Mendocino County Today: Saturday, Aug. 18, 2018

• Coastal Fire
• Ranch Fire
• Complex Meeting
• Van Damme
• MRC Litigation
• Public Defender
• Little Dog
• PV Project
• District Voting
• Velma's Produce
• Yesterday's Catch
• Melville Film
• Pentagon Audit
• Elk Day
• Timber Scam
• New Haven
• Dem Monster
• Happy Danes
• Cheeseypuffs
• Hut Dawgs
• Aging
• Huffman Weasels
• Aretha & Angela
• House Craig
• NDA
• Marco Radio

A SMALL WILDLAND FIRE which broke out on Comptche-Ukiah Road near the coast was quickly extinguished by local firefighters a little after 5pm Friday, but not before scaring everyone who had their scanners on. More details will probably emerge later, but from scanner chatter it sounded like they got it while it was still a small patch and before winds could blow it into neighboring property. At 5:30 a coast firefighter reported to Howard Forest that they were mopping up and responding units could be canceled.

THE GIANT RANCH FIRE is now up to 331,000 acres burned, 76% containment.

Calfire, as of Friday night: “Friday there was little growth on the northern portion of the Ranch fire. On the northwest portion of the fire, crews continue to make progress with mop up and construction of containment lines. Firing operations continued as weather conditions and fuel moistures allowed. On the southern portion of the fire, suppression repair efforts continued. Light winds and smoky conditions are expected to continue throughout Saturday which will help to keep fuel moistures up, however, these conditions may limit the ability of aircraft to fly suppression missions until later in the day.”

SATURDAY MORNING'S UPDATE (w/MAP): cdfdata.fire.ca.gov/admin8327985/cdf/images/incidentfile2175_4055.pdf

COMMUNITY MEETING AUGUST 18 2018

Mendocino Complex Fire Community Meeting
Stonyford Grange Hall
101 Market St.
Stonyford, CA (northern Colusa County)

Saturday, August 18th at 10:00 a.m.

For information call, (707)-574-8261

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CALFIRE MANDATORY EVACUATIONS: “Areas west of Lodoga-Stonyford Road including Fouts Springs Road (Forest Road M10), Goat Mountain Road, Cooks Spring Road, Walker Ridge Road and Brim Road.”

VAN DAMME STATE PARK

(Photo by Susie de Castro)

USUALLY, when we see court cases listed under “Closed Session” agenda items for the Board of Supes we don’t have any idea what’s at issue, even though the court filings themselves may be public and may reveal what's up. But to get a look at the filings one has to go through the tedious courthouse drill of going to Ukiah, taking off one’s belt, emptying one’s pockets, saying “thanks” to the security guards for giving you your wallet back, waiting in line at the court clerk’s window only to find out that the file either is downstairs and won’t be available for a few days, then when you go back and go through the same drill you discover that parts of it are “sealed” or the details are missing, etc.

In other words, the public doesn’t have much real chance of knowing who has sued the county for what, or vice-versa. It’s legal under the Brown Act for discussions of negotiations, settlement offers, discovery demands, etc. to be held in closed session, although it also provides a convenient cover for the Supes and their attorney(s) (often very expensive outside counsel) to hand over our money and cover up official malfeasance.

BUT sometimes we get a peek, of sorts.

Like one of the cases on next Tuesday’s agenda. It says, “Pursuant to Government Code Section 54956.9(a) – Conference with Legal Counsel – Existing Litigation - 1 case: Mendocino Redwood Company, LLC v. Mendocino County, Case No. SCUK-CVG-16-67455.”

Given the “16” in the case number and what we know about MRC’s actions in the months leading up to 2016, we can safely assume that this is MRC suing Mendocino County to get back just over $9300, part of a parcel tax imposed on them by the Albion-Little River Fire Protection District under a ballot measure (Measure M in 2014) which was supposed to bolster the volunteer Fire Department’s always-tight budget a bit.

MRC says the Albion-Little River Fire Protection District overcharged them $9,834 for their parcels that MRC insists are not taxable by the Albion-Little River Fire Protection District.

MRC may be technically correct.

But, one: They still expect firefighting services from the Albion-Little River Fire Protection District on mutual aid; two: The billionaire Fisher family could afford $9,834 for fire protection and the friendly relations with their local fire department it would engender; three: at several hundred dollars per hour, the fees Charlie Mannon, the multi-millionaire greed bucket lawyer who owns the Savings Bank of Mendocino, charges will eat well into whatever MRC may get back from the Albion-Little River Fire Protection District, and four: the nice public relations image MRC is trying to promote is undermined by what is clearly petty retaliation against the fire district that promoted the initiative that would declare MRC’s hack-n-squirted poisoned trees to be a fire danger and public nuisance. MRC hired Charlie Mannon’s uber-connected Ukiah law firm to first file an expensive appeal of the Fire Department’s refusal to give back the money with the Board of Supervisors in 2016. Then, after the County denied the appeal in May of 2016 MRC turned around and paid Charlie Mannon et al to sue Mendocino County for the money. Exactly how Mendo is on the hook for the money isn’t clear, but we’re sure Mannon and his staff have their legalities in a row.

