Mendocino County Today: Tuesday, July 4, 2017

• Sharkey Exhibit
• Little Dog
• Happy Birthdays
• Proprietor Correction
• NCRA Questioned
• Regulating Groundswell
• Book Sale
• School Stats
• Lake Mendocino
• Omar's Codebook
• Uke Madgin'
• Squatting Dully
• Yesterday's Catch
• Lottery Finance
• Wrasslin' POTUS
• Hawking Baffled
• Different Californias
• Noyo Restaurants
• Clearer Lake
• Bernie Trump
• KMEC Interview

BE THERE! Where? An exhibit of Virginia Sharkey's paintings opens this Thursday at the Partners Gallery, 335 N. Franklin, Fort Bragg. Runs through July. The kid can paint! You won't be disappointed.

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TIME TRAPS: POETRY INTO PAINTING

July 6 - 31, 2017 – First Friday Reception: July 7, 5-8 pm
(Wine served by Handley Cellars)

Time Trap: Poetry into Painting consists of the days of the week series Sharkey painted as part of her on-going investigation into the pictorial depiction of time. What is unusual about these paintings, inspired by illionedieval books of the hours, is that the artist first conceived of them through writing poems - included in this exhibit - which were then translated into the highly saturated color fields of these sensual large-scale abstract paintings. Partners Gallery is located at 335 N. Franklin Street in Fort Bragg and is open Wednesday through Monday 10 am to 5 pm and Sundays 10 am to 4 pm. 707 962-0233.

http://mailchi.mp/e932ab8efb04/may-newsletter-kristin-otwell-transfigured-1216793?e=438bd834b1

LITTLE DOG SAYS, “I'm as patriotic as the next dog, and more patriotic than most. I fight every day to keep my home free of enemies, foreign and domestic! Fortunately for me, most of them live right here, making my surveillance work pretty easy.”

HAPPY BIRTHDAYS to the two delightful ladies at the Navarro Store, Erika Mendoza and Crist Perez, the beating heart of Navarro whose unfailingly pleasant service at maestro Dave Evans’ always lively venue makes Navarro, Navarro. Yes, birthdays. Plural, as coincidence would have it. Same day.

CORRECTION: We wrongly identified Matt Barnes of  the excellent Stone and Embers restaurant, Philo, as the proprietor of the also excellent Bewildered Pig restaurant in Navarro. Matt is more of a case-by-case guy, Ms. Weaver of the Bewildered Pig does not allow dogs into her establishment. Me? I prefer not to risk the wrath of Monika (Fuchs) but I see dogs in restaurants and stores as one more imposition of the Me First generations.

STATE TRANSPORTATION COMMISSION RAISES EYEBROW AT NORTH COAST RAILROAD AUTHORITY FINANCES, Asks Perennially Beleaguered Agency To Prepare ‘Shutdown Plan’

by Hank Sims

Last week, members of the California Transportation Commission got tough with the North Coast Railroad Authority, the public agency that owns the defunct railroad tracks around Humboldt County, which has been operating in the red and selling off publicly owned property to stay afloat.

After peppering the railroad authority’s executive director with a series of pointed questions at its meeting Thursday morning, the commission asked the NCRA to come back to them in October with a couple of new documents: a business plan and a “shutdown plan.”

“It seems to me as though you should return to the commission within 90 days with two items: a viable business plan and a viable shutdown plan,” Commissioner Jim Madaffer told NCRA executive director Mitch Stogner. “Because it’s unconscionable to continue in this operation.”

The commission – which advises the executive and legislative branches of state government, among other duties – had asked the North Coast Railroad Authority to come account for itself at the request of the local Caltrans office, which had expressed concern about the railroad authority’s finances. Specifically, Caltrans wanted to hear about whether or not the railroad authority had improperly encumbered real estate bought with state funds, and also whether or not a recent audit of the authority’s books — which raised “substantial doubt” about its ability to continue — was as dire as it seemed.

In his presentation, Stogner was able to dispel the first matter more easily than the second. He assured commissioners that the authority had not “collateralized” real estate purchased with state grant monies administered by the CTC — that the authority had not borrowed against such property to balance its books. It seemed to be assurance enough. (Reached this morning, Brad Mettam, deputy director for planning in Caltrans District One’s Eureka office, told the Outpost that his office was absolutely satisfied by Stogner’s word.)

The second matter proved to be stickier. Though Stogner assured commissioners that the language used in the most recent audit of the authority’s books (“substantial doubt about the NCRA’s ability as a going concern”) was in no way new — auditors have used the same language several years running, he said — members of the transportation commission were not inclined to let the matter drop.

