MCT: Tuesday, February 26, 2019

• Rain/Flooding
• Navarro River
• Holcomb Thanks
• Camel Rock
• Vacancy Report
• Slow Pleasures
• Scarberry Fair
• Cox Book
• Ed Notes
• Big River
• Cannabis Tours
• Yesterday's Catch
• Beacon Light
• Left Reform
• State Line
• Oscarquake
• Bernie Bezos
• Anything Goes
• Melinda Marx
• Mendo Mafia
• Chinatown
• Costume Design
• Capitalist Propaganda
• Art Sacrifice
• Oscar Bytes
• Took Half
• Comments
• Most Scathing
• CDFW Investigation
• Daddying
• Delta Statement
• Crazy Stuff
• Seventy Five

THE FOLLOWING HIGHWAYS ARE CLOSED DUE TO FLOODING:

• SR 1 at the Garcia River 
• SR 128 between SR 1 and Flynn Creek Road
• SR 175 at the Russian River
• SR 222 at the Russian River 
• SR 254 north of Redcrest

—Caltrans District 1, February 26, 2019, 12:53am

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ROADWAY OPEN

Highway 222 (Talmage Road) from mile marker 1.0 to 1.5

—CHP Dispatch, February 26, 2019, 6:33am

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RAINFALL AMOUNTS OVER THE PAST 24 HOURS (from 5am this morning)

• Yorkville: 5.13 inches
• Boonville: 3.77 inches

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MODERATE TO LOCALLY HEAVY RAIN will occur across northwest California through Tuesday night. Relatively drier weather is expected Thursday and Friday, followed by another round of unsettled weather this weekend. (National Weather Service)

NAVARRO RIVER, MONDAY

The river wasn't very high, and its waters were still clearish green (rather than brown with silt). The mouth of the river is still narrow, and we've had two inches come down as of about 3pm Monday, so it shouldn't be long before it really starts rising. (Mike Kalantarian)

FROM THE FAMILY OF EVA HOLCOMB

Editor,

From the bottom of our hearts, the Holcomb, Toohey and Pardini families want to extend the warmest and sincerest of thank yous and appreciation to our friends and our community, for seeing off our beloved Eva, to the next step of her journey in a way that was worthy of her and the impact she had on our valley in her 84 years with us.

To those who helped us make this ceremony so special: Steve Sparks, Father Anthony and Jorge, Bill Nobles, Stephanie Frost, Todd Capuzelo, John Schultz, and the lovely choir who sang at the burial, your contributions mean more to us then we can express in words or gifts.

To our extended family and our Anderson Valley community of friends, who she loved so dearly, thank you for your help setting up, cleaning up, your gifts of flowers and cards, your sweet stories and memories, your tears, your laughter, and your presence. In the midst of this loss, it has been our community that has helped to mend our hearts. Fitting, as it was this valley, and the people in it, that she loved so dearly - above all else.

John Toohey

Boonville

NIGHT LIGHT OF THE NORTH COAST: CAMEL ROCK

by David Wilson

The rugged and varied northern California coastline is one of Humboldt’s most beautiful treasures. Sweeping shallow beaches are punctuated by stretches of scattered sea stacks large and small. Hand in hand with the beauty lies the danger of some of the steeper beaches, with furious undertows that are not to be trifled with.

Houda Point Beach lies at the transition between the long, smooth sweep of Clam and Moonstone Beaches and a wild bunch of sea stacks extending north to Trinidad and beyond. South of here the coast is fairly rock-free until past the Eel River delta well beyond Eureka, while to the north the coastal waters are littered with great rocks, some small and some standing tall as towers.

Camel Rock is just off shore at Houda Point. It’s one of the first of the sea stacks north of Moonstone and among the largest. At the lowest of low tides one can walk out to it, but the night my brother Seth and I were there the low tide of .06’ was too high for us reach it. We were near the cave that faces Camel Rock, which I’ve shown in other Night Light entries, but the winter’s storms had changed the lay of the sand since last we had visited and we weren’t able to reach its mouth without getting wet.

One can access Houda Beach from a turnout on the bluffs of Scenic Drive just north of Moonstone Beach. A steep staircase gouged into the hillside, the “Stair of Grief” as I call it, leads down to the beach. The grief happens climbing back out. If you aren’t in shape, these steps will make you wish you were. But if you’ve negotiated the stairs up from College Cove you’ll be fine here.

(To keep abreast of David Wilson’s most current photography or peer into its past, follow him on Instagram at @david_wilson_mfx or his website mindscapefx.com, where you can also contact him, but which Wilson says he updates less frequently.)

The stars set behind Camel Rock in this several-minute exposure. Camel Rock’s illumination comes from the lights of several houses on the hillside along Scenic Drive behind us. Their light was faint, but with the sensor gathering it over the course of many minutes it was enough to light up the foreground. The clouds were coming in quickly from the north.

“My God, it’s full of stars!” Dave Bowman’s words from “2001” echoed in my mind as my brother and I stood on the glossy surface, the stars both above our heads and beneath our feet. Indeed, our tiny planet bobs in space a mote among the stars, themselves small in the vastness.

