Mendocino County Today: Tuesday, April 17, 2018

• Freeze Warning
• Bodies Found
• Arbanovella Honored
• Wildflower Show
• Candidate Forum
• Egret
• Bridge Meeting
• Ed Notes
• Judgment Rush
• PD Pulitzer
• Yesterday's Catch
• Top Executioners
• Endangered
• Fire Bad
• Drug Class
• Little Dog
• Health Care
• Glass Beach
• Poetry Celebration
• Women's Choir
• NatureFest
• Corporate Welfare
• Eisenhower Republicans
• All Fine
• Kabuki Warfare
• Neon Reflection
• DC Camping
• SJ Lightning
• Tannen Singalong
• Illustrated Talk
• Judas Comey

A HEAVY FREEZE is forecast for Monday night and into Tuesday morning, which means roughly a thousand residents of Anderson Valley will not be able to sleep from about midnight to an hour past dawn as the vineyard frost fans roar at higher decibel levels than permitted by the County's noise ordinance.

UPDATE: Whew! Didn't freeze. Sleep preserved.

THOTAPILLY SEARCH UPDATE: TWO BODIES FOUND

Search & Rescue Operation - Vehicle Recovery efforts from the South Fork of the Eel River. North Highway 101 south of Dora Creek in Northern Mendocino County

Date of Incident: 04-06-2018

Time: 1:10 PM

Victim(s):

Missing Persons:

Sandeep Thottapilly, 41 years of age male, Santa Clarita CA

Soumya Thottapilly, 38 years of age female, Santa Clarita CA

Siddhant Thottapilly, 12 years of age male, Santa Clarita CA

Saachi Thottapilly, 9 years of age female, Santa Clarita CA

UPDATE: On 04-15-2018 approximately 70 searchers were continuing Search & Rescue efforts on the Eel River in Leggett, California. The search consisted of 21 water searchers which included 2 Jet Ski teams, 2 Boat teams and several Kayak/Carlson board teams. At approximately 11:30 AM a boating team noticed a gasoline smell emitting from the water approximately 1/2 mile north of the reported crash site (down stream). The searchers began to probe the water and located a vehicle submerged approximately 4-6 feet beneath the water. Search divers entered the water and were able to feel what they believed to be a person inside of the vehicle. Visibility was extremely poor and divers noted the vehicle was encased in a large amount of sediment from the river current. Recovery efforts continued for several hours and at approximately 6:30 PM the vehicle was partially removed from the Eel River by use of a tow truck. This provided searchers the ability to conduct a visual inspection of the inside of the vehicle. Searchers subsequently recovered the bodies of Sandeep Thottapilly and Saachi Thottapilly from inside the vehicle. On 04-15-20018 the Mendocino County Sheriff's Office Coroner's Division was also able to identify the adult female recovered from the Eel River on 04-13-2018 as being Soumya Thottapilly. Autopsies are expected to be performed this week as part of the Coroner's investigation into the incident. Another search operation will be conducted on 04-16-2018 in and around the Eel River in an attempt to locate Siddhant Thottapilly who still remains missing.

SATURDAY AND SUNDAY at the 2018 Rural Health Rocks Concerts featuring Michael McDonald & Friends (a benefit for Family Medicine Education for Mendocino County & the Family Medicine Residency Program at Adventist Health Ukiah Valley), local Family Nurse Practitioner Cindy Arbanovella was honored as one of four 2018 Rural Health “Rock Stars” for her more than 10 years of dedicated service at AV Health Center.

2018 AV WILDFLOWER SHOW

(Unity Club’s Annual Must See)

Coming this Saturday And Sunday (21 & 22 April) at the Fairgrounds, in June Hall, its the 95th Annual Wildflower Show! Free admission with lots to see; doors open at 10 both days and close at 4. The Unity Club Garden Section has been collecting and cultivating indigenous and naturalized wildflowers and ornamental plants. Some lovely plants are for sale. The specimen display should be outstanding this year because of the intermittent light rains. Our plant I.D. station will be open both days. On Saturday we will be joined by the folks of Goat Fest, in the Redwood grove. Waltz over to the Library to buy a $4 bag of books of your choice. The library is also open from 10 to 4, Saturday only. On Sunday we will hold the popular plant-related raffle. Items range from Rhododendrons to gift certificates and from books to greeting cards. Tickets sell for $1 each or 6 for $5. Learn about Lyme disease (it is tick season) and visit the California Native Plants booth. Come when you can and stay as long as you want. The raffle will be held shortly before 4 on Sunday but you do not have to be present to win; we will call you. Come on in from the coast; take that drive over the hill; paddle upstream; or just walk the 7 blocks; come to the 95th Annual Wildflower Show and Plant Sale this Saturday and Sunday, April 21st and 22nd. Open from 10 to 4 both days. Admission is FREE!

— Miriam Martinez

FIVE IN THE FIFTH AT THE GRANGE

In the Fifth District there are five candidates very actively seeking the Supervisorial seat in the June 5 election. The territory in the Fifth District is wide ranging—from just south of the town of Fort Bragg, inland to the outskirts of Willits, south through the west side of Ukiah to Hopland and the Mendocino County border, all the way west over to Gualala, and everything in the middle. The candidates live in Gualala (Arthur Juhl), Ukiah (Alan Rodier), Hopland (David Roderick), Albion (Chris Skyhawk), and Mendocino (Ted Williams). They all met at the forum at the Anderson Valley Grange on April 9^th to talk about why they are running and what they would initiate and support if they win the seat.

Well over 100 people attended; if you missed the event and would like to watch it, you can go to www.mendocinotv.com to view very clear footage of portions of the forum. There are also individual MCTV interviews with some of the candidates on the website. KZYX news recorded an audio. You can go to www.kzyx.org for an edited version and when it might be aired.

