Mendocino County Today: Thursday, May 18, 2017

• Blackbird Withdrawal
• Ag Stressed
• Dalton Case
• Little Dog
• Public Expression
• Cannabis Hour
• Chicago 1968
• Challenging Segue
• Yesterday's Catch
• Money Jitters
• Fishery Disaster
• Extinction Findings
• Hitler Speaks
• Clod
• CIA Book
• Security Obsession
• Kaepernick Podcast
• Book Presentations
• Chopper Alert
• Heart Center

DAVID SEVERN WRITES: Everyone in the collective Anderson Valley opposition to the Blackbird Farm Use Permit Application should give themselves a good pat on the back. The Major Use Permit Application U_2013_008 has been withdrawn as Blackbird Farm was either unable or unwilling to provide "acceptable" documentation and response to County (and the locals’) concerns. The LA-based, charter school-funded ridgetop outdoors youth camp had hoped, and still may hope, to build accommodations for, brace for this figure: 292 transient occupants. In other words, a hotel/spa, larger than any in Mendocino County, accessed along remote narrow country lanes often impassable in the rainy months. This does not mean, though, that expansion is not going to be sought. In fact Blackbird has already applied for and paid the fees on a new Use Permit that will carry a U_2017_??? number. Apparently this new application will not be made public until it is "complete" and if I have it right that means that the County has also completed their assessment and established mitigation requirements. Hopefully this time the County will address cumulative impacts to nature, roads, neighbors, and emergency services and require an Environmental Impact Report that does so.

GREEN RUSH, Mendo Division. The County's Ag Department is so overwhelmed with applications to legally grow pot, that blame for the back-up in processing them is being falsely placed on Interim AG Director Diane Curry. Her department is short-handed, and the deluge of applications is not only slowed by their complicated requirements, applicants are often confused and require counter time from staff to explain them.

THIS SITUATION would overwhelm any agency, especially one unaccustomed to handling what amounts to a bureaucratic, expensive County-sanctioned protection racket that basically says, “Do all the paperwork, pay the money and maybe, just maybe you won't busted.” And our local pot licensing is occurring in the context of new state pot regs while the whole confusing show occurs in a federal context that says marijuana, right down to one plant, is illegal, and the production of which is a felony. (Please see what the feds did to John Dalton of Laytonville (article below) as an example of the possibilities here.)

FROM ALL ACCOUNTS, Ms. Curry is a capable, pleasant person who finds herself in an unprecedented bureaucratic situation. She is clearly doing the best she can under difficult circumstances. The problem is the process itself coupled to a requirement that the applications be processed and completed in a very short time as the annual growing season commences.

(WE'D LIKE to hear from people who have applied for their takes on the process.)

NEVERTHELESS, MS. CURRY apprears to be on the way out following a performance review on Monday. Rumors out of Ukiah say she got a bad review and when she was asked to take a demotion and a pay cut, she walked out instead. Another version agrees that she got a bad review but says she walked out on her own. Either way, she does not seem to be on duty at the Ag Department. And as usual, no one from the County is willing to say anything on the record.

WHAT IS KNOWN is the Ag Commishioner position was on the agenda for review Monday and Tuesday. Monday's report out of closed session was the usual "direction was given to staff." On Tuesday, when the Supes adjourned to closed session in late morning, Chair John McCowen announced that closed session would not include review of the Ag Commissioner because it had been completed. When the Supes reconvened for the afternoon, the first item up was an update on the new pot cultivation ordinance. Instead of Interim Ag Commishioner Curry, her assistant, Arif Kever was sitting at the staff table beside Chief Planner Mary Lynn Hunt.

KEVER REPORTED that 152 applications had been accepted by the Ag Department starting May 4 when the ordinance took effect, through Monday, May 15. But Kever noted that none of the applications were for indoor growing operations. Indoor growers are more likely to think they can keep flying below the radar. And many indoor grow ops, if not most, are in structures that were constructed or converted without permits which is another reason for those growers reluctance to apply for permits. The Mendo program will accept applications through the end of this year but has a way to go to match Humboldt County, which received over 2,000 permit applications before it stopped accepting them at the end of last year.

THE JOHN DALTON CASE: Egregious Government Conduct

by Tim Stelloh (April 2010)

It was a little over a decade ago [from 2010] that John Dalton, formerly of Redwood Valley, was sentenced to 27 years in federal prison for growing massive amounts of marijuana in the rugged hills near Branscomb. He received the sentence after the DEA agent investigating him amassed a mountain of on-the-job improprieties — including a romantic tryst with Dalton's alcoholic, drug-using, unstable wife, Victoria Horstman, who the agent had cultivated as an informant and who was found dead in 2007 under mysterious circumstances in Montana.

Those improprieties are the spine of a civil lawsuit filed late last year by Dalton in San Francisco Federal District Court for $48 million against Janet Reno, the DEA, the Mendocino County Sheriff's Office, Mendo’s pot raiders (COMMET) and everyone in between.

The agent, Mark Nelson, met Horstman in the summer of 1994. She had long harbored law enforcement ambitions, so she began aiding the drug cops in their investigation against her husband. It started with Horstman handing Nelson bank deposit slips from her husband's machine shop. The agent subsequently made her a snitch (and allegedly threatened that she could be prosecuted for money laundering if she refused). In an effort to collect more information on her husband — and with Nelson's encouragement — Horstman placed a DEA recorder behind the headboard of their bed, a violation of marital privacy rights. It was around then that things turned romantic between the agent and his informant. When it came time to fingerprint Horstman — who was now officially a “source of information” — Nelson blindfolded her and drove her to the county drug cops' secret “safehouse.” Then he gave her a beer.

“Soon after, he put his head in my lap as if nothing was abnormal,” Horstman later wrote in a letter to prosecutors. “I froze up out of disbelief of what was happening to me. Soon after he then turned over on his side on the couch and swung me down and over facing him and began kissing me while he took my left leg and pushed it into his crotch area.”

In Horstman's telling, Nelson tried, over the course of their relationship, to have sex with her multiple times — though she refused — and he even drove her to a divorce lawyer and “forced” her to leave her husband (which she did). During Dalton's trial, a close friend of Horstman's testified that it was far more than fondling, kissing and “trying” to have sex, however — she said that Horstman and Nelson were having an affair.

In those letters to prosecutors, Horstman said that all that DEA pressure had damaged her irreparably — that she'd filled her garage with exhaust in a suicide attempt. In the years following Dalton's eventual conviction, in 1999, Horstman moved first to Potter Valley, then to Montana, according to her son, Josh Corrigan, who testified in Dalton's trial but soon after left Mendocino County for Oakdale, near Modesto, to live with his grandparents.

“She went up there because part of her heritage is Blackfoot Indian,” said Corrigan, now 31. “When we were kids, she talked about going back there, about knowing her roots. One of her favorite movies was ‘A River Runs Through It.’ But she couldn't handle it. I felt so sorry for her.”

