the PLAZOID

The Plazoid has moved

2008-03-05T10:19:00.000-08:00

Peace be with you

The plazoid has moved to here

http://theplazoid.wordpress.com/

love eternal
tad

Humboldt County Probation cops can't be Case Managers.

2008-03-02T12:05:00.001-08:00

Peace be with you

China's MDU (Photo USA Today)
VAN SPECS

Cost: $37,500 to $75,000, depending on vehicle's size
Length: 20 to 26 feet
Top speed: 65 to 80 mph
THREE SECTIONS
Execution chamber: in the back, with blacked-out windows; seats beside the stretcher for a court doctor and guards; sterilizer for injection equipment; wash basin
Observation area: in the middle, with a glass window separating it from execution area; can accommodate six people; official-in-charge oversees the execution through monitors connected to the prisoner and gives instruction via walkie-talkie.
Driver area
Production to date: at least 40 vehicles, made by Jinguan and two other companies in Jiangsu and Shandong provinces

At Tuesday’s Board of Supes meeting the Humboldt County boring Supes will give their subservient nod to revoking the probation department’s performing of “mental health” services. Of course they are not doing this act because they want to, they're doing it because a higher legislature saw the stupidity of allowing probation officers to be simultaneously mental health case managers.

Although this is one of those “one step forwards” in the “one step forward two steps back dance,” separating those that are supposed to heal from those who punish is a good move. Unfortunately the cops and mental health are starting to forge bigger and more oppressive Memorandums of Understanding (MOU) to terrorize the mentally ill.

Soon the mental health will have their Mobile Drugging Unit (MDU) stocked with a couple of cops and a goonish, Haldol syringe packing mental health orderly. They will be able to declare anyone they choose “mentally ill,” and shoot them full of Haldol on the spot. Anybody, anywhere, for any reason can be doped and then brought before a Judge who will sentence them to a life of highly toxic nut-pills. It doesn’t matter how “sane” you were before, because the Judge only believes you're sane now because you're on anti-psychotics.

We must insist that the cops leave doctoring to the doctors. Law enforcers are not a very smart or compassionate way to help the mentally broken. Law enforcers are robotic mercenaries. They enforce laws designed to prevent the wealthy and ruling class from being “bothered.” That doesn’t bode well for those who truly need medical help.

Secondly we must insist that if the psychiatrists are going to force people to take anti-psychotics then we need professionals in place to get these people “off their meds” safely.

love eternal
tad

Psychiatrists Wrong . . . Again

2008-02-24T09:28:00.000-08:00

Peace be with you

The New York Times said this morning that the silly psychiatrists were manipulating the wrong damn neurotransmitter in schizophrenics. It turns out it wasn’t the dopamine after all. How many school shootings could the psychiatrists have saved us?

The Psychiatrists poison the peoples of the world on a guess and they ALWAYS guess wrong. They’re still wrong. It’s not going to be any different with their new theory.

The Pharmaceutical corporations only care about the profit. They make drugs like Zyprexa for a government contract worth billions. You add on to that the diabetes medicines they sell as accessory to their Zyprexa and you have the backbone of the Eli Lilly profits.

Another idea might come from Hearing Voices Network. The following two paragraphs come from Guidelines for Hearing Voices Groups in Clinical Settings (2004 update). I suggest you read it all.

love eternal
tad

From: Guidelines for Hearing Voices Groups in Clinical Settings
Voice hearing is often seen as a prime symptom of psychosis (American Psychiatric Association, 1994). However there are a significant proportion of the voice hearing populations that have never been psychiatric patients (Honig et al.,1998). Hearing voices (auditory hallucinations) is considered a first rank symptom of the specific psychosis of schizophrenia (Schneider, 1959). There are
three main psychiatric categories of patients that hear voices; schizophrenia (around 50%); affective psychosis (around 25%) and dissociative disorders (around 80%) (Honig et al., 1998).

However, many people who hear voices find them helpful or benevolent (Romme & Escher, 1993). In a large study of 15,000 people it was found that there was a prevalence of 2.3% who had heard voices frequently and this contrasts with the 1% prevalence of schizophrenia (Tien, 1991). In a study by Honig and others (1998), of the differences between non-patient and patients hearing voices, it was not in form but content. In other words the non-patients heard voices both inside and outside their head as did the patients but either the content was positive or the hearer had a positive view of the voice and felt in control of it. By contrast the patient group were more frightened of the voices and the voices were more critical (malevolent) and they felt less control over them (Honig et al,1998). The experience of hearing critical voices is often very anxiety provoking and leads to high levels of depression and suicidality (Harkavy-Friedman et al., 2003). Conventional approaches in psychiatry to the problem of voice hearing have been to ignore the meaning of the experience for the voice hearer and concentrate on removing the symptoms (audio hallucinations) by the use of physical means such as medication (Romme & Escher, 1989). Although anti-
psychotic medication is very helpful to most sufferers of psychosis (Fleischhaker, 2002), there is a significant proportion (30 per cent) that still experience the ‘symptoms’ such as hearing voices despite very high doses of injected anti-psychotic (Curson, Barnes, Bamber, & Weral, 1985). The social psychiatrist Marius Romme, believes that anti-psychotic medication prevents the emotional processing and therefore healing, of the meaning of the voices (Romme & Escher, 2000). Traditional practice in behavioural psychology concentrated on either distracting the patient or ignoring references by the patient to the voice hearing experience, with the hope that the patient would concentrate on ‘real’ experiences, which would then be positively reinforced (the assumption being that the voice hearing was a delusional belief). The effect of this approach may well have been to discourage the discussion about the voice hearing experience but without eradicating it (P.D.J. Chadwick, Birchwood, & Trower, 1996). However brain imaging has since confirmed that voice hearers do experience a sound as if there were a real person talking to them (Shergill, Brammer, Williams, Murray, & McGuire, 2000). Within the last ten years there has been considerable interest in the phenomenology, processes and coping mechanisms of people suffering from psychosis, using a broadly Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) approach (Drury, Birchwood, & Cochrane, 2000; Haddock, Morrison, Hopkins, Lewis, & Tarrier, 1998; Kuipers et al., 1998; Morrison, 2002; Norman & Townsend, 1999). Some practitioners advocate that CBT is the most appropriate, evidence based approach (Tarrier, Haddock, Barrowclough, & Wykes, 2002). Other practitioners, including psychiatrists, psychologists and nurses have developed a broader based alliance of therapeutic approaches to psychosis from the spectrum of approaches from psychodynamic to cognitive behavioural (Martindale & International Society for the Psychological Treatments of the Schizophrenias and other Psychoses., 2000). Radical changes have also been taking place amongst psychiatrists (Kingdon & Turkington, 1998; Perris & McGorry, 1998), who are now paying closer attention to the meaning and content of the voices (Romme & Escher, 1989).

2008-02-23T12:13:00.000-08:00

Peace be with you

I believe our intuition is always correct – always! – But, I also believe our interpretation of that intuition is often flawed. I mean flawed as in “flawed logic.” We put so much energy postulating the virtues of logic we completely forget, if it exists, a most powerful way of understanding.

This understanding is called many things – gut feeling, spider senses, intuition, Wisdom. Wisdom is different from smart. It perceives things that logic can’t prove. It is when you hear all the facts and you listen to the logical conclusion, but you know deep down that something isn’t right. Usually a little digging in the facts and your feelings are justified.

I think logic is a wonderful thing to learn. In fact I think all Wise people would see the Wisdom in studying logic. The logical however, never see the logic in studying Wisdom. Their problem is that Wisdom is like gravity it comes from some unknown, and that strikes fearfully close to past demons from some traumatic religious dogma.

I believe in evolution, that people are truly born of this Earth. I hold true that I do suckle at the tit of my Mother Earth. I also hold true I have my Wisdom, my Courage, and my Love because of my Heavenly Father; who took me as a child of my Mother and taught me the ways of my Father.

It is only me who can remove the distractions, the lusts and the fears, which blind me from simple truths. It is only me who can follow the truths I see. And it is only my relationship with the Father and Mother I can have. We will eventually evolve into a people more like perfection. Compassion, Generosity, Loving Kindness are the gift to the Human Animal; or shall I say higher evolved Peoples.

love eternal
tad

Humboldt County Supervisor uses preemptive censorship.

2008-02-18T08:41:00.000-08:00

Peace be with you

At Tuesday's Humboldt County Board of Supervisor's meeting Phillip Crandall once again succeeded in getting the Humboldt County Board of Supes to approve an agreement based on fraudulent information. Humboldt County department of Mental Health signed an agreement worth $4,038,544 based on grossly overestimated numbers of mentally ill. So outrageous are his guestimates that he's looking to hook 30,000 Humboldt county residents on deadly anti-psychotics through his CalMAP experimental mental health county.

My real issue is whether this "agreement," which "contains the entire agreement of the parties and supersedes all negotiations, verbal or otherwise and any other agreement between the parties," and is based on Humboldt County's Mental Health Services Act Three-year Program and Expenditure Plan, is related to the above-mentioned plan and the unanimously Supe approved policy behind the plan.

Jill Geist the new neo-liberal chair of the Humboldt County board of Supes believes she has the authority to censor my public comment. Jill is a big supporter of our experimental mental health grants. Jill has tried before to censor me and she has even gone as far as to have Crandall rehearse a little speech during public comment. The next week a young lady showed up at the board of supes pissed off that Geists placed Crandall's speech on the agenda with out public notice.

Geist, and all the supes for that matter, are putting their political asses on the line to protect the highest paid employee of the County, HHS DIRECTOR, Phillip Crandall, and his rope 'em and dope 'em policies. Crandall who controls the counties Health and Human Services Department (spends half of all the money from our budget), is the department head that is responsible for both the fraudulent lies in the plan and brokers agreements to spend a quarter of our counties budget on a "mental health policy" that rivals Heinrich Himmler. Crandall's policy is uncannily similar to Himmler's "struggle for the extermination of any sub-humans," complete with $250,000 a year psychiatrists.

love eternal
tad

Why does Humboldt County spend a quarter of its money hooking people on mental health drugs?

2008-02-14T18:56:00.000-08:00

Peace be with you.

Whistleblower magazine released an article titled, "MANIA; The shocking link between psychiatric drugs, suicide, violence and mass murder." It mentions that these nut pills create this "mania" in 4% of short term trial patients. Also they list the following examples:

Andrea Yates, in one of the most heartbreaking crimes in modern history, drowned all five of her children aged 7 years down to 6 months in a bathtub. Insisting inner voices commanded her to kill her kids, she had become increasingly psychotic over the course of several years.
Yates had been taking the antidepressant Effexor. In November 2005, more than four years after Yates drowned her children, Effexor manufacturer Wyeth Pharmaceuticals quietly added "homicidal ideation" to the drug's list of "rare adverse events." But "rare" is defined by the FDA as occurring in less than one in 1,000 people. And since, according to an Associated Press report, about 19.2 million prescriptions for Effexor were filled in the U.S. alone in 2005, that means statistically almost 20,000 Americans could experience "homicidal ideation" that is, murderous thoughts as a result of taking just this one antidepressant drug.

Columbine mass-killer Eric Harris was taking the widely prescribed antidepressant Luvox when he and fellow student Dylan Klebold went on a hellish school shooting rampage in 1999, killing 12 students and a teacher and wounding 24 others before turning their guns on themselves.

Authorities investigating Cho Seung-Hui, who murdered 32 at Virginia Tech in April, reportedly found "prescription drugs" for the treatment of psychological problems among his possessions. Joseph Aust, Cho's roommate, told the Richmond Times-Dispatch Cho's routine each morning had included taking prescription drugs.
So what kind of meds had Cho been taking? Strangely, his medical records have yet to be released to the public authorities claiming it's because an investigation is still ongoing, although critics suggest the purpose may be to protect the drug companies from liability claims.

Meanwhile, the list of killers who happened to be taking psychiatric medications is long and chilling. Remember these headline names?

Patrick Purdy's 1989 schoolyard shooting rampage in Stockton, Calif., was the catalyst for the legislative frenzy to ban "semiautomatic assault weapons" in California and the nation. The 25-year-old Purdy, who murdered five children and wounded 30, had been on Amitriptyline, an antidepressant, as well as the antipsychotic drug Thorazine.

Kip Kinkel, 15, murdered his parents in 1998 and the next day went to his school, Thurston High in Springfield, Ore., and opened fire on his classmates, killing two and wounding 22 others. He had been prescribed both Prozac and Ritalin.

In 1988, 31-year-old Laurie Dann went on a shooting rampage in a second-grade classroom in Winnetka, Ill., killing one child and wounding six. She had been taking the antidepressant Anafranil as well as Lithium, long used to treat mania.

In Paducah, Ky., in late 1997, 14-year-old Michael Carneal, son of a prominent attorney, traveled to Heath High School and started shooting students in a prayer meeting taking place in the school's lobby, killing three and leaving another paralyzed. Carneal reportedly was on Ritalin.

In 2005, 16-year-old Native American Jeff Weise, living on Minnesota's Red Lake Indian Reservation, shot and killed nine people and wounded five others before killing himself. Weise had been taking Prozac.

In another famous case, 47-year-old Joseph T. Wesbecker, just a month after he began taking Prozac, shot 20 workers at Standard Gravure Corp. in Louisville, Ky., killing nine. Eli Lilly, which makes Prozac, later settled a lawsuit brought by survivors.

I wonder if the psychiatrists of today and the psychiatrists of Nazi Germany are really all that different.

love eternal
tad

Police use "dope raid" to net illegal sleeping

2008-02-10T17:28:00.000-08:00

Peace be with you

On July 25, 2007 Sheriff Deputies raided a piece of Humboldt County property looking for pot. They stuck guns in the faces of the residents, pepper sprayed their dogs, and ordered the people off their property so a search could conduct. No I’m not talking about the 1200 pot plant Vilica LLd bust. I’m talking about the Yee Haw bust where instead of finding the pot, the cops were so sure they’d find, they found "sleepers" instead. Now appearing as Nazish homeless haters the county is trying to throw these people to the street. The County of Humboldt should be encouraging people to open their homes, lands and buildings to help alleviate the homeless crisis; instead they’re encouraging police raids on those who do.

Monday the owner of the property and at least one of it’s tenants will be in Humboldt Superior Court to try to hang on to their place of living, or as we call it their home.

Sources inside Yee Haw say the Sheriffs acted like they were searching for marijuana, and of course we have the Vilica marijuana bust the same day with the same “code enforcement warrant.” Twelve Sheriffs with guns drawn served a county “code enforcement warrant” on the very day the owner of the land had an appointment with county code enforcement to inspect the land. It would appear on the surface as a paranoid county building inspector until you plug in the fact that they also served a “code enforcement warrant” looking for 1200 marijuana plants within a couple of hours of leaving Yee Haw.

First of all it is fucked up that we allow the county to kick these people off a place where it is legal for them to sleep. And second it is fucked up that they are doing it because of a pot bust gone bad.

love eternal
tad

News from Santa Cruz

2008-02-09T12:24:00.000-08:00

Peace be with you

The Plaziod often receives updates from similar causes around the country. Here's one I received from Robert Norse in Santa Cruz. It speaks for itself:

Thanks to videophotographer, writer, and humanityforhomeless.blogspot.com commentator Tim Rumford for posting some updates on the (so far) successful struggle to reclaim public space in Santa Cruz stolen under Mayor Ryan Coonerty's Parking Lot Panic Law.

For the latest indybay photos, petition and flier to go: link

An on-line petition can be found at: link

The Human Rights Organization meets today (Saturday February 9th) at the Firefly Cafe at 131 Front St. at 2 PM in Santa Cruz to discuss next Wednesday's protest, on-going Accountability Watch for Mayor Coonerty around the Sleeping Ban, and the progress of the Sleeping Ban Lawsuit.

For more info call: (831) 425-4467 _www.humanrightsorg.org; write Santa Cruz HRO PO Box 332 Santa Cruz, CA 95061; or go to www.humanrightsorg.org on the net.

love eternal
tad

2008-02-05T21:40:00.000-08:00

Peace be with you

I constantly hear people say, “But you chose to be homeless.” No you fucking idiot, nobody! NO-BO-DY! I REPEAT NOBODY!, chooses to become homeless. It doesn’t take too long being homeless to know things are way fucked up down here. The law says you can be homeless, the law also says you can’t sleep, and the cops damn well know you'll break the law.

Fuck that shit! People sleep and they're going keep doing it. They have to or they'll die! You put on top of that all the shit from the angry bigots, having to eat FEMA food in a soup kitchens, having to to sleep in the rain, in the cold, in the mosquitoes, etc, being refused bathrooms when you got to shit your pants, having medical care only in emergencies, being blamed for every bothersome complaint no matter how large or small, being called crazy because you bother the merchants, being micro-case managed by money-hungry poverty-pimps who learned in school how it is to be homeless, watching billions of dollars being given to grant-whores “to solve homelessness” only to see children with only those chemically white bead slices to eat for super, being constantly afraid for you life, having to do the dirtiest, most demeaning jobs to survive, having no place to go, being run out of town by the cops and their quislings, and you’re being asked all the while to give up your dignity.

So why are people surprised that, after numerous kicks in the balls, some houseless persons might say “fuck-you!;” or take on the bigots for their bullshit; or find innovative way's to feed themselves healthy food; or insure they have shelter; or learn that their diet controls their bowels and cleaning up after themselves; or become responsible for their own health; or refute the bullshit “blame the houseless” propaganda; or know that calling a group crazy, in this ever narrowing definition of “norm,” is as much bullshit today as it was when Hitler used it as an excuse to genocide; or see that they are not a “case” and therefore have no need of managing; or expose the funding slight of hand that is so fucking blatant when witnessed by the aid actually given; or feed one-another; or realize that fear is their enemy; or stand their ground; or demand their place in community; or turn that given up dignity space into selflessness, into the best of the human spirit, into words which expose the truth - into "the chosen?" Fuckin A.

No, I didn’t choose to be homeless - that happened - I chose to stay and struggle for those you so like to oppress! All ~~men~~ peoples were created equal, it's just some ain't got no land. I want my land back.

love eternal
tad

become imperishable

2008-01-29T21:08:00.000-08:00

Peace be with you, I give my peace unto you.

Thought I'd throw it out there.

“Everything that came from the perishable will perish, since it came from the perishable. But whatever came from imperishableness does not perish but becomes imperishable.”

love eternal
tad

City of Arcata starve homeless for Stillman's view

2008-01-24T13:32:00.000-08:00

Peace be with you

view out Stillman's 9th and H property

The Arcata [Sh]ity council has canceled the lease on the $460,000 Arcata Endeavor Services Center and the Eureka Times Standard speaks of “possible impact.” It makes one ask why these “hippy-dippy” progressives attack the poor so ruthlessly? The answer is simply that the Arcata City Council is a bunch of fascist neo-liberals. When I served as a member of the Arcata Emergency Shelter and Homeless Services Plan Task Force (AESHSPTF), emergency shelter and homeless services were ignored, and kicking the homeless out of Arcata became the sole focus due to intense business pressure. Alex “Leona Helmsly” Stillman, the biggest landlord on the Arcata plaza, and now Vice mayor led the fight, to shit on the down and out.

A quick background: The Arcata Endeavor was started in 1983, and was hosted by the Arcata Presbyterian Church. In 1997 the Endeavor obtained non-profit status, and worked with the City of Arcata to get two $35,000 “study,” and one $490,000 “construction” State Community Development Block Grants (CDBG). The “Arcata Service Center,” the Endeavor, was built in 1999 to “empower people as they work to remove barriers to success in their lives.” These “locally utilized taxes," CDBGs, came with so many “requirements” that they hardly could be “implementing our own solution to a local problem.” And the worst requirement was that the beloved City of Arcata was to hold the lease on the property obtained for the poor.

The “idea” of removing the poor from the poor’s building first became public during the AESHSPTF meetings. Downtown merchants, landlords, and “Members of Arcata Downtown Main Street Program,” started complaining that the entirety of the problems that happen in “their downtown” happens because some take pity on the hungered. This “lobbying group” had COMPLEAT control of the AESHSPTF’s $37,500 consultants. Alex Stillman and her mainstreet boys managed to get push polls, media distortion, censorship, and the “idea” introduced that the CDBG homeless building should not have it’s one dollar a year lease renewed.

In order for Alex Stillman to get money through CDBGs to repair, improve and refaced her own buildings the City of Arcata had to throw a bone (the Endeavor) to the poor people they would be gentrifying. Now Stillman’s numerous plaza buildings have new foundations, roofs, and facades, so the illusion that she gives a shit about anybody but herself goes and the poor suffer.

Alex Stillman’s long public campaign to rid the downtown business interests of “transients” is well known. Stillman advocates that homeless attracted to the Endeavor cost her and her mainstreet boys money (i.e. INTEREST), and that the Endeavor must go (i.e. CONFLICT). Stillman, a city council member with clear conflict of interest, both created a quorum and voted on April 4, 2007 to throw the poor out. “Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For ye devour widow’s houses, and for a pretense make long prayer.”

love eternal
tad

Eureka Police Department claims Tasers are Safe. Bullshit!

2008-01-18T10:50:00.000-08:00

Peace be with you

"A deer dance, invitation to peace
war staring you in the face, dressed in black
with a helmet, fierce
trained and appropriate for the malcontents
for the disproportioned malcontents.
The little boy smiled, it'll all be well
The little boy smiled, it'll all be well
Pushing little children
with their fully automatics
they like to push the weak around"

System of a Down

You know how the Eureka Reporter puts a picture under the main headline that has nothing to do with the main headline, but leads one to suspect things that aren't really there? Todays headline was: "$1 SETTLEMENTS OFFERED" over a picture about EPD's new taser lust. This reminded me of the pepper spray victory and the following YouTube videos.

EPD Chief "POP-'em" Nielsen claims “You would use the Taser before the baton.” Isn't a baton a pain compliance weapon? Cops don't use batons for self defense they use them to move and corral people. Both Criminally Negligent Homicide suspect, and taser guru, Tony Zanotti and Chief "POP-'em" assure us tasers have no known medical problems. Zanotti even compares his henchmen's taser use with medical doctors use of a defibrillator like there's some equality in professionalism between a cop trying to kill someone and a doctor trying to save someone. The Reporter didn't need to look far to find an injury though, Robert Owens, a Vietnam vet who got tasered in Crescent City for "just standing there," claims "[his] heart was fine before [the tazering] happened.” Too bad POP-'em and his posse couldn't debate taser safety with the over 150 people killed by tasers.

The UN calls tasers torture, and I agree. I remember when the Arcata Police tasered a drunk to make him get up! Then there's the person who got tasered on the plaza which resulted in a "we didn't do anything wrong but we changed our policy" declaration from Randy Mendosa of the ADP. And of course we mustn't forget David Cleveland who, after being tasered by sheriffs at the Garberville station, died at Humboldt County jail.

Should we trust Eureka's cowboy cops with pain compliance weapons they falsely believe "ain't gonna hurt ya?" Fuck no! Judging from the way they beat Martin Cotton to death with their fists and batons makes me sure that we are in for a lot of recreational zapping. Giving cattle prods to the SS is a tried and true method to bring more deaths by EPD on the horizon.

love eternal
tad

Humboldt County Board of Supes squanders $82,000 in homeless funds

2008-01-15T20:08:00.000-08:00

Peace be with you.

“There must come a day
When a box is not somebody's home
The unfinished work of our heroes
Must truly be our own
We can't let the future become our past
If we are to change the world
Won't you tell me
Tell me please
How many miles must we march”

Ben Harper

The Humboldt County “tax and misappropriate” Board of Supes today graciously gave the homeless $82,000 dollars of your tax money. Well not really the homeless. Actually it is for more office equipment. In related news The Arcata Endeavor Homeless “Services” Center was purchased with $560,000 dollars of funds for the Homeless (even had a ribbon cutting ceremony), and Stillman and her quislings on the Arcata City Council are throwing the poor out of their last real service in Arcata. Why are these “homeless funds” going into temporal buildings, office furniture, and salaries instead of food and shelter?

Back in 1995 the Republicans took control of the Congress and Senate. Part of their "contract on America" was “ending welfare.” That was not a party platform; it was Friedman Economics that gave a cut off date for all welfare recipients. This tough love of the bankers was to take the money used to feed and shelter poor people and instead use it to motivate people to retrain and enter the work-force - To compete for jobes that weren’t there to begin with.

As welfare recipients went through newly required “job skill classes” an entire field of employment became created. Soon private companies began or expanded “training schools” for all kinds of employable skills. Coordinating the welfare-to-work required “caseworkers,” and caseworker's needed office furniture, buildings, cars, computers, etc. A new jobe market was created around using the poor as a corporate commodity. “Poverty pimp” be came a term.

Soon high wage jobes were being “outsourced” by another Friedman school of thought, NAFTA. As ex-high wage workers had to have two or three jobes in order to try to hang on to their mortgages, the government offered to pay wages to any employer who would hire a welfare recipient. The problem was that as one person got a jobe another lost one.

Welfare to work policies without substantial jobe growth made homelessness numbers began to rise, and studies were commissioned. The Urban Institute (think-tankers of spatial decentralization) studied homelessness in two cities through government homeless services. Though I have not read anything that convinces they learned shit about homelessness, in keeping in the Friedman spirit they claimed 50% of the services were used by 10% of the homeless. They made the claim that these 10%, whom they called the “chronic homeless,” were physically incapable of holding a jobe by virtue of a disability.

As Bush jr. spoke at the 2000 Republican convention he said “in the next bold step of welfare reform, we will support the heroic work of homeless shelters . . . food pantries." He then got appointed president by the Supreme Court and started the “chronic homeless initiative.” The chronic homeless initiative took 90% of the already bare-bones homeless funds, and spent them exclusively to end “chronic homelessness.” Case-manager jobes got created and homeless food, shelter and hygiene facilities started disappearing. Again the case-workers need of better office furniture got fulfilled and the basic sustenance needed by the homeless went unmet.

Homeless funds start as your federal tax payments. Then the feds (not to be confused with your federal government the “feds” are the private bank known as the Federal Reserve) give the homeless funds to the state IF, and ONLY IF, they implement the “chronic homeless initiative,” and all its policies. The State in turn add a required amount of state tax payments, siphon off a larger amount for “maintaining” the program, and allocate what’s left to the Counties according to how well they implement the “chronic homeless initiative” along with additional State policies. These payments are called “grants.” And “Grant Whore” too became a term.

