Mendocino County Today: Thursday, June 15, 2023

Warming | Pelican | Same Quinn? | Picnic Tables | Hendry Lawsuit | SNWMF Lineup | MCN Listserves | Leaf | Working Together | County Finance | Ed Notes | Craft Fair | Wendling Crew | Navarro Estuary | Garden Thoughts | Sand Particles | Terrible Two | Yesterday's Catch | Deskunking | First HOF | Brook Trout | Debt Solution | Entrance Exam | State Workers | The Look | Gender Confusion | Kaczynski Country | Hopkins Interview | Not Caring | Ukraine | Shopfront Window

BREEZY NORTH WINDS are expected to increase again this afternoon along the Humboldt and Del Norte coasts with lighter winds expected on the Mendocino coast. The gradual warming trend is expected to continue across the interior through Friday. A cooling trend will begin Saturday with significantly cooler temperatures expected Sunday and into early next week. Early next, week some light rain is possible mainly for areas north of Cape Mendocino. (NWS)

STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): A cooler 49F under clear skies this Thursday morning on the coast. The fog is south of Pt. Arena currently. Enjoy the warm & sunny conditions for the next few days as much colder temps & wind returns early next week.

THE SAME QUINN?

I just read in TheAVA.com sad news about Quinn Thomas Greene [who fell off the Coast bluffs a couple of days ago and is presumed dead, although his body has not been recovered]. I wonder if that's the same Quinn who I remember was a tiny little boy in the late 1980s at the Albion Whale School, son of Sheila Tracy? The age is right, and that's the only Quinn I know, or knew. If you know, one way or the other, please tell me. Also, incidentally, I've lost Sheila Tracy's contact info. If you have that, please send it along. 

— Marco McClean

Mark Scaramella notes: Sheila Tracy’s facebook page expresses sadness and grief over the loss of “our Quinn.” So it’s safe to assume that Quinn T. Greene is the son of Sheila Dawn Tracy. Our condolences to Ms. Tracy and family. (According to that same facebook page, Sheila Tracy now lives in Brattleboro, Vermont.)

ELIZABETH JENSEN: 

THANK YOU to Glad & her son for stepping up to help move our new picnic tables into their space. Summer picnics now have a whole new spread. (Now we just need some help pulling out the weeds from the pea gravel and we’ll be all set!)

…Interested in being a part of new park improvements? Have the tools or skills for landscaping or limbing up trees? Know how to build fences or fix pergolas? Love raising funds and awareness for local causes? Call/text me at 415-713-3833 or DM to learn more. It Takes A Valley!

CIVIL SUIT ALLEGES FIRED WILLITS POLICE LIEUTENANT DEREK HENDRY SEXUALLY HARASSED FORMER FEMALE POLICE OFFICER

A former female Willits Police officer, Natalie Higley, has filed a civil lawsuit against the Willits Police Department, the City of Willits, and former Lieutenant Derek Hendry who was fired in April 2022 claiming she was the victim of sexual harassment and hostility at the hands of Hendry…

mendofever.com/2023/06/15/civil-suit-alleges-fired-willits-police-lieutenant-derek-hendry-sexually-harassed-former-female-police-officer/

COAST CHATLINE CONTROVERSY

Kathy Wylie: 

Sitting on their hands — the lists remain unchanged for now. With the Elk representative absent last night, two Mendocino Unified school district board members, sheltering under their misconstrued idea of “free speech” stalemated any action on a would-be 2:2 vote, against the recommendation of the school district Superintendent to discontinue the Mendocino Community Network “Announce” and “Discussion” list servers. The board decided to table any action to discontinue the vitriolic local discussion list or move the often-vitriolic Announce list over to private party moderation with no school district associations. Instruction was given for the Superintendent to consult with legal counsel about whether or not the school district, a public entity, can conduct moderation on the list. There was no mention of a future agenda item or agenda date. Kudos to School Board Members Mark Morton and Emily Griffen who have done their homework on the topic.

Some of the noteworthy quotes from this part of their meeting:

Running the listservers is “Outside the purview of a school district.” —MUSD School District Superintendent Jason Morse

“My tax dollars are not allowed to be used that way —School Board Member Mark Morton

“I don’t consider the listserve social media.” —School Board Member Windspirit Aum

“It is the first time I have felt the moral indignation around this issue.” —School Board President Michael Schaffer

“If MCN is not moderating something than it is time to find a solution — make an effort to be responsible.” —High school Principal Tobin Hahn

David Gurney: 

MUSD board: Take no action on Item 9.4. MCN Listserves

Elephant #3

What the sanctimonious Marco McClean (is that even his real name?) doesn't get, is the fact that it's not a matter of “not to read it, or change the channel” when someone is engaging in viscious libel and threats. Other people are reading it, whether or not you choose to stick your own head in the sand.

And talk about “anger issues.” Marco's unrelenting anger at KZYX and other broadcasters has relegated his hours-long, dreary re-hash of the Announce list into the wee hours of Friday night, when absolutely no one is listening — except for a dozen or so desperate insomniacs. And he studiously avoids reading everything I write. Marco holds grudges you see, and when you die, he's sure to relate to everyone who will listen, his memory of that time when you offended him in some slight way.

* * *

Daney Dawson:

Kathy, this is important, and should be discussed publicly.

We, the users of the listserve, are the taxpayers. We want this service. I pay property taxes and school bonds, but I haven't had children in the district for over 20 years. What are my taxes paying for?

One man's trash is another's treasure. Legal assertions aside, this is a service of benefit to the community. Too often, bureaucracy supercedes practical benefit. Let's not go down that path.

Yes, times have changed, and many things not for the better. Many of us don't want to consume social media, yet we want to be connected. The listserves have functioned well and do function well.

* * *

Kathy Wylie: 

Did you watch the meeting? Talk to me after that. Two board members are factually incorrect on their legal assertions about the list's liabilities to the district and the responsibilities of the proper use of tax payer dollars in the school district. 

I created, populated and managed these local lists when I worked for Rennie at MCN in 1997. It was the beginning days of connectivity for most and they served a great function. Times have changed and technology has evolved. I have witnessed the deterioration first-hand for 25 years. 

I am not a member of the discussion list anymore. And since this is the announce list, we could talk offline further.

* * *

Rene Roberts

Daney, I appreciate your reasoned comments about the Listserve issue.

The only reason this issue is coming up is that some people want to see the List moderated to filter out the "bad actors". They're just using "taxpayer dollars" as an excuse. But the arguments they're using ("outside the purview of the school district", "improper use of taxpayer dollars", etc. etc.) would legally apply regardless of the content. Either it's proper for the school district to be involved, or it's not. Content has nothing to do with that legal issue. It's a spurious argument they're just using just to silence the content.

Those people who are so vociferous about wanting it to be moderated are only pushing the List to go away altogether. The List performs a very valuable public service, and I hope those voices don't prevail.

I've successfully filtered out the noxious voices and bullies for a long time. I truly don't understand why the people who find them so offensive don't do the same.

* * *

MCN BACKGROUND: (Originally published in 2010):

State Socialism & The Village of Mendocino

by Mark Scaramella

Because the subject seems to have disturbed some of the listserve shut-ins, and because with them history starts all over again every afternoon when they resume their monkey island communications with each other, let’s look at the true history of MCN.

One of the lead shut-ins had written, according to a very wrong-headed listserve posting, “…Mendocino Community Network (MCN) is largely responsible for getting technology into our local schools and providing Internet access here long before any corporate entity was willing to serve our low-profit market. It is not ‘heavily underwritten’ by the school district. In fact, it still contributes services and funds, though not as much as in its early years when it faced no competition. It is true that the community listserves are provided from user revenue that could otherwise go to the schools. MCN also provides free websites and Internet access to many local non-profits and educators beyond the boundaries of Mendocino Unified. This is all consistent with the founding Mission.”

The “founding Mission”?

