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Mendocino County Today: Saturday, Jan. 14, 2017

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TWEAKER REMANDED

Smith

Brandon Smith was remanded into custody at the courthouse Friday after a struggle involving one Deputy DA, the court bailiff and two correctional officers. Mr. Smith had come to court “blazing” on methamphetamine for a confirmation of his preliminary hearing, which was scheduled for the next Tuesday and as Bailiff Jeffery Courtney had noticed that Smith was exhibiting signs of meth use, he made a signal (crossed wrists) to Correctional Officer Maria Zuberier that the defendant was going to be remanded.

When Judge John Behnke called Smith’s case, Smith came forward through the gate and into the bailiwick to stand next to his lawyer, Douglas Rhoades, the Alternate Public Defender. Correctional Officer Zuberbier moved into position behind Smith, only to discover she didn’t have a pair of handcuffs on her duty belt. By this time, Smith had tweaked what was up and made a spirited dash for the door.

However, Deputy DA Joshua Rosenfeld — who had once left the DA’s Office to spend a few years on the Ukiah Police Force — blocked Smith and struggled briefly with him, holding the intensely wriggling and profusely sweating subject (as slippery and energetic as an electric eel) against the locked side of the double doors, until Correctional Officer Jason Dyche and Bailiff Jeff Courtney came to assist with the tackle and administer the handcuffs.

As Smith was again brought before the judge, he delivered himself of some favorite tweaker epithets, both racial and homophobic: “Suck my dick, judge. All you fucking faggot niggers can suck my dick!”

Cannily, tweakers raised in Mendocino County understand that these are the worst things anybody can say in public — the n-word and homosexual hate allusions really get right up the liberal nose, and having lived next to a meth dealer we’ve seen and heard it often. In fact this same Brandon Smith was a regular there and was very likely one of the tweakers who put homophobic graffiti all over the trailer last summer.

As a result of these actions, new charges have been filed and Smith’s Prelim had to be continued, while he rests up in jail.

(Bruce McEwen)

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THE UPDATE ON THE OUTLET CREEK ACCIDENT & FATALITY

CHP Says 19-Year-Old Female Died In Outlet Creek

The CHP issued the following press release on the fatal accident MSP posted this morning.

The deceased was 19-year-old Jenna M Santos of Alameda. The survivor was 19-year-old Natalie M Griffin of Castro Valley. The vehicle they were in was a 2004 Toyota Corolla:

"On January 12, at approximately 8:19 am, the California Highway Patrol received a report of a traffic collision on US-101 in Mendocino County, near milepost marker 57.00, involving a vehicle which had run off the highway and was in Outlet Creek.

One of the vehicle’s occupants had made their way to the roadway and had waved down a passing motorist. It was soon discovered the collision had occurred at approximately 7:30 pm the night before and one additional occupant was said to be involved, and possibly still inside the vehicle.

The vehicle was almost fully submerged in the swift moving current of Outlet Creek, approximately 300 feet from the shore, and was not visible from the highway.

Little Lake Volunteer Fire Department Swift Water Rescue Team responded to the scene. A rescue swimmer was able to make it to the vehicle and confirmed there was a second occupant, the driver of the vehicle still inside.

The driver was extricated and pronounced deceased at the scene. Swift Water Rescue was then able to attach a tow truck cable to the submerged vehicle and the vehicle was recovered from Outlet Creek.

The passenger, Natalie Griffith, had spent most of the night stranded on a tree in the river after climbing out of the submerged vehicle.

Upon first light, she swam to shore and climbed up the embankment to the highway where she obtained assistance from the passing motorist. The passenger was transported by ambulance to Howard Memorial Hospital in Willits for treatment of minor injuries and exposure.

This collision remains under investigation by the California Highway Patrol."

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MendocinoSportsPlus Account Thursday morning:

MSP was hearing scanner transmission about a possible fatal accident - a "dark-colored sedan into a river" and found the incident on the Humboldt CHP page. The "river" in the area is Outlet Creek

At 8:20 am, a reporting party said a traffic collision "happened last night, vehicle off the road into the river" near, or just south of, mile marker 57 on US-101.

At 8:21 am, the CHP reported: "an involved party states the passenger is still in the vehicle and possibly 11-44 (deceased)."

At 8:40 am, CHP reported, the "Vehicle is in the middle of the river pinned against trees. Southbound lane blocked."

A first responder said over the scanner they were "returning to get the trailer and boat, this looks like a lengthy extrication."

At 8:50 am, CHP said, "The Mendocino Sheriff Department doesn't have 'Swift Water Rescue' - Willits Fire does and may be en route.

At 9:18 am Fish & Game was notified of a gas/oil spill from the vehicle into Outlet Creek.

At 10:01 am, All-In-One Towing was dispatched to the scene for an "evidence tow."

(Courtesy, MendocinoSportsPlus)

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FUNDRAISER FOR PANCHITO

I'm organizing a fundraiser for my brother in law who has a brain tumor and undergoing treatments pretty soon. It's gonna be on the 28th — food and dance!

Sábado, 28 de enero!!!! se organizará una kermés en nombre de Carlos Ojeda (Panchito) en el Grange! Se comenzará la comida de las 3 a 6 de la tarde y después comenzará el baile de 7 a 12!!! Acompáñenos y diviértanse comiendo rica comida y un buen baile para comenzar el año bien!!! Difundan este mensaje a tanta persona pueda y cualquier pregunta aquí estamos para contestarla!!!

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Saturday, January 28 we will have a fundraiser for Carlos Ojeda (Panchito) at the Grange! Food will start from 3 to 6 and dance from 7 to 12!!! Come and have fun and enjoy good food!!! Start your new year te right way!!! Please share this post to all you can!!! Any questions, let me know and I should help!!!

Thank you once again!!!

(Claudia Jimenez)

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LITTLE DOG SAYS, “Meet Chang. The two of us guard this place, not that there's anything even a tweaker might want to steal.”

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THIS, THAT & ROUNDABOUTS

First: How about a roundabout (or something similar) in downtown Philo to slow down traffic and provide safe pedestrian passage. Roundabouts are rad!

