Mendocino County Today: September 7, 2013

THE ORACLE SPEAKS:

The AVA emailed KZYX General Manager John Coate on Thursday:

Hello, Mr. Coate:

Is your trip to Australia funded by our public radio station?

Thank you,

Bruce Anderson, AVA

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Mr. Coate replied on Friday:

Certainly not. I am here speaking at a conference related to my previous work with online communities.  They paid my way here, not KZYX.  The rest is out of my own pocket.

John Coate, General Manager, KZYX

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LET'S HAVE IT

Letter to KZYX Requesting Policies

From: Dennis OBrien

TO: Board of Directors, Mendocino County Public

Broadcasting

September 3, 2013

P.O. Box 1, Philo, CA 95466

Re: Request for MCPB/KZYX Policies and Procedures

Members of the Board:

Article VI of the bylaws of Mendocino County Public Broadcasting states, in part, that:

“The Board shall develop and maintain written such policies and procedures as the Board deems necessary. A copy of these

policies shall be available to any Member upon request.”

I am currently a member in good standing. Please send me a copy of all of the policies and procedures of Mendocino County Public Broadcasting and its radio station, KZYX.

Please include the board of directors’ decision-making policies and procedures.

You do not need to provide anything that is already on the kzyx.org website. In order to avoid the expense of copying and mailing, I am willing to accept electronic copies sent via email to dennisobrien@sharejerusalem.com.

Thank you very much for your timely compliance with this request.

Sincerely,

Dennis O’Brien, Ukiah

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RANDOM THOUGHTS. What's unique about Public Radio Mendocino County is how much unnecessary trouble it makes for itself, alienating possible listeners as it blunders from one self-inflicted wound to the next. All the energy that current management, and the many managements of yesteryear, put into a truly nutty fear-driven secrecy, a reasonably sophisticated management would divert into expanding the membership the way sophisticated non-profits do most places. They put an amiable, pleasant, smart person up front. That person spends a lot of time smacking up to both potential donors and the tons of service clubs — Rotary, Lions and so on, all of which now consider KZYX, if they consider it at all, as some kind of raggedy-ass hippie music station, which it only partly is. A professionally done daily news show would do wonders, but having alienated so many people, KZYX can't afford one. But in lieu of a real news show they could at least do a daily call in, the next best thing. McWhat'sHisFace and Steffan ought to be able to handle something like that, as could John Sakowitz and, say, Jeff Blankfort. These guys are smart and reasonably articulate. (Uh oh. Here come the PC Police! Nicole Sawaya, a woman, and the only truly capable manager the institution has had, was the only manager who could handle Mendo's lunatic population — all of whom seem to think they should be live at five — with real aplomb. As a person of ability, she had other options and exercised them to get out. A steady interface with nuts and idiots makes for brief tenures many places, but especially here. There are lots of smart women around who could manage the place much more effectively than it's managed now, and some very smart women who could do a first-rate news show. Natch, KZYX permanently alienated one of them, KC Meadows of the Ukiah Daily Journal, who made the pot brigades unhappy one night by — gasp! — expressing her own opinion on the air. That was not “objective,” you see, as you also see the kind of cretinism one faces at the station. But the way KZYX has been structured — poisoned in the well by both its mercenary founder and its foundation in the one-inch-deep talent pool of Anderson Valley, and overseen by an eternally inept management (save for Ms. Sawaya) and a stooge board of cringing directors, makes a competent, civilized manager even more crucial. Won't happen, though. Maybe we ought to start thinking low power along the lines of KMEC.

