Mendocino County Today: Wednesday, May 3, 2017

• Bud & Breakfast
• Rena Moore
• Greasy Martinez
• Little Dog
• Strong-armed Anderson
• Grange or Guild
• Candyman
• Rough Talk
• Ukiah Workload
• Split-rail Fence
• Immigrant Distinctions
• Yesterday's Catch
• Protest Rights
• Idiot Clinton
• Swamp Thing
• Hippie Invasion
• Icelandic Teens
• Mendo Greems
• DNC Fraud
• Library Events
• Marco Radio
• Artist Presentation
• Naturalist/Gardener
• The Madrones
• That Man

BUD & BREAKFAST

(Who’d have imagined this discussion only a few years ago?)

(Mendocino County Board of Supervisors Cannabis Workshop, Tuesday, May 2, 2017)

Supervisor Dan Gjerde (looking at a piece of paper): The Bud and Breakfast is not on this list. Where would that fall in this list? Would that fall under retail? Bed and breakfast?

Senior Planner Mary Lynn Hunt: Bud and breakfast to us is just bed and breakfast. What they are serving there — depending on what they are serving or what they are doing — I mean, what actually does that mean to us? We don’t have any definition of what a Bud and Breakfast is.

Gjerde: Is that an allowed use in rural communities zoning?

Hunt: Bed and breakfast? I'd have to look it up. I'm not sure.

Supervisor Carre Brown: And environmental health. If they are serving meals —? Do we do inspections? What is required?

Environmental Health Director David Jensen: If — There is a bed and breakfast permit issued by environmental health which allows them some limited food production. There's an inspection of the kitchen. And there are some equipment requirements. We do treat them, not as a full-blown food facility, but we recognize the fact that they are preparing food for paying guests. My concern about Bud and Breakfast is a long-term concern and that has to do with the difference between a Bud and Breakfast and an ad hoc dispensary. I would warn you to consider that very carefully. I'm not going to make that distinction. But it is there to be made.

Brown: So basically what you are saying is, somebody books a room and if it’s Bud and Breakfast (air quotes) they are expecting to buy, um, a product —

Jensen: Yes. You are expecting a room and a prepared meal to start the morning. With a Bud and Breakfast, you are expecting — you are expecting some cannabis in exchange for the funds that you are providing the owner.

Gjerde: So the question is, are they renting a room by the night or by the hour?

(Laughter in room)

Jensen: That is one of the questions! But I just want you to be cautious about —

Supervisor/Board Chair John McCowen: I think it's more cosmopolitan than I thought.

(Laughter)

Jensen: We have a long history on the coast.

Hunt: Chair McCowen, if I could speak to a Supervisor Gjerde’s question regarding the bed and breakfast— It is an allowed abuse in RC zoning with a major use permit that would allow that for bed and breakfast.

McCowen: I tend to think that things are complicated enough. I really think that bud and breakfast is something that people are already figuring out on their own. We kind of have enough to do right now. I think it's happening. I'm pretty sure it's happening. And will happen. The State is going to be slow to catch up. And maybe we will too. I don't know.

A READER WRITES: RE “THE DAY I MET THE PEOPLE’S TEMPLE”:

"An old friend, now gone, wrote a series about Jones for The Willits News, Rena Lynn Moore, maybe you remember her, she was a prolific writer too. Rena like many in the area figured him out almost instantly, and told the readers about it.

I remember her being threatened by Jones because of the unflattering news coverage. She claimed, and I believed that she was on a “hit list” and was to be executed, when the Jones end game came…Scared her enough to get the cops involved on several occasions…

Like many in the county I had an acquaintance or two who lost friends and family to the madness of Jim Jones.

I moved here with a guy who made Jones look like a punk kid, he ended up in jail and alone though…after going through that when Jones came along… he, for me, was an easy read. I never got how all those folks bought into it…?

Nice read, thanks for sharing."

ED NOTE: I'd always heard there was ONE local reporter who took Jones on, but I never knew her name or which paper she wrote for. In those days, Mendo was still print-oriented, but here in Boonville we got the five city tv stations, more or less from a ridgetop translator service we all subscribed to. I only read the Press Democrat and the Chron, the PD by subscription; the Chron I drove into town every day to pick it up. I only knew about Jones tangentially, you might say. The version I dimly recall of Ms. Moore's heroic stand against the charlatan, was that both she and the paper she worked for got threatened. I had no idea which paper. I was vaguely aware that Jones was said to maintain a thug squad of tough black kids he's send around at odd hours to visit the homes of critics and people who'd dropped out of the Peoples Temple. I never heard that they beat people up but they knocked on doors and made their presence known by simply showing up. I find it hard to believe Jones would try stuff like this without the police interfering. Yeah, yeah, someone will now say Jones owned the cops, too. He was politically influential in inland Mendocino certainly but I doubt the Ukiah PD or the Sheriff's Department would sanction goon squads. Anyway, Ms. Moore oughta get a plaque somewhere at least, as one more example of how tenuous, how vulnerable free speech can be. I hope someone out there can tell us something about her.

GRAB & GO

Javier Martinez Pena pled to grand theft for grabbing, along with others (unnamed) armfuls of Levis at JC Penney's in Ukiah and racing out the door. Other shoppers helped to subdue the Levis thief and the clothing was recovered, but the store manager said they were not able to sell the Levis now because they were "too greasy." Mr. Martinez was placed on probation, ordered to pay restitution, and when the probation and the cost of the Levis repaid, the theft would be reduced to a misdemeanor. (— Bruce McEwen)

LITTLE DOG SAYS, “Now this avian invasion of my space! This guy drops out of the sky today and tells me he's the same raven Edgar Allan Poe wrote about. ‘Horse pucky,’ I said. ‘Poe's been dead for two hundred years, and so's his crow.’ I knew that calling the raven a crow would get to him. Sure enough, the raven says, ‘Are all the dogs in Boonville as dumb as you?’ So I come back with, ‘How many dogs you know who know who Poe was, Mr. Crow?’ That did it. He flapped off west towards Point Arena.”

THE EDITOR USES A BASEBALL COMMENT by Stephen Rosenthal to brag on himself (Yes, it's a slow news day)

Steve Rosenthal:

Two homers by the Giants should be reason to celebrate, but Miller and Fleming mentioned in the first inning that it was extremely hot in LA and the yard was “live”. Should be another scorcher tonight, so let’s see if the power onslaught continues. Moore is pitching and the Dodgers have a lot of trouble against lefties. Another word of caution: Cueto revealed he has had a blister on his throwing hand throughout the season and it “flared up” last night. With Bum out for three months, the Giants can’t afford to lose Cueto for any length of time.

