Mendocino County Today: Sunday, Oct. 2, 2016

• Cooler Week
• Not Uber
• Lorena Missing
• Malawi Farming
• Giants Prediction
• Panthers Lose
• CHP Reports
• AF Warning
• Firehouse
• Libby's Closing
• Adoptober
• Yesterday's Catch
• Solar Myths
• Homicide Motive
• SoCo Cannabis
• Sexual Predators
• Johnson Interview
• Messenger Issues
• My Girl
• American Threat
• Whistleblower Blues
• Kaepernick Reactions
• Mountain Fire
• Working Class
• Marco Radio
• Dream Island

COOL TEMPS & LIGHT RAIN AHEAD. Mendo temps for the next week or so won’t get out of the 70s during the day and will descend into the 40s overnight. Very light scattered showers are expected Sunday and Monday with a chance of thunder and/or lightning.

RESPONDING TO RUMORS that he had signed up as a local Uber driver, Denver Tuttle said, Not True:

“As much as I could use the cash, I believe Uber is an unhealthy model for business. It seems like an imbalanced scam of their independent drivers who have built "Uber" into a billion-dollar concern, allowing Uber to invest now in “self-driving” technology, and intended eventually to replace those drivers. I do drive a black German model (that leaks no oil, and gets over 35mpg on the highway, and still looks okay after 260k). And, I have been hired out once, for a day, as a chauffeur. But, if for no other reason, I hate "Uber" for my knee-jerk aversion to the company name — and this country's addiction to the rampant "Uberman" complexes corrupting the health of our individual and collective mental health!”

BE ON THE LOOK OUT - 'AT RISK' JUVENILE

FORMER AV RESIDENT PETER KAPP volunteered with USAiD in June to share skills with subsistence farmers in Malawi. Experience gained growing organic vegetables for local farmers markets in Mendocino has relevance in southeast Africa. Mr. Kapp took part in the "farmer to farmer" program to assist small farmers in Malawi who live on less than $2 per day. Organic farming is appropriate where chemicals are both destructive and unaffordable.

Mr. Kapp farmed vegetables at Lone Tree Farm on Peachland Road in Anderson Valley with Wendy Rowe from 1997-2010 where they also raised horses. The "Farmer to Farmer" program is administered by a non-governmental organization called CNFA  or "Cultivating New Frontiers in Agriculture." Mr. Kapp was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Colombia, South America, 1963-65. He met other former Peace Corps people doing similar work in Malawi.

CALLING ALL FRONT RUNNERS! Time to jump back on the Giants bandwagon. They'll beat the Dodgers tomorrow, old pal Vogey Voglesong, now pitching for the Pirates, will beat the Cardinals, and the Giants will proceed through the playoffs and win the World Series!

THE ANDERSON VALLEY PANTHERS lost a disappointing game to Rincon Valley Saturday afternoon 44-22, after leading at the end of the first half 22-10. One observer said that it appeared AV’s offensive line just ran out of gas and Rincon Valley’s coaching staff took immediate advantage, adjusting their defense to AV’s sluggish front line, keeping AV quarterback Tony Pardini bottled up for the rest of the game and letting Rincon Valley’s offense regain possession time and again.

CHARLES JOHNSON, 37, of Valley Head, Alabama, riding a “vertical bicycle,” collided with a 2013 Ford Focus driven by Genai A. Renz, 35, of Santa Rosa on Highway 101 “north of La Franchi Road” “in the Ukiah area” (wherever that is) on Friday just after 1:30pm. Johnson suffered broken bones and internal injuries and was flown to Santa Rosa Memorial. Cause undetermined, but alcohol not suspected. Ms. Renz was not injured.

(CHP press release)

* * *

SEBASTIAN GARCIA-MENDOZA, 18, of Lake Elsinor, driving a 2006 Toyota Scion drove off Highway 101 while driving south near Burke Hill Drive outside Ukiah on Saturday about 12:30. The Scion went down a descending embankment and rolled before hitting a tree, coming to rest on its right side. Garcia-Mendoza, who was wearing his seatbelt, suffered facial trauma, a broken right leg and general pain. Alcohol was not thought to be involved.

(CHP press release)

AFTER AF

Dear Concerned Citizens:

I am writing you concerning the Initiative AF heritage act. The AF Heritage Act is a 60 page ordinance that has been written by greedy marijuana growers who have no concern for our environment, fisheries or wildlife. Mendocino County Board of Supervisors has just revised the 9.3.1 program. The new 9.3.1 program has a number of safeguards to protect our environment, fisheries and wildlife. If the AF Heritage Act is passed, it will eliminate many of the protections in the 9.3.1 program. The AF Heritage Act does not contain the wildlife exclusive fencing as provided by the 9.3.1 program. The wildlife exclusive fencing in 9.3 1 program is to protect the deer, elk, wild pigs and bears from growers who would either shoot or poison them if they threatened their marijuana crops. If the AF Heritage Act proponents really cared about the wildlife, they would not have removed the wildlife exclusion fencing from their Act. Trinity County's new ordinance copied the 9.3.1 program when it came to wildlife fencing. Even the spokesperson of the Mendocino Wildlife Association, Traci Pellar, who is an advocate for wildlife and marijuana growers, stated in the September 6 Ukiah Daily Journal that the AF Heritage Act lacks significant wildlife protection.

Another flawed provision in the AF Heritage Act is that it requires a two-year Mendocino County residency to be a marijuana grower. This provision is obviously unconstitutional and would open Mendocino County to certain litigation.

The major flaw with the AF Heritage Act is on page 20 of this act and that is that the compliance mechanisms and related penalties bear no teeth to those who violate the Act. Under the proposed Act, you could effectively violate all 60 pages of the Act and the initial penalty is a $100 fine and a 60 day compliance order. If the violation continues after 60 days, there is a $1,000 fine and another 60-day period to comply. If after the second 60-day penalty assessment the violator is still in violation, then the violator is subject to a 1% fine on their total receipts of sales. This third penalty provision is an absurdity to anyone who engages in the cultivation of marijuana as marijuana grower defense attorneys would never advise their clients to provide incriminating receipts to the government. Basically for the price of a pound of marijuana ($1100), you buy an entire grow season that results in profits exponentially in excess of the meager penalties. This is an obscene absurdity. But the true tragedy of this faux Act is that the quality of life in Mendocino County for those who live within 100 feet of one of these large industrial cultivation sites would be exposure to endless noise and pollution. The quality of life for those who end up living next to one of the large industrial cultivation sites would be decimated with no recourse.

