Mendocino County Today: Wednesday, Nov. 8, 2017

• Early Returns
• Logo Arrested
• Gibbons Review
• Covering Ash
• Humco Scene
• Cannabis Adventure
• Little Dog
• Ed Notes
• Keystruck
• Homeless Groper
• Stalin Bios
• Yesterday's Catch
• Earth Destroyers
• Free Speech
• Billionaire Relief
• Times Past
• Mushroom Workshops
• Cannabis Banking
• Identity Politics
• Broadband Advocacy
• Glass Art
• The Quarrel
• Heroes/Patriots
• Holy Unruly

EARLY ELECTION RETURNS (late Tuesday night)

Headlines:

Measure B ahead with over 82%, well over two-thirds minimum requirement.

San District Reform Slate winning comfortably.

Votes: 12696 counted so far

* * *

Measure B/Mental Health Facilities: Yes: 82.25% (10412); No: 17.75% (2247).

(By Comparison: In November of 2016 the earlier Mental Health Facilities Measure, Measure AG, got 24190 Yes votes and 12342 No votes in the final vote count of 36532 votes.)

* * *

Ukiah Valley Sanitation District (2580 votes counted)

Wipf, Bawcom, Reed (Reform slate): 28.29%, 22.44%, 17.67%. (Incumbents and withdrawn candidates got between 3% and 9%)

VERY BAD NEWS FROM THIS MORNING'S PD

Anderson Valley woke Tuesday morning to learn that Logo Tevaseu has been arrested on suspicion of murder in the death of Paulette Quiba, a 21-year-old student at Sonoma State University. "Logo," as he is known throughout Northern California from his prowess as a high school then Division One football player, is suspected of driving drunk when he crossed into the oncoming lane on Lakeville Highway in Sonoma County and struck the vehicle driven by the young woman. The CHP said the accident occurred at 9:10pm Sunday night. Now 35, Logo works as an assistant football coach at Santa Rosa Junior College where he played football after graduating from Anderson Valley High School. He is married to the former Madeline Meyer, also of Anderson Valley. Logo has been charged with the more serious charge of murder because he was arrested for drunk driving in 2012.

pressdemocrat.com/news/7606510-181/chp-sonoma-state-university-student

FLASHBACKS: A MEMOIR BY JIM GIBBONS

by Jeff Costello

My old friend Gibbons sent me a copy to review for -- what else? -- the AVA. Jim and I are AVA old-timers, and my first exposure to the paper was in 1988 at his house in Willits. My first letter-to-the-editor was written there, on another new discovery, the Mac Plus, a primitive early computer one now sees in museums or 80's flashbacks in movies.

I first met Gibbons (he's one of those people normally known by their last name, hardly anyone called him Jim) in 1971 at Gate 6, Waldo Point, Sausalito. He had a couple of books of poetry put out by a small press in Milwaukee. I liked his stuff because it was unpretentious, unlike so much self-conscious poetry that one sees.

The book is a compilation of material written between that time, and relatively recent, let's say post-grandchildren. I'd seen a lot of it before, and was relieved to see he didn't include much from his period of writing for sports magazines. Competition running is something we didn't have in common. But Gibbons has lived many different lives, and writes with humor and insight about many of them. The stories are mostly short vignettes from various time periods. It's illustrated, and although the photo quality is disappointing, the black and white drawings are very good. I might call it "bathroom reading," and coming from me that's a compliment. You can open any page and find something good to read. I just opened it at random and read "I'd Rather Have a Bottle In Front of Me," and learned about alcohol, drugs and teen sex in 60's Milwaukee.

Those kids in the flyover zone were having a lot more fun than I was in puritanical New England.

Flashbacks: A Memoir by Jim Gibbons is available on Amazon. Type in his name to bypass a similar title. Mendocino County people will see many familiar names and places, from Gibbons' unique, largely tongue-in-cheek perspective.

LOTS OF VISQUEEN black plastic sheeting has been placed on hundreds of properties in the Tomki Creek Watershed, Redwood Valley. CalFire told the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday that covering the burned out areas will help keep polluted ash from running off into the creek. The sheeting of the debris will be in place until Army Corps of Engineer's crews can get to the burned out properties. What happens to the plastic after the debris removal wasn’t mentioned.

CLEARLY a serious effort is being made to stabilize burned areas and Calfire insists that keeping the debris covered is the highest priority. There’s still a lot of concern about erosion and runoff from burned out non-structural areas as the rains begin. It's impressive how quickly the County and various agencies have moved to begin the long recovery from Mendocino County's biggest disaster ever. (ms)

'FOREST QUEEN' assesses the Humboldt County marijuana scene:

There’s just one Sheriff per county. And, he or she is elected. Hence, we do not have a Sheriff. The four items on the alleged Supes job description are: protect the air space above Humboldt, protect the forests, protect the rivers, maintain and repair the roads. Instead we have artificial greenhouse-grown plants from clones, in contaminated soil, sprayed w/toxic pesticides, quick dry, skip the cure time, trim by machine, pack and stamp “Humboldt” by Track and Trace from Switzerland, and blessed by a less-than-a-year-from-San Diego Planning Director. The pesticides are killing nearby trees and forest animals who get too close to the poison, not to mention leaching into the rivers. All for? Pacific Ga$ & Electric, parent to PG&E, and now Redwood Coast Energy AUTHORITY - a “Community Choice?” Not! More taxes that WE DID NOT VOTE ON. I think that makes six, beginning with the infamous (simple majority vote that needed 2/3) million-a-month Sales Tax Meas. Z.

