Mendocino County Today: Wednesday, Oct 21, 2015

• Boy Search
• Privatization Disaster
• $100,000 Bail
• Egret
• FB Contradictions
• Bail Reform
• Family Feud
• Hoopa Sovereignty
• Yesterday's Catch
• Contractor Sting
• Rental Scam
• SEIU Unavailable
• Asphalt Plant
• Fake Progressive
• Quake Swarm
• Harper Defeat
• Clinton Inc
• 2000 Insults
• Sexist Vote
• Zito Retires
• Marketing Weed
• Tough Love

JUST IN: SHERIFF SAID YOUNGSTER FOUND - More Details When They Become Available...

FROM THE MENDOCINO COUNTY SHERIFF DEPARTMENT Press Release: "On Wednesday, October 21, at approximately 7:55 am, search teams found Brett in a heavily wooded area approximately two miles from his family's residence. Brett was alive and appeared to be in good health."

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SEARCHING FOR A FIVE-YEAR-OLD

The Mendocino County Sheriff Department was dispatched this evening to look for a lost child. Units are gathered at 27630 Fox Road, Brooktrails (northwest of Willits), to look for a 5-year-old boy named "Bret" who wandered away from the home. Authorities were informed @ 7:08 pm the youth had been missing for an hour and may be accompanied by the family's Black Lab dog. The direction of travel was "southwest of the home into the woods." A first responder said over the scanner, "contact Brooktrails Fire, we need to get some people into the woods." At 7:14 pm someone added (over the scanner), "We might want to notify the Sheriff Search & Rescue." Fire & Police are searching the surrounding streets in the remote area. At 8:02 pm, a CalFire engine (#1172) was dispatched to the search & rescue site off Fox Road. A request was also made to see if the Sonoma County Sheriff's helicopter "Henry 1" is available. A second CalFire engine was requested to the search scene @ 8:12 pm. Engine #1152 was assigned to assist Brooktrails Fire Department. At 8:17 pm the "Fox Incident Command" was informed a "helitack" unit was available and will be utilized. The scanner reported (8:47 pm) the request for "two additional CalFire engines" to assist in the search. Engines # 1184 & #1154 Laytonville had an estimated time of arrival of a half hour. A request was made (8:50 pm) to see if REACH 18 was available as the chopper has a thermal imaging unit. Incident Command was informed they were on assignment but will check to see if they are available. The Round Valley Fire Department called (8:54 pm) to say they have night vision gear they can offer. A first responder on the scene said they have some night vision capability but need night vision or thermal imaging gear "in the air." Scanner report said a searcher was going to "check out a heat signature that has been stationary for a couple minutes" @ 8:57 pm. The REACH helicopter was canceled @ 9:02 pm but may be called again. At 9:21 pm a searcher requested a "Code 2" ambulance be assigned to the scene - dispatch responded one was ordered up "19 minutes ago."

9:28 pm Humboldt County CHP (Redding) called to offer their helicopter...will return call to see what capabilities it has. Negative on thermal. Scanner chatter said the tree canopy "is super dark, deep and dark."

UPDATE 10:43 PM--The "Fox Incident" Command Center is being moved to Poppy Drive & Coyote Road. Helicopter REACH 18 is responding after all. HOW TO FOLLOW WITH 'ONLINE' POLICE/FIRE SCANNER--If you want to hear what MSP is monitoring, we'll share the link. Click on "Launch County Web player" then when the Mendocino County Live Audio Feeds window pops up, click the second line down "Mendocino County Sheriff, Fire, EMS, CalFire & CHP": http://www.broadcastify.com/listen/ctid/205/?rl=rr Remember, this includes ALL dispatch traffic, not just the search for the toddler...

A LOOK AT TONIGHT/TOMORROW'S WEATHER--We found an online weather station from Brooktrails and the temperature was 52.9F at 11:30 pm, 87% humidity & no wind. The low temperature this morning was 45.9F. If the search continues all night (as we expect), the searchers can expect sunrise @ 7:28 am Wednesday. The forecast calls for a low of 41F overnight and a clear, sunny high temperature of 80F during the day.

UPDATE 11:54 PM--Air ambulance REACH 6 asked for a "state of the weather" at the search site @ 11:54 pm. The reply was "Clear." REACH 6 is expected to be on scene with an estimated time of arrival of midnight (according to dispatch).

MIDNIGHT-- No, the estimated time of arrival for the REACH 6 chopper is 30 minutes (12:30 am). Searchers are going door-to-door on Bear Drive, to the west of the house on Fox Road.

