Moving!

Hi! I'm moving my content (slowly) to my new website Matthew Reed Media. That's where all my new written content is being hosted now.

See you there!

~Matt

Cranberries and elephants

In case you were wondering what I was doing this week, this happened. Enjoy!

Opinion: In support of Mendocino County Measure AF and California's Proposition 64

I support both Mendocino County's Measure AF as well as California's Proposition 64. It is time to decriminalize, legalize, regulate, and tax marijuana. These are complementary measures, insofar as Mendocino County is concerned; some of the flaws of one are corrected by the other.

Oddly, nobody is talking about this complementary nature. They're only being addressed as separate measures.

My take on Mendocino County's Measure AI

I get back to basics and talk about Mendocino County's Measure AI, which would levy a tax on marijuana businesses.

On "real" conversation

I read an article ("Small talk should be banned -- here's why" http://www.wired.co.uk/article/banning-small-talk) on the effect of small talk on relationships. The thesis of the article is that small talk is the lowest common denominator of social interaction with strangers in society, but that restricts the level of depth people can reach with each other.

Of the great many articles that I have read in various media, this one struck a personal note. By my nature, I am a retiring guy with a strong streak of social anxiety. Social situations are difficult for me; to wit, attempting to strike up a conversation with an interesting woman beyond what is required of a commercial exchange in a store is similar to tearing down a cement wall with my bare hands.

This difficulty in forging relationships goes beyond the romantic and into the area of close male friends as well. Social anxiety is relatively ironic for somebody who spends most of their professional life talking to people. The truth is, however, that small talk, or chit-chat, is a skill that I use to both acquire information and keep people at a distance.

Why should I personally want to keep people away? After all, I actually feel isolated a great deal of the time, even in a group. Simply put, I'm afraid of how I might be judged. Much of my instinctual conversation does deal with, as the aforementioned article states, "complex social issues" such as my evolution of perspective on sexuality, race, gender, and god (or gods, if you're so inclined).

And that is the crux of how I perceive my society; we are not allowed to be dynamic people, but rather to be static personalities. For example, as a younger man, I was, to put it mildly, homophobic and racist. It's not a simple conversation to discuss how I went from "it's tab A into slot B" to fully supporting same-sex marriage and LGBTQ rights. Neither is it a five minute discussion to full explore racism against blacks and Hispanics as an actual personal attitude (based on more than simple ignorance) that can be overcome, and not a "oh, there are still racists out there" vague concept. These are ideas that cause many people, myself included, a great deal of discomfort.

I am supposed to be, according to how we present ourselves to the public, as either all one way or all the other. Gray areas need not apply.

And yet, gray areas are really all that there are in life. But they do not lend themselves to small talk. So I have developed a skill with personal engagement that keeps things impersonal and wonder if the day will come when I actually have a conversation with somebody about more than the weather.

Paul Bunyan Days 2016 in Fort Bragg, California

Labor Day weekend came and went here in Mendocino County. That means that Paul Bunyan was in town and I made sure to catch as much of the festivities as I could.

Paul Bunyan Days is four days of "things to do" and is one of the great highlights of the year on the Fort Bragg-Mendocino Coast. There's the pie sale, the book sale, the logging games, the parade, a tricycle race, the gem and mineral show, a classic car show, an ugly dog contest, and much more. I managed to get to some of the events. You can watch it below.

If you just stumbled upon this, I hope you follow me on my escapades around Mendocino County.

Mendocino Coast fiber optic gets diverse

By Matthew Reed

The Mendocino Coast now has a redundant fiber optic and internet outages like those that occurred in 2014 and 2015 should now be prevented.

Sage Statham, business manager for Mendocino Community network, said he received confirmation from AT&T on Tuesday, Aug. 9, that the local internet service provider would now have access to the the South Coast fiber optic circuit.

"We like to call it a diverse circuit because redundant implies that it is not needed," Statham said. "This circuit would allow MCN telephone and data to continue to function even if the main fiber line was down."

In 2014, a break in the fiber optic line on Comptche-Ukiah Road interrupted service to hundreds of customers and businesses, including 911 service. In 2015, a vandal damaged the fiber optic line near Hopland, which blacked out service to much of Mendocino County as well as parts of Humboldt County.

Now, instead of a single circuit supplying all internet service, there is a second fiber optic circuit.

"The main path is the one that has had the two cuts and travels from Santa Rosa to Ukiah, Ukiah to Boonville, Boonville to Comptche, Comptche to Mendocino and finally from Mendocino to Fort Bragg," Statham said. "The secondary path runs Mendocino to Manchester, Manchester to Annapolis and Annapolis to Santa Rosa."

Statham said that AT&T refused to give MCN detailed information on the new circuit, but he was told that the secondary circuit should even be able to run along the Trans Pacific fiber line that goes to Hawaii and Japan.