Corrigan kept in touch with his mom through letters, and occasionally they talked on the phone. Then, several years ago, she sent family photo albums — the only possessions she'd taken with her up north — to Corrigan's sister. On the evening of July 5, 2007, her body was found floating in the Clark Fork River in downtown Missoula. Horstman was taken to the hospital and placed in intensive care — but she was already brain dead. She died 15 days later.

The medical examiner found that Horstman had drowned, and classified her death as undetermined. Detective Chris Shermer, who investigated the case for the Missoula Police Department, said her apartment — which was at an Elk's Lodge — was nearly empty, save for a few jugs of wine, some bottles of anti-depressants and recently purchased bed sheets. Neighbors described a troubled woman to Shermer: On one occasion, he said, Horstman was seen crouched in the lotus position outside her apartment, a bottle of booze beside her. She'd been screaming. Other times, she told neighbors that she worked for the DEA and that the KGB was watching them through their televisions.

“They drove her insane,” Corrigan said. “When my sister visited my mom, she was really paranoid, especially with TV screens. She thought the DEA was watching her.”

When agent Nelson was questioned about Horstman's allegations during Dalton's trial, he denied some, admitted some, took the fifth on another, crucial point — and was accompanied by a non-government lawyer to the witness stand. Yes, he'd taken Horstman to the safehouse. Yes, he'd given her a beer. No, he didn't know she was an alcoholic. Yes, he'd kissed her — but only once, at the safehouse. No, he'd never fondled her. Yes, he knew he'd broken DEA rules. Yes, he'd driven her to the divorce lawyer. No, he'd never forced her to leave her husband. Maybe he'd threatened her with prosecution. When Nelson was asked about the precise day he'd taken her to the safehouse, he took the fifth. Nelson, prosecutors told the court, had falsified the date on Horstman's fingerprint cards so as to conceal when he'd taken her to the safehouse.

Tony Serra, Dalton's attorney at the time, tried getting the government's indictment dismissed based on Nelson's “outrageous” conduct (he also argued that Nelson's search warrants were based on bogus info). While the judge, Susan Illston, found that the agent exercised “poor judgment,” and that what he did was “highly inappropriate,” she didn't find his behavior so “grossly shocking” that it violated the “universal sense of justice” and tainted the government's entire case.

She barred the bedroom recordings, but allowed the prosecutors to proceed. Though they had no physical evidence linking Dalton to the pot gardens the DEA said were his, the government got a conviction based on the testimony of several informants, including Horstman.

Dalton — who filed the same civil lawsuit in the late '90s but voluntarily withdrew it in 2000 due to lack of access to a law library — says despite potential statute of limitations problems with his case, he's confident the judge will agree to hear it. “The lawsuit is a dead-bang winner,” he wrote in an e-mail. “I just basically need someone with some balls to go after the government and hold them accountable for what they have done.”

LITTLE DOG SAYS, “I made the mistake of showing the palooka Pits next door the picture of our new supervisor, and made the double mistake of telling them she's a veteranarian. They started right in with the sexist comments. ‘She can operate on me anytime,’ and so on. The boss got right on my case. ‘What's wrong with you, Little Dog? You know we run a PC shop here. Don't do anything like that again’!"

MORE PUBLIC EXPRESSION from Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors meeting.

Melissa Moren: I am among the workers at Family And Children Services who are overworked and astoundingly underpaid. I stand before you not in self-interest. I'm here as an advocate. I'm here to explain why child welfare is a valuable part of the health of our community. It is my hope that I can plant a seed so we can begin to shift our culture to one that values child welfare and all social workers. I'm here to explain that rural communities have a special sort of challenges. I personally spent over a decade in Los Angeles County working in social work and related fields. The difference in rural communities is that we have a greater number of substance abuse, suicide, poverty, and child maltreatment. So how do we begin changing our statistics? We start with prevention. Believe it or not, family and children's services is not solely an intervention system. It is based more on prevention. It is about making our families stronger and building coping skills and support systems. The children who come from families who lack these skills and supports continue to pass these burdens on to their children. A daughter of an addict is unfortunately more likely to become an addict herself. Without intervention this cycle can continue for generations. So recruiting and retaining social workers, ethical and qualified social workers, is an integral part of the social makeup of our community. Yet how can you recruit qualified social workers who can relocate to other rural communities to receive wages of 20% to 50% more with a promise of smaller caseloads and more manageable caseloads. So I implore you to thoroughly consider what you want from your community. I ask you to begin to value social workers by paying them a fair wage. An underpaid and overworked social worker can only maintain, they cannot make change. We must work together to remedy this crisis to make way for a brighter future.

* * *

Phil Baldwin: I'm a resident of Ukiah. We have heard a lot about a housing crisis in the Ukiah valley. I assume it's true on the coast as well. In our local media we have never really heard much of anything in the last three or four years about a housing crisis until this valley's economic elite decided to try to change the Ukiah Valley Area Plan for a tract home subdivision at Lover’s Lane less than a mile north north of here. There is no crisis in homes for sale. If you go to any multi-listing, or any local realtors listing, you will find that there are between 80 and 120 homes for sale, all priced less than the proposed price of the tract home subdivision at Lover’s Lane. There is however a serious rental housing crisis. I think you all know that. That is where the real crisis is. There is lower than a 2%, maybe lower than a 1%, rental housing vacancy rate in this valley. So the answer — we do have some projects underway evidently within the next year. That's positive. We will need infill development of rental housing. However new construction is not going to solve the crisis. In Santa Rosa the majority of the City Council passed a rent control ordinance. It's constitutional. The only way it is constitutional is it has to guarantee a fair return to the owners of the dwellings. It only applies to housing built before 1995. And when a vacancy occurs it allows the owner of the apartment to raise rents to any level they want. The rent allowed by this Santa Rosa style rent control allows a 3% maximum CPI increase yearly. I have a copy of their proposal. If it goes down to defeat by the voters in Santa Rosa in June we shouldn't pay any attention to that because we all know that in special elections, the people who are renters tend not to turn out in those special elections. Generally it is hard to turn out the working class in special elections in June. I would like to submit this and ask you to realize that it guarantees a fair return to landlords. It has to to be constitutional. I hope you will consider it. One final thing, a statesperson doesn't count the votes in advance. A statesperson is going to introduce rent control or other legislation regardless of whether or not they believe it would get a majority of the board.

