Mendocino County Today: Saturday, Sep. 22, 2018

• More Raises
• Bosco Bailout
• Tree Oddities
• Lauren's Tonight
• Baby Yak
• Little Dog
• Bulletin Boards
• Felony Jack
• Yesterday's Catch
• Much Ado
• Puppet Sex
• Wolf Tickets
• Browns Win
• Siren Technology
• Pumpkin Spice
• Trumpshrooms
• What's Changed
• Learned Nothing
• PA Agenda
• Fifteen Minutes
• LSD Afternoon
• Moon Landing
• Malebook
• Grape Hyacinth
• Marco Radio

RAISES FOR EVERYBODY!

ON THE HOUSE!

Board of Supes Agenda September 25, 2018

Agenda Item 5a) — Discussion and Possible Action Including Acceptance of Informational Presentation Regarding Koff & Associates’ Base Salary Study and Evaluation of the County's Classification and Compensation Plan

(Sponsor: Human Resources)

Recommended Action: Accept Human Resources' informational presentation regarding Koff & Associates' evaluation and study of the County's Classification and Compensation Plan.

Presentation-2

From the Presentation:

“Despite point values assigned, market trends require higher level pay to attract and retain staff…”

“Establish/memorialize a practice of measuring the market to attract and retain staff…”

THE BOSCO BAILOUT BILL (SB1029 McGuire) is still awaiting Gov. Jerry Brown's signature. The bill is the work of McGuire's puppeteer, former Congressman Doug Bosco, a major investor and part owner in the Northwestern Pacific Company (NWP). Bosco and Co. have the lease to operate on the nearly defunct NCRA (North Coast Railroad Authority) right of way. NCRA has been a decades-long funding unit and employer of last resort for Northcoast Democratic Party loyalists. NCRA owes several million dollars to Bosco's train operations company with no way to pay it. Hence the Bosco bailout bill carried by McGuire, the latest in a long line of rightwing Democrats that pass for progressives on the Northcoast.

SB1029 WAS HEAVILY AMENDED before final passage late last month. Stricken from the bill was any mention of the grandiose "Great Redwood Trail Agency," which McGuire claimed would build a public hiking and biking trail from the Golden Gate Bridge to Eureka. The original bill had no estimates of the cost or feasibility of building a 300+ mile trail which would have to traverse the geologically unstable and presently impassable Eel River canyon. Inability to keep the rail line open through the canyon (where no trains have run since 1998) doomed the NCRA. Estimates to re-open the rail line through the canyon start at $600 million, which means the real cost will be at least a billion. Large sections of the right of way have fallen into the river or been buried under hundreds of tons of debris from annually massive landslides.

THE FOCUS OF SB1029 has now shifted to dissolving the NCRA and transferring the southern end of the right of way to SMART (Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit District). The bill appropriates $4 million "for rail improvements" but the fine print explains that the $4 mil is exclusively "for the acquisition of freight rights and equipment" from Bosco's company. The $4 million is only phase one of the Bosco Bailout. Phase two will come later when the legislature must come up with another $4 million or so to repay the debt that NWP claims it is owed by NCRA. In the palsy walsy world of Democratic Party politics don't expect any real accounting of the monies allegedly owed.

THE BOSCO BAILOUT also triggers hundreds of thousands of unfunded state mandates. The Transportation and Natural Resources Agencies are required to carry out detailed assessments of NCRA's assets, debts, the feasibility of a trail and so forth, but the only appropriation in the bill is for phase one of the Bosco Bailout. The Assembly’s Appropriations Committee estimates State costs of "hundreds of thousands of dollars" to do the assessments called for in the bill. The cost to NCRA is estimated at "tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars" but NCRA has no funds to pay these costs. And of course not one dime is being appropriated to build any portion of a trail.

WILL GOV. BROWN sign the bailout that makes a $4 million gift of public funds to his close friend Bosco? Probably. Will McGuire be back at the public trough asking for Phase Two of the Bosco Bailout next year? Yes. Will a trail ever be built from San Francisco to Eureka? No. Will Dem Party operatives continue to treat the railroad right of way as a jobs and cash cow? Yes — only instead of defrauding the public for a train that will never run, the new scam will be for a trail that will never be built.

