Mendocino County Today: Monday, Dec 8, 2014

• Storm Warning
• Redwood Classic Results
• Pearl Harbor
• FDR's Address
• Pinches Honored
• Racial Diversity
• Despondent Underclass
• Weed Film
• Police Accountability
• The New Republic
• Sweetness
• MendoVito Numbers
• Packin' Grandma
• Catch of the Day
• Niner Eulogy
• Weapons for Cops

HAZARDOUS WEATHER OUTLOOK for Northwest California:

High winds are expected on Wednesday in advance of a storm. Heavy rain will arrive Wednesday afternoon and evening with periods of moderate to heavy rain continuing through Thursday. Showers and lower snow levels are expected by Friday. All main stem rivers will experience rises...with the possibility of the Eel River at Fernbride cresting near flood stage Thursday night and the Navarro River at Navarro cresting over flood stage on Thursday.

—National Weather Service, Eureka CA (5am Mon, Dec 8, 2014)

REDWOOD CLASSIC 2014
Boys basketball tournament
Held at Anderson Valley High School

Wednesday’s results

Cloverdale 68, Round Valley 22
Marin Academy 66, Laytonville 24
Valley Christian 105, Anderson Valley 82

Thursday’s results

Pinewood 98, Point Arena 16,
Stuart Hall 72, California School for Deaf 28
Liberty Christian 79, International 56
Bentley 64, Tulelake 25
Branson 53, Hoopa 28

Friday’s results

Consolation rounds


California School for Deaf 66, Round Valley 36
International 63, Laytonville 41
Hoopa 74, Point Arena 38
Anderson Valley 51, Tulelake 31

Championship rounds

Stuart Hall 58, Cloverdale 55
Liberty Christian 78, Marin Academy 62
Bentley 101, Valley Christian 67
Branson 62, Pinewood 55

Saturday’s games

California School for Deaf 62, International 41
Hoopa 71, Anderson Valley 64
Stuart Hall 65, Liberty Christian 45
Branson 59, Bentley 39
Marin Academy 46, Cloverdale 45
Pinewood 113, Valley Christian 57

Consolation final: Hoopa 71, California School for Deaf 49
3rd place: Bentley 74, Liberty Christian 58
Championship: Stuart Hall 62, Branson 49

PEARL HARBOR SURVIVOR

by Bruce Anderson

Count me as one. I was two, my brother one, when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, on December 7, 1941.

My brother and I were born in Honolulu where our paternal grandfather, a Scots immigrant, was a principal in a successful business called the Honolulu Iron Works. My father, a graduate of the Punahou School, same as our President, spent much of his youth surfing and spent his evenings in white dinner jackets.

By the end of the war he was loading submarines at Hunter’s Point in San Francisco. He’d cashed in because, like most Islanders, he assumed the Japanese would follow-up their successful blitz of America’s Pacific defenses with a ground invasion, and Pop preferred to be among the missing when that inevitability occurred.

The morning of the infamous day, we’d been up before dawn demanding, as family lore has it, ice cream cones. We were in the car as the sun rose and with it came wave after wave of low-flying planes swooping in over us and central Honolulu. We drove obliviously on as the planes devastated the American fleet where it was conveniently assembled in Pearl Harbor, their crews slumbering, many eternally.

“The planes were flying so low I could see the pilots,” my father remembered. “I still thought it was some kind of maneuvers. There was smoke coming from Pearl Harbor, but most people simply assumed there had been an explosion and a fire. There were lots of people out in the streets watching the planes coming in.”

My father said quite a few spectators were recreationally strafed as the Japanese flew back out to sea. He didn’t know what was happening until we got home. It hadn’t occurred to him that the planes were hostile. That thought hadn’t occurred to much of anyone in Honolulu until they were either shot at or a stray bomb fell on their neighborhood. The Japanese, as always on-task, mostly confined themselves to military targets and, of course, forty years later, held the paper on our mortgages.

Some 20 minutes after the attack had begun, my father stopped to buy us our coveted ice cream cones, which were served up by an unperturbed clerk, and we drove on home. “Nobody had any idea that the Japanese would do such a thing,” my father said whenever he talked about December 7th. “They were too far away and America had no quarrel with them.”

Arriving home, my father famously complained to my mother that “These military maneuvers are getting a little too goddam realistic.” My mother, who’d always regarded her husband as something of a Magoo-like figure, informed her mate that the Japanese were attacking both Pearl Harbor and, it seemed, Honolulu, where errant bombs aimed at Hickham Field had already destroyed homes and businesses of non-combatants. She’d turned on the radio when she’d heard explosions. One of the first things she learned was that a bomb had obliterated the area where we’d made our ice cream purchase.

