Mendocino County Today: Tuesday, April 3, 2018

• Atmospheric River
• Old Friends
• Painting
• Mayor Meeting
• Ed Notes
• 3rd Forums
• Meet Dave
• Gun War
• Poetry Celebration
• Cannabis Segregation
• Spring Offensive
• Sako Says
• Poetry Slam
• Working Men
• Active Buyers
• Local Government
• Hart Conjecture
• County Vacancies
• Advertisment
• Station Crash
• Yesterday's Catch
• Forest Queen
• Playboy Culture
• Captain Medicine
• Exceptional Nation
• April Artwalk
• Zirin Book
• Critical Thinking
• Bad Guys
• Knapp Revelations

WET WEATHER returns late this week as an atmospheric river takes aim at California. Confidence is high that this series of events will bring significant rainfall to the area; however, confidence is low on the exact timing and rainfall amounts with each round of rain. Stay tuned to weather.gov/eka for forecast updates.

WILLIS TUCKER & RONNIE VAUGHAN

by Ken Hurst

I was out to sea when Willis Tucker died at age 92 in a life well lived. Ronnie Vaughan was about 73 years old when he died after a life of beauty with some moments of tragedy.

Willis was from Arkansas. He fought valiantly in World War II. He was a sailor who fought with the Marines. He was shot by a Japanese soldier in Saipan. After two weeks in the hospital he caught up with his Marine buddies and he was even blown up on the beach of Iwo Jima. The Veterans Administration occasionally took shrapnel out of his body for the rest of his life.

He joined the Navy but at the first island of the Pacific campaign the Navy and the Marines thought they would have a practice battle to be better trained for the rest of the campaign. But the island turned out to be a hornet’s nest of enemy soldiers. The Marines lost so many men they needed Navy men to help them in the savage battle. Willis Tucker fought so well with the Marines that the Marines asked him to stay with them. Tucker told me he really liked those guys in the Marines, so he agreed to fight with them for the rest of his tour in the Pacific campaign. He was given a Purple Heart for his wounds.

I first met Willis Tucker at the end of the first flat plane on Mountain View Road where he showed up at dusk and said he needed a place to sleep. My father said, "We’ll will have to build you a small place because we have plenty of lumber free for the workers." Tucker said, "I ain't ever built a house before." My dad said, "Ken will hold the flashlight!" Tucker said the next morning when they could see the cabin that there wasn't a square corner on the house. Tucker lived in that cabin for six or eight years.

He eventually became a successful logger and a beloved member of the Anderson Valley community. He brightened any day that you talked to Willis Tucker. He had a wonderful family.

Ronnie Vaughan was my wonderful boyhood friend. We lived close to each other at Browne’s Mill. We hiked the hills together and followed streams together to their source. We would play catch together for hours with a football or a baseball.

During cherry season we would save up a few dimes and quarters to buy a bag of cherries from a truck vendor and climb the big oak tree at Browne’s Mill and eat the cherries and spit out the seeds. We would compete at spitting out the seeds at a made up target.

Ronnie became the best pure passer at Anderson Valley High as quarterback for the Panthers. Then the best passer ever at Santa Rosa Junior College, especially when his receiver went deep. I remember listening to game announcer on my car radio who said, This Santa Rosa JC Bear Cub team is reaching receivers that are so deep the southern California defensive backs think they are out of the play. Santa Rosa JC lost that high scoring game in the "Prune Bowl," but Ronnie was a revelation as a pure passer. He was offered a full ride athletic scholarship to the University of Oklahoma, but Ronnie quit going to class and Troy Aikman took his place. Ronnie never got over losing that opportunity.

He carried joy with him for 60 years. He was a lineman for PG&E. Then he suffered a vicious cancer which he fought with a fury of chemo and radiation treatments. After he had beat that horrendous enemy, his Santa Rosa home burned down in the recent fires. He was living in Cloverdale with his wonderful loving wife Doris (Tuttle) Vaughan. He was walking in the house when he suddenly fell over dead before he hit the floor. His memorial will be at a later time in Anderson Valley. I think he was 73 years old.

Ronnie and Doris’s fine son Toby had a fine son named Andrew who is now the best player on the UC Berkeley baseball team. Andrew Vaughan is a power hitting first baseman on the Cal team. He is a sophomore now. The bigs have him on their radar. More than once in his freshman year he has hit two homers in a game.

Tony Summit, Gail Waggoner and I are going to go and watch them play. When we see Andrew light we will think of Ronnie and Doris as well, and we will smile with the memories. We will probably have Bruce Anderson meet us at the game.

Sincerely,

Ken Hurst

Philo

A PAINTING, by local artist Susan Barnes

(Photo by Susie de Castro)

MEA CULPA

by Rex Gressett

Everybody Hates Me, Nobody Likes Me, Guess I’ll Just Go Outside And Eat Worms

The Monday Morning Meeting With The Mayor (MMMM) just did not work out for me. The Mayor informed me by email of the error of my ways. “The Monday morning meeting with the mayor was never intended to be a press conference. You somehow fail to grasp that,” boomed Mayor Lindy Peters. He sure has me there. I had been banging my head against the smiling immoveable wall that is Lindy Peters for months and in the end, lost my composure in what I thought was a private email. Our gleefully opportunist mayor jumped on the opportunity to publish it, which was embarrassing for me, but fair enough in the hardball of politics. I should not have vented. I trusted the sanctity of a private conversation, but trusting Lindy Peters as a “professional politician” turned out not to be real smart. Hello.