MRC is clearly very peeved at the Albion-Little River Fire Department because they had the unmitigated gall to spearhead Measure V back in 2014, which declared the mass poisoning of tan oaks to be a fire hazard and a public nuisance. (The measure passed overwhelmingly but MRC said they’re exempt from “nuisance” declarations because logging is an agricultural enterprise, thus exempt under California’s “right to farm” ordinance. That claim has held up so far and no one’s particularly interested in challenging it.) MRC was so peeved that they even went so far as to post an extremely detailed — and magnificently petty — rebuttal to a ho-hum account of their claim in the Santa Rosa Press Democrat back in November of 2015.

hrcllc.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/PD_NOV_15_20151.pdf

In their rebuttal, MRC makes a valid point about the state’s refusal to properly fund local fire departments, but it has nothing to do with the issue at hand.

AVA contributor Malcolm Macdonald also wrote about the case, explaining that MRC apparently expects to be exempt from future parcel taxes too if they prevail in court.

• Fishers Want It For Free
• Subsidizing MRC

YET HERE WE ARE in 2018 and the case is still being discussed by Mendo officialdom in closed session, meaning that MRC has run up some considerable legal fees trying to avoid taxes that a billion-dollar company could easily afford and, in today’s extreme fire hazard conditions, should actually offer to pay much more because local fire departments are almost always the first responder and have the best chance to put out small fires before they grow — and those local departments also have a better chance of preventing fires in their areas of responsibility — fires that could easily consume large chunks of MRC’s merchantable timber assets.

THE PETTY VINDICTIVENESS displayed by MRC in dragging this case out with expensive attorneys to make a minor point and avoid paying a small amount to the volunteer Fire Department they expect to jump when their timberlands catch fire is downright breathtaking.

(Mark Scaramella)

ALSO ON NEXT TUESDAY’S “Closed session” agenda is: “Pursuant to Government Code Section 54957 – Public Employee Appointment – Public Defender.”

SO THE BOARD and whoever else is on their hiring committee may hire a new Public Defender on Tuesday.

LITTLE DOG SAYS, “So, I suggest oleanders as a garden beautifier and get my head snapped off. ‘You want oleanders, Little Dog, go live on a CalTrans median strip’!"

MENDO COUNTY STAKEHOLDERS WANT TO TAKE OVER THE POTTER VALLEY PROJECT, Which Diverts Water From The Eel; Humco Enviros Say That Spells Trouble

by Ryan Burns

Pacific Gas & Electric has owned and operated the 110-year-old Potter Valley Project since 1930, the heyday of hydroelectric dams in the United States. But now, almost a century later, demand for electricity is down, the project is no longer cost-effective, and PG&E wants out.

In May the utility company announced plans to auction off the Potter Valley Project. The auction process is scheduled to begin Sept. 3. However, PG&E also indicated that it’s open to negotiating with interested parties before the auction, and on July 31 a group of Mendocino County government interests, united as the Mendocino County Inland Water and Power Commission (IWPC), sent PG&E a letter, initiating a discussion about simply transferring the project, rather than holding an auction.

Their interest is not in the project’s electricity-producing power. (The 9.4 megawatt hydroelectric plant produces enough to supply roughly 6,900 homes.) No, at this point in California’s history, electricity is really a secondary commodity, as Congressman Jared Huffman observed earlier this week.

“This [the Potter Valley Project] is a hydroelectric project in name, but in terms of its function it has really become more of a water project,” he told the Outpost.

Indeed, the project uses two dams and a tunnel to divert more than 20 billion gallons of Eel River water each year into the Russian River, supplying precious hydration to cities, vineyards and other agricultural interests in Lake, Mendocino and Sonoma counties.

Janet Pauli, chair of the IWPC, recently underlined the high stakes here, telling the Santa Rosa Press Democrat in no uncertain terms, “The water supply needs to be protected. It’s very serious. There’s no way around it.”

Many North Coast locals, meanwhile, argue that the project’s water diversions — along with the dams’ blockage of historic spawning habitat — have contributed to the precipitous declines of coho salmon and steelhead trout populations in the Eel River basin. Environmental groups, tribes and others have argued that the Potter Valley Project’s dams — particularly the larger Scott Dam — should be decommissioned and torn down.

