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Mendocino County Today: Tuesday, Oct. 3, 2017

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SAD NEWS from Willits: The man who died in the fatal motorcycle accident on Highway 20 on Sunday was Gabe Madrigal, husband of the well-known Holly Madrigal, candidate for Supervisor, long-time member of the Willits City Council.

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ANON passes along the latest on the Courtney family who were on the Caribbean island of Dominica when the latest hurricane struck: "Word from Dr. Courtney that he and his family are safe and sound. They have food, water and power. There was not enough phone time to get a lot of information, but he did say his house survived relatively undamaged. Amazing. They don't have internet or decent phone service yet, but they have people working on the problems. I will post another email as soon as I get more information. Thank you all so very much for your good thoughts and prayers."

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THE AWFUL NEWS from Las Vegas early Monday morning immediately ignited the usual deluge of WHYS as the pro forma national handwringing commenced. Why? Pick a reason. The country is crazier by the day, and coming apart every which way. The Vegas lone nut was apparently better organized, and much older, than the massacre maestros we’ve seen recently, but early indications are he’d suffered serious gambling reverses, his Filipina girlfriend was out of the country, perhaps because she realized lover boy was about to go off, he’d been alone for some time in his stark desert gated community, muttering to himself and getting ready to commit major evil in revenge for whatever injustice he believed he’d suffered. His pops was a famous bank robber, so a psycho gene may also have been loosened in him. Lone nuts in Mendo? Not counting the tinfoil hat types? Armed lone nuts? Lots of both, but ‘lone’ is the key descriptive. The more alone a person is, the more likely crazy becomes, and millions of people in this country are physically and psychically adrift.

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LAS VEGAS SHOOTER'S FATHER, 'Bingo Bruce,' lived colorful life of crime and deception

foxnews.com/us/2017/10/02/las-vegas-shooters-father-bingo-bruce-lived-colorful-life-crime-and-deception.html

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MISSING MAN

Bill Williams

The family of a missing person from Alabama is attempting to find their loved one they believe may be headed to Northern California to commit suicide.

51-year-old Bill Williams of Cullman County, Alabama was last seen yesterday in Oklahoma after telling his family he was heading to California to “get to the redwoods before he dies.” He is described as follows:

Bill Williams
Age: 51
Eyes: Green
Hair: Short, black with a white patch in front
Driving: 2008 navy blue Ford Fusion, Alabama license plate 1CS6214
Wearing: Jeans, orange button-up shirt with short sleeves

Anyone with information is encouraged to call 205-527-6982.

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A PUBLIC SCOPING SESSION on the planning and engineering for a downtown Boonville sewer system will be conducted next Thursday, October 12 at 7pm in the Dining Hall at the County Fairgrounds. The engineers from the Sonoma County outfit preparing the Draft Environmental Impact Report will present preliminary plans and alternative designs and take input from the public on ways to deal with environmental impacts of the possible project should it be approved by property owners in the Boonville “service area,” basically from the Highway 128/253 junction to the Airport. For more information contact Anderson Valley CSD General Manager Joy Andrews at: 895-2075 or email: water.avcsd@gmail.com.

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FIRE CHIEF ANDRES AVILA tells us that there was a “small vegetation fire behind the railcars in Boonville Saturday evening between 7-8pm. It was kept to less than a quarter acre with no property loss or damage. The juveniles who started it have been contacted and referred to the appropriate authorities. At about the same time there was a medical aid on Ornbaun Lane with a chopper that landed at the Airport for transport. Later that evening an SUV caught fire on Whipple Ridge, which extended to about half an acre nearby. But the weather was cool and wind was light so it was kept small.”

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SPEAKING of fire hazards, it’s absolutely mystifying why the estate of the late Mike Shapiro will not permit the family of Shorty Adams to clear up the brush behind Shorty’s place. That vegetation build-up, which spills over Shorty’s back fence, presents a clear and present fire hazard. If juvenile fire bugs set it on fire when the winds are up in the afternoon, it could wipe out not only Shorty’s house but the entire east side of Boonville, from the junction of 128 and Mountain View all the way to Pic ’N Pay. The Adams’ will clear it out for free, and do a thoroughly neat job into the bargain. A petition to our local fire department and CalFire is circulating to get ‘er done with or without the permission of the property owner.

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END OF LIFE PLANNING: On Sunday, October 8 at 4pm, the AV Village group has invited Maggie Watson, author of “A Graceful Farewell: Putting Your Affairs in Order,” to discuss positive ways to prepare for the end of your life, regarding finances, health, and after death in a mini-workshop format. The presentation will be held at the AV Senior Center, 14470 Highway 128, Boonville. Ms. Watson is a private fiduciary. “Using her book, Ms. Watson will touch on the reasons why one’s life that should be organized and information that should be made locatable to support and assist loved ones and caregivers. The promise of this book is that it will give you peace of mind.” The book will be for sale, but the workshop is free and everyone is welcome.

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BOONVILLE’S BELOVED WEEKLY is the work product of two persons of advanced age, one of them, The Editor, older than the other. We’ve discussed death and succession, as in final rites and who will carry on our noble task. The Editor says he wants his remains hoisted into a tree “out back” and simply left there for a bird banquet, the way some Indian tribes disposed of departed persons. His colleague, The Major, seems more inclined to the contemporary comforts of an air conditioned casket, ball games on an eternal loop, the Eversole boys unctuous over his grave site. Succession is trickier. I’d prefer someone other than an NPR-brained zomboid, but beyond that modest desire I’m only now beginning to give it some serious thought. I look around at this county’s young “journalists” and despair, and would much prefer a non-trained young person, a young person who still reads books, is intellectually interested, can write a little, comes with old school discipline — meaning the job gets done even if you’re badly hung over or half-dead.

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CONGRESSMAN HUFFMAN was at Pennyroyal Farms, Boonville, Sunday, to bounce cliches off an echo chamber of active Mendo Democrats. What did he say? Who could possibly care other than Rachel Binah and Val Muchowski? The mere mention of his name carries me instantly off into a deep, coma-like slumber. Dr. Apfel says I've got a rare form of political apnea that was first noted in persons who mysteriously nodded off whenever Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi, the Clintons, and the national Democratic Party were mentioned. Dr. Apfel said so far as he knew I was the first local person to seize-up at Huffman, but he thought increased doses B-12 might help.

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THE ANNUAL FACT of the Highway 101 marijuana “interdictions” got me thinking about how I’d transport if I were in the business, and transport is the only way mom and pop growers have to make real money anymore. They’ve got to get their pot to the dope-starved masses in places like Chicago and New York. There are growers here in Boonville who can’t get rid of last year’s pot at $500 a pound. The more ambitious exporter might be wiser to haul it east through Covelo, and over the Mayacamas via 162 to the less interdicted and much busier I-5 than run dope down 101. (Just tryin’ to help out here.)

