Off the Record (June 15, 2022)

AS OF WEDNESDAY, early election returns with the first three or four thousand votes in so far showed no surprises. The Hutchins/Glentzer race for County School Superintendent as expected is close with Glentzer ahead by about 52% to 48%. Everything else is trending as expected. In June of 2018, the last off year primary election, there were just over 22,000 votes cast, so the initial returns represent about 15% of votes so far. Upstart Sheriff’s candidate Trent James had about 138 votes or about 5% of the votes for Sheriff in initial returns with almost 800 voters choosing not to vote for either incumbent Matt Kendall or Trent James. The Glentzer/Hutchins contest will bear close watching and the winner will probably not be declared for several weeks, given the typical weeks long wait for final votes to be tallied and posted. Measure M, the Anderson Valley School Bond, was running about 65% to 35% in early returns (55% required to pass,) But only 116 AV votes had been counted.

BALLOTS LEFT TO BE COUNTED, JUNE 7, 2022 STATEWIDE PRIMARY ELECTION

Mendocino County Assessor-County Clerk-Recorder Katrina Bartolomie announced that as with every election, there are ballots left to be processed as part of the official canvass. Mendocino County has 17,602 Vote By Mail ballots to process and count, and 347 Provisional / Conditional ballots to review, process and count. By law, any ballot that is postmarked by Election Day (June 7) we are required to accept thru Tuesday, June 14, 2022, which may increase the ballots to process. Of the outstanding ballots left to count, the 3rd District Supervisor race has 3,097; the 5th District Supervisor race has 4,389; and Measure M in Anderson Valley Unified School District has 605 ballots remaining to process and count. We do plan to update our count (unofficial results) on our website within 2 weeks. Per State law, we have 30 days to complete the canvass and certify the election. The Statement of Vote, which breaks down results by precinct, will be available at that time.

If you have any additional questions, please call our office at (707) 234-6819. 

Katrina Bartolomie, Mendocino County Clerk-Recorder-Assessor

NOW we get a prime time week of Democrat posturing about how they “saved democracy” from Trump and are still saving democracy from Trump, all of it, produced by a showbiz production guy. First off, the Jan 6 event was a, riot, not an insurrection. (The insurrection is coming up when Trump loses, again in 2024.) An insurrection is characterized by armed teams who have a tactical plan. The Jan 6 was a mob of blowhards blown into life by America's all-time blowhard who, typical of blowhards, whipped up the mob, before ducking into the impregnable safety of the White House. But if Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell are all that stand between US democracy and the looming fat boy fascism… 

AARON SAWYER: There were a couple of really interesting articles that Kym Kemp ran under the Odd News, Old News series from last year that related some of the history of coal mining in the Covelo area. There are at least three articles and all are worth a read for anyone interested. In short, there is enough coal up there that outside business interests were trading the mining rights for a few decades in the late 19th century, but the quality wasn’t good enough for serious development.

THE COAST’S HOUSING ACTION TEAM will present the Short Term Rental petition and offer supporting comments at the FOLLOWING BOS meeting, Tues June 21st! Wanted - a few people to leave short voicemails (less than 3 minutes) for the Wednesday, June 8 Supervisors meeting. The Supervisors need to hear the heartbreaking comments 145 people wrote on the Short Term Rental petition. If you're game, email the Housing Action Team, and we'll reply with the phone number, simple instructions and part of the comments. An easy-peasy way to help!

HATMendocoast@gmail.com, www.HATMendoCoast.org.

TODAY'S banalities were typed out Tuesday afternoon, well before the polls closed.

ALL OVER but the shouting on election day in Mendocino County, but there'll be plenty of recriminations, especially over the election for County Superintendent of Schools. Incumbent super Michelle Hutchins has been the target of the nastiest secret slander campaign I've seen in my five decades behind the green curtain, and if she's re-elected, she'll have to work amicably with people whose murders she must have at least contemplated. 

THE INSURGENT CANDIDATE, Nicole Glentzer, an administrator among the over-many school administrators affixed to the Ukiah School District, ran a campaign based on… nothing, raising zero issues except, I'm not her. 

