Mendocino County Today: Tuesday, May 9, 2017

• Poetry Celebration
• Bewildered Specials
• Grange Decision
• Customer Appreciation
• Open Studios
• Anderson Collection
• Mendo History
• Courageous O
• Reactivating Greens
• Cousins
• Mural Consideration
• Police Reports
• $age $hannon
• Little Dog
• Congressional Junkets
• Distressed Clothing
• Yesterday's Catch
• Party Crashers
• Malevolent Narcissist
• Paris Afterparty
• Broadband Updates
• Salad Universtity
• Public Servants
• Anniversary
• Anti-protest Bills
• Lyme Awareness

MENDOCINO SPRING POETRY CELEBRATION

Sunday, May 14, 2017

The 42nd Anniversary Mendocino Spring Poetry Celebration takes place Sunday, May 14 at the Hill House in Mendocino. There will be two open readings. Sign up at noon for the reading at 1:00 PM. Sign up at 5:00 PM for the reading at 6:00. Readers should prepare four minutes per session, of their own work or of favorites by others. This annual event draws 30-40 poets from the north counties and beyond. Open book displays, choice comestibles, fellowship. Contributions welcome. All poems will be considered for broadcast by Dan Roberts on KZYX&Z Walt Whitman said, “Great poetry requires great audiences.” Celebrate the word! For information: Gordon Black at gblack@mcn, or (707) 937-4107.

A TRULY memorable Thursday can be yours every Thursday at Navarro's fine restaurant, the Bewildered Pig, offers a weekly special for $17 or less... Friday nights we have FUnky G Fridays~Thelonious Monk style jazz and three courses for $30 (pre-fixe) which, my friends, is a very good deal for food of this quality, and from all accounts it is very, very good indeed.

CHATTING with a local Grange guy who says he wants to stay with the National Grange because he doesn't think there's enough revenue to sustain a breakaway Grange/Guild. He was leaning pro-Guild until last weekend’s presentation by both sides at the Philo Grange. This guy doesn't like National's "pseudo-religious rituals" (based on its midwest roots), but the big revenue from the National’s Grange insurance program makes them pretty much sue-proof. He also thinks as a guild Philo would be tied up in wasteful court fights over who owns the breakaway group's buildings. Given the legal system’s partiality to litigants with big money, there's a good chance the breakawayers would lose after wasting lots of money on lawyers. This is all occurring in a context of dwindling membership.

ANDERSON VALLEY FARM SUPPLY’S el grande Customer Appreciation Day will occur on Friday, May 19th from 9:00am-6:00pm. Food, drinks and Farm Supply vendors with some very cool samples. All this and a raffle!

ON THE SUBJECT of art, Anderson Valley’s 15th Annual Open Studios is on for the last weekend in May and, for those of you who’ve never taken the tour, you will for sure enjoy it. There’s a lot of talent in our little population.

AND NOW, please indulge me while I lead you on a forced march through my eclectic art collection, if it can be called a collection; I’ve never had the dough to collect in the formal sense, but a major perk of being an old beatnik is proximity to artists and, over the years, I’ve accumulated some very cool stuff, mostly through trades and on terms — ten bucks down, twenty a month — for art I really feel I absolutely want to look at all my days. The result? I seem to be the only person who admires the Anderson Collection, but that’s the point, isn’t it? Collect what you love. I once overheard a visitor to my home whisper to her friend, “My god, look at all this crap.” Fortunately, after 70 years of insult I’m offense-proof; besides that’s exactly what I say every time I go to SFMOMA.

I’M PARTIAL to landscapes, especially Northcoast landscapes, defining Northcoast as San Francisco to Crescent City and inland to I-5. I’ve got several things by my late friend, Frank Cieciorka of Alderpoint; two Mary Robertsons (of Guerneville); a wonderful Joe Cave that Joe painted from Peachland Road looking out at Octopus Mountain. (Joe went on to live and paint in North Carolina and is now quite renowned.) A Peter Allegaert, formerly of Elk and the only fine arts guy from Mendo with a sharp political edge in his paintings; I’ve got a Winston Smith, formerly of Ukiah, presently Frisco; an absolutely unique painting of the Golden Gate Bridge by Nikki Auschnitt, an omni-talented Boonville farmer; some limited edition R. Crumb creations; a bunch of posters, including one published by the defunct Communist Party USA advising citizens not to talk to the FBI (this was in the middle 1950s, well before the government had us all under round the clock surveillance); Asian masks, a Pee Wee Herman talking doll, an authentic blowpipe from interior Borneo — a little of this, a little of that.

AT A PARTICULARLY desperate financial juncture some years ago, I tried to get a loan on my collection, which was extremely naive of me because to bank loan officers art is like kryptonite; they shrink in disgust at anything more challenging than chipmunks surfing off the Mendocino Coast. So it was, “Ha-ha, Mr. Anderson, this isn’t exactly what we have in mind by ‘collatoral.’ Security will see you to the door.”

