Mendocino County Today: Monday, July 18, 2016

• Sequiera Money
• Mental Outreach
• Max Sentencing
• Grave Mapping
• Reopening Dimmick
• Progressive Alliance
• Police Support
• Bingham Book
• Bush/Blair
• Semiotic City
• Asphalt Resumption
• Being 20
• Oligarchists
• Pokemon Go
• Careless Clinton
• Brahman Hour
• Marco Radio

A RELIABLE SOURCE comments on our item about the $50,000 pay off to Assistant District Attorney Paul Sequiera: "You have it about right. The whole thing was a comedy of errors with the county doing everything they could to pay Sequeira as much as they could, even coming up with a bullshit interpretation that he was hired as 'extra help' instead of for a regular permanent position. I don't know what went down between he and Eyster, but when Sequeira decided to bail he blindsided the county claiming he was owed an extra $20,000 a year retroactive to when he started. As an attorney, he should know there are strict limits on paying out public money retroactively. The county agreed to pay the $50,000, not because Mr. Jerko had a strong case, but because it would have cost that much or more to defend it, especially with the DA siding with Sequeira. The blowback between the DA, County Counsel and the CEO is interesting, with everyone pointing the finger at someone else. Meanwhile, the taxpayer is getting the finger and is stuck paying the bill."

AGAIN SEIZING the initiative in the lethargic context of official Mendocino County, Sheriff Allman's Mobile Outreach program Services (MOPS), mops up a lot of mental health cases before the bedeviled can harm themselves or others. The Sheriff keeps a roster of persons "known to law enforcement" via previous encounters with deputies, which he shares with outreach workers. Allman calls it "delivery of personal services for people who might not ask for help…" An experienced County mental health counselor, Joy Kinion (born and raised in Boonville), and Shawn Patrick of the Sheriff's Department, check in with troubled persons twice a week to assess their functioning. The areas that receive most MOPS attention are Ukiah and Fort Bragg (of course), Covelo, Point Arena, Gualala, and Laytonville.

A READER WANTS TO KNOW: “What sentence did the court impose on the high power child molester Dunakin, and the rapist/murderer of Kayla Chesser, Terrell Marshall?”

ED REPLY: They were maxed out and will not be released in our lifetimes. Dunakin got 81 years to life. Marshall got 50 to life.

SUNDAY, the vivid Boonville high school student, Julia Brock, presented her unique graveyard mapping senior project to the membership of the Anderson Valley Historical Society. Miss Brock, and several of her fellow high school students, have carefully assayed the Babcock-Rawles cemetery about a mile up Mountain View Road, only a quarter mile from Miss Brock's high school classrooms. The students plotted each grave marker, cataloging each with name and birth and death dates. To the unschooled eye it looked like there were a hundred or so burial markers at the seldom visited burial grounds. Miss. Brock was assisted and trained in mapping techniques by former fire chief and former professional surveyor Colin Wilson of Yorkville.

AMONG the remembered Valley family names on the markers were Pardini, Tarwater, McGimsey, Beeson, Lowery, Babcock, Rawles, Maddox, Burger, Crouch, Boonville Hotel founder John Burgots, and Anderson (of the Valley pioneer Walter Anderson’s family).

THE CEMETERY overlooks the Boonville Airport, Miss Brock's classrooms, and Mountain View Road. It was undoubtedly selected by the Valley’s founding settlers because of its fine view of the Valley, in a time the eternal comfort of the departed was still important.

IN 1978, when Mrs. Alva Ingram recorded the markers in the cemetery, she observed that many of the graves seemed to be outside the fence with small wooden unnamed markers. But Ms. Brock and her crew said they only found two unmarked wooden gravemarkers.

THE EARLIEST markers seem to originate from the first decades of the 1900s. The oldest existing marker is that of Henry Beeson, who, when he died in 1914, was the oldest surviving member of the Bear Flag Revolt of 1846, the pretext for California's adoption into the USofA.

BEESON ARRIVED in the Anderson Valley about 1860 where he bought a ranch in the area of the current CDF station south of Boonville. He was regionally well known as an expert saddler.

MISS BROCK'S cemetery map is not yet posted on the internet, although some of the information may be found via the “findagrave.com” website. But plans are underway to incorporate Miss. Brock’s information in that master database with the coordination of local amateur graveyard historian/hobbyist Valerie Hanelt of Yorkville (who also chairs the Community Services District). In a transient time when people are forgotten before they're cold in their graves, Miss Brock's research project is most welcome.