Years later, a hippie told me that I’d eluded the random wrath of the Japanese because I had “good karma.” I think it was more a case of God’s high regard for idiots and children.

My father was exempt from military service because he had a wife and children, but he was pressed into service as a member of a sort of impromptu Honolulu home guard — (Honolulu in 1941 was about the size of today’s Santa Rosa) — called the Business Man’s Training Corps, or BMTC. My mother had much ribald enjoyment at the abbreviation, and was even more delighted at the sight of my father togged out as a World War One Doughboy, the only uniforms available.

The BMTC wouldn’t have been much of a match for the Japanese Imperial Army which, fortunately, never appeared on Waikiki. The Japanese had surprised themselves by the unopposed success of their attack on Pearl Harbor and had not prepared to land an occupying ground force.

December 7th was a major trauma for America. For our family, too. Pop made plans to head for the Mainland as soon as he could wrap up his affairs and get on a boat, but he wanted to accomplish both without being derided as a slacker for fleeing. It took him another year to make it stateside. As he cashed in his chips and continued to spend his days surfing and sitting around in the dark at night behind blackout curtains, he put my mother and his two toddlers on a troop ship for San Francisco.

My mother was a registered nurse who’d worked at Queen’s Hospital in Honolulu, also the birthplace of our President contrary to what the racists and remedial readers say. She remembers daily submarine alerts all the way across the Pacific during which everyone, including the women and children on board, trundled over the side by rope nets into lifeboats. Mom recalls that the two of us infants loved being handed off like a couple of footballs up and down the side of the ship, but the daily alarms and exertions terrified her and everyone else on board.

But we made it through the Golden Gate unscathed, and were soon ensconced at the Fairmont Hotel, the evacuation center for people fleeing Hawaii.

JOINT ADDRESS TO CONGRESS Leading to a Declaration of War Against Japan (1941)

by Franklin Delano Roosevelt

Mr. Vice President, and Mr. Speaker, and Members of the Senate and House of Representatives:

Yesterday, December 7, 1941 — a date which will live in infamy — the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.

The United States was at peace with that Nation and, at the solicitation of Japan, was still in conversation with its Government and its Emperor looking toward the maintenance of peace in the Pacific. Indeed, one hour after Japanese air squadrons had commenced bombing in the American Island of Oahu, the Japanese Ambassador to the United States and his colleague delivered to our Secretary of State a formal reply to a recent American message. And while this reply stated that it seemed useless to continue the existing diplomatic negotiations, it contained no threat or hint of war or of armed attack.

It will be recorded that the distance of Hawaii from Japan makes it obvious that the attack was deliberately planned many days or even weeks ago. During the intervening time the Japanese Government has deliberately sought to deceive the United States by false statements and expressions of hope for continued peace.

The attack yesterday on the Hawaiian Islands has caused severe damage to American naval and military forces. I regret to tell you that very many American lives have been lost. In addition American ships have been reported torpedoed on the high seas between San Francisco and Honolulu.

Yesterday the Japanese Government also launched an attack against Malaya.
 Last night Japanese forces attacked Hong Kong.
 Last night Japanese forces attacked Guam.
 Last night Japanese forces attacked the Philippine Islands.
 Last night the Japanese attacked Wake Island. And this morning the Japanese attacked Midway Island.

Japan has, therefore, undertaken a surprise offensive extending throughout the Pacific area. The facts of yesterday and today speak for themselves. The people of the United States have already formed their opinions and well understand the implications to the very life and safety of our Nation.

As Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy I have directed that all measures be taken for our defense.

But always will our whole Nation remember the character of the onslaught against us.

No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory. I believe that I interpret the will of the Congress and of the people when I assert that we will not only defend ourselves to the uttermost but will make it very certain that this form of treachery shall never again endanger us.

Hostilities exist. There is no blinking at the fact that our people, our territory, and our interests are in grave danger.

With confidence in our armed forces — with the unbounding determination of our people — we will gain the inevitable triumph — so help us God.

I ask that the Congress declare that since the unprovoked and dastardly attack by Japan on Sunday, December 7, 1941, a state of war has existed between the United States and the Japanese Empire.

JOHNNY'S LAST STAND. Third District Supervisor and present board chairman, John Pinches, will be honored at Tuesday's meeting as he heads into retirement. Pinches was first elected in November of 1994, and represented Mendocino County's Third District and the rest of the County's more thoughtful, locally focused citizens for 12 years from 1995 to 1998, and again from 2007 through 2014.