Bruce Anderson:

I’m available for short relief. I was a pitcher/outfielder back in another life and once, brace yourselves, pitched a 13-inning shutout as a high school junior. Don’t believe me? One of these bar stool jocks who gets better every year with the passage of time? I’m digging up the clipping, and by gumbo I’ll post it. Played two years of college ball at Cal Poly where I was mediocre but beat nationally-ranked UCLA one glorious (and lucky day — they line-drived hell out of me but right at someone) — but I had already lost interest in devoting much time to sports, opting for beatnik-ism. I wonder now if I’d worked on my game if I’d have been a lot better — I had the big fastball and a pretty good curve but after high school everyone can hit fastballs. My brother went on into the pros with the then-Milwaukee Braves. He was on his way up to the Bigs pre-expansion but his young wife issued an ultimatum, Me or baseball. He chose her and a year later they were divorced and that was baseball for him. He might still have the homerun record at Cal Poly. The kid could hit! As you can all tell, Tuesdays, after we get the print edition off to the printer we have time to sit around and tell lies, not that my baseball story is one.

Steve Rosenthal:

Good thing Bochy wasn’t your manager – he’d have pulled you in the 7th. Great story though.

Mike Kalantarian:

There was a time, not so long ago, when Bochy had an extremely strong hand, when it came to relievers:

http://m.mlb.com/news/article/110045424/giants-core-four-relievers-jeremy-affeldt-santiago-casilla-javier-lopez-sergio-romo-unparalleled/

By 2016, however, the Giants had essentially no relief in the bullpen. It’s really hard to win games like that.

Bruce Anderson:

Special to Mssrs Rosenthal and Updegraff:

Memo of the Year (1957)

Tam, Catholic High Victorious In Overtime Thrillers

by Dick Powers, San Rafael Daily Independent Journal

A big right-hander and a pint-size lefty gave Marin County baseball fans some excitement to talk about last night in the opening of the fourth annual Marin County baseball tournament at Albert Field in San Rafael. Both pitchers had to work for their victories as the regulation games went over the seven inning limit.

Strong-armed Bruce Anderson, ace right-hander of the Tamalpais High School mound staff, opened the tournament in fine fashion, eking out a thrilling 13-inning 1-0 victory over a fighting San Rafael baseball squad.

After Anderson had toiled his time on the mound, Marin Catholic’s left-handed curveballer Bob DeRosa limited the Drake Pirates to 5 scattered hits, while his teammates brought home a 3-2 triumph for the Catholic chucker in the eighth inning.

In tonight's opener, set for 6:15, the Drake Pirates meet the San Rafael Bulldogs with Tamilpais and Marin Catholic tangling at 8:30, weather permitting.

In the opener both Anderson and San Rafael's Al Watkins pitched one of their finest games of their careers, and probably one of the top Marin County baseball games in a few seasons. It was the longest game in Marin County history, and the longest Marin County prep game since the Santa Rosa-Tam game in 1955.

Both chuckers worked their way into tough spots throughout the game, but neither would yield a tally until the Mill Valley club pushed its victorious run across in the 13th.

Tam’s winning run scurried across in the last half of the 13th when centerfielder Tim Ferrell lead the inning off with a single in centerfield. Bill Ahern sacrificed him to the second sack and Don Johnson followed with his third single of the night, this time to left center, bringing Ferrell over the dish with the triumphant tally.

In the nightcap, John Boccabella, the Marin Catholic big sticker, gave his mates the opening lead of 1-0 as he brought in DeRosa with the opening run.

Drake came back to take the lead in the third frame as with one out Dave Williams doubled Jim Barbeau around to third base. Brian Cox’s sacrifice hit brought Barbeau in to tie up the game, and Bill Gallagher's following double gave the Pirates the lead, 2-1.

Marin Catholic again came back in the sixth inning when Cox brought Barbeau in with the tying run. Marin's Paul White led off with a free pass advancing to second on a sacrifice hit by Ray Little. Art Quinn struck on a third strike pitch and Ron Blum brought White across with a single.

The winning run scored in the eighth as with one out Blum again singled, going around to third on a subsequent single by Dave Ferriss. A throw from the outfield got away from catcher Ed DeMaestri and Blum kept coming around, going over for the winning score. Both winning pitchers of the night sent 13 batters back to the bench on strikeouts while DeRosa walked four and Anderson five. In 13 innings Anderson gave up eight scattered hits while in eight frames DeRosa allowed only five. Pitcher Anderson went one for five at the plate and made two solo put outs in the field.

BB Grace:

Dick Powers writes about baseball well. I’m impressed all the way around and appreciate your sharing something special about yourself. Big smile for the big right hander.

Bruce Anderson:

One more thing: Bobby DeRosa, John Boccabella, Ronnie Blum all played pro ball, Boccabella major league ball with, among others, the Giants. DeRosa was among the best pitchers in the Bay Area that year. While I’m bragging on myself here this afternoon I’m pretty sure I was also the first high school kid to hit a homerun out of Albert’s Field, although it was a kinda cheapie right down the left field line where the short fence was about 310. The 13 inning job is a record that cannot be broken — high school kids are limited to what? 7 innings a week? In the John Wayne days high school kids weren’t, ah, coddled, I guess you’d say.

Steve Rosenthal:

I grew up in Chicago and remember John Boccabella. He played for the Cubs. My claim to fame is a foul ball caught off the bat of HOFer Billy Williams at Wrigley Field. Still have it and the mitt I caught it in. John Boccabella was a bench player on the Cubs at that time.

ANDERSON VALLEY GRANGE'S MENU OF CHOICES

Dear Editor,

The good people of the Anderson Valley Grange (AVG) are about to vote on whether to stay Guild or go Grange.

If that line seems confusing, it is accurate nonetheless, and explains why the choice is such a struggle. But perhaps there is a third option.

I was invited to a meeting at AVG this past Sunday to explain my personal views as a Guild member. To summarize: I believe the Grange has wandered into a terrible error by (1) giving too much authority to its chief executive, and (2) by assuming final claim in its By-laws to local properties of Granges such as AVG. Thus, a National or State Grange President may now revoke a Grange charter and take its property.