WHERE ARE THE OLD TIMERS WHEN WE NEED THEM?

Esteemed Editor:

There is a timelessness to Marshall Newman's recollections of the "way it used to be" in pre-urbanized Anderson Valley (not The Anderson Valley you and Jed Steele imagine exists). His perspective, however, on the rarity of the California Nutmeg and Incense Cedar differs from mine and from other ramblers about the Valley's woods and pastures.

There is in fact a small, to my knowledge, rare belt of Incense Cedar along Highway 128 south of Boonville and Burger Rock, just before you get to Mathias territory heading to Cloverdale. The scattered trees, some along the highway itself, are in an extended outcrop of scattered boulders and thin gravelly grassland crossing 128 and going down to Rancheria Creek. A foreign friend, a trained geologist visiting many years ago, said this grey-green clayey Yorkville Formation soil has likely volcanic activity origins with little organic nutrition in it to support trees and grasses. Whether there are other small sites like this supporting incense cedar I don't know. Maybe on the hot springs ranch up on Haehl Hill Milepost 49 going back to the hot springs above Hopland? David Severn know?

And there is one Incense Cedar on my place in Navarro, the former Guntly/Ingram Ranch, almost certainly a random act of nature. When I first moved there back in 1971 I found in the live oak stand up the gulch behind Loren Bloyd's old Highway 128 house a single mysterious evergreen narrow in stature, fifteen feet tall and three inches on the stump. Neighbor, local woodsman and oral historian Bill Witherell, and others, assured me it was an Incense Cedar. I immediately treasured the tree as an exotic gift whose seed was probably transported in years past by bird or logging equipment.

Within a year though tragedy struck. I began running goats on the property as a modest money maker and major brush clearing device, fighting the poison oak, blackberry, manzanita, doug fir seedlings that were taking over the long unfarmed property. The goats, I noticed also favored the bark of the young tree and in a month or two of arrival had stripped a ring of it down to the cambium layer at goat head height. With little hope I built a shield around the tree and for luck's sake didn't look at it for a year or so. When I finally did one spring, the tree was healing around the trunk wound, and had gained a foot in height. Thank you, Demeter.

Today this exotic specimen is over forty feet tall, eight inches on the stump and surrounded by aging live oaks and the redwood trees I planted fifteen years ago and nurtured on drip irrigation for a while. And there is virtually no bark scar on the trunk to celebrate the goats' heroic attempt to destroy the tree.

And as to California Nutmeg I have no natural specimens on my place, but in my ramblings on foot and via jeep, again with Bill Witherell in our "Hunting" expeditions, more story-telling than actual trigger action, we saw occasional trees up and down the Navarro from Clark's Crossing to Mal Pass and along the railroad right of way from Kean Summit to Albion River tidewater. Some were just a foot, others fifteen, maybe twenty feet tall. All were either single specimens or lightly scattered groves in deep timber soil shady swales offering little sunlight. Thus hard to spot.

Years ago when I was helping Sam Prather run sheep on the Day Ranch, formerly Gossman, etc., I found in the beautifully built and maintained main barn by the highway, a number of hardwood slabs stored on stickers in a dry space. Each slab was dusty and spider webby, but no termites, and the fine-grained and creamy white of surface texture would have made durable, beautiful kitchen countertops. Again a local woodsman intervened, possibly Alvy Price, also a hardwood fine cabinet and boxmaker of significant talent, to say these planks were probably local Nutmeg. Each one, six or eight in number, were maybe fourteen feet long, eighteen inches wide, and two inches thick. Sammy, the Days, no one else, though, knew where they came from or when they arrived in the barn.

As to Nutmeg's wider distribution around the county, my step-daughter and husband live up Robinson Creek west of Ukiah near the gap separating Russian River valley from Navarro River North Fork, on a remnant of the old Stambaugh Ranch. The property is served by the largest sidehill spring I have ever seen, a bear wallow about forty feet across providing the home with a gallon a minute of water right now in September. The east-facing spring is covered with a canopy of live oak, douglas fir, madrone, maple and a scattering of Nutmeg from three to twenty feet tall. Other shady gulches on the property have their share of the tree as well.

