Mendocino County Today: Saturday, April 8, 2023

Warming | Overlook | Grief Support | Parks Hiring | Garden Beds | Soul Firing | Tree Hugging | Cashier Position | AVUSD Update | Medicare Fraud | Mo Zo | Decal Pipe | Wild Gardens | MAC Meeting | Stoned Drivers | Gowan's Cider | Lawyer Run | Tomales Moon | Winegrowers Workshop | Montgomery Woods | Fresh Fish | Yesterday's Catch | Paul Robeson | Jim Crow | 1915 Fight | Fishing Speakers | Doing Nothing | Tenting SF | Fishery Disaster | Apache Bros | Marco Radio | Angry Griz | Starting Guns | No Bowtie | DNC Skullduggery | Travis Transcott | Hero's Journey | Betrayed | 1901 Arkansas | Ukraine | Indian Scaffold | Books/Novels | Raw Dog

GRADUAL WARMING and drying will begin today for the interior under clearing skies, though mid level clouds will keep more coastal areas cool. Many interior valleys will see temperatures peak above 70 on Easter. Another round of light rain will arrive mostly for the North Coast late Monday into Tuesday. (NWS)

GRIEF SUPPORT GROUP Starting April 2023

Have you experienced the loss of a spouse, family member, or friend and need some help understanding and dealing with your grief? You are invited to attend monthly meetings to share and reflect upon your loss in a confidential and supportive setting.

There will be an informational meeting on Thursday, April 20, 2023 from 4:30 to 6:00 pm. We will meet at the Anderson Valley Health Center in the conference room located on the east side of the center. There is no charge for this group. Masks are mandatory.

Please contact Susan Bridge-Mount, at (707) 895-9291 if you desire more information.

GARDEN BEDS AVAILABLE: The Community Garden at the Anderson Valley Elder Home has four beds available for rent this season (April through the following March). Some are in-ground and some are raised beds. For a small annual fee (depending on the size of the bed) the Community Garden provides soil, compost, water and drip irrigation management. If you are interested in renting a bed, or want more information, please contact Jill at: avehcommunitygarden@gmail.com

MIKE KOEPF: Albion River Inn. Yes, taken over by "Soul Community Planet.” That should have awoken you from your news slumber. SCP are changing the name of the iconic Albion River Inn to Mendocino Coast Lodge. How original. Also, on their first day, they fired everyone in the kitchen and cleaning who did not have “documentation” i.e. the Mexicans. The Chef was also fired, and the wine steward of long standing left in disgust. Censored always knows.

BOONVILLE GENERAL STORE: We are looking for a person who wants to join the General Store team in the cashier position. Willing to work, be bilingual, able to work Monday to Friday and every weekend. No experience necessary.

AV UNIFIED UPDATE

Dear Anderson Valley Community,

I think everyone is looking forward to our Spring break. It is hard to believe that when we return, we will wrap up state testing and move into the graduation season. It is important for our students to know that every day is an instructional day. We have a lot of instruction to make up post pandemic.

Well, if this doesn't make you smile, nothing will! What a wonderful thing to bring the High School to the Elementary for the FFA event! Look at the smiles! How fun they brought the farm to the school! Having those leadership role models for our elementary students is powerful.

I have said it a million times before, and I will say it again–the FFA program is one of the most stellar and life-shaping programs you can involve your students in to set them up for college and career success. Thank you Miss Swehla for all you do! 

I want to take a moment to discuss attendance. We have a real issue in this district with families deciding that school can be optional. School is not optional. Not attending school, even for one day a month, which is 10 days cumulatively over the school year, has significant impacts on learning achievement and career success. The ongoing granting for years and years of independent study around the holiday has also greatly impacted our long-term success. That is why the district does not offer independent study adjacent to breaks at this time. As our educational partners, the most important thing parents and guardians can do is make sure that their students attend school on time and are well rested. I know the battle of the “device” is hard. We have seen dramatic improvement in students that are off their phones and electronics one hour before going to bed, so the brain can reset to rest mode. The staff at the Junior/Senior High is excited to make the shift to no cell phones next year for all grades to increase engagement and attention. These devices are addicting! I carry two phones. I get it, but I am not a young adult learning my foundational academic and soft skills that will allow me to be successful post-high school.

We have had a little senioritis at the high school with some of our 18-year-old students thinking they could check themselves out. I am responsible for providing a certain number of instructional minutes. I gathered these wonderful young adults together on Wednesday in the library and related to them: If they check themselves out they are ineligible for sports for the coming week and they will also need to make up the minutes with me in Saturday School. I’m not really thrilled about coming to work on Saturday, but it’s important for students to know school is not optional. Please help us, help your students by reminding them of the policy.

In other elementary news, the Students of the Month Assembly at the elementary was Friday, planned for outside weather permitting! TK and Kindergarten registration packets are available now in the school office. The district is also hiring for various positions. Check out openings at EDjoin.org or stop by our district office! We need teachers, a farm manager, a cafeteria manager at the elementary school and more. Give us a look!

