KILLER KID WILL GROW UP
Editor,
In regards to the “Muy Malo En Punta Arena” article by Debra Keipp, when I read this article about “the killer kid,” I sat here in my cell laughing until it hurt. Oh, “it's tragic.” Apparently one little snotty nosed kid is running loose through the streets leaving nothing but terror and destruction in his path.
Pathetic. Listen up: because you are only pouring gasoline on the fire. You're getting off on the wrong foot on this “killer kid” thing. He is only a kid no matter how you cut it. He ain't no killer. He ain't no gangster. He ain't even a teenager. He ain't nothing — “yet.” But he will be one day and you would be wise not to forget that.
"Lock 'em up” is not the answer you think it is because eventually one day this boy will get out of prison a man and then what? I'll tell you what: that toy BB gun will be the real deal. I don't think you want that. A “lock 'em up” mentality is wrong. I bet that's your answer for everything you can't handle.
It's funny to me that you claim to be a responsible adult here and yet you take no responsibility or initiative here. There is no mention in your article of you extending your hand to these people when they first moved in, introducing yourself to your neighbor, acknowledging them, building a rapport with them. Then after giving them the cold shoulder you show up complaining and later steal the kids be begun. (That's what it's called when you take something that is not yours — from a kid? I'm ashamed for you.)
Seems like the problem is you. Quit treating your neighbor like the enemy then acting like you are an innocent bystander. The boy has no male adults in his family who seem to care (or I doubt you would have taken anything from him) and his single mother is working to put food on the table. Seems like instead of taking this kid under your wing and giving him some guidance you would rather run to the cops.
Too bad. Thousands of convicts in the cell blocks throughout California were kids once. They were not born bad. Don't ruin this kid's life. Step up. Be an adult.
I am in support for the state of “Jefferson” and breaking away from the rest of California. The state of California is the [bleeping] “Titanic.” Cutting ties is the best move. [bleep] them. “State of Jefferson!” “Heaven free"
Sincerely,
Mr. Luke Gutmann
Soledad
PS. Mr. Luke Gutmann's Top Ten Books:
1. Political Warfare by John J. Putny.
2. The Origin of the Species by Charles Darwin
3. The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli
4. The Butcher by Philip Carlo
5. On War by Carl von Clausewitz
6. Emperor (four book series) by Conn Iggluden
7. Gates of Fire by Steve Pressfield
8. I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell by Tucker Max.
9. Rage of Angels by Sidney Sheldon
10. Murder Machine by Gary Cappiello.
NEVER LET GO
Editor,
Local outlaws or free spirits. It sure is nice to see an old boy who's in the pokey forever in good spirits and clowning around with a comic strip or two. It really warms my heart knowing that they (the bloody system) can't keep him down and out. I won't mention any names because it's not my style. But I will just say that he is a fellow believer. Parole puts me behind bars for the most silly reasons. It's not against the law but these authority figures got me by the gonads. They will just say “it looked dangerous” because of my history and off I go for 90 days in the local slammer. Wow! Thanks! Or, “It could have been used.” I'm so sick of that I could catch me a life case on purpose!
Just to stay out of this lame ass jail. Yes, that's right. They've got me in lime green because they are a scary bunch of lames. With all that said, the police and parole office are weak! I want to just bypass this place and be in prison for the rest of my time so I don't ever have to come back here, that's how I feel. Plead out to a life case and stay far away from this jail. Whatever. They can make up any lame ass excuse they want to for the next year or so. I'm not going to give them the power in my life. My parole officer is a jealous [bleep]. I have to attend mental health meetings through the parole office because of my imaginary friend Jesus Christ. Well, Jesus Christ! No way would I give them an opportunity to try to debrief me. So yes, no way!
And then they will revoke my citizenship, put me in jail, because I don't want to talk about Jesus Christ to them. That's the power they are flexing on me right now. All the police need to get lives! They are so wrapped up in what I'm doing it makes me sick! And no, I'm not your friend!
It's all behind them now, / some of us, we made a vow. / Never let go. Never hold on. That's what I'll do until the time is right / to not be seen, like the sun at night. Jesus Christ, he came and he went. / In God we trust, the money is spent. / It's not about power, it has none. We reap what we sow, I am no friend, neither foe.