Under questioning from Commissioner James Ghielmetti, Stogner admitted that the North Coast Railroad Authority is running a deficit of about $200,000 per year, and that the difference is currently being made up with the sale of non-essential real estate. (Not real estate purchased with the grant monies mentioned above.) Ghielmetti said that this was clearly not a viable long-term strategy.

“Sooner or later the well’s going to run dry, because you’re not going to have enough property to sell to keep going,” Ghielmetti said.

Stogner admitted that this was the case, and said that the legislature would have to find more money to give to the railroad authority if it wished for the authority to continue. But other commissioners seemed dubious. They took up Ghielmetti’s original line of questioning and eventually endorsed Madaffer’s request for the authority to prepare a “shutdown plan.”

Reached after the meeting, Stogner told the Outpost that he would do his best to comply with the commission’s request.

“In terms of a shutdown plan — I don’t know what they want there, but I will give them whatever they want.” he said. “The whole point of going before them was that we’re doing the best we can, and that we need some state support.”

The North Coast Railroad Authority was formed by the California state legislature in the late ‘80s, when it began to purchase, in pieces, the old railroad line between Marin County and Humboldt County. The line to Humboldt was closed in 1997, after a storm destroyed track in the Eel River Canyon. In the last few years, the authority and its exclusive freight operator — a company called NWP Co., partly owned and legally represented by Stogner’s former boss, former US Congressman Doug Bosco — have opened up a small section of the southern end of the line, and have been running a couple of trains weekly between Napa and Petaluma.

Bosco also spoke at the California Transportation Committee, where he said that his company has no plans to ever run freight trains outside the extreme southern end of the North Coast Railroad Authority corridor.

“About 240 miles of this railroad will probably never be operated,” Bosco said. “You talk about coming up with a shutdown plan — that would have to go to the legislature, because the legislature determined that this railroad exists. We as a private company are not going to operate from Napa to Eureka. We are operating profitably from Napa to around Windsor.”

Several local planning efforts — including, most notably, the Eureka-Arcata Bay Trail — are still required by the North Coast Railroad Authority to take the eventual return of rail service into account, sometimes adding extra impediments that can add hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars to the price tags of such projects.

Video: California Transportation Commission video archive. Choose “June 29, 2017” in the dropdown menu and fast-forward to about the 9-minute mark.

(Courtesy, LostCoastOutpost.com)

JUST ASKING, but if you host for pay regular bacchanals that come with with loud music into the early hours, as do the proprietors of Groundswell six miles south of Boonville, at what point are you considered an “event center”? Or a hotel?

The events at the Boonville Fairgrounds, for instance, are required to turn the music off at midnight Friday and Saturday nights, Sundays at 10pm. But the Fairgrounds are in the middle of town, and the calculation is that the nabes can suffer through a couple of weekends a year. But if you’re not in town, with only a few neighbors , do you get to play loud music deep into the night most weekends and go unregulated?

In Mendocino County, where the ink on the rules is never quite dry, and always depend on who you are, if you’re a vineyard with frost fans there is no illegal decibel level. If you’re an unaffiliated mope who wields decibels as a weaponized expression of your contempt for what’s left of social standards, you will get shut down right away. If you’re a gay retreat center at the old Mathias Ranch? Stay tuned.

ATTENTION BOOK DINOSAURS, have we got a deal for you! Elizabeth Dusenberry writes: “Our Book Sale has started at the AV Library. Books are on sale for $4 a bag and the sale will continue until July 29th. We will not be accepting any more book donations until we reopen in the Fall. Our last open day will be August 1st, so come in and stock up on your summer reading. Library hours are Tuesday 1:30-4:30 and Saturday 2-4.”

OUR FREE LIBRARY right here in the Anderson Valley at the Boonville Fairgrounds is as good as many public libraries, especially now that public libraries have made books low priority.

I STOPPED in recently to off-load some books of a very high quality….. check that. Quality? Who dares define quality in a time lots of people think that the very pinnacle of quality is a weekend at Mar-A-Lago?

LOATHE to further burden a valuable free library with books no one is likely to read, I donated twenty or so titles I thought just might interest other local book dinos.

AND, once he’s in the cavernous hall at the Fairgrounds where the library is housed, what book dino can stop himself from having a look at the bargain table? Not this old pterodactyl. And there it was in the one dollar collection, a first edition, I think — nicely bound, cut pages etc. — “The Wapshot Chronicle” and “The Wapshot Scandal” by John Cheever.