If the AF Heritage Act is passed and enacted, a green rush of out-of-county growers would descend upon us and result in certain destruction of our wildlife, fisheries and watersheds.

As a 36-year resident of Blue Rock Creek north of Laytonville, I have many neighbors who are conscientious marijuana growers and seem to be doing very well under the existing 9.3.1 program. In my opinion, the proposed AF Heritage Act would result in out-of-control industrial marijuana cultivation. This also has been expressed by Bruce Anderson of the Anderson Valley Advertiser. In his September 7 editorial he described the AF Heritage Act as "totally nuts."

I strongly urge a NO vote on the AF Heritage Act.

Chris Brennan, cattle rancher and wildlife conservationist

Spy Rock/Laytonville

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 19TH, Libby's Restaurant in Philo will close. Rightly touted as the best Mexican food on the Northcoast, Libby and the Favela family have been an Anderson Valley fixture for many years.

ADOPTOBER

Get out your lederhosen! The Ukiah Animal Shelter is having an Adoptober Fest! For the entire month of October, dogs who have been available for adoptable the past 30 days will be available for only a $50 adoption fee! Cat lovers: any two cats adopted at the same time will also have the low adoption fee of $50! To see the sheltler's feline guests, come on down to 298 Plant Road in Ukiah! Visit our website at www.mendoanimalshelter.com to see all the adoptable dogs, then come to the shelter to meet your new best buddy. (The $50 adoption fee for dogs does not include the dog license fee for residents of Mendocino County.)

CATCH OF THE DAY, October 1, 2016

AURELIO ALCARAZ, Ukiah. DUI, misdeamor hit&run, no license.

BASILIO ANGUIANO, Ukiah. Controlled substance, paraphernalia, refusal to leave, probation revocation.

PAULINE BARAJAS, Gualala. Domestic assault.

ERICA CERVANTES, Ukiah. Receiving stolen property, suspended license, failure to appear, probation revocation.

CHRISTOPHER DRAGON, Ukiah. Under influence.

KENNETH EWING, Ukiah. Drunk in public.

THOMAS HANOVER JR., Ukiah. Failure to appear, probation revocation.

CHARLES HENSLEY, Ukiah. Drunk in public, probation revocation. (Frequent flyer.)

NATHAN HOAGLIN, Laytonville. Domestic battery, probation revocation.

ANDREW HOLM, Ukiah. Shoplifting, receiving stolen property, probation revocation.

ANTHONY KOCHIE JR., Ukiah. Trespassing, refusal to leave, paraphernalia.

SHANE MILLER JR., Ukiah. Under influence, suspended license, resisting, probation revocation.

EVAN NELSON, Ukiah. Vandalism.

RICKY PONTS, Fort Bragg. Dirk-dagger, under influence, probation revocation.

REBECCA RODRIGUEZ, Laytonville. Vehicle theft.

ZACHARIA ROZEK, Redwood Valley. Under influence, failure to appear, probation revocation.

JOSHUA STONE, Covelo. Controlled substance, paraphernalia, suspended license, probation revocation.

MARTIN ZUNIGA-JUAREZ, Ukiah. DUI, suspended license.

COMMON MYTHS & FACTS ABOUT SOLAR

by Bruce Erickson, Owner of Mendocino Solar Service

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” — Arthur C. Clark

That’s what I love about solar: that these simple panels can silently--with no moving parts--convert sunlight directly into electricity, like magic! Invented over 50 years ago, solar electricity is one of the fastest growing sources of electric generation. Yet it is still not well understood by many people. Here are some common myths and the real facts:

Myth: “I have to change my lifestyle to have solar.”
Fact:     You don’t need to change anything about your appliances, lights, etc. The solar system makes the same kind of electricity as grid power, but supplements or replaces grid power when the sun is shining. It operates invisibly and automatically behind the scenes, in conjunction with your existing electrical system.

Myth:  “Solar is unreliable, and requires maintenance."
Fact:    Grid-tied systems have only a few elements, none of which require maintenance, except for occasionally rinsing off the panels if they get dusty or dirty. Solar panels have a long track record and will produce power for decades, and are typically warranted for 25 years. (Just make sure to avoid low-cost panels, especially those made in China, and stick to well-known brands.)

Myth: “Solar can’t work on the foggy Coast.”
Fact:     There are solar installations up and down the Coast with owners well satisfied with the performance for years. The fact is that, although there are a number of foggy days, over the course of a year there are many beautiful bright days. More importantly, solar panels actually work better in cool weather. In hot inland climates, production suffers when it gets too hot, so coastal systems can “catch up” in comparison.

Myth:  “I can’t afford to go solar.”
Fact:      Prices have come down dramatically in the last few years. Although an installation will typically need to be financed, the utility bill savings is a revenue stream that will pay for the system well before its useful life is over. Escalating electric bills get replaced by lower, fixed payments. When the payments are through, electricity will be essentially free for many additional years.

Another option that has become popular is solar leasing. With as little as zero down, homeowners can make monthly payments and save from day one. This can eliminate any risk as well, as the leasing company will be responsible for power output and any repairs for the typical 20 year life of the lease. Better yet, leases are qualified only by FICO score with no regard to home equity or income.

Myth: “All those holes in my roof might leak!”
Fact:    Attachments to your roof will be made with industry standard flashing products, just like what is used for the plumbing vents, stovepipes, etc, that are already in your roof. Also, some systems are ground-mounted where the roof is too small or shaded, and there is enough space on the ground.

Myth: “But solar panels take more energy to build than they produce.”
Fact:     The energy used to make a panel is equivalent to only about two years of its power output, giving it potentially 30 or more years to send clean, renewable, locally-sourced power to the grid.

Solar has become a reliable, mature technology, that allows almost anyone to have a home-sized “power plant” that will cleanly take the abundant sunshine that falls on our rooftops, and make electricity that can be shared with the neighbors, and reduce the amount of utility power that has to be imported into our County. Homeowners can now convert their concerns about pollution, climate change, and resource depletion into action, and save money in the bargain!

For more information visit the Solar Questions page of our MSS website or call us at 707-937-1701.

