Letters To The Editor

MAX RASPECT, MON

Editor,

The Sierra Nevada World Music would like to extend a GIGANTIC THANK YOU to all those involved in making our 20th annual summer solstice celebration one of the greatest ever. Despite some sprinkles on Sunday morning, the weather was most cooperative, the vibes were super high throughout the weekend and the music was fantastic. All of that could be witnessed by the beaming faces that could be seen on everyone's face throughout the weekend.

Maximum RASpect to all the staff who worked tirelessly to insure that everything went off seamlessly, and to the hundreds of volunteers. They were the ultimate Samaritans, not only in greeting all the attendees with smiles, but also in helping transform the Boonville Fairgrounds into a majestic spot for a festival in the days leading up to our gathering as well as working unremittingly last week to get the fairgrounds restored and cleaned up. We give thanks to the people of Boonville for opening up your hearts and all of Anderson Valley to us for the past 8 years. SNWMF is blessed to be able to call Boonville our home.

Big up to Jah Med for making sunscreen available, handing out ear plugs and tending to any minor injuries (and thankfully there were only minor ones) sustained by the patrons. We are also grateful to our excellent security team that managed to keep everything under control for the festivities, and to Alisha Goodrich for spearheading the canned food drive that raised food for Mendocino's Food Bank and Community Center. We are also thankful to all the members of the press, media and street team for helping to get the word out about our world peace celebration and for assisting in bringing a record number of people to Boonville on Saturday night.

To the artists, ALL of whom came (on time) and delivered powerful and moving sets throughout the weekend we extend our deepest gratitude. But, most of all, SNWMF would like extend a heart-felt thank you to all the patrons and attendees who choose to spend the third weekend of June in Anderson Valley dancing to their heart's content. Because, when all is said and done, the Sierra Nevada World Music Festival is really about YOU the festival goers. Having attended hundreds of concerts, I have no reservations in saying that this festival is truly unique in the good people it attracts. It is your smiles, your good vibes and the love that is shared amongst the wonderful people in attendance at SNWMF that keeps us going year after year.

Warren Smith, Promoter

Sierra Nevada World Music Festival

Ryde

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POMPOUS INCOMPETENCE

To The Editor:

After reading last week’s report by KC Meadows about whether Mr. Elliott should get a new murder trial, I am outraged at the utter disregard for real justice.

Are you seriously telling me that Dr. Jason Trent can, while under oath, admit to having committed perjury, and there has been no repercussion? I am inclined to believe if you or I knowingly committed perjury and admitted to it that we would surely face jail time!

I also cannot believe the absolute absence of integrity in the District Attorney’s office. You would think that after findings such as these, if the District Attorney had a conscience there would be no question but to agree to the retrial motion. Can we at the very least get a confession from them admitting they hired and use the most incompetent version of a medical examiner known to man?

How can someone be allowed to recant his recanted testimony? Did he honestly not recall recanting? I find it ridiculous that Dr. Trent and his sudden case of amnesia wasn’t torn apart while on the stand.

Linda Thompson did not perform to the best of her abilities. I would assume that in the process of gaining that degree in law she learned a little about justice. It seems absurd that Thompson would state she was so sure that she wouldn’t call Trent’s testimony into question. Who cares if he doesn’t like to be contradicted on the stand? Isn’t that the point of cross-examination? Of defending someone? Let him become pompous. As far as I’m concerned he’s a pompous so and so who contradicted himself! I think it’s fair to say that Dr. Jason Trent is a liar, and it’s reasonably to say that if he’s not, he’s surely held by much different standards than the rest of us.

“I was wrong. I don’t know what else to tell you”? Well then, when were you right?

“That’s what I swore to, that’s what I signed, but I was wrong.” Really Dr. Trent? You know when you’re a kid and you would say, “Swear on your life”? I guess it’s all right if you aren’t swearing on your own, but someone else’s.

Mr. Sequeira, where is the justice here? This case is full of inconsistencies, professionals and experts who quickly forget their duties, their responsibilities, and push aside moral rightness for pride. How can you justify the inconsistencies?

Mr. Elliott may actually have an ally in Ms. Cole-Wilson. At least she’s still working off basic principles of truth, honesty and integrity where representing someone actually means in their best interest. No personal agenda where she will gain real credibility, not falsely claimed. Let’s hope that she can salvage some justice out of this wreck.

