Mendocino County Today: Thursday, Oct 29, 2015

• Ukiah Stabbing
• Pot Tax
• Pot Initiatives
• Fort Koch
• AVHC Agenda
• FB Agenda
• Old Ballgame
• Prisoner Beating
• Dead Man
• Yesterday's Catch
• Anti-American
• Sugar Rush
• Fishing Dangers
• Exxon Evil
• Exquisite Shit
• New Diet
• Little Slackers
• Birdsong
• FB Library Events
• Republican Debate

DOWNTOWN UKIAH STABBING

On 10-27-15 at approx. 8:00 PM, UPD officers were dispatched to Ukiah Valley Medical Center (275 Hospital Dr.) regarding a stabbing victim at the location. Upon arrival, officers contacted an 18 year old female with multiple stab wounds on her upper torso and head. The victim was subsequently transported to an out of county hospital with serious injuries.

The victim stated she was walking with a friend in the downtown area of Ukiah, when she was suddenly “hit” multiple times. The victim didn’t see or hear anyone at the time of the assault. The victim realized she had been stabbed multiple times and sought medical attention. The victim resides in Willits and is not familiar with the Ukiah area. The victim was unable to specifically articulate where she was at when she was attacked.

Officers were unable to locate a crime scene. UPD Detectives were notified and are actively investigating the incident. Anyone with information is encouraged to contact UPD at 463-6262.

(Ukiah Police Department, prepared by Det. Sgt. Crook)

FROM THE SUPERVISORS MEETING, October 26 regarding the State’s wonderful new medical marijuana regulatory scheme signed into law last month by Governor Brown:

To Tax Pot Or Not Tax Pot, that is the question. (To tax or be sued, is also the question.)

Subject: Possible Action and Presentation by the Rural County Representatives of California (RCRC) on the 2015 State Legislative Medical Marijuana Regulatory Package (Sponsors: Supervisors McCowen and Woodhouse)

RCRC Representative Paul Smith, described “Key Aspects of Package” — “Explicit and broad county taxing authority. Referenced in Business & Professions Code 19348. County authority to tax deliveries. Referenced in Business & Professions Code 19340(c). Local fee and tax authority. Referenced in Business & Professions Code 19320(d).

Mr. Smith then commented:

“These are the three sections in the bill that passed that speak to this. The primary one is 19348, the tax and licensing. We anticipates that whatever action one board or to a certain degree a city, but let's stick with counties for the moment, whatever tax measure you would pursue, you would most likely if enacted get sued. Basically, what we have said and why we put this in here is to make a seven-year lawsuit a two-year lawsuit. Why would we do that? Why is that important? I always use the example of Trinity County. One of your neighbors to the north. If it were to enact a tax it would most likely be sued and if it drug out for seven years or something to that effect the proceeds collected would all be spent on legal fees. We would see no tax revenue which would actually do what the tax intended to do for the Board of Supervisors. Most likely that with the enforcement costs associated with the County. So they would incur all these costs in the legal arena without it bearing any fruit. What will generally happen is that the county will make a decision to walk away from the tax knowing that it has that obligation to defend the lawsuit and it will be a costly obligation. Again, this shortens that timeframe, we believe. As you know and I'm sure many folks in the audience will attest to, you can tax medical marijuana and particularly the cultivation in a variety of ways. Whether it's indoors or outdoors, per plant, per parcel, per square footage, electricity use, water use, how ever you want to approach it, there are a variety of ways. I can assure you that folks who do not like taxes, whether they come from the industry or not, will examine all of their legal options. The other point I want to leave you with on this is the language in 19348 does not speak to the process, it does not change the process you would otherwise use for enacting a tax. It is the same process. If you are looking at doing a sales tax, or a transient occupancy tax, or any of those things, you still have to get voter approval and that threshold will be determined by how you would use those proceeds. We do not change the process of enacting taxes, we just explicitly say that counties have that authority. Why counties, not cities? Cities were offered similar provisions and they respectfully declined because they are basically governed by different sections of the Constitution and city lawyers believe that they already have the authority and there is no need to explicitly say it. Explicitly saying it could actually do more legal harm to their standing than otherwise. Counties took a different view. We are different in nature and that's why you have it. You also have the ability to tax deliveries and to set fees to cover the reasonable cost of your licensing activity or your permitting activity or what have you at the local level. We made sure that was explicit. The state was a big fan of this because the state will be using this authority as well.”