Jeff Dolf claims to be the Agriculture Commissioner in Humboldt, Del Norte AND Trinity. Amazing how he can be in three places at the same time. These people gotta go!

AN HONEST MARIJUANA TALE:

Joe Munson’s Frontier Justice

by Jonah Raskin

This is a story about something that isn’t supposed to happen. It illustrates the strangeness of the world of marijuana, and for that reason no so-called “reputable” newspaper or magazine wants to touch it. It doesn't fit in with mainstream notions of what happens in the world of marijuana, which is that things are getting better and better, and that law and order and rules and regulations have superseded madness, outlawry and the irrational. Forget about it. We’re still in the Wild West.

On way to begin the story would be on a Sunday morning in November, when four vehicles from the Sonoma County Sherriff’s Department climbed Old Cazadero Road, which has only one lane and that’s unpaved most of the way. At the same time, a U-Haul and three other vehicles in the convoy descended Old Cazadero Road. The passengers in the convoy—many of them medical marijuana patients—hoped to reach River Road before the police intercepted them.

In the U-Haul that Mr. Joe Munson had rented explicitly for the occasion, he and his team had stashed thirty pounds of marijuana that they taken, or stolen or liberated (take your pick) from an illegal, unpermitted marijuana farm at the top of the ridge.

Several of Munson’s San Francisco patients who were suffering from AIDS had been unable to join the crew. But they still wanted their medicine.

No doubt, California’s marijuana czar, Lori Ajax, would like Munson to disappear from the cannabis landscape, not only because he has taken the law into his hands, but also because he boasts about it. In his mid-50s and a ball of energy, he probably has years ahead of him. Indeed he doesn’t seem like an outlaw doomed to an early death like Billy the Kid or “Pretty Boy” Floyd, the bank robber who died at the age of 40, and who would probably be growing marijuana if he were alive today.

That Sunday in November, Munson, his crew and the liberated crop didn’t make it to River Road before the police did. So, for two hours, there was a standoff in the woods while deputies asked questions, examined IDs and wrote down names, addresses and phone numbers and then essentially did nothing at all, perhaps because it would have entailed too much work.

The afternoon escapade in rural Sonoma County was the brainchild of Munson himself. A long-time marijuana grower, friend to medical marijuana patients and a legend in outlaw circles, as well as a husband and father, Munson wanted what he insisted was rightfully his. He had a verbal agreement, he said, to grow marijuana with his business partners. In return for his efforts, he would receive a percentage of the crop.

Strictly old school, with old school methods, Munson might not survive in the brave new world of legal, recreational marijuana, but he was still riding high that Sunday.

During the previous the summer, Munson had run afoul of his partners, or they’d run afoul of him. In any case, he was thrown off the property, told never to return and informed that he had no legitimate claim to any of the marijuana he’d helped to cultivate.

Munson consulted with Victoria Shanahan, one of several lawyers who have defended him and who recommended that he not “raid” the farm. She reminded him that he might be arrested for trespassing. Munson went ahead with his plan. It took him a couple of weeks, but he recruited Sonoma County marijuana maven, Alexander Carpenter, along with two beefy friends and half-a-dozen medical marijuana patients. Then, he led the convoy up Old River Road and into the woods.

“We’re not taking any guns or weapons with us,” Munson explained. “If they start something we’re going to leave.”

Everyone, including the beefy fellows, agreed. But when Munson and his crew arrived at the primitive encampment and began to remove containers filled with marijuana—and load them into the U-Haul—there was an altercation.

Words were exchanged and someone threatened to kill Munson.

Munson had invited me along for the ride and urged me to write a story about what “the afternoon adventure,” as Alexander Carpenter called it. I scribbled madly in my notebook and at the same time witnessed the altercation, though I was too far away to determine who started it. Then, it was time to beat a retreat.

On the way downhill, I sat in the U-Haul with Munson and Carpenter, a self-defined “expert cannabis consultant,” who had come to observe the event and stay detached, though he didn’t entirely succeed. When the altercation began, he emerged from the U-Haul and drew close to the action.

Munson, Carpenter and I assumed that the police would be waiting for us near the bottom of the road. We’re veterans of the marijuana scene and know how it operates.

“I’d rather that the sheriff have the weed than those thieves,” Munson said. He added, “Those idiots didn’t hide the crop like I told them to. They made it easy for me to take what rightfully belonged to me.”

The first police officer on the scene blocked the road with his vehicle and approached Munson, who must have looked like the ringmaster.

“What’s going on?” the officer asked in a non-threatening tone of voice.

He explained that he was responding to a 911 call about the theft of a computer.

Munson explained that he had come to collect a debt that was owed him and that no one had taken a computer.

Then he voluntarily opened the U-Haul and said that the containers were filled with marijuana destined for his patients. The officer nodded his head and said that if it were medical marijuana it would presumably be given away and therefore didn’t have any cash value. He implied that no one would be arrested and charged with robbery, which is what we wanted to believe.

When I showed my media credentials and asked the commanding officer if he would be willing to answer questions, he replied, “I’m not giving a press conference.”

Then, he went up the hill to investigate, leaving Munson and his crew under the supervision of two young officers.

“Stuff like this happens all the time,” Sgt. Russell explained. “It’s a common occurrence.”

Sgt. Dietrich told the crew, “I voted to legalize weed. I hope some day it’s in the same boat as tobacco and alcohol.”

