Mendocino County Today: Sunday, April 1, 2018

• Ken Montgomery
• March Rainfall
• Pets
• UVSD Tensions
• 90 mph
• Homeless Apartments
• Personal Responsibility
• Homeless Camp
• Little Dog
• Police Reports
• Yesterday's Catch
• California Nightmare
• Extravagant
• Marching Orders
• Twisted World
• Police Accountability
• US Regressing
• Poetry Month
• Printmaking Workshop
• Marco Radio

KENNETH REID MONTGOMERY, age 74, longtime resident of Boonville, California, passed away peacefully on Tuesday, March 27^th, at Ukiah Valley Medical Center. An avid ecologist and native plant expert, Ken was proprietor of Anderson Valley Nursery for over forty years. He was active in his community as a teacher and musician who loved to share his interests and experiences with others. He is survived by his beloved wife, Susan Bridge-Mount, his daughters, Lisa Baumgardner and Kathleen Montgomery, three grandchildren, and his brother, Stephen Montgomery.

The family requests that donations be made in Ken’s name to The Cancer Resource Center.

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Article about Ken: "Going Native" by Tom Melcher (AVA, November 20, 2014)

NEARLY NINE INCHES of rain fell on Yorkville during March, continuing this year's peculiar pattern of alternating dry and wet months. Totaling less than 28 inches thus far, we're hoping for more late season rainfall before summer sets in.

COMPARING this season to last, monthly precipitation totals from Yorkville's DWR Station:

2017-18

8.88" March
1.32" February
9.16" January
0.44" December
7.84" November
0.72" October

2016-17

6.60" March
21.64" February
24.92" January
9.92" December
6.76" November
10.36" October

PETS OF THE WEEK

Chatty Kathy is an inquisitive, 4 year old, spayed female, short hair cat. She is a bit of a talker and apparently has a lot to say! CK loves getting pets and belly scratches. Chatty Kathy is ready to explore her new home, and hopefully, a cat friendly yard.

This BIG girl is playful and almost dances sometimes!   In her former home, Kia lived with children. When Kia participated in our multi-dog play group, she reacted well around our other canine guests. But, Kia had problems with female dogs in her last neighborhood, and we therefore want her to meet any potential roomies. Kia is 100+ pounds, spayed and ready to go with you today! Kia is eligible for the shelter’s SENIOR DOG DISCOUNT.

The Ukiah Animal Shelter is located at 298 Plant Road in Ukiah, and adoption hours are Tuesday, Thursday, Friday & Saturday from 10 am to 4:30 pm and Wednesday from 10 am to 6:30 pm. Many wonderful dogs and cats await their forever homes here. To view photos and bios of more of the wonderful adoptable animals, please visit online at: www.mendoanimalshelter.com or visit the  shelter. Join us the 2nd  Saturday of every month for our "Empty the Shelter" pack walk and help us get every dog out for some exercise! For more information about adoptions please call 707-467-6453. Thank you.

UKIAH VALLEY SANITATION DISTRICT Board meeting, Wednesday, March 28, 2018, Part 2

Board Chair Theresa McNerlin’s minor Brown Act complaint didn’t go very far after her inconsequential attempt at upbraiding Director Julie Bawcom fizzled with no action taken. Probably it was only meant to send a message to Bawcom, since the complaint had no legitimate foundation.

The Board then moved into more mundane things like unanimously giving a sewer fee waiver to the Ukiah Gun Club, and belatedly getting around to trying to find an auditor, recruit somebody to calculate new sewer rates (after turning down Director Bawcom’s offer to do it for free), recruiting another general manager, reviews of policies, etc.

But before the meeting ended Director Andrea Reed said that she wanted to be sure that a letter was on the agenda for their April 11 meeting, adding that Chair McNerlin had previously said that if one person (i.e., one director) wanted to put something on the agenda they would. The ensuing tense discussion seemed to be related to something in the pending closed session which assumed much more knowledge than the general public is privy to.

Ms. Reed’s proposal set Chair McNerlin off again:

McNerlin: “I would have to review the minutes of that meeting to see if this board approved putting a letter on our agenda.”

Reed: “In a previous meeting you said that if one person requested an item to be on our agenda you would honor that.”

McNerlin: “Well, we also have letters from 30 different ratepayers in the office. Shall we put 30 letters on this? I understand that you want to investigate where the money came from. No one on this board has any idea who paid for those ads…"

Which ads? Not clear, because they’re mentioned in the letter that McNerlin was trying to avoid. We assume the ads were pro-incumbent ads in the Ukiah Daily Journal last year in the run-up to the November election which saw Reed, Bawcom and Ernie Wipf defeating three of the incumbents (not including incumbent McNerlin who was not up for election) who were being criticized for letting the District’s lawsuit against the City of Ukiah drag out endlessly costing millions and millions in lawyer fees.

