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Mendocino County Today: Thursday, May 18, 2023

Breezy | South Eel | Coaching Help | Craft Fair | AVUSD News | Swallowtail | Mockel Service | Rivals | Usal Cleanup | Shoot First | Rail Trail | Bad News | AV Housing | Dam Plans | Confession | MCN Listservs | Really? | Bear Proofing | Bragg Programs | Users Forum | Pebbles Updates | Going Up | Another Sign | Ed Notes | Yesterday's Catch | What's Legal | Crack House | Prison Time | Civil Resistance | Kappa Gamma | Ukraine | Art v Craft | Classroom Afflictions | Being & Nothingness | Tied Up | Fantasy Obsessions | Black Suffrage | Jack Webb

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A WEAK HIGH PRESSURE SYSTEM in the Northeast Pacific continues to affect Northwest California. Northerly winds are expected with dry conditions. Seasonal temperatures are forecast at the coast and slightly above average temperatures for inland areas. (NWS)

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South Fork Eel River (Jeff Goll)

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PANTHERS NEED A COACH

Once again looking for coaching help!

25+ Anderson Valley football players currently taking the field for spring practice.

Coach Toohey at AVHS: I’m looking for some assistance. Position educated coaches preferred, but I could also use someone willing to run Agillity/Conditioning drill stations while I cycle through position skills - starting August 7th.

Need someone who is willing and able to show up consistently and drive vans when necessary. Outstanding group of kids with a lot of potential but I need more adult guidance in the program. 

Let me know if anyone wants to help! Thanks!

John Toohey, AV High School, jtoohey@avpanthers.org

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AVUSD NEWS

A few important things to share.

First of all, thank you to Antonia Marin who shuttled eight kids back and forth to the clinic today for sports physicals and still managed her custodial work. Huge for those kids. Well done. Next spring i hope 30 families take advantage of it! A huge thank you to the clinic for setting aside that time.

LCAP Meeting today (Thursday) at 3:30 High School Library

Join us if you can. We are in year three of a three year plan. Next year is a total rewrite. We have had many changes in two years. Come join us.

Many Openings

We have many positions open including instructional assistants. Email Sara at shayward@avpanthers.org

Adult School

Join this amazing celebration on Friday at 5:30 to celebrate the students and staff of this community jewel. Do you know 40 people achieved their citizenship through this effort this year? Super cool! My grandpa entered Ellis Island by himself as a boy of 14. What an accomplishment to celebrate for our community. Well done Maggie and Noor and the adult school staff.

What Do The Kids Eat?

We want you to come visit our cafeteria! Join us! 

Good Stuff

Today I passed out the Student of the Month gift cards. What a joy to see their delight and pride. The part they most appreciate is the letter home. You have good kids.

Take care,

Louise Simson, Superintendent

Anderson Valley Unified School District

lsimson@avpanthers.org

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VAL HANELT: Here is a photo from today of the California Pipevine Swallowtails. A female laying eggs already on the pipevine plant.

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TREVOR MOCKEL’S DEVOTION TO PUBLIC SERVICE

by Mark Scaramella

Last week a youngish man named Trevor Mockel, age 32, from Redwood Valley, announced his candidacy for Mendocino County First District Supervisor. His announcement was accompanied by the simultaneous issuance of similarly worded flowery but specifics-free endorsements by all five county Supervisors. 

In his campaign announcement Mockel claimed: “I am devoted to public service.” And, “Throughout my professional career, public service has been the cornerstone. I've had the honor of serving in various capacities, including staffing and legislative work for two California State Senators in their Capitol offices.”

According to senate.ca.gov/sites/senate.ca.gov/files/senatepayrollbgc.pdf

Mockel was an “office assistant” for State Senator Jerry Hill in May of 2019 where he earned a total of $2,552. No reason was given as to why he left that position, although it appears he transferred to Senator McGuire’s office with after a gap in his “professional career.”

We could find no other employment evidence for Mr. Mockel prior to his short stint in Senator Hill’s office.

According to senate.ca.gov/sites/senate.ca.gov/files/senatepayrollbg_103122.pdf

Mockel worked as a “district representative” for State Senator Mike McGuire in 2021 where he earned $4,108. No reason was given as to why he left that job.

In April of 2021, Mr. Mockel was hired as a “Program Specialist-Extra Help” in Mendocino County’s public health department where he was paid just over $31k for a short-term position. At that time Mockel announced:

“Hello Media Partners of Mendocino County, I want to introduce myself; my name is Trevor Mockel, I am the new Media Relations staff person for the Mendocino County Department Operations Center (DOC) for the COVID-19 Response. I look forward to working with all of you to facilitate clear and mutually beneficial lines of communication with you and the leadership of the DOC. The best way to contact me for urgent responses is by text at (707) 367-6221. Additionally, I will be facilitating our ongoing media updates on Fridays keeping to our standing schedule of the first and third Friday afternoon of each month. I look forward to working with you to ensure timely information is shared with our community. Best, Trevor Mockel. Cell phone 707-367-6221. Email mockelt@mendocinocounty.org.”

During his time in that position, instead of issuing first and third Friday updates, Mockel issued one (1) press release in May of 2021 entitled “Pfizer Vaccine Available For 12 And Up.”

Mockel also claims, “I've gained valuable experience working for First Five of Mendocino County.” 

There is no available on-line evidence, description or record of his “work” for First Five of Mendocino County.

Mockel then claims: “I have gained valuable experience working for “the City of Ukiah City Manager’s Office.”

Mockel is listed as an “administrative analyst” and contact point at the City of Ukiah’s City Manager’s Office for the “City of Ukiah, Recycled Water - Phase 4.” But the email address is cmoffice@cityofukiahcom, not his own city email address.

Mockel: “These diverse experiences have helped me hone my skills in policy analysis and advocacy, data analysis, emergency operations management, community outreach, and other valuable areas.”

There is no available evidence of any work product from Mr. Mockel involving “policy analysis, advocacy, data analysis or emergency operations management [sic, or emphasis],” or any other “valuable areas,” unless you count Ukiah’s unbylined recycled water update or the earlier County Pfizer presser.

Since the announcement of his candidacy Mockel has posted a few enthusiastic items on his candidate’s facebook page showing among other things his devotion to exclamation points:

“Had a fantastic time Tuesday night at a networking event hosted by Better Homes Real Estate and Wine Country Group! Thanks for bringing together such a great group of professionals. Looking forward to the next one!”

“Yesterday [Saturday] was amazing! Started off by helping clean up Mill Creek Park with Supervisors McGourty and Mulheren, then got to spend the afternoon supporting the Mendocino College Foundation's 50th anniversary Gala fundraising event. It's incredible to see so many people working together to make a positive impact in our community.”