When Munson said that his marijuana business was “farm to patient,” Dietrich smiled and said, “That’s the way to do it.”

One of the medical marijuana patients asked Dietrich how he thought the matter would be resolved.

“I’m not sure,” he said. “My commanding officer has a lot of leeway and there’s a huge gray area.”

He added, “It’s hard to know what’s legal and what illegal these days.”

Not surprisingly, it didn’t look like a huge gray area or illegal to J.P., a medical marijuana patient who had survived cancer. Nor did it seem like a gray area to the three women—Denise Lindquist, Helen Starling and Rene Bullock—who stood close together the whole time and who told the officers they just wanted their medicine.

Lindquist has MS and breast cancer.

“One of the biggest things in my life has been medical cannabis,” she explained. “Experimenting with strains has been an ongoing process. I’m getting closer to the right cocktail that will help me have a better quality of life. Joe Munson is helping me.”

Helen Starling has cancer of the uterus. Rene Bullock has cancer and brain lesions. All of them, including J.P., who has survived Stage 3B Melanoma, insisted that marijuana reduced their pain.

“Medical marijuana helped me get off opioids,” J.P. said. “Pot also helped me through my angst-ridden teen years.”

After an hour or so, the commanding officer returned with the names and contact information for the growers on the ridge. Then, he told Munson and the crewmembers they were free to go with the marijuana.

“You took the law into your own hands,” a patient told Munson. He nodded his head and said, “Maybe so, but the whole point was to get the marijuana to those who need it.”

Munson climbed behind the wheel of the U-Haul. The convoy moved out and the deputies moved on.

“Times have changed,” Munson said. “Five years ago this never would have happened.”

Indeed, no one had been arrested and no marijuana had been confiscated. On the frontier a kind of rough justice had prevailed. Munson’s law carried the day and Munson’s patients received their medicine.

(Jonah Raskin is the author of Marijuanaland: Dispatches from an American War.)

LITTLE DOG SAYS, “I get real tired of ‘Nice doggie.’ Hard as I work guarding this place, it's patronizing, know what I'm sayin'? Just give me a biscuit and move on without the ‘Nice doggie,’ comprende?”

ED NOTES

SERENDIPITY. We'd just finished a discussion pegged to the question, “Why are all mass murderers white guys?,” when the multi-millionaire radical, Amy Goodman, comes on the radio with a black professor who said he'd been suspended from his job at Drexel University for leading the same discussion. I'm surprised it's still a discussion, let alone a firing offense. For spectacular, murderous lunacy, Whitey has never been challenged for first place. Who could argue, who could possibly be offended at that simple statement of American fact? Mass killers as far back as the Zodiac killer, the all-time lunatic purely in terms of creativity, and they're all white. I couldn't even think of a black maniac, or an Asian maniac, or a Mexican maniac. Whitey's long been Number One for murdering large numbers of people in one go. Zodiac picked off strangers one and two at a time, then wrote macabre, triumphant letters to Chronicle columnist Herb Caen threatening to kill more people. In one letter he threatened to shoot whole school buses of children. That threat terrorized the entire Greater Bay Area. Lately, white mass shooters have simply opened fire, then killed their pathetic selves.

GOING DEEP HERE, the only way to keep mass shootings to a reasonable minimum is to… reorganize our society in a way that does not promote mental illness. Since that's not likely to happen short of revolution, and revolution being unlikely, mass atrocities carried out by lonely, isolated white boys will go on and on, with Islamic terrorists taking up the slack. Of course sensible gun control laws would help, but the gun horse left the arsenal barn years ago.

* * *

THE GOOD NEWS: Dan Kuny will coach football at Potter Valley next season. The long-time Boonville coach, Kuny left his job in Boonville after several years of disputes with AD Robert Pinoli, saying he was tired of the aggravation. Boonville's loss is Potter Valley's gain.

* * *

FROST FANS clamored on after midnight this morning (Tuesday) in various areas of the Anderson Valley, a wake-up call for residents whose days begin at 3am. Locals are wondering why their sleep was ruined, since it is well after this year's grape harvest. The noise was especially intrusive in the SOBO neighborhood of South Boonville. The fans are so loud you can't sleep through them, even with ear plugs. They are also clearly in violation of the County's unenforced noise ordinance, but the industrial wine industry calling the political tune in Mendocino County, the grape juggernaut does what it wants. If these fans were posted in marijuana fields we can be certain the county would demand air strikes to silence them. Of course the fans could have been on this morning simply because the local wine mob thinks we still live in the neighborhood. But wherever you live in the Anderson Valley, you can hear them. They hadn't been activated this season until this morning.

AT HOME WITH CARLOS

On 11-05-2017 at about 1:13 AM Mendocino County Sheriff’s Deputies responded to a reported domestic violence incident in the 1500 block of North Bush Street in Ukiah. Upon arrival Deputies learned an adult female had reportedly been assaulted by her husband, Carlos Leon, 42, of Ukiah, and that he had fled prior to the Deputies arrival. Deputies learned Leon was intoxicated when the couple engaged in an argument which escalated into a physical assault. During the argument Leon threw a set of keys at the adult female which struck her in the face causing a visible injury. Deputies located Leon at an apartment complex in the 1500 block of North Bush Street where he fled into an apartment. Deputies pursued Leon into the apartment and he punched a Deputy in the face. Leon physically resisted Deputies for a short period of time however eventually was taken into custody. A Deputy sustained a visible injury to his face from Leon’s physical assault. Leon was arrested for Felony Domestic Battery, Resisting or Threatening Officer, Felony Battery on a Peace Officer and Public Intoxication and was booked into the Mendocino County Jail where he was to be held in lieu of $25,000 bail.

