Mendocino County Today: Saturday, Oct. 1, 2022

Warm Dry | Noyo | Rainfall Totals | Mendosa Store | HS Football | Yolanda Chapa | Cheerleaders | Water Projects | Master Tindall | Write-In Tess | Gone Fishing | AVUSD Updates | Gowan Visit | Unity Club | Log Train | AV Village | Basketball Richie | Agenda Notes | Class 27/28 | WCK Fundraiser | Gerber/Matson | Circus Shows | Police Reports | Arson Sentence | Big Tuna | Yesterday's Catch | No Democracy | Woodenpecker | Strings Concert | Candle Heat | Marco Radio | Cat Trap | Winter Yodel | Cassius Act | FI$Cal Failure | Truman Capote | Think Tanks | How To | US Sabotage | Suffragette Sign | Ukraine | Windshield Dust | McGilchrist Warning

WARM AND DRY weather is expected to continue through next week. Stronger onshore breezes will promote marine stratus formation tonight into Sunday. (NWS)

RAINFALL TOTALS for the 2021-22 rain season (Oct. 2021-Oct. 2022)

HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL

The Anderson Valley (Boonville, CA) varsity football team has a home conference game vs. Tomales (CA) on Saturday, October 1 @ 6pm. Watch live here: https://t.co/mxbwgkMsAS

MEMORIAL FOR YOLANDA POPPY CHAPA THIS SUNDAY 

Please join us for a memorial to celebrate the life of Yolanda Poppy Chapa (1/12/06 to 8/8/22) this Sunday, Oct 2nd, at 3pm at the MacCallum House, 45020 Albion Street, in Mendocino.

Tom Wodetzki <tw@mcn.org> 

REGULAR MEETING of the Water Projects Committee

ANDERSON VALLEY COMMUNITY SERVICES DISTRICT

To be held via teleconference Phone # 669 900 6833 Zoom Meeting ID 845 5084 3330 Password 048078

Public comments must be submitted by 10:00am on October 6th, 2022 electronically to water.avcsd@gmail.com

Thursday October 6th, 2022 at 10:30am

• Call To Order And Roll Call:
• Recognition Of Guests And Hearing Of Public:
• Consent Calendar: Minutes From September 1st, 2022
• Changes Or Modification To This Agenda: 
• Report On Drinking Water Project:
• Report On Wastewater Project:
• Public Outreach:
• Concerns Of Members:
• Adjournment:

TESS, THE WRITE-IN CANDIDATE

Tess is running for re-election to the Fort Bragg City Council. She was elected in 2018 because she is well-known for all the work she has done for the city, the schools, the symphony, youth soccer, and the many non-profits she has helped.

The challenge for us is Tess will be a write-in candidate. The elections staff made a mistake in filing dates, and her name will not appear on the ballot. But she will win if you darken the box and write “Tess Albin-Smith” on the line below the other names for 4 years. On the bright side, this is an opportunity to do something different (and maybe a little bit fun) writing in a candidate!

AV UNIFIED District Update

Dear Anderson Valley Community,

It has been a very busy week. The temporary septic repairs are underway at the elementary site. This was an extensive job and will provide an interim solution, until we get the new system permitted through the county. The old pipes were asbestos and so deteriorated, they were falling apart. We were required to excavate the playground and trench in the new line. We will be doing some additional work on the blacktop as well, for this temporary repair.

Please note that next week is conference week at both sites. Dismissal will be on a minimum day schedule. We look forward to visiting with you and talking about how we can support your student’s growth. I am always very pleased with the high rate of participation in our conferences. You are an invested community!

We had an observer at the high school visit our campus for two days and provide feedback about standards, instruction, engagement, and rigor. It was invaluable for me and the staff to learn more about how we can work to raise our level of expectation and engagement for our students. I want to thank the staff at the high school for their hard work and diligence in the on-going accreditation process for WASC. It is a heavy lift, when time is tight.

The elementary school is working hard on the curriculum pilots for language arts instruction. We appreciate the team’s collaboration and effort to identify the most relevant materials for creating student achievement. The team is also revamping their report cards to provide more relevant information related to standards. The high school will increase use of commenting for classes, so students/parents/guardians have more information about areas of success or improvement required in each course.

I appreciate all of the parents/guardians that have taken the time to meet with me. I have viewed every report card, and have contacted numerous families via email and in person. I am thankful for your support as we raise student achievement.

Priorities for the bond projects are underway. The science rooms, gym bathrooms, the septic at the elementary and the repiping of the elementary collapsed drain line are in front of the line. There is so much work to do and not enough money, but we will be making good progress on renovating our campuses with this first round of bond funding. Please note the drawing and permitting process takes approximately 9-12 months, so we are about 18 months out from construction. The exception to this timeline is the septic replacement, which should be sooner as it does not go through the Department of State Architect.

I hope you have a wonderful weekend, and I thank you for your time and collaboration with our staff to create the best learning opportunity for your student. We appreciate it.

Sincerely yours,

Louise Simson, Superintendent, (707) 684-1017

AV UNITY CLUB NEWS

by Miriam Martinez

Well what do ya know? Its October already; time for the A.V. Unity Club to get together. Its happening on Thursday 6 October at 1:30 in our old meeting place, the Dining Room at the Fairgrounds. Our Executive Committee will act as hostess bringing a selection of sweet and savory snacks. We will be discussing our Centennial Celebration activities. Plans for our Annual Holiday Bazaar are also on the agenda. December 3rd from 10 to 4 are slotted for the Bazaar in the Apple Hall. Children's Craft Corner will be held in the adjacent Dining Room sponsored by the Parent-Teacher Alliance. There has been some discussion about the teens having a Snack Shack; on which we will continue to discuss. Sign-up sheets will be available at the meeting. This is our big fund-raiser for scholarships, Food bank, and other charitable grants. The Agriculture Institute of AVHS has agreed to donate a wreath in lieu of booth rental, for our Grand Prize.