In the event that the primary fiber optic line is damaged, there will likely be no interruption in service to customers, Statham said. The switch to the second circuit should be automatic.

"It is possible that current calls could drop while the traffic is re-routed, but we believe that they should stay active," he said. If the switch failed to automatically re-route, MCN can manually reconfigure with about 15 minutes of labor by an MCN technician.

"MCN has done it’s part to make sure our phones and data will continue to work and hopefully other companies and local officials have done the same," Statham said.

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The Great Depression and Baseball in Mendocino County

The Depression in the United States forever scarred the psychology of a generation of Americans and helped shape the course of political dialogue forever. At no other time was the national political and social continuity more threatened as capitalist commerce no longer kept thousands of Americans fed in the urban centers. Social, economic, and regional self-sufficiency was centered on rural towns where much aid was administered through informal neighborhood networks. These communities of self-sufficient and relatively self-reliant farming and logging families spent what little leisure time they possessed focused on social events such as picnics, restaurants, and sporting events, most notably, on California’s Mendocino Coast, baseball.

Baseball, both watched and played, allowed the coastal Mendocino public to forget for a few hours the uncertain economic realities that existed across the nation and were most evident by the intermittent closings of coastal mills for a dearth of buyers. 

Players were also workers in the woods and in the towns’ mills, as well as grocers, gas station owners, and dairy farmers. They played hard and worked harder, when there were jobs. Multiple leagues existed on the Mendocino coast, not including high school teams that would play against the various town and association teams in exhibition and pre-season games. Baseball was played in every town on the Mendocino coast in some fashion. The home field of the Fort Bragg Seals also hosted concessions operators and ticket sellers who earned a small wage.[1] The teams were for entertainment and meant little in relation to greater issues, such as the mills’ operation. However, baseball was a vivid expression of coastal Mendocino County’s culture of mutual aid and support.

Baseball interwove other communities together with the greater Mendocino Coast community. The local Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) camp at California’s Russian Gulch State Park maintained a very competitive baseball club as a part of their recreation program and was a part of a larger Northern California CCC baseball “sub-district” league. The Russian Gulch camp was established on November 17, 1933 with the express intent of developing Russian Gulch into a state park for California. Immediately, crews “started on road and trail construction, camp ground clearings, stream improvement, eradication of poisonous plants, general cleanup, and many other approved projects.” Eleven months later, federal work crews had constructed “three miles of road, forty individual camping units consisting of stoves, tables, cupboards, and water. One Recreation Hall fifty by sixty feet, one Custodian Cottage of five rooms, eight latrines (Chich Sales type) and ten miles of foot trails...”[2] Initially only fifty crew members began the work, but that number soon swelled to over two hundred enrollees.[3]

In addition to conservation work, the CCC provided opportunities for a number of athletic activities including boxing, basketball, and baseball. The CCC baseball teams played their games on Mendocino High School’s field.[4] The high school also opened its doors to hundreds of CCC enrollees to finish their high school education by hosting night classes twice per week with, a CCC reports adds, “the entire school staff and the school’s facilities and equipment at their disposal.”[5] A CCC educational report for Russian Gulch camp in 1938 noted that “[t]he healthy relation existing between the people and high school and the men of this company has improved the moral of this company.”[6] The “people” of Mendocino included Auggie Heeser, editor and publisher of the Mendocino Beacon, who declared “Hail to the boys of the CCC!” at the opening of the Russian Gulch camp.[7] Mendocino’s embrace of the CCC was likewise illustrated by the invitation of local families to enrollees for holiday parties and dinners.[8]

This seeming unconditional acceptance of the strangers in their midst was possible because the area was isolated and rural, but self-sufficient. According to Emery Escola, a member of a long-time Mendocino County family, during the Great Depression the area was relatively protected from the more harsh effects of widespread starvation or malnutrition. He said he “didn’t really know it was the depression.” He continued,

I wasn’t old enough to know about finances and money like that. My whole early life was during a low economic time. I didn’t have too much idea about what value was. When the depression came it didn’t make too many changes to us. Everybody shared their food. If somebody killed a pig and had too much left over, they’d share it with their neighbors. Never went without something to eat. We had it pretty good compared to in the city. Most of the people raised their own food anyway.”[9]

Escola described the coast as dotted with farms that provided many of the essentials, such as eggs, milk, and butter. During the Depression, Escola and his brother built a trapper’s lodge to trap fur animals along the Noyo River to earn what cash was necessary for survival beyond food. Escola sold raccoon, mink, and otter skins to chain retailers such as Montgomery Wards.[10] Perhaps it was such abundance in isolation that allowed leisure activities such as baseball to proliferate.