In late 2000 we looked into MCN because it seemed obvious to us that MCN founder and then-manager Rennie Innis was running a private business with himself and his assistant Mitch Sprague as the primary beneficiaries under the auspices of a public entity, the Mendocino School Board. We'd assumed that a detailed investigation might prompt the Mendocino School Board to re-think MCN’s connection to Mendo Unified and, perhaps, spin MCN off as a separate non-profit if it was to continue to exist at all.

Nope. The lotus eaters went right on eating.

(To view our entire original report, Mr. Innis’s “response,” and our reply to Innis’s response, see my “Jaundiced Eye” blog.)

Which doesn’t change the fact that Mendo Unified has no business running an internet service provider business on school grounds under the school’s financial umbrella.

None of this is likely to penetrate the drug-fogged receptors of the listserve patients, but even the more rational of them might be helped to the bright light of understanding if they will look at MCN this way: If for instance, Mendocino Unified were to buy Cafe Beaujolais, just think how much more its owners could rake in if it didn't have to pay rent and utilities, or taxes, and had students working free as cook’s assistants, waiters and dishwaters.

In his windy response back in 2001, which Innis sent privately to a third party for fear if he sent it to us we’d publish it and reply to it, Innis confirmed most of our conclusions, although in a few cases Innis claimed — unconvincingly — that what we had criticized, while true, was actually a great thing for “the kids.”

Innis left Mendocino County some time ago. His second in command, Mitch Sprague then became MCN business manager.

We won’t reprint everything we reported back in late 2000 here, but some excerpts having to do with the taxpayer-school-funded subsidies MCN received in its early years are worth summarizing. The following paragraphs preceded by “•” are from our original investigation.

* * *

• The merger of the school’s computer classes with a commercial internet business allows Innis and Associates to benefit greatly — and some say unfairly — from the school’s financial backing — especially since the school board (with one occasional exception) is a cheerleader for Innis’s private business operating as an educational enterprise. Free rent, free power, student labor, lots of free equipment, loans that don’t have to be paid back. It's hard to miss in free enterprise with public backing like this [which used to be called state socialism when they did it in Russia].

* * *

• MCN is not a separate business with a separate board and independent budget. MCN’s board of directors is the school board itself. When MCN needs working capital, the school board is obligated to provide it. If the school board doesn’t cough up, the school district risks not getting a return on their prior investment of public money, equipment and facilities.

* * *

• A number of expense categories are conspicuously missing from the MCN budget, indications of the kinds of invisible subsidies the school district provides over and above the student interns, free rent, operating capital, and other overhead costs. MCN’s utilities budget, for example, makes no reference to PG&E expenses. Nor is there any reference to insurance costs, accounting and auditing, or legal expenses. And no reference to equipment or facility maintenance, no copier costs, no water, sewer, heating, trash disposal, admin staff… Only expenses which can be directly attributed to MCN are shown in MCN’s selectively edited budget. The school district’s general fund picks up the rest of the load with edu-dollars, which taxpayers might assume are being used for education, not a heavily subsidized private business that pays Innis more than it does its highest-paid teachers.

• The school district’s own budget lists all this overhead but makes almost no reference to MCN. MUSD’s typically impenetrable 60-page 2000 budget allocates more than $3.2 million for certificated salaries and more than $1.2 million in classified salaries. One can only speculate on how much the MCN and MUSD staffers overlap since the “business” and the “school” are the same entity.

* * *

And what about the legality of a school district running a commercial business?

• Can a school be a business? Technically, yes, according to Michael Hersher, an attorney with the California Department of Education. Surprisingly, California State law does not expressly prohibit governmental agencies from competing in the private sector, even when the government agency appears to have various unfair advantages, such as captive staff, free use of school buildings, equipment and software, taxpayer-supplied working capital and overhead, and immunity from certain kinds of liability. CDOE attorney Hersher says the state has legally challenged school districts from engaging in commercial activity in the past — “Dawson v. Eastside High School District” — and lost.

• “In that case the court held that a school district could engage in commercial activity,” Hersher explained, “if they determined that the commercial activity was reasonably related to their overall educational mission and that the kinds of activity involved didn’t fundamentally interfere with education. … It’s not illegal for a school district to sell something.”

• Hersher said that he will continue to challenge the legality of school districts operating as for-profit operations if they are “inconsistent with the educational purposes of the school district.”

• Back in 1994 MUSD staffers Jim Tobin and Yolanda Tate told then-Superintendent Ken Matheson that the state Department of Education had “raised some concerns about a school district operating a commercial business,” and recommended that MCN be set up as a separate non-profit with a separate budget and board of directors. Tobin and Tate’s analysis asserted that “the courts have implied that the authority [for government agencies to compete in the private sector] does exist,” and that “other states have specifically held that ‘a governmental agency may, in the absence of some prohibitory statutory or constitutional provision, engage in lawful competition with private concerns’.” Tobin and Tate concluded, however, with a recommendation that the School District set up a separate non-profit, adding, “the District can circumvent or avoid [state Department of Education objections] entirely.” Which it did.

• When the AVA asked Hersher recently why a school board would even want to operate a commercial business, he replied, “Well, that way there wouldn’t be a separate board to deal with. It’s simpler. As long as you’re only dealing with one board, you don’t have to worry about disagreements which would inevitably arise as board members on the different boards come and go.”

• So as long as you call yourself “non-profit” and you can convince the school board that your commercial business is somehow good for the kids, you’re legal.

* * *

In 2000 MCN also got a large (free) donation of some land and a building when a neighboring property owner died and left the property to the school district. The school board gave it to Innis’s MCN. MCN immediately announced ambitious plans to use the school and the new building to set up a large-scale business incubator for net-head entrepreneurs.

For all we know, MCN is operating in the black these days, and from all accounts Sprague is far more reasonable and pleasant than Innis was, and perhaps MCN doesn’t cost Mendo Unified continuing direct subsidies, but school budgeting and financing is always a confounding mystery which was and is easy to manipulate. Nor have we heard any complaints about MCN’s basic technical services.

A few years ago, MCN nearly went bankrupt when AT&T raised their rates for their connection to the internet backbone. It got so bad that Mendo Unified put MCN on the market. But there were no takers, presumably because no commercial operator could stay in business without the school’s subsidies. Sprague and his staff regrouped and kept MCN alive in the wake of that unsuccessful attempt — we don’t know how much, if any, money MUSD had to provide to keep MCN going. It was all played very close to the School Board’s vest.

But no matter how you slice it, even if MCN doesn’t cost the District directly these days, and even if their books say they return some money to the District occasionally, MCN could not exist without the substantial financial and administrative benefits they received during their start-up years and those that continue to come from being part of the school district: free/rent-free facilities, access to technical and admin staff, overlapping equipment purchases, lots of free overhead, no bothersome independent board, free legal advice, etc. — and, as part of a government entity, MCN pays no taxes.

Only in their wildest dreams could a commercial internet service provider operate with so much of their costs underwritten or not-applicable. Yet MCN charges rates comparable to other commercial ISPs in the area. Does the District really get as much money back as it should given their market-level commercial rates but lower operating costs? Only Sprague’s MCN knows for sure.

So the question still is: Is MCN benefiting themselves or the school district?

If left to the usual listserve posters such questions can be dismissed as just another unpleasant comment from the meany faces at the AVA, never mind that public tax money has been and continues to be wasted on a commercial business operated inside a school district.

SUPERVISOR MULHEREN:

What is happening with the water diversion from Lake Pillsbury and Van Aresdale? This Water Forum is (frankly huge) and has people from Sonoma, Mendocino, Lake, Humboldt and the NGOs (Non-Governmental Organizations) all trying to work together to come up (quickly) with a plan for the area related to PG&E decommissioning and the FERC process. www.russianriverwaterforum.org

* * *

Just because someone says something with conviction it doesn't mean its true. Ifs, ands, buts, all real things. Ask for more information. I have so many conversations about what "they" said/did. Who is they? One person? All People? Did you know that critical thinking IS being taught in schools, especially media research, social media fact checking etc. There is so much work to do to dispel myths but we can do it if we work together.

