Mendocino County Today: Saturday, April 21, 2018

• Sharon Sullivan
• Grand Jury
• Spectacles Claim
• Marbut Followup
• Little Dog
• 4/20/2013
• Poppies
• Ed Notes
• College Lockdown
• Taylor Sentenced
• Better Liars
• Putin Vacation
• Plant Smuggling
• Barbara Bush
• Health Classes
• Weed Glut
• Clear Heat
• Swirling Litigators
• Victim Card
• Ducky Event
• Grange Breakfast
• PA Agenda
• Comey Excerpts
• Opening Night
• Transmission Meditation
• Tars
• Marco Radio
• Flora
• Fundraising Robots

SHARON SULLIVAN

Sharon Sullivan was born on December 23, 1948 in Athens, Ohio to Parents Daniel Sullivan and Doris Baker. She passed away on the morning of January 2, 2018 in Ukiah, Califoria after a short illness, she was 69.

She was the oldest of three siblings, her Sister Leslie and Brother Timothy and her Parents all preceded her in death. Sharon lived in Kirtland, Ohio until the age of 6 when she went to live with her Aunt Lois and her husband in Germany. At the age of 9 she went back to live with her mother in Kirtland, Ohio. She graduated high school at Warrensville High School in 1966 in small town not far from Cleveland, Ohio. Sharon moved to Cincinnati where she worked in the service industry then onto working at the Coca Cola plant where she was a production assistant and tour guide for the bottling factory. In 1970 she moved back to Cleveland to engulf herself into their Hippie Community.

Then in 1971 off to Phoenix, Arizona. In 1974 she ended up in the Bay Area living in Vallejo, Brisbane and then San Francisco. In 1978 she lived in Guerneville for the summer, then she was off again and lived in Blooming Grove, Pennsylvania for the next two years.

In 1980 she found a ride back to California and ended up in Fort Bragg. In the mid 1980s Sharon rented a cabin on Gschwend Road outside of Navarro where she lived until 2004.

While working at the Floodgate Restaurant she was asked if she would like to work at Roederer's new tasting room they were opening. May 13th 1991 was her First Day at Roederer. She thrived working at her new job, it not only became her job but her passion. She finally had a job that she could grow with and thrive at. She had found her niche. Her job had grown to include Scharffenberger Cellars and Domaine Anderson's Tasting Rooms. The job title Director of Hospitality and Tasting Room Operations, a title she was very proud to have.

In 2004 her good friend Donna Ronne died leaving Sharon and Buffy Paula the house and property on Guntly Road. Buffy sold her share to Sharon, making Sharon a first time home owner.

In 2004 Sharon started dating Steve Mize. He became her boyfriend and best friend, she loved him dearly. She knew she could count on him to be there for her at all times.

Sharon thought her best quality was her sense of responsibility. We think it was her smile, her laugh and her compassionate and heartfelt love for all living creatures from the spider to the African elephant. There wasn't a dog that was safe from her hugs, pets and kisses when they stopped in at one of the tasting rooms.

Sharon said she really didn't have the patience to stick with a hobby. She quilted for a short time, she did like to garden. She felt like she could have been a vegetable farmer if given the opportunity.

And it appeared to everyone who knew her that she liked going out to dinner. You could find her and Steve most nights of the week having dinner at a local restaurant. She loved living in Anderson Valley. And the Valley folks always knew that on New Year's Eve there would be a party at Sharon's house — it became a tradition. Sharon said once that when she got to the pearly gates she wanted to hear God say "Welcome—you lived a good life."

We know she lived an exciting life. Steve would like to invite her friends and family and to anyone whose life was touched by Sharon Sullivan. Come tell us your story and Celebrate her Life on May 5^th, 2018 at 1200 Guntly Road, Philo from 4:30 to 7:30. If you like, you can bring an appetizer or dessert and drink. Steve will have tacos, rice & beans and Sharon's favorite, Burt's Caesar Salad.

THE 2018 GRAND JURY is off to a rather weak start this year with this statement of the obvious: “Ukiah city streets are in a state of extreme disrepair.” A trite call that something be done about it follows, but there are some serious gaps in their suggestions for what to do. After a nearly unreadable recitation of transportation funding bureaucracies, jargon and acronyms, the GJ pompously proclaims: “The voters want assurance that the money collected is used for the intended purpose. The grand jury expects the city to uphold their commitment and encourages city residents to participate in budget and planning discussions.”

OH YEAH, that’ll do it. The GJ expects Ukiahians to crowd the City Council chambers during their ridiculous and highly orchestrated budget discussions to “demand” that their roads be fixed. While their at it, why don’t they attend Ukiah Unified Board meetings and demand that their kids be educated!

BOONVILLIANS like Major Scaramella try to limit their road miles in the City that is “Far Out, Nearby.” But even he can see that the problem with Ukiah’s streets is that they tear them up too much with constant construction and utility repairs, and apparently their many water and sewer and train track repair contracts or street crew projects do not include a requirement that the streets be returned to the condition they were in pre-project. Not once in the Grand Jury’s silly “roads bad” report is this problem even mentioned.

EVEN A CASUAL GLANCE at Airport Park Boulevard, soon to be further battered by massive Costco traffic, for a random example, shows the clearly shoddy trench closure patchwork that many of Ukiah’s main arteries suffer from. If the City of Ukiah doesn’t address this problem, neither large public attendance at meetings, nor increased road maintenance budgets will make much difference.

WE WERE HOPING the Grand Jury would look into the Mental Health Department and their private contractor post-Ortner, but if this first 2018 report is any indication of the kind of analysis they’re capable of: Don’t bother. (Mark Scaramella)

LINDA MCNEIL, a Willits attorney who specializes in drunk driving cases, has filed a claim against the County of Mendocino for a $527 pair of glasses pair she claims she lost while undergoing the security check into the courthouse at the Perkins Street entrance last February. Ms. McNeil says, "Entering the courthouse just before 9 AM for court appearance, keys fell into the basket which was heard and retrieved. Glasses disappeared. Security looked into machines but could not locate. Positive had glasses with me." Ms. McNeil says that the employees who she alleges caused the injury or loss are “unknown security check-in at courthouse." Even if her account of the lost glasses is true, which we frankly doubt and attribute to simple forgetfulness, expecting the County of Mendocino to reimburse her for something that occurred at the courthouse entrance is odd, especially for an attorney, since she should know that the contract for courthouse security is through the county courts, not the County of Mendocino. And how do we know that her glasses really cost $527?