Our Community Lending Library will be re-opening soon. Hours of operation are Tuesdays 1-4 and Saturdays 12:30 to 2:30. I'm presently reading a historic novel set in Ireland during the Potato famine. You too can be transported in Space-time to realities you've only dreamed of; adopt a book or 7. Hard bound books still only $1 and paperbacks just $0.50. A selection of DVDs are also available for adoption, so come on in. I'll be seeing you on Thursday 6 Oct. 22 at 1:30 in the Dining Room for the first A.V. Unity Club meeting of the 2022-23 year.

Miriam L. Martinez

ANDERSON VALLEY VILLAGE Newsletter October 2022

COUNTY AGENDA NOTES

by Mark Scaramella

AFTER CARE

Here’s a claim made in the upcoming Measure B presentation package for next Tuesday’s Supes meeting by an anonymous County Mental Health bureaucrat that supposedly demonstrates that Measure B funding is doing some good:

“Measure B funding continues to provide a pathway for individuals who historically have not had access to crisis after care services reaching parity for non-Medi-Cal recipients.”

So, let’s see. They seem to be saying that a few dozen Medi-Cal clients who had some kind of crisis got some “after care” that in the past was only provided to “non-Medi-Cal recipients.” And it was paid for out of Measure B funds. We have no way of knowing how much Measure B money is going to provide these after care services.

We also learned that there are currently six people in Camille Schraeder’s Crisis Residential Treatment Center (aka the $4.449 million four bedroom “Phoenix House”). 

According to the June Measure B Financial Report, $98,027 has been paid for a “Whitmore Land PHF Study.” We hope to get a copy of that study.

* * *

BYE-BYE HHSA

Mendo is finally getting around to eliminating the pointless extra layer of Helping Agency Admin that was created back in 2008 when the County hired Carmel Angelo as their first Director of the Mendocino County Health and Human Services Agency. The original idea was to combine Mental Health, Public Health and Social Services which each had their own expensive administration with staff and analysts and directors and assistant directors and combine them into one, thereby saving money, on paper. But instead Angelo simply created a Super-Agency on top of the existing three agencies with its own fourth set of staff and analysts and directors and assistant directors. Instead of saving money, it increased the cost with no discernible improvement in anything. Now, some 14 wasteful years later, they’re getting rid of Angelo’s creation. Again, the idea is to save some money by eliminating the extraneous layer of HHSA bureaucracy. But the agenda item doesn’t mention the impact of this apparent improvement on the budget. So for all we know the people who were in the old HHSA admin office will just be added back to the three offices that will now operating more or less independently.

Agenda Item 4c) Discussion and Possible Action Including Introduction and Waive First Reading of an Ordinance Amending Chapters 2.04, 2.28, 3.16, 8.69, 9.05, 9.40, and 20.243of the Mendocino County Code Pertaining to the Duties and Responsibilities of the Chief Executive Officer and Replacing County Code References to “Health and Human Services Agency” with the Departments of Behavioral Health & Recovery Services, Public Health and/or Social Services 

(Sponsors: Chair Williams and County Counsel) 

* * *

THE BARBARA HOWE wrongful termination federal suit is still costing Mendo lots of money. 

Agenda Item 3f) Approval of Amendment to BOS Agreement 20-138with Liebert Cassidy Whitmore (LCW), Effective September 22, 2021Extending the Termination Date from December 31, 2021 to December 31, 2022 for Litigation Services for Howe v County of Mendocino.” (The agenda item does not provide budget info, and this may only be for an extension of time. But in the past lLCWhas been authorized to spend up to $150k.)

We were unable to find any status info on this case on line. We put in a call to Ms. Howe’s attorney in San Francisco but so far, no call back.

Ms. Howe, some readers may recall, was unceremoniously fired by then-CEO Carmel Angelo back in 2019 when she was given 16 minutes to be out of her offfice.

In her intial federal court filing Ms. Howe “alleges she was retaliated against for her speech and actions when days later, on May 24, 2019, she was forced under duress to sign a one-page resignation letter by defendant Tammy Moss Chandler [at the direction of CEO Angelo]. After signing the letter, Ms. Howe also alleges defendants sought spurious temporary restraining orders designed to destroy her reputation, further retaliation for the above activity. Ms. Howe claims she was entitled to a name clearing hearing. Finally, Ms. Howe alleges she was discriminated against based on her sexual orientation (heterosexual), gender, age, and engaging in protected activity, citing comments defendant Tammy Moss Chandler made to Ms. Howe about how older employers are incapable of making good decisions, multitasking, and struggling with technology.”

A couple other women have also joined the suit: https://theava.com/archives/153421

MENDO has authorized up to $150k so far in legal fees with SF-based Liebert Cassidy Whitmore on the case, now in its fourth year.

More background: "Barbara Howe Speaks"

And: "Barbara Howe’s Day In Court"

OCTOBER 8 EVENT: SYDELLE'S TRIP TO POLAND cooking for Ukrainian Refugees -- benefit for World Central Kitchen 

Saturday, October 8, 2022

Presentation hosted by Redwood Coast Seniors: Sydelle's trip to Poland cooking in the World Central Kitchen for the Ukrainian refugees.

2 PM 490 North Harold Street, Fort Bragg

Plus “We Feed People” -- Ron Howard's documentary on WCK Chef Jose Andreas

$10 sliding scale No one turned away

This is a fundraiser for World Central Kitchen.

Masks Required

FLYNN CREEK CIRCUS COMES TO BOONVILLE! 

Flynn Creek Circus presents Balloons, Birds and Other Flying Things — “the distinction between past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.” (Einstein)

The 2022 season show is a series of real memories submitted by our audience and interpreted in wild acrobatics, comedy, and awe-inspiring stunts. Featuring original, live music from legendary rock stars Eric McFadden and Kate Vargas. Deeply personal vignettes string together a larger story about the illusive, fleeting nature of time and how it transforms, defines, and inspires us. Internationally award winning talents come together in this star-studded cast of creators. This is the show everyone will be talking about this Summer.

Flynn Creek Circus performances will be held October 14th-16th at the Anderson Valley Brewing Company under the big top tent at 17700 Boonville Rd, Boonville, CA 95415.

