Mendocino County Today: Thursday, March 8, 2018

• Parking Spot
• Arming Students
• Quiz Night
• Coastal Range
• Willits Angels
• Legal Weed
• Starstruck PD
• Yesterday's Catch
• Stormy Deals
• Ed Notes
• Donald Dog
• Forum Question
• Mum Club
• Little Dog
• Car Design
• Marker
• Prop 57
• Climate Tipping
• Immigration Suit
• Princess
• Surveillance Society
• Tax Giveaway
• Dismantling Dodd-Frank
• Broadband Program
• Gregor Art

MATURE WRITER AND HEALTH PROFESSIONAL wants shady option for parking RV in Valley. (No communes, please!) Opening new full-time office in Boonville and want a private, quiet, peaceful place to sleep over 4-5 weekdays, as I live an hour's drive away from Valley. Have small RV with solar panel/collector in very good condition which serves my creature comforts nicely. Would be peachy to have availability of added electrical plug-in during cloudy periods. Can pay or trade. Can do grounds and gardening, burn piles, pruning fruit trees, mowing 7-10 hours/week. Good with animals and feeding. Also can help with correspondence and phone calls for the elderly. References available upon request. 707/357-3068

THE NATIONAL SHOOTING GALLERY

Editor,

The Second Amendment of the US Constitution reads: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed." In 1787 many Americans feared that the new Constitution would create a strong central government that would become a tyranny. The state militias were seen as a way of protecting the liberty of the people. The courts have consistently interpreted this Amendment to be a limitation on the federal government's right to eliminate the state militia. As a result, the federal and state governments may regulate, or even prohibit the ownership of weapons.

The Second Amendment is a constant reminder of the healthy fear the Founders had for the concentration of political and military power and the importance they invested in a citizen's army instead of a standing professional army.

Literally interpreted, the Second Amendment would protect the right of the people to form well regulated militias armed with muskets. This was affirmed in a 2008 Supreme Court ruling by Justice Antonin Scalia who emphasized that the Second Amendment is restricted to weapons "in common use at the time."

The National Rifle Association's radical interpretation of the Second Amendment protects the rights of individual Americans to act as unregulated militias armed with automatic assault weapons. Militias of one. Each against all.

America the Great has become a whack-a-mole shooting gallery — collateral damage from "The American Way of Life." And NRA stalwart, Dead-Eye Dick Cheney, says "The American Way of Life is not negotiable."

So, how can the ultra-powerful gun lobby be outflanked to regulate the sale of fire arms? Cynics have suggested raising the legal gun purchase age to 100. Anything lower will just result in older shooters.

Arming teachers won't work because there are too few of them. We should arm students instead, since the student/teacher ratio is about 30 to 1. That would significantly increase fire power to thwart would-be assailants.

Some have even suggested banning gunpowder, but the best idea yet came years ago from then KGO Radio talk show host, Jim Eason, who said guns should be banned and we'll all be armed with swords.

En Garde!

Cheers,

Don Morris, Ghost Town/Willits

P.S. Regarding your recent exposure to a lady plumber's cleavage, you wisely acted nobly by ignoring the display rather than charging the damsel with elder abuse or sexual harassment. You're lucky she didn't cut a fart. I always carry a can of Spackle and a putty knife to deal with these situations. It's a lot more fun.

QUIZ TONIGHT!

Yes it is. Thursday, March 8th (2nd Thursday) at Lauren’s Restaurant in Boonville. First question will be posed out at 7pm. Laughter, fun, brain exercises, banter, delicious food, and fine beer and wine — a no-brainer, ironically. Hope to see you there.

Cheers,

Steve Sparks, Quiz Master

VIEW FROM PUDDING CREEK

(Photo by Judy Valadao)

HELL’S ANGELS IN WILLITS

Dear Hunter,

The first time I had ever seen the Hell’s Angels was on the Fourth of July celebration in Willits, California. Willits is a very small town approximately 100 miles north of San Francisco. Every Fourth of July they have a Frontier Day celebration which includes a carnival, parade, dances, etc. We went out for it and on Willits Main Street the Hell’s Angels were lined up for a block and a half, coming in and out of a very populated bar. We (Lori, Barbie, Terry and I) were walking down the street and a man wearing a black leather jacket, boots, dirty black T-shirt, etc. grabbed Lori by the hand and talked to her for a while, asking her name and all the time being very gentle and very nice. This was around 2:30 in the afternoon. Later that evening we went to an elderly woman's house where we were staying while we were in town. She has a nephew by the name of Larry Jordan. He is a Wilacki Indiian about 27 or 28. He is also a brother to Phil Jordan, a professional basketball player who played for the New York Knickerbockers and also the Detroit Pistons.

