Mendocino County Today: June 26, 2013
KNOW YOUR NEIGHBORS. Black Bird Farm is still mostly known locally as Highland Ranch, ancestral home of the late Charmian Blattner, the Redwood Empire’s longest-running print columnist. When Charmian...
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“I did not tell half of what I saw, for I knew I would not be believed” — Marco Polo, 1324 * * * Rain? In late June? Sure California sorely needs it, but the forecast did make the honchos at the 20th...
View ArticleRiver Views
We’re only a year removed from Matt Cain’s perfect game. Certainly legions of Giants fans would say this was the finest performance ever by a major league pitcher. Older aficionados with a sense of the...
View ArticleOff The Map
Memory is a curious thing. For me, pure memory (one without emotion) is like a photograph or moving picture, with a main element in crisp focus and peripheral elements out of focus – either slightly...
View ArticleImperial Pomp & Circumstance
No work of music has a greater lock on a single ritual than Edward Elgar’s Pomp & Circumstance March No. 1 does on American graduations. Cock an ear in the direction of high school and university...
View ArticlePostcard From The End Of America: Philadelphia
John is 46 but looks 20 years younger, with not a single white hair or whisker. His grungy style also suspends him in early adulthood. His mom was a registered nurse, then secretary at a garage. His...
View ArticlePass The Baloney, Please
On June 18th, in an opinion piece in the Santa Rosa Press Democrat, Congressman Jared Huffman heroically announced that “this week,” along with other House Democrats, he’d be taking the “SNAP...
View ArticleCounty Medical Examiner Recants. Again.
The Mendocino County medical examiner’s credibility was called into serious question and the Mendocino County public defender was put on the stand over the possible bungling of a murder case, in an...
View ArticleBird’s Eye View
Greetings one and all. If you are sitting comfortably then I shall begin. So where did that come from? I’m talking about the couple of days of very welcome showers we just experienced. After the driest...
View ArticleHendy Woods, The Next 50 Years
When hardware store owner and pioneer descendant Jack Clow was putting together the dedication event in 1963 for the newly created Hendy Woods State Park, it seems likely he would have been surprised...
View ArticleCukcoo’s Nest
Judging by Mark Scaramella’s front page article in the June 12th edition of the AVA, mental health issues are still an extremely hot topic in Mendocino County, leading me to believe that the Ukiah...
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Invite Me Next Time
Jerred Hernandez Reading the local papers, you’d think there were no more child molesters at large in the community, that they’d all been rounded up. But over the past few months, the courts have...
View ArticleNothing
“Your life is the fruit of your own doing.” — Joseph Campbell One of my favorite stories from Joseph Campbell is of a wise man introducing his young son to one of the great mysteries of life. They are...
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Mendocino County Today: June 27, 2013
JUST IN FROM THE GUV’S OFFICE: Press release from the governor’s office below: After years of struggle, the US Supreme Court today has made same-sex marriage a reality in California. In light of the...
View ArticleLetters To The Editor
BYPASS: A MAJOR DISSERVICE Editor, “Papa, I want to play!” The first time my daughter said those words during our drive it was easy to smile and let her know that Willits was just ahead, and that we...
View ArticleValley People
THE DREADS LANDED. The Sierra Nevada World Music Festival packs them in every year, and Mendocino County’s most happening venue, Boonville, radiated peace, love and good vibrations all weekend, as...
View ArticleOff The Record
WILLITS POLICE are investigating the death of Danny Lawrason, 77, found dead in his home on East San Francisco Avenue on Sunday June 16th. A press release from the police was ambiguous. It said that...
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Mendocino County Today: June 28, 2013
MENDOCINO COUNTY CLERK ready for same-sex marriages Mendocino County Clerk Sue Ranochak said Wednesday morning that she is fully prepared to issue marriage licenses to same sex couples in Mendocino...
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Mendocino County Today: June 29, 2013
AS A LONG-TIME RESIDENT of America’s intoxicants capitol, Mendocino County, where cannabis, wine grapes, wine, beer, methamphetamine, heroin, and pure delusion reign, local journalists who mount their...
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Mendocino County Today: June 30, 2013
TEN ACRES of dissipation or a political celebration? Dissipation seemed preponderant at San Francisco’s civic center Saturday but, as a child of the 1950s, I’m still adjusting to new realities. I do...
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