CEO CARMEL ANGELO’S latest vacancy report shows that Mendo is running an overall funded vacancy rate of around 20% (290/1399). Most of the vacancies are in the Health and Human Services Agency which are almost all not General Fund positions. 182 of the 291 are “in recruitment” as of late February 2019. (It takes Mendo months to hire anyone, even longer for law enforcement.) What the vacancy report does not show is how many of the 291 vacancies are in General Fund funded positions. The Sheriff’s department (which makes up about half the General Fund) is showing a vacancy rate of about 10% (of about 190 positions) which is close to what the Board was expecting the last time the subject came up. The mid-year budget update is expected to be presented at the Board’s March 26 meeting, only three months after the end of the “mid-year.” The most interesting information to be presented (if it is presented at all; history shows Mendo has trouble providing up-to-date, complete budget info) will be the status of the cannabis program, the extent of revenue shortfalls, capital improvement projects (including the big new computer and reroofing projects), juvenile hall, and the cost of all those raises the Board has given out to themselves and their top official associates. If, as is expected, there’s some general fund red-ink to be dealt with, there won’t be many months left in the fiscal year to make adjustments. (Mark Scaramella)

IN PRAISE OF SLOW

by Marshall Newman

We are a society with a need for speed. Around the world, but especially in the United States, fast is everything. Fast often is more important than quality, more important than proficiency, more important than price. We all want what we want – or, in a few cases, need – and we want it now, so we can move on to our next want. We have much to do and fast is the only way to get it all done.

The sad truth is fast also comes at the expense of pleasure. There is little anticipation and almost no appreciation. We do, we receive, we partake, but we don’t savor the experiences. Life lived fast is life unfulfilled, because life at its core is all about experiences. A life with experiences fully savored is a life fully lived.

With fast so ubiquitous, slow often demands conscious effort. Except when slow finds a way to get one’s attention and show its worth.

About a month ago, I was taking a fitness walk (at a fast pace, of course) when I stopped for an espresso. I had never been to this particular café before and – after ordering at the counter - I expected my drink to be made with the speed one expects at places like Starbucks. While small, the café was a pleasant place with a selection of magazines available for customers. I grabbed one, took a seat and began reading, expecting my name to be called at any moment. After a minute or two, I realized speed was not this café’s forte, but by then I was reading something interesting.

When my coffee was finally delivered to my table (a surprise in its own right) perhaps 10 minutes later, my entire attitude had changed. The charm of the place and the pleasure of the read had taken away my need for speed. I relaxed and appreciated everything; the café, the article and the espresso. Time seemed less important than the pleasures of the moment and I savored them.

Did I lose a little time from my day? Yes. Did it matter? Not really. The lost time was offset by the richness of the experience. It was an epiphany, one that suggested to me I should stop rushing and appreciate these everyday pleasures.

Then there is the slow of waiting for a project to come to fruition; the anticipation of pleasures to come and the satisfaction when those pleasures finally arrive. About a decade ago, I left a very old acoustic guitar with a luthier (the term for a person who builds and repairs guitars) for some significant and long overdue maintenance. I dropped it off in November and his last words as I was leaving his shop were, “You should have it back by the ides of March.”

March passed and the guitar wasn’t finished. Then April. A true artist cannot be rushed. Anticipation is a terrible, wonderful thing. The guitar finally was ready in mid-May. When I opened the case I was blown away; the work was immaculate. The guitar looked as if it hadn’t been touched, yet all the issues were gone. I knew the neck had been removed and reset. I knew the saddle slot in the bridge had been filled and recut. Yet somehow he had done both without leaving a mark.

Yes, the guitar could have been mended faster by someone else. And yes, the wait was trying. But anticipation comes with the territory. The payoff was sweet; worth every bit of the extra time and extra nerves. Indeed, I count my blessings, as I know this luthier kept one guitar for more than two years while he worked his way through a particularly tricky repair.

Anderson Valley may be an anomaly in our often speed-obsessed world. After all, a place where every curvy, unforgiving road of entry – from Cloverdale, from Ukiah and from the coast - forces drivers to slow down (dying in a car wreck is an option for those who cannot) demonstrates the advantages of going slow and enjoying the ride. So does a place where the main crops – wine grapes, apples, pot and redwoods – run on yearly, yearly, yearly and several decades schedules, respectively. But even in Anderson Valley there are plenty of people in a hurry. I feel sorry for them. If they cannot slow down and savor Anderson Valley, which offers uncommon beauty for all the senses, they never will.

There are a few aspects of living where slow is not better. One of them is dying. A slow passing has little appeal. Birthing – especially a painful delivery - is another. So is spending time at the Department of Motor Vehicles, which manages to make fast seem slow, slow seem endless, and strips both of all pleasures. Jail and prison must be endlessly slow for their residents, except for those few devoting their time to repentance and redemption. A slow-to-arrive tax refund offers little to savor (though slow is better than none). There are more examples out there and I encourage readers to share them.

Golfer Walter Hagen said “Take time to smell the roses” (a variation on his more famous line, “Stop and smell the roses”). Maybe the slow pace of golf led to this quote, but his suggestion speaks to a wider world. Slow offers much, but only to those with time and open minds.

FORT BRAGG VEHICLE THEFT/HIT&RUN

On February 24, 2019 at approximately 4:45 a.m., Officers of the Fort Bragg Police Department where dispatched to the Pudding Creek trestle located in the 1000 block of Glass Beach Drive for a report of a vehicle fire. Upon arrival, Officers discovered a white Chevrolet Silverado had collided with a rock being utilized as a barrier between the parking lot and pedestrian walkway, which crosses the trestle. The driver of the vehicle had fled the location.