McNerlin continued: “I have no idea and he can speak for himself. [“he” being a reference to Board critic and ratepayer Don Crawford of Ukiah.] Go investigate it as much as you want. Go to the Daily Journal. Ask them to who wrote the check. Go question the last chair.  Ask the attorneys. I don't care.”

Reed: “You are going to question Julie [Bawcom] for going above and beyond —”

McNerlin (getting increasingly upset): "This was not a board action. It's not a board item. This current board has nothing to do with that. I had absolutely no knowledge of any of that. I don't know where it came from. None. I will swear on the Holy Bible. For me to waste this board's time on a single letter from a single person when I have already 11 or 12 items on my agenda makes no sense. And I have gotten at least a dozen letters calling me immoral, inept, corrupt — all from this exact person. I'm sorry. So go investigate it as much if you want. More power to you. If you want to bring back to the board what you found and we will put it on the agenda for somebody to report back.”

Reed: “I think this letter should be read in its entirety and publicly addressed. I requested it on January 10 and again on the 14th of this month and then emailed it to you on the 21st requesting that the letter be addressed.”

McNerlin: “Why? Why do you want that letter to be read publicly?”

Reed: “Because I know that it should be.”

McNerlin: “Why?”

Reed: “Because I feel that it should be.”

Wipf: “He's already read it five times at our meetings.”

McNerlin: “He's at every single meeting!”

Wipf: “It doesn't say anything different than what he's saying in public comments. So —”

Reed: “I think the board needs to have a discussion about it.”

Wipf: “I don't know if I'm honor bound or not, but I tried to call the Ukiah Daily Journal and find out and they wouldn't give me that information. I've asked Duncan James [The Board’s high-priced Ukiah attorney and his staff] for the name of the person who paid for that. He said no. Short of taking all the disbursements from the district account and the check registers for the period that was — and which I haven't requested that yet — I would ask —”

McNerlin: “He's gotten all of them, Mr. Crawford has.”

Wipf (to Crawford): “You got them all. Is there anything in there that shows anything inappropriate?”

Mr. Crawford came to the podium: “First of all, slow down.”

Duncan James's staff attorney (and the Board’s attorney) Doug Losak interrupted: “This debate cannot be about something that is not on the agenda. If you want to talk about calendaring something you should talk about calendaring something, and that's it.”

McNerlin: “I'm sorry, I'm not wasting any more time on this. Is it so hard to think that a small number of people did that independently? Independent from the board? … There's no good that can come from it. We are adjourned at 7:17.”

The Board then went into an hour and a half long closed session, probably another discussion of the endless settlement negotiations with the City of Ukiah, and resumed in open session with the usual: “Direction was given to staff.”

But which “staff”? The lawyers? The clerk? They don’t have much “staff” anymore.

With the prickly Ms. McNerlin at the helm, the dispute among the Board members, not to mention the much bigger and more complicated dispute with the City of Ukiah, is not likely to end well for the Ukiah Valley sewer system’s ratepayers.

SPEEDOMETER SHOWS lesbian couple were driving 90 mph when they went off a cliff, killing themselves and their six adopted children, court documents reveal

dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5566669/Speedometer-lesbian-couples-SUV-pinned-90-mph-cliff-plunge.html

WORK BEGINS ON APARTMENTS FOR MENTALLY ILL HOMELESS IN UKIAH

by Justine Frederiksen

In the summer of 2019, about three dozen people will hopefully be moved off the streets and into their own living spaces at the Willow Terrace Apartments in Ukiah.

“I can’t wait until the doors open and we can fill it right up, because that’s how desperately we need it,” said Karen Lovato, acting deputy director for the Behavioral Health and Recovery Services department of the Mendocino County Health and Human Services Agency.

“I think I know some of the people who will be living here,” said 2nd District Mendocino County Supervisor John McCowen, describing the 38 apartments designed to house “seriously mentally ill” adults who are homeless, or about to be, as a “dream come true. It’s hard to say you’re a compassionate society when you have individuals like this living on the streets.”

McCowen also praised the project for not just offering homes, but “wrap-around services” provided by Mendocino County and Redwood Community Services so that the residents “can remain successfully housed.”

The project started four years ago as an idea presented by Michael Pallesen, the former director of development for the Rural Communities Housing Development Corporation, and CEO Brad McDonald thanked him for doggedly taking the project from “passionate inception” to the verge of reality.