THE RECENT MARBUT REPORT on homelessness in Mendocino County and what to do about it is on Next Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors agenda.

Item 5c: “Discussion and Possible Action Regarding “Homelessness Needs Assessment and Action Steps for Mendocino County”, a Report of Data and Recommendations for Strategic Action Steps by Robert G. Marbut Jr., Ph.D.

(Sponsor: Health and Human Services Agency)”

Recommended Action: “Receive presentation regarding ‘Homelessness Needs Assessment and Action Steps for Mendocino County’ and endorse in concept the recommended strategic action steps with direction to staff to continue implementation in collaboration with our community partners.”

Summary of Request:

“HHSA, pursuant to Board direction for an increased focus on issues related to homelessness, identified nationally recognized expert on homelessness Dr. Robert G. Marbut Jr., Ph.D. as a consultant qualified to conduct an in-depth assessment of the local population of individuals experiencing homelessness and to make recommendations for next steps. Following the recommendation of HHSA, the Board engaged the services of Dr. Marbut who spent several months conducting a detailed assessment of individuals experiencing homelessness in the communities of Ukiah, Fort Bragg and Willits and the local governmental and non-governmental agencies providing services to them. On March 19, 2018, following his presentation to the Board on March 13, and a community presentation on March 15, Dr. Marbut finalized Homelessness Needs Assessment and Action Steps for Mendocino County, a report on Observations, Findings, and Recommendation of Strategic Action Steps that resulted from his in-depth examination of homelessness in Mendocino County. The purpose of today’s discussion is to discuss possible next steps related to the implementation of Dr. Marbut’s recommendations.

“At the conclusion of his report, Dr. Marbut identified the following Next Steps:

“Adopt and/or amend and/or reject the above recommendations.

“Assign ownership of each adopted recommendation to one person by name with a targeted timeline of completion.

“Just start implementing.

“Establish a checkup plan.”

HHSA (already avoiding Marbut’s recommendation to “assign ownership … to one person by name” and clearly not “just start implementing” before even getting started), responded:

“The Board is requested to endorse Dr. Marbut’s recommendations in concept with the understanding that many details of implementation will be developed through a collaborative process involving our community partners. HHSA will logically be the lead on many of the county-wide and clinical recommendations, but successful implementation will depend on broad based community support. For this reason, HHSA proposes to engage in a facilitated community process so that cities, law enforcement, and non-profit organizations are an integral part of the implementation process.

"One task will be to identify which entities are responsible for designing and implementing specific recommendations. For example, responsibility for #7 “Need to Fully Buildout and Then Robustly Utilize HMIS” [Homeless Management Information System] clearly lies with HHSA, but will be implemented in cooperation with our community partners. Implementation of #14 “Create Street Level Outreach Team Capacities, Especially in Ukiah” will require collaboration between HHSA and local law enforcement, but will also require policy direction and financial support from the Board and City Council. In contrast, #20 “Have a Zero Tolerance Approach to Encampments” is clearly within the purview of local law enforcement agencies.

“HHSA, working with local providers and through the Continuum of Care, is already engaged in implementation but is providing this presentation as an opportunity for the Board to endorse in concept the recommendations contained in Dr. Marbut’s report and the continuing implementation of those recommendations in collaboration with our community partners. HHSA is also reviewing the recommendations to determine which ones may require additional funding. For example, the buildout and full utilization of HMIS will most likely require allocation of additional resources. HHSA also proposes to provide the Board with periodic updates, at least on a quarterly basis, to keep the Board informed as implementation proceeds.”

(Our emphasis)

TRANSLATION: Marbut’s report is being shit-canned.

https://www.mendocinocounty.org/home/showdocument?id=20042

WHY ARE WE SO SURE that nothing will come of the $50k Marbut report? Because Mr. Marbut’s report points out several things that Official Mendo doesn’t want to hear:

They are “agency centric” (i.e., they fund more helpers than homeless), not system centric; they make decisions based “myths,” not data (which they not only don’t have but don’t want); they have no plan; they don’t understand the problem, they only deal with the symptoms, not the triggers of homelessness; they have very few substance abuse and treatment slots/beds; there’s no affordable housing (and that is getting worse); the so-called “point in time count” makes sure that money for non-helpful helpers is badly inflated (to make sure the helping agency funding continues to flow) and makes the problem seem less solvable than it is, etc.

Marbut also noted, “Having so many day service centers in a small area will likely produce many unintended negative affects and effects for both the individuals experiencing homelessness and for the general public within Ukiah. The negative issues will likely include: Reduction of case management accountability, Dilution of service impacts, Increased ‘service shopping,’ Expansion of the bread-crumb trail through neighborhoods.” (I.e., there’s a lot of redundancy due to the many overlapping agencies whose primary purpose is in sustaining their own funding.)

As if any of his recommendations will go forward in any way beyond rhetorically, Marbut optimistically recommends a “check up plan,” saying that follow up “should not become bureaucratic and should not become a bunch of meetings, needs to be rigorous, needs to be independent, should have a regular set of check points (after 2 months, after 6 months, after a year, etc.).”

MENDO, the meeting capital of the world, has proven to be absolutely incapable of doing anything like this "check up plan" on any subject.

LITTLE DOG SAYS, “I'm pretty sure Skrag is two-timing us. And I'm also pretty sure he's bi-lingual. He spends a lot of time next door with the Mexican cats. He's eating at both places! Then he comes back here and does a few of his corny moves, like jumping up in the air and rolling around on the ground when the saps are watching him and telling him how cute he is. Nothing cute about the shameless bum, if you ask me — and no one does because I speak truth to power!”

