Mendocino County Today: Tuesday, May 3, 2016

• Bern Rally
• Thad Shack
• A-Courtin'
• Short Fuses
• Coach Azzi
• Extreme Expenses
• Jungle Zip
• Willits Identity
• Yesterday's Catch
• Kent State Investigation
• Broadband Meeting
• Tony!
• Library Events
• Tree Frog
• Knucklehead Election
• Clown Show
• Water Barons

Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) will hold a Town Hall gathering in support of Bernie Sanders for President this Saturday May 7 at the Ukiah Convention Center on School Street. Starting at 1pm, Tulsi will explain why she resigned as Vice Chair of the Democratic National Committee to endorse Senator Bernie Sanders for President.

Tulsi Gabbard, first American Somoan and first Hindu in Congress, is concluding her second Congressional term. A veteran of two combat zone deployments to the Middle East, now a Major in the Hawaii National Guard and a rising Democratic Party star, she took significant political risk in her endorsement of Bernie Sanders.

When asked by CBS news (3/9/16) about how her DNC resignation and Sanders endorsement would impact her political career, Congresswoman Gabbard responded “I was heavily warned by people who care about me to not endorse Senator Sanders because of that fear of retaliation and, look, that fear is something that exists in a lot of folks I’ve heard from.”

“But there is far too much at stake here to let politics get in the way of what’s real. And what’s real is war and the cost of war.

I’ve seen it and felt it first hand through my deployments to the Middle East. I cannot stand on the sidelines and do nothing when we have a clear choice that many people are not informed about.”

“There are very stark differences between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders and I’m going to do everything I can to explain what those differences are so they can at least make an educated, informed decision.”

“We need to make a distinction between experience and judgment. I’m looking for someone who exercises good judgment, someone who has foresight and considers what the consequences of military course of action will be. I know Senator Sanders has that good judgement to assure we are no longer spending our precious resources and lives in these counterproductive regime change wars and instead use those resources to invest in our communities right here at home. “Such wars,” she noted in her earlier endorsement “undermine our national security and economic prosperity.”

While there is no admission charge to the Town Hall gathering with Tulsi, donations to defray expenses of this event supporting Bernie Sanders for President will be greatly appreciated. Seating is limited to 500 so it may be worthwhile to arrive a few minutes early. The Ukiah Convention Center is located at 200 South School Street between Church and Stephenson near Alex Thomas Plaza. Sponsoring this event is Bernie Sanders - Mendocino County; for more information see the group’s Facebook page or call 485-2068.

— Phil Baldwin

THIS AD in this week's paper made me laugh out loud. The accompanying picture had me on the floor:

“Clow Ridge 40 with cabin. Beautiful 40 acres of mixed forest and tall redwoods on Clow Ridge. Pretty little cabin for camping. Gentle ground just over ridge top, so still gets some sun. Only 3.5 miles off highway, behind locked gate for privacy. $239,000.”

IF THIS SHACK gets ten minutes of sun a year, it's only when King Sol is directly overhead for a few minutes those few annual days of the year. I know the place. It has an interesting history as the once-upon-a-time residence of an unusually volatile Santa Claus-looking dude named Thaddeus 'Thad' Thomas who shot my friend Chris Gray point blank off the adjoining stool at the Boonville Lodge one night. That weird turret you see here? When Thad was feeling especially paranoid, he would grab his M-1 and hoist his considerable bulk up there to pull guard duty all night. The night Thad shot Chris Gray, Chris, a very tough guy, had climbed off the floor for another couple of beers while the cops hauled Thad off. Chris said he had a bad headache the next day and soon discovered he needed some basic reconstructive surgery. Thad Thomas died in jail while Thad's family's lawyers made sure Chris Gray never got the money Chris should have got for the harm done to him by the Troll of Nash Mill.

THE ONLY UNTOWARD occurrence we heard of over Beer Fest weekend was of the attractive young woman at AV Market's sandwich counter being mooned by a young drunk. She laughed it off as more of a joke, but I'd call it a wobbler, trending upwards on the pervo-meter.

CONSIDERING that some five thousand or so people descend on Boonville for this drinking event, incidents were a remarkable near nil.

