Mendocino County Today: Sunday, Oct. 28, 2018

• Keplinger Memorial
• FFA Dinner
• Pets
• Dias Muertos
• Mariposa Memories
• Ukiah Council
• Help Alfred
• Ed Notes
• Yesterday's Catch
• Women Marching
• Deer Collisions
• Leaders
• California Fires
• Pipe Bombers
• Election Day
• Room View
• Riggs Again
• Fascism Signs
• Pancake Breakfast
• Flu Shots
• Steerage
• Rainbow Warriors
• Empire Falling
• Marco Radio
• Entitlements
• Partisans
• Heroes & Patriots

FORMER UKIAH POLICE CHIEF Fred Keplinger, who was recently diagnosed with cancer, will be honored at a Sunday afternoon potluck in Ukiah.

Keplinger’s son Patrick sent the following note to The Daily Journal on Friday:

“We are having a Celebration of life for my father, Fred Keplinger, longtime public servant of Ukiah. My Dad was the Chief of Police and later became Ukiah’s first Director of Public Safety. He was recently diagnosed with Stage 4 Pancreatic Cancer and is quickly losing his battle.

“The celebration will be held on Sunday, Oct. 28 at 1 p.m. at the Ukiah Elks Lodge (1200 Hastings Road, Ukiah, CA 95482). This will be the only celebration/memorial for Fred, as there are no plans to have one after he passes.”

UKIAH SHELTER PETS OF THE WEEK

Looking for some entertainment? These two kittens know how to delight! Cole is a gray, 2-month old, neutered male and Zebra is a black and white, 2-month old, spayed female. They are not siblings but they do live together at the Shelter. These two have a great time together, and we would love them to be adopted together. Cole lived in a great foster home  with other cats and dogs.

This fun loving, happy guy is wowing staff and volunteers with his golden eyes and great personality. Bigelow is a 1 year old, neutered male, mixed breed dog who weighs a svelte 70 pounds. Yep, Bigelow likes tennis balls! And everything else life has to offer. Biggy is a wonderful dog with a fabulous temperament.  He’s gorgeous--with a soft, smooth coat and those eyes!! We can't say enough about this young dog, except come and meet him at the shelter! You can see lots more about Bigelow on his webpage:

http://www.mendoanimalshelter.com/dogblog/bigelow

The Ukiah Animal Shelter is located at 298 Plant Road in Ukiah, and adoption hours are Tuesday, Thursday, Friday & Saturday from 10 am to 4:30 pm and Wednesday from 10 am to 6:30 pm.   To see photos and bios of the shelter's adoptable animals, please visit us online at:

http://www.mendoanimalshelter.com

For more information about adoptions please call 707-467-6453.

DAY OF THE DEAD AT LIZBBY'S

Mon, Oct 29 And Four More

Lizbbys Restaurant and Bar · Boonville, CA

MARIPOSA MEMORIES

Dear Editor,

I no longer live in Mendocino County, but I did during high school in the early 1970s. I have seen in various places that my former school, the now closed Mariposa School, seems to maintain a shining reputation as being a place of groundbreaking alternative K-12 education in its day. As a student there in grades nine, 10, and 11, I have a different perspective.

I arrived at Mariposa in the fall of 1972 when my family was in crisis and we moved to Mendocino County to live with my grandmother. She knew about Mariposa and enrolled me there because I had had significant problems in public school before this: difficulty making friends, bad grades, and trouble keeping up with the class; issues now identifiable as a mild autism spectrum condition, although no such diagnosis existed at that time.

Mariposa was a perfect place for me in some ways. I was bright but socially below average and there were only about 15 students in the high school and 50 or so in the total school, reducing social pressures. The school soon moved to a large piece of property outside of Ukiah and I enjoyed the outdoors and low population density and had many interests. I still have journals that I kept while at Mariposa where I wrote about my interests in politics, biology, history, poetry and music. I also loved writing and had a collection of poems, stories, and essays I had written. However, not one interest I had then was ever developed during my time at Mariposa School.

Classes were casual. Those I recall attending were "sensitivity" groups where people discussed feelings, something I had found intriguing but impossible. In the first year there was a photography class I liked, but it was not continued. There were some Spanish lessons, a trip to Mexico and other trips to the coast and the redwoods. However, I cannot recall being asked to write a single essay during the three years at Mariposa high school and although I did read and there were occasional book discussions, there was no meaningful English language or literature program.

There was virtually no science. In fact, my mother, who was a scientist, conducted the few science classes I recall. There may have been elementary math for younger students but I remember none beyond what was needed for carpentry projects.

One consistent class was an improvisation class for all ages organized by an energetic young man. I enjoyed his class because it had little structure and it was a comfortable way to blow off steam.

The main activity I was involved in at Mariposa was carpentry, building classrooms, kitchens, bathhouses, and cabins for those living on the property, my family now among them. As a result, the one thing I learned was carpentry and this caused me to make this a central part of my livelihood later, something I now regret, as I wanted to pursue a profession as my parents and grandparents had done.

While the lack of academics at Mariposa was bad enough, the real damage was from being sexually abused by the drama teacher. Right around my 17th birthday this man started sexually abusing me. It was so devastating

I completely shut down most of the memories. What I do recall is typical of people who experience trauma: substantial blank spots interspersed with vivid recollections, bringing back raw emotions to this day.

I left the school and the county forever at the end of 11th grade and tried going to college upstate, although I was not ready to do so and soon returned to my family now living in the Bay Area. I almost completely blocked out the memories of what this teacher did to me until an unexpected phone call from him brought the memories to consciousness in 2009. But I lived with the damage every day until the end and beyond.