(AVA, 2013) BIKED OVER TO HIPPIE HILL Sunday afternoon to watch the 4-20 festivities. From what I've only recently learned, April 20 at 4:20pm America's stoners all light up at once in mass celebration of the love drug. I expected something like a few hundred ancient flower children shaking their cadaverous booties, with maybe lame-o Wavy Gravy gumming some peace and love platitudes, but what I found was, well, put it this way — the hippies of '67 look positively wholesome put alongside this crew. If it had been advertised as Thug Fest 2013 we would have had truth in advertising. Lots of gangsters and very few hippies of the traditional tie-dyed doofi type, only acres of tough guys and women very unlike the ones who married dear old dad. The entire area between Hippie Hill and the Children's Playground was wall-to-wall criminal intent. A cloud of pot and grill smoke hung over the park. No cops anywhere. Every other person seemed to have an apparatus that boomed out End Times raps heavy on non-sensual sex. “You lost, Pops?” a kid asked me, and it belatedly occurred to me that in my khakis and button down blue shirt I was definitely odd man out. The scene, for me, was kinda nightmarish, truth to tell, and when I saw a large white guy, maybe 40, shirtless, obviously a veteran of many hours on a prison weight pile, his skin festooned with jail tats and a big White Pride announcement across his back, when I saw this guy wade into the multi-ethnic gang-banging mopes with a maniacal grin on his face, I knew bad things were about to happen in Golden Gate Park, the City's erstwhile sylvan retreat, our urban respite of forest and meadow, our natural solace amidst the din and clamor of city life, I made my way to my bike and pedaled home. Two days later, the Chron's comment line was mostly a lot of huffing and puffing about “hippies” having left The City with a huge clean-up bill for a trashed park, and it’s just like the hypocrites to talk about how much they love Mother Earth then leave tons of trash in the trampled park. This thing was not a hippie event, and Marx himself never could have foreseen how many and how fearsome the lumpen have become.

LAYTONVILLE POPPY FIELD

(Photo by Judy Valadao)

ED NOTES

UKIAH HIGH SCHOOL students pulled off an appropriately (thank you, Meg, for the word loan) raucous gun control rally in front of the County Courthouse, Ukiah. Here in Boonville? Our high school scholars kept their noses in their books, er, cell phones, uh, laptops.

Two on-line comments probably represented most adult opinion:

(1) From the kids that short rubbers. They do this to get out of going to school the crowd is small and everyone walked out. Where to, home?

(2) Get back to class and learn how to write a good letter, make a convincing speech, and run a meeting. Standing on the street whining is a ridiculously ineffective way to try to make a point.

* * *

SCORE ONE for Orange Man. "North Korea has agreed to suspend all Nuclear Tests and close up a major test site. This is very good news for North Korea and the World — big progress! Look forward to our Summit."

* * *

NIXON used to talk about his "crazy man" theory of international relations, meaning, it seems, make yourself appear so impulsive, so unpredictable that you scare straight the rest of the world. The hitch is both Nixon and Trump have never had to fake it.

* * *

EVERY DAY pleas for companionship drift down out of the ethers, electronic notes in a bottle, asking me to approve relationships with people I don't know. They want me to "link-in" with them, or "friend" them. But I approve no one, no one, you hear!!!? Still, though, I hope this small army of the rejected don't think badly of me, don't take the rejection personally. But I'm on FaceBook only to follow a couple of sites, not to chat with strangers, which obviously could quickly become a full-time job.

LUKE'S REDNECK PICK-UP PANICS COLLEGE

On 04-19-2018 at 3:58 PM Mendocino County Sheriff's Office Deputies were dispatched to a suspicious circumstance at Mendocino College in Ukiah. Upon arrival Deputies contacted school administrators who wanted to report a concerning Facebook post which appeared on a student's (Lyle Luke Vincent, 31, of Ukiah) Facebook page. The Facebook posting contained the wording "feeling sad" with an image of a semi-automatic pistol (looked like an internet obtained image) with the location tag being "Mendocino College." School administrators advised Vincent's class schedule showed he was not scheduled for any classes on campus on this specific day. Deputies located Vincent's maroon Dodge 2500 pickup truck parked in a parking lot stall in front of the main pedestrian path into the campus. The pickup truck was unlocked, with some windows partially down and the key was in the ignition. Deputies conducted an immediate hasty search of the campus and buildings in an attempt to located Vincent. When this hasty search ended with negative results it was decided to lock-down and evacuate the campus to ensure the safety of college staff, students, and visitors who were actively on campus. A reverse 911 advisory message was issued for a half-mile radius of the college campus advising of the lock-down and evacuation. Once the lock-down and evacuation was completed a systematic search was conducted of the campus. This search concluded at 8:00 PM without Vincent being located and the campus determined to be safe for re-population.

On 04-19-2018 at 8:40 PM Mendocino County Sheriff's Office Deputies developed information that Vincent was at a residence in the 200 block of Vineyard Oaks Drive in Redwood Valley, California. Upon arrived Vincent was contacted and determined to not be an active threat. Vincent was subsequently arrested on an unrelated incident for violation of a domestic violence restraining order. Vincent was booked into the Mendocino County Jail where he was later released after posting bail. The Mendocino County Sheriff's Office would like to thank the Mendocino College administration, facility and security staff along with the following public safety agencies who responded to the college and assisted in the search:

Ukiah Police Department; California Highway Patrol; Cal-Fire; Mendocino County Office of Emergency Services

ANOTHER HOME INVADER SENT TO STATE PRISON

Having been previously convicted by plea of first degree robbery in concert with others while also personally using a firearm, Michael Deangelo Taylor, age 24, of Indianapolis, Indiana, was sentenced this morning to a stipulated sentence of 144 months in state prison.

Because the robbery and gun use are characterized as violent acts by statute, the credits the defendant may attempt to earn in state prison against his overall sentence will be limited to no more than 15%, or just over 21 months.

District Attorney David Eyster, the prosecutor who handled this case, reaffirmed this morning that his office will continue to give no quarter to criminals who come to Mendocino County to commit robberies, whether for marijuana or other property. "I want it to be known far and wide that violent robbers can continue to expect a long prison sentence for robberies committed against the citizens of Mendocino County," said Eyster.

