Mendocino County Today: Tuesday, Sep. 18, 2018

• Fair Weekend
• Truck Driver
• Rancho Bust
• Boonville Schools
• Rubber-stamping Folsom
• River Development
• Autumn
• Escobar Complaint
• Little Dog
• Felony Hugging
• Complex Update
• Hydrogen Trains
• Settler Trial
• Plant Sale
• Opaque Hospital
• Police Reports
• Homeless Jobs
• Fountaingrove Book
• Yesterday's Catch
• Betrayed
• Boring
• Harry Stanton
• Discipline
• Fear
• Marihuana
• Fallen Catholics
• Gibbons' Day
• Monster Fishing
• Liberals Stink
• Burp Hollow
• Open Studios
• 1940
• Haschak Endorsement
• Sanctuary Fundraiser
• Whorehouse Theater
• Defense
• Vacancies
• Ken Kesey
• GOP Plan

THE SATURDAY AND SUNDAY FAIR drew huge crowds, including a biker gang from Lake County, the first time a biker gang as a unit has attended the Fair so far as anyone can recall, but nothing concerning happened over the three days beyond some testosterone-fueled pushing and shoving at the Saturday night dance, and a drunk who was so drunk even his family asked that he be hauled over the hill to sober up in jail. There were several traffic incidents unrelated to the Fair, an apparent heart attack on the Fairgrounds, and a guy who sustained a “head injury” was patched up by the AV Ambulance crew.

THE LOG TRUCK DRIVER who died on Highway 128 on the far side of Yorkville has still not been identified. We know he was 55, Hispanic, lived and worked out of Fort Bragg, died on Friday, August 31st about 8:30 in the morning. The poor man was killed as he was working on his trailer when his truck began rolling, and ran over him before plunging off the road.

MUCH to the majority’s approval at Rancho Navarro, a commercial pot grow, complete with eyesore hoop houses, was raided last week with a large haul of devil weed run through the raid team’s chipper and hauled off to the secret compost pile over the hill to the east. A second hoop house spectacular at the Rancho may be next. Both sites are stealing water and both sites are the projects of distant property owners.

INTERIM BOONVILLE SCHOOL SUPE, Michael Warych, from all accounts, is off to a promising start after last school year’s turbulence. The conscientious Wynne Crissman has resigned from the board, meaning for the time being a seeming 2-2 standoff on the only mildly contentious issue facing the trustees — whether or not to fill a secretarial vacancy in the District Office.

THE SUPE'S consent calendar for their September 11 meeting included “Item 4v: Approval of Agreement with Don Folsom for Code Enforcement Field Inspection Services and Formal Code Determinations…" Folsom, who lives in Yorkville is, given the wall of denunciations of him by local contractors, violently unpopular. He's described by one as "an unreasonable prick with a very bad attitude," and by another as "the kind of guy who winds up in a ditch." Whatever the pros and cons of hiring Folsom for another sweetheart year, the public should have had a chance to weigh in on his appointment before the Supervisors rubber-stamped him.

FOR THOSE OF YOU who want to really dig deep into the history of the Potter Valley Diversion in all its complications, please go to krisweb.com/biblio/russian_scwa_beach_2002.pdf

IN LITTLE RIVER

$6,000 FOR A PERMIT TO REBUILD? A rightfully angry woman named Wendy Escobar, whose home in Redwood Valley burned down in last fall’s Redwood Complex Fire appeared before the Board of Supervisors last week to complain about the County’s treatment of her family.

Escobar: I am here because I am really disappointed with all of you people regarding the fire recovery program, especially [Supervisor Carre] Ms. Brown. I have called you several times and you never call me back. I find that really disrespectful to me and I don't really appreciate that.

Brown: I do not remember getting any calls from you.

Escobar: I left two voice mails.

Brown: What are voice mails?

Escobar: Well, that's what I have. Anyway, I am here because of the building permit costs which I find criminal. I was told that if we stayed and rebuilt that the county was going to reduce the building costs so that they would not charge us $6000 for a building permit. What on earth can you be charging $6000 for? That comes out of our rebuilding insurance money. By the time we do the code upgrades on the sewer, and by the time we do the stupid water system that's going to raise the insurance that everybody is turning off anyway because if you have a little jolt of an earthquake the stupid sprinkler system goes off and floods the house and it won't stop a wildfire from anything. You are talking about suicide today. I know of a person who killed himself over these fires because he didn't have enough insurance to rebuild. Then you guys want to go and rip us off for $6000? You are profiting off of our trauma. It's been a year old almost, next month it will be a year — and this County has done nothing for us, nothing at all. And I find you actually 50% responsible for the fire, for our houses burning down, because if you guys had any kind of plan in effect -- I was at the firehouse that night and I got news for you. They did nothing to stop our houses from burning. One of our neighbors at a water tender that ran around and sprayed some houses and saved them. But had we known about that fire coming we could have watered down our roofs and saved our houses. But we knew nothing! The fire department didn't even go back and save my husband who was asleep in his house. If I hadn't kept calling him and calling him and calling him he would have been victim number 10! So I want something done about these outrageous costs for the building permits. I got my blueprints in over there a month ago. I was told it would be one week before those permits were done and I could have it. It's been a month. Oh, well we are shorthanded they tell me at the building department… Well, I still don't have the permit! And I don't have $6000 to pay for it! If I want to rebuild I have to pay for all these upgrades. Window upgrades -- $2600! Forget it! What are you guys doing for us? You've done nothing! This county is supposed to be taking care of us and if we don't rebuild and stay you are not going to have any taxes or anything. A lot of people -- go around here, go around Redwood Valley and look at all the For Sale signs. People have walked away and left! What are you doing for us? Nothing except gouging us! You worry about contractors gouging us? What about your own Planning Department? And sanitation? It was $7200 for me to upgrade the stupid sewer system and I'm not even building as big a house as I had before. For one year I have been living in a 40 foot trailer on that property where I had to pay for a temporary power pole to go up and now there is another $84 over there, and $160 fee for the septic tank. I don't have any money left to rebuild! By the time I pay all your fees and all your upgrades and this and that -- how do you expect me to rebuild? I have to pay for the insurance. I had to go on state aid because my husband's business burned. He was a handyman. His truck burned down. Now I have truck payments. Now we have to go out and use the insurance money to buy him tools so he could get his business back again!

MS. ESCOBAR was probably subconsciously aware that she was addressing an apparatus containing not a single person who has ever lived with the wolf at the door, people who could write a check for six thousand no problemo. Redwood Valley is heavily blue collar. The Supervisors are securely upper middleclass. The twain hasn’t met in Mendocino County for many years.

Board Chair Dan Hamburg: Thank you Ms. Escobar.

Escobar: So that's what I have to say. I want to know what you guys are going to do about the fees.

Hamburg: I'm sure that Supervisor Brown is trying -- you know if she had heard from you she would have gotten back to you. She is definitely known for paying close attention to the needs of her constituents. I hope you will try again. We are doing everything we can as a county to respond to these issues. I believe our building department has been doing a good job getting permits out. But we are somewhat overloaded. I think you should work with our staff and not give up because there are a lot of efforts that are going forward. And thank you for coming and speaking though, appreciate it.

