Mendocino County Today: Tuesday, June 19, 2018

• Slow Count
• Legalization Blues
• Lake Mendo
• Consent Calendar Bonanza
• BHAB Report
• Little Dog
• Teenage Terror
• Printing Press
• Hedgehog Books
• Ed Notes
• Weed Industry
• Yesterday's Catch
• Identity Politics
• Idiot Trade
• Trump Bible
• Two Bernies
• Kennedy Assassination
• California CASA

MSP FIRES OFF LETTER TO MENDO COUNTY CLERK

Honestly, it’s 2018, well into the new century, and it appears the Mendocino County Clerk’s office is still using an abacus to count the votes from June 5 - 13 DAYS AGO! Good Lord. And only ONE update on how the ballot counting is going.

And how about this from war-ravaged Iraq posted April 23, 2018: "A new electronic system will deliver the results of Iraq’s upcoming national election within hours of polls closing, the country’s chief electoral officer said."

Huh?

A Third World Country with no infrastructure will operate a better election system than Mendocino County? Maybe the Supervisors should send the Mendo County Clerk (and staff) to see that new system operate - in person.

MSP has had it - and sent off this email this morning:

ELECTION RESULTS DELAY TURNING INTO CRUEL JOKE

To Whomever:

Why does Mendocino County always have to be LAST in the state for posting election results? Results were counted quicker last century.

And besides ONE update from the Clerk-Recorders regarding the number of ballots that needed to be counted, there has been silence. How has the counting been going? Why the big secret?

It would be nice to have an update every couple of days - or at least one a week. It has been 13 days now since the election. Jeesh.

And Humboldt County, who has 45,000 MORE people than Mendocino County, said they will be posting their results tomorrow (Tuesday).

The Mendocino "method" of vote tabulation has been progressively worse and if you don't realize it, you need your head, as well as the election system, examined and corrected.

Thank you for your time.

Paul McCarthy, MendocinoSportsPlus

Elk

YEAR ONE OF LEGALIZATION WAS A BUST! CANNABIS PLAN BUILT ON LANDFILL COLLAPSES

This is what the Cannabis War on Mendocino County Soil looks like.

by Pebbles Trippet

Over the past 4+ years, Mendocino Supervisors have diddled, reaping loss to the public. Their cannabis regulatory program is in shambles because they don't know what they're doing and will not admit it or reach out to the cannabis community, which is steeped in the knowledge base with four decades of cultivation experience. They'd rather flounder and fail.

The county's inexperienced one-sighted revenue stream motive without any meaningful input from cannabis farmers or planners recognized by the community is a recipe for the current disaster. Reportedly, BOS was expecting $1.3 million the first year, but that stalled and fell flat with less than 50% of financial expectations. The county is casting a net for newly legal commercial growers to get in on the action, sign here to get priority next year, yet they don't even have a respectable regulatory program in place as the season opens this year.

Growers are starting to withhold applications for regulatory permits as they encounter an unfinished punitive program with cultivation bans in three major zones (Rangeland, Forestland, TPZ), comprising a whopping 80% of total county acreage. The bans deprive property owners of their right to grow, as well as reducing the value of their property for prospective buyers. A former Willits City Councilmember in the real estate business reports that, much to his surprise, people are not buying property where cannabis is banned; he advises the sweeping bans be reconsidered as unthought out. There is also the issue of new cannabis crimes in tax law, i.e., 'violations deemed misdemeanors', passed at the local ballot. These countywide assaults on cultivation lead many to believe a cultural cleansing of the cannabis community is taking place, in order to make way for the "real money" and wipe out generations of cannabis heritage shared by stewards of the plant.

The Mendocino County CEO's annual salary is around $300,000, in the same league as the governor and many times greater than the average worker. For this she authorized the loss of two qualified Agriculture Commissioners tasked with regulating cannabis cultivation as an agricultural crop who were put out to pasture one after the other in a 10 day period--and instead she has arbitrarily shifted the task of regulating cannabis cultivation to herself, without explanation. This proves how unprepared the county program is. When something goes wrong there's no back-up or public accountability.