* * *

Original Press Release:

On October 27, 2017, deputies arrested three suspects after an alleged armed robbery and kidnapping in Brooktrails, after a late night pursuit ending in Willits Oct. 27. Deputies were summoned to a residence on the 23600 block of Primrose Drive at 1:24 am that morning for a reported armed robbery. The victims reported that three African American male adults, driving a ‘Burnt Orange’ Jeep SUV had robbed them at gunpoint, forced them at gunpoint into a closet, and stolen marijuana from them. The three victims were identified as Sally Ann Gurule, 64, Van Slagle, 39; and Justin Slagle, 44 all of Willits. While the Deputies were responding, they passed a vehicle resembling the description as it traveled onto Sherwood Road to Willits. Willits Police officers found the vehicle and while attempting to stop it, the vehicle fled. The police then engaged in a vehicle pursuit. During the chase, multiple suspects exited the vehicle, fleeing the scene near Bray Road on Center Valley Road. The vehicle continued until stopping around South Lenore and Creekside Court in Willits. There two additional suspects fled from the vehicle on foot. Diontae Stephvon Wright, 24, of Split Rock, Indiana, a suspect in the incident, was apprehended when he was found hiding in a back yard. While a second suspect, Michael Deangelo Taylor, 24, also of Split Rock, was apprehended in the 1000 block of Center Valley Road by a Willits Police Officer. Willits Police later located a third suspect, Christopher Deuane Bradford, 24, of Indianapolis, Indiana, near Walker Road on Highway 101, after he initially provided a false name. The vehicle was searched, resulting in the discovery of one firearm, evidence of a second firearm and about 20 pounds of suspected bud marijuana. After further investigation, all three suspects were arrested and booked in the Mendocino County Jail. All three were charged with kidnapping, robbery, and being armed with a firearm while committing a felony. Bradford was found to have a felony warrant from Indiana, for possessing a stolen firearm, which identified him as Armed and Dangerous. The suspects’ bail was set at $275,000. A fourth person, Hugo Mercado, 24, also of Indianapolis, is suspected of being involved but had not been located at the time of this release. Mendocino County Sheriff’s Detectives will be seeking an arrest warrant for Mercado.

CATCH OF THE DAY, April 20, 2018

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ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

Someone said that politics is show-biz for ugly people. Politics is acting and acting is pretending.

Republicans like Paul Ryan pretended to be patriotic Americans. They were good actors, I would say better than their Democrat opposites. They were all about fiscal probity and liberty and prosperity and God and piety and guns. And for a long time they had a lot of people fooled. Ryan especially was world-class.

Ryan could with an unblinking gaze talk about entitlement “reform”. He was rock steady, every word sounded like it came from the depths of his soul. But not all Republicans were like Ryan, for example, Eric Cantor and John Boehner couldn’t keep a straight face.

But you’re right, play-acting does work, you can convince people for a while especially if there’s a willing suspension of disbelief.

But the decades pass and reality asserts itself. The Republican Party was nothing but shills for the Davos Class. And the policies they espoused led to the demolition of wide areas of the US and its economy which ruined the lives of tens of millions of Americans. And in so doing it elicited a survival response from those people the Republicans hurt.

And this survival response was not just one thing. You can point to the formation of militia groups all over the landscape as one manifestation, the election of Trump, who promised he’d have the backs of the American working class, as another. And even the insurgency of Bernie’s candidacy.

But these survival responses in turn elicited reactions from the Deep State. Does anyone really think that wide-spread government surveillance has got anything to do with tracking Muslim terrorists? It does not and the occasional terror attack by a Muslim works marvelously well as justification for the surveillance.

The Deep State is keeping an eye on you and me. They even have trolls on sites like this to obstruct and divert and move unwelcome comments up the discussion thread where they’re out of sight.

Notwithstanding all this, good liars can create fake realities and temporarily divert people from the exigencies of the day. Not that the problems they try to obscure improve with the passage of time, in fact, it’s the opposite. But that never stopped the liar.

So who makes the better liar? When you look at the two competing political factions of the ruling class, who do you think on balance are better, Democrats or Republicans?

PUTIN GOES RIVER RAFTING

The Moab river guide community is still shaking its head from its close encounter with the Russian president and former KGB man. “We get a lot of whacked-out people coming down the river, but Putin really is a dangerous guy, a real mobster,” a guide told me.

“His packs were loaded with guns, vodka and tens of thousands of dollars in cash,” the guide said. “He seemed to be a little on edge. He was a real bully. He was drunk much of the time and bossed people around as if they were his personal slaves. They refused to use the Groover. They pissed and shat wherever they wanted. They fired off their guns. They caught channel catfish and bashed their heads in with rocks.”

Putin and his son were soon bored with the redbrick canyons and Class five rapids. “By the third day, Putin demanded that the guides call in a helicopter to have his party picked up and flown out. Then he got drunk and began to threaten the guides. He started bragging about how many people he had personally killed. More than 40, he said.”

The rafts finally exited Cataract and motored across 30 miles of Lake Powell’s flat water to the marina complex at Hite. The next step on the Putties’ tour was supposed to be a four-wheeler excursion tearing up the desert in the bizarre Needles District of Canyonlands. But Putin opted for a more traditional form of initiation for his son, straight out of Notes from the Underground. From the Hite marina, he placed a call to Las Vegas.

“Get us some whores,” Putin shouted into his cellphone. “Price is no object.”

(Jeffrey St. Clair, “Down The River With Vladimir Putin,” an excerpt from Born Under a Bad Sky: Notes from the Dark Side of the Earth.”)

HOW AN IRKED NORTHERN CALIFORNIA POSTAL PATRON HELPED CRACK A GLOBAL PLANT SMUGGLING SCHEME

California’s wildlife detectives have cracked an international plant heist, sleuthing from the most curious clues — spilled dirt from mailed packages, stuffed backpacks left on ocean bluffs, a suspicious van filled with big boxes, and holes in the sand.

mercurynews.com/2018/04/20/busting-plant-smugglers-along-californias-coast/

MOTHER OF WAR

by Jeffrey St. Clair

So Barbara Bush, the matriarch of a dismal and bloody era of American politics, died this week. Predictably, in death she is being hailed as a feminist, a humanist, a doyenne of literacy, a moderating force on the viciousness of the neocons and racists who populated the White Houses of her husband and son. That’s not the way I recalled her, in my brief biography of her son George W., “High Plains Grifter,” published in Grand Theft Pentagon: Tales of Corruption and Profiteering in the War on Terror. Here, then, is my shot at revising the revisionists:

* * *

Start from the beginning. George W. Bush wasn’t born a cowboy. He entered the world in New Haven, Connecticut, hallowed hamlet of Yale. His bloodlines include two presidents and a US senator. The cowboy act came later, when he was famously re-birthed, with spurs on his boots, tea in his cup and the philosophical tracts of Jesus of Nazareth on his night table. Bush is a pure-blooded WASP, sired by a man who would later become the nation’s chief spook, a man frequently called upon to clean up the messes left by apex crooks in his own political party, including his own entanglements (and those of his sons) with the more noirish aspects of life. His grandfather was a US senator and Wall Street lawyer, who shamelessly represented American corporations as they did business with the Nazi death machine. Old Prescott narrowly escaped charges of treason. But those were different times, when trading with the enemy was viewed as, at the very least, unseemly.

