- The Best Show Going
- Night Lights & Day Blindness
- What ISIS Really Wants
- Vaccination
- Reaffirming Rampant Racism
- St. Patrick Needs Help
- Not Acceptable
- Stop the Pumping
THE BEST SHOW GOING
Dear Anderson Valley and beyond,
The 24th annual AV Grange Variety Show took place this past weekend. In those 24 years the valley has changed, the show has changed, folks have passed on and new folks have appeared. But there is a thread that has run through all of the years. The spirit of the show has remained constant…and that feels pretty darn good.
It seems as if the show is going through a transition. The torch is being passed on to a younger generation with the usual occasional fumble in the hand off. Looking out over the audience, there are many new younger faces as well. Hooray for that. The joint was rocking! Next year is the show's silver anniversary, let's see who jumps on board to keep that thread going. We are always looking for animal acts.
Many, many people put in way too many hours to put this thing together. You know who you are, and even though we double your pay every year it could never compensate for the work you do. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
And the performers, oh my gosh, it is so wonderful the surprises you bring, thanks for your respect to the other acts and the audience, you came through and made both nights fabulous.
Not to forget the audience. You are the heart and soul of the show. The show is you and you are the show. Your spirit is contagious, the enthusiasm you offer is felt by the performers and you guys are the BEST.
See Ya Next Year,
Captain Rainbow, For the Management, such as it is
Boonville
NIGHT LIGHTS & DAY BLINDNESS
Editor,
It's a curious thing that it takes odd lights at night in the sky to get people to look up around here. When nearly every day our skies are filled with the results of a massive geo engineering crime. Again for all you sky watchers, get this straight! There are currently no, as in zero, nada, zilch commercial jetliners crossing Northern California at this time. This is what's called a fact. A fact that is backed by the FAA itself.
So if you want to get spooked out about strange happenings in the skies do it every time you hear a large jet going over. Excluding of course the Coastguard and Cal Fire ones. These jets are in fact US military stratotankers and a C-141 Starlifter. They are in fact spraying particles into our atmosphere for solar radiation management to keep us all cool.
This is not as thrilling as ET's and such, I admit, but so far it's the only thing going in our skies around here worth talking about. Your night lights will most likely turn out to be some wine corporation or law enforcement playing around with drone toys. Pretty obvious to most of us by now that space aliens are in the same dust bin as God, Santa Clause, and Big Foot.
In case you haven't noticed, we live in a military air corridor. This air corridor has been used for at least 15 years as a route to the greater Pacific Coast regions from the Gulf of Alaska on down. Better ask yourselves what unmarked military jets are doing to us. What possible good can come from tanker planes operating outside a theater of war performing their intended function. In an official information blackout no less!
Time to get spooked about the blatant and the obvious folks!
Good luck,
Marvin Blake
Elk
WHAT ISIS REALLY WANTS
Dear Editor:
There is an article in the March issue of The Atlantic magazine by Graeme Wood -- "What ISIS Really Wants and How to Stop It" -- that should be required reading for those persons trying to understand the actions of ISIS. The article is 14 pages in length and I will summarize its major points.
Wood begins his article with this statement "The Islamic State is no mere collection of psychopaths. It is a religious group with carefully considered beliefs, among them that it is a key agent of the coming apocalypse." He then discusses what that means for its strategy - and for how to stop it. He notes that its decisions adhere to what it calls 'The Prophetic Methodology'.
The Islamic State awaits the army of 'Rome" whose defeat on on the plains at Dabiq, Syria, will initiate the countdown to the apocalypse. At the final battle Jesus will return and lead the Muslims to victory. ISIS is following the practice of the Ottoman Empire in allowing Christians to live in the Caliphate if they pay a special tax known as the Jizya and acknowledged their subjugatiion.
In his discussion of how to stop ISIS among other recommendations Wood says "Our failure to appreciate the essential differences between ISIS has led to Dangerous Decisions". He further says "A theological alternative to the Islamic State exists-just as uncompromising, but with opposite conclusions."
In peace,
Jim Updegraff
Sacramento
VACCINATION
Editor,
Regarding the letters about vaccinations — has anybody noticed that polio has all but disappeared from the US? As a 5-year-old living in San Francisco in 1953, I had what everyone hoped was a bad cold. I remember in late July, Dr. O'Gara (doctors made house calls then) shook his head and packed his little bag and left. Later, I stepped out of bed and fell, my spine stiff as a board, crippled with polio. That evening, quarantined away from my mother and father, I experienced one of the most horrifying nights of my life at Children's Hospital; I was in a room full of other screaming, terrified, crippled children. The Salk vaccine had not come to the public quite yet and many people, including Canadian musicians Joni Mitchell and Neil Young, were afflicted with polio before the Salk and Sabin vaccines; Salk was an injection and Sabin came on a sugar cube. Jonas Salk, in one of the most impressive generosities I've yet learned of, refused any financial remuneration for his vaccine.