Well, anyhow, to get back to Larry Jordan: about 7:30 that evening a girl came to the door crying and shouting, "Eileen, Eileen, help me." I came to the door and there stood Larry, blood pouring down the side of his neck, and from his temple. Eileen, his aunt, completely fell apart, so I had to take him to the bathroom and clean him up. He had been cut severely with either a razor blade or a knife by the Hell’s Angels.

Now, the reason never was established why he was jumped by six or seven Hell’s Angels, but he is the type of guy who looks like he thinks he’s better than anyone. But this isn't the way he is, he holds himself very aloof, never looks for trouble, but never backs away from trouble either. It's rather hard to explain, you have to know him, I think. If you know any Indians well, maybe you understand.

Terry came back (he had been to the store) and after some talking and persuading he got Larry into the car and to the hospital. Of course, everyone was drinking and they all wanted to get a bunch together and run the Hell’s Angels out of town, but they didn't.

One other acquaintance of ours by the name of Fritz Bacchie also got beat up by them. He went home to get a gun and the local police threw him in jail for the night.

All in all, there wasn't too much damage done, but an air of uneasiness hung over the town, no one knew what would happen next, and no one could really relax and have fun or enjoy themselves as they usually do on these celebrations on the 4th July.

(Letter from Mrs. Marge Whitright to Hunter S. Thompson, dated March 29, 1965 -- from his book Hell’s Angels: A Strange and Terrible Saga.)

ARE GROWERS BEING SET UP TO FAIL?

California Has Already Issued More Than 2,000 Cannabis Cultivation Licenses.

by Ryan Burns

Is California setting marijuana growers up to fail?

With the state’s adult-use cannabis market barely two months old, CalCannabis, a division of the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA), has issued more than 2,000 temporary cultivation licenses, sanctioning 400-plus acres of pot gardens.

Collectively these state license holders could produce nearly 4.2 million pounds of weed per year — more than double the amount Californians are expected to consume, according to estimates by the CDFA. More licenses are being approved every day as aspiring growers up and down the state rush to get in on a $5 billion market.

And in Humboldt County, only a small fraction of our local growers have gained access to the legal marketplace.

“This should scare the shit out of any growers,” said former Humboldt County Supervisor Mark Lovelace, who’s now working with local governments around the state as a cannabis policy advisor for HdL Companies. He’s been watching would-be cultivators flood into the state’s new regulatory system, and now he’s warning growers that California’s legal weed marketplace will be overcrowded and extremely competitive — and likely to have a sky-high failure rate.

“It’s just gonna be a tough industry, a really tough industry,” Lovelace said.

With the supply of product confined by California’s track-and-trace system, which follows weed from seed to sale, the state market will also be limited by finite demand. There have been several attempts to calculate that appetite. A CalCannabis study, for example, came up with a total statewide consumption figure of 2.5 million pounds per year. They expect legalization to spur some experimentation (causing a temporary bump in demand of less than 10 percent), but they also expect the black market to hold onto about 30 percent of the state’s weed sales, leaving a legal market of roughly 2 million pounds (or less) per year.

Another study, the 2017 California Cannabis Opportunity Report, estimated even lower demand — 1.6 million pounds per year — but for the sake of discussion we’ll use the larger CalCannabis estimate.

The next challenge is estimating how much will be produced. For his own calculations Lovelace has been assuming growers will produce a pound of cannabis for every 10 square feet of canopy per harvest cycle, or roughly 45 grams per square foot. He acknowledges that it’s challenging to nail down a single number, especially considering the different spacing used in indoor versus outdoor grows, but the 45 grams-per-square-foot estimate is the same figure used in a 2010 Rand Corporation study by Jonathan Caulkins. Plus, Lovelace said growers he’s talked to have confirmed its general accuracy.

From there Lovelace has been assuming that only 75 percent of each garden’s maximum square footage will actually be utilized for growing plants, leaving some room between plants and space between rows.

“I’ve been talking to a number of growers in different areas,” Lovelace said. “Some say they’re getting 60 percent canopy [coverage], some say higher. Seventy-five [percent] is a good average, a little speculative, but pick a figure for statistical analysis.”

So, as more growers enter the state’s marketplace every day, Lovelace has been watching their collective growing capacity grow higher and higher, prompting his concerns about overproduction.

That problem is in full bloom up in Oregon, where the proliferation of producers has sent prices plummeting. The Eugene Register-Guard this week reported that retail weed in Oregon is selling for as low as $2 per gram and $50 per ounce.

“It’s a race to the bottom pretty much, to see who can sell their stuff the cheapest,” one store owner told the paper.

