Organically-Fed Free-Range Pork from Adam and Paula

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From ADAM GASKA and PAULA MANALO
Mendocino Organics CSA

Yes, we are raising pigs again, if you didn’t notice. Selling directly to customers, our pigs will be ready in March. Quantities are limited, so reserve your whole or half pig now! A half pig is about 75 lb. cut and wrapped. Actual weight will vary.

Pricing: $7.00/lb cut and wrapped (smoking cost not included)

Berkshire Pigs
These black hogs with white areas on their feet, snout and tail are one of the oldest identifiable breeds. They were first documented in the English “shire of Berks” over 350 years ago and are thought to have come to this country in 1823. Berkshires are friendly, good foragers, and known for their good taste.

Their meat is darker and more flavorful than commercial pork. Berkshires marble well so the meat is naturally quite juicy and tasty with great texture. Many chefs like the nice edge of light fat and marbling giving superior flavor throughout the meat. Because they are slower growing, don’t produce as much lean meat, and don’t perform well in confinement, Berkshires are not found in the consolidated pork industry.

Their Feed
What goes into the pigs ultimately goes into your body. Our pigs enjoy certified-organic grain from Sonoma County, acorns on the ranch, and vegetable waste from our garden. While organic feed is more expensive than its conventional counterpart, we buy it because it is good for the environment and to help drive demand for organics and a lower cost in the future. In addition to the fresh air and exercise, a balanced diet makes the Berkshires healthy and happy.

You can download our handy pamphlet with lots of info and an order form here Berkshire Pigs pamphlet 09 In the spirit of community supported agriculture, we ask that you please pay a $100 deposit per half pig you wish to reserve. Feel free to contact us with questions (707) 272.5477.
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Mushroom Workshop and Walk with mushroom expert Mark Albert – Sunday 12/6/09 at Noon in Redwood Valley

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From HELEN MENASIAN
Education Coordinator
Redwood Valley Outdoor Education Project

The Redwood Valley Outdoor Education Project will host a Fall Mushroom Workshop and Walk led by local mushroom expert Mark Albert on Sunday, December 6, from 10-12 noon. The public is invited to come learn about the essential role that fungi play in an oak woodland ecosystem and meet some of our local mushrooms. With the help of Dave Bengston another local mushroom authority, Mark will bring a wide variety of mushrooms to share. Participants will have the opportunity to explore the mixed woodlands at the RVOEP to see what mushrooms are up. Beginning mushroom enthusiasts and veterans should find this a stimulating morning.

The workshop is free, but donations will benefit the RVOEP.  The RVOEP is a community-supported project of the Ukiah Unified School District and provides outdoor environmental education programs to over 2000 students each year.  Pre-registration is not required. The RVOEP is located at 8301 Pinecrest Drive in Redwood Valley. Pinecrest Drive begins directly across from the Redwood Valley Elementary School.  Call 485-0690 or 485-1437 for further information.

If the weather is stormy on December 6, the workshop will be postponed until Sunday, December 13. Phone 485-0690 or 485-1437 Email: hmenasian@uusd.net.
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News and Cooking Tips from Mendocino Organics CSA

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From ADAM GASKA and PAULA MANALO
Mendocino Organics→

Thank you everyone for making a second winter CSA season possible. We hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving and that your bellies are ready for our winter vegetables. The veggies are ready for you!

We started off the planting season in July with the winter squash, also around the time that we harvested and cured the garlic. We are actually in the middle of planting next year’s garlic right now. Through August, we started other crops like kale, cabbage, carrots, beets, spinach, and much more. It was a little tough as CSA sign-ups lulled, and we depended on “off-farm” work to get the bills paid. But by mid-October, we had to start turning potential members away as we only had enough planted for 60 member households by that time. So, we hope you find your baskets bountiful throughout most of the season.

Some gophers munched a few cauliflower and cabbages before we caught them, but all in all, the crops that got planted and germinated have fared well. Our spring was very difficult due to Adam’s father’s health crisis, so we do not have many potatoes or any onions. However, there should be spring onions later in the season.

We are very excited to have peas, fava beans, and Brussels sprouts, new this year. And the overall soil has improved such that the brassicas are bigger and tastier. This past month, the weather has been cooperating by giving us just enough water to keep crops irrigated but also dry enough that we can continue with successional planting and cultivating.

State Not Developers Likely to Decide Fate of Downtown Ukiah

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From MIKE GENIELLA
Anderson Valley Advertiser

The economic viability of Ukiah’s historic downtown is going to be shaped not by warring development factions but by a pending state decision where to build a new Mendocino County Courthouse.

The state Department of Finance is expected to act by May.

The state is already moving ahead with new courthouse projects in Santa Rosa and Lakeport, expected to cost a combined $300 million or more as part of a statewide bond program.

But while smaller in scale, a new Ukiah courthouse is bound to have more dramatic effects given growing fears over the future of its historic retail hub. A string of freeway-oriented shopping centers, and on-going efforts to lure big-box retailers like Costco and Target, are hurting locally owned businesses.

Anti-development proponents celebrated the defeat last month of a ballot measure that Ohio-based developers had hoped would allow them to circumvent local planning review of a $700 million mall complex at the old Masonite mill site north of town. But they said little about the city of Ukiah’s efforts to buy up land in the Redwood Business Park south of town in a bid to lure big box-retailers there. Unexplained is how local merchants can continue to survive the onslaught.

Some city leaders envision downtown evolving into a specialty shopping hub along the lines of Healdsburg or Windsor in neighboring Sonoma County. But there have been few successes.

Go to complete article here→
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Image Credit: hotash
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Spencer Brewer urges shop local… as he closes his own store

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From K. C. MEADOWS
Ukiah Daily Journal

As the Christmas shopping season kicks off, one Ukiah business will begin a giant sale on Monday.

A going out of business sale.

Spencer Brewer, well-known local musician, is closing the Ukiah Music Center after six years selling pianos, guitars, amplifiers, guitar strings, music books, drums and every other kind of musical instrument or gizmo imaginable.

It was the largest music store in three counties and the only piano store between here and the Oregon border.

The economy certainly had a hand in the problems at UMC this year, but Brewer said he feels his situation also presents a cautionary tale about shopping locally.

“We’re going out of business in large part because of the Internet,” he said, “where they don’t pay sales taxes or freight.”

Competitors on the Internet, he said, can sell musical instruments cheaper than he can even stock them wholesale.