These twin, terrible powers are being wielded. In 2012, National Grange revoked the charter of California State Grange, then filed suit in California Superior Court to seize it’s real property and other assets. Since 2016, a newly chartered California State Grange has sent revocation letters to over a half dozen local chapters, demanding they relinquish their properties. One of the most recent victims of this abuse is the chapter in Ft. Bragg.

Anderson Valley Grange has two protections against this anti-democratic, authoritarian assault on rights.

First, AVG remains in relationship to the revoked California State Grange, now named California Guild, which claims several dozen chapters throughout the state that are working to protect their common interests.

Second, AVG has its own corporate identity under California law, established in 1954. Under that law, AVG's property is secure.

The corporate ownership of a Grange property was tested in 1980 in the state of Virginia. In Virginia State Grange, Inc. et al vs. Great Falls Grange No. 738, Inc., a Fairfax County judge found that the local “shareholders” retained ownership. Ultimately the Fairfax County Park Authority purchased the Grange hall and its acreage and reopened it for community use. A Grange chapter still meets there. If AVG members are concerned for the longterm community use their hall, they should keep this model in mind.

However, a corporate identity only shields when the corporate officers follow their own By-laws. At the end of last Sunday’s plenary session I learned that the good-hearted leadership of Anderson Valley Grange have undertaken a voting process that is illegal under their By-laws, and therefore under corporate law.

Article X of AVG’s By-laws reads:

All propositions for amending or repealing these By-laws, or any part of them, shall be presented in writing at a regular meeting, and shall lie over until the next regular meeting, when they may be adopted by a two-thirds vote of all members present.

To count as a real game-changer, this vote must meet this two-meeting, members-only minimum criteria. Instead, AVG is conducting a mail-in vote that includes people who are not current members — and thus courting legal action by any number of interested parties. It would be far better for AVG to consider this effort a poll than a binding vote.

How frustrating! The call to the comfort and strength of fraternity is heard in the heart. No one joined the Grange to dispute democratic and property rights, or to act in lockstep with By-laws. Yet here we are.

On reflection, there is a third option for Anderson Valley Grange members where fraternal love and corporate law can live in equilibrium — not perfectly, but with the least amount of risk. It’s the option I rejected last Sunday, but I’ve changed my mind.

Sin boldly, by doing nothing. Wait and see — perhaps in a year or two the Grange vs. Guild lawsuits will have a decisive conclusion, and so will AVG.

In the meantime, let AVG members work out their vision for Anderson Valley. Build confidence in each other. Be the community you want to live in.

Respectfully,

David Zink

Paradise

dz@davidzinkmusic.com

EVERY PARENT'S NIGHTMARE

A report of a male attempting to lure a child - arrest of Parolee

On April 29th at about 2:46 pm, UPD officers were dispatched to the 800 block of North Bush Street, for a report a male adult who had attempted to lure a minor child. While in-route, UPD dispatch advised responding officers that the subject was leaving the area on foot wearing a camouflage shirt, with a witness following him. Upon arrival an officer located the subject walking eastbound along Orr Creek, with a dog. The male subject verbally identified himself as “Michael Craft age 38”, but was later identified as Shawn Lane, a 27-year-old parolee.

During the subsequent investigation officers spoke with the 7-year-old female victim and her mother. The 7-year-old was visibly shaken and had recently been crying. The mother reported that she was parked near the rear of the Bottle Shop Deli and her 7-year-old daughter walked to a nearby trash can. The mother was dealing with other children in her vehicle when her daughter ran to her extremely upset. The daughter told her mother that a male subject near the garbage can had attempted to lure her with candy. The daughter was interviewed about the incident, during which she told officers that she had attended a stranger danger class and knew not to talk with the subject, but to run and contact her mother.

The daughter described the adult male as having a red beard, red hair, wearing makeup around his eyes and an “Army” type shirt.

Officers were able identify Lane as the suspect in this case and he was placed under arrest for annoying a child under 18, false ID to a police officer, and for violating his parole. The case was turned over to the Ukiah Police Department Detective Division, who is investigating if Lane has any connection with UPD case 17-1190, an attempted abduction case last week.

Parents should take time to remind students traveling to and from school of these safety tips:

1. Do not talk to strangers.
2. Be aware of your surroundings (example: Don’t focus your attention on your cell phone while walking home from school. Walk with your head up looking at your surroundings).
3. Stick together. There is safety in numbers.
4. Practice basic self – defense. A swift kick to the shins or private parts along with a loud scream will help get the attention of people in the area.
5. If you’re at home alone – lock your doors.
6. If something happens to you, report it immediately!

Parents can get additional information to help protect their children at:

https://www.ukiahpolice.com/…/missing-and-exploited-childr…/

As always, our mission at UPD is simple: to make Ukiah as safe as possible. If you would like to know more about crime in your neighborhood, you can sign up for telephone, cell phone and email notifications by clicking the Nixle button on our website: www.ukiahpolice.com.

(Ukiah Police Patrol Lt. David McQueary)

KNOCK-KNOCK. WHO'S THERE? “LONG-TIME FRIEND”

On May 1, 2017, at about 0900 hours, Deputies were dispatched to a residence in the 2000 block of Peacock Lane, in Willits, regarding an assault. Upon their arrival Deputies contacted an adult female, 45 years of age, who stated that Shawneesuree Laiwa-Mckay, 45, of Ukiah, had forced her way into her (the victim’s) residence and assaulted her. According to the victim, on May 1, at about 8:50 A.M., she heard a knock on her door. When she answered the door Laiwa-Mckay forced herself into the residence. When the victim attempted to force Laiwa-Mckay out of the house, Laiwa-Mckay told her that she simply wished to talk to her about something.

The victim then hesitated at which time Laiwa-Mckay grabbed the victim by the hair and started to knee her in the face and forehead. Laiwa-Mckay then struck the victim in the back of the head at least two times. As Laiwa-Mckay continued to pull the victim’s hair, they moved into the garage where the victim was able to grab a hatchet. While still having her hair pulled, the victim was able to take at least two swings at Laiwa-Mckay, with the hatchet. Laiwa-Mckay eventually released the victim and left the residence. (It should be noted that the victim and Laiwa-Mckay were reported to be long time friends prior to this incident.) The adult victim was transported to Howard Memorial Hospital where she received treatment for her minor injuries. Laiwa-Mckay was located at her residence in Ukiah by Sheriff’s Deputies and taken into custody without incident. She was transported to the Mendocino County jail where she was booked for Assault with a deadly weapon. After posting $30,000 bail Laiwa-Mckay was released and ordered to appear in court on a later date.

