Mendocino County Today: Thursday, May 5, 2016

• FB Demonstration
• Shelter Approval
• Berntime Ukiah
• Drivethru Knockouts
• MRC Retaliation
• The Manueuver
• Enchanted Forest
• Crab Opening
• PA Broke
• Facebook Sniper
• Your System
• Homeless Questions
• Rhody Show
• Radio Money
• Werner's Ghost
• Wild Thing
• Lady!
• Yesterday's Catch
• Bernpower
• Snail
• Interventionism
• Clinton Trolls
• Trump Words

FORT BRAGG SCHOOL people are so unhappy with Superintendent Chuck Bush that they will hold an early morning demo at the district office Friday morning beginning about 7:30am. To emphasize parent and staff unhappiness, lots of parents will keep their children at home Friday, which will cost the district a big slug of ada (average daily attendance) money. Few staff will be demonstrating as they fear retaliation from Superintendent Chuck Bush, but they say they will be with the parents in spirit, if not the flesh.

SUPES DISCUSS THE ANIMAL SHELTER

TUESDAY'S ANIMAL SHELTER agenda item began a bit later than expected, so the various cliques gathered in the hallway of the County complex, Low Gap Road, to exchange woofs and meows, so to speak.

WHAT WAS DIFFERENT about this board discussion? Upon great urging, there was--finally--a counterpoint to never-ending negativity, because members of the Silent Majority not only showed up but spoke. About five or so employees made it to the meeting, bringing along shelter guests, a cat and a dog.

MARY JANE MONTANA, recently hired interim shelter manager, delivered a Powerpoint presentation, which described changes that have taken place in the past two months, along with short, medium and long term goals--a combination of upgrades to the Shelter facility, a review of County policies and procedures involving the Shelter in general and the animals in particular, etc. etc. Ms. Montana was on the case!

THERE WERE AT LEAST half a dozen positive statements…

AND THEN it began. There was a mother/daughter team who trekked all the way from Lake County (twenty miles east) to voice some bitter feelings about Ms. Montana. A parade of Shelter bashers duly bashed Shelter management....some with new slants on how terrible the Shelter is, some with the same tired complaints, and one speaker introduced an opaque conspiracy theory.

THE BEST was definitely saved for last. Ms. Mountanos (the Mountanos' hoped to become non-profit proprietors of the Shelter) rambled well over her allotted three minutes, and when the supes voiced their desire for her to please wrap it up, she refused, but finally handed the board clerk a hefty tome (the result, perhaps, of the 40+ Public Information Requests made over the past five months).

THE LAST SPEAKER was Mr. Mountanos, a large, bald man who bears a faint resemblance to Mr. Clean. Since the Shelter really has improved, his claim concerned missing Shelter funds — where are they, why is no one being honest about them, who took them, how much was taken? was met skeptically. Mountanos put the amount at north of a hundred thou, a preposterous number given the modest cash flow at the Shelter.

WHEN rhetorically challenged by Supervisor John McCowen and CEO Carmel Angelo to produce evidence of large amounts of missing money, there was silence from the Mountanos claque. Ms. Angelo tried to explain that an investigation had taken place, was completed, but the County was "not at liberty" to talk about it — being a public entity. Supervisor McCowen commented that the speaker, Chrome Dome (not his description), was not helping his case — “whatever it was” — and that an impromptu public debate was not going to take place at the Supe's meeting.

CEO Angelo explained that neither she nor staff knew about the speaker's suggestion about a large amount of missing funds. The speaker's time was up, and he'd been slam dunked… A bit more action ensued, and then Chair Gjerde got involved, exclaiming, in reaction to the speaker’s statement that his questions were never going to be answered, that in fact, several Supervisors had recently spent a good amount of time meeting privately with him, and that the board has spent many, MANY hours discussing the shelter, and reminded everyone that “it's not all happening in this room.”

BY THEN, everyone was ready to make for the exit. But before that happened, the board more or less gave the green light to County and Shelter staff to keep on keeping on. Mention of the need to begin examining the possibility of re-opening the Coast Shelter was made. Supervisor McCowen repeated that the HHSA standing committee recommended that the Shelter request for proposals was closed and no new RFP process would occur for the foreseeable future, and that the focus should now be on making the improvements mentioned in the Powerpoint presentation from the obviously capable and smart interim Shelter director. Supervisor Tom Woodhouse said that was exactly his position. McCowen joked about his verbosity, and a little after 5:30, the meeting adjourned.

UKIAH! SATURDAY AFTERNOON! BE THERE!

Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard - in Ukiah Saturday

for Bernie Sanders

I'LL HAVE THE DOUBLE WHAMMY BURGER.

Early Saturday morning the Ukiah PD discovered Nicholas Brown, 19, of Texas "unresponsive inside a black Honda Accord at the Jack in the Box drive-through on Airport Park Boulevard." Apparently Nick made it into the drive-through lane before he conked out, as we shudder to imagine his drive to the fast food emporium. The cops thought he might represent a "medical emergency," i.e., dead, and his vehicle being all locked up, the police knocked out a window to see if Nick was still among the living. He was, but a pair of soporifics, booze and pot, had overwhelmed the young Texan who was duly booked into the County Jail for DUI and his cool-o black Honda impounded.

THE NEXT NIGHT, a little after one am Sunday morning, Alfredo Romero, 30, was conked out in the drive-through lane at McDonald's. Romero was unconscious behind the wheel of his Chevvy Impala, motor running. He was also charged with DUI and an additional charge of driving on a suspended license.