Washington state is experiencing the same problem, with grams selling for around $1 apiece and ounces going for as low as $40.

Is California’s market headed in the same direction? And if so, how will local growers fare?

Arguably no county has more at stake than Humboldt, where one in every four dollars is tied directly to the marijuana industry. As of Monday CalCannabis had issued 426 cultivation licenses to Humboldt County growers, giving us 20 percent of the statewide total and the capability to produce more than 677,000 pounds of weed per year.

That puts us in second place behind Santa Barbara County, where CalCannabis has issued 468 cultivation licenses with the capacity to produce 861,000 pounds per year.

And that’s just the beginning. Locally the county’s Planning and Building department has about 1,700 permit applications still awaiting processing, and there’s no telling how many more will come into the system. There’s an estimated 15,000 (legal and illegal) grows countywide, and in December the Humboldt County Planning Commission proposed capping the total number of cultivation permits at 5,000 (or 1,250 acres, whichever comes first).

Meanwhile, the [Humboldt County] Planning and Building Department has hired outside consulting firms to help staff work through the stack of applications. On Tuesday the Board of Supervisors approved a request to double the budget for that project. Six firms — Helix, ICF, Kimley-Horn, LACO, Michael Baker and Transcon — had already been allotted $300,000 apiece for a total of $1.8 million; Tuesday’s decision gave them another $1.8 million to work with.

From a budget standpoint, the county doesn’t have anything to lose. “There is no cost to the general fund,” the staff report notes. “Applicant fees pay for the cost of the consultants.”

Instead, it’s growers taking the risk. As Lovelace said, Tuesday’s move marks another “$1.8 million that hopeful growers will pay and might never recover.” At a certain point, he said, additional permitting “will just ensure more business failure.”

Not universally, of course, but Lovelace says caution is in order.

“Everyone should have an opportunity to be a part of the industry if they want to, and take the risk of being in the free market. But I think everyone should also be very cautious and realistic about the fact that the majority of people who try to eke out space at this point are probably going to fail. There’s just not that much room.”

Not everyone agrees with Lovelace’s grim forecast.

“On the contrary,” Second District Supervisor Estelle Fennell told the Outpost via email. “I think that those who are making their way through the permitting process will be very well-positioned to launch a successful business.”

She said she’s worked with “many, many applicants,” mostly small farmers, and they’re “looking forward to being successful in the legal commercial market.”

But what advantage will they have over the rest of the growers in the state? Lovelace notes that Humboldt County became synonymous with weed largely because our remote, wooded hills gave growers a place to hide from law enforcement. That’s no longer necessary, and if California’s market follows other states’ and becomes a race to the bottom, price-wise, our historical advantages will turn into burdens.

“Every extra mile you have to drive, every bit of dirt road will become costs that are hard to justify,” Lovelace said.

Humboldt growers will be better off trying to differentiate themselves through name recognition and quality, Lovelace said, like microbrews competing with Coors and Budweiser.

Or, switching alcoholic beverage metaphors, if we’re aiming to be “the Napa Valley of weed,” as locals have been saying for years, we’d better not try to compete with the E & J Gallo of weed — cultivators in Salinas, the Central Valley and Santa Barbara who will easily beat locals on price due to economies of scale and proximity to major markets.

Unlike the trend statewide, most of the state licenses issued to Humboldt County growers (243 of the 426) are for outdoor cultivation, and most of those (129) are for small gardens (5,001-10,000 square feet). These growers could potentially manage to carve out a niche in the state market by marketing quality products labeled with our county’s established name, but if county supervisors follow the Planning Commission’s recommendation and decide to issue up to 5,000 permits, the market will become impossibly overcrowded.

If the current ratios of license types remain constant, Humboldt County alone would wind up licensing nearly 1,100 acres of pot farmland theoretically capable of producing 7.66 million pounds of weed per year, using Lovelace’s equations. That would be nearly four times the amount Californians consume.

Third District Supervisor Mike Wilson said local growers do have their eyes open. “No one that I know of is under the illusion that this isn’t a high-risk business venture,” he said, adding that he’s more concerned about the consolidation of licenses by a minority of growers here.

Establishing a permit cap could be a reasonable option, Wilson said, though he added, “Considering how much in flux things are in terms of people getting into the system and people jumping out of the system, it’s hard to tell where that cap might be.” And he’d also want to know whether the cap would serve to encourage or discourage further consolidation of the local industry, he said.

Lovelace, for his part, said the county should focus on the remaining black market. “Legalization presented the opportunity to create a profit motive to clean up the environmental mess” created by outlaw grows, he said, “but that profit motive is going away.” Which means the county will have to go back to a punitive, regulatory approach.

