Letters to the Editor: May 9, 2018

Bad ‘Cops’

Still no signs of anything approaching enlightenment or intelligent life in law enforcement in the fascist USA. The militarism, arrogance and injustice of the “justice” system marches on unabated, amid the ignorance and apathy of the masses who will suffer their fates at the hands of the gladiators still clinging to their delusions of freedom and democracy. This U.S. culture is stunningly dumb and blind. Cops is for totalitarian apologists and thugs. Cops does not serve and protect. Cops is bad for people and other living beings. Cops is yet another symptom of the deterioration of sensibility and compassion in a nation of violence and hate.

Via Facebook

My household in Sebastopol strongly condemns this project (“Action,” May 2). It is wrong-headed and not the way I want to think of our police and sheriff’s department. It seems that they, however, are enthusiastic about it, so clearly I am out of touch. I’ve only lived here for two years. Disappointing in the extreme. Only two Santa Rosa City Council members against?! Shame on you.

Via Facebook

Read All About It

As the 2017 chair of the Napa Valley Vintners board of directors, I worked with other community members to develop what has become Measure C. I’m writing to encourage you to join me in voting yes on C.

There is a lot of noise out there right now as people take sides and disseminate various arguments regarding development of the Napa Valley. There are those who believe that the future of the valley depends upon more growth, and others who wish to limit growth.

In 1968, when the Agriculture Preserve was originally created, many people voted against their own economic self-interest to protect the land and limit its exploitation. We are facing another such decision, and as a vintner and longtime resident, I am deeply concerned that a no vote on Measure C will erode decades of important protection of our precious land.

Measure C will not stop agriculture and, in fact, only pertains to certain specific areas in the agricultural watershed. Currently, there are thousands of acres that could be developed, as well as thousands more that are already entitled to development but have not been developed. I’m concerned that inaccurate information is being circulated as both sides of the argument fight for a win.

I urge you to carefully read Measure C for yourselves and try to disregard the slanted and misleading arguments that are circulating. After understanding exactly what the measure will and will not do, I hope that you will also vote yes.

Rutherford

Up Is Down

Well, with the brutal assault on our democracy, a little brutal comedy seemed appropriate (“Not Funny,” May 2). Some can dish it out, but not take it. Now the overly sensitive and politically correct types seem to be the Republicans. What next—will they start hugging trees?

Via Facebook

Write to us at le*****@******an.com.

Ban Brunch

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When did it start? When did people think their mother would enjoy waiting in line for overpriced, unremarkable food in the middle of the day with dozens of other suckers slurping bottomless mimosas made with cheap sparkling wine?

I speak, of course, of the national delusion called Mother’s Day brunch.

Brunch on any day of the week is a sign of our moral decay. It’s for people so lazy or ambivalent that they can’t decide whether they want to eat breakfast or lunch. In their sloth, they shuffle out the door, too inept to cook for themselves, and stand around wasting more of the day to eat overpriced eggs and toast. By the time it’s over, it’s mid-afternoon and the prime hours of your precious weekend are over—and you’re $40 poorer for it.

Commit! Seize the day! Choose breakfast or lunch, run with it and get on with your life while you still can.

There’s another side to brunch diners don’t see. It’s the view from the kitchen. I was once a cook in an upscale San Francisco restaurant. As Mother’s Day drew near, a special kind of dread spread across the kitchen. Mother’s Day brunch was an interminable amateur hour filled with inane special requests like egg-white omelettes (we called them “beached whales” because they resembled dead sea mammal carcasses); gallons of oozing, mucilaginous hollandaise sauce; panicked waiters; and the sickly sweet smell of maple syrup that seems to haunt your olfactory lobes for hours after you’d left the restaurant.

Mother’s Day brunch was also a time for dark existential questions. Is this the best I can do with a graduate degree? Where did I go wrong? Why quit drinking now?

Brunch is also an opportunity for restaurants to sling out hundreds of plates of overpriced food that you could have made yourself for a fraction of the cost in a sliver of the time you spent waiting for your $18 eggs Benedict and fruit cup.

