Mendocino County Today: Monday, Oct 13, 2014

• Wong's Walk-off
• Ab Casualty
• Class Too Popular
• Mendo Representatives?
• Catch of the Day
• Holly Wrong
• Hamburg Engaged
• Christian Soldiers
• Northcoast Rail History
• Harvest Season
• 25 Years Ago
• Angels of Death
• Catholic Hero Day

CARDINALS SECOND BASEMAN Kolten Wong hit the fourth and final walk off solo home run off Giants reliever Sergio Romo for the St. Louis Cardinals to lift the Cardinals to a hard fought and much more interesting 5-4 win in the second game of the National League Championship Sunday night to tie the series 1-1. The Giants had just tied the game in the top of the ninth on a two-out, two strike wild pitch by Cardinals reliever Trevor Rosenthal to set the stage for Wong's ninth-inning game-winning blast. The National League's top two contenders now take the series back to San Francisco on Tuesday at 1pm Pacific time. Cardinals All-Star catcher Yadier Molina left the game early with a pulled oblique muscle and his status for Tuesday's third game in the series remains unclear.

SCANNER TRAFFIC Sunday yielded the bad news that an abalone diver had drowned off Russian Gulch State Park, and one has to wonder who would be in or near the water in a high surf period?

TWO FISHERMEN SWEPT OFF RODEO BEACH; 1 DIES

http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Two-fishermen-swept-off-Rodeo-Beach-1-dies-5818213.php

IN OTHER NEWS from the Fog Belt, as reported by the ICO, the Sea Ranch has shut down Dan Garcia's wildly popular boxing class for South Coast kids 14 and under. Ranch “security” claimed too many parents were parking along the road near Garcia's place at the Sea Ranch Apartments. Garcia convened his non-contact, coed workouts on the nearby, outdoor basketball court.

RALPH BOSTROM OF WILLITS WONDERS: “When was the last time a resident of Mendocino County was elected to the State Senate or Assembly?”

HMMMM. Good question. I'd guess Never, at least not in the twentieth century.

CATCH OF THE DAY, October 12, 2014

JEANLUC AGUIRRE, Portland. Purchase of vehicle obtained by theft or extortion.

MICHAEL BARRUS, Fort Bragg. Drunk in public, failure to appear.

LAURA CLARK, Willits. Possession of saps, dirk or dagger.

CARSON CROSBY, Solvang/Fort Bragg. Drunk in public.

SHANNON DUCHARME, Houston/Willits. (Unspecified misdemeanor charge.)

EMMY FINE, Fort Bragg. Bad check. Resisting arrest.

IAN FREEMAN, Fort Bragg. Probation revocation.

TRAVIS HAWK, Ukiah. Petty theft, diversion of construction funds (less than $100), probation revocation.

EDWARD JOHNSON, Ukiah. Drunk in public. (Frequent flyer.)

NELLIE LOVATO, Ukiah. Drunk in public.

MICHAEL NORTH, Fort Bragg. Burglary/shoplift, petty theft with prior, probation revocation.

TODDIA OUSPENSKY, Fort Bragg. Violation of court order, probation revocation.

WALTER SHARP, Goleta. Domestic assault.

WADE STAFFORD, Ukiah. Failure to appear.

ROBERT VERVILLE, Ukiah. Under influence of controlled substance, probation revocation. (Frequent flyer.)

VANESSA WINTERS, Laytonville. Domestic assault.

A READER WRITES: “I get it that you are put off by Woodhouse for not stating his positions, but the race for Supervisor in the Third District is between someone who says nothing and someone who knows nothing. Holly Madrigal, despite almost ten years on the Willits City Council, has learned almost nothing about the key issues facing local government or how to resolve them. In fact, Holly is really starting way behind someone who truly knows nothing because so much of what Holly claims to know is completely false.

“TAKE A LOOK AT HOLLY's PLATFORM from her website. Under the heading ‘Eliminate County Debt’ Jolly Holly says ‘Mendocino County is the second most indebted county in the State due to a staggering pension debt. It is this debt that nearly closed our libraries. Just a few years ago, this debt cost us the upper hand in negotiating our water rights with Sonoma County — we will feel the effects of that for years to come.’

“HOLLY SOUNDS like she is right on top of budgeting, debt and water rights issues. Except these two sentences speak volumes about what Holly does not know. First, there is no way she or anyone else will “eliminate county debt.” The county owes about $80 million for past debt for real estate financing and pension obligation bonds which will be paid off over the next ten or twelve years. If payments are accelerated, there will be little money left for anything else. Same with the current $130 million in unfunded pension debt. Holly does not offer a clue how she will ‘eliminate’ over $200 million in existing debt, but it sounds good to say.