During their investigation, Officers determined the vehicle had been stolen from the 300 block of Cypress Street earlier in the morning. They also located clothing in the vehicle, which they recognized as belonging to the suspect, later identified as Nicholas Scarberry, 39, of Laytonville.

While officers continued their investigation, they were advised of a male in the 1100 block of N. Main Street that was looking inside the windows of vehicles and appeared to have been involved in a traffic collision.

Officers responded and contacted Nicholas Scarberry. The Officers’ investigation placed Scarberry in the car as the driver. Scarberry was placed under arrest for vehicle theft, and hit and run. Due to injuries sustained during the collision, Scarberry was transported to the Mendocino Coast District Hospital for treatment. While at the hospital, field sobriety tests were conducted. It was determined Scarberry had been operating the vehicle while under the influence of alcohol at the time of the collision. Scarberry was booked and transported to the Mendocino County Jail.

Anyone with information regarding this incident is asked to contact the Fort Bragg Police Department at (707) 961-2800 or our anonymous Crime Tip Hotline at (707) 961-3049.

(Fort Bragg PD Press Release)

SHAMROCKS & SALSA. Mark your calendars for St. Patrick’s Day, Sunday, March 17 at 3:00 at Lauren’s if you want to join a celebration of the publication of Jerry Cox’s book “Shamrocks and Salsa.” There will be brief readings from the book by Jerry’s family and time to share stories about Jerry. Light refreshments will be served and the bar will be open. The book will be available for purchase for $15. If you are celebrating St Patrick’s Day in a different way and can’t come to Lauren’s, you can order the book at Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble on line, the Apple Store or Xulonpress.com The e-version is $9 and the paperback is $21 if you order it on line.

ED NOTES

THE AV VILLAGE is supporting Emergency Response Planning in neighborhoods in Anderson Valley. Come hear Fire Chief Andres Avila, Sheriff Tom Allman and other speakers talk about how to organize your neighborhood to be ready for an emergency. Sunday, March 10, Lauren’s Restaurant in downtown Boonville, 4-5:30pm. “Planning Tomorrow, Enjoying Today!”

THE AVA'S EMAIL stopped coming in sometime Friday night. The inbox remained silent until Saturday afternoon, when a slow trickle began coming in. It is unknown how much, if any, was lost, so we'd like to apologize, in advance, for any loss that may have resulted.

WE ALSO MOVED our website to webhost last week, and experienced some ups and downs with that process. We still need to upgrade to a more robust server with the new host, which we planned on doing Monday afternoon. Please bear with us as we iron these cyber wrinkles out.

INTIMATION OF SPRING. Three days of frigid mornings, cool sun-struck days, daffodils, the faint scent of acacia, and a full moon rising in clear skies. Four days later, winter resumes with big rains, road closures, downed trees, and power outages. April may be the cruelest month, “breeding lilacs out of the dead land” but no sign of lilacs at my house as winter roars on.

JUST as The Valley's green is greenest, some of our soul-free industrial winemakers ribbon their vineyards with death, row after row of chemical poisons. Weed control, they say. And the stuff runs off into the streams and the rivers and we wonder where the fish went, the frogs having croaked their last years ago. Then, when the days heat up, here comes another mass dosage of pesticides and we wonder where the honey bees have gone.

DESPITE GALES of blustery vows from one of the owners, Willits mayor Burton, never ever to have anything to do with the marijuana industry, a cannabis cultivation permit for the old Remco site in central Willits has been filed.

HELLO HISTORY? Get me re-write. Almost exactly one year after voting to remove the McKinley statue from the Arcata Plaza, the Arcata City Council has unanimously voted to relocate the statue to the city of Canton, Ohio, McKinley’s home town. Today's libs won't like to hear that McKinley wasn't all that bad a guy, not nearly as eager an imperialist as his contemporary Teddy Roosevelt. I think of him as a kind of late 19th, early 20th century version of Gerald Ford, or even Obama The Arab Slayer and Great Friend of Wall Street. Among McKinley's virtues count his great devotion to his wife, an epileptic, and his service on the correct side of the Civil War as a combatant, not safe in the rear with the gear. With the McKinley statue gone from the Plaza I nominate a likeness of Mickey Lima, born in Usal who went to work in an Arcata shoe factory as a 12-year-old, rising to become spokesman for the Communist Party, USA and, I think, jailed during the McCarthyite 1950s. Lima is probably a little too outre for HumCo libs but he is a true son of the Northcoast and, say what you will about American communists, if you take away their Stalinism, heck, they were perfect libs!

CONGRESSMAN HUFFMAN'S "Two-Basin Solution," or a version thereof, would keep Eel River water flowing from the Eel into Lake Mendocino and the Russian River via the Potter Valley Diversion, a mile-long tunnel through which the Eel is sent south into the Russian.

PRELIMINARILY, Huff's idea seems like the most rational way to resolve PG&E's abandonment of the power machinery of the Diversion to keep the diverted Eel flowing south. The Diversion isn't needed for power anymore but, kinda like a local version of Brexit, removing upstream Eel River dams and returning the Eel to its natural state and diverting it no more, would mean dismantling a zillion downstream water relationships the Diversion makes possible. 

