Mendocino County Today: Thursday, July 20, 2017

• Homeless Union
• Little Dog
• Independent Audit
• Cultivator Comments
• Nobel Nonsense
• Kelseyville Shooting
• Yesterday's Catch
• Progressive Tax
• Self Promoter
• Women's Retreat
• Turkey Vulture
• Quiz Nights
• Deadbeat Diner
• Writers Conference
• Woodworking Grant
• Chinese Labor
• Thomas Mann
• Water Director
• Wealth's Daughter
• Ukiah Fair

FORT BRAGG NOTES

by Rex Gressett

I dropped by the Fort Bragg mayor’s office Monday morning meeting earlier this week about 45 minutes late for his one hour meeting. I was just in time to learn that the Paul Bunyon Day festivities had arranged for insurance, so the event is on. You read it first in the AVA.

In the few minutes that I had with the mayor I asked him the question I had come by to ask. What is up, saith me, with the highly touted, abstractly optimistic Homeless Action Plan put forward by our innovative and proactive Mayor Lindy Peters? We have the homeless, what of the action? The mayor sputtered out his innocence of any specific planning. No meetings are scheduled.

The mayor however has not only been doing nothing. Lindy likes being mayor. He likes it a lot. His ear is constantly to the ground and from that posture he cannot mistake the temper of the city. The Fort Bragg planning commission has been fed the facts and asked to drop a terminal bomb Wednesday next week at 6:00 on Hostility House. Action by the Planning Committee seems unavoidable in light of the number, nature and magnitude of the complaints that have accumulated in heaping drifts around Fort Bragg’s only homeless shelter. The form of the action contemplated would be fatal to the operations of the house.

None of the 15 county agencies, local faith groups, and interested parties who swore allegiance to the Homeless Action Plan has been contacted or informed of the next step in the proposed seminal study and public discussion of homelessness. There isn’t one. But one interested group has been quietly (actually secretly) mobilizing, organizing and muttering together in the bushes of a field near you. The homeless themselves, who have been utterly absent from the several years of continuing public dialogue and political controversy are undertaking to form a group of themselves to represent their own interests. They are calling it a union. The Fort Bragg homeless services monopoly, aka Mendocino Coast Hospitality Center, which has been so lavishly funded to look blankly at them and make irrelevant and improbable suggestions if pressed is their target.

Homeless people in Fort Bragg are infinitely diverse but to the degree they have interacted with MCHC they are quite universally, as far as my diligent first hand inquiry has been able to ascertain, pissed.

Here are the facts. One million dollars in cold federal cash was used by MCHC to buy a landmark historic property in the center of the business district of a financially failing city. Buying a hotel to house homeless people seems logical but it was never their intention stated or otherwise to actually house homeless people in the hotel. Eight rooms were supposed to be used for transitional housing for MCHC clients who had demonstrated to their satisfaction a sufficient willingness to subordinate their best interests and their future to the regime of drug and financial dependency offered as an antidote to despair by MCHC.

Even on paper only those obedient few who were already scheduled for “transition” to subsidized housing were to be given temporary rooms. In other words, those eight clients out of the 34 that they deal with at any given moment, who did not have an emergency need for housing were to be allowed to pause at the hotel as they went through the system and down the drain. So far not one of the eight rooms has been used for this purpose. At the multimillion dollar Hospitality Center homeless people are allowed to sit in the lobby for a maximum thirty minutes. The smiling social workers do provide a substance alleged to be coffee. Desperate clients are also introduced to a progressive housing first policy. The prospect of a housing voucher is fair cause for initial optimism. Everybody gets a voucher. No one, however, gets an apartment. No landlord in the city will accept them. You can console yourself by getting on a waiting list for subsidized federal housing but you can do that faster and more directly without MCHC assistance.

You can wash your clothes at the hospitality house if you are inclined to brave the chaos and danger that involves. To make that function more effective a brand new washer and a brand new dryer were donated to Hospitality House. The new appliances were installed in the private residence of the director of the house, Anna Shaw. Kindly she gave her old ones for the use of the homeless.

Ms Shaw also drives a new car. I understand that it is a PT Cruiser also donated to Hospitality House. It is easy to understand that they cannot have homeless people riding around in it, the seats would get so dirty. So Ms. Shaw, scrupulous manager that she is, kept that as well.

Ms. Shaw receives a salary but they won’t tell me what it is. (I will find out.) I can say that she works in what are without dispute the most gracious offices in the city. They should be. They cost the city a cold million in city grant money. The loyal workers who assist her are clients selected on the basis of demonstrated capacity for stolid obedience. They are a tight little community of helpers doing good work for themselves. They smile woodenly and emanate palpable resentment for the ragged clientele that they get paid to do nothing for. They don’t call it Hostility House for nothing.

The profound anger of the homeless themselves was the untold story that lurked in the background of the public discussion of the MCHC money scandal. One selected shill of a homeless woman was paraded by Anna Shaw before the City Council meetings that gave them their million. That individual cried on the platform in abject gratitude but has in my hearing subsequently and abjectly repented.

When the city had their dialogue about MCHC, we heard from all factions. The grand waterfall of pious pretension that cascaded from the social services loyalists and put the cat in the bag for their willingly credulous co-conspirators on the City Council bore all in its flood. In the raptures of their sanctimony no one thought it relevant to inquire into the opinions of the people who were at issue.

I don’t know what the outcome will be of the Homeless Action Plan. I don’t know what they are going to do with Hostility House. I do know that this time around in whatever discussion occurs the homeless themselves will be participants.

Follows the flyer now being distributed to the homeless:

Join the Union for the Homeless. Get Involved.

The city of Fort Bragg at the urging of our mayor Lindy Peters , and every county agency in Mendocino have undertaken to develop a Homeless Action Plan to be conducted over the next six months. Everyone knows what they are doing now is not working. Fifteen agencies have committed themselves to participate the study. They are going to be discussing you, your situation, your future.

Every agency participant in the study is funded. They are going to be paid to talk about you. They are going to be making decisions about how millions of dollars will be spent supposedly to help homeless people.

