AS A NEWSPAPER PERSON, I’m on the receiving end of a lot of insults. The insults don’t bother me. In fact, I enjoy them if they’re creatively abusive. But the cliches get to me. “Yellow journalism” is inevitably and inaccurately applied to some perceived offense by the AVA. When the term arose around the turn of the century as Hearst and Pulitzer battled for readers on the East Coast, yellow journalism included some very good writing about the real life struggles of ordinary people. Today, deep into the post literate age, your generic college grad, barely literate in many cases, thinks he’s really getting off a sophisticated zinger when he calls the AVA up and says, “You and your yellow journalism.” “Objectivity” — lack of, is another naive knock. If you think a writer’s social class, his education, his innate intelligence, his life experience and, most importantly, his employer, don’t influence what appears in print, well, you’re…. well…. uh…. unprepared for the discussion.
THE GOOD NEWS. A local marijuana guy reports he just sold two pounds for a thou each.
IS THIS a racist joke or funny, or both: How do you know Adam and Eve weren’t Chinese? They didn’t eat the snake.
HAVE TO AGREE with Sarah Kennedy Owen that the Buddhists at Talmage are a “public benefit,” but my colleague, The Major, peevish generally, and specifically peevish whenever his “facts” are challenged, didn’t cite any “facts” in his comment, only an opinion. Myself, I think the restaurant the Buddhists operate on their Talmage campus is a major public benefit all by itself.
WATER. It’s getting scarce in Mendocino County, but all the relevant elected bodies are entirely in the hands of the exploiters and the developers. As the degradation of the Russian River becomes evident even to the unseeing and the self-interested, the state reacts by studying what is obvious — that the 110 miles of the Russian River is now almost fish free, wineries are taking even more of its depleted waters (which in any case mostly derive from the diverted Eel), gravel extractions have seriously damaged the Russian in the Healdsburg area, and that the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors, rather than force developers to slow down for lack of water and sewage infrastructure, have further damaged the Russian by using it as an impromptu leech field. Community water boards the length of the Russian River are in the hands of large scale ag and development interests, the two often being interchangeable.
IT COULD HAPPEN HERE! From the San Rafael Independent Journal: “Everyone is invited to attend a ‘Clown Worship’ at the Episcopal Church of the Redeemer at 10 a.m. tomorrow in San Rafael. Wally the Coach, the Rev. C.H. ‘Skip’ Fotch, will mime the story of Jesus and the Last Supper. The liturgy allows each individual to focus on their unique spirituality.”
IT’S TRUE that working people are priced out of much of the Mendo housing market, but working people are priced out everywhere else, too, given all the givens of contemporary capitalism. Present zoning in the county gives us lots of open space but also has created a situation where only the wealthy can buy, say, the typical available forty acres then build on it.
IN THE EARLY 1970s, better funded people, many of them back-to-the-landers, were able to buy logged over parcels with water on them very cheap. $20k on generous terms from the usurers could get you 40 acres in the denuded hills. That unique market prevailed until the end of the 70s. Since, the only new housing built in Anderson Valley has been up-market fastnesses on large parcels.
PICKED UP one of those Good Housekeeping-type mags the other day in a waiting room out of desperation for something to read and came across a piece by, of all people, the novelist Jay McInerney (Big City, Bright Lights), called “What Goes with Turkey?” Mac says, “Good companions for turkey include burgundy, champagne, zinfandel, Pinot Noir, Gewurztraminer, and rose champagne,” which seems a roundabout way of saying any liquid with alcohol in it.
WHEN Random House asked Cormac McCarthy whether he had any connections who could help sell his third novel, “Child of God,” about a necrophiliac serial killer, he replied in a letter, “Ed McMahon (of ‘The Tonight Show’) is an acquaintance. We went fishing off Bimini together back in the spring and went partying together at Cat Cay (until he fell off the dock and had to be flown to Lauderdale to the hospital). You might try to place a copy in his hands. He does read. (Not like he drinks, of course, but some.)”
CARRIE SHATTUCK, candidate for First District Supervisor, writes: “Regarding our proposal that the County demand that the state pay for the jail expansion overrun: The County received $25 million, the state maximum for the jail expansion. Your follow-up suggestion to "get it in writing,” that there is no further state contribution, is a definite must.