The homeless being just numbers on a chart to Washington the case managers in the beginning were able to open “case files” on millions of homeless who didn’t fit the definition of “chronic homeless.” They then utilized these fabricated cases, along with their newly self-proclaimed “authority” to justify their ever growing voracious money lust. Grants fund studies, salaries, studies of the studies, salaries, plans, salaries, task forces, salaries, offices, salaries, consultants, salaries, and of course an $82,000 “Homeless Management Information System.” Shelter is full or unavailable everywhere in the county, and the scant food is mostly donated, prepared by the homeless and other volunteers. The only two places case managers have that they can send homeless is to the welfare office or the mental health department, and the homeless could probably find those on their own.

This is an incomplete telling of the tale, because others like police, private security companies, and mental health also profit on the backs of the homeless and poor in general. Don’t believe that welfare reform saved you any money; it just change the occasional welfare queen into the common corporate welfare of poverty pimps and grant whores, and more people on the streets then ever before . In fact, if you disregard the fact that case managers and their needs cost us way more then welfare ever did, you still see an increase by the growing number of cop-hours devoted to driving homeless into the waiting nets of the case managers.

love eternal
tad

Will Humboldt County mass drug everyone?

2008-01-12T11:51:00.000-08:00

Peace be with you.

Fluoxetine hydrochloride, also known as Prozac, contains mostly fluoride! Would you advocate drugging the entire population with Paxil or Prozac? Yet, “both drugs contain fluorine and chloride . . . [as] part of the 'active' ingredient.” Why are we not drinking safe fluoride free water? As medicines go, fluoride is forced medication in the biggest way. Even Scientologists can’t escape bathing in fluoride.

Humboldt County wants to fluoridate at the source. This is mass drugging at an enormous scale. Currently the towns of McKinleyville and Manila are free from this forced medication, but soon the neo-water will be doped. In Eureka and Arcata you must figure out how to get this poison out of your own water.

Some, like Ann Lindsay, really believe in this societal manipulation. Fluoridating everyone is extremely controversial to say the least and that in and of itself should prevent that kind of government intrusion. You can’t force me to take a medication against my will, and if avoidance of water is the only path you leave for me to pursue, IT IS FORCE!

If you’re worried about your kid’s teeth then reduce the sugar and phosphoric acid laced soda pops. If that is too much parenting for you don’t worry NAMI and NIMH want kids as young as 5 years old to be on SSRIs - so their fluoride is coming.

love eternal
tad

Humboldt Mental Health to Start a Round-up

2008-01-08T18:12:00.000-08:00

Peace be with you

“ I have had the vans of Einsatzgruppe
(Mobile Death Units) D disguised as
house trailers”

Dr. Becke SS Untersturmfuehrer 16.May.1942

Today Humboldt County went from Ken Kesey’s magic bus to Phillip Crandall’s Black Magic Bus. The devil got wheels in the form of the Phillip Crandall Mobile Drugging Unit. He’s hunting down Children, Elderly, Vets, People of Color, Homeless, anyone deemed a “problem,” and Dissenters. Phillip Crandall falsely claims 80% of the homeless are wing-nuts and 30,000 of YOU Humboldt residents are fucking nuts too. And YOU all need the PILL!

The Humboldt County Mental Health Department put on the Board of Supervisor’s Agenda the following:

“Transfer Funds to Fixed Asset Account and Approve the Budget Appropriation Transfer for Mental Health Branch Budget Unit 1179-477, Mental Health Services Act”

“What the fuck is that!” you might ask? Unit 1179-477 just happens to be a “$205,007.84 . . . recreational vehicle . . . for the provision of mental health services.” The agenda item was concealment.

You had better wake up! 30,000 of you mean one out of every fourth person is to be doped! Look around and ask yourself "are one out of four of the people you see during the day crazy enough to take drugs that were only meant to be used in the most severe cases?" Look around and ask yourself “do they really need drugs that make them become a “danger” if they fail to take them, for what ever reason?" Ask yourself “do they deserve a life sentence of diabetes, heart disease, impotency, psychosis, and suicidility?” And, ask yourself “who’s next?”

love eternal
tad

Humboldt County Pushes Suicide Through Drugs

2008-01-07T11:39:00.001-08:00

Peace be with you.

As our fame goes from Humboldt skunk weed to Humboldt nut pills some confirming facts have recently been presented. It seems as our available “mental health” funds increase, so do our suicides. And the top cheerleader for “dope your loved ones,” Lea Nagy, has insulted our intelligence once again with a “my word” times standard propaganda piece.

Lea Nagy is an employee of Humboldt county mental health, and a “board member” of the Pharmaceutical Corporation sponsored front-group Nami . Nagy believes in forcing dangerous pharmaceuticals on people because it is how she makes her living. She would advocate blood letting if psychiatrists still were allowed to perform that particular form of torture.

Robert Jay Likton makes clear in his book The Nazi Doctors that is was Nazi Psychiatrists who implemented and carried out all the Holocaust deaths from the first handicapped child to the Jews they ordered shot as the Nazi psychiatrists fled the allies. It wasn’t the Nazis per se who killed 12 million innocent people, it was their Psychiatrists. Likewise it isn’t the Namis who are responsible for all the deaths and destroyed lives caused by modern Psychiatrists. The difference between the Nazis and the Namis is the former utilized gas and the later pills.

The goal of the Nazi murderers was to eliminate, enslave, or prevent reproduction of the poor which they referred to as “undesirables.” Anti-psychotics shorten lives, creates willingness to work for free, and they cause sexual dysfunction. It may be a bit slower, besides the occasional suicide at the back door of Humboldt’s mental health department, oh yea and a few dozen school shootings, and people killing their entire family, also people waving flare guns around, and . . . well you get the point, but there is not as many bodies to get rid of as say a Todeslager (extermination camp). Plus there is the US Government’s favorite euphemism of “plausible deniability,” “we didn’t kill ‘em it was their choice.” One only needs to read Nagy’s nagging to realize how Nazi like coerciveness is use to force “voluntary treatment.”

In the late 1800’s Jean-Martin Charcot invented “hysteria.” This was the first so-called “mental illness.” Today the Psychiatrists have 360 unique “mental illnesses” which unlike real illness, have no physical proof (no blood test, biopsy, post-mortem, brain scan, or other real scientific proof of an illness). They invent and retire these “illnesses” at will. Hysteria, Drapetomania, and Homosexuality are three examples of where psychiatrists ruined people’s lives and health only to recant later. Video game addiction is one of the new classifications that were “voted” on by the AMA. Imagine voting on if small pox is a disease or not. What the fuck kind of science is that? It’s the same kind of science they use to put you on nut pills that give you diabetes, that require another pill that gives you heart disease, that require another pill that renders you impotent, but don’t worry they have a pill for that too.

The drug companies have pushed a “brain chemistry” theory to justify brain chemistry changing drugs as “cures” for “mental illness.” It’s been thirty years since they can up with this theory and they have yet to prove any relationship between brain chemistry and the onset of any "mental illness.” Their theory holds that because sometimes brain chemistry changing drugs cause a slight improvement in a few symptoms of certain ambiguous “mental illness” diagnoses mental illness must be a lack of brain chemicals. This theory doesn’t explain why anti-psychotics which change the “brain chemistry” in a couple of hours take weeks before they change behavior.

Humboldt County’s Medication Algorithm Program (MAP) guarantees that individuals who depend on public assistance for mental health insurance will be doped. Atypical-anti-psychotics (the pills that cause diabetes) are the first level of treatment in the MAP. The Map program is claimed to use what is called “Evidence Based Best Practices.” “Evidence Based Best Practices” is newspeak, formed by opinions, not data and “most of the guideline’s authors have received support from the pharmaceutical industry.” Again we have pharmaceutical corporations buying “votes” on how what was voted an illness should be treated.

The sad fact of this “marketing campaign” by Nagy and her cohorts at Nami and the Mental Health department is that people who need help don’t get it. Instead they get a life sentence of some of the world’s most deadly dope. Dope which increases suicidality no less.

On October 24, 1933 the Nazis passed a law against "Habitual and Dangerous Criminals" that justified placing the homeless, beggars, unemployed, and alcoholics in concentration camps. Today we have the “New Freedom Initiative” which justifies placing the same groups, along with children on killer nut pills. It may be an improvement in effectiveness, but it is the same death as the camps brought.

love eternal
tad

Cop Recruiter states; "If they [recruits] have some shady stuff in their background, they can call me,"

2007-12-30T11:05:00.000-08:00

"Not everyone is cut out to be a corrections officer."

Peace be with you.

I don't know what else could be said about this Eureka Reporter photo and quote then "bullshit." Look at that "corrections officer!" He hasn't seen his toes for years. College of the Redwoods' contribution to the police state seems to be lowering it's standards dramatically.

That photo makes me certain that CR's standards are pretty damn low. If they will fudge weight standards by a couple hundred pounds, did they fudge mental stability standards when they trained ALL those Eureka Police Officers who gunned down Eureka residents?

I wonder how many children ask their school guidance councilor for information on a job where they could capture, at gun point, those they disliked and keep them captive in cages? I think I would worry about that child - just like I worry about those who would seek this kind of employment.

love eternal
tad

Who the Fuck is Rebecca Kimbel

2007-12-27T09:58:00.000-08:00

Hold me up into the light
Fix the cracks and fix them right
Keep the pieces in the drawer
Keep them there forever more
May come in use for someday
Recycle this shit in someway
And all that I have to say
Don't let them throw me away

Korn

Peace be with you.

About once a week a “toastmaster,” Rebecca Kimbel, writes a column for the Eureka Times-standard’s “my word” space. This blond-haired, blue-eyed, speaker for hire hates poor people and wants them fought (we all know how the EPD interprets this).

She advocates spying on your neighbors, keeping logs of their activities, judging them and their friends, and other general unAmerican behavior. This extra-white woman, with just a touch of brown prominently displayed on the end of her nose, believes the spying, keeping secret logs, and making false allocations against your neighbor will improve her quality of life.

She falsely threatens the people of Humboldt county with “lawsuits,” legal responsibility for others actions, and death and mayhem if you don’t get in goose step with her and her butt-buddy Garr “Pop-‘em’-to-death” Nielsen.

She advocates against those with poor credit, poor maintenance habits, and poor public records. Poor is the operative word here. Oppression of the poor is her aim. Preventing the poor from renting housing in her exclusive city is her main point week after week after week.

She gives questionable legal advice that was given her by Pop-‘em. Remember this is the police chief who swore meth would be found in police murder victim Martin Cotton. It is obvious that neither Pop-‘em nor his Reichish quisling Kimbel have a fucking clue as to what they are talking about.

I pray that Miss Kimbel and all those stupid enough to follow her advice get the shit sued out of them. It would do Miss Kimbel a world of good to have to live like those she so obviously despises.

So as you stoke the flames of hate and fascism please remember Miss Kimbel what you do to the least of my brethern you do to me, and may JAH the most high reward you in kind.

love eternal
tad

What I want for Christmas

2007-12-25T12:53:00.000-08:00

Peace be with you.

I want love to be the law of the land.
I want the hungry fed.
I want the unsheltered sheltered.
I want the working poor to live comfortably, without fears and want.
I want the jailed released.
I want the broking healed.
I want the trees to grow tall.
I want the rivers to run clean.
I want the birds to sing loud.
I want the animals to be bountiful.
I want the fish to swim thick.
I want the air to be fresh.
I want the soldier to be bored.
I want the peacemakers to keep the peace.
I want the lonely to feel loved.
I want the weak to feel strong.
I want the courage, wisdom and love to confront war with peace.
I want love to clear the fog from everyone’s eyes.

. . . and I want to drink this organic chocolate beer, eat these organic, fair-trade, dark chocolate chips, and reflect upon how I’m the “luckiest” mother-fucker in the world. May you be blessed as you have blessed me.

love eternal
tad

Who killed Cheri Lyn Moore?

2007-12-20T20:34:00.000-08:00

“No escape from the mass mind rape
Play it again and then rewind the tape
And then play it again and again and again
Until ya mind is locked in
Believin’ all the lies that they’re tellin’ ya
Buyin’ all the products that they’re sellin’ ya
They say jump and ya say how high
ya brain dead
ya gotta a fuckin’ bullet in ya head”

Rage Against the Machine

Peace be with you.

By now most people in Humboldt County know that the District Attorney has filed charges against ex-Eureka police chief Dave Douglas and Swat boss Toni Zanotti for criminally negligent homicide, also known as involuntary manslaughter. I believe that negligent homicide is a good second or third charge to tack on to other charges which seem more apropos. The other charge should be “obstruction of justice,” “lying to investigators,” “destroying evidence,” and other charges stemming from the fact that every member of Eureka's police department that was at the Moore scene is involved in the very questionable death of Cheri Moore.

After being sworn to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, EPD swat team member Mike Johnson testified in the Cheri Moore Coroner’s Inquest. During his testimony Johnson, the supposed only .223 rifle shooter at the scene that day, was asked, “So, the first time you fired she was facing you? To which Johnson replied “she was facing me.”

Next he was again asked, “Her body was turned in your direction?” He replied “yes.”

The next question was “you actually saw the, ah sight picture of her body prior to firing?” and he answered “yes I did.”

The confliction in this story arises from the fact that his victim had a bullet hole in the back of her head. How can this be explained? Though the prosecutor at the inquest clearly established by all the witnesses testimony that Cheri was facing the supposed shooters the whole time (Wilcox even had to pull the body forwards to handcuff it), the connection between that fact and the two bullet holes in the back of Cheri, still to this day, has never been explained.

Further, testimony from Johnson shows he believed he fired his gun between 3 and 5 times. Investigators found 4 rifle bullet shells, and the landlord Hauer turned in 1 more he found later. That’s 5 shells and agrees with Johnson’s testimony. The problem is, there were 5 rifle bullet holes in Cheri with no exit wounds, and two additional rifle holes in the wall. That is both two more than shells found and what Johnson remembered firing.

We will probably never know what happened that day, but I believe that both the “inquest” and this “involuntary womanslaughter” charge are designed to cover up a murder. There are five more killings by the EPD, whose version of the stories must be viewed in light of their less than forthcoming past. How can we ever trust a police department that treats a killing by officers like it is none of our business?

Remember what my Original American brothers and sisters have been saying for 300 years: “never trust the white man in the dark blue uniform.”

love eternal
tad

neo-chief leaves Eureka defenseless to protect ex-chief

2007-12-11T19:05:00.001-08:00

Peace be with you.

I tried to go to the arraignment of David Douglas and Toni Zanotti, but the Humboldt County Court Clerk’s office either lied to me or the DA’s office failed to make the public arraignment public. On Monday, December 10, 2007, I went to the clerk’s office a little after 10:00 am and asked if “David Douglas” was scheduled to be arraigned that day. The clerk claimed she checked her computer and “no charges had yet been filed.” She told me that the cutoff for the 1:30 arraignment calendar was at 11 am. At 11:30 am I again went to the court clerk and again asked if a “David or Dave Douglas” was scheduled to be arraigned she again seemed to type something into her computer and again she said no. She then told me that the next arraignment court is at 4:00 pm and that it’s cutoff time was 3:00 pm. We all know that by 3:00 pm the two accused of criminally negligent homicide were granted a continuance on their arraignment until February 21, 2008 during the 1:30 arraignment calendar by Judge Feeney. Now I don’t want to make too big of a deal about my rights being trampled on, but my rights were fucking trampled on!

Let’s see who did get to learn of the PUBLIC arraignment before the fact. In today’s you-can-hold-it-in-your-hand edition of the times standard (12/11/07) there is a front page picture of the court hallway. The picture is full of people who were able to find out what time the arraignment was to be. So get out your magnifying glass and let’s play count the cops.

Starting at the back and to the right of the column in the middle of the hallway there are three Bailiffs. Bailiffs don’t count because they are always there. There is one additional bailiff behind the gentleman with his hands in his pockets left and towards the back.

Walking up the hallway on the left rear is an EPD officer on duty (I would assume, unless they now wear there uniforms to social events). I can’t tell who is behind the cop in the rear – probably some poor person who just happened to be getting arraigned on some stupid class-crime on that of all days, but I don’t know.

From in front of bailiffs to somewhere behind the photographer on the right I can identify 17 uniformed cops and a bunch that know are cops but I can’t tell for sure if they are suited up as enforcers. One can only assume the entire eureka police department was ordered to report to the court house, under the color of law, and at tax-payer expense, to pack the gallery of Douglas’ secret public appearance.

First of all, bullshit dog-and-pony shows just don’t get it. We already had that unrealistic, one-sided, fairy-tale. Remember it was called an inquest. Secondly, I don’t have any faith in our DA’s ability, or should I say desire, to prosecute this case. Paul Gallegos, the DA, didn’t bring charges against these two - a grand jury did. If Gallegos was going to prosecute this crime he would have done so. He didn’t! He either believed he couldn’t or he didn’t want to. During the Human Rights Commission’s police review forum on December 4, 2007, Gallegos said, “I am confident from my experience with law enforcement and from my discussions, that they have significant concerns about that process [police review]” - no shit! Daniel Mintz, the heroic reporter who left the Arcata Eye after its owner took a bribe to pursue a story, documented this in Southern Humboldt’s paper The Independent today under the title “DA Advises Against Police Review.” (Unfortunately I can’t find this paper on line.)

Having a DA who both by his words and his actions support the police in their “internal findings,” and the neo-police chief Garr Nielson who dispatches the entire Eureka police department to the court house, and the secret arraignment courts does little to dispel my belief that they are just covering up another murderer in our midst.

love eternal
tad

Humboldt Drug Task Farce mimics Operation FALCON

2007-12-05T13:49:00.001-08:00

Peace be with you.

On Tuesday, December 4, 2007, the Times Standard printed a three inch story under “Briefly” which proclaimed the EPD, the CHP and the Humboldt County Drug Task Force did a “sweep,” arrested 21 people, and scored a record 2 grams of heroin and a quarter of an lb of pot.

Wednesday’s Eureka Reporter broke down the arrests as follows:

Only two of the arrestees could have any charges relating to the heroin. Suspect one accused of “heroin sales” and suspect four accused of “possession of controlled substance.”

Only suspect seven is accused of smoking herb and he was accused with the non-jailable possession of less than an oz of herb. They took a 52 year old man to jail for his head stash. Not one of the suspects was charged with slinging nugs, let alone to grade-schoolers.

We all know a QT is four ounces, so if suspect seven, the only "marijuana charge" had somewhere from a hit off a bowl to almost an OZ, then where did the other three plus ounces come from? Perhaps the three plus ounces was the reason two were arrested for parole violations. Smoking herb seems like a bullshit reason to send someone to prison.

Suspect 20 was drunk in public. Though I refuse to see “just drunk” as anything more than an elitist attack on poor people’s leisure time activities, I think a drug task force/edp/chp sweep is a bit of overkill and abuse of power for such a minor offense.

Suspect 17 was arrested for an open container municipal code violation – ARRESTED! ARRESTED BY THE DRUG TASK FORCE NO LESS!

13 suspects were arrested on undisclosed “warrants.” They made special effort to list one of the warrants as a felony, and knowing how the love to parade the exception that proves their rule around, I feel comfortable in predicting that is the only felony warrant arrest. We do however know poor suspect seven was arrested for an infraction warrant – a ticket!

The one suspect missing from the Reporter article, which I’ll call suspect twenty-one, is just that – missing. Maybe false arrest, or even something more sinister – who knows?

Some of the same questions raised after Eureka and Arcata participated in homeland security’s FALCON operations, must be raised here. If the EPD/CHP/Drug Task Force knew where these dangerous criminals lived, why did they wait until last Friday between 8 am and 6:30 pm to arrest them? Did they wish to put the community at risk inorder to stage a publicity stunt?

More likely than not this was a homeless sweep. I’ve personally seen these “Drug Task Force cops” targeting pot smokers on the Arcata plaza twice now. Large groups of sunglass wearing under-cover cops were begging hippies to sell them nickel nugs out of their stashes for highly inflated prices.

We spend millions of dollars in this county on “drug enforcers,” yet marijuana, the least harmful of any illegal and most legal drugs, is the target of the vast majority of this money. Tuesday, December 4, 2007, the Humboldt County board of Supervisors approved an 89,179 dollar “Marijuana Suppression Program” grant, a 130,000 dollar “Domestic Cannabis Eradication/Suppression” grant, along with a 7,000 USDA Forest service grant.

You will be hard pressed to convince someone that a ten and a half hour, multi-departmental, “drug” sweep that nets two junkies and a 52 year old pot smoker is a good use of our public safety dollars. What really bothers me though, is the fact that the tweak use in Humboldt County went up as the pot smokers went down.

love eternal
tad

who's crazy here anyway?

2007-11-28T13:25:00.000-08:00

Peace be with you.

On November 17^th, an Eureka Reporter reporter reported: “Lollich (Humboldt County DHHS spokesperson Leslie Lollich) said Thursday that DHHS had not received Proposition 99 funding for three years.” On November 25,2007 the Eureka Reporter reporter reported: “For the past three fiscal years, Humboldt County has not spent a single dollar of the $1.3 million it receives from the 1998 tobacco settlement on tobacco education, prevention or cessation. Instead, the entire sum goes to pay for half the county’s $2.6 million cost for jail medical expenses.” Did we not get it or did we get it and squander it on something else? It seems that yet again Phillip Crandall is concealing the truth.

We already pointed out how Crandall inflated the number of homeless labeled “mentally ill” by 4000%, now it seems he wishes to “penetrate” 30,000 Humboldt County residents with his CalMAP drug program. The Eureka Reporter reporter reported May 18, 2007, “Even at the 15.38 percent penetration rate for adults aged 26-59 — compared to statewide penetration of 10.12 percent — that’s 85 percent not being served. Crandall calls the numbers ‘impressive, but not enough.’”

Who are these 30,000 Medi-Cal-eligible people in Humboldt County Crandall noted as not being penetrated by the Mental Health Department? The may 18th article stated, “Deichert (Kirsten Deichert, spokesperson for the California Department of Mental Health.) noted that in the most recently posted prevalence rates of mental illness, Humboldt County had 9.31 percent of its population at or below 200 percent of the federal poverty level with penetration rates of 10.7 percent.” But 30,000 people represent 23.38% of our county’s population, not 9.31%. So If 11,945 people are "at or below 200% of the federal poverty level" who are other 18,055 Humboldt citizens Crandall is refering to? Is poverty or near poverty a mental illness now?

None of Crandall’s numbers add up. It is like he came up with an answer first and then added the equation. The excuse he gave me once at a meeting at the Wharfinger for how he came up with the ridiculously inflated MHSA CSS plan homeless mentally ill numbers was he just guessed. With him looking to “impress” his “penetration” to a quarter of Humboldt County residents I think what we really need to ask is “who's crazy here anyway?” Crandall seems the abnormal one here, even according to his numbers.

By now we’ve all heard of Dr. Theodore Utecht’s allegation “he has been asked to alter a diagnosis for coding purposes so that ‘(the county) can get paid.’” Utecht claims “‘hundreds of thousands of dollars billed this way’ over a period of four years.” Calling people crazy when their not is not only fraud, but when done to the individual can have two life scarring repercussions. The first is that once a “mental disorder” is placed on your record the best you can hope for ever again is to be a mental disorder in remission. The second is that if you are labeled mentally ill and a medi-cal recipient you are treated according to a flow chart of treatment, called CalMAP, that makes atypical-anti-psychotics the first line.

I followed a person through Sempervirens once so it comes as no surprise to me that, with Crandall’s fraudulent numbers of mentally ill, Crandall’s redirecting education funds to mental health, the sudden quitting of three mental health directors in a year, and the phenomenal budget growth in Humboldt County’s MH department, Sempervirens county nut house is trying to misdiagnose 30,000 of you. Bush has plans to mental health test every one in America and Crandall wants to dope a quarter of them.

love eternal
tad

Are you scared yet?

2007-11-25T11:28:00.000-08:00

Peace be with you.

Work is now underway to put heightened security at our Humboldt county courthouse. The terrorists last attack was on the World Trade Organization (the world trade center) and the World Police headquarters (the pentagon), so surely if they attack again they will go after Humboldt Superior Courthouse. Though we have never had any serious problems at the courthouse, our supervisor’s claim that these intrusions into our life are over due and necessary. But if we were truthful we would see that terrorists are not the cause of this supervisory paranoia, oppression is.

Judges ignore the constitution and daily indoctrinate our citizens into the “legal justice system.” They know they are ruining people’s lives to such an extent that they fear retaliation. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand that when you fuck with people’s lives so cruelly and continually that someone sooner or later is going to snap. That’s what the increased security is really for. It’s to guard our dictators from is disenfranchised masses.

I had a person tell me the other day that she had three bodyguards. I thought to myself, “I’ve never been that scared.” I’ve never felt the need to arm myself, or wear a bullet proof vest, or have armed guards watch over me. It doesn’t mean that nothing will every happen to me as I have had way more death threats than I wished. It just means that it is very rare. The odds of dying as a “problem” at the hands of our Problem Oriented Policing team is drastically more probable than getting attacked by terrorists (of course the Eureka Police Department does in fact fit the definition of terrorists).

We need to vote these tax and spend liars out of our government. They operate under the theories of the Hegelian dialect – also called problem/reaction/solution. They paint a picture of a “problem,” incite a “reaction,” and then force a “solution” upon the masses. To be poor is to be the problem. To divide the poor against one another is the reaction. And, to give millions of tax dollars to the rich is the solution.

Once I was taught that this was the land of the free, but a more honest teaching would be that this is the land of freedom for the rich and subordination of the poor. The micro society parallels the macro society. Just like big corporations tell everyone in the world what to do, think and be, the local corporations tell Humboldt county residents the same. It’s the same “new world order” that was responsible for the crusades, nazism, and the war on terror. If it wasn’t for the fact that the nazis were brought over after WWII and given our country (they formed the CIA, they were a third of our psychiatrists, and they were the Bush family) then I could say this is the new nazi Germany. But in all honestly I can only say that we are the old nazi Germany.

love eternal
tad

How can the feds "lift their shroud" when the Emperor wears no clothes?

2007-11-17T10:44:00.000-08:00

Peace be with you.

Wednesday, November 15, 2007, the AP ran a story about the Federal Reserve issuing their twice a year report four times a year. The article was boring and stupid. I don’t recommend reading it. Instead I invite you to notice the misleading title most papers titled the article. For instance: “Bernanke is Removing Fed's Shroud of Secrecy,” in the Louisville Courier-Journal; or “Fed Chairman Moves to Lift the Shroud of Secrecy,” the Cincinnati Enquirer; or “Fed Plans to Lift Shroud of Secrecy,” the Tacoma Tribune; or “Fed to Shed Some Secrecy,” the Chicago Tribune; etc. No where does the article state that secrets, like who are the stock holders of the privately owned and run Federal Reserve Bank, will be exposed. The fed’s, as we have been ingrained to call this banking venture, tell us through their spokesman that they will do what they’ve always done only more often. I point out the “newspeak” media ploy because if people knew “the secrets of the Federal Reserve Bank” even the republicans would revolt (one, Ron Paul, did).