“HOLLY CLAIMS THE PENSION DEBT ‘nearly closed our libraries’ but there was never a proposal to close the libraries. Hours were cut back, and at most the Bookmobile might have been on the chopping block, but there was never a time when the libraries were ‘nearly closed’ and there was no linkage between the libraries and the pension debt. Her claim that the County is the second most indebted in California is straight from the poison pen of local pension gadfly John Dickerson who has had a grudge against the County ever since he got fired from the Mendocino County Promotional Alliance about 15 years ago. He has been unable to find or hold a full time job since. Anything Dickerson says about County pensions and debt is highly charged and highly suspect. But Jolly Holly swallowed his line that the County is not even aware that they have a problem, to the point she went before the Board of Supes and told them it was just like being an alcoholic, that they first had to admit they have a problem. She did this following a lengthy presentation by financial experts who laid out the depth of the County pension problem and the limited options available to the county to do anything about it. Holly clearly was the one who was not getting it.

“HOLLY'S OFF-THE-WALL LINKAGE of the pension debt and water rights takes the prize for dumbest comment of this or any other year. The water rights to Lake Mendocino were decided in the early 1950s when the locals decided not to help fund construction of the dam and belatedly put up only enough money to secure the rights to 8,000 acre feet of water, leaving the rest to Sonoma County. Since that time, over 60 years ago, there has never been a negotiation with Sonoma County, no chance for the County to get a larger share, and no connection between the Lake Mendocino water right and the pension debt. Someone should ask Holly where she got the wacky idea of a link between a water rights issue that was decided 60 years ago and a debt that did not exist until decades later.

“HOLLY ALSO CLAIMS to be a leader on water rights, especially the County drought ad hoc committee, but Holly attended only one meeting of that committee and never went back. At that meeting someone from the state offered grant money for Willits to develop an alternate source. The money came through, a well was drilled, but the water is unusable because of the high mineral content. The well sits there, unusable, while Willits tries to figure out what to do and how to pay for it.

“WILLITS IS ALSO MIRED in a costly lawsuit with the Brooktrails Community Services District over how to allocate costs for the wastewater treatment plant. Brooktrails has been able to prove that Willits made several key decisions, costing millions of dollars, without consulting with Brooktrails. When Brooktrails complained, Willits tried to bully them into submission. Brooktrails responded by filing a lawsuit. Holly tried to use her influence as Mayor of Willits to settle the lawsuit, but failed. As the case gets ready for trial, Brooktrails appears to be in the driver’s seat, the legal bills keep mounting, and now Brooktrails has uncovered documents that prove the Willits sewer ponds are leaking one million gallons of effluent into the Little Lake Valley aquifer on a yearly basis. This dwarfs any possible impact Caltrans is having on the water table in Little Lake Valley, but the enviros are keeping quiet because they don't want to embarrass Holly.

“HOLLY VOTED TO SPEND MILLIONS of local transportation dollars (acting as a city rep on MCOG, the local transportation funding agency) on the Willits bypass, then went to Sacramento to speak out against funding for the bypass. Then Holly voted with MCOG to spend millions more to support the bypass. And if the bypass is not built the intersection of Sherwood Road and Main Street (which is a traffic safety and congestion bottleneck) is not going to get fixed. Caltrans is putting up the money but it will not be built until the bypass is finished. It also says something that Holly, as a sitting member of the City Council, went all the way to Sacramento to try and sabotage a project that the City Council has supported for at least the last 25 years, if not 50.

“HOLLY'S STANCE AGAINST THE BYPASS was just plain dumb strategically because everyone who is against the bypass was already going to vote for Holly anyway. By coming out against the bypass Holly made sure that the people in the north county (who can't wait to drive around Willits) know who to vote against. After Holly spoke out against the bypass she voted as a member of MCOG to give the bypass several million more in local transportation funding. And as a member of the City Council Holly has consistently voted with the majority to give Caltrans and the bypass contractors everything they want in terms of road closures, access to city streets, and looking the other way on previously agreed to conditions. Holly's bypass flip-flops have cost her some anti-bypass support without winning back any pro bypass voters.

