Mendocino County Today: Sunday, June 11, 2017

• Bear Delayed
• Armed Robbery
• Arts Council
• Ukiah Costco
• Little Dog
• Comedians
• Dumb Train
• Yesterday's Catch
• Sales Manager
• Willits Exhibit
• Library Events
• Pets!
• Climate Poser
• Trump Lied
• Marco Radio
• Confronting Corruption
• Kurdish Trench

BRUCE McEWEN REPORTS THAT THE LONG-DELAYED BEAR LINCOLN JURY TRIAL, previously set for this coming Monday, will not be going forward after all. It's not posted on the DA's website.

And it no longer appears on the court calendar for Department B where it’s set. DA David Eyster is personally handling the prosecution. If and when it does go, it will be the first pot trial since the passage into law of Proposition 64.

Bear Lincoln was arrested at a large grow — 9,000 plants — on and around his property in Covelo in August of 2016. Two loaded weapons were also found there. Of course, finding weapons and pot in Covelo is one thing; assigning ownership and responsibility is much harder. But Bear is a convicted felon, and you can be sure the cops will try to pin the guns on the guy they've been after off and on ever since the famous shoot out that led to the deaths of Deputy Bob Davis and Bear's cousin, Leonard Peters (for which Lincoln was acquitted some twenty years ago now in 1997).

Previous Coverage:

• Loaded For Bear (Feb 1, 2017)
• Notes From Bear Lincoln's Prelim (Jan 25, 2017)

WE WERE WONDERING when a press release on the two armed robbery suspects displayed in the Sheriff’s Booking Log a few days ago would show up. The Mendocino Sheriff’s Department didn’t issue any explanation of the event, apparently because they were only one among multiple agencies involved, and none of the other law enforcement organizations saw fit to generate a comprehensive presser.

FROM what we can piece togther from on-line reports, the two armed robbers, Rashard Lafrance and Donovan Saari, lead police on a “wild car chase” down Highway 101 from Willits to Healdsburg, where the southbound bandidos crashed.

THE ROBBERY occurred at the decidedly downscale Edgewood Motel in downtown Willits when a pot deal collapsed in a way these transactions often do. Instead of getting cash for his pot, the seller found himself staring at the wrong end of a handgun, forced to the floor, and robbed of his pot, cash and other unspecified belongings.

SAARI and Lafrance then took off south on Highway 101. For their part, Ukiah Police said, “On June 6 at about 4pm. UPD officers heard via radio of a robbery that occurred in the Willits area. The suspects had fled in a vehicle and one was reported to have a handgun. While looking for the suspect’s vehicle, a UPD unit located it headed southbound on Highway 101. Officers attempted to perform a traffic stop on the vehicle in the Hopland area. The driver failed to stop and led UPD officers on a high-speed pursuit, southbound on Highway 101 and into Sonoma County.”

SONOMA COUNTY Sheriff’s deputies took over: “Our department was requested to assist Ukiah CHP with a high speed pursuit coming southbound through our county from Mendocino. The suspects were reported to be driving at about 130 miles per hour in a silver Toyota Camry. It was reported that the suspects had just committed an armed robbery in Mendocino County and stole (sic) an undisclosed amount of marijuana using handguns.”

THE ROBBERS’ Camry couldn’t negotiate a traffic backup just south of Healdsburg and ended up crashing into a guardrail and then into a halted VW bug. Neither Lafrance and Saari nor the people in the Bug were badly hurt. The two perps took off in opposite directions as armed cops arrived.

“DEPUTIES formed perimeters on both sides of the freeway. They located one suspect hiding near a boat and RV storage area on the east side of the freeway. The second suspect was found hiding in a vehicle parked at a residence in the 12900 block of Old Redwood Highway.”

COPS found ammo, drugs and other “evidence” in the abandoned Camry which was then towed back to Ukiah.

UPON being booked into the Mendocino County Jail, Saari was identified as a Sacramento resident, and Lafrance from Miramar, Florida. Bail was set at $150k each.