I know this tree memoir rambles on, but another local forest habitat mystery is occurring right here on Harmony Hill. About forty years ago, when I first began tree planting on my place, I found a conifer I recognized as a Piss Fir (formally Grand Fir), recognized from my wage slave tree-planting days on Masonite's coast property, specifically back up on the south side of the Navarro, a mile or two and upstream of the old time Cloverdale residents' summer commune at the river mouth. After the Piss Fir discovery here I approached my north side neighbor, Cap Salmela. Oh yes, he shrugged, there's a whole grove of them along the right-of-way into Perry Gulch Ranch around our family picnic area. Been there for years.

Now the forestry experts assure us that Grand Fir is Coast bound by climate and habitat, wanting the cool air and relentless fog out there and inland a couple of miles. The ones on my place, a dozen maybe so far, have stayed scattered here and there on the shady north side of the ridge, mixed among the more dominant redwoods and douglas fir. But I did find way back then one seedling established on the south side of the farm in the poor soil leftover waste from my dam construction. That seedling is now forty or fifty feet tall, eight inches on the stump. Needle tips sharp as ever, though not as sharp as the Nutmeg.

Finally, RE your September 12 issue and Malcolm MacDonald's elegiac description of the 1931 Comptche fire and the collaborative community response to it. What a great piece of "old days" journalism. Navarro old timers were still talking about that event with awe and wonder when I first moved here back in 1971. Bill Witherell was thrilled to show me the north side of the community redwood water tank, the 9,000 gallon one behind the Mill Manager's home across from the Laurel School. The tank stave tops burnt that evening forty years before as the Comptche fire died up against the outskirts of Navarro were so damaged in 1972, the tank could only be filled to a foot short of its top.

I continue to wonder, even after reading carefully Malcolm's description of the fire's progress south from Big River how it travelled from the Mickey Smith Ranch at Kean Summit down to Navarro. I am guessing via Dutch Henry Creek, the North Fork Main Branch, then perhaps over the Company Ranch bull teams farm grassland ridge to Navarro.

Where are the Oldtimers when we need them?

Brad Wiley, Navarro

THE BIRTH OF CACHA

Petite Teton, a small farm near Boonville

Petit Teton Monthly Farm Report - August 2018

Hi everyone...

We had a severe fright mid-month when Juan came running to us to report that Kayak, one of our yaks, had given birth. We were unaware that she was pregnant. This is a love story with a happy ending; both mom and baby girl are healthy and frisky and have rejoined their buddies, Oreo and Zodyak. But getting them there was traumatic. Early on a Thursday morning, Juan came running in panting to tell us that he had discovered that Kay had given birth and was sitting on the ground while the baby stumbled about bleating. He thought the birth had occurred a number of hours earlier and indicated that something awful had happened. We all ran to her but stopped short in horror several yards from where she sat on the ground with what looked like her entire insides resting on the ground behind her. The after birth was on the ground nearby. None of us had ever seen such a sight and were unsure what body part we were witnessing. She could not stand and the baby could not nurse. It is critical that a newborn bovine receive the first of mother's milk which is called colostrum. It is needed in the first 24 hours to boost a baby bovine's immune system and keep her healthy.

There was a moment of panic then a flurry of phone calls to find help until we called a local vet whose services we had used many years back and who, luckily, was available to come out within a few hours. He wanted a description of the mass she had expelled and none of us was clear on what it looked like. It was as large as a giant beach ball, red, wet and scary.

Thankfully he arrived an hour or so later and we all rushed up the hill to see Kay. From the knobs of flesh on the outside of the mass the vet immediately knew it was a prolapse - her entire uterus was on the ground behind her. The fleshy knobs on it that identified it are the places where mom and baby's fluids are passed back and forth and which fall off after a birth, usually inside the animal, and are then absorbed by her body. All we could think was thank goodness Juan had discovered the birth, thank goodness it was a foggy cool morning, thank goodness the coyotes hadn't smelled blood, thank goodness the yellow jackets weren't out yet, thank goodness, thank goodness.