“HOLLY SAYS THE COUNTY NEEDS TO HAVE A BALANCED BUDGET, but they already do. In fact, the County has done an amazing turn around in the last few years. Instead of being on the verge of bankruptcy, the County has a balanced budget and record reserves. Willits, by contrast, has passed deficit budgets for the last four or five years. Is this an example of the financial leadership Holly will bring to the Board of Supes?

“FINALLY, MR. EDITOR, how can you endorse Holly Madrigal, a member of the KZYX Board of Directors, who has sat silently by while the station’s management has offed Doug McKenty and open lines, Norman DeVall and his candidate interviews, and now John Sakowicz who had one of the most popular shows on the station and one of the few that thinking people could tune into without being assaulted by audio pabulum? Holly can't even stand up to the autocratic John Coate and petty dictator Mary Aigner, and you want to put her in charge of over 1,000 employees and the more than $200 million dollar county budget? Because you are ticked off at Woodhouse?

“WHOEVER TOLD WOODHOUSE to keep silent on the issues gave him bad advice, but a look at his professional and personal life tells me he will do the right thing once he gets elected. It says something that he has been able to stay in business locally and pay the bills for over 30 years given the ups and downs of the local economy. By contrast, Holly took a job with a family friend (at Sparetime Supply) after coming back from college and has really done nothing on her own to distinguish herself. And she quit her job at Sparetime (which is a major supplier to north county marijuana growers) because she didn't want to be too closely identified with the marijuana industry. Except I hear she has been having tailgate “potluck parties” out in the hills organized by marijuana advocates who want to see Holly get elected.

“WOODHOUSE ALSO GETS CREDIT for organizing and leading community clean ups to paint over graffiti and clean up trash from the homeless camps, including along the creeks. He has done all this and more without seeking the limelight or taking credit. By contrast, Holly always tries to make much out of the little she does. The sad fact is that Holly really has no vision or plan of her own for what she would like to see. At this point she is just looking for a job. Her policy on debt issues and the budget will be set by John Dickerson. On the bypass and environmental issues, by David and Ellen Drell and Naomi Wagner of Earth First!, on marijuana by the growers themselves. Just because you don't live in the Third District doesn't mean you won't suffer the ill effects of electing someone like Holly who is so lacking in knowledge and experience.”

* * *

OUCH! Still and all, I think the candidate who at least takes positions deserves the nod over an affable guy who hopes to chuckle his way into the Supe's job. There's no indication Woodhouse is any better informed on local matters than Holly.

WE EXPRESSED our reservations about Holly early on, especially about her flip-flop on the Bypass, which was simply failed opportunism. And wherever her opinions on County finance come from she really ought to at least try to get caught up with facts. This stuff isn't all that complicated.

IF MRS. MADRIGAL gets elected and immediately affiliates with Supervisor Stoner Dude, the guy who brings his comfort pet to public meetings and zones out most of the time when he isn't hustling local government for special favors for himself, I will drive north to pray before the Willits Arch for forgiveness. On the other hand, as the liberals like to say, if she takes her cues from the serious supervisors — Gjerde, Brown, and McCowen — JH will be a good supervisor.

SPEAKING OF HAMBURG, he has announced his engagement to former Point Arena mayor, Lauren Sinnott, in the Independent Coast Observer.

MS. SINNOTT markets “The Velvet Vulva line of fine purses, purposeful bags and framed fabric miniatures,” an only in Mendo enterprise reminiscent of “penis soaks,” a kind of organic bird's nest marketed back in the day out of Comptche, the idea being restoration of the (presumably) exhausted male digit. Mendocino County! Always on the cutting edge of free enterprise!

GLORY DAYS OF NORTH COAST RAILROADS

BY GAYE LEBARON

THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

October 11, 2014, 5:27PM

http://www.pressdemocrat.com/news/2962068-181/glory-days-of-north-coast

HARVEST SEASON!

by Emily Hobelmann

It’s mid-October. Fall is palpable. Pumpkins are poppin’ off at the farmers markets, there’s a chill to the air and rain is in the forecast for the next few days. Plus, it’s pretty much time to harvest full-sun outdoor marijuana crops. What a lovely time of year!

In reality though, if you factor in the indoor and light deprivation crops, harvest season in the Emerald Triangle is happening 24/7/365. People definitely produce weed year-round in these parts. But right now, when the full-sun outdoor grows are being harvested, is the most special weed harvest time. It’s the Emerald Triangle marijuana harvest climax.