Actually the money has already been spent. At the end of every week every participant in the study, every social worker, advisor, councilor and all of their functionaries and secretaries and bean counters and the lawyers that they hire, are all going to get fat paychecks to compensate them for their concern. They get paid, didn’t you know? First things first.

As the Homeless Action Plan study period progresses you can be sure that no one who is actually homeless is going to be involved in he discussion. You are not invited. Just as you will not get the money that they are spending you will not be asked to participate in the discussion. You will get their expensive advice and their not very courteous consideration. They expect you to be polite and humble. Don’t ask too many questions.

If that works for you relax. Go down to the Hospitality Center and have a cup of coffee. Sit on their expensive benches, enjoy the flowers. You will have 30 minutes to hang out in the lobby. Good luck.

The County of Mendocino has more homeless people per capita than any other county in the nation. We are a small nomadic nation of desperate people. One might think that it is possible that homeless people themselves know a little about the violence the despair, the anguish of living in the bushes and the woods and in our cars. But not one of the fifteen agencies that are entrusted with county and federal bucks thinks it is necessary to have actual homeless folks participate in the study. Keeping us isolated, desperate and afraid is essential to their continuing money grab.

They are going to be conducting their study and figuring out how to spend millions of county, city and federal dollars without consulting us. They are smugly certain that homeless people themselves have no contribution to make. Some of us have been speculating that perhaps people that are actually homeless understand our own situation better than the overfed, overpaid, underachieving social workers who hold our future in their hands.

If you want to get involved in your own future. If you think that the millions of dollars that they are passing out to each other might possibly be better spent, you are not alone. If you want to fight for your own survival join a union of people who are homeless. That by deliberate intention does not include any social workers, bureaucrats, officials or sleazy drug peddling doctors. The Union for the Homeless is — of us, by us, for us.

I don’t know what we can do, but I am very sure they are not going to do anything for us without a fight. Join us and at least you will be included in their discussion. You will be heard.

If you have the idea that sitting passively and waiting for someone else to decide what to do with you might not be the most effective course of action, if you are pissed, optimistic, idealistic or sufficiently disgusted, Stop being polite. Force our participation in the Homeless Action Plan. Create the future that they intend to steal from us. Join the Union for the Homeless.

Your name will be kept confidential.

LITTLE DOG SAYS, “See the mooning this morning? Of course you didn't. It was 3am, and only me and a coupla loggers were awake.”

MOLGAARD’S NEAR MELTDOWN

OR…

Tuesday, July 18, 2017, Board of Supervisors meeting.

Subject: Approval of language for Mental Health Treatment ballot measure for November ballot.

Anne Molgaard, Deputy Director of Health & Human Services: My only concern is by stating it this way, I hope that we’re not creating double the work. When you say audit do you mean the normal budgetary auditing processes that we go through with our county, or elected…

Board Chair John McCowen: There will be a specific audit of these funds.

Molgaard: And how…?

McCowen: And I really wish you’d have looked at your email this morning before you came in.

Molgaard: Perhaps I should have. But the problem is, is that — where does it say that there’s going to be a specific audit? Is it just here?

McCowen: Why don’t you read through it all and see if you still have a question. There will be annual audits, that’s the point we’re trying to make.

Molgaard: I see.

McCowen: So please — I don’t wish to have this debate with you right now.

Molgaard: I’m not debating anything Chair McCowen. I’m trying to make sure that we don’t create double work for people who are already working really, really really hard.

McCowen: We need to make sure the funds are properly spent, that’s all we’re…

Molgaard: Of course we do! Of course we do! That’s not my question!

McCowen: If anyone is better qualified than I am to respond to that question, please feel free. County Counsel? Sheriff Allman?

No one stepped forward immediately.

Supervisor Carre Brown: I’d like to know where the misspelled word is that she mentioned.

“INDEPENDENT AUDIT.” That seemed to be the trigger phrase. Ms. M almost lost it, choking back a sob at what she seems to regard as a threat. One more word out of McCowen and the Deputy Director would have gone all the way off. As it was, she pivoted from the dais with a disjointed, over-the-shoulder riff about her “hardworking” staff.

MENDOCINO COUNTY’S mostly privatized mental health system is a textbook un-system. There is zero accountability, zero oversight, of a roughly-40-or-so-person department that manages to spend many annual millions doing what? Ms. Molgaard was deeply offended at the idea of an audit which should have been commissioned years ago. Basically, you have a bunch of county-employed people doing… nothing. The tough mental health cases are shipped outtahere at upwards of $800 a day.

SHERIFF ALLMAN’S in-county psych unit would be unnecessary if the millions spent on the Molgaard apparatus were even minimally effective.

SELECTED COMMENTS from the Tuesday, July 18, 2017 Board of Supes meeting which was attempting to address streamlining the County’s burdensome and expensive pot permit process.

* * *

ASHLEY OLDHAM, cultivator, Redwood Valley, Frost Valley Farms.

Thank you all for the time and energy you have put into this. It is much appreciated. I personally have put a lot of work into this. My file is wonderful, complete, and immaculate. I have jumped through all of the hoops. However, I still do not have a hardcopy of my permit. It has not been signed off by Building and Planning. I believe it must be because they are understaffed for their workload. I hope there is something we can do to help them out and to streamline this process in some way. I am very concerned that a lot of people are not going to be applying for permits because the county is so backed up. I have filed all my permits for my greenhouse and I was told that the wait for my initial inspection was so far out that I would miss my growing season entirely. So I took it upon myself to hire a third-party engineer to do a special inspection which is yet another fee that I have had to pay. I just hope there is a way to streamline this. Another issue I see is the implementation of unreasonably strict guidelines and requirements. I have spent a lot of time reading through Americans With Disabilities Act law and what I've found is that ADA requirements kick in if a company has more than five full-time employees or is open to the public. Most of our farms do not fall into that category. So I am wondering why you are implementing such harsh guidelines. It also states in the ADA law that if bringing a structure up to ADA compliance puts an undue hardship on the owner so that if such alterations were made a disabled individual would still not be able to perform the necessary tasks, then a business does not have to comply with ADA requirements as long as they are not open to the public. I say that with the utmost respect to the handicapped community. A person with a physical handicap would still be unable to perform the farm tasks that I would require from an employee no matter how accessible I make my greenhouse. They would have an extremely difficult time crawling around under plants, dealing with irrigation matters, putting plants into beds, and keeping things at a very specific level. It's not discriminatory, it's just unrealistic. I have called around to local businesses and they have told me about other physical requirements that they have. A lot of places require people to lift 50 or 75 pounds such as Friedman Brothers or Home Depot. They have physical requirements for their employees that we would have as well. I ran the numbers to make my property ADA compliant. It looks like it will cost me between $40,000 and $50,000 to bring my property to full ADA compliance. This is unreasonable and it is a lot of money. There is absolutely no way that I am going to be able to afford that. And I am sure most of the people in this room are probably in the same position. We are small farmers. I really hope that you guys don't let this happen. I think you can work this out. At the very least I think we should be able to use portapotties with service contracts as opposed to a fully permitted bathroom. Thank you.