IS IT ELECTION tensions, or what? Last week, in the course of a minor business transaction, a necessary business transaction on my end, I told the lady that I thought she looked very nice. She said, "Spare me your bullshit, Bruce. What do you want?" Then we have our Sheriff, the very soul of amiability, gathering signatures for his mental health initiative in front of the Boonville Post Office. A local woman brushes past him and tells him to bleep off. She drives away in a vehicle sporting a Hillary bumpersticker. Not that there's necessarily any connection, but…

JENNIFER AZZI, the iconic basketball player and coach, is coming to Boonville this summer where she will conduct a clinic for Anderson Valley girls. More, lots more on Ms. Azzi's local appearance as it draws closer. She's much in demand, of course, and how Boonville became one of her destinations is an interesting story in itself. Stay tuned. All will be revealed.

CHARITY, HOSPITALITY HOUSE-STYLE.

This is the break down of what they spent on the Extreme Weather Shelter. Check out the expense for transporting 8 miles. Hell, check out the entire list.

CLOSE CALL FOR CLOVERDALE WOMAN

A mother-of-four says she is lucky to be alive after suffering a fall during a Mexican zip lining excursion.

Heather Gladden, 36, of Cloverdale, California, suffered bruising and cable burns throughout her body after a zip line malfunctioned during what was supposed to be a romantic and relaxing getaway with her husband Ryan last week.

The Gladdens booked a zip line excursion through the Nogalito Eco Park in Puerto Vallarta last Thursday, during one of the stops on their Mexican cruise.

Mrs Gladden says she watched her husband zip line across the 2,100-foot canyon without incident.

But when she was attached to the line and sent down the canyon, something happened halfway through and she suddenly plummeted 500 feet straight down into the jungle.

'Next thing I could hear the trees rustling through my ears and the noise of the tree branches,' Mrs Gladden told KPIX. 'And then just a hard yank and then when I opened up my eyes I was upside down in the tree.'

Mr Gladden watched the accident play out from the other side of the canyon, and immediately ran to his wife's aide, directed by her screams.

When he found his wife, she was dangling upside down from the rainforest canopy, about 40 feet up.

An ambulance was called and paramedics helped free Mrs Gladden and take her to the hospital.

While doctors wanted her to stay overnight, the Gladdens decided to return to the cruise ship, which would have left without them. The cruise then returned to San Pedro, where they parked their car, and they immediately drove home to northern California, arriving early Sunday morning.

At Sutter Santa Rosa Regional Hospital, Mrs Gladden says she was treated for bruising and cable burns. She says she may have a torn ACL but she's lucky in that she didn't actually break any bones. She credits the rainforest canopy with breaking her fall.

While the Gladdens believe that the zip line snapped or broke, the company that runs the tour says it was not as dramatic.

Nogalito manager Nuria Flores González told the Press Democrat that the zip line did not detach or break at one end, but that it dropped when a cable support mechanism failed.

'It got weak in some way and that’s what made it drop lower than normal,' Flores said. 'I believe it was a slow drop.'

The zip line company is unaffiliated with the cruise line that the Gladdens booked.

KEEP IT OUT OF WILLITS

To the Editor:

Several weeks ago, the Willits City Council's ad hoc committee on cultivation, distribution, etc. of marijuana brought back a recommendation to the full council to ban all types of this activity in the city boundary. They also recommended a more streamlined enforcement protocol be implemented. The extended timelines in the present system make it costly and ineffective at resolving complaints.

Though I thought the local reporting on this issue was accurate, the issue is important and deserves further explanation.

Adopting a "pot ban" ordinance in the city is not about a crusade of ridding the world of pot. It is about a community which has experienced a pot culture for 40 years and saying this is inappropriate for neighborhoods. I would hope our goals are loftier than following a tide which is preying on the weaknesses of others for profit and taxes.

Willits has acquired an identity we did not seek. Little did our county legislators know that by allowing the subdivision of ranch and timberland in the ’70s, the outcome would be a culture which would define us. I believe most people in the city favor a vision of prosperity outside the marijuana market and strive to teach their children the same. Now is the time to reinforce the message that, regardless of the actions of others, we are committed to building community through positive endeavors which do not chase every dollar regardless of its heritage.