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REGARDING SCOTT PETERSON, gadfly, occasional contributor to the ava’s muy cool website edition, virtually a daily newspaper by itself, he’s good on some things, not so good on others, in the opinion of this editor. Someone called from Project Sanctuary on Monday asking if we paid Scott. None of their business of course, but I’d read a long piece Scott wrote on Project Sanctuary and hadn’t found it plausible. The gist was Scott didn’t like them. I do like them. It is not exaggerating to say that in two cases I have personal knowledge of how they saved one battered woman’s life and were crucial in their support for another. You won’t hear a negative word about Project Sanctuary in this here newspaper.

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LITTLE DOG SAYS, “So I spot this multi-colored brownish thing out in the driveway. Looks kinda like a cat, one of Skrag's pals probably. ‘Friend of yours?’ I ask him. ‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘Leave him alone or suffer the consequences’.”

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HOW ABOUT…?

We respectfully request that the Supervisors make a legal distinction between property owners who take an entire house off the rental market so that they can use it for "vacation rentals," and property owners who rent out a small cabin on the property they live on, or a room in the house in which they are living, to tourists. There is a huge difference — the first takes away a home someone could live in full time, the second gives a little extra income to help out in these tough financial times.

There is a serious lack of rental houses around here, as well as many other places in California. Much of it is due to "Vacation Rental" conversions. I have heard that St. Helena has 50% of their houses "vacant," so they can be rented out to tourists. I agree that this is wrong. In Vancouver they have a "vacant home tax" of 1% — this is levied once or twice a year on houses that are not rented out to full time residents or that property owners do not live in for a certain percentage of the year if they are not the property owners' primary residence. Perhaps this would be a good idea for our area.

We think it is arbitrarily punitive to 1: put a moratorium on ALL vacation rentals; and 2: to charge any kind of additional fee for owners who do not live on a county maintained road and want to rent out a tiny cabin or room in their primary residence.

I work in hospitality, at one of the older wine tasting rooms. Every week, at least through the non-rainy months, I have people tell me they wanted to stay in Anderson Valley, but all the lodging, including the campgrounds, was full so they had no choice but to stay in a soulless place all the way over in Ukiah, 30 or 40 minutes away from where they wanted to be for a wedding, or a family gathering, hiking or whatever. The air-BnB folks who are renting out rooms or cabins too small for full time living, are actually doing a service for the valley.

If the Supervisors are thinking about moratoriums, how about one on tasting rooms in the Valley? That's been needed for years. All the newer tasting rooms certainly take a cut on the flow of tourists spending money at the older ones!

Sincerely,

Nancy MacLeod, William Allen

Philo

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PETER LIT NOTES:

Déjà vu—

Read an article about Uber vs. Austin, Texas. Austin pulled Uber's operating permit for Austin because of lack of insurance, no background checks on drivers, assaults on customers, mistreatment of customers, etc. Shades of Mendocino County and the spraying of phenoxy herbicides. Uber went to the state legislature and, lo and behold, Austin's law was thrown out. And, since I am ranting, Caltrans is actively destroying small towns by raising the speed limits. They manifest the same disregard for the local reality when they, for example, build the Willits bypass without a dedicated Highway 20 exit, insuring that those cars drive through town. Of course, our elected officials are so stoked to be playing with the big boys that they say, "Thank you."

Enjoy the fall.

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A SOLO PIANO CONCERT of classical music, classical-crossover music and original compositions by Gabriela Lena Frank at the AV Grange in Philo. Sat. Oct. 7, 2017 at 7:30 pm. Grammy-winning composer/pianist Gabriela Lena Frank's music explores her multicultural heritage most ardently through her compositions. Inspired by the works of Bela Bartók and Alberto Ginastera, Frank is something of a musical anthropologist. She has traveled extensively throughout South America and her pieces reflect and refract her studies of Latin American folklore, incorporating poetry, mythology, and native musical styles into a western classical framework that is uniquely her own. Ms. Frank and her husband, Jeremy, have relocated to Boonville where she has created the Gabriela Lena Frank Creative Academy of Music which grooms young emerging composers from around the world for professional music careers. Tickets for this concert can be purchased at the door. $15 General Admission and FREE to young musicians. All proceeds for this concert will support the AV Solar Grange and the AV Theater Guild. Contact avtheaterguild@gmail.com or 707-895-3883.

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STILL PINCHING MYSELF IN PHILO

by Greg Krouse

Gabriela Lena Frank’s Bueno Yabbelow at the Grange (Sept 19th) was pretty impressive. Joshua Roman, Cellist and Johnny Gandelsman, Violinist, are world class performers. Gabriela named her series carefully including our mixed culture with the notion of a conversation. Yabellow (boontling) means ‘active excited chatter’ with bueno good active chatter. Gabriela Frank’s Creative Academy of Music has with many objectives: to find seed ideas, realize these with evolving skills of notation, develop community within musicians, and exchange with musicians. This Bueno Yabbelow introduces the fruit of a year’s pieces. Unlike a traditional recital, where most music is solely interpreted by listeners, we were provided a kernel of the seed thoughts from the composers. The first piece was composed by Gabriela. A provocative piece, with lots of breath and sweeping sounds from both instruments.

Roger Zare, a new professor of music at the University of Northern Iowa. Zare based his pieces on the distorted world of artist Escher triptych. Imagine interpreting Escher musically? The image-A bicycle wheel penetrates a quiet pond surrounded by ruts & debris. The instruments managed untraditional sounds to depict the tire with tranquil trills of birds I assume. It had lots of contrast. The second piece had lots of staccato (bursts) and syncopation. The final Escher’s drawings were images moving into one another. The music felt like opposites, and yet the instruments would bend and churn together. It was an interesting start to the concert.

Next, Violinist Johnny Gandelsman soloed, playing Edward Supena’s, Peruvian dance based on Bach dances as a tribute to his friend, Gabriela. It was complex, syncopated with lots of internal Latino rhythm. Gandelsman’s bow flew over the four strings with plucking punctuations. His foot taps were audible as we all swayed a bit. It was contagious, a show stopper. I pinched myself. Ow, not a dream!

Akashaya Tucker introduced Breathing Sunlight from a Gaelic word about the color of sunrise. The sense of light presented itself, passed from violin to cello and then grew to a huge crescendo and dissipated. It was very sweet, yet powerful.

Christine Hedden, another Irish lass composition was an Irish piece that passed back in forth between the two instruments with the cello plucking and bowing. It was very moving and grew to a strong complex crescendo.

Joshua Roman played a striking solo of a Bach’s Prelude for Cello and I pinched myself again. Philo? Hey that hurts. Awake!

Michael Thomas-Founa, a Hawaiian Music professor wrote a composition called Stellar Cartography evolved from star maps, an evolution of the universe. He described stars exploding, occurring almost immediately as Gandelsman violin exploded with sound. We were off on a journey that only a star could make, seemingly directed and yet at times like an ADD star, bumbling in some detail, then exploding again. A sense of inner spacial-ness was created with the passages appearing to echo. I enjoyed the journey.

Finally, Noah Luna, stepped forward mentioning that he started into music as a band member and well for him the social and joint creation was core. Noah’s piece was Porchlight Sessions based on memories of adolescent guitar playoffs in his home. It was there, a classical standoff, with these two Virtuosos battling. Then Johnny strummed his instrument as if a guitar and well.., it got interesting. It was a fun piece.

