Mendocino County Today: Thursday, Nov. 2, 2017

• Calamity Claims
• PG&E Reports
• Fire Recovery
• Silent Musical
• Toxic Ash
• Navarro Quake
• Little Dog
• Sexual Liberation
• Mendo Counterculture
• Charter Schools
• NPR Predators
• Helping Professionals
• JFK Assassination
• $26 Million
• Yesterday's Catch
• Bellicose US
• Mob Government
• Beethoven Concert
• President Blowhard
• Museum Friday
• Outage Survey
• Tax Land

CALAMITY CLAIMS

Dear Mendocino Taxpayers:

October 13, 2017— California’s property tax laws provide a mechanism for the Assessor to adjust assessed values to recognize destruction caused by a calamity or misfortune which damages real or personal property. To qualify for a calamity adjustment, the property must have suffered more than $10,000 worth of damage and the owner must file a claim with the Assessor within 12 months of the date of calamity. Claim forms can be found on the Assessor Clerk-Recorder website at: www.mendocinocounty.org/propertydamageform.

You may also obtain a form by contacting our office at 707/234-6800 or in person at 501 Low Gap Rd, Room 120 in Ukiah.

Owners of properties who suffered qualifying damage in the October 2017 Redwood Complex fires can also apply to delay payment of the December 10, 2017 first installment of their 2017-18 property tax bill. A request for deferral is included with the calamity reassessment claim form which must be filed no later than December 10, 2017. Taxes would be deferred until 30 days following receipt of the corrected bill that reflects the temporary reduction in value caused by the fires.

Should you have any questions please contact Mendocino County Assessor Susan M. Ranochak at 707/234-6826 or by email at ranochas@mendocinocounty.org.

Sincerely,

Susan M. Ranochak, Assessor Clerk-Recorder

NEW PG&E REPORTS SHOW EQUIPMENT PROBLEMS NEAR ORIGINS OF NORTHERN CALIFORNIA FIRES

State regulators released reports from PG&E this week that document at least 20 cases of toppled trees and downed power lines across Northern California the night of Oct. 8 as strong winds buffeted the region and drought-parched vegetation ignited in quick succession from Sonoma to Butte counties, resulting in a series of deadly and destructive wildfires.

pressdemocrat.com/news/7588772-181/new-pge-reports-show-equipment

Q&A WITH FIRE SCHOLAR STEPHEN J. PYNE

Amid tragedy and destruction, Northern California's fires present an opportunity

by Stett Holbrook

Stephen J. Pyne knows a lot about fires. He is a regents professor in the school of Life Studies at Arizona State University. He is the author of more than 30 books, including "Between Two Fires: A Fire History of Contemporary America" and "Fire in America: A Cultural History of Wildland and Rural Fire", which won the Forest History Society’s best book award. He has twice been awarded National Endowment for the Humanities fellowships, twice been a fellow at the National Humanities Center and received a MacArthur fellowship. Before his academic career, Pyne worked for the forest fire crew on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon for 15 seasons. When he offers advice about the road ahead for the North Bay, it's worth paying attention. We've got a interview with him in this week's Bohemian. “There is a political ecology to fires, and it’s the same as slash-and-burn agriculture,” he told me. “That is to say, you can plant successfully in the ash, but if you wait a year, you probably can’t. And if you wait two years, the weeds have taken over and you have to start it again. You have essentially six to 12 months, or the opportunity is gone.” —Stett Holbrook, editor, North Bay Bohemian

bohemian.com/northbay/qanda-with-stephen-j-pyne/Content?oid=4341102

SILENT MUSICAL

Coming up in early November! A locally written and directed show. Live actors and silent musicians. A unique theatrical production staged at the Anderson Valley Solar Grange.

This tale is a bow to the silent film era, and is told without dialogue. Mood and plot are carried by physical gestures coupled to music, with emphasis placed on vaudeville-style comedy.

Conceived of and written by local resident and director Cob, and scored by Daniel McDonnell. The score will be performed live accompanying each performance.

Tickets at the door or in advance through brownpapertickets.com.

RAIN ON WAY SPURS CONCERN FOR STREAMS

A coordinated effort is underway to prevent potentially toxic ash from burned lots from washing into local watersheds.

pressdemocrat.com/news/7584377-181/rain-in-forecast-shifts-sonoma

'BABY' 2.3 MAGNITUDE QUAKE @ 1:48 AM

The USGS reported a 2.3 magnitude earthquake this morning @ 1:48 am. The quake had an epicenter located 3.9 miles NW of Navarro. It was a surface quake, having a depth of less than a mile and there were no reports of anyone "feeling it" - but a person on the MCNlistserv asked, "Did you feel an earthquake at about 2:50 am?"

