Mendocino County Today: Friday, Aug. 25, 2017

• Fire Weather
• SMART Starts
• Brookings Megafire
• Air Advisory
• Breasted
• Stumbling Incompetence
• ER Freakout
• KZYXed
• 707 Mag
• Little Dog
• Southbound Owl
• Fluid Names
• Media Notes
• Whose Rifle
• Remembering Rusty
• Yesterday's Catch
• Trump Trap
• Execution Resumption
• Wealth Care
• President Alzheimer
• Peasant Revolt
• Kaepernick Rally
• Mendocino Theatre

FIRE WEATHER WATCH THIS WEEKEND

The National Weather Service (NWS) has issued a Fire Weather Watch for the majority of Mendocino County from late Friday night through Sunday afternoon due to critically low humidity and gusty winds in areas above 2,000 ft. Please urge caution to the public and those in your organizations.

–Rick Ehlert, Emergency Services Coordinator, County of Mendocino

Below is the Fire Weather Watch from the NWS...

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Upper Smith-Lower Middle Klamath-Hoopa-Van Duzen/Mad River-Interior Mendocino-W Mendocino NF/E Mendocino Unit-Trinity

-846 PM PDT Thu Aug 24 2017

The National Weather Service in Eureka has issued a Fire Weather Watch, which is in effect from late Friday night through Sunday afternoon.

Affected Area: All interior Fire weather zones for upper  slopes and ridges above 2000 feet.

Wind: East and Northeast winds 5 to 10 mph...with gusts of 10 to 20 mph during the late night and early morning periods. Daytime winds will remain diurnally driven.

Humidity: RH recoveries of 15 to 25 percent can be expected during the nightime periods between Friday night and Monday Night at elevations above 2000 feet. Minimum daytime RH values of 7 to 15 percent across all areas through Monday.

Impacts: New or current ongoing wild fires will likely see large and rapid growth.

Precautionary/Preparedness Actions: A Fire Weather Watch means that critical fire weather conditions are forecast to occur. Listen for later forecasts and possible Red Flag Warnings.

SMART STARTS

The North Bay’s “golden spike” moment — the official return of passenger rail service after 59 years — is expected to kick off Friday with a ceremony drawing large crowds to Santa Rosa’s downtown station for speeches and inaugural rides.

Friday ceremony in Santa Rosa marks start of full SMART rail service

SOUTHERN OREGON’S CHETCO BAR FIRE

Tops 100,000 Acres With Zero Percent Containment; Outlying Areas of Brookings Evacuated

by Hank Sims

Numerous wildfires continue to rage around Northern California near the end of the summer. The Eclipse Complex — various blazes around the town of Happy Camp — has grown to over 40,000 acres, and the smoke from these and other fire complexes in the Klamath River drainage continues to choke the eastern portions of Humboldt County and western Siskiyou.

(NOTE: Updates from regional incident management teams appear in LoCO’s “Elsewhere” section, underneath “From Your Government,” while fire season is on. Check there for the latest.)

But — fingers crossed — Humboldt and environs can consider themselves lucky this year. It’s been nothing like the hellish fire year of 2015, when several megacomplexes of 40,000-plus acres burned to our north and east, and so far it’s been nothing like what’s happening just over the line into Oregon, where the Chetco Bar Fire has grown to over 100,000 acres — 60 square miles — over the course of the last month, and is now prompting evacuations of large areas around the outskirts of Brookings.

The most recent update from incident managers places the current size of the fire at 102,333 acres, with zero percent containment. Chetco Bar is now an officially designated “megafire.” Medford’s KTVL News 10 reports that the U.S. Forest Service has designated it as the number one fire priority in the nation right now.

The fire is currently just a little more than five miles outside the town of Brookings itself. The town is in a bit of a panic right now. The Brookings City Council has instituted mandatory restrictions on water usage within the town, against the possibility that the municipal water supply will be needed for firefighting efforts. The local school district has pushed back the start of the school year.

Firefighters are expecting things to get worse soon. Today’s incident update says:

The locally-known “Chetco Effect” is expected over the fire area beginning tonight, creating gusty Northeast winds and causing a drop in relative humidity and much warmer temperatures through Saturday. Firefighters have been preparing for this change in weather by building direct fire line and contingency lines on the south and southwestern portions of the fire and increasing the number of structural firefighting resources to assist with structure protection. The team will use helicopters and air tankers as weather allows.

Several homes in the area have already been destroyed, and some people are starting to raise questions about whether firefighters didn’t jump on the thing more quickly. The fire started over a month ago and far to the east of Brookings. One spokesperson told a reporter that rough terrain made a ground attack against the fire in its initial stages very difficult, and that subsequent aerial bombardments proved ineffective.

(Courtesy, LostCoastOutpost.com)

AIR QUALITY ADVISORY, Mendocino County

For: Thursday, August 24, 2017

Smoke and haze from the wildfires in Trinity, Humboldt, Del Norte, Southern Oregon and other areas of northern California are impacting the air quality and reducing visibility. High-pressure over California along with low-pressure in the Pacific north of our continent continue to generate winds from the north which transport smoke from these wildfires into Mendocino County. The forecast suggests the high pressure will influence the air quality for most of this week and the next. Also, temperatures are above normal which contributes to higher pollutant levels.

Currently air monitors show particulate matter concentrations in the 'Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups' to 'Unhealthy' ranges for parts of Mendocino County. This may continue for most of the month until the fires are out and cooler temperatures return with south-west winds.

Air quality in the “Unhealthy” range affects everyone. When air quality is in this range, it is advised to limit prolonged or heavy activity and time spent outdoors.

Mendocino County Air Quality Management District has particulate monitors running continuously measuring our air quality. These monitors report particulate matter concentrations hourly to the air District’s website. To get the latest air quality information for Mendocino County visit: www.mendoair.org.

NOT EVERYONE WAS AMUSED, a Reader writes:

As entertaining as it may have been, Sherry Glaser’s Breasts Not Busts Show did nothing to move the issue forward. And completely feigned — straight out of her performance artist playbook. Close observers claimed the crying jag was sans so much as one welled up tear in her rabid eyes. The best part was when she was railing at Croskey: "Have you ever been raided?" to which Croskey should have replied: "No, but I've never sent Schedule One controlled substances through the US mail to Texas, either." I’m just glad they were not fully unleashed, which would have been a spectacle, but not a pleasant one as gravity is taking its toll.