WILLITS POLICE were assigned to investigate the initial robbery and false imprisonment. It's not known if the seller got his product back.

NOT THE ARTS COUNCIL

Dear Editor,

In the June 7th article Promo Scam-A-Rama, Mark lumps the Arts Council in with Visit Mendocino and the lodging and wine organizations. I just want to say that the Arts Council gets very little of the promo money. The Get Arts In the Schools program is one of the things the Arts Council does. It helps local artists become eligible for small grants to teach what they do in the classroom. This money is not leaving the county for advertising but stays here to benefit local children and artists. Nobody is raking it in at the Arts Council, they only have a staff of two part time positions and there are never enough hours budgeted to cover the time they put in.

Thanks,

Judith Edwards

Mendocino

UKIAH CITY COUNCIL OKAYS REVISED COSTCO EIR

by Justine Frederiksen

The Ukiah City Council Wednesday pushed the train known as the Ukiah Costco project further along the tracks toward development, but it has at least two more stations to clear before construction can begin.

“This is the next step in our re-approval of the Costco project,” Planning Manager Kevin Thompson told the council at its June 7 meeting, explaining that since the council needed to “set aside all of the prior approvals including the Environmental Impact Report, property rezoning and site development permit,” it was being asked to approve the related documents and resolutions again.

“We are asking today that you certify the final EIR including the energy analysis and statement of overriding considerations,” said Thompson, adding that the EIR and a related statement declaring that the project’s benefits outweigh any significant environmental impacts were both approved by the Ukiah Planning Commission last month.

Council member Doug Crane appeared ready to make a motion to approve the resolutions before Thompson even finished his presentation, but Council member Steve Scalmanini had several questions about the EIR, including whether any other issues not touched on by the lawsuit that derailed the previous approvals could be addressed later.

“No, you only get one bite at an EIR,” said City Attorney David Rapport, referring to the lawsuit filed in 2014 by Davis attorney William Kopper alleging that the EIR was inadequate for numerous reasons. While the courts later dismissed most of his claims, it was determined that the city needed to prepare a separate energy use analysis.

“But the issues not raised are beyond challenge after that,” Rapport said. “Every other aspect of the EIR is final and not subject to further challenge.”

Anyone wanting to appeal this recertification of the EIR needs to have voiced their concerns during the hearings before the Planning Commission and the City Council, and at each someone expressed concern that the building would not feature solar panels: Pinky Kushner at the first and Scalmanini at the second.

Scalmanini also said he felt there was not enough information in the EIR to determine whether the project’s benefits would outweigh its negatives, and said he would like to suggest that the council require the building to utilize solar power.

However, most of his fellow council members said they felt it was clear that the project’s benefits would outweigh any negative environmental impacts, particularly given that the EIR did not take into account how it would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by eliminating all of the 120-mile driving trips Ukiah residents regularly make to shop at the nearest Costco in Santa Rosa.

“The bottom line is, these EIRs don’t have to be perfect, but they have to be adequate, and this one is,” said Vice-Mayor Kevin Doble. “It’s just unfortunate that we have to go through all this again.”

“I agree with you on that,” said Scalmanini, who later cast the sole “no” vote on certifying the EIR and statement of overriding considerations, but did vote yes with his fellow council members on the other resolutions including the request for rezoning of the parcel.

Thompson said the rezoning will need to come back before the council on June 23, then the final site development permit will be back sometime in July.

(Courtesy, the Ukiah Daily Journal)

LITTLE DOG SAYS, “I could hear them groaning over the Warriors last night, and I still resent them saying dogs don't do sports. I used to do a lotta frisbie, but that takes someone on the other end, and nobody here will play with me.”