Tickets can be purchased in advance at https://www.flynncreekcircus.com/.

Performance and Ticket Information:

• Friday, Oct 14 at 5pm & 7:30pm
• Saturday, Oct 15 at 4pm and 7pm (adults 21+ only)
• Sunday, Oct 16 at 12pm & 3pm

Shows can sell out so please purchase early. Beer, wine, and light concession available for purchase at the big top and in advance.

“Social bubble” seating prices:

• Sponsors Lounge Pavillion (6 seats): $416
• VIP Tables (4-6 seats per table): $180
• Canopy Tables (4-6 seats per table): $150
• Bar Tables (4-6 seats per table): $121
• Garden Benches (seats 2 adults, no table): $84
• Single Seat: $38

Flynn Creek Circus is an all-human spectacle.

Flynn Creek Circus provides maximum public safety in live events. Reserve “social bubble” seating, outdoor atmosphere, and social distancing within the big top space are some of the measures that ensure a fun and comfortable experience for all audiences. Complete descriptions of pathogen spread prevention can be found at https://www.flynncreekcircus.com/ and are constantly adapting to the local, State, and CDC guidelines. 

A SLEDGEHAMMER & A MACHETE

On Friday, September 23, 2022 at 10:30 PM Mendocino County Sheriff's Office Dispatch received a call from a 47 year old adult female in Willits stating her husband, Lewis Perll, 40, of Willits, had choked her and was threatening her with a machete. Shortly thereafter the phone line disconnected.

Sheriff's Deputies began responding and dispatch was able to re-contact the adult female and the dispatcher learned Perll was chasing her with the machete and a sledgehammer. It was later learned that Perll had reportedly smashed a computer with the sledgehammer inside the residence.

While responding, Deputies were advised the adult female had been able to escape from the location and Perll had gone back into the residence.

Sheriff's Dispatch advised Perll had a felony warrant for his arrest from Santa Clara County and misdemeanor warrant for his arrest from Santa Cruz. Perll was also on formal probation in another county.

Upon contact with the adult female, Deputies noticed injuries consistent with being choked and assaulted. Deputies learned both parties had been drinking alcoholic beverages at another location and when they got home Perll got angry. Perll began to strangle the adult female, while telling her he was not going to let go until she stopped breathing. The adult female fought back and was able to call 9-1-1.

When Deputies attempted to contact Perll, he attempted to flee out a side window of his residence, but quickly went back inside. Perll advised he had fortified the residence and was not coming out, even after numerous verbal requests were given.

Deputies requested Sheriff's Office Crisis Negotiators to respond to the location. Perll was agitated, intoxicated and at one point grabbed a pellet gun and began to raise it towards the Deputies.

At approximately 1:40 AM Crisis Negotiators were able to get Perll to open the front door and walk outside, where he peacefully surrendered. Perll was taken into custody without incident for Domestic Violence Battery, Assault with Deadly Weapon other than a Firearm, Criminal Threats and the Out of County Arrest Warrants.

Perll was booked into the Mendocino County Jail where he was to be held on a No-Bail status due to the Santa Clara County arrest warrant. The local charges were to have a $30,000 bail and the Santa Cruz warrant was a $500 bail.

========================

COVELO, TAKE TWO

On Friday, September 23, 2022 about 10:40pm Mendocino County Sheriff's Office Dispatch received a call of a female heard screaming for law enforcement assistance in the 76000 block of Highway 162 in Covelo.

A Sheriff's Deputy arrived and contacted Patrick Dennis, 57, of Covelo, who advised his girlfriend had been yelling.

The Deputy learned the couple had been drinking alcoholic beverages while at a local event in Covelo. When the couple returned home one wanted to return to the event and an argument ensued.

The argument became physical and Dennis threw the adult female to the ground forcefully after taking her phone and throwing it on a roof. Dennis was subsequently arrested for domestic violence battery.

Dennis was booked into the Mendocino County Jail where he was to be held in lieu of $25,000 bail.

========================

THE AX MAN COMETH

On Friday, September 23, 2022 about 10:50 PM Mendocino County Sheriff's Office Dispatch advised of a violation of a court order on Airport Road in Covelo.

Deputies were unable to respond immediately due to numerous emergency calls for service in Willits and Covelo.

Deputies did contact the reporting party by phone and the incident was not actively in progress and the subject had left the location.

On Saturday, September 24, 2022 at approximately 3:00 AM Deputies arrived at the location and contacted the reporting party.

Deputies learned Fox Blue Hoaglin, 46, came to the reporting person's property in violation of a served tribal court order. Hoaglin was reportedly armed with a hatchet and was told he needed to leave. Hoaglin then swung the hatchet at one of the involved parties, a 25 year old Ukiah woman and a 52 year old Covelo woman.

Deputies noticed Hoaglin in the neighboring yard and he fled while attempting to hide in a shed. After a brief struggle, Hoaglin was arrested for assault with a deadly weapon regarding the reported incident. Deputies located a hatchet just outside of the shed Hoaglin ran into.

Hoaglin was booked into the Mendocino County Jail where he was to be held in lieu of $30,000 bail.

UKIAH MAN SENTENCED TO NINE YEARS in State Prison for Lighting Occupied Group Home on Fire

Defendant Travis Joseph Humphrey, age 32, generally of the Ukiah area, was sentenced in the Mendocino County Superior Court Thursday afternoon to 108 months in the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

On December 2nd of last year, Ukiah fire and police personnel were dispatched to a 9-1-1 emergency call reporting a fire inside an occupied group home in Ukiah.

After the fire was extinguished and witnesses were interviewed, investigators came to focus their attention on the defendant. Evidence developed during the investigation was compelling that defendant Humphrey had set a fire to a downstairs bedroom to which he had been assigned just that day.

After setting the fire, he left the room, closed the bedroom door, and departed the house. He was seen outside the house looking through the window at the growing fire before he finally departed the scene.

When an interior smoke alarm went off, the house manager went to check and discovered the defendant’s room on fire. After calling for help, the house manager evacuated the other residents from the house without anybody getting hurt.

