- Flaig’s Flute
- Restitution? What Restitution?
- Hit the Road, Hack (& Squirt)
- Wrong Message
- Overlooked Novels
- Great Wildflower Show/Goat Fest
- Four Large Cookies!
- The Conspiracy Against Belle
FLAIG’S FLUTE
Editor,
Remembering David Flaig, the dancer.
A new way he headed dancing (to) a very ancient tune, fit for the eight of foot and heart.
We ask the wind how we can do it too.
It whispers: a gentle flute, to let fine whistling through.
And a good ear to hear the ofttimes distant strains to intimate music.
A well tuned heart to enjoy its flow then let it go on the wings of thanks.
That's all that's needed to do an old dance new.
Diego J.P. Donohoe
San Diego
RESTITUTION? WHAT RESTITUTION?
Editor,
Where are your hard earned tax dollars going? Here's a little insight that could use investigation into the so-called justice system and county prosecutors handling cases in the "interest of justice."
My story is only one of thousands. I am a prisoner doing life without the possibility of parole times two. All my appeals are done. So I will never go home. I am currently fighting a murder conviction that I am accused of that took place here at the Salinas Valley State Prison back in September 2012. I was formally charged in the Monterey County courts in August 2013. I have been going back and forth to court ever since and I am still a long way from trial. Initially the District Attorney Deborah Gullett wanted to seek the death penalty although the death committee shot her down and instead chose to seek more life sentences.
After going back and forth to court for over a year and a half, I offered a plea agreement to the district attorney. I said I would plead guilty to all charges, take the maximum sentence, and not appeal the convictions. In return I wanted no restitution. I put this offer on the table not because I'm guilty but to save everyone time and money and to get it over with since the extra time does not affect me in any way and so the District Attorney would get her full conviction with maximum time in the interest of justice as well as her resume boosted.
But she refused the deal and this case will now be dragged out wasting hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxpayer money for lawyer fees, investigator fees, DNA testing, expert witness fees, etc., all of which skyrocket during trial. And for what? The most the District Attorney can hope to gain in light of my plea offer is restitution that will never get paid anyway.
Greg Hoenshell F-83497
Salinas Valley State Prison D1-109,
Box 150 Soledad, CA 93960
HIT THE ROAD, HACK (& SQUIRT)
Dear Friends,
We are all paying the "Fire Prevention Fee" to the State Board around now - I encourage everyone to do what we did, and enclose a note with your check to them along the lines of "Make MRC stop using their dangerous ‘hack and squirt’ tree removal! It is dangerous in several ways: 1. It puts poison (more than 6,000 gallons during 2012-2014) into our environment; 2. It has created more than 30,000 acres of dead trees, over 5 million trees killed, just waiting there, a huge fire hazard. 3. When they burn, they release toxins into the air, putting firefighters at even greater risk!
Nancy MacLeod
Philo
WRONG MESSAGE
Editor,
While the appeals court overturned Bonds’ conviction, ruling that his evasive answer as to whether Greg Anderson and BALCO gave him performance-enhancing drugs was not perjury, Bonds still did not answer the question with a yes or no. Bonds was tested positive for steroids and it defies belief that he did not knowingly take steroids. Before the San Francisco Giants even considering bringing Bonds back in any capacity, I would expect the Giants to require Bonds to confess to knowingly using steroids.
Remember, Mark McGwire and Alex Rodriguez confessed to using steroids. But does it matter? In this age of wide-scale cheating and lying by public officials, researchers, school officials, students, etc., Bonds’ use of steroids appears irrelevant to a lot of people. After all, baseball is just entertainment and everyone was doing it. Yes, it does matter because steroid use is up among high school students and even eighth-graders. Celebrating a cheater like Bonds sends the wrong message to our young people.
Ralph Stone
San Francisco
OVERLOOKED NOVELS
Editor,
I am so happy to have re-subscribed to the AVA. I was reading some things online, but I still read best from paper. And yes, I feel like a part of the last generation that will ever say that. Finances were a little tight for awhile, but I decided that the AVA was higher on the priority list than a lot of other things, so I'm back.
I saw the list of California novels in the last issue and I have a few I would add myself, as an almost-life-long Californian.
1947 Lonely Crusade, Chester Himes
2003 Southland, Nina Revoyr
2010 I Hotel, Karen Tei Yamashita
I don't know if you have read any of these, but I think they are worthy of mention with most of the others on that list. I think Lonely Crusade is Himes's under-appreciated masterpiece: deeper, more political, and more nuanced than If He Hollers.
Southland took me by surprise because I just picked it up at a library one day knowing nothing about it. I thought it would be just a good mystery but instead it adds a whole layer of understanding to the Watts riots.
