THREE MISSING MEN ON MINA ROAD, COVELO
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Pricey mates of Gene and Richard Herr,
As a few of you might have already heard, my father Richard Herr handed away on the morning of 4/22/2020 from Covid 19.
My sister Serena was with him at his bedside (in full protecting gear) for many of the evening, and experiences that he was being nicely cared for, with oxygen and morphine, and that he was not in nice discomfort, regardless of the respiration difficulties. That evening Serena put me on her speaker cellphone so I may discuss to Dad, and she or he stated he may undoubtedly hear and perceive and “perked up a bit” through the name. Later she arrange a face-time name for Mother, so she may discuss to Dad as nicely, and she or he and Serena sang some songs collectively.
For the previous two years, my father had been residing in a small nursing house in San Rafael, the place he was receiving look after Parkinson’s illness. This facility was hit arduous by the corona virus, and we have been knowledgeable of my Dad’s optimistic Covid check on 4/15/2020.
Initially, his signs have been gentle, and we have been hopeful that he would be capable of battle off the virus, as he had overcome many different well being challenges lately and had all the time been robust and wholesome throughout the vast majority of his lengthy life (he turned 91 final month). However Tuesday evening his situation bought abruptly worse, and regardless of the nursing employees’s greatest efforts, he didn’t survive. Not less than we will take some consolation from the information that ultimately, he handed away peacefully.
As of now, our household has not but developed plans for a memorial service (and naturally beneath the present corona virus situations all gatherings could be unimaginable), however we are going to let everybody know if some kind of celebration of our Dad’s life will be pulled collectively sooner or later.
I’ve included my Mother’s contact info under, for anybody who want to get in contact together with her (please ahead to others who knew my Dad that we might have missed). As quickly because the corona virus menace diminishes, we’re wanting ahead to resuming our common journeys again to my mum or dad’s property on the Holmes Ranch, so my Mother will hopefully be capable of go to with a few of you in individual at the moment.
Eugenia Herr c/o The Redwoods
40 Camino Alto Apt. 5205
Mill Valley, CA 94941
(415) 888-2156
eandrherr@gmail.com
Take care and keep protected,
John Herr
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ANDERSON VALLEY HIGH SCHOOL, 1926
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AV UNITY CLUB PLANT SALE
For over 60 years, on the final weekend of April, the Backyard Part of the Anderson Valley Unity Membership has been presenting the annual Wildflower Present on the County Fairgrounds in Boonville.
Because of the COVID 19 pandemic, the Wildflower Present isn’t occurring this yr.
The ladies of the Backyard Part, starting in October of final yr, started propagating the crops which might usually have been on the market there.
The proceeds from the Wildflower Present plant sale and raffle allow the Backyard Part to fund a scholarship for a graduating AV Excessive College Senior annually.
On the Boonville Farmers’ Market, which begins Friday Might 1st, the Backyard Part ladies will start promoting the crops. This Plant Sale is our try to herald a part of the funds for our scholarship. Those that don’t want crops, or want to donate additional, please make the most of our donation bag.
On account of COVID 19, the summer time Farmers’ Market shall be a “masks required occasion.” It begins Friday Might 1st and can occur each Friday, 4-6 pm, within the Disco Ranch car parking zone.
The Unity ladies will proceed promoting the crops by the month of Might, however one of the best crops all the time promote first. Thanks on your assist in serving to us fund a school scholarship for a deserving graduate.
(Cindy Wilder)
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THERE’S COVID 19, THEN THERE’S LYNELLE AND CAROLE: THE EBB TIDE FIASCO
by Malcolm Macdonald
Covid-19 is frightening, however have you ever ever handled Lynelle Johnson, Carole White, and Hospitality Middle?
I used to be requested that query right this moment and I’ll depart it considerably to you readers to evaluate what’s the scariest proposition. All I can do is lay out what’s been occurring just lately at ye olde Hospitality Middle primarily based at 101 North Franklin Road in Fort Bragg, our county’s second largest municipality. Hospitality Middle (HC) is meant to be a subcontractor offering psychological well being providers on the coast. Lynelle Johnson and Carole White are the President and Vice-President of HC’s Board of Administrators. Carla Harris is the manager director of HC.
When the Covid-19 pandemic precipitated the shelter in place order from the general public well being officer, Hospitality Middle employees appeared for a spot to accommodate the homeless after scheduled funding and websites for the winter shelter ran out. They discovered that in Fort Bragg’s Motel 6. A goodly variety of of us, down on their luck, discovered a spot to shelter at that motel. Ms. Harris, the manager director at HC, possessed a listing of a handful or so of different individuals who had worn out their welcome a number of instances with HC and its subsidiary, Hospitality Home (which supplies a roof over the heads and meals to as many as twenty-four homeless folks every evening). On account of misdeeds, this similar handful of individuals have been banned from staying at Motel 6.
Alongside got here Lynelle Johnson and Carole White, the leaders of HC’s governing board, to contradict the ruling of their govt director. Johnson and White made their very own deal to accommodate the in any other case banned folks on the Ebb Tide Motel in Fort Bragg. After all, this did not sit nicely with the manager director, who’s paid to make such selections on her personal. It did not sit nicely as a result of Johnson and White’s actions violated HC’s personal guidelines established in a doc known as “Mendocino Coast Hospitality Middle Covid-19 Shelter Protocols.” Quoting from these protocols, beneath a bit labeled “Consumption”:
“The Wellness Middle Coordinator screens for eligibility and if the individual is deemed eligible by the Wellness Coordinator, the Govt Director is contacted to make the ultimate approval.
If the Govt Director approves of the referral, the Wellness Middle Coordinator contacts the Motel employees to make sure the individual isn’t on the banned record.”
Slightly background for HC Board President Lynelle Johnson. Let’s briefly take a look at a November 20, 2019, AVA piece a couple of assembly of that board. “You did not hear about it earlier than hand, you say? No shock. The management at Hospitality Middle, particularly the Board of Administrators management beneath the attention of 1 Lynelle Johnson, does not like to show selections that impact the general public to… Properly, let’s simply say, the general public.”