This is not what mothers deserve. You love your mother, don’t you? Of course you do. So here’s a better idea. Make breakfast for her instead. How about French toast and homemade sausage? Save her from brunch and she’ll love you back.

French Toast

Challah bread loaf (I like the Village Bakery’s poppy seed challah)

3 eggs

1 c. milk

1/4 tsp. vanilla extract

1/4 tsp. ground cinnamon

2 tbsp. butter

Cut the bread into thick slices. Whisk the eggs, milk, vanilla and cinnamon in a bowl, and pour batter into a shallow baking dish. Soak the bread on both sides.

Melt butter in a heavy skillet, cook toast in batches until golden brown, and serve.

Breakfast Sausage

1 pound ground pork

1/2 c. minced yellow onion

1/4 c. chopped Italian parsley

1 1/2 tbsp. salt

1/2 tsp. each garlic powder, paprika and black pepper

Mix all ingredients with your hands in a bowl, and form into round patties. Fry until browned, and serve.

Black Sheep

There used to be a class of filmmakers known as “women’s directors,” a phrase that sounds like a putdown.

Chile’s Sebastián Lelio (Gloria, A Fantastic Woman) exemplifies the best talents of a women’s director: the empathy, the ability to dramatize without soaking in cheap emotion and the expert use of the close-up shot. Lelio’s star in his new film, Disobedience, is Rachel Weisz. In earlier years, Weisz was choked a bit by her beauty—she was nervous, slightly self-apologetic. As she’s matured, she’s improved. It’s as if she’s finally gotten used to being in her own skin.

Disobedience is one of Weisz’s best movies. It’s a love story set against a gray-brown North London. Weisz’s Ronnie Krushka, born Ronit, is the daughter of an esteemed Orthodox rabbi. She turned her back on her heritage and became a photographer in New York. Her first scene tells us everything about how she’s transgressed: she’s doing a portrait of a man covered with tattoos, specifically forbidden by Leviticus.

When Ronnie’s father dies, she returns for the funeral and to find out about her inheritance. We can tell what the congregation thinks of Ronnie; she’s such a black sheep, they practically baa in her face.

The woman she once loved, Esti Kuperman (Rachel McAdams), has since dutifully married. Esti’s husband, Dovid (Alessandro Nivola, sort of a more discreet version of Joaquin Phoenix), had once been Ronnie’s intended.

Lelio balances the erotic tensions and the fear between the two women. He builds to a remarkable love scene that neither strips the actresses bare nor looks too vanilla-frosted. The problem is that there’s no way to resolve this affair to the satisfaction of either romantics or realists, so the ending frays into a series of tentative scenes that make it look like Lelio wanted it both ways.

In this romance between a weak person who submitted to a loveless marriage, and a strong person who walked away, McAdams isn’t as fascinating as Weisz. But Disobedience is quality all around.

‘Disobedience’ opens Friday at Summerfield Cinemas, 551 Summerfield Road, Santa Rosa. 707.525.8909.

Music for All

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Santa Rosa’s Arlene Francis Center has seen all manner of music festivals in its time, though nothing quite like the Inclusion Festival, which debuts May 12.

The event is the brainchild of special-needs educator Emily Parker, a Sonoma County native currently working at a private preschool with a model of “full inclusion.” Rather than placing students with disabilities in separate classrooms, the practice of inclusion integrates those students into a regular class setting.

“Full inclusion is a great model for everybody to show their strengths and participate in all aspects of education and community life,” Parker says.

Beyond the classroom, Parker is also interested in designing networks of resources for individuals with special needs, and says the idea of inclusion can and should spread to community events as well. “We have a diverse ‘neurotypical’ community,” she says. “People who need different things to feel comfortable at a concert, for example.”

After learning about a music festival in Europe that catered to individuals with special needs, Parker was inspired to create the Inclusion Festival to give the local community a day of creative fun with all the necessary sensory accommodations.