* * *

AV Historical Society board member Marvin Schenck summarized the Society’s future plans (which were enumerated in these pages a couple of weeks ago). One of the projects the Society is working on is a septic system upgrade to include a bathroom for the Rose Room and a major remodel of the Museum’s bathroom which, in the deadpan words of Society President Jim Hill, “is slowly morphing from a functional bathroom into a museum exhibit.”

AFTER some routine Board business, Mr. Schenck presented an old locomotive bell that had been restored and donated to the Museum. Schenck said the bell was presumed to have been salvaged off a locomotive belonging to the old Albion Lumber company which crashed near Navarro when the engineer lost control of it as it came down a steep narrow rail trestle and derailed. But local history buff Bill Seekins said he suspected that the bell came from a different crashed locomotive and that he had heard that the derailment Schenck was talking about may have been caused by ice build-up on the trestle during winter operations that the engineer hadn’t accounted for.

THE MAJOR’S LATE COUSIN, Elma Scaramella-Rawles, was married to a Rawles, John Rawles, the Major recalls. Elma’s father, the Major’s late Uncle and former Fifth District Supervisor Joe Scaramella, opposed the marriage because Mr. Rawles was a heavy drinker and not kind to women. The marriage didn’t last long as Elma found her husband unbearable and divorced him within a few years. Elma retained the name Rawles for the rest of her life, never remarried, and died childless in Ukiah in 2010 at age 88. Every cemetery every where contains the true histories of all the people who have lived in that area.

PS. A LOCAL OLD-TIMER at the meeting who is familiar with the old Highland Ranch (now the Blackbird Ranch) told us, “There’s no water up there. I don’t see how they can get anywhere near enough water for their big expansion plans,” adding laughingly, “unless they dam up Ham Canyon! And the water board will never let them do that!”

AV STUDENT GROUP RE-OPENING DIMMICK STATE PARK

Editor,

We are the Anderson Valley Service Learning Team — a student-led community service group whose current mission is to reopen Paul Dimmick Campground & Picnic Area in Navarro River Redwood State Park. We're writing because we are organizing a Volunteer Clean-Up Day and Celebration at Dimmick State Park in Navarro next Sunday, July 24th, and we are wondering if it would be possible for the event (and perhaps also our broader campaign into the future) to be mentioned in the newspaper, and/or on the AVA's event calendar. We had been hoping to get in touch sooner — sorry it's so close to the event!

A little background: Dimmick was shut down in 2011, and due to the funding crisis within the State Park system the park has remained closed to camping. Our team chose to investigate this issue late last year, and has decided that in order for the park to have a chance to open for camping, the issue must be publicized. After visiting the park since its closure, we discovered that the park was in bad condition. We decided to first organize a Volunteer Clean-Up Day with the goal of gaining community support, along with refurbishing the park for day use. After the clean-up day (and the official re-opening of the park for day use), we plan to gather public support to pressure the state to make investments necessary for re-opening the park to campers.

Here is a schedule for the July 24th Volunteer Day:

• 9am-11am: safety briefing and first cleanup session
• 11am-12pm: snacks & beverages
• 12pm-3pm: second work session
• 3pm-6pm: Grilled Chicken Dinner, Side dishes (potluck) & activities

And here's a short video that our group filmed and produced to introduce Dimmick campground to you: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRsgnFYPOlM

Thank you for your time and we hope that you can support us in our mission of reopening Paul Dimmick Campground & Picnic Area. Please join us!

Sincerely,

The AV Service Learning Team

STILL BERNIN’

Dear Friends,

As you may know, the Bernie Revolution persists. The Mendocino Coast Folks for Bernie just isn’t ready to let go or go away. Our fledgling new creation has its maiden voyage this upcoming Wednesday and it should be a pleasant, not lengthy, and highly informative good time for all. We’ll also have some solid preliminary information on the 17 Propositions coming up this November that will at least get your well-oriented and prepared a bit for the voting task. It would mean a lot to me to have this first event well-attended. We’re looking at it to help us determine if this PAC is a viable project. So do see if it might fit both your schedule and your interests to attend. Thanks.