FORT BRAGG NOTES

by Rex Gressett

The much anticipated August 23rd Planning Commission meeting kicked off as scheduled Wednesday at six o’clock. On the agenda were two items crucial to the future of the city, and a zoning change. The Commission could be charitably characterized as dumbfounded, bewildered, and amateurish. In the end Curtis Bruchler and Nancy Swithenbank did the right thing but they were too inexperienced or too polite to be angry and they really should have been.

The Commission got steamrolled and it never squeaked. It was hard to tell if they knew what had been done to them. The Fort Bragg Planning Commission was bounced out of relevance in a backroom deal between the city and the temporary attorney the Planning Commission paid for. Counselor Epstein from over the hill swiped the authority of the Planning Commission like taking candy from a baby. They should have been angry, indignant and outraged.

Instead the poor out-of-their-depth Planning Commissioners seem to think it is cute not to know what is going on. The Wednesday night meeting was grim evidence of the ineffectuality and incompetence of city government in Fort Bragg. With a few more brains they would be halfwits.

Wednesday night was a tour de force in stumbling incompetence.

Item one on the Wednesday night agenda saw Georgia Pacific corporation back to tell the city of Fort Bragg once again with emphasis that they were indifferent to the city in a primal way, and were going to tear down the last structures on the mill site — the massive dry shed number four.

Item two was an alteration in zoning to allow commercial development should any ever be proposed on Ocean Drive.

Item three was the long awaited and much anticipated debate on revoking the use permit for Hostility House.

That last item had the undivided attention of the city.

It never happened.

First up was Marie Jones, our unique Development Director, to declare in giggling good spirits that she had given the dry sheds her maximum effort over the last decade or so and had been able to accomplish a good deal of city spending and nothing else.

If I can’t figure it out nobody can, she laughingly announced. Much easier at the end of the day to simply cave in to the GP program for the elimination of one more key to our future prosperity.

The last structures on the mill site are a glaring opportunity. An enclosed acre of space, 75,000 feet of possibility. They should be, almost have to be, a major focus of the Development Director. There is not that much to work with in Fort Bragg. Abandoning the dry sheds is like ditching a lifeboat when lost at sea. The dry sheds are a vivid, obvious, inescapable key to our future as a city. They scream for a vision. Under ex-mayor Dave Turner, Marie Jones headed up an expensive and elaborate proposal to develop the sheds as a center for artists and artisans. They hired an architect and had wonderful public meetings. Ms. Jones paid for it all without getting a price or an agreement to sell from GP, a truly inept strategy of negotiation if she had ever had the slightest intention of actually doing anything. But of course she did not.

Excuse me, but is it not obvious that Marie Jones would not cut the mustard as a hamburger flipper at McDonalds? She must hold Fort Bragg’s all time record for absenteeism. She is basically never in her office and when she is she doesn’t do anything. Her great achievement, actually her only achievement, was to run a coastal trail around the toxic waste contaminated mill site and to oversee the partial cleanup that you are just about to find out is their proposed permanent plan. The coastal trail took her 15 years. Fifteen years is her estimate of the time it will take to daylight the creeks. Everything with her is fifteen years. She is smugly congenial and happily incompetent. The unspoken common knowledge at city hall is that Fort Bragg will never move forward as long as she remains an impediment. Wednesday night was her opportunity to declare total failure to do anything with the dry sheds, her utter lack of vision and her bald capitulation to the GP plan to create a vacant lot.

Nice.

Under the pressure of forceful public comment the Commission ignored Marie Jones and kicked the dry sheds back to the city council. Saved by a hair.

Stumbling forward, the Planning Commission gave the green light to commercial development on Ocean Drive. Right or wrong the trustees of the property got their go ahead while the stunned meeting tried to wrap their heads around the awkwardness of self-declared ineptitude by the Development Director. The Commission agreed to the commercial zoning quickly and then took a much needed break. I went outside and consumed a cigar in fuming wrath. Things went downhill from there.

Sitting front and center at the dais was power operator and super temp lawyer Epstein, an imported attorney the Planning Commission had purchased with their own dime to circumvent their own authority. He was quite severe. He informed us at length that he did not need the hicks in Fort Bragg nor the amateurs on the Planning Commission making any decisions. Instead, he had graciously taken control of incipient chaos and charged into backroom discussions with city management and the Hospitality House team the very day following the last Planning Commission meeting. By the August 23 meeting, all his ducks were in a row. The Planning Commission had erroneously thought it was going to decide to pull or not pull the use permit for the notoriously corrupt Hospitality House. Laughably they imagined they had the same authority that they would have had over any other city business or enterprise. Oh no, saith Epstein, Mendocino Coast Hospitality Center is immune to local outrage, and above the law. He knows — he is a lawyer. Thankfully, he had come to ensure that an institution hated by the homeless, the local epicenter of opioid distribution and the sinecure of untold numbers of simpleton social workers, was not troubled by a mere Planning Commission.

187 complaints to the police had brought down the wrath of the City Council on the sole recipient of funding for the houseless. The community had made it clear that something had to give. Legal eagle Epstein was there to confuse the Commission which he did easily, putting Hospitality House back on track and making it clear to Fort Bragg that the presumption of the Planning Commission to enforce the law was a naive fiction.

Instead we had a temp lawyer to put disruptive self government by ignorant locals back in the box and propound instead a middling resolution crafted by adults. This brave non-action slapped very gently the Hospitality House hand and changed exactly nothing. He was quietly proud. The mass of social service functionaries who had arrived for the evening’s entertainment were ecstatic. Our imported lawyer diffused the whole situation and with grave lawyerly self-importance gave us to understand that Hospitality House is a permanent fact of life. He helped us by inventing a mild plan for no change in intimate cooperation with the staff at city hall and merrily shoved it down our throat. There was limited public input, public in this case being almost totally made up of paid employees and functionaries of the social services industry. As I said no one on the Commission got mad or even thought the process unusual. I personally blew a gasket, but certainly nobody who mattered was discomfited. The Planning Commission split with the invariably venal Mr. Mark Hannon (of course), the childishly bewildered Stan the health food man Miklose, and Teresa Rodriguez lining up robotically for Mr. Epstein’s powerplay. Nancy Swithenbank and Curtis Bruchler declined to be bullied.