Congratulations to the students at the Junior and Senior High who made the honor roll. The ceremony will be April 20 at 5 o’clock. The student receives a certificate and a voucher for $10 at the Redwood Drive In. Thank you to the parents and guardians that attended our anti-drug bullying meeting. We had some good discussion and we will have a district-wide meeting in the gym on May 11 at 6:00 p.m. We have implemented numerous education assemblies as well as the stop and bullying app. We are also hosting training for the Parent Panther squad to increase parent/guardian participation in supervision at the school site. Please inquire at the school office if you are interested. It does require being fingerprinted but the district will pay for that. Robbie Lane will be presenting on May 12 after lunch. Parents/Guardians are also welcome to attend as he addresses the lost life opportunities related to drug use and the deadly consequence of Fentanyl.

We are in the process of designing our new website. A new district logo has been created incorporating the Redwood trees, Navarro River, and of course our Panthers against a new dawn. It was developed by local artist, Martha Crawford. This is the district identity. The school identities will come in a future cycle.

One of the consistent themes I have heard over time is that our website could be a little more parent/guardian friendly. We hope that we are able to create a place that can be a one stop shop of information for students, staff, and family.

Good news! We are out to bid for the elementary septic replacement, FEMA was here to present me and Leigh Kreienhop with massive paperwork to fill out for the high school septic reimbursement, and our plans for the science and library wing are in review with the Department of State Architect. We are moving right along…

The Spring Carnival at the High School is Saturday! Check it out 10-2.

I hope you have a very happy and healthy spring break with safe travels. We appreciate all of your collaboration and support.

— Louise Simson, Superintendent, Anderson Valley Unified School District

SUPERVISOR MULHEREN:

Mendocino Solid Waste Management Authority or “Mendo Recycle” the agency responsible for collecting hazardous waste across the County has been without a General Manager for quite some time and has not been doing collections to outlying areas, and only open one day in Ukiah. Not enough. 

Manzanita did provide a valuable service in our community, unfortunately due to budget issues their Board voted to no longer continue. The County has stepped in to provide locations for programming until there is a transition plan with the partners. 

Maybe you’ve missed the Crisis Residential Treatment Center, the outreach teams and the Psychiatric Health Facility updates? I’m not sure what studies you are referring to but currently the County has many contracts for placement in other areas. I have an upcoming Zoom meeting where I’ll be talking about all of the things as well as substance abuse. It’s on my events tab under Town Halls I hope you can join 

Let me know if you have any other questions. 

MIKE GENIELLA: It is so good to read about the National Trust for Historic Preservation's recognition of the Wild Gardens at the Grace Hudson Museum in Ukiah. The Hudson's Wild Gardens were created six years ago to teach visitors about the region’s indigenous plant species that were, and still are, important to the local Pomo people. Featured species include sedge grass, gray willow, redbud, tarweed, manzanita, and California wild rose. When first developed, there were grumblings locally about a 'weed patch' that had been developed on the museum grounds. Some people just couldn't get the innovative, and thoughtful project developed by former Museum Director Sherrie Smith-Ferri, and financed in large part by a $3 million state parks grant awarded to the museum and the city of Ukiah. I am honored to have a deep friendship with Sherrie, a recognized Pomo expert, and member of the Dry Creek Pomo Tribe in Sonoma County. As a member of the museum's Endowment Board, I am grateful for the state and national recognition Sherrie brought over her long tenure to the Hudson Museum and the Pomo community in general. Thank you.

savingplaces.org/stories/historic-artists-spring-gardens-to-visit-for-creative-inspiration

MENDOCINO ART CENTER

The Art Center will be hosting a future (Strategic) planning meeting for all interested parties: April 8 10 am-noon on campus or zoom webinar: Meeting ID: 823 6463 8463 Password: 508370

TOO MANY CANNABIS BARS IN UKIAH

To the Editor:

Fifty professional healthcare providers, including twenty-five physicians serving Ukiah, believe that the Ukiah City Council has made a terrible mistake voting four to one to allow cannabis consumption sites (Cannabis bars) in Ukiah. This will lead to increased auto accidents with injuries and death from cannabis impaired drivers.

As one of twenty-five physicians, I presented each Council Member detailed information from recent scientific studies and expert opinion that any cannabis consumption, indoors or outdoors, impairs driving for at least 4 hours.

So, all cannabis consumption site consumers will be driver impaired.

Unlike alcohol onsite detection for cannabis impaired driving is not possible. And, designated drivers for all cannabis consumers is wishful thinking. From alcohol DUIs in California, we know the tragic numbers of injuries and deaths from alcohol impaired drivers.

California as yet doesn’t have a State Approved blood cannabis level for cannabis DUIs. So, we don’t know the exact numbers of injuries and deaths from cannabis impaired drivers. We shouldn’t add to it by passing this ordinance.

At their final meeting, the City Council should not make the tragic permitting mistake some California cities and counties have made.

Rather Ukiah should stick with the majority of California cities and counties banning cannabis bars, placing concern for the safety of its citizens above economic profit.

Dr. Robert Werra

Ukiah

GOWAN'S UNIQUELY SPECIAL CIDER

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN OFFICIALS LET LAWYERS RUN EVERYTHING?

by Mark Scaramella

We’re not sure, but it won’t do anybody much good and it will cost a lot of money.

County Counsel Christian Curtis, the highest paid public attorney in Mendocino County, was scheduled for a performance review during closed session on Tuesday, March 14. The Supes gave him a big raise a couple years ago (which he botched and had to re-agendize after we pointed out that his raise agenda item didn’t comply with the Brown Act). 