A close look at the epicenter found the location was along Flynn Creek near "Onion Patch Gulch."

(MendocinoSportsPlus)

LITTLE DOG SAYS, “That fox was back again last night. I don't care if they call me a wimp and say I'm not doing my job, I'm not messing with him. I tangled with a possum once, and ever since I've said, ‘Dogs and cats, I'll fight. The wild things? Not me, bub. I know my limits’."

THEN AND NOW

by Marilyn Davin

A couple of months ago at a family dinner party, a high school sophomore from my son-in-law’s side of the family walked into the room, taking time out from her texting long enough to say ‘Hello’ to everyone. She was wearing her underwear. Really. There’s just nothing else to call it: thigh-high tight sheer skirt ending barely inches from her underpants, low-cut off-the-shoulder top exposing a large swath of the right side of her torso, including the tops of her breasts, fetchingly presented with her much-exposed bra. One relative close to my age asked guardedly if she wore the outfit to school. “I wear it all the time to school,” she answered matter-of-factly, with a hint of defiance. “I never follow the dress code.” Smart girl, good student, great high school. What’s with the “come hither” streetwalker chic?

A quick online peek shows that most high schools do in fact have dress codes, though they vary widely. Common rules include: the “fingertip method,” where a skirt or shorts cannot be shorter than a student’s fingertips, no gang or alcohol logos on t-shirts, no visible underwear, no exposed cleavage, to name a few. But it appears, at least around here where individual rights, even for minors, trump everything, including common sense, that most rules go unenforced if they exist at all.

I realize that nobody dresses like I did in the dark ages back in the 1960s, when I wore the same pair of Levis 501s, combat boots, and my dad’s old Pendleton shirts to high school. My parents thought I looked unkempt, and my mom occasionally almost tearfully asked, “Can’t you at least put on some eyebrows?” But nobody thought my dress was sexually alluring. So how did we go from unadorned to slut in the intervening decades, all the way to this decade of liberation where more girls than boys go to college, more graduate, and young women are largely economically equal to young men? It seems to have happened gradually. The Charlie perfume ads in the 1980s come to mind: a confident, conservatively dressed, unmade-up young woman striding off to work with her briefcase. This morphed into the 90s, where the “stoned on smack” look kicked in. Young female models were suddenly rail thin and sickly looking, with eyes smudged with black mascara and lined with pink eye shadow. Some of that look lingers today. Now, finally, we’ve evolved into the semi-nude, skimpy underwear look.

So one of the questions is still what relation, if any, does this “going out in your underwear” fashion trend have to the recent wall-to-wall media hysteria about sexual assault? (“Only one in 100 rapes is ever reported,” the signs shout – never mind that anyone charged with an alleged crime is, like everyone else in the country, afforded the presumption of innocence.) The usual answer is that dressing in your (often sheer) underwear has nothing to do with it. Legally it shouldn’t, of course, but the practical reality is…

The expanded definition of sexual assault itself, formerly known as rape, has been hyped ad nauseum in the media, taking up far more air and print time and space than the federal budget just passed and the coming tax scheme that will not only cut Medicaid (oh, well, they’re poor) but also cut Medicare, the universal healthcare plan that covers virtually every American aged sixty-five and older. I get that ratings matter and that sex sells, but…really?

Let’s get one thing out on the table from the get-go. Rape is a felonious violent crime, and whoever commits it should be tried to the full extent of the law, whatever his or her sex. And Harvey Weinstein certainly appears to be a scum bag in this regard, but he’s never actually been convicted of anything, a fact that too many journalists conveniently fail to mention in pursuit of ever-more-salacious news coverage. Large payouts to his accusers do not a conviction make, and every man, especially a powerful man like Weinstein, understands that a public accusation of sexual assault will, like a bobcat’s tail, follow him around for the rest of his life.

Think of the college student in Virginia who was splashed across the cover of “Rolling Stone,” usually the gold standard of accurate, exhaustively researched reporting. The accuser later admitted the charges were untrue, basically just made up from her imagination, tarnishing the reputation of a great publication as well as the reputation of her non-existent assailant. Especially with this accusation, in this climate, the court of public opinion can be a far greater threat than a court judgment. If the charges against Weinstein are proven to be true, in a sort of twisted logic, he has been lucky to be able to afford to make them go away, shielded from public exposure ─ at least so far.

Sexual assault has been thrown willy-nilly into the bottomless maw of the American judicial system and, unfortunately, its ever-mushier definition and wider applications have, sadly, hurt rather than helped its true victims. One of the lowest points in this fuzzy realm was possibly the inclusions of marital rape and “inappropriate touching” of just about any kind. Marital rape? Married spouses can’t even be made to testify against one another. “Inappropriate touching” is very much in the eye of the beholder. As one defense attorney and former prosecutor put it, “All it takes is an accusation, [and] anyone can accuse anyone of anything." In any event, the charge can rarely be factually proved or litigated. The zealots say that’s because the system is sexist and unfairly targets girls.