UKIAH’S POOR OVERWORKED & OVERPAID CITY MANAGER

To The Editor,

I cannot believe that the Ukiah City Council actually approved, unanimously no less, the City Manager’s request for a Deputy City Manager because the “current workload is too much for one person.”

Oh, give me a break! The Journal stated that City Manager Sage Sangiacomo’s salary with benefits is well over $200,000 and the new deputy’s salary will be $202,000 with benefits. These salaries put these two on the same level as the City Manager and Deputy City Manager of Santa Rosa. The Santa Rosa City Manager makes $225,612 with benefits and his deputy makes $204,340 with benefits. The big difference being that Santa Rosa has a population of 172,066 while Ukiah has a population of a whopping 16,075.

In my opinion, poor old Sage must really have a lousy work ethic if he can’t handle the workload here by himself. I would also like to say that I had high hopes that this City Council would be a vast improvement over the previous ones but I’m beginning to think that they are actually worse. They seem to care not a whit about how much citizens’ money they spend or what they spend it on. With this council in power I’m afraid that whatever the future holds for the Palace Hotel it’s going to be paid for by the taxpayers of Ukiah.

Thank you,

David Anderson

Ukiah

SOMEONE DID A NICE JOB redoing the split-rail fence at Hulbert Ranch.

SOCO SHERIFF RESTRICTS COOPERATION BETWEEN JAIL & ICE

by Martin Espinoza

ICE won’t be called about undocumented immigrants suspected of minor offenses.

In a compromise with a watchdog official who had criticized his policies, Sonoma County Sheriff Steve Freitas imposed new restrictions Monday on cooperation between local jail officials and federal immigration agents.

The jail will no longer cooperate with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials in cases where undocumented immigrants are suspected of committing minor offenses, such as driving without a license.

However, the jail will continue to provide ICE with information about undocumented immigrants who are convicted of serious or violent felonies, as well as a number of other crimes listed in the 2013 Trust Act. That law, supported by immigrant rights groups, blocks county jails from holding inmates for immigration officials when they would otherwise be allowed to go free.

“We are trying to come to some type of mutual understanding and we are agreeing to go by the Trust Act,” said Sgt. Spencer Crum, a spokesman for the Sheriff’s Office.

The announcement comes one month after the county’s independent law enforcement auditor urged Freitas to limit federal immigration agents’ access to information about undocumented inmates at the jail.

“He has responded to the community and he is changing his policies and I think that is significant,” said Jerry Threet, director of the Independent Office of Law Enforcement Review and Outreach.

A 13-page report issued by Threet in March criticized the jail’s policy of complying with any request from federal immigration officials to be alerted before an inmate is released — including cases when a person is let out on bail or freed without ever having been charged with a crime. The policy, Threet said, undermined public safety by making people reluctant to report crimes or cooperate with law enforcement out of fear they may be deported.

Threet’s office recommended the Sheriff’s Office share information with ICE only in certain cases where an undocumented inmate is convicted of a serious or violent crime. Freitas, however, said the proposal inappropriately excluded several important crimes.

In a policy change he cast as a “reasonable compromise,” Freitas said he would now use the Trust Act to determine appropriate areas of communication with federal immigration agents.

Crum said the Trust Act calls on local jail officials to provide ICE with the release dates of undocumented inmates convicted of specific serious or violent crimes.

The list of crimes include felonies such as false imprisonment, human trafficking, elder abuse, child endangerment, extortion, spousal abuse and possession of an assault weapon, as well as misdemeanors such as indecent exposure, driving under the influence and brandishing a firearm.

“So if someone has not committed those crimes that are enumerated in the Trust Act, we will not be responding to an ICE notification request,” Crum said. “The Sheriff still believes that the best way to protect the public is to not release criminals back into the community.”

The announcement came the same day immigration advocates gathered in front of the jail to protest cooperation between jail officials and ICE.

Monday morning, several dozen activists from local liberal organizations dumped bags of ice in front of the Sonoma County Jail. They chanted over and over, “Fuera ICE,” or “Get out, ICE,” as they swept the melting chunks off the walkway between the jail and the county courthouse.

Richard Coshnear, a local immigration attorney who heads Comité VIDA, a volunteer immigrant rights organization, said Freitas was “taking a three-quarters step forward, which is great.” Coshnear said his group still objected to cooperation with ICE in cases that do not involve serious or violent crimes.

“We would object to splitting up families over any misdemeanor and, frankly, over nonviolent felonies,” Coshnear said.

But he welcomed the change.

“It shows that reasonable minds have come together over what public safety requires,” he said.

In his letter to Threet’s group, Freitas pointed out that future state laws, such as Senate Bill 54, known as the Values Act, could further limit local cooperation with ICE. The bill, which as been approved by the state Senate, is currently in the Assembly.

(Santa Rosa Press Democrat)

CATCH OF THE DAY, May 2, 2017

BRETT ADAME, Florrisant, Missouri/Ukiah. Ex-felon with firearm, ammo possession by prohibited person, leaded cane or similar.

TRAVIS GOURNO, Ukiah. Probation revocation.

DWAYNE HAW, El Cajon/Ukiah. County parole violation.

STEPHEN LOGAN, Sacramento/Ukiah. Probation revocation.

DANIEL NICHOLAS, Hayward/Redwood Valley. Drunk in public.

DANIEL PEREZ, Point Arena. DUI, resisting.

RICKY PONTS, Fort Bragg. Resisting.

LUCIANO SANCHEZ, Hopland. Drunk in public.

THOMAS SANDERS, Ukiah. Drunk in public, probation revocation. (Frequent flyer.)

SHANE THOMPSON, San Diego/Ukiah. Probation revocation.

ANTHONY WILBURN, Covelo. Assault with deadly weapon not a gun.

NOAH WORTILA, Mendocino. Domestic battery, infliction of injury on a child, child endangerment, false imprisonment, witness intimidation.

HONOR THY PROTESTERS. PROTECT PROTEST IN AMERICA!

by Laurel Krause

As protest season opens across America, citizen concern for the safety and protection of protesters comes to the fore. Like so many Americans raised in the Sixties, I experience a post-traumatic stress trigger every time a protester faces off with the brute force of law enforcement, bringing back all the memories of the violence against protesters we witnessed during the Vietnam war and Civil Rights movement.