JOHN REDDING: 

I reacted to the posts from the local SEIU as follows:

Using the financial data provided by the County's website, a few things stand out. First, the cost of General Government (management, Supervisors, lawyers, etc.) has increased at a startling rate and has that hockey stick appearance. It is now 4x the amount spent on roads. Sheriff's costs have not gone up nearly as fast.

Second, look at the County's sources of revenues and you will discover that 50% of it comes from federal and state aid. Which is too much dependency since a lot of that aid depends on the politics of the day. Meanwhile, County revenues in the form of sales and property taxes have stagnated and the long hoped for cannabis revenues never took off.

I have said that the problem with the County's financial predicament is the declining state of our local economy. With each passing day and another round of regulations, businesses find it harder to stay in business not just in Mendocino but throughout the state. Also, an inability to address the housing issue has exacerbated this problem by creating a worker shortage.

The dire state of affairs in which we find ourselves begins first and foremost with those elected to represent us developing a sense of urgency about the problem.

ED NOTES

TUESDAY'S SUNSET was a stunner — mesmerizing, as viewed from the Boonville weekly's action desk. The unsettled weather seems to gift us with an even greater variety of golds as the setting sun dies on the east hills.

RECOMMENDED READING: ‘Big Trouble’ by J. Anthony Lukas, Simon & Schuster. I always laugh when I read that Idaho is the preferred retirement state for cops, most of them, I daresay, proudly marching behind the Great Orange Felon. Mendo’s former Sheriff, Tony Craver, headed for Idaho as soon as he was finished babysitting Mendocino County. I seriously doubt that Idaho’s MAGA brigades are aware that in the early part of the twentieth century Idaho was a socialist stronghold, an historical fact documented in Lukas’s brilliant book, ‘Big Trouble.’

IN DECEMBER of 1905, well before the days when America’s owners lived in fortified mansions and moved around in fleets of limos with their amen choruses, the former governor of Idaho, Frank Steunenberg, was killed by a bomb triggered by the latch on the front gate to his modest home in Caldwell, Idaho. He was so severely injured by the bomb that he died of his wounds a few hours later. 

STEUNENBERG had sided with mine owners as they brutally crushed mine workers’ unions, especially in the Coeur d’ Alene area of Northern Idaho. The miners fought back as best they could, often with the dynamite they used as their primary work tool. 

A FORMER MINER was pressured into confessing his role in the Steunenberg assassination for a light sentence in exchange for implicating union leadership in the killing of the former governor. That leadership included Big Bill Haywood of the IWW and two other left union leaders, Charles Moyer and George Pettibone. Eugene Debs later threatened to raise an army of socialists to free Haywood and his two co-defendants — the three of them essentially kidnapped from their homes in Colorado and whisked back to Idaho on a special bullet train.

LUKAS lays out the whole story so skillfully that it kept me up one long night reading it. Tragically, the author, fearing that his masterpiece wasn’t up to the standards he’d not only set for himself but imagined existed out there in TV land, committed suicide before the book was published. 

AS ENTERTAINING as he often is, DA Eyster may remember an even more amusing trio of DA candidates back in ’91 with Al Kubanis, Vivian Rackaucaus and Susan Massini. Kubanis came in third in the three-way race that elected Susan Massini DA. She would later fire Eyster at gun point for the sin of not supporting her for a judgeship. (Massini didn’t wield the gun, an investigator did, but Sue was, shall we say, temperamentally unsuited for a judge job. Eyster, incidentally, was backing the cretinous Ron Brown. Whatever else you might say about Massini, she wasn’t stupid.)

THAT RACE also included the wild and wacky incumbent DA, Vivian Rackaucaus, who, one memorable candidate’s night in Elk as the final speaker of the three candidates, declared in her final statement, “I’m the only candidate for this office who can honestly say I have never smoked marijuana.” 

MASSINI sputtered, Kubanis laughed. Viv, even a harder rightwing ideologue than Kubanis, who at least has a sense of humor, in her last term in office, sued famous Mendo criminal attorney Richard Peterson for failure to pay child support for their mutual child. What ensued was an hilarious round of fingerpointing as the child’s paternity was variously attributed to an array of members (don’t pardon the pun) of the County bar, including Judge Broaddus then sitting as a Superior Court judge. When defendants complain that justice in Mendocino County is incestuous they have no idea that it can be literally incestuous.

A READER COMMENTS: "I watched the documentary about OneTaste, and...uhh...um...HOLY crap! The cult's ‘spiritual leader’ is on beyond Elizabeth Holmes in the bullshit dept. The whole schtick to me seems to be about people who want to get laid. And exhibitionists who want to be seen. And adults who are really still children, who want to run around naked and not be yelled at by mommy. I'm glad the cult is in the crosshairs of law enforcement. It's bizarro that they were your neighbors. But then, not really, when you think about all the crazies who have made mendo their home. I also read ‘Homegrown,’ the Jeffrey Toobin book about Timothy McVeigh. Good (tho for me, not as compelling as his books on OJ Simpson and Patty Hearst).”

KEVIN BURKE of deep Laytonville with a weather note: “I was snowed out this year until April 10th at the top of Spy Rock. According to neighbors, there was 8-10 feet of snow on the ground in the second week of March!”

WENDLING WOMEN AT WORK

by Esther Mobley

On a chilly, stormy day at Wendling Vineyard, Romelia Fernandez ladles hot posole from an enormous cauldron into colorful ceramic bowls. The 14 women who work for her line up, piling their soups high with cabbage, radishes and tortilla chips, then take their seats at picnic tables under the awning of the tractor shed that's sheltering them from the oncoming rain. It's noon, but they've worked nearly a full day already, tying vines to the trellis to ensure they grow in the right direction.

After serving the group, Fernandez is the last to sit down to lunch, even though she's the guest of honor. Today is her 54th birthday.

Fernandez is the leader of the crew that farms Wendling Vineyard, one of Anderson Valley's top sites for Pinot Noir. "She's also our mom," jokes Wendling's owner, Paul Ardzrooni. She spends her days directing her workers as they move through the vineyard's various seasons: pruning the shoots, thinning the leaves, harvesting the fruit. And on special occasions -- Mother's Day, big harvest days and, every March 7, her own birthday -- she makes her workers a big pot of posole.

A decade ago, seeing a woman at the helm of a California vineyard would have been unusual. Because the work requires strength and endurance, women were long thought, in accordance with sexist stereotypes, to be unfit for it. Over time, shifting norms -- and a shortage of male labor -- have brought more women into vineyard work. Seeing them in the fields is no longer a rarity, and it's more common than it used to be to see a woman foreperson.

What is still very rare, however, is seeing a vineyard crew made up entirely of women, as Fernandez's team at Wendling is.

"I've never seen another," says Littorai Wines owner Ted Lemon, who buys Pinot Noir grapes from Wendling.

The existence of Fernandez's crew is especially notable in isolated, sparsely populated Anderson Valley. While vineyard owners in more crowded areas like Napa and Sonoma counties frequently complain of not being able to find enough labor, Fernandez has cultivated a loyal, skilled set of women who mostly live here in Philo, a town with a population of 319.

This tight-knit crew has distinguished itself as a meticulous, dependable presence in the vineyard, drawing praise from Wendling's winery clients -- which include Fel, Auteur, Cobb and Reeve -- for the consistency of the fruit they farm. Compared with others, "when I visit Romelia's crew, I sense there is clearly better communication," says Lemon. "A greater sense of camaraderie on a daily basis between the team members."

Ardzrooni credits that culture to Fernandez's calm, confident mode of leadership.

Fernandez moved to Anderson Valley in 2001 from Tepic, in the Mexican state of Nayarit, bringing her three sons with her. Her husband, Arturo, had arrived first a few years earlier to work for Ardzrooni's vineyard -management company, which is based in Anderson Valley but also oversees vineyards in Napa and Sonoma counties.

