Letters 9/23/2024

• Save Lake Pillsbury
• No Home Hospice In Fort Bragg
• Tibetian Monks
• What I Learned On 9/11
• From Man To Barcode
• Another Option

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SAVE LAKE PILLSBURY

To the Editor:

The sound of silence. PG&E neglected Scott Dam. The consequences have been laid on the people of Lake Mendocino and Sonoma county….yet again. Other entities are using that fact, to jump claim to more water, while a loophole in water rights claims exists. Yet they have water too!!

Salmon in river beds as I speak. The costs are unfathomable for such small counties' coffers. Apathy is rampant in most people. People can fight the corporate/politicians money grab machine in small ways and in big ways. If no one tells the story, no one hears the truth. Losing Lake Pillsbury and subsequently Lake Mendocino then subsequently Russian River watershed streams home to thousands of salmonids is at risk of completely drying up forever, with cilmate change and new water diversions.

The tourist and recreational value will be lost and so will the land values all over the county. The salmonoids are just coming back in Russian and Eel with two winters of rains. Please hear my voice above the politicians for corporations and do whatever you can, as an individual, to save our counties’ very few lakes and rivers. Hydropower is a future green source of electricity, with no radioactive risks and no lithium waste. It is the harnessing of water power, the most powerful source of energy, on this Earth. If California is so future forward for green energy, then why are politicians not seizing the day to save Lake Pillsbury/Scott Dam for hydropower?

Catherine Lair

Ukiah

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NO HOME HOSPICE IN FORT BRAGG

Editor,

It is my understanding that there is still no in-home hospice in Fort Bragg. And the new version, if one can call it that, is based in the hospital for in house care only. Hardly a Hospice. For those who wish to or have no other choice but to pass at home with family, there has been no service for them since when Covid and financial problems ended Hospice on the coast.

Bruce Broderick

Fort Bragg

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TIBETIAN MONKS

Dear Editor

Yesterday, as I sit waiting for brunch and in line to the Windmills Cafe I saw three monk come out of a coffeehouse on North State Street. This happenstance reminded me of how diverse Mendocino County is. And as a visit to the Tomki temple, I got to see how far they have come. My curiosity here how is it possible to do such a practice and live in a place of passivity and yet need to go on pilgrimage(s). I in my senior timetable would need to prepare myself, body towards these goals. I recall the Euro News saying 1,300 Mecca followers perished due to the heat wave. These times need the casual compassionate observers to assist if needed for these pilgrims to be safe when times question walking along the roadways. Aside from that I’m glad they show another side of a unique path taken.

Sincerely yours, Vigilant some of the time, hehehehe

Gregory Crawford

Fort Bragg

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WHAT I LEARNED ON 9/11

Editor,

On the morning of 9/11, I was working as a corrections deputy for the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office. I was badge No. 2526. I was assigned to the county jail.

On the morning of 9/11, a group of about 10-15 inmates who were Pomo Indians were watching cartoons on Nickelodeon.

The live news coverage of the Twin Towers burning, then collapsing, was on every tv channel except for Nickelodeon.

When I asked the Pomo Indians why they weren’t watching live coverage of the terrorist attack, their leader said, “We don’t give a fuck. That’s your country under attack, not ours.”

The Pomo leader was a fearsome, charismatic, brilliant guy. He was a leader-warrior type. He was a wolverine among gangbangers. His name was Frank Whipple. Had he not chosen a life of crime, Frank Whipple could have been a U.S. Senator.

Frank was a stone-cold killer, but he taught me a lot. Frank taught me to respect the Sweat lodge, the Red Road, and the Recovery Medicine Wheel. He taught me to respect the American Indian Movement (AIM).