The Inclusion Festival will offer a full day of live music and dancing, with interactive art projects, group drumming and a sensory buffet packed with tactile experiences, fidget toys and ear protection for patrons to use.

The main stage lineup includes a variety of performers, including Polynesian dancers, Vocal Alchemy special-needs choir, Bay Area indie-jazz outfit Nassab and the Sheep, and Santa Rosa–based Americana songwriter Karen Shook.

On the patio, a silent disco will feature several local DJs spinning music that’s wirelessly tapped directly into special headphones. The venue’s classroom space will host an expressive art experience led by local nonprofit Alchemia, which specializes in art-based therapy for adults with developmental disabilities. Food, beer and wine will be available, and the event will have volunteers on hand to help guide patrons through the day.

“I’m hoping that everyone can come and have something that speaks to them,” Parker says. “We’re keeping it inclusive.”

The Inclusion Festival takes place on Saturday, May 12, at Arlene Francis Center, 99 Sixth St., Santa Rosa. 3–9pm. $10–$25 sliding scale. 707.528.3009.

Bake Shops

Santa Rosa may soon join a small number of California cities that permit “cannabis lounges,” retail businesses with on-site cannabis consumption. While the regulatory hurdles for such businesses are high, the city’s permissive policies may usher in a new era of legal cannabis use in the city.

“This is a new aspect of the retail world that we’re willing to consider,” says Clare Hartman, Santa Rosa deputy planning director.

Santa Rosa opened the application period for new cannabis businesses on April 9. Because
of the anticipated demand, the window for applicants was just two weeks, to give a planning department still reeling from last year’s fire time to process applications. The city received 38 applications for retail businesses of various kinds, most of them dispensaries with delivery services. The city currently has three retail cannabis businesses. There is no cap on additional permits. Hartman says the city will accept more applications once staff works through this new batch.

A review of the applications revealed at least two businesses planning on-site consumption: Humanity Wellness, at 3791 Cleveland Ave., and Sustainable Growth Systems, at 2463 Bluebell Drive. Public consumption of cannabis is illegal in California, but under the Medicinal and Adult-Use Cannabis Regulation and Safety Act, cities and counties may authorize on-site consumption to licensed retailers and businesses as long as they abide by age restrictions, prohibit alcohol sales and ensure consumption is not visible to the public.

While on-site consumption is rare statewide, notable exceptions include West Hollywood, Oakland, San Francisco and Palm Springs. Sonoma County and Sebastopol both prohibit on-site consumption.

Hartman does not expect a flood of cannabis lounges because of the city’s restrictive smoking laws (Vaping falls under the ordinance). But the next round of applications may yield more. Perhaps there will be lounges just for edibles?

Of the 38 applicants, most are clustered around Yolanda Avenue and the northwestern section of the city, but provisions limit over-concentration of businesses. Proposed businesses within 300 feet of residential areas must hold a community meeting. Thirty-two of the applicants fall under that requirement.

Hartman notes that some applicants want to locate near what she sees as like-minded businesses that celebrate Sonoma County lifestyle products. Solful, a new dispensary in Sebastopol, is applying to open a second location behind Trail House, a mountain bike shop/ beer lounge/cafe. There are also two businesses proposed on Briggs Avenue, near Vintner’s Square.

“It’s interesting how cannabis is creeping into the culture we’ve been trying to encourage,” she says.

Small Is Big

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Why pay $40 to $50 a bottle for a wine nobody’s heard of? Douglas Minnick, maker of several such wines under the name Hoi Polloi and co-founder of the Garagiste Festival, acknowledges that the wine named for the masses isn’t sold at supermarket prices. Matter of fact, he says their tongue-in-cheek T-shirt bears the slogan, “Wine for the common man at premium prices.”

The wines poured at the popular wine festival, which comes north to Sonoma for the first time May 12, may not be cheap, but they’re not cheaply made, either. “If you’re making wine in 10,000 gallon tanks,” says Minnick, economy of scale is on your side. “But you’re going to make the wine in a different way.” The wines at Garagiste—the festival is limited to producers making less than 1,500 cases per year—are handmade by comparison. “It’s almost an entirely different product.” They’re also harder to find. “These are wines that are not on the wine country maps,” says Minnick.