The gist of that November, 2019, article was concerning the failure of HC to get the winter shelter stepping into time. It didn’t open till December 15th and solely then by final minute monetary backing from the Metropolis of Fort Bragg and the county even supposing HC had been provided satisfactory funding in July. The delay from the July funding provide to HC going begging for cash in December was principally attributable to Ms. Johnson’s need to find the winter shelter at a single spot on Foremost Road regardless of the willingness of the religion primarily based communities to accommodate it on a rotating foundation. Ms. Johnson’s need for a single location apparently derived from the truth that stated locale wouldn’t be topic to town’s allow course of. No allow course of meant no public enter wanted.
The November, 2019, piece went on. “Ms. Johnson lives on an remoted highway south of Little River, a protected enclave far faraway from the [day to day life of Fort Bragg’s central business district]…”
Ms. Johnson is out of contact and has been for a while. She has repeatedly instructed falsehoods to metropolis officers and enterprise house owners in addition to inquisitive souls like yours really. Readers acquainted with the AVA’s on-line archive ought to test a November 16, 2016 piece through which Ms. Johnson options considerably prominently.
“Extra info on Ms. Johnson’s failings at Hospitality Middle and Hospitality Home will be present in a February 1, 2017, AVA piece and maybe most tellingly in a February 22, 2017, article, which concluded that ‘the reality isn’t in Ms. Johnson…'”
That November, 2019, article alluded to worries about there being no homeless winter shelter rising so widespread that no less than one Mendocino Coast District Hospital (MCDH) board member mentioned the matter at an August, 2019, MCDH Board of Administrators assembly. Certainly, the thought of the hospital exploring the likelihood finally landed on the agenda of MCDH’s Planning Committee on the subsequent to final day of the yr. HC Vice-President Carole White is a member of that committee. When the agenda merchandise got here up, together with the way it may change HC’s function within the winter shelter course of, did Ms. White recuse herself from the dialogue? Easy reply: Carole White didn’t.
Supervisor Ted Williams and Fort Bragg Metropolis Council member Bernie Norvell participated within the dialogue concerning the metropolis and county’s potential expanded roles in working the winter shelter. Fort Bragg’s Metropolis Supervisor, Tabatha Miller, was current within the viewers and added a few feedback. Bear in mind, the agenda merchandise involved the seemingly harmless strategy of the hospital, or hospital district, merely exploring the potential for taking up some function within the winter sheltering of homeless folks.
Apparently, Carole White felt so threatened by the potential idea that earlier than most individuals had returned house after the Planning Committee assembly adjourned she was raging, in accordance with a dependable supply. Reportedly, White instructed employees at Hospitality Middle to not communicate to Supervisor Williams, Councilman Norvell, nor Metropolis Supervisor Tabatha Miller beneath any circumstance.
That just about provides you the thought who we’re coping with right here. This pair of HC Board members determined they knew higher than their paid employees, ignored directives to not home sure individuals deemed unmanageable, but went forward and put those self same folks into the Ebb Tide Motel through the Covid-19 disaster. Of their world view, they know higher than the HC employees, they know higher than the motel enterprise house owners who could be effected, they know higher than all the neighborhood.
It solely took a matter of some days earlier than experiences popped up about a number of methamphetamine offers happening in these Ebb Tide Motel rooms in addition to different issues. The issues have been talked about by town supervisor and police chief on the subsequent metropolis council assembly. In addition they confirmed up in police logs of April 8, 9, and 13, citing people who have been on the Motel 6 banned record.
In mid-April HC held a board assembly (you’ll be able to guess most people was not made conscious of it). In keeping with additional sourcing, the manager director wasn’t supplied an agenda. On the time the Ebb Tide downside was ongoing. The administration of the motel wished the troublemakers out. Supposedly, round this time, county Well being and Human Companies officers in addition to management at Redwood High quality Administration Firm (RQMC) have been made conscious of the Ebb Tide state of affairs. Of us like Tammy Moss Chandler, at Well being and Human Companies, and Camille Schraeder of RQMC, who basically management the funding stream that goes to Hospitality Middle for psychological well being providers, haven’t made public statements on the matter. Nevertheless, logic and customary sense tells us they can not be too pleased with HC board members who contravened their very own paid employees’s orders, particularly when that override was the fiasco at Ebb Tide.
On April 15, having discovered one thing concerning the Ebb Tide state of affairs, I despatched an electronic mail to Lynelle Johnson, which learn, “Are you able to clarify what’s going on at Ebb Tide Motel, conserving in thoughts that I get a number of experiences about it from a number of sources who’re all no less than pretty dependable to impeccably dependable. A part of that features a number of meth dealings on the motel, managers/employees asleep on the wheel whereas different shenanigans happen, belying the 24/7 watchdog staffing declare of HC – to not point out that a few of placements at motels have been made at yours and/or Carole’s insistence, overriding selections made elsewhere.”
I additionally included an inquiry a couple of assembly Ms. Johnson reportedly had with metropolis officers a number of weeks earlier. “Topping that off is the rumor that a number of weeks in the past you have been requested to resign by metropolis officers, but no such motion has taken place. A part of that rumor included you eradicating Carole [White] from [the HC] board in addition to your self and probably [another board member] too. If there’s even some fact to that then you’re basically defying a Metropolis edict. I might suppose that may have far ranging ramifications relating to HC and/or HH [Hospitality House] funding from county in addition to making all offers with Metropolis problematic.”
The following day, Lynelle Johnson responded by way of electronic mail, “I’ve forwarded your electronic mail on to Tabatha and to Carla in order that they will tackle these points for you.”