BUT IN ANOTHER time of extreme need (there have been many, a natural condition of citizenship) an art auction house placed an ad in, of all places, the ava, telling us bumpkins their reps would be passing through, and on the off chance that any of us outback louts thought we might have something of value, they would come to our houses and appraise it. I immediately signed up, and a couple of weeks later an icy couple was sneering in my living room. “You have something that might interest us?” I hauled out the item pictured below, which I bought at a Ukiah garage sale from an elderly woman. “My husband brought it back from the War,” she said, “and the darn thing’s just been sitting around collecting dust for years.” I instantly produced a twenty. “That’s too much,” the old lady said. “It’s worth a lot more to me,” I assured her. I would have given her my car for it, whatever she wanted. I knew that the post-War Japanese were starving, and folk art, sold to the troops of the Army of Occupation was one way Japanese artisans could keep eating. The two art house snoots looked carefully at this primo piece of folk art. The male snoot said, “We can offer two thousand.” I said I wouldn’t take anything less than ten. They said No, and that was that. I’d never sell it. Look closely and you can see the desperate ingenuity of it — a toy battleship and gray human hair as ship’s smoke against a skillfully painted Grandma Moses-like Yokohama. This baby is a pure one-of-a-kinder:

WRITING MENDOCINO COUNTY’S HISTORY…

Considering that it hasn’t been done in over 100 years it’s about time someone wrote a history of Mendocino County and your trusty historian here is going to do it. One hundred fifty years from 1852-2002 will be covered and I’m putting the word out to readers…”What Should I Include?”

Obviously all the standard stuff you’d expect will be in it…Exploration, early settlements, natural features, industry, health & education, transportation, agriculture & mining…but where it will get interesting is in the human interest part of the history. Like famous people…do we include criminals? Black Bart and Jim Jones were both criminals but they were imports, not county natives, so do we include them? I’m fascinated by Carl Purdy and Edith Van Allen Murphy, both botanists who worked in the county but were not natives? How about the horse Seabiscuit who lived at Ridgewood Ranch? He’s not human but he was famous and a prize winner. Does he qualify for the book? Will people want to know about the hot springs and mineral springs of the county? And the herds of white fallow deer around the county…Do you want to know how they came to be here?

My research is just starting. For example I was looking at mineral resources of Mendocino County on the internet and found about 200 places that had for claims for specific minerals filed. And lo and behold…an answer to a question rose some months ago in the AVA about Little Penny, a location out Fish Rock Road. Seems there was a Redwood Copper Queen Mine near Fish Rock and Zeni Roads 25 miles west of Cloverdale and I’d bet that was where Little Penny was. Copper…pennies…see the connection?

How about a shootout in Willits early years that killed more people in a few minutes than the gunfight at OK Corral that was made into a movie? Then there is the drama around Redwood Summer and the Whale Wars that both happened here. And the whole long story of going from a logging economy to a cannabis economy, that needs to be addressed. And when did wine grapes become the major agriculture product of the county?

Then there are our ethnic communities throughout the county…lots of Chinese, Finns, Portuguese and other groups…they’ll be there. Could the back-to-the-land hippies of the 1970’s be considered an intentional community? Was the Mendocino State Hospital outside Ukiah an industry? It employed hundreds of people for decades, or was it just a hospital? Did you even know the county grew great crops of tobacco during the Civil War because tobacco was unavailable from the South?

I am not planning on writing a tome of statistics that will cost a fortune; I’m projecting a fact filled paperback full of interesting history that will cost around $20 and be about 250 pages (and it may take me a few years to get it done). I promise lots of photographs will be included too. So the question to readers is: What do you want to read about? 

And remember, it will stop at 2002. I am inviting folks to contact me by e-mail (ktahja@mcn.org) or snail mail (K. Tahja P.O. Box 194 Comptche CA 95427) and let me know what you think is worthy of inclusion.

NOTHING AGAINST OBAMA, but why would he get JFK’s “Profile In Courage” award? I can’t think of anything he did that could remotely be construed as courageous. In fact, looking back at our presidents you’d have to go all the way back to Lincoln to find one who performed courageously in office. Some of them, like JFK and Bush One were brave under fire during World War Two, but few of them were courageous either politically or in the usual sense.

WE RECEIVED a press release last week that said “several new Green County Councils have joined up or have been reactivated. 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.”

THE MENDO GREENS always functioned, before they went missing altogether, as an adjunct to the County’s pathetic Democratic Party, a branch of the equally pathetic national Democratic Party. The local active Democrats — Joe Not So Wildman, the eternal Rachel Binah, Val Muchowski, Lee Edmundson, Supervisor Hamburg, and assorted other middle of the road extremists — have done an excellent job over the years ensuring that there’s no political energy allowed to the left of them. The old Green Party of Mendocino County was immediately sabbed by nutballs led by the late free range parasite, Richard Johnson, who made the meetings so awful that the handful of regular people who showed up only showed up once. For Mendo, it’s either Hillary Democrats or silence, cunning and internal exile. Taken as a political whole, the Mendo Democrats serve nicely as the reason why Trump is president.

COUSINS AT THE BUTTERFLY EXHIBIT, HOUSE OF FLOWERS, GOLDEN GATE PARK

SUNSHINE NEEDED AT UKIAH FAIRGROUNDS

We were as surprised as a number of other community members when we found out that the Redwood Empire Fairgrounds management was making repairs to buildings that included painting over long time murals.