The video “Ring of Power” is a low budget high content movie about New World Order bankers, their long rise to power, and how they took over the money of every nation. For those who like to read and don’t want all the extras about world rule, corporate dominance, and current leaders the book “Secrets of the Federal Reserve,” by Eustace Mullins is a real eye opener.

I also suggest reading a book called the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” but I must make a disclaimer. NOBODY KNOWS WHERE THIS BOOK CAME FROM OR WHO WROTE IT! The anti-zionists claim it was written by the forefathers of the modern day zionists. The pro-zionists claim it was written by some anti-semitic who hated all Jews, not just the zionists. Me, I need not be concerned with who wrote it or why, because like George Orwell’s “1984" it’s pages parallel the reality I see around me.

We complain about the big corporations that rule the world, but fail to see that behind each of these monsters is a bank holding the note. They hold the note so they dictate the operations. And the good old US of A is mortgaged to the tune of $9,115,927,573,568.93 to these bankers who call the shots. We belong to them: our resources, our factories and our labor.

love eternal
tad

SWATting citizens ends, but POPping them will continue

2007-11-08T12:13:00.000-08:00

Peace be with you.

Garr Nielsen the bigoted police chief of Eureka announced today that the police death squad called SWAT will “stand down.” Garr feels that six, fully bodied armored, machine gun toting, hitmen are not enough for those situations where landlords need their homeless befriending tenets murdered. Garr must now rely on his POP team to do the dirty work of beating citizens to death by hand.

In Tuesday’s Times-Slanderer’s propaganda piece “my word,” Garr called upon all good nazis to turn in their neighbors. He stressed the point that property ownership by poor people is blight and should not be tolerated. Calling homeless people that neo-n-word “transient,” Garr expressed concern about people sleeping in our community. We need to take cars away from the poor and make it impossible to harbor homeless because of some unspecified “criminal behavior” bred by homeless.

Garr didn’t point out that Humboldt County judge Christopher Wilson ruled “the court finds on the night in question there was not enough bed space available; it [sleeping] was not a willful violation . . . defendant is found not guilty by the court.” Nor did he mention Humboldt County judge Bruce Watson’s ruling that a defendant that “was not . . . causing any of the environmental and other harm the ordinance [sleeping] seeks to prevent” was not guilty. Garr didn’t even mention Humboldt County judge Marilyn Miles’ written quote from In re Eichorn “Necessity does not negate any element of the crime, BUT represents a public policy decision not to punish such an individual despite proof of the crime.” No, he just threw out class slurs like “transients” to somehow justify his loyalties to the KKK ideology of his illegal machine gun toting Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office.

Papa POP in his “my word” claimed he would use his Garr badge to get a permanent slave labor/jail work crew assigned to the City of Eureka. This makes sense seeing how he left a Washington state Sheriff’s department which was run not by a law enforcer but a correction officer. Never even obtaining the position of undersheriff in his last job Garr can guess on how to use the slaves labor he and his murderous gang-bangers at the EPD enslave. Aren’t chain-gangs the way his fellow bigoted nightriders still to this day keep their “undesirables” from being an “eyesore” to the rich, white masters in the south?

In Wednesday’s “my word” one of Garr’s quislings explained how you could turn in your neighbors as a drug house. Rebecca Kimble explained that “drug houses” could be “identified” by the fact that they have friends. Though Ms Kimble lists nine bullets on how to tell if the neighbor you don’t like could be labeled a “drug house,” only one actually points towards “drug houseness,” or criminality. Only the “[illegal drug] transaction” if witnessed would constitute “probable cause,” yet Ms. Kimbles alludes to friends, gifts, music and children all as signs of an invitation for “further crime.”

Ms Kimble advocates not just turn in your neighbor, but keeping logs, getting them evicted, and suing them in court. Ms Kimble wrote that you could get $7,500 for suing them, but didn’t tell you how much it will cost you when you lose the suit and have to pay for your neighbor’s lawyers and possibly a counter suit for invasion of privacy. I couldn’t honestly tell you how much it will cost you, but I know it will be fucking expensive. Hell just having me walk up to your door to serve you with counter suit papers will cost you $100, and the process server is the cheapest person in the whole court gambit. Depositions, lawyers, court reporters, transcripts and professional witnesses all make hundreds of dollars per hour.

These law enforcement people and their minions only tell you their twisted version of freedom and liberty, because they never get stuck paying the tab. It’s you stupid people who listen to Hitler, Stalin, or Nielsen, that end up paying directly for their fascism. It is us the majority though who must pay by having the increased crime, drug use, deaths and all the individual problems that this type of police-state/crypto-eugenics brings with it into what was once safe, friendly small town America.

The 1935-36 attempted fascist coup of the United States by the likes of House of Morgan was defeated, but traitors like Prescott Bush continued their support of fascism and eventually it’s evil seed started choking out the wheat. A quote from FDR I found while reviewing the facts of this attempted coup by corporate interests seems very applicable today:

``In 1776 we sought freedom from the tyranny of a political autocracy--from the eighteenth-century royalists who held special privileges from the crown. It was to perpetuate their privilege that they governed without the consent of the governed; that they denied the right to free assembly and free speech; that they restricted the worship of God; that they put the average man's property and the average man's life in pawn to mercenaries of dynastic power; that they regimented people. And so it was to win freedom from the tyranny of political autocracy that the American Revolution was fought....”

love eternal
tad

The big MAC evicts all single men.

2007-10-31T10:29:00.000-07:00

Peace be with you.

The multi-million dollar, chronic homeless case management warehouse, the MAC (Humboldt County, Multiple Assistance Center), gave all single males 30 days to get out. Like so much other “homeless help” the MAC boondoggle was envisioned, planned and built without an operating budget. After spending their recent quarter of a million dollar advance, MAC decided to throw out the homeless men who have no real help anywhere else.

So much for using that bullshit line, the one about “caring about the true homeless, but I had no right to live.” When the MAC opened it threw every non-profit, trying to help the homeless, in the area into a financial mess. Now the million dollar remodel is cutting back. I’m sure they thought getting in bed with the Mental Health department would be profitable, because Phillip Crandall claims 80% of the homeless are crazy enough to need reprogramming at the big MAC (he also claims 90% need rehab there).

If the sheriff or police needs a quarter of a million bucks to arrest the homeless, they get it. If the D.A.’s office needs a quarter of a million bucks to prosecute the homeless, they get. If the jail needs a quarter of a million bucks to incarcerate the homeless, they get it. If the probation department needs a quarter of a million bucks to keep the homeless easy fodder for the police and sheriffs, they too get it. But somehow through an insanely management heavy MAC staff, after putting those people on “meds,” we’re broke and the mere 16 homeless men they allowed in, are now out.

I guess it was all bullshit from the gate to obtain property for the local governance, just like the Arcata Endeavor. It’s wrong, we spend these millions of dollars to build places to help the homeless and leave them with nothing. Slavery is just around the corner - “Arbeit macht frei.”

love eternal
tad

We're back

2007-10-29T13:42:00.000-07:00

Peace be with you.

The secret password for this blogspot has reappeared. I know very little about blog administration. For instance, I have been taught that I don’t know how to remove mean, spiteful, comments. I do know that the measure with which you mete will be the measure you’re measured by. So if you want to lie and pretend your someone else: it’s your Karma.

Some things you should know are:

If I call something a NAZI it is because it is the actions, the justifications or the rhetoric of the German NAZI party.
If I call something “fascist” it is because it supports the corporate/police state/governance that is associated with fascists.
If I refer to the “party” I am referring to the republican/democrat/green party which goose-steps in unisons with the status quo.
If you don’t like what is written on this blog then find a blog you do like.

I hope to get back those writers who have no place to express their ideas and frustrations. Many topics that affect many Humboldt citizens are discussed or mentioned very rarely in other Humboldt media. It seems sometimes as if there is an agreement between media people to suppress or ignore certain topics. Hopefully we can broach those topics here. Have fun, play nice and research the truth for yourselves.

love eternal
tad

test

2007-10-28T12:43:00.000-07:00

Can we get this blog up and running?

check out the "Arcata Reporter"

2007-06-23T21:57:00.000-07:00

check out the "Arcata Reporter" at arcatareporter.blogspot.com

Arcata People Project action coverage

2007-04-27T19:28:00.000-07:00

check out coverage of the Arcata People Project action on indybay.org
http://indybay.org/northcoast/
http://indybay.org/newsitems/2007/04/27/18405860.php
http://indybay.org/newsitems/2007/04/25/18405092.php

lots more articles there...if you're having troubles finding them, look for the "North Coast" page under "regions."

"as long as you're annoyed" ...another one from tad

2007-03-26T22:37:00.001-07:00

Peace be with you.

Resist!

Non-violent civil disobedience, resistance, direct action, and community are the tools with which peoples will make Babylon, “the mighty whore,” fall. Our local leaders are nothing more than quislings for the new Reich. Our criminal justice system is nothing more than a slaughter house factory that kills human spirit and dignity for the corporate churches of the false profits. The legislation is written for rich white busy-ness owners. Our laws are designed to oppress women, gays, peoples of color, homeless, unemployed, non-christian or zionist right, working poor, and yes despite your denial, the so-called middle class too. Our solders, the military and cops, are used to maintain “an order” which is designed to protect the financial interests of multi-national corporations and their “new world order.” Inflation is an artificial manipulation designed to keep you working harder and harder while producing more and receiving less. Debt was invented to keep you desperately employed to pay for shinny shit over and over again. And rules are used to confuse you as to what you have to do compared to what they want you to do.

Anarchy and Pacifism is NOT riotous or cowardly! A person standing in the street in a Jesus pose while full body armored riot cops crush their skull is neither rioting nor running. Anarchy is the opposite of government. Capitalism, socialism, and communism all have a “leader” and a steep hierarchy – masters on top slaves on the bottom. Anarchy is more like that picnic at the beach. Nobody is in charge, the work, resources and their resulting rewards are shared equality. Peace is maintained because it is in everyones best interest to be peaceful. Governments are cruel, violent, and oppressive in order to maintain control. Anarchy is compassionate, caring and liberating in order to eliminate the need to control. Anyone who makes it to the age of 18 has proved, to me at least, that they are smart enough to live. If they're smart enough to live then they must know that living in peace is a hell of a lot better than living in war.

The law is handed down to the people from a white, male, heterosexual, corporate financed, christian oligarchy. The law is enforced upon the people by a military controlled by the same oligarchy. The guilt of the people is determined by the same oligarchy. The prisons and forms of punishment are run by this very same oligarchy. Our wages come from this oligarchy and our rent payments return to this oligarchy. We've made this oligarchy rich and powerful.

Now this oligarchy has abandoned us. They have turned their military against us. They have rescinded the rights they originally motivated us to support them with. They have tried to leave us with only two alternatives – be their slave or be fodder for their dogs of torture.

I for one will insist on those rights I have. What if everyone insisted on all their rights all the time? What if employees refused to pee in cups and took every Sunday off? What if every person charged with a crime insisted upon the required formal reading of their charges, a speedy trial by a jury of their peers, the right to a defense, and all the discovery which might shed light on their case? What if entire neighborhoods refused to let the police into them? What if we stopped paying the banks that pay the military? What if we stopped supporting the corporations by refusing to purchase their crap? What if everyone said “no, I don't have to?” What if we support the sister or brother who makes our bread? What if we fed everyone? What if I only traded my tomato for and an apple and not a dollar? What if we all did what is right simply because it is right? We would be Anarchy, we would be Peace, we would be Love and we would be Free. Jesus was not a coward, nor violent, nor Christian, he was fucking revolutionary! Tear it down with your palms facing forward, and expect resistance.

Love eternal

tad

from tad

2007-03-26T22:35:00.000-07:00

Peace be with you.

A funny thing happened to me on the way to an anarchy the other day. I had sent away to this “anarchy” group for a pamphlet that I believed did an excellent job of explaining to someone who had never experienced anarchy what it is. This group offered two bundles of free pamphlets to those who couldn’t pay. As you know I get my food, clothing and shelter out of garbage cans so I felt I qualified for the program.

I filled out as much of the “form” as I am able to do – no phone, no street address, no last name; you know the shit that always gives us away as houseless peoples. I hit send on the e-mail, told the owner of the P.O. box to keep on the lookout, and started making a mental list of people who, if given the pamphlet, would create maximum distribution. I really never thought that my brothers and sisters would ever consider rejecting my request because I didn’t fit the correct class.

Imagine my chagrin when I check my e-mail and see a title from the anarchists that says; “order (some Babylon number) has been cancelled.” The e-mail basically claimed that they had some type of “class filter” in place and well I’m just not good enough to be an anarchist. So I sent them back my typical “fuck you fascist” reply and asked that they leave me alone.

I told that story because often I am invited to see a brother’s or sister’s show, or event, or talk, or class, or whatever and I arrive and am turned away because the person at the door thinks I’m “homeless.” (No I got a fucking home; it’s shelter I lack!) It isn’t “more common than not;” it’s every time! The only time it doesn’t happen is with people who recognize me.

Having studied the theories of governments for myself, having learned histories from multi-divergent-points of view, having lived and failed in a capitalistic society, while watching the communistic society crash to the ground, having been raised on the stolen land of numerous anarchical peoples, having recognized the original peoples rich truths, naturally I would question why people so like to prejudge me. Though I would never give a shit, I would wonder for the knowledge of it.

So here’s my thought on it. Everyone wants a spot on the pecking order. Those anarchists probably thought “Behold a gluttonous man, and a winebibber.” They probably think I got a bottle of mad dog in one hand and a bible in the other. No my friends, I can’t keep my fist raised in solidarity with mad dog in my hand. Let us face it, it’s easy to judge those less than yourself as such.

Does this mean anarchy won’t work? No; it just means these people aren’t anarchists. Power to the people!

love eternal
tad

tad: prophets and "false profits"

2007-03-16T11:06:00.000-07:00

Peace be with you.

The simplest comparison between our Prophets and the false profits of the christian right shows a huge abyss between the two. The new fascist christdom idolizes the corporate state as the child of god, while Jesus placed the individual as God’s child. It is easy to see a tree and know that God’s perfect and then look at a strip mine and know the fascists are fucked up!

The basis behind the cruel nature of the fascist policies is supremacy. The fascist believe that the gender and race that destroyed the world is evolutionarily superior while those peoples which lived in harmony with the earth are inferior and only continue to evolve due to the science of the fascists. The engineers call this theory intelligent. The Hopi call it Koyaanisqatsi, which means “Life out of balance.” Extracting all the Earth's resources so a few rich bankers can live with the freedom and security that they deny the rest of the world is way the fuck out of balance. It is so easy to see the eventual death of mankind, and maybe the Earth herself, that Prophets have foretold of its coming for millenniums.

The use of guns, starvation, and disease to “motivate” peoples to give up low impact lives and punch time clocks to pay rent to the self proclaimed Lords of the land is only oppressive and in no way correct. Those who wear the dark blue uniforms and maintain the status quo are the same ones who slaughtered every indigenous Peoples on the Earth. They have taken the Holy Mother Earth out of their religions and trampled on every spiritual belief in Her. They have used the same “science” they use to destroy with to distort and convolute the very teachings they proclaim as a gift from God.

Jesus’ last words in the Christian bible are “feed my lambs.” Today we close soup kitchens because we can’t afford highly paid “case managers,” and claim that scraps of bread only encourage people to choose poverty. We call those who don’t choose Koyaanisqatsi abnormal and those with the most money normal. Once we label them as abnormal then we use the most inhuman methods to Christianize them, or Capitalize them, or Democratize them, or Americanize them.

The social scientists would have us believe that as soon as all Peoples in the world are paying rent to the global landlords, paying taxes to hire the armies that oppress them, and are making the false profits for the these landlords, then the world will be a place of peace and harmony. Yeah, and as soon as frogs learn how to fly they’ll stop bumping their ass!

Jesus was a higher evolved human, not George Bush. Muammad was a higher evolved human, not John Rockefeller. Lao Tzu , was a higher evolved human, not Pat Robertson. Siddhartha Gautama was a higher evolved human, not Tony Blair. Millions of Indigenous Peoples are higher evolved humans, not the pillaging Imperialists.

Love eternal
tad

GERONIMO IN JAIL!

2007-02-19T16:21:00.000-08:00

http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2007/02/14/18363310.php

Geronimo Garcia, a very good soul, has been put in jail by the Arcata Police after ascending the Statue of Dead President Willy McKinley that is, unfortunately, in the middle of the plaza.

for more info including court date (Feb 21?), see indybay article at:
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2007/02/14/18363310.php

from the PPU, Olumpia WA

2007-02-18T16:57:00.000-08:00

http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2007/02/354257.shtml

Memories of Camp Quixote

author: Ray Kavick

The (abbreviated) story of Olympia's Camp Quixote

My name is Ray Kavick, anarchist and member of the Olympia Poor People's Union (PPU). This is a short reflection on the first week of an encampment we set up in Downtown Olympia on Thursday, February 1st. We called the encampment Camp Quixote. This piece is not that comprehensive, but gets the basic story out there. My comments DO NOT represent those of the PPU. The PPU is a non-hierarchical group dedicated to improving the lives of the poor and "homeless" in Olympia by whatever means available. To contact the PPU write us an email at poorpeoplesunion@yahoo.com or, if ABSOLUTELY necessary, call us at 925-285-5342.

The first tents were awkwardly set up with the people at the campsite looking over their shoulder every once in a while. I felt that many of us were waiting for the police to come immediately. During the planning meetings, it was assumed by nearly everybody that we would be at the site for an hour at most. When the first five tents went up and an hour had passed, none of us were completely sure what to do. But that soon passed, the group got together and we decided to go ahead and put as many tents and as many people on the sight as quickly as possible.

A local peace group was holding a sit-in at two locations that day protesting the laws that the city passed banning sitting, panhandling or performing on Olympia sidewalks. Once it was over many of them came down and hung out with us. People passing by stopped to see what was going on. The energy was beginning to grow in the small, gravel and mud parking lot. The tents continued to be erected, we made a few pallet runs in order to get the tents off the ground, different musicians came by and played for us and random people dropped off food. A port-a-potty arrived by truck later in the day. The pigs were nowhere to be seen.
By nightfall, the group was operating smoothly and the unity we had talked about and hoped for in the meetings was materializing. Once the fear of the police had subsided we all threw ourselves headlong into the undertaking and the sense of excitement among the group gave us all a small, constant buzz. We were no longer doing something "illegal", we were doing what we needed to do. If something needed to be taken care of, people got up and did it. Whenever someone needed something, we gave it to them, or tried to. At the end of that day, the hope I had for the encampment multiplied exponentially.

The next day, in our local, shitty newspaper, we were on the cover. The Olympian was telling everyone that we set up the camp to "protest" the new laws. While all of us despised the laws, we did not do this to "protest" anything. We did this create what we needed: housing and a sense of community. But it was easier to label us as "protesters" for The Olympian, something they are still doing. Anyway, that day brought the media, along with more people, more food and more tents. There was no word on the police, but the in the paper the city council expressed anger at us for being "ungrateful" for all the City had done for the "homeless". Everyone laughed at this and the day went on. We set up a communal tent to store food and serve as a makeshift kitchen. An Olympian photographer wandered through the camp, as well as a snobby reporter. The City manager, Steve Hall, a exceptionally disgusting human being, came by and informed us that this action represented a "poke in the eye" to the City. I suppose he thought this would fill us with shame and make us leave. Later in the day the Seattle stations came down and began filming.

A few us felt a sense of disgust and anger upon seeing them but we put it aside in order to get the word out about what were doing, accepting that our message would get skewed. I was to discover later, however, that the Seattle stations gave us pretty decent coverage, probably because they weren't worried about upsetting the wingnuts, wealthy business owners and rich City Council members of Olympia as much as The Olympian was.

It was ridiculously cold that second night. A few people brought a barbeque down and some coals, being that burning a fire to keep warm was forbidden us. Later, even was burning coal was made "illegal". The cops had started driving by regularly that day, going up and down the alley next to the camp. It got down to twenty two degrees that night. Perhaps if Steven Hall had stayed the night he might not have run his arrogant mouth as much he did and still does.

The next three days brought us a number of things which I will tackle in no meaningful order: a communal hall was built with lumber donated from a local salvage company. It was draped in tarps and became an awesome little spot for us to hang out. Our kitchen was expanded and a fantastic fellow named ____ acted as our cook, making food that blew out what the Starvation Army dished out. In the hall we had communal food and tobacco, with new donations coming all the time. We shared everything there. A few people were a little reluctant to share their tents and some people got mad at the positioning of certain tents, but the problems were dealt without much friction. I have not felt so at ease in a long time. I will probably say it again, but this was a small slice of the kind of community and future many of us dream of. Some of you may give me shit, but I wanted to cry a few times for absolutely no rational reason.
Those three days also brought the City Council meeting and the first real worry of the police raiding us. The PPU planned to go as a group to the Council meeting and flood it, but it occurred to many of us that this would be an opportune moment for the police to come. So those who could be arrested stayed at the camp and those who could not went to the meeting. Quite a few people spoke during the public comment section of the meeting, and one of those people was a woman named Carol. She ripped into the Council and expressed her outrage towards what they were doing. We didn't get raided that night, but Carol was later arrested.

She had a warrant out for her, but the police knew she was in town since it was issued. This arrest was purely political in nature. Someone who angrily denounced the Council was in jail the next day. I am sure this disgusts you just as much as does me so I will not comment on it anymore. Needless to say, this unnerved us all, being that we were expecting them to come for all of us. At night, cruisers were driving by, some of them flashing their searchlights into the camp at two in the morning in order to wake us up. The pigs seemed to hate people trying to improve their lives so much that they constantly looked at us with scorn if not hatred as they drove by. We weren't doing anything wrong, not even by their bullshit standards. But the OPD are a bunch of psychotic, ex-military mutants who never graduated from junior high, so I guess I kind of understand.

Lastly, those three days were filled with paranoia at the seemingly inevitable police raid. The Council, in comments and at the meeting, stated that they would not talk with us and that we had to go, period. Steve Hall said that if we didn't leave then the police would come in. Rumors began to circulate. At 6 at night. Within 12 hours. Definitely in the middle of the night, probably 4 AM. In retrospect, the police and City did an effective job at freaking us out. During those weary days, people with warrants or carrying children took off. Each time we heard a rumor everyone was on the phone, calling their friends and the media in order to get as many people to the site as possible. The corporate media eagerly descended from Seattle in order to get those juicy pictures of people getting cracked on the head. Strangely, I believe their presence kept the cops away on at least one of these night, although I cannot be certain. Each of those rumors turned out to be false, though, and I think people got a little burnt after three days of preparing themselves for a confrontation.

On the second to last day the police gave us written warnings to leave or face arrest. On the back of the warning was a list of numbers for shelters that the residents of the camp could call. All of them were either out of service, full or impossible to get into quickly. After that, we began to look for another spot to house the encampment. A church was contacted and it seemed likely that they would let us. When the word finally came that could in fact move to the church's property we informed the City that we would be moving. Nevertheless, the State had to flex its muscles and surround the encampment at the 4:30 Friday morning. We were basically out of there already and we finished cleaning out the spot under the eyes of the pigs. We left the spot cleaner than we found it.

Now we're at a new spot in West Olympia, being graciously put up by the Unitarian Universalist Church. They are not dogmatic and are truly good people. While the camp is no longer Downtown where more people can get to it, we still have a safe place to go. The community and the bonds that grew out of that first week are still alive and strong. The City and their hired thugs cannot destroy the trust we all now have for each other, and that trust is the most important thing to come out of the whole endeavor. Without it, we would not be able to continue. The new camp is up and we'll be up to more mischief later. But I can't tell you any more than that. Just keep your eyes peeled... ... .

Love, Ray Kavick of the PPU

Welfare and Roger Rodoni

2007-02-17T13:06:00.000-08:00

“ROGER RODONI TAKES CORPORATE WELFRARE
by Jake Pickering

- Social Worker -

P.O. Box 3050 , Eureka , CA 95502

(707) 832-8005

- February 16, 2007 -

“I try not to say too much to an intellectual void.” - Roger Rodoni

According to the February 16, 2007 edition of The Times-Standard, as reported by James Faulk, 2^nd District Humboldt County Supervisor Roger Rodoni’s recent speech to Eureka Republican Women was not only beyond hypocritical; it was incredibly insipid.

Roger Rodoni leases “a substantial portion of Pacific Lumber land since he first ran for the office in 1992… around 9,000 acres, including a house and a barn, and for it Rodoni paid only… $350 per month.” (www.northcoastjournal.com/122503/cover1225.html)

Never mind the obvious implications of blatant political corruption for the moment and focus on the hypocrisy displayed by conservative cattle rancher Roger Rodoni. Here we have our long-time 2^nd District Supervisor quite literally on the take from Pacific Lumber!

The financial benevolence bestowed upon Rodoni by Pacific Lumber should not only rightly be considered a fetid form of political bribery, Rodoni’s sweetheart deal with Pacific Lumber is an obvious case of corporate welfare run amok.

However, as financially fortunate as Roger Rodoni is, in his typically hypocritical Republican fashion Rodoni cravenly chose to personally attack the less fortunate of Humboldt County, referring to our meager social safety net as a “gravy train”, of all things!

Regarding the fact that the state and federal governments are considering draconian cuts to necessary programs that “supposedly take care of the people who can’t take care of themselves”, Rodoni coldheartedly quipped “I’m sitting here thinking, they need a bigger axe… Humboldt County is an oasis for this sort of thing.”

Rodoni’s outspoken opposition to vital social programs for the working poor, the disabled and the elderly is as legendary locally as his repeatedly displayed antagonism towards Native Americans and other oppressed minority groups.

Roger Rodoni is a right-wing relic from Humboldt County ’s puerile past. Rodoni is a racist Republican redneck who openly brags about his bigotry, wallowing in his hatred for women as well: “Like Supervisor Bonnie Neely, who he said has been buried in the Humboldt County Courthouse for 30 years; or Arcata Mayor Harmony Groves, a ‘social utopian if I ever met one – every time she talks you expect butterflies to come out of her mouth’.”