The fact remains on the occasion of the last meeting he has me cold. I was busted having an (I thought) modest meltdown in a private (I thought) email. Although I apologized repeatedly in the culpatory email for my frustration, I was clearly pissed. Flat out naked wrath is never edifying and although I embarrassed myself, I do not think that I am alone in my frustration with the Mayor.

Mayor Lindy Peters’ Monday morning exercise in transparency was indeed not a press conference, if such a thing might ever have been said to exist in our village. MMMM is unique and it has its own unique rules. It was originally billed as a wide-open meeting, a chance for the Mayor to answer questions and address community problems. On issues like potholes, he was great, but his capacity to move the conversation past little obstructions like pointed questions was never seriously challenged. For sure I never made a dent in it. Mayor Peters’ meeting was not the place for serious discussion.

For months every Monday, When I got my little turn at the conference table I would ask questions that I thought mattered. They were all questions that I still have and that the Mayor glibly and relentlessly ducked and apparently feels entirely justified in ducking. Perseverance in the pursuit of answers was quickly and relentlessly denounced as "dominating the meeting.” Persistence only made it worse. “You are rude, insolent and seem to be unaware and uncaring of how your treatment may, in fact, affect other people’s feelings.”

Ok, already Mr. Mayor. What did I expect? Of course, the mayor is going to duck criticism. I can hardly expect open confession and should never have imagined candor. I was acting like a boy scout expecting the Mayor to fess up if I pushed a little. When I got mad it just underlined the amateur quality of my pursuit.

In related developments Meg Courtney this weekend jumped on the anti-Rex bandwagon, releasing an email to key bigwigs in her faction, rallying the troups and raising the specter of my (highly improbable) candidacy for the city council next November.

Saith Ms. Meg —

Hello you four with the large email lists (Linda Jupiter, Tom Wodetzki, norma watkins, Dave Turner)

We are getting down to the wire trying to find some eligible person to run for FB City Council. At first, we were focussed on Latinas, then Latinos, now we are looking for any good progressive who lives in the city limits (very important!) and is a registered voter. I am willing to meet with anyone to explain what the job is about. Let me know if anyone comes to mind. We can't have Rex G. getting that empty seat!!

Thanks, Meg (Courtney)

Meg Courtney and Lindy Peters share a common concern. Apparently, I have them shaking in their boots. It can not be me and I don’t think that it is. I think they are paranoid, and I suspect they should be. Picking on me is like picking on a minnow. I have such a small voice and the city power structure holds almost all the cards. The AVA has generously provided me a platform but I don’t own it and get edited all the time. My column or whatever it is is only a tiny fish in the great ocean of information. One wonders why should they care, and apparently care so much. All I have is the perspective of a private person. I don’t speak for anyone, and no one anywhere agrees with me all the time. It is true that I have run for the council a couple of times, never very hard and never without serious self-doubt about my qualification to do a very difficult and demanding job. You would think that with the vast power that they have, it would be easier for them to simply discount me entirely. Geez.

I will say this since we are discussing courtesy: no one is aware of the off-camera intimidation, threats, and warnings with which the Mayor routinely assails me. I never much cared. Absolute silence is the Mayor's condition for my continued attendance at the City Council meeting. I get my three minutes, no other sounds, gestures, or anything damnit, are otherwise permitted. Audible groaning even when it is an involuntary reaction is emphatically and specifically disallowed. I don’t know if he can actually kick me out, but he makes the case with tedious regularity that he would like to. You just have to roll with it, I guess. I know that having lost my temper I will have to be especially careful of the Mayor. I told him flat I would fight back against his program (not him really) and childishly exaggerated the power of righteous indignation. I was very wrong to get mad and promise in the future to ask only quiet courteous questions. One thing is in the Mayor’s favor, he bends to any public pressure with remarkable facility. I promise to extend him every courtesy.

ED NOTES

THE ANDERSON VALLEY is less like the Anderson Valley we’ve known for so many years, as Beryl Thommason, Willis Tucker and Ken Montgomery leave us behind, each of them sorely missed. Beryl was always merry and bright. She managed to convert a trip to her Boonville market into a real occasion with her boundless good feeling, often expressed in a joke or a request for one of yours. Willis was always too modest to sit still for an interview, said he “wasn’t interesting,” but the stories he told me when I saw him at the post office always made me yearn for more. Ken Montgomery knew more about local flora and fauna than a hundred of us and, years ago, enlightened me as to the existence of the valley’s micro-climates. To lose the three of them so close together somehow makes their loss more painful.

I’LL ALWAYS REMEMBER talking with Willis Tucker and Jerry Kaufman at the Boonville Post Office. Willis had been a Seabee attached to the Marines in the South Pacific. Jerry was an Army private who described his experience in New Guinea this way: “I was doin’ mill work in Arkansas, and next thing I knew I was on a boat for a long time out of San Francisco, and when I got off the boat they was a’droppin’ bombs on me. I didn’t even know where I was!” And the two old men laughed, although that experience when they’d been so young was no laughing matter.

* * *

SARA FOWLER, local realtor and pioneer resident of Rancho Navarro, has retired. Rightly known for her honest dealing as a sales person as well as her service as a board member for various Anderson Valley public service organizations has taken down her real estate shingle effective April 1st. Sara adds, “No foolin’. I want to enjoy more of life before it is too late….”