“I am feeling grateful and inspired! Yesterday [last Thursday] I attended the Marge Todd Field dedication in Potter Valley and was blown away by the outpouring of support from our amazing community. It was an honor to pay tribute to such a dedicated and inspiring woman and be surrounded by so many who share the same values. Proud to be a part of such an incredible community!”

Mockel’s mother, Cindi Mockel is “a family nurse practitioner/Pediatric Obesity Coordinator at Mendocino Community Health Clinic Health Centers” in Redwood Valley.

Mockel’s father, Jim Mockel is “Senior Program Manager- HHSA/ Family & Children’s Services,” for Mendocino County.

Candidate Mockel has nothing else on the record or on-line about his alleged “professional career” in “public service.” No memberships on committees or sub-committees, no commissions, no applications, no memberships in local non-profits, no statements on public issues, no letters to the editor of any local papers about local issues…

Despite this skimpy public service resume, all five current sitting Mendocino County Supervisors have glowingly endorsed Mr. Mockel offering no specific reasons or citing any record of his public service. 

Voters can draw their own conclusions about Mr. Mockel’s devotion to “public service” and his credibility. 

And from their vacuous unanimous endorsement of Mr. Mockel and his insubstantial resume, voters can assess the Supervisors’ ability to perform due diligence, make decisions and what they apparently think makes a good Supervisor, a “public service” position that pays $84,000 a year plus a generous benefits package.

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INVASIVE PLANT REMOVAL MAY 20 AT USAL REDWOOD FOREST

Redwood Forest Foundation to Host Invasive Plant Removal Volunteers to Pull French Broom May 20 at Usal Redwood Forest

Leggett, CA—The Redwood Forest Foundation (RFFI) will host a volunteer event to remove invasive French Broom at the Usal Redwood Forest on Saturday, May 20, from 10am-2pm. Attendees will also visit a previous removal site along Usal Creek to see how a treated area looks after one year. Participants should bring a sack lunch and their favorite gloves and tools. Gloves, equipment, water and snacks will be provided, and there is no previous experience required.

The Usal Redwood Forest is located east of the Sinkyone Wilderness State Park, and accessed by the WRP Road at Mile Marker 100.2 on Hwy 1 approximately 5 miles west of Leggett. A carpool from the coast will meet at 8:45am at the RFFI Office at 90 W. Redwood Avenue in Fort Bragg. Inland folks will gather at the Leggett Fire Department at 67001 CA-271 in Leggett at 9:30am. Participants can also meet directly at the WRP Road gate at 10am.

RFFI owns and manages the 50,000-acre Usal Redwood Forest in Northern Mendocino. Our mission is to steward this precious place as a Community Forest, for the benefit of the local ecology and people. The volunteer work day on May 20 is an opportunity to invite community members to spend time on the land, to get to know the place and help take care of it by removing an invasive plant without the use of herbicides.

To register, please email RFFI Program Director Alicia Bales at alicia@rffi.org or call 707-813-1704.

For More information about invasive French and other Brooms, check out this link from the California Invasive Plants Council: cal-ipc.org/docs/ip/management/wwh/pdf/19633.pdf

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ADAM GASKA on the Great Redwood Trail (GRT):

The state put out a report estimating that the cost of the GRT would be $5 billion. $1 billion plus for build out and $4 billion for environmental remediation: calsta.ca.gov/-/media/calsta-media/documents/sb-1029-assessment-of-ncra-report-to-legislature-111220.pdf

Here is the feasibility report that says construction would cost 1 billion if built in 2020. The cost has risen and will likely continue to rise: calsta.ca.gov/-/media/calsta-media/documents/appendix-d–cdpr-great-redwood-trail-feasibility-report508remediateda11y.pdf

I think a few stretches could be worthwhile to develop. I like the idea of developing the stretch in Hopland from 175 south to 101. It could incorporate in Old River Road to make a loop people can do. Develop a parking lot across 175 from the gas station and Baptist Church. to do a loop down the tracks to 101, to Old River Road then back is just shy of 4 miles. When the Coastal Conservancy/GRTA does the EIR/CEQA, factor in all the impacts including the amenities, the lemon-aid stands, that owners might want to do. Come up with a community develop plan that lays it all out in code on what landowners can do so it streamlines the permitting. We don’t end up with piecemeal development if we develop a comprehensive plan. Do outreach and community workshops to get input so the community has buy in.

Maybe identify a few places, ideally loops, where there are willing landowners who want to cater to some out of town guests and accommodate agritourism.

I can even see developing the stretch in Redwood Valley from Laughlin Way to School Way to make it safer and easier to ride your bike to the store.

I do think we should leave the option open to restore rail service for transit and freight. SMART plans to be in Cloverdale by 2027. With the cost of fuel and carbon reduction goals, it makes sense to expand our options beyond getting in the car and driving. North of Willits isn’t feasible but Willits south to Cloverdale does.

Putting the GRTA through the bushes in remote areas seems like a formula for disaster. Fire, access to remote areas by first responders, trespass onto adjacent private property, vandalism, vagrancy, costly maintenance with little economic benefit to support it are all valid concerns.

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stock art: delivering the bad news

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CREATIVE HOUSING ARRANGEMENTS IN THE VALLEY

This Sunday, May 21st, 4-5:30pm, Anderson Valley Senior Center

Join us for a look at the various housing situations in the valley with a panel of representatives from intentional living communities (like Cheesecake and Mendo Dragons) and nonprofit groups that work on housing solutions in the valley (the Elder Home and the Housing Association). These groups will briefly share their experiences, with time for questions at the end. 

Refreshments served and Door Prize

Please Note: Our gatherings are open to everyone, but COVID Vaccinations are now REQUIRED - please bring your vaccination card (one time) as proof. Masks optional - thank you in advance for your understanding. 

Please RSVP with the coordinator – thank you!

Anica Williams
Cell: 707-684-9829
Email: andersonvalleyvillage@gmail.com

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PG&E PLANS TO REMOVE BOTH POTTER VALLEY PROJECT DAMS—Mendo, Humboldt, Lake And Sonoma Fight

by Sarah Reith

A planning group for the Russian River Water Forum, which is preparing for life after PG&E decommissions the Potter Valley Project, met for the first time yesterday in Ukiah. PG&E said in a town hall last month that its version of decommissioning means removing both dams. That’s unless an entity that is capable of running them steps forward before it submits a draft of the decommissioning plan to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, or FERC.…

kymkemp.com/2023/05/18/pge-plans-to-remove-both-potter-valley-project-dams-mendo-humboldt-lake-and-sonoma-fight/

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DAVID GURNEY ON THE MCN LISTSERVE

Background

After speaking to both Rob Buch, the new manager of MCN and Jason Morse, the Superintendent of Mendocino schools, I learned that the MCN listservs are basically a public service provided to the community by a very busy Mendocino school district, who have decided they would rather not spend the time or money trying to moderate or manage the Lists for problems caused by the abuse of civil discourse, which can easily ruin a social media platform - and peoples’ lives. Rob Buch told me that he does not look at all posts to the Announce List, and that the Discussion List is apparently being published not only unmoderated, but literally unread and unmonitored by anyone, at either MCN or MUSD. Mr. Buch (a very nice man) said the Discussion List “is an open public forum, an unmoderated space, like a town square.” 

