Mendocino County Today: September 16, 2013

TESTOSTERONE GETS A TESTA

Editor,

So you heard that there was a party at Testa Vineyards.

I do not know how many times I have said or written, “I adore Maria,” when talking about Maria Testa Martinson of Testa Vineyards in Calpella, just north of Ukiah, on North State Street. The feeling is universal, everyone loves Maria. Maria asked me to judge the wines created at her recent Barn Blend BBQ Party and, inspired by the experience, I wrote a column about blends that will run soon.

Last week on the Monday following the party, when I went to work, I was asked three times for news on what happened at the party. The first time I was asked, unaware that anything but an enjoyable party had happened, I described the blending, the food, the terrific music by McKenna Faith, the judging experience, the things I experienced.

It turns out folks knew more about things that went on than I did.

I arrived at 6pm, parked in a lot below the vineyard, was shuttled in a golf cart up to the party and had a great time. I left between 9:30 and 10pm, again catching a ride in a golf cart from the party back down to my car.

Hours later, past midnight, after the party was over and just a few folks remained for cleanup, there was still fun being had with the golf carts and a neighbor called for law enforcement.

I golfed for many years, and cannot claim a single round of golf in all of those years where the golf cart was handled in a completely responsible manner. There is an enormous tendency to want to treat the cart like a go-kart, a mini race car, or as a bumper car. I don't know what it is, maybe it is simply a guy thing, but I am not alone in this. I have witnessed the phenomenon affect nearly every golf cart driver at some point.

Anyway, a Mendocino County Deputy Sheriff arrived and the fun quickly evaporated. When brother-in-law Jim Thompson was cuffed and put in the back of a patrol car, Maria's husband Rusty Martinson allegedly became very confrontational and wanted law enforcement to leave, and leave Jim behind. Rusty was then arrested and put in the back of another patrol car. Meanwhile, someone opened up the first patrol car and freed Thompson. Bottom line: poor judgment at the end of the party led to a bunch of charges for Rusty and Jim with more likely to come for the person who freed Jim.

I am not writing to excuse Rusty's or Jim's behavior. The deputy sheriffs work hard and deserve respect. Drunk in public, resisting, escaping, removing from custody, are unfortunate and without question the deputy sheriff shouldn't have had to deal with any but the first, the drunk in public. That said, “stuff” happens.

I have noticed that in our quiet little community where everybody knows everybody else, folks love gossip and scandal. Folks can't help themselves, no one is immune. Heck, I was hitting the booking logs for more information and I knew the story would break. It did. Newspaper, radio and internet are ablaze with the story. Oh my, a new scandal.

Maria is the same lovely person today that she was before this happened. Rusty isn't exactly lovely, but he is a good guy, a solid guy, and he would be the first of tell you he messed up. Rusty too is the same person today that he was before the incident. Same for everyone involved.

I screw up all the time. I am thankful that most people look past my occasional bouts of stupidity and accept me as I usually am. I also find that owning up to my most grievous lapses of judgment helps folks move past whatever transgressions I commit.

Beside herself, with the mini-media storm begun, Maria called me the morning the story broke here in the newspaper. We talked. I told her that people love a scandal, but small-town scandals die quickly as folks move onto the next scandal and there is always a next scandal. I also said a heart felt apology, a statement, helps folks move on.

Here are Maria and Rusty in their own words: “Our blending party was just as wonderful as we could imagine. People meeting people for the first time, working on their wine blends. The music, the food, it was all just amazing. We are so sorry this happened. Sorry for the officers involved and our family and friends that were only still there to help with cleanup.” — Maria and Clyde “Rusty” Martinson.

So there you have it. 220 folks gathered for celebration and had a spectacular evening. Party done, most everybody gone, some men acted like boys and bad boys at that. But an apology has been made and it's time to move along. To that end, I will be back up to Testa Ranch to taste and buy wine soon from my friends Maria and Rusty.

