Mendocino County Today: Saturday, June 18, 2022

AN UPPER LEVEL STORM SYSTEM will move east across the region today, and will aid in periods of showers and a few thunderstorms across the interior mountains. Otherwise, drier and warmer weather will develop across Northwest California during early to middle portions of next week as high pressure returns aloft. (NWS)

JESUS MENDOZA’S BODY FOUND

Officials have confirmed the dead body found in the Navarro River this morning is 25-year-old Boonville resident Jesus Mendoza who went missing on Tuesday, June 14, 2022.

Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office Captain Greg Van Patten told us he was found submerged in the water and preliminary investigations have found “no obvious signs of foul play.”

Mendoza’s family filed a missing person report last night with MCSO after he had been missing for three days. In an earlier interview, Jennifer Mendoza, Jesus’s sister, told us her brother was last seen around 5:00 p.m. on Tuesday in the company of three men and five women within Hendy Woods State Park in Philo.

This group of men and women have yet to be identified, but Captain Van Patten said investigators determined this group Jesus reportedly was last seen with was across the river and the last known sighting of him was him swimming to go and talk with them. “At this point, nothing we have developed shows he knew the group he was going to contact”, Captain Van Patten said.

Captain Van Patten confirmed the investigation into Mendoza’s death is within MCSO’s jurisdiction and the coroner’s investigation is currently being conducted. An autopsy is scheduled for next week but blood alcohol/toxicology analysis results will not be available for several weeks.

GRANGE BEACH BALL

THIS Saturday, June 18th, the Anderson Valley Grange is throwing a fundraising shindig. It's called the Beach Ball. You've probably heard about it. Two great bands, an all local silent auction, beer and wine “tiki" bar, your take on "formal beachwear" and more! But have you heard about what is being done to make the party a safe place to be? Folks are urged to get tested before coming, wear a mask, or…the Grange is giving out N95's at the door! Windows will be open and fans blowing. Also the school is graciously loaning several HEPA filters that will be running. All that purifying air flow on a cool evening will keep the crowd cool and the band hot. It's all adding up to be as safe and as open as possible to party down!

CITY OF UKIAH TERMINATES POLICE CHIEF NOBLE WAIDELICH

Ukiah, CA. June 17, 2022. – The City of Ukiah has served Police Chief Noble Waidelich with a Notice of Termination, separating him from City employment effective June 17, 2022.

“It is with great conviction that I uphold the City of Ukiah’s values of service and professionalism as I make the decision to terminate Mr. Waidelich from the agency,” said Ukiah City Manager, Sage Sangiacomo. “Recent events have transpired, illuminating the fact that this individual is not a good fit for the City. Our community deserves better; the good men and women who do this work every day with integrity deserve better.”

Mr. Waidelich is named in a criminal investigation in which the City of Ukiah is not the lead agency. That process will continue to work through the justice system. “Simultaneously,” continued Sangiacomo, “we are acting swiftly and decisively with respect to his employment, as Waidelich was also in violation of police department policy separate and apart from the accusation and ongoing investigation of criminal conduct. He was placed on administrative leave within hours of learning of this incident. His weapons, vehicle, and badge were taken away at that time. Within three days, he has been notified of his termination from City employment.”

“We appreciate that the public wants details and that it is frustrating to be left in uncertainty. Per the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office—and consistent with our legal system—the details of the criminal allegation cannot be shared at this time. To do so could potentially compromise a fair and timely outcome. The City is also precluded from sharing employment records concerning its decision to terminate Mr. Waidelich at this time. What IS certain is that the City of Ukiah is committed to transparency to the fullest extent possible and continuing to uphold the values of the organization.”

On Wednesday, June 15^th, as is standard practice, Captain Cedric Crook was appointed Acting Police Chief to lead the department in the interim. The City will continue to share information as it becomes available.

(City of Ukiah Presser)

* * *

PRESS STATEMENT OF THE DAY: “What IS certain is that the City of Ukiah is committed to transparency…”

“the details…cannot be shared…”

Both cannot be true at once. Either you’re up front about everything – transparency – or you’re not. And City of Ukiah is not. But they lied and said they are.

If no one holds them accountable, then I suppose they’re going to get away with having it both ways through their lies.

THAT WAS AN INTERESTING LETTER from the Board of Supervisors to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission signed by Supervisor Ted Williams (but undated) concerning PG&E’s request for a temporary variance of (minimum) flow requirements in the Russian River on Thursday.

https://mendofever.com/2022/06/17/citing-negative-environmental-and-economic-impacts-mendocino-countys-bos-pushes-back-on-pges-request-to-decrease-flow-of-russian-river/

Williams’ letter, while understandable in the present political context, contains a substantial amount of technical detail which could only have come from an insider in either the Potter Valley Irrigation District or a related inland water agency.

According to a recent County Water Agency report:

“FERC has also received a letter from The Potter Valley Irrigation District complaining that PG&E has not consulted with a full range of stakeholders before requesting the variance, noting that the new minimum storage target of 30,000 acres is ‘not supported by any definitive studies or modeling of prior year conditions and is clearly outside the existing license requirements’.”

This sounds similar to Williams’ letter, but we cannot find that the letter from the Potter Valley Irrigation District to compare it with Williams’ letter.

Nor can we find any agenda item where the subject was discussed by the Board of Supervisors and a letter was drafted or voted on, even though Williams signs the letter as “Chair, Mendocino County Board of Supervisors.”

Back in February we reported Mendo wine/water guy Supervisor Glenn McGourty’s response to a caller’s question about high flow releases from Lake Mendocino at a Drought Task Force meeting.

Instead of denying that suspiciously large amounts of water were being released prematurely, “McGourty instantly replied that it was to maintain minimum flows for the fish, but failing to inform the caller what those minimum flows are, when they apply, or how much the current releases are — as if the fish are the only consideration and his grape growing friends aren’t pumping it into their grape ponds.”

Yet at that time, depending on which Russian River gage you look at Russian River flows had been running over 100 cubic feet per second, and in some cases more than that, well over the 25 cubic feet per second specified minimum flows.

It’s funny that neither Williams nor anybody else complained when too much water was being released, making it harder to maintain minimum flows now as we enter the dry months. But when the possibility of less water is mentioned, oh boy — here they all come — after all that water has left Lake Mendocino, most of it into vineyard ponds along the Russian River.

We also question the propriety of Williams signing a letter as Chair of the Board of Supervisors when there’s been no discussion or vote on the subect by the full board.

But then, when the Cheap Water Mafia wants something from the Supervisors they generally get it, including a dubious water component of a sales tax proposal.

(Mark Scaramella)

NOYO BRIDGE SUICIDE

On June 7th, at approximately 11:03 a.m., Officers were dispatched to the Noyo Bridge for the report of a male subject who was standing on the outside of the pedestrian bridge railing. The first Officer arrived on scene within minutes and made contact with the subject.

For approximately 30 minutes, the Officer on scene spent time communicating with the adult male victim desperately attempting to convince him to come back over the railing. Unfortunately, as a Crisis Worker arrived on scene to assist, the victim chose to jump to his death.

The Officer who was in contact with the victim was able to travel on foot down the steep terrain to the south of the Noyo Bridge and locate the victim on the ground below. It was apparent the victim was deceased and medical personnel were notified. The victim’s next of kin has been notified however we will not be releasing the victim’s name out of respect for the family.

The Fort Bragg Police Department sends their heartfelt condolences to the family and friends of the victim. We would also like to remind the public of the local 24/7 crisis line available at 1-855-838-0404. Family members or friends of individuals suffering from crisis or mental health issues may reach out to the crisis line or the Fort Bragg Police Department at 707-964-0200 to learn about available resources.

The Fort Bragg Police Department would like to thank the multiple agencies who arrived to assist with this incident. State Parks provided traffic control and a lifeguard in case the incident turned into a water rescue. Adventist Health Mendocino Coast supplied two ambulances at either side of the Noyo Bridge to expedite medical care should it be needed. The United States Coast Guard provided a boat to assist with a potential water rescue, and then used the boat to provide privacy for the victim’s body while it was recovered. Finally, The Fort Bragg Fire Department provided the shallow water boat intended to transport medical personnel to the inaccessible beach and ultimately to transport the victim’s body to the awaiting mortuary vehicle. A personal thanks is extended to the Redwood Community Services Crisis Worker who came to scene voluntarily to try and assist.

Wellness resources have been made available to the Officers present that day. Questions regarding this press release may be directed to Captain O’Neal at toneal@fortbragg.com or at 707-961-2800 ext. 120.

(Fort Bragg Police Presser)

THE LIGHTHOUSE, A BEACON OF HOPE

by Stacey Warde

Where 19th century genius meets 21st century thuggery…

On the day of my first-ever visit to the Pt. Arena Lighthouse in Mendocino County, I returned home to discover that local law enforcement, five agencies in all, had issued a “shelter-in-place” order because 20 armed bandits wearing black hoodies had descended upon someone’s home in the woods near Gualala, a few miles down the road.

I had no idea that a militia of armed rebels was conducting a raid just minutes away as I stood in awe of the genius of 19th century lighthouses casting a beacon of warning and welcomed light from some 20+ miles away to ships at sea, saving perhaps hundreds of mariners from certain shipwreck, and possibly death. I was still trying to wrap my head around the genius of the French innovator and physicist Augustin-Jean Fresnel, (1788–1827), whose light technology from 200 years ago, as the saying goes, “saved millions from shipwreck,” and is still used today in car headlamps and traffic signals. All the while, mesmerized by the beauty of the Mendocino coastline and the historic collective effort of pioneers in this area to build a rescue center and beacon of hope for mariners, a small army of bandits was trying to overwhelm nearby homeowners, presumably pot growers or drug dealers with a lot of cash on hand, which is a common hazard in these parts.

Recently relocated to this county from Morro Bay/Cayucos, I decided to go for a drive and enjoy the sun and clear skies along the the coast, try some sightseeing, get to know the place, and landed at the lighthouse, not far from my new home in the small coastal community of Elk, less than 400 residents, slightly smaller than the 2,500 population of Cayucos, where I have lived for most of the past 35 years.