In time, I did research on my own. I learned about what Frank called the “Twenty Points”:

1. Restore treaty-making (ended by Congress in 1871).
2. Establish a treaty commission to make new treaties (with sovereign Native Nations).
3. Provide opportunities for Indian leaders to address Congress directly.
4. Review treaty commitments and violations.
5. Have unratified treaties reviewed by the Senate.
6. Ensure that all American Indians are governed by treaty relations.
7. Provide relief to Native Nations as compensation for treaty rights violations.
8. Recognize the right of Indians to interpret treaties.
9. Create a Joint Congressional Committee to reconstruct relations with Indians.
10. Restore 110 million acres (450,000 km2) of land taken away from Native Nations by the United States.
11. Restore terminated rights of Native Nations.
12. Repeal state jurisdiction on Native Nations (Public Law 280).
13. Provide Federal protection for offenses against Indians.
14. Abolish the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
15. Create a new office of Federal Indian Relations.
16. Remedy breakdown in the constitutionally prescribed relationships between the United States and Native Nations.
17. Ensure immunity of Native Nations from state commerce regulation, taxes, and trade restrictions.
18. Protect Indian religious freedom and cultural integrity.
19. Establish national Indian voting with local options and free national Indian organizations from governmental controls.
20. Reclaim and affirm health, housing, employment, economic development, and education for all Indian people.

In time, I also learned about of Women of All Red Nations (WARN). Established in 1974, WARN has put women and children at the forefront of the Native American movement, focusing its energies in combating sexism, government sterilization policies, domestic violence, child abuse, and other injustices.

I came to learn about Native K-12 charter schools, like the Heart of the Earth Survival School.

I learned about other Native American organizations, like NATIVE (Native American Traditions, Ideals, Values Educational Society). NATIVE is bringing back Native language, traditions and religion.

I quit the Sheriff’s Office in August 2004. Before I quit, Frank gave me the name, "John Good Iron". The name means I have "good iron" or "good medicine" in my badge. It means I will always be wearing that badge.

For me, all of the above started on 9/11 in the Mendocino County Jail.

Since I quit law enforcement, I have visited the "rez" in California, Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, and North and South Dakota -- a total of 20 different reservations. I have visited the place at Wounded knee which was occupied for 71 days by the Oglala Lakota and the American Indian Movement.

I have reached out to an old college classmate, Louise Erdrich. (Louise and I graduated from the writing seminars program at Johns Hopkins University.)

Louise is an enrolled member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians of North Dakota, a federally recognized tribe of Ojibwe people.

In 2021, Louise was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, and someday I am certain the Nobel Prize Foundation will recognize the body of her work -- 28 books in all -- which highlight the struggles between Native and non-Native cultures, as well as celebrating family, ties of kinship, autobiographical meditations, monologues, and love poetry. She incorporates elements of Ojibwe myths and legends in her work.

I have done peyote from the Chihuahuan Desert and bufo from the Colorado River toad with Native friends in traditional shamanistic ceremonies.

I started a public affairs show on public radio in 2008 on KZYX. We moved to KMEC at the Mendocino Environmental Center, then to KMUD in Humboldt County. Among other subjects, I have reported on the plight of indigenous peoples throughout the world, and on issues like genocide, racism, the extraction of non-renewable resources, and environmental degradation and tribal habitat destruction.

With Native friends, I have worked for the recognition of Native American tribes as sovereign states at the United Nations.

Again, my education all started on the morning of 9/11. It started with inmate Frank Whipple in the TV room in B-Mod at the Mendocino County Jail on a tragic September morning 23 years ago.

John Sakowicz

Ukiah

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FROM MAN TO BARCODE

AVA,

Good issue Friday with Eli Zaretsky (LRoB) on AI and the important distinction of free association between man and the computer machine.

At this point, the multitudes who have cell phones, computers, et cetera are fully, and often constantly, immersed and have willingly given in to the structure of the electronic platform. The bias is established and even though people have free will to engage in many various topics, an ever more advancing technology is nuancing many away from innate free association of thought. Eli's last sentence sums it up well: ”The danger is that we will become a species of artificial intelligence ourselves.” So maintain R. Crumb and memes such as the “evolution of man into a bar code” even as the experience is within the “Matrix.”

Jeff Goll

Willits

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ANOTHER OPTION

Editor:

I read a lot of letters telling us who we should vote for, but today I will tell you who you shouldn’t vote for. Don’t vote for the candidate or party that has failed to effectively do anything about crime, gangs and gun violence. Don’t vote for a party that has failed to do anything about homeless encampments and people overdosing and dying in the streets. Don’t vote for a party that has failed to do anything about high taxes and out of control debt. They have not earned your vote. Find someone else to vote for or choose not to vote at all.

Michael Morrissey

Santa Rosa