“And now Ryan gets to build it,” said Pallesen, referring to current RCHDC Development Director Ryan LaRue, who addressed the community’s concerns about the possible negative impacts the complex may have on the area when the permit for the project was granted by the Ukiah Planning Commission last summer.

“My belief is that many of the reservations people have about this project are based on misunderstandings and assumptions, and the true question is whether the community wants to proactively address the homeless issue or not,” LaRue told the Planning Commission, explaining that the only method proven to reduce the issues surrounding these patients – such as camping, littering, loitering, and more serious infractions – is providing “intensive, wrap-around services” that not only improve the patients” lives, but reduce the burden they can impose on the police department, medical providers and the community at large.

When the Ukiah Police Department was asked to evaluate the project, Capt. Justin Wyatt said his department was definitely aware of the need to house such residents and supportive of the idea in general, but wanted to make sure that the operation plans included having people on-hand at all times who could communicate with his officers and take control of tenants when needed.

“We promise we will do everything we can to reduce all of the factors that are so concerning, and this project will do nothing but alleviate the pressure (this population is putting on first responders and others),” said Camille Schrader of Redwood Community Services, which provides mental health services for Mendocino County and runs a 24-hour crisis center nearly directly across the street from the complex.

Pallesen said the buildings were designed by architect Philippe Lapotre, who designed a similar complex in Humboldt County and said it was important to create a “sense of belonging” for the vulnerable residents.

“Creating an intimate space is really what you need so people can hang out and feel protected,” said Lapotre, describing the plaza and garden spaces he surrounded the buildings with as providing that sense of connection and privacy. “You hear a lot that projects like these are a threat to the community, but I think the people living there are feeling more of a threat from the outside, and they really need spaces like these.”

“It will be enclosed enough that the residents can have that sense of (belonging and security), but open enough that it won’t feel like a prison or an institution,” said Pallesen. “Hopefully it will be a place where they can feel at peace with the community, not at war with it.”

• Separate housing project planned for East Gobbi Street: A different apartment complex is being planned farther west at 210 E. Gobbi St., which will be the second phase of the Summercreek Village apartment complex on Village Circle. That project will have 40 units designed for low-income households.

(Courtesy, the Ukiah Daily Journal)

TERMINALLY POOR CHOICES

Editor:

I think it’s time we talk about the other homeless issue — that being the non-homeless who have to deal with homeless. So-called experts say that the majority of the homeless have drug, alcohol and/or mental health issues. So the perfect solution is to provide mass housing. Definitely not. To do so would require a 24-hour staff of social workers, security, maintenance and police. You cannot leave most homeless people with these issues to their own devices.

Let’s not forget the toxic living conditions these people create with human waste, dirty needles, broken glass, etc. I know it’s not very PC in these times to talk about personal responsibility. But these people are, for the most part, in the situation they are in because of poor choices. No to the taxpayer-funded homeless hotel.

Jim Owen Jr.

Santa Rosa

RURAL LEGAL out of Santa Rosa is suing to keep a massive homeless camp in place on the grounds that it's un-constitutional to move the homeless unless alternative housing is provided. “We’re not saying that everyone needs to stay there forever,” said Jeffery Hoffman, with California Rural Legal Assistance in Santa Rosa. “What we’re saying is we need to figure out a way to accommodate everybody in a fashion that works.”

THE PICTURED CAMP established itself in 2015. The number of residents has grown to about 100 people since Santa Rosa began clearing out other long-time homeless camps and the October wildfires ravaged parts of the city.

BECAUSE THE ROSE CITY is unable to provide housing for the homeless, especially the homeless addicted to drugs and alcohol, or are mentally ill, this camp and others like it will remain in place while the comfortably housed hash out its fate in court, the whole of it being an endless game of Whack-A-Mole because only the state and federal government have the resources to actually do something about the rising tide of the walking wounded.

LITTLE DOG SAYS, "80 degrees, fresh cut grass, spring flowers popping up everywhere! 'Wanna play some catch, Skrag, loosen up a little for baseball season?' Skrag looks at me like I'm nuts and says, 'Cats don't expend any more energy than is absolutely necessary. I thought even dogs knew that.' Then he yawned and went back to sleep."

ALBION MAN ARRESTED ON BURGLARY CHARGE

On Wednesday, March 28, at approximately 9:17 pm, Mendocino County Sheriff's Deputies were dispatched to a reported burglary occurring at a residence located in the 3000 block of Albion Ridge B Road in Albion.

Deputies contacted a 64-year-old adult male and learned he had just returned home from out of the area on Tuesday. After arriving at his residence, he discovered an unknown person(s) forced entry into his residence and stole various items of personal property with a total monetary value of about $1,000.00.