Second: I'm no expert, but wouldn't our rural votes be overshadowed by the cities with the elimination the electoral college system? I like the suggestions of a proportional electoral college vote as well as a ranking system (not just one choice only).

Third: All this fake news nonsense (why not just call it propaganda?) is driving me nuts. When I sincerely inquire about how to navigate the murkiness, I get suggestions from both the far left and far right and the FAR OUT to just "do my homework and follow the money".. but then they all come to completely different conclusions based on their personal biases. So I decided to start up a subscription again to the Christian Science Monitor...that's what we read in my journalism class in high school

Fourth: Seems like all the rain dancing is working. Keep it up so it keeps coming down!!

Kirk Vodopals

from the Deep End (Navarro)

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FORMER FORT BRAGG POLICE CHIEF Scott Mayberry featured in Wall Street Journal article about police shootings.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-hidden-hurt-of-life-on-the-police-beat-1482090105

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CATCH OF THE DAY, January 13, 2017

Adams, Brown, Brozicevic

JARED ADAMS, Vallejo/Piercy. DUI.

ARRON BROWN, Fort Bragg. Battery.

DON BROZICEVIC, Mendocino. Domestic assault, child endangerment.

Caradine, Cram, Ditto

DARRELL CARADINE, Fort Bragg. Domestic assault, probation revocation.

JENNIFER CRAM, Willits. Paraphernalia, probation revocation.

JOSEPH DITTO JR., Redwood Valley. Probation revocation.

Johnson, Jones, Maxfield

MADISON JOHNSON, Redwood Valley. DUI, failure to appear.

MICHAEL JONES, Ukiah. DUI, parole violation.

BRADLEY MAXFIELD, Willits. Under influence, resisting, probation revocation.

Peters, Ruiz, Sanchez

RANDY PETERS, Ukiah. Drunk in public.

ROLANDO RUIZ, Kelseyville/Hopland. DUI.

MIGUEL SANCHEZ SR., Talmage. Domestic battery.

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THE PRESIDENT WHO WASN’T THERE

Barack Obama’s Legacy of Impotence

by Jeffrey St. Clair

You begin to see why Obama sparks such a virulent reaction among the more histrionic precincts of the libertarian right. He has a majestic sense of his own certitude. The president often seems captivated by the nobility of his intentions, offering himself up as a kind of savior of the eroding American Imperium.

While Obama sells pristine idealism to the masses, he is at heart a calculating pragmatist, especially when it comes to advancing his own ambitions. Obama doesn’t want to be stained with defeat. It’s one reason he has walked away from pushing for a Palestinian state, after his Middle East envoy George Mitchell resigned in frustration. It’s why Obama stubbornly refused to insist on a public option for his atrocious health care bill. It’s why he backed off cap-and-trade and organized labor’s card check bill and the DREAM Act.

Obama assumed the presidency at a moment when much of the nation seemed ready to confront the unwelcome fact that the American project had derailed. Before he died, Norman Mailer took to lamenting that the American culture was corroding from a bad conscience. The country was warping under the psychic weight of years of illegal wars, torture, official greed, religious prudishness, government surveillance, unsatisfying Viagra-supplemented sex, bland genetically engineered food, crappy jobs, dismal movies, and infantile, corporatized music -- all scrolling by in an infinite montage of annoying Tweets. Even the virtual commons of cyberspace had gone solipsistic.

Corporate capitalism just wasn’t delivering the goods anymore. Not for the bottom 80 percent, any way. The economy was in ruins, mired in what appeared to be a permanent recession. The manufacturing sector had been killed from the inside-out, with millions of well-paying jobs outsourced and nothing but dreary service-sector positions to take their place. Chronic long-term unemployment hovered at more than 10 percent, worse, much worse, in black America. Those who clung to their jobs had seen their wages stagnate, their home values shrivel and were suffocating under merciless mounds of debt. Meanwhile, capital moved in ever-tightening circles among a new odious breed of super-rich, making sweat-free billions from the facile movement of money.

By 2008, the wistfulness seemed to have evaporated from the American spirit. The country had seen its own government repeatedly prey on its citizens’ fear of the future. Paranoia had become the last growth industry. From the High Sierras to the Blue Ridge, the political landscape was sour and spiteful, the perfect seed-ground for the sprouting of the Tea Party and even ranker and more venomous movements on the American right. These were not the ideological descendents of the fiery libertarian Barry Goldwater. The tea-baggers lacked Goldwater’s western innocence and naive idealism. These suburban populists, by and large, were white, unhappy and aging. Animated by the grim nostalgia for a pre-Lapsarian fantasyland called the Reagan administration, many sensed their station in society slipping inexorably away. They wanted their country back. But back from whom?

Instead of blaming corporate outsourcers or predatory bankers, they directed their vindictive impulse toward immigrants and blacks, government workers and teachers, scientists and homosexuals. There’s something profoundly pathetic about the political fatalism of this new species of Know-Nothings. But, it must be said, their wrath was mostly pure. This strange consortium of discontent seethed with an inchoate sense of alienation, an acidic despair at the diminished potentialities of life in post-industrial America.

No, these were not fanatical idealists or even ante-bellum utopians. They were levelers, of a sort, splenetic and dread-fuelled levelers, conspiratorialists with a Nixonian appetite for political destruction. Primed into a frenzy by the cynical rantings of Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh, mass gatherings of Tea Partiers across the summer of 2009 showed signs of a collective psychopathy, as if the enervating madness from decades of confinement in the hothouse of the American suburbs had finally ruptured in primetime for all the world to watch over-and-over again on YouTube with mounting mortification. Right there on the National Mall could be heard the vapid gibberish of Michele Bachmann and the new American preterite, those lost and bitter souls who felt their culture had left them far behind.

With his sunny disposition and Prospero-like aptitude for mystification, Obama should have been able to convert them or, at least, to roll over them. Instead, they kicked his ass. How?

Obama is a master of gesture politics, but he tends to flinch in nearly every pitched battle, even when the odds and the public are behind him. His political instincts drive him to seek cover in the middle ground. He is a reflexive compromiser, more Rodney “Can’t We All Just Get Along” King than Reverend King. Even when confronted by bumbling hacks like John Boehner and Eric Cantor, Obama tends to wilt.