Moving from a city with hundreds of thousands of people to Philo, a town whose population is nearly 70% white, was jarring. "It was hard at first to adapt," Fernandez says, "but we did adapt." The Hispanic/Latino population of Mendocino County has boomed in the years since, growing by 14% between 2007 and 2016, according to the Center for Economic Development at Cal State Chico. Fernandez came to love the peacefulness of the community, the proximity to the ocean, the plentiful redwoods.

There aren't many job opportunities in Philo outside of wine and agriculture, so she decided to try to work alongside Arturo. She knew nothing about farming. Over time, she learned her way around the grapevines. She proved herself enough that, 12 years ago, Ardzrooni tapped her for a big promotion: He was getting ready to plant his own vineyard, Wendling, and wanted Fernandez in charge of it.

"Now, Arturo is semiretired, and Romi is really in her prime," says Ardzrooni.

The group she formed for Wendling became so successful that it inspired Ardzrooni, who employs about 100 people in total, to launch a second all-female crew a few years later for other vineyards he is contracted to farm in Anderson Valley. That one is led by Adela Fuentes.

Wendling is a challenging site to farm. It's the last vineyard in Anderson Valley before the Pacific Ocean, just under 10 miles from the coast as the crow flies. This is the deepest point of the so-called "deep end" -- how locals refer to the valley's far northwestern edge. It gets the coldest weather in Anderson Valley; generally, temperatures drop by about 1 degree for every mile traveled north from Boonville toward Philo. Wendling's location might make it too marginal for Pinot Noir, except that it's protected from the harshest cooling effects by its southeastern exposure and a ridge that blocks some of the coastal winds.

The 22 acres of grapevines are planted on steep, rolling slopes -- the sort of jagged landscape that would make mechanization impossible. "There's an industrial way to grow wine grapes, and this is the opposite," says Ardzrooni. Because the soil depth and composition varies significantly within the site, Lemon asked if Fernandez's crew could install two different irrigation systems within the same block of vines -- a labor-intensive endeavor that he's never had to ask for at any other vineyard. The answer: no problem.

Despite its wild topography, Wendling looks remarkably tidy, each vine nearly identical -- a testament to Fernandez's crew's attention to detail. Consistency matters in vineyards because it makes it more likely that fruit will ripen evenly from vine to vine, preventing a situation at harvest time where the grapes in one part of a row are sweet and plump while those on neighboring vines are still tart.

An additional obstacle is that different parts of the vineyard are farmed according to different protocols, based on the preferences of the winemakers who buy the fruit. Lemon's vineyard block is farmed biodynamically, a philosophy that incorporates the lunar calendar; other sections are organic; the rest follow sustainable practices, which encourages environmentally friendly techniques but still allows for the use of certain synthetic chemicals. The workers must apply distinct treatments to each section of vines, careful not to cross-contaminate.

Biodynamics is particularly demanding: For the Littorai blocks, Fernandez must follow the biodynamic calendar, which dictates that certain farming practices must be done on certain days. (Compost can only be spread during a period when the moon is descending, for example.) When asked if this is a bother, Fernandez shrugs. "It's all the same to me," she says.

Fernandez's crew works on other vineyards managed by Ardzrooni, too, but Wendling is where they spend most of their time. And Wendling is her undisputed favorite, Fernandez says, because "I planted it."

That fondness comes through in the distinctive character of the Wendling Pinot Noirs. "For me it has a combination of darker, more intense fruit with great acidity and pretty significant tannin," says Lemon. Unlike some Anderson Valley vineyards, which are known for expressing lighter, red-fruit flavors, Wendling can produce Pinots that taste powerful and brooding, an unexpected feature in such a cool climate.

As they scoop into their steaming bowls of posole, Fernandez's colleagues talk about what it's like to work with an all-women crew. "There's more trust," says Elidia Rodriguez. "I prefer it." Harvest, she adds, is her favorite time of year, despite the fact that it's also the most stressful -- and requires the earliest wake-up times, since grapes are usually picked in the middle of the night, when cool temperatures help preserve the fruit's acidity.

The women are not only coworkers -- they're also each other's entire community. Most of them live in Philo and send their children to the same schools. Their care for Wendling Vineyard is an extension of their care for the place where they live.

Next to the table of posole toppings is another stacked with wrapped presents, a cake and birthday balloons, a fitting celebration for the crew's leader. They wanted to show their appreciation for her today. Still, the women say, it's typical of Fernandez to have stayed up late, preparing a big meal for a crowd, the night before her own birthday.

They've emptied their bowls. Now it's back to the vines.

(SF Chronicle)

FRANKIE & ME

by Stacy Warde

This morning started out cold and foggy as most mornings have since Frankie's Lady hit the road nearly 10 days ago. Only in the past few days has the sun broken through the thick marine layer to warm up the ground, and a few struggling starts we planted for our summer garden.

I can sense changes, and how different the world is, not only from what I see in the news but in how the sun and ground feel. I sense a shift. I try to focus on nature, not in the Romantic sense but by using all my senses, by really listening and watching, and tuning in, without commenting or labeling. In this practice, I find great solace and virtue, wisdom and amusement. I learn stuff. I enjoy being alone, though good company in nature will always be welcome. Lately, my company has included Frankie, a host of birds and rabbits, some of them helping themselves to our berries and the seedlings we planted more than a week ago.

Not many people listen and watch any more, not to observe nature without superimposing their beliefs and fantasies, not without cell phones and cameras, and recording devices. I know, I do it. I go everywhere with my phone and camera. I have lots of fantasies, beliefs, and wishes, and I’ve wanted the world to be a different place than it actually is. But, occasionally, I let it all go, and just watch and listen.

Who really pays attention any more? Who's really absorbing the moment as it unfolds? This quiet observation doesn't feel romantic to me in the sense of abandoning reason, which I also love, and hope to develop. It feels more like tuning in...a far cry better than tuning out through the distraction of text messages or scrolling through the phone, looking for validation or whatever.

Nature, however, doesn’t offer an easy fix.

The sun emerges from behind the clouds with something beyond heat, it's penetrating and unsettling, with a cutting edge that disturbs more than warms. I once listened as a Ventura rancher, a fourth generation grower, lamented how his grandfather could count on 40 years or more of production out of his citrus trees but now he wasn’t sure if he could get five years out of them. The weather patterns, he said, had changed that much. It's a whole different dance now -- for everyone, farmers, ranchers, suburban dwellers, consumers.

One thing I’ve learned: Rarely, if ever, will you see a plant or animal, rushing, red-faced, tongue lolling out of their mouths, pulling at their hair and trousers, to get to a meeting on time. There’s no sense of hurry or rush in nature, unless for actual danger.

I once watched six turkey toms march a bobcat away from the vicinity of their broody hens (and my chickens, who were nearby), not with a rush and panic but deliberately, and with purpose. Three toms on the uphill side and three toms on the downhill side, like Roman sentries, trotted the predator with purpose far out of the area with strategic wonder. The bobcat had no other choice but to leave. There was no rush, no panic. Just simple teamwork.

I've known for decades that a cloud cover, the marine layer, will magnify the sun's most harmful rays, which seem more hostile today than ever. Now, dermatologists say, it's best to avoid the sun during its peak, between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m., and stay covered as much as possible. The critters know. You won't see them working out in the fields in the heat of the day. Cows and their calves lay themselves in the shade of an oak, chickens find shelter anywhere they can.

At 11:30 a.m., when the sun finally comes out, it warms up fast. Soon, it's too hot to work in direct sunlight. After three melanomas, I try to use caution outside, wear protective clothing, a sun hat, because the sun, as I remember it, was never so scorching as it is now. 

I stopped surfing years ago. I ran into the local kahuna once during a walk on the beach: “Where’ve you been?” he asked, “I haven’t seen you out in the water, lately, surfing.”

“Oh,” I said, “I had a melanoma removed. I’m being careful.”

“Don’t stop enjoying life. Don’t stop doing what you love,” he responded before turning to finish his beach walk.