Maybe Carla Harris may add some perception, I thought of contacting her, however held off awhile. I needn’t fear, Ms. Harris contacted me. She despatched a textual content on Wednesday, April 22nd, time stamped at 11:12 pm. “Would you like an actual interview? Based mostly on actual details?”
I thought of the chances, but texted again the subsequent morning, “When would you want to talk?”
The Harris response, a short while later, “Perhaps tomorrow. I am exhausted right this moment.”
I replied, “Tomorrow is nice. Choose a time and let me know.”
Friday morning, Harris texted, “I will have to carry off on that discuss for right this moment.”
In the meantime, Ms. Harris was texting another person. As you learn her communication it should grow to be obvious how and why that is out there for the general public to peruse. This is the HC govt director’s current communication referencing the interference of HC board leaders Johnson and White. “[P]lease discuss to Camille [Schraeder of RQMC]. I want her to speak to my board and get Lynelle and Carole and Jerry [HC board treasurer – not the other HC board member referenced earlier] to resign.”
At this level I’ve to interject to level out that Harris’ communication incorporates many typos and errors of all kinds. The place wanted I’ve omitted complicated wording. Harris goes on, “Our rqmc contract [is] on the road… I want a alternative board… in any other case I can not do that job.
“Okay, I’m going to be clear right here and be happy to place this out publicly [emphasis added]. I’ve labored [in] nonprofits and social providers for over 30 years. Because of this I’ve decided that enabling of us isn’t the best way to assist folks. The mchc [Mendocino Coast Hospitality Center – ‘HC’] is a tradition of enabling because of the present management… that means Lynelle Johnson and carole white whom reside in little river. I as the present govt director is not going to transfer ahead with this group in good religion figuring out that these leaders should not cognizant of the fort bragg enterprise neighborhood and the truth that persons are repeatedly being enabled of their addictions in addition to their psychological well being points. Based mostly on my 30* years of expertise I’m completely against how issues are being dealt with in behalf of MCHC management and employees. I’ve tried repeatedly to make stable suggestions and directives to mchc employees in an try to scrub issues u[p] and guarantee an finish to homelessness in fort bragg and solely been met with retaliation by this board and to be faved [sic] with fixed undermining strategies.
“Has left me no alternative…
“Because of this I feel we now have a excessive proportion of homeless in fort bragg and I personally held the mchc board of administrators answerable for that. They fail and have failed miserably in holding of us accountable…
“And this makes me mad and pissed off as the manager director… The mchc board fails miserably.”
As of April 26th, the miscreants had been faraway from the Ebb Tide and reportedly behaviors there have returned to normalcy. As of this writing, Lynelle Johnson and Carole White stay of their positions atop the Hospitality Middle Board of Administrators.
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ASSIGNMENT: UKIAH – NO SPEECHES, HOLD THE AWARDS
by Tommy Wayne Kramer
Some day when Covid-19 is behind us and de facto martial legislation is not any extra and it’s as soon as once more authorized to go outside, we are going to snort and joke and make up tales to inform our grandkids about all of the heroics we carried out within the nice social distancing fundemic of 2020.
However proper now we’re nonetheless studying issues.
1) I’ve discovered to not fear about bathroom paper shortages. You wouldn’t both in the event you knew what number of books my spouse has on cabinets upstairs.
2) I’ve discovered you can’t have enjoyable and nonetheless drink.
3) It’s abruptly OK to cross the road to keep away from folks you don’t wish to discuss to.
4) And, sadly, I notice it will have been higher to have taken the recommendation of all these RV bumper stickers and spent our kids’s inheritance quite than let the inventory market sneak off with three million {dollars} we had invested. Or three thousand.
In the meantime, sitting again and doing nothing for all these weeks I’ve begun to ponder the day when, inevitably, the county provides a standing ovation to Dr. Mimi Doohan in recognition for all of the superb issues she did as Chief Well being Official.
There shall be proclamations and plaques and speeches and a day in her honor, and perhaps a constructing and a statue. And when that day arrives I’ll counsel, loudly, that there have been much more worthy heroes than Dr. Doohan, and that the true warriors have been the cops, the clerks working gasoline stations and the cashiers at Grocery Outlet and Walmart. They have been on the entrance traces, interacting with probably contagious strangers minute after hour after day after week.
Dr. Doohan? Not even a bit.
Dr. Doohan’s contribution to Mendocino County’s well being and well-being has been to easily observe the lead of each different well being official within the land, and to inform native residents to do no matter officers in Sonoma County have been telling their residents to do. Or Butte County. Or Dade County, Prepare dinner County, Wayne County or Cuyahoga County.
She broke no new floor, provided up not a single suggestion distinctive to our county and our residents, and in reality instituted insurance policies that, whereas justifiably obligatory in Denver or Las Vegas, have been a poor slot in Mendocino County.
No matter well being officers instructed Cleveland to do Dr. Doohan instructed Comptche to do. If it made sense to close down each magnificence store in Wichita, she shut down each magnificence store in Willits. It wasn’t a lot management as followership.
Let me remind Dr. Doohan’s admirers, and there are a lot of, that it wasn’t like she was preventing within the trenches. She washed no leper’s ft, sang no songs to sick youngsters, visited no aged housed on South Dora. Dr. Doohan by no means strode round Todd Grove Park to find out if it truly wanted to be closed, and she or he by no means paused at a homeless encampment to take some dude’s temperature.
Dr. Doohan by no means walked down College Road, which suggests she by no means noticed the darkish shuttered retailers. It couldn’t have occurred to her that with a bit creativeness she may carve out some cheap, managed, Ukiah-centric financial practices to deliver trickles of cash into our parched economic system.
As a result of, you see, Dr. Doohan spends her time as Mendocino County’s Well being Officer whereas residing in San Diego. She couldn’t be farther from Ukiah and nonetheless be in California.
Thus, she by no means visited The Broiler Steakhouse to see if cautious steps could be taken to soundly permit restricted eating. Steps, for instance, much like those taken to permit Plowshares to serve meals.