But this “town square” reaches a lot farther than a bullhorn, and there’s no cop on the beat if a violent psychopath goes berserk on the soapbox.

The Announce List by contrast has developed over time into a very important local resource for announcing community events, power outages, weather information, natural disaster/first responder information, road closures, as well as for people buying, selling, and donating items, employment opportunities, rentals, and for people sharing jokes, poems, stories, songs and ideas - and more. But it is not generally considered “an open forum.” 

For the most part, a sort of natural order has kept the worst abusers at bay on the Announce List. But the online abuse has recently spilled over to the Announce List, and some posters have begun using it as a platform for incredibly mean insults, cyber-bullying and harassment. Users have repeatedly offered the 'band-aid' solutions of personally blocking objectionable posters, using the 'digest' version of the Lists to cancel those who might offend them, or to simply ignore everything. But these are not reasonable solutions if a mentally ill or violent person decides to start posting targeted threats, dox personal or private information, violate restraining orders, publish vicious fabricated libel, engage in cyber-bullying and harassment, etc. - as started happening quite a while ago on the essentially abandoned yet still published Discussion List.

For me personally the Discussion List, not the Announce, has been used by one certain obsessed individual to threaten my life, commit defamatory libel, post serious and violent fabricated allegations, threaten lawsuits, and violate a Civil Harassment Restraining Order requiring him to not contact me, either directly or indirectly, by any means, including electronic. Unfortunately, all the above offenses have been and continue to be committed on MCN’s Discussion Listserv by this individual, and this has gone on for over four years now.

Although I’ve contacted law enforcement, obtained a restraining order, and tried to get MCN to stop, they have refused to take any responsibility whatsoever to either moderate content, block individuals who are using their listserv to violate the law, or even read and monitor what’s being published on their own lists.

The solution to this almost unbelievable situation might be to simply shut down or suspend the Discussion List altogether, since this particular abuser has so far not dared to post his illegal cyber-bullying over the popular Announce list. Almost all of MCN’s list subscribers have abandoned the Discussion list anyway, since it has long been dominated by this and a couple other extremely nasty trolls who are not even part of the local Coastal Community. But the ugliness has now spilled over to the Announce list, so it seems MCN and MUSD will ultimately have to decide whether or not to continue as is, abandon this community resource entirely, or set forth and enforce a few simple ground rules to be added to their “Terms of Service.”

Solutions

1.) The problems with MCN’s listservs need to be Agendized and dealt with by the Board of Directors before any more harm is done to community members or MUSD. Continuing to ‘kick the can down the road’ by failing to deal with extremely malevolent users is not working.

2.) A basic set of guidelines needs to be added to the “Terms of Service” agreement(s) to prohibit users from making threats, committing blatant libel, doxing personal or private information, violating Restraining Orders, or conducting any other illegal activity over the listservs. Considering the recent online abuse occurring over the important Announce list, these guidelines should also include an end to relentless cyber-bullying and harassment. Repeated violations of these simple rules would result in the user being permanently blocked. An ad-hoc committee of community members and MCN staff could hammer out the details. This is no longer a First Amendment issue.

3.) The lists need to at least be monitored (that is: looked at and read in their entirety - not necessarily moderated) by an MCN employee – to be sure what content is actually being published by MCN.

4.) If necessary because of lack of oversight, the Discussion List needs to be shut down or temporarily suspended until reasonable and equitable solutions to these problems can be addressed and resolved.

Conclusion

I didn’t ask to be targeted by an obsessed Neo-Nazi psychopath, who uses the MCN Discussion list to cyber-stalk and bully, and further, to conduct egregious and illegal activities, namely, to threaten my life, repeatedly violate a Restraining Order, and to make me the subject of constant, repeated malicious libel. This person’s explicit, stated purpose - posted to the Discussion List in no uncertain terms - is to “destroy” me. He has a long local record of many restraining orders, and a criminal arrest record that includes drawing and exhibiting a weapon, terrorist threats and assault with a deadly weapon.

MCN’s Listservs' indifferent negligence by blindly publishing deliberately targeted, malicious and libelous content from this individual on their listserv is in effect unwitting collusion. It needs to stop.

PS. The Mendocino Unified School District will hold its monthly meeting tonight, May 18th, starting at 5:00 p.m. Public Comment starts at 6:00. 

Though facing stiff opposition from a vitriolic "let's keep our heads in the sand" brigade, I'll be making a brief, 3-minute statement at around 6:00 pm regarding MUSD's out of control, unmoderated, unmonitored "Discussion List."

For those those wishing to attend and speak up during Public Comments at 6:00, and for the seething sirens of denial, who might want to briefly remove their heads from the sand (and other orifices) The Zoom Webinar address is: us02web.zoom.us/j/85624932464?pwd=YkJkV2NZWG12U3JQdkhrZmVFSVpaQT09

Webinar ID: 894 2299 1493 Passcode: 196255

Or, if still ambulatory, you can show up in person at: 

44261 Little Lake Road, Mendocino, at the K-8 School Multi-Purpose Room

More info: https://www.mendocinousd.org/files/user/160/file/5-18-23.pdf

And: https://www.mendocinousd.org/District/3015-Untitled.html

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stock art: are you shitting me?

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BEAR PROOFING YOUR TRASH CANS

Bears & Moth Balls

Try moth balls, especially with camphor in them. I've used them for years and seen the bear go up to the bin, smell, and leave. Yes, they are toxic, but if you tie them in a cut-off old sock and duct tape them to the inside side or lid of the bin, they can be disposed of as toxics. Refresh them every 2-3 weeks. If you aren't concerned about them being toxic and going to the land fill, put a few fresh ones in the bin near the top regularly.

It's hard to be conscientious in a place like the Woods where you have large centralized bins that are added to daily, BUT if someone is conscientious about making sure the bins have regular attention with fresh mothballs--it works.

I keep my trash in the garage in a disabled freezer to contain any smell until trash day AND use the mothballs in the bin because the bear here at the east end of Airport Rd cruises through my yard nearly every night making it's rounds. I see her sniff the bin, and then she keeps going. Haven't had any vandalism for nearly 10 years.