The murals, which were painted in 1978 and restored in 1995 at a total cost of about $15,000 and with lots of help from the Ukiah Valley community, deserve at least a little concern.

When we contacted the fairgrounds about the murals being painted over, we got a defensive response from the fairgrounds management worried about publicity. After some back and forth, and knowing we were writing a story, the fairgrounds management sent us a statement explaining what was happening from its point of view.

They said the winter storms had taken a toll on the buildings and that the stuccoed buildings where the murals are were particularly hard hit. They said their first concern was making sure the building surfaces weren’t going to fall off and hit someone walking by. They said they are continuing to make repairs. They said they hadn’t made a decision whether the murals would be painted over. They said since 2008 fairgrounds have not been getting money from the state for maintenance and the buildings have been kept up only to the extent they can afford it.

If all of this is true, why didn’t the fairgrounds folks just make that announcement weeks ago and give the public some time to digest it and make a decision about whether an effort would be made to save the murals?

That would have been the good government way to handle it.

Instead, the re-stuccoing process has already resulted in the murals being defaced and a fair board member told us the painting over had already been approved, so we have some dispute about that.

Whether the murals deserve saving is certainly debatable and we have heard yes and no from locals. But the conversation should have been started by the fairgrounds by reaching out to the community for its opinion on something it had to know would be worth talking about.

DYSFUNCTION 1A

Corporal Punishment upon a Child Resulting in Injury

On 05-01-2017 at approximately 8:25 PM, Mendocino County Sheriff's Deputies were dispatched to a physical altercation at a residence in the 44000 block of Raven Lane in Mendocino.  Deputies arrived shortly thereafter and contacted a 36 year-old female, a 14 year-old male and Noah Wortila, 44, of Mendocino.  Deputies determined Wortila was the father of the juvenile and the spouse to the female.  Deputies learned a family argument had ensued between the individuals which escalated when Wortila physically assaulted the juvenile by holding him down and repeatedly striking him in the face.  Wortila then physically prevented the female from calling law enforcement for assistance.  Deputies learned further that Wortila also physically assaulted the female the day prior.  Deputies noticed the juvenile sustained a moderate visible injury to the face as a result of the assault.  Deputies arrested Wortila and transported him to the Mendocino County Jail where he was to be booked for Child Endangerment, Preventing Another from Summoning Law Enforcement, False Imprisonment, and Spousal Battery and to be held in lieu of $25,000 bail.

* * *

YOU CAN STILL GET ARRESTED FOR IT

On 05-03-2017 at approximately 12:40 A.M., a Deputy was on uniformed patrol when he observed a sedan traveling in the area of North Highway 101 at Reynolds Highway in Willits.  The Deputy initiated a traffic stop on the vehicle due to a traffic violation and the vehicle yielded in the area of MM 48.5 on North Highway 101. The driver of the vehicle was identified as Nicholas Tow, 29, of Ukiah, who MCSO dispatch advised was on probation with the term obey all laws.  The Deputy searched Tow's vehicle and located approximately 70 pounds of marijuana and documentation/paperwork related to the sales of marijuana.  The Deputy placed Tow under arrest for Possession of Marijuana for Sale, Transportation of Marijuana for Sale, and Violation of Probation.  Tow was subsequently booked into the Mendocino County Jail where he was to be held in lieu of $50,000 bail.

* * *

BRASS KNUCKS AT THE GOLDEN RULE

On 04-27-2017 at approximately 3:30 A.M., a Deputy from the Mendocino County Sheriff's Office was on uniformed patrol and saw a vehicle parked at the entrance to the Golden Rule RV Park in Willits.  The Deputy contacted Robert Williams, 42, of Willits, in the vehicle and noticed he had a pair of metal knuckles protruding from his jacket pocket. A further search of Williams revealed that he had a "billy club" taped around his ankle and concealed under his pants.  Upon searching Williams' vehicle, the Deputy found a pair of "Nunchaku" in the driver side floorboard area. The Deputy also located a small bag containing suspected methamphetamine and drug paraphernalia.  MCSO dispatch informed the Deputy that Williams was on summary probation with the term to obey all laws.  Williams was placed under arrest for Possession of Metal Knuckles, Possession of Nunchaku, Possession of Club/Cane, Possession of Controlled Substance, and Violation of Probation.  Williams was subsequently booked into the Mendocino County Jail where he was to be held in lieu of $15,000 bail.

* * *

THERE ARE EVICTIONS, AND THEN THERE ARE EVICTIONS

On 04-26-2017 at approximately 9:00 A.M., Deputies from the Mendocino County Sheriff's Office were dispatched to a possible trespassing situation at a residence in the 38100 block of Highway 162 in Willits.  Deputies contacted the reporting party and learned that Shannon Cosman, 46, of Willits, had been previously evicted from the property and was not allowed to be at the location.  MCSO dispatch advised the Deputies that Cosman had multiple felony warrants for her arrest issued through the Mendocino County Superior Court.  Deputies responded to the area and contacted Cosman who was on Highway 162 approximately 200 feet from the property. Cosman was subsequently placed under arrest for the two felony warrants issued for probation violations.  Deputies then responded to the property and contacted Jeremy Auman, 32, of Willits. MCSO dispatch advised the Deputies that Auman was on formal probation in Mendocino County.  During the investigation, Deputies evaluated Auman for being under the influence of a controlled substance. They also searched Auman pursuant to his probation terms and found that he was in possession of drug paraphernalia.  Auman was placed under arrest for Violation of Probation, Recent use of a Controlled Substance, and Possession of Drug Paraphernalia.  Both Cosman and Auman were subsequently booked into the Mendocino County Jail where they were to be held on a no-bail status.