The natural abundance did not necessarily translate into financial abundance. The Fort Bragg Seals practiced and played games at their primary field located at the corner of Madrone and Main Streets, now occupied by CVS Pharmacy, Coast Cinemas, and a strip-mall. Located on the same block, just outside the first base side fence, was the twenty-seven room, three-story Piedmont Hotel, built by the Andreani family in 1914. [11]

In this undated photo, Fort Bragg's town team squares off against Albion. In the background along the first base line is the Oak Manor Hotel, on Oak Street, and the Catholic church, originally located at the corner of Main and Oak streets. The church is now called Portuguese Hall, on Stewart Street. Note the absence of the Piedmont Hotel, built in 1941. The baseball field was torn down in 1955. Photo courtesy of the Mendocino County Historical Society

From this matrix of regional abundance and communal generosity Mendocino Coast baseball gained its roots. One of the locals, C. Louis Wood, played third and first bases, as well as being the manager at the beginning of the ’37 season; Wood also owned a gas station on Main Street in Fort Bragg. His ownership of the gas station was his connection to the community as evidenced by the Mendocino Beacon’s declaration that “[t]he Fort Bragg Seals, under the sponsorship of the Junior Chamber of Commerce, have been having regular workouts the past week…C. Louis Wood, who has the Associated Service Station on the corner of Main and Redwood avenue, will manage the team this year… Woods [sic] has had considerable experience with baseball teams and is well qualified to handle a team.” The Associated Service Station owned by Wood was located two blocks from the Seals’ ballpark, certainly a convenience to a business owner who was a part-time slugger. [12]

But just because Fort Bragg’s hometown nine were part-time did not mean they were not serious hitters. Another set of local part-time sluggers were the Galletti brothers. The Galletti’s were from a Point Arena dairy family, one of the many farms and ranches that produced such regional abundance.

On June 9, 1937, Leo Galletti illustrated why small town baseball during the Depression was as magical as the legendary teams of Major League Baseball. In an error-free contest, the Seals’ Tilio Pavioni energized the home crowd when he safely hit three times in four at-bats, walked once, and stole second base twice; he did not, however, score a run. In the home half of the sixth, third baseman Galletti, previously a catcher with the Point Arena Dairymen baseball team, clobbered a pitch over the fences for the game’s only run.[13]

In the bottom of the sixth Galletti watched from third base as Fort Bragg’s defense took its turn in turning in a gem play, in particular catcher Waddy Lawson. Lawson brought fans to their feet when he picked off a runner at second base. With a runner on second, and anticipating an attempted steal of third, in a play that foreshadowed in technique modern Major League Baseball catchers, Lawson called for a pitch-out from pitcher Johnny Matson and threw from the kneeling position to second base to eliminate Santa Rosa’s scoring threat.

The Seals won 1-0, with Matson throwing a complete game to earn the win.[14]

There were times, though, that fans left disappointed without even the satisfaction of watching a game at all. In local contests of “town teams,” games were often cancelled because visiting teams failed to show due to inclement weather, automotive breakdowns, or plain discourtesy. Mendocino County’s roads during the Depression were poorly maintained and the primary method of getting to Fort Bragg until 1936 was by steamer; after 1936, automobiles were at best questionable conveyances over the coastal mountains.

Coastal Mendocino area’s very geography was a deterrent to outside teams playing in Fort Bragg. On July 24, the Mendocino Beacon reported that the California Colored Giants of Oakland failed to appear for a game because the axle of their team bus broke only seventy miles from Oakland.[15] 
Then on August 4, the newspaper reported that the Winters team had failed to arrive for the game because the team car had broken down.[16]

For four consecutive Sundays, the Seals refunded the fans’ money. That meant that, in addition to games versus Winters and the Oakland Colored Giants, games against two additional out-of-area teams had also been cancelled. The Fort Bragg Junior Chamber of Commerce, responsible for scheduling games and advertising, announced that it would not schedule any more games that year. The season would end for the Seals with two games against Scotia and one game against Talmage. [17]

The Fort Bragg Seals’ 1937 ended prematurely. The local newspaper did not report detailed statistics for the players. The Fort Bragg Seals were not the New York Yankees or St. Louis Cardinals. They did not play 150 games or more per season; barely a dozen games were played during that season. They committed errors that were “inexcusable” to the local press. They did not have a Joe DiMaggio or Joe Medwick.

But individual players often demonstrated a remarkable athletic ability, especially considering they practiced but once a week. The players for the Fort Bragg Seals were known well enough to the town that only their last names were used to identify them to readers. Men like Pavioni, Lawson, and Matson played as if they were on the Boston Red Sox or Detroit Tigers, but they could only dream of salaries matching that of Lou Gehrig and DiMaggio.

The Seals, to appearances, were a “bush league” team that was staffed by part-time players. But town baseball games were consistently attended by relatively large crowds of spectators and individual players could often demonstrate a remarkable athletic ability, especially considering they practiced but once a week. In those moments of competition and athleticism, the Seals and the other local teams transported their friends and neighbors out of 1937 Mendocino County, away from labor unrest and economic strife. For that ability alone, the Fort Bragg Seals were professional.