The Q&A of all performers and composers: Composers start from all sorts of angles; a kernel of sound, a passage of music from a previous composer, and visual ideas. Gabriela said that often the musical conservatories miss the importance of inspiration and exchange between composers and musicians. Also that notation is limited, identifying notes and meter. But as violinist Johnny noted, Zare’s piece had a section where the two instruments playing out of synch. A simple edge of score note was crucial, one of Gabriela’s institute teaching points. We learned about the instruments, how musicians practice new music and where their drive came from. Bueno!

What is Bueno Yabbelow? One, discovering how these pieces manifest in the composer. Two, who is behind the music, composer and artist. 3) Classical music on the Grange stage. The last the author’s slow dream that materialized last year at the Variety show, with Gabriela, a smidge of a gal with a huge heart, monstrous talent, and equally large vision. Using top performers and a small audience, she sees these performances as a means to engage her students in community, try these brand spanking new pieces on an audience and create a dialogue. The dream manifested grandly and Bueno Yabbelow will return again and again.

A subset is the Piano series, Dancing on Ivories, which returns this Saturday Oct. 7th at 7:30 with none other than Gabriela Lena Frank. A grammy winning musician, performing magic on the grange grand piano with a mix of classic past and her own composition and some Bueno Yabbelow of her own,! Ouch! It’s not a dream!

PS More info on Gabriela Lena Franks Institute on line at www.glfcam.com.

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ON LINE COMMENT OF THE WEEK

Not able to figure out PayPal to comment on MCT where apparently the new Fort Bragg City Council “Code of Conduct” for public participation is being discussed now. Last night on KZYX Community News there was a segment about the supposed disruptive behavior of certain members of the public, particularly Rex Gressett and his “conspiracy theories” who attend Fort Bragg City Council meetings. Under the guise promoting norms of civility, however, what was being put forward was an attempt to censor the content of speech by members of the public and to silence critics of local government officials. But unlike KZYX, the Fort Bragg City Council is a government body whose rules must pass constitutional muster. Even if Rex’s views or the ways he expresses them are over the top outrageous, which they’re not (not a statement of agreement with them, however), to seek to prevent him from expressing them at successive town meetings is a blatant violation of the First Amendment rights of him to express them and of the public to hear them. Look, every community has its gadflies and even cranks who show up repeatedly to talk about God knows what and people put up with that as a cost of maintaining democracy. So it’s a sad state commentary on the state of “political correctness” and the gentrified Nanny State mentality of Fort Bragg’s official when local officials are so thin skinned that they seek to silence a local working class critic like Gressett since anything less than a genteel Judy Woodruff like “conversation” will unduly disrupt discourse. But the law is clear, any attempt by government officials to restrict free expression by prior restraint or otherwise is prohibited except under the most extreme circumstances. (See MN v. Olsen, Brandenburg v. OH). But for some, this code-apparently designed for the public, not the elected officials it seeks to shield, does not go far enough. For them criticism of officials, the repetition as in MN v. Olsen, of allegations of misconduct by them, constitutes harassment. What if Trump said that? Think about it.

In that regard, it was particularly scurrilous when the KZYX commentator dismissed First Amendment concerns as simply a cover for alt-right types and the neo-Nazi thugs at Charlottesville, suggesting that Gressett and the AVA represent that. But leaving aside this smear, at Charlottesville, it was not the government, but Antifa activists and others in the street that confronted those creeps. Also troubling is the way this is personally directed at Gressett who they single out for retribution. But this is also unconstitutional, being in essence a bill of attainder that is sought against him, the term used when private citizens are deprived of their rights by a legislative body. I don’t have a dog in this fight in terms of the underlying issues, but on a more human level, it’s downright pathetic, a “CoastLib” caricature of itself that Bruce Anderson didn’t need to invent. I mean, Gressett was one of only two speakers among over twenty who opposed Linda Ruffing, yet his continued presence at public town meetings is intolerable to the council. Yet in spite of all those testimonials, the council voted unanimously to demand her resignation, so he must have been onto to something. But she remains in office until January as a lame duck where she and her supporters are apparently seeking retaliation against their real and perceived critics.

—Joe Hansem

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CATCH OF THE DAY, October 2, 2017

Ashford, Bergquist, Hanover

JUSTIN ASHFORD, Ukiah. Domestic abuse.

CHERIE BERGQUIST, Willits. Failure to appear, probation revocation.

THOMAS HANOVER, Covelo. Concealed dirk-dagger, probation revocation.

Henderson, Jarvis, Laforce

JESSE HENDERSON, Ukiah. DUI with priors, suspended license.

DAVID JARVIS, Clearlake/Ukiah. Concealed dirk-dagger.

GEORGE LAFORCE, Ukiah. Paraphernalia, probation revocation.

Nelson, O'Malley, Pickner

DANIEL NELSON, Clearlake/Ukiah. Grand theft, petty theft.

ELIJAH O’MALLEY, Willits. Domestic abuse, false imprisonment.

SEQUOYAH PICKNER, Ukiah. Assault with deadly weapon with great bodily injury, assault with deadly weapon not a gun, vandalism.

Seaman, Tobin, Werner

RICKY SEAMAN, Hopland. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

SHANNON TOBIN, Manhattan Beach/Willits. Battery on peace officer, against peace officer engaged in performance of duty.

MICHAEL WERNER, Santa Rosa/Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol, fugitive from justice, failure to appear.

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TAKE A KNEE, JER

Editor,

Mr. Governor Brown is at it again trying to make this into a sanctuary state. Which means that every community, every town can have criminals in it and we can’t do nuthin’ about it. So that’s a pretty nice thing to look forward to. It takes someone like Jerry Brown to think of something like that.

As far as the 49ers and the rest of the NFL pieces of crap that wouldn’t stand up for the national anthem, maybe they should take a knee for the whole game! It would certainly improve their play! These people are sick.

Jerry Philbrick

Comptche

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ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

Worrying about corporate control of elections amounts to rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic at this point on our collapse curve. To a people concerned with democracy the Citizens United decision would be a big deal. That it is not shows we are a society which is not interested in democracy. I bet only a minority of citizens can explain the decision or know anything about it at all. Most I bet are brain-dead ignorant and worse even than that, would see nothing wrong with corporate control of elections. Many Americans lack the sophistication to appreciate that democracy, as inefficient as it is, remains the best check on despotism, be it the tyranny of an individual, a cabal, or the creed of a cult. The corporation is itself both a cult and a cabal, and powerful individuals hold sway in them. Citizens United destroys democracy. Not that anybody gives a rip.

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AN INTERESTING real life story from reader Harvey Reading, and please note how much more interesting and instructive it is than, say, endless rants about how bad Trump is:

In 1975, fresh out of college (1974), I took a “lumper” job at the Safeway warehouse, in Richmond, California. Lumpers were fill-in warehousemen, hired on a daily basis to make up for permanent employees unable to be at work on a given day (sick, vacation, etc.).

Getting work required me to drive from Sonoma to Richmond to be at the Teamsters Union Hall in Richmond by around six in the morning, in order to be present before Safeway announced how many employees they would need for the day.