* * *

NOTE FROM THE DOCTOR

On 04-27-2017, Deputies from the Mendocino County Sheriff's Office were requested to assist detectives from the Lakeport Police Department with the service of an arrest warrant issued by the Lake County Superior Court.  Deputies contacted the detective from Lakeport Police Department and learned that a felony warrant had been issued for the arrest of Tracey Morales, 62, of Willits. The warrant was for manslaughter and arson charges, which stemmed from a Lakeport Police Department investigation.  Deputies attempted to contact Morales at a prior address in the Willits area and were unable to locate her. Deputies were later informed that Morales called MCSO dispatch and then responded to the Willits Police Department (WPD) to meet with Deputies.  Morales was contacted at the WPD office and had numerous medical issues that could cause complications if she was booked into jail on the warrant. Deputies called the Lakeport Police Department detective, who received permission from the Judge who issued the warrant to issue Morales a citation to appear in court.  Deputies subsequently issued Morales a citation to appear in Lake County Superior Court for the warrant.

* * *

NIGHT TRAIN

On 05-02-2017 at about 7:30 PM Deputies from the Mendocino County Sheriff's Office responded to the report of a domestic violence incident in the 700 block of Kunzler Ranch Road in Ukiah.  Prior to the Deputies arriving on scene it was reported Markeese Brantley, 25, of Ukiah, had fled the scene southbound on the rail road tracks towards the city of Ukiah.  Deputies located Brantley walking on the railroad tracks at the intersection of Ford Road and detained him while other deputies contacted the adult female.  Deputies determined the adult female and Brantley were in a dating relationship. Deputies learned the adult female and Brantley were in a vehicle and were in the 700 block of Kunzler Ranch Road when an argument erupted between them.  The argument escalated to the point Brantley attacked the adult female by biting her on the wrist, grabbing her throat and choking her.  Brantley then fled the area on foot heading southbound on the railroad tracks towards the city of Ukiah.  Deputies observe visible injuries on the adult female from the assault.  Brantley was subsequently arrested for felony domestic violence battery.  A records check revealed Brantley was on active CDC Parole.  Brantley was transported to the Mendocino County Jail where he was to be booked for Felony Domestic Violence Battery and held without bail due to his parole status.

CITY COUNCIL TO UKIAH CITIZENS: DROP DEAD

by Tommy Wayne Kramer

Well hurrah for our city council. Boldly, unanimously and without shame, embarrassment, or public input it agreed to throw a tsunami of cash at two city bureaucrats beginning now and extending into the unforeseeable future.

It’s a perfect example of how government leaders operate. They give lots of money that doesn’t belong to them to other government insiders, then walk away when the bill comes due.

Ukiah citizens have just been saddled with millions of dollars in future salaries for two people who couldn’t get hired at a fraction of their pay anywhere else. The cost will still be escalating, yearly, when all these council members are out of office and some of them are dead. They won’t be around to take the blame next time the stock market hiccups, the housing market wobbles, the chickens come home to roost and local citizens start getting laid off and losing their homes.

Sage Sangiacomo, whose employment history consists of working at Ukiah’s City Hall, was elevated to city boss a couple years ago on his solemn promise he wouldn’t need an office assistant. He was rewarded with an inflated salary ($250,000 a year with benefits) and a fat plum of a job. He quickly reneged on that promise and decided he had to have (very expensive) help.

Shannon Riley was hand-picked as Sangiacomo’s assistant. There was none of the usual “nationwide search for excellence” guff we’re usually fed by our political superiors. This was strictly an inside job. There were no public hearings, no public input. Miss Shannon did a few one-on-one interviews with council members and … Bingo!

She now gets almost as much as her wildly overpaid boss and together their income will soon, thanks in part to her $39,000 raise (which will no doubt go up quickly this being government work), be edging toward half a million bucks a year. Our two top administrators earn almost exactly as much as the top two in Santa Rosa, with the notable difference that Santa Rosa is 10 times (ten times!) bigger than Ukiah, has a much wealthier tax base and is a city with far more complex problems. Also, it has 10 times the population, or did I already point that out?

For what? What do Sage and Shannon do and how well do they do it, in light of the fact neither has any experience anywhere but Ukiah, and precious little of that.

And just how hard do you think it is to keep Ukiah running? The city apparatus consists of concentric rings of departments, each overseen by an overpaid administrator whose primary task is to make sure every problem is solved before it gets near Sage’s desk. I guarantee you that it is far more difficult to run the local Safeway or Walmart than it is to wander around our quiet city hall while smiling, greeting fellow desk jockeys and making plans for lunch.