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MORE RANDOM THOUGHTS: If the Hope and Change Gang had solid proof that Assad had used chemical weapons they would have brandished it the same day. Even though it looks like Congress will resoundingly vote to oppose an attack on Syria, it's obvious that the Obama Administration will proceed to inflict even more damage on Syria and create even more refugees for Syria's hard-pressed neighbors to somehow accommodate. Here at home, of course, thousands of minimum wage workers are striking WalMart and McDonald's in desperate bids for a living wage. Foreign wars are more indefensible than they've ever been given the unraveling condition of our own country

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BENJAMIN ‘GENTLE BEN’ TORANGO, 36, of Fort Bragg isn't exactly a poster boy for Governor Brown's “realignment” program by which, in theory, the less volatile felons do their time in county jails. Although Torango, a felony offender, was released Monday from the state pen, he's classified as a realignment guy, and he's about to be realigned straight back into the state system because, this morning (Friday, Sept. 6), Torango got into a loud beef in the 100 block of Laurel that he punctuated by “brandishing an edged weapon.” When the Fort Bragg police caught up with him, Torango, who is not supposed to be anywhere in Mendocino County as a condition of his parole, was so “combative that they placed him in a restraint device that binds his limbs tightly to his body.” Torango is being held in the Mendocino County Jail on suspicion of making threats to an officer, brandishing a weapon and being an ex-felon in possession of a dangerous weapon. (Glossary: “edged weapon” = knife. “Restraint device that binds his limbs tightly to his body” = straight jacket.)

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ACCORDING to the The Del Norte Triplicate, the barnacle-covered fishing boat confirmed as the first debris from the 2011 tsunami in Japan to reach California's shores at Crescent City, is returning home. Barnacle Boat is scheduled to leave from the San Francisco Bay Area for Japan by ship on Sept. 16. Free transportation is being provided by the shipping company, Yamato Transport. The 20-foot boat washed up in Crescent City on April 7. It belongs to a high school in the city of Rikuzentakata, which was devastated by the earthquake and tsunami.

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ARNIE GUNDERSEN re Fukushima. KZYX Renewable Energy Show 9/9, 9-10am Discussing dangerous situation at Fukushima plant/fuel-storage towers and Pacific Ocean contamination. The Renewable Energy Show airs this Monday 9:00-10:00am on KZYX 91.5FM or streamed* on the internet. Mark your calendars and listen in or Pod Cast at your convenience. This interview should not be  missed.   Arnie Gundersen Chief Engineer and co-founder of Fairewinds Energy  Education and leading authority on nuclear energy safety will be  returning to the show to expand on Fukushima and the current  situation of global nuclear safety. We will have time for call-in  questions and concerns.

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A FEDERAL DISTRICT COURT today maintained conservation protections for marbled murrelets, a unique coastal bird in the Pacific Northwest. The court rejected the remaining claims in a timber industry lawsuit that sought to expand logging of the seabird’s old-growth forest nesting habitat. The lawsuit was the timber industry’s fourth attempt in the past decade to eliminate protections for the old-growth forests that marbled murrelets call home, despite undisputed scientific evidence that murrelets are continuing to disappear from the coasts of Washington, Oregon, and California.

“It is time for logging interests to move on,” said Kristen Boyles, staff attorney with Earthjustice.

“Science, law, and public opinion do not support their demand to log the old-growth forests that marbled murrelets call home.”

The marbled murrelet is a shy, robin-sized seabird that feeds at sea but nests only in old-growth forests along the Pacific Coast. Murrelets don’t build nests, instead laying their single egg on natural, moss-covered platforms where large branches join the tree trunks of old growth Douglas fir, Sitka spruce, western hemlock, and redwood trees. In 1992, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service protected marbled murrelets in Washington, Oregon, and California as a threatened species due to logging of coastal old-growth forests. The timber industry has repeatedly set its sights on the small seabird in order to increase logging of some of the last-remaining mature and old-growth forests.

“Today’s decision ends a dark chapter in the effort to ensure the survival of the highly endangered marbled murrelet,” said Noah Greenwald, endangered species director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “Now we can move forward with recovering these unique seabirds.”

The district court rejected logging industry claims that murrelets in central California could not be considered part of the protected population. The court also refused to eliminate murrelet critical habitat protections during a three-year period when the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will re-examine its 1996 critical habitat designation.

“The marbled murrelet is most endangered at the southern extent of its range,” said Gary Graham Hughes, executive director of Environmental Protection Information Center. “The court’s decision keeps the murrelet protected down here in the redwood temperate rainforest.”