She’s but to elucidate her rationale in shutting down each restaurant within the county besides ones that serve the homeless. Perhaps they’ve opened the eating rooms in San Diego homeless shelters.
It’s top-down politics. In the event that they shut all of the golf programs in Hilton Head, SC, then we higher shut all of the golf programs in Ukiah. If all of the saloons in Poughkeepsie are shut down then all of the saloons in Potter Valley must be shut down.
Why was Ukiah’s distant capturing vary, the place social distancing is each obligatory and the norm, compelled to shut? Properly simply because, that’s why.
Some counties have tons of Covid-19 instances and piles of lifeless. Mendocino County has 5 Covid-19 instances and nil lifeless. Completely different counties, completely different populations and completely different circumstances argue for various security rules. Louisville and Laytonville aren’t the identical; Detroit, Dubuque and Dos Rios aren’t even comparable.
Mendo’s economic system has fallen by the ground. Shopkeepers can’t pay hire on the shop, to allow them to’t pay the mortgage on the home. What number of of our shoe shops and clothes boutiques, our eating places and restore retailers won’t ever reopen?
What number of mother ’n’ pop companies are doomed? What number of shopkeepers’ lives are shattered?
In the meantime Mimi Doohan picks out wallpaper for the upstairs toilet in her new San Diego home.
(Tom Hine says it is going to be actually hilarious when, after all of the medicine, alcohol, loopy driving, barroom brawls, intercourse with strangers and jaywalking your obituary reads“…died final week attributable to issues from touching his personal face.” TWK thinks he’ll begin sporting two masks. Courtesy, the Ukiah Each day Journal.)
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ALBION PEOPLE’S FAIR, 1975
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OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT
“Secure” workplace in Boonville at SoBo!
Must get out of the home?
Lease your individual small personal workplace constructing.
Opening hire throughout pandemic $225.
($300 after) 707-895-3979
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LUMINATA
(Picture by Jan Wax)
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ED NOTES
THE ROLLING DISASTER rolls on. The variety of Chapter 11 chapter filings rose 18 per cent in March from a yr earlier, a dramatic swing from the 20 per cent lower in February. A month later… No stats but for April, however even when the Nice Sequestration ended tomorrow, the injury to hundreds of thousands of People, a lot of them already on the sting of insolvency, has been large. Appears from right here, nerve central Boonville, that the left economists are appropriate in saying we should always go massive, very massive, and get cash-money straight into the palms of individuals, not filtering it by banks and bailouts for big companies.
SWEDEN, inhabitants ten million, did not shut down. As of Sunday, 18,640 Swedes have been contaminated, 2,194 Swedes have died, and like right here in America, the deaths have been overwhelmingly aged and/or overweight. Wholesome folks of no matter age, survived. After all the Swedes are an orderly, antiseptic individuals who have accomplished a whole lot of social distancing on their very own with out orders from Dr. Doohan, quite a relaxed head well being honcho who determined on the outset Swedes would do the correct factor anyway. They did and the plague is on the downswing in Sweden.
MEANWHILE, right here in Liberty Land, President Trump appears wackier by the day. He was complaining about The New York Instances on Sunday for reporting he is “angrily” consuming hamburgers and consuming Weight-reduction plan Cokes in mattress, a food regimen that may make anyone loopy. Trump stated, oh no, he is usually working late at evening. “The people who know me and know the historical past of our Nation say that I’m the toughest working President in historical past,” Trump tweeted Sunday afternoon. “I don’t learn about that, however I’m a tough employee and have most likely gotten extra accomplished within the first Three half of years than any President in historical past. The Faux Information hates it.”
THE DAY BEFORE (Saturday), nonetheless smarting from the worldwide har de har he bought for suggesting Lysol as a virus remedy, Trump unleashed a twitter fusillade, slamming “faux information” and cancelling the White Home press briefings. “What’s the objective of getting White Home Information Conferences when the Lamestream Media asks nothing however hostile questions, & then refuses to report the reality or details precisely. They get report scores, & the American folks get nothing however Faux Information. Not well worth the time & effort.”
REMEMBER NIXON wandering across the White Home late at evening speaking to the work of the Founding Fathers? He was so out of it on booze and psychotropic medicine, it was subsequently revealed, that any impromptu orders he may problem — he’d muttered about “nuking that bastard Castro” — needed to be counter-signed by no less than two different officers, Kissinger and Haig, as I recall. (Haig was additionally crazier than hell, and Kissinger? Ought to die in jail however he’ll get the large mendacity in state sendoff, for positive.) Biden is not 5150 strictly talking, however he is clearly penetrated the frontiers of senility so… competing for captain of the Good Ship America, we now have the 2 craziest-functioning folks within the nation.
A READER WRITES: “21.7% return fee for Level Area. A virtually 60% return fee within the USA. No marvel no Federal or State assist involves us right here on the Coast. It appears like nobody truly lives right here primarily based on the census information we submit (or don’t submit). We now have solely ourselves guilty.”
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CATCH OF THE DAY, April 26, 2020
STEWART CONLEY, Ukiah. Second diploma theft, recurring felony, conspiracy, resisting.
PEARLIE JIM, Covelo. Home battery.
JADEN LUNDY, Fort Bragg. Contempt of court docket, protecting order violation, probation revocation.
DANIEL MEINECKE, Leggett. Parole violation.
MOTECUHZOMA VAUGHN, Ukiah. Second diploma theft, conspiracy.
MICHAEL VICKERS, Fort Bragg. Home abuse, probation revocation. (Frequent flyer.)
DANIEL YEOMANS, Fort Bragg. Disorderly conduct-alcohol, probation revocation. (Frequent flyer.)
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HACK WILSON
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BLUE BIRDS
by J.W. Grimes
Someday, three months into my first job out of school, my boss known as me into his workplace.
I used to be promoting promoting area in a low circulation commerce journal.
“Sit, William,” he stated. “You understand what a blue chicken is?