I really have not heard a convincing argument for refusing to vaccinate a child against measles; in some Arab nations, religious fanatics railed against polio vaccinations, preferring to try for some political/religious bunk by declaring the mass injections to be a Western conspiracy to sterilize Muslims. Since Islam has the most followers in the world, I guess those hysterics were not true.
Charlie Morgan
Marshall
REAFFIRMING RAMPANT RACISM
Editor
Not that it is necessary, but i would like to affirm the presence of rampant racism in Mendocino County. At Caspar Inn, we imported many bands that were composed of, or included, people of color (i think that is the current PC phrase). i can not recall a single instance when some customer, often a well-meaning “liberal” who believed themselves to be racism free, did not make a comment that confirms Officer Massey's statements. One of my “favorites”: Africans, coming to the USA via Europe, to whom English was their fifth or eighth language, being viewed as semi-sub-standard in communication skills. Constantly, in so many ways, the, i believe, mostly unconscious, racism, was made manifest. It is interesting that there was (is) more open, vituperative racism demonstrated against Latinos. Of course, that was a much more prevalent attitude in the bucolic Anderson Valley than on the touro-centric coast. Skin color is an obvious characteristic; a clear difference between some people. Racism is not recognizing this difference; racism is giving this difference a negative value. Pretending this irrelevant difference does not exist, when it is the reason for continual, differential treatment is cruel to those who suffer from it.
peter lit
Elk
ST. PATRICK NEEDS HELP
Editor,
On the oh-so-terribly sorrowful rainsoaked streets of downtown LA a huge encampment of the dispossessed barely manages to survive under the scrutinous eyes of gun-toting officers of the law.
A shameful state of affairs in such a wealthy clime.
Happy St. Patrick’s Day to you and all the AVA readers. Cups up!
Diego Donohoe
Los Angeles
NOT ACCEPTABLE
Letter to the Editor
Although currently it is primary the Republican Congress, it is time to return to due respect of congress to one another, to our constitutional process and towards our President. They may not agree but they should be respectful and last time I looked Congress was supposed to be composed of differing ideas that resolve in compromises via courteous exchange. The current "Do-it-our-way-or will-stop-the-government" representatives are getting nothing done by simply saying "No". They are supposed to say things like "Can you explain that better, or how might my idea blend with yours." They are paid to get the job of governance done, not sound like a bunch of loud bad boys. They sound like a scratched record stuck on one idea that obviously is not acceptable. President Obama, who cared enough to start the dialogue and action towards health care for all Americians and a very overdue immigration policy has been respectful to a bunch of noisy brats! We elect him our leader not the so called leaders of the house and Senate. The speech by the Israeli leader without our President was vulgar and underscored the dangerous anger of Israeli leadership against a non-aggressive Iran.
Thanks
A concerned American
Greg Krouse
Philo
STOP THE PUMPING
To the Editor:
The Redwood Valley Water District, has no water rights at this time to pump any water out of Lake Mendocino which belongs to the Russian River Flood Control and Water Improvement District (RRFCD), due to the fact that RRFCD has not declared that there is any surplus water available to the RVCWD at this time. The RVCWD water rights permit does not allow the pumping water from Lake Mendocino at this time due to drought conditions, water flows below the Lake, and also the level of the conservation pool at in Lake Mendocino.
Nevertheless, the RVCWD is now pumping unlimited amounts of so-called “surplus water” to agriculture users in Redwood Valley for frost protection possibly reducing the 8,000 acre-feet available to all RRFCD water contractors and users. The RVCWD, use of water for frost protection and irrigation this spring could deplete several thousand acre-feet of water that belongs to the RRFCD causing severe rationing and hardship for RRFCD contract water customers.
The RRFCD Board of Trustees, has taken no action and is abdicating its responsibility, by not making public this action by the RVCWD. In addition, the Trustees are not currently engaged in protecting their own water contractors from this illegal “take” of their 8,000 AF of water at this time.
The RVCWD, although allowing unlimited use of water for frost protection and irrigation, has not lifted the rationing of water to domestic customers of 50 gallons of water, per person, per day. This policy unfairly subsidizes agriculture users not only financially but by giving RVCWD agriculture customers unlimited water at the expense of domestic users. This could open a door for RVCWD domestic customers to initiate a lawsuit against the RVCWD for unfair practices.
The Sonoma County Water Agency could also initiate a lawsuit against both the RRFCD and the RVCWD for endangering their water supplies which come from Lake Mendocino. And the State Water Resources Control Board could step in and issue another cease and desist order against the RRFCD and the RVCWD for allowing unlimited water usage for frost protection in drought conditions.
In addition, the RVCWD is serving water to out of its place of use (and the RRFCD place of use), despite a cease and desist order from the State of California (since 2005), to stop these practices. It is time that the RRFCD Board of Trustees stop the illegal pumping by RVCWD of its 8,000 AF immediately. And it is time that domestic users of RVCWD water are treated fairly by the RVCWD instead of being used to subsidize agriculture users.
Ava Peterson
Redwood Valley
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