Mendocino County Today: Friday, Jan. 26, 2018

• Offshore Drilling
• Pomo Presence
• Alexandra Russell
• FB Justice
• Pot Program
• Sprinkle Denied
• Costco Summer
• Ed Notes
• Private Property
• Styskal Rollover
• Yasmin Firewood
• RV Housing
• County Courthouse
• Little Dog
• Recreational Pot
• AV Library
• Swan
• Dope Heroes
• Schools Failing
• Trans Ban
• Yesterday's Catch
• Thought Police
• Garrison Feelor
• Mesa
• Democrats Want
• Inequality Rising
• Doomsday Donald
• Water Exports
• Louis Althusser
• AV Foodshed
• Dealmaker
• Stormy Payoff

TRUMP ADMINISTRATION TRYING TO RAILROAD DRILLING OFF CALIFORNIA COAST

As per Senator Diane Feinstein’s Twitter feed around 6 pm tonight. Looks like this February 8 hearing date has been set for a couple weeks, but there hasn’t been hardly any news coverage of it as far as local observers can see.

Sen Dianne Feinstein‏: "The Trump administration is holding only ONE public meeting in California for their disastrous offshore drilling plan, hundreds of miles from many of the communities that would be affected. Read our letter telling them to come listen to all of our coastal communities:"

January 25, 2018

The Honorable Ryan Zinke
Secretary
United States Department of the Interior
1849 C Street, NW
Washington, D.C. 20240

Acting Director Dr. Walter Cruickshank
Bureau of Ocean Energy Management
1849 C Street, NW
Washington, D.C. 20240

Dear Mr. Secretary Zinke and Acting Director Dr. Cruickshank:

We write to urge you to add two more public meetings in California to the schedule of public meetings as part of the public comment period for the proposed 2019-2024 National OCS Oil and Gas Leasing Program. The public meetings offered around the country are a critical opportunity for citizens to learn about and comment on the Department of the Interior’s five-year plan.

Currently, the only scheduled public meeting in California is in Sacramento on February 8th, 2018. However, due to the size of the state, California encompasses three of the Draft Proposed Program Areas: Northern California, Central California, and Southern California. Residents in the northern coastal city of Crescent City would have to travel nearly 400 miles to participate in the public meeting, while residents of San Diego in the southern part of the state would have to travel over 500 miles. If the Department of Interior seeks to adequately provide access to these public meetings, there should be at least one meeting held in each of the Draft Proposed Program Areas.

Given the geographical nature of the proposed leasing program, it is important to provide adequate access to the public meetings for each of the impacted regions. In order to afford our constituents this opportunity, we urge the Department of Interior and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management to add public meetings in the Northern and Southern California Draft Proposed Program Areas.

Sincerely,

Dianne Feinstein et al

FIRST PEOPLE

by Marshall Newman

History is long, but memory is short. Anderson Valley’s early settlers (“The Ties that Bind,” Anderson Valley Advertiser, January 10, 2018) may have arrived in the 1850s, but the valley’s history began millennia earlier, with the coming of Native Americans. These First People left little to indicate their presence here, but they were here.

The Pomo tribe of Native Americans has long been associated with Anderson Valley, but were not the first indigenous people to reside here. An old postcard shot near Yorkville shows a large boulder covered with ancient petroglyphs. The Yorkville petroglyphs are distinctly different from known Pomo petroglyphs in Willits and Lake County, suggesting a much earlier origin.

In contrast, the Pomo are relatively well documented. One of forty Native American tribal groups in California, the Pomo inhabited an area roughly bound by Fort Bragg and Longvale to the north, the western shore of Clear Lake to the east, Santa Rosa and Jenner to the south and the Pacific Ocean to the west.

Within the Pomo tribal area, there were seven distinct Pomo subgroups — Northern, Northeast, Eastern, Southeast, Central, Southern and Kashaya (Southwest) — each with its own territory. In addition, each Pomo band (as they were known) had its own language, as distinctive from one another as the romance languages — French, Spanish, Italian, etc. — of Europe.

The Pomo were hunters and gatherers, drawing on local bounty for food, clothing and housing. In addition to hunting — with bow and arrow, snares and spears — elk, deer, bear, rabbits, squirrels, seals, sea lions and birds, and fishing — with traps or nets — salmon, steelhead, perch and trout, they harvested abalone, mussels, acorns, buckeye nuts, bulbs, roots, berries and seaweed for food. Depending on the location, homes included round, domed thatched reed, brush or grass mat houses on willow frames, conical “teepees” made with redwood bark and flat-roofed pole houses. Clothing was made from shredded bark or hides. The Pomo also were skilled basket-makers; Pomo baskets are considered among the most beautiful Native American baskets ever produced.

Anderson Valley served as a demarcation for the Pomo, as the boundary between the Northern Pomo and Central Pomo ran from the Pacific primarily along the base of the hills west of the Navarro River and Rancheria Creek before heading east just below Boonville. A dozen Northern Pomo villages in Anderson Valley proper (and a similar number of seasonal camps) were scattered along the Navarro River, Rancheria Creek, Anderson Creek and Bell Valley: a smaller number of Central Pomo villages could be found near Yorkville at the headwaters of Rancheria Creek and Dry Creek.

Perhaps not surprisingly, both the Northern and Central Pomo in Anderson Valley were concentrated on the valley floor and eastern foothills; then mostly open meadows, wooded draws and mixed forests near the major watercourses. The steep, heavily forested terrain to the west was very sparsely populated, though Pomo from Anderson Valley likely traveled through it during their annual summer trips to the coast to harvest shellfish and salt.

Anderson Valley’s isolated location and rugged surrounding landscape protected the region’s Pomo from many of the disasters that befell fellow tribespeople living to the south and east during the early years of contact with Europeans, from 1820 through 1850. In 1833, a number of Pomo in southern Sonoma and Napa counties were forced into slavery by Mexican rancheros. A cholera epidemic in 1833 and a smallpox epidemic four years later killed many Pomo in Sonoma and Napa. In 1840, a posse lead by Salvador Vallejo massacred 150 Pomo and Wappo near Clear Lake. On May 15, 1850 in Lake County, the U.S. Cavalry carried out the Bloody Island Massacre in erroneous (the village attacked was not involved) retaliation for the murder of two ranchers who had abused and slayed local Indians: the massacre killed between 150 and 800 Pomo. By 1851, the Pomo population was estimated at 3,500 to 5,000, less than half the estimated population in 1800.