The rule was that to get work one had to be present at the union hall. At the end of the day, if Safeway had no “openings” for the next day, one would, the next day, again go to the union hall and repeat the process. Generally, if there was no call by around 0900, there would be none after, and one would go home. However, if there was an “opening” for the next day, Safeway could tell the lumper simply to come back the next day, without the need of going through the hall process. If that happened 30 times in a row, one became a permanent employee and a union member, with union benefits and union dues.

After about a week, Safeway began calling me back, and I never went to the hall again. This continued until I was nearly at the 30-day limit. I had been making the same money, $7.5295 per hour (yes, that many figures after the decimal point! Also, the equivalent of about $45/hour today) as the permanent warehousemen.

Then, Fish and Game gave me a call. They wanted me to come back as a Seasonal Aid, at $3.15 per hour. I didn’t hesitate a bit, and said I would. My dream was to work for them on a permanent basis, doing “god’s” work and saving the world, as so many of us with degrees in the life sciences dreamed of doing in those years before Working Class hope utterly disappeared in the “land o’ democracy and opportunity.”

It took me another five years, including a couple of years as a temp, “fighting” Dutch Elm Disease (along with many other degree holders) with Food and Ag, two years as a State Park Ranger (badge, revolver, handcuffs, Mace, baton, etc.); not to mention my fall-back, being a service station mechanic, with Class A (if I recall, maybe Class 3, who knows? whatever was the “highest” level license at the time) motor vehicle smog equipment inspector and installer license), that began in 1969, while attending classes at Berkeley, before my dream came true.

My entry, admittedly, was through the back door, an interagency transfer from Parks to Fish and Game during Jerry Brown’s hiring freeze of the late 70s-early 80s. And, naturally, like most dreams, it turned out differently than I had expected. All-in-all, though, I would still make the same choices.

The point is this: not until I retired in 2002 had my salary been equivalent to the $7.5295 per hour that I had made as a Safeway warehouseman, about the same as a GM assembly line worker at the time (2002). In the meantime, wages for warehousemen and others had declined in real value over that same period of time.

I will grant that the poor will be with us always in a brutal Kaputalistic system. It has always been so, even in the days when Kaputalism was limited to bartering. But, things are so out-of-control now that something must give, in particular the wealthy bastards must give way, to force, if necessary. Not all homeless people are nuts or on drugs. And, I DO NOT mean to imply that you, Louis Bedrock, have suggested such a thing.

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FALL OF THE GREAT PUMPKIN

by James Kunstler

Welcome to the witching month when America’s entropy-fueled death-wish expresses itself with as much Halloween jollity and merriment as the old Christmas spirit of yore. The outdoor displays alone approach a Babylonian scale, thanks to the plastics factories of China. I saw a half-life-size T-Rex skeleton for sale at a garden shop last week surrounded by an entire crew of moldering corpse Pirates of the Caribbean in full costume ho-ho-ho-ing among the jack-o-lanterns. What homeowner in this sore-beset floundering economy of three-job gig-workers can shell out four thousand bucks to decorate his lawn like the set of a zombie movie?

The overnight news sure took on that Halloween tang as the nation woke up to what is now confirmed to be a national record for a civilian mad-shooter incident. So far, fifty-eight dead and over 500 hundred injured in Las Vegas at the Route 91 Harvest Festival (Nine up in fatalities from last year’s Florida Pulse nightclub massacre, and way more injured this time).

The incident will live in infamy for maybe a day and a half in the US media. Stand by today as there will be calls far and wide, by persons masquerading as political leaders, for measures to make sure something like this never happens again. That’s rich, isn’t it?

Meanwhile, the same six a.m. headlines declared that S &P futures were up in the overnight markets. Nothing can faze this mad bull, apparently. Except maybe the $90 trillion combined derivatives books of CitiBank, JP Morgan, and Goldman Sachs, who have gone back whole hog into manufacturing the same kind of hallucinatory collateralized debt obligations (giant sacks of non-performing loans) that gave Wall Street a heart attack in the fall of 2008.

Europe’s quaint doings must seem dull compared to the suicidal potlatch of life in the USA, but, believe me, it’s a big deal when the Spanish authorities start cracking the heads of Catalonian grandmothers for nothing more than casting a ballot. The video scenes of mayhem at the Barcelona polls looked like something out of the 1968 Prague uprising. And now that the Catalonia secession referendum passed with a 90 percent “yes” vote, it’s hard to imagine that a good deal more violent mischief will not follow. So far, the European Union stands dumbly on the sidelines. (For details, read the excellent Roel Ilargi Meijer column on today’s TheAutomaticEarth.)

Next in the cavalcade of October traumas: the USA versus the nuclear weapons ambitions of North Korea. This has been ramping up all year, of course, but it looks to be headed for a climax now that the Golden Golem of Greatness is at the helm. Truly astounding, though, is America’s new method for conducting the most sensitive matters of foreign policy. The day after Secretary of State Rex Tillerson declared that his office was in contact with North Korean officials, the Secretary’s boss, You-Know-Who, tweeted out: “I told Rex Tillerson, our wonderful Secretary of State, that he is wasting his time trying to negotiate with Little Rocket Man.”

Could this possibly be a cleverly orchestrated good cop / bad cop effort to bamboozle Kim Jung-un? Or is the US government just completely dysfunctional? Or maybe something else is afoot. Under normal circumstances, Mr. Tillerson would just resign after such a gross insult, but we must suppose that a patriotic sense of duty compels him to remain in office in case the need suddenly arises in this witching month to run over Mr. Trump with the 25th amendment — the clause in the constitution that allows a consensus of a pretty small number of national political leaders to toss out a sitting president on the grounds of derangement and incompetence. Stay tuned on that one.

Finally — well, who knows what else may pop up now — there is the matter of Puerto Rico. Halloween there is not like New England, with our nippy fall mornings, steaming mugs of hot cider, and quickening fall color. It will remain 90-degrees-plus in the fetid, stinking ruins, with lots of still-standing water, broken communications, shattered supply lines, and very little electricity. FEMA and the US Military may be doing all they can now, but they must be on watch for the ominous blossoming of tropical disease epidemics. The story there is far from over. Trump travels there this week. That may be exactly the moment that the Deep State moves to take him down.

(Support Kunstler’s writing by visiting his Patreon Page: https://www.patreon.com/JamesHowardKunstler)

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PAUL KRASSNER PART III: THE FINAL INTERVIEW

by Jonah Raskin

Q: Hugh Hefner lasted a long time, didn’t he? How might history remember him?

A: Fun Fact: Hef was one of the first to invest in Viagra stocks.

Q: David Brooks in The New York Times called Donald Trump “The Abbie Hoffman of the Right.” What do you think of that?

A: Brooks is a professional asshole. Abbie and Trump are opposites.

Q: How about the athletes who are going down on one knee to protest police brutality and racism? That seems like a version of symbolic speech, like giving the finger or burning the flag. What’s your take?

A: Several decades ago, the Supreme Court declared that it was not a crime to destroy the American flag for any reason. Period.

Q: I believe you created “fake news” in your day. Would you call it that? 

