Billy’s Story
By a long-term Resident of a California State Prison. There are times in the span of a life that stand out. Those shining golden times which immortalize the moment and speak promises of still greater...
View ArticleLetters To The Editor
NSA INC. Dear Editor: Edward Snowden, who deserves a medal for exposing NSA’s big brother surveillance on American citizens, is discovering the life of a whistleblower can be a very unpleasant life. In...
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Mendocino County Today: August 1, 2013
SUPES REJECT COSTCO-AT-MASONITE PROPOSAL. Supervisor Pinches was unable to find a second to his motion to invite the present Ohio-based owners of the 79-acre Masonite property north of Ukiah “to...
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Mendocino County Today: August 2, 2013
THE LATEST FROM THE WILLITS BYPASS PROTESTS. Ripper Restrained from Destroying Hillside at Caltrans Bypass Site In yet another stealthy pre-dawn action, protesters against the Caltrans bypass around...
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Mendocino County Today: August 3, 2013
A SCREAM IN THE NIGHT. A man doing a night time owl survey for the Mendocino Land Trust near the tracks on the Willits end of the Skunk line back on May 31st heard what he described as “incoherent...
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Mendocino County Today: August 4th, 2013
DUCK AND COVER When the bomb drops, Admiral A.G. Cook, civil defense director, suggests San Franciscans lie down with the lions. The lion house at Fleishhacker Zoo is one of 59 public fallout shelters...
View ArticleMendocino County Today: August 5, 2013
ORIGINALLY SCHEDULED for August 5th, Will Parrish’s trial is now slated for Monday, September 16th at 9am at the Mendocino County Courthouse. Will is being charged with 12 counts of Unlawful Entry, two...
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Mendocino County Today: August 6, 2013
REVISITING BASSLER Dear AVA, A few months ago, I read Allman and Spark’s hastily written how-to on catching a mentally ill killer, who also happened to be an excellent tracker and survivalist...
View ArticleBlue Meadow Farm
Blue Meadow Farm gets its name from the blue-eyed grass that cast a lovely blue sheen over the meadow which became our farm field. Sunflowers and zinnias grow there now, among an acre of organic...
View ArticleThe Many Species Of Chinook Salmon
Salmon are one of nature’s miracles, a resource of protein and nitrogen that feeds entire ecosystems, both marine and terrestrial. Far inland, within river basins of the Pacific Northwest, their...
View ArticleOh, That Old Gang Of Mine
There are pot cases and there are pot cases, and here at ground zero Pot County we see them all, great and small. This one is big, as in big personalities, and its roots go back some.Subscribe now to...
View ArticleValley People
HIS MANY PHILO friends will be sorry to hear that Robert “Bob” Johnson has died. Bob, 53, had valiantly fought the liver cancer that finally carried him off last Monday in Fort Bragg. He leaves behind...
View ArticleSee The Man With Stage Fright
How did I get into this? That’s the inevitable question of concert day, one that has been gnawing at the performer’s nerves through the preceding night, perhaps for days before. You’ve practiced for...
View ArticleChester On The Edge
Traveling by train to Philadelphia, going North, you will pass by Chester, Pennsylvania, a city that has been in decline for more than half a century. Founded in 1682, the same year as Philadelphia,...
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Mendocino County Today: August 7, 2013
Chamberlin, then and recently JOHN CHAMBERLIN’S MEMORIAL PARTY will be Saturday, August 31, at the Greenwood Community Center in Elk, from 3 to 11 pm. Pot luck and bring your own drinks. Music by...
View ArticleNeighbors
In recent weeks, my thoughts have turned to neighbors. During our years in Anderson Valley, from the late 1950s to the late 1980s, the Newman family was — with perhaps one exception — blessed with good...
View ArticleThe ‘High Cost’&‘ High Risk’ Of Rail
A draft feasibility study prepared for the county’s Harbor District has identified several challenges to railroad development and deemed it to be a “high cost and high risk” venture. Authored by the...
View ArticleObesity & Love
“Your life is the fruit of your own doing.” — Joseph Campbell Sitting on the sun-drenched beach on this first day of August, writing in my Strathmore sketchbook, the waves setting up nicely for the...
View ArticleRiver Views
This week marks the anniversary of the start of Operation Prairie, a series of battles fought between U.S. Marines and the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) in the northern provinces of what was then South...
View ArticleLeadership
A few months ago my older son came to visit me in Ukiah en route from Oregon (where he had been living for several years) to southern California, where his younger brother lives, and where he has since...
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