Robert Campbell
Ukiah
AWARDS FOR DONORS, NOT ARTISTS
Editor,
I was trying to figure out the weird letters about the Mendocino Art Center. I did find a Google entry. Ripoffreport.com. Mendocino Art Center.
So giving the MAC the benefit of the doubt I entered a members juried show and I was proud to be accepted.
Only until the winners were announced by the judge and self-serving Honorable John Hewitt. Guess who the big winners were? Marion Bush and Dan Paglini, both incestuous insiders and big donors to the MAC. What a farce. The awards were bought by Marion Bush and Paglini. How obscenely incestuous.
Sincerely,
The Inside Outsider
Mendocino
RAINLESS
(Ed note: This letter is being reprinted from the January 8, AVA because of a printing error which made part of it illegible in some copies.)
Editor and Fellow AVAers,
What did you learn in school today, dear little boy of mine?
What did you learn in school today, dear little boy of mine?
I learned that war is not so bad, I learned about the great ones we have had.
We fought in Germany and in France, and I am someday to get my chance.
That's what I learned in school today. That's what I learned in school.
— A song by Tom Paxton.
Japanese hibakisha (survivor of the atomic bomb) was a 19-year-old soldier passing through town the day it fell on Hiroshima. “The children were screaming, 'please take these maggots off our bodies.' The doctor said, 'sterilize their wounds with saltwater.' He took a broom, dipped into saltwater, and painted over the bodies.” Most American blacks don't believe the atom bomb would have been dropped on Hiroshima had it been a white city. The fire bombings of Dresden dispute the point.
Sincerely,
Diana Without Rain Vance
Mendocino
PS. World War II? It's a war I would go to. What's wrong with the world is that money is devoted to killing people.
PS. In Kabul, the Capital of Afghanistan, December 2001 an Arab militant cocked his AK-47 thrust it into the back of a cameraman. “We will kill you. We will kill you all.” “It was several years before I learned that the tall man who threatened to kill me was Osama bin Laden.” Many non-Afghan Muslims, including those who support bin Laden, have committed atrocities that shock the most battle hardened Afghans. “In 1989 I visited a mass grave where clasped hands protruded from the ground. Islamic militants have fired on the International Red Cross. Put hatred to sleep. Shoulder to shoulder, let's gather our sheep.” After a three-year drought Afghanistan is a dust bowl on the edge of famine. The country could develop into a catastrophic humanitarian disaster by the onset of winter. To survive daughters have been sold in marriage, some as young as eight or nine. Sand reduces visibility to 500 yards thus helicopters cannot operate. “We must rebuild in those areas where there is no fighting. If we do nothing now, there will be nothing left.” Men drape towels over their heads to protect them from sand. Widows are prevented from working. The Afghan mule trails date back to Alexander the Great where millions of land mines litter the countryside, presenting an invisible threat to fleeing refugees and to farmers in this parched land. “20 yards away from me a young Afghan man stepped on a Soviet antipersonnel mine. His mangled foot was amputated on the spot by French doctors.” At the windy column of the 15,000 foot Diwana Baba (crazy old man) pass, the landscape is a sea of vaulting mountains — massive and craggy, where once daunting snow fields have dwindled to patches of dirty ice staining huge expanses of rock and moraine. Alpine pastures have emerged as dirty brushworks of brown. Lakes, streams and rivers are dry. The people of Afghanistan face starvation, faced with prior poverty, hunger and displacement. It is a devastated country, “one of the most difficult places in the world to survive,” said a UN official, “with four million of the country's 25 million people relying on food handouts to live.” And Afghans will spend their last penny to ensure guests are well cared for and while these people are also known as fierce fighters in the face of foreign invasion, since 1978 their country has been subjected to annihilation. Kabul is an annihilated city. The pako is the floppy woolen cap that is the trademark of the mujahidin (holy warriors) which Afghans continue to wear amidst what remains of their 3500-year-old cultural community.
PPS. Glad the redwoods are without land mines, but those loggers are worse than lice.