EGRET

(Photo by Judy Valadao)

DON'T FORGET THIS ONE

Caltrans meeting this Tuesday, April 17, 2018 at the Albion Elementary School 30400 Albion Ridge Rd. from 6pm – 7:30pm

Caltrans is hosting an informational meeting this Tuesday, April 17, from 6pm – 7:30pm at the new Albion Elementary School 30400 Albion Ridge Road in Albion. They have submitted a Coastal Development Permit application to the California Coastal Commission to perform a geotechnical investigation for the Albion River Bridge Rehabilitation/Replacement project which is tentatively scheduled to be heard by the Coastal Commission at the May 9, 2018 Coastal Commission meeting. This meeting will be held at the County Administration Center Board of Supervisor's Chambers, 575 Administration Dr. in Santa Rosa. Caltrans will discuss the proposed geotechnical investigation, as well as the Inspection Commentary from the October 2017 Bridge Inspection Report and a new project that they are developing to address the work recommendations from the October 2017 Bridge Inspection Report. http://www.dot.ca.gov/dist1/d1projects/albion/ Come and find out what Caltrans has in mind, ask questions and give input.

ED NOTES

YOU’RE a Valley old timer if you remember the great local quarterback, Ronnie Vaughan, who went from Boonville to Santa Rosa JC to star at that level, too. The late quarterback’s grandson, Andrew Vaughan, a slugging first baseman for SRJC is second in the nation in homeruns at the college level and a highly regarded pro prospect. Andrew is the great grandson of the late Shine and Beth Tuttle, both of whom are fondly remembered by Valley old timers.

* * *

THE AVHS Music Production class is having their original compositions performed by a world-class quartet from San Francisco. The Del Sol String Quartet will perform 17 original student compositions on April 30 at 7pm in the AVHS Cafeteria. This is a co-production of the AVHS Companthers (Panther Composers) and The Gabriela Lena-Frank Creative Academy Of Music. Free admission.

* * *

SARAH LARKIN, the real-est of the popular songbirds, the Real Sarahs, has sold her thriving Goodness Grows Nursery at the Philo end of Anderson Valley Way to.... See the announcement elsewhere in this week’s blast, while we rest assured we will continue to enjoy the talented Ms. Larkin as our friend and neighbor.

* * *

OTHER PERSONNEL UPDATES include the good news that Dennis and Marty Roderick remain residents of Navarro, not having abandoned their Deepend home of forty years for Hawaii, as we managed to errantly report last week.

* * *

THE ANDERSON VALLEY LIBRARY (at the Boonville Fairgrounds) will be open on Saturday April 21 from 10-4 and we will be having a $4 a bag book sale. Bring your own bag and fill it with some great reading. Also, the Library will be closed Saturday April 28, for the A.V. Brewery Beer Festival. (Liz Dusenberry)

FOR YOU REMAINING bibliophiles out there, this book sale is mondo boffo, a kind of miniature version of the annual SF Library sale, but with the huge advantage of not having to fight off book dealers and other undesirables. Lots of first editions, and an array of really good stuff donated by Anderson Valley's discerning readers.

AND THE BOOK SALE occurs the same weekend at the Anderson Valley Wild Flower Show, a home grown event which, over the years, has evolved into a truly impressive display, complete with expert botanists on hand to identify your mystery plants. The ava's favorite event of the year, and if that doesn't ensure a quality event, what will?

* * *

THE JUNE ELECTION is already getting rough in the bucolic Anderson Valley. A segment of local school staffers have aimed a deluge of criticism at Superintendent Hutchins, who they blame for a budget deficit and many alleged sins of personal style. Mrs. Hutchins is also a candidate for County Superintendent of Schools. She's running against a person of cavernous negatives, beginning with his failure to recognize ordinary English language vocabulary. This guy, Barrett, a Ukiah school district paper shuffler, hopes to be the latest in a long line of crooks and mental defectives who’ve held the office over the last forty years. Crooks and mental defectives in charge of educating Our Nation’s Future? How can this be? It has happened because the average Mendo person has no idea what the office does, who staffs it, how much public money it spends every fiscal year, even where it’s located. Straight up, the mighty AVA is for Mrs. Hutchins, if for no other reason than she isn't Barrett. But a slug of local school people will support Barrett because he isn't Mrs. Hutchins. And there we are, swallowing our bile.

THE CROWDED 3rd district race, which might as well be in Nevada for all the attention it gets outside Willits, Laytonville and Covelo, the three antipodes of Mendocino County, occurs in the wild, wild region of our savage and vast county. (Gualala is the antipodes of the 5th District.) A Willits friend notes that as crowded as the 3rd District is — 8 candidates — nobody is running on the traditional redneck platform — hostility to the love drug and hippies, hostility to government generally except for law enforcement, hostility to damn near everything. Former Supervisor Johnny Pinches is the front runner in the 3rd and the number of candidates will work to his advantage. Everyone knows him, the rest of the field enjoy the support of friends and family, but it takes more than friends and family to get elected.

WE DON'T SEE any candidate likely to join Pinches, assuming Cowboy John is re-elected, who will lead an effort to re-negotiate Mendocino County's ruinous water arrangement with Sonoma County, whereby annual millions of dollars and gallons flow outtahere to Sonoma County, and we don't see anyone, including Pinches, who will dare cross anything the wine industry wants. It's heavily ironic that the libs never failed to mobilize against the timber industry but are silent about an industry that uses more chemicals, does more damage to the land and water than the timber industry ever did.