Sadly, these peripheral and widening definitions have, despite their supposed veracity in the current media hysteria, truly weakened the voices of those who have been actually raped and suffer its often devastating after-effects. It gives abused children, raped and attacked women, and other victims of sexual violence short shrift. Such fine distinctions are often shrugged off by sexual assault activists as mere technical distinctions as they picket judges and frat houses with charges of alleged assaults that may never be proven and ultimately deny an accused assailant his or her day in court. For this is a matter for the courts, not the streets (though one can certainly affect the other). So what’s the alternative? Pitchforks?

Back to the slutty clothing, another legal argument frequently expressed by wealthy, entitled parents, is that their daughters have the “constitutional right to self expression” enshrined in the First Amendment. This one really gets me. Adults and minor children are viewed differently in nearly every area of the law. The notion that a minor child can take his or her parents to court for enforcing a dress code is ridiculous ─ though I suspect it’s just a matter of time before a case like this is splashed across Page One and leads local newscasts. After all, anything that even smacks of sex sells big. Parents in fact have every right to protect their teenagers by setting and enforcing rules about how they dress. Parents smugly espousing their teenagers’ right to free expression under the First Amendment are abdicating their parental responsibility to protect their kids. It’s a sad copout for which their kids pay the bill.

Now…for the argument that will practically guarantee I’ll be inundated with even more hate mail than usual: where does a young woman’s personal responsibility fit into this complicated hot-button issue? (I say young women since the overwhelming number of publicly known cases involve a woman and a man.) The knee-jerk cry is “You’re blaming the victim! Nobody deserves to be raped!” That’s of course true, no one deserves to be raped, and rape should be treated as the felony it is.

But…but…but, as one example, if the woman and her alleged male assailant are both blackout drunk and neither can even remember what happened, is it really rape? Maybe, maybe not. Who doesn’t remember those college mornings-after where a hung-over friend has said, “Geez, I’ll never do that again!”

One of the last things my dad told me as I was heading off to college was “Don’t get drunk at co-ed parties.” So what happened to the eminently logical (and sober) approach of saying, “Take your hands off me and leave me alone, Asshole.” Are we unintentionally creating a culture of victimhood?

Back to Weinstein, if even a fraction of the voluminous news coverage about him proves to be true, his alleged actions against young women were an open secret around the Hollywood set. Knowing this, if you were an attractive young woman, would you really think it was a great idea to go alone up to his hotel suite? Just sayin’…

Much of the sexual assault furor revolves around college campuses, and the courts generally consider alcohol or drug impairment before returning a conviction guaranteed to ruin a young man’s life…forever. He will be a registered sex offender, which has NO statute of limitations, and be banned from living wherever he wishes or even getting a job in this era of automatic, detailed background checks. His name will appear on public lists just a click away to alarm neighbors with girls – regardless of the seriousness of his actual crime. He will be forced to live as an outlaw for the rest of his life. And in this time of poverty and homelessness, how exactly does this guarantee of unemployment benefit our society?

So what’s a parent to do? For starters, don’t let your daughters dress like sluts. Who’s the boss here, anyway? Though rape is a felonious crime and it shouldn’t matter how you dress, why put your head in the tiger’s mouth and tickle his tail? Put the fear of God in your sons and bluntly warn them of what sexual assault means today and what they stand to lose if accused of it, drunk or sober. It’s just the way it is, like the sun coming up. Tell them to just accept it, along with their own personal responsibility for their behavior. Tell all your kids, whatever their sex, to never get drunk at a party, even though you know it’s a tall order. But tell them to never do it anyway. Then tell them again. And again. Set the example and don’t get drunk or abuse drugs yourself; teenagers hate hypocrisy. Finally, when they truly appear to understand the gravity and consequences of it all, tell them about how our government is being dismantled, stone by stone, and what they should be doing about it in this country they will soon inherit. Then tell them again. And again. Everybody knows how hard it is to get a point across to a teenager.

A READER WRITES:

Being a young female in the sixties, it seemed there were more predators among the admen in Connecticut, than the hippies I hung with in NY. Wife swapping as prevalent as free love. Other sexual threats were gangs, frat boys, and some star athletes, guys who felt entitled. Maybe Mendocino had a broader spectrum of hippy demographics… There were clean, educated, married hippies who bought land, or paid rent, owned homes, kept an eye on their kids… Folks who made money elsewhere and dropped out, for a while anyway. Some started businesses here… Also teachers, professors, artists — and great music. If we weren't scuzzy, were we disqualified? It was the shared ideals of peace, love! Environmentalism, concerns about overpopulation. Non-conformists, anti-establishment, yadayada. Is it possible the Anderson Valley attracted more of the scabies-ridden crowd?