The doctor brought his truck as close as possible to the site and prepped his equipment then gave the three of us our assignments - bring a large plastic sheet, a clean wine bottle, and water. We were extremely lucky in her choice of birthing spot which was on a slight hill, in the open, and in an area we could separate from the other yaks. Kay received a numbing shot after which we swiveled her by pulling on her horns and pushing from behind so her head was downhill. Juan held her horns to keep her head steady and the doctor lifted the uterus so Steve and I could slip the large plastic sheet under it, then we each held a corner and lifted the very heavy mass up off the ground so the doctor could prepare to push. He first mixed a bucket of antiseptic which was poured over and rubbed over the uterus. Kneeling behind her he began massaging and pushing the mass back into her. Time stood still and the mass did not appear to be shrinking into her at all. The doc's arm muscles were bulging and he was sweating, Kay flicked her head probably from pain, we struggled to keep the plastic from slipping on the ground - we all strained mightily and had painful thoughts that this would never work. But after nearly an hour we noticed that the mass was shrinking, then, suddenly, it just disappeared into her. We all heaved a sigh, not yet of relief, but of having accomplished the first step.

The wine bottle was next. The vet pushed it inside her womb and up into the fallopian tubes one at a time to turn them right side out! He had me feel her side while he did this and sure enough, I could feel the butt of the bottle up against her hide. A handful of antibiotics were shoved in, I think on top of the womb, and he gave her a wake-up shot.

The whole operation took an hour and a half and we could have bought another yak for the cost. But we now had some hope that we had saved Kayak and our attention turned to trying to save baby. The vet first tried to tempt the baby with colostrum he squeezed from Kay's teats, but she refused it. After that we started making calls to find a farm or a vet with colostrum in the freezer. After many calls the only place we found was the Large Animal Hospital in Cotati more than an hour away. Steve drove down and returned with a gallon of just thawed colostrum which Juan and I immediately put a quart in a bottle to feed to her. She refused to suck so we retreated to using an ear syringe. An hour later we had filled her with half the quart and she promptly fell asleep. We returned later to feed her the remainder of the quart and again she slept. We had moved her to a fenced area close to the house.

The next day we continued to try to bottle feed her a milk combo that we had used on other yaks but she was not interested and we had to use the syringe. She looked too thin and listless. Meanwhile, Kay was still sitting and not eating. The vet said that if the uterus stayed in for a day it would stay in permanently but she needed to stand up since most bovines are healthier standing. She refused except to briefly get up and defecate which of course scared us to death because the pushing could cause trouble. But she did drink the water we left near her and seemed to nibble some of the hay we left. We noted that she wasn't grunting which is what healthy yaks do, using their grunts to call their young. There was not much more we could do but wait.

On day three Juan came running with wonderful news...Kay was up, eating and grunting for baby. We took the yaklet up to her and watched as they touched noses, grunted then baby fumbled under Kay until she found a teat and started to nurse. Whoooppeee!

We named her Cacha in honor of Juan whose last name is Cacho and without whom they both would have died. She is now a fat, fluffy, lively baby yak with beautiful brown and white coloring which puts her in the imperial yak category. A picture of her is attached. Kay, who has had many babies, is again the best of mama's with the possibility of another baby next year.

Have a happy fall.

Nikki Auschnitt & Steve Kreig, Yorkville

LITTLE DOG SAYS, “A guy on the comment line called me a 'prude.’ Me? A dawg? Now Skrag is another story. I'll say this for him and the rest of his deadbeat species — they're discreet. You'll hear them yowling but that's it. Us dawgs? Well, we're pretty short on impulse control, but we have a whole lotta other virtues that cats don't.”