STEADILY PURSUED AND OFTEN VILIFIED by liberals of the active Democrat type, Pinches' last board meeting will be December 16th. Libs seemed to object to Pinches' style more than his substance, and that substance has been an enviable record of fiscal prudence and a steadfast commitment to the welfare of the entire county. There was never any doubt where Pinches stood on issues, and even when he was disagreed with or criticized, Pinches was always open to debate and always affable. Unlike the recent crop of liberal supervisors — a grasping, vindictive crew of hustlers and, well, criminals, Pinches has served honorably. He'll be missed by lots of us, and official Mendocino County will miss him and likely suffer his absence, although supervisors Gjerde, McCowen and Brown comprise a solid core of conscientious public servants.

THE RECENT TRAGEDIES in New York and Ferguson, Mo., have renewed the decades-old call for a national 'conversation' on race. Chances are we will never really have an honest conversation on race, but in the meantime, we should share a few words of advice. If you are black and young and a cop tells you to do something, do it, and pray that the cop doesn't get mad and misinterpret what you are doing.

What we could have a conversation about is a legal process that has district attorneys, who work with police every day, turn around and then investigate them for shootings, choke holds and other actions that lead to young black men dying. Such investigations should be independent. That way, their outcomes might be more believable.

As for race? We will chatter about it on TV and radio for a while, then go back to ignoring it until the next police shooting kills an unarmed black person. Fortunately, more families are changing the race issue on their own. There are more Americans of multiracial background now than ever before, and the number is only growing. We have many mixed-race role models, from Kamala Harris to Beyonce to Stephen Curry to — well, to Barack Obama.

I suspect that in a decade or two, racial diversity in families isn't going to be unusual in the least. When that happens, we're going to be hearing a lot less about the question of race.

— Willie Brown

I'M NOT VOTING out of apathy. I'm not voting out of absolute indifference and weariness and exhaustion from the lies, treachery, deceit of the political class that has been going on for generations now, and which has now reached fever pitch where you have a disenfranchised, disillusioned, despondent underclass that are not being represented by that political system. So voting is tacit complicity with that system.

— Russell Brand

HUMBOLDT HIP-HOP LEGENDS MAKE WEED-A-RIFIC FEATURE FILM DEBUT!

By Emily Hobelmann

Ever met a Masshole caught up in the Emerald Triangle dope game? (“Masshole” = someone from Massachusetts.) Sure you have! Lots of East Coast people are involved in the weed industry here.

The new and fresh Ill Mannered Films production A Sea of Green features a total Masshole named Philip Waters (portrayed by a dude named “Alias”) — a loud-mouthed, endearing New Englander that finds himself working “the hill” in Humboldt County after a series of wicked twisted events.

It’s a gritty but humorous, somewhat realistic crime drama centered around weed that starts back east and ends out west, right here in the Emerald Triangle. East Coast-based artist and music video producer Myster DL was the driving force behind this production, and its cast is full of underground musicians and artists from both coasts. NorCal people in the film include Fatbol proprietor and local musician Brian Swislow (B Swizlo), Mr. Garth Cultivader, Brian Sturdivant, Sabrina Ku, Z-man and Michael Marshall.

Humboldt’s own B Swizlo and Piet Dalmolen of Nucleus and Sub Sab fame produced original music for the soundtrack, which features instrumentals off of Humboldt hip hop albums by MC Problematic and Garth Cultivader and an instrumental version of the Nucleus song “Love and Gold.” (Big thanks to B Swizlo for the deets on how Humboldt folks participated in this production!) East Coast hip hop is featured in the film too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6qS0MJ_ZRo

This movie is the perfect holiday gift for people that are down with (or intrigued by) hip hop and weed culture. Purchase the DVD online for about 20 bucks here. Or, you can score it at the Fatbol store in Arcata and SHC in Garberville.

To avoid spoilage, STOP READING HERE!

The main character Waters is a weed-loving working man based in Lowell, Massachusetts. He gets busted for puffing a joint in his car by “Detective Mendocino” from the local PD. His bust makes the paper. Boom. He gets fired from his job. His girlfriend is a total biatch about the whole thing and she kicks him out.

Waters turns to small-time weed dealing to get back on his feet. His dealer, Bud Fields (Myster DL), agrees to hook Waters up on the front so he can get business going. In this pivotal exchange, Fields drops knowledge on Waters: The only way to make real money is to grow weed and the best weed in the world comes from the Emerald Triangle.

Waters isn’t ready for all that. He is able to do decent business selling bags of “Grim Reefer” all over Lowell, but he runs his mouth during his deals, talks about his connections too much, shit like that. Trouble becomes inevitable. Waters draws attention from shady characters and local law enforcement. DEA agents get involved because they think Water’s rookie ways can lead them to more powerful dealers at the top of the food chain, dealers with connections to big-time weed producers out of Humboldt (Where else?).