FLURRY OF FRUITLESS POT MEASURES Costing Taxpayers Big Money To Prepare

Cost for preparing titles and summaries to top $140,000

by Christopher Cadelago

Direct democracy isn’t cheap in California.

Take marijuana. Ahead of each of the last several elections, advocates of all stripes have plopped down $200 to submit for the statewide ballot various unsuccessful proposals to legalize recreational marijuana, or regulate medical cannabis, the latter of which the Legislature finally came around to doing on its own.

With the 2016 election drawing near, no fewer than 17 proposals have been submitted for consideration, with at least 10 already receiving the cursory title and summary from the Attorney General’s Office. Aides to Kamala Harris have estimated the cost to prepare the measures for signature gathering at $8,500 apiece.

That puts the running tab to taxpayers at $85,000, plus whatever untold sums the Department of Finance and Legislative Analyst's Office spends to draft its perfunctory fiscal analysis. The attorney general is set to spend another $60,000 just for the remaining seven measures slotted for consideration.

That’s enough to buy Phish tickets for the entire town of Garberville, with plenty left over for snacks.

The irony here is that few, if any, of the pot proposals in the current pipeline will receive enough financial backing to qualify for the ballot, let alone withstand expected withering attacks from law-enforcement types.

Some of the fiscal pain will soon be sated by a new law hiking the initiative filing fee tenfold, which may dissuade serial filers, but that still won’t cover the total tab.

Cheers, Hiram Johnson (Father of the state’s initiative process)

THE OCEANSIDE EMPTY AREA is where the Georgia Pacific mill used to be in Fort Bragg. These undeveloped acres, more than 400 of them, now belong to the justly infamous Koch Brothers.

PUBLIC AGENCY MEETING, BOONVILLE STYLE Next Meeting Of The AVHC was Wednesday, 10/28, at 6:00 PM. Change In Venue! Back at the health center conference room, and *just like before, no agenda, no minutes, nada.*

After two plus years of nagging, I'm through, guys.

The meeting is tomorrow. There is no agenda. There is no record of what was done last month. There have been, supposed to have been at least three important committee meetings in the interim. We don't have any record of what has transpired, nor any consistent record of what committees have done in the past months. How is the board supposed to take any meaningful action when they don't know what will be discussed, on whatever problem or issue requires action? How will they be prepared to contribute? How will the public know what's going on, what's going well, what can we expect regarding maintenance of our health services?

I do not think we are making any progress on communication between the health center and the consumers. It may be that you all are willing and trying, but that the institutional mechanics, or the "That's the way we have always done it" are defeating you. It also may be that some are not willing or trying, or have different and unstated goals.

There is no "way we have always done it". It has changed over time depending on who was admin, who was medical, and what the problems facing operations were, and very importantly, what outside agencies were involved, and what the duties and goals of the center were. The success or failure of the center depends on how you all function in a changing situation, and how well you communicate between yourselves, with consumers, with your staff, and with outside agencies.

I suggest you review the requirements of the California Open Records Act, and the California Public Meetings Act, and voluntarily adopt them as AVHC policy. Why? Because they give a clear guideline for what you should do in public and what may be kept confidential and which of your records may be kept secret, and for how long. There does not seem to be any down side in doing this. For a group with limited experience in public meetings, or administrative policy, or organizational operations it offers a helpful structure for meetings and for record keeping.

I suggest you review the California Corporate Code requirements for Public Benefit Non-profit corporations regarding meetings and record keeping and comply with them. I suggest you review the HRSSA guidance on governance and take it to heart. I suggest you review the web site of the Long Valley Community Health Center www.longvalley.org which is very uncomplicated and cuts out all the touchy feely repetitive and useless self-promotion, but gives pertinent facts. There are ways to exchange information these days.

Good luck.

Gene Herr

* * *

Excuse me, Gene.  The minutes from the September meeting have been on the
website for days.  As both I and Ric Bonner have been away for several
weeks, there is a delay on the committee meeting minutes and agenda
posting for which I apologize.

We are going to discuss having the website done "€˜in house"€™ as
maintaining this should not be an extra-curricular board activity anyway.