* * *

TED LIESE, COVELO.

I am a small family farmer out of Covelo. Covelo is an economically depressed area as I'm sure you know. Everybody in Mendocino County knows. My family is lucky enough to be AG-40. We are on our way to compliance. But I am really concerned about what's going to happen to my friends and neighbors who have been there for 20 or 30 years when you take this small, supplemental income away from these families. We have a crime problem and we can't even get a deputy up there. We do not have a resident deputy. Period. You take this supplemental income away from people and don't offer them some kind of cottage license so they can still farm and function and do what they've been doing for the last 20 years — it will devastate that community. And it will hit many other communities in Mendocino County as well. It will drive crime up. You already have the corporations and the cartels that are already operating in Covelo. They're in Covelo! You see a huge cartel presence everywhere. Those are the people who need to be addressed. Those are the people we need to be running out of the county, not the mom and pops that have been here supporting the economy of this great county, keeping our businesses in business, and keeping money in the county. These corporations that are funded with out-of-state money — that money is not going to stay here. They are going to pay their permit fees and all these other things. But at the end of the day that money is going somewhere else. It's not going to stay here. It's not going to help our county. And it's not going to help the people who have grown this Mendocino brand. Let's face it, Mendocino weed is a brand. We are all proud of it. The people who go to these meetings trying to be compliant are the people who are not poisoning creeks, not diverting out of the streams. Everybody who comes to these meetings actually gives a shit, pardon my language. But you are driving them out. You are going to find out that you will have a lot of good, hard-working people who care about the environment and care about the county who will see their property values taken down because of the zoning issues and so forth. This needs to be rethought. The people who have been here doing this and who keep their money here need help. That's all I have to say. It's up to you guys and I hope you do the right thing.

NOBEL NONSENSE

Editor,

Nobel prize winner Bob Dylan is to singing as Salvador Dali is to painting. Neither makes any sense. Thank God!

Dan Clark, Jenner

A KELSEYVILLE MAN was shot and killed in his home early Wednesday morning, Lake County sheriff’s deputies said.

Deputies were notified of home invasion and shooting around 3:25 a.m., according to a statement by the Sheriff’s Office, and when deputies arrived at the house in the 5000 State St. they found the man dead of an apparent gunshot wound.

Two people of interest remain at large, the Sheriff’s Office said. One, a male suspect around 5 foot 6 inches tall, was last seen running from the residence wearing a dark hooded sweatshirt, the Sheriff’s Office said.

The north end of State Street is closed indefinitely for the investigation, the Sheriff’s Office said.

Man shot, killed during Kelseyville home invasion

CATCH OF THE DAY, July 19, 2017

BRET BENGSTON, Ukiah. Parole violation. (Frequent flyer.)

JERIMIE BURGER, Fremont/Ukiah. Controlled substance, probation revocation.

CHRISTOPHER DAUGHERTY, Ukiah. Probation revocation.

RUSTY EASTER, Fort Bragg. First degree robbery, assault with deadly weapon with great bodily injury, battery, great bodily injury in commission of felony, failure to appear.

CAMERON HAMMOND, Ukiah. Failure to appear, probation revocation.

DEBRA LEE, Olivehurst/Willits. Vehicle theft, controlled substance for sale.

GERALD MILLER, Ukiah. Assault with deadly weapon not a gun, suspended license, failure to appear.

DAYNIECE SHILLINGS, Ukiah. Domestic battery, probation revocation.

DESMOND SMITH, Willits. Probation revocation.

KRISTINE TUPPER. Ukiah. Probation revocation.

JEROME VANN, Gretna, Louisiana/Ukiah. Hit&run with property damage.

CHARLES WHIPPLE, Covelo. Community supervision violation.

SEATTLE further cemented its reputation as one of the most progressive cities in the US last week when its City Council passed a law to tax the rich, sponsored by socialist City Councilmember Kshama Sawant along with Councilmember Lisa Herbold. The law places a 2.25% tax on individual incomes over $250,000 and $500,000 for married couples. It’s expected to raise as much as $175 million to fund affordable housing, education, transit, human services, and other critical needs. (Adam Ziemkowski And Rebekah Liberian)

ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

Trump went broke and the banks had to bail him out. Trump spends on the edge and if he can overspend and get someone to bail him out he will.

He had enough skill to take the million dollars his father left him and build an empire with it just as you or I could have done had we the same nut to start with.

Trump’s presence has irritated me for forty years ever since I saw an article about him in a New York real estate magazine in a doctors office. He was in his twenties and hard at work self promoting himself which truth be told is all he has ever done. He was an abrasive self promoting asshole stuck on himself even then. No surprise there since that is his essential nature. A self promoting asshole.

He makes money in a booming economy because that is what money does. When things get tough he loses it.

Does anyone ever consider that wiring a house and switching out an automatic transmission might actually show more ability than wearing a suit and talking shit. So bent on worshiping authority are we that we neglect the obvious.

Trump does well when yeast people multiply but he does not do well when times are tough.

WHATEVER PATH....