At the time of this offense, the defendant was on informal probation for being a misdemeanor accessory to the reckless setting of a fire by another defendant on Airport Park Boulevard in August 2021.

Because an arson of an inhabited dwelling is characterized as a violent felony and thus is a conviction that can be used as a future Strike, the early release credits the defendant may attempt to earn in state prison are limited by law to no more than 15% of the overall sentence.

Upon release, the defendant will be required to register for life as an arson offender with local law enforcement in any community to which he is paroled.

The Ukiah Valley Fire Authority and the Ukiah Police Department worked hand-in-hand in the investigation of this case.

The attorney who has been handling the prosecution of this defendant from arraignment through sentencing is District Attorney David Eyster.

Mendocino County Superior Court Judge Keith Faulder presided over today’s sentencing hearing.

(DA Presser)

YELLOWFIN TUNA WEIGHING AN ESTIMATED 240 POUNDS CAUGHT OFF FORT BRAGG

by Dan Bacher

Over the past month, anglers fishing the offshore waters of the Northern California Coast from Bodega Bay to Crescent City have hooked an array of exotic warm water pelagic species, including striped marlin, dorado and three species of tuna: yellowfin, bigeye and bluefin.

The majority of these warm water travelers have been hooked on the temperature break between offshore warm water and the colder inshore water as anglers have been trolling for albacore tuna.

While some big tuna have been caught off the North Coast, none was bigger than the estimated 240 pound yellowfin tuna that Dylan Taube of Valley Ford, Edmund Jin and Frank Lovelady teamed up to catch on Thursday, Sept. 22 with Captain Dave Li of Sebass Sportfishing on Jin’s new Skipjack boat.

“When we got back to the hotel, we measured the fish,” said Taube, who works for Hog Island Oyster Company in Tomales and is a master chef, kayak angler and mushroom forager. “It measured 61 inches in length and 54 inches in girth.”

“Based on the calculation of the measurements, the fish weighed 240 pounds. It could be an unofficial northern California record. It was a monster fish; after it was gilled and gutted, it took four to move it in the fish bag with ice,” he noted.

Up until this unusual catch, the 151-pound yellowfin that John Neill of Shelter Cove caught while trolling for albacore at Vizcaino Knoll out of Shelter Cove on Sept. 11 was the largest yellowfin ever reported off the Northern California Coast. “We didn’t expect to get a yellowfin, especially one that big,” Taube said.

The current California state angling record for yellowfin tuna is 265 pounds, caught off Oceanside in San Diego County by Bo Scanlan on Sept. 26, 2017.

After Li trailered the boat to Fort Bragg from Edmund Jin’s ranch in Hollister they put the boat in a slip on Wednesday morning.

After launching at 6:30 a.m., the captain drove the boat seven to 12 miles offshore, but couldn’t find warm water. From 7- 9 a.m. he drove to find the right water 25-to 30-miles offshore. Finally, they found a 61.5 degree temperature break.

“We put out a big spread of different lures on Phenix Axis bluefin tuna rods and started trolling. We put out Mexican Flags, jigs, Green Zebras and other lures,” stated Taube.

At 9:30 a.m. the anglers landed two small “peanut” albacore weighing 5 or 6 pounds, but didn’t hook any more fish until 10:30 am.

“At that time the middle rod that was furthest back, 250 feet, a Phenix Axis 7’ 6” rod with an Avet 2 speed reel, got hit hard and the line began to peel out. The fish hit a Pit Bull Mexican Flag lure on a "daisy chain" of hoochies above the lure. The fish hit the daisy chain first and then was hooked on the Mexican flag,” said Taube.

“I was the first to grab the rod as line peeled out,” said Taube. “We pretty quickly realized the fish wasn’t an albacore — we knew that we had hooked a tuna over 100 pounds. We brought in the gear and the captain slowed the boat down. We took turns fighting the fish — I fought the fish for the first 20 minutes, Jin battled it for 20 minutes, and Lovelady fought the fish over the next 20 minutes.”

In the first hour, they made little progress on the monster tuna, gaining line only to have the fish take back all of the line gained.

“The only reason why we landed the big fish was because Lovelady and Li teamed up to circle around the fish so we were finally able to gain line. We kept reeling until we saw color. We handed the rod to Jin so he could fight the fish the last 10 minutes,” he explained.

“Finally, Lovelady and I gaffed the fish and put it in the boat. We thought we would get a bluefin or bigeye, but instead it was a huge yellowfin tuna,” he added.

After the fish was in the boat, they celebrated the catch, took photos and iced down the fish. The fish was subdued on 150 lb. test Seagar fluorocarbon line at 12:30. p.m.

“We trolled for albacore for three more hours and never got another bite. Jin broke in his new boat with a fish of a lifetime trophy fish,” he observed.

“We got very lucky. We were at the right place at the right time with the right gear and it all came together,” he added.

While Jin went home, Li, Lovelady and Taube went out the next day on the Skipjack and landed 14 albacore ranging from 20 to 40 pounds.

Most of the albacore hit pink Cedar Plugs and Mexican Flag lures. The albacore were again feeding on the temperature break between cold and warm water.

“In the past several years, an occasional marlin, bluefin and dorado have been caught off the North Coast. But it is unprecedented to have marlin, dorado, bigeye, bluefin and yellowfin tuna all showing at the same time. The warm water and bait is there now and it’s drawing in the tuna and other fish,” Taube said.

CATCH OF THE DAY, September 30, 2022

WILLIAM AADLAND-BREEN, Willits. Failure to appear, probation revocation.

JOHN CESANO*, Ukiah. Controlled substance, felon-addict with firearm.

CHRISTOL CHILES, Fort Bragg. Failure to appear.

SETH COSTA, Ukiah. Probation revocation.

YECSON DELAHERRAN-RIVERA, Ukiah. Controlled substance, paraphernalia, ammo possession by prohibited person.

STEVEN GARDNER, Ukiah. Failure to appear, resisting.

CLAIRE LONG, Ukiah. Bad checks, fake bill/check.