* * *

NOT EXACTLY A CHOMO. The Sheriff’s presser declared:

On 04/06/2018 at 8:30 PM, a Mendocino County Sheriff's Deputy was contacted by a resident of Potter Valley, who reported that their 14 year old daughter had allegedly been having sexual relations with 18 year old Potter Valley resident Swan Thomas Johnson. The Deputy Sheriff initiated an investigation into the matter and he was assisted by Mendocino County Sheriff's Detectives. During the course of the investigation, it was determined that the 14 year old victim, had been having sexual intercourse with the suspect, an 18 year old male. The sexual relations began prior to the victims 14th birthday, beginning when she was 13. Multiple sexual incidents and acts were disclosed and investigated. At the conclusion of the investigation, the suspect was located driving on Main Street in Potter Valley by a Sheriff's Deputy where he was stopped and taken into custody without incident. The suspect was booked into the Mendocino County Jail on charges of Lewd acts with a child under 14 years old, penetration with a foreign object with child under 14 years old, communicating with a child under 14 with intent to commit sexual act, and sending obscene material to a child where he is held in lieu of bail which is set according to the bail schedule at $75,000.

IN DEFENSE of the Potter Valley kid reviled in local media as a chomo, as if he were some kind of slobbering playground lurk with his bail set at a hundred thou, which is lower than any number of truly dangerous mopes arrested lately in Ukiah, Willits and Fort Bragg, and certainly less dangerous than the fifty or so (at least) registered sex offenders in each of our County's lead cities, why make this kid Perv of the Week?

YOU DON'T have to go back very far in America's dubious sexual history to find large numbers of lasting marriages between young women and older men. Why my very own grandfather legally married my grandmother when she was 15 and he was 33, and she chose him. And 14 and 15 year olds way back in the day certainly weren’t the porn-drenched 14 and 15 year olds of today. Assuming there's intelligent, proportionate life in the Ukiah Courthouse, I think this relationship should be thoroughly evaluated and, if it's found not to be exploitive, if it's genuinely affectionate, the authorities ought to back off. (Look at this kid! He looks like he's 14 himself! The girl probably looks like she's 35.)

DINA POLKINGHORNE of Project Sanctuary points out:

Clarification: The graphic included in the online version of the AVA is incorrect. The age of consent in California is 18.

http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=PEN&sectionNum=261.5

ON LINE COMMENTS

(1) Re: Illegal Sex in Potter Valley. Depending on the character and maturity of the involved parties, I would think either: Bummer! The modern moral police state stomps on young love! Girls are always more mature than boys in adolescence, and a younger girl/older guy pairing is natural. A hundred years ago, people would have thought this age difference normal in a relationship, and shaken their heads in amazement at our prohibitions. Or… Scuzzbag dude can’t find anyone his own age, and preys on young, innocent girl who will be flattered by the “older man” attention; if it were my daughter I’d say, Throw him to the wolves.

[2] I would agree.. but honestly.. it’s not a big deal in my book. I would have more sympathy for the guy who will be a registered sex offender for the rest of his life, which is a terrible, terrible label to wear.

[3] There is a huge gulf of knowledge, development, experience, maturity, etc. between a 13 year old and an 18 year old, no matter whether the older party is a scuzzbag or not, and regardless of the genders. think back to where you were psychologically and what you thought you knew about sex at 13 and again at 18. 13 is middle school, might not have even had a full, comprehensive sex ed class yet. 18 is old enough to drive, vote, purchase a firearm, smoke, and serve in the armed forces. We have these laws for a reason – if the child gets pregnant, she’s less likely to finish high school or get a GED with a baby, while the adult is in a position to skip town, change his name, and never face any responsibility for leaving a child behind to raise a child.

* * *

THE FEDS will be in town next week to have a close-up look at operations at semi-public radio KZYX. Insider hiring, pals of insiders getting prime time programs, startling financial improprieties, and so on. I hope the investigators don't think the complaints come from a non-representative group of malcontents but in living fact reflect widespread disenchantment with the faltering station. The positively heroic former board member, Larry Minson, seems to have at last convinced the feds to take a look. Seems from here even the most cursory glance reveals the enterprise as, in the words of former program director manager Raoul Van Hall, "toxic." We shall see what we shall see.

* * *

DECADES AGO, at a candidate's night in Elk, DA hopefuls Al Kubanis, Susan Massini and Vivian Rackauckas weren't asked that question, but Rackauckas, having the last word at the close of their three presentations as time was up, declared, "I'm the only candidate for this office who can truthfully say I have never smoked marijuana!" Kubanis laughed, Massini looked like she was going to explode, and the audience enjoyed heck out of the spectacle.

RUSH TO JUDGMENT

by Bruce McEwen

At about 5:20 in the afternoon of August 2nd Cody Lee Williams, whose license had been suspended, got behind the wheel of a car and left his girlfriend’s house on Robinson Creek Road on his way to Covelo. He had no more than got out of the driveway before he fell asleep at the wheel, run up onto a berm and flipped the car upside down in the middle of the road.

The girlfriend and others came out to see Mr. Williams suspended by his seat-belt and called 911. Officer Christopher Davidson of the California Highway Patrol arrived on scene about 20 minutes later, and put Williams right side up. He was uninjured, but groggy. Another CHP Officer, Daniel Haddad, arrived next and, having overheard Williams tell the paramedics that he’d taken methamphetamine that morning, arrested him for driving under the influence.

A newish lawyer from the Office of the Public Defender, Richard Hogan, told a jury last week that his client, Cody Lee Williams, was definitely within his rights to try and drive from Robinson Creek Road west of Ukiah all the way to Covelo, even though Mr. Williams couldn’t hold his head up and his eyes open for more than two or three minutes at a time before nodding out. Hogan told the jurors that the CHP officers investigating the wreck had “rushed to judgment” in charging his client with a DUI for driving under the influence of methamphetamine or, if you please, reverse meth since ordinarily the drug keeps its consumer wide awake. The jurors answered this indictment of the Chippies by rushing into deliberations and stampeding back in less than an hour to find Williams guilty.