Today whether it’s Water Protectors at Standing Rock, Climate Marchers, Black Lives Matters advocates, activists protesting the president’s unconstitutional executive orders, even mass protesters at January’s Women’s March and April’s March for Science, all risk arrest, being made into targets for simply exercising First Amendment rights.

I remember when the US government killed six student protesters at Kent State and Jackson State in May of 1970. The precedent to kill, and get away with it, was established early on in the life of our country however this was the first time it was televised for the world to experience first hand. It hasn’t helped that the US government continues to refuse to accept accountability, admitting no wrongdoing in its targeted assassinations of Americans, including young people who have actively disagreed with American leadership.

In April 2017 Pepsi launched a controversial and pricey protest commercial starring Kendall Jenner. The extended two and one half minute short was immediately scrapped after a very strong negative response from the viewing public. The ‘kinder, gentler’ soft soap version of this battle between protesters and law enforcement in America failed to resonate. No one bought it. Protesters will never save the day by opening a can of soda pop. The commercial irresponsibly and dangerously projects an image of safety while ignoring the actual danger of deadly force from police. This type of advertising is not new. Watch the Pepsi 2017 commercial http://bit.ly/2oJlBOT and watch the Coke commercial from 1971 http://bit.ly/2pjQEEh.

Who made the decision at Pepsi to invest in this fable of a gentle and safe world for protesters? Is this some kind of set up? Will those who are unaware of the blood spilled by protesters and the actual risk of conflict — sometimes deadly — between the police and our black and brown brothers and sisters, be tricked by this ‘kinder, gentler protest world’ imagineered by corporatocracy?

The Pepsi protest commercial is an insult to legions of American protesters who have shed rivers of blood, and still face violent, brute force from authorities. Bernice A. King, the daughter of assassinated Reverend Dr. Martin L. King, Jr. summed it up well in her April 6th tweet, “If only Daddy would have known about the power of Pepsi”.

The truth is that protesting in America has always been extremely dangerous, and as my sister Allison Krause learned on May 4, 1970 in an anti-war rally at Kent State University, it can get you killed by government forces.

Forty-seven years ago Allison was gunned down by the Ohio National Guard at Kent State because she was protesting. The Pepsi commercial is an insult to Allison's memory. It mocks her bravery and masks the personal risks she took to create a better world for all of us. No quantity of Pepsi could have saved Allison from the brute force of unrestrained government power and a national guard that willingly acted as government henchmen. A Pepsi, in fact, did not stop the bullet that took her life that day.

The Kent State Truth Tribunal seeks accountability and the acknowledgement of startling evidence revealed in 2010 – an exposed command to fire – that emerged, sharing a whole new view of what went down May 4, 1970 at the Kent State massacre, a view so starkly in contrast to the previous official version that it provoked – finally – an admission by the US government that my sister was “killed, murdered’’ by the US government.

For those seven years since we founded the Truth Tribunal, I have spread the word of wrongful protest harassment and killing, and have sought answers about command responsibility, taking the human rights issues of Kent State all the way to the United Nations. http://bbc.in/1qwOdqe.

The 2010 Kent State evidence exists in the form an audio recording of the actual command to fire, digitally isolated and verified by forensic audio expert Stuart Allen. http://bit.ly/aM7Ocm. Have a listen to Stuart Allen analyzing the Kent State tape and hear the command to fire: http://bit.ly/R4Ktio

I learned at the Truth Tribunal how the targeted assassinations at Kent State and Jackson State forever changed the landscape of protest in the United States. One of the top comments I’ve heard is from Maureen Bean Ui Lassig shared, “A horrific day none of us could ever forget. The unimaginable happened. Our children, the kids that would help to shape our future, were shot dead by our own government. RIP Allison.” Most share that they could never view the American government in the same way again.

Back then we watched the military and cops dressed in armor, bearing heavy weaponry created for war, trample the flowers, lives and dreams of those who stood for peace; it reminds me of Allison and her epitaph, “Flowers are better than bullets”.

We must be able to protest in America and express our dissent without fear of death, excessive force or wrongful arrest. The illegal and immoral exercise of power by government forces, corporations and covert groups organized to harm protesters, thwart protests, turn protests into violent, military events (by their very presence), must cease. Intimidating, deterring, and killing protesters violates basic human rights law and the US Constitution, the Bill of Rights. It is also a clear sign of a totalitarian government or dictatorship.

With all this on my mind, I attended an April 2017 Town Hall organized by my Congressman Jared Huffman. During the local event, I asked Representative Huffman to help protect protesters by developing legislation for their protection. I voiced my concern for the lives of Water Protectors at Standing Rock, bolstered by applause from my community. I asked Rep. Huffman to help us counteract the legislation, and law enforcement strategies, seeking to limit our rights to protest. We are beginning our efforts to establish the Allison Krause Bill for the Protection of Protest and Protesters in America.

Who knows what may go wrong this season of protest 2017, especially when we consider the plethora of state legislation intended to limit, hurt and criminalize protest. Even the right to protest on the sidewalk in front of White House is being tried in the courts now at the request of President Trump. http://reut.rs/2pmt6yM

I don’t want to see another protester killed for protesting. It is an American first amendment right to protest that guarantees the right to assemble and take action to disagree and dissent – that is the right to protest! Currently protesters face excessive force, including deadly force, as well as wrongful arrest.

Please join me in demanding your Congressional representatives to support the Allison Krause Bill for the Protection of Protest and Protesters in America, legislation intended to protect the right of Americans to protest without getting killed.

JE NE REGRETTE RIEN

....... I didn’t vote for her. Despite everything — despite all the chaos I feel coming — I cite Edith Piaf:

Je ne regrette rien.

I read “Shattered: Inside Hillary Clinton’s Doomed Campaign,” a book by two reporters for The Hill who promise to make you feel sympathy for the defeated Democratic nominee and her followers. It didn’t work on me.

Like their subject, authors Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes ignore policy in favor of a behind-the-scenes investigation of how a Too Smart To Fail presidential campaign got clobbered by an orange reality TV star who spent almost nothing and who didn’t even have an organization in most states.

According to Allen and Parnes, there were too many warring centers of power within Clintonland. Without a strong leader at the top, her officials spent more time and energy vying for her loyalty (and stabbing one another in the back) than working on winning. She liked it that way, even though the same dysfunction had plagued her failed 2008 primary race against Obama.

Campaign manager Robby Mook is the book’s villain: so obsessed with granular data that he can’t see the big picture or feel the voters’ pulse, contemptuous of time-proven polling techniques, as convinced that he has nothing to learn from people with experience as a Silicon Valley Millennial. He’s the guy who told her she didn’t need to visit Wisconsin — and she hired others like him in 2008.