Approximately 600 Pomo were believed to be living in Anderson Valley in 1855, three years after the first European settlers arrived. That number declined rapidly, though the exact reasons are not documented. Almost certainly most of the local population was forcibly moved to the Mendocino Indian Reservation (established in Fort Bragg in 1856 and closed in 1864) or the Round Valley Indian Reservation (created as a sub-reservation near Covelo in 1856 and formally established as a reservation in 1870). Some of the remaining population may have died from diseases, either caught directly from European settlers or contracted from other Pomo during their annual migration to the coast. Pomo children were forced to attend Indian schools in Manchester, Noyo, Hopland and other locations, and some likely never returned home.

Contemporary accounts by Anderson Valley residents from the era mention the Pomo only in passing; a Pomo couple who worked for a local apple grower, Pomo weir fishing on the Navarro River, a theft of clothing by migrating Pomo. By 1914, there were only two Pomo families remaining in Anderson Valley; less than 10 individuals.

Today in Anderson Valley, there are few clues the Pomo were ever here: a few Pomo words incorporated into Boont, the valley’s nearly extinct language, artifacts collected by locals and kept by the Anderson Valley Historical Society, and Pomo village sites now almost completely forgotten.

During our time in the valley (beginning in the late 1950s), my siblings and I occasionally found a Pomo relic; one or two whole and a handful of pieces of mortar bowls for grinding acorns, five or six pestles for the same purpose, and a flaked spear point. They resided on our front porch for years.

During that time, I also frequently visited one of the Pomo village sites in the valley. The location was unremarkable; a road passed nearby and forest growth had overtaken previously cleared ground. Nevertheless, I could see the round indents of house sites, etched in the earth from decades of habitation, and could guess the path they took to reach a nearby creek.

History is long, but memory is short. Despite a major resurgence in Pomo culture among Pomo descendants in the past 35 years, the northern Pomo language essentially became extinct in 2005 with the death of the last native speaker, and only a few native speakers of the central Pomo language remain. Pomo presence in Anderson Valley was gentle and left few marks on the landscape.

The way the Pomo lived here and the way they left here offer lessons worthy of consideration by today’s Anderson Valley residents and landowners, both on how we care for the land to preserve (and in the case of local creeks and the Navarro River, restore) its natural bounty and how we behave towards those different from us.

DROWNING VICTIM PULLED FROM NOYO RIVER ID’D

MSP has been withholding the name of the woman pulled from the Noyo River, but the Mendocino Sheriff Office just “officially” released it - the person was Alexandra Hunter Russell, age 46. The drowning, at this point, appears accidental.

PHOTO—from Alex Russell’s Facebook page:

(MendocinoSportsPlus)

THE DISAPPEARING FELONY

by Rex Gressett

They were a cute couple. I recall bumping into them at Safeway and remarking that they both had city-affiliated websites fundamentally in competition, and yet here they were. They laughed, but indicated that on one level it did not bother them.

For nearly FIVE years he had been living with her in her place on her dime. But when he blew a fuse one night it got suddenly physical in a big way. He worked in information technology at City Hall and the cop shop. The go-to guy.

She was well employed, highly valued and very successful. April 6, the night he dislocated her shoulder, he declined to take her to the hospital. Ultimately, her daughter took her.

When the cops came to the hospital she was in a shoulder sling and the wreckage of a relationship, She backed off filing charges against him. For the cops that ended it.

I saw her a couple of times in May, in her sling. It was hard to know what to say. We did not discuss it. I did not really know how to support her, but I should have known. It was almost 30 days before she stepped forward. Afterwards, when I asked why she kept pushing she told me she had two daughters. For them, she pushed the envelope.

She went to Project Sanctuary. The hospital had given her their flyer the night she was beaten. She needed to talk about what had happened to her.

In the first week of May she tried to make a report, tried to press charges. She called the police seven times in May and sent emails to the cop shop. The cops never called her back.

Down at City Hall, the go-to tech guy, was a hard man to replace. His vacation schedule would be the envy of The Donald — Las Vegas, Ecuador. Tech man is traveling the world right now. There was further investigation but no further questions for him. He works at the police station all the time. He's everyone’s buddy.

Eventually, she lost the sling and dug into work, but once she had started she did not quit trying. The Fort Bragg vacuum of unconcern was deep, dark and wide. She was swimming in it alone, pushing against an irresistible tidal force from his happy enablers, his employers at City Hall.

For over six months she fought alone. No dice, no interest, no investigation. She kept trying. She is a local girl with an impressive career. When she called one of our newbie reformist Councilmen (Norvell), the Councilman called a gentleman at the District Attorney’s office, investigator Scott Mayberry, and things started to roll. All of a sudden there was a meeting with the Fort Bragg Chief of Police. All of a sudden there was a case.

The District Attorney himself thought the case was being whitewashed. Major push-back from Ukiah commenced. The District Attorney appeared in Fort Bragg.

The lady knew what she was fighting. When her now 27 year old daughter was in (middle school) high school, the kid blew a firecracker off in the ladies toilet. (My kind of kid.) The perp found out about it at his gig at the police station while massaging the cop's IT and told her all about it at home. He just happened to know all about it. Call it a casual demonstration of privilege and its abuse with no apparent victim. A joke.

Upshot: The AVA has filed a public information request to see if he deleted her emails to the police. I will let you know.

When I sat down with her we both kind of reached for reasons why it seemed so important to both of us. She talked about her daughters. I thought it likely he had been given a pass by the cops and wondered if City Hall was in on it. I think to both of us it seemed both terribly real and somehow outside either of our frames of reference. When Kate Beckinsale risked her professional life, her sanity and solvency and went after the biggest producer Hollywood, some kind a dam burst. Now there are thousands and thousands of women standing with her who have been hurt, and millions and millions of sisters. Me-Too.

The judge at Ten Mile Court, the honorable Clay Brennan, looked at the case. His sympathy for the perp seemed to outweigh his always rather dull sense of justice. With the District Attorney looking on, Judge Brennan reduced the felony to a misdemeanor pending the preliminary inquiry.

This one isn't over.

FOR A BRIEF MOMENT on Tuesday, we had an inkling that Supervisor McCowen might be starting to earn his big new salary. Toward the end of the day-long Board meeting when most of the pot-oriented audience had left, the Board finally got around to a postponed-from-the-morning discussion of Consent Item 4n:

“Approval of Amendment to BOS Agreement 17-005 with Taylor Code Consulting, Inc., Modifying the Scope of Work to Address the Need for On-going Department Support for a Code Enforcement Division Manager, and Increasing the Amount by $350,000 for a New Total Amount of $500,000 for the Term January 1, 2017 through June 30, 2020.”