On Thursday, March 29, Deputies investigating the burglary responded to a residence in the 33200 block of Albion Ridge Road where they contacted Thomas Langenderfer (age 48).

Deputies determined Langenderfer resided at the location and was on active summary probation with a term he must submit his property and person to search.

Deputies conducted a search of Langenderfer and his residence and during that search located the victim's stolen property and illegal drug paraphernalia.

Langenderfer was arrested for 460(a) PC - First Degree Burglary and transported to the Mendocino County Jail where he was booked and to be held in lieu of $50,000 bail.

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MULTIPLE MONAHAN

On 03-28-2018 at approximately 11:57 A.M., a Deputy with the Mendocino County Sheriff's Office responded to a residence in the area of Hopper Lane and Ledger Lane in Covelo.  The Deputy knew a subject named Michael Monahan, 33, of Covelo lived at the location and that he had multiple felony warrants issued for his arrest from the Mendocino County Superior Court.

The Deputy contacted Monahan at the residence and confirmed with Sheriff's Office dispatch that Monahan's arrest warrants were still active.  The dispatcher informed the Deputy that Monahan had two felony warrants issued for his arrest for 1203.2 PC [Violation of Probation].  Monahan was advised and placed under arrest for the warrants without incident.  Monahan was subsequently booked into the Mendocino County Jail where he was to be held on a no-bail status pursuant to the arrest warrants.

CATCH OF THE DAY, March 31, 2018

NICOLAS ACOSTA, Sacramento/Redwood Valley. Battery, conspiracy.

BRYON BARRETT, Redwood Valley. DUI.

ANTHONY BERTOZZI, Protective order violation.

DAVID FREASE JR., Covelo. Taking vehicle without owner’s consent, destroying evidence, evasion, parole violation.

TODD FUTRAL, Clearlake/Fort Bragg. DUI-alcohol&drugs, paraphernalia.

RALPH IHLI, Fort Bragg. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

BRYAN JIMENEZ, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

JOEL KIMBALL, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol, vandalism.

MICHAEL KIMBERLIN, Willits. Willits. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

AARON KOSKI SR., Fort Bragg. Shoplifting with larcenous intent, probation revocation. (Frequent Flyer)

STEVEN LAMBERT JR, Sacramento/Redwood Valley. Battery, conspiracy.

THOMAS LANGENDERFER, Albion. Burglary.

DONOVAN MARCELIUS, Forestville/Ukiah. Failure to appear, probation revocation.

YEFRI MENDEZ-MARTINEZ, Fort Bragg. Rape by force, violence, duress, menace or fear of bodily injury, sexual penetration with force or fear, annoy/molest victim under 18, sexual penetration with force or fear on victim under 14, lewd lacivious with child under 14 with force or fear, contact with intent to commit lewd act with minor, oral copulation of victim under 10 years of age.

MAUREEN MOLINA, Willits. Domestic abuse, willful cruelty to child with possible injury or death.

MIGUEL PLASCENCIA-BARAJAS, Ukiah. Misdemeanor hit&run, DUI, resisting, probation revocation.

KEVIN QUIJADA, Ukiah. Probation revocation.

RUBEN RAMOS, Woodland/Redwood Valley. Battery, conspiracy.

WAKE UP CALIFORNIA

To the Editor:

Voters in California need to wake up. The state is in deep trouble and it’s only going to get worse if we keep electing the same type of people.

When I was growing up in the 50s and 60s California had one of the best educational systems not only in the country, but also the world. It also had the best infrastructure and lowest poverty rate. Its crime rate was also one of the lowest. Plus there were lots of good paying fulltime jobs you could apply for and business wanted to move here.

Then far left Democrats started taking over and today they control the state. This has resulted in California now being rated as the worst state to live in. We have the highest poverty rate in the country. Close to 25 percent of the people live in poverty. Also this state has the largest income gap in the country. Our infrastructure is falling apart and our educational system has gone from one of the best to one of the worst in the country and the world. On top of all this the crime rate is steadily increasing along with taxes which are the highest in the country.

Speaking of taxes the 12 cent gas tax recently imposed supposedly to pay for road repair is not allocated for road repair it is put into the general fund so that it can be spent on anything, like programs to help politicians get reelected. The mismanagement would be unbelievable if it weren’t for the fact that you can look at other parts of the country controlled by far left democrats and see the same thing. The only difference is that California is the worst. California lacks any form of fiduciary responsibility.