No Need to Panic. You still have 8 days left to get your Early Bird Discount for the 9th Annual Mendocino Women’s Retreat. Go to www.mendowomensretreat.org to register or for more info. Do this before July 27th for the discount. Or call June 734-0505 or Lara 357-5365

We, the planners for this year are very excited about how the retreat is shaping up. The theme, Many Paths, One Heart ~ Sharing in Sacred Circle is promising to lead us into deeper connections with our selves and each other. So, come Share in Sacred Circle, September 22-24th singing, dancing, swimming, creating with Nature, or just kick back. Catch up with old friends and make new ones. We will gather again at beautiful River’s Bend Retreat Center where we will feast on organic catered meals and enjoy a variety of accommodations to suit every need. Some scholarships are available and will be awarded based on need and a first come, first served basis. Whatever path you are on and wherever you are on your path you are welcome to join the Circle!

STEVE SPARKS WRITES:

The General Knowledge and Trivia Quiz... … is not taking place this week. These take place on the 2nd and 4th Thursdays and will resume next week on July 27th at Lauren's Restaurant, 7pm prompt. That's all I wanted to share with you and I have nothing amusing/fascinating or slow-witted/boring to add. Hope to see you there... Steve / The Quiz Master.

ANYBODY KNOW THIS DEADBEAT?

kelvinandliz@gmail.com wrote:

Looking for a visitor that came to our restaurant on Sunday night. His name may be Ian N Brown-Gelb. If you know where he is staying please contact me immediately. He claimed to have no funds to pay for his meal, had several cards declined and though we do not accept checks, left one without authorization which has not cleared, deceived and intimidated the server.

FREE PUBLIC EVENTS during the 2017 Mendocino Coast Writers Conference

Mark your calendars!

Wonderful free events during this year's writers' conference.

Thursday, August 3

Friday, August 4

Saturday, August 5

Free events

APPLICATIONS AVAILABLE NOW FOR THE KRENOV FOUNDATION

2017 Professional Development Award

Applications are now available for The Krenov Foundation’s 2017 Professional Development Award, a grant of $2500 intended to assist an emerging fine woodworker in an artist-in-residence, or as a visiting scholar at a nationally recognized woodworking school or craft center.

Any emerging or mid-career fine woodworking professional, with a minimum of 4 years of experience, who will be working as an artist-in-residence, visiting scholar, or faculty collaborator at a nationally recognized Woodworking School or Arts and Crafts Center is eligible for The Krenov Foundation Professional Development Award.

Applications can be found online at http://www.thekrenovfoundation.org/professionaldevelopmentaward/.org, are due no later than August 31, 2017, and must be accompanied by a statement of purpose, resume, supporting financial documents, two letters of recommendation, as well as digital photographs. TKF’s 2017 Professional Development Award is meant to fund a residency that begins no later than December 31, 2018. For more information, email TKF’s Scholarship & Awards Committee Chair Bob Gallagher at thekrenovfoundation@mcn.org.

REMEMBERING THE CONTRIBUTION OF CHINESE LABORERS – 1870s

Workers from China started arriving in San Francisco around the time of the Gold Rush, but it wasn’t until 1852 that they came by the thousands. Most hurried to the gold mines or found jobs in San Francisco’s numerous cigar and shoe factories, but a small number were employed by northern California’s wineries. After the transcontinental railroad was completed in 1869, more Chinese laborers moved into the grape fields. One of the best places to see physical evidence of the contribution of Chinese workers to the wine business is at Schramsberg Vineyards in Calistoga, at the northern end of the Napa Valley. Jacob Schram, a German immigrant, bought 200 acres on Mt. Diamond in 1862 and planted 30,000 vines. His winery gained fame after the author Robert Louis Stevenson wrote about it in his 1883 book, The Silverado Squatters. In 1870, Schram hired about ten Chinese men to excavate a wine cave that extended about a quarter-mile into the tufa rock. The workers bunked in a wooden cabin that still sits on the property.

Schram died in 1905 and the property languished until Jack and Jamie Davies purchased it in 1965. They decided to focus on making sparkling wine in the Champagne style, to great success. Every President since Richard Nixon has featured the company’s sparkling wine at the White House or some official celebration and photos of those events decorate the visitor’s center. The best way to see reminders of the Chinese workers is by taking one of Schramsberg’s daily one-and-a-half hour tours through the caves. The $70 fee includes tastings of its bubbly. One illuminated part of the cave still shows the pick and shovel marks made by the Chinese workers about 147 years ago. Visitors can also stroll up the road past Schram’s home, and see the small cabin that quartered the laborers. (From a history of the wine industry in the Bay Area.)

CHINESE did much, if not all, of the tunnel work in Mendocino County, from the Skunk Railroad to the Potter Valley Diversion to the Navarro cistern.

THOMAS MANN: BETWEEN BEAUTY & MUCK

by Manuel Vicent

Translated by Louis S. Bedrock

It’s possible that the life of a reader is divided into two parts: before and after having read Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain. It has to do with one’s first great literary ascent in which the reader tries to assess his own powers.

I remember confronting this ascent of the Swiss Alps when I was 20 years. I achieved it one summer later after two failed attempts.

The seaside resort in which I found myself in no way resembled that sanitarium in Davos Dorf which was filled with tuberculosis patients who discussed philosophy, theology, psychoanalysis, medicine, religion, sex, and death, while struggling against the Koch bacillus. Contemplating the stark light of the Mediterranean and listening to the angry complaints of the cicadas, it was difficult to imagine Naphta and Settembrini in hammocks, basking in the rays of a snow-colored sun that peered between the sheets of fog from time to time.

However, that novel, whose weight bent my wrists, made me aware that there was a German writer who wore a stiff collar and a bow tie; who had a thick mustache; who was the descendent of an upper middle class family in Lübeck; and who was unwilling to shed the image of a gentleman despite being buffeted by all the political, social, and moral passions of the first half of the twentieth century.