The higher ups get hella pissed at Waters. That doesn’t stop him from running his mouth. Fields is caught in the quagmire because he brought Waters into the game in the first place. All this tension comes to a head with an explosion of gun violence in a warehouse.

Waters and Fields become fugitives, and they are exiled to the hill in Humboldt County where they must work for a full outdoor grow season. All the money they earn will go straight to the bosses as reparation for all the bullshit they started.

It’s not exactly an alluring advertisement for renegade dope growing in the hills, but it’s a solid film with a realistic Humboldt vibe. I give it four out of five Larry OG dabs.

SoCo's NAACP RECOMMENDS: Police Accountability

In the decade prior to 1999, there were over 25 citizens who died at the hands of Sonoma County law enforcement. In response to this horrific loss of life; there were community meetings, protests, letter writing efforts, lawsuits, public comment at town and city councils and the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors.

In reaction to the community outcry over the continued loss of life, there was an investigation by the United States Commission on Civil Rights as well as an investigation by the Sonoma County Grand jury.

The 1997-98 Final Report of the Sonoma County Grand Jury reached the following conclusions:

• All departments are not doing enough to recruit women and minorities
• Release of accurate and timely information to the public after a serious incident 
involving a sworn officer should be instituted by all departments
• Improvements in the civilian complaint process are needed
• The Board of Supervisors, town and city councils must take a stand on the creation of advisory committees and/or civilian review boards. 
In 1999 The Advisory Committee of the US Commission on Civil Rights made the following recommendations:
• Recruit and hire community-conscious personnel
• Adequately train all officers in cultural sensitivity, racial profiling, mental health, and 
excessive force policies
• Proactively maintain diverse and effective police departments
• Eliminate barriers to citizens’ filing complaints against police
• Ensure a fair and thorough investigation of officer involved deaths

In 2007, Jeremiah Chase died at the hands of a Sonoma County Sheriff. Again, there was community outcry, and again the very same investigation process.

In 2013, Andy Lopez died at the hands of a Sonoma County Sheriff. He is the 61st citizen who has died at the hands of Sonoma County Law Enforcement since the US Commission on Civil Rights and Grand Jury reached their conclusions. Again, there was a call for “institutional reform”, an abundance of community meetings, protests and demonstrations, letter writing efforts, lawsuits, and public comment at town and City Councils and the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors. And, again the same investigation process subsequent to nearly 90 deaths at the hands of Sonoma County Law Enforcement.

Albert Einstein calls, “Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is called INSANITY.

The citizens of Sonoma County, and the now the world are watching to see if our local public policy officials take a stand for accountability, transparency, restore the public trust and stop the INSANITY!

To assist in rebuilding “public trust” the Santa Rosa-Sonoma County NAACP supports the recommendation by United States Commission on Civil Rights and Sonoma County Grand Jury along with the following additional recommendations:

• All Sonoma County Law Enforcement wearing body camera;
• Transparent and independent review of all police shooting incidents;
• Tighter controls on the purchase of military weaponry;
• Access to records about police complaints; (Copley Press v. San Diego)
• Document and Implement Community Policing Strategies

Thank you for your time!

--Rev. Curtis Byrd, Santa Rosa

THE SAD IMPLOSION OF THE NEW REPUBLIC

I’ve been a longtime reader of The New Republic, a small-circulation but venerable magazine of journalism and opinion.

Although staunchly liberal in its political orientation, the magazine has regularly challenged conventional wisdom on the Left – while sometimes, it seemed, being contrarian for the sake of being contrary.

Although the quality of the articles varies, it has produced enough excellent writing to make TNR one of the few publications I subscribe to in dead-tree form.

It’s been a regular source for my posts (and those of others) at Harry’s Place – as you can see here.

Now most of the magazine’s senior staff and a long list of contributing editors (including Paul Berman, Timothy Snyder and Michael Walzer) have resigned after top editors Franklin Foer and Leon Wieseltier quit in a dispute with management over a change in TNR’s direction.

New Republic owner Chris Hughes and newly installed CEO Guy Vidra announced Thursday they were repositioning the 100-year-old magazine to become a “vertically integrated digital media company.” They hired Gabriel Snyder, who previously ran Gawker and The Wire, and was most recently at Bloomberg Media, to be its new editor-in-chief.

There has been tension at the magazine since Vidra’s arrival over differing visions for the publication. Staffers saw management as overly focused on Web traffic at the expense of its legacy of narrative journalism and criticism.

