Mendocino County Today: Sunday, July 5, 2015

• Kelisha Bites
• Hump Jumps
• Muir Emotes
• Expiration Date
• SF Homeless Budget
• Man Suffering
• Cable Cutter
• Yesterday's Catch
• Fight Night
• Bernie Not
• NPR Jazz
• Mauve
• Dinner Cold
• Water Exclusion
• Marco Radio

WOMAN ALLEGEDLY BITES NURSE AT UKIAH VALLEY MEDICAL CENTER — Headline on the front page of Saturday's Ukiah Daily Journal, and several hundred people instantly knew, without reading further, that Kelisha Alvarez, 26, a street person originally from Willits, had struck again.

"According to the UPD, officers responded to the emergency room around 1:30am June 28 when it was reported that Kelisha S. Alvarez, 26, was spitting and demanding medical care, though she is prohibited from being at the facility. At one point, Alvarez reportedly bit one of the nurses on the torso, and resisted officers when they tried to restrain her. She was placed under citizen’s arrest for battery on medical staff, and charged with resisting arrest and violating her probation. While being transported to Mendocino County Jail, she reportedly continued spitting, kicking and “yelling for the officer to die.” She was booked under $35,000 bail for three felony violations of her probation.”

Three felony violations? Watch the felonies disappear. Watch the Superior Court of Mendocino County warn Kelisha to behave herself as Judge Westside sends her back out onto the streets, the streets east of State Street, that is; street people, when they stray north of State Street into the sedate precincts of Ukiah's ruling circles, they aren't allowed to linger. They're acceptable as funding units for the large apparatus of helping professionals, and they keep the County Courthouse humming, but, heh-heh, keep 'em far to the east, down around WalMart.

Kelisha will soon reappear on the streets after a few days in the County Jail and her usual pro forma court appearance. If she feels like it she will again appear in the emergency room of the Ukiah hospital where she's attacked staff at least twice before and from where she is banned, not that the ban is enforceable.

Soon, Kelisha will be arrested again. Our privatized mental health system runs from Kelisha (and all the other tough nuts (sic) out there). A very strong and mobile 300+ pounder, Kelisha is a load even for the younger cops who have to restrain her. Still on the sunny side of 30, Kelisha's good for another quarter century of arrests, court appearances, disappearing felonies, psychotic episodes, and, of course homelessness — one more roving, unconfined, untreated menace to community welfare.

FROM WHAT I can gather, Kelisha, like her boyfriend Scotty Willis, is mildly mentally retarded. Given their behavior, both Kelisha and Scotty are basically crazy, although they don't seem to exacerbate their personality deficits via self-medication. They're simply unacceptably incompetent. They are perfect candidates for the mandatory County Farm we don't have or are ever likely to have given the hog-in-the-stream presence of Mendocino County's entrenched, partially privatized, $15 million mental health apparatus.

ANOTHER ONE is Travis ‘The Hump’ Humphrey. From the Ukiah Police Log of a few days ago: “At about 3:45 PM Ukiah Police responded to the WalMart parking lot, at 1155 Airport Park Boulevard, for a vandalism to a vehicle. Officers learned 25 year old Travis Humphrey had been told by store employees to leave the area as Humphrey is known to cause many problems and has been arrested numerous times there. Humphrey was walking through the lot and jumped onto the hood of a security patrol vehicle while the security guard was seated in the vehicle, causing over $1,000 in damage to the vehicle’s hood. Humphrey was arrested for felony vandalism.”

IN A PREVIOUS episode, The Hump walked into a shoe store, urinated on the floor, and strolled out in a new pair of boots he hadn't paid for. He does this kind of stuff when he's drunk, and he's drunk all the time.

WE'VE COME to a sad pass in this country when the mentally disabled are allowed, nay even encouraged, to live on the streets, menacing the vulnerable, destroying public space for everyone.