“There is strong scientific consensus that without old-growth forest protection, murrelets will disappear from our coast,” added Dave Werntz, science and conservation director with Conservation Northwest.

“It’s time to stop fighting over who will get to log the last of our old-growth, and focus on science-based management of our forests that improves habitat for wildlife, protects clean water, and safeguards the scenic beauty, outdoor recreation, and quality of life that drives Oregon’s modern economy,” said Steve Pedery, Conservation Director for Oregon Wild.

Represented by Earthjustice, Audubon Society of Portland, Seattle Audubon Society, Center for Biological Diversity, Conservation Northwest, Environmental Protection Information Center, Oregon Wild, and Sierra Club intervened in the lawsuit to defend the murrelet listing and critical habitat. (Environmental Protection & Information Center (EPIC), Redway)

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REPUBLICANS TO MEET IN FORT BRAGG. The Mendocino County Republican Central Committee will meet Saturday, September 21, 2013, 10:00 AM  - 12:00 Noon at Moura Senior Housing, 400 South Street, Fort Bragg, CA 95437.  For further  information contact: Stan Anderson, 707-321-2592.

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STATEMENT OF THE DAY: The lies being told by Obama and Kerry are so transparent that it makes one wonder if their strategy is to make such a poor case for war that the control Israel and the neocons have over US foreign policy will be broken. What else is one to make of such absurd statements as John Kerry’s claim that “this is our Munich moment!” There is no comparison between Assad’s defensive effort to prevent the overthrow of the Syrian government by foreign jihadists supported by Washington and Hitler’s aggressive stance toward Czechoslovakia. The Syrian government has initiated no war and has threatened no one. America as my generation knew it no longer exists. Criminals have taken over and now rule. Financial policy is in the hands of a small handful of banksters who control the US Treasury, the Federal Reserve, the financial regulatory agencies and who run the world for their own greed and profit. Foreign policy is the preserve of the Israel Lobby and the neoconservatives, every one of which is tightly tied to Israel. Americans have no voice, and no representation. Whatever America is, the government is not influenced by the voices of the American people. Whatever America is, it most certainly is not a democracy in which government is accountable to the people. America is a country where a tiny elite has all power and does as it wishes. (Paul Craig Roberts)

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THE WALL

by Miguel Lanigan

"The Wall" in Washington, DC. is a sacred place to Vietnam veterans. Built with private funds and spearheaded by ex-enlisted man Jan Scruggs, it represents all that has come to be known as the Vietnam era. This is hallowed ground for all those who went to war in Vietnam and who left their youth and many of their buddies behind there.

On Veterans Day in 1993, the President and the Commander-in-Chief of the United States did the right thing, he went to "The Wall" and paid his respects to the nearly 58,000 Americans enshrined on the dark granite, and to those veterans who survived to return to a divided and seemingly ungrateful country.

Some vets resented President Clinton coming to their holy-of-holies. They felt he had not

earned the right to be there. Some said, "I went and he didn't. My buddies went and now they are names on "The Wall" instead of having careers and wives and kids. Now, this draft-dodger, this non-combatant, is here defiling these grounds paid for in American blood. How can he be Commander in Chief when he never served, not even as a Private?"

Two decades had come and gone, but not the deep-seated acid-anger still seethed in some of the Vietnam vets.

Seeing the ragtag bits of uniform worn by the vets at "The Wall" flashed me back to an event that happened over twenty years before on this same Mall where the Vietnam Memorial now stands.

The year was l972 and a group calling themselves Vietnam Veterans Against Foreign Wars (VVAFW) showed up l5,000 strong and set up a tent bivouac on the Mall in front of the Capitol Building. These were no wild eyed, radical, long-haired, draft-dodging hippies. These were bemedaled veterans of the Vietnam war who had fought some of the most horrifying battles in the history of America. They had faithfully served their nation in combat and now they were met at their nation's Capital to protest this non-war/war that was continuing to kill and maim their generation in that killing-field they called "The Nam".