I FOUND this handwritten inscription on the inside page: “This is the sixteenth book of the Best Seller Collection, which the County Library Club board of directors has presented to the Anderson Valley Lending Library, April 28, 1981.” The presentation was noted and signed by Velma Farrer; Beth Tuttle; and Elinor Clow, all of whom are gone but fondly remembered by many of us.

SO, for one dollar I not only bought a fine novel I’d never read, I bought a piece of Anderson Valley history in the signatures of three locally prominent women once central to the life of this place. And I’d bought a piece of book history in that the donation of a finely wrought novel (in every sense) was once an occasion to be remarked on. According to the old library check-out card at the back of the book, two persons read the novel in 1981; two in 1982; one in 1988; and one person in 1999. I wanted their names, I wanted to know what they thought of the book, I wanted to know what other books they’d read that year, and if they’d still found books more satisfying than the six City television channels then beamed into the Valley from the translator far and away on a ridge top in the hills east of Boonville.

OF COURSE I didn’t have a dollar to make off with my treasured artifact, but Ms. Dusenberry, perhaps experienced with blustery deadbeats, said I could come back with the dollar the next week. Did I? That’s between me and Liz.

ANDERSON VALLEY UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT BUDGET, 1946-1947

County Board of Education

• James L. Snell, President, Fort Bragg
• John W. Taylor, Secretary, Ukiah
• Roy Good, Willits
• Owen A. Cruce, Point Arena
• Wildia Richmond, Boonville

Anderson Valley Union High School Board of Trustees

• Wayne Lowery, Chairman, Yorkville
• Lenora Ray, Clerk, Philo
• Ernest Pardini, Boonville
• Alex B. Willis, Boonville

Cash balance $8,658.14

Less current liabilities including payment due on bus, $2,403.27

Total available balance $6,254.87

State apportionment $10,014.35

Transferred from other districts, payment by elementary district for music and transportation $500

Total estimated current receipts and balances:

Estimated amount to be raised by special tax, $9,937.62

Total receipts and assets, $26,706.84

* * *

Proposed expenditures and appropriations for the school year of 1946-1947

Operation and maintenance of administration: $150

Other expenses of instruction including textbooks, supplies etc. $2,000

Salaries of teacher and principal $13,700

Maintenance of school plant, $700

Operation of school, including janitor’s salary, fuel, supplies, utility services and other expenses $2,750

Transportation including bus driver salaries, fuel, bus repairs $3,465

Fixed charges including insurance retirement contributions etc. $610

Capital outlays including improvements in buildings, payments on new bus $300

Undistributed reserve not an expenditure but available for expenditure $2,000

Total expenditures $23,376

About 58% of the estimated expenditures are for teacher salaries. The second largest single expenditure is for transportation at almost 14%. Operation of school plant about 11%, capital outlays a little over 10%.

The assessed valuation of property in high school district is approximately $2,125,000. This is an estimated tax rate of $.46 per $100 of assessed valuation. Allowing 10% for uncollectible taxes the high school tax rate was set at $.49. Our receipts are distributed as follows: State apportionment, 28% District tax 37% Balance 26% miscellaneous 7%

(Via/Courtesy, Norm Clow)

* * *

70 YEARS LATER:

(From caschooldashboard.org for Spring 2017)

Number of students: 558

English Learners: 208

“Socioeconomically disadvantaged: 463 (83%)

Students with Disabilities: 59

Hispanic: 419

African American: 6

American Indian: 3

Two or more races: 2

White: 128

High School Graduation Rate: 38 out of 40 (37 of the 38 were socioeconomically disadvantaged. 32 where Hispanic, 6 were white.)

LAKE MENDOCINO has long been besieged by motorized oafs, many of them drunk, zooming up and down its placid waters. People who ought to know better laughed when Ukiah City Councilman proposed a ban on jet skis at the Lake, but by then the idea that a lake was synonymous with tranquility had been lost. And now we learn that several campgrounds at Lake Mendo will close because there isn’t enough staff to keep the “undesirables” off unsuspecting families who might want to enjoy them.

