Off the Record (June 7, 2024)

FOR YOUR ENTITLEMENT FILES. The scene, a Ukiah restaurant much favored by inland libs. A purple person alights at a nearby table with her tea and a huge muffin. She's got the requisite lavender ribbon in her hair, a purple sweater, that overall Mendolib affect — beady-eyed righteousness. She occupies space like an expanding sea creature, dipping into a massive handbag for more and more stuff she spreads out on her table and its three unoccupied chairs. It's as if she's moving in, not stopping by for a restorative, late morning cup of tea. Several Ukiah-based, male passive-aggressives drift by. One of them is wearing a KZYX t-shirt. She rises for an affection-free hug. The purple person rises to hug each passerby. The encounters are non-verbal and eyes averted, consisting entirely of insincere ooh-ing and ahh-ing. The purple person has now resided at the table for a good 15 minutes. She's writing in a notebook in between the hugs and the orgasmic acclamations with which she and the passing parade of males greet each other. Was it Chekhov who said there was one artist for every two million people? In Mendocino County the ratio is one artist out of every two people, and the second person is mega-cool anyway. A Mexican woman who works in the restaurant's kitchen happens past on a work-related errand. The purple person suddenly reaches out and grabs her by the arm as if the Mexican woman had been reaching for a gun. “My table wobbles,” the purple person complains. “Will you fix it, please?” The Mexican woman flushes, but takes a napkin from an unoccupied table, tears two small pieces of paper from it, folds them, then crouches before the purple person’s unyielding knees, cautiously lifting the table so as not to slide the purple person’s mounded accumulations from the tabletop, and slips the tiny table stabilizers beneath the legs of the table. Purple person hasn't moved herself or her chair to accommodate the woman making repairs the purple princess could not have made herself. The Mexican woman stands up and walks back into the kitchen. The purple person, bent over her notepad writing important sentences, murmurs, without looking up, “Thank you,” by which time the Mexican woman is beyond hearing and out of sight.

I TOOK UMBRAGE. To take umbrage you draw yourself up to your full height and exclaim in offended tones, “Well, I never!”

I GAVE UP taking umbrage years ago when there were so many umbrages to be taken that I was spending hours taking them. One of my last umbrages taken was on behalf of my friend Kevin Hoover at the old paper-paper, the Arcata Eye.

A HUMBOLDT STATE faculty intellectual named Craig Klein had criticized the Eye, claiming the paper wasn't serious.

KLEIN was a professor of journalism, which is like being a professor of donuts or dog walkers. Anyway, to test the bona fides of a journalism department professor all one has to do is read an edition of the student paper whose staff the journalism professor instructs and advises. Judging from Humboldt State's student paper of the time, Klein was a cretin and his students were morons.

BUT PROFESSOR KLEIN, pressed into service as Arcata's resident journalo-expert when the Chron wrote about Hoover and the Eye, told the Chron, “It's not the journalism that we teach at the academy.” (The what?) “His writing is full of editorial commentary [sic] A traditional journalism program teaches people to just put the facts out there.”

IN FACT, a traditional journalism program teaches young people how not “to put the facts out there” if they hoped to be employed by a contemporary American newspaper, hence the campus publication at HSU, hence Professor Klein, hence journalism departments.

RECOMMENDED READING (by Dr. Victoria Patterson, writing in the current newsletter of the Historical Society of Mendocino County.)

‘The Death of Captain Ford,’ by lcoal author Robert Winn (published posthumously),is historical fiction. Relying on letters, diaries, and government reports Winn recounts the life and death of Captain Henry Ford, believed to have died from accidentally discharging his own pistol. Through a fictionalized narrator, Ford’s nephew, Winn lifts the shroud covering the real history of early Califronia. It is not a romantic tale of missions, sailing ships, and commerce in lumber, but the deliberate genocide of the state’s indigenous population. Winn examines this horror through the excuses put forward by the perpetrators themselves. He explores the historical context with evocative descriptions of daily life on the Mendocino Coast. It is a novel filled with imaginaation, historical reality and knowing. The book is available at the Historical Society of Mendocino County for $17.95.