Hospitality House was saved. The compromise resolution to clean it up was a joke. I have a hunch the community is going to react.

MORGAN FREAKS OUT

On August 14, 2017, at approximately 9:10p.m., Officers of the Fort Bragg Police Department were dispatched to 700 River Drive (Mendocino Coast District Hospital) for the report of a female patient vandalizing the emergency room and assaulting staff.

Upon arrival, Officers contacted Morgan Franklin, 20, of Big Bear, CA, outside of the emergency room. Franklin had been brought to the hospital at her request, just an hour prior to Officers being summoned back. Franklin immediately began threatening Officers to stay away from her. Officers began communicating with Franklin in order to determine why her demeanor had changed, and if she was experiencing some sort of crisis. As Officers began to physically detain Franklin, she immediately became combative, and began resisting Officers while striking and kicking them.

Franklin was subdued and placed into a police vehicle so further investigation could occur. It was discovered that the Emergency Room nursing station and equipment had been completely ransacked, and several computers and expensive pieces of equipment had been damaged or destroyed. Medical staff advised officers that as they had begun to administer treatment to Franklin, she assaulted the emergency room doctor, then exited the treatment room and began throwing items and equipment at staff. Franklin continued her rampage through the ER, and then exited. Once outside, Franklin had climbed on the roof of a parked vehicle, and then smashed the vehicle’s windshield with a large rock. Franklin was placed under arrest and charged with felony vandalism, and felony assault on medical personnel. She was later transported to the Mendocino County Jail without further incident.

KEEP IT CLASSY, KZYX

When I first came here in 2008, during the financial debacle, that perilous autumn, I was amazed at how straitlaced and prissy the local public radio was, KZYX. The tone of local news was a passive rote-reading of press releases or puff-pieces on innocuous events such as little old ladies who knitted sweaters for puppies at the dog pound. Later, when I met program director Mary Aigner, I began to understand the devious ploy she had engineered to hide the underground local economy which she was a part of, under a bushel of respectability, in just the same way my neighbor at the Seniors-Only trailer park in Ukiah, used Neighborhood Watch posters and planters full of begonias and geraniums, along with the outdoor knickknacks any 1950s grandma would decorate her yard with, in order to camouflage his retail meth outlet.

I had spent some time in Redway and Garberville, and much admired how the growers of SoHum had taken their own public radio in hand, and made KMUD — “The MUDD” — an organ of their refreshingly anarchistic, half radical/half libertarian political dichotomy.

But from Redway to Philo was an incredible stretch in the public airwaves. The only other public radio station I had ever been exposed to that was as cautious, careful, humorless (not to mention dull) as KZYX was KUSU in Logan, Utah. So it was not entirely surprising that the current KZYX news director, Sheri Quinn, came to us from that balefully Mormonesque station.

Ms. Quinn made one – and one only – trip to the courthouse, and I’ll never forget how arrogant and rude she was to my colleague Tiffany Revelle, then reporting for the Ukiah Daily Journal. Very professionally, Tiffany went up to Ms. Quinn, smiled warmly, and said, “Tiffany Revelle, The Ukiah Daily Journal…?” Quinn stood and glowered down her nose at Tiffany. Finally, her hand still extended, Tiff added, superfluously, “and you are…?”

“And I am here,” Quinn hissed. She then turned on her heel and marched out, never, thank God, to return.

Now that other organs, run for the benefit of and advertising from, the underground economy are coming out of the proverbial closet, why is it that KZYX continues to affect the ersatz posturing of a strait-laced AM station from the 1950s, using the same old false piety, repeating with tireless reverence all the silly euphemisms that no longer apply? And why are they still devoted to a propaganda of pretentiousness that is no longer necessary? Could it be, possibly, that they’ve finally become the mean little reactionaries they pretended to be for so long? I have to wonder.

(Bruce McEwen)

MEMO OF THE AIR: GOOD NIGHT RADIO, FRIDAY NIGHT

Kathy Westfall wrote:

Hi Marco, We are local, yes. I was born in Mendocino and now live here with my kids. I am giving back by starting the 707 magazine. ZCode is the supporting company from San Diego. Hope you have a great day.

Marco McClean:

Oh, that's good to know, Kathy. Because I immediately got the impression the magazine company's business model is a cross between Amway and the Yellow Pages.

Tell a little about how you got involved with them in the first place, and about the money flow*, and about eventual editorial control. How is that part of it different from the Fort Bragg Advocate/Beacon, the Ukiah Daily Journal, and so-called local radio stations, operations that have a few locals involved but are owned and/or controlled by giant media companies far away, and that never print or broadcast anything critical of their corporate masters or their corporate masters' friends or advertisers either distant or local? Or like KZYX's pretend news bits and weather reports that are just reading the Mendocino County weather page and softball interviews that are cheery, stoned-sounding, saccharine-sweet puff pieces that risk and expose nothing, while they shut out fine local reporters and airpeople who have anything at all on the ball. Because I'm hoping your project will not be like that.

Will you be the one deciding what gets printed and what doesn't, and what words, like swell and so's-yer-old-man, get turned into asterisks? Will you be doing the layout and the ad art? Will you kids be managing the ad revenue and keeping the books?

*And who is behind http://zcodemedia.com/products/magazines/ ? What's their source of money for these vast speculative runs of expensive slick printing? If it's all coming from you, then I hope you know what you're in for and aren't being hoodwinked by crooks with a fancy web page.

IN OTHER NEWS: tomorrow night (Friday) I'll be doing my radio show live from the KNYO storefront at 325 N. Franklin, Fort Bragg, so if you want to come in and play your musical instrument(s) or talk about your project (a new magazine, for example), or whatever, just traipse in any time after 9pm, head for the lighted room at the back and get my attention. I always bring enough material to read the whole time even if no-one shows up or calls. There's no pressure. (I'm mainly there just to read aloud on the air everything you email me to read and the interesting bits of what I've been reading all week. The deadline is always about 5 or 6pm on the night of the show. And if you miss that deadline, and you can't wait until next week, phone during the show and read your work in your own voice. And if there will be swears, wait till after 10pm to call, otherwise it agitates the weasels. 962-3022.)