The weather, so far, has been mostly cold and wet, with lots of welcome rain, some frost, and a few cold weather advisories. I’ve been homebound, on account of the weather and covid-19, eager to get out and meet people despite the rain and fog and the global pandemic, but on Tuesday the clouds cleared and the sun came out; it seemed like a good day to venture out into the southernmost part of the Emerald Triangle, where some of the world’s best pot is grown.

Also, nearby Anderson Valley is emerging as one of those quaint hard-to-reach wine destinations popular among folk who love good cuisine paired with equally delicious wines, and appeals to visitors from The City who like to get away and spend lots of money. Like Cayucos, this is a tourist destination but, unlike Cayucos, it appears to me that many who live here also do not wish to be bothered by urbanites whose only goal is to fuck things up by turning the countryside into a rich man’s playground. Still, the push toward the high-end dollar is very much in evidence here, where wine, money, and pot commingle in an odd amalgam of earthy wealth and criminality.

Originally, I had planned only to make a quick run to the Elk Post Office, pick up a package, hit the small family-run general store next door and return home. But the store was closed and I needed some avocados, which were always plentiful on the ranch in Cayucos. We were having tacos for dinner and guacamole sounded like a great side dish.

I had recently visited a small grocery/coffee shop on the main drag through the town of Pt. Arena, about half an hour’s drive south from Elk on Highway 1, the Shoreline Highway. I knew they had what I was looking for. So I headed south on the winding, breathtaking road past Irish Beach with its cluster of eyesore prefab-like homes, down through Manchester, and finally into the little town of Pt. Arena.

Hippies have left their mark on the place, I’ve decided, where it’s easy to find organic produce, posters and handbills advertising liberal ideas such as diversity and the right to vote, and yet there’s an odd mix here of surfers, foresters, environmentalists, and drifters who lounge in the public restroom/park area across the street, next to the Arena Theater, an old movie house still in operation and run locally by an association of art lovers. It’s not unlike the little coastal town of Cayucos, from which I came a few months ago, but less chic and apparently less affected by big money. This is a town, like Cayucos, that has a storied seafaring history but, unlike Cayucos, feels like it’s on the verge of a civil war.

Before I got to the tiny local market, however, I detoured onto the road leading out to the point, where many shipwrecks have occurred throughout the years and where, in 1870, a lighthouse was built to steer ships to safety. Mariners must adjust to a 40-degree slant, heading either north or south, when they get there to avoid hitting rocks or running aground. Navigating these waters requires a skillset that keeps me in awe and I wonder how men and women even find the nerve to approach such a task.

While exploring the area around the the point, I marveled at its rugged beauty, which reminds me of Big Sur, the spectacular rise of coastal mountains on California’s Central Coast, where I’ve spent many a wonderful evening, conversing with Benedictine monks overlooking the Pacific, grousing over the shape of things to come with the curator of the Henry Miller Library, and sitting naked with my lover in the coed baths at the Esalen Institute. Big Sur, however, as I’m quickly learning, is not Mendocino.

While I stood in rapt wonder over the effort required to build the lighthouse and signal a warning to shipmasters the world over who dared to navigate these waters, two armed residents held off the small thug army until authorities arrived and the invaders scattered. Into the woods, I guessed, which would mean several days of slogging through rugged hill country before they arrived where I’m now living. No need to worry. Yet.

We’re loaded down ok, with a couple of shotguns, a handgun or two, but hardly equipped to fend off 20 invaders. I’ve had some training in guerrilla warfare tactics as an Army Ranger, and my host’s two brothers–all lifelong friends, like family–served as Special Forces operatives in Afghanistan and Iraq. I suppose we could stage ourselves for combat. Conduct raids. Drive out the enemy. But this is supposed to be our home. And besides, I’m 63, and I don’t want to set up for combat. I want to live! Life is difficult enough. Like anyone, I want to feel safe in my home, eat good food, sit by the fire and read, not throw up parapets and dig fox holes.

In the end, I want to study the genius of men like Fresnel, who apparently thought more of the wonder of light than how to terrorize and steal from his neighbors. In the end, I wish to pursue the enlightenment to be had in the study of physics instead of bullying someone into giving me something that doesn’t belong to me.

Two days after the “shelter-in-place” order, I have still not found any updates in the local media, no word on whether anyone was caught, or what became of the residents who apparently bravely stood their ground. I’m surprised at the queer silence that has filled the pages of the local news. There’s no appraisal or reassurance about much of anything here, simply the hope for connection with minds like Fresnel’s whose focus truly was to enlighten rather than dominate and terrorize.

Stacey Warde is a writer living in Mendocino County. (Courtesy, theroguevoice.com)

SUPERVISORS AGENDA NOTES

(Assembled by Mark Scaramella)

Item 4b On next Tuesday’s Supervisors Agenda is a “Discussion and Possible Action Including Direction to Staff Regarding the Consolidation of the Offices of the Auditor-Controller/Treasurer-Tax Collector. (Sponsor: County Counsel)”

No further details of what they will discuss or what the options are have been provided.

* * *

Next Tuesday’s agenda also includes this item, a very model of clarity by a County that says it is so committed to transparency:

“Item 4e: Discussion and Possible Action Including Adoption of Resolution Making Government Code Sections 31641.1, 31641.2, 31641.3, 31641.4, 31641.8, 31641.9, 31641.95, 31470.7, 31478, 31479, and 31489, Applicable in
Mendocino County from July 3, 1979 Through December 31, 2009 to
Conform the Mendocino County Employees’ Retirement Association
(MCERA) Plan Documents to Plan Operations During Those Periods of Time, Therefore Authorizing Formally and Ratifying Purchases of Service Credits Pursuant to Those Sections Previously Permitted by MCERA. (Sponsor: Mendocino County Employees Retirement Association)”

* * *

Item 4f: Discussion and Possible Action Including Approval of Agreements with 1. Anchor Health Management, Inc. Medication Support Services ($1,350,000), 2. MCAVHN Care and Prevention ($420,000), 3. Mendocino Coast Hospitality Center ($592,000), 4. Mendocino County Youth Project ($958,000), 5. Redwood Community Services ($8,523,000), and 6. Tapestry Family Services Inc. ($3,910,000) to Provide Specialty Mental Health Services to Eligible Medi-Cal Beneficiaries of Mendocino County for a Total Combined Amount of $15,753,000, Effective July 1, 2022 Through June 30, 2023

(Sponsor: Behavioral Health and Recovery Services)

OF COURSE, these are all combined into one $15.8 million agenda item because, well, they don’t say why, do they?

However, one of the attachments says that “Anchor Health Management formerly know [sic] as Redwood Quality Management Company.”

* * *

THE BOARD is also planning to discuss the proposed emergency services/water sales tax, a carry-over discussion from June 7.

* * *

IN CLOSED SESSION, they will evaluate their Interim CEO Darcie Antle and discuss the pending lawsuit against the County (et al) filed originally in 2017 by former Probation Officer Amanda Carley.

* * *

THIRD DISTRICT SUPERVISOR JOHN HASCHAK’S SUPERVISORS REPORT

3rd District Supervisor John Haschak Ad Hoc work as of June 14, 2022

Housing: I have a placeholder for a BOS agenda item for Aug. 2 to increase housing with Short Term Rental revenues.

Attended 50th Anniversary of the Mendocino County Museum. Met with Museum staff and Willits Rotary to get more collaboration and have some meetings at Museum.

Drought Ad hoc – We met with GEI consultants to discuss different options to staffing a “water agency”. The big question is do we want to staff it for the short term (consultant who can be ready to work with state agencies, apply for grants, etc. ) or with a long term view with somebody who has some of the educational requirements, represent MC but might need some experience working with state agencies?

Supervisor McGourty and I met with County Counsel to discuss Ag Pass Program. The proposed program is in alignment with newly passed state law and will come to the BOS on July 12.

CSAC Cannabis Task Force: We had two meetings regarding enforcement and tax issues. The Governor’s proposal is a needed step by eliminating the cultivation tax.

Cannabis Ad Hoc for issues of Portal and Equity Grant: Met with Nicole Elliott, Director of Cannabis Control, to discuss equity and portal issues. She will help to expedite guidance on auditing issues. Ad hoc met with MCD staff and stakeholders to discuss communication, process, and other issues.

Economic Development: Attended the West Business Center’s graduation.

* * *

SUPERVISOR MULHEREN MAY 2022 MONTHLY REPORT

Hi, I’m Mo Mulheren the Second District Supervisor.

Each month the Board members submit a written report that updates the other Board members and the community on the work that we are doing. I would also like to use this as an opportunity to share with you all events I’ve attended as well as other updates from our community. Here is a list of pertinent meetings and links so that you can look at websites or videos and of course reach out if you have additional questions.

At the beginning of the month County IT made the switch to Microsoft Outlook. I am hoping this will make it easier to search and archive emails which was a challenge with the other system. Using the mobile Microsoft applications will also make it more efficient to work from wherever I am, County Office, IPad, Home Office, or my cell phone. As you know being a County Supervisor is a 24/7 job, I have an album on my @Mo4Mendo Facebook page that shows a little bit about where I am working from just to give context.

Every Thursday morning I start my day with a Zoom Meeting I call “Coffee and Conversation”. The Meeting ID is 7079548230 and the password is LOCAL707. I hope you will consider joining and asking your questions about what is happening in Mendocino County.

May 2nd LAFCO
LAFCO meetings are still on Zoom but the commissioners would like to go back to in person soon. We discussed the upcoming work plan and budget for next fiscal year.

May 3rd BOS Meeting: at this meeting we recognized the work that our team members do through three proclamations, one for Public Service Week, one for National Police Week and one for National Correction Officers Week. We also approved the Ag Pass program to allow small business owners to have access to the farms in the event of an emergency. We also reviewed and approved the Juvenile Justice Coordination Plan and Approved the agreement with AECOM Technical Services, Inc to provide the Construction Management Services to complete the Measure B Psychiatric Health Facility at 131 Whitmore Lane, expected year of completion 2025.

May 4th Mendocino County - City of Ukiah Second District Meeting. On the first Wednesday of the month I meet with Mayor Jim Brown and the city manager for the City Of Ukiah. This helps connect the county and the city so that we don’t duplicate efforts and we understand important discussions and initiatives incurred occurring in each others agencies.