Roger Rodoni is the personification of political embarrassment. However, what is truly pathetic about Rodoni is that he is not nearly intelligent enough to understand that he should be ashamed of himself! How did Rodoni ever get elected to public office in the first place?

Oh yeah, that’s right. Pacific Lumber and their abusive parent corporation MAXXAM, Inc. put him there. Apparently, Savings & Loan scammer Charles Hurwitz’s largesse came in handy for Rodoni’s political campaigns. Too bad his constituents have received so little in return.

Ironically, Roger Rodoni said he is puzzled why “these characters keep getting reelected.” So are we! Humboldt County can do so much better than Roger Rodoni.

It is time for Roger Rodoni to retire from the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors. You can make it happen! Public pressure still counts for something in this county, and I urge you to contact 2^nd District Supervisor Rodoni to let him know what you think of his reelection prospects in the upcoming June 2008 primary election.

Tell Rodoni that the time has come for him to move on. Roger Rodoni’s office phone number is (707) 476-2392. Please give him a call, and tell him Jake Pickering sent you!

thanks Jake....

communique from Olympia, WA.

2007-02-04T14:57:00.000-08:00

On February 1st at 12 PM, the Olympia Poor People's Union (PPU) set up a tent encampment on city property. The date of the action intentionally corresponds with the city's implementation of an amended pedestrian interference code already in effect. The addition of Ordinance No. 6456n to the existing law criminalizes sidewalk sitting with a maximum penalty of 90 days in jail and a $1,000 fine. This act of civil disobedience, the encampment, was carried out in response to growing discontentment amongst Olympia's poor people over the slow, systematic attempt at the dispossession of our city's homeless, orchestrated and supported by some city officials and business owners.

In addition, significant portions of the population of Olympia have taken on a generally dismissive and apathetic attitude towards the plight of those in need. This is the inception of an ongoing effort on the part of the PPU to find a sustainable, dignified way to address the issue of homelessness in this area, rather than to ignore it or to punish its victims.

The PPU believes the rights to shelter, dignity; mental and physical health to be basic human entitlements; and that a community where all individual members are valued and their contributions recognized must be realized. The PPU believes that all people are entitled to these basic rights, and if these rights are not provided, we believe it is essential for us to take what is necessary for survival by the means available. The State thus far has proved inadequate in addressing our needs as human beings, and the situation has grown too urgent for us to wait for either institutionalized charity or bureaucratically hampered government aid. We thus are attempting to take matters into our own hands.

To be treated as human beings is our goal. As there is a stigma attached to being homeless, we will create homes of our own and show ourselves to be responsible, caring members of the community, as capable of taking care of ourselves as any other group of people. In our encampment, we will keep order, prohibiting drugs, alcohol, violence or theft. These are our only regulations. We will work towards creating sustainable, permanent housing for all who are in need and to create a space for those who are looked down upon to be integrated into the community, not out of charity or pity but out of acceptance, solidarity and mutual appreciation.

All Power to the People, -Olympia Poor People's Union

Letter from Arcata Food Not Bombs to the "Co-op"

2007-01-23T21:03:00.000-08:00

This letter was recieved by email. I decided to just leave all the funny type-o doo-dads in there. I think that the meaning is clear.

FOOD NOT BOMBS

December 6, 2006

Dear Arcata Co-Op,

The North Coast Co-Op, Arcata Store, is one of several sources from which Food Not Bombs (FNB) gleans food. FNB is an effort to feed anyone who is hungry in an open, respectful way. Many FNB volunteers are committed to non-violent social change through the celebration and nurturing of life by preparing and giving out free vegetarian or vegan food â€“some volunteers help out on occasion, as a way of being part of a compassionate community, meeting a concrete need, and â€œgiving back.â€

Locally and elsewhere, Food Not Bombs has a long tradition of conscious and sanitary food preparation and service. Volunteers are well-known for prioritizing dignity in their food sharing and diligent standards of cleanliness. Arcata FNB has been continuously serving at least once a week for over four years with out any complaints of food poisoning. FNB volunteers spend many hours preparing, cleaning, transporting, serving and eating each free community meal.

Food Not Bombs is a loose-knit group of independent collectives all over the world, most concentrated in North America. FNB ideology maintains that myriad corporate and government priorities allow hunger to persist in the midst of abundance. While there is enough food in the world to feed everyone (likewise in Arcata), so much food goes to waste intentionally and/or needlessly as a direct result of capitalism and militarism. FNB tries to call attention to poverty and homelessness, the results of these oppressive, violent systems, by sharing food in public places and facilitating the gathering of poor, homeless, and other disenfranchised people. Most of the food served by FNB is healthy surplus food that would otherwise go to waste as well generous donations from individuals in the community. FNB invites people who eat FNB meals to be involved in providing the food themselves. Food Not Bombs does not make people jump through bureaucratic hoops or punish anyone for being poor, but rather fosters empowerment and self-determination.

Food Not Bombs in Arcata has an her/history that includes subjection to police repression, arrests for serving free food on the Plaza, and success in overcoming prohibitive city action, through persistent dedication to feeding hungry people. Vincent of the Arcata Co-Op requested a letter from Food Not Bombs and has articulated 3 conditions upon which FNB volunteers can again receive Co-Op â€˜throw-awayâ€™ food and, in turn, feed many people.

The 3 conditions are purported to be in response to the Co-Opâ€™s claims that it received a complaint-- that produce was found on the Plaza. Apparently, the presumption is that 1) the produce was donated by the Co-Op to FNB, and 2) FNB is somehow responsible.

The 3 conditions that Vincent has â€˜mandatedâ€™ (apparently on behalf of the Co-Op) in order for FNB to receive donations again are:

1) that three people, regular FNB pick-up volunteers, present their IDâ€™s and confirm that they will be the sole designated receivers of Co-Op donations;

2) that any food be picked up on the Plaza after FNB meals, and;

3) that the donated food be cooked in a â€˜certified-to-codeâ€™ kitchen.

As community members and as volunteers committed to service and sharing, we hope that the Co-Op will defend against the systematic violence of poverty and acknowledge the presence in our local communities of poor individuals and families, and respect their needs.

Here are our responses to the 3 requests:

1) Because we understand and respect your need to be familiar with people who are picking up food donations, we will designate 3 consistent FNB volunteers to do pick-ups, and we will make sure that you are introduced to any â€˜newâ€™ people who may, in the future, replace one of the â€œthreeâ€ taking on the task of pick-ups.

2) Rest assured that we will see to it that food and garbage resulting from our FNB community meals will be picked up from the Plaza and at any other serving sites to the best of our ability before leaving the site of our FNB event.

3) Regarding the request that we prepare our community meals in a â€˜certifiedâ€™ kitchen, we find this request unreasonable. The method of food preparation for our events is our concern. Our food preparation is adequate and appropriate and always has been. Moreover, our food preparation is neither legally nor otherwise relevant to the Co-Op or to its expressed concern(s).

We are hopeful that donations of food from the Co-Op will immediately resume, as homeless folks are at this time especially in need of healthy, cooked meals. For some, such meals are critical to their very survival.

If you believe that further negotiations are required with Food Not Bombs, we request that you not withhold food donations during that process. The Endeavor has cut back services during the most severe weather time of year, now more than ever FNB is needed for the survival and dignity of hungry people in Arcata.

Sincerely,

the Local Food Not Bombs Community

[Then there was a written note that said something like (but more eloquent): â€œIf someone requests food for Food Not Bombs who has not been previously designated to do pick-ups, please ask her/him to call 822-4014 so that we can coordinate.â€-- This was added to assuage that horrendous worry that different people may request food to make free meals.]

UPDATE!!!: Los Angeles Skid Row Rally

2007-01-23T20:48:00.000-08:00

http://la.indymedia.org/news/2007/01/191954.php

At the first of what organizers say will now be weekly Saturday rallies in front of the LAPD’s Central Division headquarters, a Skid Row rally on Saturday, organized by a homeless man, saw the largest public turnout yet for a public demand to end L.A’s massive new push to criminalize all this city’s homeless people.

Activists are calling on the community to help set up a base-camp on Skid Row to halt, immediately now, the police attacks.

Since last August, Los Angeles police have been the staging, on Skid Row, the largest attacks on homeless people in the city’s history; daily waves of police arrests, beatings and harassment that has terrorized all homeless people here: with up to 4,000 homeless people targeted.

And with, up until now, almost no widespread Los Angeles city outcry.

At this first of weekly rallies were activists from Food Not Bombs, the People’s College of Law, CopWatch Los Angeles, the Downtown Unitarian Universalists, and the Skid Row-based Catholic Worker community. Activists say they are now planning this week to establish a base camp on Skid Row --to intensify the community watch, and to assist homeless people here; and also other groups; in documenting the daily police attacks, as well as to support the upcoming weekly Saturday rallies.

About 1,000 homeless people are holding out on Skid Row sidewalks now nightly –with another 3,000 throughout the L.A. area who are estimated to spend at least one night, every three months, living on Skid Row.

“It is critical that from here on out no cop anywhere in this city get away with telling a homeless person anymore that they are a criminal because they refuse to go to a shelter. Don’t they get it? A Federal Court has ordered --as long as L.A., countywide, has over 80,000 homeless people and less than 30,000 shelterbeds you cannot humanely forbid anyone in here from sleeping wherever. This city has the worst housing crisis in the nation; but L.A. is now trying to enforce a new policy --‘shelter or criminalization.’ These attacks on homeless people are something that must end now; and the people of LA need to know that since last August, under our new, so-called “progressive” mayor, Antonio Villariagosa, homeless people are now being beaten, arrested, and criminalized --like has been done by no other mayor in Los Angeles’ history." stated the homeless organizer of the protest, David Busch.

"Not even a Republican politician would have even dared attack us like this –and it is disgusting. Housing, not shelter, is a human right for all; and this trying to force us into accepting prison-like “shelters,” under threat of jail, or criminalization, must stop --now,” further stated Busch.

Busch is homeless, and living on Skid Row, and has been attacked by cops there twice since August. He has been homeless for over 13 years.

Activist say the waves of arrests and property seizures and beatings are coinciding with homeless being shipped by threat of force out of downtown; and away from many of the government offices and services they need –all in order to evacuate the poor from L.A.’s center for new loft and other pro-business developments downtown.

LAPD Chief William Bratton, in the past, has linked the current sweeps as part of his “Broken Windows” policing policy for L.A..

Coinciding with the Saturday rally --the Los Angeles Coalition to End Hunger and Homelessness, a large city anti-poverty group –also though, on Thursday, issued a press release to every newspaper, radio and television station in Southern California, as well as to all major national news media, denouncing the sweeps; and demanding a full accounting from LAPD for every homeless person harassed by a cop since August.

Eighty-percent of skid row is African American –and the largest percentage of the homeless on Skid Row, almost 10,000, are people forced to live in tiny one room hotels where they have had to pass constant drug screenings and cops have master keys, and where cops have been mounting unprecedented attacks on parolees also residing here to force them from the area. Meanwhile, this week, the Los Angeles City Council is also set to give continuing major green lights to a new, billion-dollar downtown mega-development, the “Grand Avenue Project”: and, along with the city ok, over 50 million dollars in taxpayer subsidies for the project.

City Councilwoman for Skid Row, Jan Perry supports the Grand Avenue project –but is offering nothing comparable to help even those homeless on Skid Row who’ve scraped themselves up off the sidewalks, and clawed their way into these tiny hotel rooms.

Homeless activists are calling for the community to show up en-mass for next Saturday’s rally, and to also pack tomorrow, Tuesday’s 9:30 a.m. Police Commission hearing at Parker Center; and to demand an end to all the attacks on the Skid Row community –as well as every Council meeting this week --and to also demand an immediate halt to the Grand Avenue Project, no matter what it takes, until community demands for equity for poor people downtown and throughout Los Angeles for the poor are meet by the developer consortium, and the L.A. City Council.

http://la.indymedia.org/news/2007/01/191954.php

Skid Row Los Angeles Rally

2007-01-23T18:36:00.000-08:00

STOP THE SWEEPS NOW!!

Since last August, Skid Row's homeless people have undergone the largest mass arrests of homeless people in L.A. history; hundreds of homeless people each month now have faced multiple daily raids of police demanding warrant checks, searches and property confiscation --as waves of 50 new LAPD officers brought to the area have swept through for daily beatings and arrests of homeless people --in order to now clear downtown for the newest wave of luxury loft developers. The Los Angeles Coalition to End Hunger and Homelessness estimates as many as 4,000 poor and homeless people may have had police demand their ID; handcuffed them; searched through every bag, suitcase, and possession they have --and then been transported to the LAPD booking room; and cuffed to a bench for up to an hour or more before being given a "choice:"

get into a "shelter" --or go to jail.

A Federal Court recently found almost 90,000 homeless people in Los Angeles County --and less than 30,000 shelter beds.

Incredibly, Central Division is getting away with now not classify these Skid Row actions as "arrests" --Division Captain Andrew Smith even recently claims that arrests on Skid Row "declined" this year. (citing only about an additional 2,000 "official arrests").

http://www.downtownnews.com/articles/2007/01/08/news/news01.txt

LAPD are conducting a mass disinformation campaign that has hid the actual arrests figures since last November.

http://la.indymedia.org/news/2006/11/188692.php

Nor do these figures include recent pre-dawn raids --where sleeping residents are woke up and are told, now, since the first of the year, to "leave in 20 minutes" or be arrested.

Additionally, since the first of the year, Skid Row Police are systematically clearing now entire streets in pre-dawn raids: Los Angeles, San Pedro, 5th St. and Crocker St. --and herding people towards the L.A. river --demanding that thousands of homeless people maintain themselves now in the fifty blocks of Skid Row for up to 2&1/2 hours each day without any public water source; only one public toilet that's not in a religious mission; and not a single public place to lie down, or even sit, until 8:30 a.m..; when only two tiny parks, with barely enough rain cover for 50 people, are supposed to serve a street population of up to 4,000 at any given time.

A homeless person on Skid Row was mocked last week by one LAPD policeman, "By the end of this month all this will be gone" --referring to the thousands of homeless people here who are breaking no law, and yet are facing daily, unprecedented, cop harassment. LA City Council insiders are even warning activists that such raids are being now contemplated soon for Hollywood, Venice, the Valley, and South L.A..

Stated Robert Erlinbusch, Director of the anti-poverty advocacy group, The Los Angeles Coalition to End Hunger and Homelessness:

"There are also many reasons why people will refuse to go to shelters; firstly, they are almost always full --making them impossible for many to get into -and, additionally, shelters separate unmarried partners; they often refuse to accommodate people's dogs or other pets; or provide adequate storage and transport of possessions; they do not accommodate mothers with children of certain ages; and they are often places extreme, and unlawful, hostility to anyone of the LGBT community."

A Federal Court order currently forbids LAPD from arresting anyone for merely sleeping on the sidewalk in the Skid Row area between 9 p.m. at night, and 6 a. m. each morning.

People are urged to bring signs, banners, and self-standing tents with footprints no larger than 8'x8'; solar panels; water; legal internet relay antennas; healthy vegetarian food and --respect for ALL residents here --for the rally, and to support the growing community resistance.

"Homeless" Tent Encampment in Olympia Feb 1

2007-01-22T18:09:00.000-08:00

"Homeless" Tent Encampment in Olympia Feb 1

http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2007/01/352625.shtml

On February 1, the "Poor" Peoples Union of Olympia, WA will set up a "homeless" tent encampment in response to a new city ordinance which goes into effect on February 1, making it virtually illegal to be on the street ("homeless") in Olympia. The exact location will not be revealed until the last minute, however it will be a highly visible protest. The eventual goals are to find a permanant location where the people can have a long term, autonomously run encampment and locations where people can be housed in autonomous, democraticly run communities.

The Poor People's Union, since its inception, has sought to overturn the ordinances targeted at the "homeless". Our intitial idea was to have a referendum on the ordinance and gather enough signatures for it. Over the past weeks, however, it has become clear that the PPU will not be able to expediently stop the ordinances from going into effect and has decided to put a referendum off for the time being.

Instead, the PPU is channeling all of its energy into setting up a tent
encampment in order to not only show the Olympia community what is going on but to occupy a piece of land in order to satisfy a need that those who passed these laws take for granted: housing. The people who passed and support this ordinance can hear about the "homeless problem" on TV, can complain about the "danger" of Downtown Olympia, and can be so arrogant and disrespectful as to pass laws that will effect other living human beings, but they will not get away with this without it coming back to emberass them.

The encampent will consist of human beings helping other human beings to live more comfortably than they have been. It will be run by those who have set it up. Decisions will be made by those who have a large stake in insuring the continuance of the encampment. Governments and laws try and convince us that we cannot do the simplest things, such as use vacant "city" land to house people with no roof over their heads. The encampment is one of those simple things and we do not require government approval to take matters out of their inept hands and put them into our own. They will probably attempt to crush us with the help of the police but we will not stop what we are doing. If the police do ANYTHING against us (the "homeless", the poor) it will only inflame the situation and provide more proof that they serve as nothing more than lackeys of those with exceedingly large roofs over their heads. For why would another human being want to deny another a comfortable place to live? Some will say law and some will say order, but no word or words will justify what is being done to the "homeless" in this town.

PPU (Poor Peoples Union) is an organization of Street People ("Homeless") and their friends. PPU is a autonomous, democratic organization where the unhoused have the final say on matters that effect them directly.

WE NEED:

CAMPING EQUIPMENT.
Tents, Tarps, foldable chairs, Propane stoves, sleeping bags, blankets, warm coats, boots and rain gear, buckets, sawdust. Remember, these are people who have nothing.

LEGAL OBSERVERS
Legal trainings for the people would also be desirable.

MEDICS
Needed for the standard street medic pepper spray, blunt trauma etc, but also for the needs of a varied group with different health problems.

COUNSELORS
People with some ability helping people work through trauma.

PERSONAL FACILITIES
Portable solar showers and portable toilet facilities would be good.

SOLIDARITY
We need this to be a varied group. The presence of supporters from the
activist community being in solidarity with the people will go a long way
toward making this a succesful effort.

Come and support the PPU Downtown on February 1st, the day that both the
encampment and the ordinance begin.

Send Camping and other Stuff to

Poor Peoples Union
C/O Bread and Roses
1009 4th Ave Olympia, WA 98506

Leave message for PPU at Bread and Roses
(360)754-4588

Vegetarian...from Granny Green Genes

2007-01-22T17:49:00.000-08:00

SAVING THE PLANET ONE MEAL AT A TIME

 On Sunday, December 10th of last year, the environment editor
of U.K.'s Independent Online posted a report from the United
Nations Food & Agriculture Organization (FAO), asserting that
"the world's top destroyer of the environment is not the car,
or the plane, or even George Bush: it is the cow".
 According to the report, the world's rapidly growing herds of
cattle have been identified as the greatest threat to the climate,
forests
and wildlife. And they have been blamed for a host of other
environmentalcrimes, from acid rain to the introduction of
alien species, from producing deserts to creating dead zones in
the oceans,from poisoning rivers and drinking water to destroying
coral reefs.
 The 400-page report by the FAO, entitled "Livestock's Long
Shadow",also surveys the damage done by sheep, chickens, pigs
and goats. But in almost every case, the world's 1.5 billion
cattle are most to blame. Livestock are responsible for 18 percent
of the greenhouse gases that cause global warming, more than cars,
planes and all other forms of transport put together.
 Burning fuel to produce fertilizer to grow feed, to produce
meat,and to transport it--and clearing vegetation for grazing--
produces 9 percent of all emissions of carbon dioxide, the most
common greenhouse gas. And their wind and manure emit more than
one-third of emissions of another, methane, which warms the world
20 times faster than carbon dioxide.
 Livestock also produces more than 100 other polluting gases,
including more than two-thirds of the world's emissions of ammonia,
one of the main causes of acid rain.
 Ranching, the report adds, is "the major driver of deforestation"
worldwide, and overgrazing is turning a fifth of all pastures and
ranges into desert. Cows soak up vast amounts of water: it takes a
staggering 990 litres of water to produce one litre of milk.
 Wastes from feedlots and fertilizers used to grow their feed
overnourish water, causing weeds to choke out all other life. And
the pesticides, antibiotics and hormones used to treat them get into
drinking water and endanger human health.
 The pollution washes down to the sea, killing coral reefs and
creating "dead zones" devoid of life. One is up to 21,000 sq. km.,
in the Gulf of Mexico, where much of the waste from U.S. beef
production is carried down the Mississippi.
 The report concludes that, unless drastic changes are made,
the massive damage done by livestock will more than double by 2050,
as demand for meat increases.
 That's the bad news. The good news is that reducing our
consumption of food derived from animals happens one meal at
a time and that it is well within the power of each of us to
make changes, however incremental, in our food choices!
 I'm a firm believer that one can stay low on the food chain
and still enjoy life. As a mostly vegan vegetarian, I know I am
looking out for my health and the health of the animals I choose
not to eat. And now,as it turns out, I'm saving the planet as well!
(And what about not wanting to eat the products of cloned or
genetically engineered animals? Another reason to go vegan!)
 So get a grip on global warming by resolving to lessen your
dependence on animals for food in 2007.
 Martha Devine

email from tad

2007-01-19T16:55:00.000-08:00

Sisters and Brothers;

Peace be with you!

SARCASM: a keenly ironical utterance!

I guess I'm just spitting into the wind again, but the “special” treatment plan for the homeless (the Arcata Emergency Housing and Services Plan) once again is before the grant-whoring Arcata City Council again Wednesday night. Again I expect the public to ignore this issue. After all, surely they will stop their extremely obtrusive control paradigm with the homeless (damn, and to think we give too little credit for the Nazi propaganda, the eugenics mental hygiene and the supremest domestic law enforcement machines we transferred to the U. S. after WWII during “operation paperclip”). They would never view you or me as useless and crazy enough not to recognize it.

These homeless are the least of our brethren – worthless in the eyes of our spirit and earth. They're bums, crazy as hell for not having a two SUVs and garages to put them in. They want to live like they deserve to live. We all have read the Times Slanderer, the Eureka Distorter, the Arcata Lie and the North Coast Urinal, so we all know that all our problems are the result of these “transients.” Global Warming is not a myth it is the direct result of letting the homeless into our towns! Excessive trash production would go away without all the card board and Styrofoam these useless feeders obtain when they consume their newer, bigger, better, more expensive crap bought with handout money. We could eliminate landfills if wasn't for these parasites. The Homeless require cops, which requires militarization of our police forces, which require lots of people to be killed, which is by definition a war, which escalates and causes other wars, which means all the evils ever done in the world is the fault homeless person's (ever hear “look what you made me do to you”).

No autonomy for the homeless! No liberty for the homeless! No land for the homeless! No freedom for the homeless! Just mental health/eugenics drugs for the homeless! Just cop beatings and killings for the homeless! Just prisons and jails for the homeless! And plenty of lucre for the poverty pimps and the grant whores!

Rest well knowing you ignored the issue and, like our green hero's, agreed with Bush's Chronic Homeless Initiative. Ignore the plight of these lessers and the silly issues they raise as to equality and egalitarianism will go away . . . completely!

Love eternal
tad

opinion piece from Jake Pickering

2007-01-09T17:02:00.000-08:00

“SUPPORT OUR TROOPS – BRING THEM HOME!”

by JAKE PICKERING

P.O. Box 3050 , Eureka , CA 95502 (707) 832-8005

-- January 2, 2007 --

In her December 31, 2006 Times-Standard “My Word” column titled “Being All You Can Be, We Need The Best In Our Military”, Kris Morrisey wrote the following: “I am ashamed of the behavior of those who would lessen their commitment and sacrifice…. I am frustrated by the continuing denigration of our armed forces. Disagree with our president; debate about foreign policy; don’t put a yellow ‘Support Our Troops’ ribbon on your car; but stop besmirching the reputation of our military men and women….”

If anyone should be ashamed of themselves (other than the shortsighted political “leaders” who supported this inane, greed-based fiasco), it is Kris Morrisey! How typically dishonest and deceitful for a partisan Republican like Morrisey to label the opponents of Bush & Cheney’s unnecessary quagmire in Iraq as opponents of the U.S. military. Morrisey’s anemic assertions simply could not be further from the truth.

Did you miss the news about numerous, recently-retired American generals speaking out against the current counterproductive policy and those incompetent neo-cons (like Donald Rumsfeld) for leading the United States down this demented, disastrous foreign policy path in the Middle East?

An overwhelming majority of Americans now demand that our military men and women be withdrawn ASAP from Bush & Cheney’s illegal war for oil and imperial expansion. Why? Because we actually do support our troops, unlike those Republican war criminals in The White House who have willfully murdered thousands of patriotic Americans (along with hundreds-of-thousands of Iraqi civilians) in an effort to make themselves and their business partners-in-crime even more filthy rich than they already are.

And, oh….by the way, where is that most infamous Bush family business partner of all = Osama bin Laden? Did you “smoke him out” yet, Mr. Bush, Junior? Or, have you not personally profited enough from your debacle to date?

Hey, who needs universal health insurance or a cleaner environment? So long as lying, cowardly racist oil men from Texas get what they want!

Poor Kris Morrisey has apparently been “functioning” with her head-in-the-sand these past few years (or solely relying on FOX “News” and the Republican Arkley-owned Eureka Reporter for her disinformation).

Did you miss the news from our intelligence agencies (all of them) contradicting Bush & Cheney’s propaganda campaign falsely portraying Iraq as an imminent threat to U.S. national security? Where are those nonexistent weapons of mass destruction, Mr. “President”?

Did you miss the news from our intelligence community that neither Saddam Hussein nor his regime had any role in the 9/11 attacks, whatsoever?

Did you also miss out on reading the Project For The American Century’s Hitlerian manifesto titled “Rebuilding America ’s Defenses” from September 2000? The entire Bush/Cheney imperial agenda is laid bare in print for all to see in this single document, which you can download online (for free) at www.raytal.com.

Being a faithful fan of Bush & Cheney’s immoral, bloodthirsty misadventure, Kris Morrisey also made this statement (shockingly, without any apparent sign of irony): “We live in a country where too many people believe that serving in the military is for someone else to do. It’s someone else’s duty. Not my child. I highly recommend ‘AWOL: The Unexcused Absence of America ’s Upper Classes from Military Service – and How It Hurts Our Country.”

Did the irony-deficient Morrisey miss the news about George Bush, Junior being Absent Without Leave (AWOL) from the Alabama National Guard for a period of 18 months during war time in 1972-73?

Did you also miss the news about Dick “Chickenhawk” Cheney asking for - and receiving - a total of FIVE deferments from military service during the Vietnam War, another wholly unjustified slaughter which both Bush & Cheney claim to have “supported?”