Sage is a “leader” known for constantly asking citizens what they think about this or that problem. He’s always looking for advice on what to do and what direction Ukiah should take. Wait a minute, Sage.

You’re the guy making a quarter million a year and you don’t know what to do? You have to ask for directions? You need to stop local plumbers and nurses and roofers and child care workers in order to figure out what to do about a problem? The hell we paying you for? Actually, what are we paying you five times what you’re worth for?

And Shannon, who never met a consultant she wouldn’t throw $25,000 at in order to tell her what time it is, will now help make Sage’s job less burdensome. Suppose the city had agreed to hire her, but at half the salary she’d requested. Would she have been insulted, walked off in a snit, and instead taken a job as assistant manager at Payless Shoes for $300,000 a year?

Government salaries are completely out of control. From top to bottom government workers in Mendocino County get the highest salaries and have the easiest jobs. Shannon Riley herself would tell you it’s a lot harder to run a small shoe store— payroll, personnel, quarterly taxes, ordering stock, customer service, government regulations, lousy and uncertain pay—than to help supervise this town and collect $13,000 a month to do it.

Let’s all close our eyes and imagine having to endure six months without Sage and Shannon leading the way. Suppose they were replaced by two inflatable dolls propped up in the city hall lobby. How different would our lives be? Would the power go out more often? Would the grass around city hall go unmown? Would the crime rate triple? Would the Palace Hotel be neglected? Would bums, drifters and dope heads clog up the streets?

Of course not! We’d have two inflatable dolls running our town!

The first big laugh will come when city council starts whimpering for more money for cops or roads or remodeling Sage’s office.

The second big laugh will come when the economy does what it did a few years ago. The furloughs and layoff will begin, just like before, and Sage will be very, very sad. He probably already has a statement tucked inside a desk drawer that he’ll read to workers getting laid off about how very, very sad he is. Shannon might even tear up.

Here is my prediction: None of the current city council members will run for re-election. If they do, none will get a single vote. Not even his own, if he’s honest.

(TWK wonders if you play that Safeway Monopoly game with the little tickets the store gives out. Would you like a stack of Monopoly coupons two inches thick for free? Be the first to come to the Daily Journal office on Monday May 8, and say “Let’s Go Oakland!” to A’s fan Scott Travis, who is also the UDJ’s news assistant. Scott will give you all those coupons, plus a cheerful smile. Tom Hine guarantees it.)

(Courtesy, The Ukiah Daily Journal)

LITTLE DOG SAYS, “This guy comes walking up holding a baby fig tree. ‘Happy Arbor Day,’ he says. When I was a pup, and we did things right, all the kids got a California redwood and went out in the woods and planted it. This guy had the wrong tree at the wrong time. (Arbor Day is the second week in March.) But hey. I'll take it. You can't eat redwood.”

SECRET MISSION: After leading the Democratic denunciation of the Trumpcare vote, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and seven of her congressional colleagues jetted off for a whirlwind tour of India, Nepal, Germany and Belgium. She said the focus is national security, the global economy, bilateral and multilateral relations, and human rights. In other words, it’s a junket. Citing security concerns, Pelosi’s press office declined to say exactly where in those four far-flung countries the delegation would be touching down — or how long it would be gone.

(Matier and Ross, SF Chron)

BRUCE McEWEN WRITES: I met a guy in the Forest Club at Happy Hour today and he brought back some old memories from my days in Montana and Japan. What do Montana and Japan have in common? More than you might think. First, a senator from Montana, Mike Mansfield was Ambassador to Japan for may years and, second, there’s an industry in Tokyo which retails vintage western clothing at a premium price.

I had been to Japan in the Marines and was young enough to pick up some of the language – foreign languages come so easily to youth – and so when I saw this Japanese gentleman in the bar I approached and complimented him in his own language on his western chambray shirt, bolo tie with silver and turquoise, faded jeans and Tony Lama boots.

You see, when I lived in Hot Springs, Montana I had a little pasta house called the Oasis Café, a stucco building with glass block in the art-deco style, which I painted flamenco pink and trimmed in turquoise blue. It was on the Indian Reservation, and the tribal elders came to me and said if I’d paint their American Legion Hall — right next door  — as nicely as I’d painted my restaurant, they would in return “loan” me their liquor license.

Incredulous, I asked, “Can you do that? Loan out your liquor license?”

“It’s on our reservation; we can do what we want,” they replied.

Well, that changed everything. I had a little bar in the foyer where parties could wait to be seated – I only had eight tables – and of course a liquor license means a huge increase in receipts, so I painted the Legion Hall and threw in lots of extras.

Now, Hot Springs was famous for its healing waters, and the Old Symes Hotel, a relic from the 1920s, and it was surrounded by cattle ranches. One Old Boy became a regular, and would spend time with me playing cribbage after closing time, and I asked how come he had so much idle time to stay up late and what about getting up early to do the chores…?

“It ain’t nothin’ anymore,” he explained. “All the profit’s gone outta ranchin’ these days.”

“How do you make your living then?”

“See these new duds I’m wearin’?”