What is most aggravating, he continued, was that people would come into the Ukiah Music Center, ask about an instrument, get the store to give them the research and the brochures, and then buy their instrument or equipment on the Internet.

Local Mendocino Politics: Norman de Vall interviews Joe Wildman about Measure A and upcoming elections (Audio)

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From TOM DAVENPORT
Redwood Valley

In case you missed it, Norman de Vall’s interesting and informative interview show with Joe Wildman, on Norman’s KZYX Access Show, is available to download or listen online at: http://www.mmmab.net/NdV_Wildman_112709.mp3
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Mendocino Landscapes at Grace Hudson Museum

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From MARVIN SCHENCK
Curator, Grace Hudson Museum
November 21, 2009 – February 7, 2010

This exhibition presents the work of eight resident Mendocino County photographers who have had a long relationship with their subject. Each has found his or her unique vision of the area’s landscapes. The photographs span a wide range of processes and photographic heritage. Bill Brazill, frequently using a large format camera, creates film- based black and white images that are reminiscent of A. O. Carpenter’s documentary style. Robert Taylor works in the rich tradition of high contrast, modernist, black and white images, while Paul Kozal explores a softer approach reminiscent of California Pictorialism. Tom Liden, known for his bright color images, debuts enchanting sepia works featuring subtle patterns of light across quiet textured terrain. In the realm of color, Peter W. Stearns presents his lush views of rural panoramas. Rita Crane’s compositions offer detailed glimpses of poetic coastal and inland scenes. Jon Klein materializes masterful color visions of spectacular seascapes. Finally, Charlie Hochberg digitally captures the soft atmospheric moods of early morning in the inland valleys. All of the artists give caring, soulful renditions of what is through the viewfinder, their Mendocino landscapes.

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Drawing Marathon Saturday 11/14/09 – Art Center Ukiah

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Artists will work from 10 am Saturday till they just can’t go on! Public is invited to drop in any time during the marathon to cheer and support the artists while they work. View the drawing, painting, quilting, collage and more in progress.

Participating Artists

William Bacon ~ Oolah Boudreau-Taylor ~ Lisa Bregger ~ Josh Christensen ~ Tania Evans ~ Laura Fogg ~ Tom Johnson ~ Sandy Marshall ~ Nancy Horowitz ~ Elizabeth Raybee ~ Esther Siegel ~ Eva Strauss-Rosen ~ and more

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Dear Supporters of the Mendocino Art Center…

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From MARGARET PAUL

As you are probably aware, the Art Center is in crisis.  There are now new board officers and the following board members have resigned:  Brandt Stickel, Don McCullough, Dale Moyer, Cynthia Crocker Scott, and the wonderful Janis Porter.  The new officers of the BOD are:  Tom Becker, President and Treasurer, Richard Miller, 1st Vice President, Don Paglia, 2nd Vice President, and Leona Walden, Secretary, with Robert Burridge and Terry Lyon as members.

Of the six remaining board members, only one, maybe two, have seen the light and are not in support of the new executive director’s many ill-advised decisions.  This is an important juncture, because after the November 19th Board meeting, they won’t have another public meeting until the end of January. Important issues need resolution NOW!

If you are concerned and want to contact the MAC board of directors, here are their email addresses:

drrichardmiller@aol.com
pacrdg@mcn.org
dpaglia@mcn.org
rburridge@robertburridge.com
terrylyon@aol.com
tbecker@mcn.org

The Executive Director, Karen Ely’s email is:  director@mendocinoartcenter.org

Suggestion:  Consider ccing the board any emails sent to Ely.  Keeps everyone up to speed.

Let’s unify and save MAC.  We can do it!  Mark your calendars:  The next board meeting is November 19th at 2PM.  Hundreds of community members need to attend and voice their concerns.

Thanks!!!
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Lillian Brown Vogel at Mendocino Book Company Today Saturday 11/7 at 3 pm

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From ANN KILKENNY
Mendocino Book Company
Ukiah

Please join us in welcoming Lillian Brown Vogel to the Mendocino Book Co this Saturday, November 7 at 3 p.m. She will be sharing her life story and her secrets or rather explanation for her long life of a 100 years. Refreshments will be served and we would love to have a great crowd to celebrate this remarkable achievement.

Mendocino Book Co
102 S School Street
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Handpicked – The Apple Farm in Anderson Valley

 

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From the New York Times

Northern California breeds food pioneers: M. F. K. Fisher, Alice Waters, Alfred Peet, for starters. But to some, a pioneering spirit means finding the next frontier. Take Sally and Don Schmitt and their family. First they put the agricultural backwater of Yountville on the culinary map with their restaurant, the French Laundry. Then they left town and spun around farm-to-table in Philo.

Napa Valley might seem like the stuff of “Falcon Crest,” but it’s really farm country. It was much more so in the early ’70s, when Sally Schmitt’s cafe had the area’s only espresso machine and she cooked meals for the gatherings of Napa’s 13 vintners. The kitchen that was built for her mail-order chutney business was soon used to host theme dinners, with menus inspired by the Time-Life cooking series. After the couple took over a former French steam laundry, the meals evolved into one of the area’s first set-menu restaurants — a financially iffy move in a place where farmers loved their red-sauce Italian restaurants. On its opening night in 1978, the French Laundry served pasta with clam sauce, blanquette de veau, rice, asparagus, salad, cheese and rhubarb mousse for $12.50.

By the mid-’80s, the French Laundry had become a destination restaurant — and Napa a destination. But the family was eager to find the next fringe. They began fantasizing about life in the Anderson Valley, a hard-to-reach area in Mendocino County with its own dialect and an economy that runs partly on the barter system. A real estate agent showed Don and Sally a run-down apple farm in Philo that reminded them of “the old Napa.”

“So they called us and asked us if we wanted to be apple farmers,” recalls Karen, one of the Schmitts’ five children. “We said yes! with no hesitation, knowing nothing about it.” The Philo Apple Farm was born.

More at New York Times→

The Devolution of Basketball

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From TODD WALTON
Anderson Valley

John Wooden, the legendary coach of the UCLA basketball team just turned ninety-nine. Wooden coached the UCLA team from 1948 to 1975 and won ten National Championships in a span of 12 years, including 7 in a row from 1967 to 1973, a feat so unimaginable today it seems more myth than fact. As a college player, Wooden was a three-time consensus All-American, the first ever, and spent several years playing in the early professional leagues while simultaneously coaching high school teams. During one 46-game stretch as a pro he made 134 consecutive free throws. During World War II, he enlisted in the Navy and rose to the rank of lieutenant. He never made more than $35,000 a year as the UCLA coach, and never asked for a raise.