Supervisor McCowen began the discussion:

“We have a program where we have expended considerable resources and continue to do so. And because we have not expeditiously approved permits we are not getting the permits fees that were intended to pay for the program that we are putting in place. I guess I should ask, Is there a brief update on where we are with hiring a cannabis program manager?”

CEO Carmel Angelo:

“We have 41 applications for this position. We have gone through these applications a couple times. We are looking at — honestly 41 applications, we'd like to take the top twelve and do interviews on the top twelve candidates. My hope is to have interviews scheduled two weeks from now. And we will start the process. I have been talking to the department. We are still engaged with the Planning department and the Ag department and my office is also doing a portion of the cannabis activity. My hope is that we will start the interview process and we will have good news for this board within the month.”

McCowen:

“And so that individual, when hired, will manage the process. But I think we could do some work in the interim. I actually think we could utilize our code enforcement program manager, Mr. Trent Taylor, to do that. My perception of how things have been moving at Ag is there really hasn't been a plan in place. We have hundreds of applications that have not had the pre-site inspection that should have occurred last year. As of last meeting there had been none of the annual compliance checks. We are being told that if people don't have their permit from the county by May 12, not conditional, we’ve got your application, but actual permits by May 12, they may not be eligible for a state license. I actually think part of the summary of the request, it maybe a little misstated and they were anticipating what I was thinking, but it says that we have an approved agreement with Taylor Taylor consulting to provide management of cannabis regulations. In reality, that's in relation to the code enforcement issue. I think we could actually go a little further and utilize Mr. Taylor's expertise to ask him to develop a work plan that will get these permits through the process. I don't want to micromanage how that would occur. But I believe he's fully capable of coming up with a plan that would get these permits moving into the process. So I would be more than happy to approve this contract amendment but I would like to offload some of his time to this program get this program on track and on time. It's not encouraging where we are now. In my opinion.”

* * *

WE WRONG AGAIN. After pointing out the problem, instead of asking for a budget analysis of the large deficit in the Cannabis program created by permit approval delays and lack of progress on permit processing, or asking for a schedule to make a dent in the deficit, McCowen swerved into a weird justification of spending another $350k on “a plan” (not on a budget or schedule) (with some other vague “code enforcement” tasks) without even asking for a completion date for the “plan.”

THE REST of the discussion was a silly back and forth about whether Mr. Taylor would deign to accept the task of preparing the plan (not even on honcho-ing the program to get it back on track; that will be the task of the mystery “cannabis program manager” whenever that person is hired and takes weeks or months to get up to speed, etc.)

THIS, by the way, is the same Trent Taylor who has been wildly praised by the Supervisors for his “code enforcement” of the new cannabis program, most of which has been to simply ask pot growers to “self-abate,” — i.e., harvest their crop and remove it — and declare the problem solved.

AFTER Mr. Taylor grudgingly agreed that he thought he could somehow take a shot at squeezing some plan prep time into his busy schedule, the Board went ahead and unanimously approved giving him another $350k for an unspecified period of time and an open-ended pot of money. Look for Taylor to come back to the board after the new Pot Czar is hired for another hand-out from the Supes.

MEANWHILE, as McCowen noted but never followed up on, Mendo’s meandering, unmanaged pot program continues to dig itself further and further into a fiscal hole, spending more and more on pot program administration, falling further behind on processing. In fact, earlier that same day they agreed to spend another $145k to a zoning consultant further complicating a ridiculously complicated and unenforceable zoning overlays and exceptions exercise — with no idea whether any of it can be paid for by dwindling fees and taxes or even how much they’re spending on it all.  (ms)

USUAL MENDO AUTO-DENIAL

Editor,

Hope all is well in Mendo.

I got denied by Judge Mayfield on my parole board hearing.

It is par for the course, out of Mendo. Look at Billy Mayfield and he had money.

It is all so wrong, but here I rot.

I wish life was fair or would just end.

An old saying I would put on road signs when I was hitching: “No dope, no hope, no ride. I died.”

Mark Sprinkle

Chino

LATEST LOCAL GUESTIMATE for when the Ukiah Costco warehouse store will open is late July or August.

ED NOTES

---

DAMON DICKENSON has been appointed interim Superintendent of Schools by the County School Board. He's one of these gray ghost types who has been around for years. Both a nice person and a Nice Person in my fleeting experience with him, and I can barely stay awake typing the news of his temporary elevation because the terms school board and County Office of Education are like a chloroform-soaked rag suddenly clapped over my nose. If you gave all of Mendo a snap quiz asking what the County Schools did, where it was located, its annual budget, number of personnel, only people employed by our public schools would be aware of MCOE, and most of them would not know the annual budget or number of employees. Ditto for LAFCO, MSWMA, MCOG, ad infinitum. Which is how these agencies get bigger and bigger — nobody knows what they do or cares what they do. The only time people notice that government is growing larger every year is at property tax time.

---

THE TEAM DOCTOR for USA Gymnastics is being described as the all-time chomo, certainly an unenviable title. But I have to wonder how he got away with it for so long with so many children, especially children presumed to be highly supervised? Where were their parents? Where were all the many people associated with training world class athletes?

TWICE when she was a kid, my daughter, on full perv alert, came straight to her parents. The first time she was about nine, and had just come home from her friend's house down the street. "Do you think Mr. Christian should be walking around naked in front of us?" No, and that's the last time you go over there. Not that she wanted a re-visit because she'd been seriously creeped out by Mr. Christian. I immediately got on the horn to Anderson Valley's legendary Deputy Squires who told me the Sheriff's Department was already on this guy's case but, so far, his wife, who worked in the local schools, and his two little girls (from his wife's previous marriage), would not cooperate with the investigation. My daughter said her friend had told her that she and her sister were so afraid of Stepdad that they climbed a tree every day after school until their mother got home to avoid being alone with him. There was talk around town of "informal resolution" of the Christian problem but nothing came of it.

THE SECOND CHOMO alert occurred when Daughter was in junior high school. She said her teacher's aide had asked several girls to visit her home after school so her husband could take pictures of them in the couple's hot tub. The teacher's aide was married to Leonard Lake, subsequently revealed as a mass murderer. The aide was promptly fired.

PROPERTY IS THEFT!