MOTIVE IN FORTUNA SHOOTING CASE MAY HAVE BEEN REVEALED BY COURT DOCUMENTS

by Kym Kemp

The wife of Jon Goldberg, the man arrested for the shooting death of Fortuna Fire Captain, Tim Smith, told law enforcement that she and Tim Smith were having an affair, according to legal documents filmed and reported on by John Chiv. (Be aware that some of the court documents contain graphic descriptions that may be difficult for family and friends.)

According to the documents, Rachel Goldberg explained that she had received a call from Smith’s wife telling her she had found naked pictures of Rachel on Smith’s phone. Goldberg said she told her husband “about the affair that night.”

Chiv’s blog hosts photos of the documents which include statements from the victim’s wife and son. To see them and read his piece, click here.

Earlier Chapters: 

Fatal Shooting in Fortuna

Law Enforcement Searches for the Suspect in Today’s Homicide

Arrest Made in Fortuna Shooting Death

Tim Smith: Beloved Local Firefighter Was Victim of Yesterday’s Shooting

(Courtesy, KymKemp.com -- Redheaded Blackbelt)

FIGHT LOOMS OVER SITE OF SOCO’S MEDICAL MARIJUANA FARMS

by Guy Kovner

Sonoma County is putting out a welcome mat for the medical marijuana industry, but it may not be as big as the industry would like as it emerges from the legal shadows.

Under California’s new medical marijuana law, cities and counties are allowed to regulate the location of pot-growing sites and other cannabis-related businesses, which may not obtain a state license until they have secured a local land use permit.

“We’re all here this morning because we believe there’s a bright future for cannabis in our community,” county Supervisor Efren Carrillo told a crowd of about 300 cannabis industry members at a conference Friday at the Hyatt Vineyard Creek in Santa Rosa.

The county’s first draft of its Medical Cannabis Land Use Ordinance, scheduled for public review next week, would focus cultivation and other pot businesses into the county’s agricultural and commercial/industrial areas, Carrillo said.

But Tawnie Logan, executive director of the Sonoma County Growers Alliance, said the proposal was too narrow. Rural residential lands and the county’s Resources and Rural Development District, which covers 30 percent of the county, should be considered for cultivation, she said.

“I think it’s an appropriate place,” she said in an interview, referring to the vast RRD district that covers mostly hilly, sparsely populated parts of the county.

Carrillo said he has heard conflicting messages from rural residents: They don’t want marijuana grown near them, but there already are numerous gardens in the county’s unincorporated area.

“That is going to be one of the areas where we are challenged the most,” said Carrillo, who sits on the county’s ad hoc medical cannabis committee with Supervisor Susan Gorin.

The proposed ordinance is “a little more conservative than I would like,” Carrillo said, suggesting there should be more flexibility in land use rules for marijuana in his west county district.

If pot growers are restricted to agricultural zones, Logan said there would likely be pressure to buy up productive farmland for conversion to marijuana cultivation. Logan previously said that 70 percent of the local cannabis grows are less than 3,000 square feet, most of them located in residential zones.

Her 200-member group, about 60 percent of whom are pot growers from Sonoma, Mendocino, Napa and Marin counties, sponsored its second annual “Cultivating Community” event, nearly filling a large ballroom at the upscale hotel.

The crowd of about 300 was a bit smaller than it was a year ago but in a ritzier setting than the Sebastopol Grange, last year’s venue. Sponsors set up booths in the hotel courtyard and on a back lawn, where there also was “an outdoor 215 zone for medical patients,” organizers said, borrowing the number from Proposition 215, approved by voters in 1996, making California the first state to legalize medical marijuana.

The CBD Guild, which manufactures cannabis-infused sprays and oils, was a major sponsor of the conference, hosting a buffet lunch for the crowd. CBD’s founder, Dennis Franklin Hunter, showed video testimonials of his products’ efficacy, including one from Santa Rosa political consultant Herb Williams, who said he got relief from the pain of psoriatic arthritis without any fogging of his mind.

In an interview, Hunter said his Santa Rosa production facility, raided by authorities and shut down in June, will reopen in a week to 10 days.

Hunter, who was initially arrested and held on $5 million bail, was subsequently released without charges. He said authorities seized several hundred thousand dollars worth of inventory and equipment, which he is still trying to recover.

Asked if the raid was misguided, Hunter, a Santa Rosa resident, said that was a “tough question.”

“I don’t think they had all the information about the company, the compliances and transparency we had,” he said.

City planning officials said CBD’s zoning permit did not allow marijuana extraction.

Supervisor Gorin, who also addressed the conference, said Sonoma County will be challenged to deal with the regulation of medical marijuana and the prospect that voters will approve recreational use of pot in November.

In Boulder, Colorado, where recreational use was legalized statewide in 2012, there are 14 dispensaries on a single street, Gorin said, suggesting that was too much.

But she hailed the advent of marijuana going mainstream in Sonoma County.

“We produce premium cannabis,” Gorin said, adding that the county also has the opportunity to develop cannabis manufacturing and research facilities.

County Agricultural Commissioner Tony Linegar warned that cannabis regulation would include strict testing for mold, mildew and other impurities. Growing a clean crop is “not going to be as easy as some people think,” he said.

State officials said that registered pot farmers also will be subject to water use regulation and the jurisdiction of the Agriculture Labor Relations Board.

Fiona Ma, a state Board of Equalization member, predicted it will be five to six years before Congress allows banks to handle marijuana money, forcing the industry to continue on a cash-only basis. But a bill signed Thursday by the governor removes a 10 percent penalty for paying state sales taxes in cash, she said, prompting applause from the audience.

The proposed cannabis land use ordinance, along with a county staff report and an environmental assessment, will be presented by county officials at a public workshop from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. Thursday at the Glaser Center, 547 Mendocino Ave., prior to a series of Sonoma County Planning Commission hearings starting Oct. 13.

The documents are posted online at sonomacounty.ca.gov/cannabis.

(Santa Rosa Press Democrat)

LETTER TO REDHEADED BLACKBELT

Is sexual abuse and exploitation of women rampant on college and university campuses? Is it rampant in the military, within law enforcement. On sports teams, within religious groups, how about corporate America or hell the streets of Anytown USA for that matter?

Obviously and unfortunately the answer is YES. There exists in every facet of our society those that would be predators. The way that these people choose to support themselves in my mind is irreverent. We have read many more stories of CEO’s or Sport heroes or Police Officers being charged with sex crimes over the years then people involved in cannabis cultivation.