And an interesting aspect of the fall marijuana harvest climax is Trim Tourism, a unique phenomenon where people from all over the world travel to the Emerald Triangle to try to score jobs trimming weed.

Last week in Garberville, the streets were swarming with traffic, even more so than usual. Lots of people were stationed along the main thoroughfare with cardboard signs that said things like “Work” or “I [heart] Work,” complete with sketches of cannabis leaves and little scissors.

Flocks of young folks sporting earth-tone clothing and backpacking gear were milling about on the Town Square. Foreign dialects floated in the air.

Trim-work solicitations were speckled on the Town Square bulletin boards and on the bulletin board near the Garberville Theater. Some were colorful; some had little tear-off phone number strips; some provided information about country of origin — Belgium, France, Canada; some featured earth-friendly vibes.

On Wednesday, I chatted with a few work-wanting trim tourists. They came from Spain, from Italy, from Orange County. They came because they love the weed and because Northern California is legendary. Somehow, everybody knows that this is the most off-the-hook pot producing region in the world, that this is the pot-head farmer/tourist mecca.

The handful of tourists that I talked to have been in the area for at least a few days, and they hadn’t found work yet. But there is trim work happening, that’s for sure. I’ve personally visited a couple different medicinal outdoor cannabis gardens in the past week, and I got to witness all the work that goes into harvesting cannabis. The trimming machine scene I visited was most interesting. More on that next week…

Anyway, I can’t say how successful the hordes of trim tourists will be with finding work this fall; there’s no accurate trimmer employment index to check. What I can say is that when it comes to finding trim work, word of mouth is king — it helps to have a personal connection with the cannabis farmer or to at least have someone that can vouch for you with the farmer. In that way, the illegality-of-cannabis thing can make finding trim work a little tricky, but not impossible.

In spite of any hurdles they might face with finding work, tourists without any personal connection to the Emerald Triangle whatsoever are here and the hand-drawn ads on the local bulletin boards and snazzy cardboard signs aren’t the only ways they are advertising their desire for weed jobs.

The Community section of Craigslist is yet another forum people use to solicit cannabis work.

Here’s an excerpt from a Craigslist weed-work solicitation ad by a young traveling couple:

“We want to help someone with a genuine desire to do good and heal through their herbs. We know the importance of the energy that you put into your product, and both have a genuine love for quality herb. We are trustworthy and hardworking. Will do whatever needs to be done to secure a successful harvest on time.”

The ad is a few weeks old, but its content is indicative of this conundrum — the lack of personal connections to local cannabis farmers. So a lot of these tourists’ ads feature pledges of trustworthiness, good vibes and strong work ethics, presumably because they have no one to vouch for them.

Undoubtedly, there are tourists who are successful with scoring work. And for those who get lucky, they will discover that trimming is physically tedious; that there is etiquette and technique involved; that the vibes and working conditions vary greatly from farm to farm. Indeed, one could write at great length about the methods and culture of weed trimming in the Emerald Triangle. But let’s not get into that today. Too many harvesting chores to be done in the garden.

Next week: My experience at a farm where a Twister T4 Trimmer machine was used to process a full-sun outdoor cannabis crop. Happy Harvest!

OCTOBER 12TH, 1989: There were 60,000 people in Candlestick Park for the opening of the third game of the World Series when the Loma Prieta earthquake struck. The windows of the enclosed boxes below the second deck began trembling violently. The tall orange light towers swayed, a crack opened up in the concrete at Section 33 on the third deck and pieces of concrete broke loose. The whole stadium moved up and down, back and forth, and the crowd rose to its feet. Some people bolted for the exits, but the aisles were packed with fans waiting to get to their seats. But there were few signs of panic.

ALMOST AS SOON as the trembling stopped the crowd let out an ironic cheer. It was as if half the crowd was terrified and the other half almost happy that they had gone through the ultimate California experience and had come out ok. Those who brought transistor radios to the game were the first to spread the word that the quake might be more than a curious sidelight to the Battle of the Bay (A's vs. Giants). As word spread of the collapse of the Bay Bridge section, many fans became frightened for their families. With no electricity in the stadium, an eerie anticipation hung over the crowd, everyone waiting to be told what to do. — Johnny Miller, the Wayback Machine

THE BLUE ANGELS, October 11, 2014

by Robert Yoder

The Blue Angels are back in town this weekend. It’s Fleet again, a “Thank-you-for-your-service” kind of patriotic recruiting drive for the war machine. This year’s event was scaled back some from pervious years. No Parade of Ships sailing through the Golden Gate to start off the festivities. In years past, a small flotilla of U.S. Navy warships, always included an aircraft carrier that several times launched the Blue Angels off its deck and the Jeremiah O’Brien, a San Francisco based merchant marine ship from WW II, not to mention all the fireboats spraying fountains of water on their arrival. Maybe they couldn’t be spared from all those wars in the Middle East or Obama’s “pivot” to Asia. There was also no appearance by the Snowbirds, the Royal Canadian Air Force’s version the Blue Angels. Maybe a scheduling conflict or a budget cutback or maybe as part of the coalition of the willing, they couldn’t be spared either.