STEVEN JOHNSON, an attorney with the Mannon-King-Johnson law firm in Ukiah, tried to take Mendocino Redwood Company’s case about MRC being wrongly taxed by the Albion-Little River Fire Protection District to the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday. (The County collected the fire protection tax for the Albion-Little River Fire Protection District and is thus in a legal position of possibly having to return it if it wasn’t kosher.)

Mr. Johnson arrived at the podium during public expression and asked for ten minutes to argue his case. Board Chair Dan Gjerde, after consulting with County Counsel, said he preferred ordinary procedure, i.e., three minutes and routine denial of MRC’s claim — followed by whatever legal procedure MRC chose to follow up with. Mr. Johnson launched into a high-speed recitation of County regulations reading outloud as he followed the text of some arcane regulations in front of him with his finger, using the word “pursuant” time and again, along with “code section” this and “code section” that. Of course he ran over his allotted three minutes when Chair Gjerde, mildy irked that he had to listen to a lawyer read a bunch of “pursuants” to him like a child, replied, “I get your point. We have your declaration.”

But that didn’t stop Johnson who kept firing pursuants, seeming to finally conclude with “If the claim is denied, we will file a suit against you,” but, without pausing, continuing with more pursuants.

Gjerde: “Your time is up, Sir.”

Johnson tried to resume his “pursuant” bombardment again.

Gjerde: “Your time is up.”

That was quickly followed by Supervisors John McCowen and Dan Hamburg almost in unison: “Mr. Johnson, please!”

Mr. Johnson was finally out of pursuants.

MRC says the Albion-Little River Fire Protection District overcharged them $9,834 for parcels that Johnson (and MRC) insists are not taxable by the Albion-Little River Fire Protection District. He may be technically correct. But, one: They still expect firefighting services from the Albion-Little River Fire Protection District on mutual aid; two: The billionaire Fisher family could afford $9,834 for fire protection and the friendly relations with their local fire department it would engender; three: Mr. Johnson’s several hundred dollars per hour will eat well into whatever MRC may get back from the Albion-Little River Fire Protection District, and four: the nice public relations image MRC is trying to foster is undermined by what looks like obvious petty retaliation against the fire district that initiated the initiative that would declare MRC’s hack-n-squirted trees to be a fire danger and public nuisance.

THE MANEUVER

I saw the two starlings

coming in toward the wires.

But at the last,

just before alighting, they

 

turned in the air together

and landed backwards!

that's what got me — to

face into the wind's teeth.

— William Carlos Williams

ENCHANTED FOREST TO OPEN

An unusual forest on the northern Mendocino Coast where the arms of ancient “candelabra” redwood trees mysteriously rise straight toward the skies will become accessible this week to the public for the first time in more than 100 years.

The so-called “Enchanted Forest” will become accessible to hikers on Friday via a new 2.3-mile trail at the southern end of the 58-mile Lost Coast trail, according to Save the Redwoods League.

http://www.pressdemocrat.com/news/5573914-181/new-trail-opens-on-lost

CRAB SEASON OPENING, BUT…

State health and wildlife officials are opening another segment of the California coastline to Dungeness crab fishing, but coming so late in the season, it’s a bit of a mixed blessing.

http://www.pressdemocrat.com/news/5573812-181/more-north-coast-waters-opened?ref=menu

INTERESTING story in the ICO of 29 April — we get the paper a week later in Boonville — informing the outside world that Point Arena is broke. Among America's smallest cities at 449 citizens, few of them entirely sober — and with a minimum 3 (count 'em) persons remaining on the city council, only one of whom was elected, it's difficult to reliably turn out a legal quorum to do business. With a budget running $130k in the red, and the tiny town's sewage treatment plant requiring major sludge removal at also estimated at $130k, for a total of $260k in red ink, and a part-time city manager that costs PA $50,000 a year, and an underused commercial pier also running a deficit, Point Arena's future is imperiled.

POINT ARENA was incorporated during Prohibition as much of the rest of Mendocino County went dry. PA and Fort Bragg went on pounding it down, but unless PA incorporated the good times were over. The fog eaters quickly organized as a town with its first city council voting unanimously to keep on drinking. Both towns, incidentally, also boasted several maisons de joie, institutions that guarantee a lively after hours life.

SO, CLASS, PA was determined to keep the County's blue noses at bay while the veins on their own noses throbbed bright red and turned purple. The little town did just fine until Mendolib's first wave, most of whom made their way in the drug trade, and here we are today with 234 registered Democrats out of 256 registered voters — Billeryville!

INTERESTING historical note: Point Arena's sludge pond had to be fenced in 1970 because one rare warm afternoon a gang of disoriented hippies was spotted skinny dipping. (You could look it up.)

FORMER FIFTH DISTRICT SUPERVISOR Joe Scaramella remembered Point Arena’s incorporation from the time he grew up there: “Mendocino County was voting dry. The saloonkeepers in Point Arena felt that if the county went dry and Point Arena was not incorporated, Point Arena would be dry like the rest of them. My father wasn't a saloonkeeper then. He was involved in other things. But he was totally sympathetic with the notion of incorporation. He wasn't a citizen yet, so he couldn't vote or participate politically or officially. The saloonkeepers circulated the required petition. They brought some alcohol drinking workers in to live in the local hotels to establish residency and they got everyone who was sympathetic to sign up. Mendocino did go dry. There were no saloons in Mendocino County. So if you wanted a drink you pretty much had to go to Fort Bragg or Point Arena.

