March 23, 2022

Cooler Today | 9 New Cases | Shelling Mariupol | Valadao Procession | Property Taxes | Hopland Fire | Boonville Bodywork | MCHCD Meeting | Peterson Shipyard | Water Funding | Redneck Expense | Ed Notes | Hospital Lighting | Unlicensed Contractor | Yesterday's Catch | Destroying Cities | Tele Vision | Nazi Problem | Distracted Monkeys | Walmart Pilgrimage | Patience & Understanding | Provisional Sunset | Gold Miners | Infantile Statecraft | Mae Lillies

AFTERNOON TEMPERATURES across the interior valleys of northwest California will trend cooler during the remainder of the week, with highs struggling to exceed 70 by Sunday. Otherwise, dry weather will prevail through Saturday, followed by increasing rain chances Sunday into early next week. (NWS)

YESTERDAY'S HIGHS: Ukiah 90°, Yorkville 89°, Boonville 87°, Fort Bragg 63° — Santa Rosa reached 89° yesterday, overtaking the old record of 86° set March 22, 1926.

9 NEW COVID CASES reported in Mendocino County yesterday afternoon.

RUSSIAN SHELLING HAS REDUCED MARIUPOL TO ‘ASHES OF A DEAD LAND’, UKRAINE SAYS

Convoy evacuating more than 1,000 survivors sets off on tense escape through Russian-occupied territory 

by Daniel Buffey

Russian artillery has unleashed a continuous bombardment on the port of Mariupol, reducing the besieged city to “ashes of a dead land”, Ukrainian officials said, as survivors described their escape past bodies piled up in the streets.

The Donetsk governor, Pavlo Kyrylenko, accused Vladimir Putin’s forces of indiscriminate fire on civilian areas, as local officials said two “super-powerful bombs” had struck amid efforts to rescue the remaining 100,000-200,000 civilians hiding in basements and shelters.

In his daily address, Zelenskiy said bus drivers and emergency service personnel on one convoy seeking to rescue people from Mariupol had been take prisoner on Tuesday. “We are doing everything we can to free out people and unblock the movement of humanitarian aid”, he said.

Zelenskiy described the scenes in the city as inhumane. “No food, no water, no medicine,” he said. “Under constant shelling, under constant bombing.” Ukraine’s president said he had spoken to Pope Francis who he had invited to the country on a mercy mission that he believed was possible to organise.

A group of 780 terrified and traumatised men, women and children arrived in Lviv by rail on Tuesday afternoon with horrific stories of the devastation. Most were immediately put on coaches to Poland with food rations.

(theguardian.com)

SUPERVISOR WILLIAMS: 

Claim: County should align your property tax bill with business cycles.

Ted's Response: Property Tax amounts are calculated by the elected Assessor, not the Board of Supervisors. The rate is established in accordance with Proposition 13, an amendment of the Constitution of California enacted in 1978, by means of the initiative process. Anyone who believes their bill is based on above-market assessment may at any time file an “INFORMAL REQUEST FOR DECLINE IN MARKET VALUE PROP 8 REASSESSMENT" with the County Assessor's office: mendocinocounty.org/home/showpublisheddocument/39838/637456100719600000

* * *

(Democracy is alive in Mendocino County, including a race for Supervisor in District 5. You have options. I will be highlighting policy differences between myself and John Redding. I ask you to keep your comments polite and kind. There is room in America for opposing perspectives.)

GRASS FIRE IN HOPLAND TUESDAY WAS “BURNING LIKE IT’S JULY”

by Justine Frederiksen

A grass fire was started in Hopland Tuesday afternoon by mowing equipment, the Hopland Fire Protection District reported.

“It was burning like it’s July,” said Hopland Fire Chief Mitch Franklin of the grass which caught fire. “It was burning very well.”

Franklin said crews were dispatched to the fire in the 10000 block of Old River Road around 2:30 p.m. March 22, a day when the temperature reached 90 degrees in Hopland.

“It’s scary,” Franklin said of the mix of heat and dry vegetation.

When firefighters arrived, Tuesday’s fire was about one acre in size, and by the time crews had it under control, Franklin estimated it had burned about two acres.

Crews from the Cal Fire station in Hopland also responded to the fire.

(Ukiah Daily Journal)

A LOCAL RECOMMENDS: Finally got my long awaited “bodywork” from Anderson Valley’s highly recommended ’Abra KaDebra.’ She’s friendly, affordable and she really knows the mechanics of the human body. I got some pre-Covid injuries worked out plus a bit of acupressure and acupuncture…Wow! So stoked she’s once again available Monday thru Friday in downtown Boonville! (707) 357-3068

NOTICE AND AGENDA OF A SPECIAL MEETING Of The Board Of Directors Mendocino Coast Health Care District

Mendocino Coast Health Care District is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.
Topic: SPECIAL MEETING
Time: Mar 23, 2022 06:15 PM Pacific Time (US and Canada)

Join Zoom Meeting: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/85485236824?pwd=bisrdi8wM2M1TkgrVUpMYzE4UXluUT09
(I had to copy and post this address)
Meeting ID: 854 8523 6824
Passcode: 246529

1. 6:15 P.M. SESSION CALL TO ORDER AND ROLL CALL 1.1 Call to order and roll call

1.2 Approval of the agenda
Items to be removed from the agenda or changed should be done at this time.

2. PUBLIC COMMENTS ON CLOSED SESSION ITEMS

2.1 This portion of the meeting is reserved for persons desiring to address the Board of Directors on closed session agenda items. A three-minute limit is set for each speaker.