Maybe one day these naïve, hypocritical Republican warmongers will finally learn to take this wisdom to heart: People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones. Especially if your last name is Bush.

End this unforgiveable, murderous occupation, Mr. Bush! Bring our friends and family home from this bloodbath – NOW! We are done asking nicely, and we will force your hand, if necessary. Either leave Iraq , or leave office – your choice. Your time is up.

Direct Action and the Critique of Real Estate

2006-12-11T17:32:00.000-08:00

Below is a link to an on-line article entitled:
"Anarchist Squatting and Land Use in the West
Direct Action and the Critique of Real Estate"

by Anders Corr

http://www.squat.net/archiv/anders/anarchist_squatting.html

comment form The Plazoid's new Public Relations expert

2006-12-03T14:18:00.000-08:00

In response to an agreement to carry on on-line discussion with the editor(s) of the Arcata Eye under the condition of unanonymous communication, The Plazoid has brought on board a Public Relations expert. This comment was recieved by The Plazoid's new Public Relations expert, Anne Hohnermuss.

"Thank you. I would like to introduce myself. My name is Anne Hohnermuss, and I will be handling non-anonymous communications for The Plazoid publication project.

I am fully willing to carry on on-line discussion with the editor(s) of the Arcata Eye, if you are still up to it.

May I suggest a topic for the first discussion item? Perhaps we could talk about the recent 9th Circuit Court of Appeals decision in the case of Jones et al v Los Angeles (April 14, 2006). The decision can be found on the internet at: http://www.ca9.uscourts.gov/ca9/newopinions.nsf/8138B5E4723C6FE988257150005B327E/$file/0455324.pdf?openelement
.

I think that a good starting point would be to talk discuss the differences in coverage of this decsion by the two news sources, the Arcata Eye and The Plazoid.

Again, I am very excited about my new job and I look forward to many wonderful discussions.

Thank you."

The Plazoid Reaches Out

2006-12-01T20:26:00.000-08:00

The Plazoid Reaches Out

The Plazoid recently recieved an email from the Arcata Eye (newspaper) agreeing to online discussion, but not "anonymously." In an effort to reach out to our fellow Arcatans, The Plazoid has brought on board a Public Relations expert to communicate with the Arcata Eye, non-anonymously.

Please welcome The Plazoid's first and only Public Relations expert: Anne Hohnermuss

What is "Anonymity"?...conversations with the editor of the Arcata Eye

2006-12-01T20:09:00.000-08:00

Anonymity?

The Plazoid recently recieved an email from the Arcata Eye (newspaper) agreeing to online discussion, but not "anonymously." This condition imposed on the discussion by the editor(s) of the Arcata Eye brings to mind some questions:
What's in a name? ("...that which we call a rose by any other word would smell as sweet...")
What are the intentions behind this conditional agreement?

In response, let us look at what a "legal name" is. Many of our legal nems have been stripped of their traditional or cultural meaning and are nowadays essentially numbers. Our legal names are attached to social security numbers, phone numbers, addresses, P.O. box numbers, drivers' license numbers, IP addresses, case numbers, employee numbers, etc.

Our "names," which are essentially just numbers, exist to make it easer to keep track of us, like subjects of an experiment or inmates of a prison-system.

So why would the Arcata Eye insist on our identification numbers? Would that help them to relate to us or understand our points better?

No.

I can only think of two reasons why they might want our numbers: so they can concentrate their attention on "the messenger" while distracting attention away from "the message," or perhaps keeping track of the individuals who participate in The Plazoid project. Neither one of these intentions are welcome here.

The Arcata Eye editors are, of course, welcome to continue commenting on this blog, anonymously or not.

Pave Paradise to Put Up a Parking Lot

2006-11-29T19:15:00.000-08:00

Pave Paradise to Put Up a Parking Lot

The folks who make the plans for the city of Arcata are planning on destroying Hobo Field and putting in condos and a parking lot.

This sucks.

Hobo Field has long been a sort of “commons” for Arcata, providing space for people to be together and a pedestrian path away from the noxious reign of automobile traffic. It is also a refuge for wildlife that can not survive in a city environment.

Will we let this space be taken away from the people of Arcata and turned into more over-priced unaffordable housing, and yet another parking lot?

email from Jake Pickering

2006-11-15T17:02:00.000-08:00

So, I got this email from somebody named Jake Pickering, who ran for some office of something. It was an "opinion column" piece. Does anybody want to read it?

Apparently, some political foe taunted him over email. If people want to read it I can post it or email it. It didn't seem right to just post it like other news posts - just didn't seem relevant.

Anyhow, if there are any Jake Pickering fans out there, let me know.

Critical Analysis of the "Official" Explaination for the Execution of Cheri Moore in her Home by the Police

2006-11-11T17:37:00.000-08:00

The Plazoid recieved this letter from Tad. Tad's critical analysis of the "official" explaination of Cheri Moore's murder raises some important questions about the honesty and accountability of our local armed extention of the State.

I’ve read repetitive letters written expressing the opinion that it was the victims and their families (also victims) who were responsible for the killings by police bullets. Poor peoples around the world are constantly being told they are the reason that prisons, mental health departments, and probation departments are necessary. The truth is that our prisons are full of the poorest of our so-called civilization. African Americans are extremely over represented in the criminal justice system and extremely under represented in our society pages, making it easier for the wealthy, the wealthy media, and the campaign finance dependant politicians to blame the poor for their plight, and evidently their murders as well. But, really it boils down to: police trained to kill verses families just trying to get by doing the best they can.

Most people have heard of the “magic bullet” theory in the JFK assignation. A single bullet defying physics, created 6 wounds through a zigzag trajectory, and was then found to be in pristine condition after its journey. Did a magic bullet kill Cheri Moore on April 14, 2006? In Humboldt County, a bullet shot by 5 cowboy cops facing Cheri penetrated the back of her head with a bullet that the pathologist performing the autopsy, claims “disintegrated” – It can not be linked to any individual weapon. The weapon in question is an “assault” weapon that fires a .223 caliber bullet. At the scene of Cheri’s murder (by law enforcement) several police carried AR-15s, M-16s and .223s as testified to in the Cheri Moore Coroner’s inquest (http://www.times-standard.com/mooreinquest). Little research is required to learn that all the weapons listed above use a .223 caliber bullet.

On April 14^th Cheri was shot 5 times by .223 bullets, the wall was shot two additional times, and only 5 .223 bullet casings were found. Who at the scene had such a .223 weapon? Rodriquez Sanchez (police) and Rocky Harpham (police) claimed to have had “Bernoulli 12 gage shotguns,” and Tim Jones (police) claimed to have had a “pepper ball projectile gun,” Michael Johnson (police) and Terrence Liles (police) claimed to have had an “AR-15,” - a “.223” caliber assault rifle. The five mentioned above all admitted to busting into Cheri’s home when she was killed; across the street and slightly to Cheri’s right, an observer/sniper named Robert Mengal (police) was positioned with an “M-16,” - a “.223” caliber assault rifle.

Cheri’s body was riddled with buckshot entry wounds; two groups in her chest, groups in her groin, her neck, and her armpit. Each buckshot wound entered in front and on the left side of Cheri’s body. Cheri had 5 entry wounds from a .223 - 1) the back of her head; 2) the back of her left shoulder; 3) Her left arm; 4) her left chest; and 5) her right chest. In other words, the official police version is that one police “assault” weapon shot Cheri from all possible directions, while the actual shotgun wounds, combined with all inquest testimony indicates that Cheri was facing her killers during the entire shooting.

Two wounds to Cheri’s back were .223 entry wounds one to the back of her head and the other to her right shoulder. The inquest jury did not find either of these wounds to be the absolute cause of death, but the shot to the back of Cheri’s head can’t be ruled out either. Police testimony indicated that only two officers burst in with “.223’s” – Michael Johnson and Terry Liles. Liles claimed not to have fired his gun. It defies logic that either Michael Johnson or Terry Liles could have made the shot to the back of Cheri’s head. The official police version claims Michael Johnson must have de facto shot Cheri in the back of the head because he was the only police officer, in the police S.W.A.T team, found by the police investigation, to have been officially proclaimed by the police to fire his police issued weapon!

There was another .223 involved besides the two in the room. Across the street were two “observers/snipers,” as testified by Ron Harpham. One was Ron Harpham watching thru just binoculars and the other was Robert Mengal watching thru the sights of a M-16/.223. Could Mengal shoot Cheri in the back of the head from where he was? Robert Mengal never claimed he fired his gun, yet, Robert Mengal doesn’t surrender his weapon like the “S.W.A.T.” members do, he “lock[s] it in [his] car.” Mengal declines to testify in the Cheri Moore inquest, instead the recording of his initial interview was transcribed. The transcribed interview was acted out by Jim Dawson, (chief investigator Humboldt County District Attorney’s office) as “himself” and Charles Van Buskirk, (deputy coroner with the Humboldt County Coroner's office) as “Robert Mengal.” Mengal has relocated to Idaho since the shooting and felt it too unimportant to testify. According to the official police version of the magic bullet theory he was also the one who gave the “hands free” S.W.A.T. command he knew to be the “signal” to crash thru Cheri’s door.

Van Buskirk, reciting Mengal (who had two advising lawyers during his interview), stated he saw Cheri reach out of the fourth window; spoke “north window empty hands,” heard some bangs, left the building, and locked his M-16 in his car. Mengal who was “about the same height” as Cheri, and about “35 yards” away, could see “inside her apartment.” If the testimony of the other three officers is creditable then while Johnson was watching his “laser sight” on Cheri’s ribs just prior to shooting, Mengal was “observing” the back of Cheri’s head through his rifle sights.

Matthew Kristen, criminalist with the California Department of Justice, claimed that he found two entry holes in the corner of Cheri’s apartment. Susan Comfort, a forensic pathologist, explained how .223 bullets “fragment” and don’t leave the body. Seven total .223 bullets were fired – five in Cheri’s body and two in the wall. Matthew Kristen drew circles and arrows on a floor plan of Cheri’s apartment making a little circle in the middle of the living room away from any other bullet holes or shell casings he identified. He never explains what this smaller circle signified or why he drew it, but if a fourth shooter across the street shot and missed, then that circle could be the area the bullet would strike. Judy Taylor, an evidence technician with the Eureka Police Department, never told the jury where Charles Heuer, Cheri’s landlord, found the “fifth” .223 shell casing he gave the police a few days later.

None of this is concrete evidence that there was a fourth shooter in Cheri’s death, but listening to the testimony in the coroner’s inquest conveys a story of Cheri “slumping” back from the shooters not spinning in a circle. Michael Johnson testified to seeing his “laser sights on [Cheri’s] midsection” and the “change in her eyes” just prior to shooting. Tim Jones described Cheri falling back away from the officers. Todd Wilcox (police) described, “easing Cheri forward to put handcuffs on her.” Even Ron Harpham and Michael Johnson describe Cheri as falling back away from them.

The “investigation” was poorly done. Obvious discrepancies were ignored and key witnesses were not pursued; yet, nothing can be done by the citizens of Humboldt County to discover the truth. Cops investigating cops is a BAD idea! An independent police review board is the first answer to really finding out what really happened and what we as a community can do to stop it. All police bullets should be required to be identifiable once they’re shot. And police who have a history of violence should not be on any police department’s payrolls.

As mistrust in the police department grows with every questionable death by police violence, more and more secrecy on the part of the police becomes apparent, if elected officials make excuses for their police departments, then how are we as citizens represented - more important how are we being protected? If those we elect to protect us leave us in the hands of good-ol’-boy rogue cops, then we must take initiative for our own protection. The wealthy support police eliminating “undesirable” people, but the majority, the poor, see it as an assault upon our safety. It is hard enough to deal with our children being thrown in jail and put on probation for little stupid shit (victimless crimes), but the police have become judge, jury and executioner. The time to speak out has come.

Love eternal

tad

The PLAZOID censored from Wikipedia!!!

2006-10-19T16:40:00.000-07:00

Apparently, "the PLAZOID" was the subject of an entry on Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page), which was deleted. A version of the encyclopedic entry can be found at: http://www.answers.com/topic/the-plazoid, and just in case it too gets censored, it is included below:

"The Plazoid is a 'zine and online blog (The Plazoid website) based out of Arcata, California that publishes articles related to homelessness, as well as issues of police brutality and social justice. The name is derived from a term used in reference to persons who hang out on the Plaza (Arcata's town square), Arcata's streets, the Arcata Community Forest and the Arcata Marsh. The Plazoid uses the term "unhoused" rather than homeless, due to a belief that the word "homeless" is used derogatorily. Since the spring of 2005 the Plazoid publishes and distributes a print version in the city of Arcata. The Plazoid has been, alegedly, hostile to The Arcata Eye, its pages often referring to the paper as the Arcata LEye. However, according to Kevin Hoover, the Eye has allegedly given the print version of the 'zine free advertising. Plazoid supporters say that the Plazoid never gave permission for this "free advertising" and assume it to be more anti-homeless propaganda. Hoover has allegedly also censored many letters from homeless and nonhomeless readers alike."

Wow, how controversial!!!

There is more! If you google "plazoid," you get this interesting dialogue: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Mediation_Cabal/Cases/2006-02-11_Arcata_Eye_Plazoid, including this little gem: "The nature of the POV is such: all of its focused either "against" (the IPs) or "for" (me: in that I'm not against) the newspaper publication the Arcata Eye. Some neccessary history: an online and print 'zine called the Plazoid was created in reaction to the Arcata Eye's aritcles and editorials. This controversy is explained, I hope fairly, on the Eye page. I believe that the IPs are either two of the writers who publish the Plazoid, or very close friends (others have suspected this as well, see comments about 1/3 down the page on Talk: Arcata, California). Thus, I believe they have a vested interest in pushing the POV that they do." and "Please investigate discreetly, I'm afraid my report of this will only inflame matters if known."

...so let's take a look at "Talk: Arcata, California":

"Talk:Arcata, California
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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User at 137.150.23.170, please do not edit my comments, reversing the meaning, as you did on Aug 30th. I've restored my origional comments, and paraphrased yours inline, as is the usual style, (see Wikipedia:Talk_page) Jrouvier 01:18, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

In the culture and institutions section, 2nd paragraph, it says:
Work in Arcata consists largely of the dumpster-diving...
Dumpster-diving obviously isn't "work" in the usual sense, as in employment. Perhaps this should be rewritten and expanded to include details on the unemployment and homeless, as well as high occurance of dumpster-diving. Jrouvier 01:18, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

Dumpster-diving *is* work in the usual sense, as in employment.

I disagree. Usual employment includes a employer and an employee. The employer expects the employee to conduct some work for some amount of compensation, usually money. Since a dumpster-diver does not have an employer, this is not employment, but it might be called an occupation. However, this is all beside the point. The real point of this that at the very begining of the paragraph dealing with employment, dumpster-diving is listed as the first item. This is leads the reader to the conclusion that most people in Arcata are unemployed and spend their days sifting through others trash. While I agree that Arcata may have a higher rate of dumpster-diving than many other US cities, it is my no means what the majority do on a daily basis. I have no objection to the inclusion of a note about dumpster-diving, but feel that it should be in it's correct context (unemployment), and backed by factual data. Jrouvier 01:18, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

Sorry, friend, but that is bullshit. What about the "self-employed"? I do not think that your paradigm of master-to-slave relationship is dominant in Arcata ("prevalant" maybe, but not dominant).

The 3rd paragraph is:
The city is dis-served by a weekly tabloid, the Arcata Eye. The newspaper is noted for its bigoted use of police reports to instigate violence against unhoused people while profiting from the entertainment value of sensationalized hate-mongering. In response, an independent publication, the Plazoid started to document civil and human rights abuses perpetrated against the unhoused.

Use of the word "dis-served" isn't really appropriate here as it is an opinion of the author which may or may not be a majority opinion. The "dis" part should probably be removed. Additionally, if the paper is, in fact, noted for it's bigoted police reports, can someone provide links to the notes? Jrouvier 01:18, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

Use of the word "mis-served" is really appropriate here as it is a majority opinion. The "mis" part should probably be capitalized. Additionally, the paper is, in fact, noted for it's bigoted police reports, and it was disappointing to see the Arcata Eye use Wikipedia to advertise its un-journalistic atrocity.

The Wikipedia:NPOV page, says assert facts, including facts about opinions — but don't assert opinions themselves. There is a publication called the Arcata Eye, it's articles are written for and about Arcata, it is printed on newsprint, I am unaware of it's dimensions. Hence I feel that the statment "The city is served by a weekly newspaper, the Arcata Eye" is factual. However, use of the word "mis-served" (or "dis-served") is an assertation of on opinion. One may assert that there *is* an opinion, but one should not assert that the opinion is correct or incorrect. Finally, this is a page about Arcata the city, not about the Arcata Eye publication. It should be enough to state that the newspaper exists. Discussions about the newspaper and allegations of bias, might be best placed on a page about the newspaper itself, such as has been done for the NY_Times Jrouvier 01:18, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

Sorry, friend, but if you think that the word "served" is nuetral, then you need to check your free on-line dictionary. The Arcata [L]Eye has done a great MISservice to the people of Arcata with its blatant hate-mongering and purposeful distortion of fact to misrepresent targeted residents of Arcata.

Then you don't use served OR disserved (I have changed the entry to use neither). Wikipedia is supposed to be neutral, an encyclopedia, if you will, not a soapbox. Also, I've never heard of the Plazoid. Is it well-known enough to deserve mention? -Reisen

Upon second look, given the fact that you not only ext-linked the Plazoid, but that you spelled out the URL in the article, makes me think that perhaps you own the Plazoid and you are trying to hype it. That is not what Wikipedia is for, and it would certainly explain why in 18 years of Arcata life I've never heard of the Plazoid. The Plazoid is not a major part, or even noticable part, of Arcata life, and its mention shall be removed. It would, however, work fine to mention the Plazoid on a dedicated Arcata Eye page.

I appreciate the edits you have made to the main page (I myself am new to this and don't really know how to do things the "proper" way), however, I do have qualms. You obviously are allowing the Arcata Eye FREE ADVERTISING at this website, which, as you pointed out, is NOT the purpose of Wikipedia, especially given the questionable nature of the content of the Eye. As for the Plazoid (publication, name derived from slanderous term used in the Arcata Eye to disparage unhoused people and encourage violent acts against them), I am surprised that you have not heard of it or read an issue. It is almost always available at the Arcata Co-op, Solutions, and other places. It is only up to about issue number 8 (monthly), but the blogspot has had plenty of comments on it from Arcatans (one post had 42 posts!). Have you heard of the Humboldt Advocate? also a relatively new publication in Arcata. Why does the Arcata Eye deserve FREE ADVERTISING while any mention of these other publications are edited from this website?

The Arcata Eye deserves mention because it is a major Arcata publication. If I were writing a Eureka article, the Times Standard, the Lumberjack (blegh), (and the Tri-City Weekly, blegh blegh) would all deserve mention because they are well-known and generally worth mentioning along with any detailed explanation of the city. It's not advertising, it's worthwhile information. Now, if I mentioned the Eye without mentioning a publication of equal prevalence in the community, that would be incorrect. But the Eye and the Plazoid are really not comparable in popularity nor in knowledge of their existence. The Plazoid, it seems, exists mainly as a reaction to the Eye. Thus, it would be a perfect inclusion on an Eye-only page, but makes no sense on the Arcata one. -Reisen

I disagree. On Monday nights, the night before the new issue of the Arcat Eye comes out, look at the Eye vendboxes: THEY ARE FULL! Just because the Eye is well-funded and can afford to create volumous waste doesn't make it a "major publication." Look for a moment at the "letters to the editor" section. The Plazoid gets more comments at the blogspot than the Eye gets letters to the editor, and thus is MORE interactive with Arcatan than the Eye. ASK AROUND! I'll bet you find that alot of people have atleast heard of the Plazoid. Also check out the blogspot yourself (theplazoid.blogspot.com). There DEFINITELY is "WORTHWHILE INFORMATION" at the blogspot, complete with sources citations. Contrast that with the non-informative opinionated "stories" of the Arcata Eye. I don't think that the Arcat Eye reports "worthwhile information," or at least not at all ACCURATELY. But, yes, Hoover is well-funded (by advertisers, not interested paying customers!). So if you think that the amount of money behind the publication is more important than the content of the publication, then by all means, go ahead and mention the Arcata Eye. But don't edit out the Plazoid just because it isn't heavily funded."

ok ok ok....there is much more, too much more.
At any rate, it looks like the PLAZOID lost this battle. Oh well. Let me know what you think. Maybe someone can start a new Plazoid entry?

Thanks to the anonymous commentor who exposed this act of censorship.

Critical Analysis of the "Arcata Eye"

2006-10-18T09:31:00.000-07:00

CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF ARCATA NEWS, OCTOBER 10, 2006

by Cash ULT

In his story, "People & Grizz 1,Tad 0 in tethering challenge – Oct. 10, 2006," Kevin Hoover cites the eveidence brought before Humboldt County Court that clearly demonstrates that Arcata's dog-tethering ordinance is selectively enforced against homeless people, then declares a "victory" when Humboldt County Superior Court Judge Dale A. Reinholtsen rules in favor of the police.

Ironically, Hoover insinuates that Griz the dog also shares in this celebration of bigotry, inspite of the fact that this particular form of bigotry could spell his doom. Griz has never expressed any elation that might support Hoover's ridiculous assertations.

Unsurprisingly, Hoover has used his "newspaper" to distort reality and attempt to rile up more classist bigotry against local activist, tad.

My advice: don't believe the hype.

"comment moderation" back in effect

2006-09-06T14:59:00.000-07:00

sorry kids.

if you can't play nice, then we'll all just have to take a "time out."

comments

2006-06-22T12:24:00.000-07:00

comments are moderated due to the foul language and innappropriate threats recieved by "anonymous" person or persons, or possibly machine(s).

please do not let this stop those of you who have opinions from posting them.

thank you.

Down and Out

2006-05-11T10:14:00.000-07:00

“It is worth saying something about the social position of beggars, for when one has consorted with them, and found that they are ordinary human beings, one cannot help being struck by the curious attitude that society takes towards them. People seem to feel that there is some essential difference between beggars and ordinary ‘working’ men. They are a race apart—outcasts, like criminals and prostitutes. Working men ‘work’, beggars do not ‘work’; they are parasites, worthless in their very nature. It is taken for granted that a beggar does not ‘earn’ his living, as a bricklayer or a literary critic ‘earns’ his. He is a mere social excrescence, tolerated because we live in a humane age, but essentially despicable.

Yet if one looks closely one sees that there is no essential difference between a beggar’s livelihood and that of numberless respectable people. Beggars do not work, it is said; but, then, what is work? A navvy works by swinging a pick. An accountant works by adding up figures. A beggar works by standing out of doors in all weathers and getting varicose veins, chronic bronchitis, etc. It is a trade like any other; quite useless, of course—but, then, many reputable trades are quite useless. And as a social type a beggar compares well with scores of others. He is honest compared with the sellers of most patent medicines, high-minded compared with a Sunday newspaper proprietor, amiable compared with a hire-purchase tout—in short, a parasite, but a fairly harmless parasite. He seldom extracts more than a bare living from the community, and, what should justify him according to our ethical ideas, he pays for it over and over in suffering. I do not think there is anything about a beggar that sets him in a different class from other people, or gives most modern men the right to despise him.

Then the question arises, Why are beggars despised?—for they are despised, universally. I believe it is for the simple reason that they fail to earn a decent living. In practice nobody cares whether work is useful or useless, productive or parasitic; the sole thing demanded is that it shall be profitable. In all the modern talk about energy, efficiency, social service and the rest of it, what meaning is there except ‘Get money, get it legally, and get a lot of it’? Money has become the grand test of virtue. By this test beggars fail, and for this they are despised. If one could earn even ten pounds a week at begging, it would become a respectable profession immediately. A beggar, looked at realistically, is simply a businessman, getting his living, like other businessmen, in the way that comes to hand. He has not, more than most modern people, sold his honour; he has merely made the mistake of choosing a trade at which it is impossible to grow rich.”

from "Down and Out in Paris and London" by George Orwell, 1933

pharmacueticals

2006-05-11T10:12:00.000-07:00

Eli Lilly, Zyprexa, and the Bush Family

“The most important story about Eli Lilly is that Lilly’s two current blockbuster psychiatric drugs—Zyprexa and Prozac—are, in scientific terms, of little value. It is also about how Lilly and the rest of Big Pharma have corrupted psychiatry, resulting in the increasing medicalization of unhappiness. This diseasing of our malaise has diverted us from examining the social sources for our unhappiness—and implementing societal solutions.”
Eli Lilly, Zyprexa, & the Bush Family
http://zmagsite.zmag.org/May2004/levine0504.html

Bruce E. Levine, PhD, is a psychologist and author of Commonsense Rebellion: Taking Back Your Life from Drugs, Shrinks, Corporations and a World Gone Crazy (New York-London: Continuum, 2003).

“Whistleblower charges medical oversight bureau with corruption”
British Medical Journal July 10, 2004
http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/329/7457/69

Allen Jones, who worked as an investigator in the Pennsylvania Office of the Inspector General (OIG), gained widespread attention as a 'whistleblower' after voicing concerns about attempts by the pharmaceutical industry to implement a mental health screening plan, based on the controversial Texas Medication Algorithm Project (TMAP), in Pennsylvania.

Jones was escorted out of his workplace on April 28, 2004, after OIG officials accused him of talking to the press. Jones was relieved of his duties because he breached OIG guidelines that no worker may report confidential data. Jones indicates he chose to disclose his findings to the press precisely because of corrupt behavior by OIG officials themselves, alleging the OIG's policy was "unconstitutional."

Jones further alleged, in a wrongful termination suit, OIG officials had sought to "coverup, discourage, and limit any investigations or oversight into the corrupt practices of large drug companies and corrupt public officials who have acted with them." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allen_Jones_(whistleblower)

Allen Jones’ TMAP Critique (January 20, 2004) on the net at http://psychrights.org/Drugs/AllenJonesTMAPJanuary20.pdf

Study Finds a Link of Drug Makers to Psychiatrists
New York Times
April 20, 2006

“More than half the psychiatrists who took part in developing a widely used diagnostic manual for mental disorders had financial ties to drug companies before or after the manual was published, public health researchers reported yesterday.”

“In recent years, critics have said that the manual has become too expansive, including diagnoses, like social phobia, that they say appear tailor-made to create a market for antidepressants or other drugs.”

