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Mendocino County Today: Saturday, Sep 12, 2015

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FUNNY MONEY

IN TWO WEEKS, THE SUPES will adopt a budget of about $240 million for the 2015-16 fiscal year, complete with a reserve of $12 million. For a population of 90,000 people we get a lot of government for the money, roughly $2,700 per resident, $3,500 per if you exclude the kids.

THE COUNTY'S unfunded retirement liability (pensions) will be shored up by $3.7 million, although the County would have to put many millions more into the County pension fund to make it truly solvent. The County owes its retirees about $180 million.

MENDO, like every municipality in the state, or almost all of them, has guaranteed retired employees, including cops and firemen, much more money in pensions than the County can ever pay. (Cops who take early outs for so-called “stress,” like recent Sheriff's Department officers Gary Hudson and Kurt Smallcomb, get disability pay on top their pensions. The psychiatrists who pass on these phony claims ought to be arrested themselves, but we can't remember Mendo ever denying a stress claim.)

THE REIGNING EMPEROR of Mendocino County double dippers is Frank McMichael, presently of the Ukiah Valley Sanitation District. McMichael is Sextuple Dipper. A Republican and, presumably, a Get Government Off Our Backs kinda guy, McMichael draws retirement money from military service, then for his years as an LA cop, then as a retired Mendo Supervisor, then as the former head of the County's LAFCO, and finally he's in line for his fifth and perhaps final pension as boss of Ukiah's sewage district. Count 'em, taxpayers! Five! Six! if you count Social Security.

WE HAVE a particular beef with McMichael, and so should you. We think he drew a lot money for work undone at Mendo's LAFCO (Local Area Formation COmmission). Overseen by, natch, a combination of elected officials, all pals, all Democrats of the active sub-type, and former elected officials, which translates as no effective oversight.

LAFCO is state chartered to review all the little Get 'Er Done districts in a given county to see if they are delivering the service they are supposed to deliver. For example, is the Anderson Valley Community Services District doing what it is supposed to do? (Which is to oversee the volunteer fire department, maybe twenty-five street lights, the Boonville air strip, organized recreation. But a lot of money is involved, all-in-all.)

McMICHAEL, as The Man at Mendo's LAFCO until 2012, was supposed to do Municipal Service Reviews or MSRs. They aren't that difficult to do because the agency being reviewed gathers up all paperwork showing that they are viable and spend money properly. All McMichael had to do was look at the things and sign off on them. (Although a couple of years ago a guy in Caspar insisted that the Sewer district wasn't properly maintaining their tanks on the bluffs but collecting a nice tax from residents for maintaining the system. That one disappeared into the summer mists, but we think the guy was correct.) Usually, though, the County's special districts do what they are supposed to via locally elected boards of directors. There isn't a lot of theft opportunity and undelivered services are pretty obvious.

THE ANDERSON VALLEY CSD was on the list for a review for years while McMichael was LAFCO's main man. The review was put on hold for so long that McMichael was outta there before the review was finally finished a month or so ago!

NOT THAT it did Boonville any good because the new LAFCO chief just paid a consultant to re-package the Boonville CSD stuff and declare it complete!

BUT McMICHAEL said he couldn't do the MSRs (reviews) — apparently more than 50 of them just in Mendo, water districts, sewer districts, cemetery districts, etc. — as part of his basic LAFCO boss job. He needed extra money (perhaps to farm them out) to get them done. Then most of them still didn't get done.

BEAR IN MIND that LAFCO was paying McMichael upwards of $100k per year to get the reviews done, then paid him $70k more for who knows how many more years to do the MSRs which he never did. Then he moved on to the Ukiah sewer district.

IF you missed the point here, the guy took a lot of special district money for work he did not do.

WE RECALL looking at the LAFCO budget sheet a couple of times at the time and don't recall if it had anything like a specific $70k line item for MSRs, but it could have. You'd think that if it did somebody on the LAFCO board would have said, "Where are the MSRs we budgeted and spent for?"