BRING BACK THE BULLETIN BOARDS

(Coast ListServe Exchange)

I miss our Albion Post Office bulletin board. Do you miss it too? I was talking with some Albion friends and someone mentioned that our Albion Post Office bulletin board was taken down about 3 months ago and that the plan was to remove the bulletin board to make room for the new parcel lockers. The new lockers have been installed for a while now and there’s still no Albion Post Office bulletin board. My friend said our postmaster didn’t want the bulletin board there any longer. Does the community get to be a part of that decision?

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Yes, there’s a bulletin board in front of the Albion Grocery, but I shop there infrequently. I go the post office quite often. Also, notices and flyers are easily blown off that bulletin board by strong winds. To me, it’s just not the same as having our indoor post office bulletin board. I’ve lived in Albion for over 30 years and our local bulletin board was a place where I could read important public announcements and notices, learn about local events/workshops and stay connected with the community. I was wondering if anyone else misses having the Albion Post Office bulletin board too? If the Albion Post Office bulletin board was important to you too, please let me know by replying to this message. If enough of us are concerned maybe our Albion Post Office bulletin board can be returned.

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And while we're at it, can we bring back the Mendocino P.O. bulletin board? People are taping notices to the backs of newspaper vending machines now...

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yes, it is time to get one up again!! taking it down was temporary, then there was some discussion re the postmistress not wanting it up, and who could or would decide. i have been talking about it the whole time with various postal people who serve us our mail. i think it is agreed that the community wants it and that there is no reason not to put one up. we need to keep asking for it, i think signing a letter would be good at this point. the rules for post offices were always there. no change in this time period. we need the bulletin board. I loved that one. As a young reporter many years ago I got great stories off laundramat bulletin boards over in Sacto area. Im afraid they are something of the past. People want order, obedience and sameness over all else. It probably offended someone or broke some rule somewhere, the type of rules nobody would have dreamed of enforcing in the 1970s.

EVERYONE IN LAYTONVILLE EXCEPT JACK

On 09-17-18, member of the Mendocino County Sheriff's Office Marijuana Enforcement Team (COMMET), assisted by Deputies of the Mendocino County Sheriff's Office and Wardens from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife Watershed Enforcement Team served a search in the 1400 block of North Road in Laytonville. Jack Bailey Kuykendall, 72, of Laytonville, was contacted in the driveway of his residence and he was cooperative with Deputies.

Kuykendall was found to have 28 growing marijuana plants, a Felony. Kuykendall was also found to be in possession of a firearm and ammunition as a convicted felony, which he is prohibited from possessing. Kuykendall was subsequently booked in the Mendocino County Jail on the above charges. Prior to the service of the search warrant, Deputies learned Kuykendall, who is a registered sex offender, was growing marijuana. Even though Proposition 64 legalized marijuana for most people, there is still a provision that prevents persons with certain serious prior convictions from cultivating more than 6 marijuana plants. In this case, Kuykendall, has past convictions for serious offenses, which require him to register as a sex offender pursuant to section 290 of the California Penal Code. Additionally, that same conviction, prohibits him from possessing firearms or ammunition.

CATCH OF THE DAY, September 21, 2018

MICHELLE BAILEY, Fort Bragg. Elder abuse.

JUSTINA BOCANEGRA, Redwood City/Ukiah. DUI.

JULIAN GALARZA, Ukiah. Domestic battery, false imprisonment.

DAVID GIUSTI, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol. (Frequent flyer.)

STEVEN HILL, Redwood Valley. Battery with serious injury.

PEREGRINO MERINO-ORTIZ, Salinas/Ukiah. DUI causing bodily injury.

TASHA ORNELAS, Ukiah. Drinking in public, resisting.

JUAN ROJAS-SANTIAGO, Orange Cove/Ukiah. DUI.

EDWARD STEELE, Ukiah. County parole violation.

JOSE VIZCAINO, Covelo. Assault with deadly weapon not a gun.

DING DONG…

by James Kunstler

How hilarious is it in this pornography-saturated culture of anything-goes-and-nothing-matters that a long-ago session of awkward teenage necking becomes the most horrifying crime since Eve consorted with a snake in the original wayback?