With ownership of the Potter Valley Project now up for grabs, the long-simmering conflict over water use is heating up. Friends of the Eel River, perhaps the most outspoken critic of the project’s environmental impacts, worries about the prospect of a takeover by the IWPC.

“This is a bid to maintain the status quo,” said Scott Greacen, conservation director at Friends of the Eel. The IWPC, he said, brings together all of the interests that are thirstiest to maintain that status quo.

But Friends of the Eel’s biggest fear, Greacen said, is that the IWPC will pursue a non-power license for the project, abandoning energy production altogether in a gambit to evade oversight from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). The agency’s requirements for hydroelectric dam projects include water quality standards and providing fish passage where feasible. Greacen thinks the IWPC may seek to bypass those rules and monetize the project’s water supply.

Asked if the IWPC would indeed seek a non-power license for the project, Pauli said, “I don’t see that happening at this point in time. … Currently we would anticipate acquiring the license for power production.”

However, at an August 7 meeting of the Mendocino County Board of Supervisors, Pauli admitted to skepticism about the financial viability of that model.

“Obviously we do know that if Pacific Gas & Electric Company can’t make it making power with that project, probably we can’t as well,” she said, addressing the board. Until the IWPC gets a look at PG&E’s books, revealing the project’s profits and liabilities, she said, “we really don’t know exactly how we’ll be able to move forward.”

But the stakes — and the objective — are clear. “We’re at the beginning of a project that will result in us collectively controlling and protecting our regional water supply resource,” Pauli said.

In the midst of all this maneuvering, Congressman Huffman has assembled an ad hoc group of stakeholders, including tribes, environmental groups and water interests, in hopes of finding what he calls a two-basin solution — that is, something that could work for both Eel River interests and Russian River stakeholders. The group is exploring ways to improve fish passage on the Eel while meeting the water supply needs on the Russian.

Regarding the IWPC’s overtures to PG&E Huffman said he’s “not at all surprised” that stakeholders on the Russian River side are pursuing a takeover of the Potter Valley Project. “Whether this goes anywhere remains to be seen,” he hastened to add, noting that the financial challenges would likely be daunting for “such a small agency,” considering the project’s liabilities.

Those liabilities, like PG&E’s financials, remain mostly hidden from public view, spelled out only in documents available to company employees and interested parties who sign a non-disclosure agreement. However, a couple of documents obtained by the Outpost reveal some of the challenges new owners of the Potter Valley Project will face.

A 2017 study from consulting engineering firm Mead & Hunt, for example, found that constructing a functional fish ladder at Scott Dam would likely cost between $55 million and $93 million. The study concluded that, “The most feasible and cost-effective fish ladder design would be challenging to build, complicated to operate, very costly, and would have uncertain effectiveness… .”

There are also seismic concerns. Not only are the two dams, like all infrastructure in California, vulnerable to future earthquakes; they’ve already been impacted. There’s a large landslide, active since the 1970s, along Scott Dam’s southeast abutment.

Perhaps more alarming, in 2016 PG&E workers discovered a “spraying leak” about halfway down the 134-foot face of Scott Dam. In a subsequent letter to FERC, PG&E’s chief dam safety engineer, David Ritzman, said, “The leak does not appear to be a dam safety issue.” Regardless, his letter noted that Scott Dam has a history of leaks and seepage, and the new spraying leak would require extensive inspections and corrective actions.

Asked about the liabilities involved, Pauli didn’t sound overly concerned. “We would have insurance for that sort of thing,” she said, regarding earthquake risk. “Beyond that,” she added, “those dams are inspected yearly by the California Department of [Water Resources Division of] Safety of Dams.”

PG&E spokesman Paul Moreno said any agency pursuing a non-power license would have to go through a licensing process very similar to the ongoing relicensing process. (The current license issued by FERC is set to expire in 2022.) The agency would also need to address the same environmental issues and would not avoid requirements for fish passage, Moreno said.

Huffman said the bureaucratic hurdles to obtaining a non-power license are substantial, and it likely wouldn’t be a viable alternative for Russian River stakeholders like the IWPC because the water rights are ancillary to hydropower production. Plus, he said, any such license transfer would inevitably involve the state water board, which would hold hearings to address fisheries and public trust issues.

”Any way you cut it, no one will be able to buy and convert [the Potter Valley Project] easily into water supply without addressing the fish passage piece,” Huffman said.

While PG&E prepares for a public auction and negotiates privately with interested agencies, Huffman’s ad hoc committee continues to pursue a two-basin solution. From the outside the prospect of compromise — from either side — looks challenging.