When I finally faced the truth I developed full-blown PTSD. It took a long time to find the right help because it is only now becoming known that PTSD is a brain injury on a microscopic level. Sexual abuse damages the brain through the massive doses of cortisol that the body releases during trauma and its recollection. This is one fact I had to understand and treat in order to recover as much as possible.

In 2009 when these memories resurfaced I contacted teachers I had felt close to at Mariposa. This does not include the abuser. I had one communication with each of about eight other former Mariposa teachers, including the Hamburgs, to whom I sent a letter, to which they never replied. Each of those I did speak to was outwardly sympathetic and recalled me as the bright shy person I remember myself to have been and all claimed no memory of anything sexual between the drama teacher and me, although I did tell one of them what was happening at the time of those events. None of them ever contacted me afterward and none of them expressed any concern about this man going on to become a state credentialed teacher of developmentally disabled students in public schools.

I could not live with this. In 2014, after much difficulty given my mental health at the time, I managed to file a complaint with the California Teacher Credentialing Commission. They opened an investigation and then repealed his credentials. He appealed and finally the state Attorney General's office got him to relinquish his credential voluntarily and sign a statement that he would never apply to be a teacher in California again. He could have faced me before a judge. He chose not to. He has now moved to another state.

Needless to say I do not have a positive opinion of Mariposa school as a place that fostered the academic or personal development of students or cared about them beyond their tuition payments. In my experience the former teachers of Mariposa were not people who should ever have run a school or had the care of young people in their charge. For me as a former student Mariposa was not really a school and the people who ran it were ultimately destructive to my development, academically and as a person.

Mine is not the only case of sexual abuse by a teacher at Mariposa school. Another incident around 1989 by a different man in the same cabin in the woods was reported to police and the Ukiah Daily Journal at the time.

It is never too late to file a police report about a crime. Doing so was part of my own healing. To file a complaint against a teacher with the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing visit their website at: www.ctc.ca.gov/educator-discipline

Or contact them at 1900 Capitol Ave., Sacramento, CA 95811. Phone: 916-322-4974.

For further assistance with teacher/student abuse or to support an organization doing something about this problem contact Stopped Educator Sexual Abuse Misconduct and Exploitation (SESAME) at: www.seasmenet.org.

Mary Innes

Tuolomne County, California

UKIAH CITY COUNCIL REFORM

Editor,

Mo and Jim O. — time to go!

Ukiah city government benefits from a relative lack of media attention or public scrutiny. The AVA routinely critiques the supine performance of the Board of Supervisors and their autocratic puppeteer Carmel Angelo. Contributor Rex Gressett keeps close tabs on the Fort Bragg City Council. Debra Keipp occasionally weighs in on the southcoast foibles of the Point Arena City Council. We don't hear much from Willits but not much happens in Willits in the post-bypass era. And we don't hear much from Ukiah except around election time.

Four years ago the citizens of Ukiah voted out the schoolmarmish Mary Anne Landis, the late Benj Thomas and Phil Baldwin, the only socialist known to have held public office on the north coast from Sebastopol to Arcata. The citizens of Ukiah awakened from their slumber finally realized that the trio of incumbents were mere rubberstamps for city manager then-city manager Jane Chambers and her successor Sage Sangiacomo, the latter rewarded with a quarter of a million dollar-plus employment package. The new council swept into office on a wave of optimism, but four years later it is obvious that only the nameplates had changed.

Johnny Keyes wrote a letter complaining about the Palace Hotel which he likens to a turd that defines Ukiah as a place that doesn't care. He mockingly notes that the Palace is for sale and suggests selling it for $1 "to someone who really cares about Ukiah." That someone is clearly not the Ukiah City Council and their hand-picked "receiver" who ran up a bill of $650,000 for tidying up the palace, drawing up architectural plans for a project that will never be built then paying his so-far undisclosed but no doubt substantial fees. The role of the city council? They sit idly by and watch as this slow-motion travesty continue to unfold.

Phil Baldwin wrote to complain that incumbent Ukiah City Council member Maureen Mulheren is a Democrat in name only. Baldwin pointed out that Mo won the endorsement of the local Democratic club on a divided vote and immediately aligned herself as a slate with conservative Republican and former chief probation officer Jim O. Brown, the other incumbent running for reelection. Baldwin also points out that Mo voted against a conservation easement for the vineyard north of Lovers Lane because she favors paving over the entire vineyard with upscale auto-dependent sprawling subdivisions.

Mo and Jim O. voted for a 350% increase in garbage rates for those using the smallest size can which eliminates the incentive for recycling and makes an elderly senior pay the same as a family of four. But that was only the first step in giving the local garbage company everything they want. At their last meeting the City Council supported raising the rates for all residential users by an additional 8%. And at the City Council candidates’ forum Mo and Jim O. came out strongly against Proposition 10 (which would merely allows cities to consider rent control) saying that government should not regulate private property.

Jim O. and Mo don’t believe in government regulation of private property but have no problem signing off on a $6 million giveaway of public funds to build infrastructure needed to support the Ukiah Costco, a development Mo points to as "smart growth."

What a mess! During construction there was an almost complete lack of signage or flaggers making it difficult to choose the right lane. And the finished product leaves a lot to be desired. Drivers are confronted with a surprise stop light immediately after they come over the overpass from the east. That stop light is right in line with and blends in to the stop light at the intersection of Talmage and Airport Park Boulevard. With only a couple of seconds to adjust, drivers routinely blow through the first stop light. It is only a matter of time before the first exciting collision adds extra spice to the Costco shopping experience.

