Mendocino County Today: Sunday, June 18, 2017

• Westport Tragedy
• Comptche BBQ
• MCDH Harassments
• Little Dog
• Zero Approved
• Pig Raffle
• Handley Daughters
• Rasta Central
• Watergate Retrospective
• Pets!
• Yesterday's Catch
• Fermi Paradox
• Roses
• Reefer Madman
• Coyote Encounters
• Insubstantial Pageant
• Hunting Elk
• Tender Thing
• Green Guv
• Planned Parenthood
• Islamophobia
• Washington Bullets
• Library Events
• Marco Radio

SAD NEWS from Westport. A 19-year-old boy from West Virginia died Thursday when he slipped and fell 60 feet while trying to climb down to the beach on the face of an ocean bluff near Westport. The dead youth's brother flagged down a Seattle family also touring the Mendocino Coast who summoned help, but the 19-year-old was pronounced dead at the scene. The Sheriff's Department has not yet released the dead youth's name.

Ian Schmidt of Seattle said he saw the boy, unconscious and bleeding from his face, on the rocks below. Schmidt saw helicopters responding to help the boy.

The boy had been on a road trip to Oregon with his brother and a friend when they stopped on a turnout in the 42000 block of Highway One in Westport, according to Sheriff’s Capt. Greg VanPatten.

CREDIT WHERE CREDIT’S NOT DUE

Coast Hospital Digs Itself in Deeper

by Malcolm Macdonald

At a June 13th special meeting of the Mendocino Coast Hospital (MCDH) Board of Directors, Chair Steve Lund reported out of a 40 minute closed session, “After careful deliberation of this matter, including a thorough, confidential investigation conducted by an outside, independent law firm, the Board of Directors has determined, by a four to one vote, of the members present, per its investigation of this matter, to retain the CFO [Chief Financial Officer Wade Sturgeon] in his present position in accordance with his current contract.”

Lund's statement appeared to be read from a typed sheet of paper. There were no computers or printers present in the Redwood Room of MCDH where the meeting was held, so this observer had to wonder how Lund knew what to type on the paper before the meeting began. Unless there was an alternative page that replaced “to retain” with “not to retain,” this procedure indicates that the closed session itself was something of a farce, that a majority of the MCDH Board had decided outside of the closed session setting to retain Sturgeon. Such an action, of course, would be a grievous violation of the Brown Act.

Violating the Brown Act is nothing new for the majority of this particular MCDH Board of Directors. They held another special board meeting at 8 a.m. April 1st (no joke) without fulfilling the legal requirement of 24 hours notice to the public and press. That meeting went forward with four Board members present even though the MCDH Board was apprised of the potential violation at the outset of the meeting. Readers should note that the one board member who voted against retaining CFO Sturgeon was Dr. Peter Glusker. He was also the only board member who skipped the April 1st get-together. During that meeting new board member Dr. Lucas Campos yucked it up while he, Chair Lund, and MCDH Board legal counsel John Ruprecht made snide comments regsarding Dr. Glusker's failure to go along with their concept of what the board should be doing. In addition, Dr. Campos made clear his disdain for members of the public asking questions during board or committee meetings. Campos expressed the belief that members of the public (presumably including the press) should write out and submit all questions before meetings commence. This sort of blatant disregard for public input, by Dr. Campos, is an infringement on the basic tenets of the Brown Act. To further demonstrate his position, Campos refused all public comment or questions on agenda items at the April and May, 2017, Finance Committee meetings until after the agenda items were already voted on.

That ill-noticed April Fool's meeting also saw Dr. Kevin Miller ask Board Chair Lund how he (Miller) could get a specific item on the agenda. Once it became clear the item Miller wanted was an up or down vote on closing the obstetrics (OB) department at MCDH, Lund obfuscated just enough to apparently put the idea off to the back burner.

Apparently Dr. Miller has reached to the back of the stove and insisted on the closure of OB vote to occur at the board's regular June meeting, which will take place, June 22nd, at Fort Bragg's Town Hall at 6pm. It seems unlikely that a majority of the MCDH Board of Directors will vote to close OB at that time. Funding for the department is included in the budget for the 2017-2018 fiscal year.

More important is the ongoing negotiation between Mendocino Coast Clinics (MCC) and the hospital. MCC is offering to recruit and hire a second OB/GYN for the area, but MCC wants MCDH to formally commit to keeping the OB Dept. open for at least the next three years.

On the topic of budgets, the MCDH Board approved that 2017/2018 budget along with a capital budget for the same time period, and beyond, by identical 4-1 votes. Dr. Glusker dissented on each. The hospital budget predicts an approximate $800,000 shortfall for the coming year while the proposed capital budgets for the next two years list nearly $20 million in potential maintenance expenditures. Keep in mind that nowhere near all the capital maintenance projects will even get into the planning stages right away. However, many of these will eventually be mandated in order for the hospital to retain its certification. Putting off some of these repair/replace projects is not practically feasible because there are a number of pieces of equipment within the hospital that are on the verge of breaking down any day. MCDH is in the process of receiving a HELP II loan of $1.5 million from the state that will pay for much of the work on the hospital's automatic transfer switch (ATS-keeps power going in case of an electric outage), central sterile updates, and the heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) system. But those are just the tip of the iceberg in needed maintenance work. Note that further loans to fund such costly repairs slide right into the doubtful column since Cal-Mortgage owns all of the equipment and property at the hospital as a result of MCDH's 2012-2015 bankruptcy.

With all that in mind readers may understand when Dr. Glusker explained his negative votes on the budgets by saying that it is his practical and fiduciary responsibilty to oppose budgets that operate at a deficit, especially at a hospital district that has maxed out in debt and has no available credit. The vote on the capital budget, in which Glusker was the lone dissenting voice, took place without so much as a glance at, let alone discussion of, the 2018/2019 maintenance expenditures. Those potential repair and/or replace projects account for almost $9.2 million. Nearly 90% of those projects will eventually be required by California's Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development (OSHPD).

In a way the budget and OB issues provide something of an ongoing smokescreen for CEO Edwards and CFO Sturgeon. While OB is the hot button emotional and political topic of the day new questions arise, and some old questions remain unanswered, regarding the administration and the Board of Directors at MCDH, beyond those discussed above. Those include: Part of the Chair's wording at the conclusion of the CFO performance review stated, “After careful deliberation of this matter, including a thorough, confidential investigation conducted by an outside, independent law firm...” It is this writer's understanding that the outside investigation was concluded early in 2017, yet there were performance review hearings concerning the CFO that continued into March as well as at the meeting Tuesday, June 13th. How can the investigation be categorized as “thorough” if further meetings were needed months later?