Ronnie James <ronnie@mcn.org>

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FORT BRAGG SEES NEW PROGRAMS AND FACILITIES For Addiction, Alzheimer’s, Mental Health, Homeless

by Frank Hartzell

In Fort Bragg, programs to help those who are disabled, homeless, mentally ill, or addicted to substances opened recently, courtesy of a Gavin Newsom administration committed to invest more money and effort into positive outcomes. Federal grant monies have also been involved and investments in time and money by the City of Fort Bragg. Fort Bragg Mayor Bernie Norvell has been spearheading many of these initiatives.…

mendovoice.com/2023/05/fort-bragg-sees-new-programs-and-facilities-for-addiction-alzheimers-mental-health-homeless/

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WHY NOTHING WILL BE DONE about PG&E’s pending Potter Valley project abandonment and decommissioning plans:

Russian River Users Forum

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PEBS

Editor,

I like getting updates on Pebbles Trippet status. When I was president of the our local community group, Haight Ashbury Neighborhood Council, she would come to our public meetings with a small entourage to update everyone of the latest marijuana news. It was always informative and she was pleasant to be around. I know she was probably high, but then part of our audience was as well. I did send some money to her GoFundMe account, so I hope she is doing okay.

Jim Rhoads

ED NOTE: Assuming the stoners who are looking after the old girl haven't rolled her up and smoked her, last we heard she had sold her coast property and was living near Laytonville and was doing ok.

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THEREFORE....

Only Don't Know

This afternoon featured a zoom meeting to go through the housing voucher information packet. It is uncertain if one must rent an apartment for one year for the voucher to be "portable", or if one just has to have lived in Mendocino County for twelve consecutive months for the voucher to be "portable" (i.e. transferable anywhere in the USA). Whereas I've no particular purpose to be living in Mendocino County, this is a very big difference. A housing specialist is researching this for me.

Secondly, I have a consultation May 30th in St. Helena with the doctor who will replace the current heart pacemaker with a more comprehensive one, in July.

Third, it is a fact that none of us are these bodies nor these minds. All of us are the Eternal Witness, or Immortal Self, or Radiant Atman (id est, "Soul") or whatever you prefer to call ultimate spiritual reality. Therefore, the so-called future isn't generally known, because nobody is the mind in the first place. From a mental point of view, the Korean Zen teaching is accurate: "Only Don't Know." Nota Bene: The real you/us is not affected by anything at all anyway. Therefore, under all conditions, I am knowledge, bliss, absolute!!

Fourth, I am generally available on the planet earth following the implantation of the new heart pacemaker in July; of course, I am available now with restrictions. Please make contact if you wish to do anything crucial in the remainder of this lifetime. Am going up after that. Forever.

Fifth, here's some consciousness chocolate: youtube.com/watch?v=ZEA2n_dpAgo

Craig Louis Stehr

1045 South State Street, Ukiah, CA 95482

Telephone Messages: (707) 234-3270

Email: craiglouisstehr@gmail.com

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ANOTHER SIGN THE APOCALYPSE IS UPON US

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ED NOTES

LARRY BENSKY writes to demand our explanation for the three-page Easter message that appeared in the April 5th edition. Bensky thoughtfully enclosed the three-page ad he complains about, which arrived here on Wednesday, 17 May, mis-addressed and with 24 cents postage due. It took a while for the Post Office to figure out the letter was for us.

“Who is this ad for?” (Christians, probably.)

“Did ‘they’ pay for it?” (Sure did, and mightily, too, and in a timely manner. Honoring their commitments is among the many virtues I've noted among my Christian friends here in the Anderson Valley. Not a deadbeat in the bunch, which is more than I can say for our left comrades.)

“What was the process involved in selling & printing it?” (The usual. They sent the copy, we set it up on the page, the printer printed it, and the Christians promptly cut a check for the full amount.)

“If the Taliban paid for four pages?” (Only on the condition they not beat my sister for appearing in public without her hijab.)

“Putin?” (Only on the condition that he immediately withdraws from Ukraine and commits suicide.) 

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HISTORICAL AMNESIA is nothing new in this country, but collective memory loss is an extra hoot lately as so many media people, liberal and conservative (or, more accurately, conservative liberals, Democrats, and conservative fascists, Republicans) profess shock that the FBI went full-on partisan to stop Trump from being elected. 

AS IF THE FBI wasn't founded as a partisan political police force to stomp the left all the way back to the IWW and lefties like Rosa Luxembourg — Hoover himself saw her off the day she was deported — on up through Hoover's FBI pursuit of communists, real and imagined, and on through the targeting of the black leadership of the Civil Rights movement — Hoover and his federal army went after Martin Luther King big time — and on into the alleged War on Terrorism. 

THEN CAME TRUMP, and Hillary and the DNC aimed the entire “intelligence” apparatus at stopping the Great Orange Beast. As if the Beast wasn't bad enough on his known record, the FBI and the CIA conjured up his participation in perv-o-ramas and alleging that the Beast was in league with Putin. None of it was true, and here's Beast, bolstered by the tsunami of lib lies about him, back again with a viable shot at resuming his wacky presidency!

AND HERE WE ARE with weasel lips like Anderson Cooper and the rest of the Democrat media saying, for almost four years, versions of what Cooper said: “Whatever is going on is something. Perhaps benign, perhaps ill-judged, perhaps all within the president's constitutional and legal authority — or maybe not. Just what kind of something it is, we don't know. Two presidents do however: President Trump and Vladimir Putin.”

THE MCN LIST SERVE is a dependable source of unintended laffs, especially lately with a lot of worried talk about at last getting the site somehow monitored to keep out computer chronophages and their endlessly vile exchanges of insults. Kinda late, ain't it? Crazy people have dominated the site for years, and most of us learned long ago to simply scroll on by.

FORMER CIA director John Brennan has admitted that a letter signed by 51 former intelligence officials that sought to discredit reporting on Hunter Biden's laptop was “political.” Brennan, the CIA chief during Obama's administration, admitted to the House Judiciary Committee investigators in a four-hour closed-door deposition that the letter, which falsely claimed that emails on Hunter Biden's laptop were Russian disinformation, was indeed “political.” Brennan's deposition comes as former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper is expected to give testimony Wednesday, May 17). Both Brennan and Clapper signed a letter by 51 former intelligence officials who claimed Hunter's laptop had “all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.” An email shows Brennan agreeing to have his name added to the letter of signatories by the then-acting CIA Director Mike Morell.

I MUST SAY I was startled by this relationship between Noam Chomsky and the late, reviled pedo, Jeffrey Epstein: “In civilized societies, a person who has served a sentence returns to society without prejudice”: Chomsky apparently had asked Epstein for financial advice and Epstein moved $270,000 between Chomsky's accounts.

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CATCH OF THE DAY, Wednesday, May 17, 2023

Bowes, Campos, Crawford

IRA BOWES, Covelo. Probation revocation.

RICARDO CAMPOS, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

DAVID CRAWFORD, Plumas Lake/Ukiah. DUI-alcohol&drugs, controlled substance, under influence.

Estes, Floyd, Garcia

ASHLEIGH ESTES, Seattle/Willits. Probation revocation.

