Mendocino County Today: Saturday, Sep. 1, 2018

• Trucker Fatality
• CEO Response
• Ranch Fire
• Rail Trail
• Butterfly
• Ed Notes
• Little Dog
• Navarro Quake
• Call Ruth
• Garnish Released
• Canadians Found
• Big Bust
• PA Housing
• Yesterday's Catch
• Losing Strategies
• Bad Faith
• Hapless Bunch
• Bacon Exhibitions
• Planning Agenda
• Forgetful Left
• Marco Radio
• The Congo
• Getting Harder
• Peace Talk

TRAGEDY ON HIGHWAY 128

Logging Truck Over The Side On Hwy 128

Driver Jumped From Vehicle and Was In Road

CHP Said @ 9:24am Crash Fatal '11-44' (Deceased)

The scanner said (8:38 am) a westbound logging truck went over the embankment near mile marker 49.23 in Yorkville. The driver reportedly jumped from the vehicle before it went off the roadway – 75 feet down.

The Anderson Valley Fire Department & ambulance, as well as the CalStar 4 air ambulance and Cloverdale Fire, have been dispatched.

At 8:52 am, CalStar 4 said they'd lift off in 10 minutes.

It's being called the "York Incident."

A first responder said @ 8:56 am, "Single patient in the roadway, looks like major injuries, haven't made it over to the truck."

Another first responder said, @ 9:01 am, "We have a major injury patient with significant trauma in the middle of the roadway." He asked for an estimated time of arrival for the helicopter.

Dispatch said (9:04 am) the helicopter had a nine-minute estimated time of arrival to the scene.

At 9:09 am, the patient was being transported to a landing zone established at Hwy 128 & Mountain House Road. The air ambulance said they'd be on the scene in one minute. The copter said that, as it stands, to take the patient to Santa Rosa Memorial would take longer than a ground transport or they could go to Ukiah Valley Medical Center. CalStar 4 said they could drop their medical team to go with the ground ambulance to Memorial Hospital if necessary...

The copter said it was hovering over the landing zone but no one was there. Then, at 9:12 am, they reported seeing the ground ambulance.

A first responder said @ 9:14 am, "The copter said they couldn't get into Santa Rosa (Memorial) so they'll drop their crew for a ground transport to Memorial (Hospital in Santa Rosa)."

The copter was on the ground @ 9:15 am.

The air ambulance said @ 9:21 am, "Patient is on board and we are transporting to the UVMC (Ukiah Valley Medical Center)."

The copter pilot said @ 9:22 am," "We need to leave the scene, they're working on a Code now..."

At 9:24 am, CHP said this is now an "11-44" (deceased).

The CalStar 4 pilot, however, informed dispatch @ 9:25 am, "We are working a trauma code and we'll await the results."

The incident was taken down from the CHP Traffic incident page.

A second report from dispatch by CHP (over the scanner @ 9:29 am) that this is a confirmed 11-44 - and sheriff office dispatched.

At 9:36 am, the CalStar 4 pilot said they "lifted from the scene and are clear and available."

Dispatch said CalTrans was dispatched to the accident scene but have an extended estimated time of arrival. Traffic control will be needed at the scene for an extended period of time for the vehicle & log removal.

At 10:01 am, Dispatch said the County Environmental Health Department, as well as CA Fish & Wildlife, have been dispatched to the scene because the truck is in a creek and there was a diesel spill. No number of gallons spilled was given, but an older logging truck will carry 75 gallons (per tank) of diesel - the newer trucks 100-plus gallons.

(MendocinoSportsPlus)

COAST HOSPITAL RESPONDS to yesterday’s letter from a traveling nurse complaining about conditions in the recovery/surgery area at Coast Hospital.

Dear Community,

On May 30, 2018, Mendocino Coast District Hospital (MCDH) received a letter of resignation from a traveling surgery nurse, which was recently published anonymously in the press, and which makes a number of unfortunate allegations about the Hospital’s surgery department. MCDH is committed to providing high-quality, patient centered health care in a safe, caring and professional environment, and we take allegations like these very seriously. Contrary to the allegations in the letter, I want to assure you that MCDH provides safe care, and I am very proud of our strong track record of patient safety, and our employees and doctors who work hard every day to serve this community.

Our surgery department is subject to rigorous standards and inspections, and none of the entities which regulate and inspect our hospital have ever identified evidence to support these types of allegations. The fact is that MCDH has had a 0% infection rate in our surgery department over the last five years, as confirmed by our Infection Control Committee and patient care results.

We are inspected and accredited by The Joint Commission, the organization that accredits more than 20,000 US healthcare organizations and programs, and they have found no deficiencies that resemble any of the allegations in this letter. The California Department of Public Health regularly inspects our facility and examines our processes with amazing attention to detail, and they too have not found evidence of any of these claims. In addition, the Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development (OSHPD) visits and inspects our surgery department, and are actively monitoring the HVAC construction project in our surgical area. They too have not reported or raised concerns about any of the topics from this letter.

Nonetheless, once we received this letter, we immediately investigated the allegations. We did confirm that there were valid concerns raised regarding the proper use of scrubs, and we promptly implemented a plan of action to address those concerns.

MCDH policy, as well as Federal and State regulations, requires all staff to report any safety concerns immediately. It is concerning that this traveling nurse waited so long before reporting many of these allegations. Regulations require that any safety concerns need to be reported immediately at the risk of losing the ability to maintain a registered nursing license. An anonymous letter in a local paper does not follow proper Association of Operating Room Nurses (AORN) standards.