The New Republic now seems unlikely to continue that legacy in any recognizable sense, since the majority of its longtime writers and editors have left, taking the magazine’s institutional memory with them.

It’s a real loss for American journalism and the left-of-center side of the political spectrum.

Gene, December 5th 2014, hurryupharry.org

SWEETNESS

Just when it has seemed I couldn’t bear

one more friend

waking with a tumor, one more maniac

 

with a perfect reason, often a sweetness

has come

and changed nothing in the world

 

except the way I stumbled through it,

for a while lost

in the ignorance of loving

 

someone or something, the world shrunk

to mouth-size,

hand-size, and never seeming small.

 

I acknowledge there is no sweetness

that doesn’t leave a stain,

no sweetness that’s ever sufficiently sweet ....

 

Tonight a friend called to say his lover

was killed in a car

he was driving. His voice was low

 

and guttural, he repeated what he needed

to repeat, and I repeated

the one or two words we have for such grief

 

until we were speaking only in tones.

Often a sweetness comes

as if on loan, stays just long enough

 

to make sense of what it means to be alive,

then returns to its dark

source. As for me, I don’t care

 

where it’s been, or what bitter road

it’s traveled

to come so far, to taste so good.

— Steven Dunn

UNREALISTIC ESTIMATES

To the Editor:

Re: "Proposed MendoVito housing plan draws mixed reactions in Hopland"

A review of the MendoVito water proposal shows how unrealistic it really is. According to their website: "Statistics say that one person uses 5.2 gallons of new water a day," and calculations about the proposal's water usage are based on this number. In fact, according to the California Department of Water Resources, Californians use 196 gallons per day on average. A sustainable community at that location would realistically support 75-100 households, not 3,000 – 4,000.

— Siana Sylvestre, Hopland

DOES THIS GRANDMA LOOK LIKE SHE'D SHOOT?

CATCH OF THE DAY, Dec 7, 2014

RACHEL ARAMAYUSEM, Willits. Pot possession for sale, armed with firearm.

PORFIRIO ARGUELLES, Fort Bragg. Riding bicycle under influence of drugs or alcohol.

WILLIAM BARRY, Ukiah. Drunk in public.

RYAN CAMPBELL, Ukiah. Possession of controlled substance, probation revocation.

WILLIAM CANIDA, Manchester. Battery with serious injury, assault with deadly weapon other than firearm, probation revocation.

JOSEPH CLANTON, Ukiah. Possession of controlled substance, posstion of injection/smoking device.

JESSE GIBSON, Redwood Valley. Drunk in public. Probation revocation.

JARED GORDON, Willits. Possession of more than an ounce of pot.

KYRIE KETCHER, Ukiah. Petty theft, failure to appear, probation revocation.

ALAN POLLICK JR. Ukiah. Drunk in public. (Frequent flyer.)

ZACHARY RICE, Ukiah. Battery of police officer, resisting arrest.

ZIPPORAH SUTTON, Manchester. Battery with serious injury, assault with deadly weapon other than firearm, probation revocation.

RACHEL TAYLOR, Ukiah. Domestic battery, resisting arrest.

TODD TAYLOR, Ukiah. Court order violation, possession of controlled substance.

KENDALL TRAVIS, Ukiah. Resisting arrest, probation revocation.

NATHAN ZINGARELLI, Santa Rosa/Ukiah. Kidnapping for robbery, rape, spousal rape, oral copulation, sodomy or sexual penetration.

A READER NICELY SUMS UP today's 49er loss to the Oakland Raiders: “This is what I wrote Dec. 1, 2014: 'That's the worst loss I've ever seen by a Raider team. Nobody showed up. Just what the 49ers need, a team embarrassed, at home against a rival.' Stick a fork in the 49ers. I don't know if I will be able to watch the brutal beating they are going to take against Seattle next week. Poor Kaep. He is completely lost. Confidence gone. His throws are so full of fear it's sad. The rest of the team on Offense are just as bad. Today the Defense played their poorest game of the year. They had zero pass rush. I could have got back there in a wheel chair and completed passes. Two weeks ago I said the 49ers were at best a 8-8 or 7-9 team. That looks pretty close.”

THE MARSHALL PROJECT

The Pentagon Finally Details its Weapons-for-Cops Giveaway

Interesting that our county got nuthin’ while the Hopland tribe, Mendo BLM and even Ukiah picked up some shwag. Check out the itemized lists — fascinating.

https://www.themarshallproject.org/2014/12/03/the-pentagon-finally-details-its-weapons-for-cops-giveaway?utm_medium=homepage&utm_campaign=site-placement&utm_source=featured-block&utm_content=1-112#dod-graphic