John Cesano, Ukiah

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MENDOCINO COUNTY FAIR PARADE, September 15, 2013. A short report: The parade was delayed for almost an hour while two illegally parked cars (one with a vanity plate reading “SEALOV”) in clearly marked “no parking” areas blocking the parade route. Bob Mackey to the rescue! Anderson Valley's all-purpose emergency man from Starr Automotive towed SEALOV and the other obstructing hunk of steel outtatheway, and the parade was on.

GRAND MARSHAL: Boonville Nonagenarian Freda Fox waving to her friends and fans from Bill Holcomb’s perfectly restored Merc.

Other annual highlights included two Mendo-specific floats stuffed with all-age hippies banging arrythmically on a variety of battered noisemakers.

The time capsule counterculturists were lead by a woman twirling flaming smudge pots (incense? dope smoke? biodiesel?)

The mounted Mexican horse patrol out of Sonoma County rode by in tight formation. Several local emergency vehicles, sirens blaring, cruised by.

NEW THIS YEAR: Three shiny Mexican lo-riders, their chassis lowered on command to an inch off the pavement. Jed Adams passed by on a flatbed full of mobile barbecue grills distributing hunks of barbecue to the multitudes. And the Mendocino Rugby team, wholesome-looking (by Mendo standards) young bruisers who passed out their game schedules as they went.

Groups of costumed Mexicans with accompanying Mariachi music and dancers.

SEVERAL MENDOCINO COUNTY ELECTED OFFICIALS, including Supervisors Dan Hamburg, John McCowen and Dan Gjerde, Sheriff Tom Allman and District Attorney David Eyster were followed immediately by the Anderson Valley Ambulance, which may or may not have been deliberate sequence.

VERY FEW LAW ENFORCEMENT PROBLEMS at this year’s fair. A couple of juvenile drunks from the Coast were taken to jail in Ukiah on Friday. On Saturday, four adult  drunks were taken to jail as well as a carney who got in a fight with his girlfriend and was arrested and taken to jail for misdemeanor domestic violence. On Sunday law enforcement picked up a couple of gangbangers from Ukiah who were on probation and/or had open warrants and were in possession of misdemeanor amounts of marijuana and methamphetamine with meth pipe. One of them had a nasty looking dagger in his waistband and was charged with felony possession of a dangerous weapon. They were both hauled to the jail in Ukiah and held without bail.

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GLOBAL GAME DELAYS? The Niners-Sea Hawks was delayed for an hour Sunday evening in Seattle because of the threat of lightning. Has this ever happened to a football game on the West Coast?

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OBAMA’S PERVERSE PRIORITIES

Crowding Out America

By Ralph Nader

Short of an ongoing hot war, the imbroglio over the proposed bombing of Syria has occupied the precious time of President Obama, and therefore the mass media, unlike anything else on his plate. Moreover, it portends absorbing much more of his time and political capital in the coming weeks.

Our country’s misguided foreign policy has caused our president to spend enormous time and influence enlisting allies, members of Congress, and figuring out the many risks of another protracted unlawful war-quagmire in the Middle East. Imagine how much time our president could spend on our country’s many domestic problems.

Let’s take the easy ones first. Mr. Obama was scheduled to fly to California to address the largest annual convention of the AFL-CIO and its member unions. Chief Labor Leader Richard Trumka – an Obama loyalist – was unveiling a bold new plan to expand labor’s big tent to include groups such as Working America (representing non-union workers), the Sierra Club, the NAACP, La Raza and student groups. Keynoter Barack Obama had to cancel his appearance. Reason: Absorption with Syria.

After waiting for months for a meeting with their President, the Congressional Black Caucus finally got their White House Invitation. Did their political hero engage them over the domestic issues Caucus members wanted to discuss?