Justice means the quality of being fair and reasonable. It’s the concept of moral rightness. What’s unfair and unjust is the level of incompetence representing individuals in circumstances where their lives, their futures are left hanging in the balance. I can only hope that myself or anyone I care about is never in this same situation, relying on pompous incompetence. What a combination!

Cecil Dixon

Ukiah

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I NEED A LAWYER

Dear Editor —

In my last letter I forgot to mention Mark Twain's underappreciated classic, “Life on the Mississippi,” a nonfiction account of his life behind the wheel of a Mississippi River steamboat as a cub (rookie) pilot. The technology is astounding.

I'm writing from a psych joint called Be'er Yaakov (Jacob's Well), the best psych joint I've ever been in in my life and I've been in so many. I'll be released as soon as my son finds an apartment for me back in Jerusalem and that will be in a couple of weeks with God's help.

What's this boolsheet about a newspaper having no friends? The Chicago Sun-Times has lots of friends and when I was living in Chicago I was one of them. The San Diego Union has lots of friends, certainly including me. I was a dear friend of the AVA even though whenever I called up the staff made me feel like an illegal alien.

Decades ago McDonald's big commercial which they pushed very hard was: “At McDonald's, we do it all for you-ou-ou.”

No profit motive. They pushed the worst kind of protein, leading often to heart disease and open-heart surgery, just because they love us so much. False advertising. Is there some kind of statute of limitations on false advertising or can we nail them on this?

I've been out of the United States for 16 years and a long long time ago I deliberately let both my passports expire. I'm computer illiterate and no one but me seems to know how to use the post office anymore. In other words, I'm very much out of touch and you're the only one I can think of who might be able to find a good tough lawyer. It would be so good if you could!

My son Benjamin has a computer. His e-mail address is garson@netvision.net.il

Please, please drop me a line.

Keep on truckin'

Moish (Marvin) Garson

Jerusalem

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THEY NEED $4 MIL

Dear Sir:

Wednesday. June 26, I attended a luncheon to hear about the proposed expansion to the Adventist Hospital in Ukiah. The hospital proposes to spend $41 million to expand and modernize the Emergency Treatment Center and expand the Intensive Care Unit at the Ukiah facility. The hospital will obtain financing from the parent Adventist Organization at favorable terms but the hospital must raise $4 million from the local communities before it can qualify for the financing. Currently, they have collected about $2.7 million from communities in Mendocino County.

The hospital is also considering the possibility of establishing in the future a Health Maintenance Program for the region.

Although the Anderson Valley Health Center is the first line of contact for medical care in the Valley, many folks in Anderson Valley use this hospital. As a resident of Anderson Valley and beyond you may want to consider donating to this worthy cause.

Details are available from Allyne Brown at the Adventist Hospital in Ukiah, 707 463 7623.

Sincerely,

Fred Martin

Philo

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WHERE’S CAPTAIN RAINBOW?

Dear Editors —

Seeing the attached in these hinterlands reminded me of Rainbow (aka, Robert Salisbury) and friend — current location.

Have you heard from him since he left? Sounds like he jumped into a kettle of fish. Let us (your readers) know if you hear.

Mark, thanks for your piece on the dismantling of mental health department in Mendocino County. Painful testimony of repercussion abounds. I remember my son telling me of discontinued meetings with his caseworker due to “budget cuts.” “Too bad, I really liked talking to her.” She even talked to his family!

Yours in bedlam —

Trish Beverly

Prineville, Oregon

Enclosed: Article attached titled “Violent extremism rising among Myanmar Buddhists. From “The Bulletin,” an independent newspaper, out of Bend, Oregon.

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THE WILLITS BIG BLAST

Will Parrish, and Fellow AVAers,

We Mendocino County rain forest residents say it's time to give Big Orange Corporation a big timber squeeze and file down Caltrans' chain saws. It was good of you to let us AVA readers know that “Big Orange is Little Lake Valley's largest landowner.” And that the Big Orange and Caltrans plan to cut down our trees for the Willits Bypass is an ecological and anthropological BIG BLAST. You climbed 70 feet up that valley oak to let the people know we residents of northern California want to leave our trees untrammeled. We want to walk through the trees and inhale while Big Orange and Caltrans plan to perform unnecessary amputations and turn our trees to timber to construct the Willits Bypass. No, I cry, no execution for asphalt. Cut the trees and feel the breeze. Save the trees and plant more please. Trees are the air we breathe. Redwood, eucalyptus, Douglas fir, manzanita, madrone, and pine unite against anti-forest America.