Brown: I want to talk about the claim that this county has done nothing to help people. This County has worked very hard. We had county staff that put in hours that are unbelievable. To me that statement was just not necessary.

Supervisor John McCowen: The board actually has been and county staff has been focused on doing quite a lot. We live in an imperfect world. Every individual situation is going to depend on a separate set of facts that go with it so we are not in a position to respond to see your to your specific comments but by direction of this Board the administrative permit for the trailer that you've been living in was waived so there was no cost for that. By direction of this board other fees associated with rebuilding can be deferred. The question of how much are they — that's up for discussion but you should inquire of the department what's the process for deferring those fees so that you can get going with your building without having to lay out that cash up front. That option should be available. The county was instrumental in seeking relief for people who were victims of the over excavations on dozens of properties. The county was able to get relief by pushing hard for that. The county with Supervisor Brown and [state senator] Mike Maguire and our CEO and Tammy Moss Chandler is pushing hard to secure significant funding to rebuild the water system in Redwood Valley to be something that was better than it had ever been. We all regret that you are not having a good experience at the present time. But it's a gross overstatement to say that the county has done nothing.

Escobar: But —

McCowen: We are not going to engage in debate but there's two sides to this story.

Escobar: That's right, but I did have to install a temporary power pole and—

Hamburg: Thank you.

Escobar: And I —

Hamburg: I'm sorry, I'm sorry we cannot engage in debate.

Escobar: I'm not debating with you. I'm just saying that OES did come —

Hamburg: I'm sorry, you are out of order.

Escobar: You guys can pat yourself on the back all you want, but you are losing all this money —

Hamburg: We are not patting ourselves on the back.

Escobar: Yes you are!

(Hamburg moved on to the next speaker.)

MARK SCARAMELLA NOTES: If, as Supervisor McCowen said, the $6000 permit fees are “up for discussion” why didn’t he propose that they be agendized and discussed? They seem ridiculously high for people who can show that their houses burned down in the fire. Ms. Escobar’s complaints are widely shared by fire victims.

A READER WRITES: “Excellent conclusion to the Supes and Ms. Escobar, concerning building permits. Why can't they think on their feet/or seats enough to agendize an obvious problem? As for Carre Brown, if she doesn't know what a voicemail is, it's long past time for her to retire. Way too entrenched in her own miniscule, out of touch, power world. Great job covering this.”

LITTLE DOG SAYS, “Ah, Boonville. The crowds wash in, the crowds wash out, and the 91st Boonville Fair is one for the books. Lottsa requests for my picture and paw prints over the weekend, but I'm getting used to celeb status, not that I enjoy being lumped in with Skrag. ‘Where's Little Dog? Oh, is that Skrag?’ Such is fate.”

FELONY HUGGING

ukiahdailyjournal.com/2018/09/17/ukiah-high-teacher-accused-of-misconduct-may-have-to-register-as-sex-offender/

MENDOCINO COMPLEX FIRE UPDATE — SEPTEMBER 17, 2018

Throughout the week, crews will monitor fire activity and repair firelines on the Ranch Fire. There are 30 miles of fireline still to repair. The direction for fire suppression repair work is to leave a roughened surface to promote infiltration, erosion control, and recovery of native plants and where available, scatter brush over the fireline. This work includes building water bars, reducing dirt berms and removing trees that were bulldozed during suppression operations.

Fire Closure Area: The Ranch Fire area is closed as described in Forest Order 08-18-15. The purpose of the closure is to provide for public safety, and for the firefighters who are engaged in repair efforts within the Ranch Fire closure area. The closure area applies to all public use, including hunting, the use of firearms and off-highway vehicles. The northern half of the forest is open for outdoor activities.

The B-Zone deer hunting season opened on Saturday and continues until Sunday, Oct. 21, 2018. Forest visitors need to exercise extreme caution near the fire closure since heavy equipment and firefighting vehicles are utilizing area roads. Visitors can contact the ranger station nearest their destination for current information. For a high-resolution closure map, please use the following link:

https://inciweb.nwcg.gov/incident/map/6073/0/88371

The Mendocino Complex: The Mendocino Complex is being managed by the U.S. Forest Service and Northern California Interagency Incident Management Team 1 (NorCal 1) under Incident Commander Curtis Coots. NorCal 1 assumed command of the incident Monday at 7 a.m. This is the sixth incident management team assigned to the Mendocino Complex since the Ranch and River fires started July 27, 2018. The Mendocino National Forest thanks the Southern California Interagency Incident Management Team 3 for their service during their 14-day assignment on the complex.

The Ranch Fire is 98 percent contained, with the remaining two percent located in extremely steep, rocky terrain. This section will likely remain uncontained until a season ending weather event occurs, which is persistent precipitation across a two or three-day period, with no hot and dry weather conditions in the long-term weather forecast. The River Fire is 100 percent contained. For detailed Mendocino Complex information visit: https://inciweb.nwcg.gov/incident/6073/.

Please note: The next fire update will be provided when significant activity occurs.

THE WORLD’S FIRST HYDROGEN POWERED TRAINS are now in service across Germany: eco-friendly engines can cover 620 miles on a single tank of fuel and produce only water vapor in their exhaust. Meanwhile, here on the progressive northcoast, rail travel has devolved from 1955 when you could get on a train in Fort Bragg, catch the soiuthbound train from Eureka at Willits, and be in San Francisco in time for dinner.

THE HOMICIDE TRIAL for the four remaining defendants in the Jeffery Settler murder was put on hold today at the request of the District Attorney, who wants to wait until Governor Brown signs the new felony murder bill from the State Senate. DA Eyster has stated that after the bill is signed into law he will offer two of the remaining defendants, Frederick Gaestel and Jesse Wells, reasonable plea options. The two remaining defendants, Michael Kane and Gary Blank, will then be tried separately, due to some legal complications to do with Mr. Blank’s statements to the police when he was arrested. The trial has not been reset yet, as everyone awaits the Governor’s signature.

Background: The Settler Killers

TURN IT AROUND

Coast Hospital’s Lack of Transparency

The issue of MCDH's lack of transparency is very troublesome. One can't help but wonder what the administration is hiding. A month ago, I requested the following under the Freedom of Information Act: the names of the companies supplying MCDH with temporary/traveling staff and the Form 1023 which was filed 8 years ago with the IRS by the hospital to apply for 501(c)(3) status.

This is what CFO Mike Ellis emailed me: a list of over 800 vendors with no specificity as to which vendors were supplying temporary/traveling staff. According to one hospital insider, MCDH employs up to 147 temporary employees at any given time. Mike Ellis states that there are currently 30, with variations from month to month. Without providing the information I requested, there is no way to further investigate the traveling staff issue.

The Form 1023 was an unsigned draft, as Mike Ellis explained, because the original was nowhere to be found. I was most interested in "Compensation and Other Financial Arrangements with Your Officers, Directors, Trustees, Employees, and Independent Contractors". The two pages of financial data had no information about "Compensation and Other Financial Arrangements." Once again, I found the 17 page unsigned Form 1023 draft (pages 13, 14, and 15 are missing) contained absolutely no useful information in addition to leaving approximately two thirds of the Yes/No boxes unchecked. When I contacted the IRS to request a copy of the signed Form 1023, they told me I had to be a board member or member of the hospital's administration to get it.