Perhaps Obama had never before been confronted with quite this level of toxic hostility. After all, he’d lived something of a charmed life, the life of a star-child, coddled and pampered, encouraged and adulated, from Indonesia to Harvard. Obama was the physical and psychic embodiment of the new multiculturalism: lean, affable, assured, non-threatening. His vaguely liberal political ideology remained opaque at the core. Instead of an over-arching agenda, Obama delivered facile jingoisms proclaiming a post-racial and post-partisan America. Instead of radical change, Obama offered simply managerial competence. This, naturally, the Berserkers of the Right interpreted as hubris and arrogance and such hollow homilies served only to exacerbate their rage. The virulent right had profiled Obama and found him to be the perfect target for their accreted animus. And, even better, they had zeroed-in on an enemy so innately conflict-averse that even when pummeled with racist slurs he wouldn’t punch back.

Of course, Obama’s most grievous political wounds were self-inflicted, starting even before his election when he rushed back to Washington to help rescue Bush’s Wall Street bailout. This was perhaps the first real indication that the luminous campaign speeches about generational and systemic change masked the servile psyche of a man who was desperately yearning to be embraced by the nation’s political and financial elites. Instead of meeting with the victims of Wall Street predators or their advocates, like Elizabeth Warren and Ralph Nader, Obama fist-bumped with the brain trust of Goldman Sachs and schmoozed with the creme de la creme of K Street corporate lobbyists. In the end, Obama helped salvage some of the most venal and corrupt enterprises on Wall Street, agreed to shield their executives from prosecution for their financial crimes and, predictably, later got repaid with their scorn.

Thus the Obama revolution was over before it started, guttered by the politician’s overweening desire to prove himself to the grandees of the establishment. From there on, other promises, from confronting climate change to closing Gitmo, from ending torture to initiating a nationalized health care system, proved even easier to break.

Take the issue that had so vivified his campaign: ending the war on Iraq. Within weeks of taking office, Obama had been taken to the woodshed by Robert Gates and General David Petreaus and had returned to the White House bruised and humbled. The withdrawal would slowly proceed, but a sinister force would remain behind indefinitely, a lethal contingent of some 50,000 or so CIA operatives, special forces units, hunter-killer squads and ruthless private security details. Bush’s overt war quietly became a black op under Obama. Out of sight, out of mind.

By the fall of 2009 even the most calloused Washington hands had grown weary over how deeply entangled the US occupation of Afghanistan had become. The savage rhythms of the war there had backfired. Too many broken promises, too many bombed weddings and assassinations, too many dead and mutilated children, too much cowardice and corruption in the puppet satrapy in Kabul. The tide had irrevocably turned against the US and its squalid policies. Far from being terminally crippled, the Taliban was now stronger than it had been at any time since 2001. But instead of capitalizing on this tectonic shift of sentiment by drawing down American troops, Obama, in a cynical ploy to prove his martial meddle, journeyed to West Point and announced in a somber speech that he was raising the stakes in Afghanistan by injecting a Petreaus-sanctioned surge of forces into the country and unleashing a new campaign of lethal operations that would track and target suspected insurgents across the Hindu Kush and into Pakistan.

That night Obama spoke in a stern cadence, studded with imperious pauses, as if to suggest that he, unlike the fickle George W. Bush, was going to wage the Afghan war until it was won. But he knew better. And so did his high command – even Stanley McChrystal and David Petreaus, who had trademarked the counter-insurgency strategy. There was nothing to win in Afghanistan. Out on that distant rim of the world, there weren’t even any standards to gauge military success. This was meant to be a punitive war, pure and simple, designed to draw as much blood as possible, an obscene war fought largely by remote-controlled drones attacking peasant villages with murderous indiscretion.

Afterwards, the American peace movement could only bray in impotent outrage. But as Obama’s wars spread from Afghanistan and Iraq to Pakistan and Yemen, Somalia and Libya, outside of the redoubtable Catholic Workers and Quakers and a few Code Pinkers – the last flickering moral lights in the nation – even those empty yawps of protest dissipated into whispered lamentations, hushed murmurs of disillusionment. Could it be that the American Left had gone extinct as any kind of potent political force and it took the presidency of Barack Obama to prove it?

And what of Obama’s spellbound followers, those youthful crusaders who saw him illumined in the sacral glow of his ethereal rhetoric and cleaved to him during the hard slog of two campaigns with a near-religious devotion? What was running through their minds when the mists finally parted to reveal that Obama was implementing cunning tracings of Bush-era policies on everything from the indefinite detention of uncharged prisoners in the war on terror to raids on medical marijuana distributors in states where medical pot has been legalized? What, indeed.

Illusions die hard, especially when shattered by cruise missiles.

(This essay is adapted from Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion. Jeffrey St. Clair is editor of CounterPunch. His new book is Killing Trayvons: an Anthology of American Violence (with JoAnn Wypijewski and Kevin Alexander Gray). He can be reached at: sitka@comcast.net. Courtesy, CounterPunch.org)

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CALIFORNIA’S RECENT STORMS ARE DEVASTATING ENDANGERED SALMON

by Kristin Hanes

The torrential downpours and flooding we've seen lately might be good for the parched, drought-stricken lands of California, but it's disastrous for endangered salmon.

In the North Bay, creeks are muddy and swirling, raging torrents that destroy neatly-laid salmon eggs and provide no shelter for salmon coming in to spawn.

"We have eggs that were just recently laid in Lagunitas Creek and other tributaries which have gotten washed away," said Eric Ettlinger, Aquatic Ecologist with the Marin Municipal Water District. "We also have fish prepared to go into the ocean which hatched a year ago, and they are struggling to find refuge from the high flows."

Central California Coast Coho are a critically endangered subspecies. Historically, they thrived in creeks that ran through dense redwood forests, hiding from the elements in pools formed by downed branches, trunks and vegetation. But now that much of the redwoods have been decimated, these fish are more vulnerable to floods and droughts.

"The last time we had a big flood like this was late in 2005 and we saw one of the lowest populations of juvenile fish that year as a result because so many of the eggs had washed away," said Ettlinger.