DANIEL FLOYD, Willits. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

RICARDO GARCIA-GARCIA, Ukiah. County parole violation.

Gilbert, Hoffman, Joaquin

MICHAEL GILBERT, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

JAMES HOFFMAN SR., Ukiah. Controlled substance, paraphernalia, parole violation.

SYLVESTER JOAQUIN JR., Covelo. Assault weapon, large capacity weapon, felon-addict with firearm, alteration of firearm ID, stolen property, controlled substance, disobeying court order, failure to appear.

Johnson, Kenyon, Montano, Parmely

SETH JOHNSON, Redwood Valley. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

JUBA KENYON, Fort Bragg. Failure to appear.

MICHAEL MONTANO, Ukiah. DUI, leaving scene of accident with property damage, probation revocation.

JACOB PARMELY, Ukiah. Paraphernalia, parole violation.

Rodriguez, Rogers, Torres

FLORENCIO RODRIGUEZ, Lakeport/Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

KEVIN ROGERS, Eureka/Ukiah. Petty theft.

CHRISTINA TORRES, Hopland. Shoplifting.

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DOPE, AN ON-LINE COMMENT: 

If You Got A Warrant I Guess You’re Gonna Come In 

Truckin – Grateful Dead

One lesson to be learned (and why doesn’t everyone know this by now?) if the Sheriff is at your door or gate with a warrant, they ARE gonna come in – it’s not gonna get better if you delay or resist. The best you can do is try fighting it in the courts after the fact.

But it’s kinda like TRB said – everybody is in the wrong – or at least could have done things differently to produce a different and better result. 

But here we are seven to nine years into the travesty of state legalization and no one can say what’s legal or not.

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SAMMY GOES TO SCHOOL

by Chris Hedges

We know the story. The absent father who leaves when his son is five-years-old and moves back to Puerto Rico. The single mother, rarely at home because she works long hours to keep her three children fed and pay the rent. The poverty. The crime. The instability. Later, the stepfather who drinks, uses drugs and beats his stepchildren. The child acting up. Dropping out of school. Joining a gang. The robberies. The one that went wrong and left a man dead. Prison.

The students I teach in prison have variations of the same story. They are funneled into the maw of the prison-industrial-complex, the largest in the world, and spat out decades later, even more lost and traumatized, to wander the streets like ghosts until most, unequipped to survive on the outside and without support, find themselves back in the old familiar cages.

But I tell this story because it needs to be told. I tell it because this time the end will be different. This time the system will not win. I tell it because neglected and abused children, no matter what crime they commit, should not be imprisoned as if they were adults. I tell it because we are complicit. I tell it because until we stop investing in systems of control and start investing in people, especially children, nothing will change. It will only get worse.

“I come from a very violent childhood,” says Sammy Quiles, who was released from prison after serving a 30-year sentence a few weeks ago. “My mother — once my father was out of the picture — worked and partied. Me and my sisters were relegated to making it on our own or with babysitters. And then when she met my stepfather that was only exacerbated. He was a drunk, drug-abuser and very violent. I was hit with fists, bats, hangers, you name it. It was physical, emotional and verbal abuse.”

I taught Sammy in East Jersey State Prison in Rahway, New Jersey, in the Rutgers college degree program. I did not know his story until he was released. I never know the stories of my students. They are not their crime. And years, often decades later, they are not who they were. Sammy, in my classroom, was reserved, determined, hardworking, brilliant and unfailingly courteous. That is who Sammy is. Who he was, to me, is irrelevant.

That is not how Sammy was seen as a child, a troubled boy coping with abandonment and terrible abuse. He threw temper tantrums. He could not sit still. He was disruptive. The school system labeled him “emotionally disturbed.” He was placed in special education classes in the second grade.

“Decisions were made early on in my life that I would serve the service sector of society,” he says. “I wasn’t taught innovative curriculums. They sent me to woodshop or auto mechanic schools.”

He dropped out of school in the 10th grade. At 15 he left home “because the streets seemed safer for me.”

 “I tried to get fast-food jobs, but I didn’t last long,” he says. “My behavior was erratic, problematic. I didn’t do well with authority and structured environments. I robbed and stole. I became a car thief, a stick-up kid. That’s how I ate.”

He found the Latin Kings.

“Every government institution abandoned me or punished me for my behavior, but it was a gangmember that helped me with homelessness, with putting clothes on my back, putting a few dollars in my pocket, fed me — his family fed me,” he recalls. “I understand today that they exploited my aggressive behavior, but they’re the ones that helped me when I left home. It felt like I had a community. They taught me about my culture. They instilled this pride in me. There was protection.”

He was initiated into the Latin Kings in a schoolyard in Lakewood, New Jersey. He had to recite from memory 10 small paragraphs, or lessons, in front of a circle of some 30 gang members. Then each member embraced him. They shot a hand gesture they called “crowns,” their gang greeting.

“I felt empowered, I felt accepted, I felt like I had a family,” he says.

He swiftly ascended within the ranks of the gang.

“I had a knack for learning the lessons, the materials they gave,” he says. “I was very interested in the literature. It was all based on culture and a lot of Puerto Rican history and about revolutionaries and where I come from. And then the aggressive nature — I was very aggressive.”

The gang sold cocaine and crack. But he continued working as a “stick up kid” who robbed drug dealers and members in rival gangs. A robbery usually brought in a few hundred dollars that was divided up with other gang members. He often used his portion to buy gifts, such as sneakers, for his two younger sisters.

He looked up to older gang members who became surrogate fathers. One of them recruited him to rob a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant when he was 17.

“My loyalty to this individual warped my judgment,” he says.

The manager of the Kentucky Fried Chicken was killed in the robbery, which netted about $3,000.

Sammy was arrested and sent to a youth house until he was waived up to an adult court. He was evaluated by a court psychologist who determined he could not be rehabilitated by the age of 19. He was given a 30-year mandatory minimum sentence.

Going to jail and prison, he says laughing, was “very easy.”

“It’s unbelievable to say that today, as a 47-year-old, but I never felt uncomfortable in prison,” he says.“I was conditioned for that environment. I was rejected by my father. I was not completely loved by my mother. I had a stepfather who physically abused me. I was seen as a criminal before I even committed a criminal act. The school system sent me to special ed, to expulsion, to an alternative school. It was a lifetime of perpetual punishment. When I got to prison, I was like ‘Okay, this is just a normal day for me.’ I wasn’t the elite child who made a mistake. I wasn’t this superstar academic or athlete or any of that.”

He was housed in Trenton State Prison’s Vroom wing for those with mental and behavioral issues. Prisoners called it “the terror dome.”

“It had the biggest overzealous guards,” he says. “Twenty-three and one lockdown,” meaning  he was only out of his cell for one hour each day.

“They came around with a little book cart,” he says. “You could get a book if you wanted. You’d be let out into the yard every few days. You’d get a shower every few days, other than that you’re in your cell.”