It appears our hospital is intentionally withholding the information needed to provide an accurate picture of its financial dealings. The response to my Freedom of Information request was a joke. I'm looking forward to seeing Redding, Grinberg and Arnold elected in November to form a majority and turn things around.

Margaret Paul

Hospital Supporter

TWEEKMOBILE

On 09-15-2018 at 11:21 A.M., a Deputy with the Mendocino County Sheriff's Office was on uniformed patrol in the Willits area. The Deputy observed a black sedan traveling northbound on Meadowbrook Drive and was able to identify the driver as Miranda Mullins, 24, of Willits, from prior law enforcement contacts.

The Deputy was aware that Mullins was on active summary probation in Mendocino County. Mullins pulled her vehicle into a driveway in the 21400 block of Meadowbrook Drive and the Deputy stopped to speak with Mullins. Mullins informed the Deputy that she had a warrant for her arrest, which was confirmed by Sheriff's Office dispatch to be a felony arrest warrant (32 PC - Accessory) issued in Mendocino County. During a probation search of Mullins and her vehicle, the Deputy located numerous methamphetamine pipes. The Deputy was informed by MCSO Dispatch that the license plates on Mullins' vehicle did not match the vehicle she was driving. The Deputy investigated further and learned that the license plates being displayed on Mullins'' vehicle were placed there by Mullins who knew they belonged to a different vehicle. Mullins was advised and placed under arrest for her felony arrest warrant, Displaying False License Plates, Possession of Drug Paraphernalia, and Violation of Summary Probation. Mullins was subsequently booked into the Mendocino County Jail where she was to be held in lieu of $30,000 bail.

* * *

BACK IN THE JUG

On 09-13-2018 at approximately 10:47 A.M., a Deputy with the Mendocino County Sheriff's Office attempted to contact David Joaquin, 48, of Covelo, at a residence located at 30 Ledger Lane in Covelo.

The Deputy was aware that Joaquin was on Post-Release Community Supervision (PRCS) in Mendocino County and had an active order for his arrest for violating his terms of PRCS. The Deputy contacted and arrested Joaquin at the residence without incident. Joaquin was subsequently booked into the Mendocino County Jail where he was to be held on a no-bail status due to his PRCS violations.

* * *

WOOF! WOOF!

On 09-12-18 at approximately 12:40 A.M., Deputies with the Mendocino County Sheriff's Office were patrolling the downtown Laytonville area due to recent burglary and theft incidents. While patrolling the area of the Boomer's Bar parking lot (45020 N. Highway 101 in Laytonville), a Deputy observed two vehicles parked along the south fence at the location. While driving past the two vehicles, the Deputy noticed a subject, later identified as Ryan Padget, 38, of Laytonville, on a bicycle looking into a vehicle.

Padget was holding a flashlight in one hand and a tool in his other hand. Padget was using the tool to attempt and force open the door on the parked vehicle. The Deputy attempted to contact and detain Padget, who fled the scene on his bicycle. Padget had a knife visible on his person so the Deputy ordered Padget to stop multiple times or his K9 partner would be deployed. Padget crashed his bicycle near a fence in the area and fled on foot towards Branscomb Road. The Deputy attempted to apprehend Padget who swung his hand at the Deputy and evaded capture. The Deputy deployed his K9 partner who responded to the Deputy's location to assist with apprehending Padget. While in the area of Branscomb Road, Padget physically resisted the Deputy and his K9 partner. Padget continued to resist the Deputy and K9 for a period of time before surrendering. Padget was handcuffed and taken into custody at the scene. During a search of Padget, the Deputy located multiple tools in his possession and backpack that are commonly used as burglary tools. Padget was also determined to be on summary Probation in Mendocino County for theft related charges. After being treated at a local hospital for his injuries, Padget was ultimately transported to the Mendocino County Jail where he was booked for Attempted Second Degree Burglary-Vehicle, Resist/Delay Officer, Violation of Summary Probation Terms, and Possession of Burglary Tools. Padget was to be held at the Mendocino County Jail in lieu of $10,000 bail.

BRUCE McEWEN NOTES: There was a wealthy (by my standards) landowner in Redway -- I forget his name, shame on me -- who used to pay the homeless to clean up along the Eel River -- paid 'em well, and rode herd on 'em, making 'em work, and they hauled loads and loads of trash out of the woods between Garberville and Redway ... I wonder if Supervisor McCowen would consider doing something like that? Of course, a lot of those people are absolutely terrified of a little work, but still some of them must be desperate enough for cash to pick up trash, I would think.

NEW BOOK BY GAYE LEBARON TELLS HISTORY OF FOUNTAINGROVE

Sonoma County’s long-time newspaper columnist and regional historian Gaye LeBaron and co-author, writer Bart Casey announce the publication of a new history book entitled The Wonder Seekers of Fountaingrove.

The history of the Fountaingrove area of Sonoma County, California, is rich with tales and characters of a bygone era. Wonder Seekers begins in 1875 and culminates with the devastating Tubbs Fire of 2017 in which all traces of previous incarnations vanished. The book introduces Thomas Lake Harris, a preacher, prophet and poet who founded his Brotherhood of the New Life. His successor, Kanaye Nagasawa, a young Japanese samurai, forged a lasting connection between Santa Rosa and Kagoshima, Japan while becoming a renowned winemaker. Another Harris disciple, Laurence Oliphant, whose colorful life was explored in a previous book by co-author Casey, also plays a role.

 

The Wonder Seekers of Fountaingrove will be available in October of 2018 at local stores including Copperfield’s and Corrick’s. Book signings scheduled to-date are as follows:

Saturday, October 6, 12-2 PM, Corrick’s, 637 Fourth St., Downtown Santa Rosa (707) 546-2424

Friday, October 26, 7-8 PM, Copperfield’s Books, Montgomery Village, 775 Village Ct, Santa Rosa (707) 578-8938

* * *

Gaye LeBaron is a journalist and historian who started as an intern at the Santa Rosa Press Democrat in 1954, became a full-time reporter in 1957 and is still writing bi-monthly columns. She has also written two history volumes about Sonoma County. LeBaron first learned of Thomas Lake Harris and his Brotherhood in the 1960s when the deserted winery, champagne cellars and empty mansion still stood at the old Fountaingrove. She was to learn there were stories to be told swirling all around that hilltop, including the adventures of a young samurai that forged “the Japanese connection” with Santa Rosa.

Author Bart Casey discovered Thomas Lake Harris on the poetry shelves of the Harvard library as a student there. Curiosity led him to the many-layered story of Laurence Oliphant, a Harris disciple, and the other “characters” on this journey to Utopia. His book, The Double Life of Laurence Oliphant, was published in 2015.

The co-authors’ first meeting at LeBaron’s archives in the Schulz Library’s Special Collections at Sonoma State University resulted in a five-year collaboration and their mutual effort to tell “the whole story.”

CATCH OF THE DAY, September 17, 2018

SALVADOR ADAME, Denver, Colorado/Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

RALPH BRICENO, Yreka/Covelo. Fugitive from justice.

JOELLE BURGESS, Ukiah. Under influence, paraphernalia, probation revocation.

CHRISTOPHER FAVELA, West Hills/Boonville. Disorderly conduct-alcohol, controlled substance without prescription.