Today, while working in the garden, I had to come inside to cool off, drink water, surrounded by Mendocino mosquitoes. Eventually, Frankie waltzed in to cool off with me.

On any given hot day, in my experience, livestock like cattle and chickens will seek the cool shade of a tree or, under the chicken coops, purposely raised off the ground to deter predators like badgers, skunks, raccoons, and worst of all, believe it or not, dogs, which apparently kill more home-based chickens than any other predator. It's possible, however, to train dogs to protect rather than kill these mostly flightless feathered odd descendants of the dinosaur.

No matter how hot, I’ve seen ranch hands like myself out in the scorching sun when most other critters are settling into the shade for the day to conserve energy, and avoid heat stroke. I recall repairing a shade cloth to protect some 50 distressed young chickens in 112-degree heat. No one should have been working that day. However, if I hadn’t repaired the shade, those pullets would surely have died.

I've seen Frankie seek cooler places in the yard when it’s hot, where he knows to find both breeze and shade, while I'm laboring in the sun, wiping sweat away from my eyes. He knows all of the actual cool spots in the yard when it's obviously time to be chill. And he shows no feelings of guilt about laying himself down and resting when necessary.

ON SATURDAY, MENDOCINO RIDERS TAKE ON THE "TERRIBLE TWO"

On Saturday, June 17, the Santa Rosa Cycling Club is hosting another edition of the "Terrible Two". It's an epic ride and one of America's most challenging endurance road cycling events.  Challenging is not the word.  It's a killer!

More than 45 years in the running, the Terrible Two -- also known as a "double century" -- is 200 grueling miles.  In just one day!

What makes the ride especially difficult is a total elevation climb of 18,000 feet. Again, in just one day!

By comparison, no single stage in the Tour de France has an elevation gain of more than 10,000 feet.

Who are these superhuman athletes?

Well, four come from Mendocino County. And guess what? They're all older riders.

Tony Tesoriere, age 55, Joe Turnbow, 58 and Julie Dunnebeck, 53, are from Ukiah and Redwood Valley.

Joe and Julie have done the Terrible Two. Tony is a newbie. 

Francisco Jordan-Ferrari, 42, is from Point Arena, and also has ridden the Terrible Two.

Julie, Tony and Franciso and Joe have been training on and off together for years.   

The Terrible Two is a timed road cycling event. It is not a race but a ride where the challenge is personal performance.  

The Terrible Two course has changed in many ways over the years but has retained most of its original and essential elements. Practical, logistical constraints have caused them to move the start/finish venue several times. Natural events--landslides, wildfires, poor road conditions, and more--have forced the race organizers to adjust the route many times. Their goal always remains the same: to stick as close as possible to the original vision of the event. 

Required finishing time is 18 hours. The majority of the riders finish with times between 14 and 17 hours, but many take until the 18-hour limit or even beyond. (All riders finishing by 11:00 PM—18-hour elapsed time—receive California Triple Crown points, although only riders finishing by the traditional 10:00 PM cut-off receive free a special item, in past years an "I DID IT!" t-shirt).

In a year with moderate weather, the finishing rate may approach 75%. When it is extremely hot, as it can sometimes be, the finishing rate drops dramatically. The 2012 event was the worst ever, with temperatures over 110° and with a finishing rate by 10:00 PM—16:30 elapsed time—of only 35%.

This year, the start/finish are in Sebastopol at the Sebastopol Art Center on High Street.  Riders make a big loop. The time cut off is 18 hours. Thus, watching the riders try to beat the time would involve watching riders start at about 5 AM and waiting at the finish line from 5 PM to 11 PM. This is why these riders get very little recognition.  They start before sunrise and finish at night.

You have to be an almost insane cyclist in order to try the Terrible Two. Can riders handle the solitude? Can riders handle the pain?

Those are the existential questions all riders in the Terrible Two ask themselves.

What does it mean to suffer? What does suffering on a bike really mean? Can it be measured, tested and trained?

Like great works of art, the Terrible Two seems to offer a tantalizing glimpse into the human condition pushed to an extreme, challenging our core beliefs.

The Terrible Two forces me to wonder about myself. Where does my ability to suffer rank by comparison? Why does one cyclist willingly endure horrible pain for the sake of a bike race while others decide it’s too much to bear? Where does greatness hide within me?

Cycling legend Eddy Merckx added a little more explanation: “Cyclists live with pain. If you can’t handle it, you will win nothing. The race is won by the rider who can suffer the most.”

See you in Sebastopol on Saturday!

Shannon Morris, MS PT 
Ukiah

CATCH OF THE DAY, Wednesday, June 14, 2023

THOMAS BADER, Ukiah. DUI.

JULIAN BARAJAS-GOMEZ, Willits. DUI.

THOMAS COOK, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol, failure to appear. (Frequent flyer.)

BLANE COSTELLO, Ukiah. Domestic abuse. 

CHRISTOPHER COWAN, Ukiah. Failure to appear.

CRISTIAN CRUZ-TALAVERA, Willits. DUI, no license.

TIA HIGGINS, Ukiah. Controlled substance, failure to appear, probation revocation.

JOSHUA MEDINA, Fort Bragg. Protective order violation, parole violation.

OMAR MERINO, Fortuna/Ukiah. Failure to appear.

JAMES MILLER, Ukiah. County parole violation, probation violation.

HANNAH SCOTT, Lakeport/Ukiah. Failure to appear.

GETTING SKUNK SPRAY SMELL OUT OF PETS

There is only one thing that really works on skunk spray: 

Professor Dr. Wm Wood's (Humboldt St. University Chemistry Professor) recipe. I've copied his recipe and information below.

Best to not feed pets outside. Always feed pets indoors and pick up the dishes and remove them as soon as pets are finished. Skunks are the apex predator. They are afraid of nothing, and I've seen bears, mountain lions, and raccoons leave their food and defer to a skunk. Skunks prefer not to spray, it is sudden noises or sudden movements or of course, a direct attack that triggers a spray event. If you come upon a skunk, just talk softly to it, the sound of your voice will be enough to get it to leave. Do not clap or stomp or shout (or bark) those are all good ways to get sprayed.

* * *

Skunk Spray Neutralizer

For pets that have been sprayed, bathe the animal in a mixture of:

1 quart of 3% hydrogen peroxide (from drug or grocery store)

1/4 cup of baking soda (sodium bicarbonate)*

and a teaspoon of liquid detergent (Dawn dish soap works best).

After 5 minutes rinse the animal with water. Repeat if necessary. The mixture must be used after mixing and will not work if it is stored for any length of time. Do not store in a closed container - it releases oxygen gas so it could break the container. This mixture may bleach the pet's hair. I have heard of one black Labrador retriever that was chocolate colored after this treatment. (Paul Krebaum's Recipe from Chemical & E ngineering News, October 18, 1993, p. 90).

Some additional tips.

Wash pet outside. 

To remove residual skunk odor from your clothes and any towels or rags used in this clean up procedure, wash them with one cup of liquid laundry bleach per gallon of water.

For buildings, decks, etc_., a solution of liquid laundry (Chlorox®) bleach (1 cup per gallon) will work. Caution - this may bleach the Buildings, decks, etc. Try it on a small area if bleaching may be a problem. The bleach must come in contact with the spot where the secretion was sprayed Repeated applications may be necessary for large amounts of the skunk spray. Do not use this on pets. It will not work for skunk spray that has drifted over a large area or is trapped in a house. Only time and adequate ventilation will help in this case.

Why tomato juice is believed to eliminate skunk odor, but doesn't. Bathing an animal in tomato juice seems to work because at high doses of skunk spray the human nose quits smelling the odor (olfactory fatigue).

When this happens, the odor of tomato juice can easily be detected. A person suffering olfactory fatigue to skunk spray will swear that the skunk odor is gone and was neutralized by the tomato juice. Another person coming on the scene at this point will readily confirm that the skunk spray has not been neutralized by the tomato juice.