Federal workers watched in amazement as squads of vets, armed with toy guns and dressed in bits of uniforms, once worn proudly, now ran mock search-and-destroy missions up the steps of Federal buildings and across the grass of the Mall. They were shocked to see these heroes removing their medals and tossing them over the temporary fence hastily thrown up around the Capitol.

"Why were these men throwing away their honors?" they asked. The rest of the nation asked the same question.

Some senators and congressmen came out to mingle with these returned warriors. Some even went up on the platform to give speeches.

At the time I was working for the Red Cross as disaster relief coordinator. I had been a Lance Corporal in the Marine reserves, had spent two years in the mountains of Colombia, South.America. as a Peace Corps community development volunteer and I was greatly confused about the war and curious to hear what these protesting war veterans had to say . They had walked the walk, they could talk the talk. I was there to listen.

By l972 , the fighting had already gone on for more than a decade and there still was "no light at the end of the tunnel." By now there were hundreds of thousands of angry and disillusioned vets. There were millions of angry and active anti-war protesters. The country was being divided by massive anti-war demonstrations.

A friend of mine, who had been a forward observer with the 101st Airborne and had fought in the Tet offensive, said to me one night, "They don't seem to be running that war to win. Body counts is what they're into . . . BODY COUNTS and not real estate. That's no way to fight a war. Hell I don't even know what I was fighting for . . . except to stay alive!"

A speaker got on the P.A. system and asked for a volunteer driver to take some of VVAFW guys out to the giant Walter Reed Hospital to donate blood. Blood is about neutral, so I went over and volunteered my red Mustang convertible for their use.

Five vets piled in and, with the top down, we set off across Washington to donate blood. A former Marine, three ex-Army guys and a former Lieutenant from the Coast Guard. They talked about old units and where they had served in "The Nam".

It was shortly before five when we pulled into a parking space at Walter Reed . We were be-

tween the two story wings that housed the blood-bank. A young 2nd Lieutenant on duty freaked out to see this potentially explosive political-event happening on his watch. He started giving reasons why we couldn't give blood.

"Are you telling me that just because we are protesting this war, our blood is no longer any good?" said the former Coast Guard Lieutenant.

"No, I'm not saying that." stammered the rattled 2nd Lieutenant, "it's just that . . . that . . ." He held up his hand and dialed a number to reach his superior.

Two of the vets and I went back outside to the car. We stood smoking and discussing the 2nd Lieutenant's reaction.

Above us, on the second floor of the wing behind us, faces of wounded soldiers started showing at the windows. They, of course, had been keeping track of the VVAFW thing on TV. and couldn't believe that some of them were right there at their hospital. They didn't like it one little bit. They deeply resented it.

"Hey you Communist," shouted one of the patients, "what are you doing here?"

"Get out of here you pinkos." shouted another.

"F--k you." shouted yet another.

Soon all the wounded vets were yelling and shooting the bird at us.

"Get out of here, you f--ing traitors!" came another angry shout.

A nurse Captain, in her starched white uniform, came running out of a side-door and up to us.

"What are you people doing here? You're upsetting the troops. I want you out of here. . .NOW."

"We came here to give blood to our brothers." said one of the VVAFW guys.

The nurse was dumbfounded. She said not another word. She whirled and quickly

disappeared back thru the same door she had come out of.

The heads at the windows above turned to get the word from her, then turned to look back down on us. The rest of the VVAFW guys, by now, had come out from the blood bank with appointments to give blood the following day. The two groups of vets stood looking at one another. There was total silence. Then , from one of the windows above, I heard ,

"Right on," spoken quietly.

Then came more "Right ons." but louder now.

Then I heard a shouted, "Right on Brother."

Soon both groups of vets were shouting "Right ons." and shaking upraised fists at each other, but these were the right-on-good kind of shaking fists.

We piled into the convertible and drove away to the fading shouts of the wounded vets. I tried to hide the tears in my eyes.

So, twenty years later, the non-veteran Commander-in-Chief and some veterans and through the TV. , all of us, met at "The Wall" and perhaps put some much needed medicine on the still open wound that is known as "The Nam.".