Wooden said: “The main ingredient of stardom is the rest of the team,” and “What you are as a person is far more important that what you are as a basketball player.”

In an interview with him on the day before his 99^th birthday, he was lucid and wry, and made a fervent wish that “they” wouldn’t do anything special for his birthday. “If I make it to a hundred, well, okay.”

Among Wooden’s many famous protégé’s was Lew Alcindor who became Kareem Abdul Jabbar. We often hear superlatives connected to the superstars of today, but none of them single-handedly changed the game of basketball as Alcindor did. Few remember that when Alcindor began his college career at UCLA, freshmen were not permitted to play on varsity teams. Alcindor’s freshman squad played the UCLA varsity squad, the number one-ranked team in America, and beat them 75-60. Alcindor scored 51 points, many of his baskets dunks.

As a result of this overwhelming display of his dominance, and before Alcindor could join the varsity squad as a sophomore, the NCAA banned the dunk in college basketball, a ban that was lifted three years later when Alcindor graduated and turned pro. That’s right. They imposed a national ban to contain one specific player. But even without the dunk, Alcindor was so dominant (and seven-foot two inches tall) that for the first time in the history of basketball, referees allowed defenders to constantly foul another player (Alcindor) to keep him from scoring.  more→
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Competitive Meditation

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From TODD WALTON
Anderson Valley

What a silly idea, competitive meditation. Yet in America all things become competitive and hierarchical as reflections of the dominant operating system. Twenty years ago the notion of competitive yoga would have been just as absurd as competitive meditation, yet today yoga competitions are all the rage with big cash prizes for top asana performers ranked nationally. An asana is a particular yoga pose. Could league play be just around the corner?

The history of Buddhism, with meditation as its foundation, is a fascinating study in what happens to a non-hierarchical, non-competitive, crystal clear philosophy when it comes into contact with different societies, each with entrenched systems of social organization and religious dogma. Because Buddhism in its purest form is not a religion, it is easy to discern how in coming to China, Tibet, Japan, and now the United States, the original tenets of Buddhism have been deformed to fit the pre-existing religious or pseudo-religious structures.

Organized religions universally feature a head priest or priests, priest lieutenants, their favored adherents, the less favored, and so on down the steep slope of the pyramid. Trying to fit the fundamental Buddhist notion of the essential emptiness of reality into such a pyramidical structure is akin to building a complicated factory in order to produce nothing. Delusion, greed, arrogance, jealousy, all of which Buddha called enemies of enlightenment, are, ironically, the building blocks of organized Buddhism in America.

One of my favorite stories about Freud, not to change the subject, is that he said to his American cohorts on several occasions before his death, and I paraphrase, “Whatever you do, please don’t make being a medical doctor a prerequisite to being a psychiatrist.” He made this plea because many promising psychotherapists in Europe, among them Erik Erikson, were not medical doctors, and Freud didn’t want to preclude this valuable source of input to the field.

Sadly, the Americans did just what Freud feared they would do, and we suffer the consequences to this day. Why didn’t the Americans heed Freud’s advice? Because greed, arrogance, and most importantly the desire to control who gets into the exclusive club, won the day. more→

No on Measure A – Way More Letters to the Editor

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To the Editor -  Ukiah Daily Journal

Legacy of Deceit

From KUMAR PLOCHER
Hopland

As a manufacturer of local goods, and a Ukiah provider of 15 good-paying jobs, I worry about the effects a mega-mall nearby would have on my business, Yokayo Biofuels. Our biodiesel production plant is located on Orr Springs Road. We send out and receive truck deliveries (including 18-wheelers) throughout each business day, and each of these routes must pass through the corridor between Orr Springs Road and the onramps to Highway 101- the exact area threatened with massive congestion if Measure A passes and a bunch of stoplights are installed. I have tried to quantify the negative impact of these potential developments for my company in dollars and cents, but it’s very difficult. Frankly, I fear the unknown in this case.

I’ve been worried for the last several months that Measure A may indeed pass. It seems that many well-intentioned, intelligent people are very impressed with the promise of more shopping choices here in Mendocino County. That notion might appeal to me too, but it seems to be a very superficial promise. DDR, the company behind Measure A, has always attached disclaimers to every vision they put forth for the future of the Masonite property, and it seems the only thing that they are 100 percent committed to is changing the zoning. As a businessperson with some experience in commercial and industrial realty in this county, I can understand why. Once they’ve got the zoning switched from Industrial, they should be able to sell the property for a much higher price. This is the thought that keeps me up at night: if Measure A passes, we really don’t know what will end up at Masonite. DDR will have enabled a situation, through a corruption of the democratic process, by which they can sell a property free of many important regulatory hurdles to the highest bidder. That highest bidder could be a very bad neighbor, but we would have already lost a lot of the rights to contest their entrance into our community. Again, I’m not an “ignorance is bliss” kind of guy, but in this case, I fear the unknown.

Back when the petition that resulted in Measure A being on the ballot was being circulated, I recall hearing about the petition-hawkers’ claims regarding the nature of the petition. Many were saying that it was about “cleaning up Masonite.” By that time, I had been able to take a close look at the details, and the petition was obviously

Organizing the Biggest Day of Action the World Has Ever Seen

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From BILL MCKIBBEN

Even two years ago, I was in complete despair about our chances of fighting climate change. But something’s changed. It’s not the science, which has gotten steadily worse. It’s the first signs that the planet’s immune system–conscious citizens ready to make a difference–is finally kicking in. Bloggers, in this metaphor, are key antibodies–they recognize threats, and rally people to take the steps needed. So this year’s Blogger Action Day is, in a sense, a test: is the planet now wired together in a way that will let it act swiftly, nimbly, decisively against the great trouble we’ve ever faced?

In particular, we at 350.org need your help spreading the word about what’s quickly turned into the biggest day of global action on climate ever–and perhaps the most geographically widespread day of political action the planet has ever seen. On October 24–a week from Saturday–citizens will hold thousands of rallies and events and demonstrations in almost 170 nations to demand that our leaders take tougher action heading to Copenhagen.

It’s the first day like it ever devoted to a scientific data point, the number 350. As in 350 parts per million carbon dioxide, which scientists began telling us two years ago was the most we could safely have in the atmosphere. It’s a tough number, because we’re already past it, at 390 parts per million and rising. And it’s tough because to get back to it we’d need much stronger and quicker action than most of our leaders–and even some of our old-line environmental groups–support.