SEX OFFENDER JOHN IMUS SENTENCED TO STATE PRISON

Defendant John Cory Imus, age 55, generally of Ukiah, was sentenced to 72 months in state prison this morning in the Mendocino County Superior Court. The defendant was previously convicted by plea of assault with the intent to commit an unlawful sex act, a felony. Because this particular conviction is deemed a violent felony, the custody credits the defendant may attempt to earn during his incarceration will be limited to no more than 15% of the sentence imposed.

The facts underlying the conviction are that defendant Imus, generally living a transient lifestyle, imposed himself on a homeless woman while the woman and her husband were sleeping on the streets during the early morning hours of June 24th. When the woman awakened to find the defendant’s hands where they had no permission to be, she screamed, frightening the defendant, and he ran away. The woman and her husband immediately reported what had happened to law enforcement. Located later by the police, the defendant gave a full confession of his actions, as well as his lascivious intent.

Defendant Imus is no stranger to the criminal justice system. The instant conviction now stands as his sixth felony conviction – four in the State of Washington and two here in California. He also has eight prior misdemeanor convictions between the two states. Even prior to the most recent conviction, the defendant was already required to register regularly with law enforcement as a convicted sex offender.

The prosecutor who handled the case through plea (which happened on the day the trial was to commence) was Deputy District Attorney Caitlin Keane, now of the Solano County District Attorney’s Office. Noting that defendant Imus is a threat to local public safety, DA David Eyster appeared this morning and argued in support of the six year sentence, the maximum sentence allowed for this particular criminal offense. The investigating law enforcement agency was the Ukiah Police Department. The case was conducted before Mendocino County Superior Court Judge Ann Moorman.

IS THERE ANY POINT to another Stalin biography? Before the opening of the old Soviet archives, three decades ago, the best historians mastered the limited available sources and proceeded to fill in the gaps through inspired guesswork. In addition to genuine insight, this guesswork sometimes involved cross-Atlantic psychoanalysis, including speculations on how Stalin was swaddled as an infant, and could reach the point of imagining his thoughts and putting them in quotation marks.

But the archives—while curbing these excesses, settling old arguments over the precise number of people shot by Stalin’s secret police during the Terror (an astonishing six hundred and eighty-one thousand six hundred and ninety-two), and showing definitively that it was Stalin who signed the execution orders—have not radically altered anyone’s over-all conception of what sort of person Stalin was, or what sort of regime he presided over. The Bolsheviks, we’ve learned, sounded behind closed doors exactly the way they sounded in public. They were what we thought they were.

Keith Gessen, ‘How Stalin became Stalinist,’ New Yorker, 11/6/2017

CATCH OF THE DAY, November 7, 2017

PARIS BEACHAM-VANDERPOOL, Covelo. Domestic battery, probation revocation.

KOURTNEY DAVILA, Laytonville. Controlled substance, resisting.

PEDRO INGUEZ, Ukiah. Lewd-lascivious with child under 14.

JAMES KING, Willits. Domestic battery, probation revocation.

JAMES MILES, Ukiah. Probation revocation.

MUHAMMAD NAEEM, Inglewood/Redwood Valley. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

DAVID NICKS, Fort Bragg. Disorderly conduct-alcohol, probation revocation.

JEFFERY WEBB JR., Lucerne/Willits. Stolen vehicle, burglary tools.

ANDREA WRIGHT, Ukiah. Probation revocation.

EARTH 'WILL BECOME A FLAMING BALL OF FIRE BY 2600': Professor Stephen Hawking warns that mankind must make plans to leave the planet to avoid extinction

Speaking via video link at the Tencent WE Summit, held in Beijing, the renowned physicist warned that soaring populations and energy demands will cause the catastrophe.

by Tim Collins

Professor Stephen Hawking has warned mankind will destroy the Earth, turning it into a blazing fireball, within the next 600 years.

The renowned physicist believes soaring population sizes and increasing demands for energy will lead to the catastrophe.

Humanity should begin looking to the stars to avoid this fate, he argues, with our nearest neighbour Alpha Centauri the best candidate for our escape.

Hawking urged potential financial backers to get behind a project that could one day lead to manned flights to the system.

Hawking made the comments while speaking via video link at the Tencent Web Summit, held in Beijing.

The British cosmologist, who was diagnosed with motor neuron disease aged 21, is backing the Breakthrough Starshot project.

It would see a nanocraft probe sent to Alpha Centauri in just over 20 years.

Speaking at the conference, he said: 'The idea behind this innovation is to have the nanocraft on the light beam.

'Such a system could reach Mars in less than an hour, or reach Pluto in days, pass Voyager in under a week and reach Alpha Centauri in just over 20 years.'

The Alpha Centauri star system is 25 trillion miles (4.37 light years) away.

With today's fastest spacecraft, it would take about 30,000 years to get there.

Breakthrough Starshot aims to establish whether a gram-scale nanocraft, on a sail pushed by a light beam, can fly over a thousand times faster.

Astronomers estimate that there is a reasonable chance of an Earth-like planet existing in the 'habitable zones' of Alpha Centauri's three-star system.

It has been a busy few days for Hawking, with not just one, but two doomsday predictions for the future of the planet.