It's not yet clear how bad the damage will be this year, but Ettlinger said there were roughly 150 gravel nests built by salmon prior to the storm, with about 2300 eggs in each nest. An average year sees about 250 nests.

Usually, Lagunitas Creek is regulated, with water district officials rather than mother nature letting water into the streams from nearby reservoirs to help the salmon flourish. In recent years the threat has been a lack of water, rather than a surplus.

"It's a big impact to have these floods washing away a whole generation of salmon," said Ettlinger. He hopes there are still some fish left that haven't spawned yet, which will result in baby salmon.

It's a different story in the South Bay, where the native species, steelhead trout, haven't come in yet to spawn in great numbers. There, a good flushing every few years helps clear out the fine sediments and debris in creeks.

"Hopefully we'll have some fine sediment moved and the gravel should be clear, making better spawning habitat for the fish," said Michelle Leicester, senior environmental scientist for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. "The flows should be relatively stable in some places, but we're just coming off five years of drought and ground water tables in the south bay are very depleted. It will take a few good storms to replenish the ground water tables."

She said storms later in the season will have a bigger impact on the steelhead population.

Back in the North Bay, great efforts are underway to further restore the endangered coho salmon population. Ettinger hopes soon, beavers are re-introduced to the waterways.

"Beavers create the kind of habitat that really protect salmon in floods and drought by creating slow water ponds," he said. "Coho salmon and beaver co-evolved for thousands of years and we lost beavers from trapping a long time ago. It would be really helpful to get that partnership re-established."

He said people who live along creeks can help salmon by maintaining vegetation along the banks that keeps those banks intact and provides shelter for fish.

Both he and Leicester said people should really think twice about using pesticides and chemicals, which can end up in the water supply, further hurting the state's native fish.

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ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

Capitalism forces the people to play an intricate game of musical chairs in which people fight each other for artificial scarcity. Any disruptions of their given privileges in the artificial hierarchy enforced by money and violence would freak people out, making them defensive, suspicious and divisive.

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BROADBAND! CLOSER AND CLOSER

Hi everyone,

Notes from our latest Broadband Alliance meeting are attached.

I hope everyone is staying safe and dry in all the rain!

Trish Steel

<www.MendocinoBroadband.org>

707-354-3224

Broadband

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ATTN PACK RATS!

American Pickers in California Again

Good Morning,

My name is Cat and I work on the television show ‘American Pickers’. The show will film in California this spring and the hosts are looking for people in your area with unique antique collections and interesting stories behind them. I have attached a press release, flyer and photo, and am hoping that you can feature American Pickers through your paper, website and/or social media sites. We are trying to get the word out as soon as possible, so the sooner people with large collections reach out to us the better.

Please make sure people who have one of a kind items to sell reach out to us on our phone number 1-855-OLD-RUST (653-7878), or our email, which is AmericanPickers@cineflix.com<mailto:AmericanPickers@cineflix.com>.

Mike and Frank only pick private collections so no stores, malls, flea markets, museums, auctions, businesses or anything open to the public.

My contact info is below, don't hesitate to call me with any questions.

Thank you so much for your time and help!

Best,

Cat Raynor, Casting Associate

American Pickers on History

Email: craynor@cineflix.com<mailto:craynor@cineflix.com>

Phone: 646-561-3617

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DO NOT GO GENTLY (AND BROKE).....

January 18, 2017 Board of Retirement Meeting Agenda

http://www.co.mendocino.ca.us/retirement/meetings.htm to

view the meeting agenda and supporting documents.

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NORMAN RECOMMENDS…

Nationwide General Strike:

My suggestion:

On inauguration day rather than go to work all migrants and those who support them go on a one day general strike.

Such a civic action will trump the inauguration as the dishes remain unwashed and the beds unmade while the garbage doesn’t get picked up.

We Can Do It!

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THEATRE WORKSHOPS THIS WEEKEND...

Dan Kozloff's Saturday Actors Workshop, a drop-in class for actors of all ages and skill levels, resumes this weekend, 10am to 1pm in the MTC rehearsal hall at the Community Center of Mendocino.

More information HERE

<http://mendocinotheatre.org/saturday-actors-workshop/>.

Interested in Set Design? Diane Larson will give a set design workshop this Saturday on the Mendocino Theatre Company stage, 1pm to 4pm. More information HERE

<http://mendocinotheatre.org/workshops/>

Workshops are just $10 per session and open to teens and adults ages 12 and up! Please phone 937-2718 for more information.

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SENATE GOP CUTTING AID TO RURAL HOSPITALS. LIKE OURS!

Message from "OurRevolution.com"

<info@ourrevolution.com>

At 1:00 a.m. yesterday, Senate Republicans took a vote that got them one step closer to gutting the Affordable Care Act. They voted to end coverage for preexisting conditions, veterans benefits, and aid to rural hospitals. Like ours in Fort Bragg! This is outrageous — and we're fighting back. On Sunday, people all over the country will be gathering to stand up in defense of healthcare.

Our Revolution is livestreaming Senator Sanders' event so those that do not have a gathering near them can participate. In order to protect the significant positive steps that the Affordable Care Act accomplished in the path towards universal healthcare, we all must come together and fight.

Will you tune in to watch Bernie's rally LIVE this Sunday at 10 a.m.?

Click here to RSVP:

https://go.ourrevolution.com/page/s/Bernie-health-care-rally?source=em170113-full

Thanks for standing with us in the fight against these Republican attacks.

In solidarity,

The team at Our Revolution

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Republicans in Congress have made it a top priority to repeal the Affordable Care Act, defund Planned Parenthood and make huge cuts to Medicaid and Medicare, putting 30 million Americans at risk of losing their health care. We need to show them that they are not going to get away with it. That's why this Sunday, January 15, Our Revolution is hosting a livestream featuring Bernie's rally that's part of a national day of action called "Our First Stand: Save Health Care."

To watch Bernie's speech on Sunday

https://go.ourrevolution.com/page/s/Bernie-health-care-rally?source=em170113-full

There will be dozens of events across the country where people will come together to tell Republicans that they cannot take away health care from tens of millions of Americans.

We hope you'll join us by tuning in to the livestream to watch Bernie's speech and help fight back against Republican attacks on health care.