Russian River interests say the water diverted from the Eel and stored in Lake Pillsbury is absolutely essential to the lives and livelihoods of residents in Lake, Mendocino and Sonoma Counties.

Greacen, meanwhile, says there can be no two-basin solution unless Scott Dam is removed. The chinook habitat under the reservoir and the summer steelhead habitat behind the dam are essential to the survival of those populations, he said.

Huffman, for his part, remains optimistic. He has developed a set of principles for his ad hoc group that includes fish passage and water supply. “We’re trying to see, are there some sweet spots to do both?”

(Courtesy, LostCoastOutpost.com)

* * *

ED NOTE by Mark Scaramella: Huffman was a well-respected environmental law attorney mainly for the Natural Resources Defense Council before becoming a politician; whatever you want to say about his politics, he knows his environmental law.

* * *

LCO READERS COMMENT

[1] The Eel needs summer flows increased, a fish hatchery, a squawfish eradication program and a better fish ladder. The dam will never be removed. Huffman will sell us out. His position on the Klamath is only different because nobody down south cares about the farmers in the Klamath basin. Why do all the other rivers have hatcheries and other fish oriented programs and the Eel none? Because we don't have enough votes up here. Fish are way more important than wine. The Marin Sonoma Mendocino interests are a cancer for the Eel as well as all the marijuana grows.

* * *

[2] Solar's (PV) growth is nowhere near "exponential." It accounts for 10% of power production in California. This move by PG&E is political. The quagmire coming with regards to Potter Valley water rights is going to be ugly. I've been designing and installing on and off grid solar and hydro systems for 20 years.

* * *

[3] I'm sorry for the Russian River basin, but maybe all the wineries and other Farmers need to start taking a page out of Humboldt's book and buy a shit ton of bladders and tanks so they can store their water in the winter and leave water for the fish in the summer.

* * *

[4] Actually, PG&E is selling because they are no longer in the power generation business, since Electric Deregulation in California was enacted in 1998. Utilities are no longer mandated to develop new power generation plants/sources. That all went open independent market.

PG&E and the other California State Utilities are nothing more than power Transport Agents, moving power around on their owned grid systems. Kind of like UPS and FedEx don't care where you bought your "product" from, they are there to deliver that "product" to you through their "delivery assets."

That is also why PG&E has been spinning off generation assets like Potter Valley and Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant. It's a whole different business model, now with Electric Deregulation in place.

But overall, even privately owned gas fired power generation plants are on the decline in California, and are being replaced by Tesla Battery Storage sites, mostly charged with cheaper out of state generated power.

* * *

[5] If PG&E doesn't want the dams for electric production, they should be required to remove the dams and pay for reclamation of the sites. I believe this is really PG&E's motive for wanting to get out from under the project. They see huge costs down the road, and want to avoid them. This may be the only opportunity we have to restore the site. We need to stop the water diversions and restore the Eel.

LOST COAST OUTPOST EDITOR Hank Sims posted an interesting piece about some candidates for the Eureka City Council on Tuesday.

lostcoastoutpost.com/2018/aug/14/short-termers-three-out-four-candidates-eurekas-wa/

The particulars of the Eureka situation aren’t relevant to Mendo, but the idea that three of the four candidates for Eureka’s “Ward One” district registered to vote in that “ward” in the last six months would seem to have serious implications for Fort Bragg’s pending (or not?) districting process now being opposed by the current Fort Bragg City Council.

SIMS WRITES (for example): “[Candidate] Hailey Lamb re-registered to vote in the First Ward on July 27, but told the Outpost that she moved to her current address after a break-up a couple of months ago. She said that she had originally planned to run for Council from a different ward, where she and her partner were living, though she wasn’t sure what ward that was. Previously she had been registered to vote at the home she grew up in, which is in the Fourth Ward.”

IMAGINE, if you will, similar questions arising in Fort Bragg which is much smaller than Eureka. Say that a relatively unpopular candidate really wants to get on the Fort Bragg Council, but they know they can’t win in the district they live in. So they rent an apartment or a room in another “district” (perhaps even across the street) with weaker opponents and then get elected and then a few months later move back to their original address.

THIS COULD GET VERY TRICKY if tiny Fort Bragg breaks itself up into “districts.”

AND THAT doesn’t even get into the problems of keeping track of which voters are in which district — a problem that could easily arise in close district elections with relatively low numbers of voters. (In 2014 the vote counts for the five candidates running for three seats ranged from 874 to 1036 a total gap of just 162 votes from the lowest to the highest vote getters.) If Fort Bragg was split into five districts there would probably be about 1450 people in each district, of which perhaps up to 1,000 would be registered voters, of which perhaps 500 or so would actually vote in any given election, which means the margin could easily be less than 100 votes depending on how many people ran in each district.