Humanity must also be prepared to tackle artificial intelligence to stop robots replacing people, he warned at the 2017 Web Summit, held in Lisbon and attended by around 60,000 people.

Hawking said the technology could transform every aspect of life but cautioned that intelligent machines pose new challenges.

He said robots are already threatening millions of jobs but that this new revolution could be used to help society and for the good of the world, including alleviating poverty and disease.

'The rise of AI could be the worst or the best thing that has happened for humanity,' Hawking said via video link at the opening night of the summit on Monday.

'We simply need to be aware of the dangers, identify them, employ the best possible practice and management and prepare for its consequences well in advance.'

Hawking's comments come during an escalating debate about the pro and cons of AI, a term used to describe machines with a computer code that learns as it goes.

Silicon Valley entrepreneur Elon Musk, who is chief executive of electric car maker Tesla Inc and rocket company SpaceX, has warned that AI is a threat to humankind's existence.

But Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, in a rare interview recently, told the Wall Street Journal that there was nothing to panic about.

Hawking said everyone has a role to play in making sure that this generation and the next are fully engaged with the study of science at an early level.

He hope that this will create 'a better world for the whole human race'.

'We need to take learning beyond a theoretical discussion of how AI should be, and take action to make sure we plan for how it can be,' said Hawking, who communicates via a cheek muscle linked to a sensor and computerised voice system.

'You all have the potential to push the boundaries of what is accepted, or expected, and to think big.

'We stand on the threshold of a brave new world.

'It is an exciting, if precarious, place to be and you are the pioneers,' he added.

(Daily Mail On Line)

ONE OF MY FAVORITE STORIES is the really extraordinary drummer and leader Max Roach. He said to me, “You know, you write a lot about the Constitution. What do I think we do? What we do in jazz, we are individual voices, right? Have to be. And we come together, and that voice is different and sometimes larger than the sum of the parts. Isn’t that what you’re talking about?” And that to me was a perfectly organic link between jazz and who we are as a people. … And speech is not as free as it’s supposed to be here. I mean, the essence of it came out when Oliver Wendell Holmes, who was on the Supreme Court and himself was uneasy and not clear about what this First Amendment was all about. And he finally came to the conclusion, the correct conclusion. He said, “Look, free speech is to support the right to speech of people you hate, whose speech you hate.” That makes us unique, I believe, in countries all over the world when we have that.

Nat Hentoff

TRUMP FAMILY RELIEF ACT

Editor:

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act should be renamed the Trump Family Relief Act. Under this proposed legislation, the Trump family will save hundreds of millions of dollars, maybe billions with the elimination of the estate tax. The elimination of the alternative minimum tax could save Donald Trump $31 million based on his 2005 tax return. Then there is the lowering of the pass-through rate, which would require Trump to pay a maximum of 25 percent of the business income that is reported on his personal tax returns.

To pay for the Trump Family Relief Act, the proposed legislation would eliminate the interest deduction on student loans, thus making a college education even more expensive. It would eliminate the deduction for medical expenses used by seniors for nursing home care and by parents to cover medical costs for their special needs children. As for doubling the standard deduction, this would be offset by elimination of personal exemptions, and the bump in the child care credit would disappear in five years.

If you believe that the Trump family needs this relief that we will pay for, please contact your members of Congress.

Richard Neffson

Rohnert Park

ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

The trick is to believe your own eyes and listen to the accounts of people you trust because you can’t believe the mendacious sacks of shit in the Washington-Manhattan Axis.

If you’re young you don’t have the benefit of the perspective times past. Businesses in huge swathes of the US interior employed vast numbers of American men that went to work everyday carrying lunch pails. Every shift change was signalled by the wail of the factory siren and the town lived by its dictates. But it was a decent living. One working man’s salary could support a family.

No more though. The bi-coastal glitterati pour scorn on those days, on the one hand saying that working people didn’t deserve such a good living because of their educational and attitudinal deficiencies.

Or, on the other hand, and in direct contradiction, scoff at the notion that such times even existed. Well, they did.

As you ask, how many crack-ups can happen before there’s no reassembly possible. Never mind economic depression and financial fragility, what about the state of decrepetating infrastructure? Republicans don’t want to pay tax, Democrats are too busy preening and posturing about how wonderful and intelligent they are. Meanwhile it all goes to shit.

MUSHROOM ID FOR BEGINNERS THIS SAT

Choose Your Preferred Date to Attend!

This workshop is offered on three Saturdays:

Nov 11, Dec 2, or Dec 16 from 10:00am to 3:30pm

(Lecture 10—1:30pm; lunch 1:30—2:00pm; field ID walk 2:00—3:30pm)

Participants will learn the basic taxonomic identifying features that distinguish mushrooms from each other, where each unique mushroom species can be found, when they can be found, and the myths associated with them. The workshop consists of a lecture, Powerpoint slideshow, hands-on look of mushrooms collected and displayed for each workshop, and a field walk to find mushrooms associated with the Gardens' native plant communities, with a focus on students using the identification tools provided at the workshop to key mushrooms.

Sign up by phoning in your payment at 707-964-4352 ext. 16 or reserve your spot in person at The Garden Store at MCBG. Class cost is $25 for Gardens members and Master Gardeners; $35 for non-members. Payment is due upon sign-up. Please note, all workshop fees are non-refundable unless the workshop has been canceled or rescheduled by the Gardens.

