Mendocino County Today: Friday, June 15, 2018

• Crowningshield Sentenced
• Lion Captured
• Budget Notes
• Little Dog
• Leadership Graduation
• Peachland Repairs
• Foodshed News
• FB Yesteryear
• State Budget
• Yesterday's Catch
• Unaffordable Rent
• Low Turnout
• Happy Home
• Sundress
• Asian Geopolitics
• Social Context
• Coons
• Ultra Rich
• Blossoming
• NFL Fear
• Pure Mendocino
• Glyphosate Skates

ANDREW CROWNINGSHIELD WAS SENTENCED Thursday morning to 25 years to life in state prison for the murder of Autumn Johnson, the mother of their young son, at a turnout on Highway 1 near Little River last February; Mr. Crowningshield was sentenced to another 25 years to life for using a gun.

Christine Burke and Victoria Shanahan, who made up the defense team, submitted on the report and recommendation from Probation, sensing no doubt that to say anything in front of a crowded courtroom full of friends and relatives of the victim would only add to the recriminations the District Attorney was ready to dispense. DA David Eyster then brought forth the victim’s mother, Mrs. Kristy Johnson who gave the court a long heart-felt statement that was accompanied by a great deal of crying in the audience. Then DA Eyster addressed the court saying, “We’ve had too much of what I call crocodile tears,” and, picking up Mr. Crowningshield’s letter of remorse and apology, Eyster ripped it in two and dropped the pieces on the floor. Eyster told the court that when Detective Luis Espinoza arrested Crowningshield he (Det. Espinoza) asked Crowningshield if he was sorry for what he did and Crowningshield answered, “No, it had to be done.”

Eyster continued, “He will soon be a number in an institution and I will no longer be around as the prosecutor when he comes up for parole, so I have lodged in the file for my successors a letter to oppose his release at any future date." Judge Ann Moorman said that a transcript of today’s proceedings would accompany the defendant to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, and that in any event the Johnsons would be notified if Crowningshield were ever released.

Judge Moorman then addressed Crowningshield saying, “I got the call when this happened from an officer who is not easily affected – well, let me just say he sees a lot of horrific things — and this was one of the worst he’s seen, as was attested to by a lot of the bystanders; but where you are going, believe it or not, you are going to have a chance to do some good things – and I know from these letters from your family and people who know you that you are capable of it. But you sir were so enraged, so violent, and so furious that you were able to overcome all of your upbringing and shoot Autumn several times – not many people are capable of that… But your son will still be your son no matter what happens and there’s a way you can make sure he grows up to be an emotionally stable person, and you are going to meet some interesting people who will help you achieve that.”

Out in the hall I encountered a man who tried to provoke me about, “Did you get anything good?” meaning juicy for the press; little did he know I very nearly shot my own ex and still sometimes wonder if it wouldn’t have been for the best if I had. You see, gentle reader, I don’t actually believe in all these so-called gifts of the Enlightenment, that the best of all possible worlds is ruled by reason, and all those idealistic notions handed down to us by Pascal and Descartes; but this is no place for a philosophical digression and I only put in the last comment because of my brief encounter with a man who must feel the whole world thinks he raised some kind of monster. Any man who hasn't thought of killing his wife during a custody battle, probably doesn't believe the kids are really his. (Bruce McEwen)

MOUNTAIN LION CAUGHT AFTER KILLING LIVESTOCK

MendocinoSportsPlus received this photo Thursday morning from a viewer with the caption: “This mountain lion was caught last night on Navarro Ridge Road. It killed two lambs. The property owner called out the trapper.”

BUDGET NOTES from the June 5, Supervisors Budget Hearing for the July 1, 2018-June 30, 2019 fiscal year.

by Mark Scaramella

In her introduction to the FY18-19 budget County CEO Carmel Angelo set a conservative tone: “It is critical to prepare for the future and protect against future cuts by maintaining the County’s General Fund Reserve and avoid making substantial new ongoing obligations. Despite the previous years with significant carryforward, the long-term uncertainties continue to mount as we prepare for FY 2018-19 and the next recession.”