I'VE BEEN STUDYING this David Muir guy on ABC News. Frankly, I'm worried about his soul. Well, not really. Whatever soul he began with is long gone. How does a young guy become that fraudulent? Lessons from Charlie Rose? The Scott Simon Graduate School of Insincerity? In between over-excited recitations of the day's catastrophes, we get happy-happy ads that have ABC's entire Fun Gang jumping up and down and laughing at nothing at all. What's the point supposed to be for us millions out there watching? How does a person get to that perfect state of a total lack of self-respect? Yeah, they get paid a lot, but at what point does a person say, “I don't care how much money you give me, I'm not doing this”?

I go back a ways, back to “the most trusted man in America,” Walter Cronkite. And I have vague memories of Ed Murrow. Never trusted Walt myself, I should say, but he did read the news without that transparently bogus false feeling we get from the department store mannequins. Murrow was even better. He just laid the day's catastrophes out there on the adult assumption that life, fundamentally, is a series of disasters, personal and public. And he did it chain smoking and loaded on gluten!

These days, you watch these guys like this Muir character, with all of their overly emphatic urgency over nothing at all, as their Evening News "correspondent" vapidos, male and female, totally unmoved in any real way from whatever horror they're describing, do their things from around the world, and all us old people sit there and wonder, "What the hell happened? Who are these people? Will their hair break if they drop it? Why do all the weather women have large breasts? Who writes all the silly stuff the vapidos read on camera? Are our fellow Americans themselves so far removed from all known reality that David Muir is plausible?

BEST LEDE SENTENCE IN YEARS: “A San Rafael massage parlor found to have a milk carton in its refrigerator filled with over 100 used condoms has been fined $1,625 and is set to close its doors at the end of the month, said a city enforcement officer.” — San Rafael Independent Journal, July 4th.

ANOTHER STATISTIC, and more evidence, that these are The Last Days: San Francisco's homeless budget is $167 million. There are, according to The City's hard-hitting administrators, 6,355 people living on the streets of Baghdad By The Bay, which works out to $26,278 per street person. Hmmmm. Mean to say for that kind of money nothing can be done to, at a minimum, provide public urinals?

IT'S BEYOND AWFUL that the young woman was shot and killed walking with her father on Pier 14, but it's also beyond pathetic that the shooter, Francisco Sanchez, is probably telling the truth when he says he was under the influence and trying to shoot a sea lion. This man's face is the face of a man suffering, a man who didn't intend to do what he did.

WHO’S CUTTING CALIFORNIA INTERNET CABLES? THE FBI HAS NO IDEA

Eleven times in the last year, fiber-optic lines have been snapped—cutting off 911 service in at least one community. Investigators are scrambling to figure out who’s behind the attacks.

Someone (or some crew) has been skulking around northern California, possibly dressed as a cable technician, and snipping the fiber-optic lines that provide Internet, cable, and phone service. His motives are yet unknown. But the FBI has counted 11 such incidents in the past year and is appealing for the public to help catch the cable-cutting bandit.

The latest cut happened Tuesday, on three major Internet cables serving the Sacramento area, causing cable and Internet service disruptions as far north as Seattle. Microsoft said the damage slowed its Azure cloud computing service in the Western United States. And in one Sacramento-area community, a cable provider had to step in to restore 911 service to local residents whose phones had been knocked out.

There have also been cable-cuttings in Humboldt County and a weird shooting attack on a Fort Bragg transformer. The Fort Bragg shooter was described as a scraggly blonde man who rode off on a bicycle.

CATCH OF THE DAY, July 4, 2015

SCOT BABACK, Santa Rosa/Ukiah. DUI with priors.

BRITNEY BARNS, Willits. Driving on DUI-suspended license, probation revocation.

JOSHUA BENNETT, Fort Bragg. Resisting, probation revocation.

ISMAEL CEJA-REYES, Ukiah. DUI, evasion, probation revocation.