The I Hotel protests were one of the first things I remember reading about in the Chron growing up, and I Hotel really made those events come to life in realistic -- rather than just the "revolutionary" positive ways -- I took them in as a kid.
Anyway, just my two cents along with a thank you for keeping the AVA going,
Gordon Edgar
San Francisco
Ed Note: A few more California titles belatedly occurring to me include "Western Shore" by Clarkson Crane, a Cal grad, class of 1916, whose novel paints a fascinating portrait of the East Bay and the sexual politics of academe in the 1920s. I've alway thought "Trance" by Christopher Sorrentino was such a close rendering of the SLA it's just like being there, not that any sane person would care to have been there. "Budding Prospects" by TC Boyle, set in Willits, is the best fiction I've read on the pioneers of the marijuana business. It's non-fiction, but "Shallow Grave in Trinity County" by Harry Farrell is not only a riveting crime story, it re-captures the psycho-social period of the Bay Area in the middle 1950s. Shallow Grave recounts the 1955 abduction of Stephanie Bryan, 14, as she walked home from school. Her kidnapping and murder by an odd, amateur actor named Burton Abbot, executed at San Quentin, was headline news for months. Of course this crime was committed in the days before mayhem became the daily occurrence it is now.
GREAT WILDFLOWER SHOW/GOAT FEST
Dear Editor,
Although it appeared most wild flowers had bloomed very early this year, there were still an abundance of flowers to be found by the team of collectors sponsored by the Garden Section of the Anderson Valley Unity Club. We were quite surprised to find that we were still able to locate our favorites and some new varieties as well. The drought is changing when the wildflowers bloom, and next year may give us yet more information on how we will be affected by an increasingly dryer climate.
We would like to thank everyone who made the 2015, Wildflower Show such a success. There were a few new additions this year, most prominently was the Goat Fest sponsored by the AV Food Shed, a great family oriented celebration of all things goat, offering lots of fun and tasty birria too. Also new to the show was a table of wonderful books provided by the California Native Plant Society, Sanhedrin Chapter. In addition, John and Barbara Lewallen provided locally and sustainably harvested varieties of seaweed. A table for Native Edibles was added this year and was very popular with visitors.
Eugenia Herr’s botanical prints made by her grandfather, were an especially nice compliment, with new additions added this year.
Thank you to Anderson Valley High School’s instructors Nat Corey-Moran and Nadia Berrigan whose students produced stunning photos and beautiful art work for use in our show.
An invasive plant table with specimens, pictures and information regarding the damage these plants cause to native species provided a necessary counterpoint.
Another component for the show was a Lyme disease exhibit presented by Sue Davies. Many brochures and even live ticks (in a covered jar), were available offering extensive information about preventive measures and dangers associated with Lyme.
The Navarro River Resource Center had a table with brochures and information provided by Linda MacElwee.
We wish to thank the following for raffle donations: Praetiel and Herr, Barbara Scott, Alice Bonner, Sanhedrin Chapter of CNPS, AV Community Farm, Christine Clark, Sue Davies, Sonny Pettijohn, Sue and Wally Hopkins, Cherry Green, Beverly Dutra, Evelyn Ashton, The Puzzle People, Dirt Cheap, Val Muchowski, Pot Shop, Robyn Harper, Mendocino Sea Vegetable Company and Mary Pat Palmer, North Star Nursery, Grace Espinoza, All That Good Stuff, AV Farm Supply, Farmhouse Merchantile, Mendocino Coast Botanical Gardens, Goodness Grows, Valerie Hanelt, Beverly Dutra, and Elizabeth Dusenberry
A big thank you to Shirley Hulbert, Gloria and Sharon Abbot for the delicious food served in the tea room.
We wish to also thank the following people who helped our club members with collections, identification, the raffle, plant donations, set-up or cleanup:, Linda MacElwee, Jade Paget-Seekins, Sheryl Green, Lynn Halpern, Angela DeWitt, Ken Montgomery, Wally Hopkins, Keith Gamble, Hans Hickenlooper, Kristy Hotchkiss, Scott Hulbert, Bill Harper, Bob Ables and Eugenia Herr.
Thank you to the Fairgrounds staff for all their help, (especially Jody). Also thanks to Robert Rosen and the Anderson Valley Brewery for allowing us to place our banners, advertising our event, on their respective fences.
We are extending a warm invitation to community members to join us in next year’s wild flower adventure. We would love additional collectors, and those interested in identifying plants. Contributors of new ideas will help improve and make the show even better! If interested please contact Robyn Harper at 8952609.