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CONCERNED CITIZENS OF FORT BRAGG (CCFB) Calls for Democracy Now in City of Fort Bragg with Initiative Measure

“All we are saying is give peace a chance” and let the people vote. Give taxpayers a voice and a choice in the decisions regarding the zoning and development of downtown Fort Bragg. The popular vote is so threatening that the opponents of this Initiative Measure have resorted to name calling, spreading misinformation and political bullying. Why is a popular vote so threatening to these folks and the council members they support? CCFB members believe voting is the best way to resolve this issue affecting the lives of all the people of Fort Bragg. The Initiative Measure is the democratic, civilized solution to the issue at hand in the USA.

The proponents (CCFB) of the Initiative Prohibiting Social Services in the Central Business District want to collect enough signatures to put this issue to rest by popular vote. We do not want to fight, we are not waging war. This measure does not impact any of the service programs established before January 2015. We are Fort Bragg residents and are neither discriminatory nor bigoted - we simply care and want to participate in city government.

How can people claim to be liberal when they are fighting against the basic democratic right to vote?

CCFB simply wants to give everyone an opportunity to vote since the three council members who made this decision ignored 1600 letters, signatures and pleas from locals to locate this project elsewhere. Then they said 10 percent of 3124 was 313 (the wrong answer on a 4th grade math test) and refused to pass a resolution to put the Initiative Measure on November’s ballot for a people’s vote.

It’s time to put this issue to rest, let the people vote. What is wrong with a popular vote? Is it alright for a privileged few to make the decisions - to bow to the “corporate power” that runs the City of Fort Bragg. CCFB members don’t think so; we want the people to make the choice. This project is paid for with tax dollars, the tax payers deserve the right to vote on how the dollars get spent. Let the people vote.

A signature on the initiative petition is not a vote for the initiative. Each signature is a yes to put the Initiative Measure on the ballot, a yes for the democratic process, a yes for democracy.

The professional mental health and social service advocates who got involved in this movement did so because the location violates patient privacy rights and the rights of the disabled. The local business community involved is dependent on tourism to make ends meet. MCHC’s program in the Central Business District does not develop tourism, is not pedestrian friendly and does not support the growth of local businesses. It is a violation of the city’s mission statement in the general plan.

There has been much discussion and research done regarding numerous alternative locations that would provide more accessible housing, more than 5 rooms, more parking and more privacy with plenty of room for the organization to grow but the MCHC Board wanted hardwood floors and an industrial kitchen more than they wanted viable housing for as many clients as possible in a private discreet location where people could maintain their privacy and dignity when receiving services. MCHC has no concern for the clients or local business people.

Many residents of Fort Bragg believe this was a bad choice for the clients, for the community, for the businesses. Let’s stop the fighting and name calling, act like adults living in America, support democracy and Let the People Vote!

If you live in the City Limits and are a registered voter please sign the Initiative Measure when someone comes by or stop by Colombi’s Market, Mendo Litho, Figueiredo’s Video or The Green Door Studio to sign. Support Democracy and our right to vote. Please sign.

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INVESTIGATING THE INTERNET VANDALISM

(Starting at the remote spot where the line was cut.)

Two miles from the nearest paved road, alongside a railroad track as it runs through rugged oak woodlands, is the scene of a crime that inflicted the largest communications systems breakdown in recent Mendocino County history.

http://www.pressdemocrat.com/news/4450521-181/vandals-picked-remote-spot-to

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HISTORIC CALIFORNIA MEDICAL CANNABIS REGULATIONS SET TO PASS

by David Downs

California lawmakers announced this evening a historic deal to regulate the world’s oldest, largest modern medical cannabis economy.

Several State Assemblymembers released a joint statement Thursday evening stating they had reached a historic agreement on a comprehensive regulatory framework for the state’s billion-dollar medical cannabis industry.

Amendments will be made to Assembly Bill 266 and Senate Bill 643, which are then expected to pass both houses and be sent to Governor Jerry Brown by Friday evening.

