Off the Record (March 7, 2018)

THE EXCITEMENT NEVER ENDS AT THE PRESS DEMOCRAT, where we learn that, “Seth Rogen, a Sonoma County fan, spotted at dinner in Glen Ellen—This weekend, Seth Rogen returned to Sonoma County and dined (to many locals’ excitement) at the Glen Ellen Star.”

CRIME SHOWS inevitably begin, "They had everything, a beautiful home in an affluent neighborhood…" Then we learn that the botoxed blonde wife had three boyfriends, hubby was stealing from his business associates, the three kids were in drug rehab, and even the family dog was in therapy.  The suspects in the inevitable murder involve most of the town. The houses of the people "who have everything" all look like Liberace had done the interiors, and all the nearby homes are also monuments to architectural sterility. Of course none of the neighbors know each other, but you can be sure pathology is rampant up and down the street.

CONTRAST MENDO'S artfully, creatively constructed, owner-built hippie shacks, each one unique, each one more likely than not occupied by a family of persons who aren't nearly as crazy as the people "who have everything." It surprises me that this deep into the End Times there's still a big market for monster houses, that millions of people still desire a 7-bedroom house stuffed with expensive eyesores, all of it plunked down on a golf course or an artificial lake.

WITH THE DROP IN WHOLESALE POT PRICES in recent years combined with the high cost of set up plus annual fees (before taxes even come into consideration), it’s clear that permitted growers will be under some pressure to apply, ahem, creative accounting to their tax filings. Combine that with the always looming (untaxed) black market which might siphon off part of any given crop at a higher price and you can see that there are a lot more issues to deal with in the pot tax world than simply what happens when crops fail or are pulled up by cops.

"FEEL THE BERN – TWICE OVER! Now Sanders’ son is running for Congress and he has the same ultra-left policies as his dad."

THE ABOVE HEADLINE is a tiny example of how far to the idiot right the political conversation, now a total dialogue of the deaf, has been shoved. (It’s the rightwing of the One Percent doing the shoving.) Bernie is a liberal reformer, not an anti-capitalist revolutionary. He's a modestly well-to-do property owner who, like lots of us, understands that the un-regulated capitalism we have going here will bring us all to a bad end.

"ULTRA LEFT" has no meaning, and never did, except to the rightwing demagogues to whom it seems to conjure a transgender Bolshevik committed to gun confiscation and the destruction of golf courses. Revolutionaries determined to violently dispossess the owning classes applies to almost no one in this country at this time, and certainly doesn't apply to Bernie and Bernie Jr.  The Bernies are way to the political right of Roosevelt's New Deal, which was aimed at making life a little easier for working people, which it did. Republicans have been trying to unravel the few  popular social programs Roosevelt established ever since.

I DON'T want to embarrass people I see every day and like on a personal level, but driving around the County peddling my papers I run into lots of MAGAs, Trumpers, working in minimum wage jobs. A young Boonville woman's car is festooned with slogans devised by cynical people who privately laugh at her as one of the millions of saps who vote and otherwise politically support a class of rich people who privately hate and fear ordinary people. It should be remembered that lots of Trumpers said Bernie was their second choice. Why? Both addressed the economic squeeze felt by working people, although Trump had no intention of doing anything but ensure that the rich got richer, which he has now done with his "tax reform."

AMAZON reported $5.6 billion in profits last year (in the U.S. alone) but paid nothing in federal income taxes, and projects a $789 million windfall from Trump's corporate tax law The online retail giant's latest financial statement suggests that various tax credits and tax breaks for executive stock options are the reason behind the company paying zero tax in 2017.

SOME PEOPLE are aware of Jack Silver, a self-alleged environmental attorney based in West Sonoma County who searches out technical violations of the Water Quality laws then bats out demand letters to municipalities and other heavily insured entities saying, "Send me $25 grand and I won't drag you into court and keep you there until you give me even more money." Silver got a nice payment out of Willits a while ago, as if Willits wasn't striving mightily to keep its water systems safe. He has similarly screwed public entities up and down the Northcoast.