Regarding our proposal that the re-establishment of the Water Agency and associated consulting costs be postponed]: The water agency budget reflects only the state mandated programs and memberships, per Howard Dashiell, Director of Transportation.
Per our recommendation that the County dispense with San Francisco lawyers to do their labor negotiations: The County is not contracting outside counsel for labor negotiations this coming fiscal year, Cherie Johnson, in the CEO'S office is handling the negotiations. They may consult with an outside attorney at times, to make sure they're following the law, with a maximum of $30,000 for lawyer services.
The County needs to have current default property tax reports. A tax auction has not taken place since 2019.
Per my website: votecarrie2024.com
Considering that the coming year’s budget (2023-2024) was balanced by using one time funds, which is not sustainable, and the Board did not even consider taking a cut themselves, I will, if elected, take a 50% reduction in the current Supervisor's (McGourty) salary, of $100,002.78 (2022-23) before retirement and benefits, to immediately help the County with its budget crisis. This Supervisor seat is not about the money or prestige for me, it is about OUR County, the people's home.
I have attached the current Board's salaries.
WHATEVER HAPPENED to James Nivette? Nivette, a consultant for the Mendocino County Office of Education, was a middle aged satyr who made an after-hours career of seducing impressionable young women. Nivette must have had lots of unresolved issues, as the lower rungs of Therapy Land describe everything from sleeplessness to mass murder, because he emptied two loads of bullets into his twenty-five year old girlfriend, turned their toddler loose on the late-night streets of Folsom, then flew home to mommy in France. Given France’s refusal to extradite people facing the death penalty unless they are Arabs or Africans, Nivette knew he wouldn’t soon be looking wistfully at the Corte Madera Shopping Center out the sixteen inch window of his death row cell at San Quentin.
ALTHOUGH NIVETTE had had his license revoked for having sex with his patients — “Take your clothes off and lie down, Ms. Jones, and we'll start you on your long road to recovery” — he had been hired as a consultant by MCOE’s Family Literacy program. Why a family literacy program required a therapist is not known, but there he was. The program’s director, Roberta Valdez, told the Ukiah Daily Journal’s Glenda Anderson that Nivette “was a very professional person. Very helpful. And he did the job and he did it in a professional and friendly way.”
U.S. AUTHORITIES appealed to France to extradite Nivette, which the French, having been assured that the killer would not face the death penalty, agreed to do, and the former Mendo therapist was duly convicted in 2003 of second degree murder for killing Gina Barnett and then running for the airport, leaving his 18-month-old son outside in the night street. (The child was soon placed in the custody of his maternal grandmother.) Nivette got 18-to-life in 2000. When he’s released he could return to Mendocino County calling himself Niv Janes, family counselor, Mendo being the kind of unique place where you are whatever you say you are, and history starts all over again every morning.
DEB SILVA WRITES, re James Nivette
James Nivette is still in prison! He's at the Chino prison aka California Institution for Men (CIM). I copied everything from his prison inmate locator page. His next parole hearing is August 1st of this year.
ON A TRIP to Ukiah the other day, a street guy, against the light, dashed across the busy intersection at Talmage and South State, and only the lightning reflexes of a woman making a left turn saved the street guy from being hit. He continued on a fast walk oblivious, or uncaring on some urgent crank-fueled errand, heedless of how close he came to the emergency room. At two businesses, the clerks were also tweeked, one more or less functioning, the other so loaded, (and scantily clad) that she was galloping in place and making bird sounds, much to the snarling displeasure of her fellow clerk.
UKIAH probably has more “helping professionals” than any other town its size in America, yet there is always at least a full platoon of people on the street who are obviously unable or unwilling to care for themselves, among them, to be sure, “non-reimburseables,” as the hopeless cases are known among the cash and carry helpers, and. here we are with thousands of hospital-quality cripples roaming the streets of the United States.
FORMER SUPERVISOR Johnny Pinches used to carry a County budget with him which he’d thoroughly annotated, underlining all the unnecessary expenditures the County doles out. Redwood Valley’s candidate for First District supervisor, Carrie Shattuck, seems to be in the cost-saving Pinches tradition. She has promised to take only half her Supe’s salary if elected, a promise that undoubtedly caused silent panic among the sitting supervisors, each of them collecting a hundred grand a year plus benefits for part-time “work.” I like Ms. Shattuck’s ferocity, her no bullshit approach to the supervisor position. In the twittering context of the nambo pambo crew in the job now, she’s especially interesting, exhilarating even.