“This is the first time in the history of California that a medical marijuana regulatory framework has been agreed to by the California State Assembly, the California State Senate, and the Governor’s Office,” stated a release from AB 266 authors Assemblymembers Rob Bonta (D-Oakland), Ken Cooley (D-Rancho Cordova), Reginald Byron Jones-Sawyer (D-Los Angeles), and Tom Lackey (R-Palmdale),

“AB 266 is the result of an unprecedented stakeholder process in which my colleagues and I brought everyone to the table, from medical marijuana businesses to law enforcement and patient advocates, to create a comprehensive regulatory framework for the state’s billion dollar medical marijuana industry,” explained lead author Assemblymember Bonta. “My office and the offices of my joint authors have spent thousands of hours holding stakeholder meetings to refine the bill and incorporate recommendations from stakeholders as well as Assembly leadership and the administration.”

California led the globe in allowing for medical use of marijuana with the passage of Proposition 215 in 1996. Today, 23 states and the District of Columbia have medical cannabis laws.

(Courtesy, the San Francisco Chronicle)

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MARIJUANA UPDATE: Sacramento, Sept. 11. — State lawmakers announced late Thursday that they have struck a deal to regulate and license the "medical marijuana industry." The deal among the Senate, Assembly and Gov. Jerry Brown will be contained in three bills, which will require state and local licenses for medical marijuana businesses under the new Bureau of Medical Marijuana Regulation. The bills classify medical marijuana as an agriculture product, forcing cultivators to abide by the same regulations as farmers when it comes to their use of water, pesticides and other products. “After two decades of no regulation, I am pleased to report an agreement has been reached on one of the most comprehensive medical marijuana bills in the nation,” said Sen. Mike McGuire, D-Healdsburg, who authored one of the three bills, SB643. Nearly two decades ago, California became the first state in the country to allow for medicinal use of marijuana. However, it remained largely unregulated as it became a booming, albeit sometimes suspect industry. “The medical marijuana industry has expanded rapidly and without check in my district because direction from the state has been absent,” Assemblyman Jim Wood, D-Healdsburg, author of one of the bills, said in a statement. “This long overdue direction is finally closer than ever.” The bills — AB266, AB243 and SB643 — will need to be approved by both the Senate and Assembly Friday before they can be sent to Brown.

(Mendocino District Attorney David Eyster)

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ED NOTE: And we all know how effectively the state has “regulated” this area’s dominant legal agriculture crop regarding “water, pesticides and other products…” Expect the same or worse regarding pot.

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WARRANT WEDNESDAY! 
Ryan Dickerson is wanted on a $30,000 felony warrant for fraud in an amount in excess of $400 and perjury.

Dickerson
Dickerson

Height: 5'06". 
Age: 36. 
Hair: Blonde. 
Eyes: Blue
. Weight: 145 lbs. 
If you have any information regarding his location, please call MCSO Dispatch at (707) 463-4086.

(Mendocino County Sheriff Tom Allman)

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CATCH OF THE DAY, September 11, 2015

Bennett, Corcoran, Gardiner
Bennett, Corcoran, Gardiner

JADE BENNETT, Fort Bragg. Assault with deadly weapon not a gun, court order violation.

THEO CORCORAN, Talmage. Petty theft, possession of controlled substance, probation revocation.

MATHEW GARDINER, Ukiah. Failure to appear, probation revocation.

Koegler, Lewis, Lumiere
Koegler, Lewis, Lumiere

JONATHAN KOEGLER, Redwood Valley. DUI.

RICKY LEWIS, Ukiah. Court order violation, probation revocation.

ERICKA LUMIERE, Ukiah. Possesssion of controlled substance, pot sale, transport, furnish.

Marek, McKenzie, Ocobock
Marek, McKenzie, Ocobock

SYLVESTER MAREK, Ukiah. Possession of controlled substance and paraphernalia.

DWAYNE MCKENZIE, Ukiah. Possession of controlled substance and paraphernalia, probation revocation.

CHERRAL OCOBOCK, Ukiah. Possession of paraphernalia, resisting, probation revocation.

Porras, Ramirez, Schoonmaker
Porras, Ramirez, Schoonmaker

WALTHER PORRAS, New York, NY/Ukiah. Pot sale, transport, furnish.