WE WOULD LIKE TO SEE the whole show revamped, especially the wildly irrational and dramatically unfair water arrangement via which Sonoma County owns almost all the diverted water. (Former supervisor Pinches was the only supervisor to ask for reconsideration of present arrangements, but he failed to even get a second to advance the discussion.)

AS IS, and if The Huff's Two Basin idea becomes reality, Sonoma County would still own almost all the diverted water stored in Lake Mendocino, an arrangement blindly agreed to by Mendocino County in the middle 1950s, long before Sonoma County's population exploded and even longer before the wine industry became as politically influential as it has become. (The wine industry, natch, owns Huffman as it owned Mike Thompson before Huff et al. It would take a brave elected person to even whisper that the present water arrangements are very, very unfair.)

ONE WAY or another, a portion of the Eel must continue to be diverted to the huge apparatus downstream that depends on it. Not many of us would mourn seeing the wine industry die of thirst, but whole towns depend on diverted water, including Cloverdale, much of Sonoma and Marin, too. Huff's idea of two basins is a good place to start the negotiations.

AN ANON SOMEONE sent me an article from the New York Review of Books to which I subscribe and which I happened to have read. Not that I don't appreciate readers concerned with my continuing education, but this person also noted that he/she was an anti-vaxxer which, to my mind, is the same as a declaration of criminal insanity. But the enclosed story was not about the great crusade to return the globe to mass death by disease, it's called, "Our Twisted DNA" and is a review by Tim Flannery of "She Has Her Mother's Laugh: The Powers, Perversions, and Potential of Heredity," a book by Carl Zimmer unrelated to vaccination. My correspondent, I guess, is the same person who wrote me not long ago about gender bending after I said I didn't think little kids, or even big ones under the age of 18, ought to be encouraged to become the gender of the opposite sex, the opposite sex being opposite the reproductive organs you're born with. It's not a burning issue with me, but ironically Flannery's article about DNA simply confirms "the multifariousness of inheritance," that a tiny minority of people are born with both sets of repro gear, that humans, like the occasional two-headed calves of the animal kingdom, can lose at genetic roulette. This article does not bolster the case for that relative handful of sexually obsessed screwballs who foist their obsessions onto their children, convincing 8-year-old Tommy that he really wants to be Tomasina. At least give the kid a chance to grow up before he decides to cut his nuts off, or she decides to sew them on.

BIG RIVER

(Photo by Susie de Castro)

LOCALLY OWNED NORCAL TOUR COMPANY, Inc announced today that it is now booking tours of California Cannabis Country with its new Mendocino Experience Cannabis Tour. The tour is based on the Northern California wine tour model, taking tourists to licensed legal cannabis farms as well as an inside look at the Northern California cannabis industry. Tourists are shuttled from downtown San Francisco to the southern corner of The Emerald Triangle, Northern California’s renowned appellation for cannabis, on a day trip that returns tourists back to San Francisco just in time for dinner. The tour takes guests to beautiful Mendocino County sights, dispensaries, farms, and cannabis processing facilities, a lovely lunch at a gourmet bakery & cafe in charming downtown Ukiah, and the majestic Giant Redwoods, giving tourists a comprehensive look into Northern California’s cannabis industry and culture. Guests learn from the foremost experts in the industry all about cannabis and its recreational and therapeutic uses, while taking in the verdant beauty of Northern California.

Said Chris Vardijan, Chief Operations Officer, “We offer the first and only tour experience in Northern California that brings tourists to visit an actual working farm. Our tours are fun and informative even for folks who don’t partake in cannabis.”

About NorCal Tour Company, Inc.

The NorCal Tour company was founded this year by veteran Northern California tour guides Misha Frankly and Chris Vardijan to take advantage of this new niche in Northern California tourism. More information about the tour can be found at www.mendoexperience.com – tours can be booked via website or via phone at (510) 470-0420.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190219005341/en/

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Press release from NorCal Tour:

The Black Market Tours of Southern Humboldt we offered 2 a day when starting at 2:15 and the other at 4:20, the early tour takes you through Murder Mountain, Alderpoint, Harris, Zenia, last stop in Kettenpom; the 420 tour will take you through Eattiesburg, Honeydew and Petrolia.

On these tours you will experience some of the best Black Market marijuana grown in the world: OG Sour Diesel rainbow Skittles Girl Scout cookie NPK Twilight Zone Trainwreck panty dropper double diesel and cream cheese many more flavors to your heart’s content with 10000 pound packs available at are discounted black market rate can’t be beat

CATCH OF THE DAY, February 25, 2019

JUAN ANGUIANO-SILVA, Cloverdale/Ukiah. Domestic abuse, child endangerment.

WILLIAM BARRY, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol, lodging without owner’s consent, failure to appear. (Frequent flyer.)

JENNA BRIGGS, Albion. DUI, child endangerment, resisting, probation revocation.

SKYLER GIST, Willits. Protective order violation, probation revocation.

SHAYLA GUERRERO, Ukiah. Manufacture of leaded cane/billy club for sale, no license.

CANDICE HAWKINS, Covelo. DUI-drugs&alcohol, domestic abuse, kidnapping, taking vehicle without owner’s consent.

BRANDON HIVNER, Potter Valley. Tear gas.

GARRIE HOAGLIN, Ukiah. Parole violation. (Frequent flyer.)

