SoHum Parlance

Jojo had her (sorry!) camera. More shots here.

It used to be said that basketball is boring because the game doesn't start until the 4th quarter and everybody except the Warriors gets into the playoffs.

I haven't followed basketball in years. So what's happening this year?

Update: But can the Warriors close the deal?

And Charles Barclay joins Bill O'Reilly in hating the Bay Area. Except that he seems to be enjoying himself in these photos.

Subterranean sexism, warrior image, rugged individualism, yadda, yadda, yadda....

And it doesn't help if the feminists don't like her. Actually, they hate her.

Ed and I dined together a couple of nights in Ukiah last week (Ed has blogged about the restaurants). He was in trial, I was taking depositions.

He defensed a medical marijuana trial - the first and probably the last in Mendocino County. The jury was out for all of an hour before coming back with a defense verdict.

As to the restaurants, Ed has yet to try an excellent Japanese place. Can't think of the name, but it's on one of the off streets a block or two south of the courthouse. Great atmosphere. Excellent food. I would probably rate it number one, although both Patrona's and the Thai place on the main drag rate closely.

At Patrona's I strongly recommend the Gorgonzola, walnuts, and fig pizza. And Ed is right about the wine choices.

The claim arises from the police killing of Christopher Burgess last summer. The Times Standard has the story. The claim was filed just before the six-month deadline for personal injury claims against a government entity. She is represented by David Dibble, a local attorney who is no lightweight.

These claims are routinely rejected. In fact, in my opinion the whole tort claims act is a bit of a fraud. Ostensibly it's to allow government entities to attempt to settle the matter out of court. However, in my 12 years of practice I've filed probably about 50 of them and only once has an entity attempted to settle the matter prior to my filing a complaint. It's really about shortening the statute of limitations for government entities and catching indecisive claimants unaware.

Once the government rejects the claim formally, the claimant has six months to file a lawsuit. I should mention that six months is not always adequate time to investigate a matter and sometimes we attorneys simply file the claim in order to buy another six months. It doesn't necessarily mean that a lawsuit will be filed. The fact that it was filed at the last minute suggests the possibility that Ms. Burgess and her attorney have not yet decided whether to file. These cases are very tough, and you need to have your ducks lined up pretty well before tossing it into "delay-reduction" hastened discovery processes.

The officer who killed Burgess has been cleared by all of the appropriate agencies in terms of criminal charges, including Gallegos' office. But the civil court standard of proof is also considerably lower than the beyond-a-reasonable-doubt standard which governs criminal cases.

The one that may be habitable. Well, here's what it may look like on the planet's surface! The artist is Karen Wehrstein.

The following description was posted on Daily Kos by a blogger named "Darksyde."

In this artist’s conception courtesy of our own Karen Wehrstein (Much greater resolution here) the sun would never move as seen from the surface of a tidally locked world, but the sky is an ever-changing show greater than any on earth. Observational data and theoretical models suggest that stars like Gliese 581 might have a dynamic, granular surface and sport enormous starspots. It could be engulfed in perpetual solar storms, seen here as faint plasma arcs and visible surface flares. The star is shown as it might appear above a hypothetical waterworld’s horizon from just sunward of the terminator, distorted and dimmed through a blanket of CO2 five times thicker than our own atmosphere. With less than 7 million miles separating star and planet, Gliese’s solar wind easily plows through the planet’s (presumed) weak magnetic field and slams into the upper atmosphere to produce brilliant displays. Shimmering cascades of what on earth might be called colorful sprites, blue jets, and dazzling aurora mingle so completely with high, wispy clouds as to be virtually indistinguishable. Fat cumulous clouds hang low over the water eerily backlit by the brooding red-dwarf. One lone iceberg represents the assumed many which calve off from the great unseen ice-sheet dominating the planet’s dark side and drift slowly to their eventual destruction on global currents through a deep, planetary ocean of carbonated water. High overhead the barest hint of shorter wavelengths are scattered by the thick air, coloring the zenith a deep twilight blue. Could life evolve in such an alien environment?

Well, if there is a god or "intelligent design," then how could such beauty be wasted on the absence of life? And why is the red dwarf "brooding?" If nobody's there, maybe it can be developed for vacation rental space.

Insert Arkley jokes ___________________________.

All you need to know.

The SF Bay Guardian's Stephen T. Jones asks the question.

Why can’t Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger or his proxies explain their opposition to high-speed rail? They try, as they must. After all, this is a green project lauded across the ideological spectrum and around the world for its potential to prevent global warming, dirty air, and clogged freeways and airports.

But all the answers Arnold’s people give are illogical, unresponsive, or contradicted by the experts...
...

As I worked on my recent article on the topic, it was maddening to try to get a straight answer out of David Crane (the San Francisco venture capitalist that Schwarzenegger appointed to the CHSRA board) or the governor’s flacks.

It is of course a rhetorical question.

The photo is from the SFBG blog post linked above.

Heraldo has put together some of the links to local media reaction to the venue ruling in PL's bankruptcy.

He passed away this morning at the age of 51. He had been struggling with stage 4 cancer for some time. I didn't know him all that well, but I worked with him a few times and heard his music on occasion. I worked with his wife Cher during my time on the CLMP board and he often attended events where I had some terrific political conversations with him. He is survived by Cher and a son (Trevor) and daughter (Asia).

Please feel free to post thoughts. If anybody has a photograph for me to post please send it.

Kimba took these photos in the early years of ROTR and has posted these photos over at the ROTR chat site. In the one below he's playing with Rod Deal.

Below is a portrait by Georgia Long. The painting has been given to Cher. Thanks to Georgia for sending this to me this morning! You can enlarge all of these images by clicking on them.



The photo below was taken by Kimba. Ty's with his wife and daughter. According to Kimba, his family was with him when he passed away in his home.



The photo below was posted on the ROTR chat site by a poster named "glass napkins." The photo is from "The Clue."

Bob has all the details and responses.

Now what?

Addendum: Tom Dimmick has filed a summary adjudication motion. This morning's media coverage for your convenience:

Times Standard

Eureka Reporter

Second Addendum: Apparently the summary judgment code section link doesn't work on it's own. I've linked to the Cal government search page. Plug in "summary judgment" in the Code of Civil Procedure section and select section 437(c).

Correction: If I'd read the ER article I would have known that it was Tom Dimmick who filed the summary adjudication motion. I apologize for the error.

Third Addendum: A Times-Standard article on the upcoming planning commission meeting, containing a typo some may find mildly amusing. I wonder if I'll get another missive from attorneys for linking to the article.

Quote: "It is better for justice that one innocent man go free than 10 guilty murderers be convicted."

Agree or disagree? Why?

Addendum: Okay, the first commenter has a point. Let me ask it his/her way. "Is it better that 10 guilty men go free than one innocent man be convicted?"

But a french fry tastes the same way, no matter which way you turn it. That's from the old Sidney Poitier movie. Can't remember the title. I'm sure I messed up that quote as well.

Check out all these letters about the "Humboldt Honey!"

Not to resort to another shameful colloquialization (note to grammar cops - that's a joke) but get a grip!

Bill O'Reilly's feeling a bit persecuted. He provides a diagram, but doesn't elaborate. The arrows make it all real.

The latest from Media Matters:

As Media Matters documented, during an appearance on the Irish talk show The Late Late Show on April 13, host Pat Kenny asked O'Reilly whether he had referred to the poor as "irresponsible and lazy" and the Iraqi people as "prehistoric." When Kenny said he found that information on a "website," O'Reilly responded by calling Media Matters "an assassination website" that frequently takes him "out of context." However, Media Matters provided full documentation of O'Reilly's references to the poor as "irresponsible and lazy" and the Iraqi people as "prehistoric." O'Reilly has previously attacked Media Matters as being "smear merchants," "assassins," and "the most vile, despicable human beings in the country," among other things, despite claiming not to "do personal attacks here."

I used to enjoy O'Reilly's show. But he seems to be losing it, and doesn't even seem to be enjoying himself anymore.

O'Reilly's tin foil hat flow-chart is taken from the Media Matters site linked above.

They were a bit behind when I left and they're supposed to wrap up on Friday. I will be back to pitch tomorrow night. I certainly hope that KMUD isn't going to be collateral damage from other conflicts.

KMUD has spruced up its website recently. It looks like some of the programming has been archived and is available to registered users.

Actually, I think this is a good idea, especially since it won't lead to any actual sanctions. It is amazing at how many people flaunt the law despite the steep fine. I have seen people pulled over in Marin County, but some of them probably figure that they're only going to be caught once a year and therefor they're paying use fee of about a dollar a day which is better than public transportation and faster.

The snitch aspect bothers me. When we travelled through Seattle a few years back we thought about turning this one woman in as the number is provided on signs along the freeway. But I was haunted by the old saying "Mama don't like tattletales." We didn't call. Was I a bad citizen? There's just something creepy in an Orwellian way for the state to call upon citizens to look for transgressors - and the image from the Movie Fahrenheit 451 where everyone leaves their homes on instruction to look stand on the sidewalk and look for the fugitive. While no sanctions are involved, the "reminder" is the exercise of intimidation suggesting a Big Brother ("we are watching you"). Even a bluff hand by the state carries weight as apparently evidenced by the Washington stats cited in the article.

Now on the other hand, I always liked the comedian Gallagher's suggestion. When somebody cuts you off you have one of those plunger dart guns and you stick one to the side of the car. The Highway Patrol officer drives by and sees 4 or 5 of those darts on his car and they pull him over and give him a ticket for being an asshole.

I'm all for the carpool lanes by the way, and the steep fines. I'm sorry if you're too "busy" translate lazy and self-important) to organize a pool. Really I am.

I'm encouraged by the lack of responses here and at Bob's blog. I'm hopeful that it means most people are actually taking the time to absorb all of the information before shooting off their mouths. Almost restores my faith in human nature.

Anyway, Tom posted what follows in the thread below. One topic of constructive discussion would be whether the $240 grand per year "guarantee" he offers is really a guarantee, and if not how could it be constructed as such in light of the stated concerns that there are no guarantees. Will it be paid up front each year, or after the concert? I had heard that the amounts were going to fluctuate according to tickets sold. Is the last offer a straight-up sum for each year?

Apparently neither side is optimistic about the festival's future.


Dimmick Ranch Press Release
April 24, 2007


In fulfilling the Dimmick Ranch commitment to this community, we have been in active settlement talks with the Mateel Community Center as evidenced by the documents posted to the MCC Web site and those that follow. In the interest of transparency, we have included the following to ensure the public a near complete view of negotiations. We have excluded a “100-Year Deal” offer presented by Boots Hughston and Taunya Staupp over Easter weekend as the MCC has stated that the third-party negotiations are not legitimate offers, despite the board’s approval of Boots’ negotiation attempts. These details were not made available previously in the interest of advancing the discussion; however, at this point, the parties are at an impasse.

Our goal in these proposals, as we have maintained since last fall, is to produce a successful event on Dimmick Ranch that supports our community and makes public safety a priority. This is why I originally entered into the contract for public use of the Ranch and included “Item 10” in the original lease agreement that assures People Productions will be the event producer for the term of the lease. I was banking on 23 years of production history and the capable local groups and individuals that have made the annual reggae festival happen.

Based on these failed negotiations and aggressive tactics, we question the MCC’s goal and call on the community to question its goal, as well.

Prior to drafting the formal proposals you see here and in the interest of avoiding a public spectacle, I suggested to the MCC board that I was willing to negotiate a truce. This included leaving the Reggae on the River name untouched (to avoid our current dispute over its value), substantial payments to MCC, provisions for reimbursing the MCC for the infrastructure improvements and ending the Dimmick Ranch’s relationship with the MCC. These early attempts were rejected.

The last offer made to the MCC by Dimmick Ranch includes:

· $342,000 to 2B1 for the 2007 license of the trademark in "Reggae on the River" name, and

· A guarantee of $240,000 per year (nearly $2 million total) to the MCC for the remaining eight years of the conditional use permit (CUP).


This offer wasn't accepted either, as the MCC has acknowledged. The counter proposals put forth by the board are exorbitantly expensive and filled with aggressive controls and constraints on the use of my property, not just for the term of the lease, but forever. All seems aimed at ensuring the MCC a steady income stream from the ROTR name in perpetuity – an unreasonable goal given that no trade name has infinite value, and I have been willing to preserve the event for the community under the Reggae Rising name. In fact, two other annual music festivals in the U.S are already using the Reggae on the River name. The MCC has also refused, despite repeated requests that might help to inform our offers, to make the details of its agreement with 2B1 available for review.

With the launch of Reggae Rising in February, we paved the way toward fulfilling our goal. In developing the Web site, talking with the local non-profits and coordinators and securing top-notch talent, we’re moving forward to put on the best reggae festival and community fundraiser yet.

We are truly disappointed that we’ve been unable to resolve our differences quickly and quietly.

Very sincerely,

Tom Dimmick

The planet is about 20 light years away, practically in our back yard. It's a little larger than ours. It's orbiting a red dwarf, but it's much closer to its star than we (a "year" to any residents would be 13 days - seasons?). The average temperature is freezing to just above body temperature. There's lots of water - oceans and all.

Let's see. The signal for my first radio show has traveled about 1/3 the distance. In another 13 years they'll hear a fine analysis of the Second Amendment, along with Ron Davidson's comments about lesbians wearing offensive t-shirts in local restaurants and the fact that the 1974 edition of Webster's Dictionary defined homosexuality as a "perversion" but was rewritten to accomodate political correctness.

However, if they were listening they heard my first ever call-in to a radio show well over 20 years ago Phylis Schlaefly told me that she'd never met a feminist who was offended by pornography.

