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Mendocino County Today: June 30, 2012

KZYX NEWS went off the air Friday night. Newsman Dave Brooksher has been laid off. For now, a volunteer will do a morning roundup, ala KOZT, presenting the carefully vetted “news” gathered from local corporate media. Mendocino County Public Radio is slowly being strangled by incompetent management kept in place by an equivalently incompetent board of directors. The underlying problem is structural. The tax-exempt, partially publicly-funded apparatus is organized to ensure insider control, meaning much of the public that funds it is excluded from participation.

AS ORIGINALLY DESIGNED by Station Founder Sean Donovan, most of the 2000-plus people who currently pay (which represents less than half the actual “listener-supported” station's budget), are people who are presumably happy with the boring, far-away, shallow “public affairs” air-fare that they're getting (as confirmed by the station's periodic, self-fulfilling “listener surveys”). The KZYX listeners who actually like the station as it is have already been milked for all they're going to pay, very few more new (paying) listeners are out there, so as costs for personnel (by far the station's biggest expense) go up while revenues stall or decline, the bottom of the personnel pile — in this most recent case, Brooksher — is the first to go. And the old, top core management that put the station in this situation circles the wagons in ever smaller spirals.

JERRY BROWN'S BUDGET, just released this week, seems to have spared imperiled State Parks from closure this year, but the future of the Parks remains iffy.

AS PART of its “Chasing Rainbows” television series, the National Geographic Channel did a poll to gauge how many Americans believed in the paranormal, finding that 11% of US citizens said they'd seen a UFO. That figure seems low, especially if you factor in the rest of US devoted to fanciful thinking and crackpot worldviews — Scientologists, Randians, Mormons, Building 7 people, Birthers, and the millions who think Obama is a socialist, even if they can't define the term. I'd also include those of US who believe there is an essential difference between the corporate-owned Obama and the corporate-owned Romney, but that may be a little overbroad as a measure of mass delusion. The only difference I, a person given to Gradgrindism, meaning the verifiable facts and nothing but the facts, is that Romney's legions are dumber and meaner than Obama's people Politically, they're pretty much identical. Summed up, it isn't much of an exaggeration to say that a large swathe of the American population is, by any rational standard, 5150 to varying degrees.

ACCORDING TO ANOTHER POLL on another subject, the Post Office poll conducted by the New York Times and CBS News has allegedly found that 7 in 10 Americans would like to see the PO change the way it deals with its debt, but these polls apparently didn't mention that the rightwing has legislated the way the PO is funded in such a way as to bankrupt it. But the poll did reveal that only 3 in 10 people under the age of 45 said they used the Post Office regularly.

HUMBOLDT COUNTY'S Dell'Arte Theater Company is presenting “Mary Jane: The Musical,” a lively, ingenious play based on HumCo's estimated $400 million annual pot business. Sample lyrics: “Why is whiskey legal/ and pot is not?/ There's a whole lot of/ folks who like to/ smoke it a lot./ You can chug a jug 'o/ liquor till your liver is/ shot,/ but don't let 'em catch/ you smokin' that pot.”

AND: “I hide in your/ neighborhood, hide/ behind closed doors,/ Hear the lamps buzz as/ mold spreads on the/ floors./ Jacked-up housing/ prices, skewed/ economy./ I am The Industry, it's/ all about me!"

FREE TWO-HOUR CLASS on Community Disaster Preparedness. If you live in Northern California, you live in Earthquake and Tsunami Country! Find out how you can protect yourself and your family before the big one strikes. What you know can protect your family from tsunamis, too. Come to our free, 2-hour class: Living on Shaky Ground: How to Survive Earthquakes and Tsunamis in Northern California Tuesday, July 17th, 5:30pm, Point Arena City Hall, 451 School Street. And Monday, July 16th — 5:30pm, Fort Bragg Town Hall, 363 North Main Street (corner of Main and Laurel Streets). Open to the public, seating is limited. Please call 467-6497, or email arendtn@co.mendocino.ca.us to reserve your seat. Presented to the community in the interest of public safety and community preparedness by the City of Point Arena, the Mendocino County Office of Emergency Services, the California Emergency Management Agency, and Humboldt State University’s Regional Training Institute. Mendocino County Sheriff’s Emergency Preparedness Office Press Release

A READER WRITES: The “Sportsmen’s Heritage Act (HR 4089) Will Essentially Repeal the 1964 Wilderness Act. 
Bill Must be Blocked in US Senate: 4/12

. On April 17, 2012, the US House of Representatives passed HR 4089, the Sportsmen’s Heritage Act, supposedly “to protect and enhance opportunities for recreational hunting, fishing, and shooting.” The bill is a thinly disguised measure to gut the 1964 Wilderness Act and protections for every unit of the National Wilderness Preservation System.

 HR 4089 would give hunting, fishing, shooting, and fish and wildlife management top priority in Wilderness, rather than protecting the wilderness character and wilderness values, as is currently the case. This bill would allow endless, extensive habitat manipulations in Wilderness under the guise of “wildlife conservation” or for providing hunting, fishing, and recreational shooting experiences. It would allow the construction of roads to facilitate such uses, and would allow the construction of dams, buildings, or other structures within Wildernesses. The bill is backed by the Congressional Sportsmen’s Caucus, Safari Club International, and a coalition of hunting and gun-rights organizations, including the National Rifle Association. These groups are trying to rush this bill to the Senate floor for a vote. It is imperative that you contact your senator now and urge them to oppose HR 4089! 

HR 4089 must be blocked in the U.S. Senate!

What you can do: Write or email both of your U.S. Senators, and send a copy to your U.S. Representative. Ask your Senators to oppose HR 4089 at every step of the way and to never let it pass the Senate. Contact http://www.congress.org/congressorg/directory/congdir.tt

One Comment

  1. Bilbo July 1, 2012

    KZYX is like an old horse ready to be put out of it’s misery. Community is just a fundraising word/tool to them. Their website is a total backwoods joke. The station has had more dead air time than any responsible community station should reasonably have. Programming is lame at best, and rarely compelling, likely due to the fact can’t they fathom anything staff personally dislike being on the station, including news items and reporters. The programs are stale and the same old shows and djs remain year after year after year. New shows and fresh programs, particularly music related, rarely appear and rarely last if they do (no new genres are represented and no rap or hip hop @ all). The same set of crazy folks call in to all the talk shows over and over and keep calling every time they ask for call ins or responses. Boring! Better to listen and give your money to KMUD, a true community based station who actually does serve Mendo county as part of their great work.

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