From the time of his youth until his final days, Thomas Mann kept a diary that could only be read twenty years after his death according to his wishes as expressed in his will. In different secret notebooks, he had been recording the details of his existence. Every day, one after another, was scrutinized in all its anodyne acts: thousands of breakfasts with poached eggs; thousands of colds and episodes of seasickness; thousand of walks either alone or with his wife Katia or with his dog Toby, in the woods, through parks in the different cities in which he lived, in his own country, or in exile in Switzerland or the United States.

In these meticulously dated pages, he recorded visits by friends; teas at five o’clock in the afternoon; trips in trains, cars, and ships; pieces of music he heard while smoking a cigar before going to bed; nocturnal emissions—masturbation and other salacious bodily processes; and the homosexual desire he felt toward a young attractive waiter.

On the other hand, one line in the diary was sufficient to note Hitler’s coming to power, while half of a very small paragraph noted the advent of the Second World War—the other half dealt with the tribulations he suffered because of his children, work on the different books he was writing, his essays, his conferences, his speeches—with hardly a single other thought that was not the sound of the minute hand on the clock which marked the flow of his life.

Apparently, Thomas Mann believed that any daily trivial event possessed a divine transcendence if it happened to him. His self esteem was capable of converting a cold into a supreme event. But these secret writings had the virtue of showing us the inner rubble that he hid behind an impeccable facade without a single crack.

Thomas Mann was very reserved and always protected by the mask of a respectable bourgeois. He transferred his private passions to his long term work in which any turmoil might be allowed as long as it didn’t disrupt beauty. In his literary incarnation, he felt intangible.

Although he confessed his turbid desires for the bodies of young men only in his diary, which was kept under lock and key, this repressed impulse would lead him to write Death In Venice and in its pages he would allow that obsession, nourished only in impossible fantasies, to flow freely, abetted by aesthetics. He felt safe when he was protected by art. For Thomas Mann, fiction was a barricade.

In the novel Buddenbrooks, through which he attained a stunning early success, he submerged himself to tell the story of his own family, an aristocratic clan formed by a father who was a senator and financier, a creole mother of high lineage; a family that was slowly dissipating its glorious past as merchants leading up to the suicide in real life of two of his sisters—one by arsenic and the other hanging herself from a rafter. When the moment arrived, Thomas Mann knew how to navigate the politics of Central Europe without losing his composure. During the First World War, he was a dedicated nationalistic German patriot who supported armed conflict. In the 1920s, he evolved into a social democrat somewhere between the aristocracy of Goethe, orgiastic and Apollonian, and the nihilism and will to power of Nietzsche, empowered by the timpani of Wagner. That tormented conflict within his spirit caused him to end up on a rugged coast where he became a bulwark against the barbarism of the Nazis. In that struggle, he burned all his boats.

His own wife was of Jewish ancestry, so he risked whatever was necessary to not lose his dignity in exchange for losing his German nationality. His books were prohibited in his own country, a muted persecution that became increasingly explicit and forced him to go into exile in the United States where he became a strong advocate against Hitler.

While Europe prepared to burn on all four sides, Thomas Mann was recording in his notebooks the poached eggs for breakfast, the walks, the visits, the erections, and the glances at the young waiter behind his back which he had been unable to repress: the essential fabric of his life that alternated with conferences, pamphlets, receptions, and homages, none of which impeded his capacity to write profound, dense, and biblical novels.

In his diaries, Mann intermingles Einstein with stars of Hollywood and with professors of Princeton or of Harvard as he makes his way through the obstacles he encounters while ascending other literary peaks. To always write with nobility, poised on the edge of a cliff between beauty and muck, between aesthetics and putrefaction—this was the summit that most attracted him.

Throughout his biography remain Mann’s memories of young boys. His first love was a school companion, Armin Martens; then William Timpe. To the list, one may add hotel bell boys, waiters, and other swimmers on the beach who eventually evolve into Tadzio, pursued by the glances of the writer Gustav von Aschenbach in the hallways of the Gran Hotel of Bain del Lido in Venice.

Thomas Mann probably never dared to pursue this eroticism, but his memories were enough to excite him before these evanescent shadows reflected in a glazed mirror. The middle class characters in his novels also remembered furtive loves with florists or the daughter of the baker that sufficed to infuse romanticism in the pristine infatuations of one’s youth. The social status conferred by the Nobel Prize, far from liberating him, impeded him from exhibiting himself without the mask of respectability that the world expected. His physical evolution can be assessed from a family photograph album. The images reveal a successful young man with airs of a dandy congealing into the form of a rigid gentleman sitting in the proper armchair at any moment with his ever increasingly trimmed mustache, surrounded by blurred women with sun hats and white dresses, and, ultimately, winding up as a meticulous old man in whose subdued expression one detects, in the distance, the impudent wild horses of his interior that he had tamed in order to continue being admired and respected.

And so it was until Death called upon him and was received as the final coronation. However, he was no longer able to note this in his diary.

GOVERNOR BROWN APPOINTS GRANT DAVIS AS DEPARTMENT OF WATER RESOURCES DIRECTOR

by Dan Bacher

Governor Jerry Brown today appointed Grant Davis, 54, of Petaluma, as director of the embattled California Department of Water Resources (DWR).

The appointment comes at a critical time for the Department, as the agency reels from intense international and national media scrutiny of its mishandling of the Oroville Dam spillway crisis. DWR is also the lead state agency in the collaborative effort with the Donald Trump administration to build Jerry Brown’s controversial “legacy project," the Delta Tunnels.

Davis has been general manager of the Sonoma County Water Agency since February 2011. Before that he was the interim general manager from 2009 to 2011 and the assistant general manager from 2007 to 2009.

“The agency provides wholesale water, wastewater treatment and flood control. It is the largest energy user in the county and became carbon-free in 2015 by providing its water through 100 percent renewable energy,” according to the Governor’s Office.

Davis was executive director of the Bay Institute from 1997 to 2007, senior district representative in the Office of Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey from 1993 to 1997 and principal of Impact Consulting from 1990 to 1993.

Davis currently serves on the University of California President’s Advisory Commission, for the Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources. In addition, Davis is the president of WateReuse California, a member of the Bay Planning Coalition, and a member of the San Francisco Bay Restoration Authority Advisory Committee. Mr. Davis received his BA in political science from the University of California at Berkeley.