* * *

Michael Hunter, Tribal Chair, Coyote band of Pomo Indians: The Coyote Valley Band of Pomo Indians is working on negotiations for a memorandum of understanding with the county regarding a new casino that he tribe proposes to build. According to the Coyote Valley’s Tribal lawyer, Little Fawn Bolen, the casino has been addressed in these negotiations and “we believe we have reached a fair offer, a fair agreement with the county that mitigates all the off-reservation impacts potentially associated with the casino project. We are only required to mitigate impacts that are directly related to the casino. The issue that has arisen during the negotiations among the parties in this case, and it has truly been an issue since day one, is they wonder if there is going to be a hotel transient occupancy tax included in this MOU. The Hotel TOT is illegal to include in an MOU and we have fully briefed this issue with your legal counsel as well and [Supervisor] John [McCowen] and [Supervisor] Carre [Brown] and we have been very forthright and forthcoming as to what the issues are. If we proceed to arbitration, we believe strongly that we are going to prevail and we will see a zero dollar value mitigation payment in that case. We think that the amount that's on the table now more than mitigates for any increased patronage from the hotel we may have at the casino and we have worked hard to alleviate the issues of fire and other issues that come up with police, maintaining our police force, etc. There are many incredible benefits to this project. But we just want to say that we think we have been very forthright and forthcoming during the negotiations and we simply cannot allow the hotel transient occupancy tax to remain in the agreement and for that we urge you to vote against arbitrating this and move forward as it comes together.

* * *

Michael Hunter: We have agreed to fully staff a fire department in Redwood Valley. That is our home. We have agreed to give $90,000 to the county or to fully staff a tribal police department. We have agreed to that. We have agreed to an additional $60,000 for unforeseen issues, issues not brought up to be able to mitigate but we do realize there is an administrative costs that go along with issues of working together with the tribe. We have agreed that the transportation study did not mandate a left turn lane, but we agree that it could be an issue just like many other businesses have in this area. We’ve agreed to go above and beyond to put in a left turn lane that will cost us over $700,000. There is no business that has come to you guys or anybody who says they will take care of their own waste. We will take care of our own water and we will take care of our own waste. Not only that, we will build your roads for you. And on top of that we will give you, your fire department, a fully staffed person even though it is not needed for our tribe, but it is needed for our community. Above that, we carry our own tribal Police Department and our own tribal court. We will go after our own waters so we will alleviate the pressures put on the Redwood Valley Water District with our own water that we are finding grants and other ways of financing. We are also improving our entire infrastructure for wastewater. We are putting in a state of the art system so that we can use gray water that will be used for landscaping and for the hotel toilets and everything you can think of and more for the community because there will be excess. So we are negotiating with the vineyards next to us. My tribe… [cracking up a bit] my great-grandmother was raised at Lake Mendocino. And this county had settled with the Corps of Engineers to steal that from our people. We know that. Congressman [Hamburg] you know that. But that's what happened to my people. It wasn't twenty-something years later that we won a lawsuit to say that we were still Indians. My mother, my cousins, went to school, college and found out that they were not allowed to grant dollars because they are no longer Indian!. That's a true story! They came home from the schools they were in because they were no longer Indians, told by the government that they no longer qualify for grants. This is not 100 or 200 years ago. This is in the mid-50s. I was raised with my great-grandmother. A my sister is here. My cousin is here. We were raised by our great-grandmother. Not somebody who didn't exist, but by our great-grandmother. our grandmothers, our mothers — our mothers lived on the reservation. They were removed during water time. We are not asking anything from the county. My people have been put on the moratorium from the water district because of the issues they’ve had. Therefore we have been unable to build 30 homes because of our water issues.. It was never addressed by anybody. Nobody came to help support us and open up that moratorium for our people. Yet in over 30 years our population has doubled. For the first time in the history of our tribe we are able to bring our own water, developed our own waste systems, do our own financing. We are not asking for anything for this tribe, other than a memorandum of understanding for our people to work together. Like I said before we are the only tribe, the only business that comes with its own water, comes with its own waste system, self-sustaining. That's what a tribal government is for. That's what we have talked about! Congressman [Hamburg], you had talked about. And we have preached about these kinds of things. We want tribal governments to become self-sufficient. We are there! We are 100% there! But yet we have to wait for approval from the Board of Supervisors to determine if they are there and if we can move forward with what we are doing. Think about that for a second. We are ready to pull the trigger now. Right now, 100%. It all depends one more time on the County. I ask you to be on the right side of history this time. Our predecessors and other county Board of Supervisors in Santa Rosa, and the Corps of Engineers were not on the right side of history. In our history. Carre [Brown], you are friends with my mother. You have seen what my family has come through, how far they have come. You're a young man, Dan [Gjerde]. I'm a young man too. But it doesn't mean that history isn't real. And you are looking at it. We are products of our history. We really are. But for the first time my tribe is able to become self-sufficient. I'm not sure anybody else can offer that. We are. And on top of that we are willing to fully staff a fire department go. We are willing to fully staff a tribal police department. We are willing to have our own tribal courts and pay for it ourselves. We are willing to put in a left turn lane to mitigate transportation issues that we know are not mandated, but as a good neighbor we are willing to do that. All we ask for you to do is a favor for us and understand that we are prepared to move forward and it's all based on you. So I urge a yes vote from you on our MOU.

WATER RIGHTS, USE & DISCHARGE CONSULTANT ON THE CANNABIS HOUR

Tomorrow at 9 a.m., KZYX FM

Please join me tomorrow at 9 a.m. on The Cannabis Hour, when my guest will be water resources and water rights consultant Chantal Simonpietri. Simonpietri, who earned her law degree from Vermont Law School, will talk about the state regional water board's discharge waiver program for cannabis cultivation and explain which type of water sources require you to file to the state for water rights, including use of: springs, stream diversions, shallow wells, horizontal drills and on- or in-stream ponds. If you have burning or bubbling water questions, call 707 895-2448 at 9:40 a.m. and Chantal will answer them. That’s tomorrow at 9 a.m. on The Cannabis Hour, KZYX FM/Mendocino County Public Broadcasting. If you can’t listen live on your radio or on the Web, check out the archived version on jukebox.kzyx.org.

Thanks! Jane Futcher

LEE IS THE GUY IN THE PHOTO

Editor,

Gods Of Irony Looking Down Aghast

Subconsciously, unconsciously (whatever): immediately after your discourses on courage (and a thorough delving into the life of Rena Lynn Moore), BETWEEN that fulsome segment and the brief blast of publicity for Jeff Blankfort's photo exhibit in SF, listing his illustrious past, you neglected to mention that Lee Edmundson, one of the Democrats you chose to dis, was in fact, a 21-year old college student from the South who drove all night to be in Chicago during the disruptions of the Democratic Convention of 1968, was the young braveheart clinging out of reach on the top of the bronze statute of that civil war general, cops with batons flailing at his feet in Jeff Blankfort's iconic photograph of the revolt in Chicago the summer of '68 that landed up on the cover of Life Magazine. Lee Edmundson became one of the Chicago 6 or 7. And he is still alive and kicking. A very small-d democrat, indeed. Known locally for his vigorous contributions to our wholesome culture.