Progressive Alliance Center

Democracy for All ~ Continuing the Revolution

On Wednesday, July 20, 4-6 p.m., the Center will host guest speakers Kevin Miller, M.D., a local and state activist on campaign financing, and Margaret Koster of Willits, Co-Coordinator of Mendocino County’s Move to Amend (MTA). They will address this critical challenge to our democracy. Proposition 59 on this November’s ballot is a relevant Citizens United advisory measure that will give California voters a voice on this most pressing political issue of our time. The public is invited to attend this free event, with donations at the door designed simply to defray expenses. RSVPs are encouraged by phoning 962-3101 before July 19th.

Rodney R. Jones

IT IS TIME for Good citizens to support law enforcement as we maintain Public Safety. If you are silent, you are not helping. I am asking for you to tell our local Deputies, Police Officers, CHP Officers and probation officers that they are supported. I have people tell me that I am supported everyday, but the men and women who are patrolling our streets need to hear you. I'm an office guy, these folks face danger every day.

May God Bless America as we bury more officers who were assassinated
. May God Bless those men and women who maintain the Thin Blue Line which separates civility from anarchy

I am beyond being pissed off. I am scared that our Great Nation will succumb to anarchy.

To the Men and Women who keep us safe, Thank You from the bottom of my hurting heart.

Mendocino County Sheriff Tom Allman

CATCH OF THE DAY, July 17, 2016

(Still unavailable due to booking log server errors.)

NAMEDROPS KEEP FALLIN' ON MY HEAD*

by Fred Gardner

Mischievous Hendrik Hertzberg emailed, “Have you seen my friend Clara Bingham’s oral history of 1969-70? Jane Fonda talks about you in it. Curious about your reaction.” It was too bad, he added, that Bingham hadn’t interviewed me. I replied that if sent a review copy, I’d write a piece called “Clara Didn’t Ask Me, But…” And so they sent the book, in which Jane Fonda mentions that when she returned to the US from Europe at the end of the 60s, intent on learning more about the antiwar movement, I suggested that on her cross-country drive she could check out the coffeehouses in army towns where GIs who wished they could let their hair grow long could get together.

The night I met Jane Fonda I was in a daze of misery. There had been a preview of the movie Zabriskie Point at a screening room in LA. I was appalled at how bad it was. Going in I knew that all the lines I’d written had been vetoed by the young stars, but I hoped the director, Michelangelo Antonioni, had miraculously made a meaningful film. No such luck. My name was on it (with four other writers), but I hadn’t gotten a word in edgewise and I thought it was an embarrassment. I felt used. They'd wanted my connection to the movement, not my input as a writer. The screening ended, people were shaking hands with Antonioni like on a reception line. I’m right behind Marlon Brando who pronounces solemnly, “Very great. Very powerful.” Then it’s my turn and I say, “Something went very, very wrong. Is it possible to use other footage and recut it?” Mike Nichols pulls me away by the arm and intones with extreme seriousness and suppressed outrage, “You cannot talk like that to a man about his work!”

Then there was a dinner party at the house Nichols was renting. I did not find the witty talk entertaining and was hanging out in the kitchen with a cook named Robert when Jane Fonda found me and we had the conversation that she refers to, partly, in Clara Bingham’s book, "Witness to the Revolution." Or maybe Jane recalled more and Clara didn’t use it. What I’d told her in the kitchen all those years ago was that friends and I had set up some Frisco-style coffeehouses near Army bases, but I had distanced from them and didn’t know why. I hated the war, of course, but I didn’t like the way the Peace Movement leaders were operating. I tried to explain my confusion to Jane and Robert in the kitchen. She heard the part that she wanted and went off on her trip.

I moved back to New York in the spring of 1970 and applied to medical school. Jane was there making the movie "Klute" and we became friends. Next she was going to appear in an antiwar cabaret show that would play Fort Bragg (NC), San Diego, and other military towns. Her ability to draw the media had given her tremendous clout in the movement. I figured with Jane as my ally, maybe I could convince the organizers running the GI coffeehouses to cut down on the proselytizing. So I signed on as stage manager of the “FTA” show and wrote a song that Jane sang verses of during the black-outs between scenes. Politically, my influence was nil and after the San Diego performance I dropped out and started railing against “the classy left.”

