‘A BUNCH OF MOPES’?
Editor,
If anyone who may have read Bill Brundage's letter on the topic of racial profiling is scratching their head over the contradictions, or in latter-day terms — “cognitive disconnect” contained therein, I may be able to cast a bit of light here. I was his neighbor in Hawaii for several years and after I left the islands, we carried on a copious correspondence for two decades. Eventually I threw my hands up in the air and stopped writing because of his views on overpopulation and eugenics.
For me the question with eugenics is “Who decides?” And I'm fairly sure that anyone in favor of eugenics regards himself as qualified to be a decider. When such a person is asked this question he may be stymied, unable to admit he believes he is indeed qualified to decide who gets the axe. The discussion can only deteriorate from there. I'll consider eugenics again when someone steps forward to say, “I and my family should be purged, we are a blight on the planet.”
Yes, he was married to a black woman, and has a bi-racial daughter who is a teacher and poet in Oakland. Yet he writes in favor of racial profiling. In other words, Brundage apparently regards his ex-wife and daughter as exceptional black people.
The key here, the giveaway, is the phrase “a bunch of mopes.” “Mopes” is an upper-class prep-school boy (a species that assumes its own natural superiority) term for what my parents might have called no-goodniks. Undeserving, unproductive, dare I say inferior people. This of course is the underlying factor of racial profiling, the assumption of police and such that non-white people are inherently up to no good. A group of white “mopes” — think Italian kids singing doo-wop on a Bronx street corner — is somehow less up-to-no-good than a group of brown or black ones doing the same thing, nonetheless they are still mopes. This is why the big drug couriers on highway 101 for example are often white guys in suits driving BMWs. ("These are not the droids you're looking for.")
Jeff Costello
Denver
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TESTS? WHAT TESTS?
Dear Editor,
That's soooo nice that Hendy Woods was saved and all. Now how about saving the Navarro River? Recent tests have shown that the river water is not water at all but a mixture of fecal matter and pesticides. Children who have gone swimming in the Navarro River had gotten sores the next day. Gee, I wonder what could be causing all this? Can we save the river now?
Now about our local schools. It seems a certain group of Valley people have been raising their kids to hate the white kids, all ten of them, and the half-white kids. Can we clean this mess up as well? Our schools will become a racial battleground. World War III will be fought right here in the good old United States.
Better get busy!
Name Withheld
Philo
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THERE WILL BE CEMENT
Editor,
I would like to make one simple request of my friends in the anti-Willits bypass community; would you guys please get a life?
I mean, the deal is done; contracts have been let, ground has been broken, millions of dollars worth of equipment has been assembled to carry out the democratically expressed will of the people of California. Whatever shortcomings there may be in our democratic process, it is, in the end, the government under which we live; if you find it intolerable, try moving to Somalia or Iraq, where you can enjoy complete freedom from government (and of course everyone else there can enjoy the freedom to rob, rape etc. with impunity).
After reading Will Parish's unctuous, messianic article in the AVA, regarding his tree-sit style occupation of a critical piece of heavy equipment, I, like a lot of other folks here in the county, am really starting to get annoyed with the endless, pointless, obstruction of this project; I mean, there were probably routes and designs that I would have preferred to see built, but that ship has sailed! The time for input, over the last several decades, has long since come to a close; all the related regulatory agencies that we have created in California, which must all sign off on any highway project before it can commence, have finally done so.
We must face the fact that IT WILL BE BUILT; the only conceivable effect that further protest of the work that is underway can have is to drive up the total project cost to California taxpayers, along with taking scarce resources away from places where they are sorely needed. Perhaps worst of all, for our close knit Mendocino County community, is the divisiveness, the “us vs. them” dynamic that it perpetuates here in our beloved Mendo home.
Please, let us allow the contractors to make a living, and hopefully, before too long, there will finally be an end to the perpetual traffic jam that has existed in Willits for at least the 40 years or so that I have lived in this county.
Sincerely,
John Arteaga,
Ukiah
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FRACK OFF, FRACKERS
Editor/publisher and Fellow AVAers,
We are the anti-frackers. Yes, we are anti-fracking. Mais oui.
Frackers: Back Off. Frackers are not animal crackers. Celebrate frackers, Ha. Tree celibacy is for me: walk beneath, inhale, but do not cut. Timber timber timber. American trees come fracking down. Soon there shall be no wooden houses. And no wooden beds, as all the trees we have massacred shall be dead. Stop the chainsaws. Stop the trucks that haul our redwood trees to the factories. Did Jesus say we shall end by fire?
Sincerely,
Anti-fracker Diana Wood Duck Vance
Mendocino
PS. When pine trees are exposed to radiation, it turns their needles bright red when the overexposed trees are dead.
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WHAT ABOUT FUKUSHIMA?
Dear Editor,
Most conversations I have these days about wild edible seaweed on the Pacific Coast include the question, “What about Fukushima?”