If anyone would like more information about any aspect of what is going on
at the health center, please know that meetings are open to the public and
we welcome questions and constructive input.  We are back at the health
center conference room as there has been very little public attendance and
the HC conference room is more than large enough to accommodate those who
have been attending the meetings, and we don'€™t have to get the key for
the senior center.  So we are now on a regular schedule of 6pm, last
Thursday of the month.

Heidi Knott Gundling

A FORT BRAGG RESIDENT REMINDS US:

Please publish this last minute notification....another instance of getting the grant, then hiring a consultant, then meeting with the public. When massive opposition was voiced by residents, aware of the problems experienced with bike trails nationwide, with transients camps taking over trails, and crimes occurring regularly along them, the city seemed to drop this project. But no, its back, under a new label, but just as shortsighted.

http://city.fortbragg.com/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Agenda/10292015-206

TAKE ME OUT TO THE BALL GAME

Take me out to the ball game

Take me out with the crowd

Buy me some peanuts and crackerjacks

I don't care if I never get back

Let me root, root, root

For the home team

If they don't win it's a shame

Aahh.

For it's one,

Two,

Three strikes you're out

At the old ball game

 

All I need is just one chance

I could hit a home run

There isn't anyone else like me

Maybe I'll go down in history

And it's root, root, root

For the home team

Here comes fortune and fame

'Cause I know

That

I'll be the star

At the old

Ball

Game

— Jack Norworth & Albert Von Tilzer

SOCO INMATES SAY THEY WERE TAKEN OUT OF ISO AND BEATEN SEVERELY

http://www.ktvu.com/news/30498235-story

ANOTHER FORT BRAGGER WRITES: "Hello, I had the misfortune of finding a body while on my way to catch the VA shuttle Fort Bragg to Fort Miley SF on 8/20/2015. This is not the first murder victim I have discovered but lack of coverage by local news is even more disturbing to me. Bogus story said Matthew was found on sidewalk but he was face down in the road and body was in advanced (Rigor). Lying near a light pole with no cars around on a poorly lit street in a very unnatural pose that suggested he had been dumped there. Word on streets locally is poison heroin has been going around but paper did not post cause of death. I was told you are looking into this and other unexplained deaths. Would like any info and any help I can offer. Police told me to piss off in town here."

GIVEN THE DATE & FIRST NAME, we assume the writer above is referring to this brief item in the August 27, 2015 Fort Bragg Advocate News: “On Thursday, Aug. 20, a bystander called the Fort Bragg Police Department to report a person lying on the sidewalk in the 500 block of South Harrison Street. A FBPD officer arrived at about 4:40am and discovered Mathew Humecky, 55, of Fort Bragg, unresponsive, Sheriff’s Captain Greg Van Patten said. Life saving efforts were unsuccessful. Humecky’s cause of death is pending while awaiting blood alcohol and toxicology analysis results.”

CATCH OF THE DAY, October 28, 2015

BLUE ABREU, Ukiah. Vandalism, failure to appear. (Frequent flyer.)

WAYNE CAMPBELL, Redwood Valley. Drunk in public, probation revocation. (Frequent flyer.)

NICHOLAS COCHRAN, Willits. Failure to appear.

JAMES EADS, Willits. Drunk in public.

DENISE FLEMING, Hopland. Honey oil extraction.

SEAN FLINTON, Fort Bragg. Drunk in public, probation revocation. (Frequent flyer.)

WILLIAM HOLT, Ukiah. Drunk in public, probation revocation.

CAROLINE KENDZIOR, Antioch/Willits. Possession of meth for sale, sale of meth, possession of drugs while armed, possession of drugs for sale, pot sale, transport, furnish, receiving stolen property.

MORGAN MCANDREWS, Redwood Valley. Honey oil extraction, failure to appear.

JAMES NORTON, Willits. Under the influence, probation revocation.

JOHN RUYBAL, Possession of meth for sale, receiving stolen property, possession of burglary tools, probtion revocation.

SAMUEL SANCHEZ, Ukiah. Drunk in public, probation revocation, resisting. (Frequent flyer.)

VAN SLAGLE, Willits. Failure to appear, resisting.

CLAUDE TURMAN, Antioch/Willits. Possession of drugs while armed, possession of controlled substance, possession of drugs for sale, ex-felon with firearm, felon in possession of ammo.

ON LINE STATEMENT OF THE DAY

“Let’s say 100 million Americans receive an average government check of $1200/month… i.e., 1.5 months worth for the freeloaders and then it’s all gone.” – nsa

Freeloaders? 56 million of those receiving checks are receiving Social Security. The so-called “Freedom Caucus” is attacking Social Security and Medicare.