I'M NOT HER, was the Glentzer campaign theme, but you should vote for me because four years ago when we ran a Mean Girls campaign against Michelle we put a man up front, an opaque individual called Bryan Barrett, because, well, we couldn't come right out and say it, but we thought Ukiah, being the county seat and the county's largest school district, should get first dibs on all the money flowing through the County Office of Education, just like we always got first dibs when Paul Tichinin, the well-known lexicographer, was out there all those years in the lush Talmage offices developed for max edu-crat comfort when the agency was run by criminals. Paul was never niggardly with Ukiah! We had a blank check in them (those?) days. Running a man against Michelle was a mistake! Any political race in Mendo pitting a man against a women is doomed. The woman will triumph, no problemo.

AND BARRETT was a man in a county where angry women make up a solid twenty percent of the vote, and darned if they were going to vote for a male-type candidate against a sister. So, the intellectuals atop Ukiah educational bureaucracy put their pointy heads together and… “Got it! We'll run a woman! A woman against a woman! Our woman against the woman who won't give us first dibbsies on all that money we need for endless in-services and all those white wine retreats that make our easy jobs even easier.”

ENTER Ms. Glentzer with the support of Tichinin (of course) and the spiritual Tichinins who comprise much of the educational establishment of the county, an uninspired and uninspiring collection of time servers, mostly. 

THE HUTCHINS VS. GLENTZER vote will be close, but we predict Hutchins will pull it out, trying to work fairly with people who have vilified her for the past six months, longer in the case of a coven of vengeful women based in the Anderson Valley who have again led the charge against the superintendent.

TYPICAL OF THE MCOE election is this empty message from the empty-headed Paul Tichinin.

Editor: I urge everyone to follow the lead of hundreds of educators in our county and vote for Nicole Glentzer for Mendocino County Superintendent of Schools. 

These are the people on the ground working in the school communities in Mendocino County. They understand the local issues and know what is at stake.

They are choosing to vote for a new county superintendent of schools.

Nicole Glentzer has been endorsed by: The Mendocino County Office of Education teachers and support staff union; the Ukiah teachers union; every single classified (support staff) union in the County; four district superintendents, and over 100 other individuals who have retired from or are currently working in our schools.

It doesn’t matter what politicians in Sacramento think if you are not listening to and being responsive to the needs of the people and communities you are supposed to serve at home.

Vote for Nicole Glentzer on June 7.

Paul Tichinin

Mendocino County Superintendent of School (1994-2014)

Fort Bragg

ED NOTE: This letter is as vacuously fact-free as the writer's head, not a name except his and the candidate’s, who has also run an issue-free campaign based on secret slander, much of it circulated by Tichinin. The vote is in, the race is close, but throughout, Glentzer and Tichinin, and these vague so-called union groups, who refuse to identify themselves or respond to media questions, have not produced a single reason for replacing Hutchins as Superintendent of Schools. 

5TH DISTRICT SUPERVISOR, Ted Williams, will easily defeat challenger John Redding, a guy almost as routinely vilified as the above-mentioned Hutchins. Redding regularly gets it from the, ahem, highly evolved human beings of the Mendo Coast as an alleged “sexist” and “racist” without evidence of these sins. But any public person outside the suffocating NPR political consensus that prevails here in the 5th, better hunker down for a lot of gratuitous, and typically unfounded, political flak. Redding, unlike the petulant Williams, seems cut out for political combat. 

VOTERS in the 5th will return Williams for another four years although his performance in office should have earned him the bounce. But voters don't know, or care, that Williams has “under-performed” because they pay zero attention to the Supervisors. We've suffered years of underperforming — except for their own pay and perks — 5th District supervisors. Williams is in the grand tradition.