JAVIER RAMIREZ, Ukiah. Probation revocation.

GABRIEL SCHOONMAKER, Nice/Redwood Valley. Sale of meth, possession of meth for sale, stolen vehicle, receiving stolen property, possession of meth, possession of pot for sale, pot sale, transport, furnish.

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Encyclical

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NOAM CHOMSKY EXPLAINS WHY HITCHENS & HOROWITZ REVERSED EVERYTHING THEY BELIEVED

http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/09/10/chomsky-explains-why-hitchens-and-horowitz-reversed-everything-they-believed/

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ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

I was riding in this truck with the millwright I’m working for, moving machinery from one part of the state (east) to another (southwest). I mentioned events in Europe, the mass migration from Arab lands, Central Asia and Africa. He looked at me like I was nuts, “What the hell are you talking about?” “Yeah, they’re moving in by the millions”. He was dumbfounded. Meanwhile, as we drove down the road we passed motels on US 6 (same road that goes from Provincetown, Mass. to Ely, Nevada, then cuts down to LA, the Lincoln Highway. This is our one small portion of it). The motels had a story, almost every one, “I had a broad in there one night, name of Donna.” That’s how it went, 3 decades of one night stands we passed on the road.

We’re moving and setting up an ‘O.D. Grinder’ a massive machine, weighs 10 tons and when set up about 30 ft long. This is the real business of millwrights, setting up machinery, not tearing it down and shipping it out, so it was a happy day. It's really quite a skill, having to get everything just right, this heavy but delicate machinery, within tolerances of 1000th of an inch. It would be ashamed for us to lose these skills.

The guys on my night job, in the pressroom, mostly black West Indians, were discussing Europe a little, too. The consensus, disaster looms. You’d be surprised how conservative, even reactionary, these black dudes from Jamaica and Trinidad can be, ‘specially ones with kids. They especially have a grudge against Mexicans, here to “take our jobs”.

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THAT TIME BEAT POET ALLEN GINSBERG WAS BOOED BY CANDLESTICK FANS

by Peter Hartlaub

Since Candlestick Park was demolished earlier this year, only my happiest memories have risen from the rubble. The touchdowns, chocolate malts, Randy Cross, Croixs de Candlestick, Frisbee dogs, Huey Lewis and the News huddled in jackets on the sideline and the roar of the crowd in approval of it all. But let us never forget that for all their passion and resilience, Giants fans could be complete jerks.

Like the time in 1994 that they booed Beat poet Allen Ginsberg.

I discovered Michael Macor’s (color!) photos of the event during a routine search for the Our San Francisco project. Ginsberg was the first victim reader in the team’s well-intentioned but apparently disastrous attempt to honor San Francisco poets. They might as well have had Crazy Crab reading Longfellow on the mound.

Ginsberg, who died three years later, had already established himself as one of the greatest poets of the 20th Century, known for his epic 1955 counter-culture poem “Howl,” which was banned and subject of an obscenity trial. Below is a Chronicle photo of Ginsberg in 1959, after his side won that First Amendment battle.

Ginsberg59

But a Beat poet definitely was not what frustrated Giants fans wanted to see taking the mound on June 1, 1994, in the middle of a 55-60 strike-shortened season. Ginsberg was the first in the “City of Poets” series, where writers read their work before games. My Chronicle comrade Leah Garchik witnessed the carnage. An excerpt from her Personals column …

“The somewhat less than rapt crowd waiting to see the Giants do battle with the Atlanta Braves, Ginsberg read “Hom Bom!” an anti-war chant from his new book … . He chose (the poem) he told Personals, “because it is a sound poem that would echo properly through the giant stadium, and penetrate through everyone’s skulls.” Although some members of the team introduced to the poet before the game actually seemed to know who he was – Bob Brenly for example – Ginsberg’s rousing rendition of his work was greeted with boos from impatient fans with unpenetrated skulls.”