This position requires Senate confirmation and the compensation is $194,600. Davis is a Democrat.

Public trust advocates are expecting little to change at DWR as Davis assumes the helm. The appointment comes at a time when increasing numbers of Californians are challenging Governor Jerry Brown’s “environmental” and “climate” credentials as he teams up with the Trump administration to build the environmentally devastating Delta Tunnels and to exempt three major California oilfields from protection under the federal Safe Water Drinking Act.

On June 26, the Trump administration released a no-jeopardy finding on the biological assessment to build the tunnels, claiming that the California WaterFix will not jeopardize threatened or endangered species or adversely modify their critical habitat. The biological opinion is available here: https://www.fws.gov/sfbaydelta/HabitatConservation/CalWaterFix/Index.htm

The Brown administration praised the deeply flawed biological opinion, a document that may have been politically manipulated, in spite of the vow Jerry Brown made in January to “resist” Trump administration attacks on science.

Over 50 environmental justice and consumer organizations are also outraged by the California Legislature’s passage Monday night of the Big Oil-written cap-and-trade bill, Assembly Bill 398. The bill was rammed through the legislature under intense pressure from Governor Jerry Brown, who has received over $9.8 million in contributions for oil and energy companies.

Liza Tucker, Consumer Advocate for Consumer Watchdog, described AB 398 as a “pollute and profit” bill. She said Brown’s plan “ensures that Californians keep paying the state’s biggest polluters to pollute by banning regulators from ordering refineries and power plants to upgrade pollution controls, and by pillaging cap-and-trade revenue to pay for tax breaks.”

IS THIS YOUR FACEBOOK FIEND?

by Name Withheld

Her octogenarian dad is a retired patent attorney for one of the major oil companies. She has four siblings with whom to quibble over his million$. Anticipating that, ten years before, her parents divied up their inheritance with all five, gifting a million to each in a living will.

With her million, their only daughter shat through over $800,000 building a home ultimately assessed by Mendocino County for only $200,000, including the land. Though proven ill-equipped to build even a snowman, after a lifetime of embracing the hippie culture, she followed the Rainbow Gathering wherever it was held annually in North America in hopes of getting laid; returning home like Mrs. Winchester to hire various men to build and rebuild her do-it-yourself mistakes, paying mostly for the enjoyment of their company.

At least 65 by now, she birthed four kids by three different dads, still relying on welfare for medical insurance and food. Besides her inheritance, lucky enough to have married her daughter's dad, she somehow wrangles food stamps while awaiting her $1,000/month alimony check on the 24th of each month.

Her mother only visits her home when summoned for more money. A hoarder's mess with half a football field of trash piled under shabby tarps in the driveway not far enuf away from the house, rat turds abundantly litter the redwood deck, skirting the home. With each visit there is more wretched monetary neediness from her mother's only daughter: a new car; quite a few grand annually for Rainbow Gathering; tropical vacations off-continent; money meant to bail her out on dump runs, which she instead invested in her day-long loiter at each coffee shop in town most days of the year, doing nothing constructive with her lazy, deleterious self. She never really held a job, nor had to worry about employment, perpetually conning more money out of her super solvent parents in support of her non-productive lifestyle. 'Never bothered with further education; nor learning even one skill in all those years, ...let alone another skill 'to fall back on'. She blamed PTSD for her never having developed a work ethic like all her younger, successful brothers.

Her parents, both alive and celebrating a combined age of almost 190 years between them, set up their retirement to avoid fretting over bills in their old age. All good planning aside, her parents continue to bare the burden of putting out their free-loading daughter's emergent financial fires to this day. When she should be collecting her own retirement, (had she ever worked) she instead, depends on her family wealth to keep her in the money.

On one-occasion-after-another, her mother would write out yet another check to her little victim for hundreds or thousands, only to crumple it up and throw it to the floor for her beggar of a daughter to shamelessly retrieve from among the scribbled crossword puzzle pages, Fig Newton crumbs, joint-butt litter and human hairballs that rolled across the cork flooring of her never-cleaned decade-old home, the kitchen sink full of last week's dishes.

Sneering at her only lonely girl, it's a homely sight: red lipstick-smeared teeth yellowed by her 90 years, thin, wrinkled lips pursed into the kind of hate-to-do-it-filled dread it takes to "get it over with" when shooting the family dog, she fully knows she is contributing to her daughter's needless game of welfare fraud and bilking. It sickens her to the bottom of her well-endowed retirement fund, though she continues to enable her daughter's needy nature.

As spokesman for the family, she sneers, "Here's throwin' good money after bad. What a waste!" Disgusted, the nonagenarian stormed off to her car, catching herself as she tripped over the boxes of unused rotted and rusted canned food-bank allotments stacked up on the deck, blocking the door: also a waste. Too lazy and selfish to bring the commodities inside, quit taking what she doesn't use, or give the free food to someone who is hungry, she leaves them instead, to plump in the hot deck sun, rendering them altogether inedible.

A proper woman probably belonging to a yacht club somewhere, the family matriarch yelled over her shoulder as she struggled with her car door, that she didn't raise her kids to become welfare cheats! Angry as a twenty year old demon child, she drove heatedly in her high-end luxury car, out the paved drive littered with trash and forest debris, blowing in her wake.

Later in the year, the fraud coerced yet more money from her mom for a two week vacation to Hawaii to bring home a biker named Don, her last hope for nailing down a boyfriend before her 65th birthday. Instead, she returned with a heroin addicted compulsive liar of the same name, who convinced her to have her four perfectly fine top front teeth extracted to better facilitate fellatio.

Posthaste, she took her Medi-Cal card to the local dentist to have her top front teeth pulled and a plate made, telling the dentist that she wanted the four front false teeth 'bright white'. When the dentist made the plate to match the color of her patient's remaining stained teeth after half a hundred years of living in coffee shops, she refused to accept them, demanding, like a bad customer, that the dentist remake them more to her liking, in 'bright white'. The dentist asserted that Medi-Cal would not cover a duplicate set of whiter teeth... Even if it was for only four of the 22 teeth left in her head.