3. CLOSED SESSION ITEMS

3.1 Public Employment: District Legal Counsel
Government Code § 54957

3.2 Liability Claims. Claimant: Law Office of Jacob R. Patterson (final invoice) Agency Claimed Against: Mendocino Coast Health Care District Government Code § 54956.9(d)(2) and 54956.95

WATER FOR MENDO: $5 million for Mendo Water! This is huge news for Mendocino. I do not know any of the details and I do not see anything on the district site just yet. <http://mccsd.com/>

FROM SENATOR MIKE McGUIRE: “Big news for the Mendocino Coast: The Village of Mendocino is one of the most water scarce areas in our region. After months of work, help is on the way! Nearly $5 million will be invested by the State to build desperately needed water storage tanks and new wells that will enhance water supply and fire safety. Big thanks to the Special Services District [Mendocino City Community Services District] for the tremendous job on the planning efforts. We’re thrilled to start moving dirt, getting these projects built and we’ll continue to work with the District to ensure the project’s success in the months ahead!” 

ED NOTES:

BRIAN WOOD WRITES: I listen to Pat Thurston on KGO sometimes, one of my favorite talk show hosts ever. For some reason I googled a biography of her today, and there was this near the end:

“… Look at the old issues of the San Francisco Chronicle or the old Examiner… Read the way those reporters reported it. That’s what’s missing. That’s what we need today. I see that kind of reporting in only one paper anymore and that’s a little paper in Mendocino County called The Anderson Valley Advertiser. If my kids grew up to be reporters of the ilk of the old Chronicle or Examiner or like Bruce Anderson and Mark Scaramella in Philo I’d be very proud, very pleased,” Thurston says.

ED NOTE: Which reminds me, some time ago Ms. Thurston, then the most listened to talk show talker in the North Bay at KSRO, Santa Rosa, invited me on to talk about the car bombing of Judi Bari, that subject not allowed anywhere else on the Northcoast. As it happened, Dennis Cunningham called in live on the air. Cunningham was Bari's doormat lawyer to whom she dictated the subsequent bogus federal libel suit co-written with the Justice Department to exclude any and all mention of what had actually happened to get the jive case into federal court. (I and several other skeptics were excluded by name from appearing as witnesses.) Cunningham wouldn't “engage,” as they say, refusing to argue. I went on to say that Bari's ex-husband, magically excluded from primary suspect status by the super-sleuths of the FBI probably because he worked for them as a snitch, had, at a minimum, built the bomb intended to kill the mother of his two children. As with prior Sweeney bombs, the one intended for Bari failed to work as designed, and she survived the blast. Sweeney, incidentally, had been in the immediate proximity of bombs and murder all the way back to his youth with a Maoist cult at Stanford, not that his sanguinary cv at all dissuaded Mendocino County from hiring him as a highly paid trash bureaucrat, Mendocino County being a unique American set aside for amnesiacs, a place where you are whatever you say you are and history starts all over again every morning. Anyway, all this being as it is, Ms. Thurston was fired at KSRO for having me on, her dismissal having been arranged by Sweeney's father, a personal friend of KSRO's swinish owner. I've always felt guilty about having been the pretext for the bastards to fire her, but I was partially relieved of my eternal hair shirt when the talented Ms. T landed at KGO, a much larger venue with a much greater reach.

NO SOONER had I written that a new County Courthouse seemed to be permanently on hold, then I get this excited P.S. from court administrator Kim Turner:

”The new courthouse in Ukiah is finally moving forward! The court has been meeting with the Judicial Council and an architectural firm, Cannon Design, reviewing the space planning program and specifications, as well as the siting for the courthouse on the parcel next to the train depot. You or your designee are invited to attend a meeting (on Microsoft Teams) to review the space plan and building design on Friday, April 1 at 3:00 PM. The court and the design team want to hear from you on the features and functionality of the new courthouse, as well as other considerations and concerns you may have. Please RSVP to me and we will send out a link for the meeting to all who plan to attend. We want to hear your feedback and ideas as we move forward with this project. Please let me know if you have any questions. We look forward to your attendance on April 1st.” (Put up a day for 30 March) 

THE COURT “DESIGN TEAM” (of squalid glass and steel eyesores) don't want to hear from anyone who recognizes that a new County Courthouse erected amid the splendors of McDonald's, Chevron, Chipotles, and dubious foot massage emporiums near the foot of West Perkins in Ukiah because it's not only unworkable from a logistics perspective, the present County Courthouse is not only serviceable as is it could be restored to a version of its previous architectural glory for half the price of a whole new structure serving only their black-robed majesties and their gofers. 

DEPUTY CRAIG WALKER had appeared before the Board of Supervisors in 2017 to say that the cops were opposed to the project:

“Good morning. Craig Walker appearing strictly in my capacity as President of the Deputy Sheriff's Association. You might be surprised that I'm here this morning not to talk about negotiations or money. Rather, we’d like to talk about an issue that we would like to take a stand on and we would welcome your participation as well. That would be the prospective new courthouse. I think everyone in the room is familiar with some of the well-known issues involved there and the impact it would have on the downtown should the courthouse be relocated. Although we share those sentiments, our organization is concerned about the county's potential exposure to costs that will be in our opinion forced upon us by the relocation. We are referring specifically to the idea that the proposed new courthouse would house strictly court employees and that the county employees who currently are housed within the existing court facility and nearby would have to travel that extra distance. We don't think that's a feasible alternative for the medium or long term. What we envision is the county being forced at some point to construct another building down by the new courthouse or lease space at substantial cost and that we would then be on the hook for maintenance of the old and abandoned facility and all of these things could easily run into the millions of dollars in cost for the county that the state, as far as we can tell, is not factoring into their planning. So for those reasons our organization is adamantly opposed to relocating the courthouse. We feel that some reasonable renovations to the existing structure could be made at a fraction of the cost. We realize that this project is being driven by the State Office of the Courts and not by the county and not by some other local agency. Nevertheless, we think that because of that ancillary exposure to the County and to the county employees that we really need to work together and oppose this project and we will be contacting the Governor’s office and the Administrative Office of the Court to express our displeasure and we would like to think that you would join us in that regard. Thank you.” 