COMEDIANS

Colbert, Griffin and now Maher are under attack for breaking "civility rules." There are no civility rules. These are rightwing (and fuddy-duddy) attacks aimed at muting comedians and satirists — who are the leading edge of popular resistance to the fascism-rising state. They are the prime exponents of Free Speech, and satirists and comedians are not expected to be polite or civil. Bill Cosby was unfailingly polite and civil. Maher and Griffin have apologized. I'm sorry to see that. Maher's feigned indignation about house nigger vs field nigger is a reference to a very real distinction from the days of abject existence for African-Americans (slavery and post-slavery). If you worked in the boss's house, you lived better and longer, ate better, faced less physical threat and, in most cases, considered yourself superior to the field hands. That Maher used the taboo word should not cause a flap. Himself half-Jew, half-Catholic (and doubtless, like all of us) with some tincture of Native American and African, he already embodies many of America's wretched schisms. His type of comedy is called, among other things, Black Comedy and "Insult" Comedy.

SCREW the "nigger" taboo. The word's a distortion of "negro," now considered belittling, in favor of "black," which was once considered blunt and hateful. Same word, different languages. These distinctions are themselves petty and absurd. Niggerniggerniggerniggernigger! Lenny Bruce, R.I.P., was way out in front of all this. DEFEND OUR DEFENDERS! Spread it around!

Mitch Clogg, Mendocino

* * *

ED NOTE: If these people are our defenders, we're more hopelessly lost than I thought. Kathy Griffin is a new name to me. When I saw the photo of her holding up a replica severed head it took me a few seconds to recognize Trump. I'm still wondering where the humor is. The alleged comedienne professed shock when her friends and colleagues immediately denounced her for her Trump visual, which wasn't shocking, wasn't funny, but merely a crude expression of contempt for a consensus contemptible man. And Griffin's friends denounced her because by defending Griffin's right to be unfunny their own comfort and welfare was threatened. Cutting edge? A ten-year-old might think so.

BILL MAHER responds to an invitation from a plump officeholder and self-alleged farm boy to do a turn at farm work. Maher replies that he's a "house nigger, not a field nigger."

HE SURE IS, at least in the sense that his loyalty to corporate Democrats has never been in doubt. Maher, facing a tepid 'backlash' from his sponsors — loss of income — apologized.

LENNY BRUCE was a pioneer comic and a very brave man. He didn't throw ethnic insults and obscenities around for the hell of it, he did it to make the point that certain taboos were crazy, which, at the time, was real-deal courageous. He got arrested, he was often assaulted by audiences, he died broke. If he thought he was clearing the way for Maher and Colbert, he probably would have gotten into another line of work.

MAHER was also rightly criticized for this purely offensive, dramatically unfunny bit: "What do you make of Ivanka and her efforts to sort of humanize her father? We see all this misogyny at Fox News, we see it in Donald Trump himself. A lot of us thought: Ivanka is gonna be our saving grace. When he’s about to nuke Finland or something, she’s gonna walk into the bedroom and—‘Daddy, Daddy' mimicking Ivanka giving her father a handjob. ‘Don’t do it, Daddy’.”

WHAT kind of idiot would find that amusing?

WHY SHOULD Maher be defended as somehow our guy, a guy who is, what?, keeping us free?

THEN there was Colbert on Trump: "In fact, the only thing your mouth is good for is being Vladimir Putin’s cock holster.”

AND LIBERALS wonder why 40 million Americans voted for Trump?

(IT WOULD be interesting and undoubtedly hilarious to substitute an hour of Lenny Bruce for All Things Considered. Without explanation, put him on KZYX in the 8am morning slot, and sit back and enjoy the reaction.)

THE MANY FAILED PROMISES OF THE SMART TRAIN

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4yc_ntkHiM

AVA Notes: Kind of a jumpy and hard to load video. In a nutshell, however, Mike Arnold, an economics professor in Marin County, demonstrates in impressively detailed charts and graphs that the Sonoma Marin Area Rapid Transit (DUMB) uses “rosy” economic forecasts, makes bad economic assumptions in their own favor, can’t recruit operating staff, has way to few parking places even for their own highly suspicious and unpublicized ridership estimates (which Arnold says is 131 regular riders per day), isn’t going to operate the number of trains it promised, gets very friendly press from the Santa Rosa Press Democrat which publishes Board statements without the slightest scrutiny, and ultimately is going to fail of its own weight. Further, there’s nowhere to park the buses that are supposed to provide key connections to other transportation modes to get anywhere except for on already congrested city streets. Most galling to Professor Arnold — and what he predicts will finally doom the system — is the traffic disruptions the (mostly empty) trains will have on the already congested traffic wherever high-traffic roads, during rush hour, particularly in San Rafael, cross the SMART tracks. When SMART comes back for additional revenue when the sales tax revenues expire to cover for their lack of ridership and huge budget shortfalls (due to those bad economic decisions), the public will deny any more sales tax and SMART will go broke.