TRENT JAMES, the charismatic young former cop might get 6 or 7 percent of the vote, and would have gotten a lot more of the vote, especially from women who seem to make up about 80 percent of his support, if he'd gotten into the race for Sheriff earlier. James, mostly by implication, blasted what he claims is an old boys network dominant in the command structure of the Sheriff's Department, doing it by retailing ancient tales of alleged bad behavior by some old timers that should, in James' opinion, preclude them from being in charge of deputies. Incumbent Sheriff Kendall runs an honest shop, and we'll note here that James didn't have anything bad to say about Kendall. James brought some splash to the Sheriff's race but has made no lasting waves.

MEASURE M here in the Anderson Valley is a bond issue to repair the aged Boonville school facilities. Takes 55% yes to pass. Will it? We think so, but it'll be close. While there's a lot of money in the Anderson Valley these days there are also a lot of property owners without money for whom 60 bucks per $100k assessed value is a big bump, especially considering that even many modest homes on the smallest lots in AV are assessed at a half-mil. And up. One might think that the state of CA, with its huge budget surplus, would pump some of that largesse into the schools, both for repairs and enhanced instruction, but despite a lot of mawkish rhetoric about how we all love the kids, that affection often disappears when it comes time to put up cash. This one will be close.

MENDO HIPPIES, an old timer looks back: “Hippies were the spoiled, and opulent over-expression of American freedom and prosperity. Almost all the hippies came from families who did not have a father in the war, were almost all good Democrats, almost all believed the world owed them, and almost all were city people. My father used to say, some people never grow up, but most do. Most of the hippies who moved to Mendocino County would have eventually grown up, except they discovered , then participated in the pot black market scam, and as a result were able to continue on with their fantasy view of the world, and try to impose it on everyone else.” 

COUNTY WORKERS demonstrated today (Tuesday) in front of the Supe's chambers in protest of the news they will not receive raises, despite many of them doing the work of two people because of unfilled staff vacancies. 

NEWSPAPERS get a lot of hit pieces, most of them anonymous. The SF Chron, when Herb Caen was a daily must-read, carried a large deductible out of which the libeled were paid off, and often without the paper contesting their claim because it was simpler and cheaper to pay people to go away than litigate their claims. (Mendo taxpayers will be pleased to learn that our County Counsel's office routinely pays out for false claims against the County on the same weak-kneed principle that it's cheaper than going to court.) But the late, great Caen, like everyone else in the print media, was absolutely scrupulous about distinguishing truth from untruth, as is the Boonville weekly. 

ER, CHECK THAT. I've been libeled by the Press Democrat and other newspapers several times over the years, and when I wrote in to set the record straight, they held my letter of complaint so long that by the time it appeared people had no idea what I was whining about. All media are less scrupulous, of course, about opinion, and it's always surprised me that so many people can't tell the diff. 

LATELY, we've received a lengthy denunciation of a couple of Fort Bragg teachers unknown to me, and another lengthy denunciation of Jacob Patterson, the Fort Bragg attorney, and his mom, both of whom would qualify as public persons if they tried to sue for defamation. I speak here as the proud owner of around forty lawyer demand letters, as in “Immediately retract the enumerated false statements or...”

MAKING AN ERROR of fact in print has always terrified me. When I've committed that worst of all newspaper sins I rushed out a retraction as fast and as broadly as I could, including written apologies to the wronged parties. Fortunately, I haven't had to do that too often. But I've always welcomed demand letters from lawyers as an opportunity for more fun. Some sap of a client has paid the legal eagle to demand satisfaction despite, probably, the legal eagle trying to dissuade the client from wasting his money. In all of the cases where I was threatened with legal action, I was secure in my possession of the true facts which, thanks to the duped lawyer, I was again able to re-print the original offense alleged along with the comic addition of the demand letter.

AS A RULE, however, I'm not going to print unsigned accusations. If you present your verifiable identify to me, I probably will. I understand we live in an angry time, and if all the unhappiness out there could be converted to fuel, gasoline would be 11 cents a gallon, but please think twice about trying to get your enemies via unsigned allegations about their sins, real or imagined.

DEPARTMENT of unintentional hilarity: In the lede story by Bryan Cebulski in last week's Independent Coast Observer about the withdrawal of three logging plans at Jackson State Forest, this false statement occurs: “…This is a pretty big deal,” said Naomi Wagner, nonviolence trainer and media coordinator for the Redwood Nation Earth First!”

