Letters To The Editor

AFFORDABLE?

To the Editor:

We currently have Anthem Blue Cross with a plan called “clear protection plus 3300” they sent me a package of information on Monday and I actually read it.

Now that the “Affordable Care Act” is coming they will no longer be able to offer me this plan and have informed me that a comparable plan has been picked for me. This plan is called “Anthem Core Direct Access — CAAE”

So herein lies the problem. Now I pay approximately $4,300 a year with a $3,300 deductible and with this new plan I would get a $5,000 deductible and will have the priviledge of paying approximately $9,200 a year.

I fail to see how this is affordable.

I called the state insurance commissioners office and filed a complaint and was told to keep looking. So far after 10.5 hours of research and phone calls I can't even come close to the policy I have now for less than approximately $16,000 a year and still my deductible would be $4,000. This is known as the platinum package (ww.coveredca.com/shopandcompare/#healthplans)

So unless there are some serious changes before January 1, we will be uninsured on that day forward. There are no subsidies for middle class Americans. Tax credits are available but you have to have the income to pay for coverage in order to get the tax credit and it isn't dollar for dollar either.

I would also like to address that since we live in Region 1 we have only these choices (Anthem, Blue Shield, Kaiser Permanente (specific areas only) — www.coveredca.com/coverage-basics/coverage-map.html

Any thoughts or input would be greatly appreciated. Please feel free to forward to anyone who may or may not care.

J. Howell

Ukiah

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BAD THINGS, SIMPLE THINGS

Mighty Editor,

Just a few rash opinions: pot is over, prices are shit, cartels sell to pot clubs, even PC Cali growers rape the land and ship the product to New York instead of giving the medicine to sick people and recreational users in-state. Localites and PC growers are megalomaniacs who try to screw every girl on the trim scene. Work conditions are horrid. Employees have no recourse. Most people who grow weed commercially don't even use it. Most workers are on other drugs. Complete destruction of the watershed. Grows look like Sanford and Son gone to the country. The worst type of lowlifes are rewarded by this shit up and down the food chain. I HATE WEED!

That being said everyone has a buyout or a sellout, however you frame it, to accept this Empire and its implications. For most sophisticated people it is some form of extravagance and wealth. Me. I am happy with the simple things; vinyl records, paperback books, shitty movies.

Seriously, what have we become?

Nate Collins,

Oakland

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THANKS FROM CHIEF WILSON

Dear Community,

On behalf of my family and myself I would like to thank everyone who attended my retirement dinner Sunday evening. I was absolutely overwhelmed by the turnout. It was a great send off and I’ll always remember it.

Thanks to the Anderson Valley Lions Club who sponsored the event, particularly Judy Long, Joanie Clark, Olie Erickson, Bill and Robyn Harper, Amy, Mea and Eric Bloyd, Frank Wyant, Joy Frazer, Jean Leal, Stephanie Clark, Bob Sites, Kathleen McKenna, Joy Andrews and Susan Newstead who worked the event; to Dawn and David Ballantine who tended bar and gave me free drinks; to Valerie Hanelt and the Unity Club for the flowers; to Dean Titus and the Coyote Cowboys who provided great music, and to Andrea LaCampagne who emceed the event and has a real future as a stand-up comedian.

Thanks to all the wineries who donated wine to this event and also to the Department’s annual Christmas Dinner. The large selection of excellent wines really adds a touch of class to both events. Another thank you to the Anderson Valley Brewing Company for the donation of their fine beers.

It has been an honor to serve as Chief of the Department and I can’t properly thank all the people who contributed to the success I’ve had. At one point during the evening, I asked all the current and former firefighters, current and past board members, current and retired Cal Fire members, members of other Mendocino County fire departments, all the people that served with me on various committees and projects and the families of all of the above to stand and be recognized. I overlooked and wanted to thank now, the volunteer lookouts who have had great success in recent years with early detection and location of wildland fires in and around our district and a huge thanks to the literally hundreds of volunteers who helped with construction of the Boonville, Philo, Rancho Navarro and Holmes Ranch fire stations. When remembering the construction of the new stations we must give a big thanks to Handley Cellars, Heritage Wines LLC (Golden Eye Vineyards) and the Rancho Navarro Home Owners Association for making the land available to us for the new stations. I must also mention the community volunteers who stepped forward during the 2008 lightning fires to support our firefighters by cooking, cleaning the station and apparatus, answering phones, assisting with keeping necessary records and delivering food and supplies to the fire lines. Their assistance allowed our firefighters to work continuously for the first 14 critical days of the fires.