RE: Excerpt from Outlaw Ford
From: "Karl and Darci Berger" <tuesdaynightranch@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, January 25, 2018 4:03 pm
To: editor@www.theava.com

To Whom It May Concern:

I was doing some research and came across the excerpt from "Outlaw Ford". What interests me the most are the comments made by the writer about Bald Hill. You do realize Bald Hill is private property and there are cameras on the property. The owners of the property do not want people trespassing and will take necessary measures if uninvited guests are identified on the property. And clearly whomever it is was up there recently and ignored the "no trespassing" signs and the two locked gates. Please advise as to why your publication would be encouraging people to visit such property that has been private for many many years.

Thank you....

A 78-YEAR OLD MAN named Paul Styskal of Gualala, an architect who designed the Gualala Arts Center, suffered major injuries early Thursday afternoon after sliding off a curve on Highway 1 near Gualala, in rainy conditions. Styskal apparently lost control of his 1997 Chevy truck while traveling at an unknown speed and it left the highway rolling over several times before coming to rest on the west shoulder of Highway 1. He was taken to Mendocino Coast District Hospital, then to Santa Rosa Memorial for treatment. His condition is unknown. The CHP said alcohol and drugs were not a factor in the accident.

SOMEONE GET YASMIN SOME FIREWOOD!

Need Firewood Now!

Please help. I am almost out of wood. Need a cord of dry Oak and/or Madrone delivered to my home on Roseman Creek Road in Anchor Bay. Please phone me at 707-884-4703. I do not live with internet. I need this wood as soon as possible! Thanks for your help. Yasmin Solomon

UKIAH UNIFIED DOES THE RIGHT THING!

(Press release from Ukiah Unified School District)

Ukiah Unified approves first steps to convert former Redwood Valley Elementary School to housing

After declaring the former Redwood Valley Elementary School property as surplus at their December meeting, Ukiah Unified school board members used their January meeting to approve the initial steps required to convert the property into much-needed housing and a community center.

In preparation for January’s meeting, Ukiah Unified School District administrators met with representatives from the County of Mendocino, Housing and Urban Development, Federal Emergency Management Agency and LACO Associates to review a study prepared by LACO Associates titled “Apartment Complex and Community Center Adaptive Reuse Feasibility Study.”

The study included drawings and a cost estimate to transform the former Redwood Valley Elementary School site into a housing complex, an idea that garnered wide support to help address Redwood Valley’s critical housing shortage, a problem exacerbated by last year’s wildfires.

UUSD Superintendent Deb Kubin said, “Given student population trends, it is clear the Redwood Valley Elementary site could be put to much better use as a housing development. We’re thrilled to collaborate with community partners to help our friends and neighbors in Redwood Valley.”

School board members directed Ukiah Unified staff to consult with counsel regarding legal requirements to sell, lease or develop the site for housing. UUSD will also solicit proposals from experienced developers and begin working with community partners to determine the water and septic service capacity of the site.

The process of converting the site to a housing development will be lengthy. Before plans for the housing development can be approved, the site will need to be rezoned, a process that typically takes at least six months.

JUST USE THE COURTHOUSE WE HAVE

To the Editor:

Apparently it would now cost $94 million to build a new county courthouse in Ukiah, but only $7 million to make the necessary improvements, including seismic and accessibility upgrades, to bring the existing courthouse up-to-date. (“Mendocino County Courthouse construction delayed,” Jan. 12.)

Official plans for Mendocino County’s proposed new courthouse were first announced to the public in 2011 (go to the California Courts website at www.courts.ca.gov, type “New Ukiah Courthouse” in the search line, and click on the first result, “Mendocino County, New Ukiah Courthouse — facilities program.”) Payment of the full construction cost of the new courthouse, then estimated at about $119 million, was to all come from the courthouse construction fund, a purpose-dedicated Judicial Council fund. However since 2009, $1.5 billion of the money in that fund has been borrowed, swept away into the State’s general fund, or redirected to the courts to pay their daily operating expenses. The Governor’s present proposed budget includes no general fund money for the Ukiah courthouse. So funding for the new courthouse project has again been delayed indefinitely. Originally scheduled to be completed by 2020, its best-guessed completion date now is summer 2023.

Meanwhile, reportedly since before 2011, the existing county courthouse remains run down, overcrowded, and noncompliant with safety codes.

Rather than continuing to wait indefinitely for $94 million to miraculously materialize, isn’t it time to consider trying to find $7 million to restore the existing courthouse to a condition fit to continue to serve the people of Mendocino County.

Jim Luther

Mendocino

LITTLE DOG SAYS, “Why can't dogs run for office around here? Look at all the dawgs who do!”

MILESTONE: Recreational pot sales begin Thursday in Santa Rosa — The first adult-use sales of marijuana begin in Santa Rosa Thursday when SPARC dispensary opens at 9 a.m.

pressdemocrat.com/news/7915415-181/recreational-pot-sales-begin-thursday

LIBRARY LINES

The AV Lending Library will be closed Saturday Feb. 10 through Tuesday March 6. We will reopen on Saturday, March 10, from 2-4. Come in and stock up on your reading. We are located in the Home Arts Bldg at the Fairgrounds. Hours Tuesday, 1:30-4:30, and Saturday 2-4. Thanks,

Elizabeth Dusenberry

PUDDING CREEK SWAN

(Photo by Judy Valadao)

DOPE MAGAZINE: THE PHOENIX RISING FROM THE ASHES: HEROES OF THE 2017 NORTH BAY FIRES

The DOPE Magazine team solicited nominations from the community and set out to meet the heroes of the wildfires that took place starting on October 8, 2017, in the Sonoma, Napa, Mendocino and Lake Counties in California. The wildfires killed at least 40 people, dubbed the most destructive in state history. This piece is written with sincere gratitude to those who shared their stories in the midst of tragedy, and to all of the firefighters, police, dispatchers and first responders who remain heroes every damn day.

dopemagazine.com/heroes-2017-north-bay-fires/

(ED NOTE: Ashley Oldham has also been a regular and intelligent commenter at the Mendo’s many dope reg meetings in the Supes Chambers over the last few months.)