A READER NOTES that the Press Democrat's comment line really, really needs to be edited:

On your [the PD’s] facebook page, there is an article just a few days back about Trump and his team having to cross a road/barriers/fence/etc to get to a SoCal event. Please locate it, and scroll down through the comments. Quite a ways down you have "Rinna Elisa" (fake name, count on it) writing the following: "Why hasn't anybody taken one for the team and killed him yet? Him walking across that freeway, there was an open shot. Too bad he didn't get ran (sic) over. (string of smiley faces) pinche pendejo"

BTW, that last little two word shot in espanol is pretty nasty. Know what it means?

Are you folks OK with this kind of commenting? It's been up a few days now.

Let me know what you think about that post. Be sure and BAN Rinna. That's what I would do if I ran the show. Or let me know that that kind of posting is good with you folks. If it's gonna be open season, I might have to sign up for Facebook. :-) Just to keep up on the body count.

Death threats or encouraging assassination; that's for chumps and armchair warriors. Stop it, please. Seriously.

“THERE’S ONE PERSON standing between them and the White House,” Thompson said, “and that’s our candidate, Hillary Clinton.”

THOMPSON SAID. That would be Congressman Mike Thompson. Used to represent the grape growers of our area but moved east, a district over, to became congressman for an area with even more grape growers. You'd expect a middle-of-the-road extremist to be for Hillary, but Tom Hayden?

HERE'S HAYDEN:

"I am endorsing Hillary Clinton despite our many disagreements because her base is the Democratic Party coalition of African Americans, Latinos, Asians, women and union households."

NO SURPRISE there either, at least on my part. I always thought the Hayden sector of "the new left" were a bunch of opportunists, that Renne Davis, Jerry Rubin, Hayden and the rest of them would trim their sails according to their self-interest. Love the way Hayden checks all the PC boxes, neglecting the Palestinians, of course.

BUT FRED GARDNER put the Hayden political type best back in '76:

GET BACK GET BACK IN THE SYSTEM, Fall ‘76

Down at my neighborhood bar the other night

This old student leader showed

This round’s on me I wanna be the nominee

Gonna need your vote… You and Jimmy Carter…

Smile, Jesus loves you

 

Get back get back in the system

That’s the real theme of his campaign

Get a suit and a tie and remember to smile

Think positive don’t be negative

don’t be bitter don’t be angry don’t be hostile…

Went to see Woodward playing Redford

Dustin Hoffman played by Carl Bernstein

Martha Mitchell who really blew the whistle

Never got mentioned, she got no credit

on the silver screen

 

Get back get back in the system

Martha was a crazy drunken dame

Not a nice respectable reporter

Watergate shows nothing has changed

Except for a few big shots somewhere…

And old friend of mine just finished her training

Now she says serving Werner’s fine

You should heave heard her back in 1969

Serving some salesman wasn’t her line

(still ain’t mine)

 

Get back get back in the system

Invisible forces can be felt

Act your age and find your own space

Play the game (what game?) with the hand you were dealt

Don’t complain, don’t be bitter don’t be angry don’t be hostile… All right!

Down at my neighborhood bar the other night

This old movement leader showed

This round’s on me, I wanna win the primary

And I need your vote, I said okay make mine a Cuervo Gold

Make it a double

 

Here’s to you student council leaders

Old generation and new

I hoped by now we’d have taken power

from you and Overthrew your system

your system your system your system

WHO ARE THEY?

To the Editor:

Just read the 4/9 article “Local proposals for helping the homeless in Ukiah” – obviously a complex problem with so many issues, and so few answers. I don’t know much about the homeless.

Who are the homeless, where did they come from and why are they homeless? How old are they? For those who are younger than, say, 18, who is responsible for their care? Why can’t (or won’t) their parents take care of them?

For working age homeless, what job skills do they possess? Have they graduated from high school, and if not, why not? Are they single parents, and how many children do they have? Do they have a job? If not, do they expect to ever have a job? Are they willing to take extremely menial jobs to help support themselves?

How many homeless are drug addicted? Do they have any source of income or support other than government programs? Are they content to continue in their current situation? Do they see any possibility of being able to help themselves or are they resigned to needing support from others for the foreseeable future? Is it fair to view drug addiction as a form of peer- or self-inflicted slavery?

How many receive retirement pensions, or are old enough to receive Social Security payments? How many are on disability? Does their disability prevent them from doing every kind of job, or only certain kinds of jobs?

Regarding those organizations which try to help the homeless, how many are there? Does anyone have a list of all the agencies, programs, charities, groups, etc. who devote funds or services, in whole or in part, to help the homeless? For each entity, how much do you spend in money and labor to aid the homeless, and where do you get the funds? How much of your funding does NOT come from government sources, including government grants? Has anyone tallied up the total cost of resources devoted to homelessness in this area?

For each of the various help-the-homeless entities, how much of your effort is devoted to helping the homeless avoid or end homelessness, and how much is devoted toward making the homeless more comfortable? What personal traits do the homeless need in order to escape from their situation? What percentage of homeless people are willing and able to acquire those traits and skills, and how many do you judge will never acquire those traits, even if appropriate remediation programs were practical and available?

Given that most jobs require employees to arrive at the job clean and at least minimally well-groomed and clothed, are there any local facilities offered to the homeless to allow them to satisfy these requirements on a daily basis?