Lastly I’d like to thank all the current and former officers of the department who have so ably fulfilled their duties over these past 16 years. Without their support it would have been a very different story.

In spite of my best efforts I’m sure to have failed to mentioned some of you who have helped, supported and assisted me during my tenure as Chief, please chalk it up to an aged and failing mind and forgive my sins of omission.

My wife Patti and I will be staying in Yorkville and I will continue to volunteer for the department in those areas where I can still be of service.

Thanks again to you all,

Sincerely,

Colin H. Wilson, Fire Chief (Retired)

Yorkville

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HAPPY BIRTHDAY, CEO ANGELO.

Editor,

October 11 was Carmel Angelo's birthday.

Carmel is Mendocino County's CEO.

Carmel is also one of the best things about Mendocino County. Three or four years ago, we had to downsize County government. It was a cruel fact of life. We were going broke. We were on the bubble for bankruptcy. And we had a junk bond credit rating.

In short, we had too many liabilities.

We had too many County employees. Salaries that were too high. We had too much real estate. Too many wasting or depreciating assets. We had an unrecognized Teeter debt. We had too many unnecessary or duplicate programs. We had soaring healthcare costs. Soaring pension costs. We had improper “diversions” off county contributions intended for the retirement system.

Tax revenues were declining.

We did TRANS borrowing just to make ends meet.

And now?

Now, under Carmel's leadership, and with the best Board of Supervisors that we've had in many years, the budget has been balanced.

On the liabilities side of the County's balance sheet, we have 30 per cent fewer County employees, and those remaining employees took a 10 per cent pay cut. Excess real estate has been sold or expensive leases closed out. The Teeter debt was recognized, amortized, and is being paid off. Unnecessary programs were eliminated. Other programs have been outsourced or privatized. Healthcare costs are being contained. Pension costs remain a problem but are under control with a new actuary, accountant, auditor, legal counsel, and an investment consultant at the County's retirement system (MCERA). Improper diversions of County contributions intended for the retirement system were stopped, as was the absurd pension accounting fiction known as “excess earnings.”

TRANS borrowing stopped.

The County's bond rating was recently upgraded.

On the revenues side of the County's balance sheet, tax revenues have reversed their decline. Tax revenues are flat, and they may even be slightly rising.

Let's wish Carmel Angelo a Happy Birthday at her County email address: angeloc@co.mendocino.ca.us

Or wish Carmel at Happy Birthday at her FB page https://www.facebook.com/carmel.angelo?fref=ts

And let's thank her, too, for helping to turn around our great county. It's our home and the best place on earth.

John Sakowicz

Ukiah

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HIGH CRIME

To Congressman Jared Huffman:

As my representative in Congress, I formally request that you immediately initiate a resolution to the House Ethics Committee to expel John Andrew Boehner from the House of Representatives for committing the high crime of political extortion.

Mike Kalantarian

Navarro

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A POX ON THEM ONLY

Editor,

Recently I have seen a lot of petitions drifting around cyberspace and facebook asking me to sign up to get congresspersons pay cut off during the shutdown. Sorry, but I cannot sign. I think these petitions are very short-sighted and betray an accurate analysis of what is happening in Washington. I am not a fan of Obamacare (a.k.a. The Affordable Care Act or ACA). As usual Obama gave away too much to the insurance industry. That said, it has passed both houses of congress, was signed into law by the president, survived a Supreme Court challenge, and was a feature of the 2012 Presidential Election. A handful of members of the House are holding the budget, the economy, and our political system hostage in an effort to reverse the entire process. As a Progressive I buy into the argument that our democracy, if it even sill exists at all, is on life support. This handful of reps threaten what little remains. If we, as citizens, buy into the false premise that the blame is to be distributed equally for this debacle then we will become even more disempowered by this radical fringe with no respect for the constitution they are supposedly sworn to uphold. It is easy to throw up our hands in frustration and act as though congress is somehow a bickering group of kindergarteners. In this particular case I must disagree. The Tea Party faction of the Republican Party has basically taking hostages. Let's call it what it is.