JACK KUYKENDALL, Laytonville. Pot cultivation of over six plants, felon with firearm, ammo possession by prohibited person.

BRANDEN LUCAS, Redwood Valley. Petty theft.

AARON NUGENT, Medford, Oregon/Fort Bragg. Domestic battery, witness intimidation, offenses while on bail.

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

NORMAN PARKS, Ukiah. Vehicle theft.

PATRICK TCHOUMI, Worcester, Massachusetts/Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE, Redwood Valley. Disorderly conduct-alcohol, parole violation, probation revocation.

DARIEL ZAPANTA, Ukiah. Controlled substance, resisting, probation revocation.

ON LINE COMMENT OF THE WEEK

I spend a lot of time blathering about people not seeing what’s right under their nose, but this thing you write about, the betrayal by the Democrats of their natural constituency, the transformation of the party of the American worker into the party of Wall Street, is something that anybody with open eyes couldn’t miss, and congratulations, you didn’t let a generation of misdirection blind you.

You say “The current grievances of most people who call themselves liberals and/or Democrats are mostly mere distractions, designed by the Deep State to keep us from noticing that the world is being stolen from us.”

Environmental degradation, despite the noise and commotion, isn’t amounting to more than noise and commotion, because it’s one of those distractions. Say “climate change” and it’s to the barricades. But is anything of substance being done? Not a chance, because the ones doing most of the talking, the great bi-coastal intellectual class, being wealthy and comfortable, are the greatest environmental malefactors, and they won’t give up their comforts and privileges, least of all their air-conditioned SUVs and jet-powered air travel. YOU have to reduce YOUR carbon footprint, but not them. What they have they NEED, damn you, and besides they deserve what they have.

What comes out of this betrayal by the Democrats, that’s a big question. The Republicans similarly betrayed the trust of their constituents and Kansas isn’t buying their bullshit anymore, and the nomination and election of Trump is the result.

What comes of Democrat treachery? A new party? Will they be the candidates of bread and butter issues that affect the broad swathe of the population or will it be all about Hollywood nuts-n-sluts and sexual derangement? Can they resist Wall Street money?

In my view modern day “progressivism” is about as “progressive” as the expired German Democratic Republic was “democratic”. I hope the new party, if it comes about, re-focuses their energies.

HARRY DEAN STANTON

Prolific character actor, who appeared in scores of films including Paris, Texas, Alien, Repo Man and The Straight Story, died in an LA hospital on Friday

by Andrew Pulver

Harry Dean Stanton, the veteran American actor who ballasted generations of independent and cult films, has died aged 91. The subject of the late critic Roger Ebert’s “Stanton Walsh Rule” – “No movie featuring either Harry Dean Stanton or M Emmet Walsh in a supporting role can be altogether bad” – Stanton was famed for his ability to project his hangdog, laconic charm into minor roles, which ensured he worked continuously for over six decades. Directors who cast him include David Lynch, Sam Peckinpah, Ridley Scott, Alex Cox and Wim Wenders, but he was never nominated for an Oscar or any of the other principal acting awards.

Stanton was born in 1926 in rural Kentucky, the son of a tobacco farmer. After serving as a navy cook in the Pacific theatre during the second world war, he studied journalism at college before dropping out to attend acting classes at the Pasadena Playhouse in 1949. Stanton had ambitions to be a writer and a musician as well as an actor, but, as he told the Observer in 2013, he “surrendered” to acting.

In the ensuing two decades, Stanton secured a string of tiny roles in TV shows and low-budget films, including The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin, Gunsmoke and Johnny Ringo. One of his more memorable appearances in this period was as a singing convict in the 1967 Paul Newman vehicle, Cool Hand Luke, in which he performed the gospel song Just a Closer Walk with Thee.

However, Stanton’s weatherbeaten visage and anti-heroic mien suited 70s cinema and the rise of the Hollywood new wave, and his roles slowly increased in significance. He played one of the American soldiers in Kelly’s Heroes, the 1970 war comedy, a gay hitchhiker in Two Lane Blacktop, Monte Hellman’s existential road movie from 1971, and outlaw Homer Van Meter in the John Milius-directed Dillinger in 1973. More cult roles followed: in Hellman’s Cockfighter, the little-liked 1975 Farewell My Lovely remake, and alongside Marlon Brando and Jack Nicholson in the much-derided Missouri Breaks.

Other than a walk-on role in The Godfather Part II, commercially successful films seemed to elude Stanton: that would change after Ridley Scott cast him as a crew-member of the Nostromo in the sci-fi shocker Alien, overcoming Stanton’s own reluctance to take on a “monster movie”. Stanton went on to find work with a new generation of film-makers in the 1980s: the key role of Brain in John Carpenter’s Escape From New York, a speed-sniffing car repossessor in Alex Cox’s Repo Man and – rather weirdly – as Molly Ringwald’s hopeless dad in teen romance Pretty in Pink.

The same period also saw what will no doubt be regarded as Stanton’s most emblematic role: the near mute Travis Henderson in Wim Wenders’ Palme d’Or winning Paris, Texas. Having got drunk with writer Sam Shepard, Stanton found himself offered the lead in the film – his first – at the age of 58. He later told the Los Angeles Times he was “finally playing the part I wanted to play. If I never did another film after this, I’d be happy”.

However, well-received as it was, Paris, Texas did not transform Stanton into a leading man; rather it increased the popularity and budget of the films he was asked to take supporting roles in. He played St Paul in Martin Scorsese’s The Last Temptation of Christ, Toot Toot in Stephen King adaptation The Green Mile, and began a profitable relationship with Lynch, appearing in Wild at Heart, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me and, latterly, The Straight Story and Inland Empire.

Stanton continued to work steadily through the 1990s and 2000s, averaging two or three films a year – of variable quality, it has to be admitted. These ranged from the Adam Sandler comedy Anger Management to the Sally Potter-directed drama The Man Who Cried, to the Kelsey Grammer submarine comedy Down Periscope. He had a long-running role in the HBO series Big Love, playing “prophet” Roman Grant. As he moved into his mid-80s, his output began to slow; however, he did have brief appearances in superhero movie The Avengers and Martin McDonagh’s Seven Psychopaths, and recapped his role as trailer park owner Carl Rodd for the new Twin PeaksTV series.

Stanton was phlegmatic about his place in the film industry eco-system, telling the Observer: “In the end, you end up accepting everything in your life – suffering, horror, love, loss, hate – all of it. It’s all a movie anyway.”

Despite a number of relationships, notably with Rebecca DeMornay in the early 1980s, Stanton never married, and is not known to have had any children.

(theGuardian.com)

ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

I had a very interesting and enlightening week during the first week in July. I was staying at my daughter’s house watching the dogs and my 2 year old granddaughter while my daughter birthed her second child. During the course of the week, the two year old did not get her way at least a dozen times whether we were at the hospital, the grocery store, a parking lot or even crossing the street. Upon being denied she would flop herself down on the ground where she was and start crying and throwing a fit. Well I tell you, I wasn’t standing for any of that crap. Each time I reached down, picked her up around the waist, hoisted her up on my shoulder, and told her very bluntly “Knock it off!” I be damned if she didn’t do exactly that every time.