Do you think the aliens will support Reggae on the River or Reggae Rising?

There are theological questions to be addressed. If there is life of intelligence comparable to or in excess of humans, do they have souls? And if so, are they in need of salvation? The first question we should ask them - have you taken Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior?

The graphic is from the SF Chronicle, linked above.

I didn't see this at Bob's site. I received it via e-mail earlier tonight.


MATEEL BOARD OF DIRECTORS\' SUMMARY OF REGGAE ON THE RIVER(TM) OFFERS

[April 24, 2007. Redway, CA]. There has been a call for the Mateel Community Center (MCC) to be more forthcoming with details of the negotiations with Tom Dimmick over the future of Reggae on the RiverTM (ROTR). We have been as open as possible without disrupting the flow of our settlement talks. In the interests of dispelling rumors and, more importantly, keeping the community informed, we have posted Tom Dimmick's written offers made outside of mediation on the Mateel website and provide here a brief summary of the complex offer on the table at this time.

The MCC's Board of Directors does not want to sell ROTR. We would prefer that Tom Dimmick honor our lease and allow 2B1 Multimedia to produce the show and for the community to have an event this year. 2B1 Multimedia owns the license to produce Reggae on the RiverTM in 2007. Any deal that we make to sell ROTR will be subject to approval by the membership.

On the table are two offers to Dimmick. One is in the form of a lump sum payment by Tom Dimmick for the trademark, the right to produce the music festival, and the infrastructure. The alternative is a sale of the same things with payment on a yearly basis as long as he continues to produce the event. The counterproposal put forth by Tom Dimmick indicates he is not interested in endowing the Mateel up front, but instead would like the Mateel to still share the risk of ROTR being produced every year by making yearly payments.

The MCC has realized and expected to realize $250,000 annually from ROTR for the next nine years and that the Mateel paid for and owns the infrastructure that exists on Dimmick's property. In Mr. Dimmick's published letter to the community, he estimates this value to be around $300,000. Standard accounting practices require the inclusion of any labor to the construction of a long-term asset. The MCC's Board of Directors is confident that the actual cost of the infrastructure is much higher and have initiated an appraisal. Along with the value of the infrastructure, the Dimmick Ranch also is holding onto a lease payment of $33,333 made in October 2006 towards payment of the lease for 2007, even though Tom Dimmick has stated that there to be no valid lease in place between the MCC and himself.

In short, the Dimmick Ranch is holding on to community funds of the MCC, while we are forced to conduct fundraisers to raise money so events like the high school prom that happened last weekend could go on.


THE MCC OFFER TO THE DIMMICK RANCH

The Mateel Community Center fully recognizes the importance to the broader community of nonprofits needing to have the event this year. We have asked, and will continue to ask for, a guarantee that the same non-profit vendors that attended ROTR last year would be offered the opportunity for the remainder of the present lease term. We included a non-competition clause that prohibits Dimmick from producing any event on his property during the first week of June so as not to conflict with the Summer Arts Fair. We've also asked that they allow all coordinators who worked the 2006 event to work on the 2007 show.

Thus, our initial offer to the Dimmick Ranch or through a company in which he has the majority ownership is that he shall purchase the right to produce Reggae on the River and the ROTR trademark for $2.9 million (the lump sum option). Additionally, Dimmick would pay us for the professionally appraised value of the trademark.

The equipment used to produce ROTR belongs to the organization whose funds were used to purchase it unless that entity has been reimbursed. Any equipment (canopies, stoves, refrigerators, furniture, etc.) that Tom Dimmick needs to produce ROTR in the future will be made available to him either by sale or rental. The MCC would retain the right to reproduce and sell all ROTR trademark materials including graphics and posters that pertain to ROTR events prior to the 2007 event. The MCC will receive back all its original art and graphic archives from past ROTR events.

The People Productions lawsuits would be resolved by an agreement to complete an accounting of the 2006 event; an agreement by People Productions to provide all documents necessary to perform an audit of any of the prior events in case any audits are conducted by government agencies; and an agreement to indemnify the MCC for any damages including additional taxes and/or penalties the MCC is ordered to pay by any government agencies resulting from the failure of People Productions toproduce documentary support for such an audit.

2B1 Multimedia will assign its license to Tom Dimmick for the payment of $342,000. 2B1 Multimedia will have shared video production rights to ROR through a separate agreement with Tom Dimmick.

Performing artists booked by 2B1 for 2007 festival will be transferred/renewed to Tom Dimmick. 2B1 ticket sales account will be transferred to Tom Dimmick in a manner to avoid fees/charges from ticket sales agency.

We've also offered Tom Dimmick an alternative for him to purchase the ROTR trademark with the right to produce ROTR through a production company formed and owned by himself. The payments would be $240,000.00 per year or $20.00 per ticket, whichever is greater, with the ticket sales to be handled by an agreed-upon ticket agency. Tom Dimmick would give assurances of the production of the event by a certain date every year which will then
obligate him to make the minimum payment to MCC for that year. If those assurances are not provided, the MCC would have the option to repurchase the ROTR trademark for $1.00 and produce the event itself. MCC would have an option to lease Tom Dimmick's property for a minimum of five years in the event that the festival reverts to the MCC.

The infrastructure that presently belongs to the MCC on the Dimmick property would be purchased by Tom Dimmick at its appraised value and paid over the remaining term of the existing lease. Additional terms would be the same as the alternative offer above.

THE COUNTER-PROPOSAL

In response, Tom Dimmick has offered $200,000 per year, starting in 2008. Tom Dimmick could choose at any time not to do the festival, leaving it to MCC, who would have a hard time scrambling to find a producer. If we could not find one, the MCC would get nothing.

Tom Dimmick would pay $320,000 over nine years for our infrastructure and equipment.

For this year, Tom Dimmick would purchase 2b1 Multimedia license from for the $342,000 that he has spent so far. The MCC would have to pay off any artists booked that People Productions doesn't want in their show.

Tom Dimmick requests all of 2b1’s to-date ticket sales for ROTR, which to our knowledge have far outstripped the sales of tickets to Reggae Rising.

Tom Dimmick's offer limits our access to the disputed ROTR books for the 2005 and 2006 concerts.


FINAL THOUGHTS

Negotiations are not over. Above we presented the initial exchange of offers. But we are still far apart. The Board of the MCC remain committed to protect the non-profit community center's assets for future generations. Whether or not there will be a Reggae on the RiverTM this year in 2007 or not remains Mr. Dimmick's choice.

Bob has posted some of the documents, and others may be found at the Mateel website.

From my brief perusal it appears that supporters of both sides have been spreading misinformation, most likely inadvertently. More later. Maybe.

Meanwhile, have at it.

Any word from the Court?

Captain America, wearing a burrito in his pants, tried to impress women in a bar. He was arrested allegedly after groping one of them. He also attempted to flush a bag of marijuana.

Of course, the Captain has been a druggee from the beginning.

....

A young writer named Vendella Vita has received the Kate Chopin award for her novel, "Let the Northern Lights Erase your Name."

The purpose of the award is to "honor a fictional work that portrays a female character who, like Edna Pontellier in Kate Chopin's 'The Awakening,' attempts to withstand the disapproval of her society and to forge a path that is different from the one that is predetermined for her."

I hope that sentence isn't an example of the writing they reward.

....

The first Republican presidential contenders' debate will take place next week in Simi Valley - probably indicative of the end of their attempts to market to non-white voters. Despite all the MSM hype, they've actually lost ground with black voters. For some reason very few black voters have ever heard of Ward Connerly or Thomas Sowell.

....

The number of convicts serving long sentences or facing death exonerated by DNA evidence will shortly reach 200. Why has it taken this long, and why isn't there currently a policy to check the DNA for every conviction across the country where it's available and the convict willing?

....

The power of myth exposed in what may go down in history as the war fought on lies; the Tillman/Lynch hearings began today. I'm not sure where they're supposed to go. Will someone be disciplined?

I just heard some talking head analysis from an idiot who blames Jessica Lynch for the lie, saying that her story has "evolved." But I seem to remember that she was protesting the hype early on, and was less-than-enthused by the made-for-TV movie about her.

Are the hearings justified, or do liberals just hate heroes?

Moore's people are keeping the wraps on the content of Sicko. You won't find much on his home site. Alternet has a few details:

Sicko, which will be premiering at the Cannes Film Festival in May, is a comic broadside against the state of American health care, including the mental health system. The film targets drug companies and the HMOS in the richest country in the world -- where the most money is spent on health care, but where the U.S. ranks 21st in life expectancy among the 30 most developed nations, obviously in part due to the fact that 47 million people are without health insurance.

....

...between 2001 and 2005 the number of people without health insurance rose 16.6 percent. The average health insurance premiums for a family of four are $10,880, which exceeds the annual gross income of $10,712 for a full-time, minimum-wage worker. In addition, the lack of insurance causes 18,000 excess deaths a year while people without health insurance have 25 percent higher mortality rates. Fifty-nine percent of uninsured people with chronic conditions such as asthma or diabetes skip medicine or go without care.

....

One of the film's segments, an increasingly controversial boat trip to Cuba, exploded onto the pages of The New York Post, the Rupert Murdoch-owned tabloid, when at least one 9/11 cleanup worker who had been invited to participate in a trip to Cuba for Moore's Sicko went to the press.

The boat trip, according to sources who spoke to both the NY Post and The Daily News, took ailing rescue workers to Cuba for health treatment for respiratory ailments which they suffer as a result of working at Ground Zero, and for which a number of the workers have no health insurance. The purpose of the trip, according to some, was to show that the free health care in Cuba is superior to the health care system in the U.S. Those invited on the trip, as described by Janon Fisher in the Post, were told the "Cuban doctors had developed new techniques for treating lung cancer and other respiratory illnesses," and that health care in Cuba was free.

To be honest, while I find Moore's films extremely entertaining, I do wish more of his fans would approach his material with a more critical eye. While the right wing slams of his films often border on hysteria and are themselves manipulative in the use of strawmen, Moore has a gift for manipulating emotions at the expense of critical thinking. Orwell said "all propaganda is lies, even when it's the truth." A few years ago in reference to Fahrenheit 911, Kevin Mattson had this to say in a Dissent piece:

What a work of entertainment does best is confirm peoples' preexisting political values-not encourage self-examination or rethinking. You could call it the Internetting of American politics, the breaking up of a mass audience into subcultures and opinionated enclaves. Political values are like lifestyles today, and you seek out affirmation rather than criticism or questioning. It's not really clear that Moore can effectively reach swing voters or those uncertain about what they believe. He posts joyful accounts on his Web site about enraptured audiences watching his movie. Shouldn't he wish for anger and debate in the aisles?

Indeed.

But what is undisputed is his unique gift for street theater and his ability to weave brilliant entertainment with unwilling subjects. And unlike Borat the bully, Moore's targets are invariably powerful. I look forward to this one.

Sometimes just a slight shift of the scenery takes me out of the routine and renews my appreciation of the beauty of this place. Those "mystical moments" have been far and few lately as I haven't really been out on the trails, and probably won't be until my kids are just a little bigger.

Today I visited a client's property in the hills to the east of Laytonville. He's got an easement dispute with a neighbor which is of no relevance to this post. About 30 years ago he lucked into one of the most breathtaking pieces of property in terms of its views. When you stand on the ridge at the property's entrance and look to the east you can see Black Rock Mountain, which has very little vegetation because it's a lava formation, the last vestige of a volcano that once towered over what is now Laytonville. My client tells me that at the eastern foot is one of the largest obsidian deposits in California. Looking east but to the south of Black Rock you look over Covelo Valley and beyond to the Yola Bolis which remain snow-capped at the moment.

Looking to the west we had a strong wind in our faces. The wind can be much stronger, which is why he didn't build on the ridge. To the northwest you can see the King Range. To the southwest you can see the ocean through a valley when the fog is absent.

I did take photos for litigation purposes, but they wouldn't do the moment justice. Looking at that big chunk of lava and thinking about its duration it kind of reminds me of the relative insignificance of everything we do. The easement fight won't even register as a blip of memory ultimately even if there is something called the "collective unconscious." The lava chunk is a dying remnant of an ancient age, probably on it's last lap on the cosmic scale, but it'll probably survive the human race unless something of short term precious value is discovered inside it.

Meanwhile, it's Monday, April 23, in the 2007th year of our Lord. I'm in Ukiah. Probably just as much majesty here in its own right, but it's well camouflaged. I have to start thinking about tomorrow's depositions.

After I finished up with court this morning I went out for breakfast - a place called "Maples" a couple of blocks from the court house here in Ukiah. As I settled in with my coffee and opened the paper I was treated to a serenade from the flat screen on the wall near me. The View was on and Barbara Walters, Rosy O'Donnel, and two women I don't know were lined along side a grand piano with an aging Neil Sedaka on the playing end. After a brief conversation about all of his kids and grandkids no doubt calculated to reassure us of his heterosexuality I was treated to a chorus of all five of them singing Love Will Keep Us Together.

How do I write about this without letting out my inner condescending smug liberal elitist? Too late I think. I'm just trying to imagine a scenario that could be more classically insipid. Maybe a Partridge Family reunion joined with Peter Frampton to sing Muskrat Love and Billy Don't be a Hero.

So now I'm in my hotel room enjoying WiFi, at my peril apparently. I have to meet clients in Laytonville at three o'clock. Later.

Meanwhile feel free to comment on Sheryl Crow's flirtations with Karl Rove, as long as we're blending pop culture with social commentary.

Looks like the socialist and the conservative will be in a run-off, the "Clintonian centrist" coming in a distant third.

From Daily Kos:

Apparently, Al Gore has a team.