Chris Skyhawk

Albion

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TWEAKERS SAY ELK IS NEXT

Dear Editor:

If you wear a red rubber nose and a clown outfit, and wave a fake bomb on an airliner, everyone would see that your “remarks were obviously intended as humor.” Quite so too when you suggest that the KZYX GM's house, temporarily vacated, might be a target for tweakers.

Yours,

Gordy Black

Mendocino

PS: Count on me as always. I'll bring a copy of the AVA to slip between the bars!

Ed reply: Just as I can always depend on you, Gordy, not to make the simplest distinctions. Come, let us reason together. The difference between the physical act of waving a fake bomb on an airliner and a print invitation to tweakers to raid the home of KZYX's cretinous manager is the diff between the act and the metaphor, ol' nuzzlebum, although I suppose it's possible a random tweaker might have seen the item, called a meeting of Mendocino County's tweaker community, gridded out a County map, and set the tweakers a-searchin'. Gawd! Is there anybody at that station of even dull-normal intelligence? Oops. Yes, there is. Jeff Blankfort. Ask him. I'll bet he got it. PS: This is kinda reminiscent of the time the Elk idiots called the cops because they said I'd threatened to do a drive-by on them!

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LOCAL FOODSHED THANKS

Editor,

Thanks for your support (both financially and by work and word of mouth)!

After three years without a fundraiser (except for our County Fair appeal, which all went to the Fairgrounds), the AV Foodshed Group coffers were empty.

Our September Tote Bag Fundraiser brought in enough money to put on the Grange Holiday Dinner this December, with a little left over. Thanks to those listed below who helped us raise this money:

Jamie Lee, Kira Brennan, Mary Darling, Laurie Wayburn, Glynnis Jones, Helen Papke, Stacey Soboleski, Dan Hamburg, Margie and Steve Fish, Judy Nelson, Nikola Milojevic, Abeja Hummel, Anne Bennett, Linda Wiley, Jackie Mang, Susan Tait, Lynda McClure, Maureen Bowman, Linda Brennan, Judy Basehore, Johanna Wildoak, Wendy Roberts, Scott Cratty, One anonymous donor. Hope we didn't miss anyone!

Now to beef up the bank account so that we can meet operating expenses (mainly our PO Box and Website maintenance) and have money set aside for next year's AV Foodshed Group Booth at the County Fair and the third edition of the Mendocino County Local Food Guide, our Boonville Hotel Dinner is coming up the end of the month.

Cindy Wilder

Boonville

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FROM MENDO TO ELOY

Dear Mr. Anderson,

I lived in Mendocino County my whole life. It is a great place to raise a family. I used to work for Landus Morgan for nine years at the Philo sawmill. Then I lost my wife and things went all bad for me. I got really lonely and depressed and started drinking and using and before you know it — here I sit.

I was in Jamestown, California, and there were four of us from Mendocino County and we all shared your newspaper. Thank you very much, sir. We really looked forward to it. Now, I don't really know why, but California shipped a bunch of us out here to Eloy, Arizona. I was wondering if you could send me some old papers to read and share with others. I've been here for three months and four days now and I still have no job, just a lot of time in my cell. I realize and totally understand if you can't help us out, but we would be very highly appreciative if you would throw a few copies my way.

Thanks,

Art Judice, AL-2803

LaPalma Correction Center,

5501 North LaPalma Road,

Eloy, AZ 85131

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THE FAMOUS DYKE

To the Editor —

Lesbians are not gay.

A lesbian couple worked for my momma when she was in her 80s in San Diego in Golden Hill. One had a head been a nurse and she did a fine job organizing my momma's complicated medicines. The other wore a button saying “Famous Dyke.” She had been one of the many witnesses to the assassination of the amusing rascal Bob Kennedy.

Like all the other witnesses, she had seen two guns. Some sort of publishers collective told the public that an Arab dishwasher had done the dastardly deed. The public, being more concerned with issues like laxatives and car insurance, let the publishers get away with it and kept keeping up with the news.

One day the Famous Dyke hinted to me that lesbians were not happy with “gay solidarity.” It gave me to think. What do women who lick each other's clitorises have in common with men whose exploding erections spray spermatozoa into the feces-laden bowels of their pleasure partners? And why are lesbians called “homosexuals”? Homo means man, as in Uomo, homme, hombre.