Memo of the Air: Good Night Radio:

Every Friday, 9pm to about 4am on 107.7fm KNYO-LP Fort Bragg, including midnight to 3am 105.1fm KMEC-LP Ukiah.

And also there and anywhere else via http://knyo.org or http://TuneIn.com

LITTLE DOG SAYS, “Dumb and Dumber, the two pits next door, have been insulting me for days now, heavy on the homophobia remarks btw even though this is multi-cult, anti-fa Boonville. "When ya going bite that thing's head off, ya little bleep de bleep?" Never, I tell 'em. Me and Goph are friends, and you leave him alone or…”

SOUTHBOUND OWL

Great Horned Owl needs a ride to Sonoma

Woodlands Wildlife has a Great Horned owl who needs a ride to Sonoma Wildlife early next week. Owl will come in a secure pet crate, must be inside an air-conditioned car, smells a little like skunk but it's tolerable and won't 'stain' the car. No dogs or loud music while in transport. We can pay for gas. The bird is going there to be flight and hunting tested. He is blind in one eye, and if he indicates he can catch his own live prey and see to land safely on a perch, we will be able to release him. The process will take at least a week, and Sonoma Wildlife is the only place with a flight cage large enough to release mice, then observe and test the results. Please apply at 707-937-2014 or email Woodlandswildlife@mcn.org.

(Ronnie James)

INTERESTING HISTORY POST this morning on the MCN chat line from Chris Hayter:

I've got some copies of some very old BIA maps spelling it Noyau. It was for This Henley who was superintendent of BIA in California from 1855 to 1858. Then another map of the selected site of the reservation dated 1856 shows it is "Nayo River. Anchorage for vessels drawing 10 ft. Safe in all weather." However a slightly later GLO map dated May 1869 shows it as Noyo?A few other differences: The valley east of the dunes (Little Valley), is called Strawberry Valley on the first noted map, and "Sola Valley" on the 1856 map. On the 1856 map Pudding river is shown as "Dal River or Chimnauadd" yet another map I have not dated yet lists it as "Duff River or Chimnabada". The early map shows '10 mi. River. The 1856 map does not name the river, but does show "10 mile station" near the forks. The third map shows it as "Hale Creek or Beedaloe". Virgin Creek is shown as Whites Creek The 4th creek north of 10 mile river (or 3rd south from Yousal) is named Cayote Creek. Usal Creek is shown as Y.S.P Creek, and the Indians there are noted to be the 'Yousal Pomas'

MEDIA NOTES

THE MENDO VOICE, an on-line newspaper based in Willits, seems to have vanished. A reader said she "just tried to load the website, and got a “mendovoice.com’s server DNS address could not be found” error message." (However, The Major says when he tried it this afternoon it seemed to be working, adding, “But they don’t seem to have posted anything for more than a week. Also, I’m not sure, but I think I noticed that their best local reporter, Sarah Reith, was now associating herself with KZYX, too bad.”)

IN OTHER MEDIA NEWS, we heard yesterday that the UDJ this week laid off Yvonne Bell, their business manager of some forty years, and the entire graphics department at Lake County's Record-Bee is out as their work goes very long distance, all the way to India.

WE HAD HEARD that the local Digital First employees — The Willits News; the Ukiah Daily Journal; Advocate-Beacon on the Mendocino Coast – had all been asked to use up their vacation time by the end of the fiscal year.

THERE WAS SOMETHING on Nieman Lab earlier in August that said Digital First had put out the word to “bring us buyers” — it’s possible these local layoffs are just yet another desperate effort to pretend the local papers are somehow making money.

* * *

Everything’s got a price tag.

(by Ken Doctor)

Digital First Media has now sold three significant properties in the last 16 months. In the spring of 2016, the private equity–owned DFM sold the Salt Lake Tribune to the Huntsman family and allowed four civic-minded leaders to snatch back the once-proud Berkshire Eagle and its cousins. In June of this year, Hearst bought the New Haven Register and its associated papers.

While Alden Global Capital, DFM’s owner, used UBS as its exclusive banker in trying to sell the whole company two years ago, failing to do so as final negotiations hit a snag with Apollo Global Management, it’s now put out the word to multiple newspaper brokers: Bring us buyers.

As print advertising continues to decline in double digits, Alden may be running into a profit wall. Its DFM management has squeezed every cost in the book, and continues to charge subscribers more and more for each smaller and smaller print edition. Look at its fast-dwindling subscription numbers, market to market, and you see the product. We’ve gone from theory, which I’ve long expressed, to practice: Doubling the price of news products while halving the products is literally killing the business. So DFM will — at least for some of its 97 titles — take less than the 4-4.5 multiple of EBITDA that it wanted from Apollo to sell. Yes, Alden continues to squeeze 25 percent-plus margins from its beleaguered properties, but knows the window on those profits is closing.

If the sellers are clearly more willing, the question arises anew: Which investors, in the Jeff Bezos/John Henry/Glen Taylor/Alice Rogoff wealth circles or civic buyers in the Berkshire style, may pop up? How much brand equity is left in these flagging newspapers? From San Jose to Orange County to Denver to Saint Paul and upstate New York, who do you know who wants to get their hands dirty?

JUST TAKING OUR WEAPONS FOR A RIDE, OFFICER

On Wednesday, August 23, 2017, at approximately 7:15 P.M., a Deputy from the Mendocino County Sheriff's Office noted a suspicious vehicle in front of the Redwood Market in Covelo. The vehicle later left the location, at a high rate of speed on Highway 162, driving into town. The Deputy followed the vehicle and paced it's speed at 50 Miles per hour (in a posted 25 MPH zone). Because of other vehicle traffic, the Deputy lost sight of the vehicle for a short period time. The Deputy eventually located the vehicle, parked on the side of the road, at the intersection of Highway 162 and Howard Street, with a single Male Hispanic inside. As the Deputy was speaking to the male driver of the vehicle, he was approached by a citizen who reported that prior to his arrival a male Hispanic had fled from the vehicle, running towards Main Street. The Deputy then directed a passing Traffic Officer from the California Highway Patrol to attempt to locate that person. Learning that the CHP Officer had detained a male Hispanic in the area of Main Street, the Deputy responded to the Officers location. Upon his arrival he learned that the a prohibited assault rifle was located near the area where the CHP Officer had contacted the male Hispanic.