Let’s see, the 56 million recipients (not “freeloaders”) have paid into Social Security, some for close to 50 years — THEIR MONEY. The “Freedom Caucus” has absolutely NO right, nor do they have any mandate, to alter the benefits millions have paid for and now collect in their retirement years.

Medicare – The same thing. The 56 million recipients (not “freeloaders”) paid premiums for decades, since its founding, and now, extremist conservatives think they have the right to usurp the benefits this program provides to the retired? Those premiums funded THEIR benefits and the extremists best keep their hands off Medicare as well.

Stop raiding the Social Security trust fund for pet projects. Stop raiding Social Security to underwrite an excessive, corrupt, bloated, fraud-ridden military program. Raise the income limit upon which Social Security taxes are based. Raise the cap!

Those who are retired also vote and when Republicans make moves that are ideologically and functionally anti-American worker, they will be defeated.

AN INSTANTANEOUS HIGH, followed by a crash, diarrhoea, and 'ACID attack' on the teeth: With kids set to binge on 22.3 million extra sweets this Halloween, experts reveal what that bag of lollies will do to their bodies

by Lauren Grounsell

Halloween costumes are designed to spook, but the effects sugar has on the body can be just as scary.

The bags of lollies, chocolate or sugary sweets trick-or-treaters horde on the night can cause a hyperactive sugar rush and subsequent slump, cravings and ‘acid attacks’ on the teeth.

But while the effect sugar has on the body in instantaneous, dentists and dietitians told Daily Mail Australia a one-off binge would not cause lasting damage.

Colgate research showed children consumed an extra nine sweets on Halloween, if a child has nine pieces of caramel, that’s more than 15 teaspoons of sugar.

Accredited practicing dietitian and director of Designer Diets Geraldine Georgeou told Daily Mail Australia sugar started to break down as soon as it was put in the mouth.

‘Pretty much straight away the amylase enzyme in the mouth starts breaking down sugars,’ she said.

The sugars are released to the brain, sending off ‘nice feelings’ and lifting your child’s mood.

‘It can boost your serotonin levels even,’ she said.

‘That’s why some people really enjoy having sugar, it has a chemical affect.

‘But if you do have a high sugar load it may be short lived.

‘What goes up must come down and it happens very quickly, you feel quite tired.

‘You actually then end up setting off a craving, so you seem to be able to keep eating and you’re wondering how.’

Ms Georgeou said a sugar binge could cause some children to get a sore tummy or diarrhoea, but would only lead to obesity if consumed over a long term at high levels.

Australian Dental Association chairman of the Oral Health Committee Dr Peter Alldritt said each lolly or chocolate a child consumed was like a ‘sugar attack’ on their teeth.

‘Lollies or chocolates are basically sugar bombs,’ he said.

‘Kids go home, they stuff themselves on these lollies, fall straight in to bed and many aren’t even brushing their teeth before they do it.

‘The Halloween party is continuing all night long as the bacteria in the mouth ferments the sugar causing acid and tooth decay.’

Dr Alldritt said while one lolly would not cause a cavity, the number one cause of tooth decay was the consumption of sugar foods and carbohydrates over a long period of time.

‘It’s not a one off occasions that’s going to kill your teeth, it’s the casual consumption over a long term.’

Dr Alldritt suggested parents let their children eat their lollies in one sitting, as grazing on high-sugar sweets over a period of a few hours would cause a continuous ‘acid attack’ on the teeth.

Sticky lollies that become stuck to the teeth should be avoided, and parents are encouraged to get their children to brush their teeth twice a day for two minutes.

Dr Alldritt said while Halloween is a fun, parents could make it less damaging to children's teeth by handing out toys or trinkets instead of sugary treats.

Professional dietitian Gabrielle Maston said parents should try and moderate how much extra sugar their kids have on Halloween.

‘What parents can do is hide some of it and have a portion to give to them every third or fourth day as a treat,’ she said.

‘And make sure they are fed before they go out and start trick-or-treating.’