By almost any measure Curtis has been pretty bad, not that these Supervisors are likely to care. He helped the Board waste almost $400k on the pointless dispute with the Sheriff, he routinely farms out cases to very expensive outside law firms without a second thought, even though he has seven or eight attorneys working for him; he refuses to settle losing cases choosing instead to send them out to costly those outside attorneys (cf the Harindar Grewal case); he enabled the ill-fated consolidation of the Treasurer Tax-Collector with the Auditor Controller; his department overruns almost every year; he orders the Board around as if they work for him rather than the other way around; and he’s a big reason the County’s failed pot program is stuck in a very costly neutral that they can’t get out of. 

* * *

Also on the Tuesday March 14 closed session agenda was a discussion of another Curtis engineered waste of money: 

Item 6e: “Pursuant to Government Code Section 54956.9(d)(1) - Conference with Legal Counsel - Existing Litigation: One Case - County of Mendocino v. Ortner Management Group, LLC et al. 22CV00511.”

That’s right. Curtis has pressured the Supervisors to sue a non-existent former Mental Health Services company (they went out of business in 2017) alleging they haven’t provided adequate or proper documentation for their under-performing services back in 2013 to 2016. Mendo never should have awarded any contracts to Ortner who had no experience doing what they were contracted to do. But they got the contract because then-CEO Carmel Angelo’s friend Camille Schraeder didn’t bid the adult mental health services at the time and Angelo hired a former Ortner executive to steer the contract to Ortner (which the Grand Jury cautiously said had an “appearance” of a conflict of interested and the Supervisors said it “wasn’t illegal”) and then oversee their contract performance, such as it wasn’t. Ortner was also handed a mess of mental health documentation to begin with so they started out playing catch up. Ortner blew up after three years of poor performance, and Camille Schraeder, who had the juvenile mental health services contract bid and won the adult services half of the mental health services contract and has been given tens of millions a year in cozy sole source non-competitive contracts ever since. Mendo has never required proper reporting from whatever mental health service providers they hired, public or private. But now here’s Curtis steering Mendo down a bottomless rabbit hole with another expensive lawsuit to get data that doesn’t exist from a company that doesn’t exist for services that were semi-performed up to ten years ago and which Mendo permitted without a formal documentation complaint during the entire period of the Ortner contract.

* * *

Remember that mystery lawsuit that was listed last month for discussion in closed session? The case number they provided wasn’t listed in Mendo’s Superior Court case list and we were stumped as to what it was. It turns out, based on an attachment buried deep in next Tuesday’s agenda, that it’s a class action lawsuit filed in Humboldt County by a (presumed) Humboldt pot grower and lawyer against Humboldt County and 12 other counties including Mendocino. We have been unable to find the particulars of the case, but they’ll probably be made public at some point in the not too distant future. The case is Humboldt case number CV-22-01700 and the plaintiff in the Mendo case is named “John Doe #1.” But in Humboldt County it’s called “Elizabeth Schwab et al v. Humboldt County.”

The 13 Counties being sued are being represented by an expensive Sacramento law firm named Shook, Hardy & Bacon which Mendo intends to sign on with. According to the SH&B “engagement letter,” they will “bill for our services on an hourly basis, generally recording our time in six-minute increments. The hourly rates for the partners who will work on your matter is $595 and associates is $395. We also bill for the services of paralegals who assist the attorneys at a rate of $195 an hour.” SH&B will also “be representing twelve other counties in this litigation and will be splitting our fees among all 13 counties. We will also be implementing a joint defense agreement that will be sent separately.”

And Mendo better pay and pay promptly because SH&B is as bluntly mercenary as they come. 

“We will bill you for expenses we incur on your behalf. We will ask you to pay directly any significant outside expenses incurred on your behalf, such as deposition costs, investigators, consultants or experts necessary in our judgment [sic] to represent you in this matter. We will direct statements for such expenses to you for payment. It is our policy that clients advance any required filing fees. We bill for long-distance telephone calls, outgoing FAX charges, photocopying charges, after normal hours word processing, travel expenses, delivery charges other than normal postage, and other necessary expenses. We separately bill for computerized legal research (LEXIS, WestLaw and similar services) and related expenses. All expenses will be itemized on the statements we will send you. Payment is to be made in U.S. dollars, by check or draft payable to ‘Shook, Hardy & Bacon L.L.P.’ If any of our statements remain unpaid for more than 90 days, we may, consistent with our ethical and court-imposed obligations, cease to perform services until satisfactory arrangements have been made for the payment of the unpaid statements and future fees. In fairness to our many clients who promptly pay their statements each month, we reserve the right to take appropriate action with respect to delinquent accounts.”

Translation: Some well-funded pot growers are apparently suing every government agency they think has harmed them financially including Mendo, somehow, for as yet unknown damages, and now Mendo is signing on to an open-ended lawyer contract which they will have no control over and which will cost a lot of money and will do nothing to help the pot growers or the counties, but will enrich lawyers all over the place. 

WINEGROWERS WORKSHOP

Join MCRCD, Anderson Valley Winegrowers, Mendocino Winegrowers, and NRCS on May 2nd, from 9 – 11:30 a.m. to learn about soil health and Carbon Beneficial Agricultural Practices. Presentations will include conversations on cover cropping and no-till in vineyard systems, rainfall simulator and infiltration demonstration, carbon farm planning, and other climate-beneficial farming practices. The workshop will be held at Ferrington Vineyard, 13401 Hwy 128, Boonville, CA. Coffee and Pastries will be served.