THE NATIONAL BASEBALL HALL of Fame held its first induction, June 12, 1939.

“ONCE there were brook trout in the streams in the mountains. You could see them standing in the amber current where the white edges of their fins wimpled softly in the flow. They smelled of moss in your hand. Polished and muscular and torsional. On their backs were vermiculate patterns that were maps of the world in its becoming. Maps and mazes. Of a thing which could not be put back. Not be made right again. In the deep glens where they lived all things were older than man and they hummed of mystery.”

— Cormac McCarthy, The Road

HOW TO SOLVE THE DEBT PROB

Editor,

I’ve been amused lately by the hypocritical outrage by Senate Republicans over raising the National Debt ceiling.

Their boy, Trump, raised it three times during his administration and then went on to add more money to the National Debt than any other president in history except for Abraham Lincoln who had to pay for the Civil War and George Bush Jr., who wanted to help the rich get richer at the expense of the middle class.

The debt problem could easily be solved by removing the Bush and Trump tax laws which have proved not to work and putting a 1% tax on stock and bond transactions with retirement accounts exempted. These taxes wouldn’t affect anyone who couldn’t well afford them.

But alas, as founding father John Jay once said, “We (the rich) own this country. Why should we rule it?”

Sincerely,

Don Phillips 

Manchester

‘DOWN TO OUR LAST DIMES’: STATE WORKERS SAY CALIFORNIA PAYCHECKS NO LONGER COVER THE BILLS

by Jeanne Kuang

When Tammy Rodriguez landed a job with the California Department of Motor Vehicles 27 years ago, she felt like she had “struck gold.” It was her first job, she said, and she felt secure knowing she was earning not just a salary, but a pension for later in life.

Over the years she thought about looking for work at private companies to make more money, especially after she had a child. But she liked the other benefits of state work: the health care coverage, the flexibility of transferring departments when her family moved and the job security when she went on maternity leave. 

Now, at 52, she’s feeling less financially stable. The $2,100 monthly rent she pays for the home she and her teenage daughter share eats up half her earnings at the DMV in San Luis Obispo. Halfway through each month, she takes stock of their expenses and budgets to ensure she can afford gas for her 30-mile daily commute.

“I want the stability I had before, where I don’t have to worry about (living) paycheck to paycheck,” said Rodriguez.

That sentiment undergirds the contract talks this year for the Service Employees International Union Local 1000, the largest union representing California state government workers. The union has called for a 30% raise over the next three years and the full cost of health premiums covered. 

Rodriguez is active in Local 1000, which represents nearly 100,000 state government employees, from administrative staff to janitors to health care workers. Their current contracts expire at the end of June.

Can California pay?

Theirs are not the only labor demands the state has to contend with as Gov. Gavin Newsom and lawmakers seek to close a $31.5 billion hole in the budget. 

Local 1000 covers nine of the state’s 21 worker bargaining units. Five other units also have contracts that are up this summer and some are also seeking raises.

In total, expiring labor agreements cover more than half the state’s workers. 

For every $1 in potential raises there is an additional 32 cent increase in pension costs, making the 30% raise proposal total more than $3.8 billion over the next three years, the union said.

Irene Green, Local 1000’s vice president for bargaining, said there has been little response from the state on their proposals for the raise and full health coverage. California Department of Human Resources spokesperson Camille Travis declined to answer CalMatters’ questions about contract negotiations.

The union’s efforts come after teachers and staff at two large school districts held strikes this year — in Oakland and Los Angeles — netting double-digit raises. 

Would state workers strike? In 2016, Local 1000 voted to strike but workers did not walk out.

“Are we considering all our options? Absolutely,” Green said. “We’re not leaving anything unconsidered at this time.”

So far Newsom’s budget proposals this year have included funding for previously negotiated raises for other state worker unions, and he has spared workers from furloughs. But his administration has said there’s little room for new spending.

“We value our workforce; we value their sacrifice, particularly over the last number of years,” Newsom told reporters in May. “And we are mindful of the inflationary environment. We’re also hopeful that they’re mindful of our current budgetary environment.”

Lagging California paychecks

Public sector employees are among a broad swath of workers demanding higher pay amid record inflation, months after many were deemed “essential” during the pandemic. 

Advocates this year often point to a growing gap between wages and California’s cost of living. The United Ways of California this year sponsored a bill that would have forced the state to calculate what wages it takes to afford the basics in each county. The bill died in the Senate Appropriations Committee in May.

As the union prepared to bargain this year, it commissioned a reportby UC Berkeley’s Labor Center that found more than two-thirds of workers represented by Local 1000 don’t earn enough to support themselves and one child, and 35% don’t make enough to support a family of four, even with a partner earning the same wages.

Nationally, wage growth among state and local government workers was close to or exceeded private sector wage growth from 2001 to 2010, federal data show. But after the Great Recession, in 2010, government wage growth began lagging behind private sector wages and has not caught up, said Sara Hinkley, policy research specialist at the UC Berkeley Labor Center. Tax revenue uncertainties may be why, she added. 

Path to middle class

State workers in California often accept lower salaries than they would get at private businesses in exchange for a state pension, better benefits and job security. But rising costs coming out of the pandemic and wage hikes as the private sector responds to labor shortages are giving state workers pause. Is the tradeoff still a good deal? 

“Whether (state employment) is a pathway towards what we traditionally think of as the middle class is, I think, more questionable now,” said David Lewin, a professor emeritus at the UCLA Anderson School of Management who studies public sector unions. 

Even so, he said, public sector work is still a better deal in the Golden State than almost anywhere else. California has not made substantial cuts in state jobs or in state workers’ bargaining rights the way states like Wisconsin have.

The union says there have been other de facto cuts to state workers’ pay in California.

Over the last two decades, state workers have contributed more of their paychecks to health care premiums and retirement health plans. Former Gov. Jerry Brown signed a law that, among other things, made workers hired in 2013 or later pay more toward their pensions. 

Contributions to health care and pensions took up 5% of a typical Local 1000 member’s paycheck two decades ago and now consume 15%, the union says. The figures are based on pay and benefits for an associate program analyst, the job category the union says is closest to its members’ median salary.

During the pandemic, the state trimmed worker pay by 9% for one year, anticipating a deep recession that did not materialize. Workers got two days off each month in exchange. In 2021 the pay and work days were restored — as were raises from the current contract that totaled 7% over three years — when the state brought in record revenues.

Stuck with side jobs

On June 8 the state workers union held a rally outside the Governor’s mansionto demand better raises. Rita Krone, a 55-year-old program analyst who helps refugees, was there. 

When she got her job at the state Department of Social Services about a year ago, she thought she could finally put aside her side jobs.

But her rent is $2,200 a month and Krone, a Rocklin resident, is the wage earner and caregiver for her husband, who has a disability. She works Mondays through Fridays, then delivers groceries for DoorDash on Friday evenings and weekends. 

“We’re down to our last dimes,” Krone said. “So I work seven days a week.”

Pay for analyst positions like Krone’s was 17% less than equivalent jobs in the private sector in 2021, says the California Department of Human Resources. That’s with state benefits and pension factored in.

Looking at wages alone, analysts like Krone made 30% less than market pay.

ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

I read somewhere, I don’t know where, perhaps right here on this blog, that when the two sexes, male and female, become nearly indistinguishable that the empire is near collapse. 

Well, here we are. Women adorn themselves with tattoos and piercings as do the men. Women want to be men. 

Then there are men who wear makeup and many men want to be women. Gone are the manly masculine males who look and act like alphas. Males today wear skinny jeans, designer shoes and have neatly trimmed little pimp beards. 

Many days when I am out an about I pass by some poor soul and I can’t, for the life of me, determine if that was a male or a female.