How can growers, largely small family farms, be held responsible for the county's failure to get enough input to do its job? Presumably BOS approved the move to put regulation of cannabis cultivation in the lap of the CEO, exposing a paralysis in the apparatus. The motive appears to be to keep post-prohibition control of the cannabis plant and expected revenue, denying input from the very people who've kept the plant and economy alive for decades. A combination of no guidance, no clarity, scant information and excessive regulation has squandered the opportunity at the crossroads to build "new era" regulatory relations. Instead, mistrust between growers and government has been sowed, souring the chances of reasonable regulation in the heart of the Emerald Triangle. Year One of Legalization was a bust!

We need to form a Cannabis Commission, broadly representative of county stakeholders, as the best way to counter government disfunctionality and lack of transparency. Tasked with researching and reporting on issues as they arise, the Commission would add weight to BOS findings with data and evidence and would produce an annual economic impact report for public benefit. BOS would continue to make decisions, but with updated expert information, not in a vacuum.

The insulated Board has come through two eras, first: cannabis being classified as a crime with thousands of raids/prosecutions/seizures of medicine by law enforcement despite widespread support as a medicine; second: cannabis being classified as a public nuisance with loss of constitutional rights, such as presumption of evidence and requirement of a warrant for law enforcement to enter private property.

A true departure from prohibition would involve the county welcoming the cannabis community as equal citizens with tax incentives and assistance in helping small farmers survive the arduous regulatory process. That is sadly not happening in the county or the state. Instead the powers that be are blocking a meeting of the minds.

Two pieces of CA Legislation show the tension of war.

1) Cannabis businesses must provide an armed guard outside the facility 24/7, patrolling the perimeter nite and day to discourage theft of cannabis. Even banks don't have such a draconian rule, despite dealing in much greater riches. Cannabis is not plutonium. Forcing dispensaries to hire a 24/7 armed guard is an economic hurdle designed to cripple small businesses, as well as increase negative stigma associated with cannabis.

Paula Deeter of Herban Legend sent an email to the BOS, thinking it was a county law. Supes Djerde and McCowen responded telling her it's a state law and they don't support applying it in the county. Can we have that in writing?

2) The Dept of Agriculture's violation of Prop 64's 5-year delay clause is more egregious. AUMA/Adult Use of Marijuana Act, passed by the voters in 2016, delays the ability of large grows to get permits until after a 5-year period of time from the date in the law. This insert in the text was to win the endorsement of people like Tim Blake to give small and medium growers a head start in light of anticipated corporate dominance.

California Growers Association/CGA filed a lawsuit against the CA Department of Agriculture to stop the wrongful issuing of grow permits to large entities over 10,000 sq ft in violation of the 5-year delay. Unbeknownst to the cannabis industry as a whole, the 5-year delay was built on porous landfill and collapsed in the second year, when Dept of Ag issued permits to large grows, without regard to the delay. WTF?

As a result of CGA's lawsuit, CA Food and Ag now reveals that they were working from 'Emergency Regulations', so the 5-year delay didn't apply. Poof! The result is months of a free ride for corporate grows over 10,000 sq ft sliding in ahead of the 5-year delay, not after as the law states. They'll take the fine, cost of doing business.

California lawmakers have withdrawn the Emergency Regulations, thanks to the lawsuit. Perhaps they'll come back with a 5-year delay protection, but without acknowledging wrong doing. They knew what they were doing and we didn't. By making the 5-year delay inapplicable under emergency regs which they roll out first, they've finished their goal before we're even aware of it.

The CA Dept of Ag should be called out for allowing Corporate Cannabis permits via the back door, giving them an advantage while officially outlawing them in the 5-year rule. This is biased, embarrassing, illegal, ethically wrong, cheats on the public vote and shows bad faith.

The integrity of the process stands to gain if we start over. A Cannabis Commission can establish a balance of stakeholders based on points of agreement rather than adversaries based on disagreements. However thin those may be, the future is relying on us to pinpoint mutual understandings and protections--for the plant, patients, parents, property owners, consumers under labeling laws, the environment, ecosystems, and the planet.