CHELSEY LAUGHTON, Willits. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

ISAIAH LOPEZ-MIRANDA, DUI-drugs&alcohol, no license, probation revocation.

NICHOLAS SCARBERRY, Laytonville. DUI, hit&run with property damage, taking vehicle without owner’s consent, probation revocation.

FRANKLIN STONE, Willits. Stolen vehicle, petty theft.

JUSTIN WIRTH, Ukiah. Domestic abuse, false imprisonment.

EXPLORER MAG STOPS BY THE BEACON LIGHT

Beacon Light by the Sea

What can I say about Bobby? He's a homegrown Mendocino legend. He opened up this bar in the living room of his house. 

He's lived the fullest of lives, and his stories show it. We heard everything; about his private fire department, about the dogs he's rescued, about misadventures of his youth, parties with celebrities. It was awesome. I could have sat there and listened to his stories all night! 

We ended up getting so wrapped up in Bobby's stories that we missed our check in at the hotel we had for that night. So, since we didn't want the restaurant to close on us, we went and got dinner before heading back to the hotel.

“ONE COMMONLY HEARS,” Noam Chomksy wrote thirteen years ago, “that carping critics [on the Left] complain about what is wrong, but do not present solutions. There is an accurate translation for that charge: ‘they present solutions and I don’t like them’.”

Chomsky’s point was and remains well taken. The Left has long advanced an extensive list of policy recommendations to make the United States and the world more just, sustainable, and democratic:

• the public financing of elections
• proportional representation in elected legislative assemblies
• abolition of the archaic Electoral College in US presidential elections
• breaking up giant corporations and placing corporations under popular control
• making corporate directors personally liable for company crimes
• limiting and transforming corporate charters in accord with social and environmental needs and priorities
• the replacement of toxic corporate agribusiness with sustainable and organic agriculture measures to ensure conservation and ecological restoration
• the replacement of fossil fuels with alternative renewable energy
• the introduction single payer national health insurance for all – the de-commodification of health care
• the development of rapid mass-transit
• statehood for Washington DC
• steep progressive income, wealth and business taxes
• giant jobs programs to meet social and environmental needs
• the re-legalization of union organizing
• massive slashing of the giant Pentagon budget and conversion to a peacetime economy in which resources formerly dedicated to the military are directed to meeting social needs
• repealing so-called free trade agreements
• the progressive funding and reform of Social Security
• a financial transactions tax and a carbon tax to help pay for renewable energy programs and other worthy social and environmental investments.

That’s a short list of enduring Left reform proposals. There is also no shortage of more radical ideas on what a post-capitalist society might look like. (Paul Street)

ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

Every year for at least the past 15 years I have had this fantasy that an 8.2 earthquake would strike the auditorium of the Oscars right as the Best Picture Award is being announced. Now, now I know some will think this is a horrible fantasy because such an earthquake would also impact many who are innocent. Actually my fantastical hope is that this would be a miraculous earthquake that would only affect the auditorium while leaving the rest of the LA basin untouched.

https://gritpost.com/jeff-bezos-washington-post-sanders/

SIGN OF THE TIMES, AN ON-LINE COMMENT:

I was in a Seattle coffee shop last week. Young lady behind the pastry case was covered in tattoos. The colored inks tried hard to ruin her looks but her youth still shined through and she was eager to please. The excessive skin art seemed out of place.

I won’t call him a boyfriend because he was obviously too hungry for her for that. A moth to flame and she was burning hot to him. I was not in the mood. One look at him and I was faga-maga-raga in my head. Physically, I kept it together but mentally my brain-pan was steaming my loaf. 

The dude had piercings all over his face. Holes in his cheeks were filled with turquoise studs. The studs did not look easily removable. But so what, live and let live. Then the heat cooking my noggin changed everything.

It is one thing to see a pretend devil character in a Hollywood movie. Devil horn stubs beneath the skin, but right then, the real thing appeared. Silicone implants to mimic Satan. Two cone shaped lumps under the forehead of a head shaved bald and tattooed. 

Live and let live, fuck that. Everybody else there was on their way to put in their time for the man. Everybody else worked. And like it or not everybody was doing their part to keep this merry-go-round turning. Socialism in action but not for him. He was better than that. He could deface himself and render himself unemployable. Maybe get something going with the young lady and leave her with a child to feed in a couple of years while he ran after something more important than taking care of a family. It was a clear case of anything goes and fuck anything that matters.

CRYPTIC CANNABIS COMMUNIQUE OF THE DAY

Subject: CalCannabis

This happened this morning….

So…..a very interesting call with CalCannabis this morning. Mendocino County (as in our local government & Ag Dept.) are very uncooperative. The Mendocino Co. CEQA provided is incomplete & does not meet the state requirements. Mendocino Co. has responded that they will not spend any additional $$ to complete properly. In lieu submit your license or provisional. 

Mendocino County won’t provide a list of Approved Applicants. We were asked what is going on in Mendocino County? 

In reference to CDFW plz submit receipt and copy of application if possible. 

The representative stated we are hearing from a lot of individuals referring to corruption & the Mendocino Mafia…. So this is our reputation with this state agency. Hopefully our new Board members will address these issues.

borges.ann@gmail.com

3/3 SUNDAY AFTERNOON WITH PAPA: COSTUME DESIGN BY THE DECADE, 1910-1940

Costume designer Susan Collins is the featured speaker Sunday, March 3, at Mendocino's Kelley House Museum beginning at 4PM. The long-time member and co-manager of the Performing Arts Production Alliance will host "Sunday Afternoon With PAPA: Costume Design by the Decade, 1910-1940."