When the male Hispanic was questioned, he stated that the rifle belonged to Suspect #1 Roberto Bartolo, 28, of Covelo. However, when S#1 Bartolo was questioned, he stated that the rifle was owned by Suspect #2 Adrian Martinez-Rodriguez, 19, also of Covelo. Both Bartolo and Martinez-Rodriguez were then arrested for possession of a California prohibited assault weapon. During a subsequent search Suspect #2 Martinez-Rodriguez was found to be in possession of a concealed fixed bladed knife. Additionally, A criminal records check was done on both suspects. During that check it was determined that S #1 Bartolo was a convicted felon. Suspect #1 Roberto Bartolo was placed under arrest for a felon in possession of a firearm and possession of a prohibited firearm. He was transported to the Mendocino County jail where he is being held on $25,000 bail. Suspect#2 Adrian Martinez-Rodriguez was placed under arrest for possession of a prohibited firearm and possession of a concealed dirk, or dagger. He was transported to the Mendocino County jail where he is being held on $15,000 bail.

MY LATE FRIEND, Rusty Norvell, was often good company because he was a wonderful story teller, and he had a lot of them. He told me his first sight in New Orleans was a dwarf albino running down the middle of a 4am street. Rusty was a loose-limbed, lean man who dressed in modified cowboy — Western-cut sport coat, slacks, Stetson with a length of kelp as hatband. He and his matronly wife, Flo, in her big sun hat, stood out among the sartorially indifferent at local gatherings.  And Rusty had talent, both as a writer and an editor. He operated on my limping prose on many occasions, sparing me complete journalo-paraplegia.

HE'S BEEN GONE for about a decade now, but lots of you will remember Rusty, just as many of you will recall his wife, Flo, to whom "long-suffering" certainly applied. Heir to a comfortable Oklahoma oil fortune, Rusty drank hard in periodic drop-fall binges. He had an arrangement with a motel at the north end of Fort Bragg where he'd periodically check in with a case of whiskey for a week. The proprietor would shove a pizza through the door on day two or three. Rusty would eventually emerge thin and pale and stay stone sober for a few months while he wheedled pain killers out of local doctors “for my migraines.” He’d rest up for months, then it was another liquid run in that bleak Fort Bragg motel room.

RUSTY was a book guy, and it was that mutual interest that made us friends. He told me his history: he'd been honorably discharged from the Navy, circa 1950, married Flo, lived in Japan for a few years, worked as a reporter for a SoCal daily, taught at the old Whale School in Albion. He and Flo were ground floor ocean protectors and put in hours of time lobbying our alleged representatives. The professional Democrats appropriated ocean protection as their work, but it was Sue Miller, Dobie Dolphin, Rusty and Flo who did the spade work.

HE said he was writing a novel. I told him if he was truthful it would be a good. Rusty promised it was truthful. He'd never let me see it, which I understood; few writers want their unfinished work read by critical eyes. Maybe it was so strong it drove the guy to drink.

THE GUY was also a dogged anti-Semite, which I tardily realized when I couldn't help but notice he always worked Jewish conspiracies into whatever the conversation happened to be, although he was on friendly terms with many Coast Jews.

EARLY in our relationship I told him I wasn't interested in "the socialism of fools," as Isaac Babel memorably dismissed anti-Semitism. Rusty denied his bigotry. "Why then," I asked him, "do you have five thousand books on Jews?" He'd said something like, "Because they're smarter than everyone else, they stick together, they run the world, and I'm a scholar of the obvious reality." I countered with, "Smarter? Then how do you account for the Jews of Mendocino County?" He thought that was very funny.

BUT it was all tiresome as hell. I finally had to tell him not to call me, that I wanted nothing to do with him if he continued to lay this evil nonsense on me. We've all known One Note Johnnys, but have you even known an interesting, even tolerable monomaniac? Rusty would forbear for a while then… One day he called me up to say, "I have something I've got to tell you, but I can't talk about it on the phone. It's too dangerous. You’ve got to come out here. I’m not kidding, Bruce, this is important.”

I’D JUST WALKED through the door of his ocean bluff house at Caspar when he leapt from his chair with an old, obscure book on Abraham Lincoln. He'd marked hundreds of pages with what he thought were indisputably killer references "proving" that the Lincoln assassination was a Jewish conspiracy. I laughed, told him he was nuts and I was leaving. And I left. He soon called to promise me he'd never bring it up again. Which gave me another laugh because I knew he couldn't help himself.

EARLY one morning a mutual friend called to say that Rusty was dead. He’d piled into one of those giant eucalyptus trees south of Mendocino. Flo had been gone for a year, and Rusty had been even more lost since her passing. I started to call the CHP for the details of his last act, but decided against it, not really wanting to know. I’m sure he killed himself, and I hoped he did it sober.

CATCH OF THE DAY, August 24, 2017

AUSTIN ANDERSON, Clearlake/Calpella. Probation revocation.

ROBERTO BARTOLO, Covelo. Possession of assault weapon, felon possessing a firearm.

GREGG BOATWRIGHT, Fort Bragg. Burglary, using somebody else’s credit, contempt/disobey court/order.

FRANKLIN PATTY, Ukiah. Community supervision violation.

JENNIFER PETERS, Post Falls, Idaho/Ukiah. Burglary, grand theft, conspiracy.

ALICE STRANG, Willits. Fighting in public, paraphernalia, disorderly conduct-alcohol, resisting.

JUSTIN SWINNEY, Fort Bragg. Probation revocation.

JOSHUA TORRES, Hopland. Receiving stolen property, county parole violation, evasion, failure to appear.

WILLIAM WHITE JR., Willits. Suspended license.

PELOSI FALLS INTO TRUMP'S CONFEDERATE STATUE TRAP

Every time President Trump gets in trouble he falls back on race identity politics, and the Democrats fall for it without fail.

The latest case in point is the furor over his statements that “both sides” shared the blame for the violence in Charlottesville, Virginia. Trump was clearly feeling the backlash from assigning just as much responsibility to people opposed to Nazis as to the Nazis themselves, so he changed the subject.