May 4th Walking Wednesday- I started a “Walking Moai” with the Blue Zones Project. A Moai is a group of 5-10 people that connect through a healthy activity like walking or volunteering. Connecting with the community are key in my life. Our mental and physical health improve by getting outdoors. Please contact the Blue Zones Project of Mendocino County to learn how to create a Moai in your neighborhood.

May 10th CEO/CAO Ad Hoc Discussion - We had to update the CEO/CAO Ad Hoc item to bring it back to the Board for the final decision, at this time I don’t have anything different to add than what was proposed which is the Board having more direct contact with Department Heads and their evaluations.

May 10th Mental Health Data Reports Ad Hoc - We had a meeting to review the Mental Health Data Reports to try and provide information about outcomes to our community. It’s very challenging in that no agencies across the State have such a report. RQMC analyses and posts data on the shared website of all of our service providers. Here is the link in case you need it: https://www.rqmc.org/

May 11th Fire Chiefs Meeting in Hopland, I attended the Fire Chiefs meeting in Hopland. We received a presentation on Emergency services and had a round robin conversation about the challenges the departments face with more calls and less volunteers.

May 12th Coffee and Conversation, this is a good place to remind you that every Thursday morning between 7:15a-7:45a I have a meeting on Zoom. This is your opportunity to bring to me any issues or questions or share successes that are happening in our communities.

May 12th Monthly Parks Ad Hoc Committee - The Parks Ad Hoc meets monthly with staff to get updates on the maintenance, outreach and repairs. We were discussing the needs going in to budget hearings. We realize there are way more projects than dollars so that will be a challenging conversation but we can’t retain the parks and not fund the repairs or at least maintain them. We continue to do outreach and seek possible partnerships with organizations like the City of Ukiah and volunteer groups in our communities.

May 12th Tax Sharing Ad Hoc - The Tax Sharing Ad Hoc of Supervisor Gjerde and myself met with the City Manager of Willits, City Manager of Ukiah and their team members as well as County Executive Staff. We are trying to keep it as simple as possible so that if the Cities in our County need to annex there is a simplified process. All of the cities have agreed to this simplified approach and the County would like some time to consider the process.

May 12th Adopt-A-Road Pilot Program - I am working with County Staff and Supervisor Gjerde to enhance the Adopt-A-Road Program. We have volunteers throughout the County that want to clean up illegal dumps and the program would essentially cover their disposal fees. Through this conversation we decided that it wasn’t a fit with the Adopt-A-Road Program but could be a stand alone program called Clean Mendocino. It needs to go before the MSWMA Board for discussion before it comes back to the Supes.

May 12th Special IWPC Meeting - Closed session discussion with legal council regarding the PG&E relicensing. Open session updates on committees and a PVP proposed ballot measure, raising of the Coyote Valley Dam and the Coho Salmon and Steelhead. If you are reading this please take some time to understand what the Potter Valley project and Increased capacity to Lake Mendocino mean to our economy. Here is a link: https://mendoiwpc.com/our-shared-water/

May 13th MCAFD Special Meeting- We had a special meeting of the Fire/EMS Ad Hoc and our fire partners to discuss the possibility of bringing a Fire Sales Tax Initiative forward to the Board, Discussion of the Fire Training Structures and how to get them placed and EMS services funding in the County.

May 15th Extension of the City View Trail - I attended the Grand Opening of the new section of the “City View Trail” in Low Gap Park. I encourage you to check it out. Here is a link to the maps: https://mendotrails.org/trails/low-gap-park-trails/

May 15th RCS Foster Care Awareness Event - I attended the RCS Foster Care Month event to raise awareness for connected communities to our Foster Kids. It was unfortunately poorly attended but I had a great time meeting the people in their booths and talking with the kids. Resource families are so important for our kids.

May 17th BOS Meeting - Receive a presentation of the BID and a future Mendocino County Water Agency. Have a kick off discussion to tie the Sales Tax conversations together for the Boar, contemplate combining fire and water and spreading the resources County wide.

May 18th Ukiah Valley Basin Groundwater Sustainability Agency Workshop - Discussion of Drought Concerns, You can watch the YouTube link here: https://youtu.be/RHzshVA3o0s

May 18th Meet re Brush Street Homeless Encampment clean up options I met with some potential contractors to discuss the possible cost of cleaning up the Brush Street homeless Encampment.

May 19th MSWMA Meeting - Meet to discuss possible candidates for General Manager and it is not looking good. Only one qualified candidate from out of State, looking at alternative options.

May 19th Rivino Fire Survivor Event - I was honored to present the Volunteer of the Year awards to United Disaster Relief at this year’s Fire Survivor Reunion Event.

May 20th FB Blue Economy Summit - I went to Fort Bragg to listen in on the Blue Economy Summit. Although its out of my district I think its important that every Supervisor understand the concerns of our entire County. Changing environments and environmental standards make this economy tough but they are working on innovative ideas!

May 20th Meet with Julia Krog to discuss constituent concerns - There were some concerns with Planning and Building so I met with Director Krog. I find it more efficient to have one meeting and discuss issues. Our department heads are very responsive to the needs of our constituents. I realize nothing happens fast enough especially when you are working through Government but our team is trying to get things through as quickly as possible.

May 21st and 22nd Andie’s SPACE show - This one is not on County time but I wanted to say I am grateful to SPACE and all of their sponsors for providing out youth with an outlet for their creativity. My daughter Andie was in three shows this weekend, every one was a little unique and the kids loved it.

May 23rd GRTA Board of Directors The GRTA Board meets to discuss the dissolution of NCRA and the creation of the new Great Redwood Trail Board. We hope to have a staff member on Board soon as the project officially kicks of July 1.

May 23rd Arbor to talk about nitrous oxide ban in tobacco shops - I went to the youth Council at the Arbor. They would like to bring a Nitrous Oxide ban in tobacco shops in the Unincorporated County to the Board. Because summer vacation is about to begin it may take some time. The City of Ukiah has already approved a ban.

May 24th Meet with a member of the community about a future business idea. If you have something you’d like to talk about please reach out I’m happy to hear your thoughts.

May 25th BHAB Board
Public Comment: NewLife.Health facility that offers Addiction support services came to talk about the services they are offering to make the community aware that they are open and accepting new patients. We need members on BHAB please consider joining!
Bring a flyer to local farmers markets, Big Times and other events to try and recruit membership Dr Miller - Contracts with the service providers will be going to the Board of Supervisors. RQMC will still continue as the ASO but there will be more direct collaboration with the County to the service providers
We are spending about $3 million a year on LPS conservatorships and that’s for about 60-64 persons and that will increase if California Care Court is approved. We are going through many audits MHSA program, MHSA finance, EQRO audit, Medical Audit, Triennial Audit, SUDT Cost report audit and that has taken up a lot of staff time. It seems that the State is catching up after COVID, so far the feedback has been positive
County Mental Health is trying to work more collaboratively with our Tribal Communities to create more collaboration.

May 26th
Russian River Watershed Association - High School Video Contest tonight
20/21 Work Plan Wrap Up of Our Water Our World. Promotion of less toxic gardening, DEA Take Back event on April 30th was successful

Maureen Mulheren, 2nd District Supervisor Mendocino County Board of Supervisors

LISTEN UP, SUPERVISOR MULHEREN

To the Board of Supervisors:

I strongly object to your proposed new sales tax for water and fire. Certainly our local fire departments need additional funding; they would do better to band together and advance individual tax increases for their districts rather than the pittance they are likely to receive after the county siphons off a share. The county owns no water or water rights that I know of, nor would be able to acquire any, so any money they take in for dealing with water would likely be frittered away on cross purposes to the actual water districts in the county.

The manifest incapacity of the supervisors to deal with, for example, cannabis regulation and mental health services, should warn taxpayers against giving them money for new areas they are presently not even involved in. If this tax measure is put on the ballot, I will certainly vote against it.

Stephanie T. Hoppe

Ukiah

ALIGN THE HEART HEALTH AND HANDS

Abuela gardens, located in willits, california, is offering hands-on programs to support inner growth, sense of community and the skills of all things regenerative. Hosting work parties and Workshops planned around the full moon, new moon and summer solstice we integrate natural building, and permaculture with community building and wisdom traditions. Up next is our rocket stove mass heater workshop. get more info or register at www.abuelagardens.com

Interested in learning the hands-on skills of natural building? check out this year's workshop series Aligning The Heart Health And Hands at www.abuelagardens.com located in willits california, Come, learn, have fun and build community this summer!

Thank you for considering helping us.

Cheers, Elexa Richard, 707-671-5784

CATCH OF THE DAY, June 17, 2022

NICHOLAS BRITTON, Ukiah. Controlled substance, probation revocation.

LANCE DEMARCE, Ukiah. Battery, vandalism.

DILAN GREGORY, Potter Valley. Domestic battery.

MELVIN KING, Gualala. Battery, paraphernalia.

SHELLY LEGGETT, Covelo. Vehicle theft, probation revocation.

COLLEEN WARNER, Gualala. Stolen vehicle, offenses while on bail.

UKRAINE, FRIDAY, JUNE 17

Ukraine's bid to join the European Union came one step closer as the EU's executive arm recommended giving Ukraine official candidate status. Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission head, tweeted: "Ukraine has clearly shown commitment to live up to European values and standards." EU leaders will take up the recommendation later this month, but membership in the bloc can take years to formalize.

Russian President Vladimir Putin issued a scathing critique of the United States, saying the U.S. was to blame for a crisis in global relations, food security, inflation and trade. In his speech at Russia's annual economic forum, Putin presented his country as part of a new global order willing to challenge an America clinging to its past status as the world's lone superpower. He also said he had no objection to Ukraine's bid for EU membership because it isn't a military organization.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson visited Kyiv to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and offered "major" military training and continued aid. It was Johnson's second visit to Ukraine since Russia invaded the country.

Ukraine won this year's Eurovision song contest, but won't be hosting the competition next year due to the war. The European Broadcasting Union, which operates Eurovision, announced "with deep regret" that hosting next year's contest in Ukraine is not a viable option. Britain, this year's runner-up, is now the possible 2023 host. Ukrainian Culture Minister Oleksandr Tkachenko said on Twitter that his country didn't agree with the EBU's decision and posted a statement saying, "We demand additional negotiations on hosting Eurovision 2023 in Ukraine."