ACCORDING to their website, the Redwood Nation hasn't been active in the tree saving business since 2019. Of course you can send money to the no-longer-in-existence one-person organization and get yourself non-violently trained, too, for a few more bucks.

EARTH FIRST! was always heavy on scammers, and federal agents too, for that matter. In its origins with Dave Foreman, EF! stood for, well, putting the earth first. And then Foreman was driven out of the idea he'd given life to by Judi Bari, who falsely accused him of sexism and a lack of ideological purity generally. Then Bari's ex-husband blew her up with a car bomb and the Bari phenomenon — Earth First! with it — segued into a lucrative federal lawsuit aimed at enriching Bari and Darryl Cherney. If they won the suit, they said, they'd plant whole forests of trees, and the money rolled in from dupes across the land with nary a tree planted when the ultimate scam prevailed as the federal government and Bari-Cherney co-wrote their case to exclude all mention of who dunnit. And what we have thirty years later is a pile of lies guarded by the ”free speech” bastions at KMUD; KZYX; and KPFA. The bomber, incidentally, lives in comfortable exile in New Zealand after a lucrative career as Mendocino County's lead trash bureaucrat, no questions asked, natch, in the county where you are whatever you say you are and history starts all over again every morning. 

DRAYMOND GREEN’S MOM: “Tough loss tonight BUT in NO WAY, shape or form should fans be allowed to chant obscenities at players!,” Renee wrote, adding that the couple’s young children heard fans yelling “ F–k you Draymond” and calling their dad a “b–ch,” among other things. Are they not human? Is someone standing at your job saying off the wall things to you? The NBA has the audacity to have a whole code of conduct card at every seat about fans and their behavior and how they could be ejected from a game or banned but a whole crowd/section numbers people get to chant (cq) F–K YOU DRAYMOND or call him a B–ch or MF?!” And nothing?? Like that’s ok??,” Renee wrote, tagging Green and the NBA in her post.

CELTICS FANS, with that shameful exhibition last week, have won themselves Worst Ever Fans, an award that used to go to the Bay Area. The refs should have issued a warning to stop the chants, and if the chants didn't stop, have the Warriors start shooting T's. And where's the NBA? They should make a rule against this kind of thing with real teeth in it. I've seen lots of obnoxious sports fans over the years, but they were individual yobs, not a whole auditorium screaming in unison. Add one more sign of the apocalypse.

TRENT JAMES, Wednesday: “Hey everyone, I’ve been having a lot of people ask me about a timeline for the election results. I was informed it should take approximately 2-3 weeks to get the final count. So, don’t get discouraged, for those of you that did vote for me. Win or lose I appreciate all the support I’ve received and am thankful for those who have gone out of their way to help me with the campaign. Also, don’t read too much into certain biased “news” articles, pertaining to me, or the campaign. We will see what happens.”

IT’S HISTORY NOW, of course, but we couldn’t help notice that on his facebook post for June 5, 2022, Sheriff Candidate Trent James complained that he had been misquoted in his interview with Matt LaFever concerning his position on “defunding the police.” 

It looks like James is correct. Mr. LaFever’s poor phrasing clearly leaves the impression that James was for defunding the police when he was actually trying to say that mental health crisis services should be funded — but not with Law Enforcement funds.

LaFever: “Addressing the Defunding the Police movement and the call to redirect some funding to mental health services, James was all for it. He asserted law enforcement should not be in the business of psychiatry or counseling. ‘We’re peacekeepers and we enforce the laws’.”

JAMES MADE IT QUITE CLEAR on his facebook video that he is steadfastly opposed to any kind of law enforcement defunding. “Defunding has been proven to not work in metropolitan areas,” said James. “When the George Floyd thing happened they just got rid of half their dudes and all of a sudden it got weird, the crime rate went through the roof and now they’re begging to get people back. But they say, No, we’re not coming back. So they have to recruit from out of the area.”