JAMES GARDNER III, Fort Bragg. Probation revocation.

MIGUEL HERNANDEZ-SUTHERLAND, Ukiah. Probation revocation.

DENNIS HOAG, Ukiah. Possession of controlled substance and paraphernalia, probation revocation.

JOSEPH LITTLE, Fort Bragg. Burglary, trespassing, county parole violation.

KEVIN LITZIN, Ukiah. Drunk in public, probation revocation (frequent flyer).

JULIE MARRS, Ukiah. Possession of controlled substance and paraphernalia.

CHRISTIAN MENDEZ, Ukiah. DUI, parole violation, probation revocation.

TIMOTHY MORRISON, Redwood Valley. DUI.

ANTHONY PINOLA, Ukiah. Drunk in public.

JOSE RAMIREZ, Ukiah. Possession of meth for sale and paraphernalia, resisting, probation revocation.

JOEL RAMOS, Hopland. Failure to appear, probation revocation.

THE WAY IT WAS — APRIL 1966

New York City: Da Gardens

by Bill Bradd

The other day I was working the crossword puzzle and the clue was boxer Griffith and I thought of Emile and my heart froze for a moment because I was at Madison Square Gardens when Emile Griffith fought Dick Tiger a black man from Africa, a no nonsense fighting machine. It was the first fight for Griffith after the horrible ‘Kid’ Parret killing, where Griffith basically stood over the guy and beat him to death, in the neutral corner.

I saw the thing on TV that night.

I just turned thirty and I was living in New York and I watched this horror show on the set in my local bar the Foxes Den, in the company of some large men awaiting the arrival of Carmine. Watching this killing on TV, even the hearts of these cold goomba’s were stilled. It is not to dwell on why Griffith did this; there had been a report questioning his masculinity, he took it personally and he settled the hash, at least in his mind.

Griffith’s fight against Tiger was booked into the Old Gardens. Remember this is the Old Gardens of ’66, since rebuilt a few times I guess, but in my Old Gardens, there were open steel beams and wooden fold-up seats. Ramps handled all traffic. It was a huge coliseum you might say.

Dick Tiger could make anybody’s blood run cold. He wasn’t a champion and he could be had, over twelve long rounds, and in the end, you were as battered as he was. Also the fever in the town was high. Benny ‘Kid’ Parret was a flashy, popular Latin kid, a hero.

I followed boxing in those days. One time I even went way uptown to a rather forlorn little hall, where my fellow Canadian George Chavalo was going in against a fast and fit Mohammed Ali. It was a pay-per-view deal, and the outlet for this particular event were limited to basically, uptown, near the Yankee stadium. Chavalo had feet the size of boards and I figured Ali would pound my fellow compadre to a pulp but he wouldn’t knock George over cause basically “His feets too big” to use the vernacular. Anyway I went uptown in the early sixties, at night, on the subway to a small hall filled entirely with large black men who had come to cheer for Ali, of course, and here I was a Canadian pimple who immediately shouted out go get em George and everybody laughed and so did I.

I don’t remember if George fell over or not; I don’t think he did. When it was over I was escorted back to my subway stop and put on the train by a couple of huge gentlemen from the event, who turned out to be off duty cops making sure the citizenry got home safely and that was a good thing about New York in those days.

As a young guy I bought Ring Magazine and I would read it on the bus north, going home, with the thing stopping every twenty miles or so, stopping at Gravehurst, I’d glance at the lake, notice if the maples were turning yet, then look back down at the mag. There was the onion farmer Basilio. His face is looking real scarred up and I’m wondering if he’s punchy. Oh, yes, let’s dwell upon that for just one moment. Today, we refer to young men who have taken too many hits to the head and have lost their wiggies. Today we say oh, Alzheimer’s or some other bullshit name so fat white guys or a fat black man in particular can make their blood money having young men beat to uselessness.

When it went down with Ali, it finished it off for me.