In solidarity,

The team at Our Revolution

* * *

TRUMP’S STAR-STUDDED LINEUP

Inaugural planners have released the lineup for Donald Trump's welcome celebration on the eve of his swearing-in. The headliners include country star Toby Keith, singer Jennifer Holliday and actor Jon Voight. Trump's team says other performers include the rock band 3 Doors Down, The Piano Guys, Lee Greenwood and RaviDrums.

The groups will be performing in a free "welcome celebration" concert at the Lincoln Memorial that will be available for live broadcast.

Trump himself will speak during the program as well. And the concert will feature fireworks and military bands.

Trump's inaugural planners have had trouble booking top-name celebrities for his inaugural events.

Prior to the welcome celebration, a separate Voices of the People program will feature groups from around the country such as high school bands, choirs and pipe and drum groups.

(Associated Press)

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BARBARA MOED APPOINTED MENDO’S NEW AIR POLLUTION CONTROL OFFICER

Moed

Barbara Moed has been appointed as the County’s new Air Pollution Control Officer. Ms. Moed brings over 30 years of experience to her new role having worked at a national laboratory and as a consultant to commercial and industrial companies. Most recently, Ms. Moed has served as a Senior Air Quality Specialist for the Air Quality Management District. She has a Master’s degree in Geology from Rice University, and a Bachelor’s degree in Marine Science/Geology from Southampton College.

Supervisor John McCowen, representing the 2nd District and current Board Chair, commented on the Board’s action stating, “The County is fortunate to have someone with Ms. Moed’s experience and expertise assuming the Air Pollution Control Officer position. We have a strong team at Air Quality and the public can expect a continuation of the same high level of service they are accustomed to."

Regarding her appointment, Ms. Moed stated “I am honored and humbled. I look forward to continuing my work with our community, and furthering the mission of the Air District by protecting and managing air quality, an essential public resource upon which the health of the residents of Mendocino County depends.”

Carmel J. Angelo

Chief Executive Officer

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WRITERS RESPOND TO TRUMP, SAN FRANCISCO

Wednesday, Jan. 18, 2017; 6-8pm

Apparently the folks at Litquake have been "festering over the unexpected election of Donald Trump. Do we publish a manifesto? Or curl up in the fetal position?" Nah. If you're LQ cofounders Jane Ganahl and Jack Boulware, you round up some of the sharpest wordsmiths you know and let them let loose their pens and tongues at an event named after a Margaret Atwood quote.

This writerly response to President-Elect Trump, hosted by feminist Iranian-American comic Zahra Noorbakhsh, will host readings — material will be either inspired by present circumstances or aimed at inspiring us to somehow get through it — from novelist and jazz patron Robert Mailer Anderson, SF Poet Laureate devorah major, two-time Pulitzer-winning biographer TJ Stiles — with books on Gen. Custer and Cornelius Vanderbilt, Stiles knows a thing or two about money and power — and more literary luminaries.

// Koret Auditorium, SF Public Library Main Branch, 100 Larkin St. (Civic Center), litquake.org

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IT CAN HAPPEN HERE

The Humboldt County District Attorney’s Office recently received notification from the Humboldt Association of Realtors about a possible rental scam. We are sharing this information to help citizens avoid being defrauded.

In the example cited by the Humboldt Association of Realtors, a Humboldt County home on Craig’s List under the heading “House on Farm Land” was listed for rent at $875/month with an $875 deposit. The listing included both interior and exterior photographs, a rental application, and a backstory about a family being transferred overseas. Interested parties were encouraged to contact the property owner at phone numbers outside the United States. With this legitimate-looking offer, the scammers were hoping to receive rent and a deposit for a home that either does not exist or that they do not own.

We encourage people to be cautious in real estate dealings to avoid scams; warning signs include:

The offer appears too good to be true

Communication is only offered through email (usually Hotmail or Yahoo) or international phone numbers.

You do not get timely answers to questions asked via phone or email.

People making the offer indicate they are out of state or even out of the country.

Finally, we suggest that to protect yourself in real estate dealings, always do an additional check of the availability of the property you’re interested in with either the local realtors association or a professional property management company.

* * *

COMMENT ON LOST COAST OUTPOST: “Step 1. Do not buy a house on Craigslist. (Should we have to say this to people?)”

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ENSURING A FISH-FREE NAVARRO

A workshop series will take place at the VIP room at Scharffenberger Cellars (8501 Highway 128, Philo) Tuesday, Feb. 7, Tuesday, Feb. 14 and Tuesday, Feb. 21, all from 1 to 3 p.m. Enrollment is now open for the 2017 Fish Friendly Farming Certification Program. (Including Anderson Valley and Yorkville Highlands)

For more information about Fish Friendly Farming certification, contact the California Land Stewardship Institute: (707) 253-1226 extension 1 or Fish Friendly Farming.

* * *

WE DROVE AWAY from Las Olindas through a series of little dank beach towns with shack-like houses built down on the sand close to the rumble of the surf and larger houses built back on the slopes behind. A yellow window shone here and there, but most of the houses were dark. A smell of kelp came in off the water and lay on the fog. The tires sang on the moist concrete of the boulevard. The world was a wet emptiness.

— Raymond Chandler

* * *

RELIVING THE HUMAN BE-IN 50 YEARS LATER

by Peter Hartlaub and Sam Whiting

(Rusty Goldman, who is also known as Professor Poster, is reflected in a framed Human Be-In poster by Stanley Mouse.)

Sixteen-year-old Rusty Goldman, in love beads strung by his brother’s girlfriend and a Neil Young-style buckskin jacket with fringe, didn’t know what to expect from a poster with psychedelic lettering advertising a “Gathering of the Tribes for a Human Be-In.”

When asked to recall the event after 50 years, Goldman gets out of his chair at his coastal home and turns a full circle to transport himself back to San Francisco on Jan. 14, 1967 — though he looks like he has been there all along. He wears a Charlatans top hat, and he’d be wearing that fringe jacket if it still fit.

“I remember incense in the air and the crowd getting larger and larger,” says Goldman, 66, who expected maybe 1,000 people at the Polo Fields in Golden Gate Park but swears there were 30,000. “Beads. Flowers. Not as many people had long hair as you may have thought. … And a sense of awe. … The Human Be-In was like a birthday for everybody who was there.”

