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Mendocino County Today: Tuesday, Feb. 16, 2021

High Pressure | 9 New Cases | FB Vaccine Clinic | Raven | Check-in Calls | Ketch | Cops School | Shipwreck | Customer Waldron | Early George | Great Redwood Scam | Ed Notes | Hollow Men | Ships Dock | 1 For 8 | Yesterday's Catch | Kibesillah Cove | Citizen Trump | Horseshoe Smiths | Useful Idiots | Shallow Faith | Stuffy Beachwear | Bewildering Division | Pure Gibberish | Warring Tribes | 1912 Strike | Weekly Comments | Fascism Response | Cometary Shrapnel | Ministerial Laughter

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ASIDE FROM A FEW STRAY SHOWERS near the Redwood Coast this morning, high pressure will allow for a couple of dry days with some sunshine. The next storm system will arrive on Thursday with more beneficial rainfall. Showers will linger through Friday and perhaps into Saturday. (NWS)

ACCUMULATED RAINFALL over the past five days: 2.2" Navarro, 0.9" Boonville, 1.3" Yorkville

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9 NEW COVID CASES reported in Mendocino County on Monday/Tuesday bringing the total to 3732. 

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ADVENTIST HEALTH FIRST DOSE CLINIC, Fort Bragg, Thursday, Feb 18, 8-1pm, age 70+

Due to the limited supplies, we are still following state and local public health guidelines on prioritizing those in the higher tiers and are able to vaccinate persons ages 70 and older at this time.

signupgenius.com/go/9040d4eaeac2da3f94-covid1912

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JUST CHECKING

Interested in Check-in Calls? Please respond ASAP

Regular (monthly, Daily, etc.) check-in calls from volunteers are already available to our Village members but we wanted to get more folks involved and have it more organized and site specific.

This is what a member has suggested: "For those of us who live alone it is important to have regular daily check-in calls for your own piece of mind and your families.  So we trying to organize daily check-in calls between neighbors or with a specific "younger" person as the point person for 3 people - just ideas for now."

Let me know if you would be interested in something like this and what area of the valley you live in.

I can connect interested people that live in the same area and/or we can organize a Zoom meeting to iron out the details. This will take a certain amount of commitment and diligence to work - thank you for making our community a better place!

Thank you,

Anica Williams, Anderson Valley Village Coordinator

Cell: 707-684-9829, Email: andersonvalleyvillage@gmail.com

Mailing address: Anderson Valley Village, P.O. Box 576 Boonville, CA 95415

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‘SOMETHING BIG HAPPENED AT HS’

That Big Police Presence This Morning In FB?

From the Fort Bragg Police Facebook Page: “The Fort Bragg Police Department along with the Fort Bragg Unified School District took advantage of the holiday. Having no one on campus, we hosted a walk through of the campuses to familiarize outside agencies that may respond to assist in the event of an emergency. Law Enforcement Officers from the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Department, California Highway Patrol, California State Parks, California Department of Fish and Wildlife, and the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE) attended. Fort Bragg Police Department Officer Lopez, who is currently assigned as the School Resource Officer, led the tours for our partner agencies. The safety of our schools are of high priority to both the Fort Bragg Police Department and the Fort Bragg Unified School District. We take every opportunity we can to be prepared for emergencies at these locations. We want to thank our partner agencies for participating and their desire to also be prepared to respond.”  

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CATCH, RELEASE, HITCHHIKE BACK TO COVELO AND DO IT ALL OVER AGAIN

On Friday, February 12, 2021 at approximately 2:00 PM a Mendocino County Sheriff’s Deputy was dispatched to contact the employees at a business located in the 76000 block of Highway 162 in Covelo, California.

The employees reported Neil Waldron, 51, of Covelo, a customer, had been causing problems at the business.

Waldron

A short time later the Deputy saw Waldron in 76000 block of Highway 162 and initiated contact.

The Deputy discovered Waldron was on Mendocino County formal probation.

The Deputy searched Waldron per his probation terms and located a concealed dirk/dagger style knife and a glass methamphetamine smoking pipe on his person.

Waldron was arrested and transported to the Mendocino County Jail for the listed charges.

In accordance with the COVID-19 emergency order issued by the State of California Judicial Council, bail was set at zero dollars and Waldron was released after the jail booking process.


WALDRON, AN ON-LINE COMMENT: This “low level lame-ass” has both severe mental problems and drug issues, and his petty crimes have escalated and become increasingly violent. He is regarded here in Round Valley as a ticking time bomb waiting to go off. Vast relief that he is off the streets, he needs to be locked up as he is a danger to himself and others. Not a fat waste of money keeping him inside when the whole community has been worried about him. You attack the Republicans but the Dems have run California for decades. Where are their programs and resources offering this guy the help he so clearly needs? Where is the law enforcement that is all but nonexistent in Covelo?