See also “Medicating Aliah” http://www.motherjones.com/

UNCONSTITUTIONAL ANTI-HOMELESS ORDINANCE in ARCATA

2006-05-11T10:11:00.000-07:00

The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
ruled on April 14, 2006, that punishing homeless people for sleeping, sitting or lying on sidewalks and other public property when other shelter is not available was unconstitutionally cruel and unusual punishment.
(Edward Jones v. City of Los Angeles)
“Appeals Court Slaps L.A. Over Arrests of Homeless”

Official government document on the internet at:
http://www.ca9.uscourts.gov/ca9/newopinions.nsf/8138B5E4723C6FE988257150005B327E/$file/0455324.pdf?openelement

Arcata’s anti-homeless ordinances have been successfully challenged in the cases of
People v. Porter T0310779M 2005
and
People v. Theodore Lewis Robinson T0304959M 2003

ARCATA ANTI-HOMELESS ORDINANCE IS UNCONSTITUTIONAL

2006-04-18T16:42:00.000-07:00

"federal appeals court panel ruled on Friday that arresting homeless people for sleeping, sitting or lying on sidewalks and other public property when other shelter is not available was cruel and unusual punishment."
New York Times April 15

Arcata Municipal Code
TITLE X - PUBLIC PROPERTYCHAPTER 1 - PARKS AND GROUNDS
SEC. 10004. Overnight use prohibited. (Amended by Ord. No. 1205)

Sleep is a human necessity, not a luxury or privilege. This ordinance prohibits sleeping outdoors in Arcata, thereby punishing the homeless with sleep deprivation. This violates the EIGHTH AMENDMENT to the U.S. Constitution which guarantees us freedom from “cruel and unusual punishment.”

Anti-camping ordinances have been successfully challenged in Portland, Oregon (State of Oregon v. Wickes); Santa Ana, California (the “Eichorn decision”); Miami, Florida (“Potinger v. City of Miami”);

Arcata

2006-03-20T11:12:00.000-08:00

Arcata, California.
comments?

WHAT THE HELL?

2006-03-04T15:36:00.000-08:00

WHAT THE HELL was
President of Humboldt State University
ROLLIN RICHMOND
USING COCAINE and MICE for?

“Over the course of more than 20 years beginning in 1972, his studies - funded largely by the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health - led him to explore the "genetic origins of reproductive isolation," the reproductive behavior of fruit flies, neurotoxins and cocaine in mice, and the resistance of fruit flies to malathion.”

from “About the President” Humboldt State University website
on the net at:
http://www.humboldt.edu/~hsupres/about.html

MALATHION is an organophosphate (OP) compound.
During World War II, under the NAZI regime, teams led by Dr. Gerhard Schrader
discovered four organophosphate NERVE AGENTS, including sarin.

http://www.washingtonpost.com NEW DELHI, Feb. 4 -- A parliamentary committee on Wednesday upheld findings by an environmental group that drinks made in India by PepsiCo Inc. and Coca-Cola Co. contained unacceptable amounts of pesticide residue… soda made by the two American companies contained high levels of four extremely toxic pesticides: lindane, DDT, MALATHION and chlorpyrifos. The group said these pesticides could damage the human nervous system

the TYRANNY of COMPULSORY SCHOOLING

2006-02-21T10:13:00.000-08:00

THE TYRANNY OF COMPULSORY SCHOOLING

by John Taylor Gatto
http://www.spinninglobe.net/condunces.htm

“The second premise of Prussian schooling [which the United States subsequently borrowed] is that intellectual training is not the purpose of state schooling - obedience and subordination are. In fact, intellectual training will invariably subvert obedience unless it is rigidly controlled and doled out as a reward for obedience. If the will could be broken all else would follow.”

Twenty-six years of award-winning teaching have led John Gatto to some troubling conclusions about the public schools.

A seventh-grade teacher, Gatto has been named New York City Teacher of the Year and New York State Teacher of the Year. Praised by leaders as diverse as Ronald Reagan and Mario Cuomo, he's a political maverick whose views defy easy categorization.

link to knowmore.org

2006-02-18T15:31:00.000-08:00

here's a link to a corporation-watch website. check it out.

http://knowmore.org/

what is "Critical Mass"?

2006-02-18T15:17:00.000-08:00

What is Critical Mass?

Critical Mass is a worldwide movement to promote the use of bicycles as a viable means of transportation. It has arisen in response to what many call the “car-culture:” an overdependence on the private automobile. It is, more than anything else, a reclaimation of space, a demonstration to show that the city belongs to people and not machines.
How did it get started? It started in August 1992 in San Francisco when a group of bicycle commuters decided to ride home together.

Why is it called “Critical Mass?”

The name “Critical Mass” comes from Ted White’s bike-umentary Return of the Scorcher. This video shows intersection crossing etiquette in China’s big cities. Cross bike-traffic waits until it has enough riders, i.e., a critical mass, to push its way through the intersection. The strength of the Mass is in its close-knit unity as an organic body. It is sometimes necessary to ride through traffic lights in order to maintain this unity. It is actually safer. Otherwise, car traffic is tempted to weave in and out among small groups of riders.
http://www.critical-mass.org/

A rally was held on Nov.2 in Eureka California in solidarity with other rallies nationwide in opposition to the Bush regime. Critical Mass bicycle riders left Arcata to ride to Eureka on the highway (7miles) and found the California Highway Patrol waiting for them.
The CHP stopped all traffic on the highway (critical mass left one lane open on the 2 lane in each direction divided highway) and attacked bicyclists, injuring and arresting several.
A police helicopter circled overhead for the duration of the ride.

Indybay.org http://www.indybay.org/news/2005/11/1780250.php

DON"T GIVE THEM YOUR INFO!

2006-02-18T15:04:00.000-08:00

DON’T GIVE THEM YOUR INFO!!!

IBM and the Holocaust is the stunning story of IBM's strategic alliance with Nazi Germany -- beginning in 1933 in the first weeks that Hitler came to power and continuing well into World War II. As the Third Reich embarked upon its plan of conquest and genocide, IBM and its subsidiaries helped create enabling technologies, step-by-step, from the identification and cataloging programs of the 1930s to the selections of the 1940s.

Only after Jews were identified -- a massive and complex task that Hitler wanted done immediately -- could they be targeted for efficient asset confiscation, ghettoization, deportation, enslaved labor, and, ultimately, annihilation. It was a cross-tabulation and organizational challenge so monumental, it called for a computer. Of course, in the 1930s no computer existed.

But IBM's Hollerith punch card technology did exist. Aided by the company's custom-designed and constantly updated Hollerith systems, Hitler was able to automate his persecution of the Jews. Historians have always been amazed at the speed and accuracy with which the Nazis were able to identify and locate European Jewry. Until now, the pieces of this puzzle have never been fully assembled. The fact is, IBM technology was used to organize nearly everything in Germany and then Nazi Europe, from the identification of the Jews in censuses, registrations, and ancestral tracing programs to the running of railroads and organizing of concentration camp slave labor.

IBM and its German subsidiary custom-designed complex solutions, one by one, anticipating the Reich's needs. They did not merely sell the machines and walk away. Instead, IBM leased these machines for high fees and became the sole source of the billions of punch cards Hitler needed.
IBM and the Holocaust takes you through the carefully crafted corporate collusion with the Third Reich, as well as the structured deniability of oral agreements, undated letters, and the Geneva intermediaries -- all undertaken as the newspapers blazed with accounts of persecution and destruction.

IBM founder Thomas Watson cooperated with the Nazis for the sake of profit. Only with IBM's technologic assistance was Hitler able to achieve the staggering numbers of the Holocaust.

http://www.ibmandtheholocaust.com/

comments from post deleted because of sick-o

2006-02-02T19:51:00.000-08:00

The original post about the North Coast Journal article was removed by an editor of this blog because somebody posted a link to a yucky website in the "comments" section and I don't know how to get rid of it. So I reposted the post and also reposted the comments here.
"comment moderation" has also been "enabled."
Sorry for any inconvenience.

7 Comments:

Anonymous said...
YUO=FAGOTYour blog sucks.
Saturday, January 28, 2006 2:43:24 PM

noel adamson said...
YOU not "YUO", FAGGOT not "FAGOT" and this blog does not suck regardless of it's author's sexual orientation. Or yours.On topic, I only found this site because of the NCJ's article and checked it out because of their negative slant, a good reccomendation.
Sunday, January 29, 2006 2:41:47 PM

Anonymous said...
anything so hated by hank sims and kevin hoover has to be doing some good!
Sunday, January 29, 2006 5:42:45 PM
Anonymous said...

Hank's heads above Hoover. Hoover would never do an expose on local blogs because he'd be too worried they'd expose him for the shitbag he trully is.
Sunday, January 29, 2006 10:36:42 PM

Anonymous said...
I saw an advertisement for The Plazoid in the Arcata Eye -- donated by the newspaper! Hated, huh? The Eye has a funny way of demonstrating its hatred.
Monday, January 30, 2006 7:18:08 AM

the PLAZOID said...
hey, we here at the Plazoid would love to see the "advertisement," which was not ok'd by anyone I know. I haven't seen it, no one I know has seen it, and I am suspicious. Yes, Kevin Hoover makes money (maybe) selling newspapers and police-log books (?), but I have not seen an "advertisement."Which issue and pgae number - I'll find it - thanks.
Wednesday, February 01, 2006 4:26:10 PM

"all things schwag"? North coast Journal coverage

2006-02-02T19:46:00.000-08:00

"all things schwag"?

The North Coast Urinal's scimpy coverage of theplazoid.blogspot.com has me wondering if Hank actually took anytime to look at the blog that he was writing about.
Tad has very few postings on the blog, but is mentioned right away, after the "schwag" comment. It seems that some people would like to believe (and lead others to believe) that Tad is the only one who holds these opinions. What a spin-job.
Then there's the thing about the chamber of commerce - is the chamber of commerce ever even mentioned on this blog?
Totally absent from Hank's article is any mention of the documentation of police misconduct on the blog. Remember the "taser incident"? The Plazoid covered it before the Arcata LEye, the North Coast Urinal, or any other media that I am aware of.
Other documented incidents of abuse by the police that are recorded on the blog aren't even covered at all anywhere else.
Also missing was the coverage of the Homeless Task Force meetings. Without The Plazoid, the Arcata public had only Kevin Hoover's extremely biased coverage to rely on.
And TOTALLY absent was any mention of the PRINT version of the Plazoid! The zine started in print and only went online as an afterthought - to make the documentation more widely available.
Also, the Plazoid is not only about homelessness issues. Jeez. Thanks for the pigeon-holing, dude. What about the tasers? Or the HSU issues? Or the pharmacueticals information? Anyhow, it was nice to see the blogspot mentioned in print.

PREGNANT WOMEN TAKEN TO JAIL IN ARCATA

2006-01-26T13:17:00.000-08:00

On Dr. Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Day a pregnant woman who is past her due date was arrested by the Arcata Police Department and held in Jail.

The Arcata Police Department arrested a pregnant woman who is past her due date to give birth. She was arrested for allegedly missing a court date. She would have been forced to give birth while being held at the jail if she had gone into labor in the jail cell.

Earlier in her pregnancy, the same woman had been thrown to the ground by an Arcata police officer as part of this city's overzealous efforts against those percieved as "homeless."

Incredibly, at her arraignment in front of the judge the overzealous District Attorney/ Prosecuter demanded that she should be kept in jail, demanding that she give birth while in the custody of the Humbolt County Jail, as a punishment for missing an infraction court date by a few minutes.

Reportedly, this deputy District Attorney prosecutes child abuse cases.

This raises the question of: Whether someone who seeks to force a baby to be born into a jail cell is qualified to prosecute child abuse cases? Does the city council take any responsibility for endangering the imminent life of this child?

A community effort was put into effect when her family and friends attempted to give the urgent message to the police and the court system to free her from jail. The police said nothing could be done until her arraignment. More than 24 hours past before the arraignment and then another six hours of waiting to be released to her family and friends.

P.S. The original alleged offense, stemming from an incident in which the cops shot a taser stun-gun at the puppy that the woman was caring for at the time, was that she allegedly assaulted an officer. The cops put her in wrist constraints that were so tight that they left a mark on her wrists that was there for days and was documented by Arcata copwatch volunteers.

FOOD NOT BOMBS!

2006-01-15T19:31:00.000-08:00

FOOD NOT BOMBS! http://foodnotbombs.net/

If distributed equally, the world produces enough food to feed everyone. There is an abundance of food. In fact, in this country, every day, in every city, far more edible food is discarded than is needed to feed those who do not have enough to eat.

The reason this is not already happening is no accident. We do not have a democratic say in how food is produced or distributed. People would certainly elect to eat. In hierarchical economies, the threat of the loss of a job allows owners to keep wages low. An underclass is the result of policies which encourage domination and violence. In our society, it is acceptable to profit from other people's suffering and misery.

Poverty is violence. One expression of the violence of poverty is hunger. Millions of Americans, almost half children, go hungry every day and childhood malnutrition contributes heavily to infant mortality rates, which are higher in parts of the U.S. than in most other nations of the world. By spending money on bombs instead of food, our government perpetuates and exacerbates the violence of poverty by failing to provide food for everyone in need. Food Not Bombs has chosen to take a stand against violence. We are committed to nonviolent social change by giving out free vegetarian food thus celebrating and nurturing life.

Food Not Bombs was recently approached and asked to cook at the Arcata Endeavor on Saturdays where there is plenty of food that would otherwise go unprepared and unserved on weekends. This is in addition to FNB’s meals served throughout the week that are cooked in the homes of volunteers. It was discussed and decided that it would be tried.

For several months now, there has been healthy vegetarian food served at 1:00 pm on Saturdays at the Endeavor (at no extra cost to taxpayers), and there are still enough volunteers to prepare and serve dinner at 5:30 pm on the plaza. Many of the volunteers now cooking lunch at the Endeavor on Saturdays were not previously affiliated with Food Not Bombs.

These events make clear that the facilities exist for those in need to be given the opportunity to help themselves. Instead of acquiring large sums of money to study the obvious lack of basic necessities, and spending lots of money hiring people who reinforce the separations between service providers and service recipients, Arcata could allow the already existing facilities to be used by those who are willing to volunteer to provide services to themselves and others. The costs of operation (utilities, supplies) could be covered by the money saved.

Not only would this less-hierarchical approach save money, and time spent to acquire that money, but it would also set an example of this historically tested and trusted method of social planning that involves less professional authoritarianism, and the actual meeting of more needs. The D Street Neighborhood Center is a perfect place to open up. Currently is sits locked and empty most of the time.

The direct action of preparing and sharing meals helps to relieve some of the pressures that create tensions in our community. Healthy and nutritious meals provide relief from the immediate discomfort and anxiety of being hungry, and prevent the long-term negative effects of malnutrition. For those overwhelmed by the cost of living in today’s society, FNB’s free meals provide relief from the competition for ever more scarce dollars.

Preparing meals together is a good way to engage our innate ability to get along and work cooperatively to meet our common needs. By addressing the issue of hunger directly, FNB also demonstrates our ability to solve community problems from within the community.

another look at the Mental Health Services Act

2006-01-15T19:27:00.000-08:00

In the Mental Health Services Act Community Support and Services Plan put out by the Humboldt County Department of Health and Human Services Mental Health Branch, the claim is made that:
“among the estimated 2000 homeless adults, 80% of homeless adults suffer mental health issues; 90% suffer substance abuse.” (page 35)

The overlap (“co-occurrence”) of “mental health issues” and “substance abuse” is estimated at 4% in the MHSAA CSS Plan.

This would mean that 76.8% of homeless adults have “mental health issues” exclusively, 86.8% of homeless adults have “substance abuse” exclusively, and 3.2% of homeless adults have “co-occurring” “mental health issues” and “substance abuse.”

These numbers exceed 100% greatly, and thus are impossible!

Even if we use the estimate of 50% “co-occurring” “mental health issues” and “substance abuse” that is asserted in the “Blueprint for Change: Ending Chronic Homelessness for Persons with Serious Mental Illnesses and/or Co-Occurring Substance Use Disorder” (US Dept. of Health and Human Services), we STILL get numbers greater than 100%!!! (40% exclusively “mental health issues,” 50% exclusively “substance abuse,” and 40% having both.)

Mental Health Services Act Community Support and Services (MHSA CSS) Plan available on the net at: http://co.humboldt.ca.us/hhs/mh/mhsa.asp

“Blueprint for Change: Ending Chronic Homelessness for Persons with Serious Mental Illnesses and/or Co-Occurring Substance Use Disorder” (US Dept. of Health and Human Services) available at:
http://www.mentalhealth.samhsa.gov/publications/allpubs/SMA04-3870/default.asp

from San Diego to Humboldt

2006-01-15T19:24:00.000-08:00

The Slippery Slope:
from San Diego to Humboldt

The homeless “Round–Up” programs instituted in San Diego may be emulated here in Humboldt County.

FROM:
Strategies for Reducing Chronic Street Homelessness (January 2004, 384 P.)
U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development
http://www.huduser.org/Publications/PDF/ChronicStrtHomeless.pdf

San Diego’s Police-Based Outreach Teams
San Diego city has two innovative outreach programs developed by and located in the San Diego Police Department—the Homeless Outreach Team (HOT) and the Serial Inebriate Program (SIP).

HOT combines a police officer, a mental health worker, and a benefits eligibility technician in outreach teams operating during the day and evening hours to engage mentally ill street people and connect them to services.

Because they combine police and mental health expertise and authority, they are the only outreach teams on the streets that have the ability to remove people either voluntarily or involuntarily, in addition to building rapport and making referrals.

SIP comes into play for chronic inebriates who do not voluntarily accept treatment. SIP is a collaboration of four city and five county agencies, including law enforcement, the city attorney’s office, the public defender, the Superior Court, health care, and homeless agencies working as a team in a court context. Mental Health System, Inc. is contracted to coordinate the program. SIP follows the Drug Court model in offering addicts a choice of jail or treatment, after assuring that the community was willing to pay for treatment if requested. SIP’s focus is on chronic alcoholics who populate the downtown streets of San Diego. Police officers arrest chronic street alcoholics for public drunkenness, and bring them to jail and subsequently to court. Once arraigned, caseworkers approach each person, conduct assessments, and offer treatment plus transitional housing as an alternative to six months in jail (the maximum allowed under California state law) to those who pass the assessment. Many people eventually accept the offer, although they may first serve a full jail sentence or even two before they are convinced to try.

FROM:
The North Coast Journal Weekly (Arcata)
http://www.northcoastjournal.com/111005/cover1110.html
Judge Feeney, who presides in Humboldt County Superior Court, Courtoom 8, was born and raised in San Diego and says he has "been admiring their homeless court from afar for years."
In September, he went down to San Diego to observe a homeless court. "I was impressed," he says.
"Many homeless people have substance abuse issues and mental illness, and for those people it's more complicated," he says.
“…some infractions and misdemeanors might stem from the condition of being homeless, says Steve Binder, a deputy public defender in San Diego who co-founded the nation's first homeless court, in San Diego County in 1989.
"They (“crimes” of the homeless) are the result of their being homeless. They might be 'sleeping in public' or 'drinking in public' or 'peeing in public' -- things we do in the privacy of our homes, they do outside because they have no other options. Additionally, you'll find petty thefts [of food], because people might be looking to survive. Or you'll find people doing drugs, whether it is a way of self-medicating or just a way of surviving on the street. We're not trying to condone that."

the CHRONIC HOMELESS INITIATIVE

2006-01-15T19:06:00.000-08:00

original article on the web at: http://www.nationalhomeless.org/chronic/chronicqanda.html

What is the "Chronic Homelessness" Initiative?

The "chronic homelessness" initiative is a campaign to target federal, state, and local homeless assistance and other resources to people who meet the definition of "chronic homelessness."

What is the Federal Definition of "Chronic Homelessness?"

from “Ending Chronic Homelessness: Strategies for Action”
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
Report from the Secretary’s Work Group on Ending Chronic Homelessness, March 2003.
http://aspe.hhs.gov/hsp/homelessness/strategies03/ch.htm#ch2
The definition of “chronic homeless”:
HHS, HUD, and VA have agreed on the characteristics of persons experiencing chronic homelessness and use the following definition in their collaborations:
An unaccompanied homeless individual with a disabling condition who has either been continuously homeless for a year or has had at least four (4) episodes of homelessness in the past three (3) years.

By definition, the "chronic homelessness" initiative excludes the following groups of people:
CHILDREN (with disabilities and without disabilities) who are homeless with their parents;
PARENTS (with disabilities and without disabilities) who are homeless and who have children with them;
YOUTH on their own with disabilities who have not been homeless long enough to fit the federal definition;
YOUTH on their own without disabilities;
unaccompanied individuals with disabilities who have not been homeless long enough to fit the federal definition;
unaccompanied individuals without disabilities; and
unaccompanied individuals who are unwilling to be declared disabled.
Press releases, plans to end homelessness, and news articles are using the terms "chronic homelessness" and "homelessness" interchangeably, as though they were one and the same. In this collapsing of categories, all people experiencing homelessness are either pathologized or made invisible.

The "chronic homelessness" initiative fails to address the ROOT of the problem, POVERTY, and the affordable housing crisis that underlie homelessness for all populations. To separate homelessness from poverty and housing is fundamentally to distort its causes.

sorry kids, "comment moderation" is in effect

2006-01-14T15:34:00.000-08:00

Due to the excess of off-topic irrelevant personal and insulting comments on this blog, new comments will now have to be approved before they appear.

Have no fear - almost any thing will still be published! (even the mysterious mean little diatribes of "anonymous")

This blog coesn't get checked all that often, so please be patient and continue to comment!

Healthy Plaza Initiative?

2006-01-03T13:54:00.000-08:00

Just thought I'd open this up for discussion - let you folks do all the work.

HEY FRED! NEW POST

2005-12-17T15:35:00.000-08:00

just a little posting-action for Fred. Thanks for checking up on me, buddy. Stop in anytime.

Mental Health Services Act FRAUD EXPOSED!!

2005-11-13T13:48:00.000-08:00

City of Arcata Council Persons:
Michael Machi,
Dave Meserve,
Paul Pitino,
Harmony Groves,
Mark Wheetley

Re: Chronic Homeless con game

At the request of a majority of this council, I am furnishing a more complete discourse of the facts and figures presented by Humboldt County Mental Health Branch as if truth. The statistics presented in Humboldt County’s “Mental Health Services Act Community Services and Supports Three-Year Program and Expenditure Plan,” October 7, 2005 (MHSA CSS Plan) are a gross misrepresentation of the truth. Not being limited in my redress to 3 minutes, I hope to not only prove that a pernicious fabrication has been intentionally inflicted on the poor, but to also bring to light what the underlying purpose of such a lie might be, especially when compared with the suspicious lack of “chronic homeless” numbers in Humboldt State University’s “Arcata Homeless Services Plan.”

The “Chronic Homeless Initiative,” or what you refer to as “continuum of care, or “case management,” was undertaken because the percentages of “chronic” homeless persons are small and therefore seen as an achievable goal. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development and Veteran Affairs all agree that an individual must have a disabling condition to be identified as “chronic” homeless, and that the total number of “chronic” homeless nationwide is about 200,000 persons, or approximately 10% of the homeless. Humboldt County’s MHSA CSS Plan’s estimated number of “chronic” homeless individuals not only exceeds federal “chronic” homeless numbers by 4000%, but actually exceeds the total number of homeless in Humboldt County.

The State of California Alcohol and Drug Program’s “Blueprint for Change” (publication No. (ADP) 03-7072) breaks down the 10% of homeless that are “chronic” into 3 separate classifications. One of the classifications, physical disability, is not an issue of this thesis because genuine illnesses are clearly discernable by empirical observation and less likely to be fraudulent. The other two classifications, “serious mental ‘illness’ (SMI)” and “substance use disorder (SUD)” are topics of the “MHSA CSS Plan’s” fraudulent number padding.

“Blueprint for Change” states that 20% of the chronic are mentally “ill.” If 10% of the homeless are chronic and 20% of the chronic are mentally “ill” then 2% of the homeless are mentally “ill” (10% ÷ 100% = .1, 20% ÷ 100% = .2, .1 x .2 = .02, .02 x 100% = 2%). Likewise, “Blueprint for Change” states that 40% of the 10% chronic, or 4% of all homeless, have SUD. When we combine the two classifications we get a maximum combined SMI/SUD group of 6% of all homeless (2% + 4% = 6%), however, “Blueprint for Change” states that an estimated 50% of homeless adults with mental “illness” had a “co-occurring” substance abuse “disorders.” This means that half the 2% (mentally “ill”) are also counted in the 4% (substance use) group, the combined mentally “ill”/substance use group is 5% of all homeless (4% - .5(2%) = 3%, 2% + 3% = 5%). Thus we see the number of combined SMI/SUD “chronic homeless is one out of every 20 homeless.

Humboldt County’s DHHS Mental Health Branch in their MHSA CSS Plan comes up with extremely divergent results. In fact, not only do their numbers defy logic, but actually defy physics. The county claims on page 35 of their MHSA CSS Plan that “among the estimated 2000 homeless adults, 80% of homeless adults suffer mental health issues; 90% suffer substance abuse.” The maximum combined SMI/SUD homeless in Humboldt County would be 170% of the homeless (80% + 90% = 170%). It is both mathematically impossible and intuitively illogical to have more than 100% of anything!

In the MHSA CSS Plan they make the following statement as justification for the excessive numbers: “Rates generated by the 2004 sampling of 339 homeless persons for AB20234 contacts, estimates 590 homeless suffer from serious mental illness, 200 suffer from substance abuse, and 24 from both.” Using the 24 “co-occurring” to 590 SMI AB2034 estimate as a ratio, the co-occurring” estimate for 2000 homeless would be 65 people (24÷ 590 = C÷ (80%x2000), C=65), or approximately 4% of SMI also have “co-occurring” SUD. The combined SMI/SUD group then becomes 166% ((80%-4%)+70% = 166%) or 66% more than the total existing homeless numbers. Another way of stating it would be if we have a total of 2000 homeless in Humboldt County then we have 1333 more mentally ill and/or substance abusing homeless than actual homeless. If we use the 50% “co-occurring” rate, from “Blueprint for Change,” Humboldt County’s combined SMI/SUD group STILL exceeds 100% of homeless at 130%.