CALIFORNIA SCHOOLS FAIL TO TEACH CHILDREN TO READ OR WRITE, SUIT SAYS

California has broken its promise to millions of schoolchildren with an education system that is failing to teach students to read or write, advocates charged Tuesday in a lawsuit seeking a statewide right of “access to literacy.”

sfgate.com/news/article/California-schools-fail-to-teach-children-to-read-12407882.php

THE MARINE CORPS’S A-CHANGIN’

Washington, D.C.- Congressman Jared Huffman (D-San Rafael) today announced that he has invited his constituent Lynda Bengtsson-Davis, a transgender Marine Corps veteran [from Fort Bragg, Calif.] affected by President Donald Trump’s attempted transgender military ban, to attend the 2018 State of the Union address as his guest.

“As President Trump delivers his first State of the Union address, my message to him, to my constituents, and to America as whole is going to be: love trumps hate,” said Rep. Huffman. “President Trump clearly needs to hear this message. From his anti-Muslim travel bans, to his slurs about other nations, the first year of the Trump presidency has been an unrelenting attack on core values — equality, tolerance, diversity and unity — that have helped make our country great. When our President tries to take us backward by turning Americans against each other and stoking culture wars, he must be confronted,” said Rep. Huffman.

“One of the most egregious examples of President Trump’s discriminatory and counterproductive actions was his decision last year to ignore his own national security advisors and ban transgender individuals from serving in our military. Lynda Bengtsson-Davis is one of many transgender patriots who the President has tried to block from serving their country with his arbitrary, trans-phobic ban. Lynda has dedicated over a decade of her life to serving in the United States Marine Corps, and simply wants to reenlist in the Air National Guard. By having her as my honored guest at the State of the Union, I hope to show her the gratitude and respect she should have received from our Commander-in-Chief —and to send the message to President Trump that we will never back down in the face of his hateful, divisive actions.”

Of her experience, Lynda Bengtsson-Davis said:

“When the President came out with this transgender ban, it sort of blew me away. My personal feeling was that someone who never served a day in his life, whether in the military or public service, had the audacity to discredit my service and the service and sacrifice being made by a specific population of the American people was unbelievable. This whole argument about transgender people in the military is just recycled garbage and it’s the same argument that was used for why African Americans shouldn’t serve, why Native Americans shouldn’t serve, why women shouldn’t serve, why gay and lesbian people shouldn’t serve, and now why transgender people shouldn’t serve. It’s truly just discriminatory rhetoric and the story never changes, just the group it attacks does. I have a right as an American to be given the opportunity to defend my country. After all, shouldn’t a nation’s military look like the people it defends?”

“Thousands of transgender service members openly and proudly serve our nation today, proving every day that what matters is their ability to accomplish the mission — not their gender identity,” said Human Rights Campaign Government Affairs Director David Stacy. “Donald Trump’s attempt to single out transgender service members and qualified recruits for discrimination is both unconscionable and unconstitutional. Any qualified American who is literally willing to risk their life for their fellow citizens should be able to serve. HRC is proud to be part of the fight to support our nation’s heroes and stop the Trump-Pence transgender military ban.”

”President Trump’s ban was an affront to all of the brave men and women who are transgender, and are ready, willing, and able to serve in our military,” said James Esseks, director of the LGBT & HIV Project at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). “Thousands of men and women who are transgender are already serving and meeting the same standards of fitness and deployability that apply to everyone else. The ban was also blatantly unconstitutional—which is why court after court, in case after case, has struck down the administration’s efforts to implement this discriminatory policy. We applaud Congressman Huffman for bringing attention to this issue at the State of the Union address, and for standing with the ACLU, our clients, and transgender Americans across the country to demand the equal treatment and dignity under the law they deserve.”

Last July, President Trump announced this hateful transgender ban on military service through the series of tweets below. Fortunately, his attempt has failed in the courts thus far, allowing the policy that enables transgender individuals to serve to continue.

CATCH OF THE DAY, January 25, 2018

THERESA BLAKESLEY, Clearlake Oaks/Ukiah. Resisting.

RODERICK BROWN, Whitethorn. Controlled substance, reckless driving, possession of pot on school grounds, under influence.

ROBERT CAMPBELL, Ukiah. Parole violation.

ROCKY DUMAN, Ukiah. "Charge information is not available." (Frequent Flyer)

JOSHUA GUEVARA, Ukiah. "Charge information is not available." (Frequent Flyer)

MICHAEL LAWSON, Fort Bragg. Domestic abuse.

SALVADOR PEDROZA, Willits. Criminal threats, failure to appear.

TYSON PINOLA, Ukiah. Probation revocation.

DEAN ROGERS, Nice/Ukiah. Domestic battery.

EDWARD STEELE JR., Ukiah. Controlled substance, probation revocation.

PATRICK TAYLOR, Ukiah. Probation revocation.

THOUGHT POLICE?

In late April and early May the World Socialist Web Site, which identifies itself as a Trotskyite group that focuses on the crimes of capitalism, the plight of the working class and imperialism, began to see a steep decline in readership. The decline persisted into June. Search traffic to the World Socialist Web Site has been reduced by 75 percent overall. And the site is not alone. AlterNet’s search traffic is down 71 percent, Consortium News is down 72 percent, Global Research and Truthdig have seen declines. And the situation appears to be growing worse. The reductions coincided with the introduction of algorithms imposed by Google to fight “fake news.” Google said the algorithms are designed to elevate “more authoritative content” and marginalize “blatantly misleading, low quality, offensive or downright false information.” It soon became apparent, however, that in the name of combating “fake news,” Google, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter are censoring left-wing, progressive and anti-war sites. The 150 most popular search terms that brought readers to the World Socialist Web Site, including “socialism,” “Russian Revolution” and “inequality,” today elicit little or no traffic.

— Chris Hedges, "Thought Police for the 21st Century"

ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

Looks like Garrison Feelor left out a few details in his poetic mea culpa. Bribes, hush money, sexual favor requests, repeated creepy advances. “It was a frigid winter in Wobegon, the kind that made torpid beasts of the great and small, and the kind that lured fleshy old hands under the chunky sweaters of midwestern interns.”

"JUST EAST OF KIRBY CREEK RD" (Wyoming)

(Photo by Harvey Reading)

LEFTISTS WANT TO CHANGE THE WORLD. They want peace, equal income, equal wealth, equal rights for everybody. Democrats are not part of the Left. If Democrats have their way, the fundamental inequality of American capitalism, a system in which 1% of the people “earn” 82% of the income, will never change. Democrats apply identity politics as a distraction, in lieu of systematic solutions to class-based discrimination. Democrats demand more women directors in Hollywood, more African-Americans admitted to Ivy League schools, transgendered soldiers in the military so they can join the slaughter of brown people in other countries.