It lasted only an afternoon, but it has been etched in history as a great moment of music, acid experimentation, fellowship and peace. On any calendar of the counterculture, it marks the day that Timothy Leary stood on a stage in the sun, dressed all in white with a flower over each ear, and advised the audience: “Tune in, turn on and drop out.” This was the signal event of the 1960s, a catalyst to the Summer of Love. Everything from “love-ins” to “Laugh-In” came out of the Human Be-In.

“We knew that we were preparing for an invasion” of youth embracing the counterculture, recalls guitarist Barry “the Fish” Melton, who was scheduled to play. “We knew it was coming, we expected it, and there were preparations being made significantly in advance. And the Be-In, right there in January of 1967, was the first time we waved the flag.”

That flag is still waving, at every big daylong event that combines art, culture, politics and music in a park setting. The Tibetan Freedom Concert, the Bill Graham Memorial, even Outside Lands with its three-figure ticket prices, descends from that single, primitive day at the Polo Fields.

The Be-In , a quickly organized but well-executed event, was also a landmark in grassroots activism — something that the Dakota Access Pipeline movement leaders could likely relate to five decades later. It was a beacon, calling for like-minded people to gather and build a world without war, corporatism or conformity.

“We were a smallish wave in a very big ocean, and we were aware that there were others like us,” said Martine Algier, who helped publicize the Be-In. “There was an awakening going on, and we knew it was happening across the country, and we knew there were pockets of people out there who felt isolated and alone and scared. We wanted to send a signal out to them: ‘Hey, it’s OK to come out and spread your wings. Be your fully glorified self in all your beauty and joy. … You are not alone.’”

Similarly themed gatherings had occurred earlier in Golden Gate Park and the Panhandle. Bill Graham had operated the Fillmore Auditorium for more than a year by early 1967, hosting ticketed events with many of the Be-In participants, including the Grateful Dead, Quicksilver Messenger Service, the Sons of Champlin and poets Allen Ginsberg and Michael McClure.

But the Be-In had all that for free, drawing the biggest, most eclectic counterculture crowd to date. The Hells Angels were invited by Ginsberg and the organizers to act as “guardian angels,” providing security and keeping the music equipment safe.

(Lenore Kandel, Freewheelin Frank, (Hells Angel), and Michael McClure at Human Be-In, 1967.)

For the first time, the flower children (the term hippie was not yet in wide usage) had created something too big for the square world to ignore.

“Afterwards, I knew that there was an actual day, Jan. 14, 1967, on which I was initiated into this new society, this new religion, as surely as if I had been initiated into the Ghost Dance Religion of the American Indians,” wrote Helen Swick Perry in her 1970 nonfiction account, “The Human Be-In.” “Retrospectively, I feel quite certain that the Be-In also marked the beginning of nationwide attention.”

Half a century later, nationwide attention is being sought again, for a yearlong arts and cultural overload.

“There truly was a marked difference between ‘before’ and ‘after’ Jan. 14, 1967,” said Anthea Hartig, executive director of the California Historical Society, an organizing partner in the upcoming commemoration.

“The cool thing about that day was that so many people from so many backgrounds came to the Gathering of the Tribes,” Hartig says. “They came to protest the Vietnam War and to celebrate love — in short, to ramp up the revolution. That vision remains provocative today and especially striking in this moment’s segmented and polarized environment.”

Algier, who was 24 at the time, remembers just a few weeks of preparation for the Be-In. But the event was well organized, Algier recalled. Many meetings took place at 1371 Haight St., two blocks from where Grateful Dead band members lived.

Algier remembers multiple news conferences being held, in an attempt to clear up erroneous information being reported. TV and print reporters were offered baked goods and tea, and beads and flowers were placed around their necks.

“We wanted them to see us as peaceful, not as protesters, but as people that were genuinely trying to live in a different way, and not in a way that was threatening to anybody,” Algier says.

The word about the Be-In was spread through handbills and posters, in four separate designs, one each by Rick Griffin and Stanley Mouse, among the biggest names in psychedelic art. Additional handbills were drawn by Amy McGil and Michael Bowen, one of the organizers, and included a map to the Polo Fields on the back.

Goldman, a ’60s historian/archivist and collector nicknamed Professor Poster, owns signed originals of all four, and the master plates for two.

The term “Gathering of the Tribes” meant leftovers from the North Beach Beat scene and Berkeley’s antiwar protesters. It meant the Hells Angels and the flower children, and it meant impressionable high school teens and anybody on the cusp of either needing a haircut or deciding not to get one.

Organizers got lucky with the weather, which was sunny and unseasonably warm, conducive to bringing “family, animals, cymbals, drums, chimes, flutes, flowers, incense, feathers, candles, banners, flags,” as one of the posters requested.

“I can remember flowers dropping from the sky,” says Goldman, who claims a plane dropped a sea of carnations. A parachutist touched down and spread tablets of LSD as if scattering seeds. Goldman cannot remember if he took any of those tablets, but he definitely partook of the marijuana being passed freely.

Also in the crowd was Jim “Dancer” Anderson, who was 19 and then working at his uncle’s warehouse Tip Top Records, a distributor in Dogpatch.

“I met a gentleman at the show who turned me on to a joint and my whole world changed, and that is how it started,” recalls Anderson, who lived with his wife in Hayward at the time. “Six months later, I was single and moved to the Haight.”

In a 30-minute news feature on the Human Be-in made by a crew claiming to represent TV station KQED, there is no evidence of a program, a stage announcer or traffic closures.

(John Cipollina of Quicksilver Messenger Service at the Human Be-In.)

Volkswagen buses wheezed by behind the stage as the day began with poet Gary Snyder blowing a horn. Then came some mantra chanting by Ginsberg and Snyder. Then there was a plea for “peace in America. Peace in Vietnam. Peace in San Francisco. Peace in Hanoi ...” and so on.

The day’s first bit of music came when McClure recited poetry while strumming an autoharp. At the poem’s end he repeated the phrase, “This is really it, and it is all perfect,” three times.