Now I am not heartless, just an advocate of at least a little bit of discipline, but I was concerned at what effect this would have on how she reacted to me afterwards. Amazingly enough, when we went to visit Mom and Dad at the hospital and her Father held out him arms cried for her to come to Daddy, she turned around and wanted me to pick her up instead. My granddaughter now sees me coming when I visit and lights up like a Christmas tree and runs to me for hugs and kisses.

If my experience shows me anything it is that inside of we have a natural desire to be cared for and part of that responsibility includes letting us know when we have gone too far. When those who cannot determine right from wrong are left to make their own, bad decisions, I do believe that they hate us all for letting them screw up. Of course, in this regard I could care less what they do for in the end they shall pay the price that always comes with poor choices.

BOB WOODWARD’S NEW BOOK Fear: Trump in the White House is selling faster than any book in the last 50 years, stampeding across the records set by Dan Brown and JK Rowling. Woodward can thank Trump for helping to promote the book. Trump’s weeklong meltdown fooled readers into believing there might be something really explosive inside its 400-plus pages. They’ll be disappointed to find many of the same old stories, told by the same old tellers: Priebus, Clapper, Mattis, Brennan, Cohn and Bannon.

Michael Wolff and Omarosa’s books were more fun and better written. Woodward’s post-it-note-like narrative style can make even Trump seem dull. And Fear, which must have been written on a strict deadline, is even flatter than many previous Woodward offerings. Go re-read All the President’s Men or The Final Days and you’ll quickly realize that Carl Bernstein’s writing powered those two unforgettable excursions into the pathology of presidential power.

Fear has its moments, such as Trump’s incandescent eruption in front of Mattis and his generals in the Pentagon’s “tank” room and the backstage skirmishes after Charlottesville, but the reader must traverse acres of arid prose about the tedious minutiae of trade deals to reach these tiny oases. It’s clear Trump, being the congenital dumb-ass that he is, completely blew the response to it. He should have blasted forth the fact Woodward, whose ties to the intelligence agencies are as deep as they come, basically dismisses the entire Russia investigation as a fool’s errand. Trump’s most grievous crimes will be found elsewhere.

For the past 40 years, Woodward has functioned as more of a courtier of the power elite, a stenographer for the imperial front office, than the investigative reporter who helped bring down the Nixon White House. Woodward was a favored scribe in both Bush White Houses, privileged with inside access granted to no other reporters, and his three books on the Bush family’s wars in Afghanistan and Iraq proved to be charitable beyond measure.

Over the years, Woodward had cultivated a particularly intimate relationship with Dick Cheney, who the reporter, perhaps alone in the world, came to view as something akin to the new von Clausewitz. On several occasions, Woodward went out of his way to use his position at the Washington Post to attack critics of the Bush administration, even when those critics were his own colleagues at the paper. In mid-November of 2007, Alexander Cockburn and I wrote about one of Woodward’s nastier escapades, his creepy role in the attempt by Cheney’s office to smear Ambassador Joe Wilson and his wife Valerie Plame.

Woodward not only minimized the crimes of the Cheney crowd, but his testimony before Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald also exposed his colleague Walter Pincus to potential legal sanctions. There’s a reason that Woodward, despite filing one dubious story after another, retains his position as an éminence grise of DC reporters and Seymour Hersh is a meddlesome outsider.

–Jeffrey St. Clair

CATHOLIC PATHOLOGY

by John Arteaga

Wow, before anything else I've got to give kudos to, and underline for all of you, the hard-hitting piece by Georgie Anne Geyer, the longtime political conservative columnist who frequently appears on the Journal's op-ed page. Normally I pass over her column, as I do with David Brooks, that guy Samuelson and the rest of the stable of right wing conservative hacks who are so often provided with so many column inches of newsprint real estate to pedal their predictable diatribes.

What piqued my interest in the column was that it was about the Catholic Church. As a child brought up with Catholicism, and one who left 'The Church' at the first suggestion by my mom that non-attendance of mass on Sunday was even an option, one Sunday, after a mass that involved a certain amount of horseplay with my brothers, she said “If you can’t take mass seriously, just don’t go”. It was the last time I and most of my numerous Catholic siblings would darken the doorway of a church.

Ms. Geyer’s opinion piece followed the recent revelation from Pennsylvania that several hundred priests had molested over a thousand kids, just in that one state. Though not Catholic, she made a point that I thought was eminently logical and long overdue; that at the very least, given the decades of revelations of priestly sexual abuse all over the world, that the Catholic Church, of all institutions, should not be in the business of telling the rest of us how we should or shouldn’t have sex, children etc. In today’s world, riven as it is by all the mortal conflicts that arise out of overpopulation; there being too many people for the available resources of a country or region, that the urgency of getting population growth under control grows more self-evident by the day.

Geyer points out that the Vatican has, for generations, intruded itself into the most intimate decisions people must make, commanding its followers to use only the ineffective ‘rhythm method’ of birth control, perhaps a Machiavellian institutional priority of increasing the numbers of its subjects. It has also used political muscle to water down and defeat sensible programs put forth by the UN for the promotion of birth control in the starving, hopeless countries of the world.

I’ve got to agree with this conservative (and I’m glad to see any self identified conservative taking such a firm stand against a religion), that it is high time for the Catholic Church to dismount from its high horse in this area of people’s lives.

On a related topic, Brett Kavanaugh, an alumnus of the shameful little cabal of perverts led by the sanctimonious Ken Starr, who threatened and terrorized poor young Monica Lewinsky into going on the record with the most salacious details of what the participants, two adult Americans, were engaging in. It always seemed to me that whatever they were doing fell well within their right to privacy, and that what Starr, Kavanaugh and the rest of their ilk were doing in prying into such things, which had nothing to do with violating any law, was far more perverted than anything Bill and Monica were up to.

Kavanaugh could have been raised in a petri dish by the generations-long, lavishly funded organizations devoted to the cultivation of legal scholars to fulfill the fervent wishes of the super rich, the oligarchs, the people of whom the great historian Michael Parenti says, “There is only one thing that the rich have ever wanted, and that is everything!”

Having apparently been raised to completely avoid any awareness of the lives of regular people, his job interview with the Congress is a national embarrassment; 90% of the records of his years working for the criminal W administration has been kept from legislators or shown to them only under some obscure rule of the Senate that forbids them from divulging anything about it to their constituents. At least one admirable senator, Cory Booker, my New Jersey homeboy, felt so strongly about this duplicitous move that he turned over some of the more damning documents in full knowledge that he could possibly be removed from the Senate for doing so.

Kavanaugh is a perjurer who has been saying the things he must to get appointed, while doing everything he can (assisted by an amoral administration bent on sucking up to the nutcase religious right) to hide his true opinions. He has said in these hearings, that he considers Roe V Wade settled law, even though his record shows otherwise; he was one of the judges who was most adamant about denying the pregnant teenage undocumented alien access to the abortion that she sought. The thought of that kind of blind religious dogmatism on the Supreme Court for life turns my stomach.

Along with his 100% support for whatever wealthy corporations and oligarchs want to do to the rest of us, and his almost unlimited deference to presidential executive privilege, it is easy to see why Donald Trump is so enthusiastic about the guy who may provide him with a soon-needed get out of jail free card. His appointment would be one of the worst political things to happen in a lifetime that has already seen so many awful political things.