OF COURSE there were hippies and then there were hippies, but my take away recollections of the Mendo counterculture period are the world class maniacs who sheltered here, secure in Do Your Own Thing-Ism, five in Anderson Valley alone — Manson; Leonard Lake; Charles Ng; Tree Frog Johnson; Kenneth Parnell — and a host of lesser predators. I liked Mendo better when it was logging, fishing, farming, and the late Supervisor, John Cimolino, asking his fellow Supes during public expression as the late Richard Johnson approached the mike, "Do we really have to listen to these nuts?"

SPEAKING OF NUTS, today's mail brought a lengthy article sent in by a probably astounded Aptos reader called, "Wizard of Cruz — Santa Cruz's Oberon Zell is credited with kickstarting the modern pagan movement and continues to school wizards." Zell, natch, got rolling in Mendocino County at the Greenfield Ranch where he was a fast friend of mass murderer, Leonard Lake. He and Lake wowed the hippies by super-gluing a horn on a goat and calling it a unicorn. The hippie movement in Mendo is rather terrifying in retrospect.

"ALTHOUGH there are numerous problematic aspects of many charter schools that rightfully garner a great deal of public attention—their growing for-profit nature, their inability to accommodate students with special needs, the low pay for their teachers, etc.—one rarely hears that charter schooling, as it is currently practiced, is essentially an inferior version of traditional public schooling with uniforms. This fixation on school uniforms—which, despite the rhetoric of educational innovation, is often the only thing noticeably distinct about many charters—emerged as different aspects of the school choice movement converged and points to the underlying and unsound logic of charter schooling."

THE LIMPING, soporific prose of the above could only be the work of (1) an academic or (2) an academic "teacher/educator." Sure enough, Paul J. Ramsey, writing for CounterPunch, is all three.

LIKE MOST LIB LABS, I'm hostile to charter schools, especially the ones run by for-profit crooks like the guy who owns a rural charter adjunct here in the Anderson Valley called Blackbird Farm. Charter schools were originally formed by parents desperate to get their children away from failed public schools, and there are thousands of those — failed public schools, several right here in Mendo County. If the public schools didn't resist all reform, and they were adequately and uniformly funded, charter schools probably wouldn't exist. School uniforms? An idea whose time came years ago and, predictably, was ignored by the immovable blob of public ed. Uniforms save parents a lot of money in not keeping up with two hundred dollar sneakers and see-through designer tights, and school people don't have to waste a lot of time arguing with our nation's future about "appropriate" dress.

WHEN I FIRST HEARD the terrible news I gasped and steadied myself against my desk. Sexual harassment at NPR? My gawd, has the world gone completely mad? And he's the boss man, too, and a former bigwig at the New York Times! Apparently these slavering, priapic monsters are everywhere! I can only hope that the management at Mendo Semi-Public Radio, Philo, has taken all necessary precautions against the libidinous beasts roaming its echo chamber.

JUDY VALADAO WONDERS, "With the millions of dollars being handed over for mental health care each year I would like to know how many have actually been helped or are getting the help that so many obviously need."

YOU'LL NEVER KNOW, Ms. V. None of us will. Auditing is all in-house, even when there is cursory supervision of public dollar-outflow. If someone has actually been helped, if his or her mental ship put back on course, that miracle has never been revealed. Pardon this gross generalization here, but myself, I've only met a couple of "helping professionals" who even seemed to possess ordinary human compassion; a whole bunch have been mentally troubled themselves, too screwed up to be of effective help to themselves, let alone anybody else. I could name a hundred people right here in the Anderson Valley whose sympathetic kindliness would make them much better at providing help for the mentally troubled than the master-degreed neurotics getting paid to do it. Mendocino County is badly managed; not all of it, but the mental health bureaucracy certainly is.

JEFF BLANKFORT WRITES:

I'm sending along this latest from Ray McGovern with a suggestion that you reconsider your long held position that the Warren Commission was right and that Oswald was Kennedy's assassin and acted alone.

consortiumnews.com/2017/10/30/the-deep-states-jfk-triumph-over-trump/

I was never a supporter of Kennedy but smelled something wrong with the story from the beginning. Speaking from experience I know that as a defector to the USSR and then, as an all too visible "activist" for the Fair Play for Cuba Committee in New Orleans (of which he appeared to be the only member) and then becoming noticeably agitated when turned down for a visa at the Cuban Embassy in Mexico City, there was absolutely no way he would have a job and still be working at the Texas State School Depository on the day of the assassination (or any other day) if he was not working for the federal government as a paid agent.