At the end of the March closed session regarding the CFO's performance review, the Board chair stated that the Board would be conducting further interviews with MCDH staff before rendering any decision on the CFO's performance. There appears to be no evidence of further interviews with MCDH staff. How does the Board expect the public to trust its June decision about the CFO when the Board has clearly failed to perform what it promised the public in March?

In addition, much of the CFO's performance review was predicated on an investigation into harassment charges made against the CFO by Ellen Hardin, the former Chief Human Resources Officer. It is alleged that a letter was sent to Ms. Hardin just two days after the March 16th closed session. The letter essentially asked her to sign off on an employment termination. Was such a letter sent to Ms. Hardin at or near the time described? If so, why should the public place trust in this Board if that Board tells the public one thing, then follows up with a completely contradictory action?

Since Ms. Hardin was placed on administrative leave, her assistant has been fired by the CEO, the Quality Risk manager has left MCDH essentially because she had ethical differences with the CEO and CFO, and the Chief of Patient Services has been placed on administrative leave. There's at least one other woman at the hospital who is at risk of termination at the CEO's whim. There's a pattern here: all of the above are women. Those I have had any association with might be characterized as strong-minded. Does the CEO have a fear of strong minded or strong willed women professionals?

Given that the Board on June 13th, by a 4-1 vote, with Dr. Glusker dissenting, affirmed the CFO's position, is Terry Murphy, the Chief of Patient Services the next one to go from administrative leave to termination? Would Mr. Edwards care to tell the public whether Ms. Murphy is the next strong-minded professional to get the axe under his brand of leadership?

When the CFO was accused of workplace harassment, why was the victim of the harassment placed on administrative leave instead of the accused CFO?

Does MCDH have a clear written policy regarding whether the accuser or accused in harassment cases is placed on leave? Is there a policy that allows for both to be placed on leave?

Given that the most likely reason the CEO placed Terry Murphy on administrative leave is a suspicion that Ms. Murphy is a friend of Ellen Hardin, the former Chief Human Resources Officer, CEO Edwards's actions regarding Ms. Murphy appear not to be founded upon facts, but rather his own paranoia. When will this Board conduct an investigation of Mr. Edwards's actions in regard to Ms. Murphy, Ms. Hardin, and other employees, past and present at this hospital?

There are also allegations that the CEO has in effect been an enabler of the CFO, essentially ignoring serious complaints directed at the CFO and participating in coercive actions, including behavior aimed at humiliating accusers. Will this Board fully investigate this aspect of the current administration at MCDH?

Are the Directors aware that a significant number of hospital employees, from manager level on down, are on the side of the former Human Resources Chief?

Many employees believe in the former Human Resources Chief, and, though relatively silent in public, are hoping that they will not have to continue working with the current CFO, or CEO for that matter. Given that the Board refused to conduct the further interviews it promised in March, the logical conclusion to be drawn is that this Board chooses to ignore its rank and file employees as much as possible.

What was the cost of hiring an outside law firm to investigate matters related to the CFO's performance?

Is it true that an harassment charge has been filed against the MCDH Board Chair?

Is it true that an harassment charge has been filed against another MCDH Board member?

The four members of the board present at the April 1, 2017 meeting, which was not properly noticed to the public, need to acknowledge their violation of the Brown Act (CA Government Code 54956) and move forward, endeavoring to avoid further failures to sufficiently notice Special Board meetings at least 24 hours in advance. Otherwise, those Directors look like hypocrites, especially in light of their censure of another board member for a violation of the Brown Act.

LITTLE DOG SAYS, “These Rastafarians are ok with me. Friendly dudes, mostly, and the babes? Arf! Arf!”

POT REG BLUES

“382 Applications Received, 0 Permits Approved” is the title of ace reporter Mike A’Dair’s lead story in last week’s Willits Weekly.

THAT'S RIGHT. As of June 8, none of the permits of various types sort of being issued by Mendocino County, and costing growers eager to get legal thousands of dollars, have been approved. Why? “Multiple reasons,” Interim Ag Commissioner Diane Curry told A’Dair. “It’s a lot more involved than we could have anticipated,” a statement which immediately becomes the leading candidate for this year’s MEN-DUH Award.

WILL THE SUPERVISORS make the permit situation a standing agenda item under their new interest in “metrics”? ("Metrics" seems to be a hazy synonym for checking to see if things are actually getting done.)

"METRICS" don't seem to apply to the County's pot regs. Of course, metrics weren't applied when private party Ortner Management Group was gifted with Mendocino County's public Mental Health system in an unprecedented and ultimately failed move, and "metrics" are unlikely to apply to pot permits either.

WHY NO METRICS? Somebody might have to do something about the problem of what is shaping up as a purely Potemkin process if the numbers were timely reported. Best to just compliment everybody for all the “work” they do without asking anything about the work.

WHY DID IT TAKE the intrepid A’Dair to look into the numbers? Why didn’t a breakthrough new program roll-out like this come with mandatory status reporting?

THE ONLY THING MISSING from A’Dair’s report is how much money the County has taken in from the suckers, er, applicants so far. If the County budget is any guide, the basic cost of a permit application (not counting permits and fees from other agencies, consultants, compliance costs, etc.) is around $3,000 per application. So that would be 382 x $3k = upwards of $1.2 million for zero permit approvals so far.

RIGHT ON THE HEELS of that sad news we see that Ukiah pot growers had much the same reaction to the County’s Track & Trace Road Show as growers did in Boonville last Wednesday. According to Ukiah Daily Journal reporter Ashley Tressel, the Ukiah workshop “left many questions unanswered.”

BUT NOT TO WORRY, “the County plans to address them on its website soon.” Key words being “address,” not “answer,” and “soon,” meaning some day. Maybe. “Many expressed doubt and confusion, not receiving answers on specific scenarios,” adds Tressel. Which leaves one to wonder, Why did the County do a road show without answers?

APPARENTLY, actual “answers” will be provided when the Track & Trace program vendor “SICPA” holds their own three-hour training sessions for each permit applicant — after the applicant pays about $1100 for participation in the Track & Trace program (over and above the County permit cost). SICPA rep Eric Anderson who participated in the Ukiah workshop, said that the three hour training session is “barely enough” to cover the complexities of it.

SUPPOSEDLY, with SICPA, a pot grower transporting his “legal” pot from grow to market “can simply flash that piece of paper to prove they are operating legally.” Hmm, something tells us that won’t be so “simple” when law enforcement is already busting grows that are in the process of getting legal.

ANOTHER FISHY COMPONENT of the Track & Trace program is that “growers can be as detailed as they want when documenting their tags (like strain and grow conditions).” But who checks what they “document”? And what protections are there for counterfeit tags or other wiggle room strategies since pot is such an amorphous and ubiquitous product? Theoretically, there’s a vendor-controlled “database” somewhere which will “make sure the reports are accurate.”