But there was something new this year. All the sailors in town — and there are many — are wearing not just the small ribbons on their chests for good conduct or Iraq or Afghanistan or whatever, but the big gaudy gold medallions dangling from the end of brightly colored ribbons, their chests looking like a lit up pinball machine. And it seems the gold stripes on the officers’ and Chief Petty Officers’ uniforms are shinier, blinding bright. I’ve never seen sailors decked out like this before, not ever. When I was in the Navy, we just wore those small oblong Good Conduct Medals or whatever they gave us to wear.

Today was bright and sunny, balmy, and about 12:30, I heard a big four-engine cargo plane, lumbering overhead, a C-130, the one with the big cargo door that acts as a ramp in back that Lockheed’s been building forever and the military is glutted with them and doesn’t want any more but the Lockheed lobbyists keep at it and politicians keep the assembly lines humming and there was one up there today in navy gray and sky divers — the Navy Seals Leap Frogs parachute team — jumping out the big open cargo door to start things off. I went up on the roof and opened a folding canvas chair, got comfortable and read till the main show started at 1:00 with a flyover of three WW II vintage fighters, old P-51 Mustangs. Tight formation, back and forth, round and round, nothing fancy or overpowering; I guess, just getting these old warbirds up in the air was the main attraction, and there they were, still flying after 70 years. Once they left, the sharp buzzing whine of a small aerobatic plane out over the Bay, small enough I needed binoculars to see it even though it was trailing smoke, doing barrel rolls and loop-the-loops, straight up twisting like a corkscrew and at the top, sort of stalling out, tipping over and straight down, pulling out less than a hundred feet off the water. Over and over, herky-jerky moves with engine at full throttle and the pitch and timbre of it sounding almost like a swarm of bumblebees.

After the aerobatics, a hiatus and then the sharp buzzing whine of another aerobatics plane, this one bright red, doing essentially the same things as the previous one, maybe a little more herky jerky, but pretty much the same. There’s only so many tricks you can do in aerobatics.

Next up was a flight of six jets, smoke streaming from their tails. At first I thought it was the RCAF Snowbirds but the planes didn’t look right and they were painted a dark blue with a wide red stripe on the tail, not at all like the Snowbirds. The planes were fairly small, straight winged, and their engines were strong but not powerful. Some nice close formations, some fleur-de-lys, smoke in red, blue and white but not overpowering. Three left the formation, two went up over the top and back down, trailing smoke, one red, the other blue, drawing a heart in the sky overhead, a third had swung back around and drilled right through the center of the heart with white smoke, an arrow piercing the heart — nice. Later, I looked up who these guys were — The Patriots Jet Team, all civilians; two ex-USAF Thunderbirds pilots, one ex-RCAF Snowbirds pilot, one an ex-Blue Angels pilot, the other two accomplished aerobatics pilots, flying a Czech-built airplane called the Albatross out of Byron, California.

Halfway through the Patriots Jet Team act, I noticed a fat ribbon of fog sliding in under the Golden Gate Bridge and soon the wail of foghorns. All those fancy sailboats and expensive yachts out on the bay with the hoi polloi watching the airshow were going to have a tough time seeing the rest of the show, namely the star attraction, the Blue Angels, and by the time they arrived on the scene, the bay was completely socked in, all those white sails and white yachts buried deep in a layer of fog. Meanwhile, up here on the hill, on my roof deck and all the other roof decks in North Beach with hundreds and thousands of people watching the show, it was still clear, balmy and shirtsleeve weather and we could see everything just fine. Maybe there is such a thing as poetic justice.