Now I understand that the nature the business lends itself to secrecy. I here loud and clear the argument that a women would be afraid to come forward and have to tell the police that she was assaulted while she was working on a pot or farm or trimming. If that is the case, and there are women who are afraid of the repercussions of law enforcement, please do not be afraid. Come forward. Law enforcement could give a hoot if you were trimming. If you need anymore reassurance call anyone of our local “Pot Lawyers” and they will tell you the same.

With that being said, I have been involved the cannabis industry here in Humboldt for 30+ years. I truly can tell you I have never witnessed even close to anything described in this article. I have never seen topless trimmers either by force or voluntary. I have never seen prostitutes at harvest scenes, although I can imagine they do exist. I have heard stories of people getting screwed on compensation, but honestly those stories are rampant with every part of the industry.

I believe that the authors of the original story took what was two truly disgusting incidents and used the credibility of those to then make a very broad indictment of the entire cannabis community. While the story of the two truly courageous women who have come forward and not only accused there attackers but eventually saw them found guilty should be told and we should all pay heed, we need to be careful casting nets of dispersion over entire groups.

LIBERTARIAN CANDIDATE GARY JOHNSON appeared on MS-DNC’s Hardball this week. I thought he held up pretty well under the hostile and impertinent questioning. Johnson has suddenly become a threat, as polls show him outpacing Clinton among millennials. The Johnson surge has brought once safe states, such as New Mexico, Colorado and New Hampshire, into play. Thus the guns have been turned on him.

The liberal press and the Clinton Twitterchoir are trying to make a big deal of Johnson’s answer to a silly question from Matthews, asking him to name a current head of state that he admired. Johnson’s answer was clear and simple: “I can’t think of one.” This statement is being ridiculed by the political class as evidence of the triviality of the Johnson campaign. But isn’t it an accurate reflection of the world as it exists?

After snickering at Johnson for saying he couldn’t think of any world leader that he admired, Hillary disclosed her choice… Angela Merkel.

Trump, showing his feminine side, quickly followed suit. Both major candidates are admirers of the grim enforcer of Euro-Austerity. Goodbye pensions! Goodbye Social Security!! I’m with Gary.

Johnson made a very important statement during the Matthews interview. Unlike Trump and Clinton, who want to see Edward Snowden brought home in chains and tried for treason, Johnson said, “Based on what I know about the case, I would pardon Edward Snowden.”

This strong statement of solidarity from a leading political figure in the country (which synchs with Jill Stein’s own position on Snowden) was met with derision, even on the far Left. I quote just a few comments from our Facebook page:

“I’m sure he knows as much about Snowden as he does about Aleppo.”

“It does leave open the question of what Mr. Libertarian ‘doesn’t know’.”

“Er, Aleppo? What’s Aleppo? Snowden? Some place in Maine, isn’t it? It snows a lot there, doesn’t it?”

“What is Snowden?”

“That is the first intelligent thing he’s said.”

“Impressive, considering the depth of his knowledge.” …

The knee-jerk Left cares more about staying inside the strict enclosures of its own ideology than finding unity with libertarians and anarchists on matters of state power, civil liberties and militarism. It’s a self-defeating posture. Dissing Johnson in such smug ways makes Leftists feel temporarily elevated, but does nothing to help the perilous circumstances facing Edward Snowden or Chelsea Manning, end the drug war or stop the next regime change intervention.

(Jeffrey St. Clair, Courtesy, CounterPunch.org)

WHERE DID YOU SLEEP LAST NIGHT IN THE PINES

My girl, my girl, don't lie to me

Tell me where did you sleep last night

In the pines, in the pines

Where the sun don't ever shine

I would shiver the whole night through

My girl, my girl, where will you go

I'm going where the cold wind blows

In the pines, in the pines

Where the sun don't ever shine

I would shiver the whole night through

Her husband, was a hard working man

Just about a mile from here

His head was found in a driving wheel

But his body never was found

My girl, my girl, don't lie to me

Tell me where did you sleep last night

In the pines, in the pines

Where the sun don't ever shine

I would shiver the whole night through

My girl, my girl, where will you go

I'm going where the cold wind blows

In the pines, in the pines

Where the sun don't ever shine

I would shiver the whole night through

My girl, my girl, don't lie to me

Tell me where did you sleep last night

In the pines, in the pines

Where the sun don't ever shine

I would shiver the whole night through

My girl, my girl, where will you go

I'm going where the cold wind blows

In the pines, in the pines

Where the sun don't ever shine

I would shiver the whole night through

–Leadbelly (Huddie William Ledbetter)

ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

Donald Trump is a slobbering megalomaniac who should be kept away from political office in the same way a three-year-old child is kept away from a box of matches.

Hillary Clinton, meanwhile, is a natural born killer, a passionate disciple of US exceptionalism who believes there is no country that can’t be improved with a shower of cruise and tomahawk missiles.

Who Will Save Us From America? — John Wight

WHISTLEBLOWER BLUES

Lyrics: Holly Tannen

Tune: “Evil-Hearted Me” or any good blues tune

I’m practicing for my concert at the Progressive Alliance Center in Fort Bragg next Friday, October 7th. Dan Kozloff has been coaching me on my new song. In July and August of 2013,  Edward Snowden (and, I later found out, WikiLeaks’ Sarah Harrison) hid out in Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport for forty days and forty nights, to the frustration of journalists sprawled like walruses in every airport bar and lounge. After Russia offered Snowden political asylum, I categorized Whistleblower Blues as a “short shelf-life” song, and filed it away. With the release of Oliver Stone’s film “Snowden,” I  rewrote it. I’d always wondered what they ate.

— HT

Got a single pair of socks,

A single pair of shoes

A single pair of underwear

It’s givin’ me the blues

I got the blues, I got the blues,

Got them awful Airport Blues.

I’m in Sheremetyevo Airport

With the Whistleblower Blues.

 

I got the New York Sunday Times,

Got the Hong Kong Daily News

I got half-a-dozen Burger Kings

It’s givin’ me the blues.

I got the blues, I got the blues,

I got the cheese and bacon blues

I’m in Sheremetyevo Airport

With the Double Whopper Blues.

 

Can’t step outside my room

Though I’m longin’ to be free

There’s a hundred paparazzi

Want an interview with me.

I got the blues, I got the blues,

Got the cancelled passport blues.