On the Surface it might appear that lucre is the motivation behind these obvious fraudulent numbers, especially in light of the game show type of hysteria displayed by local poverty pimps and grant whores before councils when “free” tax money is at stake, but upon deeper reflection, the history of psychiatrists, psychiatry, disease theory of behavior and pharmaceutical brain chemistry cures tend to paint a picture of genocide, social control, and vivisection, way more often then any type of cure or improvement is ever noticed. Mental health for the homeless will consist of poorly supervised regimen of ant-psychotics that produce aggression, psychosis, violence, suicide, permanent neurological disease, sudden cardiac death, and addiction as “frequent” side-effects, while showing only trivial improvement over placebos in test trials.

Bertrand Russell said, “I think the subject of which will be of most importance politically is mass psychology…although this science will be diligently studied, it will be rigidly confined to the governing class. The populace will not be allowed to know how its convictions were generated” (The Impact of Science on Society). Media, schools, and organizations are obvious sources of propaganda and social control, but don’t neglect to factor in the accumulative effects of food additive chemicals, water flouridization and the trillion dollar pharmaceutical industry.

Though I have investigated this subject most thoroughly, I haven’t assessed when I will be “round up” because of my concern that my government doesn’t have my best interest in mind, or, in psycho-babble, “paranoid delusional of the social reforming type” (USSR Ministry of Health term for political psychiatric prisoners Fainberg and Borisov, 1971). Regardless of whether I get “round up” with the 160% of the homeless, or with the political dissident like many of you, the Mental Health Services Act is paid by big money (people earning over a million dollars) to do the bidding of big money (gentrification). The “system” will not be “sunsetted” when a “final solution” to the homeless “problem” is “found.” No, it will continue until it has devoured everything that stands against it, and then like the “witch hunters” and the “nazi psychiatrists,” it shall even devour itself as it outlives its usefulness.

Love eternal
tad

cc: Humboldt County Board of Supervisors

HSU student assaulted and battered by police in downtown Arcata

2005-11-12T15:42:00.000-08:00

HSU student Assaulted and Battered by police on the Plaza

It was July 4, 1987. The Statue of Liberty had just under gone a face-lift and “Proud to Be an American” was the number one song. I was eight years old at the time and I remember being so proud to be an American, so safe and free. Ah, the rose colored glasses of childhood. Throughout the years those glasses have become clearer and clearer, but on June 19, 2005, they were ripped off, thrown to the ground and stomped upon.

After exiting Toby & Jack’s Bar on the plaza, I was standing in a crowd of people, trying to locate my friend. A man handed me something: a pipe. I did not want it and was giving it to the person standing next to me when two police officers stepped into the crowd. They flashed their flash light into my eyes and asked me for my identification. I was a bit startled, having never been involved with the police before so, I asked them to please take the light out of my eyes so I could see. I then began reaching into my purse to retrieve my ID for them.

The next thing I knew, the officers had grabbed both my arms and slammed me up against the brick wall. I began crying, asking them why they were doing this, telling them that they were hurting me. I had never experienced such pain. Little did I know that there was more to come.

The two officers dragged me across the street and slammed me onto the hood of one of the police cars. I lifted my head off the car for a second to see if I could see my friend Ryan, and an officer, with his forearm, slammed my face back into the hood of the car. I was handcuffed and thrown into the back of the police car. I asked the officers repeatedly what they were doing, where they were taking me and why I was being arrested. They just looked at me and never answered any of my questions. I was just their chosen rag doll for the night.

They drove me to the Arcata police station. When we arrived they asked me to get out of the car and get into another police car. When I asked them why and to tell me were they were taking me they said, “If you don’t get out oft his car and get into the other one we will physically pick you up and throw you in.” I did as they said for fear of more injury.

We then arrived at the Humboldt County Jail, where an officer came up to the car, opened the door and basically pulled me out, giving me no chance to get out or even walk down the hall that he pulled me through. We came to a small room and the officer pushed me face-first up against a padded blue wall. Behind me stood five officers, three male and two female, all of which were wearing plastic gloves. I was petrified at this point and no one would answer any of my questions. I did not have handcuffs and with my hands at my sides, staying close to the wall, I began to turn around to look at the officers while saying, “You don’t have to do this, just tell me what’s going on.” Before I even turned a quarter of the way the five officers jumped me and dragged me into another room where they pulled off my shoes and socks, my earrings and necklace. The pain they were inflicting on me was tremendous and I felt so powerless.

The officers then brought me into a cell and full-body slammed me face down into the ground. The officers then got on top of me and were pulling my arms behind my back. It felt like they were going to pull my arms right out of their sockets. They also had their knees going into my back with what felt to be their entire body weights.

I was then left in the cell for three or four hours when they let me out to sit in the waiting room. There they continued to be verbally rude and when it was time for me to be released, I had to ask them four times to call a cab for me. I spoke with my friend Ryan who was a witness to what happened, “After I watched them throw you against the wall and over eth hood of there car I was afraid for your safety. I walked up to one of the police officers to ask them why they were being so rough with you and where they were taking you. The officer immediately raised a tazer to my eyes and said if I didn’t step back she was going to taz me. I wasn’t coming at her in an attacking fashion I simply was trying to find out where they were taking you.”

They charged me with resisting arrest and possession of marijuana. They beat the crap out of me and charged me with resisting arrest! This is what our police force is here for? Their here to scare the crap out of good a biding citizens? Yes, I was holding a pipe and a ticket should have been issued but a beating was nowhere warranted and should never be. The police of Arcata seem to be bored and on a huge power trip. In the weeks that followed this incident I would freeze up every time I saw a cop behind me when I was driving or just walking down the street. I had always thought of them as protectors. Now I just don’t know what to think. I sure as hell know that I hate it when people call them “Peace” officers; I mean what kind of load of shit is that.

The other day a friend went up to a police officer and asked him if he was walking with the power stance to scare people. His reply was “What I don’t scare you?” as he took a step in her direction. I’m sorry but I didn’t realize that the police officers job was to scare the public. Maybe that is a new addition to the job description.

Now I am not saying that every police officer is bad, and I know that there are some officers that are truly trying to help the community but when situations like this occur it gives them all a bad name.

In the past few months there have been many incidents of police using aggressive force and nothing is being done about it. I spoke with Greg Allen, an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer based in Arcata; he informed me that mine was not the only instance that he knows of and because of eth sensitivity of the cases the names of these people were left out. “In February 2005 I was contacted by and represented a woman who had an incident with a non uniformed officer from the Dept. of Forestry, she was pulled over at Samoa Blvd. and V in Arcata. After being instructed to produce her driver’s license and registration the victim complied and was looking in her purse. Without warning, the officer sprayed her in the eyes with pepper spray, dragged her out of the car and threw her to the ground. She was charged with speeding and resisting an officer. I went to court in March, and the District Attorney had declined to file.

Greg Also informed me of another instance that happened on the Plaza that was witnessed by a local shop owner. “One evening while looking out the window at the corner of 9th and H he saw three young women who appeared to be students walking north on H adjacent to the Plaza. He saw an Arcata police officer run behind the women and kick the legs out from one of them. She was taken to the ground and arrested. The women offered no resistance, and the violence seemed to the shop keeper to be unjustified.”

The ex-boyfriend of one of my friends was also beaten up outside of Toby and Jacks Bar. I spoke with Tyler Brown who was the bouncer at Toby and Jacks that evening. Tyler, “I watched the officers grab him by the shoulders and slam him into the ground. This was done after he was simply speaking with the officers about something that happened earlier. He then said he was going to just go home and took one step back and that’s when they grabbed him. They used over excessive force in the situation.”

I tried getting a hold of the Arcata police department for comments as well as statistics as to how many complaints are made against them each year but I was unable to get a response. Also it is not mandatory for these types of records to be available to the public. A government entity needs to put it into effect that the people be able to access these documents.

I asked Greg if anything was being done to get something happening in this community. Currently there is a group of people from different organizations in Humboldt such as the Human Rights Commission, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the Civil Liberties Monitoring Project, as well as the Green Party working together to get something in place that monitors the police.

These people have formed a group called the Coalition for Police Review (CPR). What we need is community support so that the local government will acknowledge what is happening in our community. “We are not trying to attack the police; however it is difficult to expect them to investigate themselves. There is a small conflict of interest.” stated Greg Alan. If you are interested in helping with police review or would like more information please call the local branch of the ACLU at 707-215-5385.

We can not continue to let our government try to control our actions through fear of bodily injury. The police are being paid through our tax dollars. We are their boss’s not the other way around and its time somebody stands up and does something about it. We can not just talk about it we need to act on it in order to make a difference.

(for a picture of one of the injuries see: http://www.indybay.org/news/2005/11/1782998.php)

New England Journal of Medicine - TASERS!!!

2005-10-31T10:39:00.000-08:00

http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/353/9/958
Volume 353:958-959
September 1, 2005
Number 9

Ventricular Fibrillation after Stun-Gun Discharge

September 02, 2005

original article by Alex Berenson

A shock from a Taser stun gun caused a teenager in Chicago to go into ventricular fibrillation, a usually fatal heart disturbance, according to a letter published yesterday in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Tasers are pistol-like weapons that fire electrified barbs up to 25 feet, immobilizing people with painful shocks.
Dr. Wayne H. Franklin, a pediatric electrophysiologist at Children’s Memorial and one of the letter’s authors, said that the teenager would have died if he had not received immediate care. An electrocardiogram or heart rhythm test, administered to the teenager, proved that he suffered fibrillation, Dr. Franklin said.
About 130 people have died after being shocked by a Taser, including 70 in the past 12 months, according to Amnesty International, which has called for a moratorium on the use of the guns.

http://www.medpagetoday.com/Cardiology/Arrhythmias/tb/1654
By Neil Osterweil, Senior Associate Editor, MedPage Today September 02, 2005 “An adolescent was subdued with a Taser stun gun and subsequently collapsed," "Paramedics found the adolescent to be in ventricular fibrillation and began performing cardiopulmonary resuscitation within two minutes after the collapse," wrote Paul J. Kim, M.D., and Wayne H. Franklin, M.D., of Children's Memorial Hospital in a letter to the New England Journal of Medicine. The letter was accompanied by electrocardiogram tracings showing the boy's heart rhythm before and after defibrillation.
At a meeting of the Academy of Forensic Sciences in February, electrical engineer James Ruggieri made a presentation in which he said that the electrical output of Taser's M26 model succeeds the fibrillation threshold for half the U.S. population. Primary source: New England Journal of Medicine

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/27/AR2005092700706.html
By BETH DeFALCO
The Associated Press Tuesday, September 27, 2005; 5:30 PM
The Securities and Exchange Commission inquiry into stun-gun maker Taser International Inc. is now a formal investigation with an expanded scope, the company said Tuesday.
Shares of Taser fell 96 cents, or 13 percent, to close at $6.35 Tuesday on the Nasdaq Stock Market, slipping below its 52-week range of $7.11 to $33.45.

Class Tensions and the Falsity of “Choice”

2005-10-31T10:38:00.000-08:00

CHOICELESSNESS
Class Tensions and the Falsity of “Choice”

What kind of choice is working 40 or more hours every week just to spend over half of that money on rent for a place to sleep, eat, and have privacy, only to find out that you barely have any time to spend in this expensive place? What kind of freedom is conditional upon submission to the noxious reign of capitalism and private property to legitimize membership in the community?
What other choice is there but to withdraw from this sinister con-game that fools us into participating in our own demise, just to meet our immediate needs?
There has been much speculation in Arcata lately about those who “choose to be homeless.” For most homeless people, if not all, being homeless is not a choice. Most would prefer a safe warm place to sleep and to keep their stuff. Even the highly politicized research recently done by Humboldt State University makes this obvious. Even those who “choose” to be unhoused do so because their other options are too fucked-up to realistically consider.
The capitalist economic system, with its grip on space as private property to be paid for, demands scarcity. While buildings sit vacant with “For Sale” or “For Rent” signs, people are harassed off of cold concrete storefronts. Meanwhile, a vocal bunch of house-owning and business-owning individuals make excuses for this inane system, and blame the homeless for not doing enough to house themselves. Most of us are a paycheck away from being homeless ourselves, but as long as we stay obediently out of sight in our paid-for private dwellings, we will not be bothered.
If it hasn’t already been brought to your attention, perhaps the local debate on homelessness reveals the state of our freedom in this country. Those who choose to either boycott the rent/private property paradigm, or who simply cannot operate within its domain, are expected to hide from public view, and are harassed or cited for sleeping wherever they can. Some have been assaulted by the police with Taser stun-guns, which have been found to be LETHAL (New England Journal of Medicine, September 1, 2005 http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/353/9/958).
Does the community approve of the tax-funded police-enforced policies of keeping the poor and homeless living in fear and out of sight? Does the community know how much tax-money is spent on enforcing these policies compared to how much tax-money is spent making sure that everyone has enough to eat?
How much does the non-homeless community know about those labeled as “homeless by choice”?
What kind of choice do we have?

FREE SPEECH, the police, and the McKinleyville statue

2005-10-31T10:36:00.000-08:00

FREE SPEECH, the police, and the McKinleyville statue at Food Not Bombs on the plaza
McKinley Quick Facts:
Under McKinley’s presidency, the United States invaded Cuba, Guam, the Philippines, Puerto Rico and Hawaii.
McKinley claimed that the invasions were humanitarian in nature, but instead inflicted suffering on the people and seized control of their LAND.

On three separate occasions, Arcata police overseers have shown up on the plaza when a man climbed the statue of McKinley (supposed to be in McKinleyville) and spoke in opposition to the current U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq. All three times, police overseers have tried to intimidate the free-speech performer, but were halted by on-lookers who did not approve of the police mis-conduct.
Arcata police overseers Ron Sligh and Kevin Stoneberger attempted to intimidate those who spoke out publicly against the genocidal war that the United States and corporate co-conspirators are waging in Iraq. Their efforts went unheeded.
Arcata police overseers leave the plaza.
Why were they there in the first place?
Who called them? Why?
Why were the police trying to get the identification numbers of people who speak out against the illegal genocidal U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq?

Food Not Bombs! has chosen to take a stand against violence. We are committed to nonviolent social change by giving out free vegetarian food thus celebrating and nurturing life. Poverty is violence. One expression of the violence of poverty is hunger. Millions of Americans, almost half children, go hungry every day. By spending money on bombs instead of food, our government perpetuates and exacerbates the violence of poverty by failing to provide food for everyone in need

BRIBING RANGER BOB

2005-10-31T10:35:00.000-08:00

Humboldt Property Management recently bought Arcata police department’s ranger Bob Murphy a $1600 bicycle to make his gentrification-enforcement efforts more comfortable and enjoyable. (See Arcata Eye 8/30/05)

Humboldt Property Management surely expects their business to flourish as the well-equipped ranger Bob drives away any individuals that might pose a threat to property values.

Is it immoral for a property management company that stands to make a significant FINANCIAL GAIN from ranger Bob’s routine VIOLATIONS of the CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS of unhoused people to give him a $1600 bike as a gift?
Of course it is!
But is it illegal?

LET'S BE BLUNT

2005-10-13T20:08:00.000-07:00

LET’S BE BLUNT

During the October 5th Arcata city council meeting, president of Humboldt State University Rollin Richmond spoke out against medicinal use of cannabis, contradicting most scientific findings and traditional wisdom.

His goal? To convince the Arcata city council to remain silently complicit while the University Police Department enforces HSU’s “zero tolerance” cannabis policy on targeted segments of the ARCATA population (not just campus).

Some notable quotes from Oct. 5th
Arcata city council meeting:
“We will not tolerate medical marijuana on campus and we will discipline students who have it and remove it from them.”

“One of the things we would hope to do is work with your police chief and your police force to collaborate more effectively than we already do in the use of our joint police forces.”

“I cannot ask the police at the university to work with the police force in Arcata if my police people cannot enforce the laws in the same way they do on campus within the city of Arcata.”

“We brought before you the other evening a Healthy Plaza Initiative, which is supported by the university, a number of business organizations in the community and a number of business people.”

He has also spoken at Homeless Task Force meetings, saying that some people just don’t fit into his idea of what society is.
Richmond suggests more police.

where's the "chronic"?

2005-10-13T20:06:00.000-07:00

where’s the “CHRONIC”?

HSU professor Jane Holschuh and president Rollin Richmond at a task force meeting.Humboldt State University’s president, Rollin Richmond, has been attending Arcata City Council meetings with the purpose of blaming homeless people for declining enrollment at the university. In spite of his flimsy story, the HSU consultant team to Arcata’s Homeless Task Force has devised a plan for labeling people “chronically homeless” based on questionable and vague standards, and forcing mis-treatment on them, based on the presumption that they are “mentally ill,” have a “disabling condition,” and are a danger to themselves or others.

The definition of “chronic homeless”: http://aspe.hhs.gov/hsp/homelessness/strategies03/ch.htm#ch2
HHS, HUD, and VA have agreed on the characteristics of persons experiencing chronic homelessness and use the following definition in their collaborations:
An unaccompanied homeless individual with a disabling condition who has either been continuously homeless for a year or has had at least four (4) episodes of homelessness in the past three (3) years.

The Homeless Services Plan (available at http://cdc.humboldt.edu/ahtf/), written by HSU representatives, to be enforced on the Arcata population, refers a number of times to “chronically homeless” people, but keeps the definition vague and broadly applicable. In fact, the federal definition, which includes having a “disabling condition” as a qualifier to fit the label, was REMOVED from the plan.

This definition was available in the 7/21/05 version of the plan (available at http://cdc.humboldt.edu/ahtf/), but is absent from later versions of the draft. After concern about the vagueness of the definition and broadness of its application (and seriousness of its implications) was brought up several times at task force meetings, HSU professor Jane Holschuh said that she would include the federal definition in the plan, but it is still not in the most recent version. Why not? Why was it removed in the first place?

The implication of the vague and broad use of the term “chronic homeless” is that every unhoused person could be labeled as being in need of involuntarily receiving the heavy-handed help of the State, including forced drugging and confinement in a mental “health” facility.

SELF HELP MAKES STRONG COMMUNITIES

2005-10-13T20:05:00.000-07:00

SELF HELP MAKES STRONG COMMUNITIES

Food Not Bombs, a radical direct action group that serves free vegetarian meals, was recently approached and asked to cook at the Arcata Endeavor on Saturdays, where there is plenty of food that would otherwise go unprepared and unserved on weekends. This is in addition to FNB’s meals served throughout the week that are cooked in the homes of volunteers. It was discussed and decided that it would be tried.

For several months now, there has been healthy vegetarian food served at 1:00 pm on Saturdays at the Endeavor (at no extra cost to taxpayers), and there are still enough volunteers to prepare and serve dinner at 5:30 pm on the plaza. Many of the volunteers now cooking lunch at the Endeavor on Saturdays were not previously affiliated with Food Not Bombs.

These events make clear that the facilities exist for those in need to be given the opportunity to help themselves. Instead of acquiring large sums of money to study the obvious lack of basic necessities, and spending lots of money hiring people who reinforce the separations between service providers and service recipients, Arcata could allow the already existing facilities to be used by those who are willing to volunteer to provide services to themselves and others. The costs of operation (utilities, supplies) could be covered by the money saved.

Not only would this less-hierarchical approach save money, and time spent to acquire that money, but it would also set an example of this historically tested and trusted method of social planning that involves less professional authoritarianism, and the actual meeting of more needs. The D Street Neighborhood Center is a perfect place to open up. Currently is sits locked and empty most of the time.

The direct action of preparing and sharing meals helps to relieve some of the pressures that create tensions in our community. Healthy and nutritious meals provide relief from the immediate discomfort and anxiety of being hungry, and prevent the long-term negative effects of malnutrition. For those overwhelmed by the cost of living in today’s society, FNB’s free meals provide relief from the competition for ever more scarce dollars.

Preparing meals together is a good way to engage our innate ability to get along and work cooperatively to meet our common needs. By addressing the issue of hunger directly, FNB also demonstrates our ability to solve community problems from within the community.

definition: GENTRIFICATION

2005-09-12T14:47:00.000-07:00

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gentrification

Gentrification refers to the physical, social, economic, and cultural phenomenon whereby working-class and/or inner-city neighborhoods are converted into more affluent middle or even upper-class communities by remodelling buildings and landscaping, resulting in increased property values and in the outflow of poorer residents, either through displacement or succession.

TASK FORCE ARCATA

2005-09-12T14:40:00.000-07:00

TASK FORCE ARCATA

The Arcata city government’s Homeless Task Force, without any “homeless representatives” (since they resigned in disgust), is in the final stages of putting together
the “PLAN” for Arcata.
The main focus of the plan is to keep unhoused people out of sight, and manufactures FALSE JUSTIFICATION for KIDNAPPING us off of the streets, forcing DANGEROUS PHARMACEUTICALS on us, and MANDATORY INTRUSIVE CASE MANAGEMENT that violates our rights to privacy and self-determination.
Drafts of the PLAN available at: http://cdc.humboldt.edu/ahtf/ (see main menu and Agenda for 8.4.05 pgs. 24-72)

SOURCES: Police Abuse and Psychiatric Repression of the Homeless (story from Arcata)
http://www.thestreetspirit.org/July2005/repression.htm

FDA warnings about anti-depressants
http://www.fda.gov/cder/drug/antidepressants/AntidepressanstPHA.htm
http://www.fda.gov/cder/drug/advisory/mdd.htm
http://theplazoid.blogspot.com/2005/08/fda-warnings-about-anti-depressants.html

Prop 63: Psychiatry Plundering The Golden State to Abuse Children
Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) http://www.cchr.org/prop63.htm

Psychiatric Drugs: An Assault on the Human Condition
http://www.thestreetspirit.org/August2005/interview.htm

Zyprexa: A Prescription for Diabetes, Disease and Early Death
http://www.thestreetspirit.org/August2005/zyprexa.htm

Psychiatric Abuses and the Homeless Community
http://www.thestreetspirit.org/August2005/psychatric.htm

The PLAN is based largely on the biased interpretation of the results of a biased SURVEY, conducted while most students were out of town on summer break, and interpreted by the Humboldt State University consulting team that lead the TASK FORCE.
Other “rectally extracted” data dictated the PLAN, including an interview with Arcata’s chief of police who concluded that “urban anarchists” are Arcata’s “#2” public health concern.
see the interview notes at: http://www.geocities.com/solarimix/AHSPTF_arcata_police_chief.pdf
see also: “Arcata's chief of police and McCarthyism” at:
http://theplazoid.blogspot.com/2005/06/arcatas-chief-of-police-and.html
The SURVEY, which polled the opinions of some Arcatans (homeowners over represented by 300%) and non-Arcatans (20% of respondents don’t live in Arcata, see pg.18 of the August 19 version of the plan, internet address above), used leading questions to push the ideas of “mandatory case management” and “required volunteerism.”
(see questions 11, 12, 13, and 17).

Survey available on the net at the end of the task force agenda for 8.4.05, pg 68-72: http://cdc.humboldt.edu/ahtf/
Survey results also available (incomplete) at same internet address. Notice missing data, including
question #26: “Annual income” of respondents.

RACIST ATTACK BY BLUE LAKE POLICE

2005-08-29T13:49:00.000-07:00

RACIST ATTACK BY

BLUE LAKE POLICE

On May 16th, 2005, the Blue Lake police, including chief Gundersen, launched a racially motivated attack on a homeless mother and her children. The woman was shot with a taser electro-shock gun, forcibly medicated with the dangerous pharmaceutical Haldol, allegedly abused sexually while unconscious, and taken to jail. She was told by police chief Gundersen that she was not allowed in Blue Lake due to her race.

“Do you know what it feels like to fight for your life and kids lives and in a flash it’s taken from you for no reason, No reason at all?”

- from the diary of Yvonne Phillips, memo log of arrest.
Full account printed in the Humboldt Advocate, August 24-30, 2005, pg. 8.

FDA warnings about anti-depressants

2005-08-25T09:16:00.000-07:00

WARNING!
Withdrawal from psychiatric drugs should be done under clinical supervision.

http://www.fda.gov/cder/drug/antidepressants/AntidepressanstPHA.htm
FDA Public Health Advisory
March 22, 2004

WORSENING DEPRESSION AND SUICIDALITY
IN PATIENTS BEING TREATED WITH
ANTIDEPRESSANT MEDICATIONS
Today the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) asked manufacturers of the following antidepressant drugs to include in their labeling a Warning statement that recommends close observation of adult and pediatric patients treated with these agents for worsening depression or the emergence of suicidality. The drugs that are the focus of this new Warning are: Prozac (fluoxetine); Zoloft (sertraline); Paxil (paroxetine); Luvox (fluvoxamine); Celexa (citalopram); Lexapro (escitalopram); Wellbutrin (bupropion); Effexor (venlafaxine); Serzone (nefazodone); and Remeron (mirtazapine).

http://www.fda.gov/cder/drug/advisory/mdd.htm
FDA Public Health Advisory
October 27, 2003

REPORTS OF SUICIDALITY
IN PEDIATRIC PATIENTS BEING TREATED WITH
ANTIDEPRESSANT MEDICATIONS
FOR MAJOR DEPRESSIVE DISORDER (MDD)

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) would like to call your attention to reports of the occurrence of suicidality (both suicidal ideation and suicide attempts) in clinical trials for various antidepressant drugs in pediatric patients with major depressive disorder (MDD). While occurrences of suicidality are not unexpected in patients with MDD, preliminary data suggest an excess of such reports for patients assigned to several of these antidepressant drugs compared to those assigned to placebo. FDA has completed a preliminary review of such reports for 8 antidepressant drugs (citalopram, fluoxetine, fluvoxamine*, mirtazapine, nefazodone, paroxetine, sertraline, and venlafaxine) studied under the pediatric exclusivity provision, and has determined that additional data and analysis, and also a public discussion of available data, are needed.

WARNING!
Withdrawal from psychiatric drugs should be done under clinical supervision.

the CHRONIC

2005-08-22T13:17:00.000-07:00

THE “CHRONIC”

According to the Homeless Task Force’s HSU consulting team, anybody who has been homeless for “longer periods” (whatever that is) is “chronically homeless,” which, defined by HUD (federal department of Housing and Urban Development), means that they have a “disabling condition.” If that “disabling condition” isn’t physical, then it is presumed to be mental, and so HSU seems to suggest that anybody who has been homeless for more than a short while is mentally ill, unless that person has a physical disability that causes homelessness.
Using this rationale, HSU then interjects the insidious idea of mandatory case management...

from the Humboldt State University’s
Homeless Services Plan draft:

“Research shows us that most people who experience homelessness (80%) are homeless for only a short period and can be housed either through assistance in locating suitable housing or with a rent subsidy. Other people are homeless for longer periods or cycle in and out of homelessness. These chronically homeless people may need permanent supportive housing and more extensive support services to remain housed.”
http://cdc.humboldt.edu/ahtf/index.php?module=pagesetter&type=file&func=get&tid=2&pid=28&fid=file1
The draft of the plan starts on page 24 of the Homeless Task Force Agenda for 8.4.05
http://cdc.humboldt.edu/ahtf/

also see the survey results, page 45 of the draft plan: “By strong majorities, often more than 2 to 1, respondents in both samples reported that case management should be required to receive basic services including overnight shelter and that there should be time limits on receiving these services.”