THE WHOLE SYSTEM is so over-regulated and under-managed that no sane small-time grower will go anywhere near it.

AND ALL THIS is happening in an already glutted NorCal market with many long-time growers getting out of the business. As one guy told us, "The only way you can make money is get it to the eastern states, and a lot of buyers in the east are getting product from Colorado rather than deal in California." The aptly named Green Rush does in fact resemble the Gold Rush — the gold was pretty much gone by the time thousands of prospectors showed up.

FOUNDER OF HANDLEY CELLARS TURNING WINERY OVER TO DAUGHTERS

Milla Handley, winemaker and owner Handley Cellars, has announced her retirement and plans to pass on the Anderson Valley winery to her two daughters.

“I am proud and happy that my daughters want to be that next generation to continue farming this land and giving back to our community,” Handley stated in the announcement issued Wednesday.

Taking over as co-owners will be Lulu McClellan and Megan Handley Warren. McClellan will be national sales manager.

“My sister and I are thrilled to be carrying forward the legacy that my parents started, and as Handley Cellars enters its 36th vintage, we could not be more proud of our past and excited for our future,” said McClellan in the announcement. “My mom has made extraordinary wines with Handley Cellars, and her principles have led her to do so much more with her winery. She has fostered an atmosphere here that supports dynamic and creative people while making beautiful wine that respects and celebrates our environment. Our vision for Handley Cellars is that it always continues to be more than just a winery — we are a family, part of a larger community, and stewards of our land.”

Taking on Handley’s role as winemaker will be former co-winemaker Randy Schock, now becoming lead winemaker. Travis Scott will become associate vice president.

Handley’s 36-year career includes milestones such as being one of the first female graduates in fermentation science at University of California, Davis, in 1978.

According to the company, Handley decided to start her own brand from Mendocino County, a largely uncharted winemaking territory at the time. Along with her late husband, Rex, and the support of her parents, she chose Anderson Valley, which had always been considered too cold for growing winegrapes. The winery opened in 1982.

Breaking out on her own, she made 250 cases of chardonnay, becoming the first woman winemaker and owner to establish a wine label with her own name in the U.S., the company stated. In 2003, she applied for organic certification, which was granted in 2005.

The winery’s small-lot production includes pinot noir, chardonnay, pinot gris, riesling, gewurztraminer, syrah and zinfandel.

(North Bay Business Journal)

RASTA CENTRAL, Boonville Fairgrounds

I WATCHED THE 20/20 two hour special Watergate retrospective Friday night with great anticipation, hoping that I’d find something out that I didn’t know. After all, some of those retrospectives have been pretty good: the one on OJ was good, the one on the Versace killing was good, even the Patty Hearst recap was ok. But I was wrong about the much hyped Watergate re-visit. The only things new were some amusing details about the night of the Watergate bugging.

FOR EXAMPLE, the first DC cops to arrive on scene after the black Watergate security guard alerted the cops to report some tape on some office doors, were plainclothes undercover DC cops who looked like hippies. As a result, the lookout the Plumbers had stationed in a room across the street didn’t warn the buggers to get out.

ALSO, when those first DC cops arrived on scene and started looking for robbers, they noticed that it looked like someone had ransacked all the Democratic Party offices, causing them to continue their search for robbers until they actually caught them (but of course they weren’t robbers, they were buggers). They learned later, however, that those offices looked like a mess all the time — the DC cops just didn’t know that at first.

SAM DONALDSON as some kind primary source on the story was also galling. He didn’t do anything but report what Nixon and his staffers did and said. Even though he was in the White House press corps at the time, Donaldson had nothing to offer then or in retrospect. The only thing he said that was even mildly interesting was, If Nixon had simply fessed up and apologized, there never would have been a story.

WHICH, unfortunately, is true. Nobody would have cared about Nixon’s dirty tricks if he’d admitted to them because, as Nixon himself said, he wasn’t the only President to do shady things. His “crime” was covering up.

OF COURSE, Woodward and Bernstein got lots of play. If they were such great reporters, why didn’t they cover any other scandals? And the two wealthy reporters had the FBI agent, Mark Felt (much feted in the Press Democrat during his retirement in Santa Rosa) feeding them the whole deal from his then-position as number two man in the FBI.

THE OTHER really bad aftermath of Watergate is the term “smoking gun.” In other words, when it comes to government crime, you have to have the perp on tape admitting to the crime, otherwise it’s just poltical carping.

THE REAL STORY, which most Watergate historians and commenters go out of their way to avoid, is that Nixon was never prosecuted for the totally illegal carpet-bombing of Cambodia and Laos. (Carpet-bombing Vietnam was perfectly legal.) Why? Because the Dems in Congress knew from the git-go that such illegal bombing was going on and highly illegal, but they had approved it and never complained so they couldn’t belatedly impeach Nixon for his real crimes they knew about. They were complicit. As always.

I GUESS, GIVEN THE TIMING, we’re supposed to see some parallels between Nixon and Trump. But unless Trump has an as-yet undisclosed secret taping system, the parallels are meaningless. Not that the libs and the deep state — the term preferred by paranoids for the bureaucrats who stay on and on and on regardless of who's president — won’t try. Trump has upset life in DC so thoroughly he's got to go, and he will, although the difference between him and Hillary is that he's hastened the decay faster than she could have managed.

(Mark Scaramella)

UKIAH SHELTER PETS OF THE WEEK

INDY is a 3 year old, neutered male cat. He's a handsome boy and weighs in at 13 pounds. In his previous home, Indy was happy being an indoor-only cat, and he was a great mouser. Indy lived with other cats and liked his feline friends. Besides his good looks, this cat has an amazing personality and is a staff favorite.

DENVER is a sweet, shy dog who needs some TLC. He's 2 years old, neutered and weighs 68 pounds. Denver's been in a foster home the past couple of months, where he's gaining confidence and learning how to play. He lives with two young children, several adults, dogs, cats and horses! He wants to play with the kids, but he's timid, but he's very playful with his canine housemates, and has formed a friendship with a young kitty. Denver's foster person works at the shelter, so we can tell you a LOT about him.

The Ukiah Animal Shelter is located at 298 Plant Road in Ukiah. Adoption hours are Tuesday-Saturday, 10 am to 4:30 pm, Wednesdays 10 am to 6:30 pm.   For photos and bios of the shelter's guests, visit us online at mendoanimalshelter.com or visit the  shelter. Please join us the second Saturday of every month for our EMPTY THE SHELTER pack walk, and help us get every dog out for a walk.  For more information about adoptions please call 707-467-6453.

CATCH OF THE DAY, June 17, 2017

KIRA BRENNAN, Elk. DUI - Drugs & alcohol.