His mother, Barbara, is a bitter and grouchy gorgon, who must have frightened her own offspring as they first focused their filmy eyes onto her stern visage. She is a Pierce, a descendent of Franklin, the famously incompetent president, patron of Nathaniel Hawthorne and avowed racist, who joined in a bizarre cabal to overthrow Abraham Lincoln. (For more on this long neglected episode in American history check out Charles Higham’s excellent book Murdering Mr. Lincoln.)

Understandably, George Sr. spent much of his time far away from Barbara Bush’s icy boudoir, indulging in a discreet fling or two while earning his stripes as a master of the empire, leaving juvenile George to cower under the unstinting commands of his cruel mother, who his younger brother Jeb dubbed “the Enforcer.” This woman’s veins pulse with glacial melt. According to Neil Bush, his mother was devoted to corporal punishment and would “slap around” the Bush children. She was known in the family as “the one who instills fear.” She still does…with a global reach.

How wicked is Barbara Bush? Well, she refused to attend her own mother’s funeral. And the day after her five-year old daughter Robin died of leukemia Barbara Bush was in a jolly enough mood to spend the afternoon on the golf course. Revealingly, Mrs. Bush kept Robin’s terminal illness a secret from young George, a stupid and cruel move which provided one of the early warps to his psyche.

Her loathsome demeanor hasn’t lightened much over the years. Refresh you memory with this quote on Good Morning America, dismissing the escalating body count of American soldiers in Iraq. “Why should we hear about body bags and deaths and how many,” the Presidential Mother snapped. “It’s not relevant. So why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that?”

Even Freud might have struggled with this case study. Imagine young George the Hysteric on Siggy’s couch in the curtained room on Berggasse 19. The analysand doesn’t enunciate; he mumbles and sputters in non-sequential sentence fragments. His quavering voice a whiny singsong. The fantasy has to be teased out. It’s grueling work. But finally Freud puts it all together. This lad doesn’t want to fuck his mother. Not this harridan. Not this boy. He wants to kill her and chuckle in triumph over the corpse. Oh, dear. This doesn’t fit the Oedipal Complex, per se. But it explains so much of George the Younger’s subsequent behavior. (See his cold-blooded chuckling over the state murder of Karla Faye Tucker.)

Perhaps, Freud isn’t the right shrink for Bush, after all. Maybe the president’s pathology is better understood through the lens of Freud’s most gifted and troubled protégé, Wilhelm Reich. (I commend to your attention Dr. Reich’s neglected masterpiece Listen, Little Man.) Sadly, we cannot avail ourselves of psychological exegises of either Freud or Reich. So Justin Frank, the disciple of Melanie Klein, will have to substitute. In the spirit of his mentor, Frank, author of Bush on the Couch, zeroes in on the crucial first five years of W’s existence, where three factors loom over all others: an early trauma, an absent father and an abusive mother. It is a recipe for the making of a dissociated megalomaniac. Add in a learning disability (dyslexia) and a brain bruised by booze and coke and you have a pretty vivid portrait of the Bush psyche.

With this stern upbringing, is it really surprising that Bush evidenced early signs of sadism? As a teenager he jammed firecrackers in the orifices of frogs and snickered as he blew them to bits. A few years later, as president of the DKE frathouse at Yale, Bush instituted a branding on the ass-crack as an initiation ritual. Young pledges were seared with a red-hot wire clothes hanger. One victim complained to the New Haven police, who raided the frathouse. The story was covered-up for several decades until it surfaced in Bush’s first run for governor of Texas. He laughed at the allegations, writing the torture off as little more than “a cigarette burn.”

THE ALMOST MAY NEWS!

by Karin Uphoff

Nature is singing as flowers it's bringing, so take time to enjoy them! If you are suffering the pollen-dust consequences of all this splendor be sure to eat your nettles, bioflavenoids in citrus peels and red onions and keep the horseradish and netti pot (nasal rinse) on hand. Enjoy a cup of dandelion tea with local raw honey to keep your immune system humming. . . and for more spring singing - catch our Mendocino Women's Choir performances this Saturday-Sunday at Eagles Hall in Ft. Bragg (what some herbalists do in their free time!).

Up-Coming Classes 

Last two classes of the season at the Company Store in Fort Bragg CA.

For more info go to: www.karinuphoff.com

April 30th 6-8pm: Better Brain Part 1

Explore our amazing brain and its connection with the gut. Did you know up to 70% of our primary neurotransmitters like serotonin start their life in our small intestine? Can you imagine how the brain also harbors helpful bacteria to keep things humming? More on herbs, foods and supplements that nourish neurotransmitters and balance brain chemistry.

May 21 6-8pm: Better Brain Part 2

Journey through the brain in our spinal cords and the wisdom of the body-mind.

Did you know your feet provide important information to your spine about how to move? Did you realize that even minor impacts to the head and spine can effect thinking? Learn about herbs, foods and habits that support the brain-body connection and recovery of neural tissue.

Tea is served at both these classes

The Women's Herbal Symposium in Laytonville, Ca.

May 25-28th: www.womensherbalsymposium.org

Gut Health and Immunity

Upstairs-Downstairs; Serving both Brains through Natural Healing

Caring for Connective Tissue

Holistic Health Perspectives Radio on www.kzyx.org

We air the 1st and 3rd Tuesday of each month 1-2p PST

Shows are available as a podcast for 3 weeks on jukebox.kzyx.org/

May 1st: Dr. Michael Ruscio on A Healthy Gut (www.drruscio.com)

May 15th: Dr. Eric Oransky on Thyroid Health (www.naturalendocrinesolutions.com). Show info posted on our FB page.