RIGGED REPORTS
To Kate Lee, Editor of the Fort Bragg Advocate-News:
Sorry, but I feel compelled to comment on two matters concerning the Advocate's news presentation. Firstly, your new reporter failed to identify one of the pro Dollar Tree store speakers at the last Planning Commission meeting as an employee of Affinito. She's the one complaining (inaccurately) about the price of a magic marker. The fact that she is on his payroll seems quite pertinent to me.
And once again, I must protest the use of Facebook to run a public opinion poll. For better and worse, it is easy to organize a group to bombard such polls, and that sure looks like the case here. Why can't your paper put up its own opinion site? Or better yet, accept opinions by writing to the paper? I suspect many polled who support this project are Affinito’s employees.
However, I am glad you included a reminder for the upcoming meeting.
Alice Chouteau
Fort Bragg
PANKOVITS' FAVES
Editor —
I thought I'd send along my list of fave reads. I started out young with a penchant for reading about people who impressed the hell out of me for one reason or another. The first book I ever bought (at a garage sale at age 15) was de Mille's and Curie's came off my mom's shelf (very inspirational — what a phenomenal mind). I read all these several times from then till now (age 71 next month), and freely recommend all of them to anyone.
Dance to the Piper by Agnes DeMille
Madame Curie by Eve Curie
Abraham Lincoln by Carl Sandburg
Black Spring by Henry Miller
The Magus by John Fowles
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey
The Once and Future King by T.H. White
West With the Night by Beryl Markham
The Joker's Wild by Joe E. Lewis
The Proud Tower by Barbara W. Tuchman
Oh! Reading! One of life's most greatest of pleasures!
Best to all at the AVA,
Carol Pankovits
Fort Bragg
WOBBLY ASSERTION
Editor:
Bruce McEwen is wrong in asserting that Health and Safety code 11550 will be reduced from a felony to a misdemeanor. Why? Because it is — and always has been — a misdemeanor, albeit one that carries a minimum of 90 days in the county jail unless drug diversion or Prop 36 is granted. I think McEwen was wanting to refer to Health and Safety Code section 11377, possession of a controlled substance, which is a “wobbler,” meaning it can be charged as either a felony or a misdemeanor. And yes, it would be a huge step forward for the criminal justice system if that were changed to a “straight” misdemeanor-only offense.
Thanks,
Sue Sponte
San Francisco
PEACE OFFICERS
Dear Editor,
In the mid 1990's , it was my fortune to meet a woman who had worked for the employment department in Los Angeles during the late 1930's. She told me she was asked to interview the applicants for law enforcement. What she told me is playing out today.
The individuals she interviewed and recommended were those who stated they wanted their communities to feel safe and secure because they were on the force. Those she rejected were applicants who said they wanted to go out and catch the “bad” people. Both types were passionate in attitude. She chose those who expressed concern about their neighbors and community.
Administrators, to her amazement, viewed her report and flipped the referrals. They chose those who wanted to chase or hunt down the bad guys. Thus we are saddled with the “cops” of today, not “peace officers.” It is a design that has been in place for many years and as citizens we are now experiencing the plans put in place in the early 20th century.
It is with gratitude that I have actually met people whom I can call “peace officers.” It gives me understanding and information to send to you and your readers. This horrific brutality we are experiencing in our legal system is a plan and will eventually (in my humble opinion) cause all citizens pause to reflect on how it can change, who will change it and why it wasn’t changed earlier.
It’s been in the works for almost a century, with the swift mark of a pen. It can be changed again with a judicious society, willing to stand up to an old and decrepit edict or “scam” perpetrated by the state. Whichever you choose to call it, scam, plan or edict, there can be and needs to be change. Thank you for your time and energy.
Melissa White
Fort Bragg
PS. I believe you will find the corporations were given personhood and citizens given consumer status during this same period of time.
JAYNE THOMAS'S FAVES:
Editor,
Here are some of my very favorites, in no special order, except for the one I just finished and recommend everyone read for a hilarious examination of why our country is such a mess:
1) Better Off Without ‘em: A Northern Manifesto for Southern Secession by Chuck Thompson. The rest are:
2) The Demon Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark by Carl Sagan (because people are not taught critical thinking)
3) Never Coming to a Theater Near You by Kenneth Turan (movie buffs will find many gems you don’t know)
4) The Mother Tongue: English and How it Got That Way by Bill Bryson
5) Dracula by Bram Stoker (THIS is a vampire! No wishy washy cozy feelings for us mere mortals)
6) Baseball and Lesser Sports by Wilfrid Sheed (an Englishman, no less!)