The concerns brought forward in the letter have become a part of both our Medical Staff Peer Review process and Medical Staff Performance Improvement process. Lynn Finley, Chief Nursing Officer at MCDH commented, “I have had several investigative meetings with the Surgery Department and our Providers to get a clear picture of what actually happened. I can tell you the few allegations that have truth have all been addressed, and processes are and have been in place to prevent things like this from ever occurring.”

Sincerely,

Bob Edwards, CEO

Mendocino Coast District Hospital

RANCH FIRE STATUS (US Forest Service), August 31, 2018

No change in acreage (410,000) or containment (93%) numbers.

Labor Day Weekend: Forest Order No. 08-18-14, covering the southern part of the Mendocino National Forest remains in effect. All roads and areas described within the order remain closed to the general public. Homeowners with proof of residency are permitted to access their property within the closure area.

The northern half of the Mendocino National Forest remains open and can be accessed via Forest Highway 7. The forest areas around Plaskett Meadows and Hammerhorn Lake are open for recreation activities. The Yolla Bolly-Middle Eel Wilderness is also open for recreation.

The Mendocino Complex: Two areas of the Ranch Fire remain the highest priority for suppression operations. On Friday firefighters monitored burning vegetation inside the perimeter of the fire and extinguished hot spots along firelines near Little Round Mountain in the north and around Fouts Springs west of Stonyford. The critical work of suppression repair to firelines constructed over the past month continues in all parts of the Ranch Fire.

RESPONDING TO YESTERDAY’S ITEM about the “Great Redwood Trail,” Bruce McEwen writes:

I have hiked some of it, from Willits to Ukiah, and there’s places where it’s washed out, sagging rails over gullies with a few weathered old ties hanging and swinging, and one spot where four 20-foot rails are down in a big washout, and you have to detour around it, but surprisingly, locals with quads and dirt bikes have built and maintained their own little side routes in these places, and a good trail exists alongside, or right down the middle by and large, and they have even cleared some brush uphill, where necessary, to make it navigable in steep areas. It doesn’t take a specialist from the US Forest Service trail corps to see the obvious. The big prob is the same one encountered in Anderson Valley a few years back when they wanted to make a hike-bike trail to the coast: the rich dogs who own the land won’t have it, and that’s that. And just you try to get eminent domain against the well to do! Now, North of Willits, that’s another story. Sure, you’ll find hobo camps along the tracks, but mostly the alder and french broom and manzanita and buckbrush, and suchlike has come up between the rails, between the ties, and grown in as thick as the hair on a dog’s back, and you will not get through. Every mile or two — if that — you have to go down to the highway and skirt around a long section totally congested. Places where it has slumped off into the Eel River are actually easier to get by than deep woods sections, which as noted are impassible by anything bigger than a coyote.

And all of this talk about law enforcement and emergency services access is just so much of the way things are going, that any form of transport other than cars and planes will be too impractical to consider, and we’re right back to the two major causes of global warming, cars and jets, and you will, absolutely will, drive or fly, sir, or you won’t go at all, so get used to it!

COMMON BUCKEYE BUTTERFLY

ED NOTES

THE BIG FIRES are just about extinguished but still no formal announcement of their causes. We are reliably informed that the reason for the largest, the Ranch Fire, is known and not arson. But the River Fire remains under investigation. If you came in real late, the Ranch Fire started on the Guntley ranch property off Highway 20 near the Potter Valley turnoff. The River Fire that began just off Highway 175 and burned east over the mountain darn near into Lakeport is still a mystery as to what ignited it.

* * *

WHAT PEOPLE DON'T KNOW: In-N-Out donates $25,000 to Abe Lincoln's political party and Twitter World goes crazy with boycott promises. But how could any consumer of those supposedly fresh French fries miss all those Biblical uplift quotes on the victual's packaging? I've eaten once at the Ukiah venue just to see what all the hoopla was about, and one more time at the In-N-Out at Fisherman's Wharf in the big city because a couple of junior consumers demanded it. Darned if I can figure out exactly how these negative food value viands are any different than your basic Big Mac. Besides which, and this might be news to liberals, these franchise food places are not owned by Obama Democrats except for Ray Kroc, or at least his wife, who underwrites a lot of NPR programming along with the Koch Brothers. O the Mendo ironies! The Kochs not only bring us NPR, but own 400 acres of ocean front Fort Bragg. Libs to your battle stations!

* * *

THE ANNUAL BOONVILLE FAIR is gearing up for this year's three-day event the weekend of September 14-16.

http://mendocountyfair.com

The pennants are up over our busy downtown, the Fairgrounds crew has the zinnias in most of their traditional beds, although the feng shui for the traditional zinnia whole is seriously thrown off by the weedy, dead bed at the south end of the Fairgrounds uniquely accommodating parking lot — more handicapped slots per fair-going population — nineteen—than any fairgrounds in the United States!

Myself, I'm plotting my floral arrangement entry and, frankly, I'm experiencing some low-level anxiety in coordinating my dahlia blooms and my most vividly red geraniums for optimum freshness, the whole of it titled, Geranium Jubilee, the idea being the geraniums exploding into..... Well, you'll be underwhelmed.