SUPERVISOR WILLIAMS (apparently on Twitter Thursday): “Mendocino BOS 2022-06-08 $4.5M Reserve spending, only $10.2M reserve remaining, sign of the times economically speaking…”

HMMM. Just a few months ago former CEO Carmel Angelo bragged that she was leaving the County with a $20 million reserve which the Albion solon thought was worthy of praise. So that leaves us wondering where the other $5.5 million went? Not to worry though, we’re sure Supervisor Williams will get to the bottom of it.

UKIAH! Hire this man to rehab the Palace: 

I’m 68, active builder, have 40 years in construction, design, look at freedom tower Miami, the only reason it’s still standing is I ran the crew and profect7 Million in 88.

I want to help you remodel the palace. My approach is to carefully strip the entire interior, deframe it ,save everything build back with red iron and concrete observing all codes. Use some wood as finish s to recreate ambience without fire risks. Add a fourth floor. With Spanish tile pitched roof.

— Charles Kevin Hamilton

WHEN EMMETT TILL was murdered in Mississippi in 1955, his mother insisted that her son's casket remain open during his service, so people could see what tortures the 14-year-old boy had been subjected to. It's not an exaggeration to say that Till's murder inspired the Civil Rights Movement. In the struggle to ban military assault rifles, it might be politically effective for the parents of murdered children to also insist upon open caskets so people can see what these weapons do.

THIS from Dr. Roy Guerrero, a pediatrician who treated the victims at the emergency room of Uvalde’s hospital, testifying before Congress on what he saw: “Two children, whose bodies had been so pulverized by the bullets fired at them, over and over again, decapitated, whose flesh had been so ripped apart, that the only clue to their identities was their blood-spattered cartoon clothes still clinging to them, clinging for life and finding none.”

ACCORDING to the stats I've seen, inflation is now costing the average family $460 a month, which seems low to me given the escalating cost of fuel.

DEPARTMENT OF UNINTENDED HILARITY, the recent issue of Good Dirt, the newsletter of the Anderson Valley Land trust, inscribed, right at the top by Dario Sattui: “Foremost in my mind is preserving the bucolic, unspoiled beauty of the area.”

I WONDER if this is the same Dario Sattui who famously shocked the entire Anderson Valley and thousands of 128 travelers by denuding an entire Boonville hill of its grasses and oaks to plant grapes on it?

I ALSO got a grim chuckle out of this passage from Good Dirt: “…While the human faces have changed over the years, a constant has been the Navarro River, with its various tributaries winding from their headwaters near the ridges to the magnificent Pacific Ocean at its mouth. While facing many challenges, the Navarro remains a stronghold for coho salmon and steelhead.” 

NOT. Fish are few, the Navarro a summertime poisonous algae stew from industrial vineyard chemical runoff whose still, polluted waters are hazardous to any creature, especially dogs, who enter it. With all due respect to my friends and neighbors in the AV Land Trust, you might consider getting yourselves a mass reality check. (Group rates probably available.) Wine grape production, I guess, is agriculture, but it has destroyed the ecological and human balance of the Anderson Valley, supplanting the real agriculture we had here with an absentee class of land owners whose frivolous product rests entirely on the desperation of the people of Michoacan.

FRIDAY night's Warrior's game has exhausted sports superlatives. Stephan Curry is a marvel in human form, the best basketball player any of us has seen. Steph singlehandedly knocked off the Celtics last night, and the series is even with us at home again for two of the three remaining games. I had to laugh when even Draymond Green’s mom, Mary Babers, wondered out loud where her son was. “Please ppl stop asking me what’s wrong with Dray… I DONT KNOW!” Babers tweeted late Friday night. “Maybe this is a CLONE! Lmbo WHERE IS THE Draymond that helped get us here!! Hmmmm I have never seen this either!”

DRAYMOND'S been wayyyyy off, but he never stays off for long. Some people speculated that the Boston crowd, a mob of foul-mouthed drunks, had gotten to him. Doubt it. The guy gets group-insulted wherever he goes, and he's taken so much abuse over the years he's inured to it, one would think. Prediction: Draymond will come roaring back Monday night. 