The stage is set for the creation of a new cannabis tax ordinance to replace AI, if the lawsuit Johnson v Mendocino prevails in the CA Appeals Court where it awaits a constitutional ruling. If the Court voids AI as a special tax, rather than a general tax, that fell short of a super-majority with only 63 2/3% rather than 66 2/3%, the Board will have to start over and write a new cannabis tax law, capable of winning a super-majority of voters at the following ballot. Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association agrees with us and filed an Amicus Brief in Support of Johnson. That improved our chances of prevailing. (Full disclosure: I'm one of the seven co-plaintiffs in Johnson.)

Hopefully a victory in court will clarify the California Constitution's definition of a special v general tax. And hopefully that clarity will produce a more enlightened draft BOS Tax Act with more public input and no new cannabis crimes. And hopefully, that will lead to a local Cannabis Commission, broadly representative of stakeholders, designed to research and clarify cannabis-related issues for the BOS to use as they see fit.

Pebbles Trippet, Planet x-rated

Elk

IGNORING LAKE SONOMA

“Just to revive the feasibility study will cost $400,000 and completing it will cost $5.5 million … it would be “a stretch” coming up with the local share of nearly $3 million. … The cost of raising Lake Mendocino’s 160-foot earthen dam by 36 feet was last estimated in 2015 at more than $320 million … the feasibility study will take four to five years … Asked if Sonoma County might become one of the financial partners, Davis said that would require a decision by the Board of Supervisors, who also are the Water Agency’s directors. … Phase Two was 319-foot Warm Springs Dam, which was completed by the Corps in 1983, creating Lake Sonoma northwest of Healdsburg with a capacity of 381,000 acre-feet, more than three times larger than Lake Mendocino’s 116,500 acre-feet…”

pressdemocrat.com/news/8431501-181/decades-old-project-to-raise-lake

MENDO is banking on a ridiculous time frame and a ridiculous cost to increase the capacity of Lake Mendocino while the much much larger Lake Sonoma goes untapped. By simply rebalancing the amount of water drawn from Lake Mendocino — as once suggested by former Supervisor John Pinches — and drawing a compensating amount from Lake Sonoma you’d have a large short term gain for Mendo without any infrastructure cost or delay. But that would require Sonoma County to revise their sweetheart arrangement where they get lots of free water from Mendo which they then sell to their own County water agencies and Marin at a major markup (which they could continue to do with Lake Sonoma water). Congressman Huffman and the PD know this of course, but nobody in the entire region except Pinches is willing to even bring up the subject. They prefer to pretend they care by claiming to “boost” Lake Mendo’s still remote chances of minor capacity increases. (—ms)

CONSENT CALENDAR BONANZA!

James Marmon writes:

(Item 4al) “Approval of the Mental Health Services Act Reversion Plan for Innovation, Prevention and Early Intervention, Workforce Education and Training, and Capital Facilities and Technology Needs in Fiscal Years 2018-20; and Authorization for the Health and Human Services Agency Director or Designee to Sign the Plan, Submit it to the Mental Health Services Oversight and Accountability Commission and Department of Health Care Services, and Implement the Reversion Program Spending Plan”

“Mental Health Service Act (MHSA) unspent funds subject to reversion” does not mean that the funds were never spent; it just means that the funds were not spent where they were supposed to be spent.

Furthermore, I think I figured out why we had all those retroactive payments made to RQMC/RCS a couple of months ago. They were trying to spend down MHSA funds in order to reduce the amount of unspent money subject to reversion for last year and this year. Those retroactive payments were dispersed to MHSA programs administered by the Schraders. I hope the State is following up on my complaints. It makes me wonder if the services really ever got to the clients or if the County and RQMC were just balancing their books. The Shell game continues.

* * *

Item 4g on 1/19/18 Agreement with Kemper Consulting Group to Provide Mental Health Needs Assessment

(4g) “Approval of Retroactive Agreement with Kemper Consulting Group to Provide Mental Health Needs Assessment Services in the Amount of $40,000, Effective Upon Execution of Agreement through December 31, 2018 (Sponsors: Executive Office and Sheriff-Coroner, On behalf of the Measure B Oversight Committee)”

Numbers will tell you everything!