IN THAT TRADITION, we have another legal predator stalking Willits. He's called Thomas Frankovich. Like Silver, Frankovich claims to be doing great public good, in his case for "civil rights for the handicapped." If your idea of a handicapped person is someone who eats himself into a wheelchair your definition of handicapped is more elastic than most people's.

FRANKOVICH says his client, Jeanette Brown, can't get into several Willits' public facilities, and Willits better make it easier for her to squeeze into the restroom in the park and other public structures or she and Frankovich will soon own City Hall. Frankovich has successfully sued in Willits before on behalf of Ms. Brown, and here he and Brown are in federal court suing Willits again. Their civil rights action alleges discrimination against Ms. Brown by the City of Willits for failure to remove architectural barriers structural in nature, but also faults city officials for “failing to create and implement a bona fide transition plan or to otherwise remove barriers in a timely manner to comply with the 1990 American Disabilities Act.”

DOWNRIGHT LIES!

Dear KZYX board candidate, following are the questions you will be asked at the candidate forum on Monday at the Center for the Visual and Performing Arts, room 5340, at Mendocino College Ukiah campus. They will not necessarily be in the order listed below. Attached you will also find an outline of the event with instructions and time allotments. Because of the number of candidates and the time available for the event, these have been given to you beforehand so that you may be able to consider them and prepare your answers.

1) Given that the Board’s job is to set policy and ensure the financial stability of the organization, how would you work to keep the station healthy?

Answer: Transparent budget, which has never existed; combine the GM and Program Director positions for a single $40k job. An end to station secrecy generally. Advertise the $25 memberships.

2) The Board has no direct control over programming and day-to-day station operations, yet one of its objectives is to increase the station's community base. How will you help to do this?

Answer: The gm ought to be out there beating the drums for the station, but he's invisible as the radio station he manages. The quickest way to expand the listener base is a daily news program focused entirely on local events. As is, there's no specific reason to tune in.

3) What's your vision for the station going forward and how do you feel you can contribute to that end?

Answer: Not being a “vision” or “feelings” guy, I think, plainly, that to make KZYX a truly public radio station there's got to be a reason for the wider public to listen, hence the absolute necessity for local news and discussion. I would advertise any movement in the direction of local news.

4) Over recent years there has been misinformation and at times downright lies published in media and posted in online blogs about KZYX. What do you feel is the best way to handle this problem? Why?

Answer: Any self-respecting organization that won't defend itself deserves all the abuse it gets. I wonder if anybody at the station knows the diff between a lie, an opinion, a simple error? This question is typical of the whining we get from the ruling claque at KZYX. How's that Lawrence poem go? "I can't stand Willy Wet Leg. You hit him once he lets you hit him twice." (Something like that...)

Thank you for your interest in running for a board seat and your participation in this forum.

Ed Keller/Election Coordinator

MOREO RESIGNS, AFTER ONLY FIVE DAYS AS AG COMMISSIONER

A Commenter on the AVA website (www.theava.com) wrote Saturday: "To add to the cannabis legalization mess, I understand our new Ag Commissioner has already quit less than a week into the job."

We asked Supervisor John McCowen for confirmation.

McCowen replied, "Yes, Joe Moreo turned in his keys only five days into the job as Ag Commissioner. The only explanation I've heard is that the job was not what he thought it was.”

We also asked Supervisor McCowen about the seemingly odd choice of an inexperienced animal rights activist as the County’s new Cannabis Program Manager.

McCowen: “I am optimistic that Kelly Overton, the new Cannabis Program Manager, has the skills to get the program on track. I don't see it as a downside that he does not have cannabis on his resume. What has been lacking, and what Mr. Overton will bring, is a systematic approach to processing the permit applications. He also has strong customer service, employee engagement and team building skills. I'm optimistic that he will work effectively with program staff and other departments to design and implement an effective system. We should know within a month."

TOMMY WAYNE KRAMER got off to a bracing start in his Sunday column in the Ukiah Daily Journal:

"Today we celebrate Women’s History Month and I suggest we take a moment from our busy schedules and pause to honor them. Is two seconds enough? Thank you. Let’s move on.

"Women’s History Month is an annual event orchestrated by well-to-do women employed in government jobs, and its purpose is to provide a forum to sob, hug and give awards to each other. Eligibility is limited to (A) women and (B) Democrats.