* * *

BOONVILLE WATER & SEWER SYSTEM UPDATE. Jack Locey, the Sonoma County Drinking Water engineer who’s working on the plans for a Water system in downtown Boonville, spent a half-day on March 13 looking for well testing or well sites. Locey expects to finish the well assessments by the end of May. Several additional areas just outside the downtown Boonville Highway 128 corridor are being considered for addition to the sewer “service area,” including the homes down on Lambert Lane. The AV Health Center has expressed interest in hooking up to the sewer project as well, which would mean extending the service area past the high school. David Coleman, the engineer associated with Locey, will do site visits to the potential additions the week after Easter. The next Boonville Planners meeting to discuss the Sewer Project is tentatively scheduled for April 16th pending date confirmation by Mr. Coleman.

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IN OTHER WASTEWATER NEWS, we are encouraged to hear that the Lions Club, Sueno Latino, the Community Services District and the Health Center are gearing up to install a porta-potty at the Community Park across from the airport in the Health Center parking lot. Apparently the Lions Club is planning to front the money for a used porta-potty and the CSD will pick up the periodic cleaning tab. Next up, a much harder nut to plumb: a facility of some kind in downtown Boonville. Finding a place for it, particularly in the Caltrans right of way will be difficult. Existing downtown facilities such as the fairgrounds and the Firehouse present additional problems such as hours of operation, maintenance, location, etc. so no specific proposal is on the horizon.

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THE CHP REPORTED a "passenger vehicle fire at the Anderson Valley Elementary School, in the lower field about noon today.” (Friday) Superintendent Hutchins promptly filled in the details: “A school van used by maintenance caught fire. The cause is under investigation. It is suspected to be an electrical malfunction in the vehicle. No students were on site as the school is on spring break. the irony is that maintenance was working on the school's fire suppression system at the time.”

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“HELLO, I am looking for a room rental or cottage rental for 2 nights - May 18 and 19, I want to be within a reasonable distance to 128. This is for one quiet, responsible person."

WE FIELD lottsa calls like the above, so many I’m tempted to offer my room when I’m not here weekends. I’d certainly change the sheets, put a vase of flowers on the night stand, maybe even tuck a bottle of Al Green’s 100-point Pinot under the pillow. Bathroom a stutter step from the bedroom, boffo art. Fifty bucks? Two nights? Beyond reasonable!

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JUST SAYIN,' watching a bunch of little kids racing around in hyper-searches for gobs of sugar in the form of so-called Easter eggs, I found myself yearning for Filipinos nailed to commemorative crosses as they're dragged through dusty, equatorial streets. Of course I'm not suggesting these bloody Christ on the Cross rituals for our fine, fat population, but I wouldn't mind seeing sugar industry execs propelled naked and bleeding before a mob of murderous vegans.

THIRD DISTRICT CANDIDATE FORUMS:

(1) Covelo, Saturday, April 14th, 3pm at the Covelo Library

(2) Willits, Thursday, April 19th, 6:30pm, Willits Community Center

(3) Laytonville, Saturday, April 28th, 2pm, Harwood Hall

MEET DAVE

Meet the Candidate - Dave Roderick - Tuesday, April 3 at 6 pm - Manchester Community Center

David Roderick from Ukiah/Hopland will be our fourth supervisorial candidate to speak at the Manchester Community Center/Garcia Guild. He will be at the Center tomorrow, Tuesday, April 3 from 6 pm to about 7 pm. The Manchester Community Center has been making to hall available for each of the candidates. Supervisor Hamburg is not running for reelection and there are five candidates trying to fill the seat. The primary election is the June and the top two vote getter's will face a run-off this fall. Please come by the Center to meet and ask questions of candidate David Roderick. The Manchester Community Center is on Crispin Road, just east of Highway 1

NOTE: The Manchester Community Center/Garcia Guild has NOT endorsed a candidate. The Hall is being made available for all of the candidates to present.

HAPPY EASTER!

Happy Easter,

About this stupid gun control bull crap. Half of those people going on those marches don't even know what they are marching for. They are just idiots! They see something and they say, Oh, we will go for that. Free food and whatever.

They don't know what they're marching for. They're just anti-gun, anti-gun anti-gun. Guns have been an American tradition for 250 years or longer. People use them to shoot game, to survive on food, they use them for self-defense and in the military, and law enforcement uses them. It's not the guns fault. If a drunk driver gets a car and kills somebody they blame the guy, not the car.

Here are some statistics. In 2016 there were 16,000 people killed by gunfire including suicides. There were 67,000 people died of overdose on drugs and other illegal stuff. You don't you're that comparison on the national media, those liberal bastards.

These people are going to keep trying to stop the Second Amendment. They never will. But if they even come close they are going to start a civil war. And they will lose. They are damn sure going to lose.

God bless Donald Trump.

Jerry Philbrick

Comptche

MENDOCINO SPRING POETRY

Sunday, April 22, 2018 * 43nd Anniversary

At Hill House in Mendocino town on the coast. This event draws some 40 poets from northern California and beyond. Two open readings: afternoon and evening. Prepare up to four minutes for either of the two sessions, or both.

NOON: sign-up and mixer; afternoon reading at 1:00.

BREAK: enjoy the town, the sea and the headlands.