As I recall New York was a bustle on the night of the Griffith/Tiger fight. The wind which could cut you in half earlier in the day, on the avenues where the buildings block the sun, into this wind I stepped. It was April, a nip in the air, and I headed for my subway stop Lafayette, then midtown to Da Gardens, Madison Square.

There was a mass of humanity heading for the wickets. I got in line and after a bit I bought a ticket, one place left, upper balcony. My seat was second row from the edge row, we all stood on our seats leaned forward and stared down into the ring, straight down almost because the second tier balcony hung almost directly over the ring or at least you felt so, standing on your seat, leaning forward along with three or four hundred other guys in your section all of us leaning forward and if one fell, lost his particular balance, stopped the hover that made you feel like the hunting hawk, staring down for small mice, a live killer, if you lost your balance and fell out of the stands, we all would have gone because we were jammed in, shoulder to shoulder, packed. If one fell and grabbed his neighbor for support who grabbed his neighbor you would have one gigantic ball of neighborliness, falling out of the second tier balcony of the Old Gardens, about a million legs kicking, a human octopi and a real spoil to the evening, so word passed kind of sublimely to keep your cool cause it’s sixty straight feet down. In fact a lot of guys were introducing themselves, everybody around me were “Kid” Parret fans and wanted Dick Tiger to corner Griffith square him up and take him out, down him, who knows what all, everybody in the whole bloody place was talking Spanish, but I was jolly neutral and I figured that actually Griffith was good, he was fast, light on his feet, could hit, he could move, and had always shown great courage, before the Parret thing he had many serious long fights with guys who could hit and take a hit. It would be a good test I figured, Tiger was good, I’d actually rooted for him a few times; he was a very brave man and moved steadily forward bringing into play what later became the African national war cry, UHRHU, run forward, plant your flag, and occupy behind it, certainly a philosophy the Democrats of this day could use; the Republicans certainly have taken the lesson to heart.

That was Dick Tiger Uhuru, stand and occupy.

So there I am on a spring night standing on my seat leaning forward vaguely watching the prelims that are taking place, kind of below my feet. Then that’s all over. I can’t really see ringside too good but the guy announces some of the celebrities and a few guys file off front row seats and climb through the ropes and stand in nice dress suits to moderate applause. Artie Arragon, from the west coast, Chavalo was there, I think, a bunch of guys and I’m thinking this is a good turnout, I don’t think it was even a title fight, although it might have been but it wouldn’t have mattered, the word was out, we’d see Griffith, what he was made of, Tiger was rough. Then the announcer guy welcomes Ray Robinson and he holds the Robinson like it was a homerun call: “RRRRay Robinsonnnnnnnnnnnn”

In those days great racehorses and great fighters were held in high esteem by the general public. That night the place went berserk, Ray was at ringside, now I see him, he’s wearing a bright purple suit, good fit, I see immediately; he looks good, trim, he glides through the ropes. He has beautiful brown girls on either side, he waves, the crowd loves him, the ball of neighborliness sways as if in a trance, me too, I forget about the sixty feet to the floor, so do four hundred Puerto Ricans, Ray Ray Ray we yell.

I don’t know if I’m going to be able to remember blow by blow of this, we’re going back a long ways. I think now, that this could have been for Griffith’s welterweight title because of the events that happened next. The crowd quieted down now, Ray and the other guys were no longer the focus, they left the ring and I watched Ray snuggle firmly between the girls. Good I thought, the planets are in alignment let the show begin. There was just a low buzz in the hall, we couldn’t see under us but as the fighters were coming out, the sound came in waves up to us, and then Dick Tiger came into view. He was wearing a black and yellow silk robe, no hood, and as he climbed in I saw his boots were black. He turned to the corner on my left and Griffith came in. There was a fair amount of noise but up where I was nobody was out of control no booing, not much noise. Griffith wore a plain black robe, also no hood, and black boots and was in the corner on my right. The announcer was a serious short guy in a dress black suit and he called them forward. We were all frozen, flash zapped for a second, a dead silence as the two men came together, then he announces DICK TIGER. The boys in my section whoop again. Spanish words are thirteen to the dozen and I watch Mr. Tiger from Nigeria. I think at home, this guy must be a real hero, people must wave to him in cafes. To me he seemed like a guy who would mingle with real people, like the bunch around me. Then they introduced the champion Emile Griffith, I looked immediately to see what Ray Robinson was doing. It was important for me to see how Ray would handle this rather delicate moment in the Face business. Ray applauded politely, after all this was the World Champion, in the days when there was only one guy.