CATCH OF THE DAY,  June 10, 2017

KELISHA ALVAREZ, Ukiah. Camping in Ukiah, probation revocation. (Frequent flyer.)

CHRSTOPHER BENSLEY, Lakeport/Ukiah. Vehicle theft, controlled substance.

KHAUL CAPRI, Redwood Valley. DUI.

LARIZA GONZALEZ, Ukiah. DUI.

SULEMA ORNELAS, Fort Bragg. Assault, trespassing, drunk in public.

CHRISTOPHER PETERS, Stockton/Ukiah. Under influence, controlled substance, false personation of another, probation revocation.

BURKE POWERS, Fort Bragg. Criminal threats.

JOHN VANNOTE, Ukiah. Protective order violation.

JOHN WILSON II, Willits. DUI.

ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

Gregory Peck would have made a marvelous Comey, the quintessential last honest man in Dodge City in a movie like we now have, but in reality he is a self righteous putz. Also of note, the committee looked like a gaggle of failed used car salesmen trying to play grown up cuz it’s showtime…… Trump is the new Sasquatch. They don’t like him because he is another species, the new car sales manager that threatens them every Monday before they go out on the sales floor to nurse their hangovers and hustle the rubes.

NEW EXHIBIT STARTS TODAY AT MENDO COUNTY MUSEUM

http://www.ukiahdailyjournal.com/general-news/20170608/walking-on-main-street-mendocino-county-museums-new-exhibit

UKIAH LIBRARY EVENTS

Sunday Matinee Movies at Ukiah Library

Ukiah Library is delighted to continue offering great films on Sunday afternoons in June. The series, Sunday Movies at Your Library includes a rotation of PBS documentaries, Indie films, Lincoln Center performances, and, newly released children’s movies. All performances begin at 2 pm. PBS & Independent films will be screened in the Meeting Area. Lincoln Center performances and childrens & family films will be screened in the Children’s Room.

The films for June:

June 4^th – The Genius of Marian is a “visually rich, emotionally complex story about one family's struggle to come to terms with Alzheimer's disease.” This event is a collaboration with POV, the award-winning independent non-fiction film series on PBS www.pbs.org/pov

June 11^th – Hail Caesar,--“A Hollywood fixer in the 1950s works to keep the studio’s stars in line.” An Indie comedy by Ethan and Joel Coen.

June 18th – Aurelio—Singer-songwriter, guitarist, and percussionist, Aurelio Martinez, is a major tradition-bearer of the Garifuna music of Honduras. Garifuna music is a mix of West African, indigenous Central American and European rhythms. Major Support for Lincoln Center Local: Free Screenings is provided by the Oak Foundation. Additional support is provided by the Booth Ferris Foundation and the Altman Foundation

June 25 – Monster Trucks—for FAMILIES AND KIDS. “Looking for any way to get away from the life and town he was born into, Tripp builds a Monster Truck from bits and pieces of scrapped cars. After an accident at a nearby oil-drilling site displaces a strange subterranean creature with a talent for speed, Tripp may have found a new friend and a way out of town.” PG, 1h 45min.

For more information, call 463-4490 or visit Mendolibrary.org

* * *

Free Jiu-Jitsu/ Self-Defense Classes for Teens @ Mendo Training Center, 1068 N. State St, Ukiah

Tuesday, June 20^th 2:30 pm

Tuesday, July 25^th 2:30 pm

Tuesday, August 8^th 2:30 pm

The Ukiah Library is proud to partner with Mendo Training Center to offer free jiu-jitsu/self-defense classes for teens this summer as part of the Library's Summer Learning Program! Classes will be taught by Nate Ducharme.