(Courtesy, Daily Mail On-Line, Australia)

MOST DANGEROUS JOBS

A deckhand on a shrimp boat in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico recently packed his suitcase, announced to nobody in particular that he was going to Kmart, and walked off the stern. The ship's captain, asleep at the time, awoke when he heard the Kmart announcement, and laughed. He didn't hear the splash, however, and he fell back asleep. It was the middle of the afternoon. The deckhand's body was never found, but his suitcase was. It contained a change of clothes.

Last year Rene Olier, a Gulfport fisherman, awoke in the middle of the night with chills. He suspected he had sunstroke from a day on the water. The next morning he felt pain on the hand that he had used to scoop bait. He figured he had been bitten by a horse fly. When his arm swelled, his wife drove him to a local emergency room. He was diagnosed with an infection caused by flesh-eating bacteria. A day later, his organs began to fail. Doctors told him that his arm had to be amputated if he wanted to have any chance of survival. In fifty years of fishing in the Gulf, Olier had never heard of flesh-eating bacteria. "We want people to be careful," he told a reporter from the Hattiesburg American. "It's out there."

Steven Branch, a fifteen-year-old from Bayou La Batre, on the Alabama coast, was working as a deckhand on a shrimp boat called Nettie Q when his baggy shorts got caught in a winch, the mechanized apparatus that hauls trawl nets aboard once they fill with shrimp. Branch was dragged by his shorts into the winch. Another deckhand, checking the net, heard a loud thump, but it was too late. Branch was dead within seconds. Winches are responsible for nearly one third of all fatal onboard injuries in the Gulf of Mexico. Interviewed after the accident, Dominick Ficarino, the owner of Dominick's Seafood in Bayou La Batre, called the winch the "root of all evil."

Commercial fishermen have the second-highest occupational fatality rate in the US, 80.8 per 100,000, which is nearly twenty-five times the national average. (Loggers come first, with a rate of 109.5 per 100,000.) Since 2000, an American fisherman has died, on average, every eight days. This fact provides the premise for Deadliest Catch, a Discovery Channel series that has been airing since 2005 and has turned charismatic captains like Sig Hansen and Phil Harris into national celebrities. It follows crab fishermen on the Bering Sea, where they contend with freezing waters, apocalyptic storms, heavy machinery, and waves the size of a four-story building. The show is responsible for creating the blue-collar reality genre; knockoffs about commercial fishing alone include Lobster Wars, Wicked Tuna, Swords, and Trawlermen.

When Deadliest Catch began filming a decade ago, Alaskan crab fishing was the deadliest job in the United States. It has since been eclipsed by shrimp fishing in the Gulf of Mexico. Shrimp is the foundation of the American fishing industry. In 2003 it eclipsed tuna to become America's best-selling seafood. When an economist conducted an inquiry for The New York Times to determine why shrimp consumption more than doubled between 1980 and 2007, he found that it was largely due to the rise of seafood fast food chains and the popularity of Forrest Gump, whose title character becomes a shrimp boat captain. Americans now consume 1.2 billion pounds of shrimp a year, or more than four pounds per person.

Nearly three quarters of that shrimp comes from the Gulf. It is a uniquely productive region for shrimp, thanks to the Mississippi River and its gargantuan nutrient load. Nitrogen and phosphorous leached from the heartland's agricultural soil is carried by the river into the Gulf, where they help to grow algae, which shrimp eat. In recent decades, however, industrial agricultural practices have dumped far too much nitrogen into the river, causing algal blooms at the mouth of the Gulf to grow so large that they absorb all of the water's oxygen and create dead zones that push the shrimp further out to sea…

(Nathaniel Rich, A Most Dangerous Occupation)

IT’S NOW VERY CLEAR that Exxon has been spending millions of dollars to prevent public action against a slow-motion catastrophe it itself was well aware was on its way. The company’s own research pointed to global warming as a serious problem almost 40 years ago — but it has gone all out to confuse the issue, basically trying to get itself another few decades of profits at humanity’s expense. The cynicism is remarkable. Meanwhile, David Roberts has a piece pointing out the McCarthyite tactics the House science committee has been using to persecute and intimidate scientists, especially but not only those working on climate. If we fail to grapple with climate change in time to avoid catastrophe — which seems ever more likely — it won’t be because we didn’t have the knowledge to realize the problem, or the tools to fix it. It will because of cynicism and greed that, given the stakes, rise to the level of evil.