5:00 PM: sign-up and mixer; evening reading at 6:00. Choice comestibles. Open book displays. Contributions welcome. All poems considered for broadcast by Dan Roberts on KZYX&Z.

Info: Gordon Black, (707) 937-4107, gblack@mcn.org

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“Throwing Firecrackers as the Ex-Husband Drives By" (Mary Korte, Celebration 2015)

LITTLE DOG SAYS, “Skrag, of all creatures, that lazy tomcat, had the nerve to tell me to tone it down. Hubba-hubba and Hey, baby, I'm not so bad, how about a smooch… He says are sooooo 1955 it's embarrassing to him to be on the same property with me! So leave, I said, but of course he just strolled off like he always does.”

MEDICAL MARIJUANA: THE BASEBALL ANALOGY

by Fred Gardner

The headline on Robert O'Connell's New York Times piece March 27, "Baseball's Unappreciated Power Duo," referred to Josh Gibson and Buck Leonard. The piece begins:

"Baseball’s great power partnerships range from the foundational (Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig) to the quintessential (Willie Mays and Willie McCovey)... Yet one deserving pair often remains overlooked in these discussions. In the 1930s and ’40s, catcher Josh Gibson and first baseman Buck Leonard anchored one of the most potent lineups in baseball history, but they did so for the Homestead Grays of the Negro leagues."

There is an analogy between the Negro Leagues and the Society of Cannabis Clinicians — the group of doctors who have been monitoring marijuana use by patients for some 20 years. The Times' story continues:

"The disgrace of the time, that qualified stars were barred from the Major League Baseball because of their race, echoes now as a statistical frustration. While their white contemporaries enjoyed M.L.B.’s tidy schedules and scrupulous statistics-keeping, the black players of the early 20th century made do with a mixture of official and unofficial contests across borders of league and nation. The numbers that resulted are slapdash and incomplete..."

Tod Mikuriya, MD (1934-2007), was the foremost cannabis clinician in the world, but his findings and those of his colleagues were generally ignored by the medical establishment. Mikuriya's study of the pre-prohibition medical literature led him to conclude that marijuana was useful in treating a wide range of conditions. In the early 1990s his interviews with members of the San Francisco Cannabis Buyers Club confirmed this insight. He inferred that compounds in cannabis were affecting almost every physiological function. He wrote numerous case reports showing that cannabis can be used as a "harm reduction" substitute for alcohol, opioids, and other drugs with adverse side-effects.

Just as the Negro League players "barnstormed" across the country playing semipro teams on many occasions. Mikuriya traveled up and down the state after voters enacted The Compassionate Use Act of 1996, seeing patients at ad hoc clinics. For a few years, he was the only doctor known to readily issue approvals for less-than-grave conditions such as chronic pain and depression. As others began specializing in treating cannabis users, Mikuriya organized them into the California Cannabis Research Medical Group, which became the Society of Cannabis Clinicians (SCC) when doctors from other states began joining.

Mikuriya saw the need for a journal in which cannabis clinicians could share their findings and observations. I helped him launch O'Shaughnessy's in 2003. He named it after a "personal hero," William Brooke O'Shaughnessy, the Irish-born, Scottish educated physician sent by the British East India Company to Calcutta in 1839, where he observed doctors using cannabis tinctures to treat epilepsy and other disorders. A paper by O'Shaughnessy in the Provincial Medical Journal in 1843 is considered the introduction of cannabis to Western Medicine.

In 2006, the 10-year point of legalization for medical use in California, Mikuriya surveyed his colleagues in the SCC and published the results in a paper, "Medical Marijuana in California, 1996-2006" (O'Shaughnessy's, Winter/Spring 2007). The major findings have been confirmed by other studies over the years and this process will likely continue as the federal stranglehold on research weakens.

All the SCC doctors reported in 2006 that pain patients were reducing opioid use — typically by 50% — by adding cannabis to their regimen. This is how Helen Nunberg, MD, worded it: "49% of patients using cannabis for chronic pain were previously prescribed an opioid (such as hydrocodone) by their personal physician." Many of the SCC doctors' patients had gotten off opioids entirely

Unusual benefits of cannabis were also reported in the SCC survey. To cite but one example, lowered resistance to graft implantation was reported in a case note by William Toy, MD:

"A 62-year-old man who had a heart transplant from the Stanford program 22 years ago. He apparently is the longest surviving transplant patient in the program. He has been using large doses of cannabis ever since he received the transplant. He is convinced that cannabis not only reduces the side-effects of his anti-rejection drugs, but that it has anti-rejection properties. He feels that he owes his star status in Dr. Shumway's program to the modulation of his immune system by cannabis."

O'Connell of the Times describes segregation by Major League Baseball as "the disgrace of the time," with "qualified stars... barred because of their race." How should we describe segregation by the Major League Medicine? The findings of cannabis clinicians have been barred from "the literature" on grounds more sophisticated than race (a crude, pseudo-scientific concept). The exclusion is based on the "quality of evidence" the cannabis specialists have published.

In fact, the intellectual segregation is so strict that the word publish simply doesn't apply to articles not indexed in Major League Medicine's official record book, PubMed Central. The survey by Mikuriya et al may have been printed on electrobrite paper and distributed (20,000 copies) by doctors and dispensary operators, but it was not "published." Nor did I just cite a case note by Dr. Toy, because only material published in "the literature" can be cited. I'm not making this up. The elitist jargon dismisses certain sources of knowledge as second-class. Segregation is built into the language of Capital-S Science.