JOHN CUNNAN, Covelo. Failure to appear, resisting, probation revocation.

DAVID GOSSELIN, Leggett. Pot possession for sale.

DAKOTA JOHNSON, Willits. Probation revocation.

BRANDON LAWSON, Willits. Shuriken, probation revocation.

BRYAN LOCKWOOD, Ukiah. Vehicle theft, suspended license, probation revocation.

TRAVIS PINNELL, Ukiah. DUI - drugs & alcohol.

ELLIOTT WALDMAN, San Francisco/Ukiah. DUI.

KRYSTAL WILLIAMS, Willits. Drunk in public, resisting.

ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

So, is it just America being bat-shit crazy, or is it a built-in flaw in all of humanity? Unfortunately, I believe the latter. Has there ever been a long-term rational society? If you believe life exists elsewhere in the galaxy, it’s entirely possible an explanation for the Fermi paradox is that what sane civilization would want to touch us with a 10-light year pole?

FORT BRAGG ROSES

JEFF SESSIONS PERSONALLY ASKED CONGRESS TO LET HIM PROSECUTE MEDICAL-MARIJUANA PROVIDERS

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/06/13/jeff-sessions-personally-asked-congress-to-let-him-prosecute-medical-marijuana-providers/

COYOTE ENCOUNTERS FORCE TRAIL CLOSURES IN SF’S PRESIDIO

by Peter Fimrite

Coyote harassment of dogs is becoming a rite of spring around the Bay Area, but a recent offensive by the yippy predators in San Francisco’s Presidio has caused a neighborhood ruckus and forced the closure of two popular trails to pets.

Coyotes have advanced on, growled at or surrounded dog walkers and their pets four times over the past week, a pattern of aggression that is natural for the wild canines during pupping season, which begins in the spring and continues through the summer, wildlife biologists said Wednesday.

The displays by as many as three coyotes at a time are nevertheless frightening and experts say the activity could escalate into dangerous dog-coyote conflicts if precautions aren’t taken.

The Presidio Trust, which manages 80 percent of the area in partnership with the National Park Service, banned dogs this week on the Park Trail, between West Pacific Avenue and Crissy Field, and the Bay Area Ridge Trail, between Arguello Boulevard and the Rob Hill Campground, in an effort to protect people and their pets.

“They perceive all canines as coyotes, so they are very threatened, very territorial and they are protecting their offspring,” said Michael Boland, chief of parks development and operations at the Presidio Trust. “What’s happening is they are trying to scare the dog away. It’s designed to be threatening, but it can be scary if you are not used to having that kind of interaction with a coyote.”

None of the dogs or their owners was hurt in the incidents, which involved mainly coyotes coming out of brush next to one of the two trails with their hackles up and growling, Boland said. One woman reported being surrounded by three coyotes who advanced on her and her dog until she screamed.

There is a den near the two trails, which Boland said are still safe for pedestrians without dogs because the coyotes do not regard humans as a threat to their pups or territory.

“People feel like they are being attacked, but there is a real difference between a coyote being aggressive toward a dog and a coyote being aggressive toward a person,” he said, adding that people with small dogs often pick them up, creating an even more chilling situation as the coyotes approach.

Coyotes, which are native to San Francisco, recently moved back into the city after being gone for the better part of a century. The first modern sightings were in 2002 in the Presidio and caused anxiety and confusion over how the creatures got there. Answers came in 2004, when Golden Gate Bridge officials viewed video of a coyote dashing across the span from Marin County in the dead of night.

Since then, coyotes have been reported in Golden Gate Park, at the Olympic Club golf course and in several neighborhoods. About 100 coyotes are believed to be roaming the 47-square-mile city.

The Presidio Trust began a comprehensive study of urban coyote behavior and ecology in San Francisco last year in response to rising encounters and stepped-up concerns. Six Presidio coyotes have been trapped and fitted with collars that have built-in radio transmitters and GPS technology. A seventh, the alpha male, is easily identifiable because he has a torn ear.

Researchers have found that there is only one breeding pair and three juveniles from last year’s litter in the Presidio, and they mostly hang around the Presidio golf course, where there are good sight lines. Of the two collared pups that dispersed last year, one was tracked all the way to Woodside before it was hit and killed by a car on Interstate 280. The other one also was killed by a car, Boland said.

“People perceive that we have a lot of coyotes, but in fact, there is a relatively small number,” Boland said. “They are just very mobile and travel long distances.”

Educating the public is important, Boland said, because it is illegal to relocate problem coyotes. Coyotes that become habituated to people — often because somebody fed them — must be killed.

Coyotes are opportunistic and, given a chance, will sometimes kill and eat small dogs and cats, but are not normally aggressive around humans. Although family dogs kill an average of 20 people a year, there has been only one documented case of a coyote killing a human in the United States — the 1981 death of a 3-year-old who was dragged away from her Los Angeles County home.

Experts say most coyotes that have been involved in attacks on humans either have been deliberately fed by people or have habituated to their presence by some other means, like feeding on their garbage or pet food.

(The San Francisco Chronicle)

'OUR REVELS NOW ARE ENDED'

Our revels now are ended. These our actors,

As I foretold you, were all spirits and

Are melted into air, into thin air:

And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,

The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces,

The solemn temples, the great globe itself,

Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve

And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,

Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff

As dreams are made on, and our little life

Is rounded with a sleep.

— William Shakespeare, Prospero's speech, The Tempest

THE CALIFORNIA DEPARTMENT OF FISH AND WILDLIFE (CDFW) is accepting applications for 31 elk hunting opportunities offered through the Shared Habitat Alliance for Recreational Enhancement (SHARE) program.

The hunts will occur at various times between Aug. 15 and Dec. 24, 2017 on 28 select properties in Colusa, Del Norte, Humboldt, Mendocino and Siskiyou counties. Specific details for all 31 elk hunts can be found at www.wildlife.ca.gov/Hunting/SHARE#elk. CDFW will be accepting applications through Monday, July 24.

The SHARE program was created to provide additional hunting, fishing and other recreational access on private lands in California by offering incentives to private landowners. Participating landowners receive liability protection and compensation for providing public access to or through their land for wildlife-dependent recreational activities.

“CDFW has been working to increase private lands access for California hunters. In the last year, we’ve enrolled two new elk hunting properties — one in Colusa County, the other in Siskiyou County,” said Victoria Barr, CDFW’s SHARE program coordinator. “We’re now up to 31 different elk hunts, which demonstrates great progress for the program.”

All elk tags will be distributed through a random draw process. While hunters may take only one elk per year in California, these hunts offer additional opportunities beyond those issued through the general Big Game Drawing. SHARE hunt applications can be purchased by anyone with a valid 2017 California big game hunting license from any CDFW license office or online at www.ca.wildlifelicense.com/InternetSales.