(courtesy Mendocino Sports Plus)

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PHOTO OF MISSING BOY:

pressdemocrat.com/news/4644293-181/search-on-for-missing-mendocino

WE SPOKE RECENTLY with a retired County Mental Health staffer familiar with Mental Health services in Mendocino County before and after Ortner.

[ORTNER is a for-profit business based in Yuba City. The County "gifted" him, you might say, $7-8 million a year in public money, in return for which Ortner would provide mental health services. It's in Ortner's interest to spend as little as possible on actual succor for the mentally ill, and he has not deviated a nickel from his primary goal — to rake off as much money as possible while the mentally ill continue to suffer. Coping with Mendocino County's 15 or so mentally ill of the frequent flier type used to be assumed as a responsibility of government. That this responsibility was raffled off to a private business by a “progressive” board of supervisors representing a self-advertised “progressive” population, is merely one more local gulf between theory and practice, Mendo style. Those probably irremediable 15 are included in an overall population of about a hundred adult persons who require emergency mental health attention every year. One would think for $8 mil a year Mendocino County could take care of its own, but…]

OUR MENTAL HEALTH person said one of the biggest failures of Ortner — among many — is their complete failure to produce “discharge management plans” for their clients. These plans are important because they not only assess the person’s condition, but give a road map for how they could — circumstances permitting of course — maintain some basic hold on their sanity after their evaluation and release. Without such plans (medications, living situation, follow-up visits, lifestyle changes, etc.) and follow-up, which, again Ortner doesn’t do — it’s almost guaranteed that the client will be either back in Ortner’s cash registers in a short time or in an iso cell in the County Jail.

THE RETIRED WORKER also said that Ortner’s monthly “Access / Crisis Response” report is meaningless — “That’s just BS,” he said, looking over Ortner’s June report which we obtained through a Public Records Act request in August.

The numbers — even if they were accurate, which is itself a big assumption — don’t provide the kind of information that would allow management to sensibly assess what Ortner’s so-called “access center” is doing. The “goals” appear to be fiction; the retired worker had no idea where they came from. And the reports don’t allow anyone to see how many clients were actually served or discharged, how frequently the same people are seen and for what reasons, or how many discharge plans were completed.

THE RETIRED WORKER also said that comparing apples to apples in terms of function and responsibility, Ortner has about two-thirds of the number of people previously on the County’s payroll to provide first-line mental health services, and most of those new Ortner hires have no experience with the mentally ill of Mendocino County or Mendocino County policemen or anything else about Mendocino County needed to competently provide relief for the mentally troubled. Adding to this inexperience factor are what Ortner calls “Per Diem” employees who are brought in as needed on a daily rate basis (what the County used to call “extra help”). These people make their money on a high daily rate (but without the usual employee benefits or any idea how long they’ll be employed), and the arrangement encourages them to maximize payable hours, push hard to justify more hours, and minimize time with clients.

PRIVATIZATION of mental health has been a disaster for the mentally ill of the County, and a double disaster for the taxpayers.

WAIT A MINUTE. 100,000 BAIL FOR THIS?

On October 16, 2015 at approximately 9:35 AM Deputies from the Mendocino County Sheriff's Office were dispatched to a report of two shots fired in the parking lot of a pre-school located in the 76000 block of High School Street in Covelo, California. It was reported an adult male holding a shotgun had shot twice at a dog that had killed his chickens at a nearby residence. The dog had fled the area after the shots were fired. Deputies responded and confirmed that the adult male, Gabriel Alejandro Ferreira, 50, of Covelo, had discharged a shotgun twice while standing in the pre-school parking lot. There were no children in Ferreira's immediate presence at the time of the incident and no damage to school property was noted. Ferreira was arrested for reckless discharge of a firearm and possession of a firearm on school grounds. Ferreira was booked into the Mendocino County Jail where he was to be held in lieu of $100,000 bail.