— Paul Krugman

THE SAME OLD SHIT, BUT EXQUISITE SHIT

by Manuel Vicent

(Translated by Louis Bedrock)

Around 1975, on a sidewalk of Greenwich Village in New York City, a youngster devoted himself to painting t-shirts, which he sold to tourists. When Andy Warhol passed by, he would buy a shirt for ten dollars apiece and chat with the young man. At first glance, he was a street kid like so many homeless black kids that lived in abandoned houses. One day, Warhol saw that corner had been abandoned. The kid had vanished. Now he was playing clarinet in some local pubs with friends.

Years later, on an October Monday in 1982, Warhol had an appointment to meet the famous German gallery owner, Bruno Bischofberger who arrived with the kid that had painted shirts and whose name was Jean Michel Basquiat. Although as an adolescent he had played at running away from home and being a vagabond, and had flirted with drugs, he was actually an upper middle class kid, born in Brooklyn, the child of an Haitian man and a Puerto Rican woman, and had even attended a school for gifted students called “The City-As-School”. The German art dealer had discovered him as a painter and had rescued him from the street; he was beginning to become famous.

That day, Bischofberger, Basquiat, and Warhol had lunch together in a vegetarian restaurant in Soho and Andy learned that the young man with his colleague Al Diaz had started the fad of painting subway cars and neighborhood walls with spray painted graffiti.

—So you were that mysterious being who signed his work as SAMO on the walls? —said Warhol.

SAMO was an acronym from the expression “Same old shit”.

Little did the passengers on those trains imagine that they were surrounded by works of art. These schizophrenic doodles, angry protests against consumerism, would have commanded fabulous prices if they had been sold years later at Christie’s but by that time the cars had been scrubbed with detergent and the subway cars ran unblemished by order of City Hall; Basquiat now produced oil paintings that were exhibited in the best galleries.

During that lunch, Basquiat tried to return the 40 dollars that Andy, a while ago, had spent on his shirts. In this first meeting, Andy did a portrait of him with a Polaroid and in exchange Basquiat gave Warhol a painting of the two of them that he painted that very afternoon. From that day on, Basquiat began to form a part of the frenzied troupe of The Factory. However, this common adventure lasted a short time. Basquiat died the 12^th of August in 1988 from an overdose of heroin in his apartment on Great Jones Street. In the final auction, more than 50 million dollars was paid for one of his paintings.

Andy Warhol felt the same sudden fascination for Basquiat that he had felt for Truman Capote after seeing his photo on the flap of his first novel, Other Voices, Other Rooms, in which Capote looks like an angelic queer. From that day on, Warhol pursued him by incessantly writing him letters, by waiting for him in the doorway of his house until he got what he wanted.

He became his friend and he photographed him, painted him, and put him on the cover of Interview, the flagship magazine of The Factory, and from that moment on the two of them appeared together at all the Grand soirees of New York City.

The first time this occurred was in 1966 at the inauguration of a show launched by Warhol: his Exploding Plastic Inevitable, with the group The Velvet Underground and the singer Nico performing songs about heroin, transsexuals, and sadomasochism, which was followed by the legendary Black and White Ball that Capote organized that same year in the Plaza Hotel to celebrate the success of In Cold Blood, replete with divas, jewelry, and stars: Frank Sinatra, Mia Farrow, Sammy Davis Jr., Norman Mailer, Harper Lee, Katherine Graham, among other pompous celebrities. It was there that a female admirer approached Warhol, snatched his wig, and ran off. It appears that this silver toupee was auctioned at Sotheby’s and a collector paid 10,000 dollars.

The lad of the painted shirts as well as the angelic queer degraded themselves along with Warhol as if dealing with a corrosive substance. In a portrait from 1979, Capote began to show the effects of alcohol and the drugs to which he remained addicted. Behind him were his years of fame and his great achievements, the nights of drunkenness in the legendary discotheque Studio 54, surrounded by his friends Warhol, Bianca Jaggar, Elizabeth Taylor, and other golden dogs with diamond collars from Tiffany’s.

The angelic queer began to look like a bulldog. This is how Warhol described him: “Truman sits there and rubs his eyes like he was kneading something; the he takes his hands away and everything about him is red; the whites of his eyes are red, and his eyelids are red too, and he looks like his dog with its ears down.”

Capote fussed around The Factory every day trying to scandalize that troupe of hangers on with his sexual exploits. He boasted of having fellated John Huston more than four times. Truman also talked about Humphrey Bogart. He claimed that he had tied Bogart to the bed and told him, “You’ll have to go along with whatever I do to you.”