We need to attract new teachers and doctors to Willits. We need our children to raise their children here, confident that they are in a culture which prioritizes values over money.

The people I am seeing in council chambers are not these individuals. They are not living with a neighbor whose garden odor diminishes the use of their property, whose guard dog upsets their serenity, and whose associations threaten their safety.

The state has a new law on the books. While it allows cities to legalize pot (which it really cannot do, only the feds can), it also allows cities to completely prohibit it as well. Since the passage of Proposition 215, it has been somewhat unclear what authority cities had to regulate "medical cannabis." It is now clear we have the right to forbid it completely.

Larry Stranske and I feel strongly that this is the right message to send from our community. If the county wishes to embrace it, so be it. I read recently that Mendocino County was second in the state for asset seizure. That surely must make reasonable people question the motives of those rules. Remember, seized assets do not go to the general fund of the county, but are split between the agencies enforcing the action.

Willits citizens, go "Google" Willits. See what people are seeing when they first look at our town. Then imagine you are on a panel trying to recruit a doctor to our new hospital and are talking to a young doc, just starting a practice and a family. They have choices all over the country. What are you going to tell them when they ask what kind of community this is? How are the schools? What kind of friends will we have and what influences are their kids going to encounter? Wouldn't it be preferable to tell them, we are committed to building a community with higher standards than our neighbors, and we want our reputation to stand out from the county and perhaps the state? While we certainly recognize people have desires which do not improve the collective good, we are taking a stand to chart another identity for our town and hope it might be a model or haven for others who feel the same.

I would dearly love for the city to present a single face on this issue. Based on discussions to date, Holly Madrigal, Madge Strong, and Ron Orenstein seem to prefer some sort of "middle ground." I believe they are missing the importance of the message. A message of perception. This is not whether people should have medical or recreational pot. This is about the identity of a community and its ability to think independently. I would encourage those who agree with Larry and I to help convince my friends on the council of the importance of this action.

Bruce Burton, Mayor

Willits

CATCH OF THE DAY, May 2, 2016

BERRY BRADFORD, Garberville/Ukiah. Drunk in public.

JOSHUA DERR, Lucerne/Ukiah. Failure to pay, probation revocation.

ANTHONY EGGLETON JR., Berkeley/Ukiah. Leaded cane, billyclub, blackjack, slungshot, sandclub or sap-sandbag.

NICHOLAS HALVORSEN, Fort Bragg. Elder abuse resulting in great bodily harm. (Frequent flyer.)

MICHAEL MONAHAN, Covelo. Ex-felon with firearm, controlled substance, paraphernalia, offenses while on bail.

GREGORY MOTA, Los Vegas, California/Ukiah. Unspecified offense.

MIRANDA MULLINS, Willits. Under influence, controlled substance, paraphernalia.

JACOB OFERRALL*, Covelo. Resisting, probation revocation.

NOAH POWELL, Ukiah. DUI.

MARIO PULIDO, Ukiah. Protective order violation.

NICOLE SANDERSON, Laytonville. Under influence, controlled substance, paraphernalia.

RUSSEL WATSON, Fort Bragg. Probation revocation.

(*Backpfeifengesicht)

LAWSUIT SEEKS TO QUERY FBI INVOLVEMENT IN 1970 KENT STATE MASSACRE

FOIA Lawsuit Seeks Responsive Records Related to FBI Informant Believed to Have Fired Shots Before National Guard Killed Four Student Protesters, Wounded Nine Others


Buffalo, NY — On the 46th anniversary of the 1970 Kent State campus massacre, attorney Michael Kuzma will file a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the US Department of Justice (USDOJ), demanding responsive records related to the FBI’s role in escalating situations in the moments immediately before the 1970 Kent State massacre.

Many harmed by the massacre on May 4, 1970, including survivors, witnesses and deceased victims’ families, have sought for over four decades to establish the FBI’s involvement in this tragedy, which captured the passion of the Vietnam-era student protests, exposed the extent of government repression and the willingness of the government to use deadly force against young people who dissent.