There are several other problems like lanes being misaligned, extremely short merge lanes, and the need for abrupt lane changes to get on the freeway or into Costco. The real test of the adequacy of the "improvements" will come during the holiday shopping season, but the indicators are not good. Thus far only one person, a bicyclist, has died in the construction zone. We will be lucky if the death toll from this ill designed project does not rise.

Jim O. and Mo eagerly voted for the multimillion-dollar giveaway of taxpayer funds to benefit Costco but now they want to reinstall 400 parking meters in downtown Ukiah. Don't forget that a downtown parking ticket will set you back $55. In contrast, no one ever feeds a meter or gets a parking ticket at Costco.

The City Council is also pitching the idea of a downtown "luxury" hotel on the odd theory that hordes of tourists are lining up to pay a premium to stay in downtown Ukiah with views of the crumbling Palace Hotel and the fortresslike Savings Bank dominating the landscape. The hotel would take up one of the few public parking lots convenient to downtown Ukiah.

Mo and Jim O. also favor the "road diet" that will eliminate a third of the parking and shrink State Street to one lane each way in the downtown core. Oddly, Mo advocated for better parking when asked at the Council forum how to attract downtown business. Jim O. said it was up to the restaurant and shop owners to promote downtown. Jim O. and Mo also support a roundabout at the intersection of North Bush and Low Gap Road, a place where the traffic hassle could be fixed by pressuring the school district to adjust their bell schedule.

Mo is also a big advocate of everyone walking and biking but that is not likely to happen as parents fear for the safety of their children and even adults hesitate to run the gauntlet of free range crazies, drug addicts and inebriates who occupy the public spaces of Ukiah. A perfect example is the "rail trail," better known as the hobo highway that runs along the abandoned railroad tracks. It's a great experience as long as you don't mind stepping around passed out drunks, random tweakers, discarded needles and the occasional pile of human waste.

When funding for the rail trail came up short the City Council raided the local share of gas tax funds that are reserved for paving streets. Another $750,000 of the cost overrun was shoved onto the backs of the electric ratepayers on a questionable theory that the trail lights should be funded by the city-owned electric utility. And to embellish their "progressive" credentials the council insisted that the trail lights must be solar. The only problem is that the lights cannot generate and store enough electricity during the day to adequately power the lights at night. The dimly lit path with only a few neighbors and mostly a long way from cross streets might be better called the rape trail.

What do we know of Jim O and Mo Mulheren prior to their stint on the City Council? Jim O. Brown was chief probation officer before Pamela Markham. For at least a couple of decades the path to the top at Probation was to become one of the back slapping buddies at the Ukiah men's golf club. Outsiders need not apply. Promotions and plum assignments like head of juvenile hall were decided over a few beers at the clubhouse, not on performance.

The lightly qualified Markham was hired in the faint hope that she would reverse the locker room good old boy mentality that dominated the department. But instead of cleaning things up, as reported by the AVA in "Scandal of the Week" back in April of 2017, Ms. Markahm quickly doubled down. Instead of the usual sexual innuendo, and the backstabbing and playing favorites for promotions and assignments, Mrs. Markham, a married woman at the time, was soon locked in her office with Brady Bechtol, her Juvenile Hall superintendent who was also married at the time. This led to a series of costly investigations and re-investigations as our timid Superior Court judges attempted to avoid making a decision. (The CPO is appointed by the judges, but is a county employee.) After nearly a year the judges decided that Ms. Markham was no longer the CPO but was still a county employee. After another couple of months of limbo, Ms. Markham was finally shown the door. The point here, although Jim O. did not commit any marital infidelity, is that he presided over the animal house mentality that predominated before Ms. Markham was brought in to clean it up.

Mo is the daughter (an apparent chip off the old block) of the self-described "ever pleasant" Jim Mulheren, a local Ukiah businessman who made several failed attempts to get elected to the Ukiah City Council and Board of Supervisors. One of the requirements of serving on the city council is that you must live in the city limits. But Ever Pleasant lived just a block outside the city limits in a sprawling house with a swimming pool and a six car garage. So to qualify as a candidate he claimed he was living in the upstairs office above his cabinet shop in a gritty industrial area on Waugh Lane. Glenda Anderson wrote a profile for the Press Democrat showing the candidate at "home" as he heated a microwave dinner and sat on an old couch eating from a TV tray. A few shirts were in a closet. But if Ever Pleasant wanted to take a shower he would have to visit his wife who said he lived "in a nice house" just outside of town. The voters were not fooled.

Mo is in the insurance business but ran into a bump in the road when at least one of the houses she insured burned to the ground. The problem was that she had insured the custom-built home as if it was a manufactured home, leaving the homeowners with only half the money they needed to rebuild. Mo, the insurance professional, claimed she had done nothing wrong in under-insuring the property. Her insurance company said it wasn't their problem. It took a lawsuit and several months of wrangling to get the insurance companies to take responsibility for grossly under-insuring the property.

And how well do Jim O. and Mo follow laws that they impose on everyone else? Jim O. routinely drives his unlicensed golf cart back and forth from his home to the golf course when he could store it at the golf course for a small fee which would support the municipally owned golf course.

Mo has her campaign signs on the sidewalk in front of her office, blatantly violating the prohibition on putting political signs on public property. It seems to be the old story of do as I say, not as I do.