A: Satire is a form of fake news, but I didn't label such pieces as investigative journalism or satire in order not to prevent readers from discerning for themselves what was true news or satirical extensions.

Q: Have you visited the Gaza strip? Do you have a perspective on Israeli settlements there?

A: I didn’t go there. Palestine never said, “Please take our land because America or England wouldn’t.” However, I did go to the Cannabis Cup in Amsterdam.

Q: Can you believe it? Marijuana is finally going to be legal in California. Is that a good thing or a bad thing?

A: It's a good thing, but it’s a bad thing getting busted for smoking weed. Anybody in prison for such injustice is the cornerstone of a police state.

Q: Californians seem to be obsessed about food: what they eat and where they eat it. As you have aged have your feelings about food changed?

A: I stopped eating red meat long ago and later anti-biotic chicken. My favorites: vegan sandwiches at Native Foods and teriyaki salmon at Domo, a Japanese place.

Q: You have been concerned with obscenity for much of your life. Some say that nowadays you can say anything and not get in trouble. Do you think that’s true?

A: I was concerned every time Lenny Bruce got arrested because district attorneys wanted to boost their careers. That doesn’t happen to comedians now. It doesn’t mean they’re funny, though.

Q: Gossip and rumor play an important role in society, don’t they? You hear the real story through the grapevine and not through the established channels of communication. Yes?

A: I consider the source. I consider Snopes, also known as the Urban Legends Reference Pages, as believable. My favorite lie is when Trump said that Hillary began the Obama birther propaganda and Trump ended it.

Q: Halloween is an underrated occasion in my view and ought to be as big as Easter Sunday. You can put on any costume you want and go trick or treating. Do you have any Halloween memories?

A: I’ve just been burglarized. I'm still in shock. I don’t give a shit about the candy industry Halloween.

* * *

NORTH COAST MPA COMMUNITY GATHERINGS, NOVEMBER 1-3

Local ocean community members are invited to attend upcoming community gatherings that will be held in Crescent City (November 1), Eureka (November 2), and Fort Bragg (November 3). Join us to learn about information from marine protected area (MPA) baseline monitoring conducted from 2013-2017 in the North Coast region, as well as plans for long-term monitoring. Events are hosted by California Department of Fish and Wildlife, Ocean Protection Council, and Ocean Science Trust. View the event flier and find out more on the State of the California North Coast page on OceanSpaces.org.

* * *

SEEN ANY?

Woodlands Wildlife is collecting and mapping mountain lion sightings, hopefully to put it on line so we can know when each area's mountain lion is more likely to be near our homes. Send date and place to: WoodlandsWildlife@mcn.org or Ronnie@mcn.org.

—Ronnie James

* * *

FIRST ANNUAL PUMPKIN NIGHT at the Gardens, Saturday, October 28th, from 5:30PM to 7:30PM (Adults $10; children 16 and under FREE). Come dressed in your Halloween best and light up the night with some creatively carved gourds and painted pumpkins. Vote for your favorite pumpkins, enjoy spooky games, haunting music by DJ Nutrishious, and fall treats.

Pumpkin Carving Contest

To enter your carved or designed pumpkin simply complete an entry form and deliver your creation(s) to the Gardens between 12:00PM and 3:00PM on Saturday, October 28. Entry forms are available at the Gardens gift shop or on the website. Prizes will be awarded in four categories – Adult (age 18 and up), Teen (ages 13-17), Kid (ages 7-12), Kid (ages 6 and under). Prizes provided by Cafe Jaavy, Littlecup Ceramics, Los Gallitos, Pippi’s Longstockings, and Tangents! Winners of the pumpkin contest will be announced at 7:00PM (do not need to be present to win) as well as on the Gardens' website, Facebook, and Instagram page.

* * *

CITIZEN TRUMP

by Franklin Graham

As I sit here thinking and enjoying the redwoods beyond my deck (I am 76 and fighting cancer) the need to examine how I feel about the state of our nation just won’t go away. It does not matter a whit whether I am for big government or small government. It does not matter how I honor the American Flag or what political controversy of the moment captures my attention. What does matter is that we, that is All AMERICANS, have to come to grips with what is going on. Things did not begin to get messed up overnight. No, it goes way back, back as far as 4th Century B.C. Greece, what historians call the birthplace of democracy. Even then, those we call citizens, freemen, and even slaves are now, today, faced a choice. And, unless we get our act together, collectively, we are doomed to repeat history in its worst form.

For just a moment, let’s review what happened when Socrates was forced to take hemlock, rather than exile, for he knew that exile meant silencing him. Keep in mind that Socrates was not in any real sense of the term political. He was indeed a citizen of Athens and as such participated in the life of his times, even suiting up in armor and going to war in defense of his city state. What then was his crime? He asked questions. He did not espouse certainty about any political idea or ideology. He trusted that simply by asking hard questions that the populace, or a fair portion of it, would make their own minds up and, hopefully, do the right thing. In one sense, consider Socrates a town crier, what today we call a media pundit. His crime, of course, was that he agitated people to think for themselves, instead of just going along with the temper of the moment.

Fast forward to Imperial Rome. From a small cluster of villages dating back at least to 773 B.C., Rome slowly came into focus in a world which surrounded them with hostile, more advanced cultures. But, they had the lessons of a refined and tested autocracy in Greece to show them the way toward dominating the known world. After all, the successor to Socrates was Socrates’s own pupil, Plato. But, Plato, it turned out, was no democrat. To the contrary, he envisioned a world in which an elite few, the Guardians, would run everything. As for the ordinary citizen, the Helot in Grecian terms, they would be left to pursue their private wants and lusts, even enrich themselves as to material goods so long as they did not threaten the right to be ruled by the elite. Augustus, however, and all emperors for that matter, learned that having a Greco-Roman form of rule did not insure control. No, there needed to be the means to keep the population in check. So, while the elite few made all the decisions, regarding everything from war or peace, who lives and who dies at their whim, they also found the means to keep citizens in their places. They did fund elaborate and expensive water systems to deliver free water to everyone (the famous aqueducts). They used the wealth of the Empire to maintain the largest military on earth, forever at the frontiers of the Empire, and ready to invade any power that might threaten their rule. They went further: free bread doles were institutionalized to keep the idle fed. Virtually free access to the baths were made possible by elite patrons. And if that was not enough, their genius turned to blood and spectacle through the system of colosseums that any city of size contained. This system of military dominance of the known world, endless war or enforced truces with the “barbarians”, domestic pacification through the dole, and a brilliant administrative system, lasted for about 500 years. But nothing lasts, any historian will tell us. By 411 A.D., the “barbarians were at the gate, Rome, after all, had divided itself into east versus west (with the seats of governance in Ravenna and Constantinople). Add to the mix the intemperate rise of Christianity as the only form of sanctioned faith for the people, in that time a harsh view of the world. The so-called western world entered the DARK AGES, and remained there until the onset of the 14th Century.

Even so, there are those (Gibbons for one) who insist that at least it lasted 1,000 years. It is no accident that Nazi Germany insisted that its Reich (Rule) would last 1,000 years. Many historians will also argue that one key to ending the DARK AGES was the discovery of the New World, a new world to conquer dominate, and subjugate to its will.