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UP EARLY, GEORGE?

On Monday, February 15, 2021 at approximately 2:45 A.M. a Deputy from the Mendocino County Sheriff's Office saw George Mansfield, 60, of Fort Bragg, in the 8000 block of West Road in Redwood Valley.

Mansfield

The Deputy was able to identify Mansfield from prior law enforcement contacts and had knowledge he had an active Mendocino County felony arrest warrant.

The Deputy confirmed the arrest warrant with Mendocino County Sheriff's Office Dispatch and Mansfield was arrested without incident.

Mansfield was subsequently booked into the Mendocino County Jail where he was to be held in lieu of $15,000 bail.

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ED NOTES

MILL CREEK is a Ukiah feeder stream to the Russian River. Used to be lush with fish, running down out of the west hills, across the valley floor and on into the rushin' Russian. These days, stretches of it are lush with trash and the lifestyle houseless, as an aghast on-line commenter emphasizes with a series of confirming photos: “What are we going to do about this? I believe that this is in your [McGourty's 1st] District. I know that you brought this up to The Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office and they said they could not patrol for dumping, but this spot on Mill Creek Road is crazy. Forget the paint, there were containers with dangerous chemicals (paint was just the beginning), decomposed plastics, dead animals (at least one pet dog) and other contaminants. Biologists are now finding these plastics in the tissue of the meat that we eat. It is clear that this has been a dumping spot for decades. Apparently someone (the County) had put up a cyclone fence to prevent dumping, but the determined dumpers just smashed it down. We are open for discussion. If the Mendocino County Sheriff can’t help, we have to find another way. I think we are going to be out there again on Tuesday if you want to take a look at the remaining trash. We took an entire trailer load of trash out of there and there is still a huge dump further down the river. Maybe the new game cameras that broadcast to a cell phone? Mill Creek is an important feeder into the Russian River. We can’t let this kind of pollution enter the headwaters of the Russian River Watershed. I have more video if you need more evidence.”

GETTING kinda frantic at the leadership levels, what with that Republican bigwig McCarthy demanding of Trump, “Do you know who the fuck you're talking to?” And then Florida governor DeSantis allegedly telling President Joe to “Go fuck yourself.” But according to the fact-checking site, Snopes, DeSantis couldn't have told Old Joe to go fuck himself because nobody corporate reported it. That's that, then. If ABC and CBS don't report it it couldn't have happened, and so much for fact-checking.

WE'VE ALL BEEN under house arrest for almost a year and, if you're like me, you pounce on the latest Netflix documentary production because you've seen everything else. (The dramas are a deluge of sub-TV dreck. For the real good dramas the Brits are our only hope. The LL and I have been watching an old BBC detective series — circa middle 1960s — called “Endeavor.” Great stuff.) Last weekend, I watched the five-part “The Vanishing at the Hotel Cecil,” the manipulated story of the suicide of a mentally ill young woman from Vancouver. I say “manipulated” because the filmmaker strings out the story unnecessarily, including all kinds of unfounded speculation from all kinds of uninformed “web sleuths,” although the filmmakers and millions of others know what in fact happened to Elisa Lam. But we get constant interjections of the hotel's louche history in the louche-est area of Skid Row L.A. to repeatedly make the obvious point that neither the hotel nor the neighborhood is conducive to the well-being of innocent young women, or human beings of whatever gender and age. No speculation of course on how some thirty thousand Americans are living like this in downtown L.A. so the constant shots of the destitute, the drug-addled and the unconfined insane are merely a cheap voyeurism. Why the doomed young woman with her history of life-threatening bipolar episodes was wandering around urban California by herself is the only question unexplored in the film.

IF I'M the only person who finds the young congressman, Eric Swalwell, deeply irritating I'll give him another look, but for now, given his Pelosi press conference ubiquity, it's clear the geniuses at the Democratic National Committee see Swalwell as their Man of the Future. Am I just old and embittered or are people like Swalwell, Newsom and the rest of the young political bulletheads objectively the sociopaths they seem to be — empty suits, empty skirts, empty heads? Their palpable ambition is out of all proportion to their obviously limited abilities, and so, sooooo clear that, say, if Swalwell-Newsom had been in the Donner Party he would have been the only survivor. 

HADN'T SEEN CHINATOWN since it first came out in '74, and I think I enjoyed it this second time around even more than I did when I saw it back in the day. It's striking how gloriously un-Woke the film is, a virtual celebration of the forbidden isms, race and sex division. Even I, your standard issue white, incorrect geezer had to wince at the Asian stereotypes, but the performances by Faye Dunaway, Jack Nicholson and the great John Huston are so good only the most unmeltable snowflake could possibly hiss the screen.

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THE HOLLOW MEN

I

Mistah Kurtz-he dead
            A penny for the Old Guy

We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats' feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar

Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;

Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom
Remember us—if at all—not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.