The National Academy of Sciences, in developing its 2017 Report, The Health Effects of Cannabis and Cannabinoids: The Current State of Evidence and Recommendations for Research, ranked case reports lower than even "low-quality evidence" in terms of credibility. Case reports were simply excluded from consideration. Also excluded were abstracts from conferences and "'N-of-1' studies" in which patients serve as their own controls by reporting effects during alternating periods of drug use and abstinence.

O'Connell of the Times explains that meaningful statistical comparisons with Major League Baseball can't be made because, "Negro leagues teams interspersed their schedules with games against semipro or independent squads; of the 200 or so games they played in a summer, fewer than half were official Negro leagues contests. Statistics and box scores even for those can be hard to track down, compiled as they were not by an official steward of the leagues but by the daily box scores of African-American newspapers like The Chicago Defender and The Pittsburgh Courier."

This is analogous to noting that Tod Mikuriya and his colleagues used differently worded intake questionnaires and reported their findings in a tabloid. Why disregard the clear pattern they discerned? It's discrimination disguised as "Rigor." Pain patients who use cannabis reported cutting back on opioid intake no matter how the doctors phrased the question!

The U.S. is now 12 years deeper into a terrible opioid epidemic. Studies are beginning to appear in the literature that echo the findings that Mikuriya and colleagues published in O’Shaughnessy's: cannabis use can reduce opioid consumption. Other academic studies have echoed other findings by the real-world doctors: cannabis ameliorates a very wide range of symptoms. More such studies will undoubtedly follow... To paraphrase a Civil Rights movement chant, "What do you want? Freedom! When do you want it? As soon as the regulatory authorities say it's okay!" For people with other wide-ranging problems, cannabis can ameliorate symptoms and provide benefits.

CATCHING UP WITH CRAIG

Niched into Washington D.C.'s Paranoiac Hell

Presently car-camping with Jesse Schultz in Clinton, MD. Visited Philippo at the 24/7 anti-nuclear protest in Lafayette Park yesterday; did a sandwich & tea run for him. Otherwise, we are purchasing requested groceries for the Howard U. students occupying the main administration building. [The "Cherry Blossom Spring Offensive" is underway.] We need a significant increase in participation to take down the anti-environmental political establishment in Washington DC right now! "Stay centered, trust in the Goddess, and leave the rest to Divine Intervention."

Craig Louis Stehr

Email: craiglouisstehr@gmail.com

NATIVE YOUTH POETRY SLAM - SATURDAY APRIL 7 the Manchester Community Center

The Manchester Community Center will be hosting a Native American Slam for teens this coming Saturday afternoon, April 7, from 3 pm until 7 pm. The Slam is entitled "Voices of The River." The program includes open mic poetry for both native and non-native local youth along with a panel discussion of the effects offshore oil drilling and ends with a concert by Cali Los Mikyo. Cali Los Mikyo is based in Hoopa, CA. and is a Northern California Native, Rap/HipHop Artist. For more information regarding this event, contact Isaac Rios, who is the organizer of the even. Isaac can be reached at (707) 684-0209. Isaac's email is butaka79@gmail.com

WORKING IN THE VALLEY - AT ALL AGES!

Pictured above, on a sunny afternoon in the Valley, is 87 year-old Donald Pardini, with his faithful companion, the elderly dog Duke, hard at work taking care of his well-maintained garden in the heart of Boonville on Highway 128. Donald has lived in a number of different Valley locations since his family moved from Elk to Navarro in 1938 and has been in this particular location since 1960. He is one of the relatively few remaining Boontling speakers, along with sons Ernie and Tony, not to mention being one of the Valley’s most knowledgeable historians.

On the same warm day last week, we see 6 year-old Kingston Matson delivering the latest (April) copy of the Anderson Valley Community Bulletin to the AV Market in Boonville. Kingston, who is the middle-son of Lauren’s Restaurant co-owner Natalie Matson and husband Clay, earns a little pocket money for his efforts, and if he makes no mistakes and is polite to “customers” then he receives a packet of his favorite candy, Skittles!

(Text and Photographs by Steve Sparks)

TIME TO SELL?

by Anne Fashauer

Time to sell? “Yes” is my answer. Anderson Valley and, indeed, the whole country have experienced a period of low inventory. That has made it a good time to sell for a while. The difference right now is that there are people looking and making offers and properties are selling. We recently have put into escrow and/or sold some properties that were just waiting for buyers until now.

The beautiful weather of the past week or so has helped a lot. Everyone wants to get outside and enjoy the sunshine, and the smells of spring blooms. Over the course of my real estate career I’ve had few really busy weekends, contrary to what I was expecting. For some reason most of my business happened during the week; that has changed recently, with more showings on the weekends and with more serious buyers. It feels good to be busy again after a fairly quiet winter.

Capital Gains Taxes and Selling

On another note, regarding selling, one item that may be of interest has to do with capital gains taxes. I’ve recently done some reading on the subject and will share a little of what I learned. To be clear, I’m not a tax advisor and you shouldn’t take my word for this – if you have any questions, please consult your tax professional.

There are tax exclusions for selling your primary residence – up to $250,000 for a single person and up to $500,000 for a couple (married, filing jointly). Generally, one can use the exclusion every two years; the home must be a primary residence (owned and lived in as such) over two of the past five years. The exclusion applies after the death of a spouse; it needs to be taken within two years of that death. There are lots of questions that can come up about specific situations and I’m not going to go into that – this is when you need to talk to that CPA.