"Dark Horse" from Wikipedia:

A dark horse candidate is one who is nominated unexpectedly, without previously having been discussed or considered as a likely choice. Often a dark horse is selected as a compromise when other, more prominent candidates' factions cannot come to an agreement. This metaphoric expression originally alluded to an unknown horse winning a race and was so used in a novel by Benjamin Disraeli (The Young Duke, 1831).

The expression was soon applied to political candidates, among the first of whom was James Knox Polk. He won the 1844 Democratic presidential nomination over Martin Van Buren on the eighth ballot and went on to win the election.

Other famous dark horse candidates for the US Presidency include:

• Franklin Pierce, who was chosen as the Democratic nominee and later elected the 14th president in 1852
• Rutherford B. Hayes, elected the 19th president in 1876
• James A. Garfield, elected the 20th president in 1880
• Warren G. Harding, elected the 29th president after his surprise nomination
• John W. Davis, the unsuccessful Democratic nominee in 1924
• Wendell Willkie, the unsuccessful Republican nominee in 1940

More recently, some have described Bill Clinton as a dark horse, after he overcame a crowded field of Democratic hopefuls to win the 1992 presidential election. The same has been said with regard to Jimmy Carter and the 1976 presidential election.

I mean, you'd think that 8 months before the first caucus you wouldn't have to use the term. But this ain't 1976, although there may be some apt comparisons before we're through. And that was before you had to raise 10 mil for a war chest before you even declared to have a chance.

He's 5 years old. Via Netflix my wife and I have viewed the entire West Wing series, having missed much of it when it was on for the lack of cable. Sometimes, my son is around when it's on and even watches it a little bit although he will tell you "it's mostly for grown-ups. With the opening theme music of each show is a brief montage incorporating photos of the White House and American flag.

So this morning at HSU he noticed the flags at half-mast and identified it as "the flag on west wing, the one with the stripes and stars."

I expect I'm going to catch flack for this. Tom Hanson is going to be on my show for the last time in a while (he's moving to Michigan) in May. I invited him to choose a topic. One theme he's considering is "anti-Americanism on the left." Maybe we can start with my apparently a-patriotic omissions.

The opening screen shot comes from this Wikipedia page.

....

Addendum: I have to add an anecdote. In the late 1980s I moved to rural Washington State, just outside of Bellingham. I worked the various Whatcom County districts as a substitute teacher. Some of my most interesting experiences came when working in the town of Lynden, a very conservative town known for latter day blue laws filled with Dutch Reformed fundamentalists (the local joke was that the reason the Netherlands was so liberal was that all the right wingers moved to South Africa and Lynden).

Anyway, on my very first day at the high school I had a little bit of a rude awakening that I had some serious cultural bridges to negotiate. It began in the morning as the bell rang and all of the students stood for the pledge which I was supposed to lead. Having not said the pledge since I was in the 7th grade I had a brain freeze. It took me a minute to remember how it started.

Later I was trying to help kids learn the biological classifications (Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species) and suggested "Kings play chess on fine grain sand" as well as "King Phillips came over for good sex." The second one resulted in a moment of silence and a male voice from the back half-whispered "pervert."

My inner Lost in Space Robot started chanting "Danger Will Robinson" and I was very careful from then on, although I learned later that the younger generation was breaking away from the old ways - for better and worse. But that's a story for another thread.

From the SF Chroncle:

Federal law prohibits anyone who has been "adjudicated as a mental defective," as well as those who have been involuntarily committed to a mental health facility, from purchasing a gun.

A special justice's order in late 2005 that directed Cho to seek outpatient treatment and declared him to be mentally ill and an imminent danger to himself fits the federal criteria and should have immediately disqualified him, said Richard Bonnie, chairman of the Virginia Supreme Court's Commission on Mental Health Law Reform.

A spokesman for the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives also said that if found mentally defective by a court, Cho should have been denied a gun.

5 day waiting periods anybody? That gun store owner who said he was sad that the guns came from his shop? Maybe he ought to face charges?

All I could find was the PALCO statement.

I suspect that it'll be appealed.

Addendum: Apparently the judge considered sanctions for the moving parties! PALCO chose its forum well.

Mendo D.A. elect Meredith Lintott fired her election opponent Keith Faulder a few days after taking office. She insists that there won't be many more firings, but as we know in Humboldt County, when there is a significant change in the philosophy of the office you tend to lose the old guard. From the Press Democrat:

As a result of the immediate dismissal, a murder case scheduled for Monday may be rescheduled, Lintott said.

Caleb Flitcroft was set to go on trial for allegedly shooting and killing his girlfriend, Brittney Syfert, in a fit of jealousy during her birthday party in Potter Valley in 2005.

Faulder has prosecuted the lion's share of the office's more serious homicide cases during his eight-year tenure with the office.

"I'm sorry to see him go," Ukiah Police Sgt. John McCutcheon said. "He's the most skilled attorney in that office."

Reverse the politics and it's deja vu all over again.

I'm also sorry to see Faulder go, but as with Gallegos, Ms. Lintott has the right to reshape the office to her vision, even if it means some short term difficulties. There are distinct philosophies about the office. It's not merely a bureaucratic position. Probably Gallegos' mistake was to wait too long to clean house. Lintott seems to have learned from his mistakes.

4/20 is celebrated by the marijuana using folk, because of the false legend that there are 420 active substances in the drug. As it happens, there are only about 315 (over a hundred of which are confirmed carcinogens, but I'll let it rest).

April 20 is also Adolf Hitler's birthday. Consequently, it is also the date of events like Columbine and the Oklahoma City bombing.

On the upside, all of these people were born on this day.

Although the date is disputed, it is also believed by some to be the birth date of the Prophet Muhammed.

Of the most significance, it is my birthday. And apparently Stephen Colbert and I were born within hours of each other.

Filed by the former CDF head Richard Wilson (if you remember he made some statements on behalf of Gallegos in the home stretch of the recall campaign), the suit. Heraldo has the links.

From the SF Chronicle:

Pacific Lumber also offered a plan that would allow it to cut a certain amount of lumber each year without degrading the quality of its forests. But, the suit alleges, that plan relied on an intentionally flawed computer model that exaggerated the rate at which the company's forests would be regenerated after cutting.

In the whistle-blower lawsuit, Wilson and Maranto, the state officer in charge of sustainable forestry, say they concluded last year that there was a problem in the computer model.

"Defendant's deceptive growth and yield model made its sustained yield plan false,'' the lawsuit says.

"Had defendants fully disclosed the nature of their ... computer simulations," the lawsuit says, "the California Department of Forestry would not have approved the sustained yield plan, and defendants would not have received that $213.7 million in state funds."

Former Rep. Pete McCloskey, whose Redwood City law firm is part of the plaintiffs' legal team, called the alleged deception "an elaborate fraudulent scheme fueled by corporate greed."

Wilson and Maranto filed the suit under California's false claims law, which allows people who allege that state or local governments have been defrauded to file suit. Such suits are sealed while the state attorney general examines them.

The suit was unsealed on Monday.

The bankruptcy stay may not apply to this suit as Maxxam and Charles Hurwitz are named as defendants. I'm not sure how it works from here. I imagine PALCO will make a motion.

Addendum: The story made Forbes.

Well, tactically speaking I don't support the push for impeachment, however, the event does look interesting.


IMPEACHMENT SUMMER BEGINS RIGHT WITH COL. ANN WRIGHT Retired Army Colonel Ann Wright speaks on Impeachment, the Law and the Iraq War on Sunday May 6 at the Vet's Hall in Garberville. Her presentation will begin at 7 PM after a potluck meal at 6 PM. Ann Wright, after 35 years of military and diplomatic service, resigned in March 2003 in protest of Bush's war. The decision to wage war in Iraq, she says, "violated international and domestic law and is an impeachable offense." The March 2007 Greenfuse printed her testimony to the Washington State Senate on the necessity of impeaching Bush and Cheney.

Col. Wright is an outspoken anti-war activist who has appeared often on Democracy Now! She has been featured in the Washington Post magazine, Ms. magazine, Foreign Service Journal and the film "Uncovered: The Truth About the Iraq War." She also spent 26 days in the ditches at Camp Casey with Cindy Sheehan and has been arrested numerous times since then protesting the war. Most recently she was carried out of Rep. John Conyers committee because she has most certainly not taken impeachment "off the table."

Col.Wright has seen diplomatic service in 9 countries, 5 of them during crisis periods (Nicaragua, Grenada, Somalia, Sierra Leone and Afghanistan.) This included reopening the US Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan in 2001. She received the State Dept.'s Award for Heroism for her role in evacuating 2500 persons from the Sierra Leone civil war.

Be there May 6: potluck at 6 PM, presentations and Q & A, from 7 to 9pm. A donation is suggested to defray her expenses, but no one will be turned away.

Impeachment Summer begins Nationwide on April 28. Help get the celebration off to a rousing local start with someone who knows what she is talking about.

For more info, contact Paul 923 4488

The photo is from Wikipedia, linked above.

It may be in the works. Among other things, the Russians want to build a tunnel under the Bering Straight.

And we can't even get a by-pass for Willits!

Back in college I took a philosophy of religions class or something along those lines in which the professor's TA said something like, "the best books you read are those which teach you what you already know."

Okay, I know it was supposed to be deep and metaphysical and all that. And it wasn't question of politics. But I bristled at the comment then. Now I think it's pure crap.

On my way up to Eureka yesterday I caught Democracy Now on KMUD. Goodman had Noam Chomsky on (I'd challenge her to go three months without interviewing Chomsky, Zinn, or Parenti, but I think she'd suffer withdrawal.) to talk about, well, pretty much everything under the political sun. By my former TA's standards, the talk was brilliant. A couple of amusing anecdotes aside, I learned nothing I didn't already know. About 20 minutes into it my mind started to wander, occasionally popping back into the flow of his talk when he'd discuss his "masochistic NPR habit," or, well, there was something else that grabbed my attention but it obviously hasn't survived 24 hours of my conscious memory.

And let me say that I agree with about 80 percent of what he says, maybe 10 percent less than about 15 years ago when Manufacturing Consent came out, the change mostly about the Middle East. But I don't find anything he has to say original or insightful. Not to sound too pedantic, but the best books aren't the ones that teach you what you already know - the best are the ones that challenge your perceptions, or what you "know."

A few years ago Mark Drake and I co-hosted a radio show about critical thinking. It was a difficult topic, and most of the callers viewed "critical thinking" as that which challenges whatever they perceived to be the dominant paradigm. Well, maybe that was critical thinking for them at one time, perhaps their sophomore years of college. But once they locked into a new paradigm and donned the garb of the "dissident" (as if self-proclaimed dissidents are any less pack animals than the rest of us), the critical thinking became a liability and in many cases was abandoned.

I strongly recommend Dirty Hands, a Sartre play in the No Exit collection. It's about an upper class revolutionary who arrived at his revolutionary position precisely with critical thinking (not Sartre's phrase obviously, but the concept was clear). The story revolves around the irony that as a revolutionary the character is required to abandon that very quality which brought him to that point. The story is doubly ironic when you consider Sartre's own political evolution after this early career writing. And I'm sorry to say that a similar irony applies to an unfortunately large number of self-identified modern "activists." I'll take this up in more detail sometime in the future.

At the very end of the radio show we got a female caller. I'm paraphrasing from bad memory:

"I think critical thinking is something you men are very hot on, but there are other ways of knowing and understanding. Other cultures have done just fine without critical thinking. Sometimes intuitive understanding gives us a more holistic perception of reality - more useful."

We had no time to respond as we were right at the top of the hour, but setting aside the sexism of the comment (on more than one level) I would have tried to clarify whether she was equating critical thinking with deductive reasoning. The two are certainly related, but critical thinking merely refers to the tools by which an individual can challenge his or her perceptions (and intuition quite frankly). Deductive reasoning is one such tool.

And secondly, I don't believe that any culture has existed without deductive reasoning. In fact, any mammal observing zoologist will tell you that deductive reasoning is present to some degree with any species of animal with a cerebral cortex. You apply it on some level everyday.

But not necessarily when you're listening to another cookie-cutter speech by Noam Chomsky.

Diagram source.

Addendum: In an e-mail discussion shortly after I posted, I received the following comments regarding the biological classification of chimpanzees. Was the separate genus classification based upon good biology or politics?

Actually we should be in the same genus. But because of political pressure and emotions, we put ourselves in a different genus. Since the genus Pan was proposed first, we should be classified as Pan sapiens, not Homo sapiens.

Regardless, we are of a different species that seperated somewhere between 7 and 4 million years ago. We are NOT champanzees. We have our own diversity that makes us quite different.

This in no way means that we should be ashame of our close relatives.

This is from a friend who is in the know for such things. Don't ask me how it's topic related. I'm just going with the flow.

Our newest partner, Roxanne, practices family law. She and the others who work that area of law have my utmost respect. It can't be fun, but it's an absolutely essential service. Depending on your philosophy of practice, a good family law attorney can mitigate the darkness of an aspect of life of which only sickness and death is darker. Or you can prey on it.

I've been in family court a few times. Certain equitable relief in land cases involving domestic partners has landed me in family court. You can slice the tension in the air like butter as everybody waits for his/her case to be called with people who once loved each other gracing each other with furtive angry glances all the while holding tightly onto an air of righteousness as though afraid of breaking it. It brings out the worst in us. In San Francisco, you have to pass through a metal detector to get into the courthouse, and then a separate one to get into the family law department. Not even the criminal court has that kind of security.