The AVA strongly recommend a yes vote for Edward Haynes and Juan Orozco. Haynes is the only candidate guaranteed to ask questions and defend the public interest on what is currently a weak and fiscally irresponsible council. Orozco is the only candidate for Proposition 10 (option for local rent control) and has also argued for sensible garbage rates that encourage recycling and put the cost on those who generate the most trash. Jim O. and Mo voted for the skewed garbage rates and handed $6 million over to Costco. But they oppose rent control as interference with private property rights.

The bottom line here is that it is time for Jim O. and Mo to go. Unless of course you are happy with a city council that blindly follows the city manager and that will never stick up for the average citizen who was forced to pay for the expensive boondoggles that get rubberstamped at every city Council meeting with nary a question being asked.

Name withheld

Ukiah

AL'S STILL LOOKING FOR A PLACE

To continue living my life that i had put together over the past 25 years. I don't want to lose it being it survives me, without it i will just become another unwanted homeless dying from abandonment. I have not been doing so well here on list serve on the count of my mind is having a hard time having to move again, going on 4 times in one year. Trying to down size get rid of makes no sense when it all survives and makes me. I said some things here that are not true like not being a believer when i really am, and i am sorry. I can get right again if only given a chance. This time around having to move may end my way of life and doings. I have no friends or family that can really help me, feeling all alone in this world has me all scared. Help...

Alfred Nunez <allymotocat@gmail.com>

ED NOTES

AN AMIABLE DUDE named James Wilbanks administers Mendocino County's Retirement Board. Wilbanks, who mostly telecommutes from his home in Oklahoma, supervises four employees. He was hired part-time at $120k a year. The Supervisors are poised, via their consent calendar, to approve a pay boost for Wilbanks, proposed by his chummy Retirement Board, that would pay Wilbanks $157,000 a year with automatic 3 percent salary increases each of the next 3 years, plus $500 a month housing allowance for his visits to Ukiah, and a performance bonus of $15,000 every year of his employment if he's rated as meeting expectations. And he surely will. On the off chance he's fired, which is about as likely as a tornado in Ukiah, Wilbank gets his choice of 6 months notice or 6 months salary. By all accounts the guy does a good job overseeing a broke fund that might be fully solvent in 18 years if…  But the salaries paid Mendo's brass are excessive, we think, especially given the givens of a struggling county employee population, not to mention a struggling population of Mendocino County's people.

* * *

CESAR SAYOC'S cv isn't nearly as impressive as America's mad bombers of yesteryear.

A dope dealer whose grandmother had to get a restraining order against him when he twice attacked her,  Sayoc, a steroid muscle man, is a huge come down from George Metesky, the original Mad Bomber who terrorized New York City for 16 years in the 1940s and 1950's before he was finally arrested. George was driven by a personal beef, a workplace injury that he felt was not adequately compensated. Theodore Kaczynski's bombs, encased in beautifully finished wooden boxes, would win best of show at the Boonville Fair, at least for their containers. Ted was aimed at taking down industrial civ a bomb at a time. Sayoc, while also thinking big and wrong, is just a dumb guy driven totally nuts by Fox News.

* * *

I WON'T BOTHER reciting that hoary definition of insanity, but local Democrats, the active ones anyway, make the following objectively insane claim: "The Coast Democratic Club is located on the Mendocino Coast of Northern California. Most members hail from the coast between Westport and Elk.  The club supports the progressive democratic values and a positive vision for the future and meets regularly to discuss important issues and welcome guest speakers including Congressman Jared Huffman, State Assemblymember Jim Wood, and State Senator Mike McGuire."

CLASS ANGLING these Democrats we find a comfortably well off group of college educated people with whom empty non-specifics like "progressive democratic values" and "a positive vision for the future" resonate. Why not go all out and include promises of unicorns and puppies?

THE ELECTION PICS by our favorite local political sages also endorse the corporate Demo agenda, replete with its vacuities like "progressive democratic values." Our three reps — Huffman, Wood, McGuire — are well to the political right of, say, Bernie Sanders, the tepid socialist whose thinking is way to the right of FDR's New Deal. Bernie's hardly a Bolshevik but he at least pumped for Single Payer, and he was supported by a clear majority of Northcoast Democrats for President.

BUT Huffman, Wood, McGuire — taking their cringing cue from Demo Central — went for the rigged DNC and more of the Wall Street same with Hillary while millions of Americans live with the wolf of the door. And millions of them don't vote because, economically considered, there's no difference between the organized Democrats of Mendocino County and the Trump Gang.

JEEZ, Mendolib, if you can't get past conservative Democrats, including Bernie, a New Deal type of guy, how are we going to get rid of Trump? A specific program of the type Bernie supports is sorta progressive but there's nothing at all progressive about social policy right here in Mendo. Less at the national level. The three amigos — Huffman, Wood and McGuire — are barely liberals on their most lucid days. And the DNC is not progressive in the least.

HOW ABOUT a specific program? In no special order: Single payer, a federal jobs and low cost housing program; re-regulation of the financial markets; hospitalization for the insane, the drug dependent, and the drunk; free college tuition for anybody who wants to enroll. The full Norwegian monte. How to pay for it? A fair system of taxation like we had in 1950. Won't happen with the present Democrats because they're funded by the same money that funds Republicans.

PREDICTION: The Demos will put up Biden while Huffman, Wood, McGuire, Muchowski, the Mendocino Environment Center, Rachel Binah, and the County's Democrat Clubs go all out for Biden. And Trump wins a second term.