This was at the height of the Cold War and the FBI made sure that people whom it considered to be subversive, and Hoover had 17 million in his files, would have a hard time getting and keeping their jobs and he did that by having FBI agents visit their places of employment and urging their bosses to fire them. Under the circumstances there is no way that Oswald would have a job with a Texas state institution unless someone in the FBI or the CIA wanted him to have it.

The book that McGovern praises by James Douglass, JFK and the Unspeakable, Why He Died and Why it Matters, is the very best book on the subject that I have read and recommend you read it as well if the subject still grabs you.

ED REPLY: I'm going to get the book and I'm going to reconsider. The case still fascinates me, as it does millions of people. Of course the "intelligence community" was, at a minimum, fully aware of Oswald, especially at that time ('59-'63), and he was certainly a shooter if not the shooter, and someone was funding him, and and and… Yeah, I'm reconsidering. But there were some unlikely dudes moving around in left circles in those days, including the Americans who fought with Castro in Cuba like William Morgan. Morgan was in Cuba's early command structure but later executed by Guevara as a spy for Yankee imperialism.

JAIL FUNDING

To the Editor,

Regarding the undisclosed $26 million now being spent on the new jail psych wing, the voters need to ask, “what’s going on here?” Why was this information, which is major news for Mendocino County, not released back in June when the award was approved? Was the County afraid that the public would take a second look at their request to raise our taxes? Where they afraid that a rebuttal in opposition to the Measure B tax would be included in the voter information pamphlet? Statements of opposition or support were due in August to be included in the voter pamphlet. Two months after the County knew about the funding. No opposition statements were included. Serious questions need to be asked of our public officials. This whole sordid affair does not pass the smell test. Shameful.

David Roderick

Hopland

CATCH OF THE DAY, November 1, 2017

PEDRO AMBROSIO, Ukiah. DUI, no license.

ALEJANDRO ANDRADE, Clearlake/Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

TIMOTHY COUVAS, Willits. DUI.

JESSICA CRAFT, Fort Bragg. Shoplifting, paraphernalia, failure to appear.

MICHAEL DONAHE, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol. (Frequent flyer.)

JOSE MACIEL-GARCIA, Talmage. Pot cultivation of more than six plants, pot possession for sale.

CHARLES MAXFIELD JR., Willits. Controlled substance, failure to appear.

BRYAN MCBETH, Eureka/Laytonville. Protective order violation.

DEAN MCCONNELL, Willits. First degree robbery of transportation persons, inhabited dwellings.

THOMMY NACE, Ukiah. Taking vehicle without owner’s consent, receiving stolen property, ammo possession by prohibited person.

KYLE THOMPSON, Fort Bragg. Probation revocation.

INSANITY, EVIL, OR BOTH?

by Paul Craig Roberts

As the presstitute media has no allegiance to truth, one has to wonder if we can even believe obituaries.

For what it is worth, perhaps nothing, the presstitutes report that three US aircraft carrier battle groups are off North Korea or on the way there.

What for? Why are the morons in Washington following the 19th century British practice of sending warships? This is juvenile. China has already said that China will allow no attack on North Korea unless Korea strikes first. The Russians have indicated their opposition as well. Both China and Russia have missiles that can wipe out the three aircraft battle groups at will. So what is the point of sending obsolete ships, like the battleships anchored in Pearl Harbor for the Japanese, other than to have them obliterated and to use their demise as an excuse to start World War III?

The two-bit punk Washington puppet, NATO Secretary General Stoltenberg, has declared that “We recognize that Europe has also entered the North Korean missile range, and NATO member states are already in danger.” Remember, this was the same lie told about Europe being in range of non-existent Iranian missiles, an excuse for putting US missiles on Russia’s border just as North Korea is being used to put US missiles on China’s border.

We also have the report that Vice President Pence visited the Minot Nuclear missile base and recklessly and irresponsibly told the launch crews:

“We are entering a very dangerous time, and I have come here personally to tell you that you may receive a Launch Order in the near future I want you to know that we have planned for all contingencies, but it is possible that things may escalate beyond what we believe will take place. If you receive a properly formatted launch order, you launch. Don’t waste time trying to confirm the order, because it is not standard operating procedure for you to delay like that. If you get a launch order, carry it out.” http://halturnerradioshow.com/index.php/news/u-s-national-news/1505-vp-pence-makes-history-first-sitting-vp-to-personally-visit-minot-nuclear-missile-base-reportedly-tells-crews-if-the-order-comes-launch

This irresponsible and reckless statement by a US vice president comes as the Russians celebrate the Soviet military official who refused to believe the Soviet warning system of incoming US nuclear missiles and did not start the process that would have resulted, for a warning system failure, in nuclear Armageddon.