The Board did not inquire or comment on Deputy Walker’s remarks.

WHY NO RESPONSE? Because, and we're about 99% certain about this, County CEO Angelo, and the five supervisors Angelo leads like Snow White leads her dwarves, are quietly planning to invest limited County money in land adjacent to the proposed Courthouse site on East Perkins in anticipation of the new structure's ancillary services. 

WHY THE SUPERVISORS would even consider such an investment given their perennially precarious fiscal situation may stem from the Supe's (and judges) associations with the jive Democrats of the Northcoast who also control some of the old railway property in the area of the proposed Courthouse. 

NO ONE, HOWEVER, except for our nine (9, count 'em) judges wants a new Courthouse because there's nothing wrong with the present Courthouse that couldn't be remedied by a modest remodel for far less money than a new Courthouse, which will serve only the judges. 

MOVING THE COUNTY COURTHOUSE to a major new eyesore of a structure (see the now abandoned Willits courthouse) nearly a half mile south of Ukiah's battered downtown, will also destroy a large number of small businesses presently thriving in the neighborhood of the present Courthouse. 

BUT THIS SWINDLE moves quietly ahead, and seems to be a done deal. But good for Walker and his fellow cops for objecting to it. 

* * *

MENDOCINO COUNTY DA DAVID EYSTER is emphatically opposed to a new County Courthouse. Alone among the County’s elected officials in his opposition to the project, which would re-locate superior courtrooms four long blocks east of its present location, Eyster says the present Courthouse can be made perfectly serviceable, and for a lot less money than a new “glass box" in the already crowded hospital neighborhood on West Perkins. 

THERE hasn't been so much as a squeak of concern from either the Ukiah City Council or the County Board of Supervisors at a proposal that would massively disrupt public and county business simply for the convenience of nine persons — the Superior Court judges themselves. They want new quarters, no one else does.

FORTUNATELY for the functioning of the County’s legal system not to mention the convenience of the un-consulted public, the new Courthouse project is presently stalled in its funding pipeline. But it's inexorably inching towards reality unless the formidable District Attorney is joined in an effort to stop it. 

“I AM NOT a proponent of a new Courthouse,” the County’s top law enforcement officer declared. “What you’ve been told is that the present Courthouse is a dangerous building because it is not earthquake-safe. In the last earthquate, as Napa was falling, this place looked out onto downtown Ukiah with no impact on it.” The DA proceeded to systematically rebut the arguments for the new structure. “OK, if it’s old, you can do some work to make it safe and workable. They say it's dangerous for security. I can show you how that can be fixed. The front the Courthouse is just plain ugly. I think that’s a selling point to rehab this building because the ugly front facade takes up a lot of space that can be re-done as a usable, attractive work area. The back side of the Courthouse is perfect and beautiful. And it is historically significant. The front of the Courthouse can be made beautiful, too.”

AN HOUR later the DA conducted us on a tour of the premises. As we walked, he made a convincing case for a major re-do of the existing old structure some of which goes back to Mendocino County's beginning. It's clear the energetic prosecutor has given a re-model a lot of thought. 

“THEY SAY it’s not safe to move prisoners through the building shared with the general public,” the DA continued. “I understand that. We can talk about that. I’ll show you how that safety issue can be overcome.” 

WHICH he soon did, explaining that a re-model of the School Street entrance to the building is eminently doable to funnel defendants directly into a holding area and the elevators up to the courtrooms. 

THE ever-upwards cost estimates of the proposed new Courthouse?

“WHAT’S THE NUMBER” Eyster demanded. “$96 million, or has it been revised? It’s come down lately. It was around $120 million at one point. I’ll say we can do what I’ll describe for $91 million,” he laughed. “In the private sector if I said I could do this under budget I’d get a bonus of half of what I saved! I’m for incentives to get things right.” Eyster was critical of the apparent desire of the County’s judges to enjoy their own facilities. Exclusively. The proposed structure would house only their courtrooms and chambers and staff. “The new thinking with the courts is, we don’t want to share public facilities with any other entity. When we close the door at night we don’t want anyone in our building.” 

“AS YOU SEE,” Eyster said, referring to the unending bustle between the DA’s offices on the ground floor and the upstairs courtrooms, “we are constantly back and forth, up and down the stairs. We’re a workhorse operation — file it, get it here to there. It’s all on us. They [the judges] demand it all happen in a timely manner. We serve them.” “If we have to shuttle up and down Perkins… Well, there goes the schedule." 

THE DA pointed out the window of his conference room at the random sprawl of busy West Perkins Street and State Street, the heart of Ukiah. 

“DOWN past Rainbow Ag and the new sports bar there’s the railroad station. On days like this — bright, sunny, cheerful — maybe it’s relatively easy for us to get 50 to 100 cases up and down Perkins without the files falling apart on the street. But last year when all the cats and dogs were falling out of the sky, explain to me the means of getting the cases down the street safely and whole. We’d have to have drying rooms for our files.”