As noted by a disappointed Rep. André Carson (D-Indiana), Black Caucus members wanted to focus on programs targeted for the African-American community – “summer jobs,” “helping to empower small business, women-owned businesses,” helping to “improve the health of our public school systems,” along with the civil rights and voting issues in the news. Sorry. Barack Obama spent his hour trying to persuade them to support bombing Syria!

Taking Mr. Obama at his often repeated words that “the safety of the American people” is his top priority, the trajectory of that commitment is strangely skewed. Drone attacks or other techniques of wiping out stateless terrorists overseas, alleged suspects, and an occasional American citizen, produce blowback and in the long run force our country to spend more on “guns than butter.”

But whether campaigning or presiding, candidate and President Barack Obama seems to seriously undervalue policies that would prevent over 300,000 American lives lost each year, and many more injuries and illnesses, from having a prominent place on his timetable.

If you were a relative or close friend of any one of the nearly 60,000 American workers who die every year, according to OSHA, from “work-place-related diseases and trauma”, you might wonder what is our president doing about occupational health and safety problems? Well, he was preventing OSHA and its director, Dr. David Michaels during the 2012 campaign from issuing long-overdue life-saving regulations.

If you were close to any one of the 65,000 annual victims of long-term air pollution, you can be dismayed that the situation in Damascus and other ongoing foreign military adventures command vastly more of your president’s time and worry.

If you hear about the 100,000 Americans who never leave the hospital alive due to “medical errors” or “malpractice,” (2,000 a week), be patient, Mr. Obama may some day mention options to prevent this avoidable death toll.

The Centers for Disease Control reports that between 200 and 250 Americans die every day from hospital-induced infections. These deaths are very preventable and some local progress is even being made simply by medical personnel washing their hands more frequently. Have you heard, since 2009, Mr. Obama mention 1,500 Americans a week being sent to their graves because of hospital infections as often as he has mentioned the name of Bashar Assad and the civil war in Syria in the past two months?

Come back home, Mr. President. Go to work and use your muscle toward protecting the safety of Americans by reducing the loss of life and injuries and illnesses stemming from preventable causes. The mass media will follow your activities, your activist “bully pulpit.”

At the same time, other necessities of Americans invite presidential leadership. There are the 30 million American workers who are laboring full-time with a frozen minimum wage that is less than workers made 45 years ago, inflation adjusted. The eyes of Obama are not on them; they’re glaring at Bashar Assad.

There are city mayors begging Obama to get out of these foreign, draining, boomeranging wars of choice and instead apply these taxpayer dollars to American public works – repairing bridges, highways, public buildings, mass transit systems, libraries, clinics, and water and sewage facilities that are crumbling but could be repaired with good local jobs that can’t be exported. Instead, Obama is Commander-in-Chief of drones and special forces blowing apart suspected targets, including “oh, so sorry” civilians in Somalia, Yemen, Afghanistan, Pakistan and yes, even still in war-torn Iraq.

Obama’s legally-challenged NSA has admitted to spying on all Americans and giving your private, domestic, telephone and email conversations to foreign governments, including Israel. Obama stiffens and says to give him proof of any harm. The NSA is leading with unconstitutional abandon, while Obama fiddles with whom he is going to bomb next. Veterans would like his personal attention to go toward reducing the huge backlog of the Veterans Administration.

His foreign policy of brute force or the threat of such increasingly prevents our country from becoming, at far lesser cost, a life-saving, economically and environmentally productive humanitarian superpower. That would be truly exceptional, including for national security.

People close to and working with Obama have marveled at his interest and detailed grasp of the shadowy military operations he approves weekly. He seems to really enjoy these tasks.

A true leader should embrace the details of leading the way to applying, or at least facilitating the application of, the many available solutions to so many neglected problems and deprivations in our country. Shouldn’t it make sense that President Obama would enjoy spending more time addressing rising child poverty and restoring taxes on the rich and corporations than ordering self-defeating metastasizing military operations?

Those priorities would make him “credible” where it counts.