You would have thought therefore that we’d have had a tough time organizing the world around such an arcane and controversial point. But instead it’s been amazing. We’ve used the web, and it’s developing world sibling the cellphone, to reach people in every corner of the earth, and they’ve responded with an unbelievable outpouring of art, of music, of commitment. There are big actions organized for almost every city on earth on the 24th, including 120 in China, at least that number in India–and even in tough places like Kabul, like the Sudan, like Iraq. Iranian organizers have set up a Farsi website to coordinate their demonstrations–on and on.

Three Presidents (and a First Lady)

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From TODD WALTON
Anderson Valley

For most of my sixty years on the planet I have been a social recluse. Yet through no conscious intention on my part, I have come face-to-face with three presidents of the United States (and a First Lady).

In 1962 I was in the seventh grade in Menlo Park, California. I was a baseball fanatic and not much interested in politics, though I was fascinated by Fidel Castro and the possibility of nuclear war.

“Class,” said Mr. Arbanas, our perpetually befuddled teacher. “President Kennedy is coming to the University of California to give a speech. Each core class will elect two students, one boy and one girl, to attend. If you want to go, raise your hand.”

We all raised our hands. By secret ballot and the intercession of angels, I was the boy chosen to represent my class. On the morning of March 23, 1962, I boarded a school bus with several other students and a gang of teachers, and we rumbled across the San Mateo Bridge and up through Oakland to Berkeley. We had been advised to bring a sack lunch and binoculars. I was one of those unfortunate children whose mother had no interest in making my lunch. Ever. From the age of five I made my own lunch, the same lunch, every day: a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, an apple, and a carrot. This is the lunch I brought and ate on that historic day.

I did not have a pair of binoculars, but everyone else had a pair, so my plan was to borrow. We most definitely needed binoculars since our seats were the very highest in the stadium, the podium on the stage at midfield barely visible to our naked eyes.

There came a great parade of men and women in caps and gowns representing their illustrious alma maters, the day being the 94^th anniversary of the charter establishing the public universities of America, which is what Kennedy spoke about. To my twelve-year-old ears and mind, the speeches preceding Kennedy’s speech, and his speech, too, were numbingly boring. I certainly enjoyed my glimpses of Kennedy and his marvelous hair through borrowed binoculars, and I thrilled to his voice, but not nearly so much as I thrilled to the myriad alluring females filling the stands around us.

Keep reading on Todd’s Blog→
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Ukiah Chamber of Commerce Needs To Regroup Around a New Reality and New Alliances

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From DAVE SMITH
Ukiah

When the national organization of our local Chamber of Commerce takes a stand against the best interests of American citizens, it’s time to withdraw from national membership and seek the new alliances necessary to flourish in the new century.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce “faces increased opposition from its members about the Chamber’s obstructionist approach to climate change science and responsible climate/energy/green jobs policy.” (Politico)

The National Resources Defense Council (NRDC) “took a look at the Chamber’s board of directors and their public positions on global warming and gee, what we found… it turns out that the staff of the U.S. Chamber appears to be projecting the views held by a tiny sliver of its board of directors – just four out of 122 members on the board. The Chamber’s oft-stated views, which question the scientific consensus on climate change and reject the need for federal regulation to reduce global warming pollution, stand in sharp contrast to the views expressed by 19 members of the Chamber’s board that support federal regulations with goals to reduce total US global warming pollution.”

For years, the national Chamber lobby has played a key role in blocking consumer-protection legislation, a shareholder bill of rights, labor-law reform, and financial regulation. In other words, the Chamber of Commerce has worked against the people who invest in, purchase from, and make the products for, the companies they represent. That would be stupid in a small town, but arrogant transnationals don’t give a damn about anyone or anything other than growing their profits.

Its current legislative priorities include opposing a consumer financial-protection agency, opposing a shareholder bill of rights, and opposing “flawed health care proposals,” which seems to mean any health-care proposal made by a Democrat, according to The New Yorker magazine.

Apple Computer, Pacific Gas & Electric, PNM Resources, and Exelon are all leaving the Chamber, and Nike is leaving its Board of Directors, because of its public stance on climate change.

Locally, despite solid leadership of staff and its more progressive Directors, some of its members continue to rain down wing-nut wrath whenever they deem it straying from what they consider its sole mission: helping businesses make maximum profits regardless of its negative effects on local small businesses, the environment, and our citizens… otherwise known as sociopathology. Lord help us all.

Locally Cleaning-Up

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From SCOTT CRATTY
Ukiah

From humble beginnings a few years back, it seems that the localization movement has become … well, a movement. Its adherents, hard as they may have worked, can only claim a jot of responsibility for the achievement.

The localization movement has received boosts from an amazing array of unaligned places such as a great many gluttonously greedy global corporations and CEOs, plunging petroleum reserves and peaking prices, a pompous pandering national media, consistently clueless experts and dangerously dysfunctional governments – all of which lead people to wonder if they might not just be better off without placing lots of faith in distant, unaccountable entities.

Still, the signs of any real world impact from “localizing,” such as the advent of Mendo Moola or year-round farmers’ markets in Anderson Valley, Ukiah and Willits, are small. Local economic systems are certainly not booming and may not even be improving, just yet. In most ways an economy that is sustainable or self-reliant is as distant as ever.

Yet it is obvious that “local” has again become important. Many people who did not think much about where things come from, and what that means for the future of their families, are now doing so. You can tell because the corporations that would be disadvantaged if people started caring too much where things come from or the means by which things are produced have started trying to advantage themselves by playing off people’s desire for the small, the humane, the real and the local.
It has been at least a year since I have picked up any grocery store advertising insert that did not feature a claim about having “local” produce.

A September 4, 2009 article by Jonathan Hiskes that I happened across on the Internet drives the point home with pictures. It shows advertisements by a wide range of companies, from Barnes & Noble and Wal-Mart to Citgo and HSBC “the world’s local bank,” all of which stake a claim to being local or having local products. If you are paying attention to the Mendocino County Measure A debate, you have even seen examples of a corporation claiming that a huge, big box store anchored shopping center, to be filled with crates of rock-bottom-priced stuff, is good for the environment and the local economy. Advertising is all about finding something we care about and trying to link it in our minds with something that is for sale.

Monster Mall? I just don’t want it!