I was heartened when Congressman Jared Huffman said he is working for an urgent international commitment to deal with the ongoing catastrophe of the crippled nuclear reactors in Fukushima, Japan.
Speaking at a bucolic harvest festival at Navarro Vineyards, Congressman Huffman also said he would work to get radiation hazard testing and public information: reliable, unbiased, regular testing of West Coast foods from land and sea, and radiation hazard monitoring of water, air and soil.
Please consider joining the growing public demand that our government lead an international effort to cope with these reactors which are poisoning the Pacific Ocean and emitting atmospheric radiation.
We live in a world environment that is radioactive everywhere, ranging from harmless natural uranium to isotopes deadly for millennia. Let's work with our government to get regular radiation hazard testing, and reliable public information.
Edible seaweed, especially the brown kelps so prolific on the Pacific Coast, contain algin, iodine, and other trace elements which many believe are helping people live through this era of radioactivity. All Pacific ocean food providers need radiation hazard testing, because of the constant news that radioactive water is pouring into the Pacific from Fukushima.
Now we need an international commitment to keep the Fukushima disaster from poisoning the very foods we need to live with environmental radioactivity.
John Lewallen
Philo
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C + G = F
Editor—
Let's see. Combine the recent news reports about offshore fracking in California with this article (attached) — Capitalism plus Greed equals business as usual.
Cheers,
Peter Lit
Elk
Attached: Article from Science News, August 10, 2013: Huge Quakes Foretell Smaller Ones — ominous activity triggered at wastewater injection sites.
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PROTESTING PROTESTORS
Editor:
Regarding John Arteaga's letter (The AVA, August 30, Online) protesting the Willits Bypass protestors. Arteaga first tells them to “get a life” and then proceeds to roll out some of the same hackneyed, retread arguments that have been used down through the decades against those working for social, environmental, and political change. His points can be summed up as 1. let democracy work, 2. love it or leave it, 3. the ship has sailed, 4. it's a done deal, 5. it's divisive, 6. we need the jobs.
Let me remind the writer that nonviolent direct action and civil disobedience have been a vital part of democracy even before Ghandi, Martin Luther King and Cesar Chavez. The underground railroad, women's sufferage, labor movements, liberation movements, anti-nukes, civil rights, farmworkers organizing, anti-war, environmental protection… have all, with varying successes and failures, been a living part of democracies. It's the way democracy works.
Nonviolence asks its practioners to sacrifice their own time and their own bodies to encourage progress rather than blowing up things and killing people… by sitting in trees, jail cells, politicians' offices, and courtrooms; by chaining themselves to equipment; by braving wind, rain and cold; by accepting beatings and shootings; and by suffering harassment by passersby and letter writers. That is how they “get a life.”
In our most recent local past, nonviolent protestors tried to save our forests for long term sustainability, warning that the jobs created by raping the forests would soon be gone, and any chance of living-wage, sustainable, long-term jobs would be lost in the process. They were right. We lost the trees and the jobs. So arguing for short-term jobs building massive cement structures for our rapidly obsolescing, car-centric, nature-killing, climate-changing economy rings hollow.
I am honored to live in a community with neighbors like Will Parrish and Sara Grusky who care enough about our future to go beyond verbal, written, and marching protests and accept being extremely uncomfortable. Yes, it can be divisive, and no, it's not a done deal.
Dave Smith
Redwood Valley
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ME & BILL & THE 1%
Editor—
The combined wealth of all Americans makes this country the richest in the world. The combined wealth of me and Bill Gates makes us two of the richest people in the world.
Both statements are true. And, for the same reason.
One percent of our citizens own 40% of the nation's wealth. The bottom 50% own but 1%. There is an elegant (but disgusting) symmetry to these numbers.
America is a democracy — supposedly. We the people could correct these inequities — supposedly. Unfortunately America is actually a plutocracy; a nation run by the 1%. With campaign contributions and ownership of the media, these people have almost complete control of the legislative process.
but don't the Occupy Wall Street and Tea Party movements prove our democracy still works?
Absolutely not. These are merely tolerated outlets for the little people to vent.
The NRA promotes gun ownership — “in case the govmnt gets too uppity — we gonna git 'em.” It's thought an armed citizenry prevents government overreach. It doesn't work that way. Our government jails, tortures, murders, and eavesdrops with impunity.
Courageous whistleblowers try to expose these injustices. Through their efforts constitutional violations and war criminals are brought to justice. The rule of law prevails.
Nope. War criminals walk. Violations of the Constitution are not prosecuted. The whistleblowers go to prison.
We the people — we can rise up — just like we did in 1776.
Our military is prepared for an armed uprising of the citizenry via REX 84, Operation Garden Plot and executive orders issued by George Bush. Big guns and large prisons await insurrectionists.
So, for US citizens, what are the options? None — absolutely none. We're a failed state. We the people are screwed until the collapse.
I wouldn't wait. If I were a young person I'd emigrate to a civilized country.