— T.S. Eliot

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THE REPUBLICAN PARTY is in the midst of the worst run that any party has endured — across American history — in the popular vote of presidential elections, having lost seven of the past eight. Yet the party has had a pretty good few decades, policy-wise. It has figured out how to succeed with minority support.

— David Leonhardt

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CATCH OF THE DAY, February 15, 2021

Fowler, Mansfield, Pulido

KALLYN FOWLER, Ukiah. Domestic battery, probation revocation.

GEORGE MANSFIELD, Fort Bragg. Outstanding warrant.

MARTIN PULIDO-TORRES, Fort Bragg. Disorderly conduct-alcohol, resisting.

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Kibesillah Cove

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ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

They are not going to leave him alone. New York is after him for tax and banking fraud charges. Georgia will go after him for meddling in their vote count. Manhattan is going after him for sexual assault and paying off Playboy models and porn stars and for insurance and banking fraud and financial statements that increased asset values for loans and deflated values to get out of paying real estate taxes. He did the same thing for a golf course in Los Angeles. In Chicago they are going after him for financial crimes related to his hotel. He is also in problems with Deutsche Bank/Buffalo Bills soccer team funding. He also paid advisory fees to Ivanka against tax laws (federal taxes) and NY Dept. of Taxation and Finance is also after him for the same thing.

They couldn’t nail him on impeachment as president. But citizen Trump’s problems are just beginning.

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Making Horseshoes

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THE RULING ELITES and the courtiers who trumpet their moral superiority by damning and silencing those who do not linguistically conform to politically correct speech are the new Jacobins. They wallow in a sanctimonious arrogance, one made possible by their privilege, which masks their subservience to corporate power and their amorality. They do not battle social and economic injustice. They silence, with the enthusiastic assistance of the digital platforms in Silicon Valley, those who are crushed and deformed by systems of oppression and those who lack their finely developed politesse and deference to linguistic fashion. They are the useful idiots of corporate power and the emerging police state. Cancel culture is not the road to reform. It is the road to tyranny. 

— Chris Hedges

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OUR ONLY REAL RELIGION is a shallow faith in the future; and yet we have no idea what the future will bring. None but the incorrigibly feckless any longer believe in taking the long view. Saving is gambling, careers and pensions are high-level punts. The few who are seriously rich hedge their bets. The proles – the rest of us – live from day to day.

—John Gray

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painting by Andrew Baines (1949-)

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HOW TO TELL?

To the Editor

How divided are the American people? If you see a bunch of people parading down the street carrying placards depicting Donald Trump as Adolph Hitler, there's no way of knowing whether it's a group of his detractors vilifying him or a group of his supporters venerating him.

Michael DeLang

Golden, Colorado

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MAYBE THERE IS NO HEAVEN. Or maybe this is all pure gibberish—a product of the demented imagination of a lazy drunken hillbilly with a heart full of hate who has found a way to live out where the real winds blow—to sleep late, have fun, get wild, drink whiskey, and drive fast on empty streets with nothing in mind except falling in love and not getting arrested…

— Hunter S. Thompson

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‘UNITY’

by James Kunstler

In their latest act of degeneracy disguised as virtue, the Progressive Wokesters of Washington failed again to nail that old orange coonskin to the wall. Rather, they only embarrassed themselves in the effort, even as far as submitting faked evidence. You’d think there would be some penalty for dishonoring Congress like that, but Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) has for now just skated for submitting doctored Twitter posts to the court of senators.

Watch now as some Wokeness-inflamed DC prosecutor is enlisted by the Lawfare beagles to charge former President Trump with a catalog of crimes under the city’s ordinary statutes. They’ll get a conviction pronto in a local DC court for sure — considering the town’s demographics — and then the appeals will drag on well into the next ice age. In the meantime, as long as he remains healthy, and evades assassin’s bullets, Mr. Trump will go after his antagonists in Congress like a mad dog toward the 2022 midterm. Mr. Swalwell had better learn to code. Or maybe his talents are more attuned to hackery.

The impeachment loss, which was predetermined by simple math, seems to have only driven Nancy Pelosi crazier, perhaps because there are no more traps she can lay for the ex-president, or maybe because her managers’ strategy was revealed to be so shamelessly dishonest. Now she must turn her attention to the Woke agenda, which, she may sense, will only accelerate a cratering US economy — things like the inane Green New Deal and open borders and disabling what’s left of the American oil industry. Good luck with your to-do list, Nance!

Mr. Biden, rumored to be president — or at least regarding himself as such — has been proclaiming the wish to “unite” the warring tribes of America. He may say so, but he doesn’t really mean it, not one little bit, and everybody knows it. Every executive order he’s issued his first month on-the-job is designed as much as a slap in the face to more than half the country as it is an actual policy goal. He’s only succeeded in demonstrating that Progressive Wokery is a badly manufactured pseudo-reality based on vengeance fantasies and the wish to coerce the people who didn’t vote for him — who probably outnumbered the ones that did, a galling authentic reality.