I DEFY ANYONE, including the Trump jury and their wacky judge who read them an hour and forty minutes of instructions, to explain the charges that have now convicted the orange dreadnaught of 34 felonies. Charles Manson was only convicted of 7.

EVERYONE KNOWS Trump is a sleaze who's always operated in a sleazy social context of kindred sleazebags, but how did a payoff to a prostitute and an attempt to keep that payoff out of the news become 34 felonies?

I THINK these transparently inflated charges against Trump are going to get him re-elected simply because people other than his Magas understand the bogosity of this conviction.

HOW MANY media hours did Adam Schiff get as he assured America that Trump was an agent of Russia? The entire lib media ran with that one while Schiff's 24 months of lies has won him a Senate seat.

NOW TRUMP is convicted of 34 fantasy felonies. Will his wacky judge dare send him to prison?

SINCE MY THROAT was relocated south and slightly west of where it used to be I've been unable to speak. Voicelessness commenced on March 21st but tentatively, tenuously returned on Tuesday when I was able to audibly count to 7. I've been fortunate throughout my medical ordeal in a series of brilliant practitioners, among them my speech guy, Erik Steele of Mission Bay where only the varsity healers are employed, all of them, nurses to surgeons, Caesar himself could only envy in their attentiveness.

WHILE I was under the knife and my throat was being relocated, the surgeons inserted a tiny device they call a prosthesis, which functions, you could say, as a substitute voice box through which I am gradually making intelligible sounds. As a guy who barely grasps the principle of electricity, my medical journey has left me amazed at the ingenuity of medical science, and wondering how it is that with all the smart, talented honest people among our fellow citizens we wind up with Biden and Trump.

A UDJ FRONT PAGER last week about a grant for the rehab-type enterprise over on Clara Street was a prizewinner. I didn’t read it, but this is what it said: “Through the use of communication strategies and by working together to form grassroots input to affect marginalized groups while focusing on proven goals strengthening potential factors in realizing a shared vision of interpersonal development and recognizing growth as a nurturing experience and a lifelong journey, we hope to attract more money from more agencies that already have more money than they need so they’ll even give us even more, within the program’s sustainable framework of inclusiveness and self-awareness evolving in a community of progressive progress.”

— TWK

A SENIOR CITIZEN drove his brand new Corvette convertible out of the dealership. Taking off down the road, he floored it to 80 mph, enjoying the wind blowing through what little gray hair he had left. Amazing, he thought as he flew down I-94, pushing the pedal even more. Looking in his rear view mirror, he saw a state trooper behind him, lights flashing and siren blaring. He floored it to 100 mph, then 110, then 120. Suddenly he thought, What am I doing? I'm too old for this, and pulled over to await the trooper's arrival.

Pulling in behind him, the trooper walked up to the Corvette, looked at his watch, and said, “Sir, my shift ends in 30 minutes. Today is Friday. If you can give me a reason for speeding that I've never heard before, I'll let you go.” The old gentleman paused. Then he said, “Years ago, my wife ran off with a state trooper. I thought you were bringing her back.” “Have a good day, sir,” replied the trooper.

FROM THE NYT:

The Gualala River pronounced (“wa-LAL-la”) marks the border between Sonoma and Mendocino counties in Northern California. Its sinuous form cuts a lazy path through ancient redwood groves to ultimately form an estuary beneath windswept coastal bluffs. Just inland, the river is breathlessly still, wrapping itself around Gualala River Redwood Park to form one of the best campground and swimming hole combinations in the state. A lacquered boom gate divides this sleepy campground from the outside world. There is no day use allowed, so you must be a registered camper or their guest to enter. Beneath the dense canopy, much of the property sits in a permanent twilight. The forest trails are dusted with soft redwood branchlets and needles, campsites are divided by wild sorrel and ferns. The silence here is so complete that it becomes addictive. It spreads across the forest like freshly fallen snow, distorting our sense of time. For once, my wife and I sleep like two people who are not living in an RV with a toddler.