The fighters returned to their corners and the hall lights never dimmed, the place was packed, people in the aisles, no vendors, standees on every stair, the place standing, everybody standing, me on my seat, leaning, I notice an underarm holster on the guy next to me, probably a cop, he’s for Tiger.

Tiger wore black trunks with a yellow stripe up the side, Griffith wore plain black, when the bell rang they came out fighting. It would be impossible for me to recall the exact blows. At one point I thought Griffith had his eye knocked out but it was a gob of Vaseline stuck to his eyebrow. It looked fatal. It was close, some murderous exchanges, Tiger with his back to the ropes beneath us, Griffith battering him blood flew but Tiger would fight out of the corner, duck and weave, nod up and down his head a pendulum which Griffith tried to pin. Then Griffith takes a fall in the ninth, he’s down on one knee.

Just a short left hook that travels about nine inches. Tiger is in the corner across from us the referee is counting, the Gardens crowd is frantic, but Griffith gets up holds on and the bell rings, round ten. I’ve seen a lot of fist fights in my time, in Canada, when I was a young guy, fighting on a Saturday night, downtown was practically a ritual, and I saw some beatings handed out, man a mano, guys knocked in the ditch, dress shoes flying, suit torn at the shoulder, but this night, in the gardens, I saw professionals at work, the job was meticulous, surgery on both sides would be required. The rounds counted themselves off without the help of some half dressed bimbo, all of the WWF puffery came along later. A sober lad in a white shirt and a black bow tie carried the round signs. After all these were quality people, no cheap suits or tricks were going to make it here.

As I watched the fight unfold before me, I thought about the two men, both black men, one from Africa, one from the Mid West, how much would Dick Tiger buy into the roar of the white guys in his corner, the guys who nod to distant figures as if the fix was in, but maybe the two fighters had more to settle than a business idea, I couldn’t get a real read, except there was nothing phony about fifteen brutal rounds of fist working out a successful conclusion of effect at distance, an exercise our ancient ancestors learned when they discovered that rocks could travel.

In the end it was a split decision that went to Griffith, I don’t know if Dick Tiger got any more paydays, he took his shot, he was lucky to get it, lucky to have the shit whacked out of him, lucky to have a room to go to, lucky to have a car and a house in Vegas, lucky to have friends like Blinkey and the boys in Philly, lucky to be in America, he was just lucky all around. Griffith, not so lucky. He still fought tough guys, but the legs were gone and soon so was he. Nothing ever got decided, everything was sort of the way it was before.

I filed down the walkways and out of the building onto the Avenue, and I walked along looking in store windows, for awhile, thinking about what I had just witnessed. I saw my reflection in the clean, clear windows of the shops and I saw the passersby to and fro behind me. I was one of them, passing by a store window, looking at my own reflection, and for the first time I saw the sheer courage that would be needed for manhood.