Some more facts about Garagiste, paired with a selection of wines, all of them less than $40:

Lightning Wines 2016 CdP Blanc ($24) While winemaker Randy Hester can boast of working for some of the big names in Napa Cab, he chooses to make a blend of Grenache Blanc, Piquepoul, Marsanne and Roussanne on his own time. Not only an unusual find in Napa, this subtle, fleshy, white Rhone-style blend is harder to find hereabouts than in Fayetteville, Ark., according to Lightning’s restaurant list.

Two Shepherds 2015 Bechthold Vineyard Lodi Cinsault ($32) Outlier among outliers, Two Shepherds is one of only about
10 percent of the wineries at the May 12 event that has a tasting room of its own (in Windsor’s Artisan Alley). Cinsault is itself an outlier, and it’s a wonder that this vineyard survived 130 years in production-oriented Lodi. Similar to but more successful than many a California Grenache, this crisp, red cherry quaffer is the ideal kind of “bistro” wine—uncomplicated, but quality.

Halcón Vineyards Tierra Yorkville Highlands Petite Sirah ($32) I’m not sure what the story is on this winery, but that’s the point of Garagiste: tickets are not oversold, so you don’t have to wade through the elbow forest to talk to the winemakers themselves. This Petite Sirah, a popular companion planting to Zinfandel down in the Ukiah area, comes from a higher-elevation vineyard. There’s an herbal element of green peppercorns to this dense, plum sauce and chocolate fest.

Get the rest of the story from these wineries at the VIP tasting and seminar ($115). The Garagiste Wine Festival, Saturday, May 12. Sonoma Veterans Memorial Hall, 126 First St. W., Sonoma. Grand tasting, 2–5pm ($65); early access, 1–5pm ($85). californiagaragistes.com.

Timely Lessons

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If the old saying is true, then those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

Occidental native and Harvard professor of government Daniel Ziblatt knows his history, and he has made a career of studying political systems around the world. He is an expert in how political democracies form and how they fail, and offers a stark history lesson in his bestselling book How Democracies Die, co-authored with fellow Harvard professor Steven Levitsky.

Ziblatt returns to his hometown May 18 to give a reading and talk about his book at the Occidental Center for the Arts.

Ziblatt began examining politics while attending a German boarding school as part of a high school exchange program in 1990. “This was the year of German unification,” Ziblatt says. “That was an exciting year to be in Germany, after the fall of the Berlin Wall.”

In college, Ziblatt studied German history, literature and European politics. As a professor at Harvard, Ziblatt specializes in those subjects with an emphasis on democratization and state building. He has authored two books on the topic, 2006’s Structuring the State and 2017’s Conservative Parties and the Birth of Democracy.

While Ziblatt was examining Europe, How Democracies Die co-author Levitsky studied Latin American politics. The two have previously co-instructed classes on democratic crises around the world, though never on the U.S.

“During the primary season of the [2016 presidential] election, we started talking about U.S. politics and how we were seeing echoes of things we had studied in other countries,” Ziblatt says.

Candidate Donald Trump threatened to lock up his rival, called the press the enemy of the people and accused the government of rigging elections.

“[Democracies] don’t die the way they used to,” says Ziblatt. “They used to die through military coups, men with guns.”

Since the collapse of communism in the 20th century, Ziblatt says that democracies have begun to die at the ballot box, with presidents and prime ministers being elected to office and then dismantling democracy from within.

“We started to realize there were some useful lessons to be learned,” says Ziblatt. “Just having elections is no guarantee of democracy.”

For those discouraged by the polarized political atmosphere, Ziblatt and Levitsky offer steps that both Republicans and Democrats can take to save our democracy.

“As much as we disagree with or are frightened by our political opponent, it’s important to continue to abide by and act in a way that reinforces democratic norms,” Ziblatt says.