GinsburgBall

Ginsberg followed the poem by throwing what Garchik called “a perfect, bounceless first ball” as a first pitch, then left before the game started for a poetry reading at a Clean Well-Lighted Place for Books. More from Garchik: “The poet said he’d never been to a ballpark before ‘except to see the Rolling Stones,’ explaining the hole in his education with no apparent embarrassment: ‘I’m a four-eyed sissy.’”

I’m not saying Allen Ginsberg is Juan Marichal, but analyzing his form in the three-photo series above, I’ve seen a lot worse. He turns his hips into the throw, and seems to have a pretty good follow-through. I mean, William S. Burroughs certainly wouldn’t have been painting corners like that.

Best of all, of course, is the fact that he didn’t lose any pens. Yes, with apologies to any 1980s pitches thrown by Nolan Bushnell or Bill Gates, I think Ginsberg may be the first “first pitch” pitcher to successfully throw a strike while wearing a pocket protector.

So what did we learn from this?

Ginsberg@mikeEvery Giants fan at Candlestick Park that day owes Allen Ginsberg an apology in the afterlife. The dude is one of the greatest poets of his generation, prevailed in a key First Amendment battle, was an out gay man in the 1950s and threw a strike while wearing a pocket protector. There should be a statue of him throwing that pitch right next to Willie Mays.

RIP Allen Ginsberg. I wish you had lived to see the Giants win three championships you couldn’t have cared less about. We listen to the Seuss-like  “Hom Bom” one more time in your honor.

(Courtesy, the San Francisco Chronicle)

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SOMETHING’S AMOK AT THE SF MIME TROUPE

by R.G. Davis

On August 10, two theatre people on the Board of Directors of The SF Mime Troupe –Joel Schechter and I resigned. Prior to that four others – long time Board Members -- also resigned in April 2015

Is this some sort of indication that things are spiraling down or are they spiraling up? A non-profit political theatre enclave has trouble holding onto its knowledgeable theatre folks, even some of its previous members? Could this be a reflection of the final years of the Obama era?

To assume a parallel between a small group of eight or so people in a so-called collective, and its Board of seven and the trajectory of the Obama years is curiously apt; however, the trajectory of the SFMTs regression over a longer term more closely follows the observations of Francis Fox Piven and Richard A. Cloward in the essay “Four Grassroots Organizations” (see Poor people's movements: why they succeed, how they fail, N.Y. Vintage, 1979)

The first phase of a grass roots organization is its community connectedness; after a few years, there’s a shift to focusing on the organizations stability, and in the third phase, the primo concern is the organization itself. In each phase, the management shifts as well.

A studied and longer (historical) view may change this analysis; however, for now, the following is a fair frame of a US progressive organization’s origins, growth, and in this case, twisted decline.

In April 2015 four long-term members: Peter Snider President (40 years), Joan Holden Secretary/Treasurer (30 years), Merle Goldstone (15 years plus), and Becky O’Malley (more than 10 years), all resigned from the SFMT Board. Joel and I held on to see what would happen.

As founder and Director of the SFMT, I separated from the organization in 1970 and returned to the Board in 2005. Joel Schechter, who as a Professor of Theatre Arts at SFSU, has been on the SFMT Board for seven years. Although we don’t agree on all aspects of a critique, we do agree that the Board, once a source of internal discussion and advice, is now a fund raising clique, with little or no control of the leading playwright’s family. We both agreed it was time to leave the Board. Our formally submitted reasons follow.

Statement by R.G.Davis August 10, 2015 to the SFMT Board of Directors

Whereas this organization is now producing shows that denigrate the left, shows composed by a supposed black progressive that result in a rejection of any alternative to the Democratic Party – it’s time to out the cat in the bag.

When I heard the title of the new play was “Freedomland,” I knew it was invented by M. G. Sullivan but didn’t know ‘til we heard a reading and saw a run-through that the point was to exaggerate the left, thereby dismiss it, and then ridicule it with old TV sitcom characters while posing as topical and “political.”

Joan Holden had invented the selection of “hot topics” – she would find a current issue and then parley it into a melodramatic format. She insisted on melodrama. Sullivan now patches together melodrama with music and punkish humor.