Susan Collins has been costuming for Mendocino Theatre Company productions and the Gloriana Musical Theater for a number of years, designing and creating costumes for both children and adults. She will discuss the "how tos" of costume design by the decades and the iconic pieces of clothing that define each era. Examples of garments from the first half of the 20th century will be on hand.

“Sunday Afternoon With PAPA” is part of an ongoing speaker series presented six times per year. Admission for Kelley House members is $5 and $7 for the public. The talk is offered in conjunction with the museum's winter exhibit, “Form & Function of Fashion: The Way We Wore,” which runs through March 18. Exhibit hours are Fridays through Mondays, 11AM-3PM, and admission is by suggested donation of $5. The Kelley House is located at 45007 Albion Street, at Lansing, in Mendocino. For more information, please visit kelleyhousemuseum.org/PAPA or call 707-937-5791.

CORPORATE CAPITALISTS

Editor:

I read the letter that finished “socialism never, capitalism always." This is kneejerk response by people who chose to ignore facts or are ignorant of them.

The two greatest programs, maybe in human history, are Medicare and Social Security. These are right out of the socialist playbook. The concept behind socialism is that we are in this together. Pay your fair share of taxes and help others.

I’ve been paying for Medicare and Social Security for years, and I didn’t reap the benefit. I’m proud of that.

Corporate capitalism, on the other hand, takes from our country and doesn’t pay its fair share of taxes. Can we call some of these multinational corporations American? They don’t pay taxes, and they procure the cheapest labor they can. They don’t care about America. They care about their profits. Now that they have Donald Trump doing their bidding, they can pollute without interference, make their profits and not have to worry about “silly” regulations.

If people talk about small business capitalism fine, but corporate capitalism has been ripping us off forever.

Just keep believing the propaganda that corporate capitalists care more about country than people advocating for a green deal that might save our planet, and I’ll show you pigs that fly.

Murray Averick

Penngrove

“IF YOU SACRIFICE YOUR ART because of some woman, or some man, or for some color, or for some wealth, you can't be trusted.” - Miles Davis

OSCAR BYTES

by James Kunstler

I like to keep up with the Academy awards to see just how much Hollywood has lost its mind from year to year. And since America is marinated in the juices of Hollywood, it’s a nice Rorschach test for the mysterious tendings of our nation.

By the way, I got in a late screening of Black Panther the night before. It’s about the techno-metropolis of Wakanda hidden deep in the African jungle lo these many centuries. (Who knew?) The elite of that utopia travel the world in flying saucers. When trouble turns up, what weapons do they reach for? Spears. I kid you not. My favorite line in the movie: American white G-man to Nakia, Black Panther’s ex-girlfriend: “Put that spear in the trunk!”

So… I tuned into the last ten minutes of the red carpet pre-game. Side boob as far as the eye could see — from women who will return to anti-rape culture activism when they get over their hangovers. Everybody on the runway was “stunning.” And they appreciated being informed of that, because they hear it so seldom. Glenn Close revealed that her gown contained four million beads and weighed 40 pounds. I hope she donates it to the Clinton Foundation for HRC’s 2020 nomination acceptance speech.

Oh, Black Panther just won its first award: costume design. It’s amazing what you can do with vibranium. It drapes beautifully, breathes, and can recharge your Tesla. I confess, the costumes kept me going through that movie because the story was so incomprehensible. LL Bean will be offering field jackets in Vibranium next fall, with a special pocket that charges your cellphone. I want one!

Cut to Marty Scorsese selling Rolex watches. Every American should have one, and when AOC is finally president, every American will have one!

Oh, Black Panther won another statuette-of-color for production design (sets and stuff). Fer sure, I felt that I was transported to another world where absolutely nothing was recognizable, which is also how I feel when I read The New York Times.

Followed by the strangest musical number of the night so far: Jennifer Hudson costumed like an elevator operator in front of a Supreme Court backdrop, belting out a power ballad about women and… well… power (from the documentary about Ruth Bader Ginsburg). Well, RBG is getting on in years. She certainly deserves an elevator in her place of business. More power to the ole gal!

Uh-oh, Black Panther just lost in the Sound Editing category. Unfair! Ballot recount, please!

Bunch of white guys won the Sound Mixing award for Bohemian Rhapsody. They all look the same. Same tuxedo. Same plain vanilla speech. Boring. I cannot tell you exactly how sound mixing differs from sound editing. Probably doesn’t. Fake award! Investigation perhaps?

Saved by another musical number: From Mary Poppins Reboot. Ole Bette Midler in an outfit that said Waitress-in-a-donut-shop. I think the song was composed in eleven minutes in the parking lot of the Shake Shack on Sunset off NW Knollwood.

Here comes Pharrell Williams in a camo tuxedo, soon to be worn by US Army Rangers in the forthcoming invasion of the Hamptons. Followed by some chick in a jogging outfit (best animated short). Followed by an hysterical babe “fighting for menstruel equality!” Empowerment, yes! Hear us roar! (Grrrowww!)