Trump tweeted that it was “sad to see” Confederate statues being taken down and asked, “Who’s next, Washington, Jefferson?”

Let’s be clear, those Confederate statues are coming down, no matter what Trump says. That’s been going on for a while now. It’s largely being done at the local level, and Democrats could just sit back and let the arc of history take its course.

Instead, they jumped.

In no time, my friend House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi called for the removal of all Confederate-related statues in the halls of Congress, saying they’re “reprehensible.”

She’s got a point, but so what? It has nothing to do with the issues that affect people, such as jobs, education and health care. Taking Trump’s bait only reinforces the impression held by too many Americans — that Democrats are all about apologizing for the country’s past attitudes about race.

Trump’s view is that America’s attitude toward race “is what it is, period. And I’m not apologizing for it.”

He’s also aware of something I’ve seen for a while now: the diminished power of the black vote.

Look at the map. All over, there are cities that used to have black mayors — Detroit, Philadelphia, Chicago, Oakland — that are now run by whites. Atlanta may soon join the list.

The black vote is still the anchor tenant of the Democratic Party, but the nation’s demographics are changing. And like it or not, the Latinos and Asians who have come here and are still coming don’t see the race issue the same way.

Their ancestors were not slaves. They arrived here on their own, with their families and cultures intact. That makes a difference, and Trump knows it.

By the way, my solution for the Confederate statue quandary: Take down the rider, leave the horse.

— Willie Brown

WELCOME TO THE GREEN ROOM, BOYS

LOS ANGELES, CA — The California Supreme Court Thursday upheld the constitutionality of Proposition 66, a ballot measure approved by voters to change the state's death penalty system and expedite executions, but it significantly weakened one of its major provisions.

Proponents of the measure predict the state will soon resume executing inmates for the first time in a decade as a result of the ruling. The court ruled that the measure's five-year time frame for resolving appeals by condemned inmates was just advisory rather than mandatory. In many cases, death penalty appeals drag on for decades, and condemned inmates frequently die of natural causes.

The measure narrowly beat a competing initiative on the November ballot that would have repealed the death penalty.

Judges heard oral arguments against Prop 66 in June, which stated that the requirement for courts to finish hearing death penalty appeals within five years interferes with the court's authority and would not serve justice or the public interest. There are 380 death penalty appeals now pending.

The five-year "directive" should be interpreted as "an exhortation to the parties and the courts to handle cases as expeditiously as is consistent with the fair and principled administration of justice," Justice Carol A. Corrigan wrote.

Proposition 66 also expands the pool of appellate lawyers handling capital cases and allows lower level state courts — not just the California Supreme Court — to hear death appeals. There are nearly 750 inmates on death row, and only 13 have been executed since 1978. Executions stopped after 2006 due to legal challenges over lethal injections.

Michael Rushford, president of a group that sponsored the measure, told the Los Angeles Times that 18 inmates on death row who have exhausted their appeals don’t have “much time left.”

“I think months is a reasonable estimate” of the next execution, he told the newspaper.

According to the Times, Kent Scheidegger, legal counsel for Rushford’s group and an author of Proposition 66, said “we should see a very substantial speedup.”

Michele Hanisee, president of the Association of Deputy District Attorneys, applauded the court's overall ruling.

"We are pleased with the court's decision to uphold the will of the voters," Hanisee said. "Prop 66 preserves the death penalty for the most heinous criminals by enacting critically needed reforms to the system. The court recognized that Californians not only voted to keep the death penalty but also to reform the appellate court system and ensure the death penalty is carried out in a timely manner.

"It is important to remember, at the same time voters passed Prop 66, voters rejected a competing initiative that would have eliminated the death penalty and allowed criminals who kill cops or rape and murder children to live out their lives in prison," he said.

(City News Service)

WEALTH CARE

by Bruce Patterson

More in anguish than anger, some Post-War, Post-Holocaust veteran declared that, once we’ve set our minds to it, we Americans can do most anything except know the reasons why. As evidence, consider that today scores of millions of American citizens don’t have enough money to properly “interact” within our glorious Free Market in Health Insurance. A Free Market being serviced by Wizard of Oz Health Maintenance Organizations (HMOs) made up of skyscrapers loaded with computers, neck-cinched techno-coders, 3-D printers and, way up high in the penthouses, tiny little Money Men hiding behind curtains and putting out jobs reports, market forecasts, thunderous threats and nasty Proclamations.

As our Vanguard Political Party makes the Free Market Great Again by liberating Private Capital from the quicksandy swamp of international treaties, federal regulations, ruinous taxation, the illegal expropriations of Private Property and our mountainous molehills of tyrannical public health, labor, consumer protection, environmental and international laws and what have you, every day we’re benefiting from a growing economy and, with the forward march of our successes, we’re seeing the spreading of Prosperity.

Under our new Alt-Right National Liberation Front, the Nuremburg Principles, the UN Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights are also being tossed into the Trashcan of History. To hear our primetime Wall Street Prophets of Profit tell it, all that’s standing in the way of even more vigorous and sustained Economic Growth that’s delivering the Best of All Possible Worlds is the so-called Public Interest. There is no Public Interest; it’s a myth. All that matters is ones economic activities and if they are zilch then, by definition, you are not just worthless but a burden on the virtuous. You’re a liability.

Yet, if you really believe in Pure Free Market Principles, then you’ve gotta wear the results of their applications, or “Apps” if you’re lazy of tongue. You’ve gotta remember that, in the 1840s, England’s 1^st Pure Free Marketeers (pirates) instigated their extremely atrocious Opium Wars against the innocent Chinese people and, simultaneously, manufactured mass famine in Ireland in the names of the Free Market and—you guessed it—Free Trade. In order to prove that Laissez-faire Capitalism is one of God’s Greatest Gifts to Humankind (that plus the Scientific Theory of WASP Supremacy and its crossed-eyed, drooling stepchild called Social Darwinism) rank cynicism being the real White Man’s Burden.

Also, as is only right when speaking in the name of Fiscal Responsibility, America’s sick, lame and lazies shouldn’t get any medical care unless it’s an emergency. This while, from the Fiscal Conservative’s point of view, most visits to some HMO’s gold-plated Jiffy Lube Service Stations are the result of people being denied preventative care as a matter of National Policy.