THANKS to the Supervisors’ haste to anoint a vapid Democrat to succeed Glenn McGourty in the First District seat, they’ve again revealed the grip that Northcoast Democrats have on elected offices on the Northcoast, and not to the benefit of the people who live here.
ON THE OTHER HAND, by prematurely anointing Trevor Mockel for the First District seat, as directed by state senator McGuire via Fifth District Supervisor Williams (presumably), the supervisors have probably doomed the candidacy of the beaming cipher.
MOCKEL’S only “qualification” is that he’s functioned as an aide to Democrat McGuire, a state senator and the man behind the mega-scam called The Great Redwood Trail, so far a redwood-free, two-mile stretch of three million dollar pavement running through East Ukiah’s industrial wastelands. (The Democrats are also behind the new County Courthouse no one except the mostly Democrat (and one Republican, Mayfield, judges want, and they have also managed to destroy for all time the railroad that used to run from Marin to Eureka. How the Democrats got the railroad signed over to them is a well-documented by irreversible scandal.)
THE ACTIVE Democrats of Mendocino County — about 25 lockstep conservative liberals who pretend that Biden isn’t ga-ga — try to control every elected office in the county, from school board seats to the supervisors.
WE ALSO LIKE the candidacy of Adam Gaska of Redwood Valley whatever is political registration. Gaska’s a thoughtful guy who conscientiously studies the issues and would make a good, independent supervisor. Too bad Shattuck and Gaska are both running from the 2nd District.
WHILE THE SUPES discuss budget cuts without seriously considering lots of stuff that should have been whacked years ago, how about eliminating their own travel and conference stipends? They make almost three times the average income of their constituents and should pay their own way here and there and to jive conferences in places like Las Vegas and Carmel.
DITTO for all department heads, including the DA and the Sheriff.
BACK AWAYS, my brother Rob, who has never been what you would call upwardly mobile, was working for Taco Bell in Ukiah when he decided to make a lateral career move and applied for a County job cleaning cages at the dog pound south of Ukiah. Hustling over to the Courthouse for an interview to hopefully become Dog Doo Sweeper Level 1, he hadn’t had time to change into his civvies from his Taco Bell uniform. Ushered into a conference room, Rob was mildly shocked to find himself seated at a table around which were arrayed a half dozen or so Ukiah Nice People, all of them securely fixed to the public payroll. They were interviewing, you see. Not just anybody could sweep out kennels; it was very important to get a properly deferential person, an appropriately grateful one. It was also a plausible way in the context of public employment Mendo style for them to dick off for a paid afternoon. Needless to say, bro didn’t get the job. They must have thought he had divided loyalties. Or maybe the Animal Shelter supplied Taco Bell’s meat. Who knows?
THE ENDLESS MATTER OF DOUGLAS STONE, AKA THE BANDIT OF REDWOOD VALLEY'S BLACK BART TRAIL
JOAN VIVALDO WRITES: California's January 2023 Penal Section 1001.36 allows for mental health diversion for treatment before trial if certain conditions are met. If the treatment program is successfully completed, there is no trial. The Court's preliminary decision on the Mental Health Diversion motion for PTSD made months ago by Douglas Stone was to be given on June 12, 2023. The final ruling was to be given June 16, 2023. Neither occurred. Instead, on the 16th, Judge Faulder completed case paperwork for his final decision, and any future appeal. He queried participants for any objection to the diversion motion, and when there were none, set the hearing for August 21, 2023, at 9am. Mr. Stone requested six months mental health diversion; Assistant DA Heidi Larsen one year. The Court may impose two years.
Background: https://theava.com/archives/125212
A FRIEND and I have talked about writing an insider’s guide to the Northcoast, but I wonder if there are enough people out there even interested in getting more than a half an hour away from a Big Mac. As bereft as Ukiah is by most standards, there are several reasons for swooping in off the freeway. There’s the Mutt Hut, the Garden Cafe and my fave, the Windmills, an old school ham and eggs kinda place where the waitresses call everyone, “Hon.” If you drive real slow, or walk around town, there are some interesting old buildings in traditional form and some art deco jobs that make you curious about how they came to be, and a few truly unique structures that you wish you knew more about. I'd like to lure the ace photographer, Jeff Goll, to do a ride along with me some time for a photo essay on our county seat's most interesting buildings.