IN KACZYNSKI COUNTRY

by Jeffrey St. Clair

As we crossed the Rockies on our way to Missoula, we descended into the small hamlet of Lincoln, the redoubt of the Ted Kaczynski. We ran into the woman who cut Ted’s hair after he was arrested. She now refers to herself as the Unabarber. Kaczynski wasn’t a total recluse. In fact, he was a familiar character in town. He used to pedal his bike down to the library, a fine-looking structure about the size of the average two-car garage in some midwestern city like Toledo, Ohio. After Kaczynski was nabbed, much commentary was made about how Kaczynski must of have been deranged, because he lived in such a “cramped and dingy” shack. But the Unabomber’s cabin is a pretty fair replica of the other houses in Lincoln, which real estate agents refer to as “idyllic retreats”, put on the market at $100,000 and find lots of buyers for. Kaczynski lived at the foot of Dalton mountain and from his road I’m told he had a sweeping view of the Blackfoot River valley and a pair of buttes a few miles to the west called Seven-Up Pete.

Unwittingly Ted K and I may have rubbed shoulders in Missoula at a four-day gathering of environmentalists at the University of Montana, called the Second International Temperate Forest Conference, where Kaczynski supposedly signed an attendance list under the name “T. Casinski.” Using Barry Clausen, the bumbling FBI informant who had infiltrated the radical environmental movement, as his source, ABC News’ fear-mongering reporter Brian Ross tried to smear Earth First! by claiming the Kaczynski bombing spree had been inspired by the rather sedate conference and the movement’s newspaper of record, the Earth First! Journal, then being published in Missoula.

But Ted K didn’t need any prodding. Some say the thing that really pissed off Kaczinski in the past few years was the plan by mining giants Phelps Dodge and Canyon Resources to demolish Seven-Up Pete with a new gold mine that would exceed in scale even the giant maw of the Zortman-Landusky mine. It was after the proposals were announced, these folks say, that Ted K. began showing up at environmental gatherings. The Seven-Up Pete plan was certainly outrageous. It called for the two 600-feet tall buttes to be leveled and replaced with a gaping hole 1,200-feet deep. Waste rock would be piled up in 800-foot tall mounds. The cyanide heap-leach pads would sprawl over 900-hundred acres of land. All of it right next to the Blackfoot River, perhaps the world’s most famous trout stream.

These are the sacred waters of Norman Mclean, the river of his book A River Runs Through It. Half of the land for the mine is owned by the state of Montana, the other half is part of a ranch owned by one of Montana’s most famous families: the Baucuses. The ranch is run by John Baucus; his brother Max is the senior US senator for Montana, a fashionable liberal who has the backing of Hollywood stars like Robert Redford. The Baucus family stood to make more than $14 million from leasing out this portion of their ranch a smelter and a mining waste pile.

Just outside Missoula we stop in a little bar called Trixie’s where cowboys, loggers, fly-fishers and river runners mingle, amicably it appears. Trixie was a rodeo showgirl in the forties known for her rope tricks and trick riding. After dark, Trixie, it is said, put her rope to more Sadean purposes and the establishment earned a reputation as one of the more rambunctious whorehouses in the west. Today, the bar serves thick and bloody hamburgers saddled with mountains of ranch fries and ice-cold bottles of Budweiser. Trixie’s is a micro-brew free saloon. Shortly after the feds hauled Ted K. away, Trixie’s began offering a popular t-shirt: “If you want a drink come to Trixie’s, if you want to get bombed go to Lincoln.”

(Excerpted from Born Under a Bad Sky. Jeffrey St. Clair is editor of CounterPunch. His most recent book is An Orgy of Thieves: Neoliberalism and Its Discontents (with Alexander Cockburn). He can be reached at: sitka@comcast.net or on Twitter @JeffreyStClair3.)

FIRST ROGER WATERS, NOW THIS: GERMANY PLACES AMERICAN C.J. HOPKINS UNDER INVESTIGATION

An American playwright faces jail for two vanished tweets. Q&A with the author about his ugly present, and our probable future.

by Matt Taibbi

It’s become axiomatic that the United States “lags far behind” Europe when it comes to hate speech law. Everyone from Joe Biden to would-be disinformation Czarina Nina Jankowicz to New York Times publisher A.G. Sulzberger have suggested the United States needs to move more in Europe’s direction, toward stricter rules and “illegal hate speech,” which “you will have soon also in the U.S.,” as European Commission Vice President for Values Vera Jourova put it at the Davos conference this year.

It makes sense. After all, who’s for hate speech? What possible downside can there be to disallowing expressions of racism, antisemitism, xenophobia, transphobia?

C.J. Hopkins can answer that. Following a similar case involving Roger Waters, the American playwright, Substack contributor, and editor of Consent Factory has been placed under investigation by a Berlin prosecutor for tweeting an image of his book, The Rise of the New Normal Reich. A scathing criticism of global pandemic policy, his cover features a white mask with a white swastika you have to squint to see:

According to German authorities, the author through this image is “disseminating propaganda, the contents of which are intended to further the aims of a former National Socialist organization.” 

Here are some other books legally on sale in Germany:

As was the case with Waters, the Nazi imagery in C.J.’s book is used to make a satirical point. Unlike the Waters case, there’s absolutely nothing in C.J.’s outside-of-text history that even theoretically could be used to argue hidden/dangerous subtext. 

“It would take all of about 20 seconds of anyone looking at my actual work to see how absolutely opposed I am to anything resembling, totalitarianism, fascism, authoritarianism, anything,” he says. 

I first read C.J. at the outset of the Russiagate scandal, when from the amusing Statler-and-Waldorf remove of expat life he wrote witty columns about how far off the rocker America had fallen. A terrific comic prose stylist, he ripped our culture for obsessing over “Putin-Nazis,” noting the new Russophobia was just “a minor variation on the original War on Terror narrative we’ve been indoctrinated with since 2001.” These columns are worth a re-read. C.J. was ahead of me, Glenn Greenwald, Aaron Maté, and others in seeing how Trump-era propaganda campaigns deranged the population. 

We had uncomfortable correspondence after Covid-19 hit, when I wasn’t so sure we were dealing with the same kinds of official lies this time, and worried about the wisdom, say, of writing “pandemic” in quotation marks. I rolled my eyes when I saw him cite an old quote from Hermann Goering, saying, “All you have to do is tell [people] they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger.” But he placed it astride this real quote from California State Senator Richard Pan, about “anti-vaxxers”:

These extremists have not yet been held accountable, so they continue to escalate violence against the body public… We must now summon the political will to demand that domestic terrorists face consequences for their words and actions.

In hindsight it’s incredible how many of us swallowed the notion that people who didn’t take the shot were “terrorists,” and needed the incentive of ever-harsher “consequences” to repent of their “violence.” That this was more religious movement than science was hard for some to see at the time. The tell eventually was that none of the messaging relented when details about the inefficacies of the vaccines came to light. Only a few were willing to say anything about this. C.J. was one, and even if you don’t agree with all he says — style-wise he often conducts literary operations miles behind hyperbolic lines — he said a great many things that were true and needed hearing. Now, he’s looking at charges for doing so. 

One thing The New Normal Reich is not is a celebration of Nazi imagery. Hopkins is taking current governments around the world that used the pandemic to assert sweeping power and comparing them to Nazi rule. Here’s an example, from a column called “The Germans are Back!” in November 2020:

On November 18, the German parliament passed a new law, revising the so-called “Infection Protection Act” (“Das Infektionsschutzgesetz” in German), that formally granted the government the authority to issue whatever edicts it wants under the guise of protecting the public health…

Now, this revised “Infection Protection Act…” is not in any way comparable to the “Enabling Act of 1933,” which formally granted the Nazi government the authority to issue whatever edicts it wanted under the guise of remedying the distress of the people. Yes, I realize that sounds quite similar, but, according to the government and the German media, there is absolutely no equivalence whatsoever, and anyone who even suggests there is… “a neo-Nazi conspiracy theorist” ... or whatever.

In no way does this kind of passage “further the aims of a former National Socialist organization.” It compares the current German government to Nazi Germany. The current German government in turn is openly validating that comparison by criminally investigating C.J. for the critique.