The complaint specifically requests that the USDOJ produce all responsive records related to Terrence Norman, reported at the time of the massacre to be a young FBI informant. Norman is believed by families and observers to have fired the first shots from a revolver at Kent State University on May 4, 1970 —in the chaos that immediately followed Ohio National Guardsmen opened fire at unarmed Kent State student protesters, resulting in the deaths of Allison Beth Krause, Jeffrey Glenn Miller, Sandra Lee Scheuer and William Knox Schroeder, and wounding nine others.

Kuzma stated, “The time to tear down the veil of secrecy surrounding the involvement of the FBI and Terrence Norman in the assassinations of four Kent State University students is now.” Attorney Daire Brian Irwin, handling the complaint filing, added, “Through this lawsuit we hope to learn if the Kent State killings are another example of the FBI’s Counterintelligence Program (COINTELPRO*), specifically their ‘New Left’ project targeting student dissent, run amok.”

The FBI is refusing to release Norman’s dossier on privacy grounds. The government will have 30 business days to answer the complaint.

*COINTELPRO was a secret and illegal FBI program designed to monitor and neutralize non-violent protest groups and political dissidents deemed by the FBI to be a danger to national security.

* * *

Dear Friends of the Kent State Truth Tribunal,

On this 46th anniversary of the Kent State Massacre, we are pleased to share:

Jennifer Schwartz will be standing and speaking for Allison Krause at the Kent State commemoration. Simultaneously at noon on May 4, 2016, Jennifer's speech will be posted and available for perusal at MendoCoastCurrent.

Last month we received advance word of a Kent State-related FOIA lawsuit being brought against the DOJ to be filed in Federal Court on May 4, 2016 by Michael Kuzma, Esq. Please read the media advisory below.

Michael Kuzma and I will discuss May 4th Kent State on the Project Censored radio show, this Friday, May 6th from 1-2pm pst (KPFA, Berkeley). Listen LIVE (adjust for your timezone) at this link: https://kpfa.org/listen-live/ | The podcast will post at ProjectCensored.org following.

Peace & Restorative Justice,

Laurel Krause

www.TruthTribunal.org

THE BROADBAND ALLIANCE of Mendocino County will hold its bi-monthly Public Meeting on Friday, May 6th, 10am - 11:30am at the Community Foundation, 204 S. Oak St., Ukiah. A call-in option is available by dialing : 641-715-3341; Access code: 108 1131#. Please check our website for a schedule of Public Meetings for 2016. www.MendocinoBroadband.org

Diann Simmons
Administrative Coordinator
Broadband Alliance of Mendocino County
707-489-4663
www.MendocinoBroadband.org

TONY is a lovely dog—one of the sweetest we've met at the shelter.

He greets everyone with gentle affection. He is a bit cautious and timid at the shelter, but we know he’ll blossom once he knows he is safe and loved. Tony needs patient guardians who will make sure that he knows he is adored and safe at last. There are few things more wonderful than watching a deserving dog realize they are finally home! Tony is a 55 pound, 2 year old, mixed breed dog. He's been at the shelter way too long. Come and meet him—298 Plant Road in Ukiah. Check out ALL the dogs and cats on the shelter's webpage: http://www.mendoanimalshelter.com

Volunteer Orientation this Wednesday at 5:30.

EVENTS & CLASSES at the Ukiah Library This Week:

www.mendolibrary.org

TREE FROG

ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

This is the best the Republic can belch forth?!? Hillary is the consummate hack and water carrier for the oligarchs. The Kochies tenuous embrace of her shows that she is someone the plutocrats can live with. Especially galling are her current bloviations about how she’s going to rein in the banks. The only thing militating against that premise is her entire previous career. The Goldman Sachs speeches she refuses to release the text of is merely the tip of the iceberg. Under a Hillary regime, the too-big-to-fail boodle boys can expect the same sort of treatment they’ve received from the Obama administration. She’s made dozens of previous supportive comments about the Trans Pacific Partnership, but seeing the traction Bernie is getting on the issue, she’s now skeptical. Anybody want to bet how long her disapproval will last once Bernie is neutered? Nanoseconds at best. Anyone expecting her to make an FDR pivot to become the scourge of the monied interests has been standing too close to the exhaust fumes.