Coming in May - a website update to provide you podcasts of classes and easier navigation through the abundance of information already there.

GROWING PAINS:

How Oregon wound up with way more pot than it can smoke

theguardian.com/society/2018/apr/20/oregon-too-much-weed-oversupply-what-happened-420

It's National Poetry Mid-Month

NONE OF IT

Now I shall just be

a lizard,

basking in sunlight and warmth,

heedless of common folly.

 

When it's dark and chilled I'll sleep, sheltered

by a mossy log or leaf mound,

curled as the serpent ouroboros,

circled for eternity.

 

Black, white, good, evil,

love, hate, wrong, right,

do, not do...

I'll have none of it.

 

Sprawled on a stump in stillness, I'm

content with clear heat.

— William Allen

WHIRLING WHIRLING

by James Kunstler

It begins to look like The USA will litigate itself into Civil War Two with the first battle being half the lawyers in the Department of Justice prosecuting the other half until Anthropogenic Global Warming puts the DC Swamp completely underwater and all parties concerned scuttle off into the deep blue sea.

It was rather a shock to see the photo lineup of all those familiar faces — Comey, Hillary, McCabe, Loretta Lynch et. al. — in the criminal referral “matters” sent over to the DOJ by congress on Wednesday, as if they were some mob of goombahs caught running a waste management kickback racket in the Hackensack mud-flats. But the evidence trail has been in plain sight for more than a year that Justice Department officials of various ranks and stripes colluded to bring off a legalistic coup d’etat against the loathed and despised winner of the 2016 election — with a little help from (of all things and personae) Russia, as in that political smallpox blanket known as the Steele Dossier.

Mixed metaphors aside, it looks like all the clones of Ricky Ricardo and Lucy engineered in some CIA black lab will never satisfy the amount of ’splainin’ that needs to be done, and that the ensuing trials may last longer than the lifetimes of millennials still struggling on campus with their gender presentation. There may be even more line-ups to come. I’m thinking players like Susan Rice, the Podesta brothers, Huma Abedin, John Brennan, James Clapper, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, and perhaps the gentleman who preceded the Golden Golem of Greatness in the oval office. This melodrama will make The Lord of the Rings look like a knock-knock joke.

Meanwhile, the Republic actually whirls around the drain, both as a legitimate polity between Montauk Point and the Farallon Islands, and as an actor on the world stage. The Washington bureaucracy is not the only swamp that needs to be drained. There’s also the reeking Okeefenokee wasteland known as the US economy, led by its financial avatars on Wall Street who engineered the orgy of asset-stripping that chewed through the industrial states like some flesh-eating bacteria.

There is nothing left in Flyover-land. I drove through part of it yesterday on a book-reporting chore: the “quiet corner” of northeastern Connecticut south of Worcester, Mass, a valley of decrepitating mill towns and opiate addiction, like some place out of H.P. Lovecraft’s demon-haunted imagination, where the sun comes up twenty minutes later than anywhere else, and a dwindling population of malevolent diseased imbeciles shriek their lonesome agonies of failure and destitution to a God that never returned from lunchbreak one day in 1985. Their parting shot to an unjust world was voting for Donald Trump. Next time, they won’t even be around.

Anyway, Trump may emerge briefly from his triumph over the Swamp-led coup-d’etat only to find himself in his fated other role as designated bag-holder for the next crack-up of the banking system. At least he’ll be in his natural element: bankruptcy, presiding over the biggest ruined casino the world has ever seen. Who will bail America out then? Hint: the Federal Reserve is out of tricks — except maybe turning the US Greenback into a Bazooka Joe comic. That act of this national Grand Guignol awaits in the second half of 2018.

Meantime, my head is still reeling from the shenanigans in Syria last week. How many of our missiles were shot down exactly? I’m not too confident we’ll ever get a straight answer about that from the generals. Nor why they decided to blow up a suspected chemical weapons factory which, you’d think, would disperse a residue cloud of chemical weapons all over the Syrian landscape — and since that didn’t happen, was it actually a chemical weapons factory at all? And what of the shockingly credible claims from many quarters that there was no chemical weapons attack on Syrian civilians in any case? Judging by the front-page of The New York Times on Friday, that nearly world-ending incident has already been shoved down the memory-hole.

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

GREAT RUBBER DUCKY RACE BENEFITS WESTPORT VILLAGE SOCIETY

The Great Rubber Ducky Race is a fun family event, which has held on Mother’s Day in Westport since 1992. It will occur at the Westport Beach RV Park and Campground just north of town on Mother’s Day, Sunday May 13th. Registration begins at 11:30 AM and the raffle wraps up around 3:30, making an enjoyable day filled with fun activities, music, food, drink, and merchandise. To mark the spring occasion, there are free flowers for your mom! In addition, there will be face painting available and each kid will be able to color a beautiful card for their mom, designed by local artist, Derek DiOrio.

A new tradition includes a boutique of unique items in addition to traditional ducky-themed merchandise. Drinks will include mimosas, something your Mom might enjoy with her meal, to celebrate Mother’s Day. The raffle held at 3:00 will award a beautiful quilt made by Bobbi Knapp, artfully decorated sunhats, toy baskets, and gift certificates from local businesses. The quilt can be viewed at the Westport Hotel, with raffle tickets available for purchase in advance.

The Rubber Ducky event is anchored by 3 traditional ducky races, a decorated duck beauty contest, and with various food vendors. The handcrafted duck race starting things off at 12:30, with new water obstacles for the ducks to navigate through. The Kid’s Race follows at 1:30. The final heat is the Classic Race launched at 2:15. Meanwhile, the decorated ducky beauty contest is judged at 1:15. Other traditional offerings include baked goods, beverages, and live music.

To ensure a friendly and environmentally benign race no motorized or live ducks are allowed and no toxic materials should be used. Decorated duckies are always welcome and many enter very artistic creations. Size limitations apply, with no rubber ducks smaller than the diameter of a toilet paper tube or larger than a standard paper grocery bag. If you plan to race, be sure to register well ahead of the race and beauty contest deadlines. Handcrafted ducks don’t have to race if you only want to enter them in the beauty contest.