An $11.37 non-refundable application fee will be charged for each hunt application. Applicants may look up their draw results and download their hunt packets on July 28 by entering their customer information on CDFW’s website at www.ca.wildlifelicense.com/InternetSales.

* * *

COMMENT from Redheaded Blackbelt site:

So what is the current elk population, and how does it compare to estimated populations, pre-european contact? From what I'm reading, there are currently about 430 Roosevelt Elk that live (at least part time) in Redwood National and Redwood State parks.

https://www.nps.gov/redw/learn/nature/roosevelt-elk.htm

It seems that, throughout the historic range of this species, the number of individuals and the current range are a speck of pre-market hunting population/range.

Logic would seem to indicate that we should not be hunting these animals until we can reestablish a healthy population. Hunting is not an effective method of culling herds. Predators target weakened, sick, old, or young animals; hunters do not.

Proceeds from hunting do contribute to conservation. Which highlights our failure as a society to preserve biodiversity without monetizing wildlife and land, rather than serving as an argument in favor of hunting animals whose populations are a tiny fraction of what they should be.

I do hunt, I believe many more people should hunt, but perhaps not this species.

DFW compromise between the recommendations of scientist and the desires of the public. This is utter nonsense.

WHAT A TENDER THING, then, is a man. How, for all his crotch-hitching and swagger, a whisper can turn his soul into a cinder. The taste of alum in the rind of a grape, the smell of the sea, the heat of the spring sun, berries bitter and sweet, a grain of sand in his teeth — all of that which he meant by life seemed taken away from him. Where were the serene twilights of his old age? He would have liked to pluck out his eyes. Watching the candlelight on his ship — he had brought her home through gales and tempests — he felt ghostly and emasculated. Then he sent to his bureau drawer and took from under the dried rose and the wreath of hair his loaded pistol. He went to the window. The fires of the day were burning out like a conflagration in some industrial city and above the barn cupola he saw the evening star, as sweet and round as a human tear. He fired his pistol out of the window and then fell down on the floor.

— John Cheever, The Wapshot Chronicle

TEN CONCRETE ACTIONS JERRY BROWN CAN TAKE TO BECOME A REAL GREEN GOVERNOR

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, words that many agree with, 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" at the same time he 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 just 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 contributions over $200 from the oil industry.

(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: http://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)  Craft and implement a creative statewide plan, in cooperation with leaders of recreational and commercial fishing groups, Indian Tribes, conservation organizations and environmental justice groups, to restore salmon, steelhead and other anadromous fish populations to historical abundance.

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 speak at yet another climate conference.

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

ISLAMOPHOBIA IS RAMPANT IN THE TRUMP ERA

Dear Editor:

The people demonstrating to outlaw Sharia law in the United States appear to have little understanding of the First Amendment of the Constitution nor of the Qur'an and the Hadiths with its collections varying among the branches of Islam. The Qur'an and the Hadiths form the basis for Sharia law. Further these demonstrators with their vicious comments display an Islamophobia that can lead to violent acts against Muslims.

I would point out at the time of the Constitutional Convention in 1776 the population of the colonies was 2.5 million of which 500,000 were slaves. It is estimated that from 15 percent (75,000) to 30% (150,000) were Mahometans (Muslims). There was a good deal of discussion at the Convention about Mahometans and Hindus before the adoption of the religious clause. Amendment 1 states "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,or prohibiting the exercise thereof…"

As a sidebar, I have a couple of comments. Muslims have soldiered in all the U.S. wars including the Revolutionary War; it is very likely the ancestors of some Muslims today were here before the ancestors of many of the demonstrators; and I wonder if candidate Trump knew that Dr. Oz is a Muslim when he was on his show discussing his health.

In love and peace,

Jim Updegraff, Sacramento

WASHINGTON BULLETS

by Jeffrey St. Clair

If you decide to go out in a blaze of infamy be prepared to have your instantaneous obituary stitched together by reporters at the New York Times and the Washington Post from the traces you’ve left on social media: Facebook posts, Tweets and crazy Instagram photographs.

This is how the world first learned about the life of James T. Hodgkinson, the dugout shooter who sprayed a baseball diamond at a YMCA in Alexandria, Virginia with gunfire, hitting four people including Steven Scalise, the hard right majority whip in the House of Representatives, who was on the field practicing for the annual congressional baseball game.

So the capsulized life of Hodgkinson that emerged from the press–and the initial impression that will linger for months–is that he was a Bernie Bro who despised Hillary Clinton, considered Trump a tyrant and was consumed by the notion that the Russians had stolen the 2016 presidential election. In other words, a crazed lefty bent on political revenge.

Of course, important details were left out of this character profile. There were things about himself that Hodgkinson didn’t want to post on Facebook. These details took time to flesh out, time that can never be re-gained for our first impression of who Hodgkinson really was. His run-ins with the cops, his explosive nature, his repeated violent assaults on women, including punching a former girlfriend in the face, and his love of guns, guns that he was able to buy legally despite his criminal record, including an assault rifle of “Russian design,” as the New York Times noted, gratuitously.

Three months ago, Hodgkinson told his wife he was going to DC to “work on taxes.” What did this opaque phrase mean? Was he going to complete his taxes on his failed business as a home inspector? He left in March, a full month before the IRS deadline for his 1040 return. Was he under audit? Did he have a gripe with the IRS?  Was he going to lobby congress on tax reform? Did he want to increase the marginal rate? Close corporate loopholes? Save the earned income credit? How did he plan on achieving this? We’ll never know.

What we do know, or think we know, is that he packed up his suitcases and drove his white van 815 miles from Belleview, Illinois to DC. He traveled through the heart of Trump country, across southern Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, West Virginia and Pennsylvania, through towns very much like his own, filled with white men very much like himself, people living on the economic margins, whose lives are being slowly crushed, day-by-day, by a system without mercy. Did he feel their pain? Did his anger mount, mile-by-mile? Did he get the sense that Trump is burying the entire country alive with his own bullshit? We can’t know.  (Unless, of course, there are tapes.)

A few hours after the shooting, Bernie Sanders rushed to the well of the senate to apologize unnecessarily for any association with the shooter, which only served to reinforce their tenuous and irrelevant connection. Hillary hacks howled that the shooter proved their deranged belief that the Bernie Bros are violent misogynists. The Republican terror-monger Peter King denounced the violence of the Left. Even the normally sober-minded Justin Raimondo of Antiwar.com lashed out at the rhetorical violence of the “NeverTrump” crowd.