This played out dramatically last week in a telephone parley between Mr. Biden and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis over the governor’s refusal to lockdown his state. The world-famous Dr. Fauci was also on the call, in which Mr. Biden threatened to curtail American citizens travel to Florida by road and air — since an offshoot of Covid-19 policy has been to drive a huge demographic exodus from the economically failing states of New York, Illinois, and California down there. He also threatened to withhold federal funding to Florida and deny the state access to Covid-19 vaccines. Dr. Fauci chimed in, “Governor, do you want to be responsible for reinfecting the nation? Truth is, we don’t even know how effective current vaccines are against the UK strain.”

DeSantis told Dr. Fauci he trusted his own state health authorities over financially incentivized federal officials. The conclusion of the conference call went like this:

How much do you stand to earn from these vaccines, Dr. Fauci? And, Joe, if you continue with this course of action, I will authorize the state National Guard to protect the movement of Floridians,” DeSantis said.

“Address me as Mr. President or President Biden,” Biden said.

“I will not, and you can go fuck yourself,” DeSantis said before hanging up.

Hmmm. Now, that got right to the point, didn’t it?  And consider this was not just Citizen Joe Blow mouthing off to alleged President Joe B, but the governor of a populous state. And what if it suggests a trend?

Another obvious and disconcerting irony in that affair was, of course, that Mr. Biden seeks to restrict the movement of people across Florida’s borders for fear of spreading new strains of Covid-19, while he insolently authorizes thousands of illegal aliens to cross our border with Mexico daily, with no testing for the virus. Could Mr. Biden’s intentions look any worse?

The calls for “unity” are a dodge. Unity requires broad consensual reality, not cynically-constructed pseudo-realities designed to cancel any notion of the common good, a common culture, or the public interest. Without Mr. Trump capering in the spotlight, all you see and hear is the clunky stage machinery of a dangerous mass entertainment aimed at crude mind-fuckery. Going forward, the frail and illegitimate Joe Biden is center-stage in that spotlight. He’s already screwed the pooch on so-called “policy” in less than a month, but the brutal facts of America’s crippled economy are crashing down on him and his Woke managers like the wrath of history. How long will it be before he just gets the hook?

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

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Massachusetts militiamen face strikers in Lawrence (1912).

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ON LINE COMMENTS OF THE WEEK

[1] Doc – “Wealthy towns with good schools, by contrast, have people who cannot afford to go against the grain for social reasons.” And are they not the communities that have the most influence? We walk around outside un-masked freely in my area too, but go into a store? Not so much. I forgot my mask once walking into the grocery store and made it all the way back to the milk section before people started staring at me. I realized why and hurried back to my car to grab it. That’s the social reasons you’re talking about. And you’re right.

And even the impoverished and backwoods folks have their own versions of that need for social acceptance. The game is too far along for a great awakening where, say, suddenly it’s announced that enough people are vaccinated and people can choose to live freely again. I wish everyone had the resources to move to another state if it fit them better…but upwards of 40% of the workforce is now either forced onto the dole or now under-employed, when they used to be able to think past next month’s bills.

 [2] Was not the Super Bowl nearly an insufferable deluge of shameless, pandering dreck?

It was like watching the Oscars these days. Everyone trying to one-up the next guy to be the most tolerant.

I just wanted a damn beer or pizza commercial.

Instead we got run-on awareness training and 14 promos for CBS’ new hit show starring Queen Latifer on skis.

I’m not averse to the awareness concept for important issues, but can we possibly be more friggin aware than we already are? It’s the only topic allowed to be discussed. We’re aware. It’s enough already.

Also noticed the not-so-subtle lack of diversity in the back-up performers behind the half-time “star”…far as I can tell, a 100% lack. How’s that for a mindfuck?

[3] Sigh. The effort to transfer funds from “hard” police response, i.e., responding to crimes that have been or are being committed, to “soft” societal protections, i.e., social services, mental health interventions, social benefits such as adequate food and housing, i.e., preventing crimes from happening when people are desperate, means that a problem such as someone experiencing a mental health crisis will not be treated like a violent criminal but like someone experiencing a mental health crisis. If you look at cities where this more sophisticated approach has been adopted, you will see a significant reduction in crime. Let cops do cop work and social workers do social work, and society benefits. It’s a better use of taxpayer dollars. If you want to educate yourself, check out the reports on Denver’s approach. It has made the city substantially safer for residents, reduced crime, and significantly reduced crimes of opportunity– muggings, break-and-enter crimes, street petty crimes. Or don’t, and stick to your assumptions. Now, let the shrieking begin

[4] Hah! I’m not like you suckers. I have an electric heat pump, so I don’t depend on gas or oil, which destroys the environment. While you guys are paying through the nose for oil, I won’t care because I use electricity. And I have a hybrid RAV4, so I don’t care if gasoline goes to $10 per gallon. Me and my green cohorts will be fine, while you “normies” freeze during the upcoming winters.