RAIMUNDO SANTIAGO, Citrus Heights/Ukiah. Pot sales, felon-addict with firearm, loaded firearm in public, ammo possession by prohibited person.

CHRISTINA SIMMONS, Ukiah. Controlled substance, paraphernalia, under influence failure to appear.

SCOTT STONE, Conway, South Carolina/Ukiah. Failure to appear, probation revocation.

JOSEPH TENORIO, San Bernadino/Ukiah. Pot sales, concealed firearm in vehicle, loaded firearm in public.

ELIJA THOMPSON, Oakdale/Ukiah. Narcotics for sale, probation revocation.

STANLEY VERBECK, Fort Bragg. DUI, resisting.

* According to linkedin.com John Cesano is the Executive Director of the AV Winegrowers Association (or was until recently) where he “Promotes Mendocino County's premier wine American Viticultural Area (AVA), with over 100 winery, vineyard, and associated food and lodging members.” He is also “wine columnist” for the Ukiah Daily Journal. “I have written about wine for several years and currently have a weekly wine column running Thursdays in the Ukiah Daily Journal newspaper, focusing on the wine scene of inland Mendocino County. I post a copy of my column, and other entries, to my online wine blog, JohnOnWine.com.)

WE DON'T LIVE IN A DEMOCRACY

by Ed Oberweiser

A large number of U.S. citizens are laboring under the myth that the United States is a Democracy. We are hearing a number of pleas to “save our Democracy” almost every day.

The truth is that the United States has never been a Democracy and was never meant to be one by the founding fathers. When the Constitution was written, women had no status at all. Slavery was allowed because a number of the authors of the Constitution owned slaves. No one could vote or run for office unless they were white men and were huge landowners or were wealthy. George Washington was the wealthiest man in the country.

There are three fundamental anti-democratic parts of the original Constitution. They are the Electoral College, the Senate and the Supreme Court.

The Electoral College makes it possible for a candidate for the presidency to win even if the candidate had fewer popular votes than their opponent. Two of the last four presidents (George W. Bush Jr and Donald Trump) received fewer votes than their opponents.

The Senate gives each state equal representation no matter what its population is. Senators from states like Wyoming with a population of 578,803 and South Dakota with a population of 895,376 have the same power as two senators from California, population 39 million. This is not representative Democracy.

The Supreme Court justices are nominated by the president, confirmed by the senate and then serve for life. It’s possible for a president who didn’t win the majority of votes to nominate the most powerful judges in the country as well as hundreds of other federal judges. The nominations are confirmed or not by the Senate whose power is constitutionally designed to undermine majority power. These Supreme Court judges then interpret the Constitution.

A number of Supreme Court decisions have severely damaged the rights of the majority of U.S. citizens. One of them was the Santa Clara County vs the Southern Pacific Railroad. The case is most notable for a headnote stating that the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment grants the same constitutional protections to corporations as people.

Another equally corrupt decision was the Citizens United v Federal Elections Commission (FEC) which essentially ruled that money equalled free speech. It also effectively removed limits on donations to political candidates.

Recently the Supreme Court overturned Roe vs. Wade, making it possible for individual states to deny women the right to control their own bodies. A number of states that have made abortions illegal do not allow exceptions even for women who have been raped by family members including their fathers.

Supreme Court interpretation of the U.S. Constitutions's Commerce Clause has stolen from Congress the role of making public policy. These rulings have made a number of laws favoring huge corporate interests over the rights of states, cities, labor and minorities to protect themselves from environmental destruction in favor of corporate profit.

See the book Gaveling Down the Rabble at: https://www.abebooks.com/9781891843396/Gaveling-Down-Rabble- Free-Trade-1891843397/plp.

A new study by researchers at Princeton and Northwestern Universities using an analysis of 1,779 recent policy outcomes. The study found that “economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy,” while average citizens “have little or no independent influence.”

The U.S. is actually a plutocracy: a system of government ruled by a set of people having great wealth and income.

If an accurate definition of Democracy is participation in decisions that affect you, when was the last time that the average citizen did this?

Did you vote to make a college education virtually unaffordable to anyone who isn't rich? Did you vote to allow corporations and their obscenely wealthy owners and stockholders to pay little or no taxes? How about allowing five corporations to own all the “mainstream media?” Did you vote to allow corporations like General Motors, Ford, ITT and Standard Oil to sell weapons and fuel to the Nazis during WWII and not be penalized?

The extremely wealthy and their corporations have lobbyists in Washington everyday who have access to “your” representatives. The average American citizen cannot afford to hire lobbyists or go to Washington DC themselves and get access to Congress or the president.

These obscenely wealthy people are the enemies of all life on Earth. Their hoarding of wealth and power for themselves have left the rest of the world on the brink of environmental disaster and poverty.

Most of the members of Congress are millionaires – see https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2020/04/majority-of-lawmakersmillionaires/.

So don't expect Democracy from Congress.

It's time for everyone else to come together and overcome the small differences between us that are exaggerated by the economic elite and their propaganda machine (the “mainstream media”) and work to create real Democracy.

PSYCHEDELIC BLUEGRASS

by Marilyn Davin

When I was in high school my father would get home from his San Francisco law office at around 7 and, much to my mother’s chagrin as she shushed two hungry, complaining teenagers, walked over to the bar and made a very dry gin martini (he used an atomizer to spray a thin layer of vermouth over its icy surface) before turning on the “Hi-Fi” to crank up the volume on his beloved Big Band LP records. He said he needed half an hour to relax before dinner, a workweek point of contention since Mom believed that families should eat dinner together at a proper table without radio, TV, or Duke Ellington to disturb the family’s dinnertime chatter. 

What he really wanted was a jolt of the music of his youth, and by extension a sentimental revisit to his impressionable early years when he was preparing for his future at the University of Minnesota Law School, dropping bombs from his Hellcat bomber over Okinawa, and falling in love, all while grooving to the tunes of Glenn Miller, Count Basie, and Duke Ellington. This was especially intense when his only brother came to visit from L.A.; I don’t remember my mother even attempting dinner on the nights when Dad and Uncle Roger listened to the music they loved long into the night, with occasional arm pumps on the crescendos. My father did not dwell on the past, which of course he knew logically was long gone. But the music wormed its way deeply into his heart, so deep it flourished and sustained him for more than 60 years, until he died.