THE MAIN DRAG, and it is truly a drag, what with thanatoids lurching about. But out on the fringes of town there’s a very good vegetarian Chinese restaurant at what is now called the Buddhist Center but was once a State Hospital where the grounds and old California mission architecture are worth a dual eat and gawk visit; and there’s the Germain-Robin distillery, which used to be in the hills west of town but somewhere in Ukiah the world’s finest brandy is produced. I think they have a tasting and sales room in the post-industrial tin cluster of random enterprises near the Redwood Health Center. When they were producing their first batches of premium booze, they sent promotional bottles to the ava in gratitude for our praises, but now that they're big time, no more freebies.
AND THERE'S the Grace Hudson Museum, which is certainly worth a visit. Grace herself was a late 19th, early 20th century painter, and a pretty good one. A little heavy on the happy papooses, but good at catching one reality of that time, which was not a happy time for Indians anywhere, and certainly not in Mendocino County. The basic prob with Ukiah, and thousands of similarly-sized towns in our battered country is that the money people have withdrawn from public participation. Prior to World War Two, Ukiah was a pretty and coherent little town whose money people took great pride in what their town looked like. No more.
WILLITS. There used to be a very fine chocolate-maker in Willits but she’s long retired, but remaining is a truly wondrous comic, music and used book store called the Book Juggler, a fine little good food store called Mariposa Market, which is a terrific food vendor where you can also get the best soup in all of Mendocino County outside the County Jail where, for some peculiar reason the soup is superb. It certainly was superb the last time I was housed there, anyway. In Willits, there’s also a nifty little coffee shop called Hava Java. Willits is quite pleasant since its liberation by a freeway bypass that skirts town to the east. The County museum is worth a visit after years of neglect, as is the next door train exhibit.
I HAVEN'T VISITED the North County in some time, or Covelo, the latter one of the most beautiful valleys in the state, and home to the Buckhorn, an exciting bar that gets more exciting as the evening ages. In the summer months, there are some wonderful swimming holes in the Eel, along which runs Highway 162. Also, if you've never done it, Highway 162, which bisects Covelo, runs up and over the Mendocino Pass to Willows and I-5, a beautiful drive with austere campsites not far off the road in the Mendocino National Forest. The kind of people who haul their whole house with them wherever they go seldom make it to Covelo, probably because they can’t get cell reception on their cells. You will be undisturbed.
IF I WERE planning a trip to Mendoland, I’d avoid the village of Mendocino because it has been totally ruined by speculators and shlock merchants, but keep on going north ten miles to Fort Bragg where the harbor is interesting, and the town retains its traditional mill town — stop me before I write “charm” — retains its “real place” feel. The old Haul Road bordering the Pacific is a rare amenity. Where else can you find miles of bracing seashore vistas and unvisited beaches? For you gastro-maniacs, Fort Bragg also has a bunch of very good, reasonably priced restaurants, including some fine seafood specialty places in the harbor.
AFTER FORT BRAGG, I’d head on up the Coast for your basic ocean vistas all the way up Highway One through Westport, with its fine old hotel, then swing east to Laytonville over the mostly unpaved Branscomb Road, which climbs high enough for some instructive views of before and after forests — before and after clearcutting. For the comprehensive logging blitz show, the adventurous can drive the Sherwood Road east out of Fort Bragg, arriving eventually at Willits. If the road is open. Four-wheel drive recommended. (I've managed to get stuck out there twice over the years and, one time, had to foot it all the way back into Fort Bragg, the other time some wandering Fort Bragg youngsters pulled me out with their fully equipped, tank-like gro-dozer.)
G-P AND L-P totally destroyed an area of twenty miles of Sherwood between Fort Bragg and Willits. The road is impassable in winter and in the summer you are likely to encounter Deliverance types commuting to their crank labs. I don’t drive that road without a gun handy.
POINT ARENA is still relatively unspoiled, but south of PA there’s the Sea Ranch — identical multi-million dollar redwood boxes in a setting like a giant golf course and huge homes out on the bluffs that look like Wayne Newton lives in them. Gualala is Ukiah strung out along the Pacific.