* * *

A TRUE DOG STORY. This guy I know in Marin, where dogs are fetish-ized as never before, spotted a woman whose off-leash pet was in the act of dropping a load in the middle of his concrete drive-way. "It happens almost everyday with different people walking their dogs, but this is the second time I've caught this lady. I come home from work everyday and I have to hose it off first thing." So, friend is standing at his kitchen window on a recent Saturday morning "and here comes this same woman up the street with her dog, a white, fluffy job. The dog makes a bee line for my driveway and… I run outside and say to her, 'How would you like it if I come over to your house every day and took a dump in your front yard? The least you can do is clean up after it.' She just stared at me, and finally says, 'I hope you don't poop for a month!'"

* * *

AN ANTI-SEMITE armed with a military assault rife, which functions like a machine gun on fully automatic, walks into Saturday services at a Pittsburg synagogue and opens fire on the congregation. That makes back-to-back atrocities on the week, both inspired by nut-think spread by the internet. Without the Net, crank lit is hard to find, not that it's ever in short supply. Not to be too pessimistic about prospects for a mass return to rational public life any time soon, but a quick look at this week's postings on MCN, for handy example, the rational runs about one in three comments. Millions of Americans lead isolated, lonely lives, the kind of lives likely to twist their thinking. And, obviously, this country couldn't be more efficiently organized to promote mental illness. Trump is the tip of a continental iceberg.

CATCH OF THE DAY, October 27, 2018

JOSEPH AVILA, Merced/Ukiah. Suspended license, outstanding misdemeanor warrant, resisting.

CHRISTOPHER DOTY, Fort Bragg. Felon with firearm, ammo possession by prohibited person, loaded firearm, felony/attempted felony with firearm, evasion.

ROCKY DUMAN, Ukiah. Parole violation. (Frequent Flyer)

STAR FARGEY, Caspar. DUI.

STEPHEN LEASE, Willits. DUI.

BRADLEY MAXFIELD, Willits. Trespassing, resisting.

DAKOTA MILES, Ukiah. Domestic battery, county parole violation.

MICHAEL MILLER, Fort Bragg. Parole violation, false ID, resisting.

SALVADOR PEDROZA, Willits. Ammo possession by prohibited person, probation revocation.

AMBER RICETTI, Ukiah. Vehicle theft, probation revocation.

KENNETH WHIPPLE, Covelo. Domestic abuse, criminal threats, county parole violation, probation revocation.

XOCHE WRIGHT, Ukiah. Under influence, fugitive from justice, probation revocation.

BRETT YONKER, Fort Bragg. Domestic battery.

WOMEN MARCHING FORWARD EVENT SUNDAY

This Sunday, October 28 from 4-6 at Eagles Hall 210 Corry St in Fort Bragg.

Screening of the Women's March Documentary by local director Mischa Hedges followed by a panel discussion with Hedges, Fort Bragg City Council Candidates Jessica Morsell-Hayes, Mary Rose Kaczorowski, and Tess Albin-Smith and Coast Director of Project Sanctuary, Lia Holbrook about women in leadership and the movement forward.

Activist craft table, raffle, food, $10 suggested donation, no one turned away for lack of funds, all proceeds to Project Sanctuary.

Doors open at 3:30.

VEHICLE VERSUS DEER COLLISIONS ON THE RISE

Autumn is deer mating season – which means deer are on the move and less cautious about darting out into the road.  For example, in the past two weeks, Caltrans crews in Ukiah and Lake County have seen an increase in deer collisions.  "This happens every fall, but it catches drivers off guard, especially at dusk and right before dawn", said Caltrans Maintenance Manager Marty Sills.   It is also mating season for elk, which are less numerous than deer, but just as hazardous to motorists here in northern California.

Drivers should be extra vigilant this time of year and follow these tips for driving in deer country:

1. Be particularly attentive between sunset and midnight, the hours shortly before and after sunrise, and in foggy conditions. Most deer-vehicle collisions occur during these times.
2. Drive carefully in areas known to have high deer populations. Places where roads divide agricultural fields or streams from forestland are particularly dangerous.
3. If you see a deer, slow down. Others are probably nearby.
4. Use high-beam headlights when there is no oncoming traffic. The high beams can reflect off animal eyes and warn you of their presence.
5. If a deer is in your lane, brake firmly but stay in the lane. The most serious crashes occur when drivers swerve.
6. Don't rely on deer whistles, deer fences, or reflectors to deter deer.
7. If your car strikes a deer, don't touch the animal. If the deer is blocking the highway, call 911.

For more safety information and the latest updates like Caltrans District 1 on Facebook.

Cori Reed
Public Information Officer
for Lake and Mendocino Counties
Caltrans District 1
707.441.4678

TRUMP ON FIRE

Editor:

Talking about California’s forest fires, Donald Trump stated, and I quote, “There is no reason for forest fires like that in California. Fires should never be to that extent. They were telling me in a couple of states, I won’t mention their names, it’s like a flash, some grass will burn. It should be over in minutes. They will lose two, three acres at the most. They will not even lose that.”

A 3-foot bush can create a 20-foot flame, more than six times its height. It doesn’t take much intelligence to realize that a grass fire cannot be equated to a forest fire. It also doesn’t take much intelligence to be aware of the influence that wind has on the spread of fire.

It would not surprise me, given Trump’s intelligence, if he accuses Californians and Democrats of causing the wind.

Veronica Johnson

Windsor

A READER WRITES: This pipe bomber brings up thoughts of Sweeney. Here's a photo of the suspect's van:

HANDICAPPING THE FIX

by Bruce Patterson

“If you can convince the lowest white man that he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket.”