[5] As a retiree who doesn’t much give a damn about what others think, it’s easy for me to defy these people. I don’t stand to be ruined professionally and I’m old enough to be regarded as harmless, rather than risk being fined or imprisoned. 

Nonetheless, I offer this observation: the Wokesters have been permitted to put us on the defensive. At the first suggestion that we may have transgressed some redefined new boundary we cower in abject apology, in hopes of defusing their wrath.

Instead, we must defend our rational turf. When accused of taking a position of which they disapprove we must get in their face and stand by our convictions with no apology. 

Individually these people are not formidable; they derive their courage from their pack. Before balance can be restored to society we must reassert ourselves with them one-on-one.

[6] I am old enough to remember when the term “political correctness” first entered the public dialog and can recall having lunch at work one day where we were entertaining ourselves by calling each other out for perceived offenses. At the time it all seemed like innocent fun, and of course we would humor the politically correct by playing along using the newly correct terminologies. It is no longer innocent fun. Humor itself seems to have been banned. We now have cancel culture on steroids only too eager to destroy people and organizations for the most minor of offenses. This will not end well.

[7] Notwithstanding all the hoopla inside the Beltway – and all the discussion over whether the Democrats should have called more witnesses or not – the one huge takeaway, the one that will resonate for years with most thinking Americans – is Mitch McConnell standing there stating absolutely that Donald Trump is morally and practically responsible for the sedition, AFTER having voted to acquit him. Cynicism and disgust at Washington DC has always been high, but this takes it to new astronomic levels. And the Democrats will play that clip over and over – in any context where Trump or any Republican tries to claim it was a Dem stitch-up. The Dems win hands-down – even with the acquittal.

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ASTRONOMERS: A COMET FRAGMENT, NOT AN ASTEROID, KILLED OFF THE DINOSAURS

Some 66 million years ago, a catastrophic event occurred that wiped out three-quarters of all plant and animal species on Earth, most notably taking down the dinosaurs. An errant asteroid from the asteroid belt has been deemed the most likely culprit. However, in a new paper published in Scientific Reports, Harvard astronomers offer an alternative: a special kind of comet—originating from a field of debris at the edge of our solar system known as the Oort cloud—that was thrown off course by Jupiter's gravity toward the Sun. The Sun's powerful tidal forces then ripped pieces off the comet, and one of the larger fragments of this "cometary shrapnel" eventually collided with Earth.

arstechnica.com/science/2021/02/astronomers-a-comet-fragment-not-an-asteroid-killed-off-the-dinosaurs/

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35 Comments

  1. Lee Edmundson February 16, 2021

    Mr. Kunstler perpetuates the BIG LIE (Thank you Mr. Goebbels): President Joe Biden is not the bona fide duly elected and inaugurated 46th President of the United States. Alt Right balderdash. Hokum. Pan Scour, cognitive dissonant absurdity. Plain faced and utterly pitiful. Pathetic.
    I have dear friends who live in Florida, who shudder every day because of Governor DeSantis’s ignorance and arrogance. They put their lives at risk every day because the Governor chooses politics over health science.
    The trouble with stupidity, as someone once said to me, is that it is incurable.
    Go with the science, follow the established protocols, remain healthy. Get your shot as soon as you can. OR…
    Play the Trumpian machco man: no mask, no distancing, no hand cleaning, no vaccine.
    America is on the verge of reaching 500 Thousand people dead from this disease. A million others — Americans — perhaps more, will suffer, do suffer, from what’s been called “Long covid”: chronic brain fog, fatigue, respiratory problems, kidney and liver damage. Permanent? Who knows? We’ll see.
    Plan fact is, no one knows for certain what this virus has in store for us. There are reports of many variants the available vaccines may or may not be effective against. Bottom line here is: nobody really knows how promiscuous and pernicious this critter is. Never like anything ever before recorded in medical history. Get used to that fact folks.
    We worked on the basis of several axioms in Technical Theatre when I was active. One of which was: When in Doubt, Don’t”. Apropos of these dark days. Don’t not wear your mask, don’t not physically distance, don’t fail to wash your hands. Don’t not get your shot as soon as you can. Don’t think for a nano-second this critter cares about your political persuasion, religion, ethnic background, gender or status in life. If it can get to you, it will.
    And it’s gonna be around for many, many months to come. Maybe years.
    Simply follow the rules, and thereby keep yourself and others you love safe. And (even) those you don’t know at all. Safe.
    Something Mr. Kunstler wrote sticks in my craw. It is this: It’s President Joseph R. Biden. Get used to it. And while you’re trying on that one, try this one on: Former President Donald J. Trump. Or try Ex-president Trump. His days are done, over with. Finished.
    Reminds of an old joke I’ll update here: Person phones the White House asking to speak with President Trump. Receptionist replies that Donald J. Trump is no longer the President. A few minutes later, the same caller asks to speak with President Trump. Same response, Donald Trump is no longer President. A few minutes later, same caller, same question. Receptionist says, Haven’t you called several times over the past several minutes asking the same question? To which the voice replies, Yeah, I just love hearing you say it”.
    There may not be an entirely new day dawning, but it will no longer be more of the same old same old. Whew!