OMAR FIGUEROA, ace attorney and a familiar sight in the courtrooms of Mendocino County is also, in the words of the Sonoma County Bohemian, “the author of the new hardcover instant classic, Cannabis Codes of California…. Cannabis Codes isn't a novel, but it does have a built-in plot-line that lays out the law at various junctures in California's social and political history. Figueroa gives a brief upfront history of cannabis in the state and the various moments where legislators weighed in on some aspect or another of the industry. For example, the 1996 landmark medical-use act is reprinted in its entirety, along with relevant penal codes, fish and wildlife code, health and safety, taxation—et al; and when Gov. Schwarzenegger decriminalized possession of small quantities in 2010, while adding some tough-on-crime language to the state penal code on the back-end. Who'll find this book of use? Anyone who wants to get into the cannabis business, or anyone who's gotten into the business and gotten in trouble for it—and anyone in between whose profession intersects with this rolling and fascinating experiment in cannabis freedom, California style. Cannabis Codes of California is available on Amazon.com." (Tom Gogola)

INTERESTING story in last Thursday’s UDJ by Ashley Tressel about prostitution in, gasp! Mendocino County. As evidence that commercial sex is available right here in our rustic paradise, Ms. T. pointed to a sordid website called Backpage where nine female bawds out of Ukiah were advertising their charms.

PROSTITUTION once enjoyed semi-respectability in the county. Why there’s even a plaque on a Ukiah sidewalk eternally commemorating the delights offered by an establishment called Madge’s. “Madgin’ to Uke” is a Boontling phrase that meant the local boys were headed over the hill to Ukiah for a weekend of libido relief. Every community of any size in the county offered a house of joy. The late supervisor, Joe Scaramella, told a story where, as a boy, he retrieved a parrot for a working girl in Point Arena who, in gratitude, rewarded him with a gold coin. Uncoerced commercial sex should at least be tolerated, I’d say, and probably still the only way to revive Ukiah’s long slide into civic decay.

NO CHANGE POSSIBLE

Editor,

KZYX:

I see in the MCN announce listserv that Janie Rezner -- 80 years old now — is still needing a place to move to on less than $700 a month after doing radio at KZYX for, what, fifteen years, probably. If management had been paying airpeople even a pittance for their work, which they could always easily do but have chosen not to in favor of sucking out of the station for themselves two or three million dollars (!) over that same fifteen years, she might have $5,000-$10,000 saved up in her mattress to make this difficult transition.

Sunday Richard Karch wrote to announce that Anne Feeney, folk musician in the old tradition and champion of workers everywhere, would be on folksy drawlin' Fred Wooley's deejay show on KZYZ at 1pm that day. I missed the event, but I wonder if Anne at all addressed the horrendous injustice of just the manager paying himself all of $60,000 a year before paying any of the real workers, Fred Wooley included, even a penny out of the $600,000 that Mendocino County Public Broadcasting pisses away every year. That's five or six times what it actually costs to keep the station's paperwork in order, and keep it housed and fed with electricity and communications services, and keep the transmitters switched on, so airpeople can bring their material in and do radio.

In the real world radio is practically free. It's the monopoly of it that makes a commercial station worth a fortune to buy and sell, and a pumped-up podunk noncommercial station like KZYX, which should be even freer, relies on the public's false association of radio with great expense.

KZYX is constantly broke and constantly begging listeners and businesses for money, even with the $160,000-a-year tax-derived bailout they get from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and even though they have free use of three frequencies that together cover the whole County of Mendocino, and a high-power broadcast license is a license to coin money. That's how bad the board of MCPB and each new manager they hire for a hood ornament are at running KZYX. They are that bad at it. Or that crooked. You decide.

They're having another one of their pretend board meetings tonight (Monday). Like with all of their board meetings, it's an average round-trip drive of three hours to attend, for anyone who wants to and can afford to do that. They won't be putting the meeting on the air because, to them, why should they ever? And, in fairness, nothing ever comes of any of their meetings. No real discussion ever happens there. All votes among the board are unanimous. Nothing about the way they run the station or about the station itself ever changes or improves, and no-one even slightly clever and willing to take a chance and experiment is allowed to do radio there. It's like Kevin said to Randall in Time Bandits: "I don't understand you, Randall. You've got this brilliant thing and you're just wasting it." What's their motivation for just squatting dully on those three educational band FM broadcast frequencies? Why are they preventing them from being used for what they're for? It's truly baffling.

Marco McClean, Mendocino

CATCH OF THE DAY, July 3, 2017

JOSEPHA BASURTO, Covelo. Probation revocation. (Frequent flyer.)

JESUS CHAVEZ-CARMEN, Ukiah. DUI, probation revocation.

DONNA DERESKERICIUS, Mendocino. Probation revocation.

DAVID DIAZ-NAVAS, Fort Bragg. Fighting, trespassing, resisting.

CLAYTON GARROUTTE, Ukiah. Rape of victim who was prevented from resisting by anesthetic or controlled substance, rape of unconscious victim, statutory rape of person under 18.

DAVID JOAQUIN, Covelo. Probation revocation.

NICHOLAS LANZIT, Ukiah. Domestic battery, probation revocation.