“I read as much as I could get my hands on, a lot of Puerto Rican revolutionary books,” he remembers. “I still read a lot about Albizu Campos and Lolita Lebron and Prisoners of Colonialism. Any time they let us outside, I went outside. I watched a lot of TV.”

The prison authorities accused him of being the head of The Latin Kings in the New Jersey prison system, although he says, “I don’t think anyone was really in charge.”

He was in his late twenties when he got married in prison to a high school friend. She had a two-year-old daughter. They visited every weekend. 

“I saw that it’s not just about me anymore,” he says. “I began to change.”

His wife and her daughter were his only consistent support on the outside. The marriage lasted until 2015 when she moved to North Carolina.

“I had people who would dust me off the shelf and remember me every birthday or a special event,” he says, “but nothing constant.”

He decided to leave the Latin Kings when he was in his late twenties. He met fellow gang members in the yard at East Jersey State Prison to announce his decision.

“Yo, man this is what it is, my life trajectory is taking me on a different path,” he told them. “I invited them, if they needed to discipline me or something like that, in any way, to bring it on. That was it.”

The other gang members let him walk away.

He gravitated towards the serious students in the prison, the ones working doggedly in their cramped and claustrophobic cells to get an education, the ones who had turned their cells into libraries.

“They explained to me the importance of their own transformation,” he says. “I understood that my story was not an anomaly. There were several of us behind those walls with similar experiences and stories. It’s education and community that changed me. It was grounded in love and care. It was not exploitative.”

He pauses and goes on, his voice dipping slightly.

“The most compassionate people in prison are serving a sentence,” he says. “Not the staff. Not the administration. It’s the offenders. They are the most compassionate.”

But even that journey, however redemptive, was met with hostility.

“We would go through the metal detector and our stuff would be thrown around by an overzealous guard who had a problem with somebody paying for our education,” he says. “We were seen as super-predators, criminals, the irredeemables of the world. If I had a paper I was writing for Chris Hedges, they would throw it on the floor or step on it or rip it up and make me start all over. They would take books from us. And then in the halfway house when I got out. You want to do research on campus? They have you make four calls a day for accountability. Or they’ll call you in the middle of the class to make sure you’re in class, like ‘Bro you’ve got my schedule, you know I’m in class at this time, why are you disturbing that?’”

“The Body Keeps Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma” by Bessel van der Kolk helped him understand and cope with trauma.

“That book was instrumental to humanizing me,” he says. “There was no help for my psychological trauma — the trauma I experienced as a kid. Through higher education, I learned a lot about myself. I learned that the behaviors I exhibited in school and in the community were not abnormal to someone dealing with the family I inherited and the abuse I experienced as a child.”

He devoured texts about history, sociology, religion, economics, social reproduction and the school-to-prison-pipeline.

“In the classroom it was not only our safe space, but it was a space where we had a new level of agency,” he says of his college classes in prison. “That’s what I liked most about the classroom. Yes, we learned, we discussed dense topics and authors, but we had an agency in those classrooms I had never experienced.”

It is hard adjusting to being outside prison. Sammy had never taken a bus or a train until he was released.

“I found myself living like I lived in a prison cell,” he says of the first days and weeks of his release. “I would put my things in storage containers instead of the dresser. I would take a shower with my boxers on and shower shoes. There were sleepless nights. I’m easily triggered. I don’t like being told what to do. I don’t like being controlled. If it’s with a significant other I put my guard up. I remove myself from the situation. It’s like I have a scarlet letter. While I’m on campus, when I go to stores, when I’m in public spaces, I feel like I’m different. There’s something about me that speaks of my incarceration. The first time I had to use my bank card, I didn’t know how to put it into that little slot thing. It was awkward. I got to the counter, and I had to call somebody and say ‘Yo, I don’t know how to do this, if I don’t do it correctly, they’re going to think I stole the card or that it’s not mine so can you please explain to me what you do?’ I distrust institutions. I was at the DMV, trying to get my learner’s permit. I scheduled the appointment. The lady looks at me and she says, ‘Your birthday is November 1, 1975 and you’ve never had a license?’ She was loud. I told her ‘Well, can you say that any louder? You have everybody knowing that I never had a license!’ I’m getting defensive. I’m thinking everybody interpreted that as I’m a felon, I’ve been away.”

“Prison,” he says, “taught me how not to treat human beings.” 

Sammy finished his B.A. in Criminal Justice from Rutgers this week. He graduated summa cum laude.

With Sammy at the graduation ceremony for formerly incarcerated students at Rutgers University

(chrishedges.substack.com)

* * *

SHOVING FROM ALL SIDES

by George Newsom

England’s Public Order Act received royal assent on May 2, just in time for the coronation. Its explicit aim is to combat the civil resistance tactics adopted by climate activists, with new offenses including “locking on,” “being equipped for locking on,” “tunnelling” and “obstruction etc of major transport works disruption.” 

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights criticized the legislation as “neither necessary nor proportionate.” Meanwhile, the government is processing the 115 bids for North Sea fossil fuel licenses that have been made since applications were reopened at the end of last year. The amount of carbon dioxide produced by just one of the unexploited oil fields, Rosebank, will be greater than the combined annual emissions of the 28 lowest-income countries in the world.

The new legislation outlaws “interference with use or operation of key national infrastructure,” including roads, and gives the police new powers to break up slow marches, a tactic favored by Just Stop Oil and other environmental groups. A slow march is exactly what it sounds like: a group of protesters walking slowly in the road to assert their demands. Marchers adopt a “blue light policy,” dispersing for fire engines, police vans and ambulances; cycle lanes are kept clear; and buses are theoretically allowed to pass through (although this can be difficult to co-ordinate). A slow march is designed to be disruptive, but not to the extent of a road block; the queues caused by recent protests are not unusual for rush-hour London traffic, and nothing compared to the travel havoc caused by the coronation.

The purpose of non-violent direct action is to create a certain amount of low-level disruption in order to draw attention to – and, ideally, avert – the far greater disruption that will ensue if the demands are not met. 

As with a strike, the powers that be can bring an end to the disruption in two ways: by threatening protesters into submission, or by acquiescing to their demands. Coverage of climate protests, like coverage of strikes, tends to skirt around the second possibility. But Just Stop Oil’s core demand – an immediate halt to all new fossil fuel licenses in Britain – is really quite a modest one, in line with the guidance provided by the International Energy Agency, the UN and the government’s own scientists. Every major party except the Conservatives has expressed support for it.

The recent wave of marches has elicited a predictably aggressive backlash from the right-wing press. Criticism has also come from those who avowedly support the protesters’ aims but claim their tactics “alienate the public” (a phrase which obscures the fact that climate protesters, as Mick Lynch has said of RMT members, are the public). The climate crisis is going to bring far more disruption to the daily lives of ordinary people, even in the Global North, than traffic jams or interrupted sports matches. (It’s already happening: look at the floods in Emilia-Romagna this week.)