As it happens I was in court today. Because I was in Eureka my partner asked me to file a matter in the family court up on the third floor. I think I've only been up there once before. This time, after completing my business, I noticed a table in the corner of the clerks office with children's books and crayons. I don't know why, but just the sight depressed me. I just tried to picture the kids playing there, trying to hide from their parents what they could perceive of the events. Obviously it would be preferable to keep the kids elsewhere, but not all soon-to-be-single moms have the resources.

I don't know. Maybe it bothered me because I have kids now. I'm very happy in my marriage, but I think that if I wasn't I'd almost consider just staying in an unhappy one for the kids' sake. Probably wouldn't be doing them any favors though. Makes me appreciate what I have.

Kudos also to the clerks in that office. They have a tough job.

I hesitate to post this as it's kind of nice having a whole page of threads with none about you-know-what. But I keep getting inquiries as to the latest.

Well, there isn't much. The parties had asked the judge to hold off on his decision in order to negotiate. When the negotiations didn't go anywhere, the parties asked the judge to issue the decision. I heard a rumor that the judge had indicated he was ready to make a decision, but so far nothing has been released to my knowledge.

And my understanding is that the parties are still talking. Talk is good.

I have a suggestion. Let's only post if we have something new to say. And I can't imagine what that would be. In any case, in the last ROR thread you were discussing..., well, whatever it was you were discussing. Something about goddesses, bear, and lunatic Nazi poets (yes I know. I'm a baaaaad blog moderator for trashing Pound).

Photo source Wikipedia.

I have Darryl Cherney scheduled to argue for the extension of the parcel tax on All Things Reconsidered on KMUD tomorrow night at 7:00 p.m. It will be call-in as usual. I expect that the show may be broken up at times by the pledge drive, but we should have plenty of time for questions.

So far nobody has taken up my invitation to speak for the opposition. If anybody is interested, please leave a message here or contact me at my office.

And I'm sorry I didn't see that post or I would have removed it immediately. I apologize for the pain it caused.

Dear Editor,

In my last letter to the editor, following the rancorous Mateel Annual Meeting in November, I mentioned my dismay at the incivility and personal attacks fueling the Reggae On The River controversy. Since then, I've begun reading the blogs, mainly ROTR's Lounge and Eric Kirk's So Hum Parlance, and I've found the on-line rudeness sinks to a whole new low, especially the comments by anonymous contributors.

What is their purpose, these anonymous people? Cogent arguments can stand on their own logic and be persuasive even if unsigned, but diatribes can only have credibility if their authors are known to be credible. So why do they send these unsigned, venomous entries? If it is to change opinion, it's at best ineffective, at worst counterproductive. If it is to vent pent-up feelings, it would be better to discard them privately after the writing, just as we wipe away our tears and flush away our waste. But perhaps it's to seek redress of a grivenace, in which case it also misses the mark, as any who want to help can't reach the injured party.

In my last perusal of Eric's blog I read a summary of a recent marijuana bust, followed by dozens of comments, most of them about the detrimental effects of the pot industry on So Hum culture (many of which rang true to me). One anonymous comment stopped me cold. Writing about pot-related violence, the author mentioned a number of deaths, "...Kathy Davis, Zak Stone (no loss),...." NO LOSS? Who presumes to make this very absolute judgment? Is it someone who had been injured by Zak, or who suffered an injustice at his hands? Or is it someone who nurses a grudge against me (Zak's mom), or his daughter, or another of his relatives or friends who still mourn the loss of his many wonderful qualities, not least of which were his courage and integrity which would never have allowed him to write an unsigned attack?

To the writer of this comment, let me say this: If you were motivated by a grievance, please give Zak's loved ones an opportunity to redress on his behalf. If to convince us that not only was he worthless, but that our feelings of love and loss are invalid, please identify yourself so that we might continue this discussion, perhaps in this paper, or by meeting in the park that Zak helped our community to acquire.

To other anonymous bloggers: Please consider both the goals of your comments and whether writing anonymously is the best way to achieve those goals.

Sincerely, Barbara Truitt

You read it here first. Well, maybe not first.

Barring a major gaffe, she will win the nomination, and probably the general election as well. I've been resigned to this possibility for some time now, but these burn rate figures I borrowed from Daily Kos tell the story. It's more than the money itself. The donation figures reflect the mood and projections of the country's movers and shakers, and I've never seen Democrats with this kind of lead in fund raising. And the Clintons know how to run a campaign. Gore can't jump in at this point. Neither Edwards nor Obama have what it takes to beat her. The Republicans are in bad shape, and it's probably going to get worse for them. It's her's to lose.

Of course, she has plenty of time to screw it up.

Kos:

In this week's widespread Fun with FEC Filings, The Right's Field has a post on the burn rates of Republican candidates, and it doesn't look so good for them:

	Closing	Tot Contribs	Operating Exps	Burn Rate
Brownback For President	$806,626	$1,291,024	$1,030,492	79.82%
Gilmore For President	$90,107	$174,790	$113,790	65.10%
Rudy Giuliani Presidential Committee	$11,949,735	$16,077,670	$6,041,029	37.57%
Hunter For President	$272,552	$502,424	$263,422	52.43%
John McCain 2008	$5,180,799	$13,680,081	$9,589,674	70.10%
Ron Paul 2008 Presidential Campaign Committee	$524,919	$639,989	$114,970	17.96%
Romney For President	$11,863,653	$20,982,788	$11,325,342	53.97%
Tancredo For A Secure America	$575,078	$1,185,536	$711,012	59.97%
Tommy Thompson For President	$139,723	$315,128	$252,312	80.07%

If we leave out Ron Paul (which I think we can), Giuliani has the lowest burn rate, at 37.57%. This will be a pretty hard pace to keep up for most of the Republican candidates.

So what about the Democrats?

	Closing	Tot Contribs	Operating Exps	Burn Rate
Biden for President	$2,838,916	$2,112,990	$1,172,174	55.5%
Hillary Clinton for President	$30,974,780	$26,054,302	$5,059,515	19.4%
Chris Dodd for President	$7,482,467	$4,043,757	$1,313,239	32.5%
John Edwards for President	$10,731,881	$14,029,654	$3,291,632	23.5%
Mike Gravel for President	$498	$34,720	$107,737	310%
Kucinich for President	$163,887	$358,569	$194,443	54.2%
Obama for America	$19,192,521	$25,709,105	$6,554,783	25.5%
Bill Richardson for President	$5,022,473	$6,246,382	$1,217,057	19.5%

If we leave out Mike Gravel (which I think we can), only Biden and Kucinich are in Republican burn-rate territory. Even Dodd is doing considerably better than Giuliani. Obama's burn rate is high given how much money he starts out with - it will be interesting to see if he's spending at a high rate to set up a strong infrastructure early or if he continues to outspend most other Democrats (and on what he's spending).

Kos source for the figures.

This bizarre item comes via Pinko Feminist Hellcat.

It's a particular shame that Ms. Moore's seven-year-old daughter was the one to find it.

The photo comes from the above-linked article. You can get a clearer view by clicking on the photo here as well.

Whereupon numbers turn to people. The first sampling from AP:

A vast portrait of the victims began to emerge, among them: Christopher James Bishop, 35, who taught German at Virginia Tech and helped oversee an exchange program with a German university; Ryan "Stack" Clark, a 22-year-old student from Martinez, Ga., who was in the marching band and was working toward degrees in biology and English; Emily Jane Hilscher, a 19-year-old freshman from Woodville, Va., who was majoring in animal and poultry sciences and, naturally, loved animals; and Liviu Librescu, an Israeli engineering and math lecturer who was said to have protected his students' lives by blocking the doorway of his classroom from the approaching gunman.

The article also contains some chilling fact about this extremely troubled young man.

Sorry, I don't know anything about whether the school or anyone else acted appropriately. I don't really care at this moment. Plenty of time for finger-pointing in the future.

Oh, and for what it's worth, the guns were purchased lawfully.

Discussed in the second part of the Times-Standard's coverage of Captain Buhne's coming out. Yours truly is quoted in the article.

There is a long history of anonymous writing by the way. It wasn't invented by bloggers. How many can identify even one of Samual Clemmon's works?

Since most of you blog anonymously, I won't bother polling you. But maybe you can share your reasons. Why don't you want to put your real name to your writing? Are you concerned about your employment? You social standing? Is the risky aspect of your writing necessary to its vitality? Are you worried about your physical safety?

The ER also has a nice interview with him.

And let's please not forget the paper which broke the story.

There is obviously a strong racial component to all this, although an associated factor are the lazy asses he encountered in the criminal justice system who are obviously very cavalier about personal rights and freedom. He was written off as a lying nigger from the first moment of contact. For the whole story go to this Washington Post article. Here are some highlights.

The impact stunned him, the sudden violence of it on a spring morning. Elias Fishburne IV, on his way to a 6 a.m. workout, now stood in his gym clothes on Route 50 in Cheverly and took measure of the damage. Talking on his cellphone, Fishburne had nearly sideswiped another car while changing lanes, then swerved away too hard and hit the guardrail. Elias was unhurt, but his Beemer was mangled.

A Maryland state trooper pulled up and took Fishburne's license and registration back to his patrol car. Fishburne called a friend who lived nearby to come pick him up. He'd have to get the car towed, file an insurance claim, and what about all the errands he needed to run before flying off to Puerto Rico for the weekend?

....

You have the wrong man, Fishburne remembers saying, in the patrol car, then again at the police substation where he was booked May 5, 2005. They kept calling him by a name he'd never heard before: Jarvis Tucker. On the warrant from Georgia, Elias Fishburne was listed as one of several known aliases used by a career criminal named Jarvis Tucker. Fishburne's vehement protests that there had been a mix-up were met with blank indifference. "Someone else will deal with that," he remembers someone in uniform telling him.

....

At the Prince George's County Jail, Fishburne remembers the booking officer glancing at the image and description of Jarvis Tucker on his computer, and back at him, comparing the warrant with the driver's license of the frantic prisoner before him. The birth dates were three years apart. Tucker was described as an armed drug dealer who stood 5 feet 10 and weighed 190 pounds; the man in custody was two inches shorter and at least 50 pounds lighter. The facial features were dissimilar, too. The only trait indisputably shared was race. The fugitive in the system and the suspect in handcuffs were both black men.

....

What no one told him, Fishburne now realizes, was that waiving extradition would effectively freeze him in this bureaucratic error. No one said what Department of Corrections official Jeff Logan declares so clearly now: "Understand this: If it is not you, you do not acquiesce to anything. You're caught in the wheels of justice and they're spinning against you."

Fishburne sees now how naive he was to believe that the system was somehow self-correcting, that the truth would quickly become obvious, that he wouldn't even need an attorney. I'm a hairdresser, he remembers trying to explain to everyone he encountered. I'm a veteran, I have a mortgage, a business, a Web site, a clean record, a sound reputation. "They're looking at me like, whatever."

....

In Charleston, S.C., GeorgeAnna Milligan had been waiting all day that Sunday for her oldest son to call. Elias never missed Mother's Day. "Finally, his friend Jerome calls and tells me Elias has been arrested," she recounts. All Wilcox knew was that there had been an accident, Elias was okay, but he was in jail. Jail? Was someone killed? Milligan's mind raced. She quickly put together the pieces Elias hadn't.

She called the Prince George's Sheriff's Office, trying to track down her son. "He doesn't have any aliases. His ID was stolen," she explained again and again. "Why can't you just check his fingerprints and run his background in NCIC?" Milligan knew the FBI's National Crime Information Center was the data bank that would prove her son was not wanted, that his fingerprints, birth date and Social Security number didn't match those of this Jarvis Tucker. She had confidence in this system of checks and balances, because she herself had relied on it years before while working for the Charleston police. "I took mug shots and did fingerprints," she recounts. "I knew what I was talking about."

....

A slip of paper in the court file states that the arresting officer did not perform the required NCIC computer check of the defendant because the computer system was out of service. Nothing in the court file indicates any further attempt was made to confirm the identity of the man in custody. Each of at least six entities to handle Fishburne's case -- the Maryland State Police, the state Department of Corrections, the Prince George's County Sheriff's Office, the state's attorney, the District Court administrator and the sheriff issuing the warrant in Georgia -- maintained that responsibility for confirming the prisoner's identity fell to someone else.

"We trust that's already taken care of," said Cpl. Mario Ellis, spokesman for the Prince George's Sheriff's Office, which endorsed the warrant stating the fugitive Jarvis Tucker was in custody.

"The onus wouldn't be on the Department of Corrections," countered Logan, adding, "The judge could have done something."

Requests to court administrators seeking comment from Judge Heffron were denied.

....

Since Jarvis Tucker was a fugitive, bail was not an option for the innocent man whose life had been upended. GeorgeAnna Milligan said she learned that the supposedly prepaid legal service would require a $2,500 retainer before a lawyer would even meet with Elias in jail, and then another lawyer would have to be hired in Atlanta to fight the charges there. Milligan says she kept calling Maryland authorities, insisting they had the wrong man; Elias's friends did the same, both on the phone and when they visited him. "He'll have his day in court, was the response we were getting," recalls Jerome Wilcox.

....

"I was so upset," Fishburne recalled. "I was getting all teary-eyed and cotton-mouthed, and the cop says, 'There he goes with his acting again.' " Fishburne appealed to the woman taking his fingerprints. The prints of Jarvis Tucker were on her computer screen with his warrant data.

"Can't you see they're not the same?" Fishburne implored.

"It doesn't add up," he remembers her agreeing as she processed him anyway. "Someone will talk to you about it."

....