PS. Special Thanks goes out this year to Melanie Holloway for her help in making the annual Wildflower Show such a success and for bringing new life and energy to our volunteers. Melanie is a direct descendant of Blanch Brown, the beloved founder of our valley’s Wildflower Show. We are truly grateful for her knowledge and spirit.
Anderson Valley Unity Club Garden Section
Robyn Harper
Boonville
FOUR LARGE COOKIES!
Dear AVA,
I am not sure who writes the "Valley People" of the AVA - However, I have to ask you one question — did you drink the Kool-Aid?
The DA I know is not the one as described in the AVA. Trust me, I would have brought four dozen gourmet chocolate chip cookies to him if I believed that was the secret in getting him to provide the service the DA should do for community members in his county.
After meeting with the previous Chief Investigator, Tim Kiely with absolute hands down spelled out, letters and taped violations from our local trustee members in the Point Arena School District which I was informed was on the DA's desk "sign off stack.”
Did he? No, he did not. I don't think he even took the time to look at the summary prepared for him because I forgot the cookies! Gosh, I wish I knew then that is all it took for him to do his job!
Say whatever you want — I have a very different opinion as to how District Attorney Eyster works no matter how smart he may seem to you.
Respectfully,
Suzanne Rush
Manchester
THE CONSPIRACY AGAINST BELLE
Editor,
Not long after my niece Belle Rodriguez was brutally murdered I had discussions with Belle's mother Debra Lincoln and Belle's younger brother Manny along with many other family members. I felt compelled to inform them that law enforcement may decide to pour fuel on the fire that is already raging in the community. Everyone who knew Belle, native and non-native, is deeply cut to the heart and now that hurt has turned to anger and people want justice for Belle!
I explained to them that some law enforcement (not all) are still biased against me because of a capital case I was acquitted of a 1995. Since Belle was my niece, they may decide not to prosecute to the fullest extent of the law. To let Belle's killers walk free would be pouring fuel on the fire. Five people admit to being present when Belle was shot and killed, but only one person, Jeremy, is in jail. I told the family that we must do our own investigation to find out all the facts that we could come up with and get the names of everyone involved and what they did to Belle.
Besides a biased opinion against me, we must also deal with blatant racism against Native Americans by some law enforcement. If we can't get these people prosecuted, the least we can do is expose these killers to the community and expose law enforcement's cover up of what was done to Belle and their racism towards the Round Valley Indian Reservation.
Belle Rodriguez had the right to live but the Briton family and their accomplices ended her life at 21 years of age. Her brutal beating, rape and murder was a revenge killing by Shauna Britton whose father was killed in 1995.
My niece Belle was an innocent victim of the Lincoln-Britton feud. I had no idea who Belle's friends were before she was killed. But as I asked more questions I learned that these younger Brittons were friends that she went to school with since childhood and even stayed overnight at their homes occasionally, all the time unaware of the resentment towards her because she came from the Lincoln family.
We also believe that Nikki Hawkins played a major role in conspiring to have Belle drugged, beaten, gang raped and murdered. Her partner, John Fox Reyes (Chocolate) is also an accomplice. It's well-known throughout the community that he went to several homes announcing that Belle was down the road dead, but not to tell anyone.
Nikki Hawkins' behavior was very bold just hours after Belle's body was discovered. She picked a fight with one of my other nieces who was just walking in front of her home. Hawkins drove by hanging halfway out of her car yelling, "I'm a gangsta bitch" to my niece Sadacia and a crowd of relatives and actually pulled over and started fighting with Sadacia. At one point Hawkins said, "At least I'm not like that dead bitch lying in the road."
Belle's body was still laying where she was dumped when this fight took place. The incident was called into the Sheriff's Office because Hawkins ended up pushing down a ninety-year-old elder, Sylvester Joaquin, so she was charged with elder abuse and was taken into custody and released a short time later. The elder went to the hospital for chest pains.
Similar behavior and remarks were made by the ones we believe are guilty. In my opinion I feel that there should be a charge of conspiracy to commit murder against everyone involved. There are more people who participated in beating and raping Belle and they also will be exposed to the community.
Our investigation has turned up their names besides the five who have already been mentioned and admitted to being present during the murder of Belle. There is more convincing evidence out there but once I have in my possession, do I turn it over to law enforcement who have proven that certain elements in the department are pouring fuel on the fire? What this does is promote more killings so that then the Sheriff's Department can come to Round Valley Reservation and commit their murders. This is what I see as being law-enforcement's agenda. This kind of thinking and planning is clearly conspiracy to commit murder and this is not the solution we need. There are more facts that we know that will prove this deadly agenda by Mendocino County law enforcement.
Bear Lincoln
Covelo
PS. Jury selection is set for Jeremy's trial on May 4, at 9 AM.
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