Clara Didn’t Ask Me, But…

Witness to the Revolution consists of interspersed recollections of the (academic) year 1969-70 by 100 people, mainly political activists, who Bingham interviewed. I had crossed paths with some of them way back when and can report that the show-offs are still showing off (like Peter Coyote) and the sensible ones are still sensible (like Julius Lester). It is widely believed that the bomb-making Weathermen destroyed the movement, which was on its way to achieving wonderful reforms. The interview excerpts are well integrated in chapters headed The Draft, Psychedelic Revolution, Madison, Radicals, Resisters, Woodstock, Weathermen, The Chicago Eight, Ellsberg, Moratorium, Silent Majority, My Lai, Exile, December, War Crimes, Townhouse, Women’s Liberation, Cambodia, Kent State, Strike, Underground, Culture Wars, Coming Home, Army Math, Escape, and Reckoning.

Bingham was at Books, Inc. in Berkeley the other night and I went to hear her with my old friend Larry Bensky. “It’s a good crowd,” he said as we arrived — about 70 people. The average age was about 70, too (in a college town).

Bingham said 1969-70 was “the crescendo of the 60s.” I thought the worldwide finale had come in 1968, and 1969-70 was the disturbing coda. And I think her title, “Witness to the Revolution,” is misleading, to put it diplomatically. There was no revolution, the ruling class stayed in power. And the subtitle referring to “the Year America Lost Its Mind and Found its Soul” is meaningless.

But the chapter on the My Lai massacre features the great journalist Seymour Hersh telling how he got the story, and brings it all back home. Some of the recollections are poignant. I haven’t finished the book yet. I put it down and added a new verse to an old song:

They call it the city of angels, lady, that don’t mean that everybody who lives there is.

Lots of money changing hands on the corner of Politics and Show Biz.

Jane, stalkin’ my mind from time to time. Can’t escape no how.

Great Fame can mean this is then and that was now.

Once you slandered me, well I understand it was for the candidate.

Playing Miss Hellman as Muriel Gardner, how can I relate?

Jane, stalkin’ my mind from time to time. Seventy-six. Sixty-nine.

Never for a minute following my line.

Down Jane Street, Old Jane Street, Walkin’ down Jane Street in my mind.

Married to a billionaire and shilling for videos on fitness.

A-hooing with Chief Nakahoma, so embarassing to witness.

Jane, stalkin’ my mind from time to time.

Out West. Back East. Of all of your directors I directed you the least.

Seen you in the supermarket, you and Ms Tomlin got a big hit.

Leanin’ in for Hillary, I ain’t surprised one little bit.

Jane, stalkin’ my mind from time to time.

Talkin’ to Ms Bingham, there you are again.

Great Fame can mean that was now and this is then.

Outro

I woulda told Ms Bingham how long ago

I couldn’t get through to you or Michaelangelo.

*With apologies to Herb Caen

BUSH/BLAIR EAVESDROPPING

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jul/04/phone-call-bush-blair-failed-iraq

LETTER FROM NEW YORK: SIGNS OF A SUBVERSIVE CITY

by Jonah Raskin

An island city made of steel, glass and concrete, Manhattan is also a city of nearly infinite signs and spectacular symbols, many of them subversive. Indeed, Manhattan is a paradise for the study of semiotics. There may be more signs and symbols to view, review, decode and re-appropriate in Manhattan than in any other island city in the world.

Nearly everything in Manhattan is a sign or a symbol and nearly everyone is a signifier. Here, as elsewhere, a cigar is a cigar is a cigar, much as a rose is a rose is a rose, but they are also more than just that. As the brilliant Italian semiotician, Umberto Eco, knew and understood, and made clear in his bestselling novel, The Name of the Rose, civilizations rise and fall on the backs of symbols and signs, whether they’re swastikas, red stars or the Union Jack of the British Empire.

In his books and lectures, Eco argued that context is all. A cigar in Donald Trump’s mouth at Trump Tower is one thing, in Fidel Castro’s mouth in Cuba another and in the mouth of the comedian Groucho Marx’s still another. Cigars pack powerful punches.

Furthermore, as Eco insisted, the meaning that a sender attaches to a sign or symbol might not be the same meaning that a receiver attaches to it. In the world according to Eco, signs and symbols will always be misread, which is why they have to simplified as much as possible and repeated thousands of times until they conquer the human mind.

Recently, on a two-week working vacation in Manhattan I paid close attention to the signs and symbols that I usually take for granted and that I’ve been reading and reading ever since I was an undergraduate at Columbia College beginning in the late-1950s.