7) A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller, Jr. (Why, oh why has this not been made into a film?)
8) 1491 (& 1493) by Charles C. Mann
9) The Case Against Israel by Michael Neumann
10) The Portable Dorothy Parker by Viking (so you can laugh wherever you go)
Jayne Thomas
Richmond
NO NEED FOR SPEED TRAILERS
Editor,
On top of it all the other irritants facing today’s moviegoers — texting, tweeting, talking, popcorn-bag rattling — at least one chain has added another. I paid the usual small fortune to see “American Hustle,” which was scheduled at 1:30. In order to get a decent seat, I arrived 20 minutes early, which meant sitting through countless commercials for everything from sodas to cars to TV shows. Finally, at 1:30, I braced myself for what seems to have become the standard 15 minutes of previews. Instead, I had to endure a half an hour deluge of ear-splitting, eye-straining mind-numbing trailers, all for films with interchangeable plots built entirely around car chases, aerial battles, explosions, screams, machine-gun fire and every other sensory assault possible.
By the time the feature began, I was mentally exhausted and ready to leave the theater. If this trend continues, add me to the growing ranks of folks who refuse to suffer this kind of abusive promotional binging.
Ben Bayol
San Francisco
WATER — A LETTER TO MENDOCINO COUNTY SUPERVISORS
Dear Supervisors:
The current drought appears to have elevated the Supervisors concern regarding water supply. Water issues, supply and quality, should always be a high priority. The County has a history of misplacing emphasis and concern in dealing with water issues.
Sonoma County can survive with the use of water discharged from Lake Sonoma. Mendocino County and the area along the Russian River below Lake Mendocino is in a seriously compromised position (where water supply is not being supplanted by discharges from a significant source). What would happen if the Eel River diversion into the Russian River were curtailed or ceased to exist?
It would be good to become water-wise (ASAP). Management options, both short and long term, are limited. Thus, making good choices, given the limitations, are very important. The following is a summary of some water issues that you might consider and re-think.
Development of Alternative Sources
Development of water sources is a difficult issue. Water source development should be thought of as long term project — to be managed by staff with serious expertise. The County, at one time, had staff dedicated to this issue. This is no longer the case. The County should look for knowledgeable people who have the capacity to help the County make better choices in developing and protecting their water resources.
Raising Lake Mendocino
There has been a lot of discussion about developing more capacity in the Lake. Raising the elevation of Lake Mendocino is a long shot for many reasons — including geophysical/seismic, dam safety, and financial. Even if found feasible, this project would be hugely expensive and would take many years to develop and execute.
Note on the above paragraph: Potter Valley interests have not supported raising the Lake due to the potential of a fish ladder incorporated into the dam project and the prospect of fish inhabiting the lake and upper Russian River.
AB 2121 — State Policy to Maintain Instream Flows and Frost Protection Diversion Regs.
Mendocino County has actively resisted the implementation of these policies and regulations by the State. The County has failed to recognize that these policies and regulations promote conservation and preserve water supplies and availability. These State policies and regulations require storage of water to be diverted during high flow (rain event) periods thus reducing water demand (cumulative diversion) during low rain and low flow periods. Requiring growers to impound water for future use is in the interest of the County and all parties. The County needs to be smarter on this issue.
Statistically, Agricultural use of water, statewide, is 80% of the total use of available water where urban/domestic use is about 8% of the total use of available water. Agricultural use is 10 times the use of urban/domestic use. This statistic clearly points out where conservation will have the greatest effect.
Stormwater
Water quality = Water Quantity and Water Quantity = Water Quality. The County has never affirmed the idea that pollution prevention can enhance water supply issue. Maintaining and protecting high quality waters should be a very high priority for the County. Stormwater pollution is a serious threat to, both, ground water quality and surface water quality. Appropriate management of Stormwater can benefit ground water recharge. Mendocino County has a history of ignoring, both, their responsibility and the benefits related to the implementation of water quality, Stormwater, protections. Stormwater solutions are not expensive and save money and resources in the long run.