SARAH MACK, Fort Bragg. Domestic abuse, resisting.

CHARLES MARTIN, Fort Bragg. Contributing, protective order violation.

DENA MORRIS, Redwood Valley. Probation revocation. (Frequent flyer.)

IGNATIO RAMIREZ, Ukiah. DUI.

ARYANNA ROCKEY, Willits. Domestic battery.

WILLIAM RYKEN JR., Fort Bragg. Burglary, threat with intent to terrorize, vandalism, resisting.

SEBASTION SAWYER, DUI, misdemeanor hit&run.

JANET WALLACE, Ukiah. Paraphernalia, trespassing, resisting.

RUSSEL WATSON, Fort Bragg. Parole violation.

CARLOS WHITE, Ukiah. Under influence.

ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

Lottery. The cash provided by the losers is supposed to pay off the lottery’s expenses and obligations. The lottery then purchases an annuity from an insurance company to pay off the winners. The cost of the annuity is always just a percentage of the winning tickets. For example, a $1M win would cost the lottery around $400k at current interest rates. That’s why the payout for taking a lump sum is always less than taking the winnings in installments – the lottery doesn’t buy the annuity for an all-cash deal. Instead, they give that cash to the winners. In today’s interest rate environment, that’s around $600,000.

In addition, if you have a regular annual income with normal deductions and take the cash option, you will pay federal and state taxes totaling more or less, 50% of your winnings, so you actually net $300k for your $1M win. This is why the lottery is such a ripoff. And they advertise “the newest lottery millionaire is….”. Millionaire indeed!

Why did the lottery get suspended in Illinois, and possibly in other broke states? I suspect Illinois spent their net proceeds on other items because they have no cash – similar to the federal government spending people’s social security money and leaving IOU’s instead.

LIGHTEN UP TO TIGHTEN UP

by James Kunstler

Perhaps the presidency has been an overly solemn office since, oh, the days of Millard Fillmore, the dreary weight of all that mortal responsibility — slavery, war, more war, depression, yet more war, nukes, we shall overcome, terror, Lehman Brothers, Ferguson, Russia here, there, and everywhere…uccchhh….

And so, at last: a little comic relief. I mean, imagine Grover Cleveland putting the choke-slam on Thomas Nast. Dwight Eisenhower punching out Edward R. Murrow. Jack Kennedy applying the Macumba Death Grip to Walter Lippman. Nahhhh. But Donald (“The Golden Golem of Greatness”) Trump versus CNN! Now that’s a matchup worthy of the WWE Hall of Fame. I just kind of wish the big fella had gone all the way and put in Anderson Cooper’s mug instead of the CNN logo box. Make it truly up front and personal since, let’s face it, Andy has been the most visible conduit of Jeff Zucker’s animadversions.

At least The New York Times seemed to take the prank in stride, calling it, “an unorthodox way for a sitting president to express himself.” Well, yes! Nicely put. They didn’t call for the Commander-in-Chief to be stripped down to his silk small-clothes and be run through a gauntlet of aggrieved trannies. Well, I dunno, maybe that’s next….

But who says a president has to merely sit behind a desk and utter platitudes about bringing us together? Nobody really falls for that anymore. But a body-slam — whoa, now that’s some change you can believe in! At least the GGOG didn’t send in some NSA black box contractors to smoke the CNN board of directors and that miserable fucker Zucker — though it does lead one to wonder how Mr. Trump intends to orchestrate his upcoming confab with Vlad (“The Impaler”) Putin. I’d like to see the president at least put on a cape for that one.

I suppose Mr. Trump was reacting to the fire-hose of objurgation aimed at him over the weekend on CNN by Carl Bernstein, reporter extraordinaire of Watergate fame, who referred to Trump’s sojourn in the Oval Office as “a malignant presidency.” Isn’t comparing a person to cancer about as low as you can go? (You talkin’ to me???) That should technically entitle Mr. Trump to an inverted stomp face-breaker followed by a fall-away moonsault slam, topped off by a final gorilla drop. Hell, get the referee to sit on Bernstein’s face for the count.

Bernstein went a little further, even, into the dark slough of disrespect, intimating that all the occult powers of the Deep State should be mobilized to remove the golden tumor from America’s body politic:

“That malignancy is known to the military leaders of the country, it’s known to the Republican leadership in Congress who recognize it, and it’s known to the intelligence community…. This president is not in control of the presidency in a way that it is functioning. That has got our leaders worried, they are worried about his character, they are worried about his temperament,” Bernstein said. “We are in foreign territory. We have never been in a malignant presidency like this before.”