I was reminded of this when we recently went with friends to a Billy Strings concert in Sacramento. The century-old midtown Sacramento Memorial Auditorium is living proof of why it’s important to preserve our historic public places. Its graceful interior may have even rocked to Count Basie back in the day. It has an official occupant maximum of nearly 4,000, though to this reporter’s eye there had to have been more than that at the String’s concert. We were even told that we could scalp our tickets for double what we paid for them. Our seats were in the first tier up from the floor, where we had a clear view of the hordes pressing into the lower floor area, where they stood shoulder to shoulder from the stage to the back of the building. I hadn’t been to an honest-to-gosh rock concert since Big Brother and the Holding Company at Fillmore West back in 1969, and remember Janice Joplin’s power as she belted out Piece of my Heart, drops of sweat flying off the ends of her hair as she sang her heart out for us Baby Boomers. 

Based on the deceptive evidence of my own experience, I somehow thought that rock concerts like Strings’ concert in Sacramento had gone the way of the dodo, replaced by the smaller venues I have attended in my own adult life (though my brother spent the last $700 of his inheritance on a ticket to a Rolling Stones concert a few years ago). I was wrong; rock is alive and well; and Strings is a more talented guitarist than any I heard in the ‘60s. And unlike during Dad’s Big Band evenings, when I gratefully escaped to my room to listen to the Beatles, the Bobby Strings-enraptured audience was multi-generational; Baby Boomers wouldn’t have been caught dead at their parents’ Big Band, Swing Era concerts. At the Strings concert hippies young, old, and everything in-between jammed the auditorium. A young, tie-dyed hippie woman strolled by with her baby in a tie-dyed sling, its ears protected by pint-sized head phones; an older hippie-looking male in the beverage line said it was the best concert he had seen in the Memorial Auditorium since the Grateful Dead played there in 1979. The two women sitting to our right were a mother and her 10-year-old daughter; the guy to our left would not have been out of place on a Mendo trimming site though he works at Stanford as his day job, still chasing the music… 

At a quarter to eight, a huge countdown appeared on a banner behind the front of the stage where the band would soon play. The crowd went nuts. I had to beat down a feeling of dread that, if there were some emergency, hundreds of people, including us, would be trampled to death. Who would feed the cat? (Such are the preoccupations of born worriers.)

The light show started up a few minutes before the musicians walked onto the stage. It was way better than the old disco ball at Fillmore West, but we were all less technologically sophisticated back then. Pinpoint ceiling lights beamed down to the stage; it was kind of like looking up at a ceiling with round holes in it. Flashing geometric-shaped neon lights pulsed with the dancing colors of the rainbow. Powerful search lights pierced the darkness (probably damaging our retinas), and swept the undulating crowd as the clock ticked down.

When Strings walked onto the stage with his band the crowd went nuts. Thousands of waving arms looked like a multi-colored field of grain swaying to the music. Fans closest to the stage bent their hands into that trendy heart shape, reflected in projected overhead shots of the band. Puffs of smoke from cannabis smokers on the floor added a ‘60s vibe and evocative scent to the aura; I was back at Fillmore West.

Unlike many AVA writers, I’m no music expert. I had never even heard of Billy Strings. But the rock groups of my youth are as much a part of me as the Big Bands were for my father. And though most of the Strings audience were 20- or 30-ish (Strings himself turns 30 this month), there were plenty of us old folks rocking out at the Sacramento Memorial Auditorium, doubtless why String’s rendition of Jackson Browne’s 1977 hit Running on Empty brought down the house as nearly everyone shouted out the lyrics. The exuberance of the crowd was breathtaking and unsullied by fistfights, deranged shooters, and obvious bad acid trips (unlike in 1969, where it was hard to get past all the vomiting women in the women’s restroom to get to a toilet). 

What if anything any this means is better left to sociologists and philosophers. But what it reminded me of is the powerful and unifying nature of music, a jewel shared in a kind of oasis in the midst of our screwed up and violent society. Escapism? Perhaps. But detouring into beautiful music with joyful fellow travelers can’t be a bad thing. People all over the world since forever have understood this, reveling in music’s temporary respite from our daily human troubles — which always return soon enough. 

MEMO OF THE AIR: Good Night Radio live from Franklin St. all night Friday night!

Deadline to email your writing for tonight's (Friday night's) MOTA show is about 5:30pm. Or send it whenever it's done and I'll read it on the radio next week.

Plus you can phone during the show and read your work in your own voice. I'll be in the cluttered but clean well-lighted back room of KNYO's storefront studio at 325 N. Franklin. Usually we can put phone callers on the air from there but not this time; the phone-to-air thing is kaput and a replacement is on its way from China or Mexico. Keep your shirt on.

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 http://airtime.knyo.org:8040/128 (That's the regular link to listen to KNYO in real time.) (Or just go to KNYO.org and click /Listen/. And the schedule is there for KNYO's many other terrific shows.)

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.

Besides all that, there you'll find a few amusay booshes to mentally munch on, such as:

Smells are as important to a dog's brain as visuals are important to our brains. This kind of video helps me imagine what it's like for a dog with its nose out the window of a moving car.

https://theawesomer.com/google-street-view-music-video/683010/

Nose error correction with the Zello Noseformer. (Corrects Potato Nose, Saddle Nose, Duckbill Nose, Wide Nose, Pointy Nose, Long Nose, Hook Nose and Slant Nose.) (But not Zigzag nose, which is what I have, alas.)

https://www.vintag.es/2022/09/nasenformer-zello.html

And ballet moves in slow motion.

https://boingboing.net/2022/09/27/ballet-in-super-slow-motion.html

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

ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

I think this winter will tell us how sheepish or not modern people really are. If it’s a rough one and food and fuel grow scarce, then even the most subservient are going to be angry. I don’t have much hope for we Swiss. We may refuse to yodel if things get bad, but that’s about it.