Beth Bosk

Mendocino

ED NOTE:

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2008-08-24/news/0808230182_1_democratic-national-convention-tribune-reporter-upcoming-convention/2

San Rafael Daily Independent Journal — August 27, 1968, San Rafael, California

Tear Gas Breaks Up Mobs; Newsmen Hurt

CHICAGO (UPI)— A day's demonstrations by Yippies and other antiwar personnel was broken up early today by police who sprayed them with tear gas and descended on them with clubs. Police arrested about 60 persons last night and early today. From 60 to 100 persons were injured, 10 of them policemen, and 17 of them newsmen beaten by police. Two newspapers—The Chicago Sun-Times and the Chicago Daily News—and two broadcasting networks—The Columbia Broadcasting System and the National Broadcasting Co.— formally protested beatings of their newsmen by police. Police Supt. James B. Conslik Jr. ordered an investigation after the NBC and CBS protests. Of the 17 injured four were hospitalized, all listed in good condition. They were Steven Northup, 27, Washington Post photographer; John Linstead. 27, Chicago Daily News reporter; John Evans. 33. NBC newsman, and Jim Stricklin. 35, NBC cameraman.

Members of the Youth International Party. National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam, hippies and a few black militants yesterday staged their third straight day of protests as tlie Democratic National Convention opened. The Yippies started yesterday's action by asking the United Nations to send an observer to Chicago to “make sure this is a free city.” The Yippies had asked the city to let their troops sleep in Lincoln Park during the convention, but the city refused.

A contingent of about 400 protesters marched from Lincoln Park to the Conrad Hilton Hotel, convention headquarters, about three miles south ot the park. Across Michigan Avenue from the Hilton, the youths climbed the statue of Civil War Gen. John Logan and attached a Viet Cong flag to it. “Ho, Ho, Ho Chi Minh,” they chanted. “Pigs. Pigs,” they yelled at police.

Delegates to the convention leaned out the Hilton and other hotels and smiled. At least five persons were arrested then. Three of them were arrested when they marched in the street, one when he tried to pass out Yippies literature and one when he “liberated” Logan's statue.

Just as he “liberated” the statue, a youth identified as David Lee Edmundson, 18, of Birmingham. Alabama, fell off it and suffered a broken arm. police said. They arrested him. Also arrested at the Hilton was Tom Hayden of the Mobilization Committee. He was released on $1,000 bond, went back to the Hilton and was arrested again.

Four other groups later attempted to march from Lincoln Park, and police let them stay there past an 11 p.m. park curfew.

Then police donned gas masks and moved in. They filled the area where the Yippies were congregated with tear gas. The youths ran with eyes streaming, coughing, out into Clark Street. Police pursued them, beating and clubbing Yippies, newsmen and some passersby. The Yippies then raced along Wells Street, setting tire to trash baskets and throwing stones at officers. Police were in pursuit, swinging clubs and exchanging angry words with nightclub patrons who got caught up in the melee.

The police, by now 500 strong, dispersed bands of youths and drove them from the Old Town area. They ordered a bar. Oxford's Pub. closed They said it was serving as a refuge tor Yippies. Clark Street was blocked off. traffic rerouted, pedestrians turned back. Several photographers trying to photograph the action were clubbed or had their cameras smashed. Many of the beaten newsmen wore press badges issued by the police department. About 50 persons were arrested in the nighttime action at Lincoln Park, and about 15 of then were women, police said. Dr. York, a member of the Medical Committee on Human Rights, said Yippy doctors had treated about 60 persons, some of whom were sent to hospitals. Hospitals in the area reported treated nearly 40 persons. One of the injured was reporter Mark Sanders of the Muskegon, Mich., who suffered eye inflammation from mace. Sanders' eyes were covered with bandages. Most ot the other injured were treated for cuts and bruises. About 10 of the injured were policemen.

KZYX SEGUE (MCN comment line)

Cur Mudgeon wrote:

A new Low: The absolute worst musical segue EVER !

I just re-programmed my remote after the batteries died, so I wasn't sure exactly which station I selected, but when I heard Faure's Requiem, I stopped pushing buttons and went back to work assembling the engine. This hauntingly beautiful piece of music, described as, " ... noted for its calm, serene and peaceful outlook..." has always been dear to my heart. I went to the house to brew more tea, enjoyed listening to the final strains of this sublime music, then was staggered, nay, confounded, mystified, perplexed, dumbfounded to hear, from the radio, a Bluegrass song about a "High Flyin' Bird". I said to myself, What the FUCK?! Did my radio go berserk? Did the DeeJay actually go from Gabriel Faure to fucking BLUEGRASS ? I noted the station; yup, KZYX - it figures. I called the station, and, after many rings, a woman answered. I asked, "Was I hearing things, or did you just go from Gabriel Faure to a Bluegrass song ?" " Yup, I did, she said, you got a problem with that ?" I could only laugh. I said, " And you wonder why people don't support your station", and hung up, shaking my head. Previously, Lindy on the now-dead KMFB held the honors for the worst segue of all time, for following Pink Floyds' Dark side of the Moon with some bubble gum shit, but this exonerated Lindy for all time. I had to look it up on the archives at Jukebox to make sure I wasn't just imagining things. Nope, it really did happen. Yesterday afternoon. Sigh. Music Without Borders? No, music without brains. More money for KMUD.

Marco Mcclean comments:

Marco here. Here's a thought: Maybe if the manager of KZYX were less of a pimp and didn't expect the airpeople to use their airtime to beg the public for money to pay him and his handful of office drones $260,000 a year, which alone is ten times the entire annual budget of KMEC, and more than twenty times the entire annual budget of KNYO, but instead actually paid the local airpeople for their time and their work before he diverts $5,000 into his own pocket every single month, the airpeople might feel motivated to try a little harder, prep a little longer, and not just shuffle in and sleepwalk through their gig.

Or maybe there was some deep puzzle of a connection between one piece of music and the next that just went right up your back and over your head. The bluegrass guys' names might be anagrams of the names of the first chorus members in the recording of the Requiem. Or maybe Gabriel Faure's first cousin, and wet-dream crush, founded a banjo and kazoo factory. Or there was some clue in the musical motif. Something like that. You might do a little digging and get a pleasant aha! surprise.

Either the airpeople are valuable to the station and to radio, and as creative workers doing worthwhile work, or they're not, but Mendocino County Public Broadcasting Corporation, in the person of the manager of KZYX, despite what he might smarmily stutter on the subject, clearly demonstrates that to him the airpeople are all worthless and that their time and work have no value. Or he would pay them before he pays himself, the way a real manager should be expected to, and not take all the money, and leave the workers with nothing but memories of being permitted to work.

I repeat: Bob Young does everything for KNYO that the entire office at KZYX does for KZYX, and Bob manages it all in a lazy afternoon per month and doesn't ask for a penny for himself. People should think about all this when KZYX pledge time comes around, and pick a radio station that's doing it right and needs their money, KNYO, say, or KMEC, or KMUD, and put the money where it will do some good, because in addition to all the secret big donors' controlling donations and the members' dues KZYX gets a six-figure grant from the national Corporation for Public Broadcasting every year, and that grant is enough twice over to cover all the real expenses and overhead there, if it were managed properly by people who were in it for radio instead of for money and power for themselves. And without that tax-derived shot in the arm KZYX would have gone $150,000 into the red and failed utterly every year of its existence, including this year. That's how bad the MCPB corporation is and has always been at running a radio station.