Sociopath is the word her family uses to describe her. Her mother confided, "You'll find no shame there. Not a second thought for anyone but herself. 'Didn't raise half her children. I raised her daughter when things got expensive in her teen years." (And too annoying for the grand daughter to tolerate her mom's craziness.) "I paid for two graduations, a college degree, and a wedding for my grand daughter... Her mom contributed nothing and stayed unemployed, collecting welfare. Said she'd help clean up after the wedding, but... she's never cleaned anything in her life".

In truth, the granddaughter, ignored by her mother, dumped a glass of water over her mom's head one day at... (Where else?) ...a coffee shop!! Her mother refused to leave, after loitering an unbelievable six hours with daughter in tow. Enraged, she drove her teen-aged daughter home to get her belongings and dumped her on her grandmother's doorstep where she contnued to be raised by her grandparents. Her own mother never offered her support as her parent again, dull to the needs of her only daughter after the humiliating coffee shop scene, exposing, no doubt, her intense, ugly misplaced rage.

Just when the matriarch scolded her daughter saying, "There is no free lunch," her dead-beat daughter, as if to spite her mom, ate free lunches, twice weekly, at the local senior center, telling them she had no money, asking to eat for free. What could they do but say yes to the woman with no shame? Same with the library. She wouldn't return borrowed books and her privileges were eventually revoked, but every so often, she'd beg a new volunteer to wipe her library account debt clean, in hopes of getting lucky. But more than once, volunteers were heard telling her her library privileges were revoked for x number of years, at which time she could try again.

She institutionalized her son, who went mentally ill at puberty. She sent him away early in his teen years, at the onset of his illness, where he remained, managed by an institution, for over a decade until he died, cop-killed in the hallway of a group home. Waiting in his room for his ever-absent mom to show up for an eventual visit, he sat rocking at his desk as he stabbed a flimsy paring knife into the desk blotter for police to see when they legally shot him to death, after calling him out of his room with the knife unfortunately still in his hand.

Tearless, without skipping a beat at the local coffee shops, the dead man's mother was her same old self-ish; anticipating how much money she'd get after winning her case against the group home for the murder of her son. She offered anyone who'd listen, a trip to Hawaii with her on a big vacation after she won her case, but there were no takers. Just sadness for her son.

She chose the only lawyer to entertain her concerns, because she liked his tie dyed shoe laces. As it turned out, her share of the unfortunate settlement amounted to only $2,000, on what probably totalled a ten grand payout: go away money. The lawyer got his share, and she had to split the rest with her son's father.

Locals put the word out in the local newspaper for donations, but no one gave one red cent at the time of her son's death, no matter how grievously sad. Her reputation for being a greedy hippie-glam heiress addicted to welfare scamming, preceded her everywhere she'd ever moved throughout the county. Finally, she received an anonymous donation of $200 believed to be from staff at the local news paper who made the donation to assuage any embarrassment because no one saw fit to donate: Full knowing she'd spend donations on herself at coffee shops. Her son's funeral was most likely paid for by his grandparents; as with all other frayed edges patched and stitched with familial gold in the fabric of her tattered life.

Ever obliging to a prospective man in her life, when Don went on methadone, she came up with her own spontaneous habit history without mention of any such recreational drug use requiring methadone-as-solution, previously. This enabled her to obtain her own methadone prescription, facilitating the ability to have sex with her new import while they were BOTH high on methadone: her main goal in life, at 60+ years old. 'Work that system', her motto.

Soon after, she showed up with Don at my home unannounced, excited for me to meet him. Obliged to let them in as they stood on my doorstep, he was obviously worn and drawn-looking, chasing the dragon his lifelong. A heroin-addict, he wasted no time trying to con: bragging that he'd spent time as an elephant trainer in Thailand.

"Oh? How long were you a mahout?", I asked.

"Ma-what did you say?".

"Mahout! You don't know what a mahout is, but you say you were an elephant trainer in Thailand?"

I suggested he read more travel logs before making up such stories. Even so, he insisted he'd never heard of the word "mahout", even though he had supposedly been one, nor could he give me the name of any specific elephant camp where he said he worked.

Insanity, for which she could probably legally get disability if it weren't for inheritance, is a sore subject which she avoids while exposing every other sordid detail of her psychologically absurd life to anyone who'd listen. Living as a promiscuous sexual being in her young years, she never grew beyond junior high school emotionally, remaining unemployable, and in her old age, alone and unable to support herself if she had to. Her kids would try to take up with her intermittently, only to flee, finally staying away. Nobody would have her. Still, at 65 she tried dragging various men home from gatherings to live with her, stuck in a hippie dreamworld of being rescued from her own emotional adolescence. But all attempts failed soon after the reveal, when reprobate love candidates discovered her to be a fake hippie with actual funds under her. These men were all more damaged than her psychologically, and worse; all penniless and without trust fund back-up, like her. Most were just smart enough to stay away. She'd kick the lingerers out in a scary rage of disappointment soon after arrival when they required money they had no way of procuring; possessed no skill for working on her perpetual remodels which were paid for out of her inheritance while remaining on food stamps; or disappointing sex wasn't a turn-on soon after dragging them into her bed.

She was even too lazy to install a yearly pot crop, even though she maintained ravenous consumption and her folks had paid for property secluded in the woods.

She said she didn't hang mirrors in the house because she didn't want to look at herself; so full of self-loathing, was she. Yet she vanely dyed her silver-gray hair what she called, blond, which only colored the tips, resembling the end of a white mare's tail yellowed by urine.

Her parents, apparently unable to entitle her also with self-esteem and a good work ethic, popped for practically every car she's ever driven in the last fifty years, plus all necessary repairs, besides entitling her to the roof over her head complete with every remodel she ever suggested, necessary or not.