    NB: The ghost of Ernest Hemingway while deep sea fishing for marlin with the ghost of my Uncle DV off the coast of Cuba in the 1950s channels: Is this as good as you can do with this? If so, then hit ‘send”.

    BTW: the covid dashboard with the dark background was/is easier to read.

    Follow the protocols. Stay Safe.

    .

    • chuck dunbar February 16, 2021

      Thank you, Lee, all nicely said and made me smile.

    • Marmon February 16, 2021

      President Trump’s “operation warp speed” for vaccines probably saved millions and millions of lives going forward. Why Mr. Edmundson do you always see the glass half empty?

      The rolling daily average of new infections in the United States hit its all-time high of 248,200 on Jan. 12, according to data gathered and analyzed by The Washington Post. Since then, the number has dropped every day, hitting 91,000 on Sunday, its lowest level since November.

      I suppose you’ll want to give old Joe Biden credit for that.

      Marmon

      • Lee Edmundson February 16, 2021

        Dear Mr. Marmon,
        Whether the glass is half empty or half full, the overlooked question remains: What’s in the glass?
        Residual toxic sludge from the T maladministration. Enough.
        And, yeah, I’ll give credit to Biden. The vaccine rollout remains a cluster F, but at least it’s beginning to happen on purpose with a determination led by the White House.
        As for the 500,000 American dead from covid, yeah, former President Mr. T can take full credit for each and every one of those.
        President Biden isn’t perfect. No one is. Not even me (although i thought an exception would be made in may case. Tough). But at least Biden is trying to fix problems, not blame, as his predecessor so grievously indulged in.
        BTW, operation Warp Speed was more of a PR stunt than actual Federal policy. The pharmaceutical companies which have developed the vaccines received amazingly little money from the Federal government to do so. Go figure.

        • Marmon February 16, 2021

          Edmundson, where to you get your news from, CNN?

          Operation Warp Speed’s $18 Billion Sprint for a Vaccine

          Moderna- $2.5b
          Sanofi with GSK-$2b
          Pfizer with BioNTech-$1.95b
          Novavax-$1.6b
          Johnson & Johnson-$1.5b
          AstraZeneca-$1.2b

          Non-Vaccine Investments

          Emergent (Manufacturing) $628m
          Texas A&M with Fujifilm (Manufacturing) $265m
          Corning (Vials) $204m
          Si02 (Vials) $143m
          ApiJect (Syringes) $138m
          Grand River Aseptic (Fill-finish) $160m
          Cytiva (Manufacturing) $31m

          Operation Warp Speed was mechanism to coordinate among private companies and an array of U.S. government bodies: the Department of Defense, HHS, the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and beyond. It was a coordination activity that helped cut through the bureaucracy faster.

          Old Man Biden’s handler’s intentions are to build back more bureaucracy, not less. ‘build back better’

          Marmon

      • Lazarus February 16, 2021

        I’ve been looking at the recent images of Biden since the election. I believe he is aging right in front of us at an alarming rate. Either that or the makeup people have changed.
        Be Swell,
        Laz

    • Cotdbigun February 16, 2021

      Speaking of putting lives at risk every day because the Governor, ah I ment that Joe guy, the President chooses politics over health science , despicable. Attempting to restrict free movement for citizens while allowing unfettered access for foreigners to enter the country illegally without some kind of health science screening , good stuff unless he’s orange ! Go Joe go.

  2. Eric Sunswheat February 16, 2021

    RE: ED NOTES… For the real good dramas the Brits are our only hope.

    ->. January 18, 2021
    On Jan 13, Dr Yvonne Doyle, the medical director at Public Health England (PHE) issued an alarming statement claiming that Britain had reported the highest number of coronavirus deaths on a single day since the pandemic began.

    She also alleged that there have now been more deaths in the second wave than the first. Dig a little deeper and the narrative that the second wave is more deadly than the first begins to unravel.

    According to the Continuous Mortality Investigation (CMI) … there were 72,900 excess deaths from the start of the pandemic in March to the end of December. Some 60,800 of those occurred in the first wave, but just 12,100 in the second.

