Antoinette and I were about to leave Boonville for Ukiah on Thursday July 5 when our pagers went off. We immediately checked if they signaled an ambulance emergency. They did not, so we didn’t have to run to the truck. Instead we walked down the driveway. The 911 caller had reported “black smoke in the […]
What if the revolution came, and we missed it because we tossed out the announcement? Seems like that’s what happened last month, when PG&E customers in Mendocino County got word that the utility no longer has a monopoly on selling us electricity. Most people I talked to don’t remember getting the letter, didn’t read it, […]
If it’s spring the calendar must be bursting with local events. Every organization with a festival to put on, or funds to raise, or things to exhibit seems to seize on the fine weather and the visitors it brings. Despite the oft-heard lament that all the good weekends are taken, a new event is fitting […]
I became an EMT because of natural disasters I witnessed in the Bay Area. In 1989, I was in an office building near the epicenter of the Loma Prieta earthquake, and saw things happen to furniture, cars, trees, and people that I had never imagined. Driving home on surface streets through the blacked out cities […]
Economists use the phrase “essential utility” to describe something so important to a community that it must be owned or regulated by the community. For Anderson Valley, Brian Blumberg was an essential utility who regulated himself. An expert plumber in a valley short on plumbers, he knew that if he did not respond to a […]
I’m hooked on a new drama, called the CFS. It’s not a crime show, exactly, though there’s potential tragedy enough. It’s more of a reality show about Anderson Valley, starring the Navarro River watershed. Everyone living or working in the valley plays a bit part. Episodes arrive daily, via the internet. One of the most […]