He wasn’t a man with a lot humorousness. Nor did he appear to be a chicken watcher.
I stated, “No, I don’t suppose so, aside from a chicken, Mister Baker.”
“I’ve instructed you, have I not, to name me Bob.”
I nodded nervously, making an attempt to suppose what I’d accomplished flawed.
“And, no, I’m not speaking a couple of chicken.”
I sat at consideration ready to listen to what a bluebird is in enterprise lingo. Bob wasn’t identified to converse in issues not associated to gross sales quotas and efficiency.
“You’re fortunate. You bought a blue chicken right this moment.”
Fortunate. Sounded good.
“A blue chicken is what we name it when a dormant, near-forgotten one-time buyer calls in a gross sales order. Fully sudden. Out of the blue. No gross sales contact in ages.”
He paused, piercing my eyes, in search of the extent of my sentience.
“As we speak a bluebird flew in over the cellphone. The corporate’s location occurs to be in your territory, William. So you bought a bluebird. A commisionable bluebird.”
I bought the drift. It was higher than blue skies. “Thanks, Bob.”
“Very lucky for you, William. Now exit and make a sale to one of many many corporations in your territory who should not doing enterprise with us.”
* * *
April 16, 2020
Daily the identical routine. Sleep. Eat. Learn. Write. Stroll. Sleep. My days marked by opening the curtains within the morning, closing them at mattress time.
Like all People, and far of the world, I’m a prisoner of social distancing. My neighborhood in lock-down. In instances of nationwide stress new phrases and phrases enter the patois. Like social distancing, Covid-19, flatten the curve, asymptomatic, and hand hygiene.
The factor about that is it isn’t a lot of a change for me. I reside alone in a small cottage. Youngsters grown and gone. Pals out of contact or lifeless. No spouse or boss to grouse in my ear. What has modified is the bars and eating places are closed.
It was midday and 87 levels once I set out upon my stroll. I had developed two completely different routes, every about two miles, to insure reasonably completely different topography. As we speak I made a decision on the one which took me to the city put up workplace the place I ended to select up my mail. The current signal on the open door learn: “Solely 5 Folks Admitted At One Time.” There was just one different individual within the area the place the person mini mailboxes have been positioned. She was sporting the favored C-19 masks. I used to be mask-less and didn’t reciprocate the strained glare in her eyes. I used to be happy to not see her mouth and nostril.
I felt starvation approaching and had a brand new concept. If I may maintain up for about one other half mile I might attain the meals market within the subsequent city. It was there I may have my favourite sandwich: sliced turkey, often off the bone, on combined grain bread with lettuce, tomatoes and loads of Dijon mustard, and seize a Weight-reduction plan Coke.
A twenty minute stroll alongside Kent Avenue and I used to be there.
Mission achieved. Each worker masked-up and two-thirds of the few prospects too.
Outdoors the market adjoining to the sparsely populated car parking zone is a sitting space with fifteen steel mesh tables and chairs for patrons to take a seat and luxuriate in their sandwiches and snacks. It was additionally a great spot to observe the now occasional visitors on Kent Road consisting principally of tradesmen vans, a number of vehicles, and threesomes and foursomes of bicyclists gliding by. Due to the attractive blue sky and the emergence of a mild breeze I appeared ahead to having my lunch there.
Not right this moment. Not on this reign of Covid-19. On every desk was a polyethylene signal, concerning the dimension of the menus at Mel’s Diner. “No Sitting Till Additional Discover.” No want to inform why.
And so sack in hand with lunch and drink I started strolling in the identical path I had come. About thirty yards forward I seen one thing I hadn’t seen earlier than. A number of ft off the sidewalk partially hidden by bushes was an unoccupied limestone sofa with room for 2.
Most happy with my success I sat down and commenced having fun with lunch. Nearly as good because the sandwich was the bread was a a bit thicker than I’d remembered and the crusts a bit bigger and chewier. I started eradicating small items and tossing them aspect arm throughout the sidewalk to a 3 ft extensive island of grass separating the sidewalk from the road on which stood a tall skinny deciduous tree with a number of leafless limbs alongside its backside. I used to be in a position to land no less than a dozen thumbnail sized items of bread between ten and fifteen ft from the place I sat.
I hoped a chicken may discover a good meal. Any chicken besides the big loud overfed ravens who appeared, like pigeons within the metropolis, to be in all places right here bullying their smaller feathers creatures.
My ideas turned to the unfinished story I used to be writing and the bottle of Pinot Grigio I’d have with the baked salmon tonight. The pandemic had honed my principally uncared for cooking competence.
In a second of no pedestrian or vehicular visitors I heard a rustling sound above me and appeared as much as see a blue chicken perched on a department of the tree wanting down at me or his meal.
I didn’t transfer nor take away my eyes from the chicken. I assumed it was a Blue Jay and never a blue chicken as a result of he was bigger, extra glossy than plump.
After a protracted second he fluttered down from the department and omitted to a a chunk of bread, truly a hunk of crust, a chunk farthest from me. He appeared to take a great look earlier than snatching it in his beak and flying as much as the identical department the place he took a chew inserting the opposite half on the department.
He repeated this exercise, shifting every time to understand the bread nearer me. Lastly he was not more than 5 – 6 ft away, pausing to look at me extra carefully. I had a great take a look at his plumage, his cobalt blue feathers with with a spot of grey on his again, his skinny pronged cows of his ft close to his tail, his close to purple beak, and his BB sized slate eyes. I sat as nonetheless as I may fascinated by the attractive chicken as he bent down grabbed the final little bit of crust, devouring it this time.
Straight away he was gone, flying into a gap within the tree line, hovering into the blue yonder.
* * *
I sat there eager to seize the second, an image retained in my thoughts.
How lengthy had it been since I considered feeding birds? Was my semi-consciousness to take action right this moment pushed by ideas of my mortality, my sense humanity was in an early stage of long-time dystopia?