“Yeah, they look brand new.”

“Well this guy from Japan, he comes here every year and he brings me a whole new wardrobe, plus a fistful of C-notes, and takes away the clothes he brought the year before.”

“The hell you say!”

“Yep. That he does, ever damn year. Then he takes my old clothes back to Japan and sells ‘em for big money to city slickers who wanna dress up like a Montana rancher.”

Now, I had read a couple of Jay McInerney’s novels, so the name of a Toyko boutique called Hormone Derange was familiar to me, and I knew about a restaurant in New York called Buffalo Rome – all images from western songs.

So I asked this guy who came in the bar about it, and sure enough, these places exist. This got me to wondering if anyone out there in the big cities would have a similar interest in buying old cargo shorts and hoodies worn by actual Mendocino County marijuana growers — a tee-shirt with the caption “Farmacy” on it made me also suspect some inventive spirit had turned my own coinage “pot pharma” to a tidy profit – but that’s as far as I’ve got on this project.

One day before I left Hot Springs – having lost the Oasis Café in an ugly divorce settlement – I saw my old friend the rancher who sold his clothes to the merchant from Japan and he was beat up real bad. Two black eyes, broken nose, face all scraped up, stiff and sore all over.

“What the hell happened to you? Somebody beat you up?”

“Naw, I got drunk and fell outta the pickup. My foot got stuck behind the brake and clutch pedals and was drug through the brush before it came to stop off the road.”

“Christ that’s awful!”

“Not really. The guy from Japan says the duds I was wearin’ at the time will bring a ton of dough. I’m lookin’ at a pretty good payday right about now – he’s makin’ a special trip to come and get ‘em!”

“Really?”

“Yeah, he says he’ll market ‘em as being drug by a horse with my foot caught in the stirrup – like you see in the old westerns.”

“That’s great, man! Congratulations!”

Imagine what the hoody would sell for – the one you got busted in, and thrown to the ground by the COMMET cops!

CATCH OF THE DAY, May 8, 2017

SUNSHINE CATO, Ukiah. Domestic battery.

SCOTT FRANKS, Ukiah. Making/passing fake currency.

SHAWN HORN, Willits. Under influence.

AARON KRYDER, Willits. DUI with priors.

KRISTA MITCHUM, Clearlake Oaks/Willits. Under influence, probation revocation.

CHRISTY PACINI, Granada/Ukiah. Grand theft, burglary, possession of burglary tools, conspiracy.

KATELN SNIDER, Point Arena. DUI.

CARLA TAYLOR, Willits. Drunk in public.

ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

Interesting cultural brouhaha at Trinity College in Hartford last week. Trinity, founded around 1840 to train Episcopalian clergy (they long ago abandoned the church, now worship in the house of PC), not quite Ivy League but still with the $60,000 per year tuition, located in the section of Hartford where artist Frederick Church and landscape architect Law Olmstead, as boys, learned their love of the natural world, really now just a daycare center for trust fund kids age 18-26 … right off campus there was a school sponsored end of semester event, a party. The party got crashed by neighborhood ‘Youts’, which is code word for a Puerto Rican and Black street gang, 15 strong. They took umbrage when asked to leave and began pounding on students, men and women alike. I mean they were wailing on these snowflakes, oh yeah! (as video showed). To their credit a few of the men tried to fight back but they were outnumbered and overwhelmed. And then it ended as quickly as it began, like an unexpected summer storm, the assailants scurrying away like roaches when you shine a bright light on them.

One of the student interviewed, a young women, started taking about ‘white privilege. Trinity is promising tighter security in the future.

PARIS AFTERPARTY

by James Kunstler

First mistake: Emmanuel Macron’s handlers played Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” instead of the French national anthem at the winner’s election rally. Well, at least they didn’t play “Deutschland Über Alles.” The tensions in the Euroland situation remain: the 20 percent-plus youth unemployment, the papered-over insolvency of the European banks, and the implacable contraction of economic activity, especially at the southern rim of the EU.

The clash of civilizations brought on by the EU’s self-induced refugee glut still hangs over the continent like a hijab. That there was no Islamic terror violence around the election should not be reassuring. The interests of the jihadists probably lie in the continued squishiness of the status quo, with its sentimental multiculture fantasies — can’t we all just get along? — so En Marche was their best bet. LePen might have pushed back hard. Macron looks to bathe France’s Islamic antagonists in a nutrient-medium of Hollandaise lite.

The sclerosis of Europe is assured for now. But events are in charge, not elected officials so much, and Europe’s economic fate may be determined by forces far away and beyond its power to control, namely in China, where the phony-baloney banking system is likely to be the first to implode in a global daisy-chain of financial uncontrolled demolition. Much of that depends on the continuing stability of currencies.

The trouble is they are all pegged to fatally unrealistic expectations of economic expansion. Without it, the repayment of interest on monumental outstanding debt becomes an impossibility. And the game of issuing more new debt to pay the interest on the old debt completely falls apart. Once again, the dynamic relationship between real capital creation and the quandaries of the oil industry lurks behind these failures of economy. In a crisis of debt repayment, governments will not know what else to do except “print” more money, and this time they are liable to destroy faith in the value of “money” the world over.