Eventually, though, Lovelace believes the black market grows will go the way of bootleg liquor stills. With cannabis now legal (either medicinally or recreationally) in 29 states, he assumes that eventually the black market will lose its reason for existence.

Either way, there’s not likely to be enough demand to justify 15,000 pot farms in Humboldt County, nor enough profit to generate one of every four dollars generated here.

The bottom line, according to Lovelace is this: “The legal industry will not solve all of Humboldt County’s economic woes.”

JUST IN FROM THE PRESS DEMOCRAT:

Guy Fieri filming 'Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives' around the Bay Area

The Santa Rosa resident and celebrity host has been spotted driving a red Camaro around the Bay Area filming segments for his Food Network show.

CATCH OF THE DAY, March 7, 2018

EUCLIDES ABREU-URENA*, New York/Ukiah. Transport or attempt to transport marijuana, failure to appear.

YOAN DELACRUZ*, New York/Ukiah. Transport or attempt to transport marijuana, evasion, failure to appear.

SEBASTIAN FAUSTO, Ukiah. DUI.

APOLINAR GARCIA-INFANTE, Chowchilla/Ukiah. Mandatory supervision sentencing.

MIGUEL GONZALES, La Quinta/Ukiah. Failure to appear.

NICHOLAS HALVORSEN, Fort Bragg. Disorderly conduct-alcohol. (Frequent flyer.)

ANDREW MAYNARD, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol, probation revocation. (Frequent flyer.)

EROS NELSON, Fort Bragg. Domestic abuse, probation revocation.

ANDREW SMITH SR., Willits. Protective order violation.

*Background:

FOUR NEW YORKERS CAUGHT WITH LARGE AMOUNTS OF COMMERCIAL MARIJUANA AFTER HIGH-SPEED HIGHWAY 101 CHASE

On Tuesday, April 4, 2017 at about 1:30pm CHP Officer Holzauer was performing traffic enforcement on Highway 101 north of West Road when he observed a red Jeep Laredo traveling at speeds over 100 mph. As Officer Holzauer attempted to catch the suspect vehicle, it made a U-turn at Uva Drive and started traveling south on Highway 101. Officer Holzauer initiated a traffic enforcement stop of the suspect vehicle. The vehicle yielded to the right shoulder and came to a stop.

Officer Holzauer contacted the driver Euclides Abreu-Urena, 23 of the Bronx, New York and the three passengers, Yoan Delacruz, 27, of New York City, Luis Guzman, 27 of New York City, and Luis Garcia-Perez, 28 of the Bronx, New York. The driver then accelerated the vehicle and fled traveling south on Highway 101. The suspect vehicle reached speeds of 100 mph and exited the highway southbound at West Road. The driver lost control of the vehicle on the West Road overcrossing and traveled off the west shoulder of Highway 101 on the southbound on-ramp from West Road. The vehicle rolled over several times yet the occupants were able to escape the vehicle and run towards a fence. As officer Holzauer arrived he observed the vehicle's occupants throwing bags of marijuana over the nearby fence. Officer Holzauer and responding units placed all of the vehicle's occupants under arrest and treated them on the scene for injuries they received as a result of the collision until fire and ambulance personnel arrived. Driver Urena was arrested for evasion, conspiracy, resisting arrest, pot sale, destroying evidence, and possession of marijuana for sale. DelaCruz, Guzman and Garcia-Perez were arrested for conspiracy, resisting arrest, pot sale, evidence destruction and possession of marijuana for sale. Abreu-Urena and Guzman suffered major injuries, while Delacruz and Garcia-Perez suffered minor injuries. All four occupants were taken to area hospitals by ground and air ambulance after being treated on the scene.

Also, just last January in New York:

jalopnik.com/stupid-bmw-driver-takes-off-after-giving-police-all-of-1822374111

STORMY DANIELS REVEALS ALL

by Judd Legum

Stormy Daniels goes nuclear on Trump, reveals all in new lawsuit. The adult film star will not be silenced.

thinkprogress.org/stormy-daniels-goes-nuclear-on-trump-in-new-lawsuit-0642869a4b4a/

ED NOTES

A FRISCO PROPOSAL to commit mentally ill street people to a special unit at St. Mary's Hospital was immediately denounced by Jennifer Friedenbach, the city's lead Homeless Industrial Project person. Bay Area comment lines just as immediately lit up with denunciations of these highly paid "advocates":

(1) These are not "homeless advocates" they are homeless enablers. Not unlike the masters of old, they enslave people who cannot help themselves out of living on the street. They help them by feeding, tenting, and patting the hardcore homeless on the shoulder and saying, "let us help you." But they do literally nothing to end the pain, the sorrow, the dangers of homeless living. By helping they are sentencing these sad, unfortunate people to danger and death in unhealthful conditions. Choosing to live on the street is a bad choice. The enablers refuse to recognize this or do anything useful to truly bring people from the darkness back to the light.