The DA remembers receiving the sales pitch for the new courtrooms on Perkins. “It was Henderson and Nelson in that order. [Both judges are now retired.] It wasn’t a conversation about what do you think about it, it was: We’re doing this. Good luck to you, our ship is sailing a certain course and we don’t even know if you have a ticket.”

DA media officer, Mike Geniella remembered, “One of them said we could have a golf cart system running back and forth.” “AS I SIT in my office and watch State and Perkins,” Eyster replied, “I see lots of accidents. Golf carts running around downtown means there’s lots that can go wrong with that. This is an after-the-fact response to the judges' position of, This is what we’re doing. Ok, they said, you can help us by buying property down here for your offices. I don’t have that kind of purse, and the last time they discussed it with the County, they said no to any purchases of property for Courthouse offices. The County doesn't have the money, either.”

“ONE of the problems that this building has,” the DA conceded, “is asbestos. So we had an asbestos survey come in and they found some in our offices that we had to mitigate. Nothing significant. Experts came in from the Central Valley. They got it done inexpensively. None of the problems with this building are insurmountable, but the State Judicial Council says, We do what we want and you have to take it. They can do things by fiat.”

EYSTER points to Auburn's showcase Courthouse. “It looks like the old Courthouse that it is, but inside they have all the modern amenities; they incorporated everything into their old building. Knocking it down would have meant the loss of significant history. We can do that here. Look at the new courthouses around the state. They’re all glass boxes, designs that do not fit the character or history of this area. They make no effort to make their new buildings aesthetically pleasing. We already have enough things being pushed across Hospital Drive, and here comes a new courthouse? And the traffic coming off 101 at Perkins already backs up! The Courthouse only should have been moved if it was consolidated with a new jail. That's not happening."

* * *

Mark Scaramella adds, March 2022: Speaking of the new jail, we now see that it is expected to overrun by a lot because the same gold plated Sacto architects designed it that way, just like the Crisis Residential House ($5 mil for a $1 mil house, but nobody cared because it was Measure B money) and now they’re thrashing around looking at how to fund the jail expansion overrun.

In all likelihood the new courthouse will experience the same. By the time the high-priced consultants get finished with the gold plated ugly design it will cost much more than anybody thought, and be delayed and delayed as they figure out how to pay for it — but because it’s the judges they’ll have to.

PS. The main argument that Judge Nelson et al have made since the 90s when this first came up is that it’s supposedly dangerous to have criminals shipped back and forth from the jail to the courthouse with potential contact with the public and they need a new courthouse with a sally port for safe prisoner transport. Yet in all these years they’ve been saying that, even with the more dangerous criminals now shipped back to Mendo with prison revisions lately, there has not been one incident or problem connected to that particular judicial paranoia. Not one.

And that’s the only alleged public benefit to a new courthouse. The argument that the old courthouse is old is not by itself a reason to replace it, especially given all the problems the new courthouse will create and all the millions of auxilliary departments cost impact (DA, public defender, probation, etc) that will be forced on the County’s general fund. There has never been a cost-benefit analysis (as an EIR would require, for example and which the judges themselves would require if it were anybody but them) proving that a new courthouse is better than the “no project” or “remodeled existing project” alternative.

OUR HOSPITALS are illuminated in yellow and blue as a symbol of peace, solidarity and support for the people of Ukraine. 

“Even though we’re halfway around the world, we’re still connected. We’re lighting our buildings to show the people of Ukraine how much their courage, strength and determination inspires us and that we are with them, praying for a resolution to this conflict,” explains Judson Howe, president for Adventist Health in Mendocino County. 

Our Adventist Health hospitals in Ukiah, Willits and Fort Bragg will be lighted in the Ukrainian flag’s colors all month. 

Adventist Health Mendocino Coast

‘GAME OF THRONES’ ACTOR DAN HILDEBRAND ordered to pay Willits couple $75,000 in restitution for ‘shoddy’ contracting work

by Colin Atagi

An actor who appeared in “Game of Thrones” has been ordered to pay restitution for faulty work on a Willits property, the Mendocino County District Attorney’s Office announced.

Dan Hildebrand, 59, of Los Angeles and London, must pay a Willits couple $74,961.79 for work he and his “hand-picked associates” did for them in 2018, according to the DA’s office.

The exact type of work done wasn’t specified, and Hildebrand could not be immediately reached for comment.

According to IMDb.com, Hildebrand played Kraznys mo Nakloz in three episodes of “Game of Thrones” in 2013. He has also appeared in episodes of “Sons of Anarchy” and “Deadwood.”

Hildebrand was charged in August 2019 with contracting in late August 2018 without a contractor’s license, advertising as a contractor without a license, charging an excessive down payment for contracting work, and failing to carry workers compensation insurance.

The case had been investigated by the California Contractors State Licensing Board in Sacramento before being submitted to the DA’s office.

The DA reported that Hildebrand admitted in January 2020 to contracting and advertising without licenses.

He was granted a deferred entry of judgment, or sentencing delay, of 24 months. Its terms included not doing contracting work unless fully licensed and paying restitution.

“Despite admitting criminal responsibility, the defendant continued to deny that he owed any amount of restitution for his shoddy work, denials which necessitated what turned out to be an extended contested restitution hearing,” according to the DA’s office.