Had I forgotten we share this planet with animals and crops? We primates one chromosome away from a chimpanzee. That they too have a life and have been we serving to them as we assist ourselves by this pandemic? By this life which ends eventually in dying for all residing issues?
As we speak, at this second, I consciously felt related with this chicken. What a world it will be if we may study their language, their tweets they usually understood a modicum of ours.
On this time when human exercise is quelled, after we homo sapiens with our giant brains don’t know what tomorrow will deliver, right here was the Blue Jay, fellow residing animal, one who by no means exploited nor took Nature with no consideration sidling as much as me and having fun with a meal I had fastened for him.
I used to be completely satisfied.
The presence of the Blue Jay was a blue chicken.
Type of like what Bob Baker described greater than 50 years in the past.
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THE LOGIC
To the Editor:
What am I lacking? {Golfing} and path climbing, two actions the place social distancing and small grouping requirements can simply be met, are prohibited as a result of our County Public Security Officer doesn’t need folks from the Bay Space bringing infections right here. In the meantime, the Streetscape/Road Weight-reduction plan Venture will begin bringing folks from exterior the realm to do the work. On prime of that, our Public Security Officer, working from San Diego County (which at present has 2,087 instances and 63 deaths) plans to journey right here every now and then. What’s the logic?
Frequent washing of palms, social distancing, minimizing gathering sizes, self-quarantine of unwell folks and people with compromised immune programs; sure, we get all of that. Companies, organizations, spiritual teams and people know the way to comply with out 13 pages of prescriptive element. Let’s open issues up and get folks again to work. We are able to do that!
D. E. Johnson
Ukiah
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SUMMARY OF RESPONSES TO GEEZER GARDENING
I will summarize the responses to my article within the hope that different geezers will profit.
One man locations chairs and sits down when he feels bored with working and advisable an overturned bucket to assist stand up from being on the bottom. That would not have helped the instances I ended up on the bottom except I carried round a bucket on a regular basis. However that reminds me to hold one thing into my work area–a bucket or a small bench.
One other individual inspired watering within the backyard with out turning it on and speeding away. It is the case that of us who do that keep in higher contact with their gardens and soothe themselves.
Somebody hoped that folk who “turned turtles” will begin posting once more. That shall be simpler with out somebody casting insults and berating posters. However we won’t rely on that.
One other gave amusing. “Do not choose up something you drop on the ground. You may want it once you fall down there.”
I like the thought of spreading chairs all through the work space. Those that had one or two phrase responses did not ship them to each record subscriber! Thanks for all the responses. There are a whole lot of different geezers on the market.
G.York, Mendocino
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“IF TODAY you’ll be able to take a factor like evolution and make it against the law to show it within the public college, tomorrow you may make it against the law to show it within the personal colleges, and the subsequent yr you may make it against the law to show it to the hustings or within the church. On the subsequent session you might ban books and the newspapers. Quickly you might set Catholic towards Protestant and Protestant towards Protestant, and attempt to foist your individual faith upon the minds of males. If you are able to do one you are able to do the opposite. Ignorance and fanaticism is ever busy and desires feeding. At all times it’s feeding and gloating for extra. As we speak it’s the public college academics, tomorrow the personal. The following day the preachers and the lectures, the magazines, the books, the newspapers. After some time, your honor, it’s the setting of man towards man and creed towards creed till with flying banners and beating drums we’re marching backward to the fantastic ages of the sixteenth century when bigots lighted fagots to burn the boys who dared to deliver any intelligence and enlightenment and tradition to the human thoughts.”
—Clarence Darrow, Scopes trial courtroom remarks (July 13, 1925)
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WAIKIKI BEACH, Pre-WW2
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NO QUICK FIXES TO VIRUS AND ECONOMIC PANDEMICS
by Jim Shields
Except for an ever-dwindling variety of People, that is the worst financial free-fall any of us have ever seen.
The one nationwide financial collapse in historical past that compares to it’s the Nice Melancholy that began 91 years in the past, and I simply stated, I don’t suppose many people have been round to see that one.
Except issues change actual fast for the higher, we’re going to search out out what these earlier generations skilled. And remember the Nice Melancholy began in 1929 and we didn’t come out of it till 12 years later when WW II started.
Irrespective of the place you stand on these COVID-19 keep at house orders and busines shutdowns, I consider most individuals would agree that they’ve been damaging economically, socially, and constitutionally.
There are those that consider the remedy has been a lot worse than anticipated and the illness not practically as unhealthy as predicted. I don’t subscribe to that asessment however I actually perceive how one can come to that conclusion.
The irony with this lethal virus is that whereas we’re doing the correct factor on the well being and life-saving entrance, we’re driving our economic system to the snapping point, one other very actual sort of dying.
I don’t have a fast repair to this dilemma of trying to strike the correct stability between well being fears and financial fears, aside from to proceed principally what we’re doing presently.
Nevertheless it comes with a worth.
We can not afford — morally or financially — to desert employees and the center class who’re locked down of their houses computing checkbook balances they will be unable to stability for for much longer.
So elected officers in any respect ranges of governing on this nation greatest be ready to avoid wasting not solely the potential victims of this viral plague, but in addition all of those that by no fault of their very own now discover themselves possible victims of an financial plague. These are the forgotten and unseen of us who’re bearing the brunt of the virus-caused financial plague that’s sweeping the nation.
They’re those on the biggest danger of not surviving if this shutdown lasts one other 60-to 90 days except there’s an ongoing financial stimulus plan to see them by the length of shelter-in-place/shutdown orders.
Three in 4 frightened about funds, household sickness
The Public Coverage Institute of California PPIC) launched a ballot this week wanting on the impacts of the COVID-19 sate and native orders which have resulted in hundreds of thousands of Californians being compelled to remain at house and and allowed to work at their jobs as a result of they’re thought of “non-essential.”
PPIC is an unbiased, nonpartisan, non-profit analysis establishment primarily based in San Francisco, and they’re one among my many main analysis sources.