(Mark Scaramella)

VELMA'S FARM STAND AT FILIGREEN FARM

Certified Organic - Certified Biodynamic

11750 Anderson Valley Way, Boonville, CA 95415

Open Friday-Monday from 10am till 4pm

Maiden's Blush Apples, Red Gravenstein Apples, Asian Pears, Blueberries, Cherry Tomatoes, Early Girl Tomatoes, Heirloom Tomatoes, Kohlrabi, Lemon Cucumbers, Melons, Watermelons, Green Beans, Celery, Olive Oil, Hot Peppers…

CATCH OF THE DAY, August 17, 2018

MYQ ATTANASIO, Fort Bragg. Contempt of court, probation revocation.

CRYSTAL CHARLES, Laytonville. Misdemeanor hit&run, suspended license, probation revocation.

GREGORY CRUMPLER, Ukiah. Domestic battery, criminal threats.

MICHAEL DONAHE SR., Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol. (Frequent flyer.)

JOSEPH HILLE-JAMES, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

JERMEY KELSAY, Cloverdale/Ukiah. Failure to appear.

ALBERTO MORA, Santa Rosa/Covelo. Pot cultivation over 6 plants, unlawful water diversion, water pollution, conspiracy.

RAYMOND RHODES, Fort Bragg. DUI-alcohol&drugs.

KENNETH RICHARDS, Fort Bragg. Parole violation.

LEONEL TOMAS-BLAS, Stockton/Covelo. Pot cultivation, unlawful water diversion, water pollution, conspiracy.

IT’S BEEN ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE TO SLEEP here with the temperature in the mid 80s at 10 pm and the air clotted with smoke. So last night I stayed up late watching “Army of Shadows.” What a great film and meticulously restored. Made in 1969, it depicts what a real resistance looks like: long periods of tedium and creeping paranoia, punctuated by stunning moments of terror and betrayal. Jean-Pierre Melville never had much money, none of the French directors of the time did, but his films are always immaculate visually. As the title suggests, much of the action takes place at night or the shadows, but here’s a richness to the color cinematography that you don’t find in many films of that period. A wonderfully decayed Simone Signoret, who chain-smokes Gauloises while penetrating Nazi-occupied Lyon, is fabulous. Maybe her best role. Obviously, they don’t make films like this anymore. But they didn’t make films like this before Army of Shadows either.

Still from “Army of Shadows.”

Only last week, I had read Le Silence de la Mer written by Jean Bruller under the pseudonym “Vercors”. The novella was the first book published Editions Minuit, the great press of the French underground, which is still publishing today. Melville’s film of it, his first feature I think, was made on almost nothing, using scraps of film, as Rosellini did in “Rome: Open City.” But it’s a stunning visual achievement, intensely claustrophobic and charged with a heroic fatalism. Melville wasn’t “new wave”. He was his own wave. Melville sits high in my pantheon of film-makers. — Jeffrey St. Clair

THE PENTAGON CAN’T ACCOUNT FOR $21 TRILLION

(That’s not a typo.)

"At the end of the day, there are no justifiable explanations for this amount of unaccounted-for, unconstitutional spending. Right now, the Pentagon is being audited for the first time ever, and it’s taking 2,400 auditors to do it. I’m not holding my breath that they’ll actually be allowed to get to the bottom of this.

But if the American people truly understood this number, it would change both the country and the world. It means that the dollar is sprinting down a path toward worthless. If the Pentagon is hiding spending that dwarfs the amount of tax dollars coming in to the federal government, then it’s clear the government is printing however much it wants and thinking there are no consequences. Once these trillions are considered, our fiat currency has even less meaning than it already does, and it’s only a matter of time before inflation runs wild."

truthdig.com/articles/the-pentagon-cant-account-for-21-trillion/

GREAT DAY IN ELK

The 44th fun-filled “Great Day in Elk” will be held on Saturday, August 25, from noon until 7 p.m. The parade starts at noon on Highway 1, with floats, tykes on bikes, Smokey the Bear and lots more. The carnival follows, with game booths and prizes and do-it-yourself craft projects for children. There's a $100 grease pole, a watermelon-eating contest, sack races, crafts fair, silent auction and a raffle. Daytime food includes tamales, Caesar salad with and without chicken, fresh baked focaccia bread, Moroccan lentil soup, old-fashioned hot dogs and lots of homemade goodies. There will be fresh-pressed Greenwood Ridge apple cider and Elk's famous margaritas, along with soft drinks and beer. Afternoon entertainment features live music with Gwyneth Moreland, Tommy Brown and The Bald Egos, belly dancing by “The Trillium Tribe” and the fabulous cake auction. This year's dinner will be an outdoor barbecue from 3:00 to 7:00 p.m. featuring grilled tri-tip with roasted potatoes, green salad and bread or chile-cheese enchiladas with corn tortillas, black beans and salsa. So, come to the “Great Day” in the coastal village of Elk, located 5 miles south of Highway 128 on Highway 1, and enjoy a fun-filled family day while supporting the Greenwood Community Center. For more information call 877-3291 or go to www.elkweb.org. No dogs, please.