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From DAVE SMITH
Ukiah

A letter writer (UDJ 10/9/09) states the following: “What I have come to notice is that some in this County are against Measure A simply to be against Measure A. They do not have any factual evidence supporting any of their claims. I just wish more voters would be like me and dig a little deeper into these issues. If you are against something just because you don’t want it, then say that. Do not run a game on all of us with weak and false claims.”

OK! I’ll say it! I’m against the Monster Mall because I just don’t want it. I like our small town and the Monster Mall will ruin it. I like our small locally-owned business community, and your Monster Mall will put our downtown out of business. I just don’t want it. I’m happy that we haven’t yet been seduced by sprawl that contributes to climate change, and instead we demand smart growth, not dumb growth. I absolutely adore owning a small local business in town and I would never re-locate into a soulless Monster Mall. I just don’t want it.

I moved away from all that years ago. I’ve traveled along the freeways down south and can see what big-time mall, condo, traffic, mall, condo, traffic, mall, condo, traffic brings. It’s sprawl hell the Monster Mall is projecting onto our communities here. When I visit down there, I cannot wait to turn around and get back to small-time Mendocino County.

Really, I just don’t want the Monster Mall here. And thanks for asking.

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[More Letters from the UDJ]

Monster Mall a Slick Con Game

From Edith Lucas
Owner of The Dragon’s Lair
Ukiah

I’ve been thinking a lot about Measure A and how I feel about it both as a small business owner, and as a citizen of this town. In both areas I like to apply what I call the double bottom line: what is good for the pocketbook and what is good for the soul. After much reading and thinking, I’ve decided that it is very important to vote no on A. It not only doesn’t meet the double bottom line, it could pull the bottom line right out from under us!

The Peak Oil downside will be steep

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From Charles Cresson Wood
Mendocino

From many different credible and highly placed sources we are today hearing about the dire energy situation that industrialized civilization faces. Industrialized countries have remained dependent on oil for way too long. As evidence of this consider that fully 50% of the energy consumed in the United States comes from petroleum. Even though the notion of peak oil is now frequently discussed in newspapers, magazines, TV shows, we the industrialized nations are not moving to new sources of energy fast enough to avoid serious and painful adjustment problems. Dr. Fatih Birol, chief economist with the International Energy Administration, accurately summed it up when he recently said: “We must leave oil before it leaves us.”

According to statistics from the United States Energy Information Administration, the worldwide production of conventional oil has been on a plateau for the last several years (about 73 million barrels per day). In spite of a dramatic run up in prices culminating with the price of $147 per barrel in July 2008, producers were unable to bring more oil to market. This fact defies a widely-held but erroneous belief advanced by traditional economists, Keep reading at Kicking The Gasoline Habit→
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Take Action! Ukiah Mendocino – Veggie Trader: Trade, Buy or Sell Local Homegrown Organic Produce, Seeds, etc.

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From Planet Green

[Here's a way to trade on-line for local organic produce. I'm offering Mulligan Books as a centralized SAME DAY drop-off and pick-up point for goods being traded. You'll find my offer listed on the free Veggie Trader website. -Dave]

How great would it be if there were want ads in your local newspaper or on Craigslist for organic fruits and vegetables, grown in your town, by your neighbors? A new website – Veggie Trader has sprung up that offers exactly such a service–a purchasing and bartering clearinghouse for locally grown fruits and vegetables.

Veggie Trader describes itself as the “place to trade, buy or sell local homegrown produce.” The idea is simple: you register on the website and then offer to purchase, sell, or trade any manner of surplus fruits or vegetables. If you have too many tomatoes and want to see if anyone nearby has a surplus of peaches or peppers, you can log on, run a search, and find out who in the neighborhood may be willing to exchange with you.

It’s a great way to offload additional produce and exchange it for something that you might be unable to grow in your own yard, but that another gardener may specialize in growing. It’s totally free to join, and costs nothing to post an offering, or place a wanted listing.

The website only started four months ago, and is definitely still in its infancy. Despite that, they have over 6,000 people signed up so far. The folks who have registered thus far are concentrated on the U.S. West Coast in California and Oregon, but since the website is still starting out, it could very well extend to your neighborhood. You can help make the website grow by registering and offering to buy, sell, or trade for whatever produce you have or may want.

Veggie Trader has ambitions to expand to include dairy, eggs, and meat, all items that are heavily regulated. The future may hold great things for Veggie Trader, only time will tell if the site can attract enough members to gain enough momentum to make a difference in the local food movement, but we’re certainly rooting for them.
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For organic recipes, see Organic To Be→
Now posting regularly at Mendo Moola updated blog site→
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Ukiah Mendocino: Health care a right for all Americans

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From LES MARSTON
Ukiah

Letter to the Editor
Ukiah Daily Journal

Every person is endowed by the creator with life. But it is the quality of life that makes it meaningful. That is why for me, providing universal health care for all persons is a moral, not a legal or political issue. It is immoral for one person who has health insurance to be on the fourth floor of a hospital in relative comfort, having just received the life saving surgery necessary to have a long and active life, while another person on the third floor of the same hospital, suffering from the same life threatening illness, lies dying in pain because they do not have the health insurance coverage necessary to pay for the same surgery.

In a moral society, people should want to prevent suffering, promote life and simply care about what happens to their neighbors. When it comes to good health, which is dependent on good health care, every person in the United States must realize that we are all in this together. The one thing that all of us have in common is that during our life time we will all get sick, we will all suffer in pain and we will all die. But for those of us that are eligible for and can afford health insurance and therefore obtain the best medical care that the United States has to offer, we will suffer less, we will have a longer life and we will have a better quality of life. To deny any person the health care that is necessary for them to have a good quality life is wrong and immoral. Life is a fundamental right of all citizens. So should universal health care.

In the United States today, good health care is not about the doctor patient relationship, it is about big business. It is about Wall Street, the pharmaceutical industry and the health insurance industry. It is about making money, cutting costs, paying dividends, bonuses, campaign contributions, lobbying, false advertising and causing public confusion over the issues so that nothing will change. As a result, persons with pre-existing conditions are denied coverage, the insured are denied the treatment or medicine they need, doctors are told what they can and cannot do and health costs sky rocket out of control. It

It is time to return health care decisions to patients in consultation with their physicians. It is time to give you and me back control of our health care.

In my opinion, the only way to ensure that all persons within the United States will have good quality health care is to allow every person the option to obtain their health insurance from the United States government. Medicare for everyone. Simply put, every person would have the option to apply for health insurance from the United States. No person could be denied coverage based upon pre-existing conditions. Everyone that applied would be issued a medical card that they could use to go see whatever doctor they wanted. No one would be required to obtain the government coverage. Everyone could keep their existing coverage through any private insurer, such as Blue Cross or Blue Shield or through their employment.