These problems will continue to get worse as long as the state maintains its antibusiness policies and caters to special interests. This has resulted in businesses no longer wanting to set up facilities here. It’s cheaper to truck their products into the state and bypass all the taxes and mind numbing regulations. Along with businesses leaving, a large portion of the skilled labor force has also left for lower taxed states that have good paying fulltime jobs.

Another major California problem is illegal immigrants. Just so everyone knows, I am a big proponent of legal immigration. Immigration done the right way makes our state and country stronger and more diversified. Now, illegal immigration by itself has not caused the major problems we face, but it contributes to them and makes it harder to correct them. It is estimated that 1.7 million illegal immigrants live in this state, costing California taxpayers $23 billion to educate and provide health care to them. In southern California 17 hospitals have closed because they were unable to remain financially viable due to people not paying for their services. A large part of these nonpayers are illegal immigrants. Watch what happens when an ICE agent walks into a hospital emergency waiting room. A lot of the people there disappear.

Illegal immigrants also push the crime rate higher. This is only going to get worse now that Governor Jerry Brown has declared the state a sanctuary state, meaning illegal immigrants welcome. So we can expect to see an increase in illegals that have committed crimes making the state even more crime ridden. Not only does California harbor criminal illegal immigrants that have committed crimes in this country it now warns them when ICE is coming. ICE isn’t looking for illegal immigrants it is mainly looking for those illegals that have committed crimes here. The Oakland Mayor demonstrated the mind set of most Democratic politicians in this state when she warned illegal immigrants about a pending ICE raid. This allowed 800 criminals to evade arrest. I guess the mayor figures the law abiding people of Oakland like living with criminals. Just to make matters even worse the California Attorney General has put businesses on notice that if they cooperate with ICE the state will punish them.

The latest idea: a new ID card for illegal immigrants. When you look at how it works you have to conclude that the real purpose is to allow illegals to vote. When issued they are given a voter registration form and all they have to do is check the box that says they are a citizen and they will be signed up to vote. There is no mechanism setup to verify they are citizens. We have to accept their word that they are. This goes along with not checking the voter rolls for over 20 years. I wonder how many dead people are still voting. Politicians and special interests aren’t stupid. They know that at some point the majority of legal voters will get fed up with them so allowing illegals to vote will help insure they stay in power.

If the people of California don’t wake up and start correcting these problems this state will have only two types of people, the super rich and the very poor. Everyone else will have had to leave in order to live a decent life. This is especially true when they finally get rid of Proposition 13 to pay for everything and property taxes go sky high. They are already floating the idea of eliminating businesses from its protection. If they do the price of food and everything else will go straight up to cover the added cost. Remember businesses don’t pay taxes, they pass them along to consumers in the form of higher prices.

William Seay

Ukiah

ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

The number of pitfalls available to a man increases exponentially with the increase in his disposable income. My Son-In-Law did some bodyguard work for a client that took him shopping where he bought a $50,000.00 sport coat! Unfortunately for the rich guy, he was divorced a year or two later after being caught cheating on his wife and I say unfortunately because she has the money, $300M in one account alone! In the end, we are all only mortal and while chasing the buck may seem to work for some people, I have come to believe otherwise. Call me the fool if you wish, but I do not want to wake up dead one morning and find myself having to explain to a higher authority why I had to live an exorbitant lifestyle while so many around me have little to nothing at all.

AN EXECUTION OR TWO

Editor,

In a recent London Review of Books article Max Hastings cited a number of atrocities committed by the American military in various wars. In modern times when American troops are sent into combat their first order contains rules of engagement. When American soldiers landed in North Africa in Operation Torch in 1942, their orders stated in part, “The sultan’s palace, houses of worship, mosques, cemeteries and private homes will not be disturbed or entered unless they are used as defensive works,” and “Women, both European and native, will be treated with the utmost respect. Soldiers guilty of looting or assault on women will be shot.” I don’t know if this punishment was ever carried out. General Order Number 1 issued to troops invading Iraq had no such provision. It simply said they should avoid offending Muslim sensitivities and not, for example, take pornography into the country. One wonders if an execution or two would have maintained discipline in the ranks.

Gary Leiser

Sisters, Oregon

DOES ANYONE HAVE THE RIGHT TO SEX?

by Amia Srinivasan

On May 23, 2014, Elliot Rodger, a 22-year-old college dropout, became the world’s most famous “incel” – involuntary celibate. The term can, in theory, be applied to both men and women, but in practice it picks out not sexless men in general, but a certain kind of sexless man: the kind who is convinced he is owed sex, and is enraged by the women who deprive him of it. Rodger stabbed to death his two housemates, Weihan Wang and Cheng Hong, and a friend, George Chen, as they entered his apartment on Seville Road in Isla Vista, California. Three hours later he drove to the Alpha Phi sorority house near the campus of UC Santa Barbara.