Class size is limited! Each workshop is limited to 20 participants. A waiting list of up to five attendees will be kept in the event of a cancellation. If there is a cancellation by 4:00pm on the Friday before the class, people on the waitlist will be contacted by store staff of the opening.

Please remember, mushrooms found at Mendocino Coast Botanical Gardens should stay at Mendocino Coast Botanical Gardens... do not pick or collect!

CALIFORNIA TREASURER PROPOSES BANKING STRATEGIES FOR CANNABIS INDUSTRY

pressdemocrat.com/news/7607873-181/california-treasurer-proposes-banking-strategies

[IDENTITY] POLITICS is not an alternative to class politics; it is a class politics, the politics of the left-wing of neoliberalism. It is the expression and active agency of a political order and moral economy in which capitalist market forces are treated as unassailable nature.

An integral element of that moral economy is displacement of the critique of the invidious outcomes produced by capitalist class power onto equally naturalized categories of ascriptive identity that sort us into groups supposedly defined by what we essentially are rather than what we do. As I have argued, following Walter Michaels and others, within that moral economy a society in which 1% of the population controlled 90% of the resources could be just, provided that roughly 12% of the 1% were black, 12% were Latino, 50% were women, and whatever the appropriate proportions were LGBT people.

It would be tough to imagine a normative ideal that expresses more unambiguously the social position of people who consider themselves candidates for inclusion in, or at least significant staff positions in service to, the ruling class.

Adolph Reed

BROADBAND ALLIANCE OF MENDOCINO COUNTY

Trish Steel writes: We had a comment posted to our page and I have re-posted it below, along with my reply. My reply is rather long but it's not easy to explain in a short answer. Thanks Isaac for reaching out about your concerns, and as in my reply, just call me if you want to talk. I am happy to be open and transparent about what we do.

Here's the comment from Isaac Youngblood:

So name a wire or a transmitter you folks have implemented?

I see records of hundreds of thousands of dollars flowing into your organization: how does this benefit residents that aren't paying themselves with non-profit funding?

Just curious if ya'll have just had meetings and accepted federal funding since 2011, or if you've actually… Done anything? Thanks.

Here's my rather long reply:

Hi Isaac,

I’m glad that I have this opportunity to set the record straight on this, as you seem to think that the Alliance is a broadband service provider who deploys infrastructure. We are not. We are an advocacy organization whose goal is to lessen the digital divide in our county. We do this by working to remove barriers to deployment, advocating for better broadband policy at the local, state and federal level, and trying to increase the broadband adoption rate.

I can say that your account about the “hundreds of thousands of dollars flowing into our organization” is not accurate. The dollar amount which I believe you are referring to is the the pro-bono professional time (calculated into a dollar amount) that has been donated by members of the Alliance. So for example, the former chair of the Alliance, Jim Moorehead, retired from his job and then worked literally full-time on this issue for 7 years, driving from the town of Mendocino to Ukiah every week for much of that time because he was so frustrated by the lack of broadband. He was never paid one penny for the thousands of hours that he spent. I’m sure he would have loved to do other things instead - like pursue his hobby photography, or spend time with his wife but he wanted to help the county. The first we ever had dollars come to the Alliance was when we received a small grant from the consortium to which we were part of in 2012 and in 2013, for $20,000/year. With that money the Alliance was able to hire for the first time ever a paid person to serve as their administrator coordinator, and that was me. Note that this modest salary did not include any benefits, vacation time, retirement, etc. This was not federal funding (we have never received federal funding), but state funding in the form of a re-imbursement grant and this funding is NOT ALLOWED to be used for infrastructure. Long story, but there are 3 separate accounts for broadband at the state level, including the consortium account and infrastructure grant account and the infrastructure loan account. The infrastructure grant and loan account is for infrastructure which providers can apply to, and the consortium account is for broadband actives “other than infrastructure” that can help support broadband in other ways. So again, our funding could NOT be used to put up antennaes or wires or buy equipment. And our residents pay into this fund whether we get money back or not, so it makes sense to take advantage of this money. This is a simplified version of our finances of course, but I would be happy to meet with you to answer all of your questions. The county allocated money for broadband in 2015, because the PUC grant is re-imbursement only. But as before, I am not a county employee, and as before I have no benefits nor retirement. I can honestly say that do the best job I can for the county. And our current consortium manager lives in So California and is working as manager with NO PAY in his retirement to help a county he does not even live in. He is the former CEO of CENIC which laid thousands of miles of fiber infrastructure that connected all the state colleges and libraries. He does this because he wants to help.