If you’ve been in place for two years or more and you feel it’s time to sell, I feel this is a good time, with active buyers looking. Please do feel free to contact me for more information about that, at North Country Real Estate, 895-3762, cell: 272-1202 / info@north-country-real-estate.com.

A COUNTY OLD TIMER WRITES: "I think the consultant problem is rooted in no one being focused on what is important, beyond what is important for the department they are working for. So hire a consultant. This is a problem in government all over. This has everything to do with money coming in from the state and feds. Seems to me, figuring out the homeless problem is simple. Who are they, where are they, what does it take to get them back on their feet. If we can not get them on their feet, what do we do next? We don’t do that. We certainly did 60 years ago, and we did not have drunks, drug addicts, the mentally ill, and the voluntary indigent camped on our streets. No one was making money off them, either. The county government is not here for the county any more. It is here for itself. It is here to get as much federal and state money as possible, and make a profit."

COUPLE WHO PLUNGED TO THEIR DEATH with their six adoptive black children fled their Minnesota home after the Ku Klux Klan left a burning cross in their yard, neighbor reveals.

dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5569973/Lesbian-couple-plunged-cliff-fled-home-targeted-KKK.html

* * *

THE LURID headlines in the tabloids always lead with "Lesbian Couple deliberately drove off the cliff with their six foster children."

Or versions thereof, but always with the lesbian mention, as if the event is that much more diabolical because the two women were a couple. Nobody yet knows for sure what exactly happened, but it's pretty clear that whomever was at the wheel drove over the side on purpose because at that particular site, so far from the pavement, driving into the sea is no accident.

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Investigation Update

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CHP: Deadly Mendocino Coast Crash Appears To Be Intentional

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A READER SPECULATES: "I have been saying since the first article I read about this incident that something seemed very off. Now it appears certain that there is much more to this story. I have been stumped but something that keeps coming back to me as a plausible scenario: The two parents freaked out. They were abusing the kids and the kids were getting old enough to put them at risk legally and now physically as well. The kids threatened to expose them. CPS gets called but they panic and convince the kids to be quiet while they don't open the door. Perhaps the kids were already dead before leaving the house suddenly? (Autopsy should be able to tell even if they drove straight from Washington to the spot of the crash.) The parents take the kids on a "road trip." The trip does not go well. The kids know that the adults are up to no good. Perhaps even fighting or volatile confrontations happen raising the emotional bar. My best guess is that the parents poison the children at a group meal to sedate them. Somewhere they dump three bodies that have yet to be found. The other three kids found at the crime scene with the vehicle were most likely unconscious or already deceased on the floor of the car (not buckled in) when the desperate and suicidal parents decided to end the ride. Perhaps even one parent was poisoned and unconscious as well making the final decision a simpler one rather than a discussion. My guess is that toxicology reports will show that the kids were somehow sedated. The three other kids will most likely be found by a hiker or cyclist or someone on the side of a road somewhere. I would check the vehicle's carpets and the adult's shoes for evidence of trudging through underbrush or mud on the side of a road somewhere. Do the adults have the same mud on their shoes as the children found near the vehicle? Dirt under fingernails? Why am I sitting in front of my computer thinking about this crap? Maybe I should get a better job."

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FRED GARDNER NOTES:

Re: The apparent murder/suicide

I don’t know if Tom Allman was reading the AVA in the ‘90s when I wrote about Prozac being a causal factor in so many bizarre flip-outs, and he won’t have standing to see the Westport women's medical records… but I wish someone somehow would raise the question, after events like this, of whether the perps were on SSRI antidepressants. More that one in six Americans is now on antidepressant meds, mostly SSRIs, often in combination.

The few times I made inquiries as a journalist, “medical privacy” was cited to slam the door. It’s actually the drug companies they’re protecting, not the individuals involved. Especially when the persons of interest are dead.

beyondthc.com/prozac-and-the-marketing-of-depression/

THE ETERNAL VACANCIES

Boards and Commissions Vacancies

The list of vacancies, due to term expirations and/or resignations, for County Boards and Commissions has been updated. A list of existing vacancies is available on the County Website at: mendocinocounty.org/government/board-of-supervisors/boards-and-commissions.

The attached document contains a list of the vacancies that are new: County Vacancies

Please contact the Clerk of the Board office at (707) 463-4441 if you have any questions regarding this message.

Thank you.

Mendocino County Board of Supervisors and Executive Office

“Before I deliver the good news, here’s a statement from the Sinclair Broadcast Group.”

WHEW! Doomed Chinese Space Station crashed Sunday 8:16pm into Pacific. Twelve hours earlier it made two direct passes over Albion & Elk.

facebook.com/sadie.faline/posts/10156055229176970

(MendocinoSportsPlus)

CATCH OF THE DAY, April 2, 2018

JASON BACCHI, San Mateo/Ukiah. Operation of motor vehicle without license, license suspended for DUI, getting credit with someone else’s ID, probation revocation.

BRET BENGSTON, Ukiah. Parole violation. (Frequent Flyer)

PHILIP BURFOOT, Point Arena. Burglary.*

MELODY KASMARIK, Belle Vernon, Pennsylvanioa/Willits. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

CODY LADD, Ukiah. Paraphernalia, parole violation, probation revocation.