He shot three women on the lawn, killing two of them, Katherine Cooper and Veronika Weiss. Rodger then went on a drive-by shooting spree through Isla Vista, killing Christopher Michaels-Martinez, also a student at UCSB, with a single bullet to the chest inside a Deli Mart, and wounding 14 others. He eventually crashed his BMW coupé at an intersection. He was found dead by the police, having shot himself in the head.

In the hours between murdering three men in his apartment and driving to Alpha Phi, Rodger went to Starbucks, ordered coffee, and uploaded a video, “Elliot Rodger’s Retribution,” to his YouTube channel. He also emailed a 107,000-word memoir-manifesto, “My Twisted World: The Story of Elliot Rodger,” to a group of people including his parents, his therapist, former schoolteachers and childhood friends. Together these two documents detail the massacre to come and Rodger’s motivation. “All I ever wanted was to fit in and live a happy life,” he explains at the beginning of “My Twisted World,” “but I was cast out and rejected, forced to endure an existence of loneliness and insignificance, all because the females of the human species were incapable of seeing the value in me.”

He goes on to describe his privileged and happy early childhood in England – Rodger was the son of a successful British filmmaker – followed by his privileged and unhappy adolescence in Los Angeles as a short, bad-at-sports, shy, weird, friendless kid, desperate to be cool. He writes of dyeing his hair blond (Rodger was half-white and half-Malaysian; blond people were “so much more beautiful”); of finding “sanctuary” in Halo and World of Warcraft; being shoved by a pretty girl at summer camp (“That was the first experience of female cruelty I endured, and it traumatized me to no end”); becoming incensed by the sex lives of his peers (“How could an inferior, ugly black boy be able to get a white girl and not me? I am beautiful, and I am half-white myself. I am descended from British aristocracy. He is descended from slaves”); dropping out of successive schools and then community college; and fantasizing about a political order in which he ruled the world and sex was outlawed (“All women must be quarantined like the plague they are”). The necessary result of all this, Rodger said, was his “War on Women,” in the course of which he would “punish all females” for the crime of depriving him of sex. He would target the Alpha Phi sorority, “the hottest sorority of UCSB,” because it contained “the very girls who represent everything I hate in the female gender … hot, beautiful blonde girls … spoiled, heartless, wicked bitches.” He would show everyone that he was “the superior one, the true alpha male.”

Late in 2017, the online discussion forum Reddit closed down its 40,000-member “Incel” support group, for “people who lack romantic relationships and sex.” Reddit took the action after introducing a new policy of prohibiting content that “encourages, glorifies, incites or calls for violence.” What had started out as a support group for the lonely and sexually isolated had become a forum whose users not only raged against women and the “noncels” and “normies” who get to sleep with them, but also frequently advocated rape. A second incel Reddit group, “Truecels,” was also banned following the site’s policy change. Its sidebar read: “No encouraging or inciting violence, or other illegal activities such as rape. But of course it is OK to say, for example, that rape should have a lighter punishment or even that it should be legalized and that slutty women deserve rape.”

Soon after Rodger’s killings, incels took to the manosphere to explain that women (and feminism) were in the end responsible for what had happened. Had one of those “wicked bitches” just fucked Elliot Rodger he wouldn’t have had to kill anyone. (Nikolas Cruz, who gunned down 17 students and staff members at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida on Valentine’s Day, vowed in a comment on a YouTube video that “Elliot Rodger will not be forgotten.”) Feminist commentators were quick to point out what should have been obvious: that no woman was obligated to have sex with Rodger; that his sense of sexual entitlement was a case-study in patriarchal ideology; that his actions were a predictable if extreme response to the thwarting of that entitlement. They could have added that feminism, far from being Rodger’s enemy, may well be the primary force resisting the very system that made him feel – as a short, clumsy, effeminate, interracial boy – inadequate. His manifesto reveals that it was overwhelmingly boys, not girls, who bullied him: who pushed him into lockers, called him a loser, made fun of him for his virginity. But it was the girls who deprived him of sex, and the girls, therefore, who had to be destroyed.

Could it also be said that Rodger’s unfuckability was a symptom of the internalization of patriarchal norms of men’s sexual attractiveness on the part of women? The answer to that question is complicated by two things. First, Rodger was a creep, and it was at least partly his insistence on his own aesthetic, moral and racial superiority, and whatever it was in him that made him capable of stabbing his housemates and his friend a total of 134 times, not his failure to meet the demands of heteromasculinity, that kept women away. Second, plenty of non-homicidal nerdy guys get laid. Indeed part of the injustice of patriarchy, something unnoticed by incels and other “men’s rights activists,” is the way it makes even supposedly unattractive categories of men attractive: geeks, nerds, effete men, old men, men with “dad bods.” Meanwhile there are sexy schoolgirls and sexy teachers, manic pixie dreamgirls and Milfs, but they’re all taut-bodied and hot, minor variations on the same normative paradigm. (Can we imagine GQ carrying an article celebrating “mom bod”?)