BUT THE SUPERVISORS, leading by (bad) example, in the tight budget times noted by their CEO, gave themselves a big raise late last year which has not gone unnoticed by County employees:

PATRICK HICKEY, Service Employees International Union Field Represenative for Mendo Local 1021:

“In October of 2017 the Board of Supervisors entered into a $100,000 contract with Coffman & Associates to do a comprehensive classification and compensation study for all positions in the county. The term of that contract is coming to a close and the results should be made public soon. Based on preliminary data we expect that our classifications are significantly below positions in other comparable counties. The board needs to be prepared to act on the recommendations of this report and implement its findings. The proposed budget before you does not do this. If you look at the proposed budget for salaries by line item, one budget unit stands out: Budget Unit 1015. From 17-18 to 18-19 budget you see a 40% increase in to the salary line item and a 45% increase in the pension contributions. Most budget units are in the single digits for the salary line item. Some departments, like the district attorney, the public defender, facilities, court collections, and others are looking at a drop in the amount devoted to salaries. What is budget unit 1015? The Board of Supervisors. Most people's jaws dropped back in December when they heard that the board had voted themselves a 39% wage increase. But the board defended its actions as a process that used comparable counties to determine a fair salary for supervisors. For the board now to not afford the same opportunity and the same review process for the majority of County staff is unconscionable. This is simply a question of fairness. Usee the same process, the same comparison counties and the same analysis that you have used for yourselves for the hard-working employees of this county. We need to understand that substandard wages have a serious negative impact on the County's ability to provide essential services.

"About a week ago I was reading about a recent grand jury report in the Ukiah Daily Journal regarding in-home support services. It said that noncompetitive salaries are a major factor in vacancies and called on the board to adjust salaries to be competitive with other rural counties. It goes on to state that short staffing causes vacancies in the services offered to the public. I feel like I have read the same article many timess about many departments in Mendocino County. It has become a constant refrain. "Finally, we would like to say that the County has the funds to do this. We call on the Board to have a budget that more accurately reflects reality. In the past four fiscal years the County has underestimated revenues by about $3 million per year with an average underestimation of about 5%. Rather than lowballing revenue estimates, the budget should be based on what's likely. Those anticipated funds can then be included in the budget to address the Coffman & Associates study.”

NO RESPONSE from the Supervisors.

INSTEAD, the 17/18 budget calls for “a 5% vacancy rate for non-public safety personnel was utilized to meet County salary and benefit obligations, a cost saving measure that is commonly used by large Departments (Sheriff’s Office, District Attorney, and Jail utilize a 10% vacancy rate).”

LATER in the budget deliberations the Board decided to up that 5% rate to an arbitrary 10% vacancy rate to artificially prop up the grotesque over-run in Juvenile Hall. Presumably an ad-hoc committee has been formed to look at future options for Juvenile Hall, but nothing will change in the foreseeable future, much less in the July 2018-June 2019 timeframe.

ALSO in CEO Angelo’s budget introduction we find: “The new Cannabis Business Tax projection was reduced by 38.5% for FY 2018-19 to reflect the under-realized cannabis revenues projected for year-end close. [It had already been downsized a good bit before this “under-realization.”] During the Budget Workshop on May 15, 2017, the Board of Supervisors directed that projected cannabis tax revenue be focused on funding cannabis enforcement efforts and support for roads. The Proposed Budget includes the same level of funding for cannabis positions approved in FY 2017-18 (reflected in associated Departments NCC). The funding for roads from the cannabis tax has yet to be realized and was removed from the proposed FY 2018-19 budget.”

CEO Angelo adds: "It has been the Board of Supervisors’ intent to include at least $2 million specifically for corrective maintenance projects each year. The Board of Supervisors has made their intentions clear that all ‘new’ funding be dedicated to corrective maintenance. [But] There is no ‘new’ unallocated general fund revenues in FY 2018-19 and the cannabis business tax revenues originally intended for roads has not materialized.”

IN OTHER WORDS: We screwed up the pot permit program, so too bad, no new money for road repair!

ON A POSITIVE NOTE: The Budget does include money for local fire departments.