—Ted Rall

OXFAM REPORTED that the 42 richest people now own as much wealth the poorest half of the world’s population.

Since 2010, billionaire wealth has risen annually by 13%, a rate six time higher than that of average workers.

Key factors contributing to this concentration of wealth, Oxfam found, are erosion of workers’ rights, corporate influence in political and labor policy-making, rewarding inherited wealth, tax evasion, and cutting costs to maximize profits for company owners.

— Ben Dangl

THE BULLETIN OF ATOMIC SCIENTISTS advanced its Doomsday Clock by 30 seconds, following a “grim assessment” of today’s geopolitical climate. “As of today, it is two minutes to midnight,” BulletinPresident Rachel Bronson said — midnight denoting the time of symbolic global annihilation. Due to the failure of President Trump and other global leaders to deal with nuclear threats and climate change, the clock is now as “close to midnight today as it was in 1953, when Cold War fears perhaps reached their highest levels.” The Bulletin also advanced the clock by 30 seconds last year due to Trump’s election and statements as president.

TRUMP WATER PLAN WILL EXTERMINATE SALMON AND DELTA SMELT

by Dan Bacher

On December 29, the Bureau of Reclamation announced it will conduct an environmental analysis of potential modifications to the operation of the Central Valley Project (CVP), in coordination with California’s State Water Project, to “maximize water deliveries” and “optimize marketable power generation.”

In other words, the Trump administration wants to increase water exports to agribusiness interests in the San Joaquin Valley at a time when the Delta smelt are near extinction and winter-run and spring-run Chinook salmon, Central Valley steelhead, longfin smelt, green sturgeon and other fish species are struggling to survive after decades of massive water deliveries.

Written comments are due by close of business, Feb. 1, 2018, by U.S. mail or hand-delivery to Katrina Harrison, project manager, Bureau of Reclamation, Bay-Delta Office, 801 I Street, Suite 140, Sacramento, CA 95814-2536; fax 916-414-2439; or email kharrison@usbr.gov. For additional information, please contact Harrison at 916-414-2425 (TTY 800-877-8339).

A Notice of Intent to prepare an environmental impact statement in accordance with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), “Revisions to the Coordinated Long-term Operation of the Central Valley Project and State Water Project, and Related Facilities” was published in the Federal Register, Friday, Dec. 29, 2017 and can be accessed at https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/current#reclamation-bureau.

Below is my brief statement at the Bureau of Reclamation public meeting in Sacramento on January 23:

I strongly oppose the Trump administration’s draft plan to “maximize water deliveries” and increase Delta water exports to corporate agribusiness interests in the San Joaquin Valley.

Over 28 years ago a small group of anglers and environmentalists fought to get the Sacramento winter-run Chinook salmon listed for protection under the state and federal Endangered Species Acts. Historically, winter-run Chinook spawned in the upper reaches of Sacramento River tributaries, including the McCloud, Pit, and Sacramento rivers. Shasta and Keswick dams now block access to the historic spawning areas.

Beginning in 1970, the remaining population experienced a dramatic decline, plummeting to a low of only 200 spawners by the early 1990’s, due to dramatic increases in water exports through the State Water Project and Central Valley water project pumps in the South Delta.

A small but vocal group, including Chuck De Journette of the Tehama Fly Fishers and John Merz, then the executive director of the Sacramento River Preservation Trust, the Fish Sniffer publisher Half Bonslett and others, kept going to the Commission meetings and working on the federal level for the listing of the winter run Chinook as endangered.

We finally succeeded on the state level later that year when the fish was listed as “endangered.” The National Marine Fisheries Service also listed the winter run as “threatened,” five years after the agency received the petition calling for the listing.

After receiving another petition, NMFS listed the fish as “endangered” in 1990. In the years since the initial listing, run numbers have bounced up and down, with a number of measures taken, including the screening of unscreened diversions on the Sacramento, the removal of the Red Bluff Diversion Dam and some limited restrictions on Delta pumping resulting from federal biological opinions. We hoped that the fishery would recover with the listing and some measures taken to restore the salmon, but it hasn’t.

It’s now 2018, over 28 years after the initial listing, and the winter run Chinook salmon is still in deep, deep trouble. Record exports of water by the state and federal governments and poor management of upstream reservoirs, combined with a historic drought, have counteracted the proactive measures taken, leading to the decline of the fish in recent years.

The Winnemem Wintu Tribe and their allies are working to reintroduce the original run of McCloud winter run Chinook. now thriving on the Rakaira River in New Zealand, where they were introduced over a hundred of years ago, back to their ancestral home on the McCloud. The tribe has set up a Go Fund Me site to raise money to conduct DNA testing of the Rakaira River salmon, as required by the National Marine Fisheries Service to allow reintroduction of these fish.

Only 1,123 adult winter Chinook salmon, once one of the biggest salmon runs on the Sacramento River and its tributaries, returned to the Sacramento Valley in 2017, according to a report sent to the Pacific Fishery Management Council (PFMC) by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW). This is the second lowest number of returning adult winter run salmon since modern counting techniques were implemented in 2003.

The decline of the winter run Chinook parallels the dramatic decline of spring run and fall run Chinook salmon, Central Valley steelhead, delta and long fin smelt, green sturgeon and host of other species. In spite of a record water year in Northern California, the abundance of Delta smelt recorded in the state’s annual fall midwater survey (FMWT) is the lowest in the survey’s 50-year history. Only two Delta smelt were collected at Delta index stations in October.

Meanwhile, the Klamath and Trinity River salmon runs declined to record lows this years, forcing the closure of recreational and commercial fishing and severely limiting Tribal subsistence fishing.

Yet today, rather than do the right thing at take measures today to restore these species, the Trump administration aims to increase pumping and take other measures to “maximize water deliveries” for Central Valley Project irrigators, making conditions even worse for the salmon, smelt and other fish.

Everybody who supports the Delta, Sacramento River, Klamath and Trinity river and other fish populations must oppose this latest effort by the water contractors to enrich themselves at the expense of fish, Tribes, fishermen, family farmers and all of the people of California — and support the Winnemem Wintu Tribe’s plan to restore the original population of Chinooks to the McCloud River above Shasta Dam, as well as the campaign by the Yurok, Karuk, Hoopa Valley Tribes, fishing groups and environmentalists to bring down the dams on the Klamath River.

The Bureau must increase Delta flows, not decrease them, to restore salmon and Delta smelt rather than driving them to extinction. We cannot allow this massive water grab to happen!