CATCH OF THE DAY, May 17, 2017

DOMANIK BLANCAS, Covelo. Probation revocation.

ESTEBAN CAMARILLO, Olivehurst/Ukiah. Community supervision violation.

CHRISTIAN CAMPOS-ESQUIVEL, Redwood Valley. Pot cultivation.

BRIAN DUNN, Shafter/Ukiah. Criminal threats, parole violation.

CODY FURLINE, Fort Bragg. Indecent exposure, drunk in public, parole violation.

TRINH HO, Ukiah. Domestic battery.

STEPHANIE MILBERGER, Clearlake/Ukiah. Domestic battery.

OSCAR OJEDA, Yorkville/Ukiah. Pot cultivation, failure to appear, probation revocation.

RODNEY TUCKER, Fort Bragg. Failure to appear, probation revocation.

CRISTIAN VILLALOBOS-VELIZ, Lucerne/Ukiah. Fugitive from justice.

BIG MONEY JITTERS: Wall Street suspects Trump is nuts.

Global stocks, US dollar sink as investors rethink 'Trump trade'

by Caroline Valetkevitch

Stocks on major markets and the U.S. dollar sold off while bond yields fell on Wednesday as investors fled risky assets amid uncertainty about U.S. President Donald Trump's ability to deliver on his tax and banking reforms and infrastructure spending.

Reports that Trump asked then-Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey to end a probe into the former national security adviser have raised questions over whether Trump tried to interfere with a federal investigation.

U.S. stock market declines accelerated in afternoon trading, and major U.S. indexes ended near session lows. The Dow Jones industrial average fell 372 points, and both the Dow and S&P 500 suffered their worst percentage drops since Sept. 9.

The CBOE Volatility index .VIX, the most widely followed barometer of expected near-term stock market volatility, ended above the 15 level in its highest close since April 13. The U.S. dollar index .DXY has now erased its post-election gains.

A small but growing number of Trump's fellow Republicans called on Wednesday for an independent probe of possible collusion between his 2016 campaign and Russia.

The news came after a tumultuous week at the White House when Trump unexpectedly fired FBI director Comey and reportedly disclosed classified information to Russia's foreign minister about a planned Islamic State operation.

Optimism over pro-growth economic policies under Trump helped drive a sharp rally in U.S. stocks after the Nov. 8 U.S. election. Even with Wednesday's declines, the S&P 500 stock index is up 10.2 percent since last November's U.S. elections though.

"It's certainly a day when the chickens are coming home to roost," said Donald Selkin, chief market strategist at Newbridge Securities in New York.

"The (equity) bull market is not over by any means, but between the political stuff and the fact that the next earnings season is three months away, there's going to be a lack of motivation."

The Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI was down 372.82 points, or 1.78 percent, to end at 20,606.93, the S&P 500 index .SPX lost 43.64 points, or 1.82 percent, to 2,357.03 and the Nasdaq Composite .IXIC dropped 158.63 points, or 2.57 percent, to 6,011.24.

The Nasdaq had its worst day since June 24. Both the Dow and S&P 500 fell below their 50-day moving averages for the first time since April 21.

While previous threats to Trump's plans have rattled investors, they had failed to cause any significant pull back in stocks. The VIX last week closed at 9.77, its lowest close since December 1993.

Bank stocks, which outperformed in the post-election rally, were the worst hit on Wednesday. The S&P 500 financial sector .SPSY tumbled 3 percent.

At nearly 18 times forward earnings, the S&P 500 trades at a significant premium to its long-term average valuations of 15 times, according to Thomson Reuters data.

MSCI's gauge of stocks across the globe .MIWD00000PUS fell 1.2 percent, while European shares .FTEU3 ended down 1.4 percent.

"It's registering with more investors that it's going to be hard to get back on track with the latest allegations," Michael O’Rourke, chief market strategist at JonesTrading in Greenwich, Connecticut.

Prices of bonds, seen as safe-haven assets, rallied, while yields were on track for their biggest daily percentage drops since July.

Benchmark 10-year notes US10YT=RR gained a full point in price to yield 2.22 percent, the lowest since April 21, and down from 2.33 percent late on Tuesday.

The dollar index, which tracks the U.S. currency against six peers and had scaled a 14-year peak of 103.82 .DXY on Jan. 3, fell 0.6 percent to its lowest level since Nov. 9, surrendering all of its "Trump bump" gains. The dollar also fell by nearly 2 percent against the yen.

In commodity markets, safe-haven gold XAU= hit a two-week high, while oil prices were higher. Spot gold rose for a fifth day and was up 1.8 percent at $1,258.38 an ounce.

Brent crude LCOc1 gained 1.1 percent to settle at $52.21 per barrel, while U.S. light crude CLc1 rose 0.8 percent to settle at $49.07.

(Reuters)

THE SALMON ARE GONE

California’s iconic salmon fishery, and the thousands of families who depend on the fishery for their livelihood, are in crisis. There has been an unprecedented collapse in California’s salmon population, tribal allocations are at an all-time low, and there’s a budget gap the administration is attempting to fix on the backs of California’s fishermen.

All of this and more will be discussed during a Senate and Assembly joint committee hearing, “Where Have All the Salmon Gone?” on May 24 at the State Capitol.

“The 2017 salmon season is anticipated to be one of the worst on record including predictions of the lowest return of Klamath River salmon in history. This collapse has had disastrous impacts on our fisheries, our commercial and recreational fishing industries and on tribes, whose commercial fisheries will be closed and subsistence and ceremonial fishing severely curtailed,” Senator Mike McGuire said. “At this hearing, we will focus on the impact of the drought, poor ocean conditions and diseases that have decimated the California salmon population.”

The entire Klamath River (and Trinity River) will be closed to recreational salmon fishing including catch and release. Tribal commercial fisheries will be closed and subsistence and ceremonial fishing curtailed providing less than a fish per 10 tribal members potentially triggering a health crisis.

In addition to the disastrous seasons for crab, salmon, urchins and sardines, which are the result of California’s historic drought and poor ocean conditions the last few years, the Department of Fish and Wildlife recently proposed an excessive increase in commercial fish landing taxes to augment the department’s budget – a topic that will be raised at next week’s fisheries hearing.

“Balancing a $20 million Fish and Wildlife budget shortfall on the shoulders of California’s struggling commercial fishing industry – with landing tax increases exceeding 10,000 percent – is unconscionable and we will fight this proposal. Frankly, it’s disturbing that California Fish and Wildlife Administration – after all of the feedback they have received from the fleet who are losing their boats, homes and struggling to make ends meet – is continuing to ram this damaging proposal through.”

The Joint Committee on Fisheries and Aquaculture hearing will be held Wednesday March 24 from 1 to 5 p.m. in Room 2040 of the State Capitol building and will be livestreamed at www.senate.ca.gov.