Since, at least according to the Free Marketeers, preventative healthcare is just another commodity on the Free Market no different than, say, buying avocados or importing Braceros, buying hysterectomies, C-Sections or Viagra, wonder drugs, miracle salves and lotions, body paints, sprays and spray-paints, anything you might desire as a matter of fact. But—listen carefully—if you haven’t got the money then just naturally—and just as God and the Founding Fathers had intended it—you can’t participate in the Free Market in Health Insurance.

Anybody remember those old Western roadhouses and the wide-spot watering holes sporting jumbo white light bulbs strung between poles with clouds of moths dancing around them? I’m talking the old time ma and pa kind of places where they hung professionally painted signs announcing how, as the lawful proprietors of this here lawful establishment, they Reserve the Right to Refuse Service to Anyone? That conceivably very long list of miscreant types begins with those individuals of whatever station that ain’t laying down any money. No money, no get, no say, no seat, no complaints, no shit from you, boy. Come back when you’ve gotta job, yah bum!

Plenty more Americans go without adequate preventative care because, never having been properly introduced to the privilege, they’re afraid of getting spoon-fed some way-too-late medical news that’ll wind up killing them and/or bankrupting their families. Since nowadays not many of the young can personally afford to lay out large chunks of their monthly discretionary income simply to buy the services of what’s essentially a Protection Racket, a wise young person is forced to roll the dice with his or her long-term health and “life expectancy.” For instance, in the incredibly rich Fracking Oilfields of Texas, an American woman is about ten times more likely to die from pregnancy than a woman living in Sweden, or Spain, or in plenty of other countries a whole lot poorer than Fracking “Pro-Life” Texas.

We’re told there’s no Free Lunches in this world. “Get your mitts off that apple, little girl! You, boy. Get your toes back behind the line where they belong. Hold your tray level with both hands now; wait your turn, stop your fidgeting.”

What we used to call the “Work Force” is now reduced to non-union wage slaves denied job security, living wages, and the government protection they so reliably pay for, and so desperately need and righteously deserve. What they need, they deserve, says a Free People, and that includes access to affordable family healthcare (Single Payer? No shit.) Healthcare includes preventative care, prenatal care, postnatal care, nutritional assistance, housing assistance, employment assistance, the opportunity to join or organize a union, to publicly assemble, to strenuously object and to most unequivocally demand righteous “redress” are rights as American as homemade Apple Pie served hot off the wood stove.

Then who can forget that right up front in our American Declaration of Independence it’s asserted before God and all the world’s peoples that we ourselves have proclaimed as “Self-Evident” our right to pursue individual Happiness? And pursuing Happiness for either oneself, ones family or grouping is one extremely difficult task when the Free Market in Human Labor declares—no “input” required from you—that The Global Free Market has declared you and yours Obsolete and therefore, like timber faller’s axes, buggy whips and taxi drivers, Expendable: dead inventory destined for a Liquidation Sale.

A bitter punishment you being unemployed through no fault of your own and still getting blamed—and punished—for your laziness and lack of “initiative.” From cradle-to-grave you taking these kinds of injuries and insults from senile spoiled brat rich kids so lacking in a Work Ethic and hand/eye coordination that, forced for once to bend over to tie their own shoes laces, they’re likely get tangled up and strangle themselves.

Nowadays just catching a ride in a Free Market ambulance for a few blocks through some skyscraping dystopian Auto-Megalopolis to some soaring HMO citadel sporting Bell Towers and flying buttresses, then going up in a high-speed freight elevator and being rolled down some very long hallway under very bright lights to some windowless wailing waiting room, there to join the other pod people waiting for legal contracts to work through, sign and then, once they’re done, to wait for somebody else to come and determine whether or not whatever ails you is in fact an emergency and, if so, how much of one, before disappearing with you stuck waiting again.

Stuck again till finally somebody else comes and tells you to be patient and then, as a bonus, hands you a number like you’re a customer standing in some old big city neighborhood delicatessen being run by a family of funny-talkers from across the seas somewhere. Even before you’ve been issued your diagnosis and introduced to Your Treatment Schedule, you’ve already spent enough money to book a coach seat—as in “stagecoach”—on a wide-bodied commercial airliner flying round the world.

A Free Market in Healthcare? Is your life really worth whatever you can or can’t pay? You got kids? What are kids worth in dollars (Sentiment has no Market Value)? In short, are we Healthcare Consumers no different than a pound of Mortadella that’s been freshly thin-sliced and then the slices rolled like cigars into the innards of hard-crusted sandwich rolls a foot long and a hand high? In the Free Deli Market in Blockbuster Sandwiches, you as a customer do your talking with your money. And so Capital Unchained, at its very best, leaves so much to be desired that absolutely no way can it be mistaken for the Best of All possible Worlds except by those who believe in Mother Goose. At its worst, Capital Unchained means war as Corporate Growth and population control.

When the Golden Calf is seen as society’s Deity, Freedom means Survival of the Fittest. It means good old 19^th Century, American-style laisse-faire Social Darwinism packaged, then as now, and sold as God’s Will and the Law of this here WASP Land. The Law of the Jungle is another blessing Jesus had bestowed upon us True Blue and Grey White males of soldiering age. Cut, sliced, diced and served hot off the flames and atop of scoop of wormy grits.

Like all those who’ve never been counted as Stakeholders, todays disinherited are absolutely right to contemplate rebellion. We Americans were born in Rebellion against God’s armed representative here on Earth and, in case you’ve missed it, traditionally the most patriotic among us took intense pleasure and pride in whipping the English at their own game; and whipping them so finally and unconditionally that we turned their world upside down. Liberty was born in Rebellion and never should we forget that.

Sometimes opening one’s eyes requires opening one’s heart, and the process is so elementary we rarely notice it. The opposite happens, too: our eyes and hearts clamp shut. Like we’ve fallen so low down we’re cornered and getting rat-packed: keep covered, submit, don’t think, don’t beg, keep covered.

Life is War; War is life. I know how low we can go; might say I’ve earned a bachelors’ degree in human inhumanity. Real young I got real old and it’s been a half-century and millions more slaughtered in war ever since. It’s like we’re war addicts, vampires or something. Or maybe we’re trapped in somebody else’s Big Idea. You know, as citizens we’re lab rats like US soldiers have always been lab rats. Here’s what is crystal clear: Healthcare is not a Human Right in this country only because the worst among us are after all we have by inflicting us with inhumanity, ignorance and shame. Think you’re belly-crawling now? Try belly-crawling across quicksand. Try belly-crawling into the ocean. Belly-crawling gets you nowhere fast. To hell with nowhere.