Can’t get on a plane to Cuba

With the Whistleblower Blues.

 

Got a thousand sheets of paper

And I don’t know (where) (how) to file ’em

‘Cause there’s twenty-seven countries

Wouldn’t offer me asylum.

I got the blues, I got the blues,

Got the landlocked homesick blues

I’m in Sheremetyevo Airport

With the Whistleblower Blues.

 

I’m on Democracy Now

I’m on Al Jazeera News

I’m in Sheremetyevo Airport

With the Whistleblower Blues.

COLIN KAEPERNICK HAS A RIGHT TO HATE BOTH CANDIDATES

by Dave Zirin

San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick is on a mission to make this country face the reality of racist police violence, one anthem protest at a time. That is his quest.

His mission is not to make sure that Hillary Clinton becomes president. It’s not to keep the liberals who have supported his “right to protest” happy. He is representing a politics that falls outside the conventional cable-news discourse.

Kaepernick was asked by reporters what he thought of Monday night’s debate between Clinton and Trump, and this is what he said: “It was embarrassing to watch that these are our two candidates. Both are proven liars and it almost seems like they’re trying to debate who’s less racist.”

Like it or not, this statement is actually an apt reflection of the view of millions of young voters, particularly young voters of color. This demographic looks at these two candidates and wonders why they are being asked to choose between a raving bigot and someone whose platform seems to be—frankly, somewhat reasonably—“The other guy will start a nuclear war based on a tweet.”

Kaepernick is using his new platform to reject the partisan framework that passes for politics. It is bracing, it is brave, and—again—it is upsetting many of the right people.

Bill Maher—who for reasons unfathomable given his penchant for bigotry and sexism is still seen as something of a liberal hero—tweeted at 2:30 in the morning, “#colinkapernick is an idiot. I support his protest, but stick to what u know: kneeling and interceptions, and then look up ‘false equivalency.’” (Quick word of advice: When you are drunk-tweeting in the middle of the night, make sure you spell the name of the person you’re calling “an idiot” correctly.)

Maher’s tweet came just a week after he passionately defended Kaepernick, saying, “What people died and fought for was for his right to [protest.]”

And that’s election-year liberalism in a nutshell: “Protest the anthem, the country, police violence, and the absence of freedom in the ‘land of the free,’ but if you criticize Hillary, we will bury you.”

This was also seen in a USA Today column by Josh Peter, who wrote that Kaepernick’s comments about the debate “came across as shrill and lacked nuance and could cost him the growing support he needs to affect real change.”

The implication, despite hundreds of years of evidence to the contrary, is that “real change” happens only when you cozy up uncritically to one of the two major parties. That would be news to the masses of protesting people whose fingerprints exist on every piece of progressive legislation ever passed.

To Kaepernick’s credit, it’s not like he is holding a press conference to give his “hot take” on the debates, like some kind of wannabe pundit. He was asked in the locker room for his thoughts. He could easily have deflected or even said, “I’m focused on this police-violence issue.” Instead, he spoke his truth.

If you think that the number-one issue in the fight against racism in this country right now is stopping Donald Trump, then argue that point. The worst thing Hillary’s supporters could do is call him “shrill” or an “idiot,” because he represents the very demographic that Democrats need to turn out in November to secure the White House.

The only people being “shrill”—a word I hate as a writer, because it has such sexist connotations—are Bill Maher and USA Today. Colin Kaepernick has the right to his opinion on the flag and he has the right to his opinion about the elections. Instead of blasting him, maybe people should try to understand why someone would look at this country, look at the cases of Terence Crutcher, Terrence Sterling, Keith Lamont Scott, and so many other human beings who have become hashtags, and try to understand why the solutions on that debate stage would taste like the thinnest possible gruel—utterly unsatisfying to young people whose appetite in 2016 is for bold change and some semblance of justice.

FIRE IN THE MOUNTAINS

Beneath The Fire

by Manuel Vicent

(Translated by Louis Bedrock)

Since that tragic eleventh of September when the twin towers disintegrated, the anniversary of which we honor today, history has assumed a violent, savage and scatological character to the point in which each summer since then is always the final summer.

That feeling has accompanied the end of this year's vacation. We were under the yoke of a hundred and four degree heat and a dark windstorm when suddenly several red clouds rose in the east at the end of the afternoon like an unusual sunrise.

Someone commented,

—Whoa! Today the sun is setting on the other side!

The great radiance taking shape where dawn illuminated the sky every morning was not due to any of the Last Four Things, but to the annual ritual fires of summer, except that this time what was burning were the coves and mountains of XÃ bia--the horizon of the best years of our lives.

The flames were reducing to ashes many memories of the pleasures we had experienced, our hopes, and our impossible dreams. This happened on the day when we had to lock up the house in order to return to work, condemned to breathe the thick smoke generated by the words of politicians. Despite the fire, some friends --the poet Tono, the actor Cervino, and the owner of the house, Hector--and I decided to go fishing and sailing one last time this early morning as a way of placing pleasure face to face with The Apocalypse.

From the open sea one could see the burning mountains whose brilliance challenged and surpassed the potent light of the sun emerging from the water. On this occasion, a catastrophe produced the rose-colored fingers of the aurora; however, according to the poem of Virgil, the sea was stretched out and silent in honor of the beauty.

— The end of the world can wait —said someone tossing himself into the abyss.

It has always been said that dolphins, if they see you're in danger, fetch you and carry you home.

LONG DRIVE HOME

by Kim Nicolini

I took this photo on my drive home from work last night. I was dog tired. So tired that even my teeth and toes ached. In the true spirit of corporate capitalism, whether at the level of the state or private business, I am presently working two jobs while being paid for one. I am doing it to care for my kid. I am doing it because if I make it five years and two months longer into this job, I will retire with a pension.

Lately it has crossed my mind that as much as I try to be more than I actually am (you know like an artist or writer or poet or whatever), that I really am just a woman who has spent her life working to the bone while trying to pretend I’m something else. I am what I am. So I have written some things and made some art. But at the end of the day, I have spent the majority of my waking hours on this planet working to make ends meet. Whether selling my body as a kid when I was thrown to the curb or slowly inching my way from a series of shit jobs to white collar work, I have done what I had to do to keep my head above water, sometimes barely.