5150’s Costly to the County (Mendocino Beacon)

“Mendocino County has seen a dramatic increase in emergency room visits by people placed on ‘5150 holds’ – admissions of people with mental health conditions posing a danger to themselves, others or considered severely disabling – rising from 107 visits in 2011 to 417 visits in 2015.” [thanks to Angelo's privatization scheme of 2012]

“According to John Wetzler, chairman of county’s Mental Health Advisory Board, “Now, more people are relying on 5150s mostly because we don’t have pre-treatment before a patient, a client, a consumer receives care as their mental illness grows. Nothing really happens until it really flourishes to a level of 5150.”

http://www.mendocinobeacon.com/article/NN/20160218/NEWS/160219991

According to one of Camille Schrader’s dashboards she presented to the Board last month (May 8, 2018) there were 939 emergency crisis assessments from July through December 2017, just half of the fiscal year 2017-18. At that rate we should be at about 1,900 crisis assessments by the end of this month and end of fiscal year 2017-18 .

Of those 939 Crisis Assessments from July through December 597 were conducted in the three hospital Emergency Rooms, Ukiah, Willits and Fort Bragg. At that rate, we should have approximately 1,200 ER room 5150 assessments by the end of this month, and end of fiscal year 2017-18.

See 05-08-18 RQMC Presentation to Board of Supervisors.

file:///C:/Users/user1/Downloads/Agenda%20(55).pdf

https://mendocino.legistar.com/Calendar.aspx

Now, are we talking success here or what? Great job everyone!

James Marmon MSW

Former SEIU 1021 President, Mendocino Chapter.

A READER WRITES: I found this and thought you might be interested in it. You may have seen it already.

https://www.mendocinocounty.org/home/showdocument?id=19886

Mark Scaramella replied: I had not seen that particular report. But previous versions, yes. I note that it has no data to speak of, just some nice ideas to explore. Versions of that kind of thing have been in other BHAB reports. Not that anybody seems to care much. And even those are never put on any Supes agenda for consideration. Like most County boards and commissions, the Supes and Angelo don't take them seriously and they never complain. So it goes. PS. I see that Ms. Handley has positioned herself nicely, for whatever that might be worth to her. PPS. Their "accomplishments" are pathetic. PPPS. Where's any mention of RQMC et al? Do they even care? But thanks. Appreciate it. If you see anything else interesting please pass it along too.

THE READER: The “accomplishments” or lack of, is what caught my eye. You would think they could do more with the amount of money they receive.”

MS: Yes indeed. Trouble is, nobody knows what they do in the first place (other than meet and talk), so how could anyone tell if they did "more"?

THE READER: When I found this I was actually looking for something to tell me how many mentally ill are actually being treated for the large amount money handed over. I was also interested in exactly how many employees they have and what percentage of the money is used to fill their pockets. Still looking.

MS: Us too. Maybe Mr. Kemper will tell us some day.

LITTLE DOG SAYS, “Yessir, here's one little dog who loves Sierra Nevada World Music Festival. I got my dreads going, got my ganja, got my Bob Marley, got my Sister Yaz! One world, baby! Jah!”

NINTH GRADE TERRORS

Dear Mr. Anderson,

I enjoyed your story about the teaching job in San Luis Obispo. After reading it I thought to myself, Could that really be true? Could ninth graders be so vicious that they would drive their teacher nuts?

I then thought back to my own ninth-grade days. At the time I was going to school in Virginia. Our school was located high on a bluff overlooking the Potomac River Valley. This was probably the reason civil defense authorities had chosen the site for a watchtower. The tower was a two-story 10x10 wooden structure. The upper level had windows open all around and it was staffed by middle-aged women who may have been volunteers. This was the mid-50s and there was a great fear in America of Russian bombers attacking the nation's capital. This tower was at one end of our sports field and occasionally a ball would hit the structure startling, or perhaps awakening, the Tower Lady. She would then shout down to us in an annoyed tone of voice telling us to get away. These confrontations led us to conclude that our Tower Lady was evil tempered and didn't really like young people.

So we resolved to terrorize her.

It took us a week to make all the preparations. We rolled up newspapers into sticks and coated them with red crayon wax. We found some stiff white wire that looked like a fuse and in the center of the bundle we put a Jet-X-capsule which would make smoke when ignited. Once our D-Day arrived, about 30 of us gathered in a group on the sports field and made a commotion to attract the woman’s attention. While she watched we lit the smoke capsule and one of us went forward and placed the fake bomb under the tower. We all then ran farther away. The Tower Lady fled in terror and who could blame her? It all looked so real. It was ironic that her immediate threat came not from the Russians but from the ninth grade students. I always wondered about how useful the tower was anyway. An enemy aircraft spotted from it would have been less than a minute away from the White House.