— NPR

THE UK'S DECISION TO EXTRADITE ASSANGE SHOWS WHY THE US/UK'S FREEDOM LECTURES ARE A FARCE

The Assange persecution is the greatest threat to Western press freedoms in years. It is also a shining monument to the fraud of American and British self-depictions.

by Glenn Greenwald

The eleven-year persecution of Julian Assange was extended and escalated on Friday morning. The British Home Secretary, Priti Patel, approved the U.S.'s extradition request to send Julian Assange to Virginia to stand trial on eighteen felony charges under the 1917 Espionage Act and other statutes in connection with the 2010 publication by WikiLeaks of thousands of documents showing widespread corruption, deceit, and war crimes by American and British authorities along with their close dictatorial allies in the Middle East.

This decision is unsurprising — it has been obvious for years that the U.S. and UK are determined to destroy Assange as punishment for his journalism exposing their crimes — yet it nonetheless further highlights the utter sham of American and British sermons about freedom, democracy and a free press. Those performative self-glorifying spectacles are constantly deployed to justify these two countries’ interference in and attacks on other nations, and to allow their citizens to feel a sense of superiority about the nature of their governments. After all, if the U.S. and UK stand for freedom and against tyranny, who could possibly oppose their wars and interventions in the name of advancing such lofty goals and noble values?

Having reported on the Assange case for years, on countless occasions I've laid out the detailed background that led Assange and the U.S. to this point. There is thus no need to recount all of that again; those interested can read the granular trajectory of this persecution here or here. Suffice to say, Assange — without having been convicted of any crime other than bail jumping, for which he long ago served out his fifty-week sentence — has been in effective imprisonment for more than a decade.

In 2012, Ecuador granted Assange legal asylum from political persecution. It did so after the Swedish government refused to pledge that it would not exploit the WikiLeaks founder's travel to Sweden to answer sex assault accusations as a pretext to turn him over to the U.S. Fearing what of course ended up happening — that the U.S. was determined to do everything possible to drag Assange back to U.S. soil despite his not being a U.S. citizen and never having spent more than a few days on U.S. soil, and intending to pressure their long-time-submissive Swedish allies to turn him over once he was on Swedish soil — the government of Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa concluded Assange's core civic rights were being denied and thus gave him refuge in the tiny Ecuadorian Embassy in London: the classic reason political asylum exists.

When Trump officials led by CIA Director Mike Pompeo bullied Correa's meek successor, ex-President Lenin Moreno, to withdraw that asylum in 2019, the London Police entered the embassy, arrested Assange, and put him in the high-security Belmarsh prison (which the BBC in 2004 dubbed “the British Guantanamo”), where he has remained ever since.

After the lowest-level British court in early 2021 rejected the U.S. extradition request on the ground that Assange's physical and mental health could not endure the U.S. prison system, Assange has lost every subsequent appeal. Last year, he was permitted to marry his long-time girlfriend, the British human rights lawyer Stella Morris Assange, who is also the mother of their two young children. An extremely unusual unanimity among press freedom and civil liberties groups was formed in early 2021 to urge the Biden administration to cease its prosecution of Assange, but Biden officials — despite spending the Trump years masquerading as press freedom advocates — ignored them (an interview conducted last week with Stella Assange by my husband, the Brazilian Congressman David Miranda, on Brazil's Press Freedom Day, regarding the latest developments and toll this has taken on the Assange family, can be seen here).

The Home Secretary's decision this morning — characteristically subservient and obedient of the British when it comes to the demands of the U.S. — does not mean that Assange's presence on U.S. soil is imminent. Under British law, Assange has the right to pursue a series of appeals contesting the Home Secretary's decision, and will likely do so. Given that the British judiciary has more or less announced in advance their determination to follow the orders of their American masters, it is difficult to see how these further proceedings will have any effect other than to delay the inevitable.

But putting oneself in Assange's position, it is easy to see why he is so eager to avoid extradition to the U.S. for as long as possible. The Espionage Act of 1917 is a nasty and repressive piece of legislation. It was designed by Woodrow Wilson and his band of authoritarian progressives to criminalize dissent against Wilson's decision to involve the U.S. in World War I. It was used primarily to imprison anti-war leftists such as Eugene Debs, as well as anti-war religious leaders such as Joseph Franklin Rutherford for the crime of publishing a book condemning Wilson's foreign policy.

One of the most insidious despotic innovations of the Obama administration was to repurpose and revitalize the Wilson-era Espionage Act as an all-purpose weapon to punish whistleblowers who denounced Obama's policies. The Obama Justice Department under Attorney General Eric Holder prosecuted more whistleblowers under the Espionage Act of 1917 than all previous administrations combined — in fact, three times as many as all prior presidents combined. One whistleblower charged by Obama officials under that law is NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, who in 2013 revealed mass domestic spying of precisely the kind that Obama's Director of National Intelligence James Clapper (now of CNN) falsely denied conducting when testifying to the Senate, which led to legislative curbs enacted by the U.S. Congress, and which courts have ruled unconstitutional and illegal.

What makes this law so insidious is that, by design, it is almost impossible for the government to lose. As I detailed in a Washington Post op-ed when the indictment was first revealed — arguing why it poses the greatest threat to press freedoms in the West in years — this 1917 law is written as a “strict liability” statute, meaning that the defendant is not only guilty as soon as there is proof that they disclosed classified information without authorization, but they are also barred from raising a "justification” defense — meaning they cannot argue to the jury of their peers that it was not only permissible but morally necessary to disclose that information because of the serious wrongdoing and criminality it revealed on the part of the nation's most powerful political officials. That 1917 law, in other words, is written to offer only show trials but not fair trials. No person in their right mind would willingly submit to prosecution and life imprisonment in the harshest American penitentiaries under an indictment brought under this fundamentally corrupted law.

Whatever else one might think of Assange, there is simply no question that he is one of the most consequential, pioneering, and accomplished journalists of his time. One could easily make the case that he occupies the top spot by himself. And that, of course, is precisely why he is in prison: because, just like free speech, “free press” guarantees in the U.S. and UK exist only on a piece of parchment and in theory. Citizens are free to do “journalism" as long as it does not disturb or anger or impede real power centers. Employees of The Washington Post and CNN are “free” to say what they want as long as what they are saying is approved and directed by the CIA or the content of their “reporting” advances the interests of the Pentagon's sprawling war machine.

Real journalists often face threats of prosecution, imprisonment or even murder, and sometimes even mean tweets. Much of the American corporate media class has ignored Assange’s persecution or even cheered it precisely because he shames them, serving as a vivid mirror to show them what real journalism is and how they are completely bereft of it. And the American and British governments have successfully exploited the petty jealousies and insecurities of their failed, vapid and pointless media servants to get away with imposing the single greatest threat to press freedom in the West without much protest at all.

Free speech and press freedoms do not exist in reality in the U.S. or the UK. They are merely rhetorical instruments to propagandize their domestic population and justify and ennoble the various wars and other forms of subversion they constantly wage in other countries in the name of upholding values they themselves do not support. The Julian Assange persecution is a great personal tragedy, a political travesty and a grave danger to basic civic freedoms. But it is also a bright and enduring monument to the fraud and deceit that lies at the heart of these two governments' depictions of who and what they are.

(greenwald.substack.com)

PRINCE HARRY & THE BLOODY QUEEN

Editor,

Babe Ruth, Humphrey Bogart, Rush Limbaugh all agree that in order to reduce gun violence there has to be a majority of the electorate voting no on pro-gun candidates and voting yes on anti-gun candidates. It's as simple as that. A million protesters a week for a month gets you nothing. $10,000 from the gun lobby keeps all the gun people in line. When you have two senators who are gun supporters and a majority of the House gun supporters from Florida, Indiana, Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, etc. plus all of the South you are wasting your time advocating for gun control. I will see you in Boonville when it's time to pick up the guns.

Lon Simmons said his favorite ballplayer is Pete Rose. Pete runs out his fly balls. When the Dodgers are in town often the boys from Los Angeles will come up to the radio booth hoping to get Vince Scully's autograph. Scully always takes time to talk to them. "You boys bleed dodger blue?" Yes sir. What do you think about our new shortstop? What are our chances of winning the pennant this year? Etc. Back in the early 50s most boys kept track of Major League Baseball. The barbershop had a radio. Many people did not. So boys hung out at the barbershop which always had the radio tuned to the ball game even though they were broadcast by telegraph. I could always recite the Cardinals starting lineup -- Pepper Martin, Enos Slaughter, Marty Marion, Red Schoendienst, Stan Musial, Johnny Mize at first base -- the gashouse gang.

I've always been curious about this guy "a reader" who writes to the AVA. I checked the Internet. No "a reader" admits to writing to the AVA. The same with A. Reader. No luck there either. The answer is either Prince Harry or the Bloody Queen. In 1630 Charles I proclaimed that henceforth no royalty is to be seen at nudist beaches or identified as writers of letters to the editor.

I have been reading a lovely book called "Domestic Manners of the Americans" by Frances Trollope, 1831. It's not as lovely as "1846 -- The Year of Decision," by Bernard De Voto. Adair Lara, the back page columnist for the Chronicle, called 1846 a "delicate book." It's not as lovely as 'Angela's Ashes' by Frank McCourt or as lovely as 'A Kingdom by the Sea by Paul Theroux, nor as lovely as the biography of LBJ by Robert Caro. It is not as lovely as The Shipping News by Annie Proulx which won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. But it's pretty lovely nonetheless. Mrs. Trollope was an English lady with some money and wanted to visit the United States. I heard about this book some 60 years ago. Now with the Internet you can find any book you want, so I found a used copy for $5. In 1827 Mr. Trollope arrived in New Orleans with her children. They went up the Mississippi and Ohio rivers until they reached Cincinnati where they rented a cottage and stayed for two years, then visited the East Coast for another year. Charles Dickens came over in 1841. In his book "American Notes," he described Cincinnati as his favorite city in America. Mrs. Trollope disliked everything about the city and thought Americans were uncivilized. Both of them were disgusted with spitting after chewing tobacco. In her book which was written after returning to England she wrote a detailed account of everyday life. Cincinnati was a frontier town and a lot of people had a family cow. In the morning they cooked up some beans for the cow and milked it. The cow wandered around the city in a nearby forest until evening and then it returned. It was difficult to keep household help. Girls would work until they got enough money to buy a new dress and then quit. Both Mrs. Trollope and Charles Dickens thought Americans were crude with bad manners.