The “San Francisco bands” that had been vaguely advertised turned out to be the Big Four — the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Quicksilver Messenger Service and Big Brother and the Holding Company. (Big Brother co-founder Peter Albin claims the band was in Los Angeles and never quite made it, though there are still people who swear they heard Janis Joplin wail.)

Melton of Country Joe and the Fish brought his guitar to the Be-In and was scheduled to play but never made it to the stage.

“I realized whatever I did made me incapable of doing much more than being there,” Melton said. “I had taken entirely too much of a three-letter foreign substance.”

The artist does remember the stage and the sound, professionally assembled under the expert guidance of Graham. The stage, though, was crowded with people who vastly outnumbered the performers. There were children and dancers — most prominently Ginsberg dancing with his mouth hanging open to “Dancing in the Street.” It looks bizarre on film in 2017, but his free form would later become a standard move among Deadheads.

The crowd wasn’t all flower children — or even half. Footage shows a constant flow of men roaming through in button-down oxford shirts, looking to see what all the fuss was about.

When the sun started to set, people remembered that it was January. An unidentified poet asked the crowd to “turn, face the sun and move toward it. ... Open your mind and don’t close it anymore. I would say this to all members of the establishment, that we are proud and happy to have you in our brave new world.’’

Ginsberg and Snyder led a Buddhist chant as the sun went down and the flower children flowed back into the city, not knowing that they’d reached the counterculture high-water mark for the year to follow.

The Summer of Love had already begun. And it was only winter.

Before long, Gray Line was offering bus tours of the park and the Haight, handing passengers a printed glossary of hippie terms.

After the Be-In, “the crowds on Haight Street got bigger and bigger and bigger,” says Goldman. “Word spread like fire. Everybody came to San Francisco.’’

The Summer of Love’s loudest clarion call, the release of “San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair),” sung by Scott McKenzie, was still four months away.

For a list of Summer of Love anniversary events and more Chronicle coverage of the Human Be-In and Summer of Love, go to www.sfchronicle.com/summer-of-love

(The San Francisco Chronicle)

* * *

DELTA SMELT REMAINS ON EDGE OF EXTINCTION, FALL SURVEY REVEALS

by Dan Bacher

The Delta smelt has not yet become extinct, but the numbers of fish collected in the fall 2016 midwater trawl survey conducted by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) remain alarmingly low.

This is in spite of improved precipitation last winter and spring, followed by a very wet fall that should have resulted in much higher numbers of smelt surviving.

The Delta smelt index, a relative measure of abundance, in the latest survey was 8, the second lowest in history. Seven Delta smelt were collected in November – and none were collected in September, October, or December, according to a memo from James White, environmental scientist for the CDFW’s Bay Delta Region, to Scott Wilson, Regional Manager of the Bay Delta Region. (http://www.dfg.ca.gov/delta/data/fmwt/bibliography.asp )

The small 2 to 3 inch fish, found only in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, is an indicator species that demonstrates the relative health of the largest estuary on the West Coast of the Americas. The species is listed under both the state and federal Endangered Species Acts. When the numbers of Delta smelt are so low, it reveals that the estuary, as we know it, is just as close to extinction as the fish themselves.

In 2015, the index was only 7. That was the lowest number recorded since the survey began in 1967, after the State Water Project began exporting water south of the Delta. (http://www.dfg.ca.gov/delta/data/fmwt/indices.asp)

The numbers of smelt found this year and last contrast with 2011, a wet water year, when the Delta smelt index increased to 343, and then quickly plummeted again during the drought. Delta smelt abundance was highest in 1970 with an index of 1673 recorded.

Longfin smelt abundance is second lowest in survey history

The index for longfin smelt, a native species that is a cousin of the Delta smelt, was also dismal. The index was 7, the second lowest in fall midwater trawl (FWT) history.

Five longfin smelt were collected at index stations in San Pablo Bay and Suisun Bay. Only last year’s survey showed a lower number, an index of 4 , the lowest on record.

The highest number of longfin smelt ever recorded was in 1967, when the index was 81,783. The index surged up to 477 in 2011, but rapidly declined in the ensuing years during the drought as water exports to agribusiness and Southern California water agencies by the state and federal governments continued.

“There’s virtually no difference between last year’s Delta smelt and longfin smelt numbers,” said Bill Jennings, Executive Director of the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance. “We aren’t seeing a nosedive in the population of smelt this fall, but we had expected to see more improvement in smelt numbers with a good water year.”

“What we’re seeing is a long line of lower lows and lower highs than previous ones as we go through drought cycles,” he said. “This is a trend toward toward oblivion. 2016 was a normal rain year and we had an extremely wet fall. I would expect to see a rebound like 2011 this fall, but each time the rebound is less.”

Jennings attributes the low smelt numbers to the lack of badly-needed higher river flows into the estuary, caused by series of temporary urgency change petitions granted by the State Water Resources Control Board to waive water quality standards in the Delta. The TUCPs also have a detrimental impact on winter-run, spring run and fall-run Chinook salmon, Jennings said.

Federal fisheries agency rejects recommendations of scientists

Jennings also noted that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service regional manager in December repeatedly rejected the recommendations of the Smelt Working Group, a group of scientists from the Bureau of Reclamation, Department of Water Resources, CDFW and NOAA Fisheries. The scientists recommended the reduction of reverse flows in Middle and Old Rivers, caused by heavy water export pumping, to ensure the survival of a pod of adult smelt migrating up the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers to spawn. (https://www.fws.gov/sfbaydelta/documents/smelt_working_group/SWG_Meeting_final_notes_12-19-2016.pdf)

This is tragic since a recent survey of adult smelt, the Kodiak Trawl Survey, showed “some promise of recovery,” according to Tom Cannon, fisheries scientist, in his post on the California Fisheries Blog. (http://calsport.org/fisheriesblog)

“The December 2016 Kodiak Trawl Survey collected 214 Delta smelt in one of its nine trawls, and at least one Delta smelt was captured in each of the other eight trawls,” wrote Cannon.

Unfortunately, this opportunity to help recover the species will be lost if the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service leadership continues to reject the recommendations of state and federal scientists, emphasized Jennings.