The change from Holden to Sullivan now evidences a liberal decline. The first iteration was liberal parodies of the ruling class with a “shot of hope” to counter liberal angst. Now comes Sullivan’s central function: to take a hot topic and twist it off course by focusing on either an irrelevancy like ‘potholes’ or already exhausted efforts. The play’s function is to dismember any radical intent or action, like including the Occupy Movement (in “For the Greater Good”: 2012) and stating what it needed was a “charismatic leader.” This certainly detracts from any essential discussion of that movement which, by the way, in 2013 was wiped out by Homeland Security in two weeks under the Black President -- the one who received a Nobel peace prize. More recently, the Obama administration has droned-dead many around the world & prosecuted six whistle blowers, more than any other president. He recently jailed a black whistle blower to illustrate his fairness.

The historical trajectory of the SFMT from the ‘60s radical critique of racism in the society with the “Minstrel Show or Civil rights in a Cracker Barrel” – has moved from challenging entire societal conditions to stopping at simple liberal faults or simply saying blacks are essential, rather than focusing on the conditions of the culture, of capitalism and class-social-economic racism. The minstrel show was the opposite of what we have seen in the last two years with Sullivan’s use of black fake revolutionary figures who are opportunists (imagine an opportunist who knows the character well, and then plays a fake Panther who exaggerates the rhetoric of the Panthers) -- ignoring what the Panthers actually did besides calls for revolution, like stopping drug pushers in the Fillmore, their Oakland breakfast program, and policing the police. Ridiculing the left leaves only the Democratic Party as the best instrument of social progress – the bipartisan instrument of social regression.

Since this April, the exodus of four older members of the SFMT Board who had some sense of history, theatre, and other interests than fund raising – has been followed by selection of those who have donated 1,000 dollars to the SFMT at a luncheon as the best candidates for Board. Now that a Stanford University fundraiser and his cohort, an Apple corporate employee, run the new board with the support of the Family Sullivan, the conservative faction in power considers anything less than cheerleading slander.

It is symptomatic that such a financial standard should be the determining factor for Board membership. The Collective itself is a bogus entity actually run by the author of the summer play – i.e. Sullivan -- so that the plays and the Board are now united in producing the kind of commercial entries favored by NEA grants. The trick here is to present plays as if you were progressive while bashing the left and distracting the liberals. The Empire is at home here.

The organization has sufficiently consolidated its control to eliminate any voice of history or theatre, or radical critical voice. May the contradictions fester. After ten years on the SFMT Board, it is time for me to resign.

Joel Schechter’s Letter of Resignation (August 10, 2015)

"I am submitting this letter of resignation to end my term as a member of San Francisco Mime Troupe's Board.

"For the past few years while on the Board I have tried to serve the San Francisco Mime Troupe as an advisor. I never saw myself as a fund raiser, and I was not appointed for that purpose; but given my experience in professional and academic theatre as a dramaturg, theatre historian, and play director, I thought that I could offer some useful advice to the Mime Troupe on play selection, season planning, and playwriting. The advice has included a talk to Collective members on the history of the Living Newspaper and the Federal Theatre; a proposal and outline for a play about Edward Snowden; a list of existing modern political plays (by Brecht, Fo, etc.) that might be staged by the SFMT; a call for new playwrights to join with the Collective, and not simply be taken from within existing Collective membership; a call for new Board members who could offer artistic and political advice; suggestions for improvement of plays in progress.   While I never expected the Collective to take all of my suggestions, it has taken almost none of them, and that includes suggestions made at the first reading of the current season's play.

"I am not resigning simply because I am disappointed in the quality of the play written for the SFMT this year; but I have to say that the quality of the new plays written for the past four or five years has disappointed me, to the extent that I no longer want to support the work of a company that does this kind of play. While some of the Collective's members are talented as actors, designers, and technicians, the group suffers by not having new playwrights capable of providing texts and ideas that take the SFMT forward into the 21st century. The Collective needs to become more up to date artistically and in its political concerns. For the past two years, summer plays have been dominated by recollections of Black Panther and Black radical life in the 1960s. I have to agree with R.G. Davis that given all the major political and social upheavals going on in the world, the focus on politics of the 60s verges on nostalgia and avoidance of other issues, current issues. While I think issues related to Black lives and police brutality in America are important, there are more creative and compelling ways to present them than through a parody of Black Panther rhetoric, which has been a major part of plays for two seasons."