One reason president Biden's approval rating is so low is his appearance. He looks frail and about to topple over. That was a very bad move by Biden to exclude Nicaragua, Cuba and Venezuela from the hemisphere meeting. It smells like the Democratic National Committee. Why not go down to South Florida and hand out $100 bills? Visualize an aerial view of freeways in the Bay Area or lozenges in the morning commute. What percentage of the drivers are not much interested in January 6? A national newspaper paid for by subscription is out of the question. For one thing it would be too expensive. The New Yorker with 1 million subscribers now wants $169 a year. When the Press Democrat built their printing plant alongside the highway years ago they had 100,000 subscribers. Now they have 30,000. You can pass 100 residences in Willits and see three newspaper boxes.

I would like to remind everyone that Donald Trump was elected.

I also want to remind people who are squawking about high grocery prices that Wal-Mart is much cheaper on almost everything. The prices at the Ukiah Wal-Mart store are the same as the rest of the state. Not a good place to buy soup, but the Wal-Mart brand beef stew? Oooooh-la-la.

Shasta County down to the eastern suburbs of Sacramento, the Central Valley, the inland Empire, San Bernardino and Riverside counties are pretty red. If it weren't for the big populations of coastal cities you would hear "I'll be with you die-rectly." Co'-Cola for breakfast and grits and gravy at night. Y'all come back now. Willu Mae just got married up and I just can't stand them n-words. Contrary to the propaganda you hear, when Crimea transferred to the Ukraine it was very unpopular in 1961. The people wanted to return to Russia almost 100%.

Want to make a cool million? Design a better hospital gown. I like the one shown in the 1937 JC Penney catalog with flannel top and bottom. The gown used today was invented in Richmond at the Confederate hospital just before the first Battle of Bull Run in 1861.

Walt Whitman sent his homosexual lover down to Richmond to steal a gown for the Union Army. During the Civil War homosexuals could travel freely behind enemy lines any time.

Two French professors were discussing the true meaning of "savoir faire." A man comes home to find his wife in the arms of her lover. He says "continue" and departs. I'm waiting for Harriet Tubman on the 10. We will see how it goes over way down south in Dixie.

Did you notice that there was a Trotskyite among the candidates in Governor Newsom's recall election? His name is Anderson and I voted for him. I may have to vote for Mike Bloomberg again in 2024. I listened carefully to what he has to say. He knows what to do when a problem comes up.

Keep the apidistera flying.

Ralph Bostrom

Willits

ONE WINTER'S NIGHT

by Gunnar Pettersson

Facts are hard to come by in the Olof Palme case. On the corner of Sveavagen-Tunnelgatan in central Stockholm at 21 minutes past 11 PM on February 28, 1986, the Swedish prime minister was shot dead with a Smith & Wesson .357 Magnum. Despite the number of eyewitnesses, 23 in all, no more is known about the murderer then that he was dressed in dark clothes and escaped by the Tunnelgatan alleyway.

More than three years later everything else remains circumstance, hypothesis and conspiracy theory. Two ministers of justice as well as a number of public prosecutors and police investigators have resigned in the wake of the affair. The official investigation has been investigated by investigators who are themselves subsequently investigated. The constitutional committee of the Swedish parliament is on permanent standby to look into allegations of every brand of official misconduct, from the unlawful bugging of senior politicians to the passing of classified information to unauthorized people in return for sexual favors. Meanwhile the Bofors arms smuggling affair keeps unraveling; hostile submarines patrol the Swedish coastline seemingly at will and always manage to clear out in the nick of time; a convicted spy escapes to the Soviet Union while on weekend leave from prison under cover of a new name approved by the Swedish government.

(London Review of Books, May 18, 1989)

IT'S THE RUSSIANS, DAMMIT!

Dear AVA,

I've been wondering for years if there would ever be a leak from inside the Kremlin: theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/15/kremlin-papers-appear-to-show-putins-plot-to-put-trump-in-white-house

Best regards,

Douglas George

CHRIS SKYHAWK: I fully realize I’m wading into turbulent waters on this.. but… when folks can’t afford fuel, housing and food - I doubt that give a whole big F!! About Jan 6, or how many letters got on the sexual identity acronym - the Dems are gonna get totally waxed in the mid terms, and who will they blame this time for their own failure….Bernie? Nader? Etc. Saager has this spot on…

THE WORLD’S MOST TABOO LEGAL CASE

by Matt Taibbi

While the media world wept over Amber and Johnny, a lawsuit filed by a feminist group over prison sexual abuse remained earth's most ignored scandal

On November 17, 2021, the Women’s Liberation Front, or WoLF, filed a class-action lawsuit in California that drew almost no coverage. A press corps gearing up to be outraged en masse by the Amber Heard-Johnny Depp defamation case had zero interest in a lawsuit filed by far poorer female abuse victims.

Janine Chandler et al vs. California Department of Corrections targeted a new California state law, the “The Transgender Respect, Agency, and Dignity Act,” a.k.a. S.B. 132. The statute allows any prisoner who self-identifies as a woman — including prisoners with penises who may have stopped taking hormones — into women’s prisons. There was nothing TV-friendly about the scenes depicted in the complaint:

Plaintiff Krystal Gonzalez (“Krystal”) is a female offender currently incarcerated in Central California Women’s Facility. Krystal was sexually assaulted by a man transferred to her unit under S.B. 132. Krystal filed a grievance and requested single-sex housing away from men; the prison’s response to Krystal’s grievance referred to her assault by a “transgender woman with a penis.” Krystal does not believe that women have penises…

After a week spent denounced for reviewing the Matt Walsh documentary What is a Woman?, and for saying things I think will be boring conventional wisdom within a year, I was ready to never go near trans issues again and move to the impending financial disaster. But accident sucked me back. I’d made a point of pride of not reading a line of commentary about Heard-Depp, but listened to an episode of Blocked and Reported that touched on it after it was over, and learned three things that made me furious and think immediately of Chandler.

One, the ACLU, in apparent exchange for a pledge of $3.5 million, ghost-wrote Heard’s offending editorial, and in particular a line about her having “felt the full force of our culture’s wrath for women who speak out.” Two: Guardian writer Moira Donegan declared, “We are in a moment of virulent antifeminist backlash.” Three: Vice proclaimed without irony, “We’ve all failed Amber Heard.” Almost as one, the establishment press declared itself concerned with the suffering of a rich actress. However, there’s a gaping loophole in their concern for women, and Chandler sits in the middle of it.

Let’s talk about “the full force of our culture’s wrath for women who speak out” in the context of this case:

Chandler is the headline legal action in a nationwide battle over whether or not prisoners who self-identify as women, including those with histories of rape or sexual abuse, should be allowed to transfer to women’s correctional facilities. There have been both official and unofficial policy changes on this front in a growing collection of states across the country. These often happen little to no public debate, because this issue may be the most impenetrable media taboo in America now.

The group bringing the suit, WoLF, has been targeted from every conceivable angle by pressure and censorship campaigns. While we at least heard about protesting Canadian truckers having their GoFundMe campaigns frozen, WoLF didn’t even bother trying to raise money on that platform, “because they just ban you really easily,” as legal director Lauren Adams put it.

They moved to a purportedly speechier platform, GiveButter, hoping they would have “less of a censorious kind of view.” But even GiveButter soon gave WoLF the boot (I reached out to the company, which hasn’t provided public comment yet). “It was just a general fundraiser,” Adams explains. “And they said we violated their community standards. So now we’re on GiveSendGo, which is a Christian crowdfunding site.”

If there’s a better illustration of the upside-down state of politics in 2022 America, it’s a feminist activist group forced to seek cyber-refuge in a Christian fundraising company.

It’s become tantamount to career suicide to be associated with WoLF. In April, one of its board members, Devin Buckley, was disinvited to a speech on British Romanticism she was scheduled to give at Harvard. The author of Buckley’s rejection letter fairly shivered with intellectual fright:

My co-coordinator has refused to extend to you a formal offer to speak at our colloquium. I can’t fight for you on this… Even if I were to push your visit past [the co-coordinator], it will be near impossible to get our two faculty members to sign onto funding your visit once they learn of your online presence…

WoLF has trouble attracting Board members because as a 501(c)3, the names of board members have to be public. Even the group’s advisory council is quasi-secret by necessity. “We have women on our advisory council who have to remain anonymous because they have jobs, or their spouses have jobs,” Adams says. “There are so many people who just can’t publicly associate with us.”

Even people who submit declarations in WoLF’s prison case may not be immune. On May 31st, biologist and Substack author Colin Wright submitted a declaration in the Chandler case essentially testifying to the biological difference between men and women. “Being male or female is an immutable characteristic of each human,” he wrote.

On June 10th, Wright was informed by the online commerce platform Etsy that, after a “comprehensive review,” his account was permanently closed. A letter from the firm’s “content moderation team” deemed him guilty of “glorifying hatred or violence towards protected groups.”

Wright, known for writing on Quillette about gender, science, and speech, and for being one of the few PhDs still willing to publicly endorse “biological sex” — the iron unanimity on the cultural left against this once uncontroversial scientific tenet goes beyond anything I remember from the winger anti-evolutionists of the eighties and nineties — started selling merchandise on Etsy as a secondary revenue stream. His products included stickers and hats marked with the logo, “Reality’s Last Stand.”

Clearly, Wright’s merchandise reflects a point of view about a controversial topic. But his ban came from a company that also sells “Fuck TERFs Skateboarding Cat” stickers and “Fuck J.K. Rowling / STFU TERFs” handmade greeting cards. Etsy did not respond to requests for comment.

The payment processing company PayPal also told Wright it had “decided to permanently limit your account.” This ban chronologically took place before Etsy’s move, and the company denies it had anything to do with his editorial stances. There have been cases where PayPal has been open about suspending service over content, for instance in the historic decision to stop transfers to Wikileaks in 2010 after urging from the U.S. State Department. This instance is less clear, but that’s part of the problem with the content moderation era: the processes are so opaque that even in cases where reasons aren’t announced, service terminations still end up having a chilling effect on speakers.

“There have been organizations who’ve made promises,” says Wright. “They said, ‘We’re pro-free speech,’ only have to have them update their terms-of-service and retroactively start banning people,” says Wright.