Finally, do any of you “help-the-homeless” entities have answers to any of my questions? How many believe those questions have little or no relevance to their efforts? How many believe privacy issues prevent getting answers to some or all of these questions? How many “help-the-homeless” advocates accept or respond with answers like “one size doesn’t fit all” or, “there’s a wide range” or, “it’s hard to be specific” or, “we shouldn’t generalize”? I’d like to understand the problem, but I just don’t know where to find any real answers, and it seems to me it’s hard to solve a problem if you don’t understand it.

Alec Rorabaugh, Hopland

RHODY SHOW at Mendocino Coast Botanical Gardens This Weekend!

Join Us This Weekend For The 39th Annual

John Druecker Memorial Rhododendron Show.

This year's juried show is expected to be one of the largest on the entire Pacific Coast with over 1,000 entries. The show will feature a cascade of vibrant rhododendrons, raffles, a silent auction, people's choice awards, educational displays, food, and more!

Call For Entry: All rhody growers are welcome to enter their best trusses for judging. Truss entries will be accepted at the Gardens on May 5th from 5:00pm to 7:00pm and May 6th from 9:00am to 1:00pm.

Visit www.gardenbythesea.org or www.noyochapterars.com for more details.

ANOTHER LOOK AT THE KZYX BOARD MEETING

Editor,

A few thoughts on the MCPB (KZYX) board meeting in the pool table and ice machine room of the Cliff House in Fort Bragg on Monday, May 2.

The income statement slapped together for the meeting shows something like $540,000+ to run the station this year, and every year before it's similarly enormous -- $500,000 or $600,000 -- I may be wrong but I think one year it was $675,000. That's many times what it should cost. (Compare: KNYO does the whole job for $12,000 a year.) So where are all those mysterious extra hundreds of thousands of dollars going every year? We're going to find out at some point; you might as well come clean now. I know where $140,000-to-$190,000 have been coming from every year -- your tax-derived CPB grant, that bailed you out and saved you from utter failure every year of MCPB's existence -- but you're still getting that grant (and still failing were it to vanish) so...? And it's nice that you're paying lip service again to serving the Native American population by squirting the Native American News podcast through the transmitter, but that's a matter of a few mouse clicks to schedule it in the automation and from then on it just cues up and plays itself, and those mouse clicks were omitted by the last couple of people you unwisely picked to pay to make decisions at the station, and that came back to bite you when you lost $40,000 of your grant complement this fiscal year because of not meeting a BOLDFACED REQUIREMENT to serve the local Native American population.* It's nice of Lorraine to have noticed and clicked that mouse, and maybe next year CPB will turn the money flow back up to where it was, but that's all that amounts to: getting back on the higher tier teat on the mutant public udder you're used to, because you can't make it without Uncle Sugar, because you won't even try to learn how. As long as KZYX is supported by tax money, everyone in the listening area should have a vote on how things go there, and a truly complete financial breakdown should be published. I heard that several recent years of complete financial records are still being withheld from even the paying members.

*Here's how I'd do it. Call the local Councils of Tribal Elders, or whatever they call themselves -- call a casino and find out; ask to speak to Vinny or Chooch -- offer them regular airtime for free, and send them each a fully configured suitcase studio ($300), and maybe a nice fruit basket. And put them on the air.

Meg, your agenda-item thank-you to John Sakowitz for his years of service on the board, where you ended with a very low but recordable kvetch about how expensive it was to have him to kick around (now that you don't have to anymore) said volumes about your misplaced focus. KZYX has always been hemorrhaging money because of bad management that Sako has always been trying to get to the bottom of and you thwarted him at every turn, and the legal expenses you incurred punching your own self in the face to swat away the pesky fly of the FCC complaint were your cabal's own fault. John Sakowicz didn't cost you that money; you did. You should smile sheepishly and admit it. And get some ice on that eye. Ice is civilization.

I remember yez all praising John Coate to the skies about what a genius he was at running the station, and I remember all the propaganda he produced on his own behalf for the web page, including about putting thousands and thousands of dollars and so much work into making things reliable -- professional battery backup systems, and so on -- and a photograph of him on a ladder with the breeze ruffling his hair -- and still when the power flinks off for ten minutes so does the entire radio station. It isn't that it's such a big deal to have dead air or static for ten minutes every once in awhile, it's rather that's just another example of what terrible judges of character and quality and expertise you boardmember insiders have been when you chose people to be essentially the station's hood ornament. John Coate was a disaster for KZYX, in a long line of similar disasters. It's still too soon to tell about Lorraine but, people, your track record is not good.

And the praise and applause I read about for Mary Aigner's reign when she finally relinquished her deathgrip on things... Meg, outside your bubble, Mary Aigner is nearly universally reviled, and for strong reasons. I don't know if you saw the Johnny Depp Alice In Wonderland, but Helena Bonham Carter (the Red Queen-- "Off with their heads!") in that film is an uncanny portrayal of Mary Aigner in mannerisms and persona, to anyone paying attention. And it's a testament to the chilling attitude she engendered at KZYX that the airpeople who hated and feared her during her power still fear to speak up about it, and about their issues with bad station policy going forward. Like the inability of you people to recognize that Safe Harbor is the law. It's the law -- it's not something the jury's still out about; it's not a gray area; go to the FCC's site and read it. It's been the law for decades. Nobody at the FCC gives a rusty God damn if you swear during Safe Harbor hours.