The hearing will be headlined by presentations from state agency leaders, researchers, and tribal, commercial and recreational fishing representatives, including Doug Obegi, Senior Attorney for the California’s Natural Resources Defense Council, Michael O’Farrell, Fisheries Research Biologist, NOAA Fisheries, Russell Perry, Research Fishery Biologist, USGS, Craig Tucker, Natural Resources Policy Advocate for the Karuk Tribe, Thomas O’Rourke, Chairman of the Yurok Tribe, Western Fisheries Research Center and Kevin Shaffer, Fisheries Branch Chief of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. A full list of speakers will be released next week.

Due to the extensive salmon closures, Senator McGuire and Assemblymember Jim Wood have called on Governor Brown to request a federal fishery disaster.

(Press Release from Wood’s Assembly office.)

NEW REPORT: EXTINCTION LIKELY FOR MAJORITY OF CALIFORNIA'S NATIVE TROUT AND SALMON

by Dan Bacher

If present trends continue, the majority of percent of California’s imperiled native salmon, steelhead and trout are likely to be extinct within 100 years.

That was the alarming news unveiled by scientists and conservation group leaders in a press teleconference announcing the findings of a new report released by California Trout and the UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences on Tuesday, May 16.

The report forecasts that 74 percent of the state’s native salmon, steelhead and trout are likely be extinct in the next 100 years — and 45 percent of these iconic fish in 50 years — if the current trends continue.

The report, “State of the Salmonids II: Fish in Hot Water,” reveals that California’s native salmon, steelhead and trout are “in dire threat of widespread extinction” if present trends continue. The report details the status of 32 salmonid populations in California and identifies opportunities for stabilizing and even recovering these species.

Speakers at the conference included Curtis Knight, Executive Director of California Trout; Peter Moyle, PhD, Distinguished Professor Emeritus in the Department. of Wildlife, Fish and Conservation Biology and Associate Director of the Center for Watershed Sciences, UC Davis; Robert Lusardi, PhD, CalTrout-UC Davis Wild and Coldwater Fish Researcher, Center for Watershed Sciences, UC Davis; and Patrick Samuel, Conservation Program Coordinator for California Trout.

SOS II: Fish in Hot Water is the second report of its kind released by CalTrout and the UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences over the past decade. They released the first edition in 2008, establishing a baseline level of health for each of 32 types of native salmon, steelhead, and trout populations in the state, including the extinct Bull trout.

In fact, I moderated a panel discussion on the findings and the state of our fisheries by one of the co-authors of the previous report, Dr. Josh Israel, and other fishery experts at the International Sportsmen’s Exposition (ISE) in Sacramento in January 2008, the year of the Sacramento River salmon collapse and complete closure of the ocean salmon fishery.

It is disconcerting to see, in spite of all of the money spent by state, federal , regional and local governments and foundations on restoration programs since that time, that the situation with native salmon, steelhead and trout appears to be actually getting worse than better.

The latest report documents how since 2008, the number of California’s native fish species likely to be extinct within the next five decades has “nearly tripled, from 5 to 14 species. And after five years of historic drought, 81 percent of the remaining 31 species are worse off today than they were a decade ago.”

“The health of our native fish is a reflection of the health of our rivers and streams,” said Curtis Knight, Executive Director of CalTrout. “Declining fish populations indicate degraded waters, which threaten the health and economic well-being of all Californians.”

Lead report author Dr. Peter Moyle noted, “This report should rightly be considered an alarm bell, but it should also be seen as a roadmap for how we can correct course to better support native aquatic species. Thanks to ongoing scientific research, we now know what to do – and where – to improve the plight of native fish.”

On a positive note, In response to a question about Southern steelhead during the news conference, Moyle emphasized the resilience of steelhead, in spite of all of the obstacles that they face.

“Steelhead are truly an amazing fish,” said Moyle. “That they are still persisting in an big urban area down to almost San Diego is remarkable and shows their resilience. The choice is whether we want to see them in the rivers or or not. People get excited when they see these big fish going upriver. We are now making choices whether have fish like the Southern steelhead in the future.”

The authors pointed to the drought as one of the key reasons for the recent declines in salmonid populations in California - and the impacts of the drought continue to impact fish across the state.

“At the same time, these animals are incredibly resilient,” said Robert Lusardi. “Despite seeing a decline, I think we were surprised that they made it through some hard times (during the drought). We didn't lose any species during the drought. “

However, Lusardi and others said the fish need to have good years so they can build up their populations able enough to withstand the tough times forecasted with climate change in the future.

The report includes an analysis of key threats to the survival of each species, starting with the “overarching threat of climate change, which is likely to reduce the availability of cold water habitat that salmon, steelhead, and trout all depend on for survival.”

“It (climate change) is considered a critical or high threat for 27 of 31 species (87%). It is considered a low threat to only one species, the Coastal Rainbow trout,” the report states. “The majority of salmonid species in California is currently facing, or is likely to face, extinction from climate change if present trends continue.

The report said the “main effects of a warming climate on California salmonids” are the lack of cold water, low and variable streamflows, constricted habitat, reduced habitat suitability and survival, food web alteration and rising sea levels.

The report also highlights various other human-induced threats, including residential development, major dams, agriculture, fire, alien species, transport, logging, fish harvest, estuary alteration, hatcheries, mining, instream mining, grazing, urbanization and recreation.

“We have already lost one of our native fish,” Knight said. “The Bull trout was last seen in the McCloud River in 1975. The fact we haven’t lost another since 1975 is remarkable. These fish are resilient, but this report underscores that we must act now to prevent further extinctions.”

Some alarming facts from the report reveal that:

• Of California’s remaining salmon, steelhead and trout, 81 percent are worse off today than in 2008,
• The number of species likely to be extinct in 50 years increased 180 percent in the last 10 years - from just 5 in 2008 to 14 today.
• California will lose more than half (52 percent) of its native anadromous (migratory) salmonids, and over a quarter (27 percent) of its inland salmonids in the next 50 years if present trends continue.
• Only Coastal rainbow trout have a good chance for survival if present trends continue.

Species that face the most immediate threat of extinction include Central California Coast Coho Salmon, Sacramento River Winter-run Chinook Salmon, Southern Steelhead, Kern River Rainbow Trout and the McCloud River Redband Trout.

The report notes that improving salmonid status throughout California “requires investing in productive habitats that promote growth, survival, and diversity.”

CalTrout has developed an action plan to return the state’s salmon, steelhead, and trout to resilience to help many of these species thrive.

To reverse the trend toward extinction, the report suggests “prioritizing protection and restoration” efforts in three general areas:

“Protecting the most productive river ecosystems remaining in California, such as the Smith and Eel Rivers, must be a priority. These strongholds, among others, have the capacity to support diversity and abundance because they retain high quality habitat and are not heavily influenced by hatcheries, supporting the persistence of wild fish.

Increasing focus on source waters will keep more water in streams and reduce stress on fish during drought, buffering the effects of climate change. Sierra meadow restoration, springs protection and progressive groundwater management all contribute to this effort.

Restoring function to once productive – but now highly altered – habitats can greatly improve rearing conditions for juvenile fish, especially floodplains, coastal lagoons, estuaries, and spring-fed rivers.”