That said, it’s true that the kind of women Rodger wanted to have sex with – hot sorority blondes – don’t as a rule date men like Rodger, even the non-creepy, non-homicidal ones, at least not until they make their fortune in Silicon Valley. It’s also true that this has something to do with the rigid gender norms enforced by patriarchy: alpha females want alpha males. And it’s true that Rodger’s desires – his erotic fixation on the “spoiled, stuck-up, blonde slut” – are themselves a function of patriarchy, as is the way the “hot blonde slut” becomes a metonym for all women. (Many in the manosphere gleefully pointed out that Rodger didn’t even succeed in killing the women he lusted after, as if in final confirmation of his “omega” sexual status: Katherine Cooper and Veronika Weiss were non “hot blondes” from Delta Delta Delta who just happened to be standing outside the Alpha Phi house.) Feminist commentary on Elliot Rodger and the incel phenomenon more broadly has said much about male sexual entitlement, objectification and violence. But so far it has said little about desire: men’s desire, women’s desire, and the ideological shaping of both.

#BLACKLIVESMATTER AND THE NBA COLLIDE IN SACRAMENTO

by Dave Zirin

On Sunday, March 18, a 22-year-old black man named Stephon Clark was killed by Sacramento police in his grandmother’s backyard. They took his life with 20 bullets. Near Clark’s body, there was only a cell phone. After killing Clark, the officers muted their body cameras. On Thursday, following a week of protests, civil disobedience and other actions, Black Lives Matter demonstrators marched and their actions made national news across the sports pages. Yes, the sports pages.

These protesters made the decision to surround the Sacramento Kings’ publicly funded basketball arena, the Golden 1 Center, preventing fans from attending the game. As police closed in, the team locked the doors, keeping all the fans out, with the exception of a smattering of people who arrived early or entered through a VIP entrance. The game was subsequently played in front of empty seats, the silence of the arena standing in for the silencing of Stephon Clark’s voice. On Sunday, before the Kings tipped off against the Boston Celtics, players on both teams wore T-shirts during warm-ups with Clark’s name on the back and the phrase, “Accountability. We Are One” across the front. They kept the shirts on during the playing of the national anthem. Then, on the Jumbotron, the Kings and Celtics players played a public-service announcement calling for police accountability. In the video Celtic all-star Al Horford said, “We will not shut up and dribble.” Word also got out that former Sacramento Kings players DeMarcus Cousins and Matt Barnes even offered to pay for Stephon Clark’s funeral.

Yet all of this athlete activism only happened because Black Lives Matter activists in Sacramento dared to act. I spoke to the founder of the Sacramento chapter of Black Lives Matter, Tanya Faison, about the decision to surround the arena and shut it down. Faison said that none of it was planned beforehand.

She explained: “Normally, how I organize, I go with the vibe of the crowd. Since Stephon was someone who had a lot of friends and family, many of them attended our first event [earlier in the week] and they were coming to this one. I knew I wanted to kind of follow their lead. So it was not planned to go to the Golden One Arena. It also wasn’t planned to block the freeway. None of it was planned. It was just how the crowd moved. We went to go block an intersection and people started to get on the freeway. The police blocked the traffic for us to be there but we didn’t want that so we headed to the Kings’ game. And it was just like, automatically somebody said, ‘Hey, let’s not let anybody into the game.’ And so that’s what we did.”

One of the stunning parts of this story is the way that the Kings had a game without fans, costing the team an untold amount of money, and yet they immediately displayed sympathy with the protesters and the family of Stephon Clark, from ownership to the front office to the players themselves.

“Yes, that was really surprising,” said Faison, “But it just showed that, even though there’s a lot of people saying they’re not happy with what we did, it needed to happen. I’m very happy with the outcome, especially the video by the Kings and the players who spoke out in support. So yeah, I’m very happy with that. Hopefully, it’s followed up by some action.”

This action includes an open invitation to Sacramento Kings players to do Black Lives Matter organizing in the city. “Players should come through to one of our events so they can reach out to our chapter and help out because Stephon Clark is definitely not the first person in Sacramento that’s been killed or abused by law enforcement,” she said. “Last year, alone, we were fighting for a number of people and we’ve been fighting for different people since 2015. If they really want to help, there’s a lot of work to be done.”