The matter was discussed during eight hearings between Dec. 27 and March 18 in Mendocino County Superior Court. Judge Patrick Pekin presided over the restitution proceedings.

(Santa Rosa Press Democrat)

CATCH OF THE DAY, March 22, 2022

ANGIE DURAN, Gridley/Fort Bragg. Disorderly conduct-alcohol, trespassing/refusing to leave, resisting.

KATRINA GERACE, Eureka/Ukiah. DUI-alcohol&drugs, controlled substance, paraphernalia.

LUIS LIMA, Ukiah. DUI, child endangerment, suspended license, probation revocation.

CHRISTOPHER LOVE, Calpella. Domestic battery.

MATTHEW MAXWELL, Fort Bragg. Probation revocation.

MICHAEL MCBRIDE, Willits. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

JAVIER RAMIREZ, Ukiah. Domestic battery.

LEE RUPERT, Fort Bragg. Probation revocation.

BRANDON SMITH, Willits. Parole violation.

ERIK SMITH, Potter Valley. Failure to obey lawful police order, resisting.

ANTHONY STOKES, Fairfield/Fort Bragg. Shoplifting, vehicle tampering, controlled substance possession and transportation for sale, pot possession for sale, pot sale, burglary tools, conspiracy.

JUAN TOVAR-SEVILLA, Ukiah. Concealed dirk-dagger, disobeying court order, probation revocation.

MARIA VAZQUEZ-TAPIA, Redwood Valley. DUI.

MCKENZIE WILSON, Ukiah. Controlled substance/narcotics for sale. 

MARIUPOL MAY BE DESTROYED IN UKRAINE WAR BUT STALINGRAD TAUGHT US EVEN RUINS CAN BE DEFENDED

by Patrick Cockburn

The Russian bombardment of Mariupol and other Ukrainian cities is similar to the Russian-backed Syrian government shelling and bombing of rebel-held districts in Damascus and Aleppo over the last decade.

It is also not much different from the American air force bombing of Mosul in Iraq and Raqqa in Syria, Israel’s bombing of Gaza and Saudi Arabia’s bombing of Yemen over the same period. These attacks are all supposedly aimed at military targets and all kill civilians in their thousands.

This is not to let the Russians off the hook when it comes to war crimes, since striking at Ukrainian cities to depopulate and ultimately capture them appears to be the principal Russian tactic at present. This enables them to keep up a generalised pressure on the Ukrainians without much military cost to themselves, though the political price will be heavy and perhaps unsustainable for Moscow in the long term.

The assault on Mariupol may not have the impact of the destruction of Guernica – the anti-Franco Basque town bombed by the German air force in 1937 duing the Spanish Civil War, and the subject of the most widely-recognised anti-fascist painting by Picasso. But there will be many more shattered cities like Mariupol and each one will have schools and bomb shelters blown apart with the dead and wounded instantly pictured on cellphones and sent around the world.

Do the Russians deliberately target civilians? It is unlikely but it is inevitable that they will hit them once a general bombardment starts. Air and artillery forces claim that their weapons these days are deadly accurate in a way that was not true in the past, but this evades the most important question when it comes to the cause of civilian loss of life: those employing mass firepower against cities do not know where the enemy is, so they fire at almost everything.

There are other more culpable reasons for a mass bombardment: to terrify civilians, show who has the power to kill or maim them, and drive them from their homes. It is not essential to capture all of a city such as rebel-held Idlib in northern Syria to stop it being regional hub for administration, commerce, information and military resistance. If enough of the population is driven out, and the infrastructure, such as electricity and water supply, destroyed, then it will cease to be a useful centre for the other side.

Bombing and shelling is therefore always in the nature of a collective punishment of civilians, whatever the perpetrators pretend. People imagine that the mass destruction is caused primarily by bombing from the air, but in Syria and Ukraine sustained artillery fire is the more usual culprit.

Does it work? Being under relentless fire for days means that nervous tension never eases. During the 15-year-long Lebanese civil war (1975-90), the capital Beirut was under constant shellfire so that its inhabitants had a map hard-wired into their brains as to which streets were safer than others. But nothing was entirely safe.

I remember being caught in an artillery barrage near Beirut airport and, as the shells started dropping nearer and nearer, going into a house to ask if we could shelter in their basement. “No basement,” they said, so we threw ourselves down and the closest shell threw sand over us but missed the house. A year earlier our car had gone into a shell hole filled with dirty grey water, so we could not see the crater and had to abandon the car, which was later wrecked by a shell.

These sort of experiences were happening to Lebanese the whole time and they did, to a degree, get used to a high degree of danger in their life, largely because they did not have any choice in the matter. Civilian morale never collapsed because of the war. Syria thirty years later was different because the Syrian government surrounded rebel districts and pounded them until the trapped civilians who survived fled to Turkey and Lebanon.

Militarily, from the point of view of those besieging an urban district or a city, the destroying of buildings and turning them into heaps of rubble is a two-edged achievement because the ruins may be easy to defend and difficult to assault.

Shattered buildings, broken concrete, collapsed tower blocks – these are the sort of terrain suitable for lone snipers and small units lying in ambush, as the German army discovered to its cost in Stalingrad in 1942/43. But much the same happened in Mosul and Raqqa, the Islamic State de facto capitals in Iraq and Syria, in 2016/17.

Isis had built a series of strong points in houses, often linked by underground passages, which they would use to snipe and launch surprise attacks before swiftly abandoning them before the house was hit by a retaliatory air strike. They were only dislodged when most of the old city of Mosul was pulverised into ruins with horrendous civilian casualties. The fact that there was so little international reaction to this was because Isis was widely demonised and did not care much about civilian casualties.