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Famous

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AMERICAN CRAFT IN MENDOCINO

In celebration of October’s American Craft Week, AIM (Artists in Mendocino) and MCF (Mendocino Coast FurnitureMakers) have joined together to present a diverse exhibition of contemporary craft. Featured work will include: contemporary quilt and fiber arts, glass, ceramics, basketry, jewelry, encaustic, wood block prints, and fine works in wood: furniture, sculpture, turnings and carvings.

October 2nd - November 1st
Thursday-Monday 10am-6pm

Second Saturday Reception
October 10th  5-7pm

Anderson Valley’s Award Winning Panthea Winery & Vineyard will be pouring at the second Saturday opening.

AIM: Artists in Mendocino

  • Corrine Riley - Erika Kohr Island
  • Sarah Logan  -  Nicholas Collins
  • Christina Marshall - Havana Davidson
  • Alex Anderson  -  Karen & Dale Latham
  • Carolyn Zeitler - Lisa Orselli

MCF: Mendocino Coast FurnitureMakers

  • Lee Baker - Hans Bruhner - Julie Burns
  • Michael Burns - Michael Carroll - Les Cizek
  • Frank Green - Henry Hewitt - Max Kaplan
  • Kerry Marshall - Laura Mays - Paul Reiber
  • Greg Smith - Joshua Smith - Judy Tarbell

Odd Fellows Hall
Corner of Kasten and Ukiah Streets
Mendocino, California 95460
(707) 937-2486

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OPEN TO SUGGESTION

Warmest spiritual greetings, Please know that I just booked a shared dorm room bunk bed at Hostelling International-Washington D.C. beginning Sunday September 13th, with my exit date being Sunday September 27th. Also, my 66th birthday is September 28th, and I am accepting all suggestions about how to best celebrate this auspicious occasion, preferably with many uncompromising others. I have not yet heard back from the COP 21 civil society office in Paris in regard to the possibility of an affinity group arriving from the United States to participate in the November 30th to December 11th international climate conference, and am therefore still waiting to be networked with radical French environmental groups, which I asked them to do for us. As ever and always, I encourage everybody to contact me with your general creative suggestions.

The future is ours, Craig Louis Stehr

Email: CraigStehr@inbox.com

Blog: http;//craiglstehr.blogspot.com

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FORT BRAGG LIBRARY CARD PARTY

On Saturday, September 26th, from 11:00 am - 12:30 pm, the Mendocino County Library, Fort Bragg Branch is hosting a Peanuts themed Library Card Sign-Up Party.

In celebration of Library Card Sign-Up Month, Fort Bragg Branch Library is having a party to celebrate. This year’s mascot is Snoopy and the Peanuts gang. So come to the Fort Bragg Branch Library on Saturday, September 26th, from 11-12:30 pm, for our Peanuts themed party. We will have a Peanut movie, Peanut themed craft, coloring pages, snacks, giveaways, and fun. Everyone is welcome to come to the Fort Bragg Branch Library and celebrate the library with Snoopy, Charlie Brown and the Peanuts gang.

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BREAKING NEWS from Susie de Castro

This morning at Redway's Post Office, in Humboldt County, the American Flag could not be raised because someone had cut the ropes. When KMUD announced the incident over the radio waves, "almost instantly" people started showing up to "fix" the problem. See video on website at KMUD.org

8 Comments

  1. LouisBedrock September 12, 2015

    Because of his proclamations about the need to protect the environment, the alternative press is saturated with cloying, flatulent articles praising this obsolescent charlatan for his courageous leadership on this issue.

    Popes are merely the CEOs of the world’s oldest multinational corporation whose business is stealing money and land and manufacturing Catholics—often under the guise of charity as when they kidnap children and raise them to be Catholic in the local mission, as they have done, and continue doing on every continent.