The background check Fulton County authorities had performed took 36 hours to determine that Prince George's had sent them the wrong man. Fishburne was handed the gym clothes he had been wearing the morning he crashed. He was issued a check for the funds his friends and mother had deposited in his commissary account. He was freed. No apologies were offered, he says, no ticket home provided. He stood outside the jail with no cash, no transportation, no explanation. He looked at the commissary refund. The check was for $80. It was made out to Jarvis Tucker.

Thanks to Cristina B. for sending me the link.

The story of the day is of course the bloodiest school shooting in US history. Already in the Imus thread below are theories that the killings may have been racially motivated. The shooter was Asian American. Nothing in the article as of my reading discusses motivation, nor the racial breakdown of the victims. The Virginia Tech president has issued a statement.

....

Meanwhile in Iraq, Al Sadr's people are pulling out of the coalition government. The question is whether his militias will start up again. Bodies are already turning up.

On another tangent, USA Today published an article about the impact of the war on Iraqi children.

....

Meanwhile, the Palestinian group who kidnapped a BBC reporter in Gaza claims it's killed the journalist, but BBC refuses to believe it.

....

Apparently the "do-not-call" list re telemarketers is being ignored.

....

Heraldo reports on a Pew Study that indicates what we smug liberals have always known - smart people watch The Daily Show and Colbert, and dumb people watch Fox.

....

And Richard Marks has inside info that Roger Rodoni will be running for re-election, the rumors of his imminent retirement being obviously exaggerated. Marks also speculates on potential opponents.

....

More when I have some time.

Damn! Buhne scooped me again!

He (or she) will reveal himself in today's edition of the Arcata Eye, usually online by Wednesday.

I have it on good word that he will be revealed as Charles Lindberg's baby. Or Anastasia.

Update: Captain Buhne is Ryan Hurley, from the Eureka City Attorney's office. I certainly hope he continues with the blog, even if the edge is blunted somewhat as a matter of political necessity.

Hank Sims will interview Mr. Hurley on his KHUM radio show this Thursday evening at 6 p.m. (then you can turn the dial to KMUD for my show at 7:00 - different topic and nowhere near as sexy).

Second Update: There's a photo over at Buhne's now. He's a gumshoe!

Richard Marks has been posting lists of his favorite Humboldt County restaurants according to various categories (best burger, best cheap eats, etc.). As a father of children of 5 and 2 years, the quality I look for lately is kid-friendliness. The criteria I consider are the following for a score of 1 to 4:

1. Quick service. There aren't many worse experiences than trying to keep a two-year-old preoccupied and focused while waiting an extended time for a meal. An example of a restaurant I avoid on this point is the Mateel Café, which serves some of the best food in the county but it simply takes too long if they're busy as good home-cooked meals will tend to do. Our business with the Mateel Café over the past 5 years has mostly been for take-out.

2. Available diversions. I just spent a week in Monterey and every restaurant we visited offered crayons for the wait. Other establishments are even more creative. I previously mentioned Chief's at Laytonville diner with a fenced-in play structure complete with picnic tables - especially invaluable for traveling families.

3. Kid-friendly customers and help. There are certain atmospheres which create expectations of a quiet and uneventful meal, particularly in the upper scale. When you bring young children in, you want to know that you won't be bothering others. Larger space areas, with lots of background noise and foot activity, make for better experiences in that customers expect to see and hear kids, or the kids simply don't add much to the background commotion.

4. Good healthy food. Kids' menus can be boring, and we rarely order from them. But there are certain types of food which are usually hits with the kids. Mexican food works well. Anything with burgers and hot dogs. In our case, my son loves hot and sour soup. And we want it to be healthy most often, which excludes the frequent use of fast-food places.

What follows are the Humboldt County restaurants which are particularly good for kids from my view. There are many restaurants which are less than kid-friendly, and the failure to make this list should not be construed as a slight on the quality or value of the restaurant. Sometimes we visit the businesses because we're in the mood for a quality meal and willing to endure the hardships and/or improvise to mitigate the difficulties. And of course there are those establishments for which we hire or barter a baby-sitter. The point system is entirely about kid-friendliness. I am only bother with those businesses which rate 3 or 4.


Eel River Brewery, Fortuna - One of the best. Good food, with healthy choices as well as the not-so-healthy. The service is fast. And there are plenty of diversions. You can eat outside where there are projecting heaters. Although you have to watch to make certain the kids don't climb onto the structures (there are prohibitive signs which indicate that this has been a problem), there is plenty of space to run around in. There is even a horseshoes court. And if the weather forces you inside, the background noise is loud enough and you're sharing the space with plenty of families. The decor captures the interests of some kids for at least the first visit, and there are televisions with sports programming which can occupy some older children for a time. The service is quick and supportive of family needs. And the kids' menu choices, while limited, aren't bad. 4 points.

Callico's, Garberville - Service is usually quick unless it gets very busy. There is an upstairs with plenty of space, although you have to be watchful of toddlers who may wander towards the two staircases. There is plenty of background noise and kids are a frequent site and expectation. The food is decent, with plenty of kid-interest items (good for pasta, which is always a winner for our kids). There is a television upstairs which customers have control of the programming. If you get there early enough you can put on some kids' programming. 3 points.

Fiesta Café, Sunnybrae - Some of the dishes are better than others, but I strongly recommend their chicken mole which is the best I've had. That's for the grown-ups who may have been disappointed in some of their other dishes. You get a bowl of meatball soup right away, which keeps hungry kids contented. But what makes this establishments rate so high on my list is the toy station. The toys are in the back room to the left when you enter the building. The families with kids tend to gravitate there, and it's where the high chairs are stored. There are two rooms in the front for everybody else. The toys were introduced to occupy the owners' grandchildren, but came to be used by customers. It's an excellent idea, and I'm surprised more family restaurants don't follow suit. 4 points.

McDonalds, Eureka on Broadway - Of course there's the play structure. In a discussion with arch-conservative David Horowitz a few years ago he exclaimed to me: "Unlike feminism, McDonald's offers women liberation. Real liberation." Well, it's good for a twenty-minute break anyway. Unfortunately, you have to poison your kids in the process, but as they throw sugar into everything it's the number one choice among children. Neither of my children have tasted McDonald's food yet, but it's only a matter of time and I have to admit that while Horowitz' sanguine thoughts are a bit overstated, McDonald's has done quite well with the model. 3 points. 3 also for all the other fast food places.

Café Waterfront, Eureka - But for its location, this one probably wouldn't belong on the list. The service time is average, and there are folks who visit expecting a distraction free ambiance meal. But fortunately, for tag-teaming parents, the restaurant has large windows across the street from the waterfront where one parent can bring the children to climb and run around while the other waits for the food. Cell phones are handy of course, or hand-signals through the window. Good food also. My favorite breakfast in town now that Carl's is closed. 3 points.

Los Bagels, Eureka and Arcata - The food is served practically instantaneously with plenty of kid-interest stuff available. The ambience is kid-friendly notwithstanding the occasional grouch trying to read his paper. And if one parent wants to take more time at the Eureka location, the gazebo/fountain courtyard full of pigeons is right down the street. 4 points.

Hurricane Kate's, Eureka - Upscale, but not kid-exclusive. You get the crayons and paper. The background noise mitigates. The service is of average length. Some of the customers could be put off with a two-year-old. 3 points.

Hometown Buffet, Bayshore Mall - Buffets are always good for immediate food, and H.B. has plenty of background noise, foot traffic, and kids. You may have to watch what your kids are grabbing in terms of health, and the food is average in quality. Fortunately my kids both love vegetables. It's not my favorite place to go for food, but I have to admit the ease of the kids' experience and assign it 4 points.

Bless My Soul Café, Eureka - Excellent home cooked food, which by definition can take awhile. And sometimes there are customers who expect a quiet meal in a nice atmosphere in the small space. But the waitresses are very helpful and they have a toy station. The kids love everything on the menu, mine do anyway. Late afternoon is the best time to bring kids. 3 points.

Deb's Great American Burgers, Redway - A good burger with plenty of kid-interest menu items. The service is quick and there are plenty of decorations, gold fish, and video games to divert. There's an outside area, though it borders the parking lot. The downside is the ice cream display which can lead to arguments. 3 points.

Liu's, Eureka - Great food, the best hot and sour soup in the world according to my son. Quick service, especially if you're there for lunch. And a room away from the other customers with dead fish on the wall for a limited diversion. 3 points.

Samoa Cookhouse, Samoa - "Family" style with plenty of diversions including the adjacent mini-museum. Service is instantaneous and the kids should love the food. 4 points.

Fresh Freeze, Eureka - Basic diner with a kid-friendly atmosphere and some decorative diversions. The food can be a bit slow at times. 3 points.

Chain places, everywhere - Denny's, Carrow's, Applebee's, etc. All of them provide quick service where kids are expected to be everywhere. Some of them offer crayons and other diversions. Applebee's in particular has a coloring/puzzle booklet. The food is better in some than others. I generally give them 3 points.

Of course, nothing beats grabbing sandwiches from somewhere and going to a picnic table in the park near play structures. There are no doubt plenty of other restaurants that should make the list, which I haven't tried or just don't come to mind at the moment. Feel free to suggest more.

Addendum: Some tips for parents who want to take their kids out to dine.

Actually, these tips are more helpful. Great thing is, my kids always love to try new foods.

Photo source.

From N.E.C. via the Redwood Progressive. The images come from the site and are of works of art which may be purchased at the auction.

Come enjoy an evening of fine art and mouth-watering food at the annual auction and dinner to benefit the Northcoast Environmental Center.

Doors open at 5:00 on Saturday evening, April 28th at the Arcata Community Center. A delicious meal catered by Hurricane Kate's, accompanied by fine local wine and beer, will be served at 6:00 .

Then bid on scores of local treasures in both live and silent auctions. Fine works of art, massages, raft trips, bed and breakfast stays, jewelry, ceramics, wines, fine dining experiences and much more. You can check out many of the items up for bid at the Environmental Center at 575 H street in Arcata, and on the web at www.yournec.org.

Tickets are available in Eureka at: Strictly for the Birds and The Works in Old Town, and in Arcata at: The Works, The Metro or the n-e-c itself at 575 H Street.

Tickets are $45 until April 21, $50 thereafter, so get yours now. To reserve a table or get more information.call 707-822-6918.

The San Francisco Bay Guardian explores the potential for abuse of the probation system by prosecutors. Because a probation violation need only be proven by a preponderance of the evidence absent the checks and balances of a jury, prosecutors are muscling plea bargains and avoiding the rigorous standard of "beyond a reasonable doubt." The Bay Guardian elaborates on a recent case in which the system may have snagged an innocent man on the word of another individual - potentially guilty of the alleged crime.

The article expands on the point.

But at least one concurring judge worried ominously that with a lower threshold for alleged probation violations, "an unfortunate incentive might arise to use the revocation hearing as a substitute for a criminal prosecution."

Former supervisor Matt Gonzalez, who worked as a public defender prior to his time at City Hall, says that's exactly what's happened. He recalls a case that surfaced years after Rodriguez involving a woman named Mary Elizabeth Alcoser. Although she had a long history of trouble ranging from severe narcotics abuse to prostitution dating back to the 1970s, according to criminal records, after police charged her with assault in a 1997 case, she was fully acquitted by a jury, citing self-defense.

"Even though she was acquitted," Gonzalez said, "the judge sent her to prison on a probation violation, because he determined that by a lower standard of proof, she was guilty.... The real question is, who benefits when you don't have the higher standard of proof employed?"

....

Somebody almost killed Maluf, and the two most likely suspects are Portillo and Simms. Neither is a Boy Scout, and both have an obvious incentive to finger the other.

That's exactly why courts require strong evidence — enough to convince a jury beyond a reasonable doubt — before sending someone to prison. Using shortcuts such as probation revocations leads to slipshod prosecutions and wrongful convictions.

Strong evidence standards are particularly important for a case as muddled as this one.

Some of the posters here probably figure "well, if he hadn't committed the first crime, he wouldn't have been in this position." But you're missing the point. Whether a probation defendant deserves the full protection of law is an esoteric point really. The issue that's hopefully important even to the "law and order" crowd not keen on due process is that the guilty party may be free to victimize somebody else, figuring all he has to do is find another probationee to finger the next time.

The story is somewhat long, but it's a compelling read.

Karl Rove didn't mean to delete all those e-mails.

White House officials said the administration is making an aggressive effort to recover anything that was lost. "We have no indications that there was improper intent when using these RNC e-mails," spokeswoman Dana Perino said.

Luskin said Rove didn't know that deleting e-mails from his RNC inbox also deleted them from the RNC's server. That system was changed in 2005.

....

"I wouldn't rule out that there are a potential 5 million e-mails lost," the spokeswoman said.

Three plus years and 5 million e-mails later they never noticed that the e-mails were disappearing? Do they really think everybody is that stupid?

Just thought I'd put my two cents on the record. I've already commented at Heraldo's post. I've only a few points to add.

Let me begin by saying that I have listened to maybe three or four of Imus' shows, usually on my way to court in Eureka and before Stephanie Miller came onto KGOE. I didn't hear anything distinctly racist. I wasn't even offended. Mostly I thought his show was sophomoric and vacuous. I didn't even know he was conservative, other than on a sort of instinctive "redneck" kind of level. I don't remember much of what I heard.

But apparently this guy hasn't changed his schtick in 30 years of radio programming. The national media has graced us with plenty of examples of earlier bigoted comments. For CBS and MSNBC to finally work up some "outrage" over his neanderthal remarks seems a bit disingenuous and hypocritical.