    In a bad winter flu season, around 22,000 excess deaths would be expected. It means that, unlike the first wave, many people included in the coronavirus death figures would have been expected to die of other causes in the past few months.
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/01/18/analysis-second-wave-nothing-like-first/

  3. Douglas Coulter February 16, 2021

    Who is woke?
    “My name is Tommy and I became awear this year,
    If you want to follow me you have to play pinball
    So put on your eyeshades, put in the earplugs, you know where to put the cork”!!!
    If we wanna be woke don’t forget that damn cork!

    • Craig Stehr February 16, 2021

      And my “Chinese Party Music” was removed to make space for this??!?

      • Douglas Coulter February 16, 2021

        We’re not gonna take it!

  4. Lew Chichester February 16, 2021

    Re: Neil Waldron, catch and release. What are we supposed to do with this guy? He gets arrested, released on no bail, comes back to Covelo and does it all over again, wandering around town, randomly vandalizing buildings, gets caught, and then comes back and does the same thing, again. This has been going on for a couple of years now. He has on various separate occasions trashed the library, the grocery store, the convenience store/gas station, the co-op coffee/lunch shop, and an entire block of town was destroyed by arson this summer. Did Neil burn down the tire store, the North Fork Cafe, and the old post office/Center for the Arts? Who will ever know for sure. Likely candidate, though. Covelo is really taking it hard these days and we have this obviously disturbed and dangerous, mentally ill, drug addled individual on the loose. Is this really how our society unravels, with lunatics uncontrolled and garbage everywhere?

  5. George Hollister February 16, 2021

    This is the key part of Mitch McConnell’s speech before the Senate after Trump was acquitted, and it is hard to make an argument against it. From the WSJ, 2/16/21

    “Everyone agrees that “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors” exhaust the valid grounds for conviction. It follows that the list of persons in that sentence—“the president, vice president, and all civil officers”—likewise exhausts its valid subjects.

    If that list of current officers is not exhaustive, there is no textual limit. The House’s “sole power of impeachment” and the Senate’s “sole power to try all impeachments” would constitute an unlimited circular logic with no stopping point at former officers. Any private citizen could be disqualified. This is why one House manager had to argue the Senate possesses “absolute, unqualified” jurisdiction. But nobody really accepts that.

    I side with the early constitutional scholar Justice Joseph Story. He observed that while disqualification is optional, removal is mandatory on conviction. The Constitution presupposes that anyone convicted by the Senate must have an office from which to be removed. This doesn’t mean leaving office provides immunity from accountability. Former officials are “still liable to be tried and punished in the ordinary tribunals of justice.” Criminal law and civil litigation ensure there is no so-called January exemption.”

    The Constitution defines who can run for office, not Congress, and that is the way it should be.

    • Marmon February 16, 2021

      If President Trump should ever be tried in a court of law, I wonder what the Jury selection would look like? I doubt that any Trump supporters would be selected, most likely “never Trumpers” and Progressive’s (aka communists) would be the make up of a Jury of his peers.

      TV ratings will be sky high however.

      Marmon

      • Harvey Reading February 16, 2021

        The orange hog would get as fair a shake in US courts as any poor or dark-skinned person does. That’s more than the scumball con artist deserves.

    • Harvey Reading February 16, 2021

      The Constitution also apportions the senate and defines the electoral college, both of which are minority rule trash. We need a new supreme law document, one that, at the very least, is ratified by, and may be amended by, a simple majority of the popular vote nationwide. The minority rule document we have reflects 18th Century notions of wealthy slave owners. This is the 21 Century, and except for fascists, who love minority rule, the old thing just plain DOES NOT work.

      The senate should have confirmed trump’s removal from office. A large majority of senators voted to do that, but our “great” supreme law document allows a minority of one-third to block majority rule. That is NOT, “…the way it should be.”

      Any political office in this country should be open to anyone who has reached legal voting age. Things might get better fast if we cleaned out the old morons, beholden as they are to the wealthy, who currently hold political offices.

  6. Marmon February 16, 2021

    RE: NEWSOM’S VACCINE ROLLOUT, TRUMP’S FAULT?

    Online Scheduling for Lake County Residents 65+!

    Public Health is pleased to announce “Drive-To” vaccine sites with online scheduling for Lake County residents 65 years and older!

    “Due to a technical issue with the State scheduling platform, scheduling access is temporarily delayed. State staff are working to correct this issue as quickly as possible. The appointment scheduling link will be posted here as soon as the issue is corrected. Please check back often!”

    http://health.co.lake.ca.us/Coronavirus/Vaccines.htm

    It’s been like this since yesterday

    Marmon

    • Harvey Reading February 16, 2021

      Love it when you cite the right-wing lunatic fringe, George. They’re even less truthful than the Noo Yawk Timz. How’s Uncle Tom Sowell these days?

        • Harvey Reading February 16, 2021

          Don’t be a presumptuous ass, George. You missed your cue.

          • George Hollister February 16, 2021

            I did, but you are there as predicted. I rattled your racist bones. Not the first time, either.