"Here in Ukiah it means if the county’s first two elected District Attorneys, Vivian Rackauckas and Susan Massini, were to show up they’d be put on the cleanup crew. They’re Republicans, not women!

"Also uninvited are women who work for a living. Those in attendance will be government and school employees, along with women with “jobs” in nonprofit organizations funded by taxpayer grants. Not a waitress, not a beautician, no store owner, nobody from Walmart or Raley’s. Just government freeloaders.

"Speaking of which, the keynote great big star of the event is a member of the ‘Frisco Board of Supervisors. How’s that for celebrity? Now aren’t I sorry I can’t attend?…"

I'M SURE these exclusionary women's events elsewhere in the country are also confined to the secure, Democratic Party sectors of the female population, and in most areas of the country aren't noticed at all. TWK nails it, though, for Mendo. Same Democrats from the same public and non-profit employment zones giving each other trophies and congratulating each other.

SPEAKING of Democrats, here comes Joe Biden, the male version of Hillary, guaranteeing that Trump, assuming the generals don't remove him in the next couple of years, will be re-elected.

IT DOESN'T SEEM to be widely known that the NRA is the lobbying arm of gun manufacturers. The typical gun fantasist seems to think the NRA is defending his "right to bear arms," up to and including, apparently, field artillery. Nope, the NRA's a sales gang that could care less about El Yobbo's "right" to buy bazookas so long as he keeps on buying everything else in the way of a firearm.

WHEN WORD got around this weekend that protesters planned to picket the NRA dinner in Fort Bragg, the remaining tickets to the event quickly sold out.

UNDERSHERIFF RANDY JOHNSON is retiring. Johnson inspired lots of dark suspicion as the Sheriff's 9.31 pot licensing guy, much of that suspicion claiming that Johnson exempted certain of the larger growers from the rules. Mrs. Johnson fed the rumor mills when she started a hubby-related business that finger-printed pot license applicants, a conflict of interest that raised hackles even further. Rumors say the feds are in town to take a long, hard look at all this, but those rumors have been circulating for a couple of years now.

"GET OUT" is one of only two movie-movies I saw this year that were really, really good, the other being "I, Tonya." Best performance should go to Allison Janney who played Tonya's mom. The best stuff these days is found at Netflicks, HBO and kindred television pay channels — The OJ saga; Patty Hearst; The Assassination of Gianni Versace (the kid who plays the assassin knocks it clear outta the park); Babylon Berlin, the German tv series is absolutely riveting, and a must see for Americans given that we're deep in our own historical Weimar period.

ONE OVERCAST DAY last week, with the wind blowing Big Mac wrappers along Ukiah's School Street, the commercial hub of what's left of a coherent County seat, and me the only person visible in the middle of a ghostly work day, I looked up to see a couple of hundred Chinese lanterns strung across the street, all swaying in the chill winter blasts. The sight struck me as so incongruous and so forlorn, I almost asked the ladies at the Mendocino Book Company for a reassuring group hug.

ON LINE COMMENT OF THE WEEK

PARENTING: I can only give you my view, obviously, but there seems to be an overwhelming societal consensus around child discipline at the moment. You my say ‘pshaw, feckin’ soft liberals’. Fine. That child will learn ‘at the end of a leather belt’ that big people can force smaller, weaker people to do what they want by beating them. Great, it might be a useful life lesson, but it is unlikely to help them grow up into confident, responsible, happy and caring individuals. Do feel free to teach your grandchildren that way, but don’t come near mine with your leather belt. I also think that if parents haven’t taught their child that when you’re in a classroom you’re there to learn and not to mess about and help make the classroom a place where the teacher can’t get on with teaching the class, those are poor parents too, but not as bad as the first ones. My kids were brought up relatively strictly, by me. They knew how to behave in school and that other people mattered just as much as they did. They still know that now. They are both responsible, productive, hard-working people. I take some credit for that, although the exact amount is a moot point. There were no leather belts. They got shouted at a bit, though – my life wasn’t the easiest but it wasn’t ‘hard’ either. I think they think I did OK in the circumstances.