Accordiing to the ballot, because the variety of identified COVID-19 instances statewide continues to develop, overwhelming majorities of Californians are frightened a couple of member of the family getting sick or about their private funds worsening because of the coronavirus.
Requested how frightened they’re—if in any respect—about themselves or somebody of their household getting sick from the coronavirus, greater than three in 4 Californians say they’re both very (41%) or considerably (37%) frightened. Latinos (60%) and Asian People (41%) are extra probably than whites (28%) and African People (22%) to be very frightened.
“Most Californians are frightened a couple of member of the family getting sick from the coronavirus, whereas Latinos and Asian People are particularly prone to say they’re very frightened,” stated Mark Baldassare, PPIC president and CEO.
On the similar time, three in 4 Californians say they’re both very (41 p.c) or considerably (34 p.c) frightened concerning the pandemic having a unfavourable affect on their very own or their household’s funds. Half (50 p.c) of Californians with annual incomes under $40,000 are very frightened, in contrast with 42 p.c of these incomes $40,000 to $79,000 and 32 p.c of these with incomes of $80,000 or above. Californians with youngsters at house are more likely to be very frightened (55 p.c) than these with out (35 p.c).
“Most Californians are frightened concerning the unfavourable monetary affect of the pandemic, whereas half of these with decrease incomes and people with youngsters at house say they’re very frightened,” Baldassare stated.
Requested whether or not fear or stress associated to the coronavirus has affected their psychological well being, 27 p.c of Californians say it has had a significant unfavourable affect and one other 23 p.c report a minor unfavourable affect. Adults ages 18 to 34 and ages 35 to 54 usually tend to say it has had a significant unfavourable affect (31 p.c of each age teams) than are these age 55 and over (18 p.c). Renters (34 p.c) are extra probably than owners (21 p.c) to report a significant unfavourable affect on psychological well being.
“Half of Californians say that the pandemic has had a unfavourable affect on their psychological well being,” Baldassare stated. “Youthful adults and renters are particularly prone to report feeling fear and stress having a significant affect.”
PPIC’s survey highlights a steep drop in optimism about California’s financial outlook. Solely 19 p.c anticipate good instances financially within the state through the subsequent 12 months. That is down from 49 p.c in January 2020 and is decrease than at any level because the Nice Recession.
“The current decline in client confidence as measured in expectations of fine financial instances is unprecedented within the historical past of the PPIC survey, courting again to the late 1990s,” Baldassare stated.
Inmate “Dumping”
For the reason that begin of this Coronavirus pandemic, we’ve discovered that prisons are high-risk contraction spots and pose a giant menace to locked-up populations.
Nobody has a great clarification simply how an inmate on the California Establishment for Males in Chino, who was uncovered to coronavirus, was transported 500 miles north from Chino to Ukiah with out being quarantined and with out Mendocino County officers being notified on prior discover.
Mendocino County Sheriff Matt Kendall stated it was like “throwing sparks within the dry grass.”
Mendocino County District Legal professional C. David Eyster referred to the discharge as “state jail inmate dumping” on his workplace Fb web page.
California Division of Corrections and Rehabilitation officers stated the inmate was screened for indicators of sickness earlier than being launched.
“The previously incarcerated individual was recognized as assembly the standards for expedited launch as specified by California Division of Corrections and Rehabilitation plan,” CDCR press secretary Dana Simas stated in an emailed assertion. “He was asymptomatic in a complete screening by establishment medical employees earlier than his launch on April 8, and was supplied a facial barrier to put on whereas in-transit to his county of launch.”
What the hell sort of non-explanation clarification is that?
What would ever make these jail bureaucrats suppose that sending an asymptomatic, non- quarantined individual on-the-sly to a county the place nobody knew something about it, was a good suggestion.
Whoever made that call must be fired.
Put up Workplace wants bailout
U.S. Postmaster Normal Megan Brennan instructed the Home Committee on Oversight and Reform final week in a video assertion, that except the U.S. Postal Service will get a federal bailout it should run out of cash by the top of September.
Mail quantity has fallen steeply within the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, and the federal company is anticipating the identical downward flip in revenues.
President Trump believes that greater charges for web transport corporations likke Amazon, FedEx and UPS would resolve the issue.
Trump threatened to veto the $2.2 trillion CARES Act, if the laws contained bailout cash for the Put up Workplace. The Postal Service now tasks it should lose $2 billion every month by the coronavirus recession whereas postal employees keep the nationwide service of delivering important mail and parcels, comparable to prescriptions, meals and family requirements.
The Postal Service, which employs 650,000 folks, is asking for $75 billion in support from the federal government, and, in accordance with the New York Instances, one other $14 billion to repay debt associated to a retirement advantages program totalling some $89 billion whole.
“At a time when America wants the Postal Service greater than ever, the rationale we’re so wanted is having a devastating impact on our enterprise,” Brennan stated within the assertion. “The Postal Service depends on the sale of postal services and products to fund our operations, and these gross sales are plummeting on account of the pandemic. The sudden drop in mail volumes, our most worthwhile income stream, is steep and will by no means totally recuperate.”
“The USPS and the mailing trade it helps ($1.6 trillion in gross sales and seven.Three million personal sector employees) is each bit as vital because the aviation trade,” Nationwide Affiliation of Letter Carriers President Fredric Rolando stated in an announcement.
(Jim Shields is the Mendocino County Observer’s editor and writer, and can also be the long-time district supervisor of the Laytonville County Water District. Take heed to his radio program “This and That” each Saturday at midday on KPFN 105.1 FM, additionally streamed reside: http://www.kpfn.org.)