‘WHAT DO YOU DO ALL DAY?’

by Jim Gibbons

An old friend recently asked me, after I told him I was retired, “What do you do all day?” He asked me in an email, so I didn’t have to defend myself right away, or even reply, treating it more like a rhetorical question, something to think about. But the more I thought about it the more I wanted to write it down, so here it goes.

My morning routine consists of a short walk to buy the local newspaper, return and empty the dishwasher (from the night before) while making coffee. I open the window blinds so I can see outside and have enough natural light to read the paper while drinking my coffee, eating my cereal, and solving the morning Sudoku. I used to just do cross-word puzzles, but then I tried a Sudoku and got hooked. I still do cross-word puzzles, but not till I finish my Sudoku. Oh, and I like playing Scrabble with my wife, but that’s after our morning exercise. I go for a run or bike ride and she works in her garden.

My running route crosses a busy highway to a dead end street to a path that runs along a stream that meanders to a park where I stop and drink some water and use the men’s room. Then I go back outside and do 30 or so push-ups, before walking over to the playground, jumping over a waist-high wooden fence, and just past the swings and slides is a set of bars where I do my pull-ups.

There aren’t usually kids playing there at 8 AM, but when there are and they see me they tend to stare because, I figure, they never see older adults do this. I like to think they might be inspired to do push-ups or pull-ups on their own some day, or maybe a parent will encourage them. Anyhow, I finish my pull-ups, walk over to my usual push-up spot, stretch my arms a little and drop down for another 30 or so, when I hear this small voice ask, “What are you doing?”

I stop and look up to see this 5 or 6 year-old local boy who says, “Mister, this park is not for exercise!”

“Where did you get that idea?” I ask, with a friendly chuckle, but just then a stern voice yells, “KIMO! COME HERE!” And he turns and runs. I tried to finish off the last ten but felt weakened by more chuckling, wondering what Kimo’s reply would have been, and how I might have responded.

I should mention that Kimo is Hawaiian for Jim. The Hawaiian language seems partial to K’s. They take the place of several consonants, from C’s to J’s and especially S’s. My wife Susan is Kukana. If you’re not familiar with the Hawaiian language, just think about going from 26 letters down to 12. Now write a few sentences and then omit the following letters: B,C,D,F,G,J,Q,R,S,T,V,X,Y and Z. What you have left is the Hawaiian alphabet: Seven consonants — H, K, L, M, N, P, W — plus the same five vowels we have.

I’ve learned that haoles (white people) who change from Jim to Kimo are just not taken seriously. I started calling myself Kimo years ago, mostly as a joke, but also because I like names that end in O, like Chico and Dino, Lolo and Flo Jo. My dad used to call me Jimbo.

Then one day an old friend looked at me with a serious unapproving face and said, “Gibbons, you ain’t no Kimo.” As if Kimo’s were really cool and I wasn’t. He had lived several years in Hawaii so he must know. Then recently I was in the local coffee shop when the barista said, “Order for Kimo.”

I was interested in seeing who this cool Hawaiian Kimo dude was, but when I looked around I saw the weird haole guy who had just been in front of me in line. I’d noticed one of the three band-aids on his face was hanging off his chin, so I told him, and asked what he had. When he said, “squamous cell carcinoma” I was almost tempted to tell him that I had been diagnosed with that same rare form of cancer just last year, but didn’t want to continue our conversation. I didn’t really want to bond with the weirdest guy in town. I’d seen him around so often, seemingly going from coffee shop to coffee shop, with a stop at the library, always walking in slow motion on the balls of his feet as if testing for thin ice. He always has band-aids all over his face, which he must somehow get in bulk from Costco, yet never wears a hat for protection against the tropical sun.

Once I get home again I prepare the Scrabble board while cutting a ripe papaya in half, which we eat with a scoop of cottage cheese or just a squeeze of lime. I get papayas at the Farmers Market on Wednesday and Saturday mornings. Three for $2, which makes papayas about the best deal there. I also pick up apple bananas, which are cheaper when they’re ripe, so I buy those, peel and freeze them for smoothies. I swear once you’ve eaten an apple banana you won’t go back to those regular bland ones.

Yes, I’m retired, thanks to the various jobs that have paid into my monthly Social Security check over the years, from factory jobs I had in Milwaukee during the 60s, to paying taxes as a self-employed carpenter into this 21^st Century. Of course, like many of my white middle-class peers with aging parents, good old inheritance checks, much of it coming from rising property values. One reason I can retire is because I took my inheritance check and made a down payment on a Waikiki condo in ’99, then watched it go up in value from $137,000 to over $300,000 in less than ten years. I like having money in the bank, but I miss that condo sometimes.

The important thing is I don’t do much anymore. Yeah, when I first retired I took on various projects and kept as busy as ever, but with age comes wisdom, so I left all my tools in California and moved to Hawaii. There are plenty of reasons not to come to Hawaii, I’m no travel agent, but if you don’t like friendly people and almost perfect weather year round, then forget Hawaii. Food and gas is more expensive here than on the Mainland, not to mention real estate. The cheap real estate in Hawaii is on the Puna side of the Big Island where the Kilauea Volcano is spewing toxic particulates into the air, and hot lava is slowly heading to the town of Pahoa.

Well, it’s afternoon and I just made a blueberry smoothie, which I do every day, often before nap o’clock, which is usually about one. I take my eye drops and give myself a half-hour on my back, which is usually enough to fall asleep, but even if I don’t it still feels good to lie down for awhile, especially if I ran that morning. Now that I’ve turned 70 I realize it’s not the new 60 or 65—it’s just the scary seventies!

I recently ran what I thought would be my first race in my new age division, “70 and over.” It was weird writing my age as 70 on the entry form. I’m not saying I don’t feel that old, but just that I’ve always thought 70 was old and I still do. Although my time was close to another PW (personal worst), I still assumed I would win my new age-division, but after receiving the red ribbon for second place I asked the grey beard who got the blue ribbon how old he was.

“Sixty-five,” he responded. I thought they made a mistake until I looked closer at my results card and realized there was no 70 and over group, only 60 and over, meaning I finally got to my last age-divison—“and over.” And, believe it or not, that race, The Run for Hope, also happened to be my 500^th race since my first in 1978. I’ve kept careful track for years, and knew I must be close, so I added them up—twice!—and sure enough I’ve run 500 road races and track meets over the past 36 years! This does not include high school and college, as I don’t have accurate records for the 60s.

Even though I can’t train like I used to I still get out there 3 to 4 times a week and jog, a term that I used to consider an insult. “I don’t jog, I run,” I would tell people. Now I’m happy to be able to walk, let alone jog. I do pick up the pace when I’m warmed up, but if I overdo it I pay the consequences because I have what my sister Sherry calls “The Family Bunion.” My arthritic big right toe just doesn’t like it when I run fast, or more than 10 miles a week. If I overdo it my left calf tightens up. Why? Because I’m favoring my bunion without even knowing it. Compensation injuries, I was told years ago by Mendocino College trainer Doug Howard, are tough to overcome.