The report also identifies three science-based strategies to support a return to abundance for California’s native salmonids. These are: (1) focus on opportunities to mimic natural processes within altered landscapes; (2) prioritize improving fish passage to historical spawning and rearing grounds that have been cut off over time; and (3) pursue strategies that increase genetic diversity of wild fish.

“We know we are not going to turn back the clock to a time before rivers were dammed or otherwise altered for human benefit,” Knight said. “Using the best available science, we can make landscape-level changes that will allow both people and fish to thrive in California.”

“If knowledge is power, then this information should be critical in reversing the trend toward a continued decline of our special fishes, with California Trout at the forefront of aquatic conservation,” concluded Moyle.

Unfortunately, the report didn’t discuss one of the biggest threats to salmon, steelhead and trout fisheries — Governor Jerry Brown’s Delta Tunnels. While all of the proposed solutions in the report have a lot of merit — many of these other efforts may become moot if Brown has his way and builds his two massive, 35-mile long tunnels under the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta to divert more Sacramento River water to corporate agribusiness interests, Southern California water agencies and oil companies conducting fracking and other extreme oil extraction methods.

Note: I asked a question about the possible impact of the tunnels on these fish species at the end of the call, but Dr. Moyle had already left the call and the others deferred to him. I am currently waiting for a reply from Dr. Moyle regarding the potential impact of the California WaterFix on salmon, steelhead and trout. When I receive a reply, I will add the information to this article.

The longer, full report is expected this summer. To read the report’s main findings and explore related online resources, go to www.caltrout.org/sos/.

For a blog post from UC Davis authors Peter Moyle and Robert Lusardi, visit https://californiawaterblog.com/.

To download the full report, or to view and listen to a recording of the teleconference, go to: https://californiatroutinc.app.box.com/s/dm3rhv5rel804111tqdg6tkkq1e00ezo.

HITLER'S NATURAL VOICE

https://boingboing.net/2017/05/15/only-recording-of-hitlers-no.html

ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

A short remembrance: it’s really a shame that the epithet “clod” has fallen out of usage these days. In its heyday it was a one word conversation stopper, especially when coming from someone of authority. I guess it was the fact that the sound of the word and it’s meaning were so perfectly aligned: a one word utterance that signified its target was as dumb and unsophisticated as a clod of dirt.

WILLIAM BLUM’S OUTSTANDING BOOK: THE FORGOTTEN HISTORY OF THE CIA:

https://www.amazon.com/CIA-Forgotten-History-William-Blum/dp/0862324807

SECURITY IS RUINING THE INTERNET

by Ted Rall

Another major cyberattack, another wave of articles telling you how to protect your data has me thinking about European ruins. Those medieval fortresses and castles had walls ten feet thick made of solid stone; they were guarded by mean, heavily armored, men. The barbarians got in anyway.

At the time, those invasions felt like the end of the world. But life goes on. Today’s Europeans live in houses and apartment buildings that, compared to castles of the Middle Ages, have no security at all. Yet: no raping, no pillaging. People are fine.

Security is overrated.

The ransomware attack that crippled targets as diverse as FedEx and British hospitals reminds me of something that we rarely talk about even though it’s useful wisdom: A possession that is so valuable that you have to spend a lot of money and psychic bandwidth to protect it often feels like more of a burden than a boon.

You hear it all the time: Change your passwords often. Use different passwords for different accounts. Install File Vault. Use encrypted communications apps. At what point do we throw up our hands, change all our passwords to “password” and tell malicious hackers to come on in, do your worse?

I owned a brand-new car once. I loved the look and the smell but hated the anxiety. What if some jerk dented it? Sure enough, within a week and the odometer reading in the low three digits, another motorist scratched the bumper while pulling out of a parallel parking space. I was so determined to restore the newness that I paid $800 for a new bumper. Which got scratched too. That was 13 years, 200,000 miles and a lot of dings ago. Still drive the same car. I don’t care about dents.

I’m liberated.

The Buddha taught that material attachments bring misery. He was right. During the 1980s crack epidemic addicts stole car stereos to finance their fixes. To avoid smashed windows, New Yorkers took to posting “No Radio” signs on their cars.

But the really smart drivers’ signs read “Door unlocked, no radio.” It worked.

Hackers, we’re told, are ruining the Internet. I say our reaction to hack attacks has ruined it. It’s like 9/11. Three thousand people died. But attacking Afghanistan and Iraq killed more than a million. We should have sucked it up instead.

Security often destroys the very thing it’s supposed to protect. Take the TSA — please! Increased airport security measures after 9/11 have made flying so unpleasant that Americans are driving more instead. Meanwhile, “civil aviation” flights out of small airports — which have no or minimal security screenings — are increasingly popular. So are trains — no X-ray machines at the train station, either. Get rid of TSA checkpoints at the airport, let people walk their loved ones to the gate so they can wave goodbye, and I bet more people would fly in spite of the risk.

It’s not just government. Individuals obsess over security to the point that it makes the thing they’re protecting useless.

For my 12th birthday my dad gave me a 10-speed road bicycle. I still have that Azuki. It weighs a ton but it runs great. It’s worth maybe $20.

Bike theft is rife in Berkeley and Manhattan, but I tooled around both places on that banana yellow relic of the Ford Administration without fear of anything but the shame of absorbing insults from kids on the street. I often didn’t bother to lock up my beater. Never had a problem.

In my early 40s and feeling flush, I dropped $2400 on a royal blue Greg LeMond racing bike. Terrified that my prize possession might get stolen, I only ride it to destinations I deem ridiculously safe or where I’ll only have to leave it outside for a few minutes. So I hardly use it.

I’m an idiot.

Nice things are, well, nice to have. But they’re also a pain in the ass. In college one of my girlfriends (who I am not suggesting was a “thing,” obviously, and whom equally obviously I never thought I “had” in any ownership-y sense) had dazzling big blue eyes and golden blonde hair down to her waist and was so striking that guys literally walked into lampposts while gawking at her. Being seen with her was great for my ego. But every outing entailed a risk of violence as dudes catcalled and wolf-whistled; chivalry (and my girlfriend) dictated that I couldn’t ignore all of them. I sometimes suggested the 1980s equivalent of “Netflix and chill” (Channel J and wine coolers?) rather than deal with the stress. (We broke up for other reasons.)

So back to the big ransomware attack. What should you do if your ‘puter locks you out of your files unless you fork over $300? Wipe your hard drive and move on.

Back up regularly, Internet experts say, and this threat is one reason why. With a recent backup you can usually wipe your hard drive and restore your files from a backed-up version that predates the virus. Take that, villains! But no one does.

Meanwhile, our online lives are becoming as hobbled by excessive security as the airlines. Like the countless locks on Gabe Kaplan’s Brooklyn apartment door in “Welcome Back Kotter,” two-step authentication helps — but at what cost? You have to enter your password, wait for a text — if you’re traveling overseas, you have to pay a dollar or more to receive it — and enter it before accessing a site. Tech companies force us to choose a new password each time we forget the old one. Studies show that makes things worse: most users choose simpler passwords because they’re easier to remember.