For my part, I had no intention of jumping on the proverbial bandwagon calling for his canning. Obviously the networks made a business decision under pressure. It's that pressure, from my compatriots on the left, that bothers me somewhat. Yes, this guy is an asshole. Apparently there are plenty of jerks out there to have justified the networks' investment. This guy says what many people think, and silencing him isn't going to make them think any differently. If anything, it's going to embolden their resistance to what they perceive as the "PC thought police," and they'll embrace him as a martyr and a hero. After all, hip hop music is "much worse" and therefor those liberal execs in the network boardrooms are making plenty of money on that. So basically Imus is oppressed because he's white.

Honestly, nobody tops conservative white guys when it comes to "victim mentality" identity politics. They whine as loud as anybody, and now they have nothing to listen to on their way to work to support the welfare cheats with hard-earned tax dollars.

But that's not even why I wouldn't have joined in the chorus. Basically, to the frustration of some posters here who want me to suppress other posters, I'm what you might consider a First Amendment extremist. I actually disagree with Judge Oliver Holmes - I support the right to yell "fire" in a crowded movie house. Whether people live up to it, liberty in my view demands that the law assume that people are capable of rational thought and discernment when it comes to what they hear. I do not believe it is appropriate to suppress expression based on the assumption that there are listeners who are incapable of the brain power to put it in perspective. I don't listen to Imus. When Fox or somebody else picks him up, I won't listen to him then either. He's a real live Archie Bunker with a grandiose sense of entitlement, who apparently speaks for a great number of Americans. Censorship is merely sweeping the uncomfortable cultural elements under the rug. There are plenty more where he came from.

I believe the twelve young women have shown grace and class in dealing with this whole thing. They didn't have to meet with him. They could have spoken more forcefully and called for his head, and nobody would have blamed them. They should be the story at this point, not Imus nor his whiny persecution complext. I'm sure he's got more than enough money in the bank to sulk in comfort if he can't find work.

We're just finishing up a week's vacation in Monterey. We've taken the kids for weekend trips to visit the aquarium since my son first came home. He loves the place and we'll continue the annual trips until one or both of them get bored with it.

In the past our stays have extended two or three days, but this time we decided to rent a flat in Pacific Grove, right on Ocean View, with a terrific view of the bay (and of hard-bodied joggers on the coastal trail below us). We shared the place with my parents and stayed the better part of a week. For a stay that length, you actually save money, particularly if you cook most of your meals. Thing is, I may have been party to an illegal enterprise. One of the local clerks told me that there is actually an ordinance that requires that rental leases must be equal to or exceed one month. Presumably, the vacation rental industry in this mother of all tourist traps outside of Vegas has displaced and priced out local renters in a manner similar to Humboldt County's indoor grow scenes. I'm assuming my "landlord" possesses some sort of license exception, as she and dozens of others could be easily busted by any law enforcement using the vacation rental websites.

....

It wasn't always a tourist town of course. In the mid-1970s, long after the cannery scene went bust, my father took a skin diving course in Monterey. I remember a park on a small peninsula from which the divers all floated out, complete with cypress trees. In my subsequent visits I assumed my memory was of Lover's Point, further to the west in Pacific Grove. But I remember my brother and I wandering into Cannery Row, a ghost town at the time, and watching the conversion development and running through the bridges spanning the streets. It turns out that the park was actually off the Row, most likely right about where the aquarium stands now.

Now it's kind of ridiculously jam packed, pretty much year round. The aquarium is the draw of course, but the Monterey chamber is pushing kind of a Steinbeck theme on tourists - maybe one in ten of whom has ever cracked a novel of Steinbeck's. Maybe twice as many rented East of Eden on a slim pickins night when they got to blockbuster too late to grab a copy of Titanic for a fifth viewing, probably confusing it with the Rosie O'Donnel movie about S&M. What is particularly annoying is that some of the waterfront restaurants actually ship their seafood in where the local waters contain some of the most diverse life webs on the planet, with a dying fishing fleet desperate for customers. There are some decent restaurants however, the best food to be found in the aquarium cafe. But there are several establishments in downtown Pacific Grove which outdo any of the C.R. fare, and in 5 annual trips now I've had the opportunity to try just about all of them. My least favorite is Bubba Gump's, where the waitresses hound you with quizzes about Forest Gump trivia.

....

Next to the incredible natural beauty of the area, the aquarium is the attraction for my family. It's not inexpensive, but it's well worth an occasional trip. If you stay in a local hotel, you can get a two-day pass through them (a bit of a controversy in that local tax dollars were used to construct the aquarium but out-of-towners get the special benefits). My favorite exhibit is the kelp forest, where you can sit in a slightly darkened amphitheater where they play Kitaro as the three story tank displays all of its colors with a machine to move the water and make the kelp sway to the music. I don't know how realistic it is, but it's certainly a gorgeous work of art.

There's a special otter exhibit right now, which is well put together with a slew of hands-on activities for kids. I miss the shark exhibit it replaced though. Along with the science presentations, there was an anthropological element to the program which gave it an extra dimension. Of course, sharks figure more prominently in cultural lore than otters.

The largest breed of otter grows in excess of 6 feet in length. Just thought I'd mention that.

An occasional source of amusement is whining from tourists about the prominence of "environmentalist propaganda" in the displays (actually found in 9 out of 10 science oriented museums around the country. Americans tend to freak out about anything even remotely political, no matter what the level of scientific consensus. In any case, the aquarium showcases its environmentalism on its website focusing on the impact of certain types of seafood consumption and providing guidelines for eco-friendly consumption habits.

....

Interesting environmental anecdote from one of the aquarium volunteers. Okay, let me start by saying that I come from a family of carpenters and fishermen. The fishing side of the family has been less than sympathetic to green causes, particularly those which they believe adversely hit their livelihoods. Among them is protection of otters and seals, which steal their fish right off their lines. An aunt of mine once compared it to being robbed as she left her front door. My father responded that the difference was that she was at their door when they were fishing. This led to one of my family's characteristic booze influenced political arguments in which one side graced us with a litany of the evils of aquatic mammals. I mean, it's not like they were talking about a problem to be solved. The creatures were malevolent, and while they didn't say so overtly I suspect they would have supported eradication.

Among the evils was the impact of otter resurgence on abalone populations. Beyond the commercial concerns, the gist of the argument was ecological. I'm sorry, but I get suspicious when fishermen start talking like Earthfirsters. And I was apparently right to be suspicious of the facts, which were true but incomplete. Apparently, with the late 19th century mass killings of otters came the proliferation of abalone, and sea urchins. In other words, the 20th century abalone consumption rates were fueled by an ecological aberration to begin with. The decline amounts to a restoration of prior balance.

So says the aquarium volunteer, an articulate young woman who seemed to know what she was talking about. Additionally, the rise of sea urchin populations depleted the kelp beds. Part of the beauty of the Monterey Bay is the abundance of kelp, which of course plays a role in attracting numerous species for various reasons. The sea urchins population boom was responsible for the almost complete absence of kelp from the bay for many years. The relationship with the otters is symbiotic as the kelp prevents sleeping otters from floating too far from home.

....

Anyway, the kids had a great time, particularly with rare quality time with their grandparents and uncle. And both want to return, so I guess we'll be back next year.

Weird experience on the way down. I was raised on the San Mateo County coast side. I spent the second half of the seventies living in Moss Beach. So we're listening to this classic rock station out of SF as we're driving through my spawning grounds and Journey's Lights sends me into a euphoric deja vu (even though I pretty much hated the song at the time). Before my wife can roll her eyes and look at her watch I turn into Montara where my parents built their first house. The house had been built at the rear of the lot with a small forest of pine trees constituting the front yard. The trees are gone, as is a beautiful row of cypress trees in front of our neighbors' home. On top of it, the previously vacant lot on the other side of us has been filled with a two-story stucco-laden monstrosity. And the earthy brown stain of the exterior wood of my old house has been covered with this grotesque off pink paint job.

To my wife's relief, that pretty much killed my nostalgia. I didn't dare check on the Moss Beach home.

....

Eureka kind of reminds me of old Half Moon Bay. Thankfully KHUM never seems to play Journey. Nor Foreigner.

Did they settle? Did the court make a decision?

Nothing in the print media. Only this at Bob's blog.

Inquiring minds want to know.

From the Times Standard:

The notice of intent to sue comes just over two weeks after the California Coastal Commission stopped the work. The road work was occurring within 50 feet of environmentally sensitive areas, the commission said at the time.

Baykeeper alleges that Security National and the subsidiary that is hoping to build the Marina Center complex on the property failed to get the proper permits and didn't take measures to prevent pollution from the road work. Polluted storm water runoff may affect Clark Slough, the bay, the underground aquifer and wetlands there, the group contends.

And the game clock has started.

Saturday, April 14th Mateel Forever 2

A fundraiser for the Summer Arts & Music Festival at Benbow Lake (June 2 & 3, 2007) 2pm to 1am
A mini Summer Arts festival featuring:

• Bayonics
• David Jacobs-Strain
• Lansdale Station (with Ruben Diaz)
• Axe w/880 South
• Lost Coast Marimbas
• Steel Toed Slippers
• Dragon Heart Tang Soo Do
• Humboldt Capoeira
• Lakshmi’s Daughters
• Malicki Diallo Bah
• All Shook Up Belly Dance
• Shae Freelove
• Raymond Thoya
• The Elliots
• A’Ok The Clown
• The Bindis & more!!!

The SF Chronicle discusses the exodus of black residents from San Francisco. I've noticed it. When I started law school in 1990, the Fillmore and Western Edition were considered "black neighborhoods." 3 out of 4 faces on Divisidero south of Geary were black. Now you're hard pressed to find a black face, even in the soul food restaraunts of the neighborhood which have gone from black staple to white chic. I saw exactly three black faces on my last drive through.

San Francisco's black population has dropped from 96,000 -- or 13.4 percent of the city -- in 1970 to an estimated 47,000 in 2005, about 6.5 percent of city residents, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. African Americans make up about 12.1 percent of the nation's population overall.

"The decline is phenomenal," said Hans Johnson, a demographer with the Public Policy Institute of California.

San Francisco is not alone. From 1995 to 2000, Oakland and neighborhoods of Los Angeles lost tens of thousands of black residents. Not one West Coast city made a list of the nation's top cities for African Americans compiled last year by Black Enterprise magazine based on income potential, the cost of living, proximity to employers and housing costs. Most are in the South and most -- coincidentally or not -- have black mayors.

As I've discussed before, I think the unique character of Bay Area culture is dying. The latest casualty is the Castro. I suspect the neighborhood will be reduced to a tourist theme, much like Chinatown or Fisherman's Wharf.

A nice article at Sojourners by Rose Marie Berger focusing on the religious inspiration for King's stand, and assigning significance of the speech to the current conflict in Iraq. My parents remember their own frustration with leaders like King and Cesar Chavez (who when asked his position on the war early on responded that he and Mexican Americans were as patriotic as anyone else - not only selling his anti-war allies out, but also a bit disingenuous as he personally did oppose the war as he would later state) who were very slow to voice their opposition to the war.

On April 4, 1967, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave one of the most important speeches in American history at Riverside Church in New York City. In it he decisively and prophetically extended his public ministry beyond narrowly defined civil rights by calling for an end to the U.S. war in Vietnam. "'A time comes when silence is betrayal,'" preached King. "That time has come for us in relation to Vietnam."

The Riverside speech (variously called "Beyond Vietnam" or "Breaking the Silence") names the sickness eating the American soul as "the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism." It was a watershed moment in American history. A year later – to the day – Dr. King was assassinated.

King's address was drafted for him by his friend, and historian, Dr. Vincent G. Harding. King made minor changes, but essentially he delivered Harding's original text. "I think it's important to know that for about as long as the war was going on Martin was raising questions about it," Harding, a retired professor at the Iliff School of Theology in Denver, said in a recent interview. Harding and his wife Rosemarie often attended Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta when King was preaching. "It was clear that Martin was opposing the war," Harding explained, "and that he was opposing it from a deeply Christian perspective."

Stokely Carmichael had been pressuring King to take a public stand. King called him the night before to inform him of his intentions, and Carmichael promised to attend. The alternative title suggests that King was self-conscious for the same reason some of his supporters were frustrated. By this time the carnage in Vietnam was in full swing, and silence seemed an exercise in hypocrisy. Of course some of his more conservative supporters, Andrew Young among them, slammed him for "indulging his conscience" at the expense of the Civil Rights Movement. Obviously these voices had Chavez' ear. But once King "broke the silence," war opposition became acceptable within the mainstream.

Despite the impact, or because of it, Dr. King was criticized, even attacked, by the national media. King hit back.

"Oh the press would applaud when I said be nonviolent towards George Wallace. The press would applaud when I said be nonviolent towards Bull Conner. There is something strangely inconsistent about a nation and a press who would praise you for saying be nonviolent to Bull Conner, but would curse and damn you for saying be nonviolent to little brown Vietnamese children. There is something wrong with that press!"

If his days weren't numbered at that point, the die was probably cast the moment he decided to enter the realm of class politics with the garbage workers strike. The point is not lost on Berger.

In his reflection "Breaking the Silence of Despair" theologian Bill Wylie-Kellermann writes: "In Christian theology it is often asked, 'Why did Jesus die?' but seldom wondered, 'Why was Jesus killed?' If we ask that of Dr. King, the answer would have to pass through his public opposition to the war in Vietnam. It would need to be traced in part to his speech at Riverside Church, forty year ago this holy week, exactly one year before his death."

From Wikipedia:

Easter, the Sunday of the Resurrection, Pascha, or Resurrection Day, is the most important religious feast of the Christian liturgical year, observed at some point between late March and late April each year (early April to early May in Eastern Christianity). It celebrates the resurrection of Jesus, which his followers believe occurred on the third day (counting inclusively) after his death by crucifixion some time in the period AD 27 to 33 (see Good Friday). This year it will fall on April 8, 2007.