We should be scared to death that US political leaders are so insensitive to the ever present chance of false warnings. The moron Pence is a danger to all of humanity. Pence is not a patriot protecting us, he is an idiot who should be impeached for his utter and total irresponsibility before he destroys us all.

Go online and read. False nuclear attack alarms were commonplace during the Cold War, but both Washington and Moscow were too responsible to act on them. Now we have an idiot vice president who wants to act on them!

The idiots in Washington have ordered outmoded B-52 bombers to be on 24-hour alert. Why? Not a single one of them could penetrate Russian air defense. What is the purpose of this nonsensical order except to worsen distrust between nuclear powers. What crime is worse than worsening distrust between nuclear powers? Why is Washington completely hooked on criminal behavior? Who is responsible? Why are they not arrested for the endangerment of humanity and life on planet Earth?

Washington’s disregard of urgent warnings from Russia and China is the most extraordinary thing I have experienced in my life.

Why is it that Washington and Washington’s vassals can’t hear when powers capable of destroying all of them clearly state that they have had enough of Washington’s arrogance and hubris?

(PaulCraigRoberts.com)

ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

I believe the old timers running things is a carryover from earlier cultures in which the elders were viewed as knowledgeable stewards looking out for the future of their tribe. In our current “I got mine, screw you” culture, it has become painfully obvious that wisdom and age have no correlation. Would anyone seek wisdom from Trump in any matter except how screw someone over for a buck? Also, part of the reason for the ineptitude in congress is the publics’ willingness to vote in the incumbent time and again. After watching this for decades now, I have concluded the mob usually gets the government it deserves and us outsiders get dragged along. For true outsiders and the painfully obvious truths they bring to the table are not welcomed.

BEETHOVEN'S STORY: MARGIE SALCEDO RICE CONDUCTS UKIAH SYMPHONY

Pianist Elena Casanova, Rice daughters featured

by Roberta Werdinger

The Ukiah Symphony presents Margie Rice Conducts! on the weekend of December 2nd and 3rd at the Mendocino College Center Theatre. This conducting debut by the orchestra's longtime and beloved concertmistress and lead violinist features Elena Casanova, piano; Patricia Rice Agee and Jessica Rice Vierra, violin; and Elizabeth Rice Oliver, cello, performing two important works by Ludwig van Beethoven--Piano Concerto No. 3 and Symphony No. 5--as well as Italian composer Arcangelo Corelli's Christmas Concerto.

Born and raised in Southern California by Ecuadorian immigrant parents who were classical music lovers, Salcedo Rice was surrounded by the music that would become her passion and her life from an early age. She started piano lessons in the first grade and violin lessons the year after, studying for eight years with Claire Hodgkins, student of and assistant to Jascha Heifetz. Salcedo Rice says of her early years, "I was surrounded by such excellence that my passion as a music teacher has been to take that excellence I was given and provide it to my students in Ukiah. I also wanted to provide that quality to my girls," all three of whom were introduced to the violin at the age of two, and are now accomplished musicians of their own. (Rice's second daughter, Elizabeth Rice Oliver, has since switched to cello.)

After meeting her husband, Geoffrey Rice, on a blind date in Loma Linda, the pair relocated to Ukiah where Rice began an ophthalmology practice. Ten days after joining the Ukiah Symphony, in September of 1985, the couple's first daughter was born. "I just showed up and I never stopped. The community here embraced us," Salcedo Rice comments. She soon became the group's concertmistress--tuning and preparing the string section, performing sectional rehearsals, and playing solos. She also performs and sings Christian contemporary music with her three sisters, all of whom are Seventh Day Adventists, directs the Ukiah Junior Academy's choir, and teaches private students.

The ever-diligent Salcedo Rice is also studying up on Beethoven, whose varied and magnificent compositions she has played for many years and which she now is preparing to direct. Asking herself, "What kind of story is Beethoven trying to tell?" she muses, ""It's good to understand what a composer is trying to say. We take away from the music our own personal story, which we interpret according to our own life experience."

That interpretation and the passion to express it will be ably matched by piano virtuoso Elena Casanova, a featured player in the orchestra's performance of Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 3. Casanova was born and raised in Cuba where she attended a classical music academy and imbibed the island's rich and varied musical traditions, a blend of native, African, and European influences. She is currently recording another album of classical Cuban music, in addition to coordinating several concert series, giving private lessons, and raising two teenagers. Now relocated to Fairfield, Casanova still maintains close ties to the people and culture of Mendocino County. She echoes Salcedo Rice's descriptions of receiving a warm welcome by Les Pfutzenreuter, the Ukiah Symphony's longtime conductor, as well as by the Symphony members themselves and the entire community, describing how, after completing a dramatic climax to the first movement of Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 3, the audience jumped up and gave her a standing ovation, leaving her to wonder if they knew there were two movements left.