NOT ALL PHILOSOPHERS MURDER THEIR WIVES

by Manuel Vicent, translated by Louis S. Bedrock

At the time, this terrible event was seen as the symbol of the moral collapse of an ideology. On a foggy, melancholy morning of Sunday, November 16, 1980, in an apartment of the École Normal Supérieure on Rue d'Ulm in Paris, a philosopher of reference, who was recognized throughout the world and who was the last resistant ideologue of Marxism, strangled his wife at the foot of the bed.

The Soviet empire was, in those years, already a rotten bastion in a phase of stagnation that preceded ruin. In the middle of the Cold War, French intellectuals of the Left, scandalized by the corruption, by the crimes of Stalin that had come to light, or having gotten over what they now believed was an out of date doctrine, began to desert; however, Louis Althusser resisted. He employed his skills in critical thinking to forge an outlet for the philosophy of Marx and to adapt it to the new spirit of the time: Lenin and Philosophy, Reading Capital, Philosophy Course for Scientists—these books were in the library of any progressive university.

He was born in Birmandreis, Algeria in 1918. His earliest memories were of mountains far from the city where his maternal grandfather, Pierre Berger, used to work as a forest ranger and lived with just his wife and two daughters, Lucienne and Juliette. From those heights, one could discern the sea and their life was wild and happy. In that clean, natural setting this murky story began to develop.

…

The Althussers had two children: Louis and Charles. On Sundays, the family would go up to the forrest cabin of their friend Pierre so the boys could play with the girls, who were much younger. There were gigantic eucalyptus trees, a pond, dogs, horses, lemon trees, and orange trees. The four children were always together, they grew up together, and when the right time came, the parents decided they would marry: Louis with Lucienne, Charles with Juliette. However the Great War intervened and the two brothers were enlisted and went to the front: one as an aviator, the other as an artilleryman.

In 1917, young Lucienne was working as a teacher in a school near Galland Park in the city of Algiers when Charles returned from the front with a one month leave. He brought the sad news that his brother Louis had died in the skies of Verdun during a maneuver of observation. Lucienne was very upset, but Charles led her away to a secluded part of the garden and offered to fill the space in her heart that his brother had occupied. She was beautiful and desirable.

Amid great distress, she accepted him as a replacement for her fiancee and the religious marriage ceremony was celebrated in February, 1918, as an arrangement between the two families.

In her own words, Lucienne felt violated on her wedding night. Later, she was humiliated by the sprees of her husband during which he squandered all the savings she had accumulated from teaching. Then she discovered that shared his uncontrollable lust with a lover named Louise.

The artilleryman Charles headed to the front again leaving his wife violated, robbed, and with her life upside down. From this upheaval, their first child was born whom they named Louis in memory of the man who could have been his father. This name provoked horror in Louis Althusser: he always bore it like a sinister mark upon his subconscious which was connected to the imagine of his martyred mother, and which caused him to bleed as if it were a wound.

The figure of his father, tall and strong, who kept a revolver in the desk draw in his office, a profoundly sensual man, consumer of bloody meat at the table, began to impose itself in the conscience of his son Louis to the point of obliterating him. Many years later, when he attempted to expiate from himself the responsibility of murdering his wife Helene, he would confess that perhaps, behind his guilt, was the transformation his progenitor had wrought — and which was at work during his delirium.

Louis Althusser was a good student. His father was proud of him and, at the same time, kept him terrorized. When he won a scholarship in 1929, his father asked him what he would like as a gift.

—A carbine —answered the philosophy student in an attempt to please his father. His subconscious was functioning.

One day, he decided to pretend to kill himself with the rifle. He pointed it at his abdomen believing the weapon was unloaded. He was about to pull the trigger but suddenly stopped and then discovered that there was a bullet in the chamber. He had no idea of how it got there. That day, terror-stricken, he began to believe for the first time that his father wanted him dead because he had discovered Louis’s homosexual tendencies.

…

Louis Althusser’s hatred of his father throughout his life was due to the dual martyrdom he had inflicted on his mother: he had violated her in bed at night and humiliated her publicly by flirting with her friends. He had left Lucienne the house and the children and had reserved for himself his work, money, and the outside world.

At a time when Althusser had already become a misanthropic and paranoid creature, the figure of his wife, Hélène, became involved in this vital substratum. Hélène, was condemned to endure his never-ending bouts of depression. The torments of his wife became superimposed upon those of his mother. History was repeating itself. Hélène was doomed to live in the background—behind the intellectual triumph of the world renown philosopher. No one ever asked about her. For the devotees and admirers of her husband, she didn’t exist. The fact that all the calls were for him caused the philosopher a torment that lie between compassion and scorn.

Nevertheless, it was Hélène who took him to the hospital and who attended to all his daily needs while Althusser felt he was reproducing upon his wife the same torments that his father committed against his mother.

…

According to his confession to the police, the events of that foggy, melancholy morning of Sunday, November 16, 1980, unfolded as follows:

Louis Althusser was up early and was walking around in a bathrobe in his apartment in L‘École Normal. It was about 9:00 in the morning and a gray light filtered through some old curtains and the high window. Opposite him was his wife, also wearing a bathrobe, who was lying on her back with her backside on the edge of the bed and her feet touching the floor.

The philosopher had knelt down next to her and leaned over her body to silently give her a massage on the neck—as he had done before on her nape, her back, and her kidneys—a practice he had learned while he was a prisoner of the Nazis. However, this time he supported his thumbs in the recession of the skin next to the top of the sternum and he moved them towards the stiffest area—the region above the ears.

The massage tired him out. The face of his wife was serene and motionless. Her eyes were staring at the ceiling. Suddenly the philosopher was overcome by fear: his wife’s eyes were fixed and her tongue rested between her teeth and her lips—he had strangled his wife! Panic-stricken, he ran around the deserted space of L’ École Normal yelling for a doctor.

For the next ten years, while Louis Althusser, who had been found not guilty, passed from the hands of one psychiatrist to the next, the communist world went into a nosedive. The resistant intellectual, who had established the new theoretical bases for Marxism, died in 1990—one year after the fall of the Berlin Wall. However, in reality, the fact that the leading Marxist philosopher had strangled his wife was taken as a symbol of the violence of a doctrine that was about to perish at the hands of the new philosophy.

AV FOODSHED ALERT: Anderson Valley Community Farm has awakened from hibernation!