What follows is a map of sorts that I’ve fashioned from the bits and pieces that I gathered on my travels, mostly on foot, but also by bus and subway which for me is the quintessential New York symbol, not the Empire State Building on 34^th street, that’s located close to “mid-town,” and that draws thousands and thousands of tourists who visit the city and who need help distinguishing one skyscraper from another.

The entire island of Manhattan is encoded. Indeed, as nearly all tourists to the Big Apple know, streets run East and West. Avenues, such as Fifth, Sixth and Seventh along with Broadway, Park, Lexington and Madison, flow North and South. Fifth Avenue divides Manhattan between East and West. Newcomers learn the coordinates fast, or wander about as though they’re in a maze and a daze.

Times Square, the famed, tangled, crowded neighborhood that runs from Broadway to Seventh Avenue, and from West 42nd Street to West 47th, is more than a place defined by numbers and names. It’s also a symbolic landscape that draws 50 million visitors a year who want and need to be told that they’re at “The Crossroads of the World.”

In New York City and in nearly every modern metropolis, signs and symbols tell citizens where and when they can walk or not walk, where and when they can park a vehicle or not park it, and when and where to safely cross the street.

Almost nothing is left to chance or individual choice, though taxi drivers and pedestrians routinely violate traffic rules.

In the men’s room at Grand Central Station at 42nd street and Park Avenue, I saw a sign that read, “Rules of Conduct: No Smoking, No Bathing or Laundering, No littering, No Drinking of Alcoholic Beverages, Violators Subject to a Fine.“

A man who looked like he was homeless — he wore the tattered uniform of someone without a house, an apartment or even a bed to sleep in — washed himself with a wet paper towel.

I visited a shelter for homeless men and women, though outside there was no sign to identify its function. At the entrance, I saw a sentence that read, “Assaulting social service personnel is a felony.” I did not stay long. Half-a-dozen cops crowded around the entrance.

At the 14th street subway station, I saw two men in uniforms and badges: “Platform Controllers” for the “Metropolitan Transportation Authority.” Nearby, at the same subway, another sign proclaimed, “Control is an illusion.”

My favorite subway ads were for “Backless and Strapless Bras” and “Period-Proof Underwear.” One of my favorite T-shirts — it was tattered and faded — and worn by a teenager said, “Lead Zeppelin.” She was too young to have been alive when the band was at its peak.

The four-letter slogan on a baseball cap that read, “Obey” seemed to encourage the exact opposite. In the subway, across a large ad for a McDonald’s chicken dish, someone had spray-painted the word “Heartburn.”

And what to make of Essen, a snazzy food store on Varick Street in the “West Village” that advertises “Fast Slow Food” but that didn’t tempt me. Nor did the sign that screamed “Insomnia Cookies: Delivered Warm until 3 a.m.” But I did enter and ate at the up-scale restaurant — entrees started at $34 — that announced, “Proper attire requested, no one turned away” and where the owner played a Bob Marley reggae song with the lyrics, “Get up, Stand up, stand up for your right… don’t give up the fight.”

Whimsy rippled all across the city and especially on the Lower East Side, the neighborhood where I was staying. Two different slogans that were stenciled in color on the sidewalk on East Eighth Street read, “Thank God I’m an Atheist” and “God Loves Girls who Love Girls.”

Less whimsical was the T-shirt that read “Do Not X-Ray.” Not at all funny was the hand-painted sign in the lap of a man sleeping outside the church of the Immaculate Conception and that read, “Everybody Needs Some Thing to Help.”

Umberto Eco himself probably would have had a field day in New York. Surely, he would have heard echoes of his own theories, and I’m sure he would have been amused by my conversation with a worker in a hardhat at a construction site on 168th Street.

“It’s noisy here,” I complained. “The hard hat” — to turn the fellow into a symbol — replied, “Hey, watch what you say, I’m a union man.” I added, “I’m all for unions.” He smiled and explained, “That’s what I like to hear.” My noise was his music; it signified employment and a powerful organization of workers.

I even met an amateur semiotician on the “L” train as it was traveling from West to East. An African American man wearing a dashiki and carrying a drum, he held forth on the nature of drums, signs, symbols, communication, and then passed the hat.

“The Confederate flag is a symbol of oppression,” he told the passengers on the subway car. “Flying it ought to be regarded as treason and be punished.”