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STRIKE, SICK OUT, SLOW DOWN: THE GENERAL STRIKE AND YOU
by Richard Moser
The strike, sick out, and slowdown are among the many simplest weapons within the arsenal of sophistication battle. They disrupt manufacturing and interrupt the circulation of earnings. However the best weapons are additionally probably the most demanding. Strikes require self-discipline, sacrifice, and battle. Strikes are short-term ache for long-term achieve. It’s not a coincidence that as strikes fell out of use over the previous few many years the US working class fell too.
Hanging for Life: Defend the Entrance-line, Not the Backside Line
Essentially the most dramatic examples of the Normal Strike are the various wildcat strikes throughout the nation. Comply with the motion at On The Picket Line or try this interactive map of strike actions, or the “Twin Energy” map by Black Socialists in America. Get within the loop and get related at Normal Strike 2020.
In case you are an important employee and risking your life — discuss to your co-workers. Type a clandestine strike committee and communicate to, and take heed to, everybody within the store. A strike, sick-out, or slowdown can final a number of hours, a day or indefinitely. Don’t hoodwink the employees into pondering it is going to be straightforward, however when life hangs within the stability the selection turns into clear.
Wildcats are strikes led by the rank and file employees, not union officers. It is a hidden energy. The sort of actions that have been the spine of the final strikes through the 20th century are actually unlawful — right here within the land of the free. “Sympathy” or secondary strikes the place employees strike — not out of a selected grievance with their very own boss — however in solidarity with different strikers have been made unlawful. Russia-gate’s forerunners — the anti-communist purges of the Chilly Struggle and McCarthyism gave us the 1947 Taft-Hartley “slave labor act” that tamed the labor motion. Till at the present time, union officers that decision sympathy strikes are handled as criminals — however the wildcats strikes haven’t any official leaders.
In all these years since 1947 Democrats made not a single critical try to repeal Taft- Hartley. Perhaps we will repeal it by direct motion. Anybody who is aware of this historical past is aware of that Russia-gate and China-hate is not any good friend to the US working-class.
How can we assist strikers?
Native efforts could also be greatest. You possibly can assist your native strikers by organising a “gofundme” account for them. Masks up and observe bodily distance, however present up at picket traces with meals and beverage. Be part of your native Mutual Support crew and assist again up strikers.
Study from our new leaders. Do what the strikers ask you to do. They know greatest.
Strategic boycotts in alignment with strikers are an vital solution to gradual earnings — the primary type of leverage strikers have. Boycott Bezos for starters.
Sick Out and Sluggish Down
For at-home employees, the sick out and decelerate are tailored for you. Name in sick someday within the first week in Might. Gentle signs; a day or two, extreme; per week or extra. How sick are you? Solely you recognize. Get it? Or, take a sick day, return for one, then take one other sick day. Can’t take the entire day, take half a day. Can’t take half a day simply decelerate — minimize your manufacturing in half or extra.
Virtually all stuck-at-home employees I communicate with are having signs attributable to isolation and confinement. Time for a psychological well being day? You owe your self one.
One of many basic slowdown techniques is “Work to Rule.” Office guidelines are often the product of the Human Relations division meant to place a liberal face on exploitation. However these guidelines usually decelerate manufacturing and are routinely ignored by administration and employee alike. Examine your “handbook” and discover the weak spot. Typically you’ll be able to truly decelerate by following the foundations.
Resistance
Working folks have all the time resisted. Unfree employees, like slaves, developed types of resistance to oppose slave house owners. We are able to use the identical sorts of resistance to oppose company energy.
Pilfer. “Steal” it again to reclaim worth the boss stole from you within the first place. Let the bosses pay.
Sabotage. Break your instruments. Delete paperwork. Use stealth and crafty. Don’t get caught.
Shamming. Bullshit them. Behind your smile is the strike.
Present solidarity with the final strike. Put on crimson on Friday. Have a strike poster in your condominium window. Put on a crimson or black or lavender bandana. Change your Fb cowl picture.
We now have to depend on the creativity and energy of the folks. I’m assured we are going to determine it out. The final strike has no central committee and that’s most likely a great factor since nobody has all of the solutions. Let the folks determine. You possibly can greatest decide the sort of motion you’ll be able to take.
Simply bear in mind: no matter small step you are taking, you’re a part of one thing greater. And the entire is larger than the sum of its elements.
Nobody can do the whole lot however everybody can do one thing.
(Richard Moser writes at befreedom.co the place this text first appeared.)
(Courtesy, CounterPunch.org)
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STOP THE DICTATOR
Editor,
Tens of millions of taxpayer {dollars} are being spent on unlawful aliens as a substitute of fixing the slums in San Francisco and Los Angeles the place we now have two of the rottennest, dirtiest cities in the USA. Tens of millions are additionally wasted on bullshit local weather change and international warming. And half 1,000,000 an hour for the prepare to nowhere. Why is not it being spent on roads and dams and bridges? The following time we now have a significant flood Oroville dam will burst and so will Shasta dam. They’ve to empty each of these dams to repair them and that will not occur. So hundreds of thousands of individuals will die. I hope Jerry Brown and Gavin Newsom are each sitting of their personal workplace watching pornographic movies when that occurs. They deserve it. Cash isn’t being spent for medical support for our folks in California, a great medical system. As an alternative, billions of {dollars} is invested in Communist China that we are going to by no means see once more. That is Gavin Newsom who’s working this state. He’s a bigot, a Marxist, a communist, a liberal and his entire administration sucks canal water. Why do the American folks in California stand for this? How lengthy can we take it? We now have a dictator working this nation spending our tax cash on loopy stuff! Unbelievable!
God bless Donald Trump.
Jerry Philbrick
Comptche
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PARE IT DOWN THERE, DOC
Hey Dr. Miller, thanks and no worries! We are able to completely repair that on this aspect. By the best way, I wished to say that I’ve seen that you have been doing about two pages price of writing in your half, and I used to be questioning if we may pare that all the way down to about 1.5, at most? The column has been working fairly lengthy, and I am loath to edit something out as a result of I do know it is all fairly vital.
— Robin Eppley, Editor, Fort Bragg Advocate