One theory: having worked tirelessly to destroy behavioral boundaries in its quest to transform human nature for the greater good of society, the Prog-Left has no idea anymore how the world works or how to interpret what human beings actually do in it. Hence this effort to turn the Brett Kavanaugh nomination proceeding into a retroactive abortion of the nominee.

The Democratic Party seems to be afflicted with a vicious sort of PMS that has turned the brains of even its theoretically male members, Senators Chuck Schumer and Richard Blumenthal, into polenta with red sauce on top. They see blood everywhere, and even appear to be thirsting for it like a gang of Old World Nosferatus, or giddy Jacobins merrily geeing up the guillotine blade in a frenzy of summary execution.

My own sense of the situation is that Christine Blasey Ford’s accusations are going exactly nowhere, no matter how carefully and elaborately conditions are set for her to lay out her case. It couldn’t be more firmly established that she doesn’t remember what year or what place the alleged necking happened in. Is she going to change that part of the story now? Surely lawyers, gumshoes, and phrenologists on the Democratic Party payroll would like to engineer some magic memory retrieval so she’ll be supplied with dates and addresses when her turn at the microphone comes. By the way, the boundary between truth and untruth is one of the lines that has turned all squishy on them. Because they can’t tell anymore, they must assume nobody else can either.

Who knows if Ms. Ford is sturdy enough for this ordeal-by-testimony. CNN asserted Thursday night that this episode has “destroyed her life.” Of course, that claim, too, might be viewed as just another manifestation of hormonal disturbance which, let’s face it, women of a certain age are subject to. She can always retreat to her “safe space” back at Palo Alto U, with all the perqs and emoluments of her professorship, or perhaps even make a run for congress. God knows, California could use another victim of white male sexual abuse to advance the project of getting rid of men altogether. Hollywood would sign on for that in a New York minute.

This might come as a shock to readers, but the time is not far off when the remaining not-insane cohort of adult Americans gets good and goddamn sick of political sex bombing. Especially given this case of shuck-and-jive. Consider that the same CNN this week produced an entire segment about the shape and size of the President’s generative organ (as reported by an expert in these matters, the porn star and prostitute known as Stormy Daniels). It must be a subject of extraordinary interest to CNN’s Anderson Cooper.

On the other flank of the news this week is the much more perilous showdown between the Department of Justice (and the FBI), and Mr. Trump, the cis-hetero-white Golem who happens to be president. He has ordered these agencies to produce a set of un-redacted documents pertaining to the long-running Russia investigation, set into motion by personnel at these very places. It’s his prerogative under the constitution to do that. In turn, these agencies are being egged on by possibly culpable characters in this melodrama, such as former CIA Director John Brennan and Congressman Adam Schiff (D-Cal), to stonewall the Golem. If I were president — and I may get there yet — I’d send federal marshals into Rod Rosenstein’s office to seize these documents before they are mysteriously “lost.” A tremendous tension hangs over this transaction. Imagine the awful possibility that Mr. Trump may have to declare some kind of martial law to roust out these seditious rascals and clean up their departments. There’s your Fourth Turning horror show with whipped cream and a cherry on top.

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

“Not now, honey. Daddy’s arguing with strangers about the sexual orientation of puppets.”

NOW WOLF TICKETS?

Editor

Now Wolf Tickets?

Jeez, Philbrick. Now you’re putting out wolf tickets to any and all manly American “Libs” conspiring to persecute our Maximum Leader and end our Christian Way of Life? How old are you, anyway? Eighty? I knew you back before you shrank into a babbling old hayseed Scrooge, your mercenary soul shriveled up like a French Imperial prune. You still shadow boxing and still missing. Good God, man, don’t you know how silly a numbskull like yourself sounds in print when you’re tilting at the windmills flying in formation excreting subversive contrails above your “hainted” Outer-Comptche log cabin style Transylvanian castle keep complete with bazookas?