The class schedule is as follows:

June 20^th @ 2:30pm

July 25th @ 2:30pm

August 8th @ 2:30pm

Registration is required, please call 463-4490 to sign up! For more information about the Ukiah Library Summer Reading Program, please contact: Melissa Eleftherion Carr at 707-467-4634 or carrm@co.mendocino.ca.us.

* * *

Xtreme Science Magic Show!

On Saturday, June 17^th at 10:30am the Mendocino County Library, Ukiah Branch is hosting the Xtreme Science Magic Show with Don O’Brien.

Join us as award-winning Magician and Scientist Don O’Brien astonishes with a vast repertoire of exciting experiments like flying toilet paper, bouncing bubbles, and a fire tornado! This event is family-friendly and free to the public.

* * *

2017 Summer Reading Program

Starting Saturday, June 10^th 2017 the Mendocino County Library begins its annual Summer Reading Program!

All ages are invited to sign up for the Summer Reading Program at any Mendocino County Library branch (including the bookmobile) or online. Categories include “pre-readers” or ages 0-5, kids, teens, and adults. This year’s theme is “Reading By Design” and each library will have various events and performers scheduled to keep fun and learning going all summer long! For more information or to sign up, visit www.mendolibrary.org or stop by your local Mendocino County Library branch.

* * *

Board Game Workshop.

This workshop is part of our Summer Reading event series theme, “Reading By Design.” Learn how to design your own board games under the guidance of Lori Stubben, a teacher from SPACE and River Oak Charter School.

FONZI is a 1 year old, neutered male mixed-breed dog weighing 45 pounds. Fonzi was adopted from the shelter as a puppy, but like all puppies, Fonzie grew up. Although Fonzi had some training, he was still a bit too exuberant and strong for his people. His adopter told us that Fonzie loves treats, and is very motivated during training--this guy wants to learn! He already knows sit, down and stay. Fonzi is an active dog who will need an active home. Fonzi would be the perfect dog for obedience training classes, offered year round in Ukiah.

LUKE AND LAURA are frisky, 2 month old sibling tabby kittens. They just came back from foster care, they're spayed and neutered and ready to go to their forever home. Luke and Laura are your typical happy, playful little kittens. Can't adopt? Feel free to come down to the Shelter to play and spend time with Luke and Laura and all their feline friends! The Ukiah Animal Shelter is located at 298 Plant Road in Ukiah, and adoption hours are Tuesday, Thursday, Friday & Saturday from 10 am to 4:30 pm and Wednesday from 10 am to 6:30 pm. To view photos and bios of our wonderful adoptable guests, please visit online at mendoanimalshelter.com. For more information about adoptions, call 707-467-6453.

JERRY BROWN POSES AS 'CLIMATE LEADER' WHILE HE PROMOTES FRACKING, DELTA TUNNELS

by Dan Bacher

Responding to President Donald Trump’s decision on June 1 to withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement, California Governor Jerry Brown immediately issued a bluntly-worded statement condemning the decision.

“Donald Trump has absolutely chosen the wrong course," said Brown. "He’s wrong on the facts. America’s economy is boosted by following the Paris Agreement. He’s wrong on the science. Totally wrong. California will resist this misguided and insane course of action. Trump is AWOL but California is on the field, ready for battle.”

As usual, Brown's statement and ensuing interviews were greeted by mostly fawning, uncritical coverage by the national and international media portraying the Governor as the "resistance" to Trump and a "climate leader." Brown may speak colorful and fiery words at times, but they are often not backed up by his actions.

He's a political genius when it comes to working media, since he's convinced much of the state, national and international media that he's a "climate leader" and "green governor" when he actually oversees some of the most environmentally devastating policies of any governor in recent California history.

If Brown really cared about climate change, green energy, the environment and the people of California and the planet, he would take a number of urgently-needed actions, rather than issue constant statements and proclamations about how "green" his administration is.