When I die, I probably will never have visited a foreign country. There will be many things I will never have done or seen. I may very well die alone. It will be an unremarkable death. I will be gone, and my biggest achievement will be busting my ass to take care of my kid. I’m not unhappy with that because caring for my kid is something that never happened to me by my parents, so I’m glad to break the cycle. That is an accomplishment.

Looking at my life on these terms, I could come from any generation. I could be my dad, except I got sober sooner, and except we live in a new era now. The post-Reagan, post-NAFTA, global capitalism feeding frenzy where people like me, my dad, my whole family lineage and every hard working and struggling person on the planet has become expendable and obsolete. The system has become the Ouroboros circling on itself as it consumes the very blood that fed it. Working people. Let it eat its own head. It seems to enjoy it. But I’m done watching.

I am an ant crawling up the street in my car, and all around me, I feel the complete disregard of human lives across the globe. I feel those hideous looming heads that have dominated international media (the blustering red faced pig and the stone faced blonde smirker), and I feel their torrents of shit spilling over the mountains like an apocalyptic flood. I feel sick and invisible.

I look to the clouds for comfort from some other place. I have been reading the signs for a long time. I have felt and observed the systematic erasure of the under and working classes. Is there a god out there for fucksakes? I admit. In these dark times, I sometimes spend my nights asking if there is one and if so if he or she can please stroke my cheek and soften the edges of this hard world.

SILENCE

But I’ve been keeping silent. I’ve been biting my tongue. I’ve been swallowing my words. I got nothing to say except FUCK THIS SHIT.

Have I been watching the sickening and monstrous spectacle of this presidential election go down? Yes, I have. I find myself spiraling. I read the rants, the incredulous corruption, the imperious demonstrations of systemic disease, and I divorce myself from it. I want no part of it. I refuse to write about it.

Why?

Because I don’t want to join the fight. I don’t want to fight. Maybe I’m a pacifist, or maybe I’m chicken. Because I’m not as tough skinned as I seem. Because I was beaten down so young and so early that even when I speak with outrage and an internal fury so volatile it could knock down the fucking Pentagon, I turn my back and dodge the blows.

I think I did something wrong. I find myself on the defensive from being offensive. So I have shut down.

Like so many people, I live in a haze of disenchantment. I am grasping at threads to find magic in a world ready to implode. In a world of power structures that don’t really give a living fuck about the very vast majority of the human population, from me as working mom slugging away at a day job to care for my kid, to the innocent black people being murdered by police in our so-called democracy, to the thousands and thousands of murdered innocents in the Middle East or those left landless and wandering into countries where they are met with hate or landing in this country where they are met with hate. There is too much hate.

TEAR DOWN THE WALL BEFORE IT’S BUILT AND TEAR DOWN THE WALLS WE CAN’T SEE.

Oops. I slipped.

So I go silent because I know everyone is angry, and everyone wants to blame someone, and anything I write will fuel the flames. There will be hate. People will want to correct me, especially those from the educated liberal left who know so much more than me. Or those from the right who want to put me in my place because I am a ranting woman who doesn’t know shit and needs to shut up. I will become a target. And I know what it feels like to be a target.

I don’t want a part of any of it. Hear me now. I am not for any of this, and none of this is for me. I am stranded on the island of lost souls who are the salt and breath of this earth and who are being stomped to the ground one political move at a time, regardless of parties. Parties are just marketing strategies, and I’m not buying any of it.

BETRAYAL

I’ve come a long way in my life. I was born the daughter of a drug addled psychotic mother and a corrupt sexual sadist cop. At age two, my mom married her husband’s best friend, the man who became my dad. He was an ironworker and a drunk. He died three years ago this coming Sunday of a broken body and a poisoned liver.

My dad was a staunch union man. He bought goods made in the USA. He bought American cars. He shopped in union grocery stores. In his late years in life, he subscribed to mail order catalogs that only sold products made in the USA. He would never in his life consider voting anything but Democrat. But when the tide changed in the Clinton years, the new economy almost killed my dad. It broke his body with its mindlessness to labor. My dad quit his job early, took a smaller pension, and said fuck it. But he still stayed true to his union and his class, and in the last election of his life, he voted for Barack Obama.

I come from a long line of blue collar laborers, including teamsters and longshoremen. No one in my family ever voted Republican, and I was raised to believe that the Democratic Party was the party of the working class. It was hard wired into my very DNA and genealogy for my entire lifetime and lifetimes before mine. No matter how off the grid I was, how punk and rebellious I was, how much I spat my fury at the world, when it came time to vote, I was hard-trained to vote Democrat to beat the Republicans. Period.

Even with Bill Clinton’s passing of NAFTA which sold out my whole family and so many other working class people in this country, I still couldn’t unwire myself from my blue collar gene pool. Even as I worked with inner city kids during the Clinton administration’s implementation of the Welfare Reform Act, and I witnessed firsthand the impossible demands it put on the impoverished in this country, I still held a thread of belief from what was bred into my blood — that there was a political party that cared about the working and lower classes. Wrong.

That was self-delusion and genetic and cultural conditioning. I met an eighty year old man the other day who said he has never experienced such political dismay. I cautiously mentioned my roots in the working class and how betrayed I feel. He said, “Me too. I come from a family of tradesmen. We worked hard for our pay, and I have never voted anything but Democrat. That was the party that was supposed to be taking care of us. I don’t know what I’m going to do. I’m just glad I’m old. I feel bad for the young people.” Right, like my daughter who has her whole life ahead of her.

Now here I sit in a state of numb. Betrayed by a system that has been betraying us all along. I just wasn’t awake or was holding on too hard to my connection to my roots, even if they were a bunch of drunken abusive laborers. I held my family and my ancestors high as pillars for surviving the toil of their labor. I take pride when I look at the San Francisco skyline and know that my family helped build it. I am outraged beyond belief that the New Economy has alienated and dislocated the very people who built the city and their families from their home because they can’t afford to live there. I can’t afford to live in the city built on the sweat and blood of my dad and my ancestors.

It’s easy to call me stupid for buying into the system and the belief that my vote counted, but when you come from a long line of laborers who have been paid union wages that put food on the table, a roof over our heads, and a pension in my mom’s bank account after my dad died, it’s hard to let go.

Well I have let go. I am furious. I am alienated. As a working mom and child of the working class. As a woman who survived being sold as a commodity in my teen years. As the mother of a child who is facing her first opportunity to vote in a presidential election and who is faced with no choice. I feel betrayed, abandoned, furious, sick.