Now Casanova is returning to replay that same concerto, under the direction of her good friend and collaborator Salcedo Rice. It was composed by Beethoven in the year 1800 and performed, with Beethoven himself on piano, in 1803. Loosely based on an earlier composition by Mozart, it is a departure in many ways, featuring an elaborate interplay between the piano and various instruments of the orchestra. The vigorous and sometimes agitated rhythms of the first movement give way to the slow, poignant piano chords of the second, with the third movement seeming to achieve a synthesis between the two with its sprightly pace and assured wit. "This concerto is very unique in the conversation that happens between the piano and the orchestra," Casanova comments. "Beethoven took the concerto form to a totally different level, I think. He made the solo piano shine above the orchestra," creating a composition "so much more exciting" than what had come before.

The resounding four chords that begin Beethoven's Symphony No. 5 were first heard in a Vienna concert hall in December 1808. Its audience had no clue they were listening to perhaps the most famous, and defining, classical composition of all time.

Although Beethoven achieved a large amount of success and wealth in his own lifetime, he also underwent his share of struggle. The hearing loss that would eventually render him completely deaf--an ironic fate for any musician, and one that would have crushed a lesser soul--was reconceptualized by him as an opportunity to "seize Fate by the throat; it shall not bend or crush me completely." This sense of being a lone and unique individual who, when pitted against the elements of an often indifferent fate, must rally all his resources in order to triumph, is a perfect expression of the Romantic movement that Beethoven's influence helped found and which would soon transform the landscape of European and American art and culture.

Salcedo Rice comments, "Beethoven's Fifth is a musical story about tragedy with its famous C minor motif and concludes in triumph with the resounding fourth movement in C major."

Margie Rice Conducts! plays Saturday, Dec. 2nd, at 8 p.m., and Sunday, Dec. 3rd, at 3 p.m. Tickets are $25 for ages 18 to 64; $20 for seniors age 65 and up; and free for ASB card holders, everyone under 18, and anyone who has been displaced by the October fires. Tickets are available at www.ukiahsymphony.org; Mendocino Book Company at 102 S. School St. in Ukiah; and Mail Center, Etc. at 207A N. Cloverdale Blvd. in Cloverdale. The concert takes place at the Mendocino College Center Theatre in Ukiah, with free parking and handicapped access. For further information please call the Ukiah Symphony hotline at 707 462-0236.

Concertgoers will be invited to make nontaxable cash or check donations to the Redwood Credit Union's Community Fund to aid those who lost loved ones, homes, or businesses to the recent fires in our community.

Margie Rice Conducts! is sponsored by Conrad & Joan Cox, Dr. Herschel & Susan Gordon, Charles & Wanda Mannon, and Realty World/Selzer Realty.

‘THAT’S A NO-BRAINER’: Steve Kerr says Colin Kaepernick is being ‘blackballed’ by NFL

by Cindy Boren

Steve Kerr, the Golden State Warriors coach who has been outspoken in his criticism of President Trump, said he believes it’s a “no brainer” that Colin Kaepernick “is being blackballed” by NFL teams, even those desperate for a quarterback, because of his 2016 national anthem demonstrations.

“Oh, he is being blackballed. That’s a no-brainer,” Kerr told Dan Pfeiffer on the “Pod Save America” podcast this week. “All you have to do is read the transactions every day, when you see the quarterbacks who are getting hired. He’s way better than any of them.”

Kaepernick has been a free agent since parting with the San Francisco 49ers in March and teams have shown little interest in him, even as injuries have struck. Kerr believes that there are a number of reasons, including the dreaded “distraction” excuse, why Kaepernick isn’t back in the league.

“The NFL has a different fan base than the NBA does. The NBA is more urban, [the] NFL is more conservative, and I think a lot of the NFL fans are truly angry at Kaepernick, and I think owners are worried what it’s going to do to business. I think there is a legitimate concern, too, about the distraction that it’s going to create,” he said. “I’m not justifying teams not signing him but I will acknowledge — when you think about Tim Tebow, for example. Tebow was like this lightning rod. Whether you liked him or didn’t like him, if he went to a team, that was going to be the story every single day. That’s now Kaepernick.

“If you are a general manager — and again, take social concern out of it, take your beliefs out of it, if you’re just saying we’re trying to be a football team and win football games — if you’re a general manager, you do have to worry about the circus that would erupt if you signed Kaepernick. Again, that’s not justifying not signing him, but it’s understanding what you’re getting into.”

Kerr also addressed Trump’s retraction of an invitation to visit the White House last month, which came the day after Stephen Curry had opened training camp by saying that the team would convene to decide whether to go when it visits Washington in February to play the Wizards. That night, Trump made the speech in which he called for any “son of a bitch” who didn’t stand for the anthem to be fired and Curry’s comment caused him to retract the invitation. It was, Kerr admits, a surreal 24 hours.