The most coveted spots overlook the river, whose current carves deep green pools as it arcs around the pebble beach (a river-view campsite is $90 a night). As the fog retreats, sunlight pierces the impossibly clear water and warms the dark sand below. People dive in with whoops of delight. Native coho salmon and steelhead trout glide in the shadowy depths, seemingly unfazed by the commotion. Lost among the trees, Gualala feels like an outlier, setting its own rhythms and casting a spell on all who visit.

MARILYN MOTHERBEAR SCOTT:

Really Mind-Blowing! This is the last weekend.

Mendocino Theatre Company’s current production, BORN WITH TEETH by award-winnig playwright Liz Duffy-Adams, and directed by MTC’S Artistic Director Elizabeth Craven, is am amazing journey into two of the most beloved writers of elizabethan times. Christopher Marlow and William Shakespeare, known in the play as Kit and Will. It is a a non-stop 90 minutes by these two amazing and gifted actors.

I would love to tell you more, and I will; however, it might be too late by then for you to see the play. Google the actors to see their bios. They bring incredible talent to the MTC stage.

For a ticket information go to ((707) 937-4477 or box office@ mendocinotheatre.org

‘Born With Teeth’ By Liz Duffy-Adams

Directed by Elizaeth Craven

WELL, THIS IS DISAPPOINTING BUT NOT UNEXPECTED.

High prices, an austere setting, and indifferent service don't do well in a community-based market, in my opinion. We shopped for years at the Hopland

Superette (bring back the name and the great neon sign) when the Kong family ran it. It was a center of community, right next to the Post Office. It was cluttered. Featured local wines and allowed customers to charge if needed. Stopping in was like visiting neighbors.

Hopefully, an experienced operator can put this renovated and much-needed market back on track.

(Mike Geniella)

CHARLIE MUSSELWHITE:

“The blues don’t make you feel bad. The blues lift you up. The blues help get rid of that bad feeling. Life can be hard, but in the meantime, let’s party.”

“At first, I was going to all of the clubs just as a blues fan, and I wasn’t asking to sit in. I didn’t tell anybody I played. I was happy just to be there. These guys - like Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf and Sonny Boy Williamson - just thought of me as a fan, because I’d request tunes,”

“But one night in this club called Pepper’s Lounge, Muddy’s home club, this waitress I’d gotten to know real well told Muddy, ‘You oughta hear Charlie play harmonica.’ That changed everything. He insisted I sit in. A lot of musicians hung out at Pepper’s, and they heard me playing with Muddy, and they started offering me gigs. I was about 18.”

— Dan Taylor, Santa Rosa Press Democrat

TONY CRAVER was the first Mendo sheriff to understand that the county demographic had radically changed to include a large segment, if not a slight majority, of hippie-liberal-commies. Craver not only understood that the times had done changed in reluctant-to-change Mendocino County, he treated the enemy as full citizens. He was a professional who went about his work impartially.

PREVIOUS top cops, Tim Shea especially, would practically hyperventilate at the mere mention of “those nuts,” nevermind invite them in for a chat.

I SUSPECTED that Craver was faking his big tent embrace of the previously untouchable, many of them, I confess, I would have liked to club myself, but his masterful peacekeeping missions when confrontations between large groups of eco-demonstrators and large groups of irate loggers threatened to leave bodies on the forest floor, Craver not only kept the peace he miraculously accomplished his peacekeeping mission without seriously outraging either side.

I ONCE ASKED CRAVER when we could expect to see the Mendo Sheriff's Department on COPS. He laughed. “Are you kidding? Never. I can't believe some the stuff those guys put on national television.”