NO TREES, NO FIRES

Editor:

The White House and the Interior Department are using fires in California as a pretext to give the timber industry the green light to loot our public lands. They claim the fires are the result of too many trees. Their solution is to “thin” our forests, by which they mean to clear-cut them. By this logic, turning forests into deserts is the ideal way to prevent fires.

Their plan is to pay timber companies to take our valuable resources; talk about adding insult to injury.

The reality is that none of the fires that have been so devastating started in a forest. They have started in brush lands, where there is indeed too much dry fuel. Some thinning or prescribed burning of dense understory can help reduce the risk of fire, but any such work must preserve the integrity of the forests.

The most important factor in this is to leave the oldest and largest trees. They function as shelter and seedstock for younger trees. They are most valuable to a healthy forest ecosystem and absorb the most carbon dioxide. Unfortunately, they’re also the most valuable to timber companies.

With climate change demonstrably increasing the severity and frequency of wildfires, it would be folly to reduce forests’ ability to sequester atmospheric carbon dioxide.

Larry Robinson

Sebastopol

ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

I’m sorry to have to report, in New Haven, 26 more ODs on the Green last nite which sums up to about 100 total. Added to the week’s summer festivities are 2 community members killed near the Green engaging police in a high speed chase in a stolen car, shutting down one of the main routes into the city. The guy from 2 nights ago found face down on the pavement ventilated with 11 bullets is already out of the news, but may re emerge again this afternoon when our distinguished Senator Blumenthal shows up to talk about the ‘Drug Crises’ (caused by not enough funding from DC) and ‘Gun Violence’ (caused by the NRA).

I’m not really smart enough to figure it out, but there has to be a link between the identity politics promoted by Democrats and the social chaos and disintegration occurring right now in the city of New Haven, CT. You have to wonder how long the country can last under these conditions. And think if you were the parents of an 18 year old daughter, top of her class at Happy Valley HS, and you just ponied up $75,000 to send her to Yale in this New Haven hell hole. Classes begin in about 10 days.

THE THREE HEADED MONSTER

by James Kunstler

The faction that used to be the Democratic party can be described with some precision these days as a three-headed monster driving the nation toward danger, darkness, and incoherence. Anyone interested in defending what remains of the sane center of American politics take heed:

The first head is the one infected with the toxic shock of losing the 2016 election. The illness took hold during the campaign that year when the bureaucracy under President Obama sent its lymphocytes and microphages in the “intel community” — especially the leadership of the FBI — to attack the perceived disease that the election of Donald Trump represented. The “doctors” of this Deep State diagnosed the condition as “Russian collusion.” An overdue second opinion by doctors outside the Deep State adduced later that the malady was actually an auto-immune disease.

The agents actually threatening the health of the state came from the intel community itself: Mr. Brennan, Mr. Clapper, Mr. Comey, Mr. Strzok, Mr. McCabe, Mr. Ohr, Ms. Yates. Ms. Page, et. al. who colluded with pathogens in the DNC, the Hillary campaign, and the British intel service to chew up and spit out Mr. Trump as expeditiously as possible. With the disease now revealed by hard evidence, the chief surgeon called into the case, Robert Mueller, is left looking ridiculous — and perhaps subject to malpractice charges — for trying to remove an appendix-like organ called the Manafort from the body politic instead of attending to the cancerous mess all around him. Meanwhile, the Deep State can’t stop running its mouth — The New York Times, CNN, WashPo, et al — in an evermore hysterical reaction to the truth of the matter: the Deep State itself colluded with Russia (and perhaps hates itself for it, a sure recipe for mental illness).

The second head of this monster is a matrix of sinister interests seeking to incite conflict with Russia in order to support arms manufacturers, black box “security” companies, congressmen-on-the-take, and an army of obscenely-rewarded Washington lobbyists in concert with the military and a rabid neocon intellectual think-tank camp wishing to replay the cold war and perhaps even turn up the temperature with some nuclear fire. They are apparently in deep confab with the first head and its Russia collusion storyline. Note all the current talk about Russia already meddling in the 2018 midterm election, a full-fledged pathogenic hallucination.