Angelo: “Per Board of Supervisors direction, the budget includes $398,000 for support of local fire agencies. This is the same level of funding provided in FY 2016-17 and FY 2017-18. The funding is reflected in BU 1940 – Miscellaneous. This clearly separates the funding from the dispatch contract and is included in a budget unit that is managed by the County Auditor to simplify the payment process. Proposition 172 funds are budgeted in BU 1940 to cover the cost of the [fire district] agreements.

"Per Board of Supervisors direction the payment is based on actual Proposition 172 receipts from the most recent year ($398,000).” … “The Proposed Budget also includes $198,000 for grants to ambulance providers for Advanced Life Support (ALS) based on Board of Supervisors direction.”

SUPERVISOR JOHN McCOWEN wanted to know “about the significant increase in insurance costs.”

County Counsel Katherine Elliott replied: “Thank you. That was the result of a case that was before my time. [Mendo lost a sexual harassment federal suit filed against then-County Counsel Doug Losak by then Deputy County Counsel Joan Turner.] Specifically because of the case of the People versus — I'm sorry — Turner versus the County of Mendocino. That will be a cost to our department for the next five years. Not a very — we don't have a lot of extra to give, so we're working that out.”

McCowen: “And special department expense? Was that the outside counsel?"

Elliott: (Long pause) "Sorry, I just want to make sure I'm not misstating anything. That's a change, we started doing this, and that is to show everything that goes out of our office, but we are also showing it in another budget line where it comes in. So those are because of various contracts that we get repaid or reimbursed by other departments but that way we show exactly where that money is coming in and going. For example, a hearing officer, investigations that we've conducted on behalf of departments. We might oversee those contracts and be the ones contracting. One of the things I wanted to comment on is we have brought far more investigators on for HR and personnel matters. We might contract with them and oversee — but we are reimbursed by the Department that is undergoing that investigation.”

OF COURSE, going unexplained in the big increase in the oh-so euphemistically named “Special Departmental Expense” was the compounding effects of a Chief Probation Officer whose unrestrained lust was consummated during work hours combined with a long-drawn out and very costly “investigation” of her work-time romps farmed out to a very expensive San Francisco law firm. After months and months on PAID administrative leave Ms. Markham was finally given her walking papers.

McCowen: “Correct. So potentially that could be through inter-fund legal? [whatever that is, not explained]…

McCowen then realized he was getting into some very embarrassing territory and thought better of this line of questioning: “I guess I don't need to pursue that further.”

But Elliott did respond: “I believe that's correct.” (About the mysterious “inter-fund legal.”)

BUT McCOWEN WASN’T DONE: “Okay. One more slightly off-topic question. We were sued regarding the cannabis tax. [By a group lead by Coast Pot activist Pebbles Trippet who has not reported on the status of her suit that we know of.] I believe that may still be going through the appeal process. Our friends at Howard Jarvis jumped in with an amicus. [That’s right, the Howard Jarvis Anti-Taxers joined with the Pot People who said the as-yet “under-realized” pot taxes are illegal.] So are we just waiting for the appeals court to do something? Where are we on that?”

Elliott: We are just waiting for the appeals court to do something. We do spend a lot of time in holding patterns. So this is one— we should — if I recall we had been given an opportunity for oral arguments and that was waived. So we are just waiting at this point.”

McCowen: “Would that tend to be a good sign that they don't care to hear oral arguments?”

Elliott: “We were waiting to see if the plaintiffs chose to do an oral argument and they did not so we did not as well. I think that we have a good argument in front of the court but we will see once the court rules.”

COUNTY COUNSEL ELLIOTT then described her role in some major litigation cases the County has initiated:

“I am overseeing the two complex litigation cases that we have initiated. One is against PG&E [for their role in last fall’s big fires, being handled by an outside contingency ambulance chasing outfit along with several other counties] and the other is against the pharmaceutical companies [which is news to us; perhaps a County official will explain what they hope to gain from suing Big Pharma]. I can tell you that that's a huge fight to take on for a small county but I am very hopeful in terms of what that will mean in the future for this county.”

WHEN Health and Human Services Agency Chief Anne The Inevitable Molgaard was glossing over her huge agency’s budget with waves of vague generalities and totally unsubstantiated claims of “doing better,” Supervisor McCowen interrupted to try to get a tiny bit of specific information.