(Ralph Nader is a consumer advocate, lawyer and author of Only the Super-Rich Can Save Us! He is a contributor to Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion, published by AK Press. Hopeless is also available in a Kindle edition.)

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DURING THE FIRST WORLD WAR, the U.S. Army noticed a puzzling pattern among the young men drafted into military service. Soldiers from some parts of the country had a high incidence of goiter – a lump on their neck caused by the swelling of the thyroid gland. Thousands of recruits could not button the collar of their uniform. The average I.Q. of draftees, we now suspect, also varied according to the same pattern. Soldiers from coastal regions seemed more “normal” than soldiers from other parts of the country.

The culprit turned out to be a lack of iodine. Iodine is an essential micronutrient. Without it, the human brain does not develop normally and the thyroid begins to enlarge. And in certain parts of the United States in those years there wasn’t enough iodine in the local diet. As the economists James Feyrer, Dimitra Politi, and David Well write, in a recent paper for the National Bureau of Economic Research:

Ocean water is rich in iodine, which is why endemic goiter is not observed in coastal areas. From the ocean, iodine is transferred to the soil by rain. This process, however, only reaches the upper layers of soil, and it can take thousands of years to complete. Heavy rainfall can cause soil erosion, in which case the iodine-rich upper layers of soil are washed away. The last glacial period had the same effect: iodine-rich soil was substituted by iodine-poor soil from crystalline rocks. This explains the prevalence of endemic goiter in regions that were marked by intense glaciation, such as Switzerland and the Great Lakes region.

After the First World War, the US War department published a report called “Defects Found in Drafted Men,” which detailed how the incidence of goiter varied from state to state, with rates 40 to 50 times as high in places like Idaho, Michigan, and Montana as in coastal areas.

— Malcolm Gladwell, Man & Superman

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J ROAD THP UPDATE

Editor,

I recently talked with Russ Shively of Mendocino Redwood Company to get an update on the J Road Timber Harvest Plan on the lower Albion River. This was a follow up coming on the heels of the community meeting that we had in April where approximately 80 residents attended a meeting with MRC officials Mike Jani and John Anderson. At that meeting a number of concerns were expressed and the conversation was far-ranging. John Anderson has since been promoted within the company and Russ Shively is now the Registered Professional Forester in charge of this plan.

Logging for the year will likely wrap up mid-late September. Russ informed me that they have completed the portions of the plan that called for tractor hauling the logs out. Due to certain economic considerations they are going to return next year to do the portions that call for cable logging. The acreage covered by these two different yarding methods is split roughly 50-50.

During pre-harvest inspections it was determined that the area of the plan adjacent to the lagoon was potential Marbled Murrelet habitat. No murrelets were found at that time, but there was the sufficient possibility that Murrelets seeking to inhabit the area might find that that suitable, so it was removed from the plan. Shively stated that the adjacent areas are among those slated for cable yarding, so that area will not be entered this year. When the company commences logging it will be sufficiently flagged to insure protection of that area.

The contractor for the job is Sanchez Brothers out of Fort Bragg. Russ is pleased with their work.

Russ wanted me to remind neighbors to stay out of that area while logging operations are active even if you have a walking permit from the company. There was one incident of a local walking in the area during operations, which is a potentially dangerous situation.

The use of herbicides across MRC land is probably the greatest source of friction the company has with its neighbors, and this was evidenced at the Community Meeting. In part due to strong sentiments expressed from the community MRC agreed to not spray herbicides on this plan, a decision that many Albion Residents applauded. Russ stated there are eight small areas where tanoak and other vegetation are being tractor crushed, and at the close of operations crews will come in with chainsaws for further work.

I talked with Russ about the agreement that John Anderson and Mike Jani had made that the company would take interested neighbors on a walk-through as the community is very interested in helping monitor the level of success of these methods. Many are hopeful that MRC will find ways to reduce its overall herbicide use and that this plan may help toward that end. There is a strong interest in helping MRC find other methods in addition to the ones being used on the J Road plan.