Of course, around these parts you can't discuss Easter without somebody noting the "pagan origins" of the holiday - particularly the bunny/egg traditions. It's true to some degree, but it's not quite what some self-described pagans make it out to be.

Decorated Easter eggs are much older than Easter, and both eggs and rabbits are age-old fertility symbols. The Passover Seder service uses a hard-cooked egg flavored with salt water as a symbol both of new life and the Temple service in Jerusalem. The Jewish tradition may have come from earlier Roman Spring feasts. The ancient Persians also painted eggs for Nowrooz, their New Year celebration falling on the Spring Equinox. This tradition has continued every year on Nowrooz since ancient times.

Easter egg origin stories abound—one has an emperor claiming that the Resurrection was as likely as eggs turning red (see Mary Magdalene)^{[citation needed]}; more prosaically the Easter egg tradition may have celebrated the end of the privations of Lent. In the West, eggs were forbidden during Lent as well as other traditional fast days. Likewise, in Eastern Christianity, both meat and dairy are prohibited during the fast, and eggs are seen as "dairy" (a foodstuff that could be taken from an animal without shedding its blood).

Another Orthodox tradition is the presenting of red colored eggs to friends while giving Easter greetings. This custom had its beginning with Mary Magdalene. After the Ascension of Christ, she supposedly went to the Emperor of Rome and greeted him with "Christ is risen", as she gave him a red egg.^{[citation needed]} She then began preaching Christianity to him. The egg is symbolic of the grave and life renewed by breaking out of it. The red symbolizes the blood of Christ redeeming the world, represented by the egg, and our regeneration through the bloodshed for us by Christ. The egg itself is a symbol of the Resurrection while being dormant it contains a new life sealed within it.

As I raised in an atheist family with some Catholic influence, I knew nothing of God until I was about 6 years old, and I think I first heard about Jesus Christ when my uncle died and a painting of Christ was depicted on the funeral leaflet. I had no idea what the meaning of Easter was other than chocolate bunnies and marshmallow chicks until I was several years older. At about age 10 I had an epiphany that the egg hunting ritual was related to the resurrection in that we were symbolically searching for Jesus having found the tomb empty. I was never quite sure where the bunny fit in.

In any case, the kids are asleep and the Easter Bunny has to hide the eggs soon. Was anybody told as a kid that if you didn't wear something new for Easter that you'd be eaten by crows?

I heard from good sources today that the parties to the ROR conflict were in negotiation for four hours last night and were "very close" to a settlement.

Any word?

Addendum: Okay, it's in the Times-Standard.

Second Addendum: Other than Bob's, there hasn't been much coverage of the conflict by other blogs over the months. But Richard Marks and his wife attended Thursday night's festivities, and chimes in.

Third Addendum: Carol (of Nohum) has also posted on topic.

I'm out of town for one day and Armageddon breaks out. Consider this the open thread for last night's planning commission meeting, reported in great detail on Bob's blog.

For the first time, I have to say that I'm ashamed for Southern Humboldt. And my shame isn't limited to either side.

But for the wide ranging impact on local services and nonprofits who do good work, I'd be cheering for the event's demise. I mean it. Fortunately for all, the planning commission for all its indignation is like most other committees when it comes to actually making a tough decision. Sohum dodged a bullet.

I'm going to go hug my sleeping kids.

The Eureka Reporter has the story.

The alleged victim is 16 years old. There are 19 counts.

Jeffrey Schwartz is prosecuting.

Schwartz said the case was brought to light after an adult caught Garza and the alleged victim having some sort of sexual relations; after the alleged victim’s mother was told by the adult; after the alleged victim confirmed the acts; and after the alleged victim’s mother reported Garza to authorities.

Obviously there will also be a petition to revoke probation re the previous conviction.

Other than the Public Eye pages, this new site is the only overtly left wing source I'm aware of dedicated to debunking some of the conspiracy theories hampering the peace movement.

The intro paragraph:

The awful events of 9/11/01 in the USA have had a deep and pernicious effect on the body politic in the US, and elsewhere, especially the UK. We oppose the calamitous invasions of Iraq, Afghanistan & the ongoing 'War on Terror' from an anti-imperialist (and anti-capitalist) position. Be that as it may, our remit here is not specifically those matters--many activists are already on the case internationally, and we commend them for that. Our efforts are complementary, not competitive.

Five years on the '9/11 Truth cult' (our term) is growing in the UK, a development that troubles us. Not because we dislike uncomfortable questions being asked of the powerful. On the contrary, we at Notes From the Borderland (NFB) magazine have been doing cutting edge parapolitical research since 1997, and individually before that. Our record of evidence-based research into covert state/ruling class activity plus an expertise in fringe politics qualifies us, we feel, to sound the alarm now. Those interested can peruse our sister-site www.borderland.co.uk, which outlines NFB research themes, methods and publications available. Precisely because we are committed to rigorous analytical research and related political intervention NFB is speaking out. Below, the 'issues' we have with the UK '9/11 Truth Movement' are summarised. Constructive feedback welcome. If you scroll down past that, we explain the various features on the site and how to use it in summary outline. Enjoy!!

I heard bits and pieces of the KMUD news tonight. I don't think I'm going to be able to listen to it tomorrow either. However, Tom did send a letter out which is posted on Bob's blog. The meat of the statement is in the third paragraph:

Over the past several months, PP and Dimmick Ranch have made a number of generous offers to the MCC, aimed at providing the MCC with the income stream it seeks while retaining the community benefits and financial viability of the event. Most recently, the Dimmick Ranch offered $10 per head on the total capacity granted by the county for each of the remaining nine years on the permit and $300,000 over nine years for the equipment and infrastructure on the site. The capacity range should be 12,900 to 16,900, pending the annual ruling of the planning commission. I believe this offer is eminently fair and could provide upwards of $200,000 in annual income to the MCC. It effectively replaces (or improves) the income stream the MCC enjoyed in the past, while reducing the business risk the MCC had been bearing.

So at last we have an offer not cloaked in secrecy (I have heard conflicting accounts of which party demanded the secrecy). It's a start, and the first time we have something with which to compare with the material terms of the 2B1 contract. Obviously Dimmick Ranch cannot match 2B1's offer, and the Mateel concern is that the concert will be run into the ground over the next few years (The Mateel Board is not convinced that the income shortfalls of the past two years are accounted for by the move) and so spreading anything over a decade will leave them high and dry. Moreover, they already have a contract with 2B1 which makes any settlement at this point problematic. The pro-People Productions side doesn't believe that 2B1 can deliver what it's promising and emphatically believes that the shortfalls of the past two years are anomalous and related to the move.

I have heard that the sheriff's report to be read tomorrow night is less than stellar. It would probably be in everybody's interest to show up to the meeting with a united front, but it doesn't look like that's in the cards. The Planning Commission has had time to absorb the events of the last meeting and somebody is bound to make some sort of motion sometime if the squabbling doesn't stop.

So we have tomorrow night's planning department meeting, Monday's court hearing, and the next Mateel Board meeting on April 17. That's all I have, other than some rumors of another development that I can't confirm at the moment.

Update: The Mateel response to the Dimmick statement is posted at Bob's blog. It doesn't sound like there's a settlement in sight.

Heard an anecdote yesterday. Apparently, a local team in the young kids' basketball league had mostly girls with two or three boys. Although the coach was trying to teach the kids teamwork, the father of one of the boys offered the boy 5 dollars for each basket he made. This meant he had a disincentive to pass. The coach, a woman, pressed the kid to play with his team, but the father actually told the kid to ignore the coach's instruction (the coach was a woman).

The coach ended up grounding the kid often, not just as punishment, but after awhile the girls stopped passing to him. Needless to say, the team didn't win many games.

....

New Hampshire, of all places, may soon have civil unions, only the second state to do so without a court order.

....

Lawyers for Johnny Walker Lindh are asking for a reduction of his sentence. I've already had an eventful thread on him. Feel free to add more.

....

Another entry for the end-of-the-world signs department, a 7 month pregnant woman is to be accused of selling sex. Her husband was allegedly the pimp.

....

No news from the reggae war front. It's quiet. Too quiet.

Photo source.

You ought to be. From the Washington Post:

Gaza seen as Palestinian shame, banana republic

By Bernd Debusmann, Special Correspondent
Reuters
Sunday, April 1, 2007; 1:21 PM

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Factional fighting, political bickering and a failure to establish law and order have turned Gaza into a symbol of Palestinian shame and are pushing the Palestinian national movement toward collapse, according to prominent Palestinian intellectuals.

"What has come to pass in Gaza is embarrassing and shameful," said Rashid Khalidi, director of Columbia University's Middle East Institute and a widely respected author of books on Palestinian history.

"You may be seeing the collapse of the Palestinian national movement. It might take us back an entire generation," he said in an interview.

"There has been a failure of leadership and it is time that Palestinian leaders looked at their own weaknesses instead of blaming everything on Zionism, imperialism and other outside forces."

The article cites several Palestinian activists. Let's get the obligatory "it's all Israel's fault" posts out the way and then address the question of why groups like ANSWER are silent about the abuses of a banana republic.

From the Redwood Times:

February was a short but a good month for the Phelps Hospital and clinic. Inpatient volumes were up for the month, as were Emergency Room visits, according to the financial report prepared by Loechl. For the month, there were 293 inpatient “days” as opposed to 257 last February.

If we could just bring into the community a few more strains of flu each year, maybe we wouldn't need the parcel tax! It's now your civic duty to forgo exercise, drink like a fish, and eat lots of crap.

Has anybody made any projections based on a rapidly aging community?

In the Mendo DA race, with 47% of the vote, Meredith Lintott is in first place. Keith Faulder got 39 percent. Bert Schlosser came in third with 13.4 percent. Had Schlosser not run, would Faulder be in the driver's seat? No way of knowing, but why do progressives always do this to themselves?

I believe that Faulder has previously stated that he wouldn't file suit for a run-off election.

In any case, Lintott was probably the winner last fall even before Vroman died. She wouldn't have been my first choice, but the politics in Mendocino aren't quite as bitter as in Humboldt. And Lintott is no Susan Massini.

Arkley to James Faulkner (cc'ed anyway):

”I doubt if James wants facts. I suspect that your comments will be buried at the bottom of the story, far beneath the headlines. We have put them on a path towards the truth, but determining it would take journalistic work and a desire to find the truth.”

(Read: James is a commie pinko SOB who wants to run our project and our company into the ground because, well, he's a commie pinko SOB.)

It was Pilate who asked Jesus, "what is truth?" - just before putting him to death.

It's apparently based on an urban legend (full explanation here), but as discussed in a thread below, the essence of Jewish spirituality (and some other traditions) is not whether a story is true in fact but whether it represents a deeper truth. And given the importance of symbolism in Judaism, it does seem unlikely that a devout Jewish practitioner would make the mistake of opening the issue up to symbolism so obvious.

But over the years, the legend changed. The story began to be told about a Jewish feminist who was speaking in Florida. She was "upbraided" by a man who said that women rabbis had as much of a role in Judaism as an orange on the seder plate. The tale is also told that the man said, "women had as much place on the bimah as oranges on the seder plate. " Somewhere along the line, the "Jewish feminist" was named as Susannah Heschel but she denies either changing the symbolism from bread to orange nor of having been the feminist who had this experience in Florida.

The Seder plate traditionally incorporates austere ingredients to symbolize the suffering memorialized by the Seder, so the orange sets up a contrast that would probably not sit well with, well, the people who would feel the same way about a woman on the bimah. Even less you'd think would they appreciate spongecake on the plate.

So "real" or not, the practice has become common in Jewish Renewal and Reform practices, and integrated into their Haggadah (I believe there is no difference in form between the singular and plural, but feel free to correct me). And even within the new tradition there is conflict, as described in the blog Jewesses with Attitude:

We’ll never know exactly where it was that the oral transmission of the story substituted concern about lesbians for the transformative but less transgressive presence of women rabbis. But clearly, most people felt more comfortable with oranges and women rabbis, than with bread and lesbians at Passover. As the true origin of the story has resurfaced in recent years, some haggadahs have begun to acknowledge that gay/lesbian inclusion is also a part of the orange’s symbolism; many others do not.

There ought to be a special holiday to commemorate the importance of arguing in Jewish culture. It's practically the equivalent of a sacrament.

There was a dialogue in one of the Star Trek series where two characters are debating whether Davy Crockett really died fighting at the Alamo or was captured and executed. The Klingon character (I think "Warf" was his name, or was it "Quark"?) interrupts with disdain exclaiming "it does not matter whether Davy Crockett's legend is true. What matters is whether you believe in the legend of Davy Crockett!" One of the other characters shrugs and says, "well, I guess that settles that."

The same is true of Exodus, the oranges, and a hundred other legends invoked in spiritual and cultural tradition. Whether they happened is almost irrelevant. The power is in the story itself.

My sermon is concluded.

It is seriously over-the-top. But criminal charges?

Can't the punishment be left to the school and parents? If the parents won't take action, then maybe bring in the Department of Family Services.

But criminal charges?

....

And in another end-of-the-world sign, Keith Richards snorted his father.

....

No cell phones on airplanes.

I'm getting some dinner now.

I don't have time to comment, but this is really bizarre. The story is at Daily Kos.

Under rules posted last week, these federal scientists must obtain agency pre-approval to speak or write, whether on or off-duty, concerning any scientific topic deemed "of official interest."

Shades of Lysenko.