          • Harvey Reading February 16, 2021

            Funny how your mind works, well, sort of works. You think you create a diversion by calling others racist, but it just doesn’t work for you. It’s kinda funny, in a pathetic sort of way. A person could pity you…well, almost pity you.

    • Marmon February 16, 2021

      Fort Bragg was referenced twice in that article, kind of.

      “The Russians are coming, the Russians are coming” and “The Wild Ones.”

      “Although set on the fictional “Gloucester Island” off the coast of Massachusetts, the movie was filmed on the coast of Northern California, mainly in Mendocino. The harbor scenes were filmed in Noyo Harbor in Fort Bragg, California, about 7 miles north of Mendocino.”

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Russians_Are_Coming,_the_Russians_Are_Coming#:~:text=Although%20set%20on%20the%20fiction

      Fort Bragg’s Wino Willie, the boozefighters, and the Wild Ones

      The movie The Wild One is loosely based on the Hollister Riot events, in no means should it be viewed as an accurate depiction. The character “Chino”, played by actor Lee Marvin in the movie is based on Wino Willie Forkner. It is believed that Wino Willie may have had a small consultant role in the production of the movie.

      http://www.krikorianwrites.com/blog/2015/5/20/the-original-wild-ones-were-wino-willie-forkner-and-jd-of-the-boozefighters

      Marmon

      “What’s wrong with society today is there are no more fistfights.”

      –Sonny Barger, leader of the Hells Angels

      • Harvey Reading February 16, 2021

        And where’s ol’ Sonny these days?

        • Marmon February 16, 2021

          Phoenix, Arizona. He shows up in Oakland every now and then. The last I saw him was when I attended Oakland’s 55th Anniversary Party on April 1, 2012 in Oakland. I was dating a woman whose son was an Angel Prospect who was hoping to get his colors that day. Outsiders were not allowed to attend that ceremony.

          Marmon

          • Harvey Reading February 16, 2021

            Oakland had been around for much longer than 55 years in 2012. Phoenix seems like a good place for him.

        • Marmon February 16, 2021

          The first time I ever saw him was back in the 60’s from my rear mirror just north of Healdsburg headed into Cloverdale. 101 in that area was still two-lane. I was driving a 1948 Desoto, and I was afraid that if I stopped they would beat up my wife and rape me.

          I had seen the movie “the wild one”

          Marmon

  7. Jim Armstrong February 16, 2021

    Adventists sent out notice at 9:30 last night of a 4 and half hour vac clinic this morning.
    You would think that was short notice, but it was filled up by 9:30 this morning.
    By, I think, 70 year olds.

    Though they probably think the same of me, I have to say that there are some over-regular posters on this comment page whose shit is getting old.

    • Marmon February 16, 2021

      RE: BREAKING NEWS

      The competition to get vaccinated just got worse. You got to love that Newsom. My 89 year old mother got an appointment tomorrow thanks to her heart doctor. My 69 year old brother and my 66 year old fat ass are still trying.

      “The California Department of Public Health (CDPH) listed medical marijuana workers, including delivery drivers and retail employees as eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine during its first phase, putting them ahead of teachers and some of the highest risk groups.”

      The CDPH vaccine allocation guidelines, which were updated Feb. 13, deem medical cannabis industry employees eligible for the vaccine in the ongoing Phase 1a. This puts them at the front of the eligibility line, ahead of other essential workers such as teachers and bus drivers

      https://amgreatness.com/2021/02/16/medical-marijuana-sellers-given-priority-for-vaccination-over-teachers/

      Marmon

  8. Harvey Reading February 16, 2021

    ASTRONOMERS: A COMET FRAGMENT, NOT AN ASTEROID, KILLED OFF THE DINOSAURS

    Interesting, but the dinosaurs are still gone… Sort of like shooting someone in the head with a .22 hollow point at close range rather than a .22 magnum.

  9. chuck dunbar February 16, 2021

    ED NOTES: “WE’VE ALL BEEN under house arrest for almost a year…”
    If anyone likes spy dramas, The French series, “The Bureau.” is a generally acclaimed drama that depicts in part the inner workings of a CIA-like enterprise in France. It also has a main character spy whose inner life is well-depicted in a depth I’ve never seen before. Fine writing, a wholly diverse bunch of spies, portrayed in great feats of acting, it grabs one by the throat and won’t let go. My friend and I–both spy addicts–believe it’s one of the finest spy dramas. We watched it on DVD, probably available on other formats. My friend’s watched the whole thing twice, I’ve seen it once and would watch it all again.

    • Mark Scaramella February 17, 2021

      For a good glimpse of the real spy thing try Tim Weiner’s outstanding book “Legacy of Ashes.” Highly recommended. It turns out most of what the average citizen might think they know about major international events were cover stories. Well sourced using lots of recently declassified docs and interviews.

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