All ducky races take place on Wages Creek, a course that changes every year as the stream makes its way to the finish line near the Pacific Ocean along the sandy beach. Crowds gather along the banks to watch the progress and cheer on their entries. Ducky owners are responsible for collecting their duckies at the finish line, always a busy scene as each race concludes. Prizes are awarded for 1^st, 2^nd, and 3^rd place winners.

The Rubber Ducky Race is the annual fundraiser for the Westport Village Society, a small local nonprofit land trust dedicated toward land conservation, coastal access, and other projects that benefit the community. The WVS was also started over 25 years ago as a nonprofit 501(c)(3) corporation. The spark that prompted its formation was the impending threat of development on the headlands in the center of the village of Westport.

The headlands served as the historical shipping hub for this remote and fairly inaccessible community from the 1870s until 1930. Few traces of two wharves are visible on the property today, but historical use of the headlands as the town commons remained important for fishing and simple enjoyment. The community rallied around the idea of preserving coastal access on the property used ever since initial settlement of the town.

With help from many supporters who donated time, money, and energy, the WVS was able to acquire that 9 acre oceanfront property from the landowner in 2000. It did that with a generous grant from the State Coastal Conservancy. Then, in 2005 the WVS built public access improvements on the property with a combination of contracted services and over 1200 hours of donated community time, again relying on an SCC grant. The improvements included a stairway to the beach, a foot bridge over a stream, a viewing platform, a handicap-accessible trail and parking space, and interpretive signage.

The WVS continues to play a vital role in the local community, supporting a variety of programs. It has acquired additional coastal access easements, maintained trails, offered mini-grants, purchased equipment for local meeting halls, and provided support for community gatherings. The WVS has also been involved in preserving local history and sharing it. History talks have been given and a local history book about the area was published cooperatively with the Kelley House Museum in 2012.

If you’re interested in supporting the WVS, come have some fun at this year’s Great Rubber Ducky Race. For more information you can visit: www.westportvillagesociety.org.

Lesli Langslet

Westport Village Society Board Member

PANCAKES AT WHITESBORO GRANGE THIS SUNDAY

A traditional pancake breakfast will be served at the Whitesboro Grange on Sunday, April 22. Breakfast includes orange juice, pancakes with maple and homemade berry syrups, ham, eggs your way, and coffee, tea or hot cocoa. The public and visitors are invited to join neighbors and community for a hearty pancake breakfast. Adults $8, ages 6-12 half price, children under 6 eat FREE. Breakfast is served from 8 to 11:30 a.m. Whitesboro Grange is located 1.5 miles east on Navarro Ridge Road. Watch for signs south of the Albion Bridge.

MOST GOVERNMENT PER CAPITA IN ALL OF AMERICA!

Subject: City Council Meeting April 24, 2018

https://mailchi.mp/d5744e23eb0a/city-council-meeting-april-24-2018?e=d0e3cdc057

OPENING NIGHT GALA FOR BLACKBIRD

Saturday, April 21 from 7:30 pm to 10:00 pm. Celebrate the opening night of Mendocino Theatre Company's production of Blackbird while sipping Roederer bubbly, nibbling beautifully-prepared local food, and hobnobbing with the director, actors, and designers. It's one of the best parties in town...Tickets are just $45 and can be purchased online,mendocinotheatre.org/single-tickets/, or at the box office,707-937-4477.Watch the video trailer HERE <https://youtu.be/urod9HOpzSQ>.

About the play:

It's been fifteen years since Ray and Una have been in the same room -- when he was forty, and she was just twelve years old. Now he has moved to another town and changed his name in pursuit of a new life. But when Una finds Ray in a magazine photo, she travels to find him and insists they dive into their shared past -- an incident that sent him to prison and caused irreparable damage to both of their lives. *Blackbird* explores a provocative subject in a way that will challenge audience members to question their perceptions. The production features veteran MTC actor Dan Kozloff as Ray. Portraying Una is Emily Batterson, (soon to be known professionally as Emilia Ray), the LA-based actor who played Honey in last year's production of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

"I am excited to be directing this exceptional cast in this dynamic and thought-provoking play," says director Ann Woodhead. "*Blackbird* addresses questions of attraction, morality, and responsibility in a thrilling confrontation between two people whose memories of an event do not match up." Blackbird, which is produced in partnership with Project Sanctuary, plays Thursdays through Sundays, thru May 13th, at the Mendocino Theatre Company, 45200 Little Lake Street in Mendocino, on the campus of the Mendocino Art Center.

(BLACKBIRD is not appropriate for children.)

INTRODUCTION TO TRANSMISSION MEDITATION

Join Us to experience a simple form of meditation that helps the planet and builds a stronger connection with your own spiritual nature. Transmission Meditation is a non-denominational group meditation that does not conflict with other meditations or spiritual practices, but can actually enhance them. Transmission Meditation is a potent form of world service that anyone, even those with busy lives, can easily do. It can be a mode of service for life, if you so choose. Do you want to help the world and strengthen the connection to your Higher Self? Transmission Meditation is the simplest way to do both. Friday, April 27, 7:00 PM, at the Center for Spiritual Living Gathering Place Fort Bragg Company Store Main & Redwood Streets, Fort Bragg Information: 964-4506 or 895-3134

MEMO OF THE AIR: Good Night Radio tonight, two nights before the latest Biblical end of the world!

I'll be in Fort Bragg unusually for a second Friday in a row for tonight's thousand-and-forty-somethingth MOTA radio show. You're invited to drop by 325 N. Franklin, next door to the Tip Top bar, after 9pm and just wander in. Head for the lighted room at the back and you're safe and warm and on the air. If somebody's there ahead of you, such as, for example, pleasantly-Irish-brogued writer and speaker Sean Hillel and his mysterious Plus One, have a seat on the couch for a few minutes. It's been cleaned recently; it smells like freshly-laundered linen.

Mark, I have your disks back for you; you can pick them up any time. Thanks for the loan.

Jon and Molly, the toy with your name on it is still waiting.

And that's about it. The deadline to email writing to be read on MOTA is always about 5 or 6pm the night of the show. So you've got a little while to get that together for tonight. Just paste your poem or essay or kvetch or sale item or event notice into the body of an email, check that it's going to memo@mcn.org and not to the whole group, unless that's what you want, and press send.