And as for Trump, he’s nothing but rampaging id. Entertaining as hell, but I’m sure folks walked away from Mussolini speeches saying the same thing. His negatives are even higher than Hillary’s (which is quite an accomplishment when you think about it). The Republicans only hope may be to patiently wait for the self-destructive tendencies of the Democrats.

This is actually a pretty safe bet. Ritual unintentional suicide has been a cherished Democratic quality since the times of George McGovern. The Clinton contingent may be salivating at the prospect of running against someone as ludicrous as Trump, but it may be that the electorate ends up seeing through their increasingly tired schtick as well. The current establishment Democratic party is Wall Street friendly (as opposed to Main street friendly), internationally expansionist and guaranteed to continue provoking trouble in areas that don’t matter to us (like the Ukraine and South China Sea), pro-big business and in favor of trade bills that further strip jobs, rights and opportunities from the middle class.

I still pine for a ‘none of the above’ option on the ballot. Failing that, I’ll probably do the same thing I did in 2012 – vote for a 3rd party candidate that reflects my views. A wasted vote? I say casting a ballot for either of these two knuckleheads is a failure of imagination.

SEND OUT THE CLOWNS

by James Kunstler

In this decade of maximum peril, a prankish God delivers two maximally detested candidates to lead the faltering nation as events run ahead of all the convenient narratives. For instance: the idea that Republican “insiders” can block Trump’s path to the nomination. The insiders may be phantoms after all. For instance, the loathsome Koch brothers have already made their move onto Hillary’s side of the game-board. Trump won’t miss their campaign contributions for a New York minute (while Hillary might find a way to stuff the cash into some Cayman Islands lock-box of the Clinton Foundation).

Events played right into Trump’s smallish hands last week when protesters outside a Donald rally in Costa Mesa, CA, waved Mexican flags and placards calling for the reestablishment of Aztlán del Norte. Kind of proves his point about illegal immigration, don’t it? Trump also supposedly blundered in saying that Hillary had only “the women’s card” left to play in her donkey trot to the election. I’m not so sure he’s wrong about that — though the indignometer needle danced through the red-line after he said it.

Has it come to this? The women’s party against the men’s party? What kind of idiot psychodrama is this country acting out? Mom and dad mud-wrestling in an election year hog-wallow? A Reality TV show writ large from sea to shining sea? Are there no better ways of understanding the difficulties we face?

Lately Hillary has been boasting of her ability to bring Wall Street to heel, theoretically after Wall Street installs her in the White House. Voters (especially women) might want to pay attention to Hillary’s lavish praise for President Obama’s handling of the banking turpitudes still unresolved seven years after the crack-up of 2008. What did the Dodd-Frank Act (signed by “O” in 2010) accomplish except to provide more lucrative work-arounds, by Too-Complex-To-Comprehend legalese, for Too-Big-To-Fail banks? It was written by bank lobbyists and lawyers and was about 2,270 pages longer than the old Glass Steagall Act that Bill Clinton vaporized in 1999. Do you suppose that Bill and Hill might have talked about the repeal of Glass Steagall back then? Do you wonder what she thought about it at the time… being a lawyer and all?

This week attention is fixed on the Indiana primary where Devil Bat Ted Cruz desperately makes his last stand against the Trump juggernaut. It seems that former House Speaker John Boehner actually succeeded in driving a wooden stake through Cruz’s hypothetical heart by casually remarking that he was “the most miserable sonofabitch I ever worked with.” Kind of hard to explain that one away, though Ted tried by sending out his new attack dog Carly Fiorina and claiming that he never worked with the Speaker of the House — a risible claim for a national legislator in the same party.