What’s more dangerous than outlawing hate speech? Giving someone the authority to define hate speech. Germany has already jailed one lockdown critic (Michael Ballweg, arrested in a dubious fraud case), while microbiologist Sucharit Bhakdi was taken to trial — acquitted, but still — for describing Israel as worse than Nazi Germany. The Roger Waters case investigates clearly satirical imagery. Set all those cases aside, however. C.J.’s situation is, openly, a case of a government seeking to criminalize criticism of itself, the dumbest and least defensible version of censorship possible. At the very least, other writers should be taking his side, and journalists should bring this case up anytime anyone even thinks about claming the United States is “lagging” behind Europe on the speech-law front. I spoke with Hopkins about his situation:

Matt Taibbi: This is pretty scary. How are you doing?

C.J. Hopkins: I’m all right, all things considered. I wrote in my piece today that it’s kind of a joke, and it’s not. I’ve got a good German lawyer now, and the lawyer’s going to be dealing with the Berlin State prosecutor, so that’s a big relief. Other than that, I’m basically just angry.

Matt Taibbi: Appropriate! Has anybody else raised any attention to your case? Other journalists, writers, artists?

C.J. Hopkins: Not anyone who has a really big megaphone. There are a lot of websites that repost my stuff when I write them, OffGuardian is one of them. They put a thing up. That’s about it. And some people on Twitter have done it, but no journalists… I copied one of my tweets to a lot of German journalists. Haven’t heard a peep.

Matt Taibbi: How did you first find out about this? What was the sequence, did they contact you in writing? 

C.J. Hopkins: Got a letter in the mailbox:

I was heading out to take my afternoon walk and do my shopping and that popped up in the mailbox. There’s a letter from the state prosecutor of Berlin notifying me that I am under investigation for — I think I’ve got it memorized by now — “disseminating propaganda, the contents of which are intended to further the aims of a former National Socialist Organization.”

You know, German is already a pretty difficult language. So try German legalese…

Matt Taibbi: What does it mean to be informed that you’re under investigation? In America, they wouldn’t have to do that. Obviously they would just investigate and then you would be told you were indicted or not. So what’s the difference and what’s the next step?

C.J. Hopkins: The way it works here apparently is that you get this letter, and the state prosecutor is notifying me that I’m now under criminal investigation for these charges, and then I have a chance to respond. They give me two weeks to respond to this notification. That’s what my lawyer is going to do. He’s going to file a response, which is basically a motion to dismiss — that’s the way Americans would understand it. It’s my chance and my lawyer’s chance to write to the prosecutor and say, “Okay, these charges are ridiculous and here’s why.” The prosecutor will consider that response, and then they will decide whether to go forward with the prosecution or not.

Matt Taibbi: They’re giving you a hard time about the content or the cover?

C.J. Hopkins: It’s two tweets. I don’t know what the tweets are because they haven’t produced them… The tweets I think have been removed from Twitter, so I can’t find them. It’s not clear whether the tweets are the full cover of my book, or just the artwork of my book. For example, like ZeroHedge just put on the piece that they just ran about the story. Anyway, what they’re charging me with or investigating me for is basically disseminating something with a swastika on it. And the weird part about it is, of course, you’re allowed to display swastikas in Germany for certain purposes. For historical purposes and what have you. You’re not allowed to display them if you’re a Nazi or neo-Nazi. But promoting Nazi ideology, of course, is exactly the opposite of what I was doing. But the part of the law that they cited states exactly that I posted this image in order to further the aims of a Nazi organization,

Matt Taibbi: But you’re certainly not enthusiastic about Nazism anywhere, are you?

C.J. Hopkins: I’m laughing because it would take all of about 20 seconds of anyone looking at my actual work to determine how absolutely opposed I am to anything resembling totalitarianism, fascism, authoritarianism, anything. The book is not comparing Germany to the Nazi regime. The name of the book is The Rise of the New Normal. Yes, I wrote about Germany. I live here. I also wrote about the U.S. I wrote about the U.K. I wrote about Australia and New Zealand, and the “New Normal” is the way that I’ve referred to the whole phenomenon that started in 2020. This is a global phenomenon. It’s not specific to Germany. But yes, I wrote a number of articles specifically about Germany because I live here.

Matt Taibbi: But one could interpret this as the German government being upset at being so compared? No? 

C.J. Hopkins: That’s exactly the way that I interpret it. If anyone with even a mid-range IQ were to glance at my body of work for 20, 30 seconds, they could determine my intentions and where my sympathies lie. The only way that I could interpret this, Matt, is as intimidation, bullying.

Matt Taibbi: Lastly, you’re a playwright by profession. How has all of this affected your relationships with people in like the theater world? Is there anything left of those relationships at this point?  

C.J. Hopkins: Nothing . It was one component of the massive heartbreak that I experienced over the last few years… Basically 99% of my old theater friends, theater colleagues, some of them just went silent and disappeared. Others I had huge fights with and falling out episodes with. The way the arts community and the theater community has reacted to all of this is just absolutely heartbreaking.

Matt Taibbi: This is a particularly important issue for theater, isn’t it? What they told people about the transmissibility of the virus had a massive impact on attendance and the ability to put on plays. Wouldn’t you think that there’d be a little bit of a re-think from people who were affected?

C.J. Hopkins: Well, you know about Tim Robbins. When Tim Robbins out and saidthose things on your site — “I was guilty of everything I came to understand was not healthy,” and “We’ve restricted people from working for too long,” that sort of thing — bless him. It was really important. He’s the exception to the rule. You’re talking about how it affected the theater. A lot of my plays are experimental plays, avant-garde plays, whatever you want to call them. There was a company, a British company, that did a revival of my oldest, best-known play, and they toured it in the U.K.. They took, took it to Australia recently.

They were on the verge of being completely destroyed. You know, the original UK tour that they had scheduled was to open in March of 2020, and boom, they were this close to bankruptcy. So many small theater companies went through it. Really this is the lifeblood of the theater, this is where the new ideas for the theater are created. This is where the fresh blood comes from. So many of these small theater companies, which struggle to survive normally, they get by on a shoestring, and they were crushed. I think part of the problem is, Matt, the entertainment business and the theater world, it’s a world that is dominated by fear. Everyone in the business is so terrified of alienating anyone or offending anyone who’s going to then mention it to someone’s agent who’s going to have drinks with some casting agent and producer, and then they’ll never work again.

Matt Taibbi: So, in that atmosphere, you couldn’t have your name being dropped – people would treat it’s as if it’s radioactive.

C.J. Hopkins: Absolutely.

Matt Taibbi: If in the eighties or nineties or the seventies, an American citizen in Europe had been criminally investigated for a speech offense, that would be a news story in America. Are you surprised at all that this doesn’t attract attention in the States?

C.J. Hopkins:  At this point? I’m not surprised. It’s really sad that I’m not surprised… I’ve been watching this for years. I’ve been writing about it and I’ve been called a conspiracy theorist for it. It doesn’t shock me anymore. It is standard operating procedure at this point.

Matt Taibbi: C.J., thanks for talking to me. If I understand correctly, we’ll get some news within a few weeks? You’ll keep us in the loop? 

C.J. Hopkins: I will. Thank you.

UKRAINE, WEDNESDAY, 14TH JUNE

EVERY DAY, a little closer to the nukes. Putin's threats Tuesday to escalate his invasion comes as Russian forces continued their endless assault on Ukraine by firing cruise missiles at the southern city of Odessa overnight. The attack, launched from the Black Sea, killed at least three people and injured more than a dozen others in a strike that damaged homes, a warehouse, shops and cafes. Amid Russia's response to Ukraine launching their much-anticipated counteroffensive Putin, speaking at a meeting with Russian war correspondents in Moscow, declared, 'The United States pretends not to be afraid of an escalation of the conflict in Ukraine, but sane people there clearly do not want to take this to a Third World War. In the event of a Third World War, there will be no winners, including America.'