Let’s return to the matter of Mr. Trump. He has indeed learned how to fire up, infuriate, and madden vast numbers of the populace, in the name of patriotism. If it were up to him, anyone who does not venerate his specific form of patriotism should be fired—that is have their life made difficult. The current move to reduce taxes on the rich, while actually increasing taxes on ordinary citizens with provisions such as increasing the bottom tax bracket on poor people by 2%, eliminating the home tax deduction, and other draconian provision. He is, by all accounts, Citizen Caine revisited. Like in the movie Caine, he learned that dominating the media meant dominating the political life of the country. He surrounded himself with a gilt encrusted lifestyle. Power for its own sake is this one ethos. The page has yet to be written of his downfall. But when it does come, his political obituary should end with one prophetic word, “Rosebud.”

 

41 Comments

  1. Marco McClean October 3, 2017

    Re: Jerry Philbrick’s “As far as the 49ers and the rest of the NFL pieces of crap that wouldn’t stand up for the national anthem, maybe they should take a knee for the whole game! It would certainly improve their play! These people are sick.”

    Now that everyone has a phone, Jerry, there’s an opportunity for national simultaneous patriotic solidarity like we never had before. My wife Juanita often uses an app in her phone to I.D. a song that’s playing. That sort of tech can easily be modified to listen all the time in all Americans’ phones, and then whenever and wherever the national anthem is playing, the phone that detects it would automatically send it to, say, the NSA’s server farm in Arizona and from there stream it out to all other phones.

    Everyone would stop whatever he’s doing. Put down shop tools or chain saws or frying pans or scalpels. Put down the beer. Pull off the road. Stop the chicken corpse conveyor belt. Put the plane on autopilot. And so on. And every American, in the air, on land or on the sea would stand respectfully still and sing along until it’s finished.

    And it should be /all/ the verses, including the one about how it’s sad but entirely understandable that runaway human slaves, not yet in 1814 considered to be even 3/5 of a person each, might fight with anti-slavery enemies because of how horrible slavery is, with the whippings and beatings and cripplings and decapitations and tearing families apart. And American police chasing American criminals would be standing still over /here/ singing, and the American criminals they’re chasing would be standing still over /there/ singing. All one big happy family.

    And then when it’s over and the last line is sung, everything would suddenly start again; the police would be chasing the criminals and the criminals would be throwing the incriminating evidence and dirk/daggers and loot and whatnot aside off the bridge or into the bushes, and the factories and cars and meth labs and assembly lines and massage parlors and food courts would all start going again. And then five minutes later another phone at a ball game or a wedding or a choir or band practice would hear The Star Spangled Banner playing, and all Americans would stop everything they’re doing and stand up and sing along and be patriots and love our country the way it deserves to be loved, again.

    And you could tell who wasn’t a real American because those would be the ones still moving around and not singing. And the people singing could make a mental note of this, and capture them later on, if there was time between times of singing the national anthem, and put them on trains and boats and airplanes or just make them /walk or crawl/ back wherever they belong, even if they’re babies, or old people who fought for the U.S. in a war, or students in medical school about to become doctors– because they’re fucking criminals and you’re right, Jerry, we don’t need any more foreign criminals, colored or not, contributing to society here. We have enough trouble with the alt-right racist domestic terrorists and the Christian dominionists and the corporate banksters and the clown president. That crazy white guy from the gated community who shot all those hundreds of people last night, for example, with all that weaponry and ammunition he just went out and bought like buying a toaster or a pack of cigarets? Think how much better things would have gone if, right when he started to unload his guns into the crowd, it had become time to put the guns down and stand up and sing the Star Spangled Banner. Oh, but then soon it would be over and everybody’d be exactly where they were, and he’d start shooting again, and the screaming would start again, so maybe that /wouldn’t/ help. But at least it would stop for a couple of minutes. Sometimes that’s all people really need. Just stop. For a couple of minutes.


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

    • LouisBedrock October 3, 2017

      Marco,

      Great response to the idiot Philbrick.

      However, You can’t write “because they’re fucking criminals and you’re right, Jerry, we don’t need any more foreign criminals, colored or not, contributing to society here.” because words like “fucking” have been proscribed by the editor.

      • Bruce Anderson October 3, 2017

        Most of the obscenities on this comment line are gratuitous and lazy. Lots of papers have discontinued their comment lines because they deteriorated into insult swaps. I’d rather keep this comment line open, but I don’t have time to babysit the enterprise, and I’ll end it if it careens into pure childishness.

          • Harvey Reading October 3, 2017

            “Readers influenced…”

            And, why not? Many times the comments on mainstream media (including pbs/npr) reflect far more intelligence (in both senses of the word) and knowledge than does the content of the story, printed or broadcast.

        • Betsy Cawn October 4, 2017

          In spite of the caterwauling and errant vitriol that decorates the exchanges of schoolyard pejoratives between certain commenters, I find the utility of the “Comments” section to be well worth enduring such taunts and trivia. Many of the elucidations offered by AVA readers with extensive detailed knowledge on a given subject provide this reader an opportunity to learn more, especially on topics involving our peculiar Northern California polity.

          On the other hand, I have on occasion tsk’d and tut-tutted to myself in response to the childish use of gratuitous disparagement from those more erudite than the obviously earnest but ill informed contributors. Some comments leave me dumbstruck, but then again I don’t have to expend much effort responding to them, do I?

          While “wasting” digital “space” on some occasions, for the most part AVA reader comments engender a form of social dialogue not found elsewhere — in the examination of local particulars and much needed debate about civic and civil services — critical to keeping the very flames of dissent alive.

          In my private speech, the use of flavorful invective and pseudo-shocking “obscenities” to more fully convey disdain or distress is derived from natural language assimilated in the rough worlds of harshly blunt subcultures — and mostly just plain fun. I detest being censored in any way, but in public dialogues and on the radio, I refrain from such euphoria in order to keep listeners from being distracted — I really don’t care if they are offended, but I’d rather they were more concerned about meaningful content than the froth and foam of extemporaneous emotive emphasis.

          With much love and respect for the providers of this expressive sanctuary — long live the AVA!

          From: The Lenny Bruce Memorial Office of Proper Usage
          Upper Lake, California

          • Marco McClean October 4, 2017

            I think this applies. I read this in Greg Ross’ weblog Futility Closet:

            During Robert Falcon Scott’s first Antarctic expedition, 1901–04, Ernest Shackleton edited an illustrated magazine, the South Polar Times, to entertain the crew. Each issue consisted of a single typewritten copy that would circulate among up to 47 readers aboard the Discovery, Scott’s steam-powered barque, through each of two dark winters. Contributors would drop their anonymous essays, articles, and poems into a mahogany letterbox, and Shackleton composed each issue on a Remington typewriter perched atop a storeroom packing case.

            The first issue appeared on April 23, 1902, and was, Shackleton noted, greatly praised. Scott wrote, “I can see again a row of heads bent over a fresh monthly number to scan the latest efforts of our artists, and I can hear the hearty laughter at the sallies of our humorists and the general chaff when some sly allusion found its way home. Memory recalls also the proud author expectant of the turn of the page that should reveal his work and the shy author desirous that his pages should be turned quickly.”