* * *

WE'RE NOT IN BOONVILLE anymore, Toto. Hovering above Anderson Creek at the Boonville end of the Boonville-Ukiah Road, five large, water-holding tanks, a large industrial-looking installation under construction, coupla dudes camped down by the creek. I'm guessing the new agriculture but, brazen as it is, gotta be legal.

* * *

REMEMBER PABLO ON THE GRILL at the Navarro Store? Well, Pablo himself is presently being grilled. The personable grill chef and Pablo Jr. are looking at charges for beating up Junior's Ukiah roommate: When It Came To Blows.

* * *

KRON'S TV NEWS didn't have much going for it up against the competing Chuckle Buddies at KPIX and KGO, but it did have Stanley Roberts' useful and always amusing, People Behaving Badly. Whatever happened between Roberts and management, it was doubly chickenshit of KRON's management to claim ownership of Roberts' YouTube oeuvre and remove it. If you've never seen one, what Roberts did was travel around the city filming people in the act of behaving badly, everything from running red lights to failing to clean up after their dogs. As he said, "There's never any shortage...."

* * *

THE COUNTY of Mendo doesn't permit messages to County workers that include f-bombs and other obscenities, of which the County probably gets its share and without which increasing numbers of Americans are unable to communicate. I discovered the chastening block when I attempted to send a County pal a copy of a prolonged denunciation of me by a notoriously foul-mouthed fog belt belle, a kind of classic of its genre from this particular shrew, but merely the latest of many over the years. The email bounced right back.

LITTLE DOG SAYS, “I was out by the road trying to wave down those little white city fluffo babe-dogs passing through here for Labor Day when Skrag strolls up and says, ‘I've seen some uncool mutts in my time but you take the grand prize, Little Dog. Yelling stuff like, “Hey baby, how about a smooch? I'm not so bad, huh?” will get you locked up, not get you a new relationship.’ For once, Skrag might be right.”

THE EARTH MOVED

Local earthquake, just south of Navarro, Friday morning: scedc.caltech.edu/recent/Quakes/nc73078485.html

ANTON! PLEASE CALL RUTH WEISS

(Phone message from Ruth Weiss) Referring to the 8/15 mention of a poet named Blue, Coast poet ruth Weiss would like to speak to the Anton who did not provide contact information. Please call ruth at 937-5619.

Here the 8/15 item ms. weiss was talking about:

COULDN'T HELP but be intrigued by the following post on the MCN Chat Line. I'm pretty sure I know Blue's back story, and if I have it right, and I think I do, it's an Only-In-Mendo classic that begins with this post on MCN: "Anton Tewilt is visiting the area…. He is looking for a Northbeach beat poet woman goes by Blue who is rumored to have moved to the coast about 10 years ago. She is about 72, she shot and killed her boyfriend many years ago in the Bay Area, she supposedly recited poetry at the Headlands Coffee Shop some years back. Wild and notorious, she is nonetheless hard to find. She is a friend of the family and Anton has been tasked with finding out anything he can about where she is now, even if it leads to a gravesite. If found alive there is an invitation to visit and possibly help traveling if necessary; Judy really wants to find her. Yes he is looking up ruth weiss even as I write this."

THE LATE MAX CRAWFORD, a well-known novelist and author of the 60's cult classic, "The Bad Communist," was an acquaintance of a woman named Marlene. Marlene was divorced from a Stanford professor. Max knew her through his connections to deluded people who'd convinced themselves they were revolutionaries, murdering a few strayed "comrades" and placing pipe bombs in the bathrooms of enemies of the people. Marlene was a member of one of these groups who fit right in with the rest of the nuts. One day in Palo Alto she shot and killed a young mother who was her upstairs neighbor. Marlene said she thought the young woman was an FBI agent. Marlene was then confined as criminally insane at Napa State Hospital. While there she led a much publicized revolt against the drugging the inmates and in favor of healthy food rather than the carb-loaded institutional fare inmates were fed. While at Napa, Marlene met Leonard Cirino, subsequently a poet based in Albion and a member of Mendocino County's Mental Health Board. Leonard was at Napa for beheading his daughter with a machete, hence his bona fides for advising Mendo on mental health policy. Upon Marlene's release, circa 1990 she, also a poet, moved to Fort Bragg where she legally changed her name, perhaps to 'Blue.' Crawford was startled one day to spot her in Mendocino and told me and another close friend of her back story.

THAT CLOSE FRIEND RECALLS, "The thing is, Max’s Marlene would have been closer to his age. She would be in her mid to late seventies by now… if she’s still alive. I met her several times; once accompanied by some Black Panthers somewhere in SF with Max. I think one of the guys was her boyfriend. I first heard of her via Max’s wife Sue in Palo Alto. One day Marlene went nuts in a Cafe and would not leave. The police were about to extract her when Max showed up. He didn’t have his pork pie hat on. It made her even more crazy, but when he put his hat on she immediately became normal and left with Max and Sue. She was also a cab driver in SF. One night she ran out of gas on 101 driving a fare to Palo Alto. Or so she said. She abandoned her cab on 101 and climbed over a wall in Menlo Park, which unbeknownst to her had an alarm system — advanced in those days. She showed up at Max’s house on Addison street claiming that the cops were after her. I was there. Maybe, I thought at the time. Maybe not. A person who would know more about this woman is Andrew Moss, an old English Rad and friend of Max’s. I think he still lives in SF. Fred Gardner is friends with Moss. He also may have known Marlene. The thing is, Bruce, Cirino’s arrival in happy land may predate that of Marlene’s. Then again, I’m old and imagination and memory are mixed as one."