A very nervous Bogart responded, “Fine. But just don’t put it in your mouth.”

When Capote died, in 1984, Basquiat had already become a hanger on. Warhol left the planet in 1987. Basquiat waited just a few months before joining them in the Cosmos.

According to his secretary, Pat Hackett, “Andy Warhol was impressed by fame, old, new or decrepit. By beauty. By innovative talent. By whoever was the first to do something. By money, and especially the great, ancient, solid fortunes.”

In other words, the same old shit; but exquisite shit.

DOROTHEA DORMAN snagged me this morning as I delivered papers to the Ukiah Co-op. Some people may have been tempted to substitute a livelier verb for “snagged,” maybe accosted or ambushed. Me? I'm fond of the old girl, a pioneer hippie and long-time resident of the deep hills of West Redwood Valley, but she can be tedious. She clutched a sheaf of crank lit, which she waved at me and declared by way of greeting, “Your diet is totally wrong!” (If I had a nickel for every diet lecture I've gotten from emaciated and clearly unfit hippies, well…) "Nothing wrong with red meat, whiskey and chocolate," I said. "It will kill you," Dorothea said. The grande dame of organic is not a great one for irony. Behind us a tweeker was striding up and down Gobbi yelling at no one in particular. People walked past him as if he weren't there. Dorothea said she'd found a new diet that had turned three of her gray hairs black. "Congratulations," I said. "And you're totally wrong about vaccination," she said, rolling on. "I've been totally wrong about a lot of things, Dorothea, but I'll tell you, and only you, the secret of my longevity. Ready?” "You really should try this diet," she said. "Booze and meat will kill you." "Dorothea," I said, "life gets us all, but in the mean time if you keep a song, any song, in your heart you'll go straight to gluten-free heaven.”

WHAT ARE WE GOING to do about all those little slackers out there? Math scores for fourth and eighth graders are worse than they were two years ago, and reading grades were not much better, flat for fourth graders and lower for eighth graders, according to the 2015 Nation's Report Card. The results of the test, officially known as the National Assessment of Educational Progress or NAEP, were released Wednesday.

BIRD, BIRD don't edge me in;

I've had enough today

Of your fine-honed lay

That prickles my coarse skin.

 

I'm neither out nor in

Before that simple tune

As cryptic as a rune,

As round and pure as the moon,

And fresh as salt-drenched skin.

 

This shivers me; I swear

A tune so bold and bare,

Yet fine as maidenhair,

Shakes every sense. I'm five

Times five a man; I breathe

This sudden random song,

And, like you, bird, I sing,

A man, a man alive.

— Theodore Roethke

IS THIS THING EVEN ON? — On Every Tuesday 1-3pm the Mendocino County Library, Fort Bragg Branch is hosting: Is This Thing Even On? Help with electronic devices, e-readers and computers. Stop by the Fort Bragg Branch Library every Tuesday from 1-3 pm and receive assistance with your electronic device. Bring in your e-readers, phones, tablets, ipads or basic computer questions and we will help to download and understand how to work your device. Just stop by the Fort Bragg Branch Library any Tuesday from 1-3pm and get the help you need in figuring out your electronic device or basic computer assistance.

ANIME/MANGA CLUB — On Thursday, November 17, at 3:30 pm, at the Mendocino County Library, Fort Bragg Branch is hosting an Anime/Manga Club. Teens from ages twelves to nineteen join use for drawing, discussion, and showings of episodes. We’ll have everything from how to draw books to dvds to check out. For more information, contact Elizabeth at the Fort Bragg Branch Library.

TWEEN BOOK CLUB — On Friday, November 20, at 4:30 at the Mendocino County Library, Fort Bragg Branch is hosting the Tween Book Club. Join us for discussion and snacks at our Tween Book Club. November’s book is Heist Society by Ally Carter. It will also be our last meeting before 2016 and there will be a preview of next year’s books. For more information, contact Elizabeth at the Fort Bragg Branch Library.

LAMEBRAINS DEBATE US ECONOMY

by Jesse Byrnes

The third Republican presidential debate was expected to be a battle between Donald Trump and Ben Carson, or Trump and the rest of the field.

Instead, much of the debate was a fight between the 10 GOP candidates on stage and CNBC, the business network hosting the contest.