There was no mistaking the Blue Angels arrival, the thunderous roar of their powerful F-18 engines blasting deep into your bones, shaking your entrails, disorienting you for a moment and setting off car alarms with every pass overhead, flushing out pigeons and crows which were flapping furiously in every direction, looking for safety where there was no safety, no place to escape these roaring monsters. From the young people up on my roof, maybe 30 of them, and from the surrounding roof decks, oohs and ahs, some smattering of applause for those wonderful boys in their flying machines here to entertain us with their military precision and tight formations, wingtip to wingtip, streaking across the sky at nearly 600 mph. I can’t help it, I love the Blue Angels, have for 60 years since I first saw them in 1954. But today I also couldn’t help but think of people elsewhere in the world who, when they see or hear an F-18 in the sky, are terrified and, like the pigeons and crows, scatter in every direction for cover, the lucky ones making it out of harm’s way, the unlucky ones killed, incinerated or maimed, fodder for cannons. Maybe I’m just too aware now to block out the dark side of the Angels, but today I couldn’t shake the awareness that even though the Blue Angels planes trail red, white and blue smoke and not bombs or Hellfire missiles, these fabulous flying machines are, after all, weapons platforms, designed to deal death and destruction to those on the ground. It also struck me that today’s airshow is a perfect metaphor for US foreign policy, no hearts pierced with an arrow for our boys in blue, but the thunder and roar of mighty overpowering force instilling terror — shock and awe some call it — in our perceived enemies. And it also struck me that the folks on the roof watching with me, all in their twenties and thirties, had no real concept or interest in anything other than the entertainment value of the show, and that only a passing interest. Mostly it was a social gathering, guys trying to connect with girls and vice versa. I wanted to ask if any of them had ever heard of Basra or knew where it was, but I already knew the answer — no and no — so why bother. If I’m still here next year, I may watch them again but I doubt it. After seeing them perform so many times over the past sixty years, I know every formation and what comes next in their act. I guess there’s only so much you can do in aerobatics, even with an F-18 Hornet.

COLUMBUS DAY, as we know it in the United States, was invented by the Knights of Columbus, a Catholic fraternal service organization. Back in the 1930s, they were looking for a Catholic hero as a role-model their kids could look up to. In 1934, as a result of lobbying by the Knights of Columbus, Congress and President Franklin Roosevelt signed Columbus Day into law as a federal holiday to honor this courageous explorer.

Or so we thought.

There are several problems with this. First of all, Columbus wasn't the first European to discover America. The Viking, Leif Ericson probably founded a Norse village on Newfoundland some 500 years earlier. So, hat's off to Leif. But if you think about it, the whole concept of discovering America is, well, arrogant. After all, the Native Americans discovered North America about 14,000 years before Columbus was even born! Surprisingly, DNA evidence now suggests that courageous Polynesian adventurers sailed dugout canoes across the Pacific and settled in South America long before the Vikings.

Second, Columbus wasn't a hero. When he set foot on that sandy beach in the Bahamas on October 12, 1492, Columbus discovered that the islands were inhabited by friendly, peaceful people called the Lucayans, Taínos and Arawaks. Writing in his diary, Columbus said they were a handsome, smart and kind people. He noted that the gentle Arawaks were remarkable for their hospitality. “They offered to share with anyone and when you ask for something, they never say no,” he said. The Arawaks had no weapons; their society had neither criminals, prisons nor prisoners. They were so kind-hearted that Columbus noted in his diary that on the day the Santa Maria was shipwrecked, the Arawaks labored for hours to save his crew and cargo. The native people were so honest that not one thing was missing.

Columbus was so impressed with the hard work of these gentle islanders, that he immediately seized their land for Spain and enslaved them to work in his brutal gold mines. Within only two years, 125,000 (half of the population) of the original natives on the island were dead.

If I were a Native American, I would mark October 12, 1492, as a black day on my calendar.

Shockingly, Columbus supervised the selling of native girls into sexual slavery. Young girls of the ages 9 to 10 were the most desired by his men. In 1500, Columbus casually wrote about it in his log. He said: “A hundred castellanoes are as easily obtained for a woman as for a farm, and it is very general and there are plenty of dealers who go about looking for girls; those from nine to ten are now in demand.”

He forced these peaceful natives to work in his gold mines until they died of exhaustion. If an “Indian” worker did not deliver his full quota of gold dust by Columbus' deadline, soldiers would cut off the man's hands and tie them around his neck to send a message. Slavery was so intolerable for these sweet, gentle island people that at one point, 100 of them committed mass suicide. Catholic law forbade the enslavement of Christians, but Columbus solved this problem. He simply refused to baptize the native people of Hispaniola.

— Eric Kasum