Russ said he would be glad to guide such a tour. He suggested that it could take place some time this winter after they were done with the selected treatment areas. Interested residents will be notified when this event takes place.

— Chris Skyhawk, Albion Community Awareness Network, 937-4295

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MEGALOMANIAC OF THE WEEK

Re: Me costing Norman the election? I'd love to talk with you

Editor,

Due to my poverty, I've not been able to afford a sub to the AVA or individual copies for over a year. A couple of people have recently brought up to me that you have mentioned on a number of occasions a gripe you have about me somehow costing Norman the runoff spot.

Someone said that no, you didn't think I cost him the nov election, but that you thought there would have been some value for Norman to keep running through Nov.

So I'm wondering what your issue is.

Here are some points:

Norman Solomon is a Cherwitz. I'm really sorry you didn't catch that from the beginning. i was sorry to see you get duped by him and never catch on. Norman is another narcissistic egotist and liar. He's the most sexist leftist I've ever met. He pulled all of his punches in the 2012 Congressional campaign to make himself a pathetic Pelosi Dem. Norman is not only sexist but he is abusive to women. My campaign manager Yarrow, at the time a 25-year old woman, and both Dr. Courtney's wife Kristin and John Lewallen's wife Barbara had traumatic experiences with Norman. All three of these women loath Norman! If Norman had made it past the primary, they were all going to campaign against Norman. And none of us were pro-Huffman.

So the first reason my leaving the race would not have given Norman the winning margin is because all three of us Emerald Triangle candidates received floods of Norman voters over to our side, especially at the end of the race, after Norman sent out his suck my dick and shut up anti-Stacey Lawson mailings. it was the most hideously sexist thing I've ever seen produced by a leftist. His math?

Pinocchio penis nose + Stacey Lawson with her mouth open to receive it = Woman business leader who shuts up (photo of Meg Whitman with her lips shut as tightly as possible). I call it his “Shut up and Suck” mailer. Norman is a disgrace to the left. That's what you should have gone after, not attacking me as a threat to your cult-like dreams of a Norman-produced Fake Leftist Utopia. I got suckered too, by him, and couldn't even imagine him being this way until I started experiencing it from the very beginning of his campaign. Unfortunately, I had never met the man before.

I feel very guilty about provoking the creation of Dr. Caffreystein's monster, Norman the Congressional candidate. You see, Norman would not have been running if it weren't for me. Originally it was all my idea. He has acknowledged this to me. I very publicly started calling on him to do so starting as far back as the end of 2006, right after Pelosi won the House.

That's probably why he never sent his goon squads after me like he did to Dr. Courtney & John Lewallen, to try to get me to leave the race. He ruthlessly tried to pressured them out, but never asked me, either publicly or privately, to leave the race. However, I did at the end ask him to leave the race since he never had any plan or hope to actually win the seat. Staying in the race, he was only keeping Ecotopia from electing the first Green to Congress: Andy Caffrey.

What you should do is add Norman's votes to mine and I would have defeated Roberts for second place by 3/10 of a percent. Plus, if Norman had withdrawn, there is an excellent chance that John Lewallen, and perhaps even Dr. Courtney would have stepped aside and endorsed me. They both told me that they wanted me to win. John told me he was going to vote for me. That would have put me over 20%. Then a race between Huffman and Caffrey would have made it a north coast guy representing the four rural counties of the district vs the urban liberal Pelosi Dem. from Marin County.

Republicans up here like me because since 1986 I've been fighting for their jobs against the Hurwitzes and Merlos and Boscos, because I've saved the lives of homeless veterans, work to keep the streets safe for businesses, customers, and the homeless. The fact that I never promoted myself the way Judi and Darryl did is evidence that my activism was and still is, because of the needs presented to us. I do what has to be done with my activism. Period.