The bottom line is I really can’t train anymore. It’s sort of like having a governor on your car speedometer that’s set at 25 mph and you’re on the freeway knowing the gas tank is nearly empty. I’ve averaged about 30 miles a month over the past 5 years, most of it doing what I now call sub-jogging. Of course, when I’m at a race and tell someone I just beat that I can’t train anymore, they just roll their eyes. Usually one makes excuses when losing, but not me, I outrun someone and then tell them I did it without training. I think those days are just about over.

On alternate days I ride my bike. It’s a Touring bike, not a racing bike or a mountain bike, and I don’t usually go more than 5 to 10 miles, but after a few hills I’m breathing pretty hard, so I know biking helps my conditioning. Mainly my bike is my go-for vehicle. Living a half-mile from town makes it easy to go on errands without using the truck.

After my nap it’s mid-afternoon, too early for a beer so I sit down and do paper work or write or take a walk, but when I get back I open a cold one and look forward to Jeopardy with Alex Trebek, who’s been doing this show most of his adult life -- and he recently turned 80! After Jeopardy it’s the 5 o’clock local news. The big story lately, as I mentioned, is the June 27^th Kilauea lava flow that’s heading for the town of Pahoa on the southeastern side of the Island, but has recently slowed.

Next is the National news, which shows all the fires in California, the torrential rains in the Midwest, followed by the big snow in Buffalo—7 feet in less than a week! Then there’s the shooting of an unarmed teenager in Ferguson, Missouri, and more recently the choking of an unarmed black man in New York which has prompted more and more people to chant “I can’t breathe!”

Then there’s Bill Cosby…you get the picture, the news is my reality TV. My wife likes to watch CNN because there are fewer commercials. She doesn’t like the way I jump back and forth from one show to the other to avoid commercials, often holding out her empty hand which means, “Give me the remote.”

Susan makes dinner and then we watch the Daily Show and The Colbert Report. After that I clean up the kitchen and fill the dishwasher. Then it’s about 8:30 and I try to stay awake until bedtime, which is 9 or so. The next morning we get up around 6 am and start all over again. Real boring, just the way we like it.

MONSTERS ALL THE WAY DOWN

by James Kunstler

Robert Mueller’s fishing crew was out trawling for Manafort, a blubbery swamp mammal valued for its lubricating oil when, by happenstance, a strange breed of porpoise called a Podesta got caught up in the net. Turns out it was a traveling companion of the Manafort. Back in 2014, the pair swam all the way to a little country called Ukraine via the Black Sea where the Podesta used some Manafort SuperLube on then-president of Ukraine, Victor Yanukovych.

The objective was to grease the wheel of NATO and the EU for Ukraine to become a member. But the operation went awry when Yanukovych got a better offer from the Eurasian Customs Union, a Russian-backed trade-and-security org. And the next thing you know, the US State Department and the CIA are all over the situation and, whaddaya know, the Maidan Square in Kiev fills up with screaming neo-Nazis and Mr. Yanukovych gets the bum’s rush — and despite the major screw-up, the Manafort and the Podesta swim off with a cool few million in fees and return to the comforts of the swamp where they finally part ways.

Mr. Mueller is apparently concerned about just what happened with those fees. Possibly the loot ended up getting washed and rinsed through an international banking laundromat, and somehow went unreported to the federal tax authorities. Of course, the charge raises some interesting questions, such as: were Manafort and Podesta over in Ukraine as opportunistic freelancers, or were they part of phase one of a US government effort to get Ukraine to sign up for Team West against its old Uncle Russia, the manager of Team East? Kind of seems like that was exactly what they were doing, so it will be interesting to see whether Mr. Mueller may have stepped into a big pile of dog shit on his way to the Manafort plea session in federal court.

I like the theory that it suits Mr. Mueller’s purpose to land the porpoise in his net of legal entrapment. After all, Tony Podesta of the swamp influence-peddling company called the Podesta Group is brother of John Podesta, once President Bill Clinton’s Chief-of-Staff and more recently chairman of the 2016 Hillary Clinton presidential campaign. So Mr. Mueller can now brag that he is an “equal opportunity” fisherman for both Republican and Democratic species. The only problem is that the 2014 Ukraine monkey business is basically a sordid tale of the USA meddling in another country’s election affairs, one which had quite a more severe effect on Ukraine and Russia than a handful of Russian Facebook trolls managed against the USA’s 2016 election. Does anybody think that Manafort and Podesta were over in Ukraine without the knowledge of the US government?

If so, we surely have the most incompetent intel community on earth. It will be interesting to see what kind of ‘splainin’ that will lead to in court. If Mr. Mueller’s motive is to embarrass the Deep State, he’s well on his way to mission accomplished.

A few other good-sized fish got trawled up the net along with Manafort and Podesta, namely the spiny bottom-feeders called Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, who live on the K Street reef feeding on debris dropped from the mouths of the bull sharks feeding in the lagoon above. They’re all flopping around on the deck of Mr. Mueller’s trawler and one begins to think that the whole aquatic ecosystem is breaking down. If they’re not careful, they could conjure up something like a red tide that will kill everything in the DC swamp.

One might ask, though: was Mr. Mueller’s ship launched in order to catch blubbery Manaforts, poisonous Podestas, and spiny Skadden Arps? I was under the impression that they were out for whale. There happens to be one, a rare golden humpback, lurking in the depths under Mr. Mueller’s trawler, waiting, waiting, to sound and bring down his flukes on the scurvy crew. Somewhere close by, a bassoon is playing ominous notes. Other monsters of the deep may be revealed before this is all over. Monsters over monsters, all the way down.

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

YOU WON'T GET AWAY WITH IT, LIBS

Editor,

There's a lot of lousy rotten liberal anti-Americanism going around — Interference with justice. The Constitution. Elections. Immigration. Medicine. Drugs. Criminal activities. Sanctuary cities. Corruption. All of which, along with the Trump policies, will expose the Liberals or the corruption, and anti-Americanism and all the crooked stuff they have done for 24 years.

The Clinton administration, the Bush administration, the Obama administration which was the worst ever. Hillary Clinton was the second worst ever, crooked Hillary. Pelosi. Waters. Jerry Brown. Chuck Schumer, and hundreds of others rotten liberal Democrat politicians. It's just sickening. Chicago is the most corrupt city in the United States except for California, the most corrupt state where they are forming a task force to equalize basic income. It would govern basic income.

What a joke! Why not form a task force to fight the crime in our cities where there are 10 people killed a week? Crime. Corruption. Criminal liberals in New York and all those rotten corrupt people need to be in prison. Rahm Emanuel, the mayor of Chicago, or so-called mayor, is rotten and corrupt. He is stepping down because he can't step up anymore. Jerry Brown of course is the worst of all of them.

Law enforcement is in our county is very good. Tom Allman and Greg Stefani are doing a good job. I knew Greg Stefani's father years ago when he was a policeman in Ukiah. A good man. People take them for granted until they need them. All the deputies do a great job putting in long hours chasing down criminals. The same criminals Jerry Moonbeam Brown lets into California.

Jerry Philbrick

Comptche

PS. Stand up for your rights Republicans and beat these rotten liberals into the ground politically and physically. God bless Donald Trump for trying to get our country back to a decent republic like it used to be.

PPS. To Mr. Rob Mahon in Covelo, you are not even worth a reply. Go stick your liberal head in the toilet and flush it.