McCowen: “I believe we don't have sufficient placement in County for some foster kids that are placed out of county. Do we have a breakdown percentagewise of what that is? And some numbers?”

Molgaard: “I have that breakdown. It is unfortunately not on the top of my head. But I will follow up and give it to you.”

Numbers and specific data are never at the top of Molgaard’s head, much less in it.

McCowen: “Thank you.”

But that didn’t stop Molgaard from droning on with more unsubstantiated generalities about her foster care staffers: “If you do hear of a child placed out of County remember that many times there is a balancing act between— We know children are more successful when they are with their own biological family. So sometimes it's better to be in Sacramento with an aunt than to stay in their same school with a neighbor or a family you don't know. And that's always an interesting trick for social workers to figure out.”

McCowen tried again: “Do we have the breakdown of placements with family versus non-family?”

Molgaard: “We have that too.”

McCowen: “Because that's a very valid point.”

Molgaard: “Yes we have that, sure. We'll get back to you tomorrow. It's very available data.”

BUT OF COURSE, if anything came of this — which is highly unlikely because actual numbers are never provided by HHSA people, and if they are they’re raw without context, and therefore useless — the public will never hear of it.

LATER SUPERVISOR McCOWEN (who seemed to be the only Supervisor with even a passing interest in the budget details) asked about the Stepping Up Initiative.

(Stepping Up is a nationwide effort to divert mental health patients from jails and prisons which was half-heartedly supported a few years ago, but nobody picked up the ball and nobody followed up on what little they intended to do with the $150k the Supervisors allocated to it.)

McCowen continued: “I believe the board did appropriate $150,000 about three years ago, principally for training, principally for law enforcement. I believe those funds were never expended. Are they still in the budget? Are they in the budget now for training in the coming year?”

CEO Angelo: “The money was in HHSA’s budget. It was $150,000 of general fund in 15-16 and 16-17 but it did not carry forward in 17-18 so the answer to your question is $150,000 in general funds is not in the budget for Stepping Up at this time. I don't know if Health and Human Services had budgeted the $150,000 for Stepping Up and honestly, and, it was before you, it was when Tammy [Moss-Chandler] was director [Actually it was before her, when Stacy Cryer was HHSA Director], so I'm not certain. [Glancing at staff.] And I see you all shaking your head No. So the answer to the question is, there is no money in the budget for Stepping Up in anybody's budget right now.”

LET THE FINGER-POINTING BEGIN!

McCowen: “It was Board direction that we allocate that money to provide the training to initiate Stepping Up in Mendocino County. So —”

Angelo: “That money, I agree, it was allocated, it was never used. There were multiple departments involved. So — it was not allocated.”

McCowen: “I'm not actually… I don't know… it will be a Board discussion and decision, but I think personally I would like to see the County fulfill our commitment to move forward with Stepping Up, so where the money is going to be found, if it can be found within the agency budget one way or the other, I would certainly like to see that commitment fulfilled and I see general nods of assent from my fellow board members.”

Angelo: “Part of that commitment would be to designate a lead to them on Stepping Up as well. So — because they had the money two years in a row and they never spent it. So if you're going to allocate, if you are going to ask Health and Human Services to fund the money, then please determine who is going to lead that effort. Thank you.”

McCowen: “That might be your job. But—”

Board Chair Dan Hamburg jumped in to stop the off-script squabbling: “Um, Supervisor…”

McCowen, taking the hint: “I believe we have set the policy anyway. So when we finish this item I have another question.”

Supervisor Carre Brown made sure the discussion was cut-off and buried indefinitely: “Maybe that is a question for budget deliberations. For tomorrow. Anyway…”

It wasn’t.

LITTLE DOG SAYS, “Skrag is looking for a home outtahere for his pregnant girlfriend, which just goes to show you what a cad he is. I'm helping him find a place for her just to make sure he doesn't dump her just any old place which, knowing him, is what he'd be likely to do!”