A while back in these pages I asked you to please tell us nasty, reverse-racist, corrupt, treasonous and deranged “libs” even one reason why Jesus would bless a sleazeball like Trump and you ain’t even got the nerve to answer that. Wasn’t like I was asking you to put your ass where your mouth is, either. Nothing so rude. Just asking you to put your brain where your scribblings are was all. Thought everybody knew talk is cheap. Your political ideas ain’t shit unless you’re willing to logically defend them.

So what’s wrong with you? That ancient scraggly barn cat of yours mistake your rattling tongue for a rat? Or is it the vampire bats randomly circling in your ancestral cavern that prevents you from getting your head screwed on straight? Or could be you’ve got the head and lungs of a St. Bernard Alpine Rescue Dog working double shifts and the ass of a whippet puppy confined to an apartment being ruled over by a couch-potato endlessly watching the daily reruns on Fox Unworldly News?

In politics, as in poker, there comes a time to put up or shut up. And oh how I wish you’d shut up, Philbrick. Read a book, go fishing, go split kindling. Hell, why not get all adventurous and drive down to Cloverdale for dinner and a drink at McDonalds?

Regarding why on earth our Esteemed Editor would allow this hate-mongering one trick pony to take up so much space in his now shrunk-by-a-third weekly, I’ve asked him and he ain’t saying. Not to me, anyway. Then again, most everybody likes a little suspense and, besides, we all enjoy putting some plausible deniability into our lives. Where would we be without the little white lies we tell ourselves and each other?

Breaking news: just back from Washington State. I pick up the 8/29 issue of the AVA and, by golly, our Esteemed Editor has finally spilled the beans: Trumpkins, says he, more bettah than them wicked careerists in the Civil Service. I dare say it takes some brass balls to rush to the defense of the likes of Cap’n Manafort (check that Freudian slip of a handle) with his octopus legs leading to where all the Euro-Trashian mobs come together with their big, plump and beady-eyed American kissing cousins. You know, up there atop dah Trump Phallus or atop his son-in-law’s 666 I dare not whisper the unholy name.

Whether it’s Field Marshall Putin or Generalissimo “Flacco” Trump, or them working together, anybody willing to follow those sleazeballs should think long and hard about where that road inevitably leads. I mean, would you like a dollop of Stalin to go with your steaming hot plate of plump little Mussolini? No, you’re good? Then I’m good, too.

I know not what path others may take…

Bruce Patterson

Prineville, Oregon

POSTSCRIPT: It’s Thursday, 20/18 and that rancid creampuff Judge Cave-alot is about to maybe receive stolen property in the form of a permanent appointment to a job religious fanatics should never be allowed to Touch. How dare I slander that blow-dried pasty-faced His Honor? It’s because he recently called all birth control “forms of chemical abortions.” It’s because he has promised to end all abortions which would be a tyranny most foul inflicted upon most all women between the ages of 13 and 55. Earth to you blow-dried old white men having far more money than common sense or decency: when men can have babies then, and only then, they can tell any women about how to have, or not have, babies. Till then, fuck off.

===============================

BACK TO THE FUTURE

Editor,

After reading the article about the proposal to alert people about an emergency via cellphones, etc., and how it seemed not totally effective, one idea, which is currently used in Hawaii, is to simply use sirens. That way everyone will be alerted to an emergency. I have a cellphone, but some people don’t, or they turn them off at night. High technology isn’t the solution to every situation or problem. Try a good old-fashioned and loud siren system.

Mary Wright

Santa Rosa

ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

As for Trump’s weenie. (You brought it up). Well, there is one way to dispel the rumors. Up north, drunk drillers like to pull them out for a long cock contest at the bar. Maybe Rubio was right about his little hands, after all? Donald could always pull his out or get Melania to phone in a report. (She did see it once). I have yet to hear any other females come out and defend his manhood. Sure, maybe Trump can’t do it himself, but remember, this is the guy who phoned in to newspapers incognito and ‘leaked’ that Trump was a fantastic lover; the best. (A legend in his own mind, I guess). All I really know is that my taste for white button mushrooms is now in decline. Bigly. I also heard that in Canadian stores mushrooms are now referred to as ‘Trumpies’. “Excuse me love, do you have any fresh Trumpies….maybe big enough to stuff? These look a wee bit small”. Yuuuge. Yuuge controversy, worthy of the times, I suppose.

