Off the Record (Feb 11, 2015)
WILLITS AND UKIAH emerged mostly unscathed from the big winds and rains of last weekend, suffering no power outages inside their city limits. Ukiah, incidentally, is civic proof that municipalities can...
View ArticleA Question of Believability
For pure verve there’s nothing quite like calling a well-known cop a liar, especially a cop you know, a cop you've worked with when you were a prosecutor, a cop you often see in the small world of the...
View ArticleBird’s Eye View (Feb 11, 2015)
So we are already at Valentine’s Day and yet the year seems as if it began yesterday. In fact, some folks are still wishing me a Happy New Year! Valentine’s is of course a day to express love and...
View ArticleMowing
A friend called last week to ask if I was aware of the recent carnage wreaked on the Mendocino headlands from Ford House down to the land above Portuguese Beach. She said giant bulldozer mowers had...
View ArticleMendocino County Today: Wed Feb 11(&10), 2015
Highway Open; Ukiah Power; Collapse Mum; Real Newspapers; Rude Supes; Child Exchange; Trust NBC; Massey Interview; Living Space; Catch of the Days; Strange Lights; Don Clausen; City Council Report;...
View ArticleMendocino Talking: Albert Krauss
You may recognize Albert’s name from the Ukiah Daily Journal’s letters to the editor page that he frequents. Gadfly? Curmudgeon? Sounds about right…
View ArticleValley People (Feb 11, 2015)
EVERYONE in The Valley has a storm story, ranging from mysterious blue flame racing along power lines between Boonville and the high school, to the big winds throwing fifty pound deck furniture far...
View ArticleSailing the Cowpie to San Francisco (1970)
One of the more interesting women I met anchored out was Diane Allen from Memphis, Tennessee. I was enchanted by her southern accent, and I couldn’t resist her dimpled smile. She taught classes on how...
View ArticleLetters (Feb 11, 2015)
This letter is to officially ask those of you who farm at night to cease creating noise that keeps your neighbors, including schoolchildren and other farmers, awake between the hours of 10 PM and 7 AM....
View ArticleBuilding Solariums
The barometric pressure is falling on a Sunday afternoon. I can feel it in my bones as I gaze out the window at the evergreen holly branches dancing in the breeze. The skies darken. I've been studying...
View ArticleThe Stony Lonesome: A Boonville Adventure
Politics. So much fun, right? Not so much, maybe. Confusing and scary, more like. But there I was making my first foray into the political wilderness since 1968 in my landslide victory in the...
View ArticleMental Health Facility, Not Homeless Shelter
After reading Troy King's offering in the first AVA of February, this writer feels compelled to respond to some of the points of misconception raised by Mr. King. The opening line of Troy King's piece...
View ArticleThe Unbearable Lightness of Superbowl Music
A late-imperial malaise hung in the air over Glendale, Arizona on SuperBowl Sunday. It could not be chased away by all the bright artificial lights that shone down on the lip-syncing roster of mediocre...
View ArticleAwards For Yourself
(1984) Were there ever members of any profession so keen on giving each other prizes as journalists? From the rising of the sun in the morning until its going down at night they keep at it, ladling out...
View ArticleHumCo Gauges Effects of New Public Safety Laws
The jail population impacts of public safety realignment have been offset by the voter-approved Proposition 47 but Humboldt County officials aren’t sure that the new law will ultimately reduce inmate...
View ArticleVisiting Phil in County Lock-up
The Santa Barbara morning fog was just burning off the coast as I pulled into the county’s Psychiatric Unit Facility (“puff”) to visit my brother, Phil. A sign on the locked front entrance re-directed...
View ArticleMendocino County Today: Thursday, Feb 12, 2015
Citizen's Arrest in Potter Valley; PUC Peevey Party; Catch of the Day; Downed Trees; Pinoleville Confusion; Lynching Map; Hare Creek Appeal; Timber Baron; Bumperstickers; Water Polluters; Big Oil's...
View ArticleMarvin ‘Gus’ Weddle: June 11, 1922 — November 8, 2014
Maybe you’ve already heard this story, but bear with me while I repeat it for those of us who haven’t…and for those of us who might like hearing it again. Marvin didn’t get much from school, except a...
View ArticleDonnafugata
Margaret and I are planning a trip to Sicily. It is an itch that just would not go away. It is not out of curiosity about the Mafia or Sicilian cuisine. Nor is it from reading Homer or Cicero, arcane...
View ArticleSebastopol v. Winery
After the Sebastopol City Council heard from two-dozen residents on Feb. 3 -- all of whom spoke against the huge Dairyman Winery and Distillery proposed for Highway 12 -- it unanimously and vigorously...
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