I doubt if the same thing could happen in Ukraine over a long period because the atrocities will be more visible than in Mosul. Moreover, the original Russian tactics appear to have failed, so they have fallen back on shelling and bombings because they were unable to surround, still less capturing, Ukrainian cities.

Even if they are badly battered, this does not mean that these cities will surrender or that Russia will be able to hold them without installing embattled garrisons amid the ruins.

NO LOVE FOR PUTIN - NO GUNS FOR NAZIS - NO TO THE INVASION!

An Op-Ed from Vermont AFL-CIO President Van Deusen on 3/21/2022

Vladimir Putin’s Russia is motivated by imperialist ambitions and is rightly condemned by most for its military aggression against Ukraine. This is not a war of ideology for Putin. Russia is no longer the Soviet Union, but rather an authoritarian capitalist state where only Putin and the Oligarchs wield power. In a word, this is a war of empire.

The death and destruction we see raining down on the Ukrainian people today are appalling and we, as Americans, are right to feel sympathy and revulsion, as did many of us when our own President George W. Bush chose, unprovoked, to likewise invade and occupy faraway Iraq. Or when President Richard Nixon escalated the war in Vietnam and chose to conduct a massive bombing campaign on the other side of the world against Cambodia. And just as Americans protested those unjust wars, we in the West should honor and respect those Russians who have taken to the streets today to express their resistance to organized slaughter.

The pain Ukrainians presently feel is, undoubtedly, immense. The war is terrible and we are right to empathize, just as we also should feel the same for the people of Yemen as they suffer indiscriminate bombing at the hands of Saudi Arabia. And here, we would also be right to reject the recent Turkish invasion and occupation of northern Rojava (Syria), the brutal fifty-year Israeli occupation of Palestine, and the 800-year British occupation of Ireland. But of course, Turkey and Britain are NATO countries, and Israel and Saudi Arabia are allies, so, for those in power, sanctions are never on the table, let alone the arming of the Palestinians or the IRA.

Even so, just because our Government fails to do right by one people does not have to dictate failure towards another. Thus the question becomes: Should the US and NATO be arming the Ukrainians, and should American workers and Union members support such delivery of arms? If this were just a question of good vs. evil or the underdog vs. a regional powerhouse, I would venture to say the answer would be yes. However, there are other, dark truths in play here that should give us pause.

While the U.S. and NATO would prefer to not talk about it, Ukraine in fact has a serious Nazi problem. In the aftermath of the U.S. supported Euromaidan uprising in 2014 (which fascist elements played a leading role in), the first post-revolution government was quick to install a number of Nazis and fascists to high office from the Svoboda & Right Sector parties including for the positions of Deputy Prime Minister (Oleksandr Sych – Svoboda), Secretary of the Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council (Andriy Parubiy – Svoboda), Deputy Secretary of National Security (Dmytro Yarosh – Right Sector), Minister of Ecology & Agricultural (Andriy Mokhnyk – Svoboda), Prosecutor General (Oleh Makhnitsky - Svoboda), and Minister of Internal Affairs (Arsen Avakov – not a member of a fascist party but a nationalist Nazi sympathizer who would go on to become the patron of Azov).

After this government was put in place, and as fighting broke out in the eastern Russian-speaking regions, a number of Nazi and fascist militias grew in relation to the perceived Russian threat. First among these was the Nazi-oriented Azov Battalion which came to prominence when they re-captured the Russian-speaking city of Mariupol from separatists. With patronage from Avakov (who would remain in office until 2021), and with support from other fascists serving in the national Government, in 2014 Azov was formally incorporated into the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

The Azov Battalion is currently fighting the Russians in southern Ukraine and is central to the Ukrainian defense of Mariupol. And here I do not call them Nazis because I want to signal that they are bad people (which they are), but rather because they are actual Nazis. Their founder & leader, Andriy Biletsky, has unapologetically stated that the mission of Ukraine is to “lead the white races of the world in a final crusade… against Semite-led [Jewish] Untermenschen.” Azov, who flies an SS emblem as their battle flag, also has proclaimed that their intent is to cleanse Europe of immigrants and homosexuals. This dangerous Nazi group is not only active in the south but is additionally taking part in the defense of the Capital, Kyiv. As we speak they are also in the process of setting up three other battalions throughout Ukraine.

Since 2014, under multiple Presidents (including Zelenskyy) Ukraine has not only armed the Azov Battalion but further funded their activities including the operation of Hitler Youth-like summer camps and “educational” programs in line with their Nazi ideology. Presently the Azov Battalion is actively recruiting Nazis, fascists, and white nationalists from Europe and North America to join their ranks in Ukraine as ideologically driven armed fighters.

The United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OCHA) issued a report on the Azov Battalion in 2016, where it asserts that Azov has been guilty of torturing and raping civilians in areas where it is operational. And in 2019, forty members of the United States Congress unsuccessfully sought to have Azov listed as a Foreign Terrorist Organization. But again, this is not a fringe outlaw group in Ukraine. They are a fully incorporated unit within the official Armed Forces. In fact, since the death of Spanish Dictator Francisco Franco in 1975, they are the only openly Nazi or fascist military unit in the world to be intentionally integrated into a nation’s official military.