    • Dan Raymann October 3, 2017

      2:49 am?
      Marco, take a nap, please.

      • Marco McClean October 4, 2017

        No can do, Dan. Gotta stand for the Star Spangled Banner. And then pledge allegiance to the flag. And then there’s ten or twelve Hail Marys, and the chant of the Loyal Order of the Moose, and the Scout credo, and then whatever comes after that –I forget what’s next, but it’ll come to me when I get there. Loyalty doesn’t take a knee or rest its head because it’s dark, Dan. Rust never sleeps; patriotism shouldn’t either. Vigilance. POE. HOA. ATT. LAX.

    • Harvey Reading October 3, 2017

      Your second paragraph recounts much of what Horrid Hillary did, and does, for a living.

      Incidentally, Trump is so dumb he doesn’t (or didn’t) even know that Puerto Rico is a U.S. colony, and I suspect the same could be truthfully said of many Trump supporters.

  2. LouisBedrock October 3, 2017

    I’d like to elaborate and expand on Harvey Reading’s responses to war criminal and apologist George Dorner and the illiterates and ignoramuses that support him. (MCT of September 28)

    William Blum has written many articles and books about U.S. atrocities and war crimes. Although he no longer publishes his newsletter, THE ANTI-EMPIRE REPORT, many of these can be found on line. His books, AMERICA’S DEADLIEST EXPORT, KILLING HOPE, and ROGUE STATE provide valuable insight into the real motivations for American foreign policy.

    There are a plethora of good books about Vietnam.
    These are my personal top five:

    THE PHOENIX PROGRAM by Douglas Valentine

    THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF HUMAN RIGNTS (Two volumes) by Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman

    LAOS WAR AND REVOLUTION
    Edited by Nina Adams and Alfred McCoy

    THE VIETNAM WARS by Marilyn B. Young

    MANUFACTURING CONSENT by Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman.

    Dorner can only cite Wikipedia to buttress his ludicrous arguments.

    Wikipedia is as reliable a source of information as THE READER’S DIGEST or CNN.

    http://www.spiked-online.com/newsite/article/wikipedia-where-truth-dies-online/14963#.WdN6F8aZPdR

    Television—including P-BS, is controlled by corporations, which have become the principal source of funding, and the government, which grants licenses to broadcast. It is seldom a reliable source of information.

    If you’re literate, read. It’s the best way to learn.

    • Harvey Reading October 3, 2017

      BB was in fine form wasn’t she?…for BB that is. Not a lick of sense at all to be found.

      • LouisBedrock October 3, 2017

        What do they say about empty barrels?

        • BB Grace October 3, 2017

          That the brew was outstanding.

          • Harvey Reading October 3, 2017

            “Outstanding” in the rain?

            • BB Grace October 3, 2017

              I love rain.

              • Harvey Reading October 3, 2017

                Figures, BB.

    • George Dorner October 3, 2017

      The ad hominem attack is the first fallacy taught in a logic course. The “straw man” tactic of falsely ascribing certain beliefs/characteristics, etc. to your opponent is probably the second. As you are using both tactics, Mr. Bedrock, your arguments are false at the root.

      • LouisBedrock October 3, 2017

        I’ve stated and cited arguments which you have been unable to refute.

        Calling you a war criminal is not an ad hominem attack: You confessed to it.

      • LouisBedrock October 3, 2017

        War crimes

        Violations of the laws or customs of war, including:

        ——Atrocities or offences against persons or property, constituting violations of the laws or customs of war

        ——murder, ill treatment or deportation to slave labour or for any other purpose of the civilian population in occupied territory

        murder or ill treatment of prisoners of war or persons on the seas

        killing of hostages

        torture or inhuman treatment, including biological experiments
        plunder of public or private property

        ——wanton destruction of cities, towns or villages
        devastation not justified by military necessity

        http://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/war/overview/crimes_1.shtml

        • George Dorner October 6, 2017

          You have irrefutably lied about me, Mr. Bedrock, that’s for sure.

          I helped the Royal Lao Air Force defend Laos against your Vietnamese Communist heroes who were illegally invading their neighboring nation. Calling in air strikes on invading foreign soldiers is not a war crime. Their invasion is. And since you are so insistent on hard copy sources, try “Harvesting Pa Chay’s Wheat” or “Tragic Mountains” for a history of the illegal invasion.

          Once one looks past your lies and ad hominem attacks, it becomes apparent that your “irrefutable” information is based on the writings of ideologues instead of historians. They, like you, don’t believe in eyewitness accounts when they can invent an alternative reality.

          In your prior arguments, you have betrayed your innumeracy by your inability to distinguish between 4 and 1,200. You use terms whose meanings you do not know. Indeed, the line of crap you hand out wore out by the late 1980s, when folks quit blaming the veterans for the war the citizenry had them fight.

          Given your lies, attacks, and bogus information, you haven’t presented anything worthy of refutation.

  3. Harvey Reading October 3, 2017

    Re: “…and millions of people in this country are physically and psychically adrift…”

    Including the clown prince and congress, the real mass murderers–their preferred methods are warfare and economic policy, and they generally hang out in crowds, too, of their own kind…I worry far more about them than I do the occasional “lone-wolf” murderer.

    Re: “But when it does come, his political obituary should end with one prophetic word, “Rosebud.”

    Yeah, one one couldn’t expect anything original from the clown prince, or his useful-idiot supporters.

    • Harvey Reading October 3, 2017

      By the way, is the Franklin Graham who wrote the article above the son of Nixon’s former high priest, Billy Graham?

      • Harvey Reading October 4, 2017

        Hillary is many times worse than Trump. She’s simply a more clever liar, plus being the darling of idiot, right-wing yuppies who call themselves democrats.

        • Harvey Reading October 4, 2017

          She took single payer off the table during horrid Bill’s reign–under which Aid to Families with Dependent Children also ended, and the only one she helped was herself. Those subjects you attribute to Horrid Hillary were being discussed long before the monster was even born. her sense of humor would be humorous only to right-wing yuppies.

  4. Scott Peterson October 3, 2017

    Re: Project Sanctuary

    I’m not opposed to Project Sanctuary, per se. Its Articles of Incorporation make perfect sense and so do its bylaws:

    https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bxf2TM2uxGxFaUZoM1ZTUTFLM28/view?usp=sharing

    Project Sanctuary is a shelter for battered women and their children. I’ve got no problem with that. It’s chartered to offer counseling. Providing legal services was amended out in 1986. Now look at its latest grant application:

    https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bxf2TM2uxGxFMnZHZkk2cG1qZVE/view?usp=sharing

    MFTs and LCSWs have been replaced with peer counselors at $20 an hour. The accountant there has no state license and gets $275 an hour. Legal services are provided there now too. But nobody with a law degree or SBN appears on its organizational chart.

    So there are actually two Project Sanctuaries. One as it was intended — a shelter for battered women and children. And the one it’s become — a shelter for the unscrupulous.