Back in October, Sacramento Bee associate editor Erika D. Smith wrote that Faison “might not be the leader Sacramento wants, but she’s the leader Sacramento needs.” She has certainly proved that where it matters most: among the people and in the streets.

US BANANA REPUBLIC

America is regressing to have the economic and political structure of a developing nation, an MIT economist has warned. Peter Temin says the world's’ largest economy has roads and bridges that look more like those in Thailand and Venezuela than those in parts of Europe.

independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-developing-nation-regressing-economy-poverty-donald-trump-mit-economist-peter-temin-a7694726.html

AT THE LIBRARY: NATIONAL POETRY MONTH

Poem Cut-Ups (teens), Wednesday, April 4^th 2-5pm

Poetry Magnets (teens), Wednesday, April 11^th 2-5 pm

Into the Wild Poem (Adults & Teens): Saturday, April 14^th 11am-12:30 pm

Postcard Poems & Mail Art (teens), Wednesday, April 18^th 2-5pm

LOBA Poetry Series (teens and adults): Saturday, April 28^th 3 pm

National Poetry Month is the largest literary celebration in the world, with tens of millions of readers, students, K-12 teachers, librarians, booksellers, literary events curators, publishers, bloggers, and, of course, poets marking poetry’s important place in our culture and our lives.

The goals of National Poetry Month are to:

• highlight the extraordinary legacy and ongoing achievement of American poets
• encourage the reading of poems
• assist teachers in bringing poetry into their classrooms
• increase the attention paid to poetry by national and local media
• encourage increased publication and distribution of poetry books, and
• encourage support for poets and poetry.

Poem Cut-Ups – Teens will discover how to make poems from a variety of sources, including dictionaries, newspapers, rocks, the mind, & music. We’ll have fun exploring language & syntax through play, as well as cut & paste fragments from other poems.

Poetry Magnets – We’ll make our own magnetic poetry kits to take home.

Registration is required – please call 467-6434 or email carrm@co.mendocino.ca.us  to sign up!

Postcard Poems & Mail Art – Teens will learn about the joys of giving & receiving mail art! Using the postcard as a format, teens will draw or paint a visual image on one-side of the pre-stamped postcard, then flip it over and use the reverse side as a form to compose a poem, & finally mail it to a friend or family member.

Into the Wild Poem – Open to both teens and adults, this will be a guided poetry walk through downtown Ukiah. Using various creative writing exercises and methods, we will make poems based on visual & aural observations of our surroundings, chance operations, & play with metrics, rhythm, & cadence to discover where the line breaks take us. Into the Wild Poem will be facilitated by Melissa Eleftherion Carr (MLIS, MFA), author of field guide to autobiography, huminsect, Pigtail Duty, and others. Registration is required – please call/email Melissa to sign up: 467-6434 / carrm@co.mendocino.ca.us

All poetry events are free and open to the public. Sponsored by the Friends of the Ukiah Valley Library

PRINTMAKING WORKSHOP AT GRACE HUDSON -- FIRST FRIDAY

The Grace Hudson Museum will be hosting a family-friendly printmaking workshop, focusing on plant and flower imagery, as part of the First Friday Artwalk this Friday, April 6 from 5 to 7:30 p.m. The workshop is free and is being offered in conjunction with the Museum's current exhibition, "Beauty and the Beast: California Wildflowers and Climate Change."  The Grace Hudson Museum is at 431 Main St. in Ukiah and can be reached at 467-2836 and online at gracehudsonmuseum.org.

WITH SIX YOU GET EGGROLL.

"I never want to go to outer space. I can explode or go insane right here on Earth."

Marco here. As usual, thanks to Hank Sims of Lost Coast Outpost, the  recording of last night's (2018-03-30) KNYO Fort Bragg and KMEC Ukiah  Memo of the Air: Good Night Radio show is available by one or two  clicks, depending on whether you want to listen to it now or download it  and keep it for later and, speaking of which, it's right here:

https://tinyurl.com/KNYO-MOTA-0274

IN OTHER NEWS, as usual at http://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com you'll find a fresh batch of links to emotio-cational activities, amusements and sources of wonderment, such as:

Hold your breath.

https://theawesomer.com/ama/471685/

Terra flamma. Long-exposure photos of last year's fires.

https://tinyurl.com/TerraFlammaCali

Meteorites.

http://www.icq.eps.harvard.edu/meteorites.html

Hacking particle accelerators.

https://boingboing.net/2018/03/29/hacking-particle-accelerators.html

And expanding Inuit.

http://www.expandinginuit.com/

–Marco McClean