HEADLINE from the Sunday Chron: “California kids are disappearing from school and the workforce. No one knows where they are.” I could have sworn I saw one yesterday, but it's hardly news that parents everywhere in the state are homeschooling or, if they can afford it, dispatching their heirs and assignees to private schools because lots of public schools are not safe, as an ugly episode in Marin County's Novato illustrated, Marin County! Marvellous Marin, where bad things are not supposed to happen. Seven junior high school kids were arrested for beating up a single girl while a large chorus of their hyena classmates, filming the sadistic attack, cheered on the assault. Teachers were quick to break it up but they were unable to stop the pubescent stampede that kicked it off.

WINSTON CHURCHILL was so charmed by Willits he spent the night there in 1929, a little known fact of Mendocino County history confirmed in California History, the magazine of the California Historical Society.

FROM THE FORT BRAGG Advocate-News of May 31st, 1902, as compiled by Debbie Holmer: “A band of Gypsies came to town last week and are camping on the south side of Pudding Creek.” Gypsies in 1902 Mendocino County? One wonders if any more is known about them. What did they do here besides, poison wells, steal babies, cast spells, and tell fortunes?

WOODROW WILSON was re-elected president of the United States in 1916 largely based on his campaign slogan, “He kept us out of war.” But in 1917 Wilson reversed himself in a speech to Congress claiming that entering the war in Europe was a virtuous, honorable and patriotic necessity, especially in light of Germany’s submarine attacks on US ships. Wilson, however, did not share with the public information that would have revealed less righteous sounding motives in going to war. A month before his speech to Congress announcing his decision to send General Pershing and his troops to Europe, Wilson’s ambassador to London had telegraphed to Washington a warning that if the United States did not enter the conflict, not only might the allies collapse, but with them any chance that Americans and American bankers who had bought British and French war bonds would ever get their money back. By this point Britain alone owed the United States more than $2.7 billion. As a percentage of US Gross Domestic Product this would be equal to over $1 trillion a century later. In Europe, the ambassador reported, conditions were “most aligned to the American industrial outlook.” But Britain and France were running out of cash and gold to pay for the American supplies and ammunitions they bought, risking almost a complete cessation of Trans-Atlantic trade. “This will of course cause a panic and a recession in the United States,” said the Ambassador. “Huge new credits from Washington to the allies would be required to avert this. But unless we go to war with Germany, our government will of course be unable to provide such a large, direct grant of credit. Perhaps our going to war is the only way in which our present pre-eminent trade position can be maintained and a panic averted.”

— Adam Hochschild, “Amerian Midnight”

FLAUBERT to Mme. Roger es Genettes: "You are right; we must speak with respect of Lucretius; I see no one who can compare with him except Byron, and Byron has not his gravity nor the sincerity of his sadness. The melancholy of the ancients seems to me more profound than that of the moderns, who all more or less presuppose immortality on the yonder side of the black hole. But for the ancients, this black hole was the infinite itself; the procession of their dreams is imaged against a background of immutable ebony. The gods being no more and Christ being not yet, there was between Cicero and Marcus Aurelius a unique moment in which man stood alone. Nowhere else do I find this grandeur; but what renders Lucretius intolerable is his physics, which he gives as if positive. If he is weak, it is because he did not doubt enough; he wished to explain, to arrive at a conclusion!"

In Miguel de Unamuno, The Tragic Sense of Life

A READER WRITES: I was in Fort Bragg last week and right downtown there were two obviously mentally ill homeless people near the intersection of Franklin and Laurel. I had intended to shop near there but I didn’t like the vibe the homeless people were giving off so I drove down to the whart area and had lunch. Yesterday, I was in Cloverdale and the contrast is stark. I visit Cloverdale frequently and I have never seen a homeless person downtown. Ukiah is much worse than Fort Bragg. I always see a few homeless people on State Street, often in the downtown area. Cloverdale is on the same Highway 101 as Ukiah and is closer to the Bay Area and Santa Rosa, yet there are no homeless on Cloverdale’s downtown streets. What is Cloverdale doing that Ukiah and Fort Bragg are not?