ELK is an oddly oppressive little place as you can tell from its purple buildings, always the tipoff that the feebleminded have assumed the civic reins. The town is dominated by former hippies who have gotten heavily into New Age. The Elk Store is a little jewel of a country market with really good food to go. The Postmistress is a normal person as are the Matsons who run the garage. Otherwise, don’t talk to strangers. The typical Elk resident exudes a kind of social nerve gas, paralyzing the unwary with fake niceness and lunatic theology. I'd stopped drinking just as Bobby Beacon's nationally famous Beacon Light Bar got rolling, written up in the New York Times as among the best dive bars in the country. I still intend to get over there for at least a Coca-Cola. The Beacon Light is south of Elk a bit, up on the hill overlooking the ocean. Mr. Beacon is the bar's famous and eponymous proprietor who, I'm told, is an unforgettable raconteur as he serves up generous drinks at ruinously low prices.
MENDOCINO COUNTY is an interesting place, but the tourism people aren’t paid to tell you about what sets the county apart. All you hear from them is winery winery winery. (Seen one, seen 'em all.)
DANIELLE STEEL: “There's no style, nobody dresses up—you can't be chic there [San Francisco]. It's all shorts and hiking books—it's as if everyone is dressed to go on a camping trip. I don't think people really care how they look there.” Or anywhere, really. I remember when women, including my mother, would not go downtown without hats and gloves. The men all wore suits and fedoras.
THE ONLY ELECTED Mendo supervisor in recent history to enjoy a broad base of support — a mix of libs and conservatives — was Johnny Pinches of the Third District. The libs liked him for his hands off approach to marijuana, the conservatives liked him for his hands off approach to land use issues. I liked him because he was miserly with public money, generous with his own. And he paid more than lip service to campaign reform by limiting political contributions to himself to $49.
THE PRESENT SUPERVISORS have been elected by lib blocs in their districts. At election time, the local professional Democrats beat the tom-toms for their boy, seldom a girl incidentally, and presto-magico we get Williams; Gjerde; Haschak; McGourty; and Mulheren, although ‘Mo’ doesn't seem to have any political opinion either way beyond Niceness, which isn't a political stance so much as it is a kind of Zen non-presence, but a stance that goes over boffo with Ukiah's large liberal voting population of bliss ninnies, aka NPR zealots. What was that movie starring Vincent Price wherein whenever he's being yelled at by people unhappy with him, the gentle plucks of a harp are heard, and Vincent zones totally out, mentally drifting up, up and away, a big smile on his face, until the unpleasantness is over. Mo always reminds me of Vincent Price in that movie. Of the five, I'd say Haschak is the most responsible, but with this board the bar couldn't be lower.
WHEN'S the last time you read a page-turner of a biography? I read a lot of bios and histories these days, having given up on fiction. But with many biographies it’s a hard slog through five-, even six-hundred pages of turgid academic prose, with only a passage here and there of any interest. But Gellhorn, A Twentieth Century Life by Caroline Moorhead is a veritable thriller, as was Martha Gellhorn herself, usually the only female war correspondent in combat zones ranging from the Spanish Civil War, through World War Two, the Chinese Civil War, to Vietnam, to El Salvador. (She said Salvador was the only place that really, really scared her.) Unfortunately for Gellhorn, she is primarily remembered as one of Hemingway's wives. (The great man doesn't come off too well in Gellhorn's accounts of him; no surprise to readers who've read biographies of him.) Not only is Martha Gellhorn a uniquely vivid writer among war correspondents, she's a uniquely vivid writer period. Reading her life story is also reading a history of twentieth century conflict, and to come away amazed at the range of her friendships — Eleanor Roosevelt to Leonard Berstein to writers and soldiers all over the globe. I hope someone will read this one and report back. It was so interesting to me it kept me up at night reading it.
ONE OF THE MANY MENDO PERKS are the used book stores in Fort Bragg, Ukiah, Willits and last time I looked, Mendocino. Book stores, like weekly newspapers, are endangered species. Years ago I collected Modern Library editions from ML's best years of the forties and fifties when they came with brilliant cover art. I had delusions of possessing a rare complete collection, and would make used book stores my first priority to visit wherever I went, from Nevada City to Eugene. But I gave up when I learned that a movie star, I forget which one, had cornered the market. He had them all, the only known complete collection, including several that were extremely rare.