I heard a couple of people whining about how hard it is to run a radio station. It's not, actually. But if it's that hard for you, if it's just so difficult, maybe it has something to do with the way you're doing it; I mean, maybe you're just really bad at it and you should look around and turn your efforts to something that's not so hard for you. I've run newspapers that were much more complicated operations than KZYX, and much more open to letting people in to do what they need to do, and -- you talk about egos? these were writers. A radio station is a collection of equipment that, set up properly, is as reliable as a refrigerator, as easy to use as a refrigerator, for any number of operators, and only slightly more expensive than a refrigerator to leave plugged in and running. Thousands of dollars a month for just phones and internet? That is a total failure of imagination. And the discussion about buying special equipment and the difficulty of training people to do a remote broadcast or two over the course of the next year? Half the people at KNYO do a remote broadcast once or twice a week each, with their own computers and mics and mixers -- I do one myself every two weeks -- and the instruction sheet has two lines: 1. Open B.U.T.T.*, check levels, look at clock, press start. 2. To end your show, press stop.

*Broadcast Using This Tool, a free streaming program that sends your sound through the web to the radio transmitter.

About the thing I keep hearing from KZYX cheerleaders and, the other day, from Lorraine -- that the airpeople don't want to be paid: Perform this thought experiment with me: pay the airpeople right now for their work for the past year. Now imagine how many of them will tear up a check for hundreds of dollars and say your money's no good here, and how many more of them will smile happily and spend it on something they need to live, or a visit to the dentist, or a new set of tires. And if, as a couple of your entitled cheerleading sycophants have said, it's a piddling amount of money so why bother? Well, if it's that piddling an amount, and it is to you, why not just pay it? And if the added bookkeeping is the objection, let the airpeople log on to the bookkeeper's website and submit their time in chunks or all at once, whenever it's convenient, and let a service like PayTrust send out the checks. And let the bookkeeper use her bookkeeping program to send out the 1099 forms at the end of each year.

Bob Page, the one with the throat ailment, who was leaving being on the board, said essentially that there's no reason to ever say anything that upsets people in a meeting, that it's not helpful. In fact, the person he directed his stage-whisper at, Derek Hoyle, had been telling nothing but the necessarily told truth, as had been the behoodied Mister Wright, who yez called the cops on and had them twist his arms behind his back and hustle him away. Stuart Campbell is responsible for a great deal of what was very wrong with the so-called old regime, as well as for the abysmal administrative mess left for Lorraine to navigate in her first month. And there he is on the board again, where he really, really doesn't belong. Where is there any indication that he'll help or properly represent the airpeople any more than he did last time? And the paying members, much less the taxpayers who've been bailing out MCPB every year, see above, were not given the opportunity to vote either for or against him. Keep that in mind. If he ever votes on or even attempts to use his position on the board to influence you on any issue that doesn't directly relate to proper treatment of the airpeople, that's not justice nor any kind of democracy, and it's probably also not legal.

But there he is on the board, so -- Stuart, if you'll arse yourself to take a step in the direction of doing what you're at least on paper in the job to do, look into Romantic Rahoolio's having made an airperson cry by berating her, nearly his first act as so-called program director. Look into how he threw a monkey wrench into the prospect of having Jerry Fraley stick around and make and keep various systems of the station attached in the right places and functioning properly for the airpeople. Instead, after Jerry graciously pulls your chestnuts out of the fire one last time he's likely gone for good. You're the airpeople's representative, Stuart. Represent the airpeople. And confront the rest of the board to get the airpeople paid what they're worth, because the ones preparing for and doing their shows are why the station's there in the first, second and last place. And when my show is on KZYX, I will expect to be paid.

Marco McClean

memo@mcn.org

http://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com

THE GHOST OF WERNER ERHARD

Editor,

Let’s remember some recent history about KZYX Board member Stuart Campbell.

As Interim GM and Executive Director, he did the following:
 1. He conspired to appoint the chair of the search committee for the station’s next GM and Executive Director, 
2. He appointed many of the search committee’s member,
3.He required the search committee to copy him on all confidential email (including the resumes of other applicants), 
4. He pressured several search committee members to write him letters of recommendation, and, 
5 One day before the deadline for applying for the job, he, in fact, applied for the job after publicly stating at a Board meeting that he had no interest in the job.

Stuart Campbell committed the most egregious breach of ethics I have seen in the over 20 years I have served on various boards and commissions. This is ironic, of course, because Campbell bills himself as a philosophy professor and so-called “professor of ethics”.

There is one thing the public should know about Campbell. Remember Werner Erhard, a.k.a Jack Rosenberg?

Werner Erhard, the con man?

Werner Erhard, the master manipulator?

Werner Erhard, the mass mind control specialist?

Werner Erhard, who plagiarized a hodge-podge of philosophical bits and pieces culled from pseudo- existential philosophy, bogus motivational psychology, and other bullshit, and called it EST?

Werner Erhard, who was also a philosophy professor and so-called “professor of ethics” at Sacramento City College.

Werner Erhard, who left EST in disgrace and vanished amid reports of tax fraud and allegations of incest?

Werner Erhard, who released many of his top executives at EST to become executives at Scientology? Scientology had collected filing cabinets worth of materials about Erhard and EST, and aggressively recruited executives and other members at EST.

Well, Stuart Campbell worked for Werner Erhard. In fact, Campbell was himself a top executive at EST.

Specifically, Stuart Cambell was Erhard’s “trainer of trainers”. He traveled the country, training the other con men and other ethical defectives who actually led the EST seminars.