ON LINE COMMENTS OF THE DAY 1 & 2

[1] Donald Trump’s father had Alzheimer’s. That makes Trump twice as likely to get it. At age 65 odds are 1 in 9 that you have it. For Trump that doubles to 1 in 4. Every 5 years it doubles again. At 70 years of age the odds are 1 in 2 that he is suffering from Alzheimer’s, a 50/50 shot. A coin toss. The far right has elected a crazy man, a provably crazy man. I shudder to think what will happen if he is removed from office because he is nuts. As it stands everyone is walking away from this guy because he is nuts. That’s why he has not released his medical records. It should be a medical requirement this day in age that if you are past 65 years of age, you must prove you are not suffering from Alzheimer’s. His base will never accept the fact they elected a crazy man, but MRI’s don’t lie, and his cognitive decline is too obvious. Alzheimer’s is brutal and usually once you have it, it doesn’t take long.

[2] Alzheimer patients are not crazy, just mentally impaired. It also can take a long time, from beginning to end. Reagan took 9 years to die from it. Doctors cannot make a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s unless an autopsy is performed. There are several different kinds of dementia. Alzheimer’s is just one. Tests can be done to determine whether someone is suffering from dementia, and guesses can be made if someone displays Alzheimer symptoms, but not definitively. The most accurate Alzheimer’s diagnosis on a living person is to say “probably”.

A READER WRITES: The 1917 Peasant Revolutions

As you've read Mieville's book on the revolution, I'm sending you this link for an article on the peasants' role.

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2017/08/1917-peasant-revolutions-russia-serfs-bolsheviks

THE NFL IS MORE COMFORTABLE WITH CONCUSSIONS THAN CONSCIENCE

At a massive rally for Colin Kaepernick outside NFL headquarters, speakers called out the league's hypocrisy.

by Miguel Salazar & Dave Zirin

If you needed any more proof that the most important football player in United States is currently without a team, look no further than 345 Park Avenue in New York City—the NFL headquarters. On Wednesday night an estimated 2,000-3,000 people gathered there to rally for Colin Kaepernick, a quarterback who cannot find a home because he dared use his platform to protest against police violence.

A block away from crammed outdoor martini bars where Ivy League bankers enjoyed after-work happy hours, speakers excoriated the National Football League to raucous cheers with an energy that kept NFL executives pinned in their suites.

The message was simple: “Colin Kaepernick had our back when he stood for black lives. Now we have his."

The event, hosted by Mark Thompson and Symone Sanders of Make it Plain Radio on Sirius/XM, included city council members, religious leaders and activists ranging from high school freshmen to folks who attended the Selma march on Edmund Pettus bridge. If you needed any hint on the vibe, the event started with the National Anthem: Lift Every Voice And Sing.

Speakers called out the NFL for more than the league’s treatment of Kaepernick. Reverend Jamal Bryant asked about the moral center of a league that seems “fine if players have a concussion but not a conscience,” a league that will sign players convicted of violent crimes, but not a player who used non-violent protest during the national anthem to raise awareness of state violence.

Other speakers posed the issue of structural racism in a league where 70% of players are black, but has very few black head coaches and executives and has still never had a black team owner. They called out a league ownership that gave millions to Donald Trump and now collectively refuse to offer Kaepernick a contract. But speaker after speaker also underlined the point that this was about something far bigger than the makeup of NFL rosters. This was about whether in Donald Trump’s America, dissent would still be tolerated. This was about the Nazis that marched in Charlottesville, Trump’s assertion that “fine people” stood with those wearing the swastika.

The movement seems to be growing, too. Rafael Cruz, one of the protesters at the rally, said that Kaepernick’s lockout has pushed other athletes to find their own avenues for protest. He argued that the NFL’s decision to exclude him might ultimately help to change attitudes within the sport: “Maybe this is a good thing … All of a sudden, the Browns are taking knees, [Marshawn] Lynch is [sitting]. I’d like to see higher profile players do it, and I think it’s going to happen. I’d like to see white players do it, too.”

Until recently, however, no white NFL players had dared to take such a stand. The first one to do so was Browns tight end Seth DeValve, who become the first white NFL player to kneel during the national anthem on Monday night, after Seahawks defensive end Michael Bennett had called for other players to “step up and … speak up” last week. The move was long overdue, and should have come before the events in Charlottesville. But even so, for Cruz, the move still carried considerable weight: “It’s very important that we break that barrier that it not just be people of color that are doing it—it affects us all.”

Chichi Chinwude, a 26-year-old activist, agreed. She has recently been having trouble finding a job in New York City, and said that although she doesn’t watch football, the issues of racism and police brutality that Kaepernick has spoken out against affect her, too. But she also argued that symbolism and protests only go so far—she pointed to a sign she was holding, which read: “Want to see change? Affect their pockets.”

“We can march, we can do all of these things but it’s not going to make a difference unless money is also involved,” she said. “Money is literally power, so we need to hit them where it hurts.”

For Chinwude, the answer is simple: boycott the NFL until they offer to take Kaepernick back. Earlier this year, Forbes reported that the league had lost around 2 million viewers on average in 2016 (although the reasons for why that’s the case are hotly debated). Now that more players are beginning to take a knee, a large-scale boycott could mount enough pressure to force the NFL into taking Kaepernick back.

We’ll have to wait until the regular season to see the numbers. But for now, some protesters, like Harry B. Sando Jr., have made up their minds: “I’ve already stopped watching.”

PS. Folks - I spoke at this rally also. If you want to see a clip, go here! :) http://www.espn.com/video/clip?id=20437731

WILL ENO'S ‘THE OPEN HOUSE,’ now playing at the Mendocino Theatre Company, features five of the Mendocino coast's finest actors. Don't miss this hilarious and thought-provoking "comedy of dysfunction"! THE OPEN HOUSE closes on September 3rd.

For more information go to http://mendocinotheatre.org/, call the MTC box office at 707-937-4477.