A PARTICULARLY difficult book store guy owned Books Etc. in the Castro District of San Francisco. He was Mr. Big in all of the United States for Modern Libraries. This guy was something of a collector’s item himself, being a cranky old Englishman who looked and talked like the late Alfred Hitchcock. I was delighted one day when he gave me change for a ten when I had given him a twenty, the first time I’d been shortchanged in years. I felt young again! On another occasion he whispered conspiratorially to me to join him at the locked cabinet behind the counter where he kept the rare Modern Libraries. “Only $38 for this one,” Alfred said, holding a mint condition copy of Man’s Fate in front of my face. “A little steep for me,” I demurred. “Man’s Fate is a pretty common M.L.,” I said, trying to let Al know I wasn’t the complete fish he knew me to be. But any M.L. with a pristine cover sent me into a kind of acquisitive psychosis. “I've got to have it!”
SEVERAL of the books in that locked case haunted me. I wanted them all. I didn't have any of them in the perfect condition Books, Etc. had them locked away. I thought about breaking in some late night, maybe even holding Mr. Hitchcock at gunpoint. “Gimme all those books in the locked case, and be quick about it, you limey crook.” He knew me, though, so all I could do is bargain with him. And I never won. A week later I was in the store again. Hitchcock wasn't there. A young guy was at the cash register. Haunted by the prospect of the books getting away from me, I asked the clerk to open the magic cabinet for me; he pulled out the same verbally-priced $38 book which was actually pencil-priced $16 on its inside jacket. This place had real personality. The nerve of that fat bastard trying to get $38 out of me for a $16 book. But he knew I lusted after it. This kid didn't know me.
A WEEK LATER, determined to get the book or die trying, I went back. After a fifteen-minute hunt I found a parking space a couple of blocks off Castro and footed it on down the block between 18th and 19th where Books Etc. has been for years and years and had been exactly one week prior. I couldn’t find the store. I walked up and down the block about five times looking for it, perhaps arousing the suspicions of several trim young men lounging in doorways that I was shopping for one of them. I finally went so far as to cross the street for a panoramic search of the block and its vanished stock of precious books.
BUT BOOKS ETC. was no more. In a week its thousands of books had been moved out and its premises transformed into some kind of chi-chi kitchen appliances outlet. I went inside the blasphemous new store’s operating room brightness. Gleaming carrot juice machines glared back at me where quite an intriguing array of my beloved MLs once rested in their original jackets. I asked the clerk, a middle-aged man with several ear rings and green hair, “What happened to the book store?” Looking over my shoulder, and in the voice of a death camp guard, he replied, “Book store? What book store?”
MIKAEL BLAISDELL OF CHANGE OUR NAME FORT BRAGG:
An Afternoon At The Caspar Marketplace
I stood watch at the Change Our Name Fort Bragg booth at the Caspar event this afternoon, and was pleasantly surprised at the scene. Most of the people who stopped by (in my view) to chat were generally in favor of the change, and they represented a wide range of ages and backgrounds. Under 30's, 40-somethings, older people; some were newcomers to the area while others had been here for many decades.
There were a few dedicated FBF'ers (FortBraggForever adherents) who briefly stopped to sneer or to be rude, but they were quick to run away when asked about their reasoning. Most visitors, however, were interested in listening and asking questions. The majority knew nothing about the true history of the area. They definitely didn't know that the "fort" here was not a typical army base for defending the country, it was a concentration camp for incarcerating the Indian tribes in order to ethnically cleanse the coast and to use the inmates for slave labor.
One man engaged me briefly in conversation, expressing how he was uncomfortable with “erasing” history. “The only way to erase history is to never talk about it, never question it, and to make sure that it is never taught to young people,” I replied. I then gave him a question: “If the majority of the locals were fully aware of all of the history of what was done here, do you think that the old name would be continued?” He went away in silence, but came back later, clearly struggling with the meaning of the likely answer.
And that's what the work of the Change Our Name Fort Bragg group is all about. Education. Not “erasing” history, but spreading it, acknowledging it, and its relevance to who we are today as a community and to where we are going in the future.
ED NOTE; As it happens Mikael Blaisdell, just yesterday I extended an offer to Lindy Peters of the Fort Bragg City Council to debate the Name Change issue, preferably with your pied piper, Professor Z, but I'll settle for you. My thinking is we can charge a buck or two, with the proceeds going to a worthy Fort Bragg cause. Preliminarily, I'll say that I consider the Name Change effort dangerous to the truth of the genesis of the naming of Fort Bragg, and dangerous generally to historical truth. Let me or Lindy know if you or the prof are up for it.