EST trainers were notorious. These insanely authoritarian trainers enforced numerous arbitrary “rules”, requiring applause after participants “shared” their most intimate secrets and vulnerabilities in front of the EST group. They deemphasized reason in favor of EST dogma. They degraded, insulted, and intimated participants.

Yup. Stuart Campbell was Werner Erhard’s trainer of trainers. This interesting factoid emerged in December when Campbell interviewed before the KZYX Board for the job of GM and Executive Director. Thank God he wasn’t hired.

The person who was hired as GM and Executive Director, Lorraine Dechter, should never turn her back on this guy. Campbell is back. He sits on KZYX’s Board of Directors again. And he wants her job.

Campbell masquerades as some sort of silent, long-suffering Zen master, but he is, in fact, dangerous.

Extremely dangerous.

Stuart Campbell lusts for power and control, just like in the old days at EST, and just like his mentor and former boss, Werner Erhard.

John Sakowicz, Ukiah

I NEVER SAW A WILD THING

sorry for itself.

A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough

without ever having felt sorry for itself.

— DH Lawrence

LADY

Lady earned her name, as she is very elegant and dignified! She is a mellow dog who is content just to be in your company. She has lived with young children and was playful and affectionate with them. Given her gentle nature and the fact that she is rather low maintenance, she would be a great dog for a family who wants companionship without a lot of added work! Lady is great on a leash and loves to go out for walks. This gorgeous girl will be a welcome and wonderful addition to a loving home. Lady is 56 pounds, and about 2-1/2 years old. She is spayed, and ready to go home today1

CATCH OF THE DAY, May 4, 2016

JARED CARLSEN, Ukiah. Domestic battery.

BRETT COOPER (reposted from yesterday with current mugshot), Willits. Kidnapping for robbery, rape, spousal rape, oral copulation, sodomy or sexual penetration, assault with a deadly weapon not a gun, discharge of firearm in inhabited dwelling, criminal threats, attempted murder.

CHRISTOPHER FILBERT, Ukiah. Controlled substance, paraphernalia, petty theft, probation revocation.

MICHAEL GARVER JR., Boonville. Failure to appear, probation revocation.

ANTHONY HIDALGO, Ukiah. Honey oil extraction, parole violation.

DEBORAH LAWRENCE, Ukiah. Controlled substance, probation revocation.

ARMANDO LOPEZ, Covelo. Assault with deadly weapon not a gun, vehicle theft, false imprisonment, controlled substance, conspiracy.

JOHN MARKS JR., Ukiah. Protective order violation, county parole violation.

ADRIAN MCWHINNEY, Ukiah. Drunk in public, probation revocation.

MARK MORRILL, San Francisco/Ukiah. Controlled substance.

FRANKLY MORRIS, Ukiah. Domestic battery, DUI, suspended license.

HANNAH NELSON, Ukiah. Failure to appear.

BYRON PETERS, Ukiah. Failure to appear.

ALAN POLLICK JR., Ukiah. Drunk in public, probation revocation. (Frequent flyer.)

DANNY RAY, Fresno/Ukiah. Drunk in public, probation revocation.

SANDRA RUCKER, Piercy. Failure to appear.

CAMERON STORER, Ukiah. Loitering, inference with business, dirk-dagger.

JASON WOFFORD, Eugene, Oregon/Ukiah. Drunk in public.

SANDERS: “THE CONVENTION WILL BE A CONTESTED CONTEST”

by Rebecca Savransky

Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders on Sunday said there will be a "contested contest."

In a news conference from Washington, D.C., on Sunday, the Vermont senator urged superdelegates from states where he has won the majority of the vote to reconsider their support.

"It is virtually impossible for Secretary Clinton to reach the majority of convention delegates by June 14 with pledged delegates alone," he said.

"She will need superdelegates to take her over the top. The convention will be a contested contest," he said.

Sanders said during the news conference he expects to do well in the upcoming primaries. Indiana votes Tuesday, where a new poll shows Sanders trailing Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton by 4 points.

He said he has won state after state after a strong majority of younger people have voted for him, noting he hopes to win Indiana in next week's primary. His campaign has sparked energy and excitement, he said, which will translate to a large voter turnout in November.

Sanders then detailed the delegate math, saying that to win the majority of pledged delegates, he needs 65 percent of the remaining delegates in the upcoming contests.

"There are 10 states remaining where we are going to be vigorously competing, plus the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands and Guam," he said. "We believe that we are in a very strong position to win many of these remaining contests and we have an excellent chance to win in California, the state with far and away the most delegates."

He admitted that the road ahead is a "tough road to climb," but not an "impossible road to climb."

"We intend to fight for every vote in front of us and for every delegate remaining," he said.

"In terms of super delegates," he said, "obviously we are taking on virtually the entire Democratic establishment."

He said many of the super delegates committed themselves to his rival Hillary Clinton even before Sanders got into the race.

"While we have won 45 percent of the pledged delegates in real campaigns where the people have spoken Š we have won only 7 percent of the superdelegates," he said, contrasting the number of superdelegates he's secured with how many Clinton has.

"Those superdelegates in states where either candidate, Secretary Clinton or myself, has won a landslide victory, those superdelegates ought to seriously reflect on whether they should cast their superdelegate vote in line with the wishes of the people of their states."

He also touted his poll numbers in head-to-head match ups with Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump, saying superdelegates should look at who would be the best candidate to defeat Trump in a general election.