Perhaps Mr. Bernstein is just the messenger appointed by the Deep State to flop it all out on the table, so to speak, like so much Fourth of July pulled smoked pork: You’ve gone too far, you suppurating mass of rogue protoplasm! We’re coming to get ya now, with the deadliest move of all: the 25^th amendment. Let Mike Pence be the reincarnation of Herbert Hoover. This shit is not funny anymore.

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

STEPHEN HAWKING marks his 75th birthday with a warning that Donald Trump has doomed the planet to “irreversible” global warming that could see Earth subjected to a 250 degree hell like Venus.

Stephen Hawking has issued a stark warning that Donald Trump could be responsible for pushing the planet's climate “over the brink.”

The world renowned scientist hit out at the American president's decision to pull out of the Paris climate agreement.

Hawking stated that it could lead to “irreversible” global warming, which could turn the Earth into a hellish world similar to Venus.

The warnings coincide with celebrations of the physicist's 75th birthday.

President Trump announced last month that the US would be withdrawing from the Paris Agreement.

Nearly 200 countries have previously agreed to the carbon emission reduction plan.

Trump has stated he wishes to renegotiate the terms of the agreement signed up to by the US, to ensure the US economy and business are not damaged by it.

But Professor Hawking has warned that the decision could have dire consequences.

Speaking to the BBC, Hawking said: “We are close to the tipping point where global warming becomes irreversible.

“Trump's action could push the Earth over the brink, to become like Venus, with a temperature of 250 degrees, and raining sulphuric acid.

“Climate change is one of the great dangers we face, and it's one we can prevent if we act now.

“By denying the evidence for climate change, and pulling out of the Paris Climate Agreement, Donald Trump will cause avoidable environmental damage to our beautiful planet, endangering the natural world, for us and our children.”

The predictions come as Hawking celebrates his 75th birthday.

A specially-organised series of public lectures about gravity and black holes were held over the weekend.

The physicist and cosmologist gave a talk reflecting on his life and scientific work at a symposium at Cambridge University.

Hawking's talk followed an afternoon of lectures from other distinguished scientists including Professor Brian Cox.

Professor Hawking, who turned 75 in January, joked: “Actually, for those keeping count, I'm closer to 75-and-a-half.

“But that shouldn't get in the way of a good celebration.”

In his talk, titled My Life In Physics, he recalled his diagnosis of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) at the age of 21.

“At first I became depressed,” he said. “I seemed to be getting worse really rapidly.

“There didn´t seem any point working on my PhD because I didn´t know I would live long enough to finish it.

“But then the condition developed more slowly and I began to make progress in my work.

“After my expectations had been reduced to zero, every new day became a bonus and I began to appreciate everything I did have. While there´s life there´s hope.”

The event concluded with the full auditorium singing Happy Birthday to Professor Hawking.

Hawking Says He Is Baffled By Trump's Popularity

He understands the workings of the universe like few others - but Stephen Hawking last year admitted he cannot fathom the popularity of Donald Trump.

The astrophysicist told ITV's morning that Trump “is a demagogue who seems to appeal to the lowest common denominator.”

Last month, he added that he fears he may not be welcome in Donald Trump's America.

He said the US had become more “authoritarian” and, in a possible attack on Mr Trump, joked that people who boast about their IQ are “losers.”

But the 75-year-old also admitted that the liberal hysteria over Trump's election had been “overdone.”

He said: “The reaction to the election of Donald Trump may have been overdone, but it represents a definite swing to a right-wing, more authoritarian approach.

“Everyday life in the United States continues much the same. I have many friends and colleagues there, and it is still a place I like and admire in many ways. I would like to visit again, and to talk to other scientists. But I fear that I may not be welcome.”

CALIFORNIA’S FAR NORTH Deplores ‘Tyranny’ of the Urban Majority

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/02/us/california-far-north-identity-conservative.html?ref=todayspaper&_r=0

HOME OF THE WORLD'S LARGEST CHEESEBURGERS

Available - 70-Year-Old Restaurant In Noyo Harbor

On .97 Of An Acre - For A Cool $1 Million

Or you could buy Captain Flints - on .84 acres with more parking for $1.1 million. Actually - there is a lot of commercial real estate available in Fort Bragg - click this link to see who's selling what and for what price: http://www.loopnet.com/C…/Fort-Bragg-Commercial-Real-Estate/

(Courtesy MendocinoSportsPlus)

COME ON IN, THE WATER’S FINE!