BIDEN, or whoever writes his scripts for him, said Exxon made “more money than God last year” as he attacked oil companies for not paying taxes and not “drilling.” Biden continued to blame “Putin's price hike” on 41-year high inflation. America's premier victim of elder abuse also blamed price gouging and Putin's “tax on gas and food” for the spike and insisted it was still his administration's top priority to tackle inflation. Like the Biden admin is powerless to not only roll back fuel prices but slap windfall profit taxes on the oil companies. A story the other day said Biden was worried about being remembered in the same failed context as Jimmy Carter. He'll be lucky to be rated that high.

BILL KIMBERLIN: My vote for the great American novel. If you haven't read it, find it and read it.

COUNTY BOARD SHOULD RETHINK SALES TAX MEASURES

We think the Board of Supervisors should think twice before deciding to put sales tax measures on the November ballot.

The board is talking about putting a measure on the ballot raising sales taxes to pay for fire services and a new iteration of a county water agency.

While we don’t argue that local fire services need more funding, we disagree that the taxpayers should fork over money to pay for a water department that is not defined with no concrete mission.

Above anything else, local residents, like everyone across the nation is suffering from high prices due to inflation. The last thing anyone needs is more sales taxes. Yes, we know that the Measure B tax will be going down a bit as dictated by its language, but that’s no reason to immediately take those savings and use them to raise more taxes.

Add to that, the local Friends of the library are planning a sales tax measure on the next ballot. Pitting libraries against fire services is not fair and any ballot with two tax measures on it will likely see voters saying no to both.

The county should be looking at finding more fire funds all the time and we are not convinced that they have spent county money wisely enough to claim there isn’t any room for fire services in the current budget.

As for a water agency, we tried that already and it failed. Until the county can define what that means in detail and what power that agency would actually have to do what specific tasks — and why shoppers should pay for the costs of local growers — we think it’s too early to ask the taxpayers to fork over for it.

(K.C. Meadows, Ukiah Daily Journal Editor. Courtesy, the Ukiah Daily Journal.)

A READER WRITES: 

The recent L.A. Times article on Amanda Carley, the former probation officer who is suing the county and her ex-common-law husband current Ukiah Police Chief Noble Waidelich, bears out several truisms related to domestic violence. 

First, victims become enmeshed in abusive relationships and find it difficult to leave. From the story: “she found herself trying to leave him, one failed attempt after another.” 

Second, when questioned, victims often deny the abuse occurred or initially report it only to deny it later. Reasons include fear of retaliation, loss of financial support, family embarrassment, children, alcohol/drugs, falling for the perpetrators assurances of true love, their own possible contributions to the disputes, or a belief that it’ll never happen again. 

Carley, the alleged victim in this case, denied any abuse when it was reported to the Ukiah police in 2013 and again in 2015 when it was reported to the Sheriff’s Office. Only later did she say she was a victim of abuse. 

The case also shows the stakes are higher for law enforcement officers convicted of domestic violence or those who first deny and then report it. Cops convicted of felony domestic violence lose the right to own a gun, which means they lose their job. In this case that created an incentive for both parties to conceal the abuse, if in fact it occurred. Him to keep his job, her to protect him, since she was still in the relationship. 

The LA Times story quotes D.A. Eyster declining to prosecute because “the alleged victim is less than cooperative and presents as less than credible.” The LA Times story also says some of the allegations were “too vague to prosecute.” But the story left out important qualifiers. The DA’s full explanation was “some of the allegations were outside the statute of limitations and the more recent ones were too vague to prosecute.” In other words, there was insufficient evidence to file criminal charges, especially with an uncooperative witness lacking in credibility. 

The case might have ended there except Eyster, faced with evidence the alleged victim had been untruthful — by first denying, then alleging abuse had occurred — placed her on the Brady list; a list of law enforcement officers suspected of lying. thus disqualifying them from testifying in criminal prosecutions. That effectively ended Carley’s ability to do her job. It also set in motion the harassment and retaliation alleged in her civil lawsuit which claims conspiratorial actions by the County, Waidelich, Eyster and others. 