Mendocino County was rich in natural resources that mitigated the effects of the Depression. Baseball was an escapist luxury that allowed residents of coastal Mendocino County, as well as other towns across America, to forget for a few hours the uncertain economic realities that existed during the Great Depression. Within Mendocino County, though uncertainties were held at bay by natural wealth of resources and wealth of community spirit. Baseball was only one visible expression of the Mendocino coast’s history of cultural richness.

---

[1] Louis Andreani, Fort Bragg Remembered, 21-24

[2] “Superintendents Monthly Narrative Report,” United States Department of  the Interior, National Park Service, State Park Division, Russian Gulch SP-11, Mendocino, California, October, 1933

[3] Mendocino Beacon, October 14, 1933

[4] Mendocino Beacon, June 26, 1937

[5] “Summary of Camp Facilities for Education, Job Training and Recreation,” Russian Gulch Camp SP-11, September 2, 1937

[6] Civilian Conservation Corps Educational Report, Camp SP-11, Company No. 219, Fort Bragg, California, October 28, 1938

[7] Mendocino Beacon, February 19, 1934

[8] Mendocino Beacon, December 23, 1933

[9] Emery Escola, interviewed by Jonathon Matlin and Khalil Robinson, Mendocino Middle School Oral History Project, CD, November 15, 2000

[10] Emery Escola, interview, November 11, 1989, pg. 4, qtd in Robert Winn, “Bridges, Huckleberries, and Robin Stew: The Depression and The New Deal in Mendocino County”, Mendocino Historical Review, Vol. 14, Winter/Spring 1989-90, pg. 13

[11] Andreani, Fort Bragg Remembered, 21-24

[12] Mendocino Beacon, April 24, 1937.

[13] Mendocino Beacon, June 12, 1937

[14] ibid

[15] Mendocino Beacon, July 24, 1937

[16] Beacon, August 7, 1937

[17] Beacon, August 21, 1937

[18] Mendocino Beacon, March 22, 1968

OPINION: In opposition to Measure U

Measure U is the wrong tool for the wrong task. It implicitly targets a group of people in need of assistance and the underlying logic of the text of the measure is flawed.

Measure U forbids social service organizations from operating in the central business district of Fort Bragg "under any circumstances" unless that organization was already there before January 2015. Proponents are engaging in a classic case of Not In My Back Yard, as known as NIMBY. They don't want to see the members of their community who are suffering or who are disadvantaged. They want to close their eyes to the homeless, the disabled, and the poor and pretend that Fort Bragg is still a vibrant small city with more jobs than people.

In addition to the NIMBY aspect of Measure U, it's a very expensive temper tantrum. Proponents of the measure fought against the city giving grant money the Mendocino Coast Hospitality Center for the purchase of the Old Coast Hotel building; they lost the argument. Granted, Fort Bragg's city government gave the community a short shrift in meetings, but that is not the Hospitality Center's fault. And yet, Measure U targets the Hospitality Center because of its mission to work with the homeless and plans to use the building for that purpose.

Proponents would rather the Old Coast Hotel building sit empty in perpetuity than have a business use it for helping people in need. It is intellectually inconsistent to target social service agencies because of their clientele, but not the drinking establishments that do actually contribute to social disorder. Social service agencies such as Hospitality Center serve the better angels of human nature while bars serve booze.

If the issue is how the City of Fort Bragg government, including City Manager Linda Ruffing and the city council, handled community concerns, the awarding of the grant to Hospitality Center, or the Old Coast Hotel ownership's willingness to accept less money for a private nonprofit instead of a private business, those are separate issues that must be the focus of a different initiative, referendum, or recall process. They don't need to result in a discriminatory law targeting those people in the community who might cause Measure U proponents to feel uncomfortable.

Measure U is an attempt to address the wrong issue with the wrong method. It completely misses what's wrong with the city; supporters are making Hospitality Center into a straw man.

The arguments in favor of Measure U are filled with even more fallacies. Proponents argue that the measure "...insures the preservation of our Historic Downtown business district-north  to Pine Street and South to Oak Street, from Main Street to McPherson." While this may be the central business district, it is not a cohesive historic district. Indeed, it is not actually a registered historic district in the strictest definition. Visitors to the coast would have to travel to Mendocino to find an actual historic district. The central business district is a hodge-podge of historic buildings and contemporary structures. Buildings from the 19th century are nestled against others from the 1920s and later.