None of the jurors seemed to care especially whether Williams still had any meth in his system or not. He told the first responders he had fallen asleep at the wheel. He told them he’d taken meth that morning. He admitted to using meth regularly. He told them he suffered from a condition called sleep apnea. The jurors, to this observer, were appalled that anyone that tired would try to drive in the first place. As to being under the influence — which Richard Hogan considered the crux of the case, even though a toxicology report verified there were still traces of meth in Williams’ system — wasn’t it all beside the point? And so what if he had sleep apnea — which defense made such a tiresome point of? Was that any excuse to drive in that condition? Mr. Hogan was sure the jury would acquit his client since the guy wasn’t high, that is, he wasn’t going up, getting a buzz on, blazing away, as the tweakers say, all amped-up on methamphetamine. No, quite the contrary, Williams had long since come down, burned-out and crashed.

But let’s give Hogan some credit. It takes a certain genius to defend somebody who would get behind the wheel of a car so fried he was “on the nod,” as one CHP officer termed it, and try to drive from Robinson Creek Road to Covelo, a challenging drive under normal conditions.

Public defenders have to be ingenious, though. Not only ingenious, but also credulous enough to believe their clients are innocent or at least fake that belief convincingly. It also takes considerable gall to get up in front of a calm, sober jury and suggest that defendant Williams was somehow justified in sleep driving from Ukiah to Covelo. After all, this wasn’t standup comedy — or was it? In a bar, maybe, the same 12 people on the jury probably would have laughed their heads off at such a ludicrous defense! One of the CHP officers, Drug Recognition Expert Jake Slates, seemed to be suppressing a smile as he prayerfully put his palms together and pressed his forefingers to his lips meditatively before answering a question from the prosecutor, Deputy DA Jamie Pearl.

“What first made you think the defendant was impaired?”

Officer Slates lowered his hands and replied, “When somebody suspected of driving under the influence is brought into my office for an evaluation, usually they are hyper-vigilant, agitated even. But this gentleman was so relaxed he kept falling asleep on me.”

Young defense attorneys are often scandalized by the hard realities of crime prevention. And young Mr. Hogan was no exception to this general rule. When Officer Haddad said that he suspected every driver he had contact with — whether they were involved in an accident or not — of being under the influence, defense attorney Hogan was absolutely aghast, appalled, dumbfounded.

And here it might be helpful to the readership to point out that no, you are not innocent until proven guilty. Jurors are told to presume you are innocent until they have heard the evidence against you and given you an opportunity to defend yourself. But this jury instruction, which is limited to jurors only, has somehow made its way out of the courthouse and into the collective mindset. As a result there’s a consensus that everybody is innocent until proven guilty. Police officers are fully aware of presumed innocence. But to law enforcement, we are all suspects. And we remain suspects in their eyes until we prove, by passing their field sobriety tests, otherwise.

And so Officer Haddad suspected right off that Williams could be high on something, and went to work looking for signs of impairment. His suspicions sharpened considerably when he overheard Williams tell the paramedics that he’d taken meth that morning. This absence of a presumption of innocence by Officer Haddad is what Hogan called “the rush to judgment.”

Naturally, with someone who kept falling asleep on him, his eyelids drooping, the guy “on the nod,” as Haddad called it, the officers began by looking for signs and symptoms of downers, something like opioids, for instance. But the signs for opioids were all wrong, and Hogan for the defense pounced.

The HGN (horizontal gaze nystagmus) test (“follow my pen without moving your head”), which indicated impairment by an upper, rather than a downer. Also, Hogan tried to catch Haddad in a lawyer’s trick, by making him admit that the phrase “on the nod” referred to someone on downers, CNS (central nervous system) depressants, rather than a CNS stimulant, like meth. Haddad eluded the trap by saying he used it for anyone who couldn’t stay awake for whatever reason, whether coming off a CNS stimulant and just as readily as he would for someone going up on a CNS depressant.

The lawyers often plead with me to be “nice” to them if I write about their cases, and in this case I promised Richard Hogan that I would. Therefore I think it would be awfully nice of me to recommend some lines from the trial that would work well for him if he opened a standup comedy gig:

“Isn’t it true that people on central nervous system stimulants are overly talkative, that they grind their teeth, appear nervous and show signs of restlessness?”

“Yes, that is correct.”

“Well, officer, was my client overly talkative?”

“No. He was too groggy to say much of anything at all, and most of what he did say was unintelligible, as he kept nodding out in the middle of a sentence.”

“Was my client grinding his teeth?”

“I couldn’t tell over the snoring, but no, he didn’t appear to be.”

“Was he anxious or showing any signs of restlessness?”

“No, I couldn’t say he was anxious or restless in the least.”

“You say my client appeared impaired when he was hanging upside-down from his seat-belt. What made you think that?”

“He had just flipped his car over and didn’t seem to be aware of it, or the least bit concerned. He appeared unaware of where he was, what had happened, or of his surroundings.”

“But isn’t it common for people who have been in an accident to be confused?”

“It is if they are impaired.”

These lines didn’t get any laughs from the jury, but in a nightclub or barroom I think they would get gales of laughter.

PULITZER PRIZE AWARDED TO PRESS DEMOCRAT for wildfire coverage

The Press Democrat today received the Pulitzer Prize, the highest award in American journalism, for its coverage of the October wildfires.

The newspaper was honored in the category of Breaking News for its online and print coverage of the most devastating wildfires in California history.

“This is such a proud day for our newsroom. In the dead of night and without warning, California’s most destructive wildfires blew into our community last fall and burned thousands of homes in a few hours. This staff headed directly toward the flames to bring a powerful and continual telling of this story, even as they sent their families to safety. So many of our friends, families, neighbors and co-workers lost their homes and so much more on that October night. While we celebrate today with journalism’s highest prize, we keep them in our hearts. And we will continue to tell their stories in our news report,” Executive Editor Catherine Barnett said.