TRUMKA TRYING TO SUPPRESS LABOR SUPPORT FOR BERNIE SANDERS

AFL-CIO leader tries to quell pro-Sanders revolt

By Brain Mahoney

Richard Trumka has a message for state and local AFL-CIO leaders tempted to endorse Bernie Sanders: Don’t. In a memo this week to state, central and area divisions of the labor federation, and obtained by Politico, the AFL-CIO chief reminded the groups that its bylaws don’t permit them to “endorse a presidential candidate” or “introduce, consider, debate, or pass resolutions or statements that indicate a preference for one candidate over another.” Even “‘personal’ statements” of candidate preference are verboten, Trumka said The memo comes amid signs of a growing split between national union leaders — mindful of the fact that Clinton remains the undisputed favorite for the nomination — and local officials and rank and file, who are increasingly drawn to the Democratic Party’s growing progressive wing, for whom Sanders is the latest standard-bearer. The South Carolina and Vermont AFL-CIOs have passed resolutions supporting Sanders, and some local AFL-CIO leaders in Iowa want to introduce a resolution at their August convention backing the independent senator from Vermont. More than a thousand labor supporters, including several local AFL-CIO-affiliated leaders, have signed on to “Labor for Bernie,” a group calling on national union leaders to give Sanders a shot at an endorsement. Read the rest at:

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/07/afl-cio-endorsement-2016-democratic-primary-119701.html#ixzz3esO65AUS

(Politico, July 3, 2015)

ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

While searching for the jazz station last Sunday afternoon I accidentally landed on an NPR broadcast in which they were discussing last weeks Supreme Court gay marriage decision. I learned from this broadcast that the LGTV community believes that ‘significant issues’ still need to be addressed despite the their recent legal victory. One issue that was mentioned was “tran-phobia.” I presume this means that the other 98% of the population (being generous to “the community”) is very much in need of education/sensitivity training. I’m sure the money to conduct this educational need will appear from somewhere. Also on that program was the specter of robotics in the not so distant future. While some proponents agreed that unemployment as a result of robotics will be unfortunate, the upside and happy future they will bring has too much upside not to push forward. They mentioned robotics infiltrating modern medicine which translated that even surgeons better beware — robots do not make mistakes! But the real kicker was physicians are seeing the handwriting on the wall and their new mantra is increasingly about the importance of “the human touch”: A warm caring hand if you will. Funny I never recall hearing so much emphasis on “bedside manner” in the past but surely economics is not driving a kinder and gentler era of physicians — it must be a coincidence. After I had had enough of NPR I finally found the jazz station and was treated to this particular gem:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOB0MfiNIkU

DINNER WAS GETTING COLD.

The guests, hoping for quick,

Impersonal, random encounters

of the usual sort, were sprawled

In the bedrooms. The potatoes

were hard, the beans soft, the meat —

There was no meat. The winter

sun had turned the elms and houses yellow;

Deer were moving down the road

like refugees; and in the driveway,

Cats were warming themselves on

the hood of a car. Then a man turned

And said to me: "Although I love

the past, the dark of it,

The weight of it teaching us nothing,

the loss of it, the all

Of it asking for nothing, I will

love the twenty-first century more,

For in it I see someone in bathrobe

and slippers, brown-eyed and poor,

Walking through snow without

leaving so much as a footprint behind."

"Oh," I said, putting my hat on, 'oh."

— Mark Strand

WINNEMEN WINTU AND ALLIES PROTEST GOVERNOR’S CALIFORNIA WATER SUMMIT

by Dan Bacher

The Winnemem Wintu Tribe, other tribal representatives and their allies rallied, chanted, sang and waved signs on the sidewalk in front of Westin Hotel on June 29 and 30 outside the Second California Water Summit in Sacramento.

They were there to protest Governor Jerry Brown’s efforts to exclude California Tribes, environmentalists, fishermen and other key stakeholders in this public meeting about massive state water infrastructure projects proposed under Proposition 1, the $7.5 million water bond.

Members of the Concow Maidu, Miwok, Hoopa Valley, Pomo, Wailaki and other tribes and Native Hawaiian groups joined with local activists as they shouted, “Water is sacred, water is life, protect the salmon, protect water rights.”

Representatives of the Klamath Riverkeeper, Restore the Delta, United Native Americans and Occupy Sacramento also participated in the event. Around 40 people were there at the protest at any given time; over 100 people showed up at the event between the two days.