Please use the link to register for this event: https://forms.gle/NqyZXtqJpP44jLm48

MIKE GENIELLA: Montgomery Woods, where you can walk among the giant redwoods. A favorite of Mendocino County locals. Thanks for posting Visit Mendocino. 

HOW I LEARNED TO LOVE FISH: Fresh-Caught Trout Cooked On A Campfire

by Justine Frederiksen

I didn’t like fish until I ate it fresh. And by fresh, I mean fish that was cooked and eaten right after it was pulled out of the water.

That was cool.

I had that very fresh fish on a camping trip one summer with my best high school friend. After setting up our tents in the forest, we headed to the water to catch dinner.

My friend snagged some trout, then her mother’s boyfriend cleaned the fish, coated the fillets in cornmeal and fried them up in a cast iron pan he heated on the fire.

I can still smell the cornmeal, hear it popping in the oil, and can still taste that moist, flaky trout that was unlike any “fishy” fish I’d eaten before. Until that trout, I never imagined that fish could be good, let alone delicious!

Because I had never eaten truly fresh fish before. And though I’d spent much of my childhood fishing with my sister, I’d never seen much point to it until that camping trip — I don’t remember my sister ever catching much, and I definitely don’t remember us cooking up anything delicious afterward.

And while I’ve eaten plenty of great fish since that trout, I can’t remember any of it tasting as good as that meal caught and cooked for me right by the water.

(Ukiah Daily Journal)

CATCH OF THE DAY, Friday, April 7, 2023

JAMES BASS, Fort Bragg. Under influence, controlled substance, paraphernalia.

MICHAEL LANGLEY, Ukiah. Under influence, paraphernalia, probation revocation. (Frequent flyer.)

CLAY MAISAK, Hopland. Resisting, unspecified offense.

MICHAEL MARTIN, Hopland. Hit&run with death or injury, no registration.

JADE MCGUINESS, Fort Bragg. Controlled substance, paraphernalia, false personation of another, resisting, probation revocation.

KATELYN PICTON, Ukiah. DUI.

RICKEY RADCLIFFE, Ukiah. Controlled substance, paraphernalia, probation revocation.

CHERRI ROBERTS, Ukiah. Camping on public property, paraphernalia, probation revocation. (Frequent flyer.)

JONATHAN YOUNG, Ukiah. Shoplifting, bench warrant, probation revocation.

JEFF BLANKFORT: April 9th would have been the 125th birthday of Paul Robeson, as fine a human being as I have ever encountered, and SF Bay Area's Freedom Archives is calling on all people involved in a struggle for justice everywhere to join them in celebrating it. 

One of the great moments of the childhood of my sister and myself was having Robeson, a friend of our parents, sing us both to sleep one night when he came for dinner. We knew it was great even then.

RESURRECTED: ‘JIM CROW’ 

Editor, 

For many years after the civil rights marches, with LBJ’s support, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act, it seemed as if “Jim Crow” had been defeated or simply become outmoded everywhere in our wonderful country. They elected Donald Trump and resurrected racism (“House expels 2 over gun protest). The last two weeks in Nashville have proven he (Jim Crow, that it) is very much alive and well in Tennessee. 

My family was white, well-educated and had Midwest roots. I knew that I didn’t want to remain in the deep South. In 1960 I graduated from a Florida high school; enrolled at Davidson College, Davidson, NC (Located about 21 miles north of Charlotte, North Carolina). The US media still seemed unaware of the civil rights movement. Four years later I graduated thinking I’d study medicine, but at Tulane Univ. my aim changed. I became a high school teacher. Teaching is far harder than learning. 

In June, 1967 I got a California job teaching. I was overjoyed to have better pay, supportive administrators, good fellow teachers. I met a wonderful, beautiful California young lady. We got married. A son came along but Medgar Evers and Rev. Dr. King were assassinated. 

Frank Baumgardner 

Santa Rosa 

THE WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT TITLE changed hands #OnThisDay in 1915 when the legendary Jack Johnson – at 37 years old and way past his best – was counted out beneath the blazing Havana sun in the 26th round after being felled by the 'Pottawatomie Giant' Jess Willard. 

Controversially, Johnson would later declare he threw the fight; a claim that was rubbished by a 1921 Boxing News investigation into the contest and by most eye-witnesses. The mystery remained, though, largely due to the fact that footage of the fight was not uncovered until 1967.

BELLY UP IN THE WATER!

AVA,

Friday @ 10 am press conference at SF Fisherman’s Wharf. 

Fishers asking for emergency federal relief. Salmon season CLOSED all California coast for next 3 years.

I came with my partner Brian McWilliams, past International President, International Longshore Workers Union. He also has a fishing boat and is on the boards of a lot of labor & port organizations.

READY TEDDY!

8 April 2023 Omkaram Today Mantrabalam, Udayam Puja, Sayantram Puja: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bmyIqc4lgU

Warmest spiritual greetings, I am doing nothing of any particular importance in Ukiah, California, and therefore am available for just about anything crucial on the planet earth in regard to revolutionary ecology and attenuating peace and justice issues. Otherwise, I sleep in a free bed at the Building Bridges Homeless Resource Center, eat free meals at the Catholic Worker staffed Plowshares Peace & Justice Center, hang out at the Ukiah Public Library on a computer or else read newspapers. Meanwhile, am attending appointments made at Adventist Health Center's cardiovascular department; I am about to be assigned a primary doctor in the system April 19th who will corral the entire health situation administratively. I continue to dutifully take appropriate pills which are designed to counteract high blood pressure. I'm ready!