I could have started pimping myself, if I had that nature, and making a big ecoactivist name for myself back in 1987, when I shut down the atmospheric GMO microbe industry with my anti-Frostban campaign, something for which The BBC in 2002 declared me a World Historic Figure as the World's First GE crop Trasher. David Brower's wife Anne offered to edit my Genetic Alert newsletter, something she said she had offered only one other time, to her husband David Brower.

So you see, without a Caffrey for Congress campaign, there very likely never would have even been a Norman Solomon for Congress campaign to begin with. You see, since the Nov 2006 election, I've been arguing that we will NEVER get what we need to solve our civilization-threatening ecological and economic meltdowns from corporatist members of Congress. I've been fighting my whole life for us to address those crises at fundamental levels before it's too late, so I argue that we must do what it takes to make those changes. That means we have to invent as a movement, and beyond that to the broader American public, ways to get community leaders elected to displace the corporatists.

Is there really any way to do that? Can we beat Congressional candidates armed by over a million dollars? Well, what does that million dollars buy them? Mostly TV time in 30 second bursts.

As you know, I have been a videographer, editor and producer since 1988. I have all the gear I need to make videos just in one old computer. I concluded that if as a movement we got behind our movement candidates, that community organizing, combined with you tube, cable access, and well, provocative media events like, say, a Democratic Congressional candidate smoking a joint and getting on national news TV, might allow us to reach, if not as many people as the million dollar corporatist candidates, then at least enough for us to make it into round 2, and maybe even a November victory.

The argument I then made was that if we can do this to get a community organizer/leader elected who isn't famous, like me, then two years later, we could get several more famous people, like Norman Solomon, Winona LaDuke, Jim Hightower, and Erin Brockovich elected.

Norman apparently thought that was a brilliant idea.

Except Norman blew off all of the grassroots components of campaigning that I was talking about. He ran as an establishment progressive Democrat (except of course when he packaged and colored his brochures to try to get people to think he was running Green party, that he, and not me, was the Green running in this campaign).

Kind of ironic that it is only now that he sees the value in developing the community networking and solidarity aspect of this electoral revolution I'm talking about, that has been the foundation of my Congressional campaign since I started working on the idea in 2006.

Since Huffman got 39% of the vote in the primary, and the two Republicans got a combined amount of around 21% of the vote, and since many Caffrey, Courtney, and Lewallen voters would never again vote for Norman, without any other votes, Huffman would have had crushed Norman in the Nov. election by an even bigger margin than he crushed Republican Dan Roberts. he would win with 60% of the November vote from His and the Republicans' primary voters. Add to that almost all of the Stacey Lawson voters and Huffman ends up with closer to 70%. Norman got 14.3 % so lost out on making the runoff by 7/10 of a percent to Roberts' 15%. Which is where, I suppose, your gripe against me comes from. You apparently think Norman would have had the 1% votes that went to Caffrey in their pocket. Nope, they would have mostly gone to Courtney and Susan Adams. Susan and Norman are pals, so Norman would have probably received a good chunk of her votes. Courtney and Lewallen got, I think, 2.7 % and 2.3 %, respectively.

This was clear months out from June. Financially Norman had shot his wad way too early in the campaign and was largely out of money by February or March.

He never aired any TV commercials. I did. Four of them. The only other candidates to air TV spots were Huffman and Lawson. Although my spots were only aired in two of the six counties in the district, they did go to every TV in Humboldt and Del Norte counties during shows like Letterman and the Charlie Rose CBS morning show. As far as left messaging is concerned, my spots were the most radical Congressional TV spots ever aired in the USA. You can check them out at

And that joint-smoking direct action I did, that got me on MSNBC, and spurred Leno to talk me up twice, well, it worked. No one else in the nation was talking at that national a political and media level that no one should spend another hour in jail for marijuana, that that destroys families. I argued that no one should feel shy or defensive about taking their medicine, and that thousands of people really suffer when Obama shuts down the dispensaries. Well, guess what? We got 2 and 1/2 of those three things this summer from Obama.