WAS ‘MARLENE” JANICE BLUE? “Janice Faye Duff, also known as the poet Janice Blue, of Fort Bragg, California died November 7, 2017 at home. Born January 1, 1942 in Blandville, Kentucky to Henrietta and Leslie Adams, she was 75 years old.

GARNISH BACK IN THE SALAD

Garnish has been released from SR Memorial Hospital to a skilled nursing facility (SNF) in Sonoma County, as he expected. He no longer needs dialysis. After a time at the SNF he will be released to home care, which may or may not be at his home in Mendocino. I'll update further after checking in with him. You can still email him, and he follows this listserv. (Nick Wilson, MCN-listserve)

SAFE! That Canadian woman and her 10-year-old daughter have been found safe at their Orleans (Humboldt County) campground. Audrey and Emily Rodrigue kicked off a two-country panic when Ms. Rodrigue failed to respond to text messages from her boyfriend.

BIGGEST BUST EVER FOR HUMCO

On August 30, 2018, at approximately 7:00 p.m., Special Agents with the Humboldt County Drug Task Force (HCDTF) served multiple search warrants at various locations in Arcata and Eureka.

After a multi-week investigation, special agents were able to identify Arcata resident and business owner Ariel Arguelles-Sosa (age 40) as a suspected narcotics dealer within Humboldt County communities.

At approximately 6:45 p.m., agents spotted Arguelles-Sosa inside a parked vehicle near the intersection of Russ and I Street, Eureka. Agents detained Arguelles-Sosa, along with his associate, Abdiel Parras-Sosa (age 20), and served a search warrant on the vehicle.

Agents located just over a 1/4 pound of suspected methamphetamine and approximately 17 grams of suspected cocaine. Both subjects were arrested and booked into the Humboldt County Correctional Facility (HCCF) on charges of transporting and possessing controlled substances for sales.

At approximately 7:40 p.m., agents served a second warrant at a residence located in the 1100 block of Cedar Drive, Arcata. At this location agents contacted another one of Arguelles-Sosa’s associates, Miguel Angel Garcia (age 32), and detained him while they searched his residence. Additional suspected cocaine, along with a firearm, was located inside Garcia’s residence. Garcia was subsequently transported to the HCCF where he was booked for possession of a controlled substance and related firearms violations.

Later in the evening agents served additional search warrants at Arguelles-Sosa’s business, located in the 600 block of F Street, Arcata, as well as his residence, located in the 4000 block of Ponderosa Way, Arcata. At this location agents located approximately 3 pounds of suspected cocaine, 2 ounces of methamphetamine, and 4 ounces of heroin.

Agents also seized approximately $65,000 in U.S. currency and two of Arguelles-Sosa’s vehicles. The currency and vehicles are believed to be the proceeds of narcotics sales and will be held pending asset forfeiture proceedings.

Arguelles-Sosa’s bail was set at $500,000. The HCDTF was assisted by officers from the California Highway Patrol, Alcoholic Beverage Control, Arcata Police Department, Eureka Police Department, and Investigators from Humboldt County District Attorney’s Office.

This is believed to be one of the largest Humboldt County cocaine seizures in recent history. Anyone with information related to this investigation or other narcotics related crimes are encouraged to call the Humboldt County Drug Task Force at 707-444-8095 or the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office Tip Line at 707-268-2539

(Press release from the Humboldt County Drug Task Force)

EIGHT HOUSING UNITS FOR POINT ARENA

Special City Council Meeting September 6, 2018

City of Point Arena <pa-admin@mcn.org>

https://mailchi.mp/fdbfff7bd786/special-city-council-meeting-august-14-639413?e=d0e3cdc057

DATE FILED: June 20, 2017

OWNERS/APPLICANTS: ECLand, Inc

AGENT: David Hillmer, Empire Contracting

ZONING: Highway Commercial (HWC)

REQUEST: Construct new multi-family housing consisting of eight residential units. Six units would be constructed on APN 027-061-21 and two units would be constructed on APN 027-061-18. The project also includes a new Coastal Development Permit for the subdivision that created the subject parcels. The previously approved Coastal Development Permit for the subdivision expired and conditions of approval were never met.

APN(s): 027-061-21 & 027-061-18-00.

ADDRESS: 24001 South Highway One

LOCATION: In the Coastal Zone, in the City of Point Arena, Mendocino County, located on the west side of Main Street, approximately 200 feet north of its intersection with Lake Street.

Recommendation:

1. Determine Proper Notice
2. Receive Staff Report & Presentation
3. Hear Applicant
4. Questions to Staff
5. Open Public Comment
6. Consider approval of CDUP #2017-01
7. Direct staff for further action

CATCH OF THE DAY, August 31, 2018

BRETT ADAME, Florrisant, Missouri/Ukiah. Community supervision violation.

JOSEPH ANGENETE, Ukiah. Under influence, paraphernalia, evidence tampering.

BILLY ARIAL, Fair Oaks/Ukiah. Misdemeanor hit&run, probation revocation.

BRET BENGSTON, Ukiah. Parole violation. (Frequent flyer.)

MYISHA BRAZIEL-CARADINE, Ukiah. Under influence, probation revocation.