Most recently, when her well-heeled bachelor uncle died, he left her an inheritance which burned a hole in her pocket. But still she talked about how much in food stamps she had left to spend, as though that was the benchmark barometer of her apparent endless wealth. ...or guilt. Without checking the weather, or doing much research, she fled to Europe for an ill-timed trip to Spain and France during the winter to spend immediately her large sum of money from her uncle's estate on a trip walking "The Way" in the off-season.

An acquaintance had pitied her the death of her son, and rented her a copy of the movie, "The Way". She watched the film, lamenting there was no place like that, really...

When explained to her that it was a real place along the mountains of Spain and France, and those in particular who've lost a beloved can go walk, The Way, on a spiritual journey, she wanted to go. She envied the love story part of the movie, inserted herself into that reality mode, and focused on a fantasy of finding love on The Way; more important than walking any spiritual path. The movie, of course, made appealing circumstances along The Way look easy, and the hike, too.

Having underinquired about the weather that time of year in the mountains, she stayed in what overnight lodging was open in off-season. Only half of the hostels along The Way are open in winter, which means each day's trip can be a rigorous endeavor from dawn to dusk hiking to the next open lodging before dark, in often inclimate conditions. Used to spending hours on end in coffee shops, she complained that the proprietors would not let her loiter all day long as if she was at home in a coffee shop, pushing her out early onto The Way each day to continue her journey.

She had not conditioned herself for the trip hiking in the altitude of the mountainous terrain. She was used to sitting in coffee shops at sea level instead of exercising for the alpine trek. She fell, unprepared and unable to endure the walk on The Way, ultimately taking the bus most of the way. Not fitting in well in Paris, she decided not to vacation any longer and returned to Mendocino a pitiful mess, in the middle of a rain storm, deposited after dark onto the flowing streets by the local MTA without anyone to greet her, dragging a plastic garbage bag of her belongings ...and disappointments.

Who and how does a mediocre government monitor even obvious welfare frauds in Mendocino County, if at all? Especially those with trust-fund families providing omnipresent support to their inheritors and trust funders, who lack that self-supporting, upwardly-mobile gene, and choose to remain fraudulently reliant on welfare as they piddle through their bottomless, expendable inheritance and gifts from their monetarily solvent families, never applying themselves at gainful employment, or earning an income in their lifetimes.

Does Mendocino County welfare even have a fraud investigator? Who's checking the extra money floating through bank accounts of welfare recipients and their families if the government agencies supposedly have access to welfare recipients' banking stats via debit cards, deposits, withdrawals, and checks written for documentable vacations to other countries/continents, using passports as reliable documentation of extravagances not afforded or fundable under Cal-Fresh rules as they relate to impoverished individuals and families on welfare, actually struggling in Mendocino County? Or, in this case, a lifelong welfare recipient so vocal and open, even boastful, about her chronic welfare fraud?

I asked a Mendo local what he thought about the welfare fraud in our midst passing herself off as poor when convenient, asking for hand-outs, while inheriting money hand over fist from her millionaire relatives. He repeats his same old solution for when the public loses through government inaction.

"They need to bring back the stocks... Where the public throws rotten tomatoes at 'em!"

"What good'll that do?"

"Leave the tomatoes in the food bank cans when you throw them at her!"

DANCE THE NIGHT AWAY AT THE FAIR

Four days of live music await visitors to the 2017 Redwood Empire Fair, and organizers state that these musicians exemplify the “fun” in this year’s “Fun and Games” theme.

On Thursday, August 3rd, get ready for some serious country, when Indiana Slim and the Rebel Rousers bring their brand of Classic Country to the Willow Tree Stage.

Indiana Slim inherited his gun slingin’ guitar prowess from his legendary cousin, Lonnie Mack. Over the years, he has performed with legendary performers- from Jerry Lee Lewis to Bo Diddley to Billy Idol, as well as countless blues legends. Along with Slim on guitar and vocals, the Rebel Rousers feature Kent Stephenson, lead vocals and guitar, Chris Rovetti on fiddle, Steve Carvalho on pedal steel, Aubrey “Papa” Hansen on vocals and bass and Ken Engels on drums. The band members, who have been studio musicians for many years decided to form their own country band and take their classic outlaw and honky-tonk sound on the road. They cover the old-time juke-joint songs, steeped in country tradition, for people who crave those celebrated country tunes that you just don’t hear on the radio anymore.

Another local favorite, II Big, will be performing on Friday, August 4^th.

Join Aubrey Hansen, Ken Ingels, Indiana Slim and Derek Soderquist for an evening of “Brand New Classic Rock!” Since 1994, the band has been a mainstay of the Northern California music scene, playing hundreds of gigs and building a catalog of over 100 songs on iTunes. The band, known for their house rock, boogie and blues has opened for some of the most memorable names in the Rock ‘n’ Roll pantheon- Foghat, Blue Oyster Cult, Loverboy, Grand Funk Railroad, Joe Walsh, REO Speedwagon, Ted Nugent, Jeff Healy, Creedence Clearwater Revival and Styx. When they’re not dancing, audiences are thrilled by the musical prowess, professionalism and chemistry of the band members. On Friday, fairgoers will enjoy songs from II Bigs’ brand-new CD entitled “Black Cat Bone,” along with their beloved classics. And as an added treat, Blue Luke Andrews, fresh off a tour with Julian Marley will be making a guest appearance with the band.

On Saturday night, after “Free Fallin’” at the Fair, dance under the stars to Mike Furlong’s Tribute to Tom Petty. The six Bay Area musicians who comprise the band are considered to be one of the top tribute bands in the region, voted Best of Marin and Best of North Bay in the bands category. They are hailed for playing perfect renditions of Petty’s songs, while bringing their own unique blend of musicality to Tom’s celebrated tunes.

Enjoy the bands at 6:00 and again at  9:00 on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights. On Sunday evening, close out your weekend with three exemplary Latino bands- El Nuevo Plan, Banda Pacifica and Los Nuevos Aventureros, beginning at 5:00 pm on the Willow Tree Stage. All performances are included with your Fair admission ticket.

The Fair opens at 3:00 on Thursday and Friday and at noon on Saturday and Sunday. For more information phone (707) 462-3884 or visit http://www.redwoodempirefair.com/august-fair/.