“I HAVE BEEN CALLED a ‘coward’ and a ‘rabbit’ and an ‘Uncle Tom’ by Cassius Clay, and many people think that I share their contempt for him, but I do not. Cassius Clay, I think, is at heart a modest man. He can listen a long time without saying anything, he can charm you with his politeness. So much of his bragging and stomping, his histrionics and wisecracks are all part of an act. He is a kind of actor—a bad actor, some say, but an actor—and the main purpose behind his behavior is to get people to buy tickets to his fights, hoping to see him put his foot in his mouth.” 

— Floyd Patterson

STATE HIDES LONG-RUNNING TECH FAILURE

by Dan Walters

The state government’s chronic inability to employ high technology in a timely and cost-effective manner is nowhere more evident than in a project called Financial Information System for California.

That awkward title was devised so that it could be called by the catchy title of FI$Cal, but by whatever moniker, the effort to create a single program for managing state finances has been nothing but trouble, consuming nearly two decades of political and bureaucratic time and costing taxpayers at least $1 billion.

The state auditor’s office, tasked by law with monitoring FI$Cal’s progress, or lack thereof, has issued a string of reports detailing its missed deadlines, incomplete features and ever-rising costs. At one point, the auditor even blew the whistle on an effort to have the project declared complete, even though it was far from being totally operational.

Earlier this year, the auditor once again cataloged FI$Cal’s shortcomings, including its obvious inability to meet a June deadline for completion, noting that the most important final step — making it usable by the state controller’s office to produce annual comprehensive financial statements — “has fallen behind schedule.” The report warned that if the state cannot “publish accurate and timely financial statements,” it risks having its credit rating lowered and not qualifying for federal funds.

“These financial reporting delays may ultimately prove costly for the state,” the auditor warned.

The Legislature has been frustrated by the project’s sorry record and as the June deadline approached, both legislative houses voted for more oversight. They passed a bill requiring detailed annual reports on the number and length of unplanned outages and changes to make FI$Cal function well enough to comply with federal requirements.

The measure’s author, Assemblyman Rudy Salas, a Bakersfield Democrat, told his fellow legislators in a statement, “As FI$Cal enters its 18th year at a cost of approximately $1 billion, it is clear that stronger oversight and transparency needs to be established,” adding, “This bill will help establish better oversight and functionality with a high-risk state project, and help get FI$Cal back on track.”

Eight days after passing Salas’ bill on June 23, the Legislature did something else about FI$Cal, although few lawmakers were probably aware of what they were doing, since it was buried in one of the many budget “trailer bills” that are passed with little scrutiny.

The trailer bill simply declared that “the system’s project objectives … are determined to be complete as of July 1, 2022. Therefore, no further reporting pursuant to Section 11546 on system development, implementation, enhancement, maintenance and operations, security, or related workload is required.”

In other words, the trailer bill put into law what project managers had once tried to do on their own — declare FI$Cal to be complete even though it’s clearly not. The legislation also removed the state auditor as an independent overseer of the entire project, relegating it to a much-narrower role, and in essence gave the project’s managers another 10 years to make it fully usable.

Last week, Gov. Gavin Newsom completed the fictional exercise of declaring the obviously incomplete FI$Cal to be finished by vetoing Salas’ bill.

“While I appreciate the intent to improve functionality of the Fl$Cal system, this bill is unnecessary,” Newsom said in his veto message. “This issue was resolved in the final 2022-23 budget agreement contained in Assembly Bill 156, which expanded legislative reporting requirements while also facilitating the transition of several departments into the Fl$Cal system. For these reasons, I cannot sign this bill.”

It’s reminiscent of the old saying about putting lipstick on a pig.

DESPITE THEIR RADICALLY DIFFERENT PERSONALITIES, Harper Lee and Truman Persons were close friends. As children growing up in Monroeville, Alabama, they were next door neighbors. Truman was a small and unusual child and Harper, a tough tomboy, protected him from bullies. They both enjoyed writing and storytelling.

When Truman was about ten years he and his mother moved to New York, where she married a man named Joe Capote, whose surname Truman took. After the move Truman continued to see his friend Harper in the summer and they remained close friends as they both developed extraordinary literary careers. Harper helped research and edit Truman’s best-seller In Cold Blood, and the character Dill in Harper’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel To Kill a Mockingbird was modeled on Truman.

In time they grew apart, as Harper Lee chose to live a quiet life in Alabama, while Truman Capote preferred an outrageous and flamboyant life in New York City. Nevertheless, their friendship and mutual admiration endured. In one of her last interviews before withdrawing from public life, Harper Lee said there was no greater writer in America than her childhood friend Truman Capote.

Truman Capote was born on September 30, 1924, ninety-eight years ago today.

The above photo was taken by Andy Warhol in 1977.

A THINK TANK is an institution wherein academics are paid by the worst people in the world to explain to everyone why good things are bad and bad things are good.

— Caitlin Johnstone

SLOUCHING TOWARD ENDGAME

by James Kunstler

Since “Joe Biden” flat-out promised last February to “bring an end to the Nord Stream pipeline” — and let’s assume he meant both NS 1 and 2 — why seek further to unravel a fake mystery? Is our apparitional “president” not a man of his word? Of course, the machinery behind “Joe Biden” so far denies any credit for the consequential act, but who in this land is unaware that the US government’s default setting these days for answering anything is to lie?

The purpose of the act was likewise simple, plain, and obvious: to foreclose any possibility of Germany negotiating a separate peace with Russia around the financial and economic sanctions imposed by the USA over the Ukraine operation. Don’t you suppose it was clear to any German with half a brain that NATO’s joining of the sanctions was nothing less than a one-way ticket to Palookaville for Euroland? That it would mean goodbye to its advanced manufacturing economy and then goodbye to a comfortable, modern standard of living?