Is it any mystery why drug use is soaring?
Best regards,
Bart Boyer
San Diego
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THE WORST NEWS
Editor,
Fukushima is the worst news going. It is just spooky and it is hardly contained to that country or continent. We are feeling the effects and children are breathing radioactive iodine and thyroid cancer is literally in the air. Here is what is the worst part of it: the world is allowing Tepco to resolve it. The spent rods are in pools that could go dry and an above ground reaction 14,000 times the Hiroshima bomb could take out Tokyo and send plums into the water and air across the Pacific. The rods need to be carefully removed, all 550 of them. The global reach of a nuclear disaster is clear. It left a shadow across Asia from Chernobyl and now it is doing it to us. Our government is attempting to spin this by blocking any stories on it except on the net.
Now think of Hanover in Oregon and San Onofre next to San Diego, a now shut down reactor; storing spent rods and not a control rods amongst them. No second plan to protect Southern California or well how far? Fucishima has sent a big message to us. We are not safe in any regard!
Somewhere lower in the worry stack is the idiotic 20 year exposure of Americans and NATO countries to Geoengineering experiments. This is the real side of the “chem. trail” commentary. Don’t use the CT words because you sound like a conspiracy focused person. Yet they are doing it. There are documented patents by Hughes Aircraft and others, constant spiking of the uncommon geoengineering substances like barium and aluminum silicates and surface water and the on-ground impacts of lowered solar levels impacting solar panels and photosynthesis, messing with soil biology, slowly killing trees and plants and impacting animals like ah... us and others. A lot of this is to decrease sunlight and global warming. Scientist claim that Krakatoa’s eruptions lowered planet temperatures but they also caused acid rains and reduced planet vegetative growth. “Volcanos do it, nuclear bombs do it, even scientists in Chicago do it. Let’s do it, make toxic rain.” Acid rain depletes calcium in soil which is crucial for nutrient absorption and may be the cause of “Sudden Oak Death Syndrome.” If you treat acid rain saturated soil with oyster shell lime, the problems go away. But you gotta know that acid rain is the problem and we are getting that now from Coal fueled China.
Here is the dark bottom line. Monsanto, “better living through chemistry” or more appropriate, “more disease and less diversity through toxics” has created and patented GMO plants that are not burdened by barium and aluminum silicates. They appear to know something we are not supposed to know. The whole thing flies in the face of a planet that has evolved to a specific diverse multifunction that depends on biodiversity to optimize sun absorption, nutritive plants and a healthy biota (plants, animals and us.) Mondiablo. I mean Monsanto knew full well that over using one pesticide would cause pest to become intolerant. Thus GMO round up ready crap plants have created indirectly round up intolerant superweeds and thus that marvelous inane unscientific behemoth company that puppets our agricultural regulators are now creating GMO other herbicides that they own, crap plants. Is all of this safe? The FDA overlorded by corporations thinks that GMOs are identical to the natural versions of these crops. That means no studies are necessary and yet extended studies in France last year showed intestinal issues, intestinal bacteria that became GMO burdened bacteria and scads of tumors on the test rats. I hear dangerously laughable, clearly sinister laughter with ka-chink ringing rapidly in the background. Sort of like a carnie environment. Better watch your pockets folks. This is corporations at its worst. Imagine if you know what the weather was going to do and could bet on it say on the stock market. It is being done! A droughted area becomes a low cost market of farm land which with no surprise that thoughtful Monsanto is buying up along with seed sellers.
Check out Geoengineerwatch.com for a wakening experience. Barium and aluminum spiking is happening here in Mendocino Counties surface water tests. Whoa you say! Yeah whoa buster, rein in the toxic rain.
Meanwhile demand that Fukushima monitored in our offshore water and air regularly. Demand that our food be monitored like strontium in milk. Support Jared Huffman's demands to monitor this and demand that the US create a coalition to solve the Fukushima time bomb. We can not afford anything else.
Very concerned
Greg Krouse
Philo
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PUSH THEIR BUTTONS, NOW
Editor,
Here we are on the verge of yet another belligerent war-like act by our leaders and I am not hearing very many peeps. Certainly there are no protests. Are we stunned into no action? That Obama handed off to Congress does give some hope, but it ain't no guarantee.
It is time to scream “No More War!” And if we flabby, wined, weeded and otherwise drugged or preoccupied citizens can't muster anything more, how about deluging the Pres and all of Congress with emails.
Obama: wwwwhitehouse.gov/ — then choose “contact us” then “submit comments online”
Feinstein: www.feinstein.senate.gov/public/ — then “contact”
Boxer: www.boxer.senate.gov/ — then “contact”
Huffman: huffman.house.gov/ — then “contact me” then “email me”
It couldn't hurt to do it daily and from as many different email addresses as you can muster. Ask your friends. And those of you more social media adept than I, how about Twitter and Facebook?
David Severn
Philo
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