All of this would be amusing if the USA wasn’t sliding into the twilight of what many people call “modernity” — which is code for the techno-industrial hyper-complexity we’ve been enjoying lately as a species. We have yet to comprehend the diminishing returns of heaping more complexity on what is already too complex. Exhibit A for most of the common folk must be the Affordable Care Act (also signed by “O” in 2010). Whereas the shrewd stylings of Dodd-Frank surely mystify the public, most full-functioning adults understand what it means when their health insurance premiums go up by 20 percent and the new deductible makes it unthinkable to even consider going to the emergency room.

The sad truth may be that rackets of this kind are unreformable, and that we can’t begin to do things differently until they collapse. It should be obvious, for instance, that American health care needs to move in the opposite direction from where it has been going — from giantism, as epitomized by colossal merged mega-hospital corporations, back to some kind of local clinic care in which doctors and their subalterns are not burdened by an oppressive matrix of Charge-Master grift. There may be less razzle-dazzle technology in that future model, but much more hands-on care, plus an end to the kind of financial pillage that bankrupts households for relatively routine illnesses (the $90,000 appendectomy).

Likewise in virtually all other areas of American life, the real trend as yet un-discussed in this election campaign, will be unwinding and downscaling of the onerous, toxic hyper-complexity of the age now passing and finding our way to a workable re-set of what used to be known as political-economy.

In the meantime: a clown show.

(Support Kunstler’s writing by visiting his Patreon Page: https://www.patreon.com/JamesHowardKunstler?ty=h)

CALIFORNIA'S THIRSTY ALMOND ACREAGE INCREASED BY 60,000 ACRES IN 2015!

by Dan Bacher

As Governor Jerry Brown urged Californians to “Save Our Water” by taking shorter showers and letting our lawns turn brown, corporate agribusiness continued to expand its acreage in water-intensive almond trees in the Central Valley.

California’s 2015 almond acreage is estimated at 1,110,000 acres, up 6 percent from the 2014 revised acreage of 1,050,000, according to a California Department of Food and Agriculture report released today. (www.nass.usda.gov/...)

That’s up 60,000 acres from 2014’s estimated acreage. “Of the total acreage for 2015, 890,000 acres were bearing and 220,000 acres were non-bearing. Preliminary bearing acreage for 2016 was estimated at 900,000 acres,” the report stated.

Kern, Fresno, Stanislaus, Merced and Madera — all located in the San Joaquin Valley — were the leading counties in almond production. These five counties had 73 percent of the total bearing acreage. Nonpareil continued to be the leading variety, followed by Monterey, Butte, Carmel, and Padre.

“This acreage, planted in Drought Year Four, commits about 180,000 AF/year to those trees, a constant burden on groundwater basins and our political system for every one of the next twenty-five years,” commented onthepublicrecord.org. “Had the Brown administration banned new permanent crops in basins with declining groundwater levels, that demand might be in annual crops, flexible in times of high climate variability.”

The almond acreage was estimated at 870,000 acres at the beginning of the drought, according to onthepublicrecord.org. That means that the total almond acreage in California increased by 240,000 acres during the drought!

Representatives of fishing groups, environmental organizations and Indian Tribes have criticized the expansion of acreage for almonds, a water-intensive crop, at a time when Sacramento River winter-run Chinook salmon, Central Valley steelhead, Delta and longfin smelt, and other fish populations are being driven closer and closer to extinction by poor water management by the state and federal governments — and when urban users are mandated to cut back on water use by 25 percent.

Last March, Stewart Resnick, Beverly Hills billionaire and the largest tree fruit grower in the world, revealed his efforts to expand pistachio, almond, and walnut acreage during the drought at the annual pistachio conference hosted by Paramount Farms.

During the event covered by the Western Farm Press, Resnick gloated about the increase in his nut acreage over the previous ten years, including an 118 percent increase for pistachios, 47 percent increase for almonds, and 30 percent increase for walnuts.

Resnick and his wife, Lynda, are among the most avid proponents of Governor Jerry Brown’s California Water Fix, the new name for the Delta Tunnels, potentially the most environmentally destructive public works project in California history. The tunnels will divert water from the Sacramento River for export to agribusiness corporations on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley, Southern California water companies, and oil companies conducting fracking and other extreme oil extraction methods in Kern County.

For more information about the Resnicks and their influence over the UC system and California politics, go to: www.dailykos.com/