KEVIN BAILEY (forrmer Sheriff’s detective; former DA investigator):

Tony Craver was a man with many sides. I remember as a young deputy on the coast I totaled a new patrol car. I was still on probation and told my wife the best we could hope for was for me to be transferred back to the jail. My Sergeant asked me to write a memo detailing the accident and I wrote a long memo on how my accident was a result of driving to fast for the road conditions and that as a result I was unavailable to provide response to the citizens and backup for my fellow officers, thus jeopardizing the safety of everyone on the coast.

Tony called me into his office and I steadied myself for the firing or transfer that I deserved. Tony had my memo in his hand when I sat in front of his desk. He looked at me and said “Jesus Christ you’re too hard on yourself. I just want to know how the damn accident happened.” He crumpled up the memo and threw it into the trash. I wrote him a new, much shorter one, and we never spoke of the accident again. I returned to patrol and the rest is history. Tony had my career in his hands, but I think he saw something in me that I didn’t necessarily see in myself. I will always be thankful for how he handled that. He had his warts like we all do, but I’m sad he’s gone.

DAVE GOWAN:

Tony Craver was a Super Sheriff. I was Mendocino County Fair Manager for a time in the 1990s. Tony and his deputies kept the peace. Sad to hear he passed.

TOM BACHAR WRITES: “It’s nice that you praise Barry Scheck for freeing innocent men through DNA analysis. But isn’t it more important to attack our corrupt criminal justice system? Do you really think that over 100 innocent men ended up in jail “accidentally”? Aren’t you curious (and more importantly, furious) about how 80 men (so far) on death row turned out to be innocent? This is a serious matter, and the Scheck DNA tests are not the answer. Cracking down on the problem, rather than the symptom of that problem, is the real issue, and the problem is that prosecutors and police departments across the nation are corrupt — whether deliberately framing innocent men, or just being too lazy and sloppy to make sure the wrong man doesn’t get locked up. This happens every day, and nothing is changing. Also keep in mind who pays the millions of dollars in lawsuit settlements to those wrongly imprisoned: You do. Let’s start taking that money from the crooked district attorneys and police departments who continue to commit these crimes.

CASE IN POINT. Tate Laiwa was a Point Arena man packed off for twenty years in state prison on zero evidence that he shot and killed a man named Poe during a drop-fall drunk party on the PA rez. Laiwa's conviction was so egregious it was taken up by the Innocence Project.

LOCAL AUTHORITIES had been convinced that they'd find the victim's blood on Laiwa's clothes; they also were convinced that they'd find gunshot residue on his hands. They didn't, but pursued him anyway, the investigating officer claiming that Laiwa confessed to the crime while the cop's tape recorder was off. When the tape recorder was back on there was no confirmation, or even mention, that Laiwa had confessed to shooting Poe.

LOTS OF PEOPLE asked me, “Are you sure you didn't leave something out? Do you mean Mendocino County convicted Laiwa on this?” I didn't leave anything out, and what happened to Tate Laiwa was a major crime itself.

LAIWA served his time and is now alive and well and working as a chef in Los Angeles.

CONFIRMING old suspicions that The Valley’s pesticide and herbicide-soaked vineyards have wiped out the frog populations in and around them, the U.S. Geological Survey has found that the increased pesticide concentrations in Pacific tree frogs downwind of San Joaquin Valley ag correlated with a decline in amphibian numbers in the Sierra. The specific pesticides included chlorpyrifos and Diazinon, both of which are widely applied by the wine industry.

I NEVER DID find out who sent me an unsigned collection of fine poems with the promising inscription, “This book is dedicated to my boyfriend. He knows who he is,” and lived up to it in stanzas like: “Beery breath and belly proud / leering kindly toward each other / balancing on elevated stools / listening to muscle turn to padding.”