See all of the Press Democrat's wildfire coverage here.

It is the second Pulitzer awarded to The Press Democrat. The newspaper won the award for Spot News Photography in 1997 for a photo by Annie Wells of a firefighter rescuing a teenager from raging floodwaters.

The winners were revealed Monday afternoon at Columbia University in New York City.

CATCH OF THE DAY, April 16, 2018

AUSTIN ANDERSON, Ukiah. Assault with deadly weapon not a gun, domestic abuse, false imprisonment, probation revocation.

ANDREW ANLIKER, Redwood Valley. DUI causing bodily injury, felony hit&run resulting in death or injury, probation revocation.

TYLER GRAY, Guerneville/Ukiah. Protective order violation.

TONA HARDEN, Ukiah. Petty theft/shoplifting.

BRANDON LAWSON, Willits. Probation revocation.

BRUCE MCEWEN, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

MATTHEW MILLER, Mendocino. Elder/dependent abuse.

SUSAN MILLER, Anchor Bay. Harboring wanted felon.

GAVIN MORRELL, La Honda/Ukiah. DUI, paraphernalia, saps or similar weapons, controlled substance.

MARK RAY, Fort Bragg. Misdemeanor hit&run with property damage. No license.

VICTOR TEPALE, Ukiah. Probation revocation.

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL has just released its annual report on death sentences and executions. China topped the list again, by some way. Although the human-rights organization stopped publishing China estimates in 2009 for lack of data, those available suggest literally thousands of people are executed annually. Iran (507), Saudi Arabia (146), Iraq (125) and Pakistan (60) come next. The U.S. is in 8th spot, behind Egypt and Somalia, but “ahead” of Jordan and Singapore who round out the “Top Ten’. While 56 countries still execute people, the punishment’s prevalence has fallen. Guinea and Mongolia abolished the death penalty last year, making it 106 countries that have done so in law; 36 more have abandoned it in practice. America bucked the trend, with a slight rise in 2017 — some states, notably Arkansas, have resumed executions after years in hiatus. President Donald Trump’s recent musings on executing drug dealers raised Amnesty’s ire. It has long been lobbying emerging economies to end capital punishment for drug-related offences, which it says don’t meet the internationally agreed “most-serious crimes” threshold. The US’s Supreme Leader does not seem to agree. (Steve Sparks)

SOMETIMES, THERE'S NOTHING TO BE DONE

Editor:

No matter how many firefighters, how much warning, how much dead brush is cut away or how fire resistant the building materials, we need to recognize the truth that some fire conditions cannot be adequately controlled or prevented. Warning people with a siren sounds helpful, but what about clogged roads where people are burned in their cars because they cannot get out?

Those who rebuild in known fire disaster areas need to know they are creating deaths traps for whomever will live in these new homes, including future owners such as their descendants.

Lucille Riggs

Santa Rosa

GO TO COLLEGE: LEARN ABOUT CANNABIS

SSU Seawolves Finally Get the Facts

by Jonah Raskin

At the start of the Spring 2018 semester, Sonoma State University sent an official email to all undergraduates reminding them that “despite the change in state law, using, possessing, growing, or storing marijuana anywhere on SSU property (including in the Residential Community) is prohibited.”

The email also explained that “SSU must comply with federal law, including the Drug-Free Schools and Communities Act, and marijuana remains an illegal drug at the federal level.”

Indeed, if SSU fails to adhere to federal law it “would jeopardize eligibility for federal financial aid, grants, and contracts.”

But students are also getting another message, at least those 100 or so students who enroll in Sociology 350: Drugs and Society.

The instructor, Nicole Wolfe, who has a Ph.D., spends 100 hours in class on the subject of marijuana. She also devotes time to other drugs that impact the mind and the body, including sugar, alcohol and tobacco.

Her undergraduate degree is from the University of Denver and her Ph.D. from UCSF.

On the midterm, Professor Wolfe asks students to discuss which drugs have had the biggest impact on American society.

“For the first time, people said sugar and marijuana,” she said. “They were tied for first place. Usually it’s tobacco and alcohol.”

What’s surprising is that the “Seawolves,” as undergrads are known, believe that marijuana is a “gateway” drug and that use of marijuana will lead to “harder drugs” and to a lifetime of addiction.

Professor Wolfe debunks mainstream narratives about drugs.

In her class, she points out that no one has ever died of a marijuana overdose, and, while she doesn’t discuss her own personal history in the classroom, she explained to this reporter that like her students she grew up thinking that marijuana was bad. After all, her mother told her so. SSU students receive much the same message from their mothers and fathers.

Then they come to college and meet kids who do use marijuana and who are “A” students.

Education takes place in the dorms as well as in the classroom. Professor Wolfe doesn’t encourage illegal activity, but she does encourage students to think critically.

“I believe that marijuana will be legalized on the federal level in the next ten years,” she said. “We’ll hit a tipping point.”

She also reminds student that 700,000 people are arrested and incarcerated every year in the USA for simple possession of marijuana.

“We have more information now than ever before,” she said. “But the system hasn’t changed.”

Meanwhile, she urges real testing of marijuana products.

“If it were treated like other medicines we would have real facts,” she said. “And for marijuana to work, it has to be available in all forms, including topicals and edibles and at the right dosage.”

(Jonah Raskin is the author of Marijuanaland: Dispatches from an American War. He taught at SSU for thirty years.)

LITTLE DOG SAYS, “That Skrag is one lazy cat. He spends the whole day right at the door to his feed station. Me? I earn my living.”