The only thing to fear, FDR told us, is fear itself. What if we liberated ourselves from the threat of cyberattack — and a ton of work maintaining online security — by not having anything on our Internet-connected devices that we care about?

This would require a mental shift.

First, we should have fewer things online. When you think about it, many devices are connected to the Internet for a tiny bit of convenience but at significant risk to security. Using an app to warm up your house before you come home is nifty, but online thermostats are hardly worth the exposure to hackers who could drive up your utility bills, start a fire or even cause a brownout. Driverless cars could be remotely ordered to kill you — no thanks! I laugh at the Iranian nuclear scientists who set back their nation’s top-secret research program for years because their desire to cybercommute opened their system to the Stuxnet attack. Go to the office, lazybones!

The Internet of Things needs to be seriously rethought — and resisted.

As for your old-fashioned electronic devices — smartphones, tablets and laptops — it might time to start thinking like a New Yorker during the 1980s. Leave the door unlocked. Just don’t leave anything in your glove compartment, or on your hard drive, that you wouldn’t mind losing.

(Ted Rall, syndicated writer and the cartoonist for ANewDomain.net, is the author of the book “Snowden,” the biography of the NSA whistleblower.)

DAVE ZIRIN’S KAEPERNICK PODCAST

Colin Kaepernick Vs. Systemic Oppression

This week on the Edge of Sports Podcast, we give an inside look at the Know Your Rights Camps being hosted by free agent quarterback Colin Kaepernick, as he and a remarkable team of people try to educate youth on their legal rights, health, history and financial literacy. We also tear apart the disinformation campaign being put forward by nameless NFL executives about why Colin Kaepernick is without a job. This episode also includes a six minute interview that I did with Kaepernick at the camp. Then, assessing Kaepernick's impact and putting it in a historical continuum with Professor Lou Moore. We also have a dramatic reading of Nigel Hayes' "commencement" speech to the University of Wisconsin, Lastly we take a ton of listener phone calls. An unforgettable show.

https://soundcloud.com/edgeofsports/colin-kaepernick-vs-systemic-oppression

BOOK PRESENTATIONS IN LOS ANGELES AND DAVIS - IN THE FIELDS OF THE NORTH

In the Fields of the North / En los Campos del Norte

by David Bacon

Los Angeles, Tuesday, May 23, 2017

1-3 PM, Chicano Studies Research Center, 144 Haines Hall

UCLA

5:30-8 PM, UCLA Downtown Labor Center

675 S. Park View St.

* * *

Davis, Thursday, June 1, 2017

7-9 PM, Art Annex Room 107 (Technological Studies Building)

UC Davis Main Campus

CHOPPER ALERT

Helicopter Awareness Class & Training Event, Lake Mendocino

Location: Lake Mendocino & Ukiah Area

May 19 through 21, 2017

Friday afternoon (5/19) through the evening hours of 5/21/17, daylight only.

The Mendocino and Napa County Sheriff’s Offices announced that a Search and Rescue Helicopter Awareness Training at Lake Mendocino is this weekend. This training is sponsored by the Mendocino and Napa Sheriff’s Offices in cooperation with the California National Guard (CNG), California Office of Emergency Services (Cal OES), Cal Fire, Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office, US Army Corps of Engineers and both the Napa and Mendocino County Volunteer Search and Rescue (SAR) Teams. This training will start on Friday afternoon (5/19/17) and continue through Sunday evening (5/21/17).

In recent years California State Wilderness Search and Rescue professionals have seen an increase in extended search and rescue (SAR) missions in difficult-to-access, mountainous terrain, across California. These searches often require a large commitment of advanced SAR teams and significant logistical support that must be brought to the scene. These SAR missions are also often dependent on aviation resources to insert and extract teams and to be available to provide rescue support in the event of injured searchers or lost persons. As a result California State SAR Coordinators, with the assistance of California Office of Emergency Services, developed a plan calling for more air assets to assist from cooperating agencies. These agencies include but are not limited to the California National Guard, Cal Fire, California Highway Patrol and the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office. Air assets would typically assist in deploying or extracting resources to remote areas and or to provide medical extractions (hoist) to injured subjects, either the missing/lost persons or searchers. In 2016 a similar training was held at Lake Mendocino. This training was very successful and it was planned to expand the training to offer it to more SAR Teams across the state to better prepare the SAR volunteers to operate in or around the various helicopters that might respond to assist in SAR incidents. In addition to Wilderness SAR missions these allied air assets can be called to assist other emergency response personnel during incidents involving emergencies, natural disasters and law enforcement missions. This assistance is provided as a mutual aid support system and can include: providing critical transportation of personnel, medical evacuation, general evacuation, logistical supply, searching from the air, and technical night search capabilities using Forward Looking Infrared cameras. This Joint Training Effort will utilize helicopter resources and trainers to specifically train SAR teams in the capabilities of and safe operations of their respective helicopter platforms. These helicopters may include the following: the National Guard CH47D Chinook, U/HH60 Blackhawk, UH72A Lakota, the Cal Fire UH1H Super Huey, and the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Bell 407. Starting on the afternoon of May 19th the public will see an increase in helicopter operations related to this training exercise in the area of Lake Mendocino and the greater Ukiah Valley.

For Safety reasons the area of the South Lake Mendocino Wildlife Area, including all hiking trails south and east of the Lake Mendocino Dam, will have limited access.

Press access will be granted but we request any member of the press who would like to visit the training to send an email to Mendocino County Sheriff’s Lieutenant Shannon Barney at barneys@co.mendocino.ca.us to make those arrangements.

(Sheriff’s Office Presser)

OOOOOOMMMMMMMM

Responding to the Crisis

Looming, always looming is the daily reported big disaster about to take place. News media issues updates of every crisis, and the total chaotic apocalypse is always just about to happen. Freaked out millions turn pale, hearts palpitating, as militaries globally aim weapons of various levels of destruction at each other, prompting billions to worry about surviving another day. This is the legacy of materialism! This is the huge stupidity of the outgoing mind, lost and far from its inner home. The curative to this painful condition is to reverse the mental current. Return to the heart center. Go back to one's eternal spiritual home, and stay there. Indrawing the mind, and anchoring it at the anahata chakra, or heart center, is the remedy for confusion. When the mind is centered, it is possible to act in a spiritually free flowing manner. Then there is no interference. Actions are spontaneous, in accord with a higher reality. The mind is relaxed and free of the ten thousand worries and distortions. The body moves smoothly, and carries out actions. An inner light within the heart cave glows. This is non-attachment, naturally and without contrivance. Just being free, to go where one needs to go and do what one needs to do. There is no other way superior to this, regardless of all outward names and forms. The fundamental condition is primary, and supports everything else.

Craig Louis Stehr

May 16, 2017

Email: CraigStehr@inbox.com