Several candidates bashed the media in general and CNBC moderators John Harwood, Becky Quick and Carl Quintanilla in particular over the questions asked during the two-hour debate.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) accused the hosts of pitting the candidates against each other in order to promote a “cage match.”

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) ripped Quick after a question about his bookkeeping skills and whether he had the “maturity” to be president due to his finances.

“You just listed a litany of discredited attacks from Democrats and my political opponents, and I’m not going to waste 60 seconds detailing them all,” Rubio shot back.

Rubio later won applause for likening the mainstream media to a super-PAC for Hillary Clinton, the Democratic presidential front-runner.

After the debate, Republican National Committee (RNC) Chairman Reince Priebus ripped CNBC, saying it “should be ashamed of how this debate was handled.”

In a statement, he said the moderators were “extremely disappointing and did a disservice to their network, our candidates, and voters.”

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who got less screen time than many of the other candidates, also ripped the network.

“They didn’t control the debate, plain and simple. It was not a fair debate in that regard,” he said in an interview on CNN afterward.

Bush campaign manager Danny Diaz said he spoke with CNBC during the debate and expressed dissatisfaction with the amount of time Bush got.

"We know we can't do debates with MSNBC. Now we can't do anything with CNBC. So I think NBC News has a problem on their hands," said Mike Shields, a former top aide at the RNC.

"The crowd turned on them, the candidates kind of stuck together. It's a real problem going forward [for the network]," Shield said, adding that he hadn't heard of campaigns expressing worry about the network ahead of the debate.

"Why would anybody think that CNBC, of all places, would be something where you would have a 'gotcha' debate?" Shields asked, noting the next debate will be held by a competing network, Fox Business.

"CNBC did a terrible job, they didn't include Sen. Paul in the promotional material, they put him in the bathroom, and they gave him very few questions. And, frankly, they did a bad job for all the candidates," Chip Englander, the campaign manager for Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), told The Hill.

The "bathroom" remark alluded to the greenroom provided to Paul, which was smaller and less luxurious than those given to other candidates.

Englander also expressed dissatisfaction that CNBC didn't bring up the issue of marijuana, a topic where Paul drew headlines in the last debate by going hard after rivals like New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.

"It seems so goofy that CNBC didn't have any time," Englander said. "I mean, the debate is in Colorado. ... That would have made a lot of sense, but CNBC didn't do really anything that made sense tonight."

While the focus seemed to be squarely on CNBC after the debate, the candidates also turned their fire on each other while on stage.

Ohio Gov. John Kasich opened with a blistering attack focused on Trump and Carson, suggesting neither of the leading candidates is fit for the Oval Office.

“My great concern is that we are on the verge, perhaps, of picking someone who cannot do this job,” Kasich said.

Kasich also had a fiery exchange with Trump later in the debate, when the real estate tycoon went after the former congressman for being a managing partner at Lehman Brothers, the investment bank that went bankrupt in 2008.

“I was a banker,” Kasich said of his role in the bank, saying he traveled the country and “learned how people created jobs.”

Bush tangled with Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), who has surpassed his former mentor in polls, by criticizing his fellow Floridan for missing Senate votes to run for the White House.

“You can campaign, or just resign and let someone else take the job,” he said.

“Someone's convinced you that attacking me is going to help you,” Rubio shot back, dismissing the criticism and insisting he wasn't running against Bush or anyone else.

Rubio's aides were beaming following his performance, with a top aide saying there there was "no question" Rubio got the better of a high-profile exchange with Bush, who suggested the senator campaign or "resign."

"We had a very good night," said Rubio spokesman Alex Conant. "I think we expected there would be more questions about the economy than there, were since it was an economic debate."

Bush perhaps had the most at risk in the debate. After announcing he was cutting staff and expenses, the one-time front-runner needed a strong performance to offer assurances to his supporters, but did not appear to get it.

Carson went into the debate on par for the first time with Trump, who has led the race alone for more than three months.

The retired neurosurgeon is ahead of Trump in Iowa, and also beat the real estate mogul in a national poll from CBS and The New York Times this week.

He faced intense pressure heading into the debate to show he understands details about major economic issues and told reporters hours before the debate that he hoped those watching would be able to "find out that doctors actually do know something about economics.”

It seems unlikely the debate will knock Carson from his perch, even if he did not particularly stand out with his answers.