BOTANICAL GARDENS, Mendocino Coast

ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

BB Grace nicely sums up a few of the more glaring Fort Bragg contradictions:

Now that Fort Bragg has a Hospitality Wellness Mental Health Management Housing Job Placement Rehab Center with off site soup kitchen, parking, and ADA access, they have no idea what to do with it. But they sure let the people of Fort Bragg know what they really think of them when getting the Old Coast Hotel. Why would the City Council want to meet the public when they made it clear that the people of Fort Bragg are a bunch of greedy, selfish, uncompassionate frauds with NIMBYtudes from deep rooted stigma against the homeless and mentally ill? Read the past Letters to the Editors of Mendocino Papers or just ask City Council or administration and friends in the County who LOVE Fort Bragg, and ironically, work hard to attract tourists to Fort Bragg, where Glass Beach is becoming remarkable for the strenuous enforcement of not having glass removed from the beach (it was an old dump) and the Skunk Train doesn’t make enough from runs to stay in business on the Coast (but then maybe that water contract from Willits LOL). Anywhere else, folks would be happy to have glass removed from the beach, eh? Did Koch Bros Headlands really need tons of asphalt to be called a coastal trail? Fort Bragg paved what could have been made into paradise and put up a parking lot with wraparound highway. Hey it’s big enough to bypass Fort Bragg. Hmmm. Maybe Fort Bragg City Council can do that when they tear Main Street up for next year’s tourist season? Well, this gets around the Brown Act better than anything — cancel meetings, continue to do whatever, no worries about public.

IN EARLY 2013, Jonathan Lippman, chief judge of the State of New York, decided that the business-as-usual approach to setting bail could not be tolerated any longer. “We still have a long way to go before we can claim that we have established a coherent, rational approach to pretrial justice,” he said in his annual State of the Judiciary address. “Incarcerating indigent defendants for no other reason than that they cannot meet even a minimum bail amount strips our justice system of its credibility and distorts its operation.” Lippman sent a package of proposed legislation to reduce the reliance on cash bail to lawmakers in Albany, and he lobbied for the reforms hard in the press. His efforts went nowhere. “Zero,” Lippman says, shaking his head. “Nothing.” Lawmakers had no appetite for bail reform.

. . .

The only truly meaningful reform, many observers agree, is to take money out of the bail process entirely. Lippman has been championing this idea for several years. “You have to eliminate cash bail,” he says. The ramifications of such a move are far-reaching. Without bail — and the quick guilty pleas that it produces — courts would come under significant strain. “The system would shut down,” Goldberg says. “A lot of the 250 people who were waiting to be arraigned in Brooklyn last night would all be coming back to court soon to go forward with a trial for a misdemeanor that no one has any interest in pursuing.” This crisis, Goldberg believes, would be a good thing. “You want pressure on the system. You want everyone involved to be reconsidering. Because of how much it could clog the system, you might have people on high telling cops to stop picking people up for an open-container violations, because ‘I don’t want to deal with it in my courtroom’.”

(— Nick Pinto, Courtesy, The New York Times)

* * *

Last month, New York State’s chief judge announced a series of administrative changes on Thursday intended to reduce the number of people who are incarcerated for long periods before trial because they cannot make bail.

The judge, Jonathan Lippman, who will retire at the end of the year, has been a longtime advocate for overhauling the bail law in New York, but his proposed bill failed to gain traction in the State Legislature for the last two years.

In a breakfast speech in Manhattan to the Citizens Crime Commission, Judge Lippman said the judiciary could no longer wait for lawmakers to act to address a system he said punishes people for being poor. He said he would take several steps within the current legal framework to urge judges to set bail low enough that defendants could await trial at home, or to use alternatives to cash bail, like electronic monitoring.

“Defendants who are unable to post bail serve a sentence before their cases are ever resolved,” Judge Lippman said. “They do so regardless of innocence or guilt, and the harm that this injustice causes is intolerable.”

“Far too many people are trapped in pretrial detention simply because they are poor,” Judge Lippman said. He said being in jail before trial “can tear apart the very fabric of people’s lives.” It often forces people to lose income, fall behind on rent, lose their jobs or forgo education.

For starters, Judge Lippman said, he would set up an automatic review of all bail determinations made at arraignment in criminal court, appointing a judge in each borough to take a second look at those decisions within 10 days to see if bail should be reduced.

For felonies, Judge Lippman said he would order judges to periodically review the strength of the prosecution’s case and the people’s readiness to go to trial. The judge would then consider lowering or eliminating bail if the case has weakened.

Judge Lippman said he was also starting a program in Manhattan that would allow judges to use electronic supervision through bracelets linked to smartphones as an alternative to cash bail.

Finally, the judge said, he would retrain judges and encourage them to employ several less onerous kinds of bail that are available under the current New York law, passed in 1970.

That law provides for nine kinds of bail bonds, allowing defendants and their families, for instance, to use a credit card to post bail or to pay 10% of the bail directly to the court and sign a promise to pay the rest.

In practice, however, judges use only two types of bail — cash or insurance company bail bonds. Judge Lippman said he would step up training for judges and clerks about the alternatives.