But real violence always trumps verbal violence and America is awash in it, especially at the level of the State. We’ve been in a state of near permanent war for 16 years, many more years than that if you’ve been paying attention. The State kills people and then labels their corpses terrorists. Cops shoot people on the streets of America with impunity, 549 in 2017 alone (See today’s appalling verdict in the Philando Castile case.). We live surrounded by violent death and Washington’s bullets have exacted a psychic toll on all of us.

Was Hodgkinson a terrorist? Few asked the question. Even fewer asserted it. He was white. A man from the heartland, who could have been a plumber or tax accountant. In fact, he was a home inspector. A little overweight. Stocky. He had glasses. He looked like he could have been a Trump supporter.

He wasn’t. He loathed Trump. Called him a tyrant. Did he see himself as a Brutus of the heartland come to the capital to take down a dictator? Perhaps. But that’s not what he was called, even if that’s how he saw himself. America is not ready to swallow that reality. Not yet. The terrorist must be others. Black, brown, Muslim. White privilege isn’t about protecting the perpetrators but the survivors. It feeds their notion of cultural exceptionalism.

But Hodkinson knew he was going to die. Surely he did. He shot until he was shot. A suicide shooter. But Hodgkinson didn’t shout “Allahu Akbar” or “Remember Wounded Knee” before he enfiladed that baseball diamond with fire from his AK-47 replica rifle. Reportedly, Hodgkinson merely asked, a little sinisterly, “Do you know if those are Democrats or Republicans?” You can understand why it was difficult for him to tell the difference, but that’s hardly the cri de guerre of a revolutionary.

What was driving the mind that pulled the trigger? We can’t know. We can only speculate, ascribe motives, project our own rage and despair onto him, if we are in an empathetic frame of mind, or our fears, hatreds, prejudices, if we are repulsed.

Where does that take us? Pretty much where we have been. Only worse. The pious calls for healing and reconciliation are the most cynical of all. Despite the evidence around them, from the top to the bottom, that things are out of whack, that, in fact, the new normal in America is looking pretty depraved, the press and the politicians want to send a message that things are going to be okay, that America will come together and get beyond bloody moments like this.

It’s more comforting that the man, the white man who might have checked the foundation of our houses for cracks, might have just snapped, perhaps from watching too much of MSDNC’s RussiaGate coverage. Perhaps from going off his meds. Perhaps from the stack of bills piling up on the kitchen table that he just couldn’t find a way to pay. Perhaps from a romance gone sour or some dire medical news. Snapping is normal. Snapping can be dealt with. Turning on the government, attacking the capital itself, that sends a chill through the system.

Writers are quick to make metaphors for moments like this. We are eager to infuse these kinds of seismic events with some greater meaning than just another shooting on a baseball diamond, something that happens pretty regularly in cities across America, from Houston to Oakland, Flagstaff to Albany. But what if America is cracking apart at the seams and people like Hodgkinson are emerging from the crevasses, armed, aggrieved and packing a list of targets. What then?

* * *

Today is June 16th. The sky is rainy and clogged with clouds the color of steel-wool. It’s frigid for mid-June, even in Oregon. Still, the dogwood is blooming in the yard, defying the odds and the elements. Someone told me years ago the tree’s broad white petals streaked with red symbolize the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ. But that image never really moved me. Jesus has too many contradictory symbols and his followers have defiled most of them.

The blazing return to life of our old dogwood reminds me of a certain Leopold Bloom, of Dublin town, since the blossoms always seem so radiant, even glazed with cold rain, on his day.  On Bloomsday.

Here in Oregon City, Bloomsday requires a random dip into that unholiest of testaments, Ulysses, in search of a juicy snatch of text and a pint or two of Murphy’s Irish Stout and a shot of Jameson to wash the bitterness down. In honor of James Joyce you understand, and his acolyte, Alexander Cockburn.

Cockburn’s birthday is June 6th and the celebrations often ran for 10 days, ending with a Bloomsday bash of drinking, feasting, dancing and quoting from Joyce, the more obscure and ribald the passage the better.

Those are the days with Alex that I miss the most, the high and low holy-days, up here or down on the Lost Coast, the days when stories and hard cider, laughter and music, the calls of birds and dogs barking, the scent of salmon twirling on a spit and the bracing winds of late spring all swirled together into one joyous stream … So here’s a passage for you Alex, mined from the mind of that rare genius.

Coffined thoughts around me, in mummycases, embalmed in spice of words. Thoth, god of libraries, a birdgod, moonycrowned. And I heard the voice of that Egyptian highpriest. In painted chambers loaded with tilebooks. They are still. Once quick in the brains of men. Still: but an itch of death is in them, to tell me in my ear a maudlin tale, urge me to wreak their will.

* * *

Roaming Charges

+ If the Washington Post can be believed, Special Counsel Robert Mueller is now pursuing Trump for obstruction of justice. It appears that Trump wasn’t personally under criminal investigation until he tried to sabotage the FBI probe into Michael Flynn’s illicit activities, which is how self-deluded megalomaniacs are usually undone: by their own paranoia and hubris.

+ So the odious Jeff Sessions may have perjured himself for the third or fourth time (it’s hard to keep track) by neglecting to mention in his evasive senate testimony his meetings with a Russian lobbyist at two dinners Sessions hosted for the Trump campaign.

Since the beginning of this strange scandal, everyone in Trumpland has lapsed into a kind of Russian amnesia. If they’d only said from the start, “Sure, we met with some Russians. Talked about oil, sanctions, Crimea, Syria, vodka, hookers and the neglected films of Grigori Kozintsev” most people would have shrugged their shoulders and said, “So what?”

But Trump is a liar and he picked a gang of liars for his cabinet. Trump’s business was constructed from lies and so is Sessions’s malign political career. Are they hiding something? Some financial entanglements of the Trump organization, having nothing at all to do with the 2016 elections, snaking back to Russian banks? If they aren’t, they’re stupider than we thought they were, which was a very low bar to begin with.

I hope they all go down. Hard. But not too soon. It’s far too much fun watching political vermin like Sessions squirm.

+ Speaking of perjury, Scott Pruitt, the man who is trying to turn the EPA into the Chamber of Commerce, apparently lied to congress about his secret email accounts, back channels to his buddies in the oil and gas industry, in Oklahoma. Who needs Double-Speak anymore, when you can simply perjure yourself with impunity…?

+ We are hearing a lot now about how “dangerous” “violent” rhetoric motivated the DC shooter. But the actual violence of the State done in our name daily for the last 20 years is a bigger & more dangerous trigger than any kind of inflammatory speech.

+ Liberals, who have been so eager to restrict “hate speech,” now just might get what they want. But I don’t think they’ll like how it’s going to be enforced very much….

+ Trump slammed the door on US travel to and business deals with Cuba today, which just might help save socialism on the island from an economic re-b00ting by the neoliberal shock therapists.