Some of the most important actions Brown could take include:

(1) Sign the pledge, initiated by the Environmental Caucus of the Democratic Party, to no longer take Big Oil and fossil fuel money.

(2) Return at least some of the $9.8 million that he has received in recent years from oil and energy companies. In the "Brown's Dirty Hands" report, Consumer Watchdog revealed that that twenty-six energy companies including the state’s three major investor-owned utilities, Occidental, Chevron, and NRG—all with business before the state— donated $9.8 million to Jerry Brown’s campaigns, causes, and initiatives, and to the California Democratic Party since he ran for Governor for his third term. More information: www.consumerwatchdog.org/dirtyhands

(3) Support a ban on new land-based fracking operations in California. New York and Maryland have already banned the environmentally destructive practice of fracking, but California hasn't, in spite of the "green" image that the state government constantly promotes.

(4) Back a ban on offshore fracking operations. Documents released under the Freedom of Information Act in 2013 revealed that Big Oil had conducted fracking operations at least 203 times during a 20 year period off the Southern California coast.

(5) Enforce the Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) of 1999 to make the questionable "marine protected areas" created under the helm of a big oil lobbyist into real ones. The "marine protected areas" created under a process that MLPA Initiative advocates touted as "open, transparent and inclusive" don't protect the ocean from pollution, fracking, offshore oil drilling, military testing and all human impacts on the ocean other than sustainable fishing and gathering.

(6) Halt his environmentally destructive Delta Tunnels plan, a project that will destroy the largest estuary on the West Coast of the Americas, the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, and hasten the extinction of winter-run Chinook salmon, Central Valley steelhead, Delta and longfin smelt, green sturgeon and many other fish species. In addition, Brown's "legacy project" will imperil salmon and steelhead populations on the Trinity and Klamath rivers.

(7) Review and adopt sustainable and fish-friendly alternatives to addressing California's water supply and ecosystem restoration needs, such as the Environmental Water Caucus Responsible Exports Plan: http://www.delta.ca.gov/files/2016/10/Bill-EWC-Plan-vs-BDCP-Powerpoint-2.pdf .

(8) Stop appointing oil and energy company officials, as well as agribusiness officials and lobbyists, to California's regulatory panels and commissions. In a classic example of how Big Oil has captured the regulatory apparatus in California, Brown appointed Bill Bartling of Bakersfield, who has worked as an oil industry executive and consultant, as district deputy in the Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources for the Bakersfield region at the embattled California Department of Conservation in October 2015.

(9) Oppose carbon trading policies, backed by the Western States Petroleum Association, that merely trade pollution from one area to another, at great expense to indigenous peoples around the globe.

(10) Stop the state's two-year delay on the implementation of scientific recommendations to protect people living with close proximity to oil and gas wells.

I would much rather have Brown address any one of these real problems that the people and environment of California now suffer from than have him go off to grandstand at yet another climate conference to stroke his ego.

On February 6, twelve public interest groups, led by Consumer Watchdog and Food & Water Watch, unveiled a comprehensive "report card" on Jerry Brown Administration’s environmental record showing he falls short in six out of seven key areas, including oil drilling, fossil fuel generated electricity, toxic emissions, the California Environmental Quality Act, coastal protection and water. The report recommends some additional actions for the Brown administration to take, along with several of the same actions I recommended.

“Far from the environmentalist that Brown claims to be, Brown has expanded the burning of heat-trapping natural gas and nurtured oil drilling and hydraulic fracturing while stifling efforts to protect the public from harm,” the report says. “The Public Utilities Commission has approved a slew of unnecessary new fossil-fuel power plants when the state's three major investor-owned utilities have overbuilt their generating capacity by nearly triple the minimum extra capacity that the state requires. Under Brown, the number of active onshore oil and gas wells jumped by 23 percent since the year before he was elected Governor in a bid to produce more oil.”

The report calls for a moratorium on the building of natural gas powered electricity plants, given what they described as “the glut of electric capacity,” and calls for an outside audit of the state’s energy needs. The groups showed how California can improve its environmental protections to meet standards set in other states.