POTTER VALLEY READER: Whoever was hitting mailboxes Saturday night/Sunday morning was in a white, extra cab, older style, Toyota pickup with a stereo system. It was between 3:45 and 4:30 am. We have them on camera and I saw them myself sitting in the middle of the road with someone in the back of the truck. I didn't realize that they were hitting mailboxes until this morning. Hopefully someone will recognize who it is and they will do the right thing.
ED NOTE: It's called “baseball,” at least that's what it was called in Boonville when drunken kids, all male of course but occasionally with little Debbie shrieking encouragement, would lean out of their speeding vehicles and whack a mailbox with a baseball bat. Vics who got baseballed more than once encased their mailboxes in concrete or otherwise made them baseball proof.
FORMER Harvard swimmer, Abby Carr, rightly slammed the Biden administration for using the debate over transgender athletes as “their civil rights moment” at the expense of female athletes. Ms. Carr said the Biden forces think this bogus activism is going to save transgender sports, but argues that the administration is “doing that by discriminating against women.” Ms. Carr competed and lost to trans swimmer Lia Thomas last year.
A RECENTLY DIVORCED woman was walking on the Mendocino Headlands when she spotted a jug out of which arose a genie. “I can help you get over the pain of your divorce,” promised the genie. “I’ll grant you three wishes, but I caution you, everything you get your ex-husband gets twice.” The woman thought it over, sighed, and said, “Oh well, give me ten million dollars.” The genie immediately handed her the cash in big denomination bills, saying, “Your ex gets $20 million.” The woman groaned but asked, “Too bad that bastard’s rich now, but what the hell, give me a 50-room home with an ocean view.” The genie, handing her the keys, said, “He gets a 100-room castle next door to yours. Are you sure you want your third wish?” The woman paused, then demanded, “Beat me half to death!”
COUNTY COMMENTS OF THE WEEK
[1] In Mendo the BOS takes direction from the incompetent and corrupt County Counsel and CEO both of whom got huge pay raises last year just before starting salary negotiations with the employees. Ted Williams was loudest in telling the employees there was no money.
They negotiated a one year deal telling the employees they’d get them a COLA next year. Now, a year later, Williams is still saying they have no money. But they paid out over $500,000 for attorney’s because on advice of County Counsel and the CEO they picked a losing fight with the Sheriff over his budget. And the legal fees are over $600,000 just for their attorney in a fight with the former Ag Commissioner. And they illegally tried to charge for Public Record Act requests but backed down when threatened with legal action.
Now County Counsel and the CEO are illegally trying to shut down the First Amendment rights of Librarians? The Mendo BOS keeps following County Counsel and the CEO over a cliff. You wonder if they’ll ever start paying attention or will they just keep cashing their own inflated paychecks?
[2] Basically stealing from the people who actually do the work to keep our county running while the supervisors, CEO and counsel all give EACH OTHER AND THEMSELVES pay raises… The CEO makes over $10k per month and does not sweat or do any physical labor. We need a county mayor who is elected, not a corporation style government where the corrupt appoint the next corrupter.
[3] Just when you think Mendocino can’t get any shadier… they have a library run mafia problem. It’s funny but really it’s never funny when people of power abuse their power (Deb) and purposely give employees bogus legal advice and dish out retaliation for legit concerns and complaints by employees. I mean, is there an abundance of folks yearning to work at libraries these days? Maybe they should treat the few who still are with respect. And the Brown act? Library employee? Yeah no.
LATIN X, THREE COMMENTS:
[1] “LatinX” is racial patronage, primarily used by white progressives to express their guilt for subconsciously perceiving other ethnicities as below them. You don’t need to care-take Latinos.
[2] Ah! Who to hate more? The casual racist or the casual racist commenting on the casual racist?
[3] “Latinx” butchers the beautiful Spanish language for the purpose of virtue signaling. I have a lot of Latino and Latina friends, including my daughter in law, and I’ve never seen any of them refer to themselves as “Latinx.”
ON-LINE COMMENTS OF THE WEEK
[1] Like , why use the word only once in a sentence when you can use it twice?
Or adjectives?
Why use one or two when you can use three, four, five or six?
Yay!
And why do I use “Like,” “totally,” and “actually” so much?