Ukiah Mendocino: Who’s Polluting Our Local Water?

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From RON EPSTEIN
Ukiah

Across the nation, the system that Congress created to protect the nation’s waters under the Clean Water Act of 1972 today often fails to prevent pollution. The New York Times has compiled data on more than 200,000 facilities that have permits to discharge pollutants and collected responses from states regarding compliance. Information about facilities contained in this database comes from two sources: the Environmental Protection Agency and the California State Water Resources Control Board. The database does not contain information submitted by the states.

Go to 95482 map and list here→

Go to story Toxic Waters at NYT here→
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Take Action! We Have the Hope. Now Where’s the Audacity?

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From Peter Dreier and Marshall Ganz
Common Dreams

August 31, 2009 Ukiah Valley, Mendocino, North California

On Aug. 25 last year, Sen. Edward Kennedy strode onto the stage at the Democratic National Convention in Denver and announced to a roaring crowd of party faithful the beginning of a new generation in American politics.”I have come here tonight to stand with you, to change America, to restore its future, to rise to our best ideals and to elect Barack Obama president of the United States,” he said. Comparing Obama to his slain brother, John F. Kennedy, the senator shouted: “This November, the torch will be passed again to a new generation of Americans. . . . Our country will be committed to his cause. The work begins anew. The hope rises again. And the dream lives on.”

Eight months into the Obama administration, as we mourn the senator from Massachusetts, many of us retain the hope, but we are wondering what happened to the audacity that is needed to move the country in a new direction. In recent weeks, many progressives have expressed concern that Obama’s bold plan to reform health care may be at risk. A defeat on this key issue could undermine other elements of his agenda. We don’t believe that the president has changed his goals, but we wonder whether he underestimated the power necessary to bring about real change.

Throughout the campaign, Obama cautioned that enacting his ambitious plans would take a fight. In a speech in Milwaukee, he said: “I know how hard it will be to bring about change. Exxon Mobil made $11 billion this past quarter. They don’t want to give up their profits easily.”

He explained what it would take to overcome the power of entrenched interests in order to pass historic legislation. Change comes about, candidate Obama said, by “imagining, and then fighting for, and then working for,

Take Action! Yo-Ka-Yo Cooperative Gardens Now Organizing

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From JANET ROSEN
Mendocino County
Email: mendojanet@yahoo.com

August 27, 2009 Ukiah Valley, Mendocino, North California

This is to let you know that John Johns, one of the farmers at Ukiah’s Saturday Farmer’s Market, has been collecting names and contact info for local folks interested in a cooperative of backyard gardeners/farmers.

I’ve volunteered to spend some time on the tech stuff, setting up a way for those who signed his list plus other interested people to start conversing about what they’d like this project to be and do. We’ve set up a yahoo group (functions, just like the mendocommunity bulletin board and the mendobirds list, as an email group) at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/yokayocoopgardens as a way to share questions and input.

What we have as a starting point is:

Where are the Yo-Ka-Yo Cooperative Gardens? They could be in your backyard, or maybe your neighbors…

If you look around the Ukiah area, there are a lot of trees producing fruit that is falling on the ground, perfectly good food going to waste. Many family gardeners are finding they either have more vegetables than they need or don’t have the time to maintain everything as they’d like. Meanwhile, there is a growing demand for quality local food.

Yo-Ka-Yo Cooperative Gardens is being established as a cooperative membership organization for “backyard” gardeners and farmers in the Ukiah Valley. Our goals are:

1. Establish a networking and mutual support network for members that will include gardening advice, seed trading, bartering of goods and services.

2. Establish a distribution conduit for excess produce, which may include donations to local non-profits and/or sales to the public.
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A little daft?

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From MICHAEL LAYBOURN
Hopland

August 24, 2009 Ukiah Valley, Mandocino, North California

The word was out. It would be better to not have a green lawn.

Thirsty home landscaping, particularly lawns, will suck up an increasingly burdensome amount of water in California over the next 25 years unless big changes are made, according to a new report by the Public Policy Institute of California. “Do the math,” said study co-author Ellen Hanak, Landscaping currently accounts for at least half of all residential water demand, according to the report.

Even at the state level, Victoria Whitney, a deputy director of the state Water Resources Control Board, justified the staff proposal to ban irrigating commercial turf, a statewide issue that the water board has had on its radar as a way to save water. “A third of urban water use is irrigation,” Whitney said. “Given the issues that they face, it seemed now was the time to point out to folks this is an easy fix.”

So this drought is the real deal and the City of Ukiah orders mandatory water rationing.

As I was driving around looking at ways to redesign my own grassy yard and saw all the many civic minded people not watering, redoing the landscaping if there was enough money, I thought: “Good Citizens”.  Refreshing, so to speak.

But maybe not to Ukiah residents who did their good deed and now face an increase in water bill rates, because they stopped using so much water causing a 35% drop in water use revenue. Just like they were advised to do by the City of Ukiah. It surely seems ironic or maybe even daft to punish the people doing the right thing. I hope to soon read in the Ukiah Daily Journal or Anderson Valley Advertiser that “We wouldn’t think of raising the rates for water use, at least for people that have cut their water use.”

It would make a lot more sense for Ukiah and the County to arrange low cost loans for those wishing to landscape with native plants, providing jobs and real revenue.
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Rural Matters

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From SHEILAH ROGERS
Redwood Valley

August 18, 2009 Ukiah Valley, Mendocino, North California

From “The New Crucible of Innovation”, a presentation by Brian Dabson/RUPRI to the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City in April, 2009

This is an extraordinary time for rural America to make new contributions to national prosperity in four main areas:

• § Growing and processing food – quantity, quality, and sustainability
• § Energy independence – extractive and renewable
• § Realizing economic value of nature’s services – stewardship
• § Protecting and managing rural experiences – natural, cultural

And the three powerful strategies:

• § Regionalism – cooperation and collaboration across jurisdictions, sectors
• § Assets – building on unique strengths, triple bottom line
• § Entrepreneurship – conversion of assets into economic opportunity

Editorial Comment: The ideas expressed above read like economic developments in Mendocino County during recent decades.  An example of each in order:

• § Farmer’s Markets throughout the county are supplied largely by local small farms and ranches and the diversity of products is growing
• § Feasibility studies are being conducted to assess the potential for biomass and pellet manufacturing
• § If initiated these technologies will contribute to fire safety and forest stewardship

Monster Mall: More letters to the Editor

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From ELIZA WINGATE
Upper Lake

Ukiah Daily Journal

August 12, 2009 Ukiah Valley, Mendocino, North California

DDR and development

To the Editor:

It seems to me that the main issue with DDR is whether a community wants a developer who has no ties to that community to come in and override local planning. If this is allowed, any developer with a great line and money could change the face of your community.