A READER WRITES: “I have not been a pot smoker since the Department of Transportation instituted drug testing back in ’86. I know that dope does not improve people. Plenty of nasty folks smoke weed. I know that you put the anti-pot articles in the paper just to annoy some of the local navel gazers. What I suspect about pot smokers is that they would not have amounted to much anyway. It is not like without weed they would be leading the social revolution. But I do feel that dope de-criminalization is a big step up from, say, struggling to establish doggy parks. De-criminalization might result in a few more blissed out stoners, but it could also reduce the population of the rape cages, aka the penal system."

A READER WRITES: “During the course of routine events today I stumbled upon a tragic scene. A young girl was struck by a car, a hit and run from what I overheard, but I am not sure. It took me several minutes to figure out exactly what was going on, as there was buzz and hubbub but people were just standing around looking at some event obscured by the corner of a building and a parked vehicle. It was not until I was leaving the parking lot that I saw the girl and the frantic women trying to save her. I backed up and parked, assuming emergency vehicles were on the way because a guy was on his cell phone, and got out to, I don't know, assist in some way. Within a very long 15 seconds one of the women and I were giving CPR and clearing blood from her mouth and nose until the fire department arrived in full force about four minutes later and took over. That was it.

“I just phoned the hospital. They said that she had passed away, that she never recovered, that her injuries were too extensive.

“First and foremost my prayers go out to the family and friends of this child, I do not know her name. I cannot begin to imagine so I won't.

“Second, it was apparent that a small proportion of bystanders had only the slightest inkling of what to do or how to do it. This is the meat of this letter. That beautiful little girl reminded me that those of us with the will and resolve to participate in tragic events owe it to the world to keep up on our skills. Call the American Red Cross or the community college or the fire department or whoever and book yourself into a class to become CPR certified, a water safety instructor, or work towards your EMT if you have the time. Take a class in basic first aid. Something.

“I thought of my daughter and all the trouble she'll get into when she learns to walk and drink paint and crash into trees and lose hold of a rope swing and god forbid ride a bicycle with her dad. I hope that if I am absent there will be someone who could fill my shoes.

“I shouldn't get too far into what I think about the driver as I don't know what actually happened. I will say that I was there and you were not. Thank you for your time.”

WE SENT a lot of paper-papers into jails and prisons, lots and lots, and found that the imprisoned were our closest and most loyal readers. If we could have locked up the free range miscreants, we'd have been the New York Times of the sub-proletariat. (Never liked that pejorative, lumpen proletariat.) But once free, not a word from most of them. And so what? It was gratifying that in a tiny way the ava was the link to the world the bad boys, and a few bad girls, had left behind but would be returning to, perhaps, maybe, long shot, a little mentally stronger, a little smarter about how they functioned in their home place.

EVALUATING WORLD EVENTS from Boonville's International Desk, I'd say we're looking at civil war here in areas of Liberty Land, an expanding Russian aggression in Europe, China's inevitable grab of Taiwan, endless semitic murder in the Middle East, and general social chaos here and abroad, along with breakdowns in supply chains and other big, complicated systems, all of it wrapped up in a dying planet presided over by the weakest set of world leaders ever, America's the weakest of all.

THIS WEEK'S NIKITA AWARD for headline writing goes to MendoFever: “Updated Notice of Public Hearing For Proposed Fee Adoption for Ukiah Valley Basin Groundwater Sustainability Agency.”

HERB CAEN was the founder of the award based on prose that reads like it's been translated by several East European languages before landing on the page as Americano. The Independent Coast Observer out of Gualala is the perennial Mendo winner.

AND FOR PURE GRATUITOUS INSULT, we get this hed from the Chron: "Heavy-Set Grandmother Completes Terrifying 29-Mile Swim Through Shark-Infested Waters to Break the Record."