Yours,

Diana Wood Duck Vance

Mendocino

PS. Let's keep the forest we've got left in America. Amen.

PPS. High school graduation 2013, the seats bounced to and fro in the bright oxygen outdoor air. A squadron of draped nudes rear towards their Gods. Militant, they take my hat, as each girl presses her share of makeup against me, speech fails.

Feigning aplomb, I hover on the corridor concrete. Their fathers cheer congratulations; a wink, a leer. The best have found love's ordinary distances too far, and stand their ground. Map explorers, drunk-dry sailors see no arrival that can compensate. “Sophia, deep wisdom, the splendid unquenchable fount.” “Somebody slapped somebody's second wife somewhere.” Our promises break like tossed pennies. The years have gone by without a wink. Eye the ocean. Aye. And drink the sunlight.

 

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DERMATOLOGICAL DAMAGE

Editor,

I have glaucoma and it's pure hell on eyedrops. Six months now I've had glaucoma because my then dermatologist in Ukiah did not tell me I could get it from skin creams he had me use. He never told me I had and still have seborebic dermatitis on my face and the front of my head and he never told me. Using eyedrops for me is difficult. I'm 68 years old, very high strung and this doctor has really ruined my entire life. No one should go to him. No one. How many others as he done this too?

John Easton

Ukiah

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WE’LL MISS YOU, CARL

Dear AVA,

The last issue of my current sub is schedule for 7/7. I have arrived at a point in life where it is difficult to read your paper so it is best to allow the sub to expire. I have enjoyed the AVA in many ways for close to 20 years. Long live the One And Only Real Newspaper. Thank you much.

To you, Bruce and Mark (and the rest of the contributors), I remain amazed how you guys keep your shit together knowing all the horrible things that happen in your area without losing it. I get dizzy imagining all the information that is in your memories.

Thanks to everyone involved in producing the AVA — the best paper anywhere.

With sincere regards,

Carl Flach

Alameda

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BAREFOOT DEFENDERS

Editor,

My name is Raoul Taylor of Redwood Valley. First I would like to thank you for such a wonderful paper that's filled with news ranging from lost dogs, backyard burials and sockless public pretenders to pretend to defend the public by responding to a person's shortcomings with the law with a Monte Hall approach — “Let's Make a Deal.” By God, please don't get me wrong. I'm not out to make anyone look bad. I would like to say that I'm just sharing what I've encountered and experienced, although I would like to slide an opinion into the best newspaper in the northern hemisphere, Mr. Haehl is a lot to deal with in himself. I sat across from this pretender only separated by a thick glass window, listening to him run down my past life history which I found to be a slick technique to coerce me into signing my life away by simply choosing Door Number one, two or three. As I thought about my list of options, I quickly noticed how my emotions were being singed with a life waiver by the sock invader only to feel as a half human under duress.

Well my fellow Mendonites, while I began to chime in with concerns and facts about my case, Mr. Haehl's focus went to hell, out the glass window over my left shoulder. The emptiness in his eyes caused me to stop speaking to see if he was paying attention. As I stared at him he then came back from the land of — ? I turned to see the land he had ventured off to and, goodness, it was a young lady in cuffs being placed in a holding cell or probably the lion's den, gauging from the looks of the pretender.

I asked him, “Are you with me?”

His response was, “Well, you were that age when you first came in.”

I believe that's when I got serious with my prayer life and immediately called on God's help to save me from this sockless sea monster!

So to Mr. William Jackson in last month's issue: Just to let you know, I was praying for you in your court proceedings. I heard your call and I responded with prayer. Also, for those of you who are in the public arena that's filled with plea bargaining juice: Remember CDC a department California built to help make corrections. Rehabilitation is for us here in our community to help offer aide with mental health, which helps our healing processes. We can lead our livestock to water but we can't make them drink. We can give donated socks to those who probably don't have any, but we can't make them wear them. What we as a community can do is PUSH — Pray Until Something Happens.

Respectfully submitted,

Mr. R. Taylor

San Quentin

PS. Concerning “A Blatant Waste” in the June 26 AVA. I agree with the writer's findings on our taxpayer dollars being invested in the governor's construction company. It's such a waste. When do the governor's plans take effect? When do times start being cut by 50% or 80%?