(2) The cops finally showed up yesterday to clean up a 12 tent encampment near my house, and even attached several pictures of the street all nice and clean. And by 7 pm, the feral zombies were already moving back in. I've signed up for a 10 minute meeting with Supervisor Farrell to beg for barriers because I shouldn't have to deal with this bs. I was threatened by a zombie on Sunday btw, and if one so much as touches me I will sue this city for negligence and everything else I can think of.

(3) The Coalition on Homelessness should really be registered as a lobbyist for Heroin Dealers and the Oxy Industry. Their policies have greatly enriched enriched both parties - all the white the suffering on SF has grown to epic proportion. The highly paid Homeless Coalition directors have just brought nothing but more misery to the streets of the SF for everyone who lives in SF without concern for children, neighbors or small businesses - while all the Homeless directors live across the bay in their safe, clean suburbs. Hypocrisy has never had such well-versed practitioner as the Homeless Coalition directors.

WOULD A DOG HELP?

Editor:

As his staff departs for one reason or another, Donald Trump is becoming more alone and angry. I read elsewhere that he has snubbed White House tradition by not having a dog or other pet there.

I’m more than halfway serious when I say that perhaps what Trump needs is an emotional support animal — a dog? — a clean, quiet friend who would offer him unquestioned obedience and steadfast love, who would be there for him in the dark hours of the night to settle his restless and tormented soul.

And if a dog is truly man’s best friend, he would do for him what needs to be done: eat Trump’s iPhone.

Holly J. Pierce

Santa Rosa

KZYX BOARD MEMBER CANDIDATES SPEAK OUT AT FORUM AT MENDOCINO COLLEGE

by Justine Frederiksen

There are nine people running for five open seats on the board of directors for Mendocino County Public Broadcasting, which includes the Philo-based radio station KZYX.

All nine candidates introduced themselves and answered questions at a forum Monday held at Mendocino College.

Dina Pokinghorne is running unopposed as the single candidate for the 2nd District seat, while David Hulse-Stephens and Patricia Kovner are both running for the 3rd District seat.

Tom Dow and Len Tischler are running for the 5th District seat, and four candidates are running for the “at-large” seat: Bruce Anderson, Bob Bushansky, Robert Vaughn and Renee Vinyard.

Jerry Karp is also running unopposed for the “programmer-elected” seat, which only station programmers vote on.

At the forum Monday, all the candidates were asked to respond to a list of questions that included:

“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 and why?”

“Any self-respecting organization that won’t defend itself deserves all of the abuse it gets,” said Bruce Anderson, describing the current station management as “wimpy, furtive and invisible,” and questioned why it wasn’t fighting back.

Bob Vaughn said the station’s response should be a statement from the general manager and board president that is approved by the board. “It’s best to make a true statement of fact with the evidence and numbers to back that up and let it lie. The axe grinders and stick pokers are going to believe what they want to believe, and wasting energy (on more responses) just gives them more fuel.”

“I am not a neutered radio zombie; there are problems,” he continued. “But we need to be civil and we need some decorum.”

Dina Polkinghorne said she was familiar with such struggles given her history working with Project Sanctuary, and “would support getting in front of misinformation in the first place by building public trust,” suggesting that the radio station accomplish that by having “transparent budgets (and) conducting open board meetings for everything it can,” save for closed sessions to discuss litigation, personnel matters and real property.

Len Tischler said the station can choose not to respond, but if it does, it can do so in public or in private “by talking with people who spread the misinformation. I’d do the latter. I’d have somebody on the board talk with the person to try and find out what their problem really is. In my experience in management, the complainers usually have a legitimate complaint, but they’re not able to express it effectively. By really listening, you might learn something that’s useful to the organization.”

Bob Bershansky said that “fighting doesn’t always help, but fighting lies with truth (maybe one time) might be helpful, but I don’t think we’re ever going to not have people who are going to lie about the station.”

Tom Dow said, “I think it’s important to respond directly, but in a measured fashion so as not to inflame the situation.”

David Hulse-Stephens said he agreed that the station needed to “face the issue ‘front-on,’” and also that “as board members, we want to be sure that the station is operating in complete integrity, because that is the greatest defense.”

Renee Vinyard said that “accusations, misinterpretation and misinformation frequently can be based in truth, so it’s important to be responsible and to research the facts. A rebuttal can be helpful, and I think putting out a statement with real facts is helpful, (but) you don’t want to get into mudslinging.”