    The present incarnation is no different from his predecessors: The Grand Pooba, parading around in a yarmulka and jeweled robes, with a grandfatherly smile.

    Behind the grandfatherly smile is the calculating mind of the leader of a parasitic, reactionary, dangerous cult whose institution is exempt from taxes and whose intention is to inculcate children with Catholic mythology and suppress, for all of us, access to abortion, birth control, sex education, the morning after pill, physician assisted death, and secular education: the leader of the fight against The Enlightenment with its rejection of ignorance and superstition.

    For hundreds of years the Church censored, imprisoned, tortured and burned heretics, witches, Protestants, Infidels, and Jews–as well as dissident Catholics like the Cathars; and scientists like Giordano Bruno, Michael Servetus, Lucilio Vanini, among others. Mathematician Hypatia was merely skinned alive, torn to pieces, her body parts burned.

    Let the Catholic Church disappear. It’s teachings are fairy tales and derivative mythology. It has done exponentially more harm than good. Popes are not flickering lights against the darkness: they are the darkness. The present incarnation was associated with the brutal military regime of Argentina:

    http://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/pope-francis-and-the-dirty-war

    I agree with Diderot: Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest. And Popes are just glorified priests.

    • Harvey Reading September 12, 2015

      Amen!

      • Harvey Reading September 12, 2015

        And, down with all religion.

  2. BB Grace September 12, 2015

    Re: “NOAM CHOMSKY EXPLAINS WHY HITCHENS & HOROWITZ REVERSED EVERYTHING THEY BELIEVED”

    The title of the video was mislabled to draw view numbers. What does Chompsky’s speach have to do with Hitchens and or Horowitz, or the topic debate all three are notorius? Nada

    A better title would be: The Political Spirits of American Domestic Policy for Global Industrialization: Hitler or Marx? Or, “How the West was won and lost in the name of Neo”.

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

    Re: Marijuana Update

    What’s stopping the medical marijuana establishment from creating medical marijuana wellness, hospice, restaurants, hostels, clinics, trimmigrant shelters???? Chompsky’s speach has some suggestions.

    Re: CCFB

    Chompsky’s speach also has some suggestions in explaining why CCFB are getting spun, as it’s perception of what is democracy, what is government, and why what wee the people think participating in passive or nonviolent political actions is a threat, and how media partipates (or not).

    IOWs you can’t fight city hall when all you have is one political party controlling government top to bottom for in that case, all forms of protest are preceived as a threat because it exposes and makes vunerable the differences within the party (establishment). Least we forget Chompsky is a liberal libertarian anarchist and why he’s so interesting as representing an ideal form of government that has never existed.

    • LouisBedrock September 12, 2015

      “Least we forget ‘Chompsky’ (sic) is a liberal libertarian anarchist and why he’s so interesting as representing an ideal form of government that has never existed.”

      What the hell does that mean? It seems like just an ad hominem attack from Mrs. Malaprop’s demented grandson.

      Is this a reaction to Mr. Chomsky’s scathing denunciations of your favorite country, the South Africa of the Middle East, Israel?

      • BB Grace September 12, 2015

        The topic of Chomsky’s speach in the video is about American government which some might consider scathing.

        Chomsky political position (name of my nome is Chompsky):

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian_socialism

        Nader once told me, “Isults only mean a lack of good argument”.

        • LouisBedrock September 12, 2015

          No “isults” intended.
          Just kustruktif kritisism.

  3. Eric Sunswheat September 12, 2015

    “McMichael draws retirement money… as a retired Mendo Supervisor” – AVA blog.

    Unless County of Mendocino has changed the retirement pension rules, and allowed a 4 year one term sitting supervisor, to ‘vest’ to pay into a 5th year to qualify for county pension, Supervisor McMichael does not draw a Mendocino County pension for being on the Board of Supervisors, except if he had additional County employment in another capacity.

    Eric

    Frank McMichael served a one year-term, (on Mendocino County Board of Supervisors).

    – source:

    http://www.radiocurious.org/2008/03/17/frank-mcmichael-richard-shoemaker-local-government-v-the-people-part-one/

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