But any act of civil disobedience that is perceived to exacerbate the day-to-day difficulties of a nation increasingly beset by fuel poverty, housing insecurity and rocketing food prices – even if it is in the service of a more secure future – is sure to attract negative attention. 

One of the crueller ironies of the climate emergency is that the precarity produced by its more immediate effects is likely to make it harder to conceptualize and prepare for its longer-term consequences. All the more reason to emphasize that the present energy crisis can only be solved by a just transition to renewables, and the new fossil fuel licenses are not predicted to lower anyone’s bills.

It’s easy to criticize certain forms of protest for being counterproductive; it’s a lot harder to come up with better alternatives. Extinction Rebellion have been slated for years for prioritizing disruption over mass mobilization, but after they agreed to pivot away from direct action and gathered over 100,000 people in Parliament Square last month – one of the biggest climate protests the UK has ever seen – they got little attention from either the media or policymakers. This doesn’t prove that large-scale, state-sanctioned protest is useless, but it does suggest that it won’t be enough on its own.

The tactics that critics suggest could replace more controversial actions are already being used alongside them. Jane Goodall recently spoke out against the slow marches and recommended that supporters instead picket oil company headquarters (the march routes go past the Shell and BP offices) or protest outside parliament (Just Stop Oil is holding rallies in Parliament square every Saturday). I sneered at last autumn’s soup-throwing stunt on the grounds that activists should be targeting fossil fuel infrastructure rather than fomenting a media spectacle, without realizing that the same group of protesters had been blockading oil terminals for months.

The situation is urgent, and urgent situations demand a wide range of tactics: a mass movement and a radical flank; spectacular stunts and targeted interference; traditional routes to power and grassroots activism. “No one way works,” Diane di Prima wrote in Revolutionary Letters. “It will take all of us shoving at the thing from all sides to bring it down.”

But as the Public Order Act makes clear, the Tories will go to thanatotic lengths to ensure that the UK’s fossil fuel dependency is not reduced. The new laws ensure that protestors who block roads or lock themselves to buildings are signing themselves up to face serious prison time. Two activists who climbed the Dartford Crossing last October, Morgan Trowland and Marcus Decker, were recently jailed for three years and two years and seven months respectively: the longest sentences ever handed down to climate protesters in the UK. The government is doing its best to treat the latest wave of activity as a minor nuisance that can be policed away, but it is clearly agitated, and with good reason. As the window of opportunity in which to avert the worst of the climate emergency becomes ever smaller, protest is likely to become more desperate. It’s going to be a long, hot summer.

(London Review of Books)

* * *

MEGAN MCCAIN: 

Look at a picture of the ladies of Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority on the front stoop of their house at the University of Wyoming. At first glance, it's a seemingly ordinary snap of women in their college years.

Sadly, it's completely extraordinary. Look again. One sorority member looms over all the rest. That's Artemis Langford, who reportedly stands at 6'2' tall and weighs 260 pounds. Langford is not like the other girls, because Langford is a biological male, who identifies as a woman. What this image truly shows is a country whose moral compass is spinning wildly out of control. Now former KKG members are speaking out and what they have to say is shocking. According to a legal complaint, Langford has been seen in the shared sorority house space watching the women with ‘an erection visible through his leggings.’ At ‘other times, he has had a pillow in his lap,’ the document states. Yes, you read that right. Langford is reportedly attracted to women and apparently, Langford’s not shy about it.

* * *

UKRAINE, WEDNESDAY, 17 MAY

At least one person has died and several were injured in the latest Russian shelling to hit frontline regions in eastern and southern Ukraine.

A US-made Patriot air defense system sustained minor damage after a Russian missile attack near Kyiv on Tuesday, according to multiple US officials.

Ukraine and Russia confirmed an agreement has been reached to extend the Black Sea grain deal for two months. The pact, which was brokered by Turkey and the United Nations, allows grain to be exported from Ukrainian ports.

Ukraine still holds areas around the eastern city of Bakhmut that it claims to have taken back, and troops are advancing as "fierce fighting" continues, according to a top defense official.

* * *

I DON'T THINK that rock'n'roll songwriters should worry about Art. I don't think it comes into it. A lot of it is just craft anyway, especially after doing it for a long time… As far as I'm concerned, Art is just short for Arthur.

— Keith Richards

* * *

* * *

YOU DON’T HAVE TO CHOOSE Between Happiness And Being Informed

by Caitlin Johnstone

I write about some dark, dark things in this space, and it's common to receive expressions of despair in response to the subjects I focus on.

This is perfectly understandable. Not only is our world hurtling toward nuclear armageddon and environmental collapse while surging authoritarianism threatens our ability to even talk about these things with each other, but most people are completely oblivious to it all. Even relatively politically engaged people tend to believe society's biggest problems are things like sexism or drag shows, and they generally support one of the two mainstream political factions who are both driving us toward destruction.

And this is of course because we live in a mind-controlled dystopia where everything is fake and stupid. Western civilization is dominated by a power structure that has invested more heavily in "soft power" (mass-scale psychological manipulation) than any other power structure in history. It pervades our media, our internet services, our art — literally all of mainstream culture.

The politicians lie, the news media lie, the movies lie, the internet lies, the advertisements lie, the shows between the advertisements lie. They lie about our world, they lie about our government, they lie about what's important, how we should think, what we should value, and how we should measure our level of success and worthiness as human beings. That's what you get when you live in a civilization that's made of lies, under an empire that's held together by lies.

So of course people who see this express despair. When you first punch through the lies and start to gain an understanding of what's really going on, it can be really unpleasant at first. It feels like what it probably felt like to be a lucid thinker back in much less enlightened times when civilization was dominated by religion and superstition. Lonely. Depressing. As Terence McKenna said, "The cost of sanity in this society is a certain level of alienation."

But it gets better. Or at least it does if you allow it to.

It's not that society starts feeling less fraudulent (it doesn't), and it's not that you get used to how fake and dishonest it all is (you don't). Things like political conversations, movies, celebrity awards shows, even the kinds of jokes comedians tell are still experienced as coming from a backward dream world whose circumstances are completely different from waking reality, and the smell of propaganda brainwashing still pervades it all. But it does get better.

What gets better is that once you've unplugged your mind from the matrix of imperial mind control, you stop looking for happiness, connection and satisfaction in the places the matrix trained you to look for it. You no longer get your sense of self-worth from how successful you can be as an industrious gear-turner of the capitalist machine or how much your body looks the way the ads say it should look. You don't get your sense of satisfaction from how much approval you can win over from denizens of a mentally ill society. You no longer find connection in false tribal loyalties or in shared enjoyment of the buffet of mind-killing entertainment we are served by the empire. You no longer seek happiness in the pursuit of new things to own and consume, or in worthless new goals to attain.