It is not about Costco. There are other sites for Costco. It is not even about development per se. I have not met anyone who expects Ukiah and Mendocino to remain a lost “hippie paradise.” But this is your community. You live here. You pay taxes. The elected officials are elected by you and live amongst you and are accountable to you.

DDR will never be accountable to you, only to their shareholders. That is their job, to make money for their shareholders. And especially if this proposition passes, they do not have to be in any way accountable to you.

This is not a game of monopoly. This will not be a hypothetical free pass. This will be a totally free pass to either develop your community the way they want to or to sell the land to some other developer.
Thanks to Steve Scalmanini
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Socialized medicine – a letter from an American in Italy

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From Doug Dowd
Bologna, Italy

August 6, 2009 Ukiah Valley, Mendocino, North California

Letter to the Editor
Anderson Valley Advertiser→

As an 89-year-old native San Franciscon who now lives in Bologna, Italy, I would like to offer a comparison between health care in the United States and Italy. My experience convences me of the need for a strong governmental health care program as put forth by President Obama.

In 1966, I was a professor of economic history at Cornell University when I was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to teach in Bologna for a year. On the first day of my first week in Italy, while attending a professors’ meeting in Rome, my wife and I were hit by a car that ran a red light. We were hospitalized for several days, returned to Bologna for further care, and that was that. Cost: $0.00.

When I returned to teach in Bologna in the 1980s, after continuing my teaching career at UC Berkeley, UC Santa Cruz and San Jose State, I was again struck by a car and hospitalized. Cost: $0.00.

As I aged, I did have to pay for always more medications. The costs were at least as high as in the United States, the equivalent of $200-$300 monthly. But that changed a few years ago (while continuing my US citizenship and taxes) when I became an official resident of Bologna. I now have a little health card and a family doctor., who sends me to specialists when needed. My privileges are the same as the Italians. Cost: $0.00.

Writing the Sequel to “Under the Table Books”

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From TODD WALTON
Anderson Valley

August 3, 2009 Ukiah Valley, Mendocino, North California

I’ve been madly writing the sequel to my just-published novel Under the Table Books. Given that only a handful of people have read Under the Table Books, and confronted by barely discernible sales of the mighty tome, my rational mind warns me that my current literary labor is folly, that years spent on a sequel to an unknown novel will amount to yet another wasted effort, and we’ve already got piles of those gathering dust.

What my rational mind fails to comprehend (no matter how many times I explain this to her and because logic only takes us so far) is that I do not think these things up, these stories and plays and novels, and then decide to write them down. I do not plan what I create. Nor do I consider anything I’ve ever done wasted effort. What happens for me, and has been happening since I was a little boy, is that I hear a story being told to me and I see a movie unfurling as I hear the words, and my mission, if I choose to accept it, is to transcribe what I’m experiencing as vividly and musically as I can. I say musically because my taste runs to prose that swings to consistent and compelling rhythms.

I have written other sequels to other books I’ve published, though I have yet to publish a sequel, so I certainly understand the concern of the pragmatic sector of my brain as it worries about the aging corpus laboring over a saga that may never be published and may never bring us money or something we can trade for food and shelter. And if that’s the case, why bother? In all honesty, I bother because despite the latest data from my personal commerce department, I find the thickening plot and the seductive characters irresistible and I can’t wait to read what I write down next. I’m hooked.

Ukiah-Mendocino: Support Local Food!

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From JANIE SHEPPARD
Mendocino County

August 3, 2009 Ukiah Valley, Mendocino County, North California

Bill and I love this CSA.

Last winter we were supplied with the most gorgeous vegetables I’ve ever seen.  Everything looked like something from Sunset Magazine –  only the vegetables were the real thing, not all doctored up for a fancy magazine.  The vegetables were also the best tasting ever, and I consider myself a discriminating foodie.  If you can sign up now, Adam Gaska and Paula Manalo will be forever grateful –  they’re in a bit of a tight spot, along with the rest of us, but their tight spot is particularly tight as Adam explains below.

Oh– an added bonus is a weekly newsletter with lots of recipes, pictures, descriptions of the plant and animal lives, and occasionally a bit of food politics.

Please pass this along to all your friends who appreciate good food and want to see more of it produced locally.
~

From ADAM GASKA and PAULA MANALO
Redwood Valley

Think it’s too early to start thinking about winter produce? WRONG!

It’s 100 degrees out, and the sun is blazing, but all the planting for fall and winter crops happens as soon as Summer Solstice hits. Please sign up here (pdf) for the Winter CSA and send in a deposit to keep your local farmers farming and ensure a bountiful winter harvest.

Mendocino Noir – Crimes Large and Small

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From DAVE SMITH
Ukiah

July 31, 2009 Ukiah Valley, Mendocino, North California

Bruce Anderson, Editor and Publisher of the Anderson Valley Advertiser, has just published Volume Two of the Mendocino Papers, Mendocino Noir, available now at local independent bookstores.

Included stories:

•The Fort Bragg Fires
•Vincent J. Sisco: Willy Loman as arsonist
•Who Burned Fort Bragg and Why
•Killed Without Dying
•The Victim Didn’t Smoke
•Nothing Sadder Than A Young Person Dying For No Reason
•The Biggest Little Crook In Ukiah
•The Hunter As Prey
•Tree Rustling, Fort Bragg Style
•The Great Fort Bragg Witch Hunt
•Naked Woman In The Side Pocket
•The Poison Sandwich
•Dr. Wonderlick and His Lugar
•Monica’s Walk on the Wild Side
•Deputy Gander’s Halloween Party
•No Good Deed Goes Unpunished
•Where Are They, Jimmy?
•One Murder, Four Deaths
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The Best Place One Could Be on Earth – Alice Walker

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Alice Walker with her power plant, collard greens (from her website)

From ALICE WALKER
Anderson Valley
The Electronic Intifada
via Common Dreams

July 27, 2009 Ukiah Valley, Mendocino, North California

Last March, poet, novelist and feminist Alice Walker joined a delegation organized by Code Pink, to travel to the Gaza Strip just weeks after the 22-day Israeli bombardment and invasion. Walker, globally acclaimed for her Pulitzer Prize winning novel, The Color Purple, had also traveled to Rwanda, Eastern Congo and other places where she witnessed cruel and barbaric behavior that left her speechless. In an essay on her blog entitled “Overcoming Speechlessness: A Poet Encounters “the horror” in Rwanda, Eastern Congo and Palestine/Israel,” Walker recounts the stories of the people she met, and offers a lyrical analysis that ties their oppression and struggles to what she and her community experienced growing up in the violence and fear of the segregated American South. The excerpt below begins with her arrival in Gaza after a long overland journey through Egypt.