"Where Secretary Clinton and I strongly agree, and where every delegate to the Democratic Convention strongly agrees is that it would be a disaster for this country if Donald Trump or some other right-wing Republican to become president of the United States," he said.

"Therefore, it is incumbent upon every super delegate to take a hard and objective look at which candidate stands the better chance of defeating Donald Trump and other Republican candidates and in that regard I think the evidence is extremely clear."

"We must have the strongest candidate to defeat Trump or another Republican and I think the objective evidence is that I am that candidate."

(Courtesy, TheHill.com)

SNAIL

RACHEL & THE ISOLATIONISTS

How Maddow Blew It

by Clancy Sigal

Rachel Maddow got it wrong. She correctly quotes lines from Charles ‘Lucky’ Lindbergh’s Jew-baiting speech at a rally of the “isolationist” America First Committee in 1941 just before the surprise attack at Pearl Harbor when many of us worried about being dragged into a European war that would be a bloody replay of 1914-18.

“The greatest danger to this country lies in (the Jews’) large ownership and influence in our motion pictures, our press, our radio and our government.”

Lindberg accused the Jews, the British and Roosevelt (Rosenfelt according to Jew baiters) of manipulating us into an unpopular, unnecessary war. Incendiary stuff from America’s greatest hero the first to fly the Atlantic solo.

Alas, Lucky Lindy had a fevered fondness for Nazi aviation, Nazi medals and Hitler’s Third Reich.

(And, as we learned later, his passion also extended to Teutonic females three of whom bore him several secret illegitimate children.)

Maddow quoting Lindberg on Jews is meant to tag Trump’s shouts of “AMERICA FIRST!” as a sort of proto-Naziism.

It’s more complicated. The “isolationist” America First Committee, infiltrated by both Nazis and communists (this was before Hitler’s invasion of Russia), tapped into deep antiwar instincts of a broad range of Americans.

“Non intervention” after World War One was not only respectable but massively popular especially in my German-friendly Midwest where the local America First Committee had its Chicago hq. Painful awareness of past butcheries on the Somme, Paschaendale and Argonne Forest was still alive along with bitter disillusionment that “Woodrow Wilson’s war” was good for nobody but the arms-dealing “merchants of death.” On Chicago’s streets you could see war amputees; my dad’s pals had fought on both sides of the muddy trenches.

Although the America First Committee drew anti-semites and crazy FDR-haters, it also numbered pacifists like the socialist party’s Norman Thomas and western progressives like Senators Nye, Wheeler and Bob Lafollette. Novelist Sinclair Lewis, student Gore Vidal and young Jack Kennedy supported AFC.

There’s a tradition, especially west of the Alleghenies, of saying no thank you to war. So, Rachel, “isolationism” can also be a radical antiwar outlook. America First may not be such a bad thing if it signals reluctance to interfere in other countries.

Hillary is an unblushing interventionist. Politically, she’s in bed, “in a cordial, warm and respectful relationship” with the war criminal Henry Kissinger (Chile, Cambodia, Indonesia ad nauseaum). Hillary believes our military is a vehicle for exporting democracy and all those other good things. It’s called imperialism which goes back to the Spanish-American war (to “liberate” Cuba) and the genocidal Phillipine insurrection.

Candidate Trump jiggles back and forth up and down like a yo yo. He’s incoherent and contradictory. But his genius is to know what his audience wants, no more deadly overseas “nation building.” “Unlike other candidates for the presidency, war and aggression will not be my first instinct,” he said in his maiden foreign policy speech aimed at guess who.

Who knows what he’d do in the Oval Office when, like Hillary, he’s confronted with a Pentagon committed to the “long (permanent) war” against the Muslim world. Trump would probably go crazy like Charlie Chaplin in The Great Dictator dancing with a balloon shaped like the world to Wagner’s Lohengrin.

(Clancy Sigal is a screenwriter and novelist. His latest book is Hemingway Lives.)

HEY BERNIE SUPPORTERS: HILLARY HAS A TALKING POINT FOR YOU.

Confident that she has the Democratic nomination pretty much locked down and turning toward a general election contest against Donald Trump, Secretary Clinton’s surrogates and paid Internet trolls are targeting Sanders devotees via email and seeding comment threads on political websites with a low-key sales pitch.

It goes like this: We’re not asking you to vote for Hillary in November. We are asking you to work for and donate to “down ticket” Democratic candidates for Congress, governor, state rep and so on. Oh, and if you could kindly hold your fire against Hillary — because those attacks help Trump — that would be awesome too, thanks.

Like all things Clinton, this tightly scripted DNC-approved don’t-vote-for-me-vote-for-other-Dems argument carries more than a whiff of triangulation, big data analytics and well-managed focus groups. It also reeks of desperation.

— Ted Rall

DO YOU REALLY “HAVE THE BEST WORDS,” DONALD?

After claiming he would “win bigly,” here are the “yuuuge” number of times Trump has mangled his message

by Ollie Gilliam

Donald Trump claims to “have the best words,” but if Donald Trump's speeches are anything to go by, the presumptive Republican nominee could do with an English lesson.

In his victory speech in Indiana, The Donald triumphantly told his supporters that they were going to “win bigly” in the coming months.

His strange use of the word was widely mocked on Twitter — and it was not the first time Trump has been caught mangling his words.

9/11 or 7/11?

Trump, who is now set to win the Republican nomination for president, made the unfortunate mistake of confusing the September 11 attacks with the convenience store 7/11.