Look at the MSNBC newscasts with me. Steve Kornacki on Alex Wagner's panel for my interview, said that while my story was interesting, it had no legs outside of my region. A year later Obama ends mandatory minimums for marijuana violations, and is establishing a “Let It Be” position on medical marijuana and recreational use states. So people won't suffer from being deprived of their medicine, and they won't have to be shy or defensive about their medicine, and hundreds of thousands of people over the next few years won't be spending time in jail or will be spending a hell of a lot less time in jail.

A day after my first appearance on MSNBC, David Maraniss hit the airwaves to talk up his bio on Obama, and they specifically talked about the chapter on Obama as stoner. Then, Thom Hartman, Lawrence O'Donnell, Chris Hayes, and several others at MSNBC started running several excellent segments on those very specific marijuana concerns I had brought up, such as ending the war on drugs, and echoing my call for federal legalization.

However much credit, I deserve I suppose we'll only find out about once I'm elected to Congress next year and I get to ask Obama himself! It doesn't really matter that much. What matters is that I was a national leader in that campaign. I made a difference, more so as a candidate than Huffman will do as a one-term Congressman. Now it's Caffrey 1, Huffman 0, Solomon 0.

Now I probably even have higher national name recognition than Norman, Huffman, or any of the other candidates, and I'm just getting warmed up for the 2014 race. I'm about to start eight months of running my TV spots. I'm working on getting on Democracy Now and Bill Maher and Jay Leno as a guest.

So Bruce, how did you become a Solomander cult member? You more than most people saw this kind of thing happen with Judi's uncritical fans. Just because Judi, Darryl, or Norman argue good left politics, that doesn't mean they aren't malignant narcissist or psychopaths.

On the other hand, no one will ever be disappointed that they supported my activism work, including this campaign. My campaign advisor, Earth First!, Rainforest Action Network, and Climate Ground Zero co-founder Mike Roselle told me last year that I'doing the best activism of my life so far right now. I'm sorry if I'll give more credence to Roselle's encouragement and not so much to you whining about a narcissists not getting past a primary run-off.

Anyway, I hope you know that if you ever think I'm doing something destructive with my activism, you can feel free to call me any time and tell me why. I learned a long time ago that when people criticize one, that person is either correct or partially correct with their critique, or they are full of it. Unless the person who is full of it uses lies against you, then don't worry about the idiots who are incorrect. And a wise person will learn from the critiques that are correct or partially correct, and change themselves for the better.

For a New Green America,

Your pal, Andy Caffrey, Redway

So can we talk on the phone some time? I'm at 923-2114

PS. Oops! I left a place for this link in the note below but forgot to include the link

http://youtu.be/Np6i9F8FERg

http://www.caffreyforcongress.org/caffrey-for-congress-2014-campaign-hq-sept-20-grand-opening-flier-please-print-post-2/

Ed note: Interesting that your characterization of Solomon, a gentlemanly fellow in my experience of him, is as vile as what you attribute to him. I hope he runs again.

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HE'S BACK!

Arriving San Francisco 7:10AM Wednesday 9/18. My love and warmest spiritual greetings. Please know that I am arriving on Greyhound at 7:10AM Wednesday. I need a place to go to, particularly a place to sleep Wednesday night. I receive money on the following Wednesday, and will be making an effort to survive upon my return to California. As you know, I did everything I could to relocate to Washington DC, but it just did not happen, mostly due to a lack of cooperation to get housing. I did the best that I could! Otherwise, I am giving myself over to God. I have contacted Natalie Siva (director of the Berkeley men's shelter) via email asking for help, if anybody could assist me in getting a survival housing situation set up, that would be very appreciated at the moment. Peace be with you. — Craig Stehr