JOSHUA GUEVARA, Ukiah. Vehicle tampering, smuggling drugs or liquor into jail, probation revocation.

JENNIFER HEVEY, Calpella. Controlled substance, suspended license (for DUI), renting vehicle to person with ignition interlock device restriction, probation revocation.

RIGOBERTO LANDA, Potter Valley. Failure to appear.

JORGE MARTINEZ, Willits. Prison prior, probation revocation.

ETHAN MOSS, Willits. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

ROBERT NUTT, Fort Bragg. Disorderly conduct-alcohol, probation revocation.

TIFFANY WARE, Willits. DUI.

FIFTEEN WAYS THE DEMS CAN LOSE THE NOVEMBER ELECTIONS

by Ralph Nader

1. Focus on Donald Trump’s personal scandals, the Russian interference, and Trump’s outrageous and hugely distracting daily tweets.
2. Overlook what Trump’s henchmen are specifically doing to cause more deaths, injuries, and disease. Ignore this administration’s efforts to scuttle health and safety standards; stop law enforcement against corporate outlaws who pollute the environment, marketplace, and workplace; take federal cops off the Wall Street crime beat that is eating into your savings, while speculating with your pensions and mutual funds. Avoid all the above, while you’re dialing for dollars for your campaign coffers.
3. Give lip service to raising the federal minimum wage. Do not mount a tough, authentic campaign with details and timetables to help the 30 million Americans still making less than workers made in 1968, adjusted for inflation.
4. Avoid talking about the need to crack down on corporate crooks who are bleeding Americans dry—to the tune of one trillion dollars a year.
5. Refuse to put forward a Canadian style healthcare for all system, with free choices of doctors and hospitals. Single payer would result in life-saving outcomes and come in at half the per capita cost of the current price gouging, wasteful, claim-denying monstrosity ruled by big insurance companies, big drug companies and big hospital chains.
6. Do not talk specifics about public corruption. Do not put forward a detailed plan to take on corruption with adequate enforcement budgets and penalties that fit the crimes.
7. Do not talk about public funding of campaigns, clean elections, universal voting (with write-ins and none-of-the-above options), ending voter suppression, and returning to paper ballots that can never be hacked. Keep spending huge amounts of your time at fat-cat fundraising parties or calling possible donors on the phone.
8. Fail to speak forcefully for more workers rights and strong labor unions, more consumer protections, and more access to the courts for wrongfully injured or defrauded Americans. Fail to focus more on climate disruption, the bloated military budget that is draining our public infrastructure and depriving Americans of good jobs. Keep censoring yourself by treating these causes like taboo subjects.
9. Never mention education reform meaning students learning civic skills from books and experiential learning in their communities. Prohibit the seeds of democracy from being planted. Do not push for cracking down on fraudulent for-profit universities and forgiving student debt, ending massive corporate tax loopholes and starting tuition-free higher public education.
10. Be sure to ignore important local issues of concern that affect already engaged conservative and liberal voters. The powers-that-be at all levels have few votes compared to the vast number of eligible voters. Be sure that you spend most of your campaign money on redundant television ads rather than on neighborhood by neighborhood get-out-the-vote drives.
11. Make sure you rehire those conflicted, avaricious political consultants who have already been overly paid to lose the last four Congressional elections to the worse, most corrupt, war mongering, Wall Street toady, anti-worker, anti-consumer, and anti-environment Republican Party in history. Give these consultants another chance to deep-six your close races.
12. Avoid connecting with the emerging left/right alliance for criminal justice reform of mass incarceration, brutish prison conditions, runaway prosecutors, and the war on drugs.
13. Do not address the horrific costs of Empire. Ignore the futile wars without end, the blowbacks and destruction of innocent peoples and their communities in more and more countries, the violations of our Constitution. Stand by as the federal government violates federal laws and international treaties. Especially ignore what most of our returning veterans want to tell us about these boomeranging disasters spawned by both parties.
14. Don’t get near the fundamental issue of shifting power from the few to the many, of building democratic institutions, of providing inexpensive facilities so people can more easily band together to protect themselves. (If you don’t know what all this involves, that is because you’ve frozen out the civil society from your sterile campaigns, which historically has been the builder of a more just democracy).
15. Stifle the progressive, young insurgents in the Democratic Party, as you did with Bernie Sanders’ primary campaign in 2016. Again entrench the old Guard of loser Democratic apparatchiks.

If you do all the above, the Republicans will continue to enjoy their control of the federal branches of our captured government and many state legislatures. It is time for Democrats to stop singing from the corporate state’s songbook, and really stand “with liberty and justice for all.”

(Ralph Nader is a consumer advocate, lawyer and author of Only the Super-Rich Can Save Us! )

BAD FAITH NATION

by James Kunstler

There’s a simple reason that the old US Ship-of-State has turned into a garbage barge of toxic politics: both sides are operating in obviously bad faith — making arguments and taking positions that they know are false— and it’s been on full display this past week.

For instance, the Trump rally in Evansville, Indiana, Thursday night. The Golden Gloating Golem of Greatness presided over the spectacle in full gloatissimo mode, playing his audience of economic losers like a Hammond B-3 organ at a roller rink. His performance was oddly like the sort of rant that Uber drivers must suffer through with a fare who has been tweaking cocaine for three days en route to a funeral or a foreclosure. And, yes, I know that the President is said to abstain from mind-altering substances, but it appears that his mind has been sufficiently altered by his bizarre life experience to produce a similar effect. How else could he stand before an audience of millions (if you include the folks watching TV) and bellow, “I’m president and they’re not!”