So what sorts of things have we done for activities “other than infrastructure?” There are huge challenges for broadband in rural areas so we try to remove barriers where possible and often we work behind the scenes. So for a “behind the scenes” example, a provider had a calfire application to co-locate on their tower “stuck” for years without movement and asked for help. We were able to get the application “unstuck” by working with our congressman to get the application approved. But we don't advertise things like that because we work with many competing providers and so are discrete about help we are able to provide. The county permitting process was identified as a barrier, because for an inland broadband provider to install a small relay pole required a major use permit. So we worked to get the county to pass a streamlined permitting process for small projects to make that process much easier and cheaper. We are currently working to get a similar process for the coastal areas. The infrastructure grant program used to be ineligible to wireless providers like yourself, so we worked with the PUC to get the eligibility restrictions loosened so that WISPs could even apply. I then tried (without luck) to get providers to apply to the program. We also worked with the PUC on a fix for their “map problem” which caused at least one grant from our county to get rejected in Washington DC because the maps were inaccurate when they looked at them from afar. I make sure that providers are notified of any new grant funding opportunities. When I was first hired we worked for 2 years with Golden Bear Broadband to help develop the Mendocino County portion of their grant application for a 16-county fiber middle-mile network. This would have been a tremendous boon for our county. Support included developing public support for the project, driving roads counting houses and tracking mileages for the project, conducting a broadband inventory on what connectivity businesses currently had, and organizing meetings to determine the permitting issues involved. Unfortunately, that grant application was not approved for funding (long story) but that wasn’t due to our not trying our hardest. Just today I spent hours on the phone with a provider who has a project he wants to do, what grant programs are available and their details, and then reaching out to all my network to try to develop potential ways to find matching funds. When our state broadband program needed to be re-authorized, we worked with our elected officials to get legislation passed for the program. We also work to support/oppose other federal and state legislation that can help/hurt broadband efforts. I am also part of a Caltrans stakeholders group that is developing guidelines for a sort of “dig-once” policy for conduit in state rights of way (I say “sort of” because it’s not a true dig-once…). The telcos want to make things difficult for any providers other than ILECs to get access to these assets, and the smaller providers do not have the lobbyists, money nor time to get involved, so we try to do advocate for them. I will go to Sacramento this Wednesday for a 2-hour meeting, but it’s important. I am following the PUC Pole Access proceeding and the Rural Call Completion proceeding; we comment in FCC proceedings as well. We were able for the first time ever, to have a PUC commissioner come to Ukiah for a public participation hearing. All that testimony that residents gave went into the record, along with the comments and reply comments we provided, and we won a significant victory in Dec. 2016 that involves outage reporting. (Unfortunately the telcos are trying to have that Decision overturned…another long story and my next task is all the follow-up on whether they did what they were supposed to do). That all stemmed from an outage report that we put together and distributed to the PUC, FCC, and elected officials that showed how our county needs more robust infrastructure to prevent the widespread outages that have now occurred numerous times. We are currently doing another survey to keep at trying to get more reliable infrastructure. And then adoption…infrastructure does nothing if people are not using it, so I try to promote any digital trainings around the county, and let residents know all the broadband options in their area. We “thought big” and developed a comprehensive high school curriculum around digital literacy that would have involved 9 schools and tried to get it funded through the Bechtel Corporation and Cisco corporation, but unfortunately could not them to give us money. We have bi-monthly meetings for discussion of issues and challenges and I would like to invite you to come and share your perspective and challenges. I write articles for papers and do a lot of outreach. On our website I share provider information and consumer education such as the blog “crossing the digital divide.” I try to talk about the importance of broadband and keep a focus on it’s importance to economic development by making presentations to all the city councils and the board of supervisors.

I hope this helps you understand our role here in the county. And believe me, I wish that we were more successful but it’s not for lack of trying. I wish that there were more providers who were willing to apply for infrastructure grants that I could work with, and that we had better success with the grants we did apply for. The challenges are very big to say the least and the "big guys" have tremendous lobbying power that usually works against us. Again, I would like to invite you to join us at our next outreach meeting (in January) or if you ever have a question I’m just a phone call away or would be happy to meet with you in person.

Thanks for reading this rather long reply. There is just a lot to say, even though there is still tons that was not said as well.

Trish Steel, Broadband Alliance Coordinator

JOURNEY OF MATERIALS:

Glass artists give gallery tour

by Roberta Werdinger

On Sunday, November 12 from 2 to 3 p.m., three glass artists--Kale Haschak, Elizabeth Raybee, and Ferdinand Thieriot--whose work is included in the Grace Hudson Museum's striking current exhibit "Mastering the Molten: Mendocino County Art Glass," will participate in a gallery tour and talk about their work and creative process. Each artist will speak for about 15 minutes and take audience questions. Museum Curator Karen Holmes will facilitate the tour, which is free with Museum admission.

Glass art is the kind of living contradiction on which the artistic process thrives: While glass is often employed to be functional--either to reflect an image back to the viewer or to be used as a medium to see through--glass art instead becomes the actual object under view. Glass artists bend, cast, blow, carve and fuse their material in a variety of ways to fashion their creations, which may range from traditional vases of many shapes and sizes to abstract or figurative sculptures (such as those by Ferdinand Thieriot); mixed media work that involves incorporating a variety of non-glass objects (such as Kale Haschak's "Gaff Rattle"); and glass mosaic compositions (the main medium employed by Elizabeth Raybee).

Raybee's artworks often include bits of text incorporating her childhood memories or even entire poems, such as "List of the Broken," a large mosaic commemorating the Baghdad bookselling neighborhood that was devastated by a car bomb in 2007, with lines written by former Ukiah poet laureate Armand Brint rising above a representation of the ruins. Reflecting on her artistic process, Raybee muses: "Nothing emerges from the hands without traveling through the brain’s view of history and relationships. ...The immersion of these thoughts and experiences are shaped by various materials’ journeys through the nippers and kiln, under the hammer, adhesives and grout."

Like Raybee, Ferdinand Thieriot migrated from San Francisco well over a decade ago in order to create his art in a rural environment while still participating in a community of thriving artists–one of the blessings of Mendocino County. His delicately carved glass sculptures manage to appear both ordinary and mysterious, featuring human forms that morph and meld into other human or human-made objects. Thieriot is most interested in "the intangible space ... between life and death, wakefulness and sleep, personal and perceived identity." This pursuit has followed him during a varied career studying and teaching around the world, including the famed Pilchuck Glass School in Stanwood, Washington, 50 miles north of Seattle.