“PROCLAMATION OF THE MENDOCINO COUNTY BOARD OF SUPERVISORS RECOGNIZING THE LEADERSHIP MENDOCINO GRADUATION OF CLASS XXV, June 19, 2018

WHEREAS, the intent of the Leadership Mendocino program is to strengthen our community by developing a diverse group of people who will get involved and make a difference; and

WHEREAS, twenty-nine participants of diverse backgrounds and experience, from many parts of Mendocino County participated in Class XXV and fulfilled the requirements for graduation; and

WHEREAS, the Class XXV participants have accomplished the following in the past 10 months:

• Gathered monthly to learn about issues of importance in Mendocino County beginning with an August Orientation and continuing one Friday each month through May;
• Learned to hone their personal leadership skills through self-assessment and interactive workshops;
• Learned about community resources, challenges and opportunities through presentations, field trips, experiential learning [sic], problem solving and open discussions;
• Networked with scores of community leaders and class day presenters from throughout Mendocino County who demonstrated diverse examples of leadership in action [Names! We want names!];
• Planned and produced community-enrichment projects and events and joined local commissions and boards;
• Built working relationships with one another [sic] that will be a support for community leadership in the future; and
• Continue to participate as community leaders in shaping a healthy future for Mendocino County.

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that the Board of Supervisors of the County of Mendocino recognizes the members of Class XXV for their commitment and accomplishment on behalf of our communities, and encourage the members to continue to support one another in their ongoing effort to make meaningful contributions to the vitality of Mendocino County.”

 

 

 

 

(Photos/comment courtesy, Leadership Mendocino’s Facebook Page)

PEACHLAND ROAD repairs stemming from the big winter of 2016 rains are reported to be underway in one section and they expect to complete that segment, Phase I (almost a mile up), this year. Phase II (two sites, one about a third of a mile up and the other a little over a mile up) is scheduled for repair next year.

BLUE MEADOW FARM IS OPEN!

Walla Walla Onions, Lettuce, Spring Mix

Leeks, Sugar Snap Peas

Rte 128 & Holmes Ranch Rd (17.45 mm)

(707) 895-2071

* * *

BACON SEEDS FOR SALE

Mendocino Heritage Pork Co. has a few extra bacon seeds for sale. I have a litter of mangalitsa x Berkshire, about 12 weeks old , 50 lbs +\-. $175 each or $150 if you buy 2 or more. We also have a litter of pure Mangalitsa ready to be weened. $250 each for butcher pigs call John 707-376-5563

* * *

HAPPENINGS AT THE BUCKHORN

BUCKHORN PUB will be serving dinner until 10 on AVHS Graduation Night. Consider making a reservation.

Also - LIVE MUSIC this Friday, June 15, featuring Jeremy Meyer and band.

OUTSIDE on the Patio!

A VIEWER sent along these old photos to MendocinoSportsPlus. Thanks!

 

SENATOR MCGUIRE CALLS NEW STATE BUDGET ‘A REALLY GOOD ONE’ FOR MENDOCINO COUNTY

“The top three priorities for Mendocino County have been fulfilled.”

ukiahdailyjournal.com/general-news/20180613/mcguire-calls-new-state-budget-a-really-good-one-for-mendocino-county

LOCAL FIRE DEPARTMENTS may be in line for some small portion of an additional $50 million that is supposed to be for “enhanced mutual aid response,” although it’s still quite unclear what that means.

CATCH OF THE DAY, June 14, 2018

RODRIGO ANGULO, Ukiah. DUI, probation revocation.

SALVADOR CASILLAS-ANDRADE, Ukiah. Contributing to delinquency of minor, probation revocation.

CASEY FALLIS, Covelo. Failure to appear.

CHRISTY HEFFINGTON, Granada/Ukiah. Probation revocation.

RONALD HIGGINS, Ukiah. Ukiah. Disobeying a court order.

DAVID JARVIS, Clearlake/Ukiah. Petty theft, failure to appear.

ZIOMARA MARTINEZ, Ukiah. Probation revocation.

JONAH OTWELL, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol. (Frequent flyer.)

MARCELINO ZURITA-PAZ, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

BLEAK NEW FIGURES SHOW JUST HOW UNAFFORDABLE RENT IS IN EVERY U.S. STATE

huffingtonpost.com/entry/housing-affordabiility-gap-report_us_5b1f9c5ce4b0adfb826da691

LOW TURNOUT IMPLICATIONS

Editor:

No doubt many readers were dismayed, as I was, to read that less than one-fourth of California’s registered voters actually voted in the June 5 primary election.