“We had been debating for a couple months what we would do in terms of — would we visit the White House or not? If we did, how would we want it to unfold?” Kerr said in an interview with Dan Pfeiffer, a former Obama administration adviser, that aired on Monday’s Pod Save America podcast. “There had been some back-channel communication between the White House and our organization and so we were sorting through it all, but before we could get to anything, the president beat us to the punch, so to speak. Not really that surprising that he would say that or he would lash out because that’s kind of his way.

“I don’t think we would have gone and I think he knew that. Several of us had been very critical of the president in the past year, and it would have been awkward, for sure. I don’t think we would have gone, but we were very interested in possibly going and not making it a photo op, the way these things usually are, but maybe going and actually having a discussion about the things that we felt strongly about. But that’s kind of far-fetched.”

Instead, the team hopes to do something “that has an impact.” Last year, players visited the National Museum of African American History and Culture. “We’ve been invited by various members of Congress to visit, so maybe we can do something like that,” Kerr said. “We’ve talked about doing what we usually do in D.C., which is visiting one of the many museums or historical sites.”

Kerr, like San Antonio Spurs Coach Gregg Popovich, has been at the forefront of sports figures who question Trump’s fitness for office. In a Sports Illustrated interview last spring, Kerr spoke of former coach Bobby Knight, a Trump supporter, and the characteristics he shares with the president.

“My personal opinion is Bobby Knight’s way smarter than Donald Trump,” Kerr said then. “Bobby Knight was brilliant in a lot of ways. So there was some real foundation in terms of knowing and coaching the game. But he was a bully, so … I think being a bully doesn’t work today, or at least it doesn’t work coaching. The modern coach has to be much more communicative, flexible, aware, conscientious, all those things.

“Frankly, I think it’s why Trump couldn’t be more ill-suited to be president, because he’s a blowhard. You don’t see some of the qualities you talk about, the resilience, the ability to communicate, the compassion. None of that. But in the old days, a lot of great coaches who maybe didn’t have those, there was still a fiber there, whatever it was. To be a great leader, there have to be some qualities in there.

“Has anyone ever thought that Donald Trump was a great leader?”

(Washington Post)

FIRST FRIDAY AT GRACE HUDSON

This Friday, November 3rd at Grace Hudson, the Museum will be open from 5 to 8 p.m. for visitors to enjoy George Husaruk's liquid and colorful jazz flute music live in the gallery, as well as the Museum's current exhibit: "Masters of the Molten," contemporary art glass creations from master craftspeople throughout Mendocino County. The Grace Hudson Museum is at 431 S. Main St. in Ukiah and can be reached at www.gracehudsonmuseum.org or (707) 467-2836.

SOME DAY, SOME WAY, TRISH WILL GET US THERE

Hi everyone,

The Broadband Alliance will meet this FRIDAY, Nov. 3rd for our public outreach meeting (10 am, Community Foundation in Ukiah). The agenda is attached (also call-in info is on the agenda). A major topic of discussion will be the recent fires and impacts on residents. I also want to ask that if you haven't taken the telecommunications outage survey <https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/firestorm2017>, to please do so. It is bilingual so Spanish speakers can take it as well. It takes about 10 minutes, and will provide valuable information about the state of our infrastructure during an emergency. Surveys in the past have provided data for reports that have been submitted to the CPUC, the FCC, and our elected officials. We have to keep at this if we want things to improve. I also ask you to help me get the word out about the survey, as it's important to get responses from all zip codes in the county. You can help by:

Sharing the link with your contacts - https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/firestorm2017

Send people to our website at www.MendocinoBroadband.org (survey is on the homepage)

Send people to our Facebook page to find the survey linked (Broadband Alliance of Mendocino County) <https://www.facebook.com/BroadbandAlliance>

Share our Facebook page to your Facebook

Of course, you are welcome to contact papers, radio, list-serves, bulletin boards, etc to also help get the word out.

Thanks, and I hope to see you on Friday or hear your voice calling in!

Trish Steel

MADE FOR MARMON

Tax the Rich: An animated fairy tale

Narrated by Ed Asner, with animation by Mike Konopacki.

Written and directed by Fred Glass for the California Federation of Teachers.

An 8 minute video about how we arrived at this moment of poorly funded public services and widening economic inequality. Things go downhill in a happy and prosperous land after the rich decide they don't want to pay taxes anymore. They tell the people that there is no alternative, but the people aren't so sure. This land bears a startling resemblance to our land. For more info, www.cft.org.

California Federation of Teachers

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6ZsXrzF8Cc