WESLEY REDD, Fort Bragg. Criminal threats.

CHRISTIANE RODRIGUEZ, Willits. Controlled substance, paraphernalia, disobeying court order, failure to appear.

BRANDY SCHLEPER, Ukiah. Failure to appear.

KARLIE SEDER, Ukiah. Controlled substance, resisting, probation revocation.

TASHEENA SHANNON, Redwood Valley. Failure to appear.

*(Former Point Arena City Councilman)

FOREST QUEEN DEMANDS JUSTICE!

by Tim Martin

Linda Cassara doesn’t mince words when she talks about Humboldt County’s “corrupt” judicial system. She thinks the courts are “mind-rigged,” the judges are incompetent regarding the supreme law of the land, and the odds are overwhelmingly stacked against the people. Cassara (aka Forest Queen) says we need to demand facts and accountability from the “black-robed pirates” inside the building at 825 Fifth Street in Eureka. She finds it difficult to understand why those who live next to marijuana crops are bothered by the smell of nature when “the stench of fraud is so thick inside the courthouse you could cut it with a knife.”

Linda lives in Carlotta and has spent countless hours in court, as well as in Board of Supervisors meetings, talking to “the uninformed, the sleepers, and the order-followers.” Some might think it’s all been a waste of time based on her success-to-failure ratio. Confiscated cars and other court related problems have cost Cassara thousands of dollars over the years. She has had a truck and two cars seized due to a lack of license, registration and insurance.

“Lawfully, no one has to be registered, licensed and insured unless you are ‘driving’ in commerce, such as a taxi driver, a bus driver, or a truck driver,” she said. “We pay these taxes because we willfully linger in a lazy master/slave mentality.”

Linda’s impounded Ford Ranger sits far away in a Laytonville tow yard. It’s been there for four years. Why? “Because the sheriff doesn’t know the difference between a misdemeanor, a code violation and a crime,” she grumbled. When she went to check on her pickup last July, the CHP (Highway Robbers) seized her Ford Escort and left her stranded in Meyers Flat. Cassara’s Escort now has a new owner. She insists that the transfer of title was done without full disclosure, the previous owner’s consent, or her signature on a bill of sale.

In the case of her Oldsmobile Bravada, stolen by the “Unfriendly” City of Fortuna police “posing as public servants,” Linda is presently on her fifth judge in (oddly enough) Family Law Court.

Since free people do not pay for justice, Cassara refuses to pay $425 to file litigation. She has, however, shelled out a huge amount of money on notary fees, registered and certified mail, process server, postage, copies, and getting to and from the court house. Linda suffers through cold winters without a wood supply (thanks to the “theft” of her pickup), and buying groceries is a chore. The nearest market is seven miles away. In 2016 she had to call an ambulance to get to Redwood Memorial Hospital in Fortuna.

Cassara presently has seven cases on hold and/or dismissed, and has walked out of court numerous times unable to achieve the single thing she wants: justice. She describes herself as not a Ms., a defendant, or a U.S. citizen. Linda is “one of the people, an American State National non-resident alien creditor and secured party appearing by special limited appearance in a non-representative capacity as a third party intervenor.” The woman is fearless in the face of authority. Few people have the courage to challenge a judge in court. It’s akin to swimming in the middle of shark-infested waters and opening a main artery in your wrist.

Linda concentrates on law on a local level, and is concerned about how we are not taxed per capita. Her concerns also center on vaccines, geo-engineered climate, hemp tax, and “generated” energy. One of her heroes is Debora Tavares, an activist/whistleblower from Sebastopol, who believes Smart Meters open you up to constant surveillance in your home, and expose you to microwave radiation.

Cassara is convinced we have been “defrauded and abused by hired servants.” She thinks that between death by vaccinations, geo-engineered global climate, fluoride in water supplies, and Northern California homes with Firestorm Meters, it’s high time to reclaim our “soul rights” and become caretakers of our own land.

The woman’s “to-do” list makes The Twelve Labors of Hercules seem relatively easy by comparison. What can Linda hope to accomplish?

According to the South China Morning Post, Chinese farmer named Wang Englin recently won the first round of a legal battle against a powerful state-owned chemical company. He blames the multi-million-dollar Qihua Group for dumping tens of thousands of tons of polyvinyl chloride into the village, ruining farmland and burying the area in white calcium carbide slag. Wang has only three years of formal education. He has spent 16 years self-learning the law in order to fight the corporation in court.

Much like Wang Englin, Cassara believes all things are possible.

(Tim Martin resides in Fortuna and contributes this column to the Eureka Times-Standard. Email him at tmartin@sitestar.net.)

ON LINE COMMENT OF THE WEEK: “I want to remind everyone that this Playboy culture has trapped many power motivated men into salacious activity. Does anyone think that a fifty percent divorce rate is for irreconcilable differences? Just think about Hollywood where folks act out the testosterone dreams of these overgrown teenagers. That they get the press time they get is disgusting to me. How about the TV show Playboy after Dark or the exposes of the Playboy mansion in the 70’s-80’s? Both just plain glorified this behavior pattern. And their contributors were just as much female as male. Hollywood does not want to acknowledge how many of the elite posed for Playboy or otherwise joined Hefner’s group to get ahead. It really shows how low we as a society have descended to consider this bedroom behavior acceptable family entertainment on Sunday night. I think that Walt Disney was much better entertainment.”