PS. A LITTLE HISTORY MOST PEOPLE WILL NEVER KNOW.

Interesting Veterans Statistics off the Vietnam Memorial Wall!

By Patrick Lanigan

There are 58,267 names now listed on that polished black wall, including those added in 2010. The names are arranged in the order in which they were taken from us by date and within each date the names are alphabetized. It is hard to believe it is 36 years since the last casualties.

The first known casualty was Richard B. Fitzgibbon, of North Weymouth, Mass. Listed by the U.S. Department of Defense as having been killed on June 8, 1956. His name is listed on the Wall with that of his son, Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Richard B. Fitzgibbon III, who was killed on Sept. 7, 1965. There are three sets of fathers and sons on the Wall. 39,996 on the Wall were just 22 or younger. 8,283 were just 19 years old.

The largest age group, 33,103 were 18 years old.

12 soldiers on the Wall were 17 years old.

5 soldiers on the Wall were 16 years old.

One soldier, PFC Dan Bullock was 15 years old.

997 soldiers were killed on their first day in Vietnam ..

1,448 soldiers were killed on their last day in Vietnam ..

31 sets of brothers are on the Wall.

31 sets of parents lost two of their sons.

54 soldiers attended Thomas Edison High School in Philadelphia.

I wonder why so many from one school.

8 Women are on the Wall.... NURSING the wounded!

244 soldiers were awarded the Medal of Honor during the Vietnam War;

153 of them are on the Wall.

Beallsville, Ohio with a population of 475 lost 6 of her sons.

West Virginia had the highest casualty rate per capita in the nation.

There are 711 West Virginians on the Wall.

The Marines of Morenci - They led some of the scrappiest high school football and basketball teams that the little Arizona copper town of Morenci (pop. 5,058) had ever known and cheered. They enjoyed roaring beer busts. In quieter moments, they rode horses along the Coronado Trail, stalked deer in the Apache National Forest. And in the patriotic camaraderie typical of Morenci's mining families, the nine graduates of Morenci High enlisted as a group in the Marine Corps. Their service began on Independence Day, 1966.

Only 3 returned home.

The Buddies of Midvale - LeRoy Tafoya, Jimmy Martinez, Tom Gonzales were all boyhood friends and lived on three consecutive streets in Midvale, Utah on Fifth, Sixth and Seventh avenues. They lived only a few yards apart. They played ball at the adjacent sandlot ball field. And they all went to Vietnam. In a span of 16 dark days in late 1967, all three would be killed. LeRoy was killed on Wednesday, Nov. 22, the fourth anniversary of John F. Kennedy's assassination. Jimmy died less than 24 hours later on Thanksgiving Day.

Tom was shot dead assaulting the enemy on Dec. 7, Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day.

The most casualty deaths for a single day was on January 31, 1968 — 245 deaths.

The most casualty deaths for a single month was May 1968 - -- 2,415 casualties were incurred.

For most Americans who read this they will only see the numbers that the Vietnam War created. To those of us who survived the war, and to the families of those who did not, we see the faces, we feel the pain that these numbers created. We are, until we too pass away, haunted with these numbers, because they were our friends, fathers, husbands, wives, sons and daughters. There are no noble wars, just noble warriors.

Please pass this on to those who served during this time, and those who DO CARE!

I've also sent this to those I KNOW do care very much, and I thank you   for caring as you do!

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COLLATERAL DAMAGE

Dear Editor:

In all the discussions about a proposed military strike against Syria I have heard very little about collateral damage. Collateral damage is the term used by the military to describe the deaths of innocent people killed during a military action. Without a doubt some if not most potential targets will be located where civilians live and work and there will be collateral damage. The question is what level of collateral damage is acceptable if we go ahead with a miltary strike? Is President Obama willing to accept say 500 or 1, 000 or 2,000 dead innocent men, women and children? It is a question that the President needs to answer but undoubtedly will not answer.