He pointed out other jurisdictions, like Washington, that have established alternatives to cash bail. “Make no mistake, in my view, the ultimate goal may well be to end our reliance on cash bail in New York,” he said. He added, “It is fundamentally unfair for a person’s liberty to be all about how much money you have.”

— James McKinley, The New York Times

* * *

ROBERT GAVIN OF LAW BEAT: If you thought the recent bail reforms announced by Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman only affected New York City, think again. The judge, who will retire at the end of the year, told Law Beat that while part of his bail initiative involving misdemeanor cases does only affect the five boroughs, another key facet of it — in felony cases — is statewide. It affects defendants who cannot afford bail. Lippman explained his new rules require judicial reviews “every 90 days … to make sure, ‘Why is the person still in (jail)?’ ” A judge will evaluate the prosecution's case, readiness for trial and, where appropriate, make modifications on the bail status, Lippman said. Lippman said the changes will help ensure that no defendant languishes in a jail cell on a case that is going nowhere. A key inspiration for the changes was the suicide of Khalief Browder, 22, of the Bronx, who at 16 was charged with the attempted robbery of a backpack. Browder maintained his innocence and rejected plea deals but remained locked up in Rikers Island for more than two-and-a-half years because he could not afford $3,000 bail. During that time, prosecutors had only one witness who had fled the country. Browder, who suffered abuse from inmates and jail officers and had attempted suicide, was eventually released from jail but the damage had been done. He committed suicide in June, two years after his release. “These heartbreaking and deeply frustrating events exemplify much of what is wrong with our criminal justice system in New York,” Lippman said. Meanwhile, Lippman told Law Beat “we'll start experimenting upstate, too” with his pilot program — now only in Manhattan — to use electronic supervision to track defendants on pretrial release. Judges will be able to release defendants charged with misdemeanors, but it will not apply to anyone charged with domestic violence, assault or sex offenses. According to Lippman, the average annual cost of detention in New York City exceeds $100,000 per person, drastically more than costs for electronic supervision. The changes come along with Lippman's plan to have bail determinations in misdemeanor cases in New York City reviewed by a single judge in each borough. That review process will happen whenever a defendant facing a misdemeanor cannot make bail. A different judge will take a look and decide whether bail should be lowered.

FAMILY NIGHT IN WILLITS

On October 16, 2015 at approximately 9:30 PM, Deputies from the Mendocino County Sheriff's Office were dispatched to investigate a reported physical assault on multiple individuals in the 22000 block of East Side Road in Willits. As Deputies began to investigate, they learned an alcohol-fueled fight between two adult sisters had drawn in multiple family members and friends into the fight. The Deputies observed a 47-year-old adult male on his back in the driveway with significant bleeding from his head. Deputies learned he had been struck in the head by a baseball bat or similar object and was subsequently transported by ambulance to a local area hospital. A 50 year-old adult female was nearby sitting in a chair with a laceration to her head, also from trauma caused by some type of blunt object. She however refused medical treatment. A 40 year-old adult female was located in a nearby home. It appeared she had been struck multiple times in the head and torso with a blunt object, which resulted in her being transported by ambulance to a local area hospital.

During investigations Deputies identified Jose Barriga-Padilla, 38, of Ukiah, as causing the injuries on all three victims. Deputies also identified Talisha Barriga, 33, of Ukiah, as having participated in the physical assault of one of the victims. Jose Barriga-Padilla and Talisha Barriga were both arrested for assault with a deadly weapon and booked into the Mendocino County Jail to be separately held in lieu of $30,000 bail.

INTERESTING PIECE in the LA Times today about police relations and enforcement in Hoopa country.

http://touch.latimes.com/#section/-1/article/p2p-84758810/

CATCH OF THE DAY, October 20, 2015

MARIC ARRIAGA, Ukiah. Probation revocation.

ZACHARY BROWN, Willits. DUI.

JAMES DOZIER, Livermore/Ukiah. Sale of meth.

JESSE GERMAINE, Elk. DUI.

LEON GIBSON, Fort Bragg. Probation revocation. (Frequent flyer.)

FRANCISCO GONZALEZ, Ukiah. Assault with deadly weapon not a gun, criminal threats, possession of controlled substance and paraphernalia, violation of county parole and county supervision, resisting.

THOMAS HUGHS, Vallejo. Protective order violation.

TIMOTHY MCCOSKER, Ukiah. Probation revocation.

JODY MCCOY, Ukiah. Possession of controlled substance and paraphernalia, probation revocation.

THOMAS MCDERMAND, Willits. Pot cultivation, processing, possession for sale, offenses while on bail.