AMONG OTHER TALK TODAY, it came out that whale-ships carry no doctor. The captain adds the doctorship to his own duties. He not only gives medicines, but sets broken limbs after notions of his own, or saws them off and sears the stump when amputation seems best. The captain is provided with a medicine-chest, with the medicines numbered instead of named. A book of directions goes with this. It describes diseases and symptoms, and says, "Give a teaspoonful of No. 9 once an hour," or "Give ten grains of No. 12 every half-hour," etc. One of our sea-captains came across a skipper in the North Pacific who was in a state of great surprise and perplexity. Said he: "There's something rotten about this medicine-chest business. One of my men was sick -- nothing much the matter. I looked in the book: it said give him a teaspoonful of No. 15. I went to the medicine-chest, and I see I was out of No. 15. I judged I'd got to get up a combination somehow that would fill the bill; so I hove into the fellow half a teaspoonful No. 8 and a half a teaspoonful of No. 7 and I'll be hanged if it didn't kill him in fifteen minutes! There's something about this medicine-chest system that's too many for me!"

—Mark Twain, 1882; from "Some Rambling Notes of an Idle Excursion"

ANTI-WAR MOVEMENT?

"Admittedly, much of the indifference to these military adventures could stem from the new nature of warfare. In the Vietnam era, for example, much of the fighting was done on the ground, in the jungles, and many more US soldiers were dying. At the same time, a military draft threatened to call up thousands of new recruits from the general population. In other words, many Americans felt a real threat, a real reason, to protest the war. Much like the Vietnamese, their lives were at stake. The tragic irony is that today, with so much media and social media at our fingertips, we are better informed than ever. Yet we are discovering that the ability to access information, with the possibility of holding the 'powers that be' to account for their actions, does not necessarily mean that it will happen. In fact, most people today, especially the youth, are so overloaded with information that what our military is doing overseas seems to be the least of their concern. After all, there are so many Facebook posts to check, so many selfies to snap, so many messages to tweet. And anyways, war is something that happens to foreign people, probably some terrorists, who probably deserve what they are getting. After all, America, the 'exceptional nation,' would never attack innocent people for an imperialist agenda. Right?"

— Robert Bridges

UKIAH!

April Artwalk

We are so excited for Ukiah's First Friday Art Walk on April 6th to help celebrate Mendocino County's Almost Fridge Festival! Join us for a showing of Academy of Art Student, John Borromeo's vivacious modern watercolor figures, each telling a story of their own while enjoying the sounds of local Indie Pop singer and songwriter, Charlotte Dickson while snacking on small bites. PLUS! Bona will be featuring a LIVE art exhibit! We can't wait to see you there! | Friday, April 6th | 5pm - 8pm

Bona Marketplace
116 West Standley Street
Ukiah, Ca. 95482
707-468-1113
bonamarketplace@aol.com

EDGE OF SPORTS FANS - if you enjoy my work, please support it by purchasing a copy of my new book Things That Make White People Uncomfortable co-written with Michael Bennett.

Our book tour was postponed following the outrageous charges and slander levied against Michael from the Houston Police Department. They are trying to silence his voice and silence this book, just like they've done to outspoken black athletes for as long as there have been organized sports. Please stand up to this by either buying it or going to your local library and asking them to carry it. It matters.

On amazon amazon.com/Things-That-White-People-Uncomfortable/dp/1608468933/ or if Amazon makes your skin crawl

On indibound indiebound.org/book/9781608468935

Thank you very much,

Dave Zirin

CRITICAL THINKING

Editor:

A curricula for young minds that would satisfy all might be difficult since, for many parents, there is the fear of teaching something against or for a particular religion or political position. But sound, rational thought has nothing to do with these areas. I propose the following teaching for those entering the first or second grade:

Learn the meaning of words (use a dictionary often). If a fact is stated, find out a good reason to believe or doubt it. Learn the difference between a belief and a fact. Learn the difference between knowledge and opinion. Don’t ever accept “because I told you so” as a good reason for belief.

Never challenge what you don’t understand. Never make up a “fact” you cannot justify or explain. Never lie (if you cannot tell the truth, say little or nothing). Never argue over a belief (if you must differ with a friend, differ over knowledge and facts and discover your own reasoning and that of others). Try to respect the beliefs and even the opinions of others and expect them to treat you the same.

Read as much as possible — especially different sides to a story or opinion.

Richard Sansom

Sebastopol

ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

During the Korean War the Chinese supplied millions of men and armaments to the Norks to kill Americans. They repeated this work in Vietnam populating the Ho Chi Minh Trail nightly with munitions, men and supplies. When Osama Bin Laden was fighting to expel the Russians out of Afghanistan the US of A supplied him with everything he needed to do the job, heck he even wore an M43 Field Jacket didn’t he? Creating bad guys to fight your enemies is no different than creating bad guys to fight your own people, it is the need for a bad guy that must be filled however it may be achieved. How can Americans not realize that the spies, spooks, murderers, and assassins that populate our covert operation agencies do this and have always done this? It is how they operate.

‘WILD WILD COUNTRY’: Most Shocking Reveals From the Sex Cult’s FBI Informant

David Berry Knapp, aka Swami Krishna Deva, the former mayor of Rajneeshpuram, famously flipped on the cult. And his FBI testimony was eye-opening and very disturbing.

thedailybeast.com/wild-wild-country-the-most-shocking-reveals-from-the-sex-cults-fbi-informant