After remembering this I have no doubt that ninth graders could drive their teacher over the edge.

Best regards,

John Mills

Ben Lomond

PRINTING PRESS FOR SALE

Vandercook Universal III, Model 219, 1949. $15,000 obo. Excellent working condition.

Description: Uni_III_flyer

Nancygasaway707@hotmail.com

HEDGEHOG BOOKS IS OPEN! The last train car behind Boontberry. Affordable books in English & Spanish. Copy/scan/e-fax services. Kids, young adult, fiction & non-fiction. M,T,W,F 12:30-5:30. Sat 10:30-2:30.

ED NOTES

AV HIGH SCHOOL’S awards ceremony was nicely organized by school staff led by high school principal, Jim Snyder, complete with artfully arranged bouquets from Beth Swehla’s horticulture class and a lush smorgasbord post-event. Awards have been separated from the annual graduation, mercifully I would say, to make both events reasonably endurable after years of graduation ceremonies that were painfully lengthy.

IT WAS GOOD to see Khalilah Ford after so many years. The daughter of the late Sheri Fish, Khalilah was on hand to award a scholarship in her mom’s memory. I’d hope to talk with her post-awards but she’d disappeared. Khalilah was an intern with the mighty AVA when she was a high school freshman, circa ’93. She was already a good, clear writer, the kind of kid whose errors we only had to correct once. We used to joke about Khalilah’s seriousness. She was all business as a 14-year-old. (Her tutors at the AVA were immature 60-year-olds.) I wrote in March, 2001: “There are certain young people one encounters that prompt one to think, ‘This one has something special.’ Khalilah Ford affected me that way, so the other day when I met Khalilah's mom, Sheri, at AV Market, I wasn't in the least surprised to learn that Khalilah has graduated with top honors from Georgia Tech and has been commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Marine Corps.” And, from what we can gather from a crude internet search, Khalilah made a career with the Marines and, as of 2018, will be Lt. Colonel Ford-Thomas!

* * *

ABOUT $25 MIL of that state and federal mental health largesse will be handed this week to a private business operated by Mr. and Mrs. Schrader of Ukiah and Potter Valley via the Supe’s consent calendar, meaning the multi-millions are not even worth discussion. The enterprising Schraders provide mostly invisible mental health services to the people of Mendocino County, but who’s checking? How much do the Schraders rake off for themselves? Hey! None of your beeswax. How much we make is proprietary information. We’re a private business, and this is free enterprise.

* * *

MENDO’S ICONIC JULY 4TH PARADE COULD USE SOME FINANCIAL SUPPORT

A coast businessman contacted MSP asking why the annual Mendocino parade needed “financial support.” He said, “They’re all volunteers - who’s getting paid for volunteering?”

We had no answer for him - even though we’ve been to the parade 24 straight years.

So we contacted Sharon Davis over at the Mendocino Coast Chamber of Commerce and she promptly replied:

“Hi Paul, there are numerous volunteers involved in putting on the parade but the Chamber pays for all of the costs associated with it.

This includes the porta-potties, the permitting fees, the trash removal, the advertising costs (before and after the parade), the ribbons, the plaques for the winners. Also my staff handles all of the applications and organization of the event. We've never had a profit from this event. Our costs are usually between $2,500 and $3,000.

Last year, the parade brought in $1,770 and our expenses were $2,540. We always hope to cover all of our costs but don't see this as a fundraiser but rather as a community event.

I hope this clarifies. Please feel free to contact me if you still have questions. You're also welcome to forward my contact information to the business owner if they wish to contact me directly.

Sharon Davis 707-961-6302 chamberceo@mcn.org. Thank you!”

So if you can find it in your heart to support this great parade - there’s not another one like - please donate to the Chamber of Commerce. They have various levels of donations...