PERSONALLY, just thinking about health care feels like stepping into the Le Brea Tar Pits. I’d rather not think about it at all, until, God forbid, someday I get stuck in it, after which I expect to struggle futilely, until death becomes my only escape. I don’t want to think about health care; I want to know how to avoid the health care system entirely because I know I’m fucked if I ever need it.

That’s how it is for most people around here. We can’t afford health care, because the bills quickly become even more debilitating than the disease. Health care in America is a dark, sticky pit full of twisted logic, untenable compromises and vicious, heartless greed, dusted with a thin layer of boring-as-fuck. I can’t even pay attention to the subject of health care, let alone afford it, and I am disinclined to throw any more of my money into that pit. Apparently, a lot of people around here feel the same way, and with good reason, I think.

— John Hardin

GLASS BEACH!

kuriositas.com/2011/08/glass-beach-nature-corrects-another-of.html

MENDOCINO SPRING POETRY CELEBRATION * SUNDAY APRIL 22

Whitman says, “Great poetry requires great audiences.” The public is welcome to celebrate the lively word on Sunday April 22, Hill House of Mendocino, at the 15th consecutive revival of the Mendocino Spring Poetry Celebration. This event draws 30-40 of the best poets and work from the north counties and beyond. There will be two open readings. Sign up at noon for the reading at 1:00 PM; sign up at 5:00 for the reading at 6:00. Prepare up to four minutes per each session. All poems will be considered for broadcast by Dan Roberts on KZYX&Z. Choice comestibles and fellowship, open book displays. No charge, contributions welcome. For info: Gordon Black at gblack@mcn.org or (707) 937-4107.

MENDO WOMEN’S CHOIR

NATUREFEST IS COMING TO HOPLAND!

Hopland, CA — We are excited to announce and invite you to “NatureFest 2018” at the UC Hopland Research and Extension Center on April 27th and 28th. Join our team of experts to celebrate nature, learn about local wildlife and search for new species! Events appropriate for all ages and experience levels. Both scientists and the public are involved and this combination allows a greater understanding of the biodiversity in our region and a closer connection to nature for all. In 2016 we even discovered a species new to science!

APRIL 27TH

NatureFest for schools: We welcome over 100 students from Lake and Mendocino County to search for new species with us. 9am-4pm, FREE for schools (sponsored by Charlie and Joan Kelly). This event is now fully booked.

NatureFest Opening Celebration: Locally sourced and catered dinner and “Bear Essential? The Past, Present, and Potential Future of Grizzlies in California” a talk by Dr. Peter Alagona, UC Santa Barbara. 6pm-9pm, $60.

APRIL 28TH

Birdwatching with Peregrine Audubon Society. 7-9am, $15.

Learning to love Spiders and Scorpions with Dr. Lauren Esposito, California Academy of Sciences. 10-11am, $15.

Open Bioblitz a chance for all to follow the bioblitz trail and find as many different species as possible! 11am-2:30pm, $5.

NatureFest Closing: Find out what was discovered during the day and take part in the BioBlitz dance with the California Conservation Corps! 2:30-3pm.

The Real Sarahs and Gwyneth Moreland: Finish off a day of exploration and discover by relaxing to the beautiful harmonizing of these folk singers, teaming up on this rare occasion! 3-5pm, $20

Make sure you buy your tickets online in advance – all tickets on the door are $5 more! Youth prices and packages are also available online. You can find out more about NatureFest and register for all events at http://bit.ly/NatureFest2018

If you think you’d like to be more involved, then join us as a volunteer! Register your interest in volunteering for NatureFest here.

For more information please contact- Hannah Bird, Community Educator, Hopland Research & Extension Center

4070 University Road
Hopland, CA 95449
hbird@ucanr.edu
707.744.1424 x 105

CONGRESS FAVORS CORPORATE WELFARE OVER OUR NATIONAL FORESTS

by Mike Garrity

Senator Daines (R-MT) and Congressman Gianforte (R-MT) continued their attack on national forests recently when they repeated scientifically-discredited timber industry propaganda that logging our national forests is beneficial for the public’s forests, wildlife, and fisheries.

What they don’t tell you is that some of the best elk hunting in America is in unlogged areas like the Montana’s Bob Marshall Wilderness.  Or that the cleanest water and some of the best fishing – particularly for native species — is in streams that flow through unlogged national forests.

Surely Daines and Gianforte know that Montana isn’t the best place for tree farming and that the fastest-growing industrial forests in the nation are located in the moist southeastern states.  In contrast, in the Rockies the growing season is short, particularly at high elevations, and the forests on the east side of the Continental Divide get minimal precipitation.  That’s why most logging on national forests in Montana lose money and wind up being subsidized by taxpayer dollars.

For example, take the East Deer Lodge logging project in southwestern Montana, where Forest Service calls for logging 11,309 acres of elk habitat, including 2,038 acres of clearcuts along the internationally-famous Continental Divide Trail.

Gainforte posed for a press picture in front of a clearcut here, but political grandstanding aside, the Forest Service’s own analysis says that bulldozing more logging roads for this timber sale will increase sediment by a whopping 39 percent in a watershed that flows directly into the Clark Fork River, which is federally-designated Critical Habitat for threatened bull trout. This same project will increase sedimentation in other area streams by 73 percent, clogging spawning gravels and killing the aquatic insects upon which trout feed.  How can this make the forests healthier when the state’s clean-up plan for these already-polluted streams calls for reducing sediment from logging roads by 54 percent? Yet, according to the Forest Service analysis, the timber industry will get a $2.4 million federal taxpayer subsidy on this project alone.

Daines and Gianforte want the public to believe more logging will stop large forest fires.  But in 2016, in the most expansive analysis of the issue so far, scientists found that forests with the fewest environmental protections and the most logging had the highest — not the lowest — levels of fire intensity.  Logging removes relatively noncombustible tree trunks but leaves behind flammable “slash debris” consisting of kindling-like branches and treetops.