Staffers were blinded by personal loyalty, so they couldn’t perceive and move to address big problems before they blew up, like EmailGate. And they were ideologically homogenous. Coming as they all did from the center-right corporatist wing of the Democratic Party, they couldn’t Feel the Bern when Sanders emerged as a potent force or figure out how to reconcile with his progressive base who stayed home on Election Day as a result.

Most damning of all, “Hillary had been running for president for almost a decade and still didn’t really have a rationale [for why she wanted to win and what she would do if she did].” For such an experienced candidate, this was a rookie error; didn’t she remember what happened to Ted Kennedy when he couldn’t come up with an elevator pitch in 1980?

Page after page reinforces the conclusion that this is a woman who does not, cannot, does not want to learn from her mistakes.

When you think about her policy history, this rings true. After all, she voted to overthrow the secular socialist dictator of Iraq in 2003, lostthe presidency in 2008 because of that vote, yet then as secretary of state advised Obama to arm and fund the radical jihadis against the secular socialist dictators of Libya and Syria. About which — despite creating two failed states — she has no regrets. There’s really no other way to put this, so I’ll just say it: this makes her an idiot.

She didn’t have the right personality to lead human beings. She didn’t deserve to be president. America, and the world, are better off without her.

Which does not mean I’m not scared of Trump.

(Ted Rall, Courtesy, CounterPunch.org)

ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

Trump may yet prove to be the worst President ever. But it won’t be for reversing course, but rather for carrying forward the Bush-Obama (Neo-Con) agenda. To point out only a few points:

More foreign wars, regime change, nation building, and pre-emptive strikes;

More antagonizing Russia and China rather than working together;

More surveillance on Americans and curtailment of free speech by calling it “hate speech”

More suppression of the non-corporate, non-globalist alt media;

More trampling on every Constitutional right by invoking the war on terrorism;

More militarizing the police, brutalizing society, and permitting an Orwellian deep state of unaccountable Black Ops Agencies;

More financial skulduggery to hide an economically declining system of scams, frauds, and rackets using phony, Potemkin statistics;

More blind eyes for Globalist criminal activity on Wall Street.

We elected Trump to drain the swamp, but he appears to be morphing into a swamp creature. You Trump haters may prove to be ultimately justified in reviling the man, but ironically because he turned into one of you.

MAY 2, 1967 : The [San Francisco] Board of Supervisors yesterday delayed hanging out a “Hippies Unwelcome in San Francisco” sign for at least another week. The Board voted 8-1 to delay on a resolution that looks askance at the rumored summer invasion of “indigent” and “vagrant” young people from elsewhere in the nation to San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury district. Police Chief Thomas Cahill had testified before the Board’s Police Committee that more hippies would mean more problems. Thus buttressed Supervisor Joseph Casey and Kevin O’Shea recommended that the Board block the hippie hegira. Supervisor Jack Morrison questioned the constitutionality of such a move. “During the depression,” Morrison said, “Los Angeles tried to bar indigents entering the county. They found they were violating the Constitution of the United States. These young people are our sons and daughters. They have the same right to move freely anywhere in the nation as any other citizen.”

— Mel Wax

HOW ICELAND GOT TEENS TO SAY NO TO DRUGS

Program so successful, it is being adopted in places all over the world.

A Reader Writes: Our school sports programs help many kids stay on track, but only a small minority. The costs are less than the heavy cost to society like hails, law enforcement, rehabs, and addicted transients. Maybe Fort Bragg could get grant funding for something similar?

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2017/01/teens-drugs-iceland/513668/

MENDO GREENS BACK FROM THE DEAD?

The Green Party is experiencing a resurgence! In California, several new County Councils have joined up or reactivated. Are Mendocino County Greens ready to reactivate?

The next General Assembly of the Green Party of California will be June 17-18 and Mendocino County could send voting delegates.

Green voters in Mendocino County are invited to a meeting to discuss and take action on reactivating the Green Party of Mendocino County. Sunday, May 21 from 2-5 in the afternoon, Willits Center for the Arts, 71 East Commercial St., Willits.

David Cobb, past Green Party presidential candidate and Jill Stein campaign manager and Erik Rydberg, Jill Stein campaign outreach coordinator for California will join us.

Questions: mkoster@pacific.net , 459-5970 or Cynthia Raiser Jeavons at 650-888-9781

DNC SUED FOR FRAUD.

https://medium.com/@zachhaller/7-jaw-dropping-revelations-from-hearings-on-the-motion-to-dismiss-the-dnc-fraud-lawsuit-bee1723b713f

MAY THE 4TH BE WITH YOU @ Ukiah Library

We will be showing IV: A New Hope (PG) in the Children’s Room and Rogue One (PG-13) in the meeting space. Wookiee cookies, popcorn, and bubbly water will be provided. This event is sponsored by The Ukiah Valley Friends of the Library. This event is free of charge and open to everyone.

* * *

First Friday is here ! Come to color and browse the book sale. Drop by the library between 10am-5pm on Saturday to pick up free comics for kids, teens and adults.

* * *

Make Your Own Comics Workshop for Kids & Teens. Tess McCarthy will be joining us to lead a free comics making workshop for kids and teens! She is a (mostly) self-taught cartoonist and illustrator born in Los Angeles. Tess learned inking and penciling techniques from the late Alfredo Alcala (Voltar, Swamp Thing and inking for other popular DC titles like Batman) in the 90s and recently studied under Matt Silady (“The Homeless Channel”).

* * *

Starting this Sunday May 7th at 2pm is our Movie Matinee: Seven Songs for a Long Life; “ At Scotland’s Strathcarron Hospice, patients face pain, uncertainty and the possibility of life's end with song and humor.” PBS documentary, 2016, Not Rated.

1.5-HOUR AIRCHECK OF POP-UP INTERNATIONAL WORKERS DAY MUSIC SHOW ON KNYO.