Instead, you begin to see that as confused and shitty as our civilization is, we're still living in an amazingly beautiful world, whose beauty is so much vaster and more ancient than all the conceptual bullshit we've heaped upon the human experience. You start to find joy in real things. The thundering majesty of nature. That spark of authenticity in people's eyes. The crackle of magic at the train station. Something as simple as a piece of garbage catching the light just right can make you coo and giggle with delight like an infant.

And you learn to live from there. You settle into an understanding that while the suffering and abuses of our world are very real and of immense consequence, the fact that there is anything at all is immensely more significant than any of our tiny human problems. The fact that we get to live in these bodies and inhabit these brains and move around on this amazing planet and perceive it and think thoughts about it is a much, much bigger deal than any of our difficulties.

To help you see what I am pointing to, imagine if you were experiencing nothing. Imagine if you were just a disembodied expanse of consciousness, with nothing to see, hear, feel, touch, taste or smell. No thoughts to think, no feelings to feel.

Then imagine after an eternity spent in that state, you suddenly got to experience this world. All the sights, sounds, feelings, beauty. All the thoughts, words, creativity, connections, relationships. Imagine how mind-blowing that would be. How delightful. How appreciated.

If that happened, which do you think would seem more significant to you: the appearance of the world and your ability to experience it, or the fact that the world has some problems?

This appreciation for how amazing it is to be comes to supplant the fixation on the details which used to sit at the forefront of your attention. This doesn't stop you from appreciating the suffering in the world — in fact it makes you more acutely aware of it. But it changes the context in which it's happening, because it's happening in something much more vast which isn't limited to that suffering.

So you absolutely can live a happy, satisfied life with a full awareness of what's really going on in our world. In fact, the devotion to discovering the truth which led you to understand what's going on in the world will also lead you to peace and happiness if you take that exploration inward. You just have to stop trying to get your happiness and satisfaction from the places our bullshit civilization has trained you to look for it in.

And then it's everywhere. Everywhere.

* * *

* * *

ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

My young colleagues at work cannot last five minutes without discussing drag queens, TV shows, Marvel movies, TikTok, horror films, music videos, action flicks, anime, or Netflix. It is non-stop from the moment they arrive in the morning until 4 pm. It isn’t safe to discuss politics or the news so I get it but I find this obsession with fantasy to be very bizarre.

* * *

A TOPIC BEST AVOIDED 

by Nicholas Guyatt

On the evening of April 11, 1865, Abraham Lincoln spoke to a crowd in Washington about black suffrage. The Civil War had been over for a week. Lincoln had already walked the streets of Richmond, Virginia, the Confederate capital, taking in the devastation at first hand. “The only people who showed themselves were negroes,” the radical senator Charles Sumner noted. The president had been thinking about what would happen after the war since 1862, when his generals began to seize swathes of Confederate territory, but he had stubbornly resisted the idea that emancipated slaves would have to be given the vote to consolidate their freedom. Perhaps what he saw in Richmond changed his mind: the eerie absence of the city’s white inhabitants confirmed what Sumner saw as “the utter impossibility of any organization which is not founded on the votes of negroes.” When Lincoln spoke from the White House balcony a week later, he was characteristically cautious. He didn’t advocate universal suffrage for blacks and suggested that the vote might only be “conferred on the very intelligent, and on those who served our cause as soldiers.” For some in the audience, this was more than enough. “That means n— citizenship,” John Wilkes Booth told his companions. Three nights later, he followed the president to Ford’s Theatre and shot him in the head.

* * *

7 Comments

  1. Kirk Vodopals May 18, 2023

    Moderate the MCN list serves?! Are you nuts? You can’t moderate the Albion Nation! Aka C.A.V.E. = Coalition Against Virtually Everything.
    Try herding those cats!
    Ha! Cyber-bullying between geriatrics. Ugh. Sigh. Puff Puff.

  2. Chris LaCasse May 18, 2023

    Trevor Mockel seems like a typical Mendo kid with no job options. Admittedly, one greasy enough to be drawn to Sacramento and then boast about it. 15 years ago he probably could have been a realtor, hyping the vine/weed life and schmoozing over free muffins with the other poorly dressed clones at the weekly get-together at what was then Branches. Failing that, a loan officer at SBMC. Times are tough.

    • jetfuel May 18, 2023

      Exactly.
      Enough of these self entitled Gen Z -30ish year olds for whom all things gifted into thier weak soft hands.

      The Gen Xers around here are the business owners, builders, farmers, doers. Seems last of a real working class with common sense.

      Calling all Ukiah/Potter High graduates of the 80’s- its time to step in and help with running this County.
      First District folk Rusty M, Jessie T, Al N. ideas of who could help?

      • Adam Gaska May 18, 2023

        I would have graduated ’96 from Ukiah if I had stayed long enough. Left ’95, moved out and went to work. ’98 started farming.

  3. Eric Sunswheat May 18, 2023

    RE: I MUST SAY I was startled by this relationship between Noam Chomsky and the late, reviled pedo, Jeffrey Epstein: “In civilized societies, a person who has served a sentence returns to society without prejudice”: Chomsky apparently had asked Epstein for financial advice and Epstein moved $270,000 between Chomsky’s accounts. (ED NOTES)

    –> May 9, 2023
    If you think having children in your 70s isn’t a wise decision, one prominent “wise guy” might just convince you to fuggedaboudtit. Robert De Niro is proving at 79 that age truly is just a number, after welcoming his seventh child into the world.

    The beloved Oscar-winning actor casually dropped the exciting news in a recent interview with ET Canada. De Niro was discussing his latest movie, About My Father, when he revealed the bombshell to ET Canada’s Brittnee Blair.

    “I mean, there’s no way around it with kids. I don’t like to have to lay down the law and stuff like that. But, [sometimes] you just have no choice,” he told Blair. “And any parent, I think, would say the same thing. You always want to do the right thing by the children and give them the benefit of the doubt but sometimes you can’t.”
    https://studyfinds.org/robert-de-niro-new-baby-older-fathers/

  4. Chuck Dunbar May 18, 2023

    “SAMMY GOES TO SCHOOL”

    A really fine piece–true story–by Chris Hedges about a man who survived a long term in prison. Remarkable. Thank you, AVA.

  5. Bruce McEwen May 18, 2023

    As to the Pebbles Trippet update I don’t recall that anyone was “taking care of the old dear” the message I read a month ago or more said she’d moved to Area 101, a campground. She’s resilient but I can’t imagine her being anything but miserable there when she ought to be in a senior care facility.

    She was editor of Canada’s hugely profitable Skunk Magazine and by any measure of human decency should have a comfortable retirement from those cheapskate bastards who used her name and knowledge to get filthy rich.

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