Lesbians get their name from the Greek island of Lesbos in ancient days. I am old enough to remember when the words “gay” and “straight” came into being. It was in the early 70s, about the time the kibosh was being put on the all class cultural revolution. In the sodomist subculture, the word “gay” meant a little twerp, not at all manly, who was dying to be sodomized but nobody wanted to sodomize, because “power is the great aphrodisiac.” They want advertising men, real estate kings, executives, TV producers — that sort. Calling themselves “gay” was an inside joke that they thought only they understood.

The word “straight” was an insult. It meant one-dimensional man in a multi-dimensional world. A “straight” was a man who didn't know the score. The sodomists applied the word “straight” to the overwhelming majority, people who they thought were ignorant of real pleasure.

It seems to me to be common sense that marriage, which is a female institution, can be extended to two women who want to live together, to share real estate together, and to adopt children if they wish. It seems to me to be common sense that the state would not give its blessing and its legal power to penis-into-bowel men, that it should do no more than minimally tolerate them.

Moishe (Marvin) Garson

Modi'in Illit, Israel

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PAGING COCHRAN’S FAMILY

Editor,

I remember my dad's mobile home between Elkhorn Road and Yorkville. I used to spend weekends there when I was very young playing in the creek, feeding my father's horse, Juanita, and visiting my sisters, Susan and Vanita. They lived on a split plot of property just north of the general store in Yorkville. My mother's ex-husband still lives there with his wife Vanita and my brother Charlie right next door to my sister Susan and her two boys. I remember going back there 20 years ago while living with my father for a short time and seeing a sign that said “Yorkville, Population 25.” I did a quick mental count and realized that 13 of those 25 people were related to me. I thought that was pretty cool! In the intervening years I came to love Barney Flats Oatmeal Stout and weekend trips to Philo with my wife.

However, five years ago I was imprisoned for a violent act I did not commit and all that went away. While locked up I got back in contact with my oldest brother Bill whose father is still living in the same house in Yorkville next to my sister Susan. So I asked Bill to talk to William and ask if I could get Susan's address. Someone — William or Susan — said no. Now I'm about to be released from prison and I want William and Susan to know that I harbor no hard feelings. I didn't want to ask for anything. I just wanted to establish contact with someone I haven't seen since our father died. So if anyone out there knows William, Bill, Vanita, Charlie or Susan from Yorkville, tell them that Taurin says “Hi” and “I miss you” to all his lost family, brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews and the parents of my half siblings, Bill and Vanita.

Thank you,

Taurin Cochran, G53299

CCC Susanville BE 6002-L

PO Box 2400

Susanville, CA 96127

PS: “Up”

When it seems that everyone has forgotten you,

you lose perspective and the light stops shining through.

The veil of darkness grows closer every day,

you find it harder and harder to find your way,

without the brightest point as your guide

you wander aimlessly trapped on the inside

lost in your thoughts, churning and stewing,

with no idea of the damage you're doing.

You must remember that life doesn't stop,

and the only way from the bottom is toward the top.

Just when you think things can't get any more low,

remind yourself that there's only one way to go.

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REOPEN LINES

Editor,

Regarding Doug McKenty’s letter, I will be making a formal request of the KZYX Board President that the Nominating Committee of the Board of Directors be re-established. I was disheartened to read in Mr. McKenty’s letter that an effort was made by the station’s General Manager to handpick his board.

Indeed, it is not “his” board. The KZYX Board of Directors represents the station’s 2,300 members.

I will be making a formal request of KZYX Board President about restoring the “Open Lines” program. I want the issue put on the agenda of our next Board meeting, and that it not be contingent on the station buying the broadcast delay, otherwise known as the seven-second delay or profanity delay. I am concerned that the cost of the device, colloquially known as a dump box, will hold up returning “Open Lines” to the air.

Returning “Open Lines” to the air is imperative. “Open Lines” is not just an institution here at KZYX; it is sacrosanct because it is what federal courts have characterized as public comment in a public forum.

“Open Lines” is like public comment at city council meetings or county board of supervisors meetings. One may argue that public radio is not a government-controlled setting, but public radio is, however, a publicly-funded setting.

As many citizens of Mendocino County are aware, I am currently exploring free speech issues with the Mendocino County Board of Supervisors and its own public comment policies, and thus I will be happy to have my legal team research the public forum doctrine as it applies to public radio. In a letter to the KZYX Board, I shall forward that analysis. These are important issues as the station seeks its renewal of its FCC licenses.