In peace, James G. Updegraff, Sacramento

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JANIE REZNER'S GUEST on Women's Voices, KZYX, September 16th, 7 pm PT will be independant researcher, author, speaker and activist Genevieve Vaughan.  Genevieve has been working on the theory of a maternal gift economy as an alternative to Patriarchal Capitalism for many years and her books include  "For-giving, a Feminist Criticism of Exchange" and "Women and the Gift Economy: A Radically Different Worldview is Possible." Consider that we humans have lived successfully without money or the concept of exchange for most of our 100,000 years on earth. Money, i.e. the exchange paradigm, is the cornerstone of patriarchal domination.  Genevieve writes, "The gift paradigm has the advantage of restoring mothering to its rightful place in the constitution of the human. What has been wrongly proposed in the construction of gender, with devastating effects, such as the promotion of the values of dominance, competition and hierarchy (which are non nurturing values) can be countered by re introducing gift giving as a social value and interpretive key. Both male and female human beings are basically nurturers. One gender is not the binary opposite of the other. If we reintroduce the gift paradigm into our interpretation of the world, we will find our "gift-giver within" which will then be acknowledged and validated." The show will air 7 PM at 90.7 FM Philo, 88.1 FM Fort Bragg, and 91.5 FM Willits and can also be heard live at www.kzyx.org It will be archived at http://www.radio4all.net/index.php/contributor/4206 or Google Janie Rezner radio.

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CONGRESSMAN JARED HUFFMAN posted the following on his congressional facebook page on Friday.

With Senator McCain's amendment yesterday, the Senate's proposed authorization for use of military force in Syria now articulates a policy of trying to help the rebels win the sectarian civil war, as opposed to just responding to/deterring chemical weapons use by Assad. This puts the US further out on an untenable, slippery slope of military involvement. I deplore the actions of the Assad regime, but this NY Times article should be mandatory reading for anyone who thinks it's a good idea to team-up with the radical jihadist rebels on the other side of this terrible conflict. Note: the article indicates the "vetted" Free Syrian Army which Sen. McCain supports provided the weapons used in these executions.

IMMEDIATELY comments came flooding in, most of them agreeing with Mr. Huffman. Then came a dozens of identical pro-intervention comments posted apparently from Syria with various different Arab-sounding names which prompted the Congressman to comment again:

FOLKS: I have been getting deluged with duplicate comments and posts from Syria, apparently from both sides in the Syrian civil war. This has forced me to temporarily disable public FB comments. I hope to re-enable that function soon. While I have nothing but respect and good wishes for the people of Syria who are suffering in a brutal sectarian civil war, I have no intention of getting drawn into that war -- either militarily, or via social media. Thanks for understanding.

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ON THE OTHER HAND, a reader writes:

You know, I ran into this web site, Covered CA, a State of CA website re: new ACA/Obamacare the other day, and they have this cost calculator:

http://www.coveredca.com/fieldcalc/#calculator

and if the results are anything like accurate, my god, man, it’s crazy how low my costs might be to actually have health care/insurance as a self-employed person.

This is what it tells me about the two plans I am eligible for, and what my costs will be: Bronze plan: Zero monthly costs (with higher copays, higher deductible, and higher total maximum out of pocket cost every year, but still relatively minor: $6,350. This apparently is the plan for people (young people) who don’t anticipate getting much healthcare) or Enhanced Silver plan: $46 to $65/month (Kaiser HMO is $121, but too far to travel), with very low co-pays and only $2,250 maximum out of pocket cost each year, only $500 annual deductible.

http://www.coveredca.com/fieldcalc/#healthplans

Now, hopefully I’ll be making a bit more $$ next year! But even so, my costs will still be low.

And, according to this website, it’s not a ‘tax credit’ in the sense that I have to pay the monthly and then get a refund later, which is what I was worried about, the subsidy gets paid every month.

So, again, whether the calculator is accurate or not, whether it depends on whether everybody signs up or not, I do not know, but if it’s anywhere even approaching accurate, I don’t care if it’s a Ponzi scheme, I don’t care if it’s not “Medicare for anyone who wants it,” which is the policy I support, I say AMEN, at least on a personal level.