Radiating anger and, at times, actual malice, Mr. Trump presented exactly the lack of couth that drives his hypothetically more refined “blue” enemies up a tree. His rhetorical skills have not improved since 2016, but his demagogic self-confidence soars as he unwittingly launches himself into a one-man Space Force flying too close to the sun, claiming that he has magically made America great again, mission accomplished! Even the live audience of Hoosier clods appeared strangely restive and unconvinced after an hour of this bellowing, and one got a sense of Mr. Trump slip-sliding towards Hubrisville like some ass-clown pol in a Coen Brothers’ movie about to be run out of the grange hall on a rail.

His error: taking “ownership” of a financialized economy of hallucinated markets run by out-of-control algo robots into a twilight zone of default and insolvency. The “red” and “blue” constituencies at war with each other are essentially the losers and winners in this depraved system. When the hallucination dissolves, the winners will be the new losers and the old losers will be looking to string them up. That scenario remains to be played out as we say our official goodbyes to summer this holiday weekend and turn the corner into portentous autumn.

On the “blue” side of things, mendacity rules as usual lately, especially in the Deep State septic abscess that the Russia probe has become. Department of Justice official Bruce Ohr, twice demoted but still on the payroll, went into a closed congressional hearing and apparently threw everybody but his mother under the bus, laying out an evidence trail of stupendous, flagrant corruption in that perfidious scheme to un-do the election results of 2016. Most amazingly, it was revealed that Mr. Ohr had not been called to testify by special counsel Robert Mueller nor by the federal prosecutor John Huber, who is charged with investigating the FBI/DOJ irregularities surrounding the Russia probe. It is amazing because Mr. Ohr is precisely the pivotal figure in what now looks like an obvious conspiracy to politically weaponize the agencies against the Golden Golem. An awful lot of people have some ‘splainin’ to do on that one, starting with the Attorney General and his deputy. Who will put it to them?

The New York Times, once known as the Newspaper of Record, continued to ignore that story. Their bad faith specialty these days is stoking the fires of race war under the pretense of “social justice.” For instance, the op-ed piece they ran Friday titled The Religion of Whiteness Becomes a Suicide Cult. It’s hard to imagine a better way to send those Hoosier clods to the gun cabinet — and not to blow their own brains out, either, but to hunt down the very Wokesters who openly pledge to exterminate them. This isn’t even “fake news.” It’s more like racist sedition.

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

ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

Oh yes. They’ve already got the Deep State scapegoat. If the economy sinks it’s the Deep State trying to make Trump look bad. It’s not just the economy either. Anything that makes Trump look bad is the fault of the Deep State to the true believers. Meanwhile the new Left will blame old white men and their privilege for everything. A hard, ugly economic and social collapse couldn’t happen to a more deserving bunch of childish, hapless people.

Well, time for this privileged old white guy to grind out some hours in an effort to keep my household afloat another month, barely. I’ll take my lunch since my privilege doesn’t provide a free one these days. Never did now that I think about it. I’ll drive my vehicle that last week cost $500 for a rear wheel seal and new brakes, plus the slowly more expensive gas to get to my privileged work site. Gee, this privileged shit isn’t quite what I thought it would be.

DAVID BACON

PHOTO EXHIBITIONS - SACRAMENTO AND PLEASANTON

The Border, the Work and the Fight for Justice

Photographs by David Bacon documenting the people and social movements of the border

The Union Hall Gallery
2126 K Street, Sacramento, CA
10A-4P, Mon/Lunes - Fri/Viernes
Reception, Sat, 9/7/18, 6-9P

In the Fields of the North

Photographs and text panels by David Bacon documenting the lives of farm workers

Museum on Main
603 Main St, Pleasanton, CA 94566
8/8/18 - 10/14/18
10A-4P, Tues - Sat
1P-4P, Sun

Exhibition Schedule

Exhibitions of photographs are scheduled for the following venues and dates:

In the Fields of the North - Scheduled exhibitions:

January 13, 2019 - March 10, 2019
Vallejo Naval and Historical Museum, Vallejo

September 1, 2019 - December 22, 2019
Hi-Desert Nature Museum, Yucca Valley

January 5, 2020 - March 1, 2020
Community Memorial Museum of Sutter County, Yuba City

March 15, 2020 - May 10, 2020
Monterey Country Agricultural and Rural Life Museum, King City

March 21, 2021 - May 23, 2021
Carnegie Arts Center, Turlock

In Washington’s Fields - Scheduled exhibition:

February 5, 2020 - July 15, 2020
Washington State Historical Museum, Tacoma, WA

In the Fields of the North

Photographs and text by David Bacon

University of California Press / Colegio de la Frontera Norte

302 photographs, 450pp, paperback, $34.95 (in the U.S.)

Order the book on the UC Press website: use source code 16M4197 at checkout, receive a 30% discount

Los Angeles Times reviews In the Fields of the North: latimes.com/books/la-ca-jc-fields-of-the-north-20180202-story.html

PLANS APLENTY

Planning Commission Agenda for September 20, 2018, is posted on the department website at:

https://www.mendocinocounty.org/government/planning-building-services/meeting-agendas/planning-commission

Please contact staff with any questions.