—LBJ, child of the Texas Hill Country

* * *

John Scarne (1903-1985), the great American mathematician, card mechanic and stage magician famously declared there’s only four kinds of gamblers: the pros (i.e. “the house”), cheats, hustlers and chumps. At least 85% of all gamblers, Scarne calculated, fall into the last category.

When the US Supreme Court recently legalized sports betting by leaving it up to the states to decide, I was reminded of my late dad’s disgust back when, in 1985, the voters of California legalized the Lottery. “Just a lousy numbers racket,” he growled (economists call it a “negative tax”).  Odds so long against winning it’s beneath a real gambler’s dignity to even notice them. And the state taking an outrageous 50% cut is despicable. It’s five times what the Chicago mobs took, and that’s awfully cold-blooded seeing how only the extremely gullible and desperately poor play the numbers. Take away the prospect of winning and gambling loses its entertainment value real quick.

Compulsive gamblers provide casinos/bookmakers/numbers racketeers with about 80% of their take. And they ain’t addicted to the lights and bells, either. Nor are they bewitched by the click and tumble of dice, the skid of cards or the click-clocking of endlessly spinning Wheels of Fortune. It’s thinking they’ll win that drives them. That’s why, in the trade, they’re known as “degenerates.” Their need to win keeps them losing. It’s also why, if you’re a pro, you treat them as valued customers. Like chain smokers, they represent your easy money.

Now, so long as you’ve educated yourself about the games you want to bet on, and know some about odds, percentages and money management, betting on sports just might allow you to win often enough to keep you entertained. Still, over the long haul, you’ll never make any money. Even the handicappers who produce the “daily lines” for the Vegas and Atlantic City sports books don’t waste their time, or money, trying to pick winners. They aim to split the betting pool straight down the middle and damned if they ain’t awfully good at it (it’s how they keep their jobs). As most folks know, to bet $10 with a bookie you’ve got to lay down $11. That extra dollar is called the “vig.” It goes to the house for providing you with the lights, cameras and action. If one day the house loses big on a particular bet, they’ll pay off using the “vig” produced by that day’s hundreds, or thousands, of other bets. So, when you hit the jackpot, the money you pocket is the money other players just handed over.

One fascinating aspect of today’s Super Jumbo Global Mega-Million Lottery racket is how 300 million tickets get sold and every last one of them is a loser. That “unclaimed” 300 mil gets added to the next day’s pot and, guess what?  That sells even more tickets. Somebody’s got to win, right? (Wrong, obviously). Why not you? (Don’t hold your breath).

Oh how the Pros love these simple Americans with their blind faith in “the power of positive thinking.” Like, don’t let 300,000,000 losers discourage you none. Follow your dream. And yes there surely is a big pot of gold awaiting at the end of the rainbow. Any leprechaun will tell you.

For near on two years we’ve been living under the greasy thumb of a stinking gang of lock-stepping liars, their daily Party Line changing as quickly as a breeze, these rank cheats and hustlers led by their Big Liar with the grasping heart of a centipede and the expertise of a thumbtack. Since by far the easiest way to cheat at gambling is to own a gambling house (rich old white men make the laws), these Trumpites have gone and bought themselves the Big House in Wash and Launder DC Land, the emerald city where the dark money stays dark, secrets are kept and money—and only money—talks. The way, when need be, Al Capone’s mob could buy any Chicago mayor or police chief, judge, prosecutor, jury, turnkey, ward healer, precinct captain, corner cop or newspaper boy, these wiseguys buy whomever or whatever they want with the endless stream of paper promises to pay we’re constantly printing up for their sakes. Thinking they own the mortgage on the planet’s future makes these poor boys act like potbellied, shitty-assed hogs rolling in the muck and squealing like they’re in a penthouse hot tub in Hog Heaven. This while they may as well be gathered in a holding corral outside the entrance to an automated regional slaughter house.

It’s 10/22, another election is coming up and I’m worried it, too, will get stolen. The Jim Crow America I was brought up in (I was born in ‘49) was designed to make sure that there never will be anything even resembling “one person, one vote,” much less real “representative democracy.” Then any mention of “participatory democracy” (read the Port Huron Statement, 1962) is absolutely verboten in every way, shape and form: long ago that book got burned in a bonfire along with plenty of others. It’s not the people but Great Men who built this Global Empire running on fumes, recite our Great Men to their humble, needy, frightened, greedy, once-in/always-in, blind mimics. These Great Men damn sure ain’t about hand over any power to the great washed and blow-dried masses they no longer seem to have any use for. Except for them getting ahold of some of your money, that is, assuming you have any.

Right now media “news people” are professional handicappers out to split the electorate straight down the middle. As bad as it was before, now under Comrade Putin’s motor-mouthed Machiavellian Candidate (Usurper: he who steals the civil powers rightfully belonging to others). Today the conglomerated media is so debased I imagine if most any of these gold-plated “middle of the road” media personalities “moderated” a debate between Jesus and the Anti-Christ, they’d do their upmost to rise above their “personal prejudices” and “partisanship” and quickly find that constantly shifting mud puddle called the “Middle Ground.” And finding that “middle ground” ain’t all that difficult when winning the jackpot is your reward. When you’ve got all the material incentives in the world, you’d be shocked by just how much you can accomplish in just one day or week.