Not many weeks ago German foreign minister Annalena Baerbock told the world that Germany would support Ukraine (and US-driven NATO policy) “no matter what German voters think.” That was all for show, you understand, to maintain the flimsy pretense that NATO had any actual stake in whatever happens in Ukraine — as the result of the dumpster fire set there by America. At the same time, that very same German foreign ministry was sneaking through back channels to feel out the Russian foreign ministry on ways Germany might get Russian natgas on the down-low, through third parties, say, Turkey, buying time until the glorious day those Nord Stream pipelines might re-open and the former normality of German economic life would resume.

“Joe Biden” slammed the door on that pretty conclusively Monday, blowing up the two pipelines, a premier act of insanity by a US government fueled at every level and in every direction by psychotic strategic thinking. For starters, consider that the Nord Stream sabotage amounts to the leading member of NATO committing an act-of-war against the rest of NATO. What else do you call depriving most of Europe of the means to make a living — or merely to stay alive?

As it happens, Germany is in no position to answer this casus belli by going to war against the USA. Germany has a Potemkin military — America has made sure of that since 1945, the last time these Teutons of northern forests went batshit crazy against Western Civ. Seems to me that either Chancellor Olaf Scholz acknowledges this deadly affront to Germany and negates further participation in the NATO Ukraine idiocy, OR, within a few months he will face a violent political uprising from his own people and his government will fall — and not necessarily within the framework of any orderly parliamentary procedure. More like mobs in the streets… chaos… government buildings torched… officials strung-up — real insurrection, not the fake kind we hear about endlessly from the American Party of Chaos.

How, exactly, do any of the major NATO countries continue to regard the USA as any kind of ally? They won’t and they can’t. Anyway, and despite the recent panicked expansion of NATO, member countries of the adjoining scaffold known as the European Union are peeling off one-by-one. Georgia Meloni, soon to be Prime Minister of Italy, couldn’t have put it more plainly when her coalition won last week’s election: she and they oppose in the strongest terms all the Woke nonsense that the World Economic Forum has programmed into the EU. She and they are against the cancellation of individual liberties and tyrannical affronts to due process of law; are against the degenerate campaign to undermine family, church, and national sovereignty; and are unwilling to act as a dumping ground for anymore Third World hordes the EU stupidly induces to come to Europe’s shores.

Don’t worry, before much longer something similar will happen in France, too. Perhaps the mobs of nationalists in Paris will be inflamed enough to roll out the old “national razor,” to make their seriousness emphatic. Adieu Fifth Republic. The Sixth is on its way to the maternity ward and it will not recognize the EU as its maman. There’s a whole lotta shakin’going on across Europe. Holland’s farmers were already furious over Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s disgraceful obeisance to der Schwabenklaus’s malevolent program aimed at shutting down Dutch agriculture. Rutte will be gone before spring planting time, 2023. Sweden, like Italy, had repudiated its Woked-up Leftist rulers just weeks ago in an orderly national election. Crowds of protestors lit up Prague this week. It’ll still be good marching weather all over Euroland for some weeks ahead.

The Euro currency fell below par with the US dollar. Its days are numbered and when, perforce, it must be replaced by the old national currencies — francs, marks, guilders, liras — then submission to the EU will reach a logical end and it’s back to national sovereignty, too. The UK, America’s wing-man, has become an entirely feckless, sinking operation. The country is functionally bankrupt, the pound is dying, and, by resorting again to the old QE bond-buying racket, the Bank of England has just doomed the country to even more ruinous inflation. Liz Truss will be a three-month wonder. Things might get so wild in Old Blighty that Nigel Farage will wind up in 10 Downing Street.

As for Russia’s doings in Ukraine, the Donbas oblast elections are a done deal. Mr. Putin has not yet responded to the extreme provocation of the Nord Stream vandalism. I doubt he will make some histrionic tit-for-tat act of retaliation against any critical infrastructure of NATO or America itself. Rather, he will now methodically proceed to wipe up the floor with Mr. Zelenskyy’s army, eliminate whatever American missiles and other ordnance are stockpiled around the place, complete the occupation of the Black Sea coastal territory from Kherson to Odesa, and put that troublesome backwater of Western Civ in order. The hallmark of the operation will be a measured and businesslike approach. Russia will just get it done, put out the dumpster fire, and refuse to allow the USA to start World War Three.

“Joe Biden” and his regime of Satanic degenerates will just have to lump it. They will have lost Europe’s loyalty by the foolish Nord Stream caper. They will have enough trouble on their hands at home with America’s collapsing economy and all the ill-feeling they have generated with the Woke insults, persecutions, and punishments inflicted on half the population — not to mention the coming dire repercussions of the wicked Covid “vaccine” scam. In the meantime, “Joe Biden’s” Party of Chaos faces the wrath of American voters in the midterm election. And if, perchance, they take the majestically stupid step of cancelling, postponing or somehow messing with that election, they will face the wrath of the voters from the ground beneath the hanging tree.

(Support Kunstler’s writing by visiting his Patreon Page.)

UKRAINE, FRIDAY, 30 SEPTEMBER

Russian President Vladimir Putin announced on Friday the annexation of four areas of occupied Ukraine — nearly a fifth of its territory — in the largest forcible annexation of land in Europe since 1945.

It comes after “sham” referendums concluded in the occupied territories of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson. Western governments announced a new wave of sanctions and vowed not to recognize the regions as part of Russian territory.

Finland will close its borders to Russian tourists starting on midnight Friday local time amid record border crossings following Moscow's “partial mobilization” order.

At least 30 people have been killed in an attack by Russian forces on a civilian convoy leaving the southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia. Ukrainian President Zelensky called those who carried out the attack “downright terrorists.”

IAIN MCGILCHRIST has been outlining for many years that a fundamental problem in the way we are perceiving the world is likely to lead us into trouble. Now in 2022 he believes the situation is reaching a crucial turning point and we need to wake up urgently. In this conversation with Rebel Wisdom's David Fuller he talks about how our current culture's domination by a 'left brain', reductionistic, materialist and literalist perspective had reached crisis point. He explains how this is manifesting as a 'war on reality', and a series of attacks on free speech.