This raises a serious issue as to whether the results of that election are valid. Really. The low turnout begs the question as to whether our form of democracy is functioning well. Perhaps we need a constitutional amendment stating that elections aren’t binding or valid if fewer than 75 percent (pick a number) of registered voters actually vote.

Let’s just leave the offices vacant until the citizens of this state decide to participate in selecting candidates and steering the state and local governments.

There is no acceptable excuse for the low turnout. One must conclude that three-quarters of Californians have such a high level of disgust or ignorance, or both, that they have given up on participatory democracy. This is very sad and surely is a frightening situation.

Jim Passage

Sebastopol

INTERIOR DESIGN EXPERT REVEALS HOW TO MAKE YOUR HOME HAPPIER

Victoria Harrison, UK editor of design website Houzz, says design choices you make in your home can help boost your mood.

dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-5834489/Interior-design-expert-reveals-make-home-happier.html

ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

If the Big Thinkers at the State Department could step outside the box they’ve been thinking in for the last three generations it would be a salutary thing for the US and the parts of the world that America has been busily screwing up.

What would change equations massively all over the globe is a unilateral pull-out of the US military from South Korea and Japan.

Imagine two advanced countries, one of 50 million (South Korea), the other 127 million (Japan) facing an an economically Sub-Saharan country of 25 million (North Korea). Who comes out on top? Who starts bossing who?

Imagine nuclear-armed China and nuclear-armed North Korea suddenly looking at one another, cheek by jowl as they’ve been since time began, without the common modern-day adversary (the US) that smoothed out their mountain-sized cross-border frictions.

Asia can have only so many shot-callers. China will be one, India another. But North Korea will aspire to shot-caller-hood given its nuclear arsenal and I think this won’t rest well with the boys in Beijing.

My bet is that the animosity previously festering between Rocketman and the US will be re-directed to China.

ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY #2

The problem with gun-control talk and argument, laced with a lot of naïveté and ignorance about firearms and downright hate, is that it distracts us from asking the important questions as to how we have evolved as a society that creates these situations and these monsters that do the things they do.

“My dad climbed a garbage can once.”

JUST HOW RICH ARE THE ULTRA RICH?

Income inequality isn’t the defining social issue of our time because your neighbor bought a slightly bigger house or nicer car than you did. It’s because multi-millionaires and billionaires are competing for slightly bigger mega-yachts while our friends set up GoFundMe accounts to plead for help with basic medical expenses. Right now, four in ten Americans can’t come up with $400 in an emergency. Two out of ten Americans have either no financial assets at all, or they owe more than they own. Over 70 million workers make less than $25,000 a year, and the federal minimum wage is less than the cost of living in every major city in the country

commondreams.org/views/2018/06/14/just-how-rich-are-ultra-rich

MENDOCINO BOTANICAL GARDENS
What's in bloom?

Heritage Roses

Coastal Wildflowers

Perennials. Fuchsias

Heaths. Heathers

Succulents. Cacti

https://mailchi.mp/gardenbythesea/t6k8zemj13-639377?e=85053924b3

NFL OWNERS DON’T FEAR TRUMP, THEY FEAR THEIR OWN PLAYERS

by Dave Zirin

In 1969, NFL linebacker Dave Meggyesy walked away from the NFL in disgust over the way he believed that the game football was acting as a reactionary social force in society, an impediment against meaningful social change. In his book Out of Their League, he wrote, “Politics and pro football are the most grotesque extremes of a dying empire.”

In 1975, sportswriter Robert Lipsyte had a similar analysis of not just football but sports as a whole. He wrote in his classic book SportsWorld: An American DreamLand:

A great deal of the angry energy generated in America through the coming apart of the 1960s was absorbed by SportsWorld in its various roles as socializer, pacifier, safety valve; as a concentration camp for adolescents and an emotional Disney Land for their parents… SportsWorld is a buffer, a DMZ [demilitarized zone] between people and the economic and political systems that direct their lives.