ELEVTERIO MONTALVO-PEREZ, Ukiah. Domestic assault, false imprisonment.

JAMES MORRIS, Willits. Parole violation.

ARLIE ORTIZ, Ukiah. Loitering/prowling.

JARED SAARNI, Willits. Pot cultivation, processing, possession for sale, armed with firearm.

MARK SAARNI, Willits. Pot cultivation, processing, possession for sale.

EDWARD STEELE, Ukiah. Paraphernalia, probation revocation. (Frequent flyer.)

JUSTIN SWINNEY, Clearlake. Drunk in public.

JEREMY TAFT, Willits. Drunk in public.

AMY WOOLSEY, Ukiah. Battery.

FROM THE MENDOCINO COUNTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY

"In an effort to dissuade individuals from contracting without the protections afforded consumers by state licensing, the Contractors State License Board recently cited five individuals in Mendocino County for attempting to contract without a license or illegal advertising. A contractor's license is required for any bid over $500. These "stings" are intended to act as a deterrence and to protect unwary property owners from granting access to homes and property to those who ultimately may be unqualified and working without insurance. Here's a link for more information on the statewide sting: http://www.cslb.ca.gov/Media_Room/Press_Releases/2015/October_19.aspx

THE FORT BRAGG POLICE DEPARTMENT warns residents to be aware of an online scam involving listings for rental homes on sites such as Craig’s List.

According to the FBPD, the suspects in the scam collected information about homes for sale posted online, then fraudulently posted the homes as rentals. When the victims contact the suspects about an offered rental, the suspects then claimed to be owners who live out of the area and request an initial deposit for the home be wired to them. The suspects also attempted to collect more money from the victims, such as first month’s rent and pet deposits.

The FBPD notes that “scams of this nature are difficult to investigate and nearly impossible to prosecute since the suspects operate almost entirely outside of the United States,” and advises residents to use caution when “conducting any private online transactions, (because) the suspects in these crimes are growing increasingly sophisticated and are constantly changing their tactics.”

Before becoming a victim, the department advises residents to call (707) 964-0200 for its assistance in investigating any suspicious online private transactions.

A MONTH AGO the Supervisors approved certain benefits for employees hurt by the Lake County fires. But the Supes, or at least some of them, understood that they couldn't help these employees, with 'help' automatically defined by the employee's union as a 'benefit,' and, as a 'benefit' required to be shared by all employees. There had to be, therefore, a "meet and confer" session with the employees bargaining group although the “benefit” was designed to help two (count 'em) SEIU-represented workers who used to live in Lake County. But SEIU has been unable to agree on a meeting time for nearly a month. As a result, the two employees who lost their homes in the fires are unable to make use of the benefits the County would like to give them. What it comes down to is that the five or six people who run SEIU don't trust each other and will not agree to hold a meeting with the County unless everyone from their side is at the table. That might make sense under normal conditions, but is hard to justify when the County is trying to help people who lost their homes.

THE ITEM CAME TO LIGHT when CEO Carmel Angelo included this item in her October 20 CEO Report: “On September 22, 2015 the Board approved certain benefits for Mendocino County employees personally impacted by the tragic Valley Fire. The Board unanimously approved this relief for employees who lost their homes, were displaced by the fire, or were otherwise impacted. The implementation of the program requires a meet and confer with the bargaining units. Meet and confer with all bargaining units that have impacted employees has been completed with the exception of Service Employees International Union (SEIU), Local 1021. SEIU has not been available to meet and confer to approve the side letter of agreement. There are two employees represented by SEIU that were directly impacted by the Valley Fire, and are currently unable to take advantage of the benefits approved by the Board, in their time of need.”

NO ASPHALT PLANT

To the Editor:

Is an asphalt plant located on the flood plain of Outlet Creek in the best interest of Mendocino County residents? I and Friends of the Earth think not. However, the Mendocino County Board of Supervisors approved the project by a 5 to 0 vote, and on Aug. 28 the Mendocino Air Quality Management District acquiesced as well. No CEQA review was mandated, although the negative environmental impact of the plan is huge. An asphalt plant poses many risks, least of which is noise pollution. Different types of air pollution are inherent in asphalt production, and toxic fires are a possibility. The river itself would be liable to contamination. For several years, California Fish and Game has been working to restore Outlet Creek as a salmon spawning habitat, and the asphalt plant would jeopardize this work. Why is the county not mandating a CEQA review of tis project? Is asphalt production a higher priority than peoples’ health or protecting our river and forests? In whose interest is the county acting? It is sad that Friends of Outlet Creek will now have to file a lawsuit in order to protect what should be cared for by our county government. If you wish to support this cause, please send a check to:

Willits Environmental Center/Friends of Outlet Creek
650 S. Main St.
Willits, Ca 95490

Sandra Onderdonk, Longvale

ANY LEFTIST who has paid the slightest serious attention to U.S. politics since the early 1990s should have heard loud alarm bells ringing when Hillary Clinton described herself in Vegas as “a progressive…[b]ut a progressive who likes to get things done [and who] know[s] how to find common ground… even dealing with Republicans [with whom she]… found ways to work together.” Sound familiar? It should. It is straight out of the spurious, fake-progressive, arch-authoritarian, and neoliberal Bob Rubin-Bill Clinton-Barack Obama-DLC-Hamilton Project-Brookings Institute-Council of Foreign Relations playbook, written by and for the nation’s unelected and interrelated dictatorships of money and empire. The key phrase is “likes to get things done” – a way of consigning the basic and reasonable social-democratic programs and economic justice measures long and irrelevantly supported by most Americans to the realm of non-viable, pragmatically unrealistic, “extremist: and “do-nothing” fantasy. (Paul Street)

NEARLY 200 EARTHQUAKES SHAKE SAN RAMON ON MONDAY

by Joe Garofoli

An earthquake swarm continues to shake the San Ramon Valley with almost 200 temblors rippling through the region through Monday afternoon, when a 2.8 quake struck at 4:02 p.m followed by a 3.5 quake,the largest in the series, and a second 2.8 quake, both at 4:21.

The 4:21 quakes were widely felt in the East Bay.

Most of the 25 quakes, which started at 11:58 p.m. Saturday, were felt within the Tri-Valley region of Contra Costa and eastern Alameda counties. The swarm could last for days or weeks, then end without notice, say earthquake experts.

“The good news is that most of these earthquakes stay under magnitude 4,” Susan Garcia, a spokeswoman with the The U.S. Geological Survey’s Earthquake Science Center, said Sunday. “An earthquake swarm is not unusual in that area.”

A quake storm hit the same region last week, the most prominent being a 3.4 shaker that struck near San Ramon at 6:10 a.m. Thursday. It was felt as far north as Vallejo and as far south as Pleasanton. There have been no reports of major damage. There have been 191 quakes in the area, and counting, in the last week.

GOOD NEWS FROM THE NORTH

Justin Trudeau and his Liberal Party put an end to Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s nine-year reign, in a rout led by the 43-year-old son of former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. According to Canadian Broadcasting Corp. figures, the Liberals won 184 of 338 seats in the House of Commons — a turnaround from the 2011 election, when the party held just 36. “Sunny ways, my friends, sunny ways, this is what positive politics can do,” Trudeau told supporters, following an election season that included ugly anti-Muslim and immigration rhetoric. He would become the second youngest prime minister in Canadian history. The former schoolteacher has promised to raise taxes on the rich as well as run deficits for three years to boost government spending. Harper, whose party won 99 seats, said he would step down as Conservative Party leader after accepting defeat.

ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY #2

I was seduced by Hope and Change in 2008. I wasn’t quite so gullible in 2012. Don’t vote and the Lords of the Universe dismiss you as part of the apathetic rabble. If enough of us reject the status quo, we remove the legitimacy they assume they have. Hillary isn’t going to get my nod just because she’s the lesser of two evils. She’s thumping the progressive drum now because Bernie has captured the momentum, but there’s been no better shill for the military-industrial complex and the TBTF banks than Clinton Inc. And all the coyness about the execrable Trans Pacific Partnership flies in the face of her stalwart support before people started actually learning what it involved. It’s a classic bait-and-switch and the only thing more outrageous than her doing it is the numbers that will fall for it yet again. It’s like Lucy holding the football for Charlie Brown… People call voting for a 3rd party a wasted vote? I call voting for the same old tired schtick a failure of imagination.

DAVE FITZSIMMONS

BABY KILLER MADELINE'S FOR HIL

Friend --

I know a little something about shattering glass ceilings -- and so does Hillary Clinton. But here’s the truth: Breaking the glass ceiling isn't even half the battle. What's much more important is what you do once you’re on the other side.

I've known Hillary for decades, so I know that if she becomes our next president, she will fight harder for women and girls than any occupant of the White House ever has. After all, that's what she did as Secretary of State.

But she won't get the chance unless women fight for her. That's why I'm a member of Women for Hillary. Will you join me?