* * *

".... JUST OVER THE COUNTY LINE, Mendocino longtime agricultural commissioner, Ted Erickson, in 1980 declared marijuana the area's number one cash crop. An infuriated board of supervisors forced Erickson to tear the marijuana page out of every copy of his annual report. When he repeated his remarks for '60 Minutes' early in 1981, Erickson was charged with 'erratic behavior' and fired from the job he had held for twenty-eight years" (Growing Pains by Randall Sullivan, 1983)

Ed Note: Mendo Supervisors at the time were: John Cimolino, Ernie Banker, Jim Eddie, Norman de Vall and Al Barbero.

REGRETS

Editor:

What is it that people who report on marijuana don’t understand about the vote in 2016? Pretty much everyone I know voted to decriminalize the use of cannabis and private grows. No one envisioned the booming industry that is attempting to insert itself into our local lifestyles.

Not one person would have imagined an industrial cannabis operation at the end of a narrow, winding, private road. No one imagined the smell from a cannabis operation, which has permeated an otherwise bucolic Sebastopol neighborhood where the residents cannot go outside or open windows or doors due to the stench.

Why is it that reports found in The Press Democrat tend to downplay or fail to report the severity of these problems? I challenge anyone to go investigate this matter.

Charlene Stone

Santa Rosa

CATCH OF THE DAY, June 18, 2018

LINDA ALMOND, Ukiah. Paraphernalia, failure to appear, probation revocation.

JETTA BAIRD, Ukiah. Willful cruelty to child.

CHARMELL COLE, Cloverdale/Ukiah. Petty theft, controlled substance.

ADAM COLEMAN, Stockton/Ukiah. Probation revocation.

NATHAN ELLISON, Smithburg, Maryland/Ukiah. DUI.

NICHOLAS FLATBUSH, Fairfield/Ukiah. DUI.

DAVID KROLL, Ukiah. Protective order violation.

DEBORAH LAWRENCE, Ukiah. Failure to appear, probation revocation. (Frequent flyer.)

LEANN MANUEL, Ukiah. Witness intimidation.

CHRISTINA MORROW, Redwood Valley. Controlled substance.

LUIS ORTIZ, Ukiah. Controlled substance while armed with loaded gun, county parole violation, felon with firearm, ammo possession by prohibited person, large capacity magazine, paraphernalia, more than an ounce of pot, evasion, resisting,

JUSTIN SCHAEFER, Lakeport/Ukiah. Resisting.

WESLEY THAXTON, Upper Lake/Laytonville. Disorderly conduct-alcohol, battery on peace officer, resisting.

STEPHEN THOMAS, San Jose/Hopland. DUI.

RODNEY TUCKER, Fort Bragg. First degree robbery.

MONIQUE VALADOR, Fort Bragg. Failure to appear.

ELEA VANWORMER, Fort Bragg. Contempt of court, probation revocation.

DAVID WHITAKER, Cloverdale/Ukiah. Refusing to leave.

IT’S ALL ABOUT COERCION

by James Kunstler

It’s worth checking out the YouTube video of this year’s semi-annual Munk Debate held in Toronto this spring. The proposition at hand: Be it resolved, what you call political correctness, I call progress…. For the pro position: Michael Eric Dyson, sociology prof from Georgetown U, and New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg; on the con side, Jordan Peterson, psychologist and U of Toronto prof, and Stephen Fry, British actor and screenwriter.

The debate quickly beat a path to identity politics, which make up the actual substance of PC, itself only a method of conveying the substance. PC acts as a filter for sifting out thought that doesn’t conform to orthodox ideology, and for punishing those who dare to express the filtered-out ideas. So, PC only allows for a narrow range of expressed opinion on identity politics. PC is literally thought-policing. It’s hard to imagine anyone being in favor of that, which is exactly why PC behavior is so odious to those of us who value free speech.

The orthodox view in identity politics these days is that “white male cis-heterosexual patriarchal privilege” is responsible for the discontents of women and “people-of-color” — a squishy, mischievous category which obviously doesn’t count Chinese grad students at Harvard or the Asian-Indians in the Silicon Valley C-suites — and demands reparations of one kind or another.

Mr. Peterson laid it out nicely: identity politics assigns everyone to ethnic, racial, and sexual groups, and all the human relations among them amount to never-ending battles for political power. Nothing else matters. Individuals especially don’t matter, only the group. And no group has abused its power more than European white men.