THE LAST TIME I braved the white knuckle road out to Usal, a single lane dirt track, when I got there I found that that remote, rare jewel of sand and sea on the south end of the Lost Coast to be wayyyyy too dude-heavy. It's one thing to be a moron, but to also look and act like one seems excessive. But here were acres of them. Unless there's been a demographic upgrade and some basic order established at what should be an oasis of natural peace and beauty, Usal is probably still a free-range human zoo of hats-backward remedial readers and their vacant-eyed female consorts.

DR. FAUCI has been more than a match for the cretinous Republican demagogues failing to Gotcha him. Blaming the covid catastrophe on Fauci ignores the fact that The Big Bazoo was America's boss man at the time, so why didn't the BB, often passing out crackpot medical advice himself as Fauci winced at how dangerously stupid boss man was, also make covid policy? I'll answer that — because Trump was and is wholly unfit to run anything but his inherited real estate office, nevermind our doomed country whose doom he has hastened.

AS HAS BIDEN, the two of them comprising a dual national destruction derby. But Biden has an excuse: he's out of it, not in charge of anything, a dead man walking. “Our democracy” is being run by un-elected people who shoot up the old bag man with the latest in pharmaceutical speed and shove him out there to slur his way off the teleprompter.

GOTTA AGREE with Fort Bragg mayor Bernie Norvell. Via an intelligent, sustained Marbut-based strategy, FB has retrieved central Fort Bragg from its population of menacing vagabonds. Ukiah, if it had even a dollop of reality-based leadership, could do the same.

UKIAH'S homeless flotsam includes unreformed criminals, free range drug addicts and drunks, leavened by a population of the untreated mentally ill, the latter excluded from the dubious services of Ukiah's helping professionals because the intractable are “non-reimbursable,” and, no, Mother Teresa would not be welcome in the county seat.

WHO'S MARBUT? He's a brisk Republican of the better sort who has successfully cleaned up towns large and small by persuading them to apply his tough love strategies to their unhoused populations. He was paid about 60 grand by our county supervisors to have a look at Mendo, but Mendo's helping pros, sensing a loss of revenue if they were to lose any sector of the dysfunctional poor, rose up en masse against Marbut's advice, and, of course, the Supervisors caved.

MARBUT offered a simple strategy for dealing with the human casualties of berserk capitalism, which was, essentially, take care of the homegrown walking wounded, give the professional deadbeats a couple of free meals and send them outta here to, uh, Portland, where they were headed in the first place before they discovered how easy it was to live free in Ukiah.

ON LINE COMMENTS OF THE WEEK

[1] Saving our Democracy is now going to require:

1) Large-scale social revolts, social upheaval and most importantly the self-organization of ordinary citizens that can lead to a wider distribution of power, property and local control.

2) Without such self-organization (in the past, such organizations as unions, co-operatives, family firms etc.) we will not have the necessary social-political leverage to influence our existing market structures, including finance, as well as the necessary clout to restrain/dismantle our intelligence agencies and their foreign policy priorities.

3) We have temporarily lost our ability to exert collective pressure on elite-decision making and unless we get this back our chances of generating broadly distributed prosperity, meaning ultimately figuring out creative ways to save ourselves since the institutional networks that presently surround us could care less about our economic, political or spiritual well-being.

[2] People are still going to Hawaii for two week vacations, still buying $800,000 single family homes and still driving around in luxury Chevy pickup trucks that cost $110,000. Things are still great and hunky-dory in America. Why should they not vote for “Joe Biden.” Nobody will give a shit until they lose their debt laden never to be paid off lifestyle. As long as the credit continues to flow they will continue to vote the same way they always have.

[3] Judicial assassination. The regime in power will now move to cage Trump and shut his mouth. This is getting dangerous and exciting. I wonder how many and which parts of the military and police will side with who. At first probably with the regime in power, but after a time and with a few horrible, violent, spectacles, I predict they will begin siding with the people.

[4] I don’t think that a person should bury his head in the sand. On the other hand, you have to realize that we are living through the collapse of a civilization/empire. You can’t any more fix this than some guy living in Rome in the year one, AD, could have rooted out the corruption and restored Rome to its republican days of glory.