F WORDS

I look at Hillary Clinton’s smug face, and I think, “What the fuck do you know about anything you privileged cunt?” Excuse my French. Do you have any idea what it means to be a working full time mom who does all her own housework and laundry and fixes the broken sink and builds the school projects in the garage? Do you know what it’s like to be a woman whose only option in the world for survival is the sale of her own body? When was the last time you were at a Coin Star cashing in change and being charged 8 cents on the dollar to buy something for your kid? I was there two weeks ago. Hillary Clinton you are no icon for women.

And people do not tell me how she came from the working class or is a proponent of the working class. She grew up in the Chicago suburbs and went to Wellesley where she was president of the Wellesley Young Republicans. Sure she stepped down later, but her political DNA was off from the start. Then she went to Yale, and she has strategically clambered for power and money since. She has fed the war enterprise, and she is responsible for the senseless murder of thousands of innocent men, women and children in the Middle East. She is not of my people or for the people.

I’ll throw two F words out here.

Fuck you Hillary Clinton.

Fuck you Feminists who think she is some kind of revolutionary answer to the glass ceiling. I know what the glass ceiling feels like. Hillary has never been part of that world. Smug. Privileged. Clueless. And full of power and money. Shut the fuck up.

Girlfriends of the world, I got news for you. Feminists themselves are for the most part elitist leftists who think they are populists. They have not been down in the trenches. They think prostitution is a form of self-empowerment. How many of them were bought and sold as children, had their innocence stolen, live with the legacy of having their very bodies robbed from them for the profit of others? Have they felt the hammer of Capitalism smash the belief out of their worth as human beings? I have.

What does it REALLY mean to be an everyday woman in this country? A woman who is most likely significantly underpaid for her labor compared to her male counterparts. A woman who when she expresses her outrage is called crazy and unstable and needs to do something to fix herself. What does it mean to be a lesser human in the grand patriarchal scale? Hillary Clinton wouldn’t know because MONEY comes before gender. And she’s got plenty of money to buy her way to the top.

Just as you can’t think about race without thinking about class, you can’t think of gender without thinking about class either.

Sure, Hillary gets plenty of digs that a man wouldn’t get. And it pisses me off. But in the end, it doesn’t matter. She can buy her way out of them. She has the power and the money to do it. She comes off clean.

How many women have that kind of cultural and capital privilege? Not many.

If she were poor and white or, even worse, poor and black, do you think Hillary would have a leg to stand on breaching national security? Please. She’d be tasered, choke-holded, jailed and/or killed.

That bitch doesn’t care about me or you. She cares about herself. She has primed herself to win this election, and she will because she has the cultural and economic capital to do it. And she is mobilizing her power to run the final stretch as I type these words.

And she has left me feeling betrayed and invisible. Fuck you twice Hillary.

LEFT ELITISM

Then there are the Left Elite. I’ve written about them before in my piece on Russell Brand and the Posh Left. This election is so fun for them. They have the time to write their rants and their treatises, telling us what we should and shouldn’t do in the name of the revolution of which really they are just impotent pundits.

Not unlike Ms. Clinton, they have the educational credentials and the time on their hands to spin their theories. They are going to tell me what it means to be female when they have never been beaten down so low that they accepted their body should be sold as a commodity because they weren’t worth anything else. They are going to talk of the working class when they have never been part of the working class or even gotten their hands dirty. They are full of soft handshakes and hard unfair ignorant judgements.

They take their summers off to travel the globe and have coffee with the intellectual elite. They say they are promoting the working class agenda while I and millions like me wake to the alarm every morning, head to work, punch out another day, go home, and count the vacation hours I have accrued and the years to my retirement.

Sometimes they write to me and ask me to write this or that. I have resigned if you haven’t noticed. I have given up hope. I am not one of them, nor will I ever be. I am a working class working mom who grew up on the streets and is recovering from decades of violating abuse while trying to hold down a job and make a better world for my daughter in a world that ain’t getting any better.

I took my daughter to see the new Beatles movie the other night because she is a huge Beatles fan. I promised her I wouldn’t squeal, and I didn’t. But I did come away thinking if that many people could be mobilized for a band, if 56,000 people could bowl over an entire police force to see four guys play music, why can’t people be mobilized to take the System down? Beatles for President. Right. All we have is Ringo and Paul, sadly.

BULLY

Are you kidding me? This is the kind of man who would have used me as toilet paper when I was a teenager. This spit spewing, snorting, bulging face, enraged lunatic is probably the truest face of the System we’ve seen in my political lifetime. This is what economic politics looks like. It’s a big ugly money-grubbing tit-grabbing bully who dehumanizes the masses for self-interest, power and money. Need I say more?

I will. This morning I got in my car to drive to work. I pulled behind a Toyota Prius with a Trump bumper sticker. I audibly sighed. Who the hell drives a Prius and votes for Trump?

Last weekend, I saw another Trump bumper sticker. I was taking my daughter out for ice cream when we pulled in next to a truck with a rugged white man, his wife, and three kids. The beat up Ford bore a Trump bumper sticker, and when the man and his family stepped in front of us in line, three handguns swung from holsters on the man’s belt. Not one. Not two. Three handguns. I live in Arizona, an open carry state, a state in which men like the one I saw last weekend feel it is necessary to carry three guns to the ice cream shop. Why? To fight off the Mexicans crossing the border?

Don’t these people realize they are shooting themselves in their own foot and shooting every other hard working person with them? This was not a wealthy family. I would not even call them middle class. I would say they are barely scraping by. So why vote for a money mongering pig? Because he’s a bully, and men like the man with the three guns like bullies because it gives them the illusion of being empowered when they are actually being squashed like the rest of us. It’s just easier to deny when you have three guns swinging next to your child’s head as she licks her rocky road ice cream cone.

I was on the elliptical at the gym last week when a man next to me began ranting at the TV. I tried to ignore him. Hillary was on Fox TV. The man looked at me, face dripping with rage and sweat, and he said, “That woman is looking for trouble. What we need is to be the bully we once were.”

What did that man expect from me? I have a feeling he was putting me in my place as well as Hillary. I shook my head and pointed to my headphones pretending I didn’t hear him. Hillary and I do not share the same place. Fuck off bully.