Measure U proponents want voters to "Vote Yes if you want to preserve the historic use and structure of the Old Coast Hotel." The logic is untenable. The hotel was sitting empty. Community members who wanted to acquire the building and use it commercially were rebuffed by the property owner unwilling to negotiate on price; yet those same owners negotiated a deal with the City of Fort Bragg. The historic Oak Hotel across the street from the Old Coast Hotel is a seedy-looking collection of apartments once a notable lodging establishment comparable with the long-gone Piedmont Hotel. There is no hue and cry to restore the Oak Hotel to its historic use.

In addition, supporters of Measure U argue in the voter information pamphlet that "...the city's rich history should be celebrated and business's [sic] allowed to prosper." Fort Bragg's "rich history" is one of industry and jobs. It was a mill town with a thriving fishing harbor. The city has always been the commercial and economic center for the Fort Bragg-Mendocino Coast. If proponents truly wish for business to prosper, it needs to find ways to become collectively competitive with inland businesses. They need to fill the empty stores on Franklin Street and offer basic affordable necessities, instead of junk antiques and specialty boutiques.

Fort Bragg is not the town it once was. It is part of an area that is losing businesses and professionals. Cottage industries are not filling in the void left by the closing of the mill nor are they refilling the coffers of the schools that made this area so attractive to professionals with young families. If the business and property owners in the central business district want to better help the city, they need to address the issues that have contributed to the vacant storefronts on Franklin Street and the inability of the area to either build or attract large-scale employers.

It is not the purpose of public law or the initiative process to target specific groups or industries unless the case can be made clearly that the law will benefit the greater good. Laws that are exclusionary need to be so to serve the greater good, such as limitations on what businesses or individuals can be within a certain distance of schools. Measure U does not serve the greater good. It only serves the venal impulses of our human nature. It is in the same group of proposed social controls as excluding all Muslims from the United States or making law enforcement stops of people based on skin color.

I encourage voters in Fort Bragg to vote "no" on Measure U.

OPINION: In support of Measure V

I encourage Mendocino County residents to vote "yes" on Measure V next month.

When I was reporting for Mendocino's weekly community newspaper, The Beacon, part of my beat were rural fire departments south of Fort Bragg, California. One of those tiny departments was the Albion-Little River Volunteer Fire Department, an agency that covers an incredible geographic area that includes a lot of commercial timber land, most of it owned by the Mendocino Redwood Company.

In 2014, ALRVFD Chief Ted Williams became increasingly concerned about dead trees on MRC property left behind by the timber management practice known as "hack-and-squirt." Hack-and-squirt involves making a cut in an undesirable tree, such as tan oak, and then applying an herbicide to the cut. There are different herbicides used in the timber management industry, but one commonly used is imazapyr. The trees are then left to die and fall on their own.

2014 was also a year with record temperatures and low rainfall. In Mendocino, residents within the Mendocino City Community Services District were mandated to install water meters on their wells to help the district manage the limited groundwater. In the northern portion of Mendocino County later that year, over 12,500 acres burned near Laytonville when a wildfire was ignited by lightning.

In the early months of 2015, Williams had no reason to believe things would be different and there were hundreds of acres of dead timber bordering his fire district. He took his concerns to the Albion-Little River Fire Protection District board of directors, looking for a solution and then broadened his approach to include community members and fire professionals.

When I interviewed Mike Jani in March 2015 for a Beacon article, the issue of dead standing trees was quickly becoming a topic of concern for several coastal communities. Jani, the president and chief forester at MRC, attempted to minimize the dangers from standing dead timber.

“Our experience with the way fire reacts is it stays on the ground and doesn’t get into the canopy,” he said. “Albion-Little River Fire Protection District may have been ill-informed of the fire risk.”

Over a year later, MRC has spent $197,000 fighting against the county-wide measure, Measure V, that would make dead standing timber a public nuisance. In late March of this year, at a public forum moderated by the League of Women Voters, the timber company, with other opponents of the June measure, argued against Measure V on the basis of cost as well as creating a beneficial environmental situation; opponents continued to argue against the danger of dead timber as potential fuel in wildfires.

And while MRC has donated plenty of time and money to Mendocino County communities over the years, in this issue the company is wrong. The risks involved with hundreds of acres of dead timber seem self-evident. It is essentially miles of firewood waiting to be lit. Those potentially burning trees put first responders at risk due to falling snags, to say nothing of the question of whether those dead trees create unusually toxic smoke when they burn because of residual herbicide.

Measure V is needed to ensure that the negligence of property owners such as MRC does not endanger communities or firefighters. While I can understand the argument of trying to limit expenses, there is a point when common sense needs to rule over commercial expediency.

No landowner, whether it is an individual or a corporation, has the right to put their neighbor at risk because of one or more dead trees. MRC needs to accept it's responsibility to the greater community good, not just its bottom line.