I think it has to do with a movie in the early 1980s called “Valley Girl” ( which I didn’t actually particularly like ) and a song by the same name.
I have never been to California, but hey, I don’t hate everything about America.
I was quite keen on the affectation.
Or rather, still am.
[2] There are popular songs that have been written about jets and planes… (‘All my bags are packed, I’m ready to go’…). There have been many songs written about sailing the Sea. Songs have been written about space travel… even UFOs (‘I’ve Seen The Saucers’…).
But nothing compares to the volume of songs written about Trains and traveling every corner of the Nation. From the old Blues songs of the South to the Folk songs of the 60s (‘I gotta Ramble!…’) and up to today in most every kind of music style… there are deep connections to traveling the true Veins of America… the rails from big cities to small towns and long empty stretches of parched deserts.
Why? Because deep in our spirit we sense something about this form of travel that is not just nostalgia or a corny silly desire to return to a simpler time of relative innocence. Train travel is in our National blood and DNA. The rails are our Nation’s bloodlines that deliver what the National Body needs to survive and prosper.
[3] The great White Rock (NM) rock saga continues out here in the radiologically induced “Land of Enchantment.” To review for those who might have missed the previous installment, the White Rock rock, is large rock normally painted white (clever, ain’t it?) displayed on a main thoroughfare as you enter the humble little burg of White Rock, NM, otherwise known as a glorified and over-priced housing development for Los Alamos National Lab employees. The “Pride Week” people evidently convinced civic leaders that it would be a good idea to paint it over with Pride Week slogans during Pride Week, and then paint it all back over again later in the day. Predictably, that led some others to add their own slogans later in the day, which has degenerated into a D vs R shitting match with the usual accusations of “Hatred!” being slung about by the usual suspects. So much ado over a fucking white rock!
[4] It looks like the great spring Ukrainian Counteroffensive has dropped out of the news. (I suppose at this point it should be called the great summer Counteroffensive.) What we do hear isn’t good. I think any battlefield success at all would be highly touted & exaggerated; the fact that there is an information void doesn’t bode well for NATO. For its part Russia is showing video of scores of destroyed German & French tanks. So, $150 billion spent so far on the Ukraine Project, what have we gotten for our money (other than smashed Ukrainian infrastructure & thousands of dead Ukrainians) All this over an ancient border dispute.
[5] Long gone are the days of personal responsibility. San Francisco has always been the Great Enabler. Since being a kid in the 60s l have seen the drug culture slowly take over the City, and the ensuing homelessness. Now residents are moving out, businesses shuttered, and tourists refusing to visit. Until there is an aggressive response and tougher laws, this once great city is doomed. Consequences get progressively worse for drunk drivers choosing to continue to drive intoxicated. This is done in order to keep them harming themselves and others. Why is it ok or considered compassionate to let drug users stay on a path they choose which harms themselves, the safety of others and creates vast economic harm?
[6] One thing for sure it takes a hardass to rule Russia. It’s all that landmass & the brutal climate, one-sixth of the earth’s surface, much of it arctic and subarctic. Czar Nicholas and his successor Kerensky couldn’t cut it. Too soft, too many humanitarian instincts. Now Lenin, there was a lad who wasn’t afraid to break balls. He knew what was necessary. When he died it was between Trotsky & Stalin, Trotsky the Menshevik theoretician dreamer and Stalin the Bolshevik asskicker. We see who came out on top, who had to come out on top. In our own time under Yeltsin Russia was coming apart at the seams until Putin stepped up and restored order. Imagine a Gandhi type, or a Justin Thoreaux, as President of Russia lol. Some posters are calling for the removal of Putin, the assassination of Putin, regime change in Moscow etc. I submit if that happens Putin’s replacement will most likely be someone we don’t even know about, someone like a Napoleon emerging after the French Revolution, a revanchist army officer, a nationalistic Russian patriot, with a keen hatred for NATO, the EU, and the USA, hell-bent on restoring the Russian empire, and not averse to deploying nuclear weapons. In fact eager to deploy nuclear weapons. Rest assured then if Putin is deposed his replacement won’t be a Jeffersonian Democrat with a thorough knowledge of the US Bill of Rights. Don’t forget when the French army closed on Moscow in 1812, the Russians abandoned the city, then burned it to the ground. 210 years ago yes, but Russia remains Russia.
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