In 2015 more than 260 scientists wrote to Congress opposing legislation that would weaken environmental laws and increase logging on national forests under the guise of curbing wildfires, noting that snag forests with their dead trees are “quite simply some of the best wildlife habitat in forests.”

Another comprehensive study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, thoroughly debunked the myth that beetle-killed trees lead to more intense fires.  A more recent study found that forests with high levels of dead snags actually burn less intensely because pine needles and small twigs fall to the ground and quickly decay after trees die.

Were they being honest, Daines and Gianforte would focus our resources on protecting forest homes by creating “defensible space” of about 100 feet between houses and forests. This allows fire to serve its essential ecological role while keeping communities safe.

Subsidizing logging with millions of taxpayer dollars to billionaires like Idaho’s Yanke family who own the RY Timber mills in Townsend and Livingston, Montana won’t make our forests healthier, keep water clean, or benefit Montana’s fisheries and wildlife.  It’s simply more corporate welfare and wasteful spending from Daines and Gianforte who once again break their campaign promises to be fiscally responsible budgetary conservatives.

(Mike Garrity is the executive director of the Alliance for the Wild Rockies. Courtesy, CounterPunch.org.)

ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

Speaking as an actual leftist, I find it endlessly amusing how Fox News casualties have been so well trained to fear the ‘extreme left’, as though such a thing had any real power or even the slightest representation in government. (Bernie Sanders being the sole, honourable exception.) For the most part, the most radical leftward opinions on any matter of substance, that can be voiced by anyone in or aspiring to office, are ones that could have been warmly endorsed by Dwight Eisenhower. That’s what the Democrats have become: the Eisenhower Republicans of old. The Republic Party itself got taken over by the kind of people of whom Ike once said: “Their number is negligible and they are stupid.” Paul Ryan was their creature, but they have overplayed their hand so badly that they created the populist backlash that Trump rode into office. A little socialism in the right place would do the USA a world of good. Medicare for All, all by itself, would work wonders.

THIS IS FINE

KABUKI WARFARE

by James Kunstler

When this chapter of US history is finally written, it will look like a deep dive into a vat of lentil soup. In Syria Friday night, we came, we saw, and we slung 103 cruise missiles into largely symbolic targets, including a supposed chemical weapons plant just outside Damascus, and some other places where we were not likely to kill Russian military personnel. The Russians apparently decided to just suck it up, knowing that the civil war in Syria is nearly over. Then what?

Will the US tolerate what has effectively become a Russian client state in the Levant, with some Iranian sprinkles on top? The Saudi Arabians clearly don’t relish that prospect, and one wonders how much the nominal Saudi leader, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, put the squeeze on US officials (including the Golden Golem of Greatness) to do something (!) when he paid a call here a few weeks ago. Israel may not like having Hezbolah’s patron, Iran, camped on their doorstep, but there’s reason to believe that Bibi and Putin understand each other well enough, and that Russia will do what’s necessary to moderate the Iran-Hezbolah-Shia axis of maniacs. Israel’s February strike against Syrian air defense installations was a reminder to all concerned that they will act on their own when they choose to. Finally, Russia certainly has no interest in protecting the caliphate maniacs, since the Bear has plenty of restive Islamic factions in its neighboring former soviet republics.

The various moves and statements having been made, the balance of power in Syria may be settling into a sort of freeze. Actually, anything that arrests the process of Syria turning into another failed Middle East state is better than the alternative. Before al Qaeda, Isis, and their many mutant armies showed up, before Russia came on the scene, before the US set this regional meltdown in motion next door in Iraq, Syria was not the world’s problem. But neither, really, was Vietnam in 1963.

All this raises the question: when will reasonable people in the USA — if there are any left — begin to see the Russia-meddling-in-our-election story as a botched attempt to cook up a giant distraction from America’s own swan dive into failed state-hood? The moves on that game-board have been so crude and bizarre that the very machinery of the republic is melting down as if on-purpose. President Trump begins to look like a pitiful, helpless, hostage to unseen forces. For the moment he can’t control a rogue Department of Justice, even when they trespass on a pillar of due process by seizing his personal attorney’s papers and computer records. He does what his generals tell him to do in the war room. He affects to combat all this chaos and incoherence with his illiterate barks and squawks on the ridiculous Twitter platform. And there seems to be no way forward from this morass except through more broken institutions and disorder.

So far, the financial system has not disintegrated, though fissures have been showing for weeks in the extreme volatility of markets. These markets are watched over and massaged by that other arm of the Deep State, the Federal Reserve and its ancillary forces in the “primary dealer” too-big-to-fail banks. It’s amazing to see the stresses that these markets are withstanding, and rather than attribute it to some mythic “strength of the economy,” I’d wager that it has more to do with the marshaling of algos and bots to do whatever it takes to preserve some veneer of normality.

When that line of defense here at home cracks, nobody will give a barreling fuck about Russia, or Syria, and the great barge of wishes that Donald Trump sailed in on may finally sink. Even if the DOJ Inspector General’s coming report on FBI political misdeeds prompts a severe housecleaning of the FBI, and drives a stake into the heart of the Mueller investigation, a Wall Street train wreck will kill any delusions about the USA turning back into the 1955 “Life of Riley” utopia that dreams are made of. Reputations in government and the media will be shredded and even the bystanders will be tainted for failing to show reality its due respect.

(Support Kunstler’s writing by visiting his Patreon Page.)

PUDDLE REFLECTING NEON LIGHTS

(Photo by Susie de Castro)

IT'S MORNING IN AMERICA!