NOTHING HAS CHANGED

NO WAY

To the Editor:

A 17-year-old boy, holding his hand tightly over the mouth of a 15-year-old girl to silence her protests, allegedly tried to rape her.

If he had succeeded and she became pregnant, that boy’s 53-year-old self, now a nominee to the Supreme Court, would today possibly vote to prevent his 15-year-old victim from getting an abortion.

Is this the country that American women must live in? Have we learned nothing? Have our leaders learned nothing?

This man must not be allowed to rule on the bodies of women.

Victoria Hochberg

Hollywood

POINT ARENA GOVERNMENT IN ACTION: Septic tank permits, clothing allowances, garbage fees, irrelevant resolutions, and a pay raise for Shoemaker who must preside over these monumental issues.

https://mailchi.mp/10120d8fb317/city-council-meeting-september-25-2018?e=d0e3cdc057

In the future, everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes.

--Andy Warhol, 1968

* * *

In the future, fifteen people will be famous.

--Andy Warhol, 1974

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In fifteen minutes, everybody will be famous.

--Andy Warhol, 1979

OH, "IMPRESSED" IS NOT THE RIGHT WORD! Treading the soil of the moon gives one, I imagine (or rather my projected self imagines), the most remarkable romantic thrill ever experienced in the history of discovery. Of course, I rented a television set to watch every moment of their marvelous adventure. That gentle little minuet that despite their awkward suits the two men danced with such grace to the tune of lunar gravity was a lovely sight. It was also a moment when a flag means to one more than a flag usually does. I am puzzled and pained by the fact that the English weeklies ignored the absolutely overwhelming excitement of the adventure, the strange sensual exhilaration of palpating those precious pebbles, of seeing our marbled globe in the black sky, of feeling along one's spine the shiver and wonder of it. After all, Englishmen should understand that thrill, they who have been the greatest, the purest explorers. Why then drag in such irrelevant matters as wasted dollars and power politics?

--Vladimir Nabokov, 1973, on the Apollo moon landings; from "Strong Opinions"

THE FACEBOOK COMMUNITY, especially those who are female, should be aware that those "in charge" of facebook are MALE. In the past day I had a post exed off facebook because I suggested women vote for WOMEN. I also suggested that men, generally, remind me of a member of a farmyard group. I did not use a "bad" word, & I've seen MUCH WORSE WORDS on facebook over & over. But the MALE COMMUNITY that runs facebook would not allow it. Be aware, women!

Ellie Green

LIVE FROM FORT BRAGG. MEMO OF THE AIR: GOOD NIGHT RADIO TONIGHT!

Friday, September 21, 9pm to 5am, there's Memo of the Air, live from the KNYO performance space at 325 N. Franklin, next door to the Tip Top bar. Appear, enter without even knocking, allowing a bored, sophisticated smile to play about your lips, head for the brightly lit room at the back, get my attention away from whatever I'm doing, and you can show-and-tell and/or perform your [ahem] act, or talk about your project, or read your own work, or whatever.

If you don't want to change out of your pyjamas just to go to town, the deadline to email your writing to be read on the air tonight is around 6pm. Also the number in the Fort Bragg studio is 707 962-3022, so you can read your own work with your own voice right there on the phone. If there will be swears, please wait until 10pm to let loose the swears.

I've got a lot of delightful material to read as well as music to play for breaks, not to mention practical recipes for a better real world, or as much better as it can be, given that this is the lame one without the mutant superheroes in it, alas.

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

Bonus tracks: The mold you can't see.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ro8sPOgCBg

A blind and nearly deaf old man, with one remaining working hand, remembering jazz.

https://www.reddit.com/r/aww/comments/9fn1wj/old_man_remembering_jazz/

And ten paintings of Judith beheading Holofernes, ranked, with art commentary.

https://www.currentaffairs.org/2018/09/ranked-10-paintings-of-judith-beheading-holofernes

Marco McClean, memo@mcn.org

https://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com