Craig Louis Stehr

NEWSOM SAYS HE'LL HELP

by Mary Callahan

State and federal officials are vowing to move quickly to secure disaster aid for Californians affected by the closure of this year’s commercial and recreational salmon season, which could have an economic impact of $1.4 billion, according to one industry group.

The administration of Gov. Gavin Newsom requested a Federal Fishery Disaster Declaration from U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo after a decision Thursday by the Pacific Fishery Management Council to recommend full closure of both commercial and recreational salmon seasons this year.

At a press conference Friday on the waterfront in San Francisco, which normally would be bustling with crews preparing to start harvesting king salmon, Congressman Jared Huffman, D-San Rafael, said he and other coastal representatives were prepared to do the work to get help to those who need it as soon as possible.

“My colleagues in Congress and I are going to go to work to make sure that Secretary Gina Raimondo quickly follows up with that federal declaration,” said Huffman, whose sprawling North Coast district includes key commercial ports and historic fishing tribes.

“In years past, some of you know that it has sometimes taken a long time to get that disaster relief to the people who need it,” he said. “In some cases, it has taken two years or more.

“That’s not going to work right now.”

He noted that elimination of the season comes on the heels of other struggles, including the early closure the Dungeness crab season, “so we can’t afford to wait for years.”

“There’s a lot of fear and panic up and down the coast,” said John McManus, senior policy director for the Golden Gate Salmon Association.

Closure of the commercial ocean fishing season still requires formal action by the National Marine Fisheries Service. The California Fish and Game Commission, which governs recreational and inland river fishing, must adopt the closure, as well.

But historically low salmon forecasts have left no real question about the need to allow the stock to recover.

Full closure was the only option considered during the five weeks of deliberations about when to set dates for the season. Representatives for the commercial fleet even requested the season be closed for the greater good.

Unanimous approval of the formal management council recommendation Thursday prompted immediate release of a letter from Lt. Gov. Elena Kounalakis, standing in for Gov. Gavin Newsom, to Raimondo requesting Federal Fishery Disaster Declaration.

It’s unclear what that might mean in terms of total dollars and eligible stakeholders.

It’s also unclear how quickly aid could be delivered. Commercial crabbers and seafood processors affected by a 4 ½-month delay in the start of the 2015-16 Dungeness crab waited until summer of 2019 to receive $22.8 million in direct disaster aid.

Huffman, who was joined at Friday’s press conference by former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, and Rep. Kevin Mullin, D-South San Francisco, said changes in federal law during the past few years should speed the process this time. A $300 million appropriation already made could provide a head-start, as well, he said.

There remain significant uncertainties ahead.

“It’s very difficult for people especially that are right on the border line,” maybe facing a boat mortgage payment or needing fuel to move their crab pots north of the Sonoma-Mendocino county line, where commercial crab harvest is still allowed, Dick Ogg, vice president of the Bodega Bay Fishermen’s Marketing Association, told The Press Democrat.

“Nobody’s expecting it (relief) to come overnight, but to have to wait three or four years would be very difficult,” Ogg said.

Ken Elie, owner of Cotati-based Outdoor Pro Shop, was among representatives from the commercial fishing, gear and tackle sales, fish processing, fish sales, charter boat operation and related industries to speak at the Friday event, illustrating the ripple effects of the closure and putting a “human face on this challenge.”

He said salmon fishing accounts for 40% of his business, drawing anglers from hundreds of miles away for the gear and expert advice his staff provides. Elie also said he has already laid off 10 of his 39 employees and probably would need to let go of more in anticipation of the “multiple seven figures” in losses related to the closure. And there’s potential for another closure next year, he said.

Larry Collins, vice president of the Pacific coast Federation of Fishermen’s Association and a commercial fisherman with his wife since 1984, said there were 4,700 commercial permits in California at that time. Now? it’s down to about 400.

“We’ve lost 90% of our fishery,” Collins said.

“Much like COVID, there will be people who do not make it to the end of this disaster,” he added.

David Goldenburg, chief executive officer for the California Salmon Council, said in an interview that the total closure of the fishery should hasten the disaster declaration and clarify the process of assessing loss.

But he said it was far too early to determine who all would be eligible and how much relief might be available.

The first and last time the salmon fishery was closed — 2008 and 2009 — the federal government provide $170 million in disaster aid to California and Oregon.

While the Golden Gate Salmon Association estimates total economic benefit of the fishery at $1.4 billion, the actual 5-year average paid to commercial boat owners is just over $15 million, the Kounalakis letter says.

Accounting for additional impacts in coastal communities and personal income derived from commercial and recreational ocean salmon fishing, the impact to California is closer to $45 million, it states.

Huffman said there will be an opportunity for those affected to demonstrate they suffered losses from the closure and said eligibility would extend well beyond those directly harvesting or handling fish.

But there will be limits to eligibility, he said.

“The way you put disaster relief together, it doesn’t even attempt to reach the entire economic value” of the closure, Huffman said.

(Santa Rosa Press Democrat)

MEMO OF THE AIR: Live on KNYO from Franklin St. all night Friday night!