+ The day after denouncing Qatar as a state-sponsor of terrorism, Donald Trump sealed a $12 billion arms deal with the petro-kingdom. The terms of the deal had been struck during the Obama administration. Why should anyone be surprised about this? First Qatar had to prove it was sponsoring terrorism, like the Saudis, before it actually got its hand on the weapons.

+ Drones are the gift Obama gave to Trump, who is taking maximum advantage of new his killing toys. Since Trump took office, the rate of drone strikes per month has swelled to nearly almost four times Obama’s average.

+ When karma comes as a drone: As US troops and surrogate fighters close in on Raqqa in Syria, ISIS fighters are using drones to target US positions and airstrikes.

+ Neoliberalism at Work: Over the last 34 years, incomes for the top 0.001% richest Americans soared by 636% while incomes for the bottom 50% remained stagnate. This wasn’t a by-product, but the plan.

+ National Geographic published an intriguing story documenting how at least seven species of marine mammals are known to mourn the deaths of family members and “friends”. The writers couldn’t resist referring to this as “human-like” behavior, which seems insulting to the whales. The real test of their “humanness”, of course, is whether cetaceans execute members of their own species and then take selfies with the corpses…

+ The UN estimates that US airstrikes have killed more than 300 civilians in Raqqa in the last month alone. And they call it “liberation”…

+ Cindy McCain, the wife of a leading Russophobe was just hired as a Human Rights (i.e., humanitarian bombing) Ambassador for the man her hubby calls Putin’s stooge…

+ Mark Kasowitz, the personal lawyer for Donald Trump, has been bragging to friends that he get US Attorney Preet Preet Bharara fired. If nothing else, you gotta admire the hubris of these people…

+ Trump’s plans to eviscerate labor unions is now coming into menacing focus. I wonder if Trump ran his scheme to hobble labor unions while unshackling his corporate buddies by the Einsatzgruppen Division of Big Labor who photopped with him in the Oval Office during the early days of Trump-time….?

+ As Jonathan Cook pointed out in a searing essay this week, Trump’s “Grand Deal” in the Middle East, cooked up with Netanyahu and his Saudi buddies, will set the stage for the elimination of Palestinian statehood. Of course, the Palestinians will resist and survive, as they always have. The question, moral and existential, is will Israel survive what it’s doing to the Palestinians?

+ Number of days in office to hit 60% job disapproval in a Gallup Poll-

Obama: never

GW Bush 1,758

Clinton: never

GHW Bush 1,290

Reagan: never

Nixon 1,736

Trump… 143

And the Democrats still have nothing to offer disaffected Trump (or Sanders) voters…

+ As Sanders, the Democrats are still sticking knives in his back, at their own peril. No one seems more deranged by Sanders’s appeal to progressives than Joy Reid, who does a double-shift of demagoguery at the Nation and MSDNC.  Check out this unhinged Tweet from Reid, which appeared on her twitter feed apropos of nothing, except her visceral loathing of Sanders and the Sandernistas:

Bernie and his followers are like that college friend who stays at your place for weeks, pays $0, eats your food & trashes your aesthetic.

To which I ask: what aesthetic?

+ NPR’s lead story on UK elections didn’t mention the words “Jeremy” or “Corbyn”. Perhaps Congress should defund them….

+ Eclipsed by the madness in DC, the Standing Rock Tribe just won a huge legal victory in a Seattle court ruling that the permits for the Dakota Access Pipeline were granted illegally.

+ It’s a rainy night in Antarctica

Yes, it’s a rainy night in Antarctica

And I believe there’s fire and drought across the rest of the world….

+ As the industry begins to implode, the New York Times has doubled-down on its pro-nuclear propaganda, urging that the nuclear cabal be bailed out in order to fight climate change, a specious argument that has been thoroughly debunked. Will the paper hire George “I Love to Surf at Fukushima” Monbiot as a columnist?

+ Among its many other global casualties, Monsanto is responsible for killing off the oaks of Iowa.

+ Imagine the Royalties! Yoko Ono may finally get songwriting credit for her contributions to “Imagine.” I always thought that meeting Yoko and John Sinclair were two of best things that ever happened to Lennon. Both expanded his mind, when he was trapped in a kind of vacuum of celebrity. Yoko deserves the credit, especially after all the shit she’s endured for 50 years. As Ron Jacobs said, “Yoko didn’t break up the Beatles, the world did.”

+ Bob Dylan has been cribbing stuff for years. “The Ballad of Emmitt Till” is a reworking of a song by the folkie Len Chandler, many of the lyrics from “Love and Theft” where taken from the Japanese oral history Confessions of a Yakuza, and even more egregious (politically) some of the lyrics on “Modern Times” were lifted from the southern poet Henry Timrod, a writer of pro-Confederate doggerel….Poetic license? It’s certainly part of the folk and blues tradition. Now comes word that Dylan may have plagiarized portions of the Nobel Prize speech for literature from the college student cheat-sheet SparkNotes, which as Dylanologist and boogie boogie maestro David Vest said, “is written by people who haven’t even read the works they are writing about.” Stealing from Sparknotes was a delicious prank and the perfect way to trivialize the Nobel Prize…Good job, Bob.

Sound Grammar

What I’m listening to this week…

Witness by Benjamin Booker

Hard Truth by Coco Montoya

A Rift in Decorum: Live at the Vanguard by Ambrose Akinmusire

Samba by Vieux Farka Touré

Black Irish by Shannon McNally

Booked Up

What I’m reading this week…

The Putin Interviews by Oliver Stone

Guerrillas of Desire: Notes on Everyday Resistance and Organizing to Make a Revolution Possible by Kevin Van Meter

On the Arab-Jew, Palestine and Other Displacements by Ella Shohat

Out of Luck

Jean-Paul Sartre: “There are two types of poor people, those who are poor together and those who are poor alone. The first are the true poor, the others are rich people out of luck.”

Jeffrey St. Clair is editor of CounterPunch. His new book is Bernie and the Sandernistas: Field Notes From a Failed Revolution. He can be reached at: sitka@comcast.net or on Twitter  @JSCCounterPunch

UKIAH LIBRARY EVENTS & ACTIVITIES

Adulting 101: Everyday Life Skills for Ages 16-25

Friday, June 23^rd 2 pm: Finance Know-How

Friday, July 7^th 2pm: How to Get that Job!

Friday, July 14^th 2pm: How to Shop & Cook for Yourself

Friday, July 21^st 2pm: How to Succeed at your New Job

Friday, August 11^th 2pm: Everyday Adulting Skills

Adulting is hard work! Teens and new adults (16-25) are invited to the Ukiah Library to learn everyday life skills in a hands-on, interactive fun atmosphere to better prepare them for the world of adulting. Get ahead this summer and learn some tips and tricks for making it on your own in the world.