Here's a link to the recording. I left it in stereo and didn't recompress it smaller, so if you have DSL internet service it might take ten minutes to download the file. Start it coming and go make a sandwich and it'll be there when you get back from the kitchen: http://tinyurl.com/KNYO-MayDayPopUP-2017-05-01

And if MediaFire confuses you with flashing ads and you can't immediately tell what to click on, you can get it (and many other things) this other way, thanks to Hank Sims of LostCoastOutpost.com: https://lostcoastoutpost.com/podcasts/memo-of-the-air/

The first of May is always International Workers Day, Labor Day of the world. There was a lot of worker-related music left over from my Friday night show, so I got permission* to use KNYO's transmitter when Fred finished his every-Monday-night show at 9:30pm. I messed around till 11pm, covering the periodic table of different categories of workers: astronauts, prostitutes, chicken farmers, truck drivers, waitresses, musicians, deejays, tent-show barkers, miners, teachers, rescue persons, mechanics, carpenters, fishers, electricians, ties and socks, glass figurines, the discount shoe industry. I stopped short of the transuranics and signed off; you don't have to worry about any damage to the family germ plasm. I know people are concerned about that sort of thing and I'm trying to be more sensitive.

Contents may include: Lord Buckley, King Crimson, Eliza Gilkyson, Don McLean, Norel Pref, Al Jolson, Firesign Theater, Linda Ronstadt, Fanny Brice, Billy Nayer, Nate DiMeo, Meryn Caddell, Ada Jones, the Red Army Choir, Hoosier Hotshots, Onion News Network, the MacArthur Park May Day police riot (2007), The Police, Die Antwoort, Jay Leonhart, Hugh Blumenfeld, Bruce Adler, sound from old rainy-day school filmstrip records about slip safety, fire safety...

You can do this sort of thing too. KNYO is wide open to creative and/or educational whims, musical or otherwise. If you want airtime on KNYO for a show of your own devising and under your own control, contact Bob Young bobb@poetworld.net and say so, and you'll be on the air before you know it. That's the way radio is supposed to be.

Oh, also here's a petition to tell Trump appointee and industry lapdog FCC Chairman Ajit Pai not to kill net neutrality:

https://act.credoaction.com/sign/Pai-netneutrality

And the short animated film Double King.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_MSFkZHNi4

–Marco McClean

TALK AT GRACE HUDSON ON SATURDAY

Mixed media, unmixed delights

Multimedia artist Denise Oyama Miller talks on art and design

by Roberta Werdinger

On Saturday, May 6, from 2 to 3 p.m. at the Grace Hudson Museum, textile and mixed media artist Denise Oyama Miller will give a slide-illustrated talk called "Designing With My Scissors." The event is free with Museum admission.

Oyama Miller states that the talk "is the story of my journey to become an artist working with textiles and mixed media. Rather than using brushes and paint to create a picture, I use scissors and fabrics to create my quilts, which I view as paintings… My approach is like a cross between appliqué and collage using fabrics, papers, paints, and dyes." Oyama Miller is devoting herself to her art in her retirement after a long career working in Information Technology at Kaiser Permanente. She lives in the East Bay community of Fremont, and exhibits her art frequently in area galleries; she has also exhibited throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia. In addition to regularly teaching art quilting workshops throughout Northern California and the Pacific Northwest, she also blogs on the subject on her website. She is a member of both Artists 7, a Northern California women’s art group, and the Studio Art Quilt Associates.

Fascinated by the colors, patterns, and shapes of nature, Oyama Miller's paintings are vivid and affirmative, ranging from a close-up of a peony reminiscent of Georgia O'Keefe to near-pointillist vistas of sun-drenched landscapes ringed by distant mountains. She incorporates many influences and mediums into her creations, keeping a journal as she travels to seed ideas for future projects that could take the form of watercolor, mixed media, or textiles, and might be expressed as an abstract study in shape and color or a realistic rendering of a tree or a leaf.

Before or after the talk, guests can view the Museum's current offering: "Wild Fabrications," an exhibition juried by Studio Art Quilt Associates in which a wide variety of conventional and unconventional materials and techniques are joined together to portray the animal world, both real and imagined.

The Grace Hudson Museum is at 431 S. Main St. in Ukiah and is open Wednesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., and Sunday from noon to 4:30 p.m. Admission to the Museum is $4; $10 per family; $3 for students and seniors; and free to members and to all on the first Friday of the month. For more information please call 467-2836 or go to www.gracehudsonmuseum.org.

NOW HIRING FULL-TIME GARDENER 2

Mendocino Coast Botanical Gardens is looking for a Naturalist/Gardener 2 to join our team. We are a small team of enthusiastic gardeners, horticulturalists, naturalists, and teachers. We all wear many hats and we are responsible for a large quantity and a large variety of unique and beautiful coastal plants and the ecosystems that grow with them. We are looking for one full-time Naturalist/Gardener 2. This position will be responsible for maintenance and restoration of our natural areas as well as one or more areas of the cultivated gardens. The Naturalist/Gardener 2 will have specific responsibilities related to coastal California native flora and some of the Gardens' collections which may include conifers, heaths and heathers, dahlias, begonias, or roses. Please check out our job description below for more information. Qualifications - 5 years Practical Experience in care and maintenance of gardens. California Driver’s License and safe driving record. Full job description and details on how to apply available on our website:

http://www.gardenbythesea.org/about-the-gardens/employment/naturalist-gardener-2/

JOURNEY TO THE MADRONES IN MENDOCINO COUNTY

Perhaps the best part of wine travel is discovery. It could be a grape you have never tasted. Perhaps a vineyard you see for the first time. Or it could be an oasis in a region just a bit further afield.

A recent wine infused sojourn took me to the "next county," Mendocino. It's both geographically and spiritually above and beyond Napa and Sonoma. While the region is fast becoming a go-to for wine lovers, it is still, happily, a bit funkier than its southern cousins. It is also home to one of those wine travel discoveries, an oasis of a place called The Madrones.

The Madrones

Just off California Highway 128 in the Anderson Valley, cheek to jowl with Duckhorn's Goldeneye Winery, lies a Spanish/Tuscan/Santa Fe/California-inspired compound called The Madrones. And yes, when you pass through the walls into the courtyard, it is easy to begin humming the song "Hotel California."

The Madrones consists of nine stylish guest quarters, three excellent wine-tasting rooms pouring Anderson Valley wines, an incredible restaurant and a curio and antique shop that would be a find in, say, New York's East Village.

The product of interior designer, builder and visionary Jim Roberts, the complex began life as a rural homestead and television repair shop. Sensing a hidden gem, Roberts rebuilt the compound as a base of operations to house his thriving design firm and a creative incubator for local business in the mid-2000s. He also built a home that lies cocooned inside the exquisite English gardens that surround the property. Today, that home has been repurposed as tasteful and luxurious guest quarters for travelers.