Dearest Editoria,

I noticed that you published the contents of a Lake County press release (forwarded message below) as “(comment by James Marmon)” in the 6/28 edition of the AVA. With appreciation for Mr. Marmon’s attentiveness to our local conditions, and taking the trouble to share this information with the Mendocino County Today readers, I believe the seriousness of the problem — and the noted "difference of opinion" held by “Tribal environmental offices” — warrants proper attribution to the Lake County administration, which itself does not provide attribution to the authorized agency within the Lake County (Public Health? Environmental Health? Department of Water Resources?) from whence this mealy-mouthed refutation* derives.

In addition to the June 21, 2017, “official” statement from the Lake County administration (Public Information Officer?), a June 5, 2017, press release from the same source <alicia.flores@lakecountyca.gov> titled “Notice of Aquatic Plant Management Activities in Clear Lake” notified readers that the “Lake County Department of Water Resources is providing defined areas around the lake free of noxious plants.” The June 5 press release resulted in an unofficial (i.e., “internal”) announcement from the Habematolel Pomo of Upper Lake’s Environmental Protection department, recommending that Tribal members refrain from swimming in areas sprayed with State-approved herbicides (theoretically compliant with the County’s approved procedures, with internal oversight by the very authorities with whom the difference of “opinion” is held).

The debate over what procedures are used to notify shoreline property owners with littoral water rights and home water supplies drawn from areas of Clear Lake that are “treated” with State-approved, aquatic weed abatement chemicals, and what information is provided to the public for determining their own risks when “recreating” in the lake (which is a “critical water supply” for more than 20,000 residents in disadvantaged or severely disadvantaged communities around its basin) ended several years ago when the Lake County Board of Supervisors disbanded its long-standing Clear Lake Advisory Committee.

Two of the “Tribal environmental offices” that are monitoring the lake for lethal levels of cyanobacterial toxins, the Elem Colony and the Big Valley Rancheria Band of Pomo Indians, provide a Facebook page where the public can observe their US EPA-funded (and US EPA-procedurally obtained) findings:  www.facebook.com/clearlakewaterquality

Neither of these “Tribal environmental offices” issued an official statement that indicated disagreement with the County Department of Water Resources’ June 5, 2017, “Notice of Aquatic Plant Management Activities in Clear Lake.” The source of the advice to local Tribal members (responding to the Lake County announcement of herbicide applications) was the “Tribal environmental office” of the Habematolel Pomo of Upper Lake, which was promoted on a Tribal member’s facebook page and then became widespread throughout the community.

The June 21, 2017, Lake County press release (“Is it safe to swim in Clear Lake”) as usual conflates the two issues while attempting to trivialize the long-standing “difference of opinion” between the ancestral stewards of the lake and the Chamber of Commerce-driven county administration. Thank you for “providing defined areas” (column space) for your readers to share the very hard work of providing accurate, timely, and useful information to the many and varied users of Clear Lake, the oldest natural lake in the Western Hemisphere, and the largest natural water body entirely within the State of California.

Betsy Cawn

The Essential Public Information Center

Upper Lake, CA

PS, Mr. Bedrock, I’m sure there’s a much more appropriate term for this [expletive deleted]; please do contribute your sagacious wise-acreing if you would be so kind.

THE DEBATE RAGES (MCN Listserve)

Jacobin-Don't Fly Like a GA-06

Alan Haack wrote:

Well, Monday night quarterbacking is such an old toy. Blah blah blah. What is this person really proposing should be done, stated in one or two simple sentences? I read the whole thing and can't find anything other than complex whining and tiresome regurgitation. On and on and on. Maybe someone else can see a real action plan here and summarize. Do you suppose the writer is getting paid by the word? LOL

* * *

Carol Mattessich wrote:

Thinking and communicating thought is also "action."  She is telling the Democratic Party that they had better learn from the Ossoff debacle that neoliberalism won't cut it anymore, and they had better hop on board the Bernie train if they want to stay viable as a party.

* * *

Alan Haack wrote:

Okay, I get that the Democrats need to come up with another direction than neoliberalism, i.e. crony capitalism. It doesn't take this writer to announce that, it's old news.

However, to say, as the writer does, that Bernie Sanders is "the most popular politician in America" diminishes her credibility to nothing. That is not true. In fact, the refusal of Bernie supporters nationally to vote for Hillary Clinton in the final produced the election of Donald Trump. Do I want a mea culpa from these people? YES, at the very least "We screwed up and are sorry." That would cover their responsibility for this debacle we are stuck with for several years, barring an impeachment.

A much better news article if you like this sort of political thing is the Maxine Waters clip. She proves she can add and subtract and is an excellent speaker. Concise and to the point. Like her or not. I do, btw, if for no other reason than she speaks clearly. You know what she's thinking.