Suggestions:
• The County should employ competent staff to review and implement Stormwater mandates as applied by the Mendocino County Stormwater Ordinance and the County Stormwater MS 4 NPDES permit. Your project review coordinator, Abbey Stockwell, has left for another job. The County needs to fill this position with a competent practitioner. Doing business without competent staff in place will lead to compromised resources and will lead to violation of MS 4 NPDES responsibility and stipulated court agreements.
• The County should seek a competent water resource manager capable of guiding the County in water source development and water quality protection. Current staff has spent much time playing politics with water. This does not benefit the County.
Alan Levine, For Coast Action Group,
Affiliate of Redwood Coast Watersheds Alliance,
P.O. Box 215 Point Arena, CA 95468.
Phone: Week Days 707 542-4408 Weekends 707 882-2484.
LAUGHING DOG TO CLOSE
Dear Book Lovers,
It may be just another sad tale of our times, but it’s your sad tale we impart today, Anderson Valley. After almost four years in downtown Boonville, Laughing Dog Books will soon be closing. The exact date will be determined by how soon the space can be leased.
We want to thank all the ardent supporters of this little local bookshop, especially the book clubs that consistently bought their books locally and enjoyed holding their meetings in the store.
Unfortunately, it seems that having an on-line “bookstore” at one’s fingertips is too strong a competitor. Like many other locally-owned businesses in Anderson Valley, we have been unable to sell enough merchandise to pay the rent and must, sadly, close.
For those of you who have a consignment account with us, please let us know if you would like the books that have not sold returned to you. And, by all means, please come in and use up what credit your account may hold.
We have greatly enjoyed our time providing this much-loved establishment and will miss seeing those of you who stopped in regularly.
The retail space we occupy is now available for lease. Please contact Tom Cronquist at 707-895-2726 for details.
W. Dan & Loretta Houck
Laughing Dog Books, Boonville
707-272-7323
BOOK FAVES: THE SHORT LIST
Dear Editor,
I find these lists of books a great deal of fun. The Kabloona insertion (January 8) by Lucille Estes, a kindred spirit, provoked me to an effort here.
Over the decades I’ve tried to give all the genres a decent look. In the past 40 years or so I’ve pretty much been reading non-fiction. Some works don’t make the list, but maybe they should. It took me months, in the 1980s, to read Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, but to tell you the truth, I was bogging down after Volume IV. I feel that, for all that work, it should have made a greater impact on me. I still feel bad that I skipped some parts of Moby Dick. My list is incomplete, and if I were to make another next decade, it would be different, no doubt.
These are not in any particular order.
The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini
The Domesday Book and Beyond, F.W. Maitland
Catch-22, Joseph Heller
The Personal Memoires of Ulysses S. Grant
The Campaigns of Napoleon, David G. Chandler
The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
Mary Chesnut’s Civil War
Cien Años de Soledad, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Naufragios Y Comentarios, Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca
Tragedy and Hope, Carroll Quigley
You know, there’s an opportunity here for someone learning English or Spanish because the English translation of Cien Años is excellent. One Hundred Years of Solitude is a fine read. Sure, it won prizes and all, but I recommend it because the guy’s funny. He hits when you don’t expect it, like Solzhenitsyn. Humor is the most difficult aspect of language to interpret, so I would be laughing hysterically reading the Spanish, and then I would ask myself whether the translator was able to do it justice and, I believe, I was always rewarded.
Some translations don’t do that well for learning one language or the other. Adventures in the Unknown Interior of America, the translation of Naufragios, for instance, left a little to be desired for me; the Spanish was written in the 1500s and the translators had a tall order on their hands.
Some books could be used instead of waterboarding. Say one needed a confession from a crook. Well, put him in solitary and give him a copy of Pilgrim’s Progress, or The Passover Plot. In no time, the guy’ll be banging on the door eager to spill the beans.
Well, I’m afraid I have eleven books on my list. Be glad, there are quite a few un-included authors swirling about in my mind’s eye pissed off at me right now.