“How do you know what’s lies and misinformation? We don’t,” said Patricia Kovner. “That’s why full public discourse should happen. There’s no disinfectant like the light of day. I think the station owes the public as much truth as they can (provide). If there’s a lie, expose it.”

Jerry Karp said, “What as board members do we see our role as? All of us need to be informed (and) visible in the community, so that people can ask us those questions directly, and for us to have the answers to their questions.”

Members of the station received their ballots recently and must return them via the postal service using the envelope provided by March 31. The ballots cannot be turned in to the station. Call 707-895-2324 if are a member and did not receive a ballot.

A READER WRITES RE KZYX CANDIDATE'S NIGHT: "That was a stunning moment, when you asked Stuart Campbell who he was and what he was doing. He shrunk into the woodwork — coward. I hope it wasn't lost on the listeners. Before the event, in the hall, I met a member of the board, some tall guy, and asked him if he read Larry's Minson's letter. He said no he didn't have to, he heard all about it. I said this was a public letter and didn't we the public deserve a response? He said no, it was beneath him to reply, even though he hadn't read it!"

AS I WAS LEAVING the event at the College on Monday night, I, too, was approached by a tall guy who'd jogged up behind me calling with some urgency, "Mr. Anderson! Mr. Anderson!" He was another tall, gray man. There were mostly gray men at the mikes as candidates, some tall, some medium size, and only three women. The gray man in charge of the festivities walked around looking important. The gray man who'd run up on me outside introduced himself as Jonathan Middlebrook, a station trustee. He said he wanted to come to Boonville "to talk off the record. It must be off the record." He emphasized "off the record" at least four times. I said sure, but then, the next day, I forwarded a short list of questions to him and his fellow board members, and to the station's perpetually unavailable manager, Jeffrey Parker.

PAT KOVNER, one of the three women running for the board, told me that she'd recently called "on air to The Discussion" (an occasional show) where "both Alice and JP said they had read Larry's [Minson] letter and it was all lies. I asked them to respond publicly, addressing each issue, that it was their duty as a public institution, but they dusted me off."

THAT'S THE WAY they operate. They've rigged another election to make sure there's not another Minson or Sakowicz trying to get into the club. Ms. Kovner and I have zero chance of election. This Stuart Campbell character has a hyphenated guy running against Ms. Kovner, a sour fellow called Bushansky running against me.

MR. MIDDLEBROOK was the only trustee to respond to my short list of questions.

"I'm writing to you as one member of the KZYX Board with my answers to those of your questions I can answer. I write only for myself & for no one else.

1. Is Stuart Campbell a paid member of staff?--No.

2. Is he authorized to withdraw station money?--No.

3. Does he owe the station money?--No.

4. Does he have hiring authority?--No

5. What exactly is his function at the station?--Mr. Campbell functions as a dedicated station volunteer, one of the best.

6. I want to speak with the GM in person. What days and hours is he available at Philo?--I do not know Mr. Parker's schedule. I suggest you call the station, 895-2324

Sincerely,

Jonathan Middlebrook"

I CALLED THE STATION. "Alice" answered. I don't know Alice. She's a new name to me. She was polite, which I mention only because I won't forget the female ogre who once answered the phone, "What the fuck do you want?" which I don't recall being included in Miss Manners' section on telephone etiquette.

THE PHANTOM GM, Parker, didn't call back, leaving me no alternative but to visit the station unannounced next week to find him and address Mr. Minson's questions to him directly.

THERE'S MAJOR FINANCIAL monkey business at KZYX. I'm also getting a strong cult vibe. Who are these people? Check that: It can't be “major” because their entire budget is about half-a-mil a year and sinking. It's petty chiseling, insider hiring stuff — that kind of thing. KZYX is tax-funded, tax-exempt. It belongs to all of us. This unpleasant claque can't be permitted to get away with operating like a private club.

SO, I had to tell Middlebrook that I'd pass on his visit. There's nothing to talk about with him.

LITTLE DOG SAYS, “I’m pretty sure Skrag's on dope. He walks around all day with this dumb grin on his face. I'm gonna call him in. We run a clean and sober operation here. No shoes, no service, and I aim to keep it that way.”

ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

Interesting that you should mention the late 1950s craze for tail fins on autos. Today, the manufacturers from all the major car producing countries have figured out how to make cars that are as grotesquely ugly as a 1959 Cadillac ever was, without adding fins. Yet, just as in 1959, Americans buy them without protest. We are a nation of groupthink. Follow the trend, no matter how stupid. It does not bode well.