DONE

I feel so done, so resigned. The other night I saw Glen Hansard perform live at the Rialto Theater in Tucson. Like some kind of miracle, I won tickets on the radio. I had to be the second caller, and it was a ridiculous affair. I was actually dumping a bag of garbage in a dumpster because I don’t have garbage service. (Hello economic reality!) I got in my car and heard the second caller would win tickets. I maniacally punched the code to unlock my phone and then dialed the number. I won. I squealed. I wanted to go to the show so bad. And I went.

Glen Hansard was great. A wonder of sincerity, fury, love, and, yes, politics. A working class Irishman with a guitar, he played a rendition of a Woodie Guthrie song amongst Hansard’s own classics. As he poured his soul into his guitar and voice and told tales of his childhood in Ireland, the audience was entranced. The experience reminded me that despite the ugliness of politics, I don’t have to own them or let them ugly up my life. The human creative spirit is beyond politics and debates. We can make music, art, and poetry. We can dance and love. We can hold onto our inner shining stars because if you are not One Of Those Other Motherfuckers, then you have an inner shining soul. I have mine. It’s vulnerable. It’s been through a hell of a lot in this lifetime. I’m going to do my best to take care of it until I reach retirement, so I don’t drop dead two weeks later but can actually maybe spend the majority of my senior years doing things I love to do rather than things I have to do. Not that Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump gives a rat’s ass. And frankly, I don’t give a rat’s ass about them.

(Kim Nicolini is an artist, poet and cultural critic living in Tucson, Arizona. Her writing has appeared in Bad Subjects, Punk Planet, Souciant, La Furia Umana, and The Berkeley Poetry Review. She recently completed a book of her artwork on Dead Rock Stars which will was featured in a solo show at Beyond Baroque in Venice, CA. She is also completing a book of her Dirt Yards at Night photography project. Her first art book Mapping the Inside Out is available upon request. She can be reached at knicolini@gmail.com. Courtesy, CounterPunch.org)

FEED THE RIGHT WOLF.

"When there’s nothing, you can do everything." -Shimon Peres

The recording of last night's (2016-09-30) 107.7fm KNYO (and 105.1 KMEC) Memo of the Air: Good Night Radio show is available to download and listen to via

http://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com

Or, if that's too fancy, you can hear and/or download it this other way (an advantage here is the play button, to just play it right away without waiting):

https://lostcoastoutpost.com/podcasts/memo-of-the-air/

When I do the show from Juanita's house, a small apartment with no sound-enclosed area, she usually listens to her own music with earbuds and works on her project, but when she was getting ready for bed last night she heard a part of the show where I was talking briefly about something that to her is particularly horrible, and it stuck in her mind and upset her. She went to sleep and had a bad dream and woke up crying. I put on Boston Blackie early, read the title story (Feed the Right Wolf, about news media's responsibility) and signed off. I'll have to figure out some way to solve this so I can both do what I need to do about the show and not make her unhappy. Maybe do the show from an all-night coffee shop up the street. I thought of that awhile ago; it may be time to try it. Or... do it in the bathroom? No. But why not? There’s plenty of light. There’s a counter. There’s a chair. I don't think it's low-class at all to do radio in a bathroom, if it's relatively clean.

I'll be in Fort Bragg for the First Friday show next week, so there's two weeks to come up with a plan. Which means I'll wait till the last possible instant and then spring into calamitous action, and I hope you'll be attending then to appreciate the very midst of what promises to be a thrilling train de-and-re-railment. And of course, before that, you can show up in person on First Friday at the KNYO storefront and participate, if you like. Maybe offer a suggestion or two; you're as smart as I am, and probably emotionally smarter.

Also at http://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com you'll find literally thousands of links to not necessarily radio-useful but worthwhile things to see and do and learn about, such as:

Trusssssst in me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9r7_YTMbnOQ

Coral’s alluring undulations. https://vimeo.com/156942975

And a video about shivery/creepy recorded sounds of war. My ears really perked up when it came to the propeller-driven terror whistles attached to the wings of German dive-bombers, because they used that same sound in the Stargate: Atlantis series for Wraith darts, and I didn’t know that until now. I heard it and went, That’s a Wraith dart. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t97d5dfZ4eY

Marco McClean

memo@mcn.org

http://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com

ALOHA!

9/30/16 Tiny Bubbles Writers' Group (Honolulu)

Looking out at Waikiki Beach, an absolutely perfect picture-postcard afternoon.  Sunny with puffy white clouds, wave after wave carrying surfers shoreward, and the sail boats arriving and leaving, and the tourist ships arriving and leaving, and the airplanes arriving and leaving, and thousands of tourists arriving and leaving, and the university students arriving and leaving, and the birds and the fish and the warm trade winds are arriving and leaving.  Only the unseen constant is aware of all of this, because it is neither arriving nor leaving.  It is just always here, neither coming nor going, never changing from anything to anything at all.

Visitors enter and leave the Jamba juice bar, with large cups of fresh squeezed local fruit juices, cold and refreshing, and then return to the beach with its carved statue of the Duke, surfer of surfers...the king!  Duke Kahanamoku used his circumstances of birth to develop into an immortal in the pantheon of the Hawaiian gods. His statue is across the street adorned with garlands of flowers, constantly being photographed.  Sunbathers fill up the juice bar again, and the blenders are all on making smoothies, whirring away amidst the chatter about evening parties and associated gossip. There is nothing too serious here.  That wouldn't fit the picture. There is one police officer down the way resting on a bicycle, watching over it all.

The Hawaiian islands are in the middle of the Pacific Ocean with nothing else anywhere near them.  Japan, Fiji, Samoa, French Polynesia, and everywhere else is not close by.  This is truly an isolated place.  The big city of Honolulu has all of the urban attributes, such as high rises, a variety of entertainment venues, an industrial section, an airport, a university, lots of motorized traffic, and four floors of the world class Ala Moana Shopping Center.  And still, this is an island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

Sitting on a bench along the canal, looking at Diamond Head and the 40 million dollar homes in the distance, lulled by the balmy weather, it is an effort to remain awake.  Indeed, why bother?  Palm trees sway slightly in the breeze.  Emerald green hillsides are illumined by the sun.  One can only wonder where they got the script ideas for Hawaii Five-0.  It was probably written in Los Angeles and then filmed here.  I haven't come across anybody on O'ahu whom Danno could book for anything serious.  How can you arrest a dream anyway?

Mahalo, Craig Stehr