As opposed to, say, when you’re standing in line for three hours waiting to cast an after-work ballot at a polling place where your kind ain’t welcome and your vote may or may not get counted. Like poor Southern passably white women living under old Jim Crow’s “Biblical way of life,” today’s voters get hoisted up on a pedestal just to discover they’re chained inside a gilded cage. Also, if your kind is chosen to be one of this month’s THEMS, you’d best be gone from town before sundown. We don’t cotton to troublemakers in these parts. So don’t you be coming back now, hear?

While the Confederates lost the Civil War on the battlefield, they won the peace and they’ve been whining about it ever since. The South operates as a one party state and every year California taxpayers make monetary contributions to the health and well-being of the citizens living back there in the Land of Cavaliers. Then I remember how, after Nixon’s criminally catastrophic invasion of the neutral Kingdom of Cambodia in 1970, the Nixonites used the lunatic fringe of anti-war college students to tar the entire anti-war movement with charges of vandalism, mob violence, terrorism and subversion. With a snap of a sadistic madman’s flinty fingers, the best of my generation got stereotyped as privileged, silver-spooned college brats biting the hands feeding them. And, ever since, as the Temptations sang way back then, the band plays on.

But now, seeing how these Confederate Redeemer States Rights gun nut fanatics are out to not just steal from Californians but to tell them how to raise their kids, and treat their wives and daughters, are biting the hands feeding them. Like, how do these “white nationalist” white guys and gals from the “Bible Belt” qualify as being “Pro Life?” The media always calls them “Pro Life” but I can’t think of any political group more hypocritical than these flag-waving, gun-toting, warmongering, Bible-thumping anti-abortion activists. You’d think the leaves on the trees would wither under their iceburg gaze.

“Get thee behind me, Satan!” a Greek peasant commands. “Listen to reason,” urges the Buddha. “Open your eyes,” suggests Confucius. “Cast the 1^st stone,” urges Jesus.

Just as Trumpism proves the Imperial Presidency should be abolished forthwith, that cotton-mouthed viper pit called the US Senate should be thrown into the trash heap of history where it has always belonged. Same with “our” medieval Electoral College, systematic voter suppression and TV commercials as political hit pieces consisting of end-to-end slanders and lies.

If the News channels and cable companies really are dedicated to telling truth to power, they’re sure showing it in funny ways. And how can the great state of California allow itself to be ruled by a dictatorial “Senate Majority Leader” who looks like a cockeyed distended scrotum exhaling coal ash and hanging fleshy waddles with Koch Bros tattoos hidden inside their folds? Who empowered that ancient throat talker to dictate to Californians exactly where and when off shore drilling for oil will commence? Think about it. If you exclude Texas and Florida, neither of which played much of a role in the War Between the States, California alone has a greater population than all of the rest of the Confederate states combined. Yet California gets two measly senators and the “New South” gets sixteen.

To put it in perspective, imagine an apartment building whose sixteen tenants, a live-in manager/handyman/janitor and the landlord are each entitled to one vote and the majority rules. You might think the landlord is bound to get screwed, and he sure will if he’s been stealing money from the property. You know, looting the maintenance and repair budget to take the liddle lady to Vegas or for a spin in your brand-new land yacht. If the landlord is using the building’s rental income to pay off a string of mortgages on other properties, he’s damn sure going to take a loss if the tenants find out about it, their building isn’t shipshape and they have the vote. Then, if the landlord doesn’t like the New Deal, he can always trade places with the handyman. Get himself some exercise, learn some new skills and produce something that makes people happy; now you’re worthy of patting yourself on the back if you want to and you can’t resist.

By turning men against women while simultaneously getting the men to whine about getting no respect, the fearmongering demagogues think they’ve split the families straight through the middle of the supper table. But I think they’ve overreached. I think they’ve earned in spades the backlash they’re gonna get come Election Day. I think their counterfeit Moses has been exposed as a rancid spot of grease, and that the best of us will get to the polls in enough numbers to teach some manners and clean up the mess.

SPENDING MY BIRTHDAY weekend in one of my favorite places on earth, and this is the view from my window.

(Larry Livermore, who went from Spyrock, Laytonville, to this…)

REMEMBER FRANK RIGGS? (PRAY FOR THE CHILDREN OF ARIZONA)

https://www.riggsforaz.com

PANCAKE B'FAST Whitesboro Grange Sunday

A traditional pancake breakfast will be served at the Whitesboro Grange on Sunday, October 28th .Breakfast includes orange juice, pancakes with maple and homemade berry syrups, ham, eggs your way, and coffee, tea or hot cocoa. The public and visitors are invited to join neighbors and community for a hearty pancake breakfast. Adults $8, ages 6-12 half price, children under 6 eat FREE. Breakfast is served from 8 to 11:30 a.m. Whitesboro Grange is located 1.5 miles east on Navarro Ridge Road. Watch for signs south of the Albion Bridge.

MORE EVIDENCE OF THE END TIMES

Unvaccinated nurses no longer have to wear masks! Yay! Nurses who have done their homework and choose to forgo the toxic flu vaccine no longer can be required to wear masks!

https://healthfreedomidaho.org/complaint?fbclid=IwAR3BDnVcpjIc8twEIi_vZUQ6lMz7RgK-pEWyNIhLAW8LzvBGlojq7CcxJ-4

That was a strictly coercive rule, dictated by Big Pharma, that was stupid on the face of it, considering that it is the vaccinated, having received the live-virus flu vaccine, who will be shedding the virus for a while afterwards. (Look up live-virus vaccines and shedding.)  Anybody who has actually studied the issue, and not stopped at the Pharma-driven propaganda that the CDC hands out, will have found out that the flu vaccine still has mercury (thimerosal) in it and that it has the highest injury rate of all the vaccines per the secretive Federal Vaccine Court (Federal Vaccine Injury Compensation Board). Never mind that it is at best ineffective. The *only *placebo-controlled double-blind study of the flu vaccine listed on PubMed was done in Senegal(!), on 1,600-some children. Even though 2 of the vaccinated died (none in the unvaccinated group), it was considered well tolerated .... Efficacy (quoting): "0.0%."  It is truly outrageous that any institution *requires* their employees to take a pharmaceutical with risk of injury (my mother suffered a massive stroke after her first-ever flu shot). Now the employees have recourse.