In any case, I look forward to the resumption of “Open Lines.” I also look forward to the resolution of Mr. McKenty’s suspension and related grievance. I will also be requesting that a report on that matter also be put on the agenda for our next Board meeting.

John Sakowicz

Ukiah

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BRAINWASH AT THE CAR WASH

Editor —

Disembodied gadget slaves, take 2.

I was in the South Bay visiting family last week. My brother gave me a coupon for a car wash. Might as well go get several months worth of Mendo County living removed. It was a sparkling sunny day in Cupertino, a fine day to go check out mass suburbia.

This carwash was first-rate and busy. My 13 year old car was a bit of a novelty in this place. The detailer wiped it down inside and out as if it were an $85,000 Land Rover driven by some spandex yuppie bitch in heat with herself. I tipped him $20 for his unprejudiced job.

The real highlight of the show was a shade arbor waiting area with park benches enough for 15-20 fat asses. The population averaged about 12 for my half hour stay.

Without exception everyone of these owners of mostly hog SUVs and cartoon juvenile zoom zoom sedans and wagons were gone — disembodied — not there.

The wet cars stack up two deep in a row six to seven long. The detailers, all brown men, wave drying rags and if their English is good enough call out receipt numbers to alert people to come get their vehicle.

Due to cyber toy obsession by the self-absorbed sheep the detailers give up the futile calling and waving and with looks of frustration or disdain turn to move cars around and keep it flowing.

Who are these rude assholes? I sure hope they are not procreating more hive minds. Perhaps they're helping Obama gather tools for violating another nation for unprovoked same old lies, and for Israel of course. Maybe one of these yuppie shitheads should invent a low-voltage taser for these devoted workers to use for waking up these bovines as they eat the cyber grass with heads bowed.

I was actually noticed by one or two of these pathetic slaves as being, I imagine, some kind of voyeur or worse, for just actually being in my body on the bench at the car wash. To be where you really are and socially engaged is seen as some kind of trade impediment I guess. Like maybe I could be taken to the WTO court for not doing my part in the high tech brainwash at the car wash.

Wow! It's a very entertaining and incredible experience. Also a very troubling one for this kind of canary.

The divide and conquer era of the car culture is now being taken to new levels of carnage and displacement by the ugly junkyard dog narcissism of the information superhighway. Democracy destroying social fracturing by the cyber handheld ship of fools slave trade. “Technology will save us,” and all that delusional servitude. Pathetic.

Social media, my ass! Corporations created all this junk and our inferior access highways. Corporations are private tyrannies. They are totalitarian organizations. They are antisocial by nature. Calling the Internet “social media” is like calling cars and freeways social fabric. It's like calling the airwaves “ours.” Get real! Social as long as you don't have to interact with an actual person or of course be one yourself.

Until next time, Happy fall.

Marvin Blake

Albion

PS. And pacified these infantile morons go from handheld screens to dashboard screens to home and the God of all the screens. Stalin was a little punk compared to the prison camps of the mind that began with the old cathode-ray tube.

PPS. One can only hope that as Californians and others finally realized the hideous social costs of the tobacco invasion, the handheld cyber pollution will also be pushed back into the privacy of one's own home along with all the other forms of fervent lockstep conformity. Americans are already way gently challenged thanks to consumer common culture dumbed down for decades on end and can ill afford this new odorless invasion of public space. Or maybe we are already too far into the postindustrial post-political post-civil phase of the grand Yankee Empirium!

“And so castles made of sand tumble into the sea, eventually.” — Jimmy Hendricks

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THE ROUTE LESS TRAVELED

Editor:

Time to meet renew my subscription.

My opinion of the Willits Bypass: It would have been cheaper to make 101 two-lanes in each direction to the Highway 20 turnoff. Traffic will continue to bottleneck through Willits despite the bypass. I have stopped driving north through Willits or even going to Willits. When I go to the coast, I have always preferred the route through Anderson Valley.

Caltrans is a rogue and corrupt government agency. The Bay Bridge fiasco with the bolts is the perfect illustration. The Willits bypass is icing on the cake.

Re: harvest odors: I prefer the smell of marijuana buds to the vinegar of the grape crush.

Cheers!

George Jones

Lakeport