I put “money” in quotation marks because the dollars, euros, yuan, and yen are only worth what people believe them to be, subject to measurement against increasingly fictional indexes of value, such as interest rates, stock and bond markets, government-issued employment and GDP stats, and other benchmarks so egregiously gamed by the issuing authorities that Ole Karl Marx’s hoary warning finally comes to pass and everything solid melts into air.

For the record, I’m not in favor of political chaos and economic anarchy, but that seems to be the only route that Deep Staters ‘round the world want to go down. The convenient protocols of finance in the industrial era which allowed routine borrowing from the future to get today’s enterprise up and running have lost their mojo. The short and practical theory of history applies to this: things happen because they seem like a good idea at the time.

Revolving credit seemed like a good idea through the 20^th century, and it sure worked to build an economic matrix based on cheap energy, which is, alas, no more. What remains is the wishful pretense that the old familiar protocols can still work their magic. The disappointment will be epic, and the result next time may be political figures even worse than LePen and Trump. Consider, though, that what you take for the drumbeat of nationalism is actually just a stair-step down on a much-longer journey out of the globally financialized economy. Because the ultimate destination down this stairway is a form of local autarky that the current mandarins of the status quo can’t even imagine.

That journey has already begun, though neither the public nor its elected leaders, have begun to apprehend it. The first spark of recognition will come in the months ahead when the current cover story on markets, “money,” and growth falls away and political leaders can only stand by in wonder and nausea that the world has the impertinence to change without their permission.

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

BROADBAND UPDATES:

Supervisor Hamburg was elected Chair of the North Bay North Coast Broadband Consortium Oversight Committee at the recent Oversight Committee meetings on 4/27.

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AT&T is hosting a digital training workshop in partnership with  the Redwood Coast Senior Center on May 12th (Friday)  as part of their "California Digital You Tour". The workshop aims to help older adults learn how to better use and make the most of tablets and smartphones, and discover how broadband and mobile technology can help improve their lives.

They are also looking for 2 volunteers to help with this training as well. Please consider if you have a few hours to help. Contact Rhuenette Alums (ra5361@att.com) and Debi Barros (debarconsulting@yahoo.com) to either sign up or to help volunteer

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Check out "Crossing the Digital Divide" for articles by Joe Feigon to help you navigate the confusing online world and make sense of various topics.  New articles are posted almost every week.

Trish Steel
www.MendocinoBroadband.org
707-354-3224
Find us on Facebook! https://www.facebook.com/BroadbandAlliance

SALAD UNIVERSITY and Movement, Sunday, May 14th, 10 am-7 pm with a few part-day options.  Learn nutrition, prepare wild to, growing hints, earth honoring movement are part of what participants experience.  In Redwood Valley.  Contacts to register or for more information are instructors Bill Taylor and Jaye Alison Moscariello, 707-272-1688 or edibleland@earthlink.net.

We invite you to join us for Mother's day learning about cultivated and wild plants for salad, smoothies, chips, breads, and other delicious and nutritious foods.  For the entire day and two meals, meet us at 10 am at the West Rd. Exit 557 off US 101 near the bus stop on the east side of the highway.  The cost is on a sliding scale from $75 to $150 for the day ending at 7 pm.  For the afternoon, meet at 12:45 pm at the same location.  The afternoon only cost is $30-$60, and please add $15 if you want to stay for the dinner.

The class includes detailed lists and charts on many properties of over 50 salad and smoothie plants.  Medicinal properties, growing information, flavor profiles, bloom and harvest months for inland and coastal northern CA, and more are included. Gentle movement will help get you open to what the plants offer, and be receptive to much information.  After discussing the plant that calls each participant, we will explore more plants and then gather some to prepare chips, smoothies, bread, and salad.  These foods will be part of the dinner.  As part of the class, we will also review how Floodgate Farm works with water, soil, and plant succession management (integrating wild and cultivated plants) to produce the most food with the least effort.  To register, please send a check made out to Bill Taylor to P.O. Box 848, Ukiah, CA  95482 or bring check or cash to the meeting place, or send funds to Jaye via https:/www.paypal.me/jmoscariello. For questions or directions if you miss us at West Rd. Exit, call 707-272-1688.

To see photos of the farm, see www.floodgatefarm.com and/or check Floodgate Farm on Heart Mountain on Facebook.

Bill Taylor and Jaye Alison Moscariello, instructors.

edibleland@earthlink.net

COUNTY TO RECOGNIZE PUBLIC SERVANTS DURING “PUBLIC SERVANT RECOGNITION WEEK”

On Tuesday, May 2, 2017, the Mendocino County Board of Supervisors joined the United States Congress in the recognition of Public Servants during “Public Service Recognition Week,” May 7th-13th, 2017.

Since 1985, the first full week of May has been designated by Congress as “Public Service Recognition Week” to honor the men and women who serve our nation as federal, state, county, and local government employees. The men and women who work for our government tackle some of the most important challenges and opportunities facing our country and global community. Public servants support small businesses and struggling communities to strengthen our economy. They provide public safety, our national defense, care for our veterans, promote student achievement, and protect our environments. They do all these things and much more with a sense of ingenuity, persistence, patriotism and a strong commitment to help others.