While on the campaign trail in Buffalo, New York, in April, he said: “It's very close to my heart because I was down there, and I watched our police and our firemen down at 7/11, down at the World Trade Center right after it came down, and I saw the greatest people I've ever seen in action.”

Made-up football championships

Earlier in the speech, he also thanked Buffalo Bills coach Rex Ryan for introducing him, saying the former Jets coach “won championships” in New York, which did not happen.

“More World Trade Centers”

In another poorly phrased sentence, Trump claimed “we're going to have more World Trade Centers.”

“Yuuuuge”

Trump's most well-known made up word is possibly “yuuuuge,” which he often uses as a replacement for the word “huge.”

“The Bible”

Another slip-up saw him incorrectly call a section of the Bible “Two Corinthians” instead of “Second Corinthians.”

The gaffe led many to claim that his familiarity with the New Testament book — and the Bible itself — was not as strong as he claimed.

To make matters worse, Trump's error came at evangelical Christian college Liberty University, in Lynchburg, Virginia.

“Schlonged”

The real estate mogul has previously said: “I know words, I have the best words.”

And Trump appeared to display a knowledge of Yiddish when he said Hillary Clinton had been “schlonged.”

“Hillary – that's not a president ... everything that's been involved in Hillary has been losses,” he told a crowd of supporters in Michigan in December.

“She was going to beat Obama. I don’t know who’d be worse – I don’t know, how does it get worse?” he asked.

“But she was gonna beat — she was favored to win and she got schlonged. She lost. I mean, she lost.”

“Schlong” is a vulgar term in Yiddish for penis and Trump's use of the word was regarded by many as a sexist slur.

Linguistics expert Steven Pinker told the Washington Post that Trump may not have known the word was offensive.

“Given his history with sloppy language it’s also possible that it’s a malaprop,” Pinker said.

One word or two?

Trump proved numbers are not his forte either on another occasion.

While talking about Atlantic City, where he owns a number of buildings, he said: “If there is one word to describe Atlantic City, it’s big business.”

Realizing he had misspoken, he added: “Or two words — big business.”

The “Department of Environmental”

During a town hall with Fox News in April, he said he would get rid of the “Department of Environmental” because of its effect on business.

Unfortunately for Trump, there is no “Department of Environmental.” He may have been referring to the Environmental Protection Agency, but this is not clear.

Joe Paterno

He made a further gaffe last month while campaigning in Pittsburgh, after asking how legendary Penn State University football coach Joe Paterno — who has been dead for four years — was doing.

“How's Joe Paterno? Are we going to bring that back?” Trump asked, simultaneously stunning and confusing the crowd.

“Right? How bout that whole – How bout that whole deal? And we do love Penn State,” he added.

Hope Hicks, Trump's press secretary, told Daily Mail Online after the speech that the billionaire was referring to a bronze statue of Paterno that university administrators removed form the Penn State campus shortly after the coach's death.

“Wonderful” sun rises

Another of Trump's gaffes appeared to suggest he thought the every day occurrence of the sun rising was a miraculous phenomenon.

Talking about politicians, he said: “I watch the speeches of these people, and they say the sun will rise, the moon will set, all sorts of wonderful things will happen, and people are saying, ‘What is going on? I just want want a job’.”

“Small $1million loan”

Despite claiming to be more of an average Joe than the Washington elite, Trump also claimed a $1million loan given to him by his father was “small.”

Talking about how he made his billions, he said: “My whole life really has been a ‘no’ and I fought through it. I talk about it. It has not been easy for me... My father gave me a small loan of $1million.”

“We want deal”

Trump mocked the way Asian people speak during a speech in Dubuque, Iowa.

“Negotiating with Japan, negotiating with China. When these people walk in the room, they don’t say, ‘Oh, hello! How’s the weather? It’s so beautiful outside. Isn’t it lovely? How are the Yankees doing? Oh they’re doing wonderful. Great.’ They say, ‘We want deal’,” he bellowed.

“Leightweight chocker”

It is not just speaking that The Donald struggles with. He often makes spelling mistakes while typing out tweets, which do not go unnoticed by his almost eight million followers.

“Leightweight chocker Marco Rubio looks like a little boy on stage. Not presidential material!” Trump tweeted in February, spelling the first two words wrong.

Just minutes earlier, he had made the same mistake, tweeting: “Lying Ted Cruz and leightweight chocker Marco Rubio teamed up last night in a last ditch effort to stop our great movement. They failed!”

Both of the tweets were hastily deleted and replaced with the correct spellings.

In another tweet, he wrongly spelled “honor” as “honer.” Trump binned that tweet too.

Witchita, Kanasas and Tusla

His poor spelling was demonstrated yet again when he was campaigning in Kansas in March.

“My friend, & great businessman, Phil Ruffin is speaking today in Kansas for me at the Witchita Pachyderm Club,” he wrote, spelling Wichita wrong.

His campaign later sent out a press release which spelled Wichita and Kansas wrong, the Wichita Eagle reported.

“The Donald J. Trump for President Campaign has just announced it will be in Witchita, Kanasas for a major rally on Saturday prior to Caucus,” it said.

In another campaign error, press passes handed out to reporters at a rally in Oklahoma spelled the city Tulsa as “Tusla.”

Wrong name

Last year, after mocking disabled New York Times reporter Serge Kovaleski, Trump put out a statement saying he had “no idea” who Serge “Kovalski” was, notably spelling his name wrong.

(Courtesy, The Daily Mail Online.)