Protesters also chanted, “Fight, Fight, Water Rights!” and “Corporate Graft, Corporate Greed, this is something we don’t need!,” as cars drove by on Riverside Boulevard in front of the hotel.

The Brown administration advertised the event as a conference to discuss the latest developments including project selection for the $7.5 billion water bond money that is now available after the passage of the Water Quality, Supply and Infrastructure Act of 2014, Brown’s controversial Proposition 1.

The website for the event proclaimed, "With 7.5 billion bond funds available, come and learn about funding and financing opportunities for water infrastructure projects at the must attend event for California water.”

The keynote speaker was Debbie Davis-Franco, the Local Government Drought Liason for the Governor’s Office of Planning and Research (OPR), She was originally scheduled to speak on Monday, but then was rescheduled to speak on Tuesday, apparently due to the protest outside the hotel on Monday.

The website also proclaimed, “Key Decision-Makers and Stakeholders Gather

• To discuss the latest developments including project selection for the $7.5 billion water bond.
• Provide updates on the new regulations governing groundwater management in California.
• Hear private investment perspectives on financing and investment opportunities in California water through Public Private Partnerships(P3).”

Caleen Sisk, Chief and Spiritual Leader of the Winnemem Wintu Tribe, emphasized that registration for the three-day summit was nearly an astounding $1,500 per person – and that been no efforts to “include tribal representatives, environmentalists or anyone who is advocating for sound water policy that will benefit future generations, local ecosystems and salmon and other fisheries.”

“Most of the California Indians who are working on tribal water rights and for healthier rivers can’t afford a $1,500 registration fee,” said Chief Sisk. “This is clearly an effort by Governor Brown to exclude the tribal voice, shove out anyone who disagrees with his destructive water plans and provide an opportunity for government and the big water power brokers to collude behind closed doors.”

A review of the agenda and website reveals that the conference was designed for water districts’ staff, government scientists, corporate representatives and other advocates to advance Governor Brown’s pet water projects like the Shasta Dam raise and the twin Delta Tunnels. Both of these would be devastating for salmon and tribal cultural resources and sacred sites, including many of the Tribe’s sacred sites on the McCloud River that weren’t inundated by Shasta Dam, according to Sisk. (http://www.infocastinc.com/events/california-water)

Gerald Thomas, an Elem Pomo member who was holding a sign proclaiming, "Warrior Up For Water," outside the Hotel, agreed with Sisk.

“This exclusion of Tribes from a major water conference affects all of us. Without water we can’t live; without water we can’t breathe. I am here standing here in defense of the people and the earth,” he said.

The corporate and water agency domination of the event was no surprise, when you consider that Big Money interests dumped $21,820,691 into the Prop. 1 campaign. There is no doubt that these wealthy corporate interests are expecting a big return for their "investment" in California’s play-to-pay politics system, including the construction of the twin tunnels and new dams.

The contributors were a who’s who of Big Money interests in California, including corporate agribusiness groups, billionaires, timber barons, Big Oil, the tobacco industry, corporate “environmental” NGOs including the Nature Conservancy, and the California Chamber of Commerce (http://www.eastbayexpress.com/SevenDays/archives/2015/04/29/why-governor-brown-broke-his-prop-1-promise-big-money-interests-dumped-218-million-into-the-prop-1-campaign)

Rosa Rivera Furamoto, Nanea Young and Mikilani Young, Native Hawaiains, came from Los Angeles to emphasize the connections between the current direct action blockades to stop the construction of the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) on the sacred mountain of Mauna Kea in Hawaii and water struggles in California.

“From one mountain to another, we are trying to protect the sacred land,” said Mikilani Young. "We are taking a stand to say enough is enough. We came up from Los Angeles to stand with the native people of California.”