Deadline to email your writing for tonight's (Friday night's) MOTA show is about 6pm. Or send it whenever it's done and I'll read it on the radio next week.

I'll be in the clean, well-lighted back room of KNYO's 325 N. Franklin studio. To call and read your work in your own voice, the number is 707-962-3022. If you want to come in and perform in person, that's okay, I guess, but bring a real mask to put 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 KNYO.org. Also the schedule is there for KNYO's many other terrific shows.

As always, at https://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com you'll find various educational tchotchkes to twiddle until showtime, or any time, such as:

I think this might be what people who see auras see around everyone. They talk about the colors and the vibe and everything, but it's probably more like this, especially with someone like Carol Burnett or Robin Williams or Maria Bamford or Nellie McKay, say. Wheels within wheels. Chaotic but coherent. Dazzling. 

https://boingboing.net/2023/04/01/huge-whirlygig-crown-powered-by-the-wind-and-its-wearers-movements.html

These people, in contrast-- they have like old concrete blocks for aura hats. 

https://m.dailykos.com/stories/2023/4/2/2161511/-The-indictment

In the famous fairy tale he was a Jew, so this is ironic, because it's bacon. Jews aren't allowed to eat bacon on the Friday before Estrus. But then he comes out of his tomb, and if he sees his shadow we get three more days of rain. 

https://www.bitsandpieces.us/2023/04/01/our-lord-and-savory/

And "Ya know," said Peter Pan to the bartender, "It's a good thing I can fly. Dressed like this a guy could get the shit beat out of him around here." 

https://www.vintag.es/2023/04/aleksandr-rumnev.html

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

THE FIRST THREE MONTHS of U.S. gun violence in 2023:

+ 4,529 gun deaths

+ 8,085 gun injuries

+135 mass shootings

+197 children shot

+1,258 teenagers shot

+268 incidents of defensive gun use

+368 unintentional shootings

+ 6,138 suicides

(Jeffrey St. Clair)

ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

I’d like to harken back to a discussion I saw between Chris Hedges and Ralph Nader in 2015, predicting exactly what the Bernie Sanders “progressive” campaign would come to. They were completely prescient as to how things would play out:

They predicted that Bernie would be popular and eclipse all of the other Dem candidates; that Bernie’s popularity would invigorate the Democrat party and fill their coffers with donations (it did; the Bernie hopium was so extensive that old people who couldn’t hardly afford to eat were donating their last dollar to the poor “underdog.”); that Bernie would fill stadiums and inspire millions of voters who strayed from the Dem party back into the fold. 

They also predicted that Bernie would then, having done the job of sheepdogging ex-Dems back into the fold, be tossed aside like an old shoe, and his huge phalanx of followers treated like garbage, as the establishment Democrats stepped in and took over the primaries. They would have figured that many would stay (which indeed happened). It all came true exactly as they said. Even the part where Bernie rolled over like the complacent puppy he has actually always been and gave the entire grift his blessing, right out in the open. 

If people were to look into Bernie Sanders’ actual voting history, they would have seen a major war industry supporter, and a guy who has voted along with establishment Dems his entire career. But he was sold to us as a populist and had good speech writers and knew how to make people fall in love with a kindly but indignant and determined old grampaw who loved the working class and wasn’t gonna take big corporate warmonger bullshit anymore (Insert eye-roll here). 

RFK Jr. may or may not have noble intentions, but he of all people knows how the establishment Dems (now infested and run by neocons AND the deep state) works. So you will be fed a 1.5 years of hopium (rinse and repeat 2008, 2016, 2020) and you will be emotionally manipulated into taking part and arguing online with “opposition” and at the end of it all, the neocons and deep state will install the person that most perfectly suits their needs for their next step in this game. I am guessing that an RFK, Jr. run will do a good job of pulling a lot of ex-Dems who have strayed back into the fold, only to be Bernie Sanderized again. That’s my prediction, anyway. Imagine how desperate the DNC (where all RFK’s donations will go) must be for $$$. If RFK, Jr. really wanted to make an impact, he would run as an independent, given that over 1/3 of the country are not registered as or vote either Democrat or Republican.

THE HERO’S JOURNEY

by James Kunstler

More proof — as if you needed more — that we live in a mentally ill society is the apparently broad acceptance of the idea that “Joe Biden” will run for president again. It’s so obviously preposterous that you have to wonder whether mRNA “vaccines” really do (as rumored) switch off activity in the frontal lobes. Did you happen to see this degenerate catspaw step up to the White House microphone to deliver scripted remarks on the Nashville school shooting only to drift into several minutes of unscripted badinage about how he came downstairs looking for chocolate chip ice cream? There’s your current Leader of the Free World.

We need not belabor the trail of destruction “Joe Biden’s” regime has cut through our country in just over two years. But you must sense nervously that we’re about to reap what this cabal has sown. America is falling apart. “JB” has allowed a rogue bureaucracy to make us a viciously un-free country. Our sleazy Ukraine project is wrecking Western Civ. The rest of the world has noticed and is fast dissociating from us, especially from using our dollar for trade and investment.

They’re engineering an economic smash-up worse than the Great Depression. They’ve torpedoed the rule of law. The Woke Marxist social nuttery they’ve unleashed has disordered millions of young minds. They work overtime to destroy language so that we don’t know what we’re talking about. Their race and gender hustles have made us a clown nation. The worst of us is valorized and the best cancelled. They’ve perverted the election process. And it’s increasingly clear that they’ve disabled and killed at least a million people with their medical tyranny.