The guest quarters are named for the original rooms of the main house, such as "The Master" or "The Kitchen." Each showcases the building's classic bones and details such as vaulted ceilings and window seats. Luxury linens and contemporary elements give it a sophisticated and comfortable vibe. Views of the gardens and a small pond imbue the feeling of staying at a California wine country manor.

Tasting Rooms

Where offices once occupied the front of the compound, there are now tasting rooms for three small-lot family wineries. The newest addition, Smith-Story Wine Cellars, consists of host husband and wife, Eric Story and Allison Smith, and their goldendoodle, Mr. Sandwich. Eric and Allison were buyers and promoters of other people's wines before they decided to produce their own. They pour releases of their Mendocino and Sonoma County wines alongside a project they produce in the Rheingau region of Germany. They may be the only family owned winery in the U.S. with a German 2015 Rose of Pinot Noir.

Across the courtyard is Bink Cellars. It is the creation of Deborah Schatzlein and Cindy Paulson, who have a passion for producing small lots of Mendocino County wines with concentration, intensity and flavor. While pinot noir dominates in the area, I particularly liked their merlot and syrah, both of which hail from their estate vineyard, Hawks Butt, in the Yorkville Highlands American viticultural area.

Drew Family Cellars rounds out the tasting rooms with a roster of serious — and seriously good — wines, many of which come from the cool climate of their estate vineyard, a former apple orchard high up the Elk-Philo Road just three miles from the Pacific Ocean. Family owned by Jason and Molly Drew, these wines show a delicate and deft hand. The small lot, single-vineyard wines are a tribute to the fruit of the Anderson Valley.

Stone & Embers

The heart of The Madrones complex may well be the wood-burning pizza oven in the small gem of a restaurant. A simple kitchen fronts the tiny room, which feels more like a community hideaway than a fine restaurant. It puts out an amazing array of pizzas, salads and other tasty dishes, all made with impeccably freshest local ingredients grown in Chef Partrick Meany's farm down the road.

Many came to the valley following time spent in the kitchens of San Francisco's Gary Danko, and Bouchon in the Napa Valley, to pursue a passion for creative local cuisine. With partner and farmer Matt Barnes, they have created simplicity in each dish with a "menos is mas" ethic. The fresh Little Gem lettuce salads, the impossibly thin, crisp mushroom chicharonnes and the potato beignets burst with flavor and yet are light and delicate.

Comfortable and classic. Just like The Madrones.

(sierrasun.com)

THE MAN I WANT TO BE

Many years ago, in 1980, I visited the Edgar Cayce Institute in Virginia Beach, Virginia, with my first wife, Patricia — a feminist, a Marxist, and an historian who was asked to leave her position as a teaching fellow at the Johns Hopkins University for being too radical. She wasn't. She was brilliant, and the Art History Department at Hopkins at that time was sexist.

The department was chaired by a misogynist and closet white supremacist, Egon Verheyen, who had actually been a member of the Hitler Youth, or Hitlerjugend, as a teenager. Not surprisingly, Dr. Verheyen's chief scholarly interest was the art and architecture of the German medieval period.

Patricia and I were living in Maryland, and our first daughter of four daughters had just been born. We had traveled all the way to the Edgar Cayce Institute from Koinonia, a Quaker community in the northern suburbs of Baltimore in the Greenspring Valley Historic District.

It was lovely at Koinonia. Beautifully-landscaped. A historic Tudor-style mansion and carriage house.

We were so lucky to live there.

Built in 1902 by Alexander J. Cassatt, president of the Pennsylvania Railroad and brother of the American Impressionist painter, Mary Cassatt, the estate was presented as a wedding gift to Cassatt's daughter, Eliza. Later owners included the prominent Brewster family, one of whom became a Senator from Maryland. In the 1950s the estate became home to the Quakers and the Koinonia Foundation, a predecessor of the Peace Corps.

Patricia and I made that 263-mile trip from Koinonia to the Edgar Cayce Institute in an old but glorious 1962 Chevy Impala SS — a convertible.

Roman red, my Impala stood out in the crowd. Lots of horsepower in that V8 engine. Lots of noise coming from the pipes of the dual exhaust.

It was my first car, and our first road trip as a family.

The trip took about five hours.

Patricia was a believer in the whole clairvoyance thing. Me? I was a skeptic.

Patricia, herself, had considerable psychic abilities, and not all of them were positive. She was "witchy", for lack of a better word.

Once at the Edgar Cayce Institute, Patricia had her reading first. It was a private reading — just Patricia and the psychic.

Then, it was my turn for a reading.

I was a little anxious. I didn't know why.

I was described by the psychic — a rather portly, older, kind, grandmotherly woman — as "the last centurion guarding the last bridge to Rome." She said I was the last centurion guarding the last bridge to Rome over the Tiber as the Visigoths advanced on the city.

The psychic went on to say that as this "last centurion" I had been trapped between the precarious and chaotic reign of Rome's last emperor and Alaric, and, of course, his barbarians at the Salarian Gate.

The date was 24 August 410.

The Visigoths had nothing but the Sack of Rome on their minds — rape, murder, pillage, and either ransoming the few survivors or selling them into slavery. And I was the last trusted centurion of Stilicho, the last honorable Roman general. Stilicho commanded Rome's last legion while treachery consumed Rome from within.

Honor was all. For both of us. Stilicho and his loyal centurion, me.

Me.

I was the last centurion guarding the last bridge to Rome. In her trance, the psychic further called me a "warrior monk" and a "warrior poet".

She said she saw me, and the group of centuries of 80 men under my command, all being slaughtered by the Visigoths — our bodies mutilated, in fact — but later, many lifetimes later, the psychic said she saw all of us going on to be reincarnated as the first Pauperes commilitones Christi Templique Salomonici, also known as the Order of Solomon's Temple.

In France, we were known as the Ordre du Temple or Templiers,

Our Arabic name is فرسان الهيكل‎‎ .

We were known by most simply as the Knights Templar.

That future incarnation to serve again was the reward for our sacrifice for Rome.

Our reward for honor.

From the moment of our deaths, we were destined to become the very first Knights Templar.

Was it true?

Maybe yes. Maybe no. Maybe it was just a bunch of New Age mumbo jumbo.

I don't know.

How could I possibly know?

Nevertheless, I shuddered and shook and felt like crying when the psychic at the Edgar Cayce Institute told me all this — it rang true. Or I desperately wanted for it to be true. I wanted to be that man.

I still want to be that man.

John Sakowicz