I still admire the 1992 – 96 Camry, a modern, aerodynamic, functional vehicle that is attractive, even beautiful, and which has the highest quality and reliability perhaps ever achieved in a mass-produced car. Japanese car design quality has fallen off a cliff since the mid-90s.

THE MARCH OF THE CHOMOS

Please read and be worried about how Proposition 57 is being interpreted by the Sacramento County Superior Court.

There were plenty of public warnings that were ignored before the majority of voters went to the polls and approved massive law changes to allow early release of the undefined "non-violent" state prison inmates.

Proposition 57 is now being further exposed in the courts as just one example of how the initiative process is being gamed to mislead the electorate to vote against their own public safety.

10,000+ sex-offending state prison inmates to receive early release? What could possibly go wrong with this?

(District Attorney Press Release)

AS EXTREME TEMPERATURES, the rate of sea ice melt, the collapse of Greenland glaciers, the thawing of Siberian and Canadian permafrost and increased evaporation in the Arctic drive cold snow storms into Europe and North America, and as hurricanes and wild fires affect tropical and semi-tropical parts of the globe, it is becoming clear Earth is entering a shift in state of the atmosphere-ocean system associated with destructive climate tipping points. As Arctic permafrost is thawing an analogy with geological methane-release events such as the 56 million years-old Paleocene-Eocene boundary thermal maximum (PETM) event is becoming more likely.

As is well known to students of the history of the climate, once a temperature threshold is breached, abrupt weather events ensue amplified by feedbacks such as decreased reflectivity of the Earth surface and enhanced release of greenhouse gases, often within short time frames.

(Andrew Glickson)

JUSTICE DEPARTMENT SUES CALIFORNIA OVER ITS 'SANCTUARY' IMMIGRATION LAWS

Attorney general Jeff Sessions, who has prioritized stricter immigration enforcement, expected to announce suit in Sacramento

by Sam Levin

The US justice department is suing the state of California, alleging it is interfering with the enforcement of immigration laws, a week after the federal government escalated the feud by arresting more than 230 people in the state.

The lawsuit, filed late Tuesday in federal court, is taking aim at “sanctuary” policies in California that are meant to protect undocumented immigrants from deportation. The fight between Donald Trump’s administration and California has been brewing since the president’s inauguration and intensified last month when the mayor of Oakland, a city with sanctuary policies, warned the public about forthcoming raids.

Trump’s attorney general, Jeff Sessions, has made stricter immigration enforcement one of his top priorities since taking the helm of the justice department in February 2017. A key part of that effort involves a crackdown on primarily Democratic-led cities and states Sessions claims are “sanctuaries” shielding undocumented immigrants from deportation.

Sessions is expected to formally announce the lawsuit – which names as defendants the state of California; the governor, Jerry Brown; and the state’s attorney general, Xavier Becerra – in a speech to law enforcement officers on Wednesday morning in Sacramento.

Over the past year, raids in sanctuary cities have torn apart immigrant communities and families, in some cases leading to lengthy detentions for populations not previously targeted for deportation. Activists said the recent enforcement in northern California, which led to 232 arrests, were particularly devastating and have instilled fear in undocumented people across the state.

More than half of the people arrested in the sweep did not have criminal convictions, according to the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (Ice). Immigrants’ rights lawyers have accused Ice of racial profiling with its “collateral arrests” that happen when agents are targeting specific individuals.

In October, Brown signed into law a bill that prevents police from inquiring about immigration status and curtails law enforcement cooperation with immigration officers.

The DoJ lawsuit will cite a provision of the constitution known as the “supremacy clause”, under which federal laws trump state laws.

“The Department of Justice and the Trump administration are going to fight these unjust, unfair and unconstitutional policies that have been imposed on you,” Sessions will say, according to prepared remarks.

On Tuesday night, Brown said the state’s sanctuary policy did not prevent federal agencies from “doing their own work in any way”, adding: “At a time of unprecedented political turmoil, Jeff Sessions has come to California to further divide and polarize America.”

Early in his tenure, Trump signed an executive order that sought to block municipalities that failed to cooperate with US immigration authorities from receiving federal grant funding.

However, the justice department’s attempts to carry out the order to date have been stymied by lawsuits in the federal courts in Chicago, San Francisco and Philadelphia.

At issue is whether sanctuary cities are violating a federal law that requires them to share information about people they arrest with ICE.

The justice department is already embroiled in several pending legal battles with the Trump administration related to sanctuary policies.

One case is now on appeal, after a federal judge in San Francisco blocked Trump’s executive order to bar funding to sanctuary cities.

Another case in San Francisco argues that the justice department’s efforts to cut off funding rests on a flawed interpretation of federal immigration law and tramples California’s right to enforce its own laws as it sees fit.