The document recommends that the administration:

• Use executive authority to ban fracking as New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo did, reject any drilling in protected coastal sanctuaries, and phase out oil drilling. End irrigation with wastewater.
• Abandon the regional grid, deny new natural gas plant application, revisit those already approved and close Aliso Canyon permanently.
• Create an oversight board for toxics regulation, require companies to pay for cleanup and to increase penalties.
• Stop CEQA exemptions for developers and industry.
• Uphold the Coastal Act protections. Move nuclear waste to a licensed facility.
• Abandon the Delta Tunnels, the controversial California WaterFix. Make water conservation a priority. Force industry to pay for clean water.

“Brown has run into the arms of polluting industries, hurting the environment and vulnerable communities,” summed up Liza Tucker, the author of the report. “Despite continuing the climate change work begun by his predecessors, on a wide array of environmental issues Brown has allowed or encouraged regulators to fail.”

Read the report “How Green Is Jerry Brown?” at: http://www.consumerwatchdog.org/isbrowngreen

While Brown portrays himself as the "resistance" to President Trump's positions on climate change and other issues, it is worth noting that Brown and the Trump administration appear to share a lot of common ground on many issues, including water infrastructure, public lands, the Delta Tunnels and the expansion of fracking in California. On April 13, Brown and Secretary of Interior Ryan Zinke had a "positive and productive" meeting during Zinke's visit to California. For more information, go to:

http://www.centralvalleybusinesstimes.com/stories/001/?ID=32461

1001 ONE NIGHT STANDS

"Chiefs and sons of chiefs may speak the words, but the Evil One’s tongue would surely turn to fire. I will begin, and you shall finish: Ee’d plebnista norkohn forkohn perfectunun..."

The recording of last night's (2017-06-09) KNYO Memo of the Air: Good Night Radio show is ready to download for free and enjoy at any time of the day or night, via http://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com

Two words: Connie Francis, singing in Italian, for most of the musical breaks. Those songs were on 45s in the jukebox in my grandparents' Italian restaurant when I was little, and they still play inside my head and inform my life. Torero, for example: "I never keel him –only if he gets in my way. Torero, torero, olé!"

Besides that, also there you'll find a fresh batch of links to material that I waded among while putting the show together that, for having an important visual component or requiring explanation of a joke, might not work best on radio, but are worthwhile, fascinating, even. Such as:

Roy Zimmerman. A marriage like they had in the bible. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXlzkuFBJ7s

How to argue with your partner. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQmqMZ-1v7c

And "Maybe ve dun't alvays be knowink who ve are." Oedipus, a short animated story revealed in reverse by Paul Driessen. https://www.nfb.ca/film/oedipus/

–Marco McClean

IRAQ'S 1,000 KILOMETER TRENCH ‘TO REPEL SUICIDE BOMBERS’

Dear Editor:

There have been articles in the Guardian, BBC, VOANews and the Assyrian International News Agency about excavators and bulldozers digging a trench along the Kurdish Peshmerga frontlines 3 meters wide (9.84 feet) and 3 meters deep stretching 652 miles from Sinjar in the northwest to Khanaqin, near the Iranian border. A Kurdish commander told VOA "these trenches will prevent terrorists from sneaking in car bombs to our frontlines," the head of the Iraqi parliament's defense committee told VOA "The Kurdistan region uses its defense against IS as a justification to dig the trenches, we don't think this is to defend against IS. We think this is an attempt to separate Kurdistan from Iraq and an attempt to declare Kurdish independence." Masoud Barzini, President of the Kurdish north, said "The line where we are now is a military line, not a political line. This is the minimum outreach of Kurdistan. We are not going to comprise on anything we did prior to 17 October. Anything beyond is subject to agreements and the will of the people in those areas…" There will have to be a referendum to move Kurdistan away from the central government. The United States has supported an unified Iraq but hard to know if the Trump has a position on an independent Kurdistan. As a sidebar I don't believe a unified Iraq is any longer possible. Far too much spilled blood between the various factions.

In peace and love,

Jim Updegraff

Sacramento