Commercials coming hot and heavy now, like the flak over Saarbrucken, 1942. A kind of battle fatigue settling over the auditorium. If it was me out there, I’d be hitting that half-pint of rock’n-rye in my back pocket.

More boring white guys picking up their awards for visual effects. Space movie. Does make you kinda wonder if we actually went up there in 1969, or was that a visual effect too? British accents. (Fake?) The odor of colonialism wafting out over the audience. Thank Gawd that’s over with.

Awards for short films nobody will ever see. (Yawn.)

Spike Lee wearing some kind of futuristic cab driver get-up: “Do the right thing.”

I confess, I don’t care who wins the bigly awards. (Double yawn.)

Most interesting feature of the whole excruciating spectacle: Nobody even mentioned the name of he-who-will-not-be-named-here-either (hint: occupies White House.) The word must have gone out… don’t…go…there. Was it the Jussie Smollett effect, or is something more sinister a’foot?

Anyway, I can’t take it anymore. Zzzzzzzzz….

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

ON LINE COMMENTS OF THE WEEK

[1] Yes I moved a good ways off the beaten path. That was 20 some odd years ago but with the gentrification (or marijuannafication) of Colorado I am not as far out as I once was. It seems everyone and their entire families are moving to Colorado at an unprecedented pace. Still I am at 7000 feet in the Rockies and around 50 miles from a decent size city. I’m here more as a lifestyle preference vs being worried about any SHTF scenario. Quite frankly there are no perfect hide aways left in the US. Wherever a person can drive too for their abode anyone else can drive to as well. Still being away from city life is more comfortable for me. That being said I agree with you and have not become too isolated. I can weather any social unrest better than most but I am more concerned with things such as forest fires and winter storms. As I type there is a storm bearing down on my world scheduled to hit here in a few hours. We’ll probably get between one and two feet of snow out of this one. But as I said the larder is full, the inside and outside firewood storage bins are loaded, and if the electricity goes (more than likely) there is my aforementioned library.

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[2] I can’t agree that a de-facto coup is on balance beneficial. If you want to live in a rules-based system, in part based on precedence, and especially one that respects election results, what you do now has repercussions down the line.

The way they got rid of the Kennedy Bros was at least decisive. Boom, boom, gone. The way they subsequently painted things – deranged losers with guns – at least showed some regard for appearances and gave Mr and Mrs Middle America some comfort that the rule of law prevails. It wasn’t the Deep State, no, it wasn’t. You know, it was those hippy, radical, commies that were always squawking about conspiracies and so good, God-fearing Americans could ignore them. I mean, didn’t the Warren Commission settle matters? Didn’t they have trials for Jack Ruby and Sirhan Sirhan?

In the case of Trump there’s been no rifle shot to re-set the clock. If there had been, at least Pence would be in the Oval Office, a card-carrying member of the Establishment, someone who believes fervently in what Pelosi and Schumer and Schiff and Warner believe. And maybe things could move forward.

As it is the proceedings to get rid of Trump look and smell entirely discreditable, a shambles, a nonsensical charge of collusion driving the coup attempt, having no benefit of logic or weight of evidence behind it. Much more than those gunshots of long-ago, what this tells everyone is that election results need not be definitive, that you could concoct whatever story you wanted to upend the winner, that the courts are malleable, that law enforcement is a joke, that institutions of state are the ultimate deciders of elections.

Of course, if they manage to unseat Trump, what it says to people down the road is that his successors can also be unseated by dishonest and corrupt means. What the Democrats and Never Trump Republicans apparently forgot is that presidential elections happen every four years, congressional elections every two years and if you want to win those elections put forward credible candidates.

Trump may have stunk as a candidate, but to a lot of people Hillary stunk worse, and if you’re being fair, you have to grant that they had a point and that the winner in 2016 maybe was the one that smelled least worst.

THE CALIFORNIA DEPARTMENT OF FISH AND WILDLIFE (CDFW) is investigating the potential environmental impacts of water diversions associated with cannabis cultivation in three streams in the upper Mattole River watershed in Humboldt County.

The study is comparing hydrological and biological parameters such as stream flow, water temperature, dissolved oxygen levels, aquatic insect community composition, and fish movement in streams with and without cannabis cultivation.

This pilot research project could support efforts to establish sustainable levels of cannabis cultivation in sensitive watersheds on the North Coast and lead to the initiation of similar studies throughout the state.

The study findings are expected to be published on the CDFW website in the fall of 2019

“Research is an important tool in understanding the impacts of cannabis cultivation on the 

More details on the pilot study can be found in the January/February issue of Outdoor California with an article titled, “Cultivating Cooperation.” To read the article, please visit:www.wildlife.ca.gov/Conservation/Cannabis/News and click on the link. Additional details about the study can be found here:www.wildlife.ca.gov/Conservation/Cannabis#53534624-environment.

Cannabis cultivators with questions can email CDFW atAskCannabis@wildlife.ca.gov.

CDFW encourages cannabis cultivators to obtain all necessary state licenses and county permits, as well as implement best management practices to reduce environmental impacts. Following these recommended actions can help cultivators avoid common pitfalls that may lead to enforcement actions.