Further, the National Militia, a paramilitary organization allied with Azov, has for some years been operating throughout Ukraine, including in Kyiv, as a kind of fascist vigilante group. Often working in coordination with the local police, the National Militia has sought to advance their far-right ideology while dishing out their version of justice through the use of violence. Publicly, they claim that their mission is to restore order to the country. In reality, their activities have included attacks on the Roma and LGBTQ communities. In 2018, in scenes reminiscent of 1920s Italy or 1930s Germany, one thousand of their members marched in formation through the Capital, Kyiv in a show of strength. And they, along with Azov, are far from the only violent fascist groups operating in Ukraine; Democratic Axe and the armed wing of Right Sector being but two of many others.

If this was not troubling enough, over the last ten years Ukraine has dedicated hundreds of statues, memorials, plaques, and street names to Stepan Bandera and other World War II-era Nazi collaborators who played a direct role in the murdering of thousands of Ukrainian Jews and other ethnic minorities in the 1940s. One-quarter of all the Jews murdered in the holocaust (1.5 million) were from Ukraine. The public honoring of mass murderers would be inconceivable from a moral or political vantage point if it was not sadly the reality within Ukraine throughout the last decade.

The Russian government and Putin, although being rightwing themselves and no friends of the working class, have made much of this Nazi problem in their propaganda justifying the war. They have exaggerated these facts and gone so far as to claim Ukraine is a Nazi state. Ukraine is not. Ukraine’s President, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, is Jewish. And the overall politics of the Ukrainian Parliament are right-leaning/neo-liberal in nature, but not Nazi in character. In 2014, for example, Svoboda & Right Sector (both fascist/Nazi parties) combined for 6.51% of the vote (thus earning only six seats in the Verkhovna Rada). In 2019 fascist parties headed by Svoboda received only 2.15% of the vote (and gained zero seats). As of 2022 Svoboda & Right Sector no longer hold top positions in the Ukrainian national government (as they did in the post-Euromaidan period).

But electoral success is not the only measure of power in a society. The 2019 fascist defeat at the polls does not diminish the truth that the Ukrainian state presently provides support, arms, financing, and legitimacy to dangerous Nazi organizations. Nor can anything negate the reality that Zelenskyy’s government has outlawed the left-leaning opposition parties throughout the country including the Left Opposition, Union of Left Forces, Progressive Socialist Party of Ukraine, Socialist Party of Ukraine, and Socialists Party. Further, previous governments had already banned the Communist Party of Workers & Peasants as well as the Communist Party of Ukraine (which as recently as 2002 was the third-largest party in the country with 64 seats in parliament). While Zelenskyy and his supporters justify these steps by claiming that these parties are sympathetic to Russia or Russian separatists (Russian speakers represent 30% of the countries population), it is hard to square claims by Western governments that Ukraine aspires to be a Euro-style democracy with its repressive actions concerning its internal opposition.

The Ukrainian state has been governed by three different administrations since 2014. And at no time has the government in power sought to actively reverse state support of Nazis as encapsulated in Azov. Zelenskyy himself has been in office since 2019, and the Azov Battalion continues to grow and to receive state support and arms. Given that Zelenskyy lost family in the holocaust, such inaction is at best bewildering. But however we arrive at the present, the growing Nazi presence in Ukraine is a dark truth that should not be lightly overlooked or whitewashed by those who wish to tell a simpler story. Governments, and those in power, must answer for the decisions they make.

As Russian troops advance, the Ukrainian resistance to this aggression seems to have become widespread, reaching into all social spheres. Reports have been circulating recently that leftist and anarchist militias have also been forming to defend their nation against the imperialist onslaught. And certainly, the great majority of Ukrainians are not Nazis or fascists. Hence they are right to defend themselves with the guns provided by the West, but let’s be honest and not pretend that it is Nestor Makhno and his cavalry that are riding out to meet the Russian threat. Rather, as things stand, every rifle or rocket sent by the U.S. and NATO risks falling into the hands of Nazis. Yet without our guns, Russia will more rapidly prevail in their conquest. So what is to be done?

The U.S. and NATO must demand that the Ukrainian government immediately server all formal ties with and forcibly dismantle Azov. They must also pledge to withhold weapons from any and all Nazi or fascist groups active within their borders. The Ukrainian government must further agree to take steps that would allow for the verification that such conditions are being met. While this effort would inevitably be resisted by the Zelenskyy administration (as they will claim they need those far right forces on the front lines), their reliance on Western arms does not allow them the latitude to resist such demands with vigor should such conditions be imposed.

The West must also provide massive humanitarian aid and free passage for non-fascist refugees seeking to escape the conflict, and for the cancellation of all IMF and World Bank debts (and austerity requirements associated with them) in order to not exasperate the conditions under which fascism can thrive. The U.S. and NATO can also assist in defusing global tensions by publicly stating a commitment to not expand NATO any further into former Soviet territories (historically NATO has its own imperialist interests that have destabilized international relations).

Further, as circumstances arise, Organized Labor should look to provide material and political support for those leftist armed formations taking shape as part of the resistance (and moral support to those Russians who continue to protest the war). Doing so shall help restore a favorable balance of power internally in the post war period. And recognizing that Russia is a nuclear power, under no circumstances should the U.S. and NATO seek to impose a no-fly zone. Such an act would amount to the start of an air war with Russia thereby risking World War III.

The enemy of your enemy is not always your friend, lest we forget our experience arming the Mujahidin in Afghanistan during the Soviet occupation, and the rise of Al Qaida and the horrors of September 11, 2001, that came after. Therefore, let us clear our eyes of the justifiable tears for the Ukrainian people, and clear the air of the fog of war, so that together we may judge this historic moment with more somber senses and not inadvertently arm, train, and support the next rightwing terrorists to emerge from a conflict zone. In short, let us offer no love for Putin and no guns for Nazis.