Sanders can take 10 minutes babbling away, saying nothing, end up back where he started and he thinks he is heavy! The Bernie group are lightweight political amateurs and proved their inability to function politically by not supporting Hillary Clinton when it mattered to them and to us. That is the real reason for all the Democrat's Monday night quarterbacking. These people still refuse to take responsibility for losing the presidency but, boy, can they talk and write and it's all crapola. They still don't get it. Bernie Sanders elected Donald Trump.

* * *

Carol Mattessich wrote:

Alan,

Neoliberalism gave us Donald Trump.  He is a symptom, not the disease. Also, I have never heard a more plain spoken politician in my life than Bernie Sanders!  I think he could have won had the Democratic Party establishment and the corporate media not shut him out, red baited him, etc.

So we disagree and no amount of argument will change that.  However, a question for you is:  if you take away neoliberalism from the Democrats AND you disavow Bernie's social democratic policies, what or who will the Democrats represent?

* * *

Alan Haack wrote:

Good question. I do not "disavow" social democratic policies at all. In fact that is what I want. I do express skepticism that anything other than failure can come from any politician who didn't and apparently still doesn't know how to play the game. This election did not come out better for the country. Instead, Sanders made a very stupid amateur move, refusing to get his followers to vote for Clinton. She lost, he lost and now both are somewhat old news.

Is Clinton still viable? Does she want to be? Is Sanders willing to rethink his political maneuvers and do a better job at "the art of compromise" as politics is termed? I see no evidence of that. Until he does, he will be known as the guy who elected Trump.

There is nothing perfect about the system we have, but running for national office implies a deep understanding of HOW to run. Sanders didn't have it. When the critical moment arrived, he refused to endorse Clinton in order to prevent the unthinkable, a Trump presidency.

Thank you Bernie Sanders, you screwed up. I see no evidence that you have figured it out, much less that you have a plan of how to go forward in the Potemkin Trump kingdom.

* * *

John Fremont wrote:

Not true, Alan. I held my nose and voted for Clinton because Bernie told me to.

JONATHAN MARSHALL, KMEC Interview, July 10, 2017

He is an award-winning journalist and author of five books on international affairs and national security. Marshall has recently published a series of articles on the influence of foreign money in American politics, featured on ConsortiumNews. He states: “The combination of lax enforcement and tremendously high stakes — including billions of dollars in foreign aid, arms sales, and economic sanctions — has led to intense foreign lobbying in the United States, some of it financed with recycled U.S. aid.”

On Russia’s influence in American politics, Marshall writes: “Russia-gate has focused attention on requirements for U.S. citizens acting as ‘foreign agents’ to register with the Justice Department, but these rules have been sporadically or selectively enforced for decades.”

In “Saudis Win Hearts by Lining Pockets,” Marshall cites evidence that “the Saudi government now employs 14 lobbying firms, at an estimated cost of well over $1.3 million a month, more than it spent in all of 2000. Their hired guns include Podesta Group, co-founded by Tony Podesta, one of the Democratic Party’s top fundraisers, and his brother John Podesta, who was Hillary Clinton’s national campaign chairman in 2016; BGR Group, whose name partners include the former head of the Republican Party; and former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Mississippi. …

“In its quest for influence,” Marshall adds, “Saudi Arabia takes no chances and spares no expense. Since the 1940s, when their country became an oil superpower, the Saudis have handed out vast sums of cash on a bipartisan basis to powerful and soon-to-be powerful Americans.”

On Israel’s influence in American politics Marshall states: “Unlike most other foreign lobbies, the pro-Israel lobby draws much of its strength from grass-roots support. With little organized opposition, it can influence Congress more readily than better-funded business lobbies that face stiff competition. However, the single biggest source of its power is not voters — only a tiny percentage make Israel their top political priority — but campaign funds.

“Hillary Clinton’s pandering to the pro-Israel lobby during the 2016 election — promising AIPAC that she would take relations with Israel ‘to the next level’ and that she would meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during her first month in office — reflected her financial dependence on pro-Israel funders. Chief among them was billionaire donor Haim Saban, a hawkish Israeli-American who famously said, ‘I’m a one-issue guy, and my issue is Israel.’”

However, Marshall also notes that: “As Israel pursues ever more extreme policies grounded in ethnic and religious nationalism, the pro-Israel lobby has become increasingly aligned with the Republican Party.”

Marshall’s articles also examine political lobbying by Turkey, Ukraine, and Taiwan.

(— John Sakowicz)