    Read the paperwork, Bruce. If I’m wrong about any of this, please tell me where so I can correct my article.

    Sincerely,

    Scott M. Peterson
    Mendocino

    • sohumlily October 3, 2017

      Sure would have loved to access legal services when *I* was a client at Project Sanctuary. If anyone needs legal assistance it’s gotta be battered women.

      They were there for me when I needed help; the ‘peer counselor’ I saw earned every bit of $20/hr. if that’s what she indeed, received in compensation.

      Is there any organization at all that you approve of, Scott Peterson?

      • james marmon October 3, 2017

        Yeah, he likes Non-profit Redwood Children’s Service (RCS), and For-profit Redwood Quality Management Company (RQMC), anything Camille Schraeder.

      • Scott Peterson October 3, 2017

        There are lots of nonprofit organizations I approve of. But my approval — or anyone else’s — is immaterial. The important thing is how effective they are at fulfilling their State-approved charter.

        One of them is the Family Justice Center Sonoma County. It’s at the bottom of page eighteen here:

        https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bxf2TM2uxGxFODBjV1RraWNMRGc/view?usp=sharing

        Thanks for asking.

  5. Lazarus October 3, 2017

    “SAD NEWS from Willits: The man who died in the fatal motorcycle accident on Highway 20 on Sunday was Gabe Madrigal, husband of the well-known Holly Madrigal, candidate for Supervisor, long-time member of the Willits City Council.”

    Awful news…
    Just Laz

  6. Alice Chouteau October 3, 2017

    Peter Lit–good point about the Cal Trans problems. It seems a grave mistake, for instance, to have traffic entering the core of Fort Bragg at 40 mph, which means many drivers will be entering at 5or 10 mph more than 40, om the main street. The city has altered several side streets with ‘traffic calming’ projects, but Cal Trans seems to call the shots. They also fail to post signage for the true city limits, which are not at the ‘welcome to FB’ signs.

  7. George Hollister October 3, 2017

    “I look around at this county’s young “journalists” and despair, and would much prefer a non-trained young person, a young person who still reads books, is intellectually interested, can write a little, comes with old school discipline — meaning the job gets done even if you’re badly hung over or half-dead.”

    That said Bruce, I have wondered who will write your obituary? The story in the PD should be good, don’t you think? My suggestion, write it yourself, and let the Major edit the copy when you have no more control of Earthly things.

  8. Dan Raymann October 3, 2017

    Jerry Philbrick
    It’s

    Colin Cancer

    Not watching

  9. Jim Updegraff October 3, 2017

    Booneville’s Beloved Weekly: com on, you two are just a couple of spring chickens. You have lots of years left until you throw in the towel. When you get to be my age then talk about retirement.

    Catch of the Day: What is the penalty for DUI in Mendo county? Seems like there are a large number of repeats. In Sacramento County – up to 48 hours in jail, $5,000 fine and up to 500 hours of community work.

    Jerry Philbrick: Is a stooge for El Trumpo the Village Idiot but he has a constitution right to say what he said.
    Project Sanctuary: In Sacramento a goodly number of churches, temples and mosques are sanctuaries.

    Massacre in Las Vegas: These mass shootings will continue until very tight gun laws are enacted by Congress. No reason why anybody except hunters should have gun. The souls of those who are NRA supporters and the gun crazies should burn in Hell for all eternity for happened Las Vegas.

    • LouisBedrock October 3, 2017

      Amen, Jim Updegraff,
      I hope you have many, many years left.

  10. Dina Polkinghorne October 3, 2017

    The false narrative being perpetrated by some folks that Project Sanctuary does not provide ALL services to men is, I think, counterproductive to their goal – which is to make sure that ALL our services are provided to men. Project Sanctuary does in fact serve male victims and has for years but if this idea that we are a women’s only crisis center persists, male victims might be dissuaded not to seek our services. I am here to set the record straight. It’s not the first time, and it won’t be the last, but here goes…

    Despite Mr. Peterson’s obsession with our very old articles of incorporation, which when I find a red hot minute to research how to amend them I will, let it be known far and wide that we serve both male and female victims of sexual assault and domestic violence.

    Most of the male clients we help are those pursuing restraining orders or who need some help processing childhood sexual trauma. We shelter men. We counsel men. Our group counseling opportunities are for anyone, regardless of gender. We have male volunteer counselors and on staff. We encourage men to apply for our jobs.

    On to some other misinformed views…We do not provide legal advice and do not present ourselves as legal advisors. Getting a restraining order is a rather complicated affair with many forms to fill out, witness testimonies to gather and the like. What we actually do is help people help themselves through the court process to get a restraining order. If people can afford a lawyer, we tell them that’s a better option because unlike us, they give legal advice and can speak for them at court. We don’t. Our clients speak for themselves at court, facing their abuser. It’s an intimidating experience in many ways so while we don’t represent anyone at court, we will sit with them while they wait to speak with the judge because it’s scary and it helps to have a calm presence there with them, and to explain things. That is our legal advocacy in a nutshell.

    Through an extensive, mandated training, our staff and volunteer peer counselors are certified by the State to work with this particular type of victim. This is a system set up by the state. We do not represent our peer counselors as social workers. Occasionally we have a staff member who is a licensed social worker but it’s rare. We have an incredibly experienced licensed therapist on staff who does both counseling and case consulting. Should the need arise, we refer people out for expanded therapy if it’s clear we cannot meet the psychological needs of a client.

    The complete list of our services are as follows; counseling, group counseling, emergency shelter, limited legal advocacy (as explained above), transitional housing, accompaniment to the ER for evidence collection exams after a rape, and 24/7 crisis response. All of these services are available to male and female victims. Although some DV agencies provide batterer’s intervention, we do not. We are not mandated to provide it and we currently have no funding or expertise to do it. We do have anger management groups, which can be helpful to those who don’t want to become an abuser. All our services are free.

    If you or anyone you know is in a domestic violence or sexual assault crisis, you can speak to a counselor 24/7 by calling Project Sanctuary at 463-HELP or 964-HELP~Dina P

    Si usted está en una crisis de violencia doméstica o de agresión sexual, podemos ayudarle. Si usted es indocumentado, le ayudaremos y nunca le informaremos a la policía o a la inmigración.

  11. Scott Peterson October 3, 2017

    “On to some other misinformed views…We do not provide legal advice and do not present ourselves as legal advisors.”

    Project Sanctuary grant application, bottom of page 8:

    https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bxf2TM2uxGxFMnZHZkk2cG1qZVE/view?usp=sharing

    “Both offices have attorneys to assist clients with filing paperwork.”

    Page 21, Organizational Chart: No attorneys.

    That’s just one of the misinformed views.

  12. Dina Polkinghorne October 4, 2017

    Slow down and read page 8 again Scott. The both offices referenced with attorneys are not Project Sanctuary’s, but the Self Help clinic at the courthouse and the local Legal Services office.

    Moving forward, if any other members of the public have any further concerns regarding Project Sanctuary please don’t hesitate to contact me. I will do my best to respond in a timely manner. Just do me a favor though…don’t call it a “media inquiry” and pretend to be a reporter. Thx, Dina P

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