Perhaps what was most striking during my two-week hunt for symbols and signs was the absence of overtly political graffiti and slogans. I saw no ads for Trump, Sanders or Hillary Clinton. On ground level, New York didn’t seem to care about the campaign or the election. But on 42nd Street and Broadway, a homeless man sat on the sidewalk, his back to the wall, his dog at his side, and a hat in front of him. His sign read, “Give me a dollar or I’ll vote for Trump.” He made a lot of money and drew a lot of laughter.

On a Friday, as I leaving the city, I sat in the passenger seat of a Mini Cooper and couldn’t believe the license plate on the four-door sedan in front of me. It was too good to be true. But there it was in black letters on an orange background: a near perfect New York message to the world. It read, “I am NYC.”

(Jonah Raskin is a frequent contributor to Culture Counter and the author of two biographies, one of Allen Ginsberg, another of Abbie Hoffman, that explore and map New York.)

DON’T LET GRIST CREEK RESUME RUBBERIZED ASPHALT PRODUCTION ON OUTLET CREEK

To the Mendocino County Board of Supervisors:

As you know, Brian Hurt of Grist Creek Aggregates is currently negotiating with the Mendocino Air Quality Management District to resume rubberized asphalt production on Outlet Creek in Longvale.

Last year, before you approved the plant, many neighbors implored you not to. We thought the plant was bad for us and for the environment. Why put a potentially hazardous industry along a twisty, landslide-prone road in a narrow canyon on the banks of one of the longest coho salmon runs in Northern California. There was much too much risk and very little to gain, for the county and certainly for neighbors.

Supervisor Woodhouse, last year, over our pleas, you urged your colleagues on the board to fast track the plant. You then assured neighbors that if anything went wrong, the agencies that oversee air and water quality would protect us. But after months of struggle, of begging you, of calling Grist Creek Aggregates, of complaining to the Mendocino Air Quality and its oversight commissioners, of imploring state Air Quality to stop the spewing of toxic air into our neighborhood, the plant remained open.

Grist Creek and Mercer-Fraser violated their permits, used outdated equipment that filled the air with bitter smoke and put at risk the health and safety of hundreds of residents near the plant.

Grist Creek finally stopped production in late fall, not, apparently, because of $270,000 in fines imposed on it by the state — fines Grist Creek has never paid and apparently doesn’t intend to pay — but because the company had completed its Caltrans contract.

Our trust was violated. No other way to put it.

Supervisors, as county leaders ultimately responsible for the decisions of the Air Quality District, restore our trust and don’t allow Grist Creek to reopen. The county may need asphalt, but not at the price of a neighborhood and a creek. We deserve better.

Jane Futcher, Longvale

READER WRITES: Louis CK, Do Your Job, 20 Year Olds

https://youtu.be/LTaZkf4dih8

ED NOTE: This guy is very funny. Never heard of him before. I've really got to get out more, and his video ought to be mandatory viewing for every high school graduating class, especially here in Over Indulgence County.

ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

And now for some lighthearted comedy.

Jeb Bush lays out his vision to reclaim the Republican Party from Donald Trump in The Washington Post. He recycles the old culture wars shit about Trump being anti-immigrant, anti-gay, yadda, yadda, in effect insisting that – as our esteemed friend the Archdruid might say – the voter discontent that Trump is tapping into comes from “values” such as white supremacy and nativism, as opposed to “interests”, those being economic interests, in particular the tens of thousand of factories and millions of jobs that were offshored to China.

People don’t fucking learn especially when it’s not in their interest to learn. Jeb is a perfect example. The Bushes made careers out of looking after the interests of American Oligarchs and their bi-coastal clerisy. Their whole lives were all about enriching the rich, impoverishing the already poor and wrecking the prospects of everyone in between. So when it became manifestly obvious what kind of societal stew was on the burner, the Bushes resolutely refused to smell it, taste it, or even acknowledge that there’s a stove much less a pot.

I think Jeb’s taking a page from Ferdinand Marcos’ last election campaign before he was forced to up-sticks. Marcos’ English language slogan was “Now More Than Ever”. Hilarious.

Not that the Democrats are any better. Their approach differs not one scintilla from that of the old-guard Republicans notwithstanding the show that Bernie made. Hillary and the old gang steadfastly refuse to see what’s right under their noses and understand what drives Bernie’s followers. It’s not about who’s more “progressive” or more “conservative”. It’s about not being able to earn a living.