The Ukiah Library is proud to partner with Financial Educator Greg Gates Jr. @CashChatSnap to present this class series.   Registration is required; please call 463-4490 to sign up!

All classes and events are free and open to the public. Sponsored by the Ukiah Valley Friends of the Library. 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.

* * *

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.

* * *

June Line-up of Sunday Matinee Movies

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

* * *

Home Brewing

On Wednesday, June 21^st from 6-7:30 pm, Mendocino County Library, Ukiah Branch is hosting a Home Brewing Presentation.

Have you been interested in learning how to brew beer from home?  Join the Potter Valley Brewing Group to discuss and learn how you can get started.   This event will discuss the history of Americans fascination with home brewing, what it actually takes to brew from home, and local organizations that can help you along the way.

This presentation is sponsored by the Ukiah Valley Friends of the Library. There will be tastings available with a $5 tasting fee.

THE PASTEL BEAUTY, ELEGANCE AND UTILITY OF VIRTUALLY UNBREAKABLE MELMAC DINNERWARE.

“Nothing else quite so combines Mom, the warmth of home, and hygienic safety, durability and value. Say it with Melmac (polymerized melamine formaldehyde), the future of dining, now!”

Here’s the recording of last night’s (2017-06-16) KNYO (and, three hours in, also KMEC) Memo of the Air: Good Night Radio show ready to download and enjoy.

Or, thanks to Hank Sims of Lost Coast Outpost, you can get it this other way, which you might like better because it offers an instant-play option and isn’t surrounded by confusing flashing ads.

It’s time. We need to either get a real phone box to put people on the air properly or experiment a little with making the one we have at KNYO work better. (It’s the one I made out of a thrift-store phone.) It puts a harsh edge on callers’ voices that can’t be corrected with the tone controls. Probably fixing the impedance match between the phone thing and the board with a transformer would do it. The problem is, I’m mostly only in Fort Bragg when I go to do my show there, and then I’m busy doing the show, and then it’s four or five and I just wanta go home and fall asleep in my clothes. Jerry will probably get to it this week. If that doesn’t solve it, we’ll have another fundraiser, a bingo night, or sell off all the heirloom melmac in the equipment closet, or something.

The reason I bring it up is, Zeke called from San Francisco at one a.m. (four hours into the show) to read his story and I felt bad that I couldn’t make the sound quality better. Then I forgot and left my mic off, so after his story, when we were talking for a little while, you only hear my voice faintly through the phone’s handset. So embarrassing. But really, so what? It’s a good story and a good show. I think you’ll like it. Ah, right, I almost forgot: Thomas came to the station early in the show, very excited, practically fizzing about his new cryptocurrency monetary app project. I’m not sure I understand it completely; maybe you’ll grasp something that I didn’t. He was bruised and scraped up all over from just a normal bicycle accident. Wear your bike helmet. It doesn’t look stupid. Astronauts wear helmets; do astronauts look stupid? No, they don’t. Imagine an astronaut saying to his mom before he blasts off, “I don’t want to wear this helmet. The other astronauts will laugh at me.” An astronaut would never say that, because an astronaut is smart, and he wears his darn helmet that we paid a lot of money for, and he doesn’t just put it on until he’s out of sight around the corner. Hold still. There. Be careful.

Besides all that, though, here are links to a few not necessarily radio-useful but otherwise worthwhile items that I set aside for you while putting the show together, found mostly thanks to the fine websites listed to your right:

A kaleidoscope dance made of fingers.

http://boingboing.net/2017/06/13/watch-this-hypnotic-kaleidosco.html

Everyday wizards of talking.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3H5D-XxPrI

Triangle of life.

http://catandgirl.com/triangle-of-life/

Pinched.

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

If mobile games were honest.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8ayD71cXYs

100 walks 100. Kind of a wizard of walking.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEoUhlesN9E

Contented.

http://www.marriedtothesea.com/index.php?date=061117

Jerkass god. Explain that.

https://francoistremblay.wordpress.com/2017/06/14/saturday-morning-breakfast-cereal-on-an-anti-theodicy-denying-death-antinatalism/

Just open the dang-blasted turnstile, consarn it! Son of a bitch! I’m about ta have a heart attack, here!

http://boingboing.net/2017/06/15/man-blows-his-top-because-toll.html

No. Don’t do that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6Xt-NQHipY

Lasers vaporizing rust. It sounds like it looks.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8q3DZB_l6M

Munyon’s homeopathic cures.

http://www.weirduniverse.net/blog/comments/munyons_homeopathic_cures

A map of the ships buried beneath San Francisco, and a full explanation of how they got under there.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/05/map-ships-buried-san-francisco/

CineFix’ top 10 science fiction films. Number one will surprise you.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8xAuN_nHNc

Joe Bonamassa and Tina Guo.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQBkV7s0sV0

Further incontrovertible proof of chemtrails’ terrible magic: a persistent cloud shaped like Britain and imprisoned by a pentagon of pure evil.

http://boingboing.net/2017/06/15/a-cloud-shaped-like-britain.html

Often I’m kidding when I make an analogy, but I’m being totally honest here: This video shows very clearly what the people who run KZYX look like to me. How you feel and all the things you think, watching this person fail and fail and fail to park a car, is how I feel whenever I tune to KZYX and just let it play for a few minutes and listen to it. (Usually it’s some recorded crap from 1,000 miles away.) Then I have a quick little exercise daydream about explaining to them how to do it right, to improve, to let in people they’re terrified of and get out of the way, and both in the daydream and in real life they never listen, because of the Dunning-Kruger effect. The skills they need in order to judge properly how bad they are at running a radio station to prioritize learning and taking chances and embracing danger and just being alive are the very skills they don’t have regarding actually doing any of those things, even if they wanted to. They compare their product with other run-of-the-mill NPR drone stations, and it’s indistinguishable, so they think they’re good at it. They think they’re the good guys and that anyone poking at that bubble is the bad guy.

http://boingboing.net/2017/06/10/driver-attempts-to-parallel-pa.html

Speaking of which, here’s a poster I’d like to put up where the (unpaid) airpeople can see it when they’re at the mic begging for hundreds of thousands of dollars for KZYX so management can eat steak and drive nice cars and have health and dental insurance and pay off their vacation houses and so on, while the poor airperson is happy just for the opportunity to work in glamorous radio and be patted on the head at a board meeting once a year for his valuable service.

http://www.marriedtothesea.com/index.php?date=061617

And just take a gander at Miss Bomarc Interceptor Missile, 1958. (Missile, 1/8 scale.)

http://www.weirduniverse.net/blog/comments/miss_bomarc_interceptor_missile

Marco McClean

memo@mcn.org

http://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com