The local food is already up and growing, and we hope your appetite for local food is bigger than ever this year. The farm is really hungry after its winter rest and we are urgently trying to keep it fed. We need some $ fast, so...

Announcing a SPECIAL OFFER for our 2018 Membership Program! : Join by February 1 and get a 15% Bonus credit, Join by March 1 and get a 10% credit.

Details of this year’s member program follows below, and our contact info is at the bottom of the advert. The member program sign-up form is available at our website, or you can buy-in this week by coming by the farm, or come to the Boonville Winter Market on Saturdays where we will be vending the next couple of weeks. Feel free also, instead, to mail a check and the membership sign-up form to us, we’ll count the post-marked date as it pertains to the offer.

This year we are again in the business of producing (with the same “values-driven, ecological farming”) and selling the same products (grass-fed lamb, pork, beef and goat, eggs, vegetables, tree-fruit, olive oil) that we have been known for the past 7 years. All of these products are available in our membership program’s new “Members-Only” farm stand, at the front of the farm on Lambert Lane, 2 blocks from downtown Boonville. We will be continuing the program we launched last year with some important improvements.

At the Farm Stand members will use a pre-purchased credit, like the “tab” at the old country store, and then go shopping with their credit, self-serve, self-checkout, no cash trades hand at the farm stand, just a receipt of the transaction. Twice per week, from March 15 to Nov. 15, members will have access to our pop-up fresh produce farm stand, at below-retail-organic prices. Our vegetables, seasonal tree fruit, olive oil, tea blends, new soap and skin care products will be laid out and the early bird will get the first pickings. We will also pack a limited number of weekly diverse vegetable boxes, for the adventurous who are committed to eating a lot of vegetables every week and don’t like having to choose which ones. Boxes will be available for pick up on the same days that the stand is open. Our frozen meat products will be available for members to pick up at the farm stand 6-days per week, with 24-hours minimum advance pre-order (email, call, or text) and can be picked up any time after February 1^st.

Becoming a member of the Anderson Valley Community Farm (is easy!) and joining in our 2018 Membership Program costs just a $20 fee for the year, and the minimum credit buy-in of $100.. If you bought $400 of credit right now, you’d get $60 (15%) bonus credit. This credit can be applied to all of our farm produce including meat and including weekly vegetable boxes. You can purchase more member credit anytime in the season, bonus credit only applies to the current offer. Join our community and share in our love of food, farming, and healthy living.

Email or call us with any questions. Farmer Tim Ward’s cell phone: (831)332-5131, email: andersonvalleycommunityfarm@gmail.com.

Website: www.andersonvalleycommunityfarm.com

Can’t afford local food?! Talk to us about work-trade or barter opportunities or haggle for a discounted membership. Don’t be shy, we get it, we’re poor too!

* * *

Winter Abundance Workshop

Saturday — February 10, 2018 from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.

at the Fairgrounds in Boonville

Seed, Scion & Cutting Exchange with Hands-on Fruit Tree Grafting

Admission, classes, seeds, cuttings, scion wood

All Free

Free classes all day on tree & vine propagation; how to save seeds and grow your own food and herbs. You can purchase fruit tree rootstocks cheaply here and then graft your own trees from our free scions. Come spend the day learning from green thumbs who understand the unique climate zones and soils of our bioregion. You can purchase an inexpensive organic lunch, snacks, and beverages at the event. Learn grafting skills; try out and purchase a grafting knife, or bring your own. Please bring cuttings, scions, pruners, tape and marker, plus plants and extra pots to give away. Bring your love of plants, and enjoy our free, daylong celebration of Abundance.

Stribling’s White Free Nectarine, a proven gem for our inland climate for 30 years, ripens in July, and has outperformed all other stone fruit varieties. It dependably grows right through the Spring peach leaf curl and makes luscious, white fleshed, freestone nectarines for fresh eating and easy drying. No longer sold by nurseries, only known by collectors now. Must be grafted. Scions will be available.

* * *

News from The Bewildered Pig

Sincerest Greetings, Fellow Eaters!

After a brief 2-week “break,” we are so looking forward to seeing you! Our regular hours commence this Thursday, “Loco(l)s” Night, January 25th! Thursday-Sunday dinner, from 5:00-9:00 pm (last reservations at 8:30).

No news to you that late winter here in Anderson Valley is truly magical~fresh green pastures, li’l lambs…intoxicatingly fragrant narcissus…mists and sunshine…rainbows…

The upcoming floral display at the Floodgate is going to be monumental! There are thousands of bulbs budding right now to grace you with Mother Nature’s grandeur (thanks to the rain and perfect intermittent sunshine!)….stay tuned and stop by!

“Culinarily” speaking, we welcome a new coastal farm connection: Wavelength Farm, located in Manchester, which will supply us with wild nettles, mushrooms, watercress, favas, pea tendrils and so many other incredible local wild foraged foods with which to monumentality propel our transition into the spring menu!

We are inspired by spring, ensuring a bevy of menu changes…gradually, of course! Get in here before the Equinox to enjoy your previous favorites, while you can!

This year we are excited to present more vegan and gluten free options, highlighting our commitment to local and sustainable eating…

SO? THIS WEEK!!!!?

Loco(l)s Night Entrée: Mendocino Heritage Pork Company Smoked Pork Hot Pot…Pegasus Farm greens, noodles, all settled into a unique “pho” broth made with Mendocino Seaweed and pork “dashi,” garnished with cilantro and as much spice as you like (“you know how we be!”). Optional: poached egg, MHPC Manga pork cracklins, and wild mushrooms…

Soup: Local Delicata squash and Cinderalla Pumpkin soup with house made local Calmyrna fig chutney, toasted almonds, and crème fraiche. YUM!!!

Other Changes/Specials: Filet Mignon, McFadden Farm Bone Marrow Potato Duchesse, Wild Mushrooms, Wild Watercress…

I shall leave it at that, for now. My Chef brain is on overload with the abundance to come…and that which shall appear on your plate.

Come see us this weekend!

With Inspiration~

MP

“A plea deal is a type of deal.”

Huh. So…maybe the Trump Organization paid off Stormy, and then got reimbursed by the campaign? I would normally be skeptical on the grounds that no one could possibly be this stupid, but this is Trump we’re talking about.

Then again, maybe the Russians paid off Stormy! I definitely think that’s plausible enough that Robert Mueller should subpoena Cohen for a brief chat under oath. Remember, kids, attorney-client privilege doesn’t cover conversations made with the intention of committing or covering up a crime or fraud.

Kevin Drum