Eyster successfully sued to be removed from the case. After sitting in the courthouse basement for several years, the case is now headed for trial.

Any alleged abuse occurred at least seven years ago. The alleged coverup and harassment occurred at least six years ago. It’ll be interesting to see what evidence can be produced in what is mostly a he said/she said series of allegations. 

Noble Waidelich is now Ukiah Chief of Police, but was just another cop when the star crossed relationship began and ended. It’s not made clear in the LA Times story, but Waidelich was never employed or promoted by the County of Mendocino. Nor did he ever face criminal charges. But now, at least seven years after any alleged abuse occurred, Carley’s civil suit is scheduled to proceed.

From the case coverage by Mendofever: "Lawsuit Filed by Ex-Fiancé of Ukiah Police Chief Alleging Abuse and a Conspiracy to Discredit Her Proceeds to Jury Trial"

“…But Deputy County Counsel Brina Blanton protested that the short notice for the upcoming trial was ‘punishing the defendants,’ especially since an attorney is leaving her office, and she will be forced to dedicate all her working hours to discovery in the case. Nadel informed her that she herself had previously served as county counsel, with fewer attorneys in the office than there are now, and that she had been ‘very aggressive’ in defending the county. ‘I know your boss is here,’ she said, of County Counsel Christian Curtis’ presence. She told them that ‘The absence of Eyster affects your case,’ without elaborating how, and that there were instances when she, in their position, had worked hard and ‘wiped out the plaintiff’.”

ON LINE COMMENTS OF THE WEEK

[1] When I woke up this morning, I lay in bed feeling very angry. I was angry about stuff going on in my condo complex that I didn’t like, I was angry about what’s going in the world, I was angry at not being able to exercise as I am recuperating, and burn off energy, I wanted to sue my condo complex and so on. 

Then I thought if me, the supposedly reasonable one, can feel this angry, then how worked up are millions of others I don’t even know? I understood then why all this violence is occurring. The world is very frustrating, with no real outlet. It is a pressure cooker that can’t be turned off. Pretty soon there’ll be a massive pressure-relief explosion; then the resulting mess will be cleaned up and frustrations released. 

BTW, I feel like my normal self now, but I wonder if all I’m doing is burying the anger, and that someday I will become the Yellowstone caldera.

[2] Gas is inching up to $5 per gallon, but still people driving around like sonsabitches. Its manic, a last desperate go-round as indicated by the plethora of head on collisions, reckless driving, pedestrians being run down, and road rage incidents. Last night we drove about 40 miles west to attend a HS graduation. It was well done, not much political BS, and the graduates appeared eager and hopeful; my nephew commented “These kids are in for a rude awakening.” Yes, but I wish them the best anyway. Stopped at an Applebee’s at the edge of town on the way home (I always liked Applebee’s) Burger and fries for me, chicken salad for my wife, a beer and a soft drink: $50 with a tip. I’m sure they’re trying to keep prices down but many more of these restaurant will be struggling to survive in the near future.

[3] Huh, something is not adding up here.

The new Ford F150 EV was promoted as being an ‘affordable’ electric truck, retailing for about $40,000. But a few are turning up on dealers lots now with a sticker price of $141,000. Biden was up in Detroit last year promoting these things, billing them as Everyman’s vehicle, like the Ford Model T a century ago. Ford claims to have hundreds of thousands of reservations for this F150, so many that they can’t keep up with demand. However, a column in the WSJ a few weeks ago made the claim that 70% of Americans have less than $400 in the bank, and live week to week on $500 per week. Ford competitor Rivian in Indianapolis originally priced their EV truck at $67,500, but has since raised the cost to $83,500. On the Motley Fool site the claim was made that even at $83,500 every unit sold would result in a $15,000 loss, that the truck needs to be sold for at least $110 thousand for the company to remain solvent. In addition there is a required $15,500 subscription payable over 5 years.