Now More Than Ever could be the campaign slogan of either the Democrats or old-guard Republicans. Both party establishments are all about looking out for the Oligarchs and then hopefully lining their own pockets just like Bill and Hillary if not with tens and hundreds of millions, then at least with high paying jobs. Every man for himself IOW and the devil take the hindmost.

POKÉMON GO HOME

Editor,

Just when you thought the 24/7 texting zombies might be the end of civilization as we've known it, along comes the "Pokémon Go" crowd. One mindless step down from the texters. Who knew it could get worse? Pokémon Goers are the cultural/visual equivalent of a full-blown leaf-blower of the mind. Garbage in, garbage out. If this doesn't help get Donald Trump elected — nothing will. And if that doesn't work, "Jerry Springer for Pokémon Go president." We deserve no less.

Neil Davis, Sebastopol

CARELESS CLINTON

Editor,

Most people believe the system is rigged, because it is. Any belief in fairness was erased with the exoneration of all charges against Hillary Clinton. She went to great lengths to intentionally and illegally set up private servers to send and receive classified information. The FBI has determined that Hillary Clinton had no intent and is simply extremely careless and does not possess the judgment any reasonable person would have concerning the handling of classified information.

Anyone else who behaved as Clinton did would have been found grossly negligent, not extremely careless. There is no difference except to parse words to let her off the hook. The rest of us pay our taxes, obey the law, don't cheat and don't lie.

We are held to a higher standard than the Clintons. Hillary Clinton has said if she had to do it over, she would have followed the rules. She is only sorry that she got caught. This extremely careless person who lacks reasonable judgment expects us to accept the double standard and vote her in as our next president. No wonder so many people are just fed up with the status quo. Enough already!

Deborah McMicking, San Francisco

4AM IN THE TURTLE

Brahma Muhurta

It is 4 A.M. at the Green Tortoise travel hostel in San Francisco. 4 A.M. is Brahma Muhurta or "the hour of Brahman", which traditionally is the time of pranayama (breathing exercises) followed by silent meditation which is followed by Mangalam Aarti which is early morning ritual to "wake up the deities". It is time to bring in our collective spiritual mojo, in order to dramatically energize radical environmental direct action! It is a fact that both the Democratic and Republican national conventions are not significantly protested by radical environmentalists. There has been considerable debate over the years as to the reason for this. The general conclusion is that environmentalists are, for the most part, firmly part of the consumerist society, and largely protest in order to get more recreational space and opportunity. In other words, advocating for increased wilderness designation and national parks preservation to enjoy increased outdoor recreational activities. Other environmental issues are usually about aesthetics. True radical environmentalism is correctly defined as "revolutionary ecology", which is concerned with a spiritual paradigm shift, in order to confront and change a civilization that has veered off its course into materialism. Materialism is concerned with gratifying the senses, to the exclusion of spiritual attainment. This has resulted in an ecologically compromised planet earth, to the extent of present day global ecological systemic breakdown. In addition, species decline is a harbinger of overall social decline, because less species equals weakness. Diversity equals strength. I am interested in being effective in bringing about a critically necessary spiritual paradigm shift on the earth plane. If being part of a nomadic action group interests you, please contact me at

Craig Louis Stehr

CraigStehr@inbox.com.

San Francisco

DISQUALIFIED ATROCITY HAIKU

"When a felon's not engaged in his employment or maturing his felonious little plans, his capacity for innocent enjoyment is quite as great as any honest man's. Tarantara, tarantara." —William Gilbert

The recording of last night's (2016-07-15) KNYO and KMEC Memo of the Air: Good Night Radio show is available to download and keep and skip around in via http://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com

It's still the 100th anniversary of the Battle of the Somme, and will be through November. It was day and night after horrible day and night of explosions and shelling and huddling in mud and fear and murdering and being murdered, for month after month and, like any such event down to the present day and probably well into the future, it could have been stopped in a minute if the handful of people in charge had been put in a room together and threatened with being sent as peons to fight in their own stupid war if they couldn't work it out right now, but they never do it that way, because of course that would be crazy.

Also at http://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com you'll find links to a deluxe assortment of not necessarily radio-useful things to read and play with and learn about, such as:

Needs more guns. http://boingboing.net/2016/07/13/tom-the-dancing-bug-needs-mor.html

School band keyboard player possessed by a demon. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=peSda70aXSk

Hallelujah. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ItXygU9SJCA

Marco McClean

memo@mcn.org

http://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com