Inger Grape
Microcurrent therapy
Bowen soft-tissue therapy
ReboundAIR teacher/distributor
current-painrelief.com

GREAT GRANDAD ARRIVES IN NEW YORK, SENDS FOR GRANDMA WHEN HE FINDS WORK

MEMO OF THE WEEK

I've decided what I want to do as my spiritual job, to make a living out of my spirituality that best suited my skills, as a philosopher, healer and visionary. I've decided to start my own cult (lol) registered religion as a non profit cooperation. Temple of the Rainbow Warriors will host and celebrate all religious and spiritual holidays from all around the world under one roof. As a business entity, I want to channel donations by the donaters choice a percentage up to 10 percent to the upkeep of the temple, the rest goes to projects to install renewable energy generation into poor people's homes and community infrastructure and local foodforest planting projects. I'm in the early stages of officially founding this project and I have what I feel could be a really wonderful idea to initiate positive change.

I need help and support, I am not a great business man, I don't have any money right now, not even a bank account, but I do have a portable temple in the form of stones I can lay out in any place of any size perimeter.

If you feel like you would have time to guide me on this journey in regards to helpful business advice, legal protection and funding opportunities like grants or compassionate investors, then your comments and private messages are most welcome.

I will by the end of this week post more about the philosophy of my cult which at this time doesn't include any kind of ritual sacrifice or suicide pact, or promise of eternal life from Angliens but does offer the chance for at least a little peace here on earth.

Aaron Joseph Olivier, Boonville

MEMO OF THE AIR: They say awreety and they was awrighty and I was a zombi for you, little lady.

The recording of last night's (2018-10-26) KNYO Fort Bragg and KMEC  Ukiah Memo of the Air: Good Night Radio show is available by one or two  clicks, depending on whether you want to listen to it now or download it  and keep it for later and, speaking of which, it's right here: https://tinyurl.com/KNYO-MOTA-0304

In the first hour of the show I aired the recording of Mervin Gilbert’s  War of the Worlds done on the Helen Schoeni Theater stage on Wednesday,  so the regular material starts an hour in.

Also at http://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com you can find a fresh batch of  dozens of links to not necessarily radio-useful but nonetheless  worthwhile educational items I set aside for you while gathering the  show together. Such as:

Nothing has ever been real.

https://tinyurl.com/NothingToGetHungAbout

LOOK. There’s your rocket, you silly bastard. What are you, blind?  (Perhaps Peter was unfit to be an astronaut.)

https://www.instagram.com/vintage_covers/

The Bakemono zukushi monster scroll.

https://tinyurl.com/BakemonoZukushi

And Well of Death. With doumbek and Jew's harp. "I completed my  training with ease and started riding."

https://nerdcore.de/2018/10/21/well-of-death/

Marco McClean, memo@mcn.org,
https://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com

ALTHOUGH it is the custom of partisans to speak as if there were radical differences between the Ins and Outs… in stable and mature societies the differences are necessarily not profound. If they were profound, the defeated minority would be constantly on the verge of rebellion. An election would be catastrophic, whereas the assumption in every election is that the victors will do nothing to make life intolerable to the vanquished and that the vanquished will endure with good humor policies which they do not approve.

— Walter Lippmann, “The Phantom Public” (1925)

THERE GOES HEROES & PATRIOTS

AVA

After seven years at KZYX and three years at KMEC, I think I finally found a home for my radio show, "Heroes and Patriots" at KMUD in Redway, CA.

I would appreciate any press you can give the show and the move to KMUD.

Our last show at KMUD as guest host is scheduled for Halloween Night, October 31, at 7 pm, Pacific Time. Our guest is U.S. Representative Jared Huffman.

Our first regularly scheduled show is the following morning, Thursday, November 1, at 9 am, Pacific Time. Our show will be about the famine and cholera epidemic in Yemen -- the worst humanitarian crisis in the world today. Over 50,000 children have died in the last two years. A Saudi blockade, with U.S. acquiescence, is causing much of the suffering. Our guest is Ben Freeman, Director of the Foreign Influence Transparency Initiative at the Center for International Policy.

Both shows are representative of the work we do.

My co-host, Mary Massey, and I bring A-list guests to local public radio on the subjects of national security, intelligence, and foreign policy.

You've seen many of our guests on CNN, MSNBC, or CNBC. You've heard them on NPR or Pacifica's "Democracy Now". Or you've read them in The New York Times, The Washington Post, or The Wall Street Journal.

I also meet some of my guests at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, where I attend the occasional meeting.

I call the show, "Heroes and Patriots", because our guests are my personal heroes, or my idea of true patriots, or great Americans. Many of our guests have been whistleblowers.

My co-host, Mary Massey, is an experienced professional in public radio. She worked on the staff at Nashville Public radio.

Our shows are found at Facebook and Youtube. We also stream live from the web to a national audience.

Shows are popular and have received upwards of 63,500 hits.

See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGayl9uNW4A&t=35s