“As the sacred sites and salmon are threatened by the Shasta Dam raise, the proposed Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) on Mauna Kea will sit upon a protected aquifer. Once they start digging into the ground to build the telescope, they will use hazardous chemicals that will impact the entire island," said Young.

Ryan Camero, representing Restore the Delta and the Beehive Collective, also participated in the protest Tuesday to express solidarity with Tribes fighting their exclusion from California water discussions. “The tunnels and the Shasta Dam raise are part of the corporate takeover of our water by Big Oil and agribusiness,” said Camero.

Though California is suffering through five years of drastically low rainfall, Chief Sisk said the water problems are all man-made, due to poor management and greed. As the low rainfall puts a stress on California’s boondoggle of a water system, it has never been more important for the indigenous perspective to be heard and for tribal water rights to be acknowledged and upheld, according to Sisk.

She said the Winnemem Wintu have an especially important stake in the bond funds, as many think they could be used to support the Shasta Dam raise to enlarge Shasta Lake’s capacity, which in turn would flood or damage about 40 sacred sites vital to the Winnemem’s religion and cultural practices.

“This is a summit that is meant to help these people peddle Brown’s projects that will benefit his buddies: agribusiness and water sellers in Southern California,” Sisk said. “They are not interested in what’s best for the people of California and their children.”

Michael Preston of the Winnemem Wintu said he tried to get into the meeting, but was told by the organizers that it would cost $1500 for just one day! “I didn’t think it was worth it to spend $1500 for one day,” he said.

On Tuesday, protesters also marched up to the hotel and back to the sidewalk to challenge the destructive water infrastructure projects being planned at the California Water Summit.

After the protest on Tuesday, people gathered in front of the hotel to pray, sing songs and talk about the opposing the corporate water grab by Big Ag, Big Oil and other corporate interests.

“I think we accomplished our major goal to let people know that we want to be involved in water discussions, but are being excluded by the Governor’s staff at the California Water Summit now. We need water for salmon - and Tribes are first in time and first in rights for water,” concluded Sisk.

Governor Jerry Brown's exclusion of Tribes, along with his exclusion of fishermen, Delta residents, grassroots environmentalists and public trust advocates from water discussions, is part of a larger pattern of the administration's environmentally unjust policies that the mainstream media and most "alternative" media refuse to report about.

While the media and corporate "environmental" NGOs gush about Brown's cynical grandstanding about "green energy" and pollution trading at carefully staged photo opportunities, Brown has in fact continued and expanded the worst policies of the Schwarzenegger administration.

Brown has fast-tracked the Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP) to build the twin tunnels; has implemented questionable "marine protected areas" under the privately-funded Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative; has presided over record water exports and fish kills at the Delta pumps; has put Delta smelt, winter run Chinook and other imperiled species on the scaffold of extinction; and has presided over the expansion of fracking, an extreme oil extraction technique, in California.

Brown is without a doubt the worst Governor for fish, water and the environment in recent California history, as I have documented in article after article. For more information, read my investigative piece about Brown's war on the environment at: http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2015/04/15/18771135.php

A BUNCH OF DERIVATIVE RETRO-FUTURISTIC HOGWASH.

At http://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com you'll find the recording of last night’s (2015-07-03) KNYO Memo of the Air: Good Night Radio show ready to download and keep or just play with one click.

The volume level is a little uneven, but it's a pretty good show. A lot of useful topical as well as background information, and some sweet and odd music.

Further, at http://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com there are wholesale quantities of wonderful but not necessarily radio-useful items that I found while putting my show together. Here are just a few:

10,500,000 firecrackers.

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

The fallen of World War 2.

https://vimeo.com/128373915

2014 compilation of proximity wingsuit flying. So beautiful and so dangerous.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urw5Vr02bYo

And Svetlana Kapanina, "the best pilot of all times" with stick and pedals. Just skip ahead to around 16:55 and start there.

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

Marco McClean,

Memo of the Air

memo@mcn.org