You may have noticed that Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., announced he is running for president as a Democrat. I might be wrong, but just now it seems to me that this changes everything. First, let me tell you something interesting about RFK, Jr. Despite the family name and all the baggage that comes with it, he is not the least bit imperial. He’s unpretentious. He communicates in plain English (and with a damaged larynx). I doubt that he entertained any idea of running for office until the current moment. Sometimes the zeitgeist calls, though, and you have to step up, even understanding very clearly that you might get killed for doing it.

Mr. Kennedy’s life has been a rocky hero’s journey. He was a troubled young man, at times lost in drugs. He had a marriage end as badly as possible (wife’s suicide). He’s dedicated the past twenty-five years to fighting the growing menace of Big Pharma and doing it pretty valiantly, considering the US government assists Pharma’s depredations. He wrote THE book about Dr. Anthony Fauci, and it is a helluva book. He’s running in opposition to just about everything that the Democratic Party stands for these days. This must seem strange, but I suspect a substantial portion of rank-and-file Democrats may be secretly anxious to cast off the Woke / Deep State despotism that cloaks the party like a smallpox blanket. For many, it will be like waking from a nightmare.

Now I’m going to tell you something that will blow your mind, something that maybe lurks in a quiet corner of your own brain, something which for my generation, has been hiding inside there for decades, and it is this: There is a deep, primal wish in the American psyche to correct the damage to our country caused by the murders of John F. Kennedy and his brother Robert. November 22, 1963 was exactly where this nation went off the rails, and many Americans understand that. RFK, Jr. has stated unambiguously that he believes the CIA killed his uncle, the president. And he recently supported the parole of his father’s killer, Sirhan B. Sirhan, suggesting that there was a whole lot more to Bobby’s assassination than that patsy.

Here’s the heart of the matter: that wish to correct the abominations of history is a sentiment much stronger than anything else currently whirring in the fog of emotion that grips a nation in extremis, certainly stronger than all the bullshit embedded in equity, diversity, and inclusion and the bad faith aspirations of the climate change / Great Reset claque. RFK, Jr., represents a way out of all that. He may be strong enough and honorable enough to make that our new national realty.

Then there is Mr. Trump. He’s been on his own even stranger hero’s journey, considering his origins in real estate and showbiz, and his personal peccadillos. Mr. Trump also recognized the evil afoot in our country and he set out to correct all that. He was attacked unfairly and incessantly by people of bad character and ill intent, even to this day as he faces an absurd political prosecution in Manhattan. You have to admire his fortitude and resilience in the face of such massed official bad faith. His first time around in the White House, though, Mr. Trump kind of muffed the job. He had many opportunities to disarm and fire antagonists like Christopher Wray and the perfidious generals who kept backstabbing him, but he just didn’t do it. He got played on the whole Covid fraud and still hasn’t renounced the killer “vaccines” developed in the Warp Speed flimflam.

While I consider the New York case brought by DA Alvin Bragg to be a disreputable shuck and jive, over which Mr. Trump will prevail, and while I recognize him as the current leader in the battle against a Globalist putsch, I think Mr. Kennedy would be a far better choice to clean up the mess that has been made of us. I was particularly unnerved by Mr. Trump’s speech at Mar-a-Lago the night of his indictment. I know many find his manner charming, but to me his mode of speaking seems childish and weirdly inarticulate — and the last thing this country needs is more rhetorical confusion. And I’m also disturbed by the histrionic trappings that went with it — the grandiose music, the myriad flags and seals. It actually has a banana republic flavor.

Mr. Kennedy, on the other hand, brings a solemn humility to the scene. Even in his quavering voice, he speaks clearly and with insight. He’s an excellent writer. He reminds me much more of what was good about our country and the men it once produced than the flamboyant Golden Golem of Greatness. I’m aboard for the ride. It’s going to be goshdarn interesting and I hope the bastards don’t try to kill him, because that will really be the end for us.

In his own words:

FOR MANY GANGSTERS, the moment before death is a moment of betrayal. It is the second to last thing that ever happens to them. Looking at pictures of dead gangsters, you can say, “Betrayed, then killed; betrayed, then killed; betrayed, then killed.” It happens all the time; it’s one of the things that must make this way of life especially hard and isolating. It gives many gangsters an edge, a paranoia that sends them on killing sprees: betray before being betrayed. And it also makes gangster life a powerful metaphor for life in general.

— Rich Cohen, “Tough Jews” 

UKRAINE, FRIDAY, 7TH APRIL

Battles for Ukraine's eastern city of Bakhmut rage on, as the UK's military intelligence unit says Russian troops have “regained some momentum" — and have “likely advanced" into the town center. 

Beijing's "top priority" is to push for an end to the Ukraine war, China's Xi Jinping told the EU Commission chief and French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday.

Senior Ukrainian officials insist that Kyivwill make zero territorial concessions to Russia, following remarks from a presidential official about the future of Crimea.

US Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich has been formally chargedwith espionage, according Russian state media, a charge the newspaper has “vehemently" denied. The US has called for his immediate release.

The Pentagon is investigating alleged classified documents circulating on social media of US and NATO intelligence on Ukraine, an official tells CNN.