(The views expressed in this op-ed do not necessarily represent those of the Vermont AFL-CIO. They are intended to represent those of the author.)

JIVE MOFO AND THE PORKCHOP

View of the Jivan Mukta

Just returned from a pork chop lunch at Plowshares, and am now at Building Bridges homeless shelter. Am going on pilgrimage down Talmage to Walmart shortly. The Spring Equinox has brought in the warmer weather here. As always, I do NOT identify with the body nor the mind. We are all the Immortal Self, or Eternal Witness. The rest is just the play of consciousness. So it’s okay to identify with the Divine Absolute which you are, and other supplemental practices (such as chanting, for example) are optional. From the outside, an individual appears to be walking down the road quietly chanting Hare Krishna, or perhaps OMing, or saying prayers of a religious tradition. From the inside, it is all spiritual light. Immortal Atman…the divine light which is centered in the heart chakra. This is the view of the Jivan Mukta.

Craig Louis Stehr

CALIFORNIA CANNABIS PROVISIONAL LICENSING IS WINDING DOWN 

(March 16, 2022 Blog post by Harris Bricken law firm)

California Cannabis provisional licensing is beginning its wind down process at the end of this month. Here is what’s happening:

Until June 30, 2022, with certain exceptions, the Department of Cannabis Control (“DCC”) may issue provisional licenses only if applicants submit a complete annual cannabis license application with the corresponding fee on or before March 31, 2022.

From June 30, 2022, and until September 30, 2022, the DCC may issue provisional licenses to outdoor growers with less than 20,000 square feet of canopy if they properly apply for provisional licensing before June 30, 2022.

After June 30, 2022, and until June 30, 2023, the DCC may issue provisional licenses to local equity applicants so long as they are eligible and properly apply for licensing before March 31, 2023.

California cannabis provisional licenses will not be effective as of January 1, 2026.

Cannabis provisional licensing is currently controlled by Section 15001 of the California Code of Regulations that govern commercial cannabis activity. Cannabis provisional licenses are a means to end for operation, while licensees pursue an annual cannabis license from the state.

The same regulations that apply to annual cannabis licenses also apply to cannabis provisional licensing. Just because you receive a cannabis provisional license doesn’t mean you’re guaranteed to get an annual cannabis license. To continue to hold and renew a provisional until 2026, you must “actively and diligently” pursue an annual license.

If you’re neither a smaller outdoor cultivator nor an equity applicant, what do you need to do before the end of this month to ensure that you get your provisional license? Number one is to fill out and submit an annual license application to the DCC along with the required licensing fee. The required annual license application information can be found at Section 15002 of the California cannabis regulations. All applications will be submitted online via the state’s licensing portal. The annual application, itself, requires a lot of information about the business, including a complete list of financial interest holders, the company’s SEIN, certain corporate documentation, evidence of compliance with CEQA (or exemption therefrom), proof of right to real property, a premises diagram, and much more.

If you’re a cultivation provisional license applicant, life is a little harder. In addition to all of the information required by 15002, cultivation applicants must provide the DCC with:

A final streambed alteration agreement; or a draft streambed alteration agreement provided by the Department of Fish and Wildlife and signed and returned to the Department of Fish and Wildlife; or Written verification by the Department of Fish and Wildlife that a streambed alteration agreement is not needed; or Written verification by the Department of Fish and Wildlife that the applicant submitted a notification described in section 1602 of the Fish and Game Code, submitted payment of applicable fees pursuant to section 1609 of the Fish and Game Code, and is responsive to the Department of Fish and Wildlife as prescribed in section 26050.2 of the Business and Professions Code.

Further, now that we’re passed January 1, 2022, if any provisional license issuance would cause a cultivation applicant to “hold multiple cultivation licenses on contiguous premises to exceed one acre of total canopy for outdoor cultivation, or 22,000 square feet for mixed-light or indoor cultivation,” the provisional license application will be rejected.

The main issue with the full pursuit of the annual license (not just filling out the application completely and paying the fee) is traversing CEQA–a provisional license is meant to keep you operational while you go through the headache of CEQA in pursuit of your annual license. We wrote about that here when provisional licenses were first introduced, and here again as the state debated what to do about the immense delay it was causing licensees.

The bottom line is that if you miss this March 31 deadline, the only path forward to licensing is the annual license application itself, which requires proof of full compliance with or exemption from CEQA. That could take many months to accomplish, significantly delaying operations. So, don’t wait until the last minute to get all your ducks in a row for your provisional license!

IMPERIAL INFANTILISM

When those purporting to serve as America’s statesmen and stateswomen think calling other world leaders names is properly part of the diplomatic repertoire — a prominent part, I’ll add — we are left with only one conclusion: The U.S. has no one capable of sailing its ship of state, no one in a position of influence worthy of the title “diplomat.” Every time I hear Biden call Putin or some other world leader, not to Washington’s liking, a name out of the American inventory of epithets it is a reminder of how grotesquely U.S. “statecraft” has been infantilized. Diplomacy is an essential skill in the century swiftly taking shape around us. But every time Biden or another American “leader” hurls one of their playground insults at the leader of another nation, (Putin as the Beelzebub du jour) they are reminding us: There will be no diplomacy emanating from Washington because they have no idea how to conduct it. Power and coercion are all they know.

consortiumnews.com/2022/03/21/patrick-lawrence-on-american-infantilism/