Victoria Davis, Commission Services Supervisor, 707-234-6664

ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY #2

Out in Left Field, the Left, so-called, forgets that Trump is the duly elected President of the United States and that the people that cast their vote for him are citizens of the United States. All the frolicking since November 2016 follows from that forgetfulness.

But of course, the Left, isn’t really “Left” any more than I’m a managing director of Goldman Sachs. And if that political party that calls itself “progressive” is really “progressive” then I’m a Latino Female-to-Male tranny.

And if they’re the towering intellectuals they claim to be then I’m Alfred Einstein.

MEMO OF THE AIR, FRIDAY NIGHT Unabridged, complete, in fair condition (minor cosmetic damage).

Friday, 9pm to 5am, I'm doing Memo of the Air by live remote from the typing table next to the bed in Juanita's apartment, /not/ from the back room of the KNYO performance space at 325 N. Franklin, next door to the Tip Top bar, so make plans to show-and-tell there /next/ week, the 7th of September, when I'll be there to brandish a microphone for you to show and tell things to.

Deadline to get your writing on the air tonight is as late as 7pm. Just email it. Or save it and come in and read it (or sing and dance or otherwise express it) in your own inimical way next week.

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. And also there and anywhere else via http://knyo.org and click on Listen Live.

Also you can always go to https://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com and hear last week's show, and shows before that, and read and watch and fiddle with all sorts of other quirkily educational materials. By Saturday night, tonight's show becomes last week's show by a process that the great minds of science are still boggling over the clockwork reliability of, and you'll find that there too. Or thet thar, depending on your sector of birth, not that there's anything wrong with that.

Meanwhile, a gallery of lovely old motorcycles. The Henderson, of course, and the two Indians near the end. A hundred years old and more desirable and expensive than ever.

https://tinyurl.com/2018MontereyBikeShow

Bioturbation with and without soil fauna.

https://thekidshouldseethis.com/post/bioturbation-with-and-without-soil-fauna

And DaVinci's notebook. The actual book, not the novelty band.

https://vam.ac.uk/articles/explore-leonardo-da-vinci-codex-forster-i

Marco McClean, memo@mcn.org

LISTEN TO KING LEOPOLD, listen to him yell,

Toasting in an oven, way down in Hell.

Hear the host of demons chuckle,

As they ding their bloody bell,

Choppin’ off ee's fooking knuckles,

Way down there in Hell…

(Bruce McEwen’s translation of Vachel Lindsey's poem, "The Congo" — the popularly quoted stanza.)

“I look forward to my client’s day in court, as it is getting harder and harder to pretend he is innocent.”

WHY THE WORLD NEEDS ONGOING PEACE TALKS BETWEEN NORTH KOREA AND THE UNITED STATES

by John Lewallen <avoidingnuclearwar.com>

The June 12 "summit" meeting of Kim Jong-Un of North Korea and Donald Trump, U.S. President, ended a very dangerous, escalating nuclear confrontation which seemed to be on the verge of starting a nuclear war for no reason at all. Now, I believe, the world needs ongoing peace talks between these two nuclear-armed nations to avoid a senseless conflagration threatening all life.

As the euphoria of the June 12 meeting falls back toward the old pattern of threat and counter-threat, with President Trump calling off a peace-talk meeting because North Korea was not moving fast enough to "de-nuclearize," and Defense Secretary Mattis saying that military exercises, the annual mock invasion "war games" that Trump had pledged on June 12 to end, will continue, I believe it is essential that all of us understand what happened on June 12, what didn't happen, and why we all should do our best to keep these peace talks going and growing.

On the Verge of Nuclear War

By the end of 2017, the game of "nuclear chicken" between Trump and Kim Jong-Un had reached a point where the North Koreans were threatening to detonate a high-altitude thermonuclear bomb. The entire world-wide computerized satellite web could be damaged by such a test, which hasn't happened for many decades.

All year Trump's threats of military attack against North Korea unless it would give up its nuclear weapons were countered by North Korean threats of attack against the United States, backed up by North Korean missile and underground nuclear bomb tests intended to show their ability and willingness to attack the United States homeland.

As Scott D. Sagan noted in his article "The Korean Missile Crisis" (Foreign Affairs, Nov/Dec 2017, p. 72): "North Korea, South Korea, and the United States are all poised to launch preemptive strikes. In such an unstable situation, the risk that an accident, a false warning, or a misperceived military exercise could lead to a war is alarmingly high."

"The North Korean nuclear arsenal is not a bargaining chip," Sagan concluded (p.81) "It is a potent deterrent designed to prevent a U.S. attack or disrupt one that does occur by destroying U.S. air bases and ports through preemption."

June 12: What Happened, What Didn't, and What Could Happen

The June 12 executive agreement, if followed up, could be a major positive shift in United States nuclear weapons strategy, making the whole world a lot safer place. Even if peace talks fall prey to their many enemies in the U.S. military-industrial complex, the raw fact that a U.S. President has tacitly acknowledged the legitimacy of the North Korean government with this meeting is a major shift. Previously, North Korea, according to U.S. policy, had a "regime" in need of "regime change" by "decapitation" or all-out military attack.