Good morning America,

Am continuing to car-camp with anarchist and IWW member Jesse Schultz, plus two others, at the Watkins Nature Ctr. (outside of the Washington, D.C. beltway).  Went into D.C. to attend a climate justice group protest at city hall, advocating for a carbon tax in the district.  Introduced myself to Mike Tidwell, director of Chesapeake Climate Action.  Dropped by the Proposition One anti-nuclear vigil across from the White House in Lafayette Park.  Phillipo continues to bottom line there, with others helping.  Am in email contact with all of the Beyond Extreme Energy participants.  Apparently I am ahead of the curve, arriving here from Hawaii March 29th.  Awaiting a larger spiritual opportunity right this moment!  Otherwise, on the sunny days, am ambling down to the beaver pond with my paperback of the essential Upanishads book, chanting "I am not the body, I am not the mind, immortal self I am."   At the campsite, we are very interested in coming into D.C. for direct action, and I am asking for cooperation to relocate indoors, living  with others of like consciousness.  Biding our time in between rain storms.

Craig Louis Stehr

Mitchellville, Maryland, Maryland Nature Ctr. campsite #26

LIGHTNING OVER SAN JOSE

(Via MSP)

THE FOOLISH FRINGE OF FOLK MUSIC

HOLLY TANNEN IN CONCERT

Saturday April 28th • 8 pm

Doors open 7:30

Mendocino Coast Jewish Community Shul

15071 Caspar Road, Caspar CA

(Just East of the Caspar Community Center)

Folklorist Holly Tannen presents a concert of strange and silly American folk songs, and her own funny songs about Mendocino life. Plenty of chorus songs: she'll teach you the words.  Come ready to sing! Note: there will be a few serious songs as well. All children and grown-ups welcome. Tickets are $15 -25 for adults and $5 for children. All proceeds benefit the Mendocino Coast Jewish Community Building Fund. Sponsored by the Mendocino County Arts Council.

Tickets are $15 -25 (sliding scale) for adults/$5 for children under 18

Beverages and baked goods will be available for purchase

All proceeds to benefit the Mendocino Coast Jewish Community Building Fund

IN SEARCH OF BEAUTY:

Illustrated talk on wildflowers and climate change by exhibit curators gives hope, inspires action

by Roberta Werdinger

On Earth Day, April 22, from 2 to 3:30 p.m. at the Grace Hudson Museum, photographers Rob Badger and Nita Winter of Marin County will give an illustrated talk on the methods and motives behind the Museum's current exhibit, Beauty and the Beast: California Wildflowers and Climate Change, which they curated. The event is free with Museum admission.

Climate change refers to any long-term change in the earth's weather patterns. It has been clearly linked to the warming of the earth's surface due to greenhouse gas emissions, resulting in more unstable and extreme weather cycles (including cold snaps and heavy snow), crop failures, and more frequent and destructive storms. These events are no longer a distant threat but a daily reality that people worldwide are confronting on a variety of levels--personal, professional, and practical. Yet Badger and Winter, life partners who have been collaborating on photography projects for the last ten years after decades devoted to separate careers in that field, decided to approach the grim and often divisive issue of climate change from a new angle: aesthetic. Badger, in particular, had grown tired of the environmental photography he had pursued, documenting degradation of lands through mining, logging, and other industrial human use. "I got the inspiration to do something positive with the work we're doing," he comments.

These days, people seem not to agree on much, but they all can stop and marvel at the beauty of a flower. By emphasizing the value of what remains, Badger and Winter hope to create a common will to preserve it. The couple ranged throughout the considerable length and breadth of the Golden State, from the desert expanses of Anza-Borrego State Park near the Mexican border to the Siskiyou Mountains in the state's far north, to capture their images, which include exuberant super blooms (which used to occur rarely but have become more frequent with climate change) as well as precise and colorful portraits of individual flowers, from the widespread California poppy to cactus flowers of the desert and the elegant mountain lady's slipper of the Sierra Nevada.

Then again, "capture" may be the wrong word, since Badger and Winter's approach is all about coexistence. Winter, who brings the same appreciation for the plant world as she brought to her photojournalism assignments--which found her documenting the homeless and other marginalized communities--spots wildflowers from a distance while she and Badger walk on public lands. (She was known as "Eagle Eye" as a kid.) Badger, carrying as much as 65 pounds of equipment, then sets up trailside and photographs the flower or blooming field, leaving the plants they encounter intact. Other photographers often assume the creative couple brought the flowers to a studio, due to their photos' varied lighting--at times direct, at times diffuse; Badger carries reflectors and other lighting equipment in his pack, creating trailside what Winter calls "a natural light studio." The results are breathtaking and intimate, supporting Badger and Winter's view of nature not as an abstract entity, but as a living being containing plants and other life forms that are singular, fragile and resilient.

Although Badger admits that this method of work can be time-consuming, he adds: "There's a great joy to what we do. It's such a wonderful reward to get down to eye level with a plant.” In their search of beauty, he and Winter encounter "all the individual beings that spontaneously cooperate to make this dynamic web of life possible." The result is a wedding of process and product that instructs as it delights.

Badger and Winter are also completing a book based on the exhibit, and with the same title, scheduled for release in 2019. In addition to their extensive wildflower photos, they are collecting writings from cutting-edge authors, scientists, Native elders and activists in the fields of botany, citizen science, fire management, technology and more.

This event is cosponsored by the Sanhedrin Chapter of the California Native Plant Society.

The Grace Hudson Museum is at 431 S. Main St. in Ukiah. The Museum is open Wednesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., and Sunday from noon to 4:30 p.m. General admission is $4; $10 per family; $3 for students and seniors; free to all on the first Friday of the month; and always free to members. For more information please go to www.gracehudsonmuseum.org or call (707) 467-2836.

NO WONDER Trump fired James ‘Judas’ Comey. I wouldn’t trust him as far as I could throw the egotistical, money-grabbing worm and his treacherous, disgraceful, secret-spewing book.

— Piers Morgan