Regards,
Tom Rivard
Santa Rosa
MATEEL’S BLATANT VIOLATIONS
Dear Mr. Anderson,
I wanted you to know about this. I can't get any of the "news agencies" in SoHum to look into this (see attachment). My concern is the unpermitted and unapproved amount of water used for the event in 2013. They had been approved to use 60,000 gallons and ended up using 279,000 gallons after the fact. And now asking for 700,000 for 2014, wow. My other concern, was that 27,600 gallons of waste and grey water they generated and disposed of onsite, in a "leach field", that was not approved by the Water Quality Control Board. It would seem the Mateel Community Center would rather make money than help protect the South Fork Eel River. Or another way of saying it, the Mateel Board of Directors internalizes the profits and externalizes the degrading cost to the river and wildlife habitat. This is how people of a black market underground economy think, the acorn doesn't fall too far from the tree…
Thank you for your time and consideration.
Ed Voice
Redway
YES, VIRGINIA, THE SKY IS FALLING
Editor,
There are, according to the astronomers tens of billions of planets, and we humans have trashed ours. Instead of progressing toward another ice age, a trend that began 5,000 years ago after a shift in our planet’s orbit, we are moving into rapid global warming.
This warming is due to causes both natural and human. At the current pace we will heat our planet between 2° and 12° by the end of this century. The seas will rise, storms will escalate, and droughts will expand. Not only will human life be impossible, and other species be eradicated, but all life on our planet will cease to exist.
This is not doomsday fear mongering. It is the conclusion of the many knowledgeable and reputable scientists. Many think that we are past the tipping point. Yet the mass media is silent about this. They don’t want to create mass panic, and given the emotional and intellectual immaturity of most of our citizens it probably would if they talked about it.
Let’s assume for a moment that the scientists are correct, that global warming is going to destroy industrial civilization and then all life on earth, and further assume that we are, in fact, past the tipping point. That would lead us, if we are reasonable people, to live very differently in the coming decades.
We could, and probably should, stop having children, since the end of industrial civilization, only a decade or two away, will cause major changes in food supply, water supply, resource distribution, and so on. It will also cause a return to tribalism (new tribes, but still tribes), which will create mass social disruption in the form of famine, disease, and war. Most of our human population will not survive the cataclysm.
The adage of Ram Das, “Be Here Now” is, in my opinion, the only sane response to what is coming down the pike. No one individual can change the scenario presented above; no social movement can change it, better fuel mileage can’t change it, recycling soda cans won’t change it, letters to editors won’t change it, nothing will change it so as to prevent it.
Being in the now means, to me, enjoying what we have for as long as it lasts, being as kind to each other as possible as the changes start to come down with greater ferocity, and doing nothing to make it worse than it will be. Are we at the point of a need for acceptance of the inevitable? It seems to be the case that we are.
No, no, scream the religionists, God will fix it. If there is a God, and if He is all powerful, he would not have created it in the first place. Not if he is a God of love. So, either He is not all powerful and can’t fix it, or He is not loving and is a sadistic god. Others scream that technology will bail us out, just wait and see. That is simply a substitution of the Great God T for the traditional God. How can technology solve the problem when it is the cause of the problem?
Here is the metaphor. We are all in a bus, a big bus, traveling at high speed, on a road that heads directly to and over the high cliff. We cannot jump off of the bus. We are addicted to riding the bus. It is comfortable beyond the dreams of our ancestors. The bus has no brakes, other than a fatal crash at the bottom of the cliff. Should we jump off at high speed and suicide? That will do nothing to stop the bus. Why not simply enjoy the ride as long as it lasts, given the air conditioning on the bus, the modern bathroom on the bus, and the abundance of food on the bus? Be (stay alive) Here (on the bus) Now (it’s always just now).