These quotes have been crawling under my scalp in the aftermath of the decision by the National Football League to fine teams if their players do not show “proper respect” during the National Anthem. Much of the analysis of this by righteously rageful critics of ownership is that this decision was a capitulation to Donald Trump; that these billionaire masters of the universe fear Trump; they fear the hive-mind control he has over his political base and their ability to collectively hurt ratings, attendance, and bottom line profits. NFL owners, this critique goes, want to get their league out of Donald Trump’s mouth at all costs so they meekly submitted to his wishes. Evidence of their weakness in the face of his bullying bombast was seen, as football scribe Melissa Jacobs pointed out, in the pathetic spectacle of Roger Goodell saying absolutely nothing when the Super Bowl champs, the politically active Philadelphia Eagles, were disinvited to the White House by Trump, even though not one Eagles player took a knee last season during the anthem in protest of racial inequity and police violence. It was, Jacobs correctly points out, an unabashed embarrassment that NBA Commissioner Adam Silver spoke out immediately in defense of socially-engaged athletes while Goodell remained silent.

Yet I disagree with the analysis that this new rancid policy of coercive patriotism was enacted because they are in full surrender to Donald Trump. Yes, they are afraid—very afraid—but it is not fear of the orange golem in the White House that has driven this new policy. It is fear of political athletes. It is fear of labor. It is a fear not rooted in a loss of profits—the Carolina Panthers just sold for over two billion dollars, for goodness sakes—but in a loss of control.

The NFL is supposed to be, as Lipsyte writes “a buffer,” and “a concentration camp for adolescents and a Disney Land for adults.” Instead, we are seeing football—of all things—as a center of the rebellion against both our racist system of police violence and mass incarceration as well as resistance to Donald Trump. The kids in the “concentration camps” and the performers in the Adult Disneyland are doing more than showcasing a political resistance by taking knees during the anthem. They are brashly and boldly displaying an independence from what they are supposed to be doing. They are refusing to be a buffer. They are rejecting the idea that they will be part of the “theatrics of a dying empire.” Instead they are living by the credo set forth by Muhammad Ali, who said, “I don’t have to be what you want me to be.”

This is polarizing, enraging in some quarters, and political red meat for Trump’s frothing base. But for NFL owners, the threat is far more daunting: to them, it’s players refusing to be mere extensions of equipment on the field, or robots advancing the ball. It’s players noticing, as Michael Bennett of the Eagles has written, that the league is not in fact integrated. It’s segregated, with mostly black bodies taking all the risk, pain, and traumatic brain injury, while an almost entirely white ownership class reaps the rewards.

NFL owners are willing to look soft and foolish. They are willing to look like Trump lackeys. They are willing to be mocked if it accomplishes a broader objective: returning sports to a demilitarized zone between people and their lives. Their aims are nothing less than to stop, by any means necessary, the invasion of the real world—with all its racism, injustice, and creeping authoritarianism—into the sports world. If these owners have to be racist, unjust, and authoritarian to accomplish these aims, then so be it, irony be damned. This is the code red: the players are tasting independence as well as a sense of their own power, and that cannot be tolerated, no matter who is in the White House.

PURE MENDOCINO IS AUGUST 25

(Cancer Resource Centers of Mendocino County)

Tickets are now on sale for the major fundraising event of the year for the Cancer Resource Centers of Mendocino County, celebrating 23 years of service to our communities.

Dark Horse Ranch

Honorary Chair: Paul Dolan

wine tasting, appetizers 5 p.m.

farm-to-table dinner 6:30 p.m.

live music 8 to 10 p.m. by "The Back Porch Project"

Chef Olan Cox will showcase our communities' finest organically grown food and wine.

For more information or to purchase tickets, go to cts.vresp.com/c/?CancerResourceCenter/bf93cba047/c8bebd9577/4d2795b476

puremendocino.org

or call our office at 707-937-3833.

NO LABELS ON GLYPHOSATE FOR NOW

A federal judge on Tuesday rejected California’s last-ditch effort to force agricultural company Monsanto to place warning labels on its Roundup products.

courthousenews.com/judge-roundup-products-to-remain-warning-label-free-for-now/

ARTICLE ENDS with this news: "Monsanto’s brand will soon disappear as it was sold to the German company Bayer for $63 billion. Bayer will still produce Monsanto’s existing products but will discontinue the name."