The Etsy ban is definitely connected to content, but even Wright can’t say for sure his participation in the California case played a part, noting, “I’m constantly writing articles and Substack things about gender.” However, his declaration “was a more of a firm step in a legal case. It’s a big case in California.”

Chandler is a big court case, but not the only story. Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Washington, and Connecticut are some other states that have enacted announced or unannounced changes allowing prisoners to transfer to facilities in line with their declared gender identity. Often, as in the case of New Jersey, reforms come in response to lawsuits filed on behalf of transgender inmates who, it must be said, often really do experience particularly brutal treatment in men’s prisons. “I was terrified I wouldn’t make it out alive,” said an unnamed litigant in the New Jersey case.

However, a state’s failure to make prison less of a hellscape for inmates of all types — and as a former prison teacher I can report the varieties of physical, mental, and even financial abuse all inmates experience are almost too numerous to count — doesn’t add up to a logical pretext for these particular sweeping reforms. This is particularly true if states aren’t even insisting that prisoners actually transition, or remain on hormones, after transferring.

In Chandler, WoLF introduced testimony from Michelle Norsworthy, a self-described transwoman who was gang-raped in a male prison and once successfully sued for the right to have sex assignment surgery while incarcerated. After being picked up on a parole violation in 2018, California housed Norsworthy in a women’s facility because she had completed a surgical transition, “having female genitalia,” as her declaration read. Now one of two transgender declarants in the case, Norsworthy has effectively been put back behind bars with men, writing (emphasis mine):

When the first group of ten male inmates were transferred into women’s prison under SB 132, I observed all ten of those “transgender women” behaving in a male-typical manner; most stopped taking hormone therapy (so they could resume physical erections), and right away began to have sex with women.

Chandler also included a declaration from Ayanna Green, a “44-year-old woman, female at birth, a lesbian, and a mother.” If Green is anti-trans she has a funny way of showing it, writing, “I have lived peaceably with several post-op transwomen — people born male who socially and medically transitioned to become women, with vaginas — and found them to be beautiful human beings who… want to rehabilitate and heal.” Her gripe, like that of virtually all the plaintiffs in this case, is that a law intended to help transgender people can be appropriated by inmates who could be female in dress only, in some cases even retaining male names. From her declaration:

Most of the cross-dressing men claiming a “transgender identity” and granted transfer… are sex offenders, most are heterosexual men who want to be housed with women to get penis-in-vagina sex, most stop taking any feminizing hormone medications right after getting into women’s prison, they all refer to themselves as men when speaking to the women inmates, many have threatened to “fight you like a man” to women inmates, many have threatened to rape us, and they all have working penises that they are using to have sex with female inmates.

The Green declaration highlighted a growing schism on what was once the political left. The ACLU just proudly announced an attempt to challenge Chandler with other “LGBTQ organizations.” It’s weird enough to see the ACLU — which historically has used most careful language in defending everyone from Neo-Nazis to NAMBLA — issue a press release bluntly describing a feminist organization like WoLF as “bigoted.” It’s weirder still when the complainants are women, many with extensive histories of sexual abuse, suing on behalf of a community that is disproportionately LGB, as 42% of incarcerated women identify as lesbian or bisexual.

“It’s a huge disproportionate number,” says Adams. “Almost half. So it’s concerning when you have these publications who are supposed to be speaking for this population, who are dragging them for even speaking up about documented incidents.”

In a fascinating development this week, the New York Times ran a long story by Emily Bazelon called “The Battle Over Gender Therapy” that read suspiciously like Timesian interpretation of work by oft-denounced people like Jesse Singal, Katie Herzog, Wright, and even Abigail Shrier. The paper described a working group of clinicians trying to develop standards of care on behalf of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) who, among other things, wondered if the “rise in trans identification among teenagers” could be the result of “social influence.”

The piece also flatly said hormone treatments can “permanently alter” bodily characteristics like voice depth and breast development, and quoted researchers who suggested that teens and preteens undergo “comprehensive diagnostic assessment” and demonstrate “several years” of persistent identification with another gender before proceeding to medical transition. Even mentioning these ideas a year ago was a cancelable offense.

Anyone who knows how the media works knows an establishment supertanker like the Times flying this kind of feature is usually an indication of a major shift in elite political attitudes. It’s also often a precursor to a sudden outpouring of more permissive discussion of a previously taboo issue in other establishment outlets.

Predictably, this Times piece stressed the dangers of giving certain talking points a wide berth because “right-wing politicians” will turn them into “political dynamite,” for now preserving the fiction that only Republicans are pushing back on these issues. But the worm is turning, and everyone knows it, which is probably why the reaction to the Times article was so furious (“Imagine thinking this is the time to publish that piece,” seethed the ACLU’s Chase Strangio).

A prison case like Chandler will be the last taboo to fall, as that issue getting real coverage would punch a big hole in the mania. Even if you believe that transgender people need a full complement of rights and better protection in prison, and I’m in that category, there can’t be that many people willing to stand up and argue in favor of housing un-transitioned inmates with penises and criminal sex-abuse records in cells with women. Can there? If agitating against that is bigotry, what’s progress?

THREE ANTI-INFLATION ALTERNATIVES To Raising Interest Rates

by Carol Mattisich

Tackling Inflation Requires Reining In Private Markets—And Embracing Economic Democracy.

A deafening silence defines “debates” among U.S. leaders about stopping or slowing today’s inflation. Alternatives to the Federal Reserve’s raising of interest rates and curtailing money supply growth are ignored. It’s as if there were no other ways to rein in price increases except to add more interest costs to the already excess debts of workers and small and medium businesses. Were the last two and a half years of the deadly Covid-19 pandemic, plus the economic crash of 2020, not sufficient enough burdens on Americans without piling on the additional burden of inflation that has been imposed by U.S. capitalism?

As usual, the profit-driven concerns of big business and their result — a remarkably selective historical amnesia — fuel the silence about alternative anti-inflation policies. So too do the right-wing ideological blinders that now constrict U.S. politics. Yet, policy alternatives always exist, no matter how desperately partisans promoting one policy seek to obliterate debate and discussion of others. The narrow dogmatism of U.S. politics these days is on full display around the issue of an anti-inflation policy focused on raising interest rates.

I will present three other anti-inflation policies that do not entail interest rate increases — there are many more — that could and should be part of today’s policy discussions. All have precedents in U.S. history. For the first, we return briefly to World War II. U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s administration grasped the risk of inflation during this period as the supply of many consumer goods shrank relative to the demand for them. The war effort was diverting many productive resources away from consumer goods and toward munitions and other defense products. Had the government allowed the market to handle the prospective shortage of consumer goods, an inflation of their prices would have resulted. Rich Americans would have bid up the prices of scarce consumer goods, rendering them unaffordable for middle- and lower-income people. That is how markets work. They favor the rich (who return the favor by funding economists and others to promote markets as marvels of “efficiency”).

For Roosevelt’s government, the war effort required a national unity that the market threatened to replace with bitterness, envy, and division, pitting the poor and the middle class against the rich. The U.S. government thus substituted rationing for the market mechanism. It printed ration books containing ration stamps and distributed them across the U.S. population. Rationed goods could only be sold to those with ration stamps. No small irony (at least for those familiar with Marxism and socialism) attaches to the following: 1) the U.S. government distributed ration books according to people’s needs, and 2) the U.S. government’s explicit goal was to render the distribution of rationed goods (and especially food) “more fairly” than what the market would have done. Rationing forestalled the looming inflation. It could work equally well now to slow or stop inflation.

Another anti-inflation policy, other than raising interest rates, came in August 1971, from Republican President Richard M. Nixon. Responding to serious inflation, Nixon declared a 90-day “wage-price freeze.” He and his advisers knew that U.S. wage and price controls had also been deployed during World War II. Some had even read John Kenneth Galbraith’s 1952 book, *A Theory of Price Control*, which showed how well such controls had worked during the war.

As a result of Nixon’s action, employers on one side and employees on the other were formally denied the right to raise prices or wages, respectively. Any move to the contrary was seen as a criminal act, rendering the perpetrator subject to police arrest. In response to these measures, the inflation shrank, the stock market rose, and Nixon was reelected in 1972. For him, the policy worked. Other countries have also imposed wage-price freezes to similar effects.

Each alternative policy to control inflation (raising interest rates included) has its particular strengths and weaknesses, virtues and flaws. Honest discussions of how to respond to inflation would involve comparing the strengths and weaknesses of all — or at least many different — policy options. Honest national leaders would not pretend only one policy exists. That approach — dominant in the United States today — yields both policy mistakes and leads to crucial opportunities being lost. It does, however, serve the interests of those who advocate for that one policy.

There is a third alternative policy to controlling inflation as an inherent risk recurringly faced by a private enterprise capitalist system. If profit is the “bottom line,” if the system’s mantra is “charge whatever the market will bear,” and if rewards and punishments follow the rise and fall of profits that depend on prices, we can hardly be surprised when capitalists raise prices. Nor can we be surprised that when they do it, it both provokes and excuses others following suit. Inflation results from private capitalists’ pricing decisions. They are driven chiefly by their private profit calculations; they need not and do not generally take into account those decisions’ larger consequences (social as well as economic) such as inflation.

The socialization of private capitalist enterprises is thus another anti-inflation policy. A government, for example, will generally consider the inflationary consequences of any set of price increases. On that basis, it can either limit or reject them. To the extent that the government is held accountable politically for inflation and its effects, it has an incentive to control them. The Fed is, at best, held accountable only indirectly. That helps explain why the Fed has repeatedly failed to prevent or control recessions and inflations across the last century. Of course, such socialization of private capitalist enterprises raises the question of how genuinely democratic the government is. Yet, the degree of genuine democracy the government upholds will influence all alternative anti-inflation policies.

Across the United States, insurance, utility, and other public commissions limit private capitalist enterprises’ freedom to raise their prices in the markets they regulate. Private capitalists in such markets cannot raise prices without the permission of those commissions to do so. A government could establish all sorts of commissions in all sorts of markets with criteria for granting or refusing such permissions. Suppose, for example, that some or all food items were socially (democratically) deemed to be basic goods, such that no producer or seller could raise its prices without approval by a federal food commission. Fighting inflation could be among the approval criteria in this case (just as that is a criterion now for the Fed’s monetary policies).