Lee Simon
Far ‘n Away Farm, Virginia
WACKAZOIDIANS IN OFFICE
Editor:
Thanks so much for giving a shout out to Vincent Bugliosi's definitive book on the Kennedy assassination, “Reclaiming History.” Of course, the logic in this extensively researched book will not alter the beliefs of our local conspiracy nuts who insist that only they know the “truth.” And on that subject, double thanks for calling out Mendocino County Fifth District Supervisor Dan Hamburg on his ridiculous assertions about 9/11 — the planes never crashed! The passengers were flown to Nebraska where they were forced to call home and read from scripts! The sheer nuttiness of it is astounding! What do you think it means when you, Bruce Anderson, are one of the lone voices of sanity among all the wackazoidians in this crazy county?
Best,
Lisa Walters
Gualala
Ed note. Thank you, Lisa. But if I'm the sanity standard, Mendo's, well, there are people who would argue with that, and not all of them are named Mrs. Anderson. I agree that it's an odd place that wittingly elects crazy people to office
Memo Of The Week
Ok everyone, Understand, the FCC liscence renewal has already been withheld due to a petition to deny written by Sandra Patterson, as well as at least one other informal objection written by Shelia Dawn Tracy. Apparently, there were other informal objections filed last October as well, but I have not personally verified this. The deadline for these filings was Nov. 1, one month before KZYX was to file for the renewal on Dec. 1. As a result of these filings, the liscence renewal has been upheld and a review is scheduled by an FCC lawyer sometime in the next few months. I have asked for both these letters, as I knew they had been sent. While Sandra's letter was relatively benign, mostly complaining about programming, Shelia's letter includes several points about the election process as well as revealing the questionable absence of certain documentation about programming policy from the corporate documentation passed out to board members for the last few years. I am afraid the information in this letter may cause the stations liscence to be revoked if nothing is done. As far as I can tell, Mr. Sakowitz's idea is to advocate for letters written to the FCC explaining that these policy lapses are the result of bad management, not board malfeasance, in the hopes that the stations liscence will be reinstated with the condition that their be a change in management. The concern here is, if the FCC determines that the board itself has been unscrupulous, then the liscence will get pulled, and KZYX will be forced off the air.
Doug McKenty,
Elk
Ed Note: We seriously doubt that the FCC would deny KZYX a license renewal based on a mere pair of complaints, however valid. It's management's silly and self-defeating secrecy policy that keeps getting them in trouble. Sheila Dawn's objections could also be simple incompetence on Coate and Aigner's part, and don't amount to anything that can't be fixed. It would help the station to have a capable board of directors, but Sakowicz is the only director who seems to care about doing the right thing.
WHERE WERE YOU WHEN MLK…?
Hi,
Everyone knows where they were, etc., when JFK was shot. I'm interested in your stories of where you were, what happened, what you thought, etc., when MLK was shot. As an example, here's mine.
Also sending this to people who weren't around then, maybe they'd be interested.
I was a “student” at Duquesne U in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The “campus” of mud and old warehouses sat on a bluff near the Triangle, above the Monongahela River. The south and west sides were precipitous. The east side was a quiet Italian/”ethnic” area, kept that way by the Pittsburgh mafia. The north side, the Hill District, a crown of land above the triangle, was the black neighborhood. The school and the Hill District were separated by Forbes and 5th Avenues, the old roads east, a melting-pot honkytonk area of cheap bars, streetwalkers, and slums.
When the news spread that King had been murdered, the black residents started rioting and burning their neighborhood that they owned little of. This immediately got out of control of the local cops and fire department, and we watched the Hill burn from the dormitory windows all afternoon. Oddly, there was no curfew, or we ignored it, so a bunch of us went down Bluff St. and holed up in a basement apartment listening to gunshots and running feet all night. In the morning a big convoy of Army trucks carrying the National Guard rolled up the Boulevard of the Allies and occupied the area. I walked back to the U past a burning gas station and crowds of soldiers spreading out. They established themselves along Forbes and 5th, then moved up to the Hill District and suppressed the riot. They were on the streets for a few more days, then left.
Most people I knew were pissed off about the murder but some of the more out racists said the usual racist stuff. Nothing much seemed to change. The city went back to “normal.” But 1968 was a year we don't need more of, with Tet, King, then several weeks later RFK was killed, all by the usual “lone nut,” nudge nudge, wink wink. To cap it all off, Richard Nixon got elected President in the fall. That's enough!
Jay Williamson
Santa Rosa
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