This second head functions by way of a displacement-projection dynamic. We hold war games on the Russian border and accuse them of “aggression.” We engineer and pay for a coup against the elected government of Ukraine, and accuse Russia of aggression. We bust up one nation after another in Middle East and complain indignantly when Russia acts to keep Syria from becoming the latest failed state. We disrupt the Russian economy with sanctions, and the Russian banking system with a cut-off of SWIFT international currency clearing privileges, and accuse them of aggression. This mode of behavior used to be known as “poking the bear,” a foolish and hazardous endeavor. The sane center never would have stood for this arrant recklessness. The world community is not fooled, though. More and more, they recognize the USA as a national borderline personality, capable of any monstrous act.

The third head of this monster is the one aflame with identity politics. It arises from a crypto-gnostic wish to change human nature to escape the woes and sorrows of the human condition — for example, the terrible tensions of sexuality. Hence, the multiplication of new sexual categories as a work-around for the fundamental terrors of human reproduction as represented by the differences between men and women. Those differences must be abolished, and replaced with chimeras that enable a childish game of pretend, men pretending to be women and vice-versa in one way or another: LBGTQetc. Anything BUT the dreaded “cis-hetero” purgatory of men and women acting like men and women. The horror….

Its companion is the race hustle and its multicultural operating system. The objective has become transparent over the past year, with rising calls to punish white people for the supposed “privilege” of being Caucasian and pay “reparations” in one way or another to underprivileged “people of color.” This comes partly from the infantile refusal to understand that life is difficult for everybody, and that the woes and sorrows of being in this world require fortitude and intelligence to get through — with the final reward being absolutely the same for everybody.

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

(Attention George Hollister)

SOMETHING NOT ROTTEN IN DENMARK

Danes tend to be happier than Americans and find life more satisfying.

by Paul Krugman

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/16/opinion/denmark-socialism-fox.html

CHICKEN, STEAK & HUT DAWGS

by Jeff Costello

This is the story of Shirley and Spike, as much as I know and can recall. A very odd couple from Portsmouth, New Hampshire. It was 1967 or so and my band was playing at at the Blue Moon, a Mafia-run club in Lowell, Mass. We had long hair but were far from being hippies. In my view, the Beatles had come along and blown the whole haircut thing out of the water. Musicians were first to let their hair grow out. They wouldn't get fired. But the hair thing caught on. To this day I see men with the weirdest hairstyles I could never have imagined and still think, "The Beatles did this."

One night at the club, a Shelby Cobra pulled up outside, and our drummer, a hot-rod-hot-car fanatic who couldn't afford the price of any motor vehicle, about went nuts at the sight of the thing. The guy with the Cobra had come to hear our band and lived in Portsmouth NH, not too far up the road. Well the guy was rich and a musician too, had a band that practiced in a separate building on his property. His name was Spike. Spike had a wife - named Shirley - who never went on Spike's outings except to eat in restaurants. She had some surplus pounds on her but nothing to resemble today's obese Americans. I don't think she cared much for the sports car. Spike liked to hang out with "the guys" whoever that may have been. He kept a keg of beer in the kitchen to keep "the guys" supplied with libations. Spike was easily likable, an affable fellow you could say. I don't think Shirley cared much for Spike's lifestyle but after all he was the one with the money. She seemed to have no female friends and was resigned to life with Spike as it was. If she complained, it was never when the guys were around. She spoke in a New England accent that placed her upbringing exactly where she was, about two-thirds of the way between Boston and Kittery Maine. "Kit-tree."

Spike, presumably having traveled some, had no discernible accent or dialect. Accents are an odd thing. Having grown up in central Connecticut, halfway between New York and Boston, the two familiar accents cancelled each other out. In those days I could tell a person from Lowell MA from a resident of Lawrence, not far away. Bob Kasabian, husband of Manson girl Linda Kasabian, was from Lawrence MA. We hired him off the beach at Salisbury, as a "roadie." Bob had a distinct dialect to go with his very odd use of English. The patrician tones of JFK and RFK are not something you'd generally hear in eastern MA.

Spike enjoyed spending money as long as you didn't ask for some (a generally unwritten rule with most rich people). One night he took us all out to eat. Us and Shirley. Conversation with Shirley wasn't much.

But in a seemingly almost angry tone she informed me, "I only like three kinds of meat - chicken, steak and hut dawgs." "Dawgs" is not an entirely accurate way of quoting her pronunciation, between dawgs and dahgs, but it will have to do. Food talk was her principle means of asserting herself.