During “Public Service Recognition Week,” let us embrace the hopeful spirit that embodies the extraordinary work of our public servants as we celebrate all the men and women who have answered the call to serve our country and our communities as government employees, now and throughout history.

On behalf of Mendocino County, I would like to take this opportunity to recognize all County employees for their dedication and essential public service to our community.

Carmel J. Angelo

Mendocino County Chief Executive Officer

AND WE'LL beat them here, too:

Today marks the 72nd anniversary of the defeat of Nazism in Europe.

ANTI-PROTEST BILLS would 'attack right to speak out' under Donald Trump

The ACLU says more than 30 bills have been introduced amid a huge swell of activism, prompting UN intervention over criminalization of peaceful protest

by Adam Gabbatt

More than 20 states have proposed bills that would crack down on protests and demonstrations since Donald Trump was elected, in a moved that UN experts have branded “incompatible with US obligations under international human rights law”.

The proposed laws would variously increase the penalties for protesting in large groups, ban protesters from wearing masks during demonstrations and, in some states, protect drivers from liability if they strike someone taking part in a protest.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) said more than 30 separate anti-protest bills have been introduced since 8 November in “an unprecedented level of hostility towards protesters in the 21st century”. Their introduction comes amid a huge increase in activism and engagement, much of it inspired by Trump’s election to the presidency.

The ACLU and the National Lawyers Guild have said many of the bills are likely unconstitutional. “The proposed bills have been especially pervasive in states where protests flourished recently,” said Vera Eidelman, who works in the ACLU’s speech, privacy and technology project.

“This flood of bills represents an unprecedented level of hostility towards protesters in the 21st century. And many of these bills attack the right to speak out precisely where the supreme court has historically held it to be the most robust: in public parks, streets and sidewalks.”

The flurry of legislation has prompted UN experts to intervene, with two special rapporteurs from the UN’s Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights – the UN body which works to promote and protect human rights – to complain to the US state department at the end of March.

In a recent letter to the government, David Kaye and Maina Kiai, from the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), listed specific pieces of legislation which they said were “criminalizing peaceful protests”.

Kaye and Kiai, special rapporteurs on the freedom of expression and freedom of peaceful assembly respectively, said the bills represent “a worrying trend that could result in a detrimental impact on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and freedom of expression in the country”.

The legislation would “severely infringe upon the exercise of the rights to freedom of expression and freedom of expression and freedom of peaceful assembly,” Kaye and Kiai wrote.

Hundreds of thousands of people across the country took part in women’s marches on 21 January, and since then scores of other actions have taken place against Trump and other elected officials.

A number of proposed laws – some of which have already passed – have been introduced in North Dakota, in an apparent response to the protests against the North Dakota Access pipeline. More than 1,000 people camped in Standing Rock for months in an attempt to stop the construction of the pipeline, and there were a number of clashes with police.

In Oklahoma, house bill 1123 passed the state house and senate and was sent to the governor on 27 April. If Mary Fallin, a Republican, signs the bill, it will increase penalties for trespassing on “critical infrastructure” including oil refineries and chemical manufacturing plants. Under the new law, damaging equipment in those facilities would be punishable by a $100,000 fine and up to 10 years in prison.

In Tennessee, a bill is currently under consideration by the state senate which would give “civil immunity for the driver of an automobile who injures a protester who is blocking traffic in a public right-of-way if the driver was exercising due care”. The state’s Republican governor, Bill Haslam, signed a separate bill into law in April which increased the penalty for obstructing streets and highways in a way which restricts emergency vehicles. A similar bill is being considered in Minnesota.

The letter was particularly scathing about two bills signed into law by North Dakota’s governor, Doug Burgum, in March. House bill 1304cracks down on people wearing masks or covering their faces at demonstrations; house bill 1426increased protest penalties from a class C felony to a class B felony if a “riot involves 100 or more persons”, doubling the maximum prison sentence to 10 years.

For the purpose of the legislation, a riot is defined as “a public disturbance involving an assemblage of five or more persons which by tumultuous and violent conduct creates grave danger of damage or injury to property or persons or substantially obstructs law enforcement or other government function”. It would likely be applicable to non-violent direct action, which protesters engaged in during the Dakota Access pipeline protests.

Both bills were seen as reactions to protests against the Dakota Access pipeline. The UN told the US state department that HB 1426 in particular “will highly increase penalties for participating in protests and therefore is likely to have a chilling effect on protesters in North Dakota”.

MAY IS LYME DISEASE AWARENESS MONTH

The Mendocino Lyme Support Group has several events scheduled this month.

Phyllis Mervine, national founder of Lymedisease.org, will speak at our monthly support group meeting on May 16 at NCO at 413 North State in Ukiah. Meetings are from 6 to 8pm.

Also we will be showing the great Lyme documentary film “Under our Skin,” at the Ukiah Library 105 N. Main. Showing will be from 5:30 till 7:30pm on Wednesday, May 24th.  Come and learn about Lyme from a very informative film.

We are also on Facebook at Mendocino Lyme Support Group.