GOP Senate Candidate and Holocaust Denier Patrick Little Lists UC Berkeley Student Apartment as Address in State Filing

Republican U.S. senate candidate and Holocaust denier Patrick Little has filed paperwork with the California Secretary of State that lists his address as an apartment located in a student housing complex owned by UC Berkeley.

The address under file with the Secretary of State is in the city of Albany, which is just north of the city of Berkeley and where the university owns an apartment complex called University Village.

A spokesperson at Berkeley says that no person named Patrick Little is currently enrolled at Berkeley, nor has anyone ever been enrolled at the university who has that name. The spokesperson could not identify the person who lives at the Berkeley-owned apartment associated with Little’s campaign. Little’s Twitter account says that he lives in Albany, CA. He was thrown off the social media site on April 29 over his denial of the Holocaust and wrote that “Hitler saved more jewish lives than any man in history.”

His campaign slogan is: “Liberate the U.S. from the Jewish Oligarchy.”

If he doesn’t live there, then who does? And what’s his connection to Berkeley? “We didn’t find any name matching that name either now or in the past,” says university spokeswoman Janet Gilmore, who added, “I can’t talk about who may or may not live there because of state privacy laws.”

Gilmore sent along information about who may qualify to live in the University Village complex: full-time graduate or undergraduate university students, and their families.

Little, who is married, jumped from obscurity into the national news this week when it was revealed, in Newsweek, that he is the top-running Republican candidate in the race to unseat Sen. Dianne Feinstein.

With no apparent campaign staff or apparatus to speak of, he came in with 18 percent support in a recent statewide poll, and was number two after Feinstein. If the polling numbers hold and are reflected in the primary vote on June 5, Little would face Feinstein in the general election in November.

An assistant city manager at the city of Albany declined to comment on the specter of a Holocaust denying anti-Semite in their midst. “We’re not going to comment on this,” says Assistant City Manager Isabelle Leduc. “We really don’t know where that person lives.”

A spokesman at the Federal Election Commission says that candidates for higher office don’t have to reveal their home addresses, and only need to provide a mailing address to the FEC.

“The FEC has no jurisdiction over any residency requirements (i.e. a candidate running from a particular state or Congressional district within a state),” says Myles Martin, public affairs specialist at the commission. “The Statement of Candidacy that a candidate files with the [FEC] requires that a candidate provide a ‘mailing address,’ but this need not be their actual residence address.”

Little has not filed a Statement of Candidacy, or any other disclosure reports with the FEC, says Martin. He may not need to. The FEC only requires financial disclosures from candidates who haven’t eclipsed a $5,000 threshold in contributions, or expenditures related to the campaign.

The FEC has assigned a candidate ID to him, says Martin, which it may do if a candidate “is qualified for the ballot in a state but has not filed a Statement of Candidacy with the FEC.”

Little has said that he’s told his supporters to not contribute any money to his campaign, given that those contributions, and who made them, could be subject to public scrutiny.

The Maine native’s blatant anti-Semitism is fully on display on his campaign platform. Among other promises, the former U.S. Marine says he’ll “introduce a bill to the U.S. Senate making it illegal to raise funds for any foundation related to the perpetuating of propaganda related to a ‘holocaust’, formally making US’s stance on the holocaust to be that it is a Jewish war atrocity propaganda hoax that never happened.”

May 3-5: Hub of Fun in Petaluma

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Petaluma’s storied Phoenix Theater houses every kind of entertainment, and this week’s schedule features punk bands, professional wrestlers and Transylvanian transvestites. On Thursday, May 3, Santa Rosa punk band Brown Bags play off their recent release, Twenty-Something Mutant Nobodies, when they open for touring acts Joyce Manor and awakebutstillinbed. On Friday, May 4, Phoenix Pro Wrestling returns to the ring for another round of family-friendly action. On Saturday, May 5, cult film favorite The Rocky Horror Picture Show gets a late-night screening complete with costumes and chaos. 201 Washington St., Petaluma. Times and prices vary. 707.762.3565.