Finding Northern California

What makes Northern California an identity, beyond simple geography? What are the common ideas that forge such a diverse area together? What are the unique local traditions and events that are part of the tapestry of the region?
Northern California is large region, by itself larger than many states. Three of the boundaries of the area are easily discernible: The Pacific Ocean in the west, and the state lines in the north and east. But south, the end of Northern California is less clear. For a lot of people, it is a general line that connects the San Francisco Bay Area to Sacramento and on to Lake Tahoe. This may be simply the general area of influence these significant centers (San Francisco, Oakland, Sacramento, etc.) have on the less urban areas. However, there are certainly other people I have known from south of that arbitrary line who would argue. Certainly, the argument can be made that the southern line of Northern California aligns with the the southern borders of Monterey, Kings, Tulare and Inyo counties.
These are just lines on a map, however, I would like to take a few weeks and go find out how people view Northern California and how they define it, either as residents or visitors. I want to visit the community events, talk to the people and learn some of the history that makes Northern California an identity. Along with the interviews and narrative, I will include contemporary and historic photographs of this diverse region, from the coast to the Sierras.
Ultimately, the project is about the search for the meaning of community. Practically, it will allow visitors from out of the area to better understand the differences in regional identity in California (I'm looking at you, Germany, Russia and Greece). It will also be for the residents who live here and may see a different aspect of this fascinating place we call home.
"Finding Northern California" will result in a series of articles and a book for travelers and residents alike. I hope you will help. Use this link to donate or send me your thoughts on what it means to be from Northern California. Let me know where I should go and who I should talk to.
Writing is often a collaborative effort between two or more people. Collaborate with me in "Finding Northern California." Make a donation to my GoFundMe campaign through the button on the right or drop me a line here with suggestions or comments about Northern California.
Thanks for reading! ~MR

New coffee app opens up industry to consumers

Thanksgiving Coffee, of Fort Bragg, California, merges coffee with tech. (The Mendocino Beacon, Dec. 24, 2014): New coffee app opens up industry to consumers

Greenwood State Beach Visitor Center new gateway to national monument

Greenwood State Beach Visitor Center, in Elk, California, becomes a gateway to the California Coastal National Monument, The Mendocino Beacon, July 2, 2015: Greenwood visitor center gateway to national monument

Editorial: Celebrate independence and equality.

July 2, 2015 editorial, The Mendocino Beacon: Celebrate independence and equality

Hendy Woods State Park day use area reopens

Hendy Woods State Park reopens. The Mendocino Beacon, July 2, 2015

The Hendy Woods State Park day use area reopens with free event and song.

State OKs proposals to transfer Mendocino Coast to Mendocino College

From The Mendocino Beacon, May 28, State approves proposals to transfer Mendocino Coast to Mendocino College. Substantive changes proposals from Mendocino College and College of the Redwoods approved by the ACCJC.

Joshua Grindle Inn to reopen

From The Mendocino Beacon, May 21, "Joshua Grindle Inn to reopen this summer." A Mendocino landmark will reopen for business.

Mendocino County budget is balanced, but revenue is flat, Sept.4, 2014

Ireland’s Third Home Rule Crisis: Another Cause for Emigration

Moses Watt Little wept as he watched the steamer sail for America with his daughter, Mary. For a staunch Protestant Unionist in 1912 who had signed the Ulster Covenant, the impending partition of Ireland would have been enough to send his children to America, especially if he lived in one of the counties of Ulster not included in North Ireland. The nature of the divisive issue of Nationalism versus Unionism, overlaid with the resentments between the majority, yet relatively powerless, Catholics and the minority, yet powerful, Protestants was a strong blend of social and political elements capable of frightening a middle-aged farmer. The keystone of the Irish conflict that would continue for most of the rest of the twentieth century was laid at the turn of the century. It did not require a highly educated man to be able to foresee the troubles that were near to boiling over.

A farmer in County Monaghan, Moses was born in 1837. County Monaghan was one of the nine ancestral counties of the Kingdom of Ulster. In the comprises,Monaghan was excluded from Northern Ireland. The partition of Ireland was based on population density of Catholics and Protestants. Protestant counties were generally included in Northern Ireland, but those counties with a higher population of Catholics were excluded and were thus included in the Irish Free State. When he died in 1919, Moses had lived to witness the Potato Famine, the Easter Uprising of 1916, World War I, and the third Home Rule crisis. He would not witness the final partition of his country.

 The Home Rule crisis that climaxed in years from 1912 to 1914 was different from the Home Rule crises of 1886 and 1893. Specifically, it was very clear to the Irish who supported union with Great Britain and opposed a proposed “Government of Ireland” bill the center of opposition was primarily Ulster where a majority of Ireland’s Protestant population lived. Nicola Morris points out the central cause of disagreement.

The Government of Ireland bill of 1912 proposed that a Home Rule parliament should be established at Dublin for the whole of Ireland dealing with such domestic matters as education, policing, and taxation. Unionists objected in principle to the creation of a Dublin legislature, but—given that some form of Home Rule was at that point inevitable—argued during the third Home Rule crisis for some form of exclusion for certain of the counties of Ulster.