In most capitalist economies, the tiny class of employers (perhaps 1 percent of the total population) has enormous powers. That class 1) shapes wage and salary levels of their hired workers, 2) determines the quantities of all purchased inputs and all outputs, and 3) sets outputs’ prices. That tiny class includes many employers who justify their price increases by blaming them on input prices raised by other employers throughout the supply chain. More shrewdly, the employer class’s wiser members refocus blame instead on workers and wages, blaming them for the price increases even when, as now, wage inflation is far lower than price inflation.

Of course, commissions to govern prices can be and have been “captured” by the industries they were established to control. Private capitalists have thus been able to weaken, render toothless, or even eliminate controls over them. While that is indeed true of the many state-level utility and insurance commissions, for example, it is no less true of the Fed vis-Ã -vis the nation’s major banks. Rationing systems and wage-price freezes can likewise be captured. Historically, the price gouging by and corruption of private capitalist industries have led to public demands that their businesses be transferred to government responsibilities. Capitalism’s undiminished profit drive then incentivized the affected industries to “capture” the government bodies charged with controlling them.

The solution to that inherent contradiction of capitalism is surely not an endless series of oscillations between private and public control. That is what has failed in the capitalist system. Rather, the alternative solution that beckons is system change, putting all the workers in democratic control of the enterprises (instead of a tiny separate class of employers). A system based on a democratized workplace community interdependent with a democratized residential community offers a much better way to prevent and not merely “manage” inflations and recessions.

KEROUAC'S CABIN

Recently, I made a pilgrimage to Bixby Creek Canyon in Big Sur, where Jack Kerouac sought refuge in Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s secluded cabin. Moments of great lucidity and artistry were interspersed among the long weeks of Kerouac's advanced alcoholism. Long weeks of headaches, shakes, and vomiting. Long weeks of a bleeding liver, hallucinations, and an atrophying brain.

Kerouac was starting to die at the cabin in Big Sur.

Yet, Kerouac made time for feeding apples to Alf, the "sacred mule".

And, of course, he wrote his 1962 novel, Big Sur.

Kerouac did some of his best writing here at the cabin.

It was at Ferlinghetti’s cabin at Bixby Creek that Kerouac rejected literary criticism once and for all, and came to the conclusion that if critics hate your work, then it's probably a good thing. Critics are jealous of genius. Critics want to scare genius into being mainstream, into being ordinary. Critics want to scare genius into conformity. Conformity with the comfortable and safe. Small minds want the company of great minds.

Experimental writers were marginalized by literary critics in 1962. Kerouac was called crazy. He was called an alcoholic and speed addict.

But Kerouac found his own place in the literary canon. He found it with the idea of single absolute unified master narrative.

Kerouac achieved transcendence through the lens of alcoholism and mental illness while simultaneously decentering the concept of absolute transcendence. To this end, Kerouac's protagonists were committed to the development of a heightened sense of self in relation to self and the world around self.

In a way, Kerouac introduced Buddhism to America without even knowing it. For Kerouac, there was no "truth". No objective, tangible, quantifiable truth that could be tested and replicated by another person.

And if truth existed at all for Kerouac, it was elusive, partial, relativistic, and always incomplete. Life was to be experienced, not analyzed.

In his novels, Kerouac's protagonists live "in the moment". For them, there is only "presence" and nothing else.

In On the Road (1957), Kerouac explains: “The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, desirous of everything, and all at the same time.”

Final note.

Kerouac went on to become one of the defining voices of the mid-20th century, and his novels, including On The Road and Desolation Angels, characterize the Beat generation.

Big Sur is the masterpiece. Kerouac wrote it in the fall of 1961 over a ten-day period, typewriting the manuscript onto the nearest thing at hand -- a roll of teletype paper.

Big Sur recounts the events surrounding Kerouac -- here known by the name of his fictional alter-ego Jack Duluoz -- and his three brief sojourns to the cabin in Bixby Canyon, Big Sur.

The novel depicts Duluoz's mental and physical deterioration in the late 1950s. Duluoz finds a refuge in the Big Sur wilderness, but is driven by loneliness to return to the city, where he resumes drinking heavily.

Fictional representations of a pantheon of Beat generation heroes all make an appearance in Kerouac's Big Sur, including Neal Cassady, Carolyn Cassady, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Allen Ginsberg, Michael McClure, Gary Snyder, Alan Watts, Philip Whalen, and Lucien Carr.

As many have noted, the novel is a celebration of All Things Beat.

A film adaptation of the novel, directed by Michael Polish, was released in 2013.

Every now and then, I make a pilgrimage to the cabin in Bixby Creek Canyon, and lift a shot of whiskey to Kerouac and think about how great things dwell in small things, how great minds live side by side with small minds.

An addendum to Big Sur contains a free verse poem by Kerouac, "Sea: Sounds of the Pacific Ocean at Big Sur", written from the perspective of the Pacific Ocean.

I read the poem out loud to the crashing surf while I'm at Big Sur, and then I close my eyes and think about how handsome Kerouac was.

How impossibly handsome!

John Sakowicz

Ukiah

MEMO OF THE AIR: Good Night Radio all night Friday night!

Hi! Marco here. Deadline to email your writing for tonight's (Friday night's) MOTA show is around 6 or 7pm. After that, send it whenever it's ready and I'll read it on the radio /next/ week.

Memo of the Air: Good Night Radio is every Friday, 9pm to 5am on 107.7fm KNYO-LP Fort Bragg as well as anywhere else via the regular link to listen to KNYO in real time: http://airtime.knyo.org:8040/128

Any day or night you can go to https://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com and hear last week's MOTA show. By Saturday night the recording of tonight's show will also be there. Also there you'll find a mysterious trove of ancient and modern frittery to fritter with until showtime, or any time, such as:

Laurie Anderson - Home of the Brave. (The full 90 min. film, recorded live.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mua8Pr6uRso

Cars of the past and the people who were proud of them. And why not? Those were great cars.

https://www.vintag.es/2022/06/people-automobiles-1950s.html

And UFOs. Unidentified Floating Objects. "Tree four yiz ago, yih stahta dinta see mo-ah phenomeneh. Li'l tiny headlights? out in diff'ent airyiz udda bay."

https://nagonthelake.blogspot.com/2022/06/greywater.html

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

HOW LOW CAN YOU GO?

by James Kunstler

Lots of things are going south all at once….

Remember the limbo? It was a dance fad kind of like the Olympic high jump in reverse: instead of leaping over a horizontal bar, you duck-walked under it to calypso music, with the crowd squealing, “How low can you go?” As it happens, in the culture of Western Civ, Limbo is also the name of a place on the edge of Hell. Either way, you have an apt metaphor for the spot that the USA is in as we enter the summer of double-deuce.

Lots of things are going south all at once: the stock markets and bond prices, Bitcoin is doing a vanishing act. The Colorado River reservoirs, Lake Powell and Lake Mead, are so low that, by September, both water and electricity may run out for a vast region that includes Phoenix, Las Vegas, and Southern California. The housing market is tanking (suburbia’s business model is broken). Whole herds of beef cattle roll over and die out on the range. Fertilizer is scarce. Food processing plants get torched by the dozen. Shortages loom.

The oil-and-gas industry is getting killed four ways: 1) our stupid Russia sanctions queered longstanding global distribution arrangements; 2) the industry is starved for capital; 3) depletion is seriously kicking in; and 4) “Joe Biden” and the knuckleheads running the EU countries are trying to kill it so as to usher in a Green New Deal that just doesn’t pencil-out.

The car dealers have no new cars on their lots, and pretty soon they’ll run out of decent used cars — which, these days, are often priced higher than the non-existent new cars. How’s that for a business model? Plus, the financially beaten-up middle-class can’t afford cars in either case, and increasingly can’t qualify for car loans.

The airline industry reels with a sucking chest wound due to a pilot shortage (thanks to vaxx mandates) and the high cost of jet fuel. The trucking industry’s business model is also broken with diesel fuel over six dollars a gallon — the cost of delivery exceeds the value of the cargo. America runs on trucks and if they stop running, so does everything else. Replacement parts are growing scarce for every mechanical device in the land. It’s getting harder to fix anything that’s broken.

“Joe Biden’s” proxy war against Russia in Ukraine isn’t working out. It was flamboyantly stupid from the get-go. We deliberately broke the Minsk agreements for a cease-fire in the Donbas to goad the Russians into action. NATO didn’t have the troops or the political mojo to back up its US-inspired bluster. Our financial warfare blew back in our faces and actually benefited the Russian economy and its currency, the ruble. The billions of dollars in weapons we’re sending into the war are easily interdicted in transport, or else are getting loose in a world of non-state maniacs ranging from the Taliban to al Qaeda to drug cartels.

Meanwhile, Russia steadfastly grinds out a victory on-the-ground that will leave it in control of the Black Sea and will reveal the USA’s lost capacity to impose its will around the world. In other words, our Ukraine project “to weaken Russia” brought on an epochal shift in the balance of power to our enormous disadvantage. This is on top of more than twenty years of US military fiascos from Afghanistan, to Iraq, to North Africa, to Syria which demonstrated our reckless disregard for human life and a gross inability to carry out a mission. This aggregate failure and display of weakness leaves us vulnerable to Chinese aggression in the Pacific. There is even spooky chatter now about China venturing to invade Australia, Japan, and the USA mainland. Yes, really.

With all this to be concerned about, half the American public, and the “Joe Biden” regime they insist they elected, remain in thrall to the Covid-19 horror movie and at the mercy of the deadly mRNA pharmaceutical products that were magically waiting in-advance of the outbreak to profit on it. But now, all the cover stories are falling apart. It’s getting harder to conceal the deaths and injuries caused by the vaccines, including a striking drop in fertility and the permanent damage to millions of people’s immune systems that will lay them low with cancer, neurological illness, and cardiovascular disease in the months ahead.

The CDC / FDA / Pharma cabal’s strategy-for-now: keep bluffing and quintupling down on their cover up — they just sweepingly approved mRNA shots for babies. Why? To extend the emergency use authorization that shields Pfizer and Moderna from liability. It won’t work long, of course, because under settled law fraud vacates that kind of protection, and the public health officials with their Pharma cronies have orchestrated the deadliest fraud in human history.