The justice department’s lawsuit will target three state laws, senior department officials said on Tuesday.

One law prohibits private employers in California from voluntarily cooperating with federal immigration officials and imposes fines of up to $10,000 if a business owner fails to comply. A second lawprevents state and local law enforcement from giving federal immigration officials information about when they intend to release an undocumented immigrant from their custody.

The third law empowers the state to inspect federal immigration detention centers.

The justice department also plans to seek a court order from a judge to temporarily block the state from enforcing the laws.

(Courtesy, theGuardian.com)

IN A MUSEUM

(Daily Kos)

TECH COMPANIES: LEGIONS FROM HADES

Once seen as the saviors of America’s economy, Silicon Valley is turning into something more of an emerging axis of evil. “Brain-hacking” tech companies such as Apple, Google, Facebook, Microsoft and Amazon, as one prominent tech investor puts it, have become so intrusive as to alarm critics on both right and left.

Firms like Google, which once advertised themselves as committed to being not “evil,” are now increasingly seen as epitomizing Hades’ legions. The tech giants now constitute the world’s five largest companies in market capitalization. Rather than idealistic newcomers, they increasingly reflect the worst of American capitalism — squashing competitors, using indentured servants, attempting to fix wages, depressing incomes, creating ever more social anomie and alienation.

At the same time these firms are fostering what British academic David Lyon has called a “surveillance society” both here and abroad. Companies like Facebook and Google thrive by mining personal data, and their only way to grow, as Wired recently suggested, was, creepily, to “know you better.”

The techie vision of the future is one in which the middle class all but disappears, with those not sufficiently merged with machine intelligence relegated to rent-paying serfs living on “income maintenance.” Theirs is a world in where long-standing local affinities are supplanted by Facebook’s concept of digitally-created “meaningful communities”...

–Joel Kotkin in The Orange County Register

SENATE BANK BILL FURTHER "ENRICHES WALL STREET" AND WEAKENS REFORMS

This week, the U.S. Senate is debating S. 2155, the first major attack on Wall Street reforms Congress passed under 2010’s Dodd Frank bank accountability legislation. A vote is expected by the end of this week. See "How Democrats Are Helping Trump Dismantle Dodd-Frank" by Talmon Joseph Smith in The New Republic.

BART NAYOR, via Don Owens, (202) 588-7767, dowens@citizen.org; Nadia Prupis, (202) 588-7779, nprupis@citizen.org, @Public_Citizen, @BartNaylor

Naylor is financial policy advocate in Public Citizen’s Congress Watch division and the former chief of investigations for the U.S Senate Banking Committee. He is scrutinizing Republicans, Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) and Democratic senators in Delaware, Indiana, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, North Dakota and Virginia who "are likely to support a bill that enriches Wall Street bankers far more than it ever will help communities and consumers."

Naylor said today: “Ten years after a financial crash that cost millions of Americans their homes, jobs and savings, the U.S. Senate is moving forward with a measure to roll back safeguards against Wall Street recklessness,” Naylor said. “Disguised as a community banking bill, this misguided legislation eliminates safeguards for 25 of the 38 largest banks, a sector that received some $50 billion in bailout funds. The bill also slashes consumer protections meant to fight racially discriminatory lending practices and protect purchasers of manufactured housing.”

KMEC Radio 105.1 FM in Ukiah, CA

SOME DAY, SOME WAY, TRISH WILL GET 'ER DONE

Broadband Alliance meeting on Friday, 3/9/17 in Ukiah

Hi everyone,

One topic is a discussion of the PUC new's broadband adoption program which I think has potential for our county. Eligible applicants include schools, libraries, and non-profits so I'd really like to find a good match for some type of project. The rules for the program are being developed as we speak and the PUC wants input, so I want to provide them with suggestions that would help match the grant program to a project that we want funded. That's where I need ideas on potential projects and your input on rules for the program.

Here's a short summary of the new program -http://www.mendocinobroadband.org/wp-content/uploads/Adoption-program-summary-from-Ap.-B-PDF.pdfHere's the longer staff proposals for the program -http://www.mendocinobroadband.org/wp-content/uploads/App.-B.staff-proposals-on-adoption-program.pdf

(Remember, much of these rules are /not/ set in stone and these staff suggestions are subject to change)

Thanks, and hope to see you Friday.

Trish Steel <www.MendocinoBroadband.org> 707-354-3224

ART BY GREGOR MACINNIS

1&2: Undersea creature. Fish or bird?

3. “Republican front-runner — (based on a Stephen Colbert character on his old show—foresaw the candidacy of Trump.

And, 4. “Bozo the clown on his execution day” — ala’ Stephen King.