Women deserve a president like Hillary. Let’s do our part to make sure she gets there.

Thank you,

Madeleine Albright

FAREWELL TO BASEBALL

by Barry Zito

Baseball is such a wonderfully unique game. It doesn’t require some extraordinary physical prowess or stature as much as it requires hard work. People of all shapes and sizes have been some of the greatest in our game. If you saw a professional baseball player sitting in a coffee shop, you may not be able to single him out of the crowd — not usually the case with a football or basketball player. It’s what makes baseball the common man’s game: The common man stands a chance at succeeding at it — with much dedication and discipline, of course

I think that is why baseball is so adored. At some point, even in the ethers of their mind, everyone has thought that they could maybe, just maybe, square up a 90 mph fastball if they were standing in the box, or find a way to force weak contact against a threatening home run hitter. The allure gets us all.

I was that boy growing up watching on TV, imagining myself on the mound in the Major Leagues. I feel so blessed to have been able to play with and also face some of this game’s greatest players over the last 15 years. Experiencing the highest levels of the sport I fell in love with as a kid was a dream come true.

My baseball career has been a mirror to my life off the field, full of euphoric highs and devastating lows. I’ve been at the top of a rotation and the 25th man on a roster. I’ve started Game 1 of a World Series in one year and I’ve been left off of a postseason roster in another. I’ve been labeled as both drastically underpaid and severely overpaid. I’ve been praised as a savior and deemed a curse. The thing I take the most pride in, however, is not my career itself, not the Cy Young or even the World Series rings. Those things are important, but they only ever gave temporary satisfaction, a fleeting spike or two on my ego’s Richter scale. They are memories that I cherish, of course, but they’re only symbols of something bigger and more challenging to articulate in words.

Beyond all of the achievements, the single thing that fulfills me today is the acceptance of myself as a worthy and valuable person, regardless of what my stature or position in the world was on a given day of my career. Through the ups and downs, accepting myself was by far the hardest thing to achieve over the last 15 years. I believe it is a battle we all face as we are taught to buy into the ravenous lie that any great success, short-lived fame or bank account will bring us the deep fulfillment we are searching for.

The year 2008 was the toughest of my life so far. I was being told by strangers in public places just how terrible I was — my own fans in San Francisco yelling obscenities to my face while I was in the dugout. I even found myself ringing my mother at times because I was literally losing my mind and needed five minutes of solace with someone who understood me. But that year taught me something: If there was still a reason to smile at certain points throughout those painful days, and if everything I thought had defined me as a person was crumbling down and yet I was still standing, then maybe what I thought defined me truly did not. I came to realize that I was defining myself through my achievements on the field and through the opinions of other people. In reality, that was just the surface of who I really was.

My mother passed later that year and I needed another place to find comfort. It took a few more years of being stubborn, but in 2011, with the help of my wonderfully inspiring wife Amber, I finally found my savior; not in myself, or another self-help book, but in Jesus. What I discovered was a newfound reliance on something bigger than myself. I am grateful that my path went exactly the way it did. To finally get the message, I had to be broken not one time, but over and over and over. I clenched desperately to my own diminishing strength for many years because that was the same strength that earned me a Cy Young, and I thought things would eventually go my way again, but they never did. I am far better off now because I found a greater strength than ever before.

Baseball has surely yielded a windfall of material blessings on me and my family, and I am grateful and humbled for those things every day. More than any dollar earned or trophy standing on my shelf, I can thank this game for the life lessons it taught me about enduring pain and struggle and where to turn when I face adversity again. Every single fan out there in the Bay Area played a vital role in my journey, whether it was the cheering fans or the booers. In sports, these two opposites go hand in hand.

I was once told that anger is frustrated love. I couldn’t possibly have expected to embrace the uplifting surge of energy from the Bay Area’s baseball passion when I was succeeding and yet not weather the storm like a man when that passion turned into a raging frustration. I feel so honored to have spent my career in the Bay and to have been a part of the two incredible organizations that reside there.

I’m retiring today from baseball, but I’ll never be too far away from the game that made me who I am. I am beyond thankful to be at peace with walking away, thanks in large part to my year of renewal in Nashville with the Sounds. My return to Oakland last month was a “cherry on top” moment in my life that my family and I will never forget. I will no doubt be in the stands on both sides of the Bay in years to come.

Today, I am very excited to be a “rookie” all over again in a new field: songwriting. I am sure the lessons baseball has taught me will help me develop the thick skin I’ll need for this new endeavor. If one day you ever happen to hear a song of mine, I hope you’ll be honest about what you think. I have been building a skill set of handling adversity for years, so fire away!