The four-point agreement signed by the leaders began by committing "to establish new United States-North Korea relations in accordance with the desire of the people of the two countries for peace and prosperity." This could be a major departure from the same-old strategy of deterrence and economic sanctions. If North Korea is no longer an enemy, the ongoing economic sanctions and military threats make no sense. It is obvious, even urgent, that the Korean War which began in1950 should be ended with a formal peace treaty.

"Yesterday's conflict does not have to be tomorrow's war," said President Trump. He seems to realize there is no real conflict of interest between the two countries, which are frozen in confrontation dating from the Cold War. His June 12 video presented North Korea with the possibility of major economic development resulting from peace talks.

The second point in the agreement called for negotiating "a lasting and stable peace regime" for the Korean Peninsula.

The third point commits the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) to "work toward complete de-nuclearization of the Korean Peninsula." Note: it does not commit North Korea to eliminate nuclear weapons.

In my opinion, this summit never would have happened unless Trump believed North Korea had achieved what, in nuclear strategy parlance, is called "Second-Strike Threat Credibility": the perceived ability to hit the United States with a nuclear counter-attack even if the U.S. obliterates their country with a nuclear first-strike. No other reason is strong enough to cause a U.S. President to meet North Korea on equal terms to set up peace talks.

The present dangerous dilemma is that Trump keeps insisting on rapid de-nuclearization, while the North Koreans are demanding that the United States endorse a declaration calling for a formal Peace Treaty ending the Korean War.

(I believe Trump should spontaneously Tweet his endorsement of a formal treaty ending the Korean War: what a peace coup!)

There is virtually no chance the North Koreans will give up their nuclear weapons until the United States also de-nuclearizes. As Sagan wrote, "Kim's spokespeople have stressed that he will not suffer the same fate of Saddam or Qaddafi, both of whom gave up their nuclear programs only to be attacked later by the United States (p.81)"

The fourth and final point of agreement is that North Korea will assist the United States in recovering the remains of prisoners of war and soldiers missing in action in the Korean War, which paused with a ceasefire, not a peace treaty, in 1953. The North Koreans already are fulfilling this pledge.

Time for a Peace Treaty Ending the Korean War

Rising for a moment above the drama of personality and motive involving Trump, Kim, et.al., the raw fact is that two of the world's nine nuclear-armed nations are at war for no reason at all, a war which has escalated into nuclear confrontation threatening to explode into nuclear war threatening all life. No matter who leads North Korea, the United States, or other nations, the whole world needs ongoing peace talks between the United States and North Korea to avoid nuclear war.

Returning to the political struggle of personality and motive, I believe that President Trump's efforts to make peace with North Korea are putting him in major confrontation with the U.S. military-industrial complex which, as President and Commander-in-Chief of U.S. armed forces, he formally leads.

Trump made two major moves toward peace apparently without informing or consulting his closest aides, all of whom are leading members of the U.S. military-industrial complex. First, he accepted the proposal of Kim Jong-Un for face-to-face negotiations, an offer brought to the Oval Office by a South Korean delegation. He even permitted the South Koreans to immediately announce this major shift in U.S. policy. No President ever had met with the head of the North Korean "regime" before.

Then, on June 12, Trump made his second surprise announcement: the annual mock-invasion military exercises involving South Korea and the U.S. would be halted, because they are very expensive and "provocative." Recently Trump reversed Defense Secretary Mattis' statement that military exercises would resume, because his "very good and warm relations" with North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un made it unnecessary to spend "large amounts of money on joint exercises."

I believe the worldwide peace movement should support Trump's move toward changing North Korea policy away from deterrence and sanctions-still the basic policy today-toward peaceful and prosperous cooperation. In my opinion, endless confrontation with North Korea is a major pillar justifying trillions of dollars of military spending by the U.S. military-industrial complex.

The U.S. Nuclear Posture Review issued by the U.S. Defense Department February, 2018, justified over a trillion dollars of nuclear weapons spending to "deter" the growing threat from four adversaries: Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea. Immediately after his June 12 personal talk with Kim Jung-Un, who he seems to genuinely like and admire, Trump shocked everyone by stating what no U.S. President had said before: that the "war games" threatening attack on North Korea might actually "provoke" an aggressive response, or even an accidental military response.

In short, Trump seemed to acknowledge what North Korea, Russia and China have insistently stated for many decades: relentlessly escalating military exercises and deployments on their borders are actually "provoking" threatening response simply to deter a U.S. attack on their nations. In other words, the U.S. strategy of endlessly increasing first-strike threat force them to appear more threatening, simply to deter U.S. attack by maintaining their "Second-Strike Threat Credibility." It is a U.S. military-industrial complex generating its own enemies to justify endless growth, driving the world ever-closer to actual nuclear war, which might destroy everything.

Human survival demands that we break this military-industrial pattern of increasing U.S. nuclear threat. Ongoing peace talks between the two warring nuclear nations, North Korea and the U.S., are needed to avoid nuclear war until an actual, effective peace treaty is signed by the two nations and their allies in this outdated relic of the Cold War. Threatening military exercises must be stopped to save us all from "accidental" nuclear war.

I am very optimistic that we, the people, can continue to avoid nuclear war, as we have since the most recent use of a nuclear weapon in war, the August 9, 1945 bombing of Nagasaki, Japan. If Donald Trump can be the man who shocks the U.S. military-industrial complex out of a sleepwalk to doomsday, anything is possible! Now, I think, we all need to reject the politics of hatred and division, and tap into the power of love that unites us all.