— CNN

THE INDIAN CULTURE such as the great warrior, Crazy Horse, believed in lying their deceased on scaffolds, wrapping them in buffalo blankets. There to be exposed to the elements and delivered over a year or two back to nature. Then to come back as buffalo grass, and eaten by the buffalos, which would be eaten by the Sioux, thus completing the cycle. Versus the Anglo belief of burial in a metal casket preventing breakdowns over a longer time. 

IN MARX’S NOVEL…

by Philip Balboni

The New Yorker’s recent account of ‘The End of the English Major’ in US universities reminded me of a peculiar trend in the essays written by my first and second year undergraduates at Berkeley: a surprising number of them seem to think that a book and a novel are the same thing. Or, at least, they often use the two words interchangeably, and find it difficult to articulate the distinction between them. Reading their first essays each semester, I often encounter sentences that begin: “In Margaret Mead’s anthropology novel …”; “Edward Said, in his novel Orientalism …”; “In Marx’s novel, Capital …” I’ve seen such sentences written by very good writers and by very poor ones; by students interested in the topics on offer and by those who couldn’t care less. Almost all of them are native speakers of English.

When I taught my first class in 2017, as a teaching assistant for a large introductory anthropology class, I saw four, perhaps five such sentences. The following semester it was five, maybe six. In my comments, I noted that a novel was a particular type of book, and that what we were reading were not novels but works of non-fiction, which could be referred to as “studies,” “works,” “texts” or simply “books.” I chalked up the confusion to the very differing quality of humanities education available in US high schools and left it there. 

When I took up teaching again in spring 2021, however, it was no longer four or five students referring to the “novels” of Mead or Marx or Said. A solid quarter of my students used “novel” and “book” interchangeably, a trend that has continued.

Most of my students are STEM majors, forced to take anthropology classes for distribution requirements, although there are some humanities students and social scientists, too. They are as bright as you’d expect, and very anxious about their academic success. That most of them lack a solid training in the humanities is not surprising. 

Apart from the very fortunate and the very gifted, high-school students (at least in America) rarely receive rigorous instruction in composition or close reading, let alone in the niceties of literary terminology. Once they reach university, they discover that professors, graduate teaching assistants and adjuncts have little time – and no financial incentive – to provide the attention and feedback they need to improve their skills as writers and readers.

The fact that most students receive a poor education in the humanities is too general an explanation, however, to account for the prevalence of the novel-book conflation. (My colleagues have noticed it too.) So I’ve tried to be a good anthropologist, and ask lots of friendly questions. Twice, I’ve had students confess that they had vaguely thought that “a novel” was a “fancier” way of saying “a book.” Another had seen the phrase “anthropological literature” in one of our readings and had assumed from there. One joked that, since ours was “basically an English class” (I begged to differ), they thought all the books we read were novels by definition. (This student also thought that our class was the last time they’d have to write anything longer than a short email or text message – an assumption that, in the era of ChatGPT, doesn’t seem terribly far-fetched.) The issue wasn’t that they didn’t understand the difference between fiction and non-fiction, however. It had to do with how they thought about reading, and about what kinds of text are read in what kinds of way.

The best explanation I can come up with is that the only books most students had to read before college were novels. They had used textbooks, certainly; they had read excerpted chapters, magazine or newspaper articles, blogposts or Wikipedia. But in terms of the books they were now being asked to read – books written by one, maybe two authors, with a progressive argument, designed to be read from start to finish – novels were the only example most students had been exposed to. Since reading a book all the way through, whether out of interest or enthusiasm or under duress, was what they did with novels, it stood to reason that all books to be read this way were also novels.

If this explanation is correct, then the novel-book conflation is perhaps harmless, a factor of experience and exposure. Yet it may also be indicative of a broader trend: the increasing marginalization not of reading in general (which is certainly more ubiquitous today than at any period in human history), but of a particular way of reading a particular kind of work: reading as the sustained, progressive engagement with a book that is written to be read as a whole, from beginning to end. Students and faculty are under increasing pressure to read as “poachers” (to distort slightly Michel de Certeau’s phrase), approaching the works of their peers as hives of information to be harvested piecemeal and on demand. I’ve listened to too many faculty complain in recent years that they – or their colleagues – “just don’t read anymore.” And few graduate students seem to read entire books. Who has the time? You can cover a lot more ground by poaching – and publish a lot more, too.

This change in reading practice doesn’t only accelerate the drive to make the humanities and qualitative social sciences focus on the production of “useful” information, rather than on the cultivation of critical thought and perception. It also makes them less fulfilling, as the (admittedly difficult) experience of reading books like Capital or Orientalism is replaced by reading them in snippets or through summaries written by others – now including, as a number of my students’ recent essays seem to suggest, by AI. Some people will always find the idea of reading such books exhausting, perhaps superfluous. 

But it isn’t hard to see how the experience of reading an entire book is very different from ingesting its arguments piecemeal or second-hand.

If I sound like an ornery old curmudgeon, let me stress that, as a 31-year-old anthropologist, I see this change in the way we tend to read as occurring alongside many others that are exciting and overdue. All the same, in the current climate of relentless productivity, narrowing attention spans and demand for literature and scholarship that (like everything else) can be consumed easily and efficiently, it is a worrying development. I’ll try to take heart from the fact that ChatGPT seems to know that Capital isn’t a novel (I’ve checked).