If there is an American nation left in a year or so, with a functioning legal system, the players in this cabal are going to land in witness chairs to explain why they killed so many people. (“We were following The Science,” they’ll say. Uh-huh….) By then, no one will believe their bullshit and it will be off to the American limbo known as Palookaville for the likes of Fauci, Collins, Gates, Bourla, Bancel, Walensky and the gang.

To try to head-off anything like that, the “Joe Biden” regime just announced a second attempt to control the news-flow with a White House Disinformation Task Force, to replace the ludicrous Homeland Security Disinformation Governance Board that flopped so miserably in May when its appointed chief, Ms. Jankowicz, turned out to be a prime purveyor of disinformation. The new Disinfo Task Force, led by Veep Kamala Harris — who performed so well in her previous assignment as Border Czar — is pretending to be all about online sexual harassment and gender bigotry. I’m sure….

It won’t work. “Joe Biden” is running on empty. His regime staggers on in a delirium and an odium, like one of those groaning, brain-leaking zombies on cable-TV. The voters are poised to unload two barrels of buckshot to this monster’s head in November if we are not prevented from holding elections by yet another bogus “emergency.” Until then, we’re in a race to see just how the Party of Chaos completes the destruction of the economy, which is the prelude to the people of the USA destroying the Party of Chaos.

(Support Kunstler’s writing by going to his Patreon page.)

JOHN HINCKLEY’S SOLD-OUT BROOKLYN CONCERT IS CANCELED

The venue cited safety reasons in canceling the performance by Mr. Hinckley, who shot President Reagan and has turned to music since being released from a mental health facility.

The John Hinckley Jr. concert in Brooklyn, an oddity that was scheduled to feature the music of a man best known for trying to kill a U.S. president, was canceled on Wednesday by the venue, which cited fears of a backlash in a “dangerously radicalized, reactionary climate.”

Mr. Hinckley, 67, who shot President Ronald Reagan in 1981 and was found not guilty by reason of insanity, has been living in Virginia under restrictions since 2016, but was granted an unconditional release that took effect on Wednesday. Mr. Hinckley has been planning to use that release to mount what he has called a “redemption tour,” playing his original music at venues around the country.

But that plan has hit some roadblocks as venues have reneged on his scheduled concerts, including the Market Hotel, a concert hall in the Bushwick neighborhood of Brooklyn that posted a statement to social media on Wednesday saying it was canceling Mr. Hinckley’s July 8 performance.

“It is not worth a gamble on the safety of our vulnerable communities to give a guy a microphone and a paycheck from his art who hasn’t had to earn it, who we don’t care about on an artistic level, and who upsets people in a dangerously radicalized, reactionary climate,” the statement said.

The venue seemed to announce the decision with regret, writing in the statement that “this guy performing harms no one in any practical way.”

“This is a sexagenarian with an acoustic guitar,” the venue said. The statement went on to say that although they believed ex-cons and people with mental illnesses should be able to earn a chance to “fully rejoin society,” they made the decision after reflecting on “very real and worsening threats and hate facing our vulnerable communities.”

In 2020, a federal judge in Washington ruled that Mr. Hinckley could begin publicly displaying his writings, artwork and music under his own name after his treatment team told the court about his frustrations around having to post his music online anonymously. Since then, Mr. Hinckley has uploaded videos of his original songs and covers to his YouTube channel, which has more than 28,000 subscribers.

In a phone interview on Wednesday, Mr. Hinckley said this tour would be the first time he played his original songs live, and that he was disappointed by the cancellation, although he said he understood the venue’s concerns about safety.

“I watch the news like everybody else — we’re living in very, very scary times, to be honest,” Mr. Hinckley said. “I would have only gone on with the show if I was going to feel safe at the show and feel that the audience was going to be safe.”…

nytimes.com/2022/06/15/arts/music/john-hinckley-brooklyn-concert-canceled.html

Civil defence drill, Omsk Region, USSR, 1962

12 Comments

Chuck Dunbar June 18, 2022

ABACUS POEMS

For Bruce McEwen: This is a bit arcane, but will go ahead anyhow. I noted the second poem, “Abacus Sunrise,” by Roger S. in the AVA 2 days ago. I see he uses “abacus” repeatedly in his work, more than just in the first poem. So it clearly is an important word and concept for him.
Did a little more research, with the help of my wife and her large dictionary.
We found this fascinating definition from olden days:
“Abacus: A board strewn with sand, for drawing figures. Only in LME (Late Middle English).” Oxford English Dictionary
This definition was the first one. The third one was the usual modern definition, “a calculating frame.”
This first definition seems quite apt for adaptation to poetic endeavors, the drawing of word figures or pictures, especially in Roger’s 2 poems, of natural beauty. My best bet is that our poet has this definition in mind.
I know I got a bit obsessive here, but it was kind of satisfying to take a look at it. Any thoughts?

- Bruce McEwen June 19, 2022
  
  Tardy reply but a long memory search to an old dog only brought up the abacus of my youth at Daly’s pool hall where an abacus of considerable scale hung from the ceiling in a cloud of tobacco smoke and the players kept score with the points of their pool cues, zipping the wooden beads along deftly and with arch self-assurance. I only sneaked in there a couple of times waiting to get my haircut next door at (ISYN) Harry De Long’s barbershop.
  
  - Chuck Dunbar June 19, 2022
    
    Cool memory, thanks,Bruce.
    
Eric Sunswheat June 18, 2022

RE: According to a recent County Water Agency report:

“FERC has also received a letter from The Potter Valley Irrigation District complaining that PG&E has not consulted with a full range of stakeholders before requesting the variance, noting that the new minimum storage target of 30,000 acres is ‘not supported by any definitive studies or modeling of prior year conditions and is clearly outside the existing license requirements’.”

This sounds similar to Williams’ letter, but we cannot find that the letter from the Potter Valley Irrigation District to compare it with Williams’ letter.

->. I believe I may have heard the quoted statement voiced by Janet Pauli on KZYX news or public affairs, in the past 30 days.

The KZYX radio archives jukebox as had technical inconsistencies in performance recording playback, ever since the purchase and fundraising drive for the new KZYX studio and administrative office in Ukiah, about two months ago.

Last segment of one show on dentistry health, had my call in preventative comments cut off from the archive record, along with last ten minutes of that Tuesday morning show.

Just this week heard on Point and Click radio show that KZYX has a new archive app with TIVO playback characteristics, including suspend and rewind live broadcast, now available on Apple apps and Google play.

Yet to be revealed is whether a pledge free internet livestream will be made available to KZYX paid subscribers, along the lines of KQED in San Francisco.

John Sakowicz June 18, 2022

To the Editor:

Well. Well. Ukiah Police Chief Noble Waidelich gets busted. The years-long cover up of his tendencies towards domestic violence is finally blown.

Let’s see what happens to Bailey Comer. The cover up of his child porn addiction lasted 2.5 years before he was charged. Meanwhile, Bailey’s father, MCSO SWAT commander Lieutenant J.D. Comer was “cleared” in only three days.

Hmm. Two and a half years vs. three days. It doesn’t add up.

Right now, I’m in Washington D.C. I came to present the evidence about police corruption in Mendocino County that Hells Angel Frank Brady gave me years ago before he died of hepatitis. Evidence of missing cannabis from COMET and CAMP raids. Cannabis that was never booked into evidence. Cannabis brokered by third parties on behalf of dirty cops. And evidence of protection money paid to dirty cops. In other words, extortion money.

Fifty years of police corruption. Fifty years of cover ups. I hope the feds start by investigating former Sheriff Tony Craver.

Also, former Major Crimes Task Force member Pete Hoyle and former COMET Commander Sergeant Bruce Smith. And what does retired MSCO Lieutenant Shannon Barney know?

I wonder who will flip first and cut a deal with the feds.

John Sakowicz
Ukiah

- Bruce Anderson June 18, 2022
  
  Pure baloney, previously deconstructed in the mighty ava, with a new deconstruction of the lynching of Waidelich coming up tonight.
  
- Mike J June 18, 2022
  
  Maybe you can send to the AVA the material given to you by Frank Brady??
  
Marmon June 18, 2022

Joe Biden took a nasty spill on his bicycle today, I hope he’s okay.

Marmon

- Harvey Reading June 18, 2022
  
  He is definitely OK if he fell on his head…its innards were already useless.
  
Mike J June 18, 2022

Last Newspaper Foci and AVA Cold Case
Had forgotten there was a UFO sighting wave in Boonville when a Newsweek reporter was in town in 2015 preparing a story about the AVA. It’s interesting to note the reporter for Newsweek, here writing in 2015 and 2 years before the New York Times article, resort to ridiculing. Nowadays, that’s a sign of not being with it, ie ridicule and denial eroding re this subject.
“Nor do the big papers, for that matter, publish the likes of John Kendall of Rancho Navarro, who wondered in a letter last month to the AVA about a “strange light moving across the sky.” Elsewhere, this would be disregarded as paranoia. In Boonville, it’s serious stuff, seriously taken. In early March, Tim Glidewell of Boonville wrote that “[t]hese strange lights in the sky keep happening.” He discounted the possibility of a drone, then tried to rally his fellow citizens to seek out the truth: “What’s going on here, people?”

Perhaps, then, the AVA will be the last newspaper in America because it will be the only one sufficiently prepared for the inevitable extraterrestrial conquest.”

Was there any followup or resolution re these reports?

https://www.newsweek.com/2015/04/24/last-or-least-looniest-newspaper-america-321646.html

Rye N Flint June 18, 2022

I highly recommend signing up for the Abuela gardens classes. It’s really an amazing example of fire resiliency and natural building. One of the few shining gems of local care and permaculture design in action. Go check it out ya’ll!

-Rye N Flint

Rye N Flint June 18, 2022

RE: School’s out

“Well we got no choice all the girls and boys
Makin’ all that noise ’cause they found new toys
Well we can’t salute ya can’t find a flag if that don’t suit ya that’s a drag
School’s out for summer school’s out forever school’s been blown to pieces
No more pencils no more books no more teacher’s dirty looks yeah
Well we got no class and we got no principals and we got no innocence
We can’t even think of a word that rhymes
School’s out for summer school’s out forever…”
-Alice Cooper

Mendocino County Today: Saturday, June 18, 2022

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