California Department of Fish and Wildlife presser

“I WAS A TELLER AT A BANK. I was working the front and couldn’t talk on the phone, so she sent me a text. She sent two texts actually. The first one said ‘I’m pregnant.’ And the second one said: ‘It’s twins.’ We weren’t even living together at that point. I was only making $28,000 a year. I wasn’t ready. They were born three months premature. But if my wife was scared, she never showed it. She went from nothing to Mom in no time. She told me exactly what to do. It was never domineering. She just knew. The first months were terrible. We were sleeping two hours a night. I was waking up for work at seven. It felt like I was living in a dream state. And I kept thinking: ‘I don’t think I can do this.’ And that feeling stayed for a long time. Things are a bit easier now. But it never feels like I’m done. I go to work, then come home, then it’s homework, then it’s bed. I’m dead tired at the end of the day. I don’t know if I’m doing a good job. I never felt like Dad. I just felt like some figure they called ‘Dad.’ It somehow felt like my wife was their mom, and I was just there for support. I felt like a babysitter. Like I was watching someone else’s kids. I never knew what a dad was supposed to be like. It wasn’t in me. I didn’t know how to show it. I took care of them. I loved them. But I didn’t really hug or kiss them. I wasn’t comfortable with it. Probably because it was never done to me. But I’m different now. I hug and kiss them every night. But that’s because they taught me. They’d come up to me and say ‘Daddy, I love you.’ And they’d hug me and kiss me. So that’s what I do now. But it didn’t come from me. Everything came from them.”

Humans of New York

DELTA CHAMBERS, PCFFA COMMENT ON NEWSOM'S DECISION TO END TWIN TUNNELS, BACK ONE TUNNEL

by Dan Bacher

Bill Wells, the Executive Director of the California Delta Chambers & Visitor’s Bureau, has issued a statement regarding Governor Gavin Newsom’s call to end the twin tunnels project and support a one tunnel plan instead. He said his organization continues to oppose diverting Sacramento River water around the Delta, the largest estuary on the West Coast of the Americas, regardless of the method of diversion.

“The California Delta Chambers & Visitor’s Bureau opposes diverting the Sacramento River around the Delta. We have never made a distinction over the method of diversion, whether it be canals, tunnels, or any other conveyance. Diverting the river will destroy what is left of the Delta. The water barons in the south will want as much water as they can get out of the system and they will not finance it unless they are assured of this. We do not trust them!

“Over the last 12+ years we have asked officials to give us a few examples of where a project like this has not destroyed the parent waterway, so far they have produced – none. We have also asked for a study to determine how much water can be removed from the system without destroying fish and wildlife populations – they have refused to do so, we think it is somewhere in the 3 million acre-foot range.

“Don’t be fooled by this new scheme. A common ploy of government organizations is to ask for twice as much as you expect to get and settle for half and call it a compromise.

“If the river needs to be diverted then do it at Sherman Island, which will enhance the natural flow, cost less, and be self-regulating as far as salt intrusion.”

Noah Oppenheim, Executive Director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations (PCFFA), applauded Gavin Newsom's decision to “abandon the reckless, feckless, misguided California WaterFix.”

“Our organization has spent years fighting this boondoggle of a project, and it's high time that it was thrown in the trash where it belong,” he stated. 

“However, we will not stop fighting any bad Delta water infrastructure projects, whether they look similar to or different than the Twin Tunnels,” he concluded.

In his first State of the State Address at the State Capitol on February 12, Governor Gavin Newsom called for an end to Jerry Brown’s Twin Tunnels, but said he supports one tunnel.

“I do not support the Water Fix as currently configured,” said Newsom. “Meaning, I do not support the twin tunnels. But we can build on the important work that’s already been done. That’s why I do support a single tunnel.”

For more information about Newsom's statements on California water during the State of the State and the responses by an array of organizations, go to: www.dailykos.com/…

STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN

Fairly odd for someone, at least me, who lived in the Emerald Triangle for thirty two (and a half) years, I just noticed that I no longer own an ashtray, at least one that I can find. This sort of thing happens every day or two. Somehow, in my recent move to a one story place to get stairs out of my everyday life, I lost my HP laptop. I lost a really cool cap with earflaps my oldest daughter gave me. I lost my Levis and my suspenders. Shuffling home from Safeway a while back, I thought I was lost. But I have 65 pounds of t-shirts and my local daughter said that if I ever dare to buy another that she'll hold a family intervention. I think of every thought in terms of mining it for a title. I'm really really really confused.

Apparently, the Great Spirit needs me to practice living with worry. Everything is a problem. But to anyone looking, my kids, my long distance relationship person (a really ugly term, a verbal lump of coal), the electric company, my landlord, my doctor, there is either nothing wrong not anything much out of normal. For me, this is what it's like to be seventy five. And counting.

It snowed here all night, but it stopped before noon. It's now Eugene cloudy and 33, keeping at least those riff raff without snowshoes and energy elsewhere. When I was getting in a cab on the way home from the hospital a few days ago, a young man looking as though he had just crawled out of a hole wanted to share the cab so he could get to Seattle. I continue to leave out words as I compose this priceless prose. Seventy five. And as ever, the clock gently ticks. This is what it's like. At seventy five. There must be at least a few dozen like this or worse within a mile of where I am sitting. With love and empathy, I will note the obvious. Your turn at this dance awaits.

Lamp posts await the Orange One and his surreal family, too. And quietly, the clock ticks. And I am afraid I have already hoed this row too many times before. Seventy five. The clock patiently ticks. I am confused.

(Bruce Brady)