DEFINITION: “CHRONIC HOMELESS”

Ending Chronic Homelessness Strategies for Action
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
Report fromthe Secretary’s Work Groupon Ending Chronic Homelessness
March 2003
This report is available on the Internet at:http://aspe.hhs.gov/hsp/homelessness/strategies03/

“HHS, HUD, and VA have agreed on the characteristics of persons experiencing chronic homelessness and use the following definition in their collaborations:

An unaccompanied homeless individual with a disabling condition who has either been continuously homeless for a year or has had at least four (4) episodes of homelessness in the past three (3) years.”
http://aspe.hhs.gov/hsp/homelessness/strategies03/ch.htm#ch2

Letter from Rosemary to the Arcata Eye

2005-08-09T14:32:00.000-07:00

Arcata City Homeless Task Force Blatantly Ignores Needs of Northern Humboldt's Disadvantaged Youth and Families

This letter is past due. Originally, I was excited at the opportunity of sitting on a committee designated to find solutions that I thought would not only find multiple solutions to aide homeless/houseless in the community but also empower them. My job as the Homeless Outreach Coordinator for the High School District requires knowledge, an open heart, and trench boots. Unlike many of the homeless you see at the Endeavor or on the Plaza, the population I work with are invisible. Eighty one families were enrolled in the Northern Humboldt Homeless Outreach Project in the 2004-2005 school calendar year. Thirty nine of these students (48%) are Arcata residents. Many of these students “couch surf”: The practice of sleeping in the homes of acquaintances or other helpful people on a rotating basis, from home to home. Couch surfing, along with other forms of temporary housing arouses feelings of anxiety, depression, anger, uncertainty, and often is accompanied by hunger. Fortunately, most of these kids still make it to school and yet have hope.

Interestingly enough, many people assume welfare assistance is enough to get by on. Unfortunately, the assistance level is far below poverty level. One of the parents I work with receives $600.00 a month in assistance and $240.00 in food stamps for her and her two boys. Try to make rent on that budget!

A January 2003 rental survey conducted by Pacific Municipal Consultants found that the median rental price for a two bedroom apartment was $575.00 and a two bedroom house was $650.00. This is beyond the affordability of the families I work with and leads many families to double up in occupancy. It is not uncommon when interviewing families to hear that they sleep in the kitchen and on the living room floor just to have a roof over their heads, and these are families that are paying rent! Humboldt Bay Housing Company, ArcataÃ’s solution to aide low-income families with rentals, asks that monthly income be at least twice the amount of the rent. On average their rental price for a family of three is set by *Housing Urban Development(HUD) to be between $477.00-$678.00. After assisting ten families over the year to apply for this program, not even one qualified. Even with minimum wage jobs, $6.75hr x 40 hours x 4 weeks(month) Ã–25%(taxes/medical insurance/retirement) =$810.00.

Single parents are not making enough money to even qualify for an apartment rental. Even with HUD and *Section Eight as a solution, chances are slim that you can even get on the waiting list. Just yesterday, I spoke with a mother enrolled in my program who has been on the waiting list for housing in Humboldt County for three years. Even if families are granted governmental-housing assistance, itÃ’s unlikely to find a landlord who accepts it.

Where are these families supposed to go? This is a weekly struggle for me. With no solution, many families live in parked cars or trailers that they have to move every two weeks to a different camp ground because the majority of campgrounds in the area have a two week limit.

Ã“This year will be the first year without emergency shelter. Last year the winter shelter in Eureka housed over 90 families, in a three month period. Because of county policies, we will see more families outside in the colin ofdassistancestance. With our overloaded Mission providing the only emergency services, it will not be able to care for many of ArcataÃ’s populationÃ” -John Shelter, Operations Manager at Arcata Endeavor.

Some of my teens will camp in the community forests. I canÃ’t say I myself would be that brave as a teenager. It seems quite a few of my teens have been desperate for shelter. I have spoke to young girls who have had sex just to ensure a place to stay. It brings tears to my eyes to sit on a Task Force who chooses to look the other way rather then recognize the situation at hand. I was told at our last Task force meeting that the reason why the draft of the Homeless Task Force is not pushing a teen shelter is that Ã“it is too expensive to operateÃ” Shelly Mitchell (HSU consulting team member). I realize a teen shelter similar to the limited one through RCAA in Eureka may be costly, needing 24hr staffing, however there are feasible solutions to the money crunch. Community churches could be asked for funding as well volunteer time for staffing. Where there is a will from the community, there is way! Consider the alternative.

Inadequate shelter is a HUGE educational barrier for many of the teens enrolled in my program. When youth do not have shelter it is hard for them to learn. They worry about where they will sleep that night, they are tired from the night before, and feel heightened stress. All of these factors leave little energy for education. Arcata needs long term and emergency shelter to provide services for high school aged youth.

It is extremely frustrating to sit on a non compassionate Homeless Task Force after working on the front lines with families who are experiencing houselessness. My families seek legal places to camp for free or at the least a legassleep in to sleepin their vehicles with out harassment and yet the majority of the Task Force refuses to even research possible locations for camp grounds and safe zones.

It would also be proactive to have satellite workers from both Social Services and Mental Health provided at locations where these populations could conveniently receive services such as the Arcata Endeavor or at the school sites. This would alleviate transportation hardships and missed appointments. Not to mention opening doors for services to families who cannot make the distance to Eureka to receive counseling and all other services for their family. Try being a mother of three trying to make a Social Services appoin00 amt at 9:00AM with three children on a limited bus schedule and then deciding that bus tickets had to override your purchase for a gallon of milk and cereal for breakfast that morning for your kids.

Even after these issues have been brought to the attention of Task Force by way of public forums, letters, public comment, and interviews, it refuses to Ã“move in that direction, as it's not very feasibleÃ” Ã–Davis from the (Homeless Task Force Loses Paul Billups as a Member, issue no. 27). The reality of it is that the only Ã“homeless populationÃ” that people want to be concerned with, are those on the plaza that are allegedly effecting the business community. The reality is many of the people on the plaza are not Ã“homelessÃ” yet there are many homeless that need help that arenÃ’t on the plaza.

It has also been requested several times for the site selection Committee to look at numerous sites not just for the movement for the Arcata Service Center but for other sites as well such as apartment buildings for a teen shelter, temporary housing for women and children, and community gardens. However, the site subcommzoning locations of zoninglocations has been replaced by a rÃÂ©gime to relocate the Arcata Endeavor while all other sites that be solutions to the problem at hand fall to the wayside.

There can be supportive solutions for finical and staffing assistance besides major state *CDBG grants and HUD monies. The Task Force does not have to limit itself to one major funding source, ealternative all other alterative solutions to a minority report. Arcata has a reputation for creative solutions, so why hasnÃ’t this been addressed in the draft of the plan? If the community can agree on a few solutions as a whole, surely we can band together collaborating agencies such as the High Schools, the University, encouraging churches and the All Faith Partnership creating sustainable solutions to many of tasks at hand requiring little federal or state funding.

Humanity has been ignored. I strongly encourage people to come to our Task Force and City Council meetings and speak up. With out your voices this plan could leave out major portions of the houseless population, namely northern Humboldt disadvantaged youth and families. Your voices your letters, your petitions, your participation and support are needed! Great issues are being ignored and need your support such as:

Shelters for teenage youth
Emergency shelters for families
Satellite workers from Mental Health and Social Services located at school sites or at the Arcata Endeavor
Safe Zones community gardens and campgrounds for families
Alternative sustainable solutions with community support and funding, and staffing
Rent control and more low income housing
Public restrooms with 24hr use

As the Arcata City Homeless Task Force, legally and ethically it was our charge to assist the houseless/homeless, improving the services and conditions by way of filling in the barriers they face and find solutions to improve the quality of life. I feel that we have moved away from this goal and have forgotten the task at hand. Huge populations of homeless have been ignored, victimized, and targeted as unworthy of compassion. I can only have faith that my time and energy committed to this task force has not been in vain.

Rosemary Loftis, MA Homeless Outreach Project Coordinator
*HUD:US Department of Housing and Urban developmenthe governmenthousing: thegovernment provides funds directly to apartment owners, who lower the rents they charge low-income tenants.
*Housing Choice Vouchers (formerly called "Section 8") place to find your own placeto rent, using the voucher to pay for all or part of the rent
To be eligible, you need to fall with in a certain income rage.
*CDBG Grants Program Objective: The primary statutory objective of the CDBG program is to develop viable communities by providing decent hliving environmentable livingenvironment and by expanding economic opportunities, principally for persons of low-and moderate-income. The State must ensure that at least 70 percent of its CDBG grant funds are used for activities that benefit lowpersons overate-income personsover a one-, two-, or three-year time period selecgeneral objective This generalobjective is achieved by granting "maximum feasible priority" to activities which benefit low- and moderate-income families or aid in the prevention or elimination of slums or blight. Under unique circumstances, States may also use their funds to meet urgent community development needs. A need is considered urgent if it posses a serious and immediate threat to the health or welfare of the community and has arisen in the past 18 months.
Yours Truly, Rosemary

Arcata's Homeless Task Force FALLS APART!!!

2005-08-05T16:53:00.000-07:00

Last night, Thursday August 4, the 2 unhoused members of Arcata's homeless task force resigned, leaving the homeless task force without any homeless members.

Agenda item 7.B. for the evening was "Vote to endorse Homeless Services Plan and provide feedback regarding the emphasizing or de-emphasizing of components in the Draft of the Homeless Services Plan."

Tad asked for the agenda item to be removed from the agenda so that the incomplete services plan could be discussed before being endorsed. As facilitator Tim Doty denied the request, citing time restraints, tad denounced the task force as hurting those that it should intend to help, and resigned. After applause from the members of the public present, facilitator Tim Doty called a recess.

When the meeting reconvened, Kim Starr read her letter of resignation, also refusing to have her name on HSU's (incomplete) Homeless Services Plan. After more applause from the viewing public, facilitator Tim Doty threatened to close the meeting to the public.

The draft of HSU's incomplete Homeless Services Plan is available on the internet at:
http://cdc.humboldt.edu/ahtf/index.php?module=pagesetter&type=file&func=get&tid=2&pid=28&fid=file1
The draft of the plan starts on page 24.

Homelss Task Force UPDATE

2005-08-02T19:58:00.000-07:00

HOMELESS TASK FORCE UPDATE

On Feb. 2, 2005, the Arcata silly council appointed 14 people to the homelessness task farce. Included were 3 “homeless advocates”: Tad, Kim Starr and Paul. Paul has since been removed from the task force for being “disruptive.”

The task force meetings have been dominated by a “run the bums out of town” atmosphere and an attitude of dismissing public participation, including violations of the Brown Act (law that requires public access to meeting and requires the elected officials to let the public speak). As the issues that “homeless advocates” wish to speak about get pushed indefinitely aside, they are then called “disruptive” and their input ignored.

The subcommittee initially charged with looking into human rights abuses by the police against homeless people have instead changed their name from the “human rights” subcommittee to the “community impact” subcommittee and are acting as the voice of certain business owners who blame their financial woes on homeless people.

They continually accuse people that hang out on the plaza during the daytime of causing a whirlwind of problems, but they are contradicted by captain Tom Chapman of the Arcata police who responded during a city council study session (June 29, 2005) that most of the problems on the plaza occur on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights between 9pm and 3am, and are directly associated with alcohol and the bars.

Meanwhile, there has still been no discussion about Arcata’s recently twice-defeated anti-sleeping ordinance, the rampant use of tasers by the police against homeless people, the profiling of homeless people for selective-enforcement by the police, and no discussion of a legal place for someone to sleep who doesn’t have a home or rental.

Early on in the process there was a vote on whether or not to televise the (public) task force meetings, as city council meetings are televised. The “homeless advocates” all supported this as a measure that would help insure accountability for what goes on in the meetings. The other members of the task force voted overwhelmingly against it, and carried the vote. Nonetheless, “homeless advocates” have taken it upon themselves to video-record the meetings and get them televised. They are sometimes shown on Thursday nights (maybe at 6pm?). Contact Rob Amerman for details.

For more news and current updates, check out:
theplazoid.blogspot.com
on the internet

the MILGRAM experiment

2005-07-29T22:21:00.000-07:00

http://psychcentral.com/psypsych/Milgram_experiment

Milgram experiment

The Milgram experiment was a famous scientific experiment of social psychology . The experiment was first described by Stanley Milgram , a psychologist at Yale University in an article titled Behavioral Study of Obedience published in the Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology in 1963 , and later summarized in his 1974 book Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View. It was intended to measure the willingness of a participant to obey an authority who instructs the participant to do something that may conflict with the participant's personal conscience .

The experiments began in July 1961 , a year after the trial of Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem . Milgram devised the experiment to answer the question "Could it be that Eichmann and his million accomplices in the Holocaust were just following orders? Could we call them all accomplices?" (Milgram, 1974)

Milgram summed up in the article "The Perils of Obedience" (Milgram 1974 ), writing:
"The legal and philosophic aspects of obedience are of enormous import, but they say very little about how most people behave in concrete situations. I set up a simple experiment at Yale University to test how much pain an ordinary citizen would inflict on another person simply because he was ordered to by an experimental scientist. Stark authority was pitted against the subjects' [participants'] strongest moral imperatives against hurting others, and, with the subjects' [participants'] ears ringing with the screams of the victims, authority won more often than not. The extreme willingness of adults to go to almost any lengths on the command of an authority constitutes the chief finding of the study and the fact most urgently demanding explanation."

Results
Milgram created a documentary film showing the experiment and its results, titled "Obedience", legitimate copies of which are hard to find today. He also produced a series of five other films on social psychology with Harry From , some of which touched on his experiments [1] (http://www.stanleymilgram.com/films.html). They may all be obtained from Penn State Media Services (http://www.mediasales.psu.edu/).
Before the experiment was conducted Milgram polled fellow psychologists as to what the results would be. They unanimously believed that only a few sadists would be prepared to give the maximum voltage.
In Milgram's first set of experiments, 65 percent of experimental participants administered the experiment's final 450-volt shock, though many were quite uncomfortable in doing so. No participant stopped before the 300-volt level. Variants of the experiment were later performed by Milgram himself and other psychologists around the world with similar results. Apart from confirming the original results the variations have tested variables in the experimental setup.
Thomas Blass of the University of Maryland (who is also the author of a biography of Milgram, called The Man who shocked the World) performed a meta-analysis on the results of repeated performances of the experiment (done at various times since, in the US and elsewhere). He found that the percentage of participants who are prepared to inflict fatal voltages remains remarkably constant, between 61% and 66%, regardless of time or location (a popular account of Blass' results was published in Psychology Today , March/April 2002 ). The full results were published in the Journal of Applied Social Psychology. [Blass, 1999]

Reactions
The experiment raised questions about the ethics of scientific experimentation itself because of the extreme emotional stress suffered by the participants (even though it could be said that this stress was brought on by their own free actions). Most modern scientists would consider the experiment unethical today, though it resulted in valuable insights into human psychology.
In Milgram's defense, 84 percent of former participants surveyed later said they were "glad" or "very glad" to have participated and 15 percent chose neutral (92% of all former participants responding). Many later wrote expressing thanks. Milgram repeatedly received offers of assistance and requests to join his staff from former participants.
Why so many former participants reported they were "glad" to have been involved despite the apparent levels of stress, one participant explained to Milgram in correspondence six years after he participated in the experiment, during the height of the Vietnam War :
"While I was a subject [participant] in 1964 , though I believed that I was hurting someone, I was totally unaware of why I was doing so. Few people ever realize when they are acting according to their own beliefs and when they are meekly submitting to authority. ... To permit myself to be drafted with the understanding that I am submitting to authority's demand to do something very wrong would make me frightened of myself. ... I am fully prepared to go to jail if I am not granted Conscientious Objector status. Indeed, it is the only course I could take to be faithful to what I believe. My only hope is that members of my board act equally according to their conscience..."
In contrast to the life-changing experience reported by some former participants, however, participants were not fully debriefed by modern standards and many seemed to never fully understand the nature of the experiment according to exit interviews.
[edit ]
Variations
Milgram describes 19 variations of the experiment that he conducted in Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View. In general, he found that when the immediacy of the victim was increased, compliance decreased, and when immediacy of the authority increased, compliance increased (Experiments 1-4). For instance, in one variation where participants received instructions from the experimenter only by telephone (Experiment 2), compliance greatly decreased; interestingly, a number of participants deceived the experimenter by pretending to continue the experiment. In the variation where immediacy of the "learner" was closest, participants had to physically hold the learner's arm onto a shock plate, which decreased compliance (Experiment 4). In this latter condition 30 percent still completed the experiment.
In Experiment 8, women were used as participants (all of Milgram's other experiments used only men). Obedience did not differ significantly, though they indicated experiencing higher levels of stress.
In one version (Experiment 10), Milgram rented a modest office in Bridgeport , Connecticut , purporting to be run by a commercial entity called "Research Associates of Bridgeport" with no apparent connection to Yale, in order to eliminate the prestige of the university as a possible factor influencing participants' behavior. The results of this experiment did not significantly differ from those conducted at the Yale campus.
Milgram also combined the power of authority with that of conformity . In these experiments, the participant was joined by one or two additional "teachers" (who were actually actors, like the "learner"). The behavior of the participants' apparent peers strongly affected results. When two additional teachers refused to comply (Experiment 17), only four participants of 40 continued the experiment. In another version, (Experiment 18) the participant performed a subsidiary task with another "teacher" who complied fully. In this variation only three of 40 defied the experimenter. [2] (http://www.stanleymilgram.com/oldanswers.html)
[edit ]
External links and references
Blass, Thomas. The Milgram paradigm after 35 years: Some things we now know about obedience to authority, Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 1999, Vol. 25, pp. 955-978.
Blass, Thomas. (2002), "The Man Who Shocked the World", Psychology Today, Mar/Apr 2002, Vol. 35 Issue 2.
Blass, Thomas. (2004), The Man Who Shocked the World: The Life and Legacy of Stanley Milgram. (ISBN 0738203998 )
American Scientist book review Official site (http://www.stanleymilgram.com/main.html)
Milgram, Stanley. (1963). "Behavioral Study of Obedience (http://www.radford.edu/~jaspelme/gradsoc/obedience/Migram_Obedience.pdf)." Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 67, 371-378.
Milgram, Stanley. (1974), Obedience to Authority; An Experimental View (ISBN 006131983X )
Milgram, Stanley. (1974), "The Perils of Obedience" (http://home.swbell.net/revscat/perilsOfObedience.html), Harper's Magazine
Abridged and adapted from Obedience to Authority
Miller, Arthur G., (1986). The obedience experiments : a case study of controversy in social science, New York : Praeger, 295 p.
Parker, Ian, Obedience, published in Granta magazine ( http://www.granta.com/ ), issue 71, Autumn 2000. Includes an interview with one of Milgram's volunteers, and discusses modern interest in, and scepticism about, the experiment.
Wu, William, (http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~wwu/psychology/compliance.shtml ) Practical Psychology: Compliance: The Milgram Experiment.
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Film
Obedience (http://tango.outreach.psu.edu/Tango/wpsx/medianew2.taf?function=detail&Layout1_uid1=43955), May 1962. (link broken 2005-04-29) Black-and-white film of the experiment, shot by Milgram. Distributed by The Pennsylvania State University Media Sales
The Milgram Reenactment (http://www.milgramreenactment.org), 2002. Colour, Exact reenactment of one condition of the obedience experiment. Created by conceptual UK artist Rod Dickinson

ANOTHER VICTORY IN COURT!!!

2005-07-23T19:47:00.000-07:00

ANOTHER VICTORY IN COURT!!!

Thursday, July 21, 2005
According to local Arcata man, Rasta John, the case against him was thrown out of court at the Humboldt County court house on Thursday. He was charged with having cannabis medicine.

EARLY TARGETS of nazi persecution

2005-07-20T12:29:00.000-07:00

The Early Targets

The first concentration camp in Germany opened in Dachau in 1933, at a time when the Nazi government was still consolidating its power. Accordingly, it focused on political prisoners—communists, social democrats, and dissidents who posed a threat to the new regime and were unpopular with most other Germans.

Soon Nazi authorities and the police began to consign members of other groups to the new camps: homosexual men arrested as criminal offenders; Jehovah's Witnesses who refused to obey demands to cease their activities; women accused of prostitution; people labeled "asocial" because they were homeless, begged, or for some other reason did not fit into Nazi society.

In 1936, in preparation for the Olympic Games in Berlin, German police "cleaned up" the city, arresting people deemed inappropriate—prostitutes, street people, petty thieves—and forcing hundreds of Gypsies (Sinti and Roma) into makeshift camps.

All of these early victims were easy targets, people whom other Germans did little or nothing to protect, and whose disappearance from the public scene they often welcomed.

Nazis Increase Power and Targeted Populations

Mass attacks on Nazi targets that included widely respected members of German society did not start until 1938, five years after Hitler was named chancellor. By then Nazis had firm control of all the instruments of state power—the police, courts, laws, civil service, military and press—so they could afford to be less cautious.

The "Euthanasia" Program

During the following year, 1939, Nazi authorities began deadly attacks on one of their major targets: people considered handicapped. Rather than sending them to concentration camps where they would have to be housed and fed along with people who were being held and then sometimes released, disabled people were taken from hospitals and other institutions and sent to designated locations for "special treatment." That "special treatment" was killing. In just a few years, with the cooperation of scores of doctors, social workers, hospital administrators, and others, Nazi officials organized and carried out the murder of at least 70,000 Germans deemed "unfit for life." To the extent possible, the authorities tried to hide these killings from the rest of the population, so that family members would not protest.
http://www.pbs.org/auschwitz/40-45/background/ideology.html

All of these early victims were easy targets, people whom other Germans did little or nothing to protect, and whose disappearance from the public scene they often welcomed.
http://www.pbs.org/auschwitz/40-45/background/ideology.html

“Do not forget that every people deserves the regime it is willing to endure!”
from the first leaflet of the “White Rose.” The White Rose began distributing anti-government leaflets in mid 1942 protesting against the brutality and evil of the nazi government, and against the extermination of the Jews, which was beginning to become known to more and more people at this time.
http://www.jlrweb.com/whiterose/leafoneeng.html

the Stanford Prison Experiment

2005-07-20T12:27:00.000-07:00

http://www.stanford.edu/dept/news/relaged/970108prisonexp.html

The Stanford Prison Experiment

In the prison-conscious autumn of 1971, when George Jackson was killed at San Quentin and Attica erupted in even more deadly rebellion and retribution, the Stanford Prison Experiment made news in a big way. It offered the world a videotaped demonstration of how ordinary people middle-class college students can do things they would have never believed they were capable of doing. It seemed to say, as Hannah Arendt said of Adolf Eichmann, that normal people can take ghastly actions.

Details of the experiment are well known. They are included in most basic psychology texts and in a public television psychology course, "Discovering Psychology," that Zimbardo wrote and narrates. Movie rights have been optioned, "60 Minutes" has filmed a segment on the experiment, and even a punk rock band in Los Angeles calls itself Stanford Prison Experiment.

In summary:

On Sunday morning, Aug., 17, 1971, nine young men were "arrested" in their homes by Palo Alto police. At least one of those arrested vividly remembers the shock of having his neighbors come out to watch the commotion as TV cameras recorded his hand-cuffing for the nightly news.

The arrestees were among about 70 young men, mostly college students eager to earn $15 a day for two weeks, who volunteered as subjects for an experiment on prison life that had been advertised in the Palo Alto Times. After interviews and a battery of psychological tests, the two dozen judged to be the most normal, average and healthy were selected to participate, assigned randomly either to be guards or prisoners. Those who would be prisoners were booked at a real jail, then blindfolded and driven to campus where they were led into a makeshift prison in the basement of Jordan Hall.

Those assigned to be guards were given uniforms and instructed that they were not to use violence but that their job was to maintain control of the prison.

From the perspective of the researchers, the experiment became exciting on day two when the prisoners staged a revolt. Once the guards had crushed the rebellion, "they steadily increased their coercive aggression tactics, humiliation and dehumanization of the prisoners," Zimbardo recalls. "The staff had to frequently remind the guards to refrain from such tactics," he said, and the worst instances of abuse occurred in the middle of the night when the guards thought the staff was not watching. The guards' treatment of the prisoners such things as forcing them to clean out toilet bowls with their bare hands and act out degrading scenarios, or urging them to become snitches "resulted in extreme stress reactions that forced us to release five prisoners, one a day, prematurely."

Zimbardo's primary reason for conducting the experiment was to focus on the power of roles, rules, symbols, group identity and situational validation of behavior that generally would repulse ordinary individuals. "I had been conducting research for some years on deindividuation, vandalism and dehumanization that illustrated the ease with which ordinary people could be led to engage in anti-social acts by putting them in situations where they felt anonymous, or they could perceive of others in ways that made them less than human, as enemies or objects," Zimbardo told the Toronto symposium in the summer of 1996.

"I wondered, along with my research associates Craig Haney, Curtis Banks and Carlo Prescott, what would happen if we aggregated all of these processes, making some subjects feel deindividuated, others dehumanized within an anonymous environment in the same experimental setting, and where we could carefully document the process over time."

full article on the ineternet at: http://www.stanford.edu/dept/news/relaged/970108prisonexp.html

Public Servants or SECRET POLICE?!?

2005-07-20T12:24:00.000-07:00

ARCATA POLICE DEPARTMENT:

PUBLIC SERVANTS
OR
SECRET POLICE?

One Saturday night, May 21 2005, Arcata police officer Ed Cashman shot James States with a taser stun-gun as he walked away from the officer on the plaza in downtown Arcata.

After public pressure, Arcata police captain Tom Chapman conducted an internal investigation. According to chief of Arcata police Randy Mendosa, the results of the investigation will NOT be disclosed to the public because the investigation into officer conduct is a personel matter.
(see the Arcata Eye, 7/5/05)

Don’t the people of Arcata deserve to know if their tax dollars are paying to commit assault with a deadly weapon against an innocent person?
right in front of everybody?
Is it ok NOT to know?