“The so-called adaptive management has ‘managed’ these species to the brink of extinction,” said Jennings. “The recommendations of the scientists to reduce reverse flows that are the core of the biological opinion are ignored. The bottom line is that the normal upswing in Delta smelt numbers during a relatively wet year is less than expected.”

Jon Rosenfeld, a biologist from The Bay Institute, summed up the Delta smelt's predicament when he said the fish "are just about as close to extinction as you can get," in an interview with Alex Breitler of the Stockton Record. (http://www.recordnet.com/news/20161230/no-bounceback-for-delta-fish)

Striped bass numbers improve, threadfin shad numbers decline

Other pelagic (open water) fish collected in the fall midwater trawl survey showed some improvement, though nothing even close to historical abundance. The striped bass index improved in 2016, going up to 124 from 52 in 2014.

“The 2016 abundance index is the highest value since 2012,” said James White. “Ninety five age zero striped bass were collected at index stations.”

This is still a dramatic decline from historic numbers. By contrast, the index in 1967 was 19677.

The abundance index for American shad, a once abundant anadromous member of the herring family avidly pursued by anglers when it migrates up the Central Valley rivers to spawn in the spring, rose from 79 in 2015 to 313 in 2016.

That’s the highest index since 2012. The CDFW collected 249 shad at their index stations this fall.

The record number of shad recorded was relatively recent in 2003 when an index of 9360 was recorded.

Threadfin shad, an introduced baitfish species related to American shad, declined in the midwater trawl survey from 806 in 2015 to 660 fish this fall. The 2016 abundance index is the eighth lowest in history.

2001 was the record year for threadfin shad in the survey, with an index of 14401 recorded.

Sacramento spllittail, a native minnow found only in the Delta and Central Valley, continued its decline, with no fish recorded either in 2015 or 2016.

The Delta smelt collapse is part of an overall ecosystem decline, including dramatic reductions in winter, spring and fall-run Chinook salmon and steelhead populations, driven by water diversions by the federal and state water projects.

From 1967 through 2015, populations of striped bass, Delta smelt, longfin smelt, American shad, splittail and threadfin shad declined by 99.7, 98.3, 99.9, 97.7, 98.5 and 93.7 percent, respectively, according to Jennings.

California WaterFix would further imperil Delta and Trinity/Klamath fish

Fish advocates believe the management of Delta fish species by the state and federal governments will get only worse if Governor Jerry Brown makes a deal with incoming President Donald Trump to fast-track his Delta Tunnels project.

Governor Jerry Brown and other state officials have constantly claimed the Delta Tunnels project will “restore” the Delta ecosystem, but they recently revealed their real plans, according to Delta advocates, when the administration applied for a permit to kill winter-run Chinook salmon, Central Valley steelhead, Delta and longfin smelt and other endangered species with the project.

On October 7, the California Department of Water Resources (DWR) submitted an “incidental take” application for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) in “compliance” with the California Endangered Species Act (CESA) in order to build the Delta Tunnels, also known as the California WaterFix. For more information, go to: http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/10/10/1580366/-Brown-administration-applies-for-permit-to-take-endangered-species-killed-by-Delta-Tunnels

Delta Tunnels opponents are fighting the construction of the two 35-mile long tunnels under the Delta because the project would hasten the extinction of Central Valley steelhead, Sacramento River winter-run Chinook salmon, Delta and longfin smelt, green sturgeon and other fish species. Project critics also point out that the California WaterFix would imperil the salmon and steelhead populations on the Trinity and Klamath rivers, a fishery that for thousands of years has played an integral part in the culture, religion and food supply of the Yurok, Karuk and Hoopa Valley Tribes.

To read a transcript of my testimony before the State Water Resources Board regarding the petition by the Department of Water Resources and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation to add three new points of diversion from the Sacramento River for the Delta Tunnels, go to: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/7/27/1553375/-Delta-Tunnels-Restoring-An-Estuary-by-Diverting-Its-Water

 

7 Comments

  1. LouisBedrock January 14, 2017

    Poem for February 14th

    Zora kiss’d me when we met,
    Jumping from the chair she sat in;
    Time, you thief, who love to get
    Sweets into your list, put that in!
    Say I’m weary, say I’m sad,
    Say that health and wealth have miss’d me,
    Say I’m growing old, but add,
    Zora kiss’d me.

    (Written by Leigh Hunt, slightly edited)

  2. LouisBedrock January 14, 2017

    Less Romantic Poem for February 14

    El solitario
    José Ioskyn

    Soy un leñador, soy un solitario.
    No deseo familia ni mujer
    golpeo con mi hacha grandes árboles:
    caen derribados como cabezas.

    Detrás de las puertas del infierno
    cada noche, con alegría
    veo entrar a Hera y Afrodita
    diosas de amor y el matrimonio
    tomadas de la mano
    juntas entrando al infierno
    que es donde deben estar.

    The Loner
    Written by José Ioskyn
    Translated by Louis Bedrock

    I am a woodcutter; I am a loner.
    I don’t want a family or a wife.
    I strike large trees with my ax:
    They fall to the ground like heads.

    Behind the doors of Hell
    Every night, I watch with joy
    As Hera and Aphrodite go in.
    The Goddesses of love and marriage,
    Holding hands, entering Hell together,
    Which is where they belong.

  3. sohumlily January 14, 2017

    Hey to that! (less romantic poem)

    But it’s only JAN. 14, Mr. Bedrock:D

    • LouisBedrock January 14, 2017

      I like to strike early.

  4. Bruce McEwen January 14, 2017

    Listen up!

    Tune to: KPFZ 88.1 FM

    Re: Your trusty courthouse correspondent joins two crafty lawyers, Michael Shambrook & William Conwell, to quip & quibble w/ these great legal minds, to help confuse the issues, confound the facts, conflate the contrary, construe the obscure and cut some obtuse capers around the studio…

    Program: World Weavers

    Host: William Conwell

    Time: Four o’clock sharp

  5. Betsy Cawn January 15, 2017

    Word Weavers, with Saturday’s live broadcast repeated on Monday evening at 11 p.m., KPFZ 88.1 FM.

  6. Debra Keipp January 24, 2017

    Chang’s okay. Better than a black jockey with a ring in his hand!

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