Kale Haschak also benefited from the expertise of students and teachers at the Pilchuck School, where he eventually took classes after leaving his native Willits at the age of 17 for Arcata, and then the Seattle area. After an intensive eight-year period that included leading a production team for world-renowned glass sculptor Martin Blank, Haschak returned to Willits, where he continues to carve an innovative path. His blown glass, sculptures and mixed-media assemblages employ traditional glassmaking designs and techniques in combination with the raw power and chaos of the natural world that so impressed him during his upbringing in the heart of Mendocino County.

The vibrancy of the work on display and the accessibility to local artists is an especially pertinent theme to many people now. Several artists taking part in this exhibit had to evacuate their homes and studios during the recent fires; all are grateful that they and their creations emerged intact, while mourning the losses of those friends and neighbors who were not so lucky. As Holmes notes, "We take this opportunity to celebrate the resilience of our communities and the beautiful creations that can arise from fire tamed in the hands of the master glassmiths of Mendocino County."

"Mastering the Molten: Mendocino County Art Glass" will be on display until January 28, 2018. The Grace Hudson Museum is at 431 S. Main St. in Ukiah. The Museum is open Wednesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., and Sunday from noon to 4:30 p.m. General admission is $4; $10 per family; $3 for students and seniors; free to all on the first Friday of the month; and always free to members. For more information please go to www.gracehudsonmuseum.org or call (707) 467-2836.

FROM “THE QUARREL”

From The Iliad of Homer

Interpretation by Christopher Logue

(The Achaeans sack a Trojan-allied town and capture two beautiful maidens, Chryseis and Briseis. Agamemnon, commander-in-chief of the Achaean army, takes Chryseis as his prize. Achilles, one of the Achaeans’ most valuable warriors, claims Briseis.

Chryseis’s father, a man named Chryses who serves as a priest of the god Apollo, begs Agamemnon to return his daughter and offers to pay an enormous ransom. When Agamemnon refuses, Chryses prays to Apollo for help.

Apollo sends a plague upon the Greek camp, causing the death of many soldiers. After ten days of suffering, Achilles calls an assembly of the Achaean army and asks for a soothsayer to reveal the cause of the plague. Calchas, a powerful seer, stands up and offers his services. Though he fears retribution from Agamemnon, Calchas reveals the plague as a vengeful and strategic move by Chryses and Apollo. Agamemnon flies into a rage and says that he will return Chryseis only if Achilles gives him Briseis as compensation.

Agamemnon’s demand humiliates and infuriates the proud Achilles. The men argue, and Achilles threatens to withdraw from battle and take his people, the Myrmidons, back home to Phthia. Agamemnon threatens to go to Achilles’ tent in the army’s camp and take Briseis himself. Achilles stands poised to draw his sword and kill the Achaean commander when the goddess Athena, sent by Hera, the queen of the gods, appears to him and checks his anger.)

http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/iliad/section1.rhtml

ACHILLES’ FACE

Is like a chalkpit fringed with roaring wheat.

His brain says: “Kill him. Let the Greeks sail home.”

His thigh steels flex.

And then,

Much like a match-flame struck in full sunlight,

We lose him in the prussic glare

Teenage Athena, called the Daughter Prince—who burst

Howling and huge out of God’s head—sheds

From her hard, wide-apart eyes, as she enters

And stops time.

But those still dying see:

Achilles leap the 15 yards between

Himself and Agamemnon;

Achilles land, and straighten up, in one;

Achilles’ fingertips—such elegance!—

Push push-push push, push Agamemnon’s chest;

The King lean back; Achilleus grab

And twist the mace out of his royal hand

And lift it… Oh… flash! Flash!

The heralds running up…

But we stay calm,

For we have seen Athena’s radiant hand

Collar Achilles’ plait,

Then as a child its favorite doll

Draw his head back towards her lips

To say:

“You know my voice?

You know my power?

“Be still.”

“God’s wife has sent me:

‘Stop him. I like them both,’ she said.

I share her view.

If you can stick to speech, harass him now.

But try to kill him, and I kill you.”

(Christopher Logue's interpretation of THE ILIAD, "The Quarrel")

HEROES AND PATRIOTS KMEC Radio <heroesandpatriots@gmail.com>

Subject: Congressman Ron Paul, Dr Ira Helfand, Nobel Peace Prize Recipient, Heroes and Patriots, KMUD Radio, November 6, 2017

https://www.facebook.com/Heroes-and-Patriots-KMEC-Radio-Mendocino-Environmental-Center-1554754391263726/

Congressman Ron Paul, Libertarian and Dr Ira Helfand, Nobel Peace Prize Recipient, appeared on Heroes andPatriots, Monday, November 6, 2017. Hosts John Good Iron and Mary Massey were invited for this special live broadcast at the KMUD Community Radio Studios in Humboldt County. To hear this and all Heroes and Patriots programs, visit the link above....and Like Us! on Facebook.

Heroes and Patriots is a program about national security, intelligence and foreign policy. The show is streamed live each Monday, 1 p.m., P.S.T. on Like us on Facebook and YouTube at Heroes and Patriots, KMEC Radio, Mendocino Environmental Center.

Q&A

Instructions for Little Dog: Just So Sutra of Holy Unruly and the Noble Subhuti

Craig Stehr