This animating idea comes out of the mid-20^th century “post-structural critical theorists” Jacques Derrida and Michel Foucault, whose Marxian views emerged conveniently at a time when women and non-white people were vying for departmental chairs in the college humanities and social science programs, and thus have two generations been indoctrinated.

Well, if human relations are solely about power, then exercising power over others is all that matters. Hence, the key to identity politics: it’s all about coercion, making others do your will by threat of force and force itself. These days, the main threat is depriving heretics and apostates of their livelihood. That’s what happened to Brett Weinstein at Evergreen U in Washington State last year, and to Jordan Peterson himself at the U of Toronto, when he objected loudly and publicly to a new Canadian federal law that sought to punish citizens who refused to use the new menu of personal pronouns for the rapidly multiplying new gender categories (e.g. ze, zir, they, xem, nem, hir, nir….)

Both Weinstein and Peterson refused to be coerced and found themselves inadvertently leading a movement against the pervasive, creeping coercion of our time — which has now spread from the campuses into corporate life, with the HR departments working overtime to enforce thought among employees, because company profits are at stake (e.g. Starbucks day-off for “diversity and inclusion training”).

Most of the sparks in the debate came off the friction between Dyson and Peterson. Dyson, who was ordained as a Baptist minister at age nineteen, relies on the tropes of the pulpit to entertain his audience (or his classes at Georgetown). That theatricality is well-suited to putting across dubious ideas with false authority. In the end, he resorted to plain old name-calling, branding Peterson as “an angry white man.” Peterson did appear deeply annoyed. I could certainly understand why. He’s been suffering the enmity of morons for a couple of years now. But he has them on the run. He’s onto their game and he’s unmasking their mendacious intentions. And offering a framework for understanding human relations that actually comports with reality. In what has been lately a reality-optional culture, that really hurts.

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

ON LINE COMMENT OF THE WEEK

Trump’s ranting about ‘unfair’ trade is so much bullshit. The fact is that it wasn’t ‘foreigners stealing our jobs’ – it was US corporations fleeing high wages, taxes & collateral costs of doing the core manufacturing work in the US that got everyone to this state of affairs. The ‘trade imbalances’ appear to be wealth going to another country, but as likely as not, those profits are being booked by US corporations that are domiciled offshore – viz, Google, Apple etc. who all sit on mountains of cash that they do not wish to expose to the US IRS. Then Trump goes and does things that ‘look great’ to his idiot base, without bothering to understand the consequences & collateral damage. For example tariffs on imported solar panels making them so expensive that demand drops precipitously & thousands of people working in the installation & maintenance businesses associated with a sweet, clean renewable energy are out of work, while there’s been no huge return of the ‘coal jobs’.

"THERE ARE TWO VERSIONS OF BERNIE SANDERS. There is the old Bernie Sanders, who mounted a quixotic campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination as a democratic socialist who refused corporate cash and excoriated corporate Democrats. And there is the new Bernie Sanders, who dutifully plays by the party’s rules, courts billionaires, refused to speak out in support of the lawsuit brought against the Democratic National Committee (DNC) for rigging the primaries against him and endorses Democratic candidates who espouse the economic and political positions he once denounced."

— Chris Hedges

KENNEDY ASSASINATION THEORY:

"Summarizing a half-century of conspiracy research, the Talbot and Douglass books together provide a wealth of persuasive evidence that elements of organized crime, individuals with CIA connections, and anti-Castro Cubans were probably participants in the assassination plot. Oswald seems to have been working with various anti-Communist groups and also had significant connections to US intelligence, while his purported Marxism was merely a very thin disguise. With regard to the assassination itself, he was exactly the “patsy” he publicly claimed to be, and very likely never fired a single shot. Meanwhile, Jack Ruby had a long history of ties to organized crime, and surely killed Oswald to shut his mouth."

— Ron Unz

CASA OPPOSES CHILD TRAUMA

Good Afternoon,

We initiated this through the Ukiah CASA office: OR WHATEVER--Traumatized Child Migrants

Please call with any questions,

Norman de Vall

Chr. CASA of Mendocino and Lake Counties

397-1654