All you can really do in the present case is to try to secure some measure of safety and prosperity for yourself and your loved ones, and work to preserve your culture, values, religion, and the related intellectual and artistic attainments. The best you can hope for is to be among the remnant, and the first step to that is to figure out some way to remain.

[5] The secret wish of 90% of the politicians and bureaucrats is easily summed up in one sentence.

“STFU and do as you are told, or else.”

What the politicians seem to ignore is that the unelected bureaucrats feel the same about them. The politicians and their useful idiot sycophants also ignore what I call the Robespierre effect- what they can do to DJT, (a billionaire and former President) they can do to anyone.

The DOJ, and the alphabet intel agencies are just the latest to make that abundantly clear.

[6] MARIE TOBIAS:

Trump is just the most egregious example of an American Privileged class who has every reason to believe that laws and social contracts don't apply to them. As long as you can afford a stable of top legal talent, you can indeed shoot someone in the middle of 5th Avenue in broad daylight and walk away without so much as a wrist-slap. OJ proved that to everyone.

We've spent the last 60 years allowing the wealthy to hijack our democracy, and transform it into the dystopia we celebrate today. With Democracy dangling by a fraying thread and billionaires dumping hundreds of millions into black money political pools, try with all their might to break that final strand.

Donald is their boy, he's one of them, he's got their back (for a price), and they know they can rely on him to sell the nation off piecemeal as long as he get's top dollar personally (I mean the man's a Real Estate guy, what part of this doesn't make sense.) So felon, child rapist, beastiality afficianado, necrophile? None of that matters. Traitor, imbecile, goose stepping neo nazi? It's moot. He's a blunt instrument. The big ugly orange haired stick that will smack the pinata hard enough to knock the candy out.

The worst part, is that about a third of the society lives in abject superstition, spoon fed to them by the likes of Rupert Murdoch and friends… Q-Anon rubes voting for their own extinction, in the belief they have some access to magical truths obscured by the all mighty and bestowed upon them by devine grace pouring from the lips of the Cynical Men and Women who trade in lies for political power.

We need to declare a National Emergency. Stop the normal governing process for 6 months as we reform our Government. We need to Create a Nonpartisan Reparative Body, who's job is to go from Government Branch to Branch, transparently in the face of the nation and with the public scrutiny of every American, and root out the rot, person by person. Clean up each public institution including and especially regarding anything that goes bang and makes live people into dead people. Re-Centering the public sector as focused purely on service, and social contribution. People looking to take from society need to be expunged. People looking to turn government into a means from controlling and bleeding the masses need to be sent packing, preferably to an institution of criminal confinement.

Every child needs to be taught what our government is, how it became, who it belongs to, and how we are each of us responsible for it. That we don't all agree, have never all agreed, and that is not only fine, but an essential aspect of of a diverse plurality, and the key is how we embrace one another’s disagreements. And still find a way to bang out a consensus, a path towards a world that serve everyone, top to bottom.

[7] Not to worry, folks. Today in Ct the Governor officially honors Pride Month; a massive ‘Pride Flag’ has been raised over the State Capitol. And when I say massive I mean it’s the largest flag you’ve ever seen. There will be festivities all day inside the Capitol building and on Capitol grounds. Last night some state official gave this absurd militant speech, inviting citizens down to celebrate Pride, implying if you don’t come — and bring your children — you are homophobic. Last night in the Northend of Hartford — formerly the African American district before the entire city became the African American district –a 2 year old girl out wandering the streets at 11:00 pm was run down and killed … by a speeding BMW that left the scene of the accident. It never ceases to amaze me, all the expensive foreign cars parked on the streets of ‘de Hood’. And not all of them are stolen. It’s strange the local news reporting this incident with a straight face, How awful!, without asking why a 2 year old was out in the road at 11 pm.