Thank you, again, to all the men and women who are as captivated by this great game as I still am. Whether we’re on the field or in the stands, we’re all one family making baseball what it is today.

LET’S NOT MARKET OUR PREMIUM CANNABIS TO MORONS

by John Hardin

As we move towards legalization, and pot becomes even more ubiquitous and banal, it will become more important than ever to remind the non-cannabis consuming community, why we find this common weed so uncommonly attractive. It’s just a matter of marketing. If you want to sell a high-end luxury product like appellation controlled, Humboldt grown, fair trade, organic, salmon-friendly sun-grown sinsemilla for a premium price, it really helps if your customer A) has the money, B) can read the label, and C) cares.

That means you need well educated, higher income people to want your product. Current statistics show that the higher your income, and the more education you have, the more you gravitate towards alcohol, while low-income, sub-literate people invariably smoke weed. How do we convince someone who is bright, successful, has plenty of money, and feels optimistic about the future, to make time for marijuana?

It won’t matter how good your weed is, if the people who can afford it, don’t want to get high. Cannabis is the ticket, not the main attraction. Getting high is the main attraction. Here in Humboldt County, we focus a lot on the quality of the ticket, and how much money you can make selling tickets. Drug dealers have always run the box office, but what’s going on in the theater? What’s so great about getting high, that it’s worth buying these expensive tickets? Do you think people pay $10 a gram for weed, just so they can cough and hack on smoke that tastes like diesel fuel? You can do that for free, any day of the week, just by standing on the sidewalk downtown.

We’re losing the media battle. TV and movies portray drug dealers as gangsters, or business-people, two of our primary cultural archetypes. On the other hand, high people, that is, people portrayed as being under the influence of cannabis, usually appear vacant, generally seated on a couch, in front of a TV, surrounded by empty junk food wrappers. If they say anything at all, they’ll do it inarticulately, and punctuate it with giggles. Who wants to be that guy?

Is that what getting high is all about? How stupid do you have to be, to begin with, that that even looks attractive? I mean, if that’s what people do when they get high, it’s not just a waste of good weed, it’s an insult to good weed, and a waste of a good life. No one aspires to become a vacant half-wit; so why would anyone spend money on a drug that promises to transform them into one.

When I was growing up, I only saw high people portrayed in the media, on anti-drug propaganda that I knew could not be trusted, but I knew that Miles Davis smoked weed, and I knew that Bob Dylan smoked weed. If you asked me to give you one example that showed off the very best of human intelligence. I’d probably pick something like The ESP Sessions, by Miles Davis and his band. I’m not even a jazz fan, but I cannot deny the genius and the passion so beautifully expressed on that record. Do I want to smoke what Miles was smoking then? Fuck yeah, even if it was the same brown seedy weed the rest of us were smoking, because Miles was smokin’ back then.

On the other hand, do I want to smoke Snoop Dogg’s special Chemdawg Reserve strain of premium sinsemilla? Fuck no, because Snoop Dogg is a no-talent drug-dealer with atrocious taste. I don’t want to be like him at all. Miles Davis was a man of music. He was shaped by music, and music poured through him. Snoop Dogg has got his mind on his money and his money on his mind. It shows, Snoop. It shows.

Is today’s high-tech sinsemilla really better than the brown seedy weed we all used to smoke in the ’60s and ’70s? I think that all depends on how you look at it, and I’m afraid that bright, successful optimistic people are not going to see anything very inspirational, exciting or special about our current cannabis culture, and as a result, might just choose to skip cannabis altogether.

That would be a shame, because cannabis has a lot to offer everyone. Stupid people cause fewer problems when they smoke weed instead of drinking alcohol, but bright, talented people often find they have better ideas, greater sensitivity, and a higher level of coherence when they smoke weed. I just wish I could point to more contemporary examples.

(John Hardin writes at Like You’ve Got Something Better to Do. Courtesy, LostCoastOutpost.com)

“TOUGH LOVE,” a PBS-POV documentary, on Wednesday, November 4^th at 6 pm

On Wednesday, November 4^th, at 6:00 pm, Mendocino County Library, Ukiah Branch, is proud to present a screening of the PBS POV documentary, Tough Love, by Stephanie Wang-Breal.

Tough Love tells the stories of two parents who, after losing custody of their children, fought to convince the courts to allow them to reunite their families.

Tough Love is a co-production of ITVS and a co-presentation with the Center for Asian American Media (CAAM).

This is a free, “paper-bag-dinner” screening.