Besides that, you can have /your own whole regular real radio show of your own style and devising/ on KNYO. Contact Bob Young: bobb@poetworld.net and introduce yourself; he'll fix you up. That is, if you aren't hoovered up into the sky by the angry god of the Old Testament early this Monday, depending on your time zone.

Memo of the Air: Good Night Radio: Every Friday, 9pm to 4 or 5am on 107.7fm KNYO-LP Fort Bragg, and 105.1fm KMEC-LP Ukiah. And also there and anywhere else via http://knyo.org or http://kmecradio.org and if none of that works for you try http://TuneIn.com and look up KNYO-LP.

If the Rapture comes -- I don't think it's likely to but if it does -- I just want to say it's been nice babbling provocatively at you and flapping my papers in your face all these years. I appreciate it.

Marco McClean

EARTH DAY, UKIAH

(Photo by Susie de Castro)

UHS UNDERWATER ROBOTICS TEAM Seeks Donations to Fund Participation in International Competition

Ukiah, CA – For months, a few small teams of Ukiah High School STEM Club students have spent hundreds of hours after school and on weekends designing and refining underwater, remote-control robots to compete in the Northern California Regional SeaPerch competition, and on April 15, the junior team topped a competitive field of almost 40 teams from approximately 25 schools to represent Northern California at the 2018 International SeaPerch Challenge at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, in early June. Now they must figure out how to finance their trip. SeaPerch is an underwater robotics program that equips teachers and students with the resources they need to build an underwater Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) from a kit comprised of low-cost, easily accessible parts. To win the competition, students must use their knowledge of physics, engineering and mathematics to improve the “bot” (as they call it) to increase its speed and mobility as they maneuver it underwater. “The competition has three parts: the challenge course, the obstacle course and the presentation, where students share the contents of their engineering notebook and answer questions about their process for the judges,” said teacher and volunteer advisor Chatnaree Upton. Ukiah High took two teams to the regional competition: the junior team, called team Torque (made up of mostly eleventh graders), and the senior team, team Q.U.A.N.G.O.S. (made up of mostly twelfth graders). Supported by Upton and fellow teacher/advisor Edwin Kang, the students considered issues of buoyancy, balance, waterproofing, hydrodynamics, weight distribution and more, overcoming failure to get to the winning design. “We started with a design we called the Yellow Submarine, but it didn’t work,” said Sean Coursey of the junior team. It was a fully 3D-printed design that was sleek and lightweight, but it was “finicky,” according to teammate Dion Deng. After spending hours upon hours of development and testing, they realized that they needed to completely redesign the ROV. “We were sitting together in silence, depressed,” said team member Daniel Lieben. But rather than give up, the team went back to the drawing board and developed “TOTS” (The One That Survived), a pentagon-shaped, PVC-based design with 3D printed joints to allow for a narrower shape, one that made it easier to fit through obstacle course hoops. The senior team also overcame challenges, and made improvements over last-year’s design, including using a technique recommended by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to solder cables and then wax the motors to keep them functioning while underwater. Once the ROV designs were finalized, the teams tested their mettle against high school SeaPerch teams all over Northern California. The competition began with the challenge course in which the ROVs must be able to pick up plastic objects, then carry and place them on underwater platforms from 5 to 15 feet underwater. Each platform has a lower level and a higher, more difficult level. Senior driver Kai Maurer-Mabanglo, supported by his screaming teammates, used the remote controller to place all the objects on the platforms in just over five minutes, earning them first place overall for this part of the event. Next came the obstacle course in which teams maneuver their ROVs through underwater rings oriented vertically and horizontally. Thanks to UHS junior driver Henrik Telfer’s ability to deftly pilot the bot through the hoops, the junior team took second place overall for this part of the event. “When we were practicing, Hendrik usually drove, so we didn’t know how hard it was. Then we tried it. It’s way harder than it looks,” said Coursey. Telfer credits the team’s success to its ability to work together and use each team member’s strengths to their greatest effect. Team member Amara Saldana agreed, noting team members’ willingness to get past any disagreements for the good of the project. Finally, it was time for the presentation portion of the competition. According to Kang, judges from the Stanford Research Institute were wowed by the eloquence of the juniors as they described their process, the challenges they overcame, and the way they ultimately built their bot. Lieben said, “It helped that Sean could recite Snell’s Law off the top of his head.” With a first-place finish in the presentation portion, the UHS junior team clinched their passage to the international competition June 1-3. The five students going to the 2018 International SeaPerch Challenge are Sean Coursey, Daniel Lieben, Amara Saldana, Hendrik Telfer and Dion Deng. By the end of May, they must raise $8,000 for plane tickets, lodging, meals, registration, and extra supplies. They have been selling candy and fundraising on UHS Club Days. Local Realtor Kasie Gray is helping the students with a Mendo Human Race team and, after the students returned from the regional competition, they were treated to “Lunch with a Pro,” meeting local entrepreneur and industrialist Ross Liberty of Factory Pipe. Liberty provided recommendations on how the team might refine their ROV design before the June competition, and offered to make a financial donation to help the team finance their trip. “These kids are incredible,” Liberty said. The students will be reaching out to other local businesses in hopes of additional donations. Volunteer advisors Kang and Upton encourage community members to support the SeaPearch team, praising the students’ work ethic, creativity and enthusiasm. Upton said, “We are so proud of them. You cannot believe how much time they put in.” And Kang said, “They are ambitious and not afraid of coming up with BIG ideas and fail-test everyday.” The students, in return, clearly appreciate their advisors. Daniel Ceja of the senior team said, “Ms. Upton is like an older friend who helps you. She’s smart, funny, caring and passionate.” Maurer-Mabanglo agreed, then quickly added, “Yeah, but she’s not afraid to roast you, too.” They noted that both Upton and Kang demonstrate their support and pride, though they do it in different ways. “Ms. Upton will yell and get excited with us, but Mr. Kang is more reserved. You can tell he’s into it, though,” Ceja explained. Any individuals or organizations interested in donating to the UHS SeaPerch program can make checks payable to Ukiah High School with STEM CLUB in the memo field. For questions, please contact Chatnaree Upton at cupton@uusd.net. “Any little bit helps. These kids deserve to go. They’ve worked so hard,” Upton said.