Coming “home” to Gaza

Rolling into Gaza I had a feeling of homecoming. There is a flavor to the ghetto. To the Bantustan. To the “rez.” To the “colored section.” In some ways it is surprisingly comforting. Because consciousness is comforting. Everyone you see has an awareness of struggle, of resistance, just as you do. The man driving the donkey cart. The woman selling vegetables. The young person arranging rugs on the sidewalk or flowers in a vase. When I lived in segregated Eatonton, Georgia I used to breathe normally only in my own neighborhood, only in the black section of town… Keep reading at The Electronic Intifada→
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Ukiah Monster Mall – A Mega Financial Fiasco

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From TOM ANDERSON
Ukiah

Letter to the Editor
Ukiah Daily Journal

July 26, 2009 Ukiah Valley, Mendocino, North California

Developers Diversified Realty didn’t show much savvy when it failed to change the Masonite site’s zoning before it closed escrow. Seasoned commercial developers would have done that; DDR did not.

Now it is stuck for the purchase price and thrashing around to fix things.

Its timing was not the best either.

“The commercial real estate bomb is ticking,” said Rep. Carolyn Mahoney (D-N.Y.), who chairs Congress’ Joint Economic Committee, in opening remarks to her panel on July 5.

Testimony to the panel was that today’s roughly $6.7-trillion commercial real estate market is crippled with about $3.5 trillion of debt. Money to pay the debt is evaporating as mall vacancy rates rise to 10 percent, the highest since 1992.

DDR’s vacancy rate this May was about 9.5 percent. (That’s why it has applied for a federal bailout.)

With many commercial properties worth one-half their peak 2006 value, banks have turned off the tap for commercial real estate refinancing.

The crisis is far from over.

Commercial real estate is “decaying and getting worse,” said Victor Canalog, a director of research for Reis, Inc., the nation’s leading commercial real estate analysis firm. Canalog said he did not “foresee a recovery in the retail sector until late 2012 at the earliest.”

“Given the depth and magnitude of the recession,” he added, “you can argue that we are facing a storm of epic proportions and we’re only at the beginning.”

Those are the mega-problems now dogging DDR’s Mendocino mega-fiasco.

The mall simply cannot and will not happen as promised.

If Proposition A passes, expect a vacant lot at the Masonite site for many years to come.

And the last thing we need is an abandoned project in our county seat and largest city.
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The Book Dealer – Larry McMurtry’s Grand Obsession

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From DANIEL BARTH
Ukiah Valley
Originally appeared in…
The Redwood Coast Review (pdf)→

July 17, 2009 Ukiah Valley, Mendocino County, North California

Larry McMurtry is one of the most prolific and successful modern American writers. Primarily a novelist—The Last Picture Show, Terms of Endearment, Lonesome Dove and twenty-seven others—he has also written eight books of essays, a biography, numerous books reviews and, by his count, 70 screenplays (most notably, with Diana Ossana, the Golden Globe and Academy Award winning Brokeback Mountain). But to hear him tell it, in Books: A Memoir, all this scribbling has been merely a sideline to his primary pursuit—the buying and selling of books.

From his early days as a graduate student at Rice University and as a Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford—in the famous class with Ken Kesey, Wendell Berry, Peter Beagle and others—McMurtry was in the habit of “book scouting,” prowling local used book shops for bargains he could sell elsewhere at a profit. Malcolm Cowley, a visiting professor at Stanford in the fall of 1960, writes about this in his memoir, The Flower and the Leaf:

“It was a pretty brilliant class that year, including as it did some professional writers

Janie attends the Fourth of July Parade in Mendocino and brings back photos

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From JANIE SHEPPARD
Mendocino County

July 6, 2009 Ukiah, Mendocino County, North California

Sitting at the intersection of Lansing and Lake Streets in Mendocino, Bill, dogs Heidi and Jerry, and I watched the Fourth of July parade in Mendocino.  Here are some of the photos…

Art Activist

Banana Slug For Peace

Good News from Rosalind Peterson

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From ROSALIND PETERSON
Redwood Valley
Caifornia Sky Watch

June 13, 2009 Ukiah, Mendocino County, North California

Please let everyone know that the delegation from Connecticut and California (Rosalind & Meredith Smith), spent this past week lobbying the U.S. Congress to defeat the U.S. Navy plan to harm marine mammals, other aquatic life and animals, along with negative impacts on human health, air and water.

We all arrived in Washington, D.C. armed with petitions from Washington, Oregon, Idaho, California and also from other states in the United States.  We hand delivered petitions to California Senators Boxer and Feinstein, and Senator Ron Wyden from Oregon.  In addition, Meredith Smith is staying in Washington, D.C., this coming week  to lobby against the Navy.

Meredith arranged to meet at 4:00 P.M. with California Congressman Mike Thompson on Thursday, June 11th, to discuss what plans could be worked out to have Congressman Thompson work with us on congressional hearings into the Navy program.  Meredith presented Congressman Thompson with a second binder containing all the petitions that we have gathered since we gave Thompson’s aide, Heidi Dickerson, the first binder containing all of the original signatures gathered prior to the time that KTVU filmed the event in Fort Bragg, CA last month.

Meredith was also going to let Congressman Thompson know about the binder presented to Heidi Dickerson last month since he did not seem to know that the public had presented his office with this binder full of petitions from all over California.

Today and during her stay in Washington, DC next week Meredith will be meeting with additional members of Congress and will be hand delivering our petitions to the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi. Her efforts on behalf of the citizens of Mendocino County are to be highly commended.  When she returns she will be reporting on the success of her efforts in Washington, D.C.

While the delegation was in Washington, D.C. this week we brought color brochures, packets, and information about the Navy Warfare expansion to every member of the U.S. Senate.  In addition, we visited the offices of over 300 U.S. Congressmen with regard to this issue.  There were many that did not know about this Navy plan and