This press release reads very optimistically, announcing a new organization with new blood. And this:

The Great and Wonderfully Marvelous 39th Annual Kinetic Grand Championship will begin at noon May 26, 2007 with the whistle on Arcata Plaza. Kinetinauts lap the plaza three times and spinout of town on bottoms roads to Manila, where they cross the dunes and go down the strand to Dead Man's Drop a steep and challenging sand hill where out of control vegetation threatens to eat machines and the man eating mosquitoes happily feast on the remainder. Survivors cross the bridge to Eureka where a huge welcoming committee cheers them on at the end of day one. Day two features the Bay Crossing where vehicles and kinetinauts test their mettle against wave, tide and man eating clams, followed by a romp to Table Bluff Hill and a well earned night's rest at a campground along the Eel River. Day three, they cross the Eel River, amuse the cows on Ferndale bottoms roads and enter Main Street Ferndale covered in mud, well earned sense of accomplishment and a giant smile. The awards Ceremony is held after a supper at a Ferndale venue.

Thousands of people flock to Ferndale for the annual finish line which is the intersection of Main and Brown Streets. A festive atmosphere covers all of Humboldt for all three days and hundreds of thousands of dollars are generated for all segments of the local economy.

And they announce the details of the Rutabaga Ball as well. Hopefully this good news based on sound projections, otherwise 2007 will go down as the year of the phantom festivals of Humboldt County.

I'll put them here for anyone who wants to read and/or discuss them. But as I said, I don't want them dominating discussions of Passover.

Addendum: I'm sure they brought it on themselves by supporting Israel.

Second Addendum: Meanwhile, one of the 2008 presidential race front-runners just hired as co-chair for his campaign a man whose prior job was to investigate a "Jewish Cabal" to indulge the anti-semitic paranoia of the US president of the time.

A summary explanation of Passover, the most important of Jewish holidays, at Judaism 101. The introduction:

Of all the Jewish holidays, Pesach is the one most commonly observed, even by otherwise non-observant Jews. According to the 1990 National Jewish Population Survey (NJPS), more than 80% of Jews have attended a Pesach seder.

Pesach begins on the 15th day of the Jewish month of Nissan. It is the first of the three major festivals with both historical and agricultural significance (the other two are Shavu'ot and Sukkot). Agriculturally, it represents the beginning of the harvest season in Israel, but little attention is paid to this aspect of the holiday. The primary observances of Pesach are related to the Exodus from Egypt after generations of slavery. This story is told in Exodus, Ch. 1-15. Many of the Pesach observances are instituted in Chs. 12-15.

The name "Pesach" (PAY-sahch, with a "ch" as in the Scottich "loch") comes from the Hebrew root Peh-Samech-Chet Peh-Samech-Chet (in Hebrew)" height="16" width="24">, meaning to pass through, to pass over, to exempt or to spare. It refers to the fact that G-d "passed over" the houses of the Jews when he was slaying the firstborn of Egypt. In English, the holiday is known as Passover. "Pesach" is also the name of the sacrificial offering (a lamb) that was made in the Temple on this holiday. The holiday is also referred to as Chag he-Aviv Chag he-Aviv (in Hebrew)" height="16" width="55">, (the Spring Festival), Chag ha-Matzot Chag ha-Matzot (in Hebrew)" height="16" width="55">, (the Festival of Matzahs), and Z'man Cheiruteinu Z'man Cheiruteinu (in Hebrew)" height="16" width="64">, (the Time of Our Freedom) (again, all with those Scottish "ch"s).

It may be associated with the harvest in Israel, but in Europe it was more associated with the planting. Like Easter and most other spring holidays, Passover is about the renewal of hope and rebirth. Unfortunately, throughout European history, Jews have been forced to associate Easter with pogroms from Christians blaming Jews for the killing of Jesus Christ. But justice is the central theme of the holiday, and even in mainstream Judaism Passover carries political overtones. It probably has something to do with the fact that Passover is celebrated even by many secular Jews. Although it's probably evolved, some form of Passover has been practiced for thousands of years, and when you consider that the culture has remained intact despite its members having been scattered all over the globe for two-thousand years you have to be in awe.

And contrary to some of the posts made on this blog, social justice is central to Jewish culture and spirituality. Here are a few of the organizations which I think even some of the hardened sectarian leftists here will have to appreciate.

Jews for Racial and Economic Justice

Rabbis for Human Rights

The Shalom Center

Plenty more where they came from. It doesn't take much digging to find that Jews have been at the center of left politics for the past couple of centuries, including the abolitionist movement, labor/socialist movement, women's movement, civil rights movement (almost of of the whites killed during the civil rights movement were Jewish), anti-war movement, and so on. Jews represent about 2 percent of the population of the United States, but if there's a peace demonstration in a major city in which less than a fourth are Jewish it's probably an anomaly. Of course, in 2006 Jews voted for senate Democrats about 9 to 1, approximately the same ratio as African Americans.

And I think it has a great deal to do with the themes of Exodus and the tradition of Passover, because every year the commitment of the culture to justice is hammered into them. I'm not a Biblical scholar by any means, and I'm not particularly religious, but the power of the Exodus story has had profound impacts all over. White ministers of the old south lamented that so many black spirituals focused on Exodus rather than the Gospels. Can't imagine why.

More tomorrow.

Oh, and I'm not going to tolerate anti-semitism in threads about Passover. I'm allowing for screeds about Judaism being a "cult" or whatever in other threads. Leave the Passover threads alone please.

The KMUD news tonight discussed the loss of about 30 grand in medical services to concert attendees requiring treatment which go uncompensated. The Mateel Community Center is offering to sell water at the event and turn the proceeds over to the hospital, but I doubt they can make 30 thousand on water. So far, according to the news, People Productions isn't returning phone calls on the issue.

So what do you think? Should Reggae on the River take responsibility for those losses to the hospital? Or is it the hospital's problem?

Socialized medicine aside, any ideas for solutions?

Correction!: I'm told that the 30 thousand was a figure for two years, not a single one. I'm also told that a comparison with biker weekend is not relevant as most of those attendees are insured - they're older and they're driving motorcycles. Lastly, I'm told that the Boots Hughston called Darryl Cherney on his own initiative to discuss the matter and reach an accommodation.

Another addendum: The point should also be made that the hospital is not making any demands. Also, Danny Scher reportedly did say that he was open to some sort of accommodation.

From the SF Bay Guardian:

By G.W. Schulz

From yesterday's Examiner:

"The show could be over at a Santa Rosa music store whose owner was jailed after she refused to turn out the lights. Lisa Reed remained in jail much of Friday on suspicion of stealing electricity from PG&E to power her store without paying. Reed, the owner of Epiphany Music and Recording, rewired the store to keep the lights on after PG&E took her off the grid for not paying her bills for a year, authorities alleged."

Is shit going that badly in the retail biz these days? On the other hand, stealing electricity is pretty punk rock.

Punk rock? I think it takes a little deliberation and planning - completely un-punk rock. New Wave maybe.

I actually thought of the growers when I read Invisible Man a few years back.

“My hole is warm and full of light. Yes, full of light. I doubt if there is a brighter spot in all New York than this hole of mine, and I do not exclude Broadway. Or the Empire State Building on a photographer's dream night.... And I love light. Perhaps you'll think it strange that an invisible man loves light. But maybe it is exactly because I am invisible. Light confirms my reality, gives birth to my form.... That is why I fight my battle with Monopolated Light and Power. The deeper reason I mean. I also fight them for taking so much of my money before I learned how to protect myself. In my hole in the basement there are exactly 1,369 lights. And not with fluorescent bulbs, but with the older, more-expensive-to-operate kind, the filament type. An act of sabotage you know. I've already begun to wire the wall. A junk man I know, a man of vision, has supplied me with wire and sockets. Nothing, storm or flood, must get in the way of our need for light. The truth is the light and the light is the truth."

Only, the growers aren't invisible, much as some of them would like to be.

Today's Times Standard contains an op-ed piece on the proposed hospital parcel tax, written by Dana Habek. She raises all of the pertinent issues, the key point being that if the hospital closes, the ambulance may not deliver people for urgent care. Anybody needing emergency assistance will have to hang on until Fortuna, or perhaps Eureka.

Darrel Cherney will speak in favor of the tax on my next radio show, which is Thursday April 19 at 7:00 p.m. If anybody would like to join us in opposition to the proposal please contact me. So far I have no takers.

....

Meanwhile, the Mateel Community Center will host a hospital fundraiser ball next Saturday. This is not a fundraiser for the Measure Z campaign. From the Mateel website:

Show: The 1st annual hospital & clinic ball

Date: 04/07/07

Where: Mateel Community Center

Price: donation @ door

Details: The Jerold Phelps Community Healthcare Foundation presents the first annual Hospital Ball at the Mateel Community Center on Saturday, April 7 in Redway. Dance your brains out to the passionate rhythms and conscious words of Bunnysmoke Records recording artist, The Marjo Wilson Band. Food, wine and beer start at 6:30 pm with dinner music provided by staff of the hospital, featuring Chris Hendrix, RN on Sitar, Karl Verrick, RN doing Balinese Music, Billy Bachman, RN and Friends string trio, Jan T, RN on folk guitar and The Springfield Horn Trio with Mike Thompson of the Governing Board. The MC is the newest governing board member: Darryl Cherney. The Boogie with the Marjo Wilson Band starts at 8 pm. All Hospital, Clinic, and Resource Center Staff are treated to dinner to show appreciation their hard work. Come meet the people who keep your hospital running. Volunteers needed for kitchen and clean-up. Call 223 3788 for information.

Anna Nicole Simpson died of a drug overdose! Apparently it was sleeping medication.

....

Meanwhile, Chris Rock is facing a love child scandal.

Chris Rock recently said in an interview that his biggest fear was a woman from his past showing up and saying: "This is your baby!"

Apparently, that's now happened!

Court papers have been filed and his alleged ex-girlfriend is challenging him to "take the damn DNA test." The child is 13 years old.

....

Also, Bruce Willis really knows how to party! He's 52 years old.

Photo source the National Enquirer

The latest issue of Tikkun contains both an article by David Griffith an Lerner's editorial response. A few weeks ago on the CLMP show on KMUD Michael DeLeon announced that he's an "agnostic" on the conspiracy theories. Apparently Lerner is as well.

Some highlights:

(In the March/April 2007 issue of Tikkun we published an article by David Ray Griffin—which many of you have already read—that revealed the inconsistencies in the official 9/11 report, raising disturbing questions about the Bush administration’s possible involvement. We didn’t have space to print our Tikkun response and critique there, so we are doing it here. Click here for a full version of David Ray Griffin's article.)

I would not be surprised to learn that some branch of our government conspired either actively to promote or passively to allow the attack on 9/11. For those who watched this tragedy used for reactionary political ends, it’s easy to conjure up a variety of possible conspiratorial motives that would have led the president, the vice president, or some branch of the armed forces or CIA or FBI or other “security” forces to have passively or actively participated in a plot to re-credit militarism and war, which had been losing their appeal after the collapse of communism. We’ve learned enough about the subsequent ways that the Bush administration lied to the American public to no longer be shocked if they had been some active involvement by them in these deeds. But saying that I would not be surprised is NOT saying, “I believe that this is what happened.” I don’t personally believe it.

I am an agnostic on the question of what happened on 9/11. I’m convinced that there are huge holes in the official account and contradictions that suggest that we do not know the whole story.

Nor did Tikkun publish Griffin’s account because we believe it, any more than we published Jorge Ferrer’s call for polyamory in the last issue because we support polyamory. I could go through every issue and point to articles that most of us disagree with. We choose our articles because they present cutting-edge analyses of the world that are aimed, directly or indirectly, at developing the consciousness of people that could become part of a movement to heal our society and our planet—not because we necessarily agree with them. If you want our perspective, read our editorials. But our perspective is not always (in fact, if we are talking about my personal perspective, almost never) reflected in the articles we print.

So why am I responding to this one? Because a Jewish magazine that has had a long history of ignoring, trashing or distorting what Tikkun and I stand for has done it again with a headline suggesting that I’m now on board with the conspiracy theorists. Nothing could be further from the truth.

....

I am not, however, a fan of a politics that concentrates on conspiracy theories, even when there are real conspiracies. At one point in my life I thought that real conspiracies were a left-wing fantasy, and that sophisticated Marxists and other social theorists would not have reason to want to acknowledge the existence of such conspiracies against the Left or against anyone else. But in 1970, I was one of the “Seattle Seven” indicted in a federal trial for “conspiracy and using the facilities of interstate commerce with the intent of inciting to riot,” because of a demonstration I had organized to oppose the Vietnam war and support black liberation, a demonstration which turned violent after police attacked the demonstrators. I soon learned that my organization, the Seattle Liberation Front, was totally infiltrated by police agents. Indeed, many of those most vociferous in denouncing me and other leaders for being “too timid” at the time we were planning the demonstration were actually paid FBI informants or members of various law enforcement agencies. When one such agent changed his mind and began to reveal his story of having been solicited by the FBI to try to engage us in violence that would have led to some of us being killed, I understood that conspiracies do sometimes happen—and are paid for by the U.S. government.

But I also learned another lesson at the time: it doesn’t always help to build a movement that focuses on governmental conspiracies. That focus leads people to believe that the major problems we face are those generated by evil people in powerful positions, not on something more systemic.

That's the gist. And as I've said in previous posts, I pretty much agree. In fact, I think the "911 truth movement" has become something of a cult - the left's own virtual pyramid scheme. And not only is it destroying the peace movement, but more to the point it's generating some rather unscientific stupidity.

So how many people who have read more than one book on 911 have even bothered to read the one book which offers an alternative view? Yeah, I know, the second cousin once removed of the editor of Popular Mechanics once sold donuts to the CIA or whatever.

Carry on.