May 4: Let the Wookie Dance in Santa Rosa

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If you’re a Star Wars fan, you know that Friday, May 4, is your chance to say “May the fourth be with you” as part of Star Wars Day. Even better, it’s the day that the North Bay Cabaret presents its annual ‘May the Fourth Be With You’ variety show. This immersive and eclectic experience includes themed musical and burlesque performances, a costume contest, photo booth, raffle, art displays, Stormtrooper go-go dancers and an interactive lightsaber game. The show happens on Friday, May 4, at Rock Star University’s House of Rock, 3410 Industrial Drive, Santa Rosa. 8pm. $20–$30. northbaycabaret.com.

Letters to the Editor: May 9, 2018

Bad 'Cops' Still no signs of anything approaching enlightenment or intelligent life in law enforcement in the fascist USA. The militarism, arrogance and injustice of the "justice" system marches on unabated, amid the ignorance and apathy of the masses who will suffer their fates at the hands of the gladiators still clinging to their delusions of freedom and democracy. This...

Ban Brunch

When did it start? When did people think their mother would enjoy waiting in line for overpriced, unremarkable food in the middle of the day with dozens of other suckers slurping bottomless mimosas made with cheap sparkling wine? I speak, of course, of the national delusion called Mother's Day brunch. Brunch on any day of the week is a sign of...

Black Sheep

There used to be a class of filmmakers known as "women's directors," a phrase that sounds like a putdown. Chile's Sebastián Lelio (Gloria, A Fantastic Woman) exemplifies the best talents of a women's director: the empathy, the ability to dramatize without soaking in cheap emotion and the expert use of the close-up shot. Lelio's star in his new film, Disobedience,...

Music for All

Santa Rosa's Arlene Francis Center has seen all manner of music festivals in its time, though nothing quite like the Inclusion Festival, which debuts May 12. The event is the brainchild of special-needs educator Emily Parker, a Sonoma County native currently working at a private preschool with a model of "full inclusion." Rather than placing students with disabilities in separate...

Bake Shops

Santa Rosa may soon join a small number of California cities that permit "cannabis lounges," retail businesses with on-site cannabis consumption. While the regulatory hurdles for such businesses are high, the city's permissive policies may usher in a new era of legal cannabis use in the city. "This is a new aspect of the retail world that we're willing to...

Small Is Big

Why pay $40 to $50 a bottle for a wine nobody's heard of? Douglas Minnick, maker of several such wines under the name Hoi Polloi and co-founder of the Garagiste Festival, acknowledges that the wine named for the masses isn't sold at supermarket prices. Matter of fact, he says their tongue-in-cheek T-shirt bears the slogan, "Wine for the common...

Timely Lessons

If the old saying is true, then those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Occidental native and Harvard professor of government Daniel Ziblatt knows his history, and he has made a career of studying political systems around the world. He is an expert in how political democracies form and how they fail, and offers a...

GOP Senate Candidate and Holocaust Denier Patrick Little Lists UC Berkeley Student Apartment as Address in State Filing

Republican U.S. senate candidate and Holocaust denier Patrick Little has filed paperwork with the California Secretary of State that lists his address as an apartment located in a student housing complex owned by UC Berkeley. The address under file with the Secretary of State is in the city of Albany, which is just north of...

May 3-5: Hub of Fun in Petaluma

Petaluma’s storied Phoenix Theater houses every kind of entertainment, and this week’s schedule features punk bands, professional wrestlers and Transylvanian transvestites. On Thursday, May 3, Santa Rosa punk band Brown Bags play off their recent release, Twenty-Something Mutant Nobodies, when they open for touring acts Joyce Manor and awakebutstillinbed. On Friday, May 4, Phoenix Pro Wrestling returns to the...

May 4: Let the Wookie Dance in Santa Rosa

If you’re a Star Wars fan, you know that Friday, May 4, is your chance to say “May the fourth be with you” as part of Star Wars Day. Even better, it’s the day that the North Bay Cabaret presents its annual ‘May the Fourth Be With You’ variety show. This immersive and eclectic experience includes themed musical and...
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