PPPS. Thanks to all the first responders who are helping people who need help around the area. I don't know what we would do without them.

OPEN STUDIOS!

UKIAH, CA- This Saturday, September 22^nd, Ukiah Valley Artists will be hosting the 10^th Annual ‘Open Studio Tour’. Twenty area artisans will open their studios for the public to come visit, see how their art is made and enjoy a day of creativity and artistic exploration. The tour begins at 10:00am and goes to 4:00pm in Ukiah and Redwood Valley. From oil & watercolor painting to textile arts, ‘found-art’ sculptures to jewelry, there is something for everyone to enjoy.

The artists opening their studios in Redwood include Valley Marie Pera (watercolor, oil, pastel), Sheery Breedan (watercolor), Garry Colson (Acrylic, pen & ink, watercolor, pastel), Mary Monroe (watercolor), Jeanne Loelle (watercolor) and Spencer Brewer & Esther Siegel (re-purposed found art sculptures).

In Ukiah the artists are James Denham (oil), Svetlana Artemoff (pastel), Kerry Sullivan (oil), Brenda Hodges (pet portraits and animal studies), Sharon Fenton (watercolor), Cherry Curry (jewelry), Don Pagano (watercolor), Laura Buckner (jewelry), Jeanne Kennedy (textile art), Cottie Morrison (watercolor), Polly Pallecek (oils, icons, mixed media), Adele Pruitt (oils) and Margo Frank (abstract oils).

This will be the first time the public will be able to view some of these artist’s studios, so bring your friends, enjoy a day of artistic culture in our small valley and meet people who are passionate about their art. The Ukiah Valley Artists Open Studio Tour is sponsored by Ukiah Valley Artist Coop. For more information call 707-489-4771 or email ukiahvalleyartsts@yahoo.com.

SAN FRANCISCO, c. 1940

OF COURSE

Mike McGuire Endorses John Haschak for 3rd District supervisor

Broad Support Building for John Haschak with New Endorsements from Mike McGuire, Mendocino Women’s Political Coalition, and Willits Teacher’s Association

Demonstrating diverse and broad-based support, Candidate for 3rd District Supervisor John Haschak has continued to receive endorsements from key individuals and organizations. Within the last week 2nd District State Senator Mike McGuire, Mendocino Women's Political Coalition, and Willits Teachers Association have added themselves to the list of Haschak supporters with public endorsements.

"John Haschak is one of the hardest working folks I know. He cares deeply about doing the right thing for neighbors, he works hard to make sure everyone is heard and he isn't afraid to make the tough decisions. I’m honored to support John because he’ll always put Mendocino County first as Supervisor,” says Senator Mike McGuire.

“Given our history of collaboration on public education and career and technical training, I’m honored to receive Senator McGuire’s endorsement,” says Haschak. “Senator McGuire’s recent work on the Great Redwood Trail is a great example of the type of forward thinking project we need in Mendocino County.”

Haschak has also received over 50 endorsement from local leaders like Willits Mayor Madge Strong, Brooktrails CSD President Rick Williams Chair of Long Valley Health Clinic Dennis Hogan, and Laytonville Realtor Kent Westwood. The complete list of Haschak endorsements is available here <https://haschakforsupervisor.org/endorsements/>.

To learn more visit https://haschakforsupervisor.org

John Haschak - (707) 513-6166

Mike McGuire Campaign - (707) 838-3279

'PS WE LOVE YOU!' RETURNS OCTOBER 7TH!

Project Sanctuary will be holding their 8^th annual fundraising event, ‘P.S. We Love You!’, on Sunday, October 7^th, from 4:30-7:30 pm at ‘The Barn’ at Nelson Family Vineyards. This highly anticipated celebration kicks off October as National Domestic Violence Awareness Month and will feature a live auction emceed by Sheriff Allman and Rachel Britton, an Autumn country dinner by Black Dog Farm, and a piano concert with Spencer Brewer & Wendy DeWitt.

This once a year event will feature a rare performance by local pianist Spencer Brewer playing selections from his 17 records as well as fiery honky-tonk with boogie-woogie queen Wendy De Witt.

Hold onto your seats when they both take to the piano together and tear up the golden 88’s! Not to be missed!
Project Sanctuary offers a many services for Mendocino County survivors of sexual assault and domestic violence. Iris Padgett, a Project Sanctuary board member and the ‘PS We Love You!’ Planning Committee Chair, speaks about the work of Project Sanctuary and how the community can become involved. "For over three decades Project Sanctuary has been providing an array of services for victims of domestic violence and sexual assault, all free of charge. We are not a 100% grant-funded endeavor so fundraisers like ‘PS We Love YOU!’ creates an opportunity for community members to have a hand in supporting these survivors, many of whom seek services for their small children too – these are very often entire families in crisis”

This year’s ‘PS We Love YOU!’ sponsors are Adventist Health Ukiah Valley, Nelson Family Vineyards, Community First Credit Union, MCHC Medical Center, District 2 Assembly Member Jim Wood, KWNE Radio, and Savings Bank of Mendocino County. Individual sponsors include Paul Conrado, Kathleen Brigham & James P Lohr, Mathew Alaniz and the Law offices of Sergio Fuentes.

Tickets are $65 and are available at the Mendocino Book Company and Project Sanctuary at 564 S Dora St in Ukiah. For more information contact Project Sanctuary at 462-9196.

Project Sanctuary, Inc is a private, not-for-profit organization with the mission is to prevent domestic violence and sexual assault in Mendocino County through advocacy, crisis response, community collaboration, education, and shelter. Founded in 1977, Project Sanctuary assists over 2,000 clients annually.

BEST LITTLE WHOREHOUSE IN TEXAS

Press Release_THE_BEST_LITTLE_WHOREHOUSE_IN_TEXAS_9.5.18

“Staffers, contain him and keep your hands in his face. Aides, cut off the outlets. Advisers, watch out for the quick release. And, everyone, stay alert for fumbles.”

ATTENTION YES PEOPLE

Boards and Commissions Vacancies

The list of vacancies, due to term expirations and/or resignations, for County Boards and Commissions has been updated. A list of all new and existing vacancies is available on the County Website at: https://www.mendocinocounty.org/government/board-of-supervisors/boards-and-commissions.

The attached documents contains a list of the vacancies that are new. Please contact the Clerk of the Board office at (707) 463-4441 if you have any questions regarding this message. Thank you. Mendocino County Board of Supervisors and Executive Office, 501 Low Gap Road, Room 1010, tel: (707) 463-4441

09-17-18 AppointmentsWeb

09-17-18 Vacancy Notice

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO THE GREAT AUTHOR AND ORIGINAL PRANKSTER - KEN KESEY.

'THIS ELECTION IS LAST CHANCE TO STOP THEM': KUDLOW CONFIRMS TRUMP AND GOP READY TO GUT SAFETY NET AFTER MIDTERMS

"Believe them when they say they are coming after Medicare and Social Security," Topher Spiro, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, wrote on Twitter in response to Kudlow's comments. "This election is the last chance to stop them."

commondreams.org/news/2018/09/17/election-last-chance-stop-them-kudlow-confirms-trump-and-gop-ready-gut-safety-net