So what gives? Is the EV Revolution just another just another scam based upon wishful thinking, lies and false hope? Some of these companies (Ford, GM) have promised to end all ICE production by 2030

[4] KYLE RITTENHOUSE, an on-line comment: “He shot a convicted pedophile, a serial domestic abuser, and a person charged with drunken reckless firearms discharge. ALL chased him and sought to do bodily injury to him, the lone survivor of the 3 pointing a pistol at his head, and gained a spicy bicep for his trouble. Kyle achieved what the vaccine could not. 3 shots and he was actually safe.”

[5] Been off coffee for awhile now. The acid just ate me up and I got so I couldn’t stand the taste. Switched up to 5 Hour Energy in bubbly water and I like that much better. 5 Hour has a bad rap in some quarters, but it’s actually all good stuff. No Guarana or any of that dicey stuff. Still have to watch the amounts though. No more than two a day. And gotta shop for the generic (Kroger for me), as the real stuff is off the charts expensive.

I think my little incident was Sunday was mostly alcohol provoked, as I’ve long had a problem with racing heart after alcohol, especially when I get locked into the maniacal caffeine during the day, alcohol at night routine. Combine that with a little dehydration (goes hand in hand with alcohol use) and some ill-advised really hard workouts to “compensate” for my hangovers and there ya go. REALLY, REALLY stupid juvenile behavior at the tender age of 65.

But I’m back to my fire-breathing self again now. BP 105/60, HR 66 this morning. Slept 9 perfect hours, and workouts are back to full strength and duration. Thinking “meta:” I actually think I do these things to myself on purpose in order to set boundaries. I’ve always been a hard-headed sum’ bitch, who when told I can’t or shouldn’t do something, am pretty much guaranteed to violate that rule just to test its validity. Still a punk at 65 – LOL! Who’d a thunk?

[6] History tells us it takes only 3% of a pissed off population motivated to the point of action to overthrow a government. Are we there yet? By the way the January march was an unarmed protest, not a revolt. The next one will be the real deal and those lamp posts will be used.

If the January 6th Committee show is short-and-sweet, say a few weeks, it will be quickly forgotten in the welling summertime heat as the great masses of America groan under $5… $7… maybe $10-a-gallon gasoline prices (or maybe no gas at all) while diesel prices at $6.50 today are already destroying the trucking industry — and thus the entire system for delivering all goods around the country. The zeitgeist is quivering with intimations of food shortages and the philosopher reminds us that any given body politic is just nine missed meals away from bloody rebellion. Have another look at that motley January 6th committee group photo and consider the lampposts along Pennsylvania Avenue. 

[7] China’s “cultural revolution” lasted about 10 years….and then the madness finally passed and China spent decades recovering from that foolishness.

America is essentially going through the same thing. It kicked off in 2016 with Trump Derangement Syndrome and we are now 6+ years into the madness. It’s going to take until 2024, at a minimum, for it to completely pass, but I am beginning to see some light at the end of the tunnel, I think. What transpires this November will be very clarifying.

[8]  “Sheriff Kendall reported that two new-hire deputies have graduated from the Police Academy in Windsor. One more new deputy is coming, who has been mentored by Lt. Jason Caudillo. The Sheriff’s office is not able to patrol Redwood Valley as much as they would like because of the volume of drug problems and behavioral health issues around the Motel 6 area, and Brush Street in Ukiah. Lt. Caudillo reported that new apartments in Ukiah specifically intended to provide housing to people with addiction and behavioral health issues are generating a lot of calls to the Sheriff. The homeless camp on Brush Street is generating a high volume of calls. Social workers from four or five agencies regularly visit the camp in an attempt to enroll people in social services, but they don’t have much luck getting people signed up, resulting in more calls to law enforcement. Lt. Caudillo is working with Second District Supervisor Mo Mulheren to clean up this area. He contacted the California Conservation Corps and was quoted $208,000 in fees to clean up the camp because it includes hazardous waste, needles, and human waste.”

—Monica Huettl, Summary of the June 8 Redwood Valley Municipal Advisory Council meeting (via MendoFever).