When I got to California, no one had an accent except Europeans and Brits. The other (my fellow) Americans had all left their hometowns, where most everyone had local accents.

HUFFMAN WEASELS

from James Harris TootsAction

You made a BIG difference. After months of calls, letters, multiple meetings with Huffman’s staff, questions at townhalls, and this petition, Rep. Huffman is finally on record as denouncing Israel's immoral policy of detaining Palestinian children. Unfortunately, he chose not to co-sponsor HR 4391. Rather he chose instead to sign on to a "Dear Colleague" letter initiated by Representatives Jan Schakowsky, David Price, Steve Cohen, and John Yarmuth. That letter includes this statement:

“There are also numerous instances of Palestinian youth suffering from mistreatment in the West Bank, with estimates of 500 to 700 Palestinian children between the ages of 12 and 17 are being held in Israeli military detention facilities each year. These children are often held indefinitely without charge or trial, denied access to a lawyer or parent, or prosecuted in a military court system that lacks certain due process safeguards compared to civilian courts.”

The press release for the letter can be found here, that also includes a link to the full document.

While we are disappointed that Rep. Huffman has chosen not to co-sponsor HR 4391 at this time, we do think this is a significant step forward, and a victory we can build upon. We understand that this letter, that paradoxically joins condemnation of grave human rights abuses with gushing praise for the Israeli regime leaves much to be desired. We believe co-sponsoring HR 4391 would be a stronger step to ending the abuse of Palestinian children. However, we are hopeful that by taking this tentative step to identifying the abuse may lead to stronger action in the future. If we keep up the pressure, as we fully intend to do.

We are closing this petition, but that does not mean our work has ended. We will deliver this petion to Congressman Huffman's office as a reminder of the grassroots support for a decent foreign policy. We expect that next year a similar bill will be introduced in the new House session. It will likely get significantly more support and we hope that Rep. Huffman chooses then to support it.

For a just and human future,

James Harris

WHEN ARETHA OFFERED TO COVER ANGELA DAVIS’S BOND…

huffingtonpost.com/entry/aretha-franklin-offered-to-post-angela-davis-bail-in-1970_us_5b76c12de4b0a5b1feba759c

SURFER DUDE CHECKS IN

The present fleeting moment…

Everything is OK here in Honolulu...paid for my room through September 5th...went out last night and enjoyed a couple of beers at the Maui Brewing Co. celebrating the incredible gift that Aretha Franklin will always be. I understand that everybody with whom I identify in Washington, D.C. is continuing to live on the edge, ready to respond to the alt.right menace (and that the liberals are not particularly in solidarity with us, but would like us to support their protestations). Feel free to communicate to the liberals that I will be happy to accept their solidarity, and let's start with housing for me; unless of course, they could not care less about destroying the demonic, and only really are committed to enhancing their egos and continuing to put on a protest carnival.  Meanwhile, I've got three weeks unscheduled coming up, so I guess I will just head for the beach and chant mantrams and eat fresh locally sourced food and enjoy the Plumeria alternative hostel Saturday night BBQ.  Stay in touch everybody. Thank you.

Craig Louis Stehr

Honolulu, Hawaii

MEMO OF THE AIR

Tonight, Friday, August 17, 9pm to 5am, there's Memo of the Air, live from the KNYO performance space at 325 N. Franklin, next door to the Tip Top bar. Your chance to shine. Arrive on foot or by buggy, entre vous, head for the pleasantly lit room at the back, and show-and-tell and/or perform your [ahem] act, or talk about your project, or read your own work, or whatever. If you show up and somebody's already there, just sail in like the queen of England and assert yourself, or sit on the ergonomic new-age couch and meditate for a little while on the naked talent involved in Bob's daughter's high-quality self-paintings currently all over the walls, and then sail in.

But if you can't make it in person, the deadline to email your writing to be read on the air tonight is around 6pm. Also the number in the Fort Bragg studio is 707 962-3022, so you can read your own work with your own voice right there on the phone. If there will be swears, please wait until 10pm to start that, otherwise it agitates the weasels, as you well know.

I've got a great steaming heap of information useful and otherwise to impart tonight, from all over the world, as well as plenty of leftover stirring fire-theme, tango-theme and subversive Mister Rogers/Bizarro Disney/Klezmer-theme music to play for breaks.

Memo of the Air: Good Night Radio: Every Friday, 9pm to 5am on 107.7fm KNYO-LP Fort Bragg, and 105.1fm KMEC-LP Ukiah. Also there and anywhere else via http://knyo.org

As always, looking forward to your company this evening with great anticipation.

Marco McClean
https://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com