To refute such an Irish government, Protestant men and women signed a petition to the British government. The so-called “Ulster Covenant” was a public protest against Home rule in any form. Morris declares, “[s]igning the Ulster Covenant became the touchstone of loyalty, with considerable scorn rapidly displayed to those who had failed to exhibit their allegiance, whom contemporaries designated as ‘traitors to their faith’”. Moses was either not a “traitor” to his faith or a man who stood by his community’s identity. Likely, it was the former, as his émigré daughter, Mary, would pass on to her children and grandchildren that “we were Orangemen.”

More than just a common religion or political bent informed a regional identification with old Ulster. Those who lived in the nine counties, especially near the city of Belfast, would have been pulled into a commercial orbit. “…it was not just that the north-east evidenced a prosperous aspect, but that the nature of that prosperity invested the region with an integrated identity. In fact, the same Parnell who ridiculed the region as a ‘little yellow patch up in the north-east’ in 1886 visited Belfast in May 1891…and, like many travelers, having proceeded from the south, declared himself impressed by the region’s prosperity and the functional, complementary relationship between Belfast…and outlying towns that underpinned it.”

From the British public’s point of view, large portions of Ireland’s residents were savages. Since relatively recent military conflicts on the island were focused in the southern portion, even those residents of northern Ireland could accept a basic difference between the two areas. This difference was reinforced by the development of photography, which assisted in the formation of a greater regional identity. James Loughlin argues, “…photography in Ulster should be seen in the late nineteenth century, for the enormous popularity of urban/rural, local/national photography—fueled by a symbiotic relationship with the growth of tourism—helped enormously, it can be argued, to enhance a regional self-consciousness and identity.” For an older man, like Moses Little, the visual depiction of a romantic Ulster would have a great impact.

For a man like Moses Little, who was both Protestant and Unionist, living in the midst of a largely Catholic country had its potential problems. Under a political system that was sure to represent the majority, the Protestants, previously the beneficiaries of political power when the British Parliament controlled the country, would become powerless. “There was finally a thing to be feared by all Unionists who were Protestants, and that was the existence of an overwhelming majority of Catholic voters, who under Home Rule would gradually but surely yield the government in large part into the hands of the church… In 1912, according to the Irish News of Belfast, the Reverend Gerald O’Nolan said: ‘We shall have a free hand in the future. Let us use it well. This is a Catholic country, and if we do not govern it on Catholic lines, according to Catholic ideals, and the safeguard Catholic interests, it will be all the worse for the country and all the worse for us. Here it is that religion and nationality meet, and may, and should, go hand-in-hand.’” There was no question for Protestants that Catholics would control an Ireland with its own parliament, for Catholics.

Indeed the split from the dominant Protestant power had already occurred for Catholics. The 1908 decree of Ne Temere, released by Pope Pius X, invalidated Catholic marriages performed by Protestant or civil authority. Catholic marriages were similarly declared outside the jurisdiction of civil authority and exclusively under the authority of the church. A secondary decree by Rome set Catholic priests out of touch of non-Catholic trials. With the majority of the population now essentially beyond secular control, it would not be much of a logical reach for Moses Little, and others like him, to understand that should Catholics gain control, politically, the system would be geared toward papal decree, making Protestants outcasts in their own nation.

A Catholic-controlled parliament was a well-founded fear for Protestants. Protestants dominated the political infrastructure of Ireland, even if they were in a numerical minority. Until 1840, there was essentially no representative form of government in Ireland. The minority Protestant landowners controlled what electoral government existed in Ireland. These men in power did not hesitate to use their power for their own benefit and to the detriment of Catholics. Subsequent to 1840, urban and rural district councils, county councils, and boards of guardians were chosen by popular election. While this meant a modicum of enfranchisement for Catholics, Irish elementary and technical education, fisheries, agriculture, congested districts, and old age pensions were still run by appointees.

One example of Protestant appointed political control was the Grand Jury. John Clancey describes the Grand Jury by writing,

It consisted, usually, of a couple of dozen persons chosen from a larger number selected by the High Sheriff for the county or the city…the High Sheriff himself being the nominee of the Lord Lieutenant, who acted on the recommendations of the Superior Court Judges, who, in their turn, always recommended some leading landlord and magistrate… [T]he Grand Jury in every Irish county, down even to the present year, has always consisted almost entirely of members of the landlord class, and mainly Protestants also.

The Grand Jury was responsible for maintenance of public infrastructure, including roads and other large works, buildings, prisons, hospitals, appointments. The Grand Jury could also levy a specific county tax, which was an engine for raising considerable revenue.

For Moses Watt Little, the certain future partition of Ireland and the inclusion of his native County Monaghan in the Catholic Ireland may well have been the signal that what stability he and his family had known was at an end. Already, one of Moses’ daughters, Hannah, was in America and preparing to get married in San Francisco. When Hannah’s sister, Mary, told their father that Hannah had sent Mary a ticket to America so Mary could attend Hannah’s wedding, Moses likely encouraged Mary to stay in America. Mary, in her mid-20s, was no longer living in her father’s household, but was rather working as a domestic worker in a Catholic household. From Moses’ perspective, emigration to the United States protected Mary’s future prospects, as well as her physical well-being.

To be sure, Moses Little’s County Monaghan was historically associated with the Protestant Orangemen. The conflicts between Protestant and Catholic became the core of local legend. These legends and oral family histories would find their form in a 1915 American novel, The Orangeman. The novel, written by John H. Finlay, was based on the oral histories of his grandfather’s life in County Monaghan, though fictionalized. In a review of The Orangeman, The Irish Book Lover wrote, “We would hazard the guesses, first, that this book was written, after a visit to the scenes described, by a descendant of the hero… Secondly, that it is founded on tales told by him in his declining years of the bitter feuds between the contending factions on the Ulster border, and the squalid party feuds are magnified in the course of time into Homeric combats…” Without doubt, Finlay’s family would not be the only Monaghan family to pass down tales of violent sectarian clashes.

This was a clue to what Irish society could become under Home Rule. Edward Turner described the process of Ireland becoming dominated by Catholics when he wrote, “If the people were mostly incapable, then Irish administration, no longer supervised from England, would inevitably come into the keeping of the politicians who were now at the head of powerful organizations, like the Ancient Order of Hibernians and others allied with it…” A significant portion of the debate over Home Rule for Ireland was that it would be the heads of Catholic organizations, like the Ancient Order of Hibernians, who take control of a free Ireland’s politics. The Ancient Order of Hibernians were also known as “Molly Maguires”, a Catholic counterpart to the Orangemen, and were loathed by Protestants and Unionists. There were even Catholics who feared and hated the Molly Maguires.

The resistance methods utilized by the Molly Maguires, and other Catholic nationalist groups, were often coercive in nature. Such methods included boycotting, intimidation, destruction of property, threats of violence, ravaging farms, and attacking crops or cattle. “The methods employed to extend and perpetuate the greatness of these bodies, it was said, would be using unseen power, coercion by boycotting, intimidation, and destruction of property. Additionally, “[t]here were stories of brutal murder and cruel revenge, of moonlighting, hayburning, arson. And it was said that such conditions prevailed and such was the character of the Irish magistracy that either criminals were not prosecuted or the trials resulted in gross miscarriage of justice, with secret societies intervening and malefactors allowed to escape.” The situation was unlikely to improve with the establishment of an Irish parliament. Law enforcement and the judiciary would be taken over by a Catholic political power. As Edward Turner wrote in 1917, “…the situation would then be to the advantage of ambitious and reckless political leaders for the control of their supporters and the crushing of those who opposed them.” Moses Little had definitely opposed such Catholic power in 1912 when he signed the Ulster Covenant. His farm and his family would be at risk of reprisal should Ireland gain Home Rule.

Such was the situation when Moses Little, a man who had lived through many troubles and who supported the status quo, waved good-bye to another daughter he would never see again. The combination of political and historical grievances that the Catholics bore against Protestants was sure, under Home Rule, to be redressed in a manner like what the Protestants had delivered to the majority of Irish. Moses stood with those who would have had Monaghan excluded from a free Ireland, but only six of the nine counties of Ulster were ultimately included in Northern Ireland. Moses foresaw the coming troubles for Ireland and, when opportunity came for him to try to protect at least one daughter, he ensured that Mary would not return to Ireland.

Bibliography

Primary Documents

Brooks, Sydney. “The New Ireland: V.” The North American Review, vol. 188, no. 632 (July 1908): 101-111. http://www.jstor.org/stable/251061. Accessed October 29, 2012.

Clancey, John J. “The Latest Reform in Ireland.” The North American Review, vol 167, no. 502 (September 1898): 287-299. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/25119059>. (Accessed October 26, 2012).

Irish Census, 1901. <http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/pages/1901/Monaghan/Dawsongrove/Kilcrow/1633482> (Accessed November 25, 2012).

Irish Census, 1911. <http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/pages/1911/Monaghan/Dawsongrove/Kilcrow/806402> (Accessed November 25, 2012).

Redmond, John E. “Ireland since ’98.” The North American Review, vol. 166, no. 497 (April 1898): 385-397. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/25118978> Accessed October 26, 2012.

Turner, Edward Raymond. “Opposition to Home Rule.” The American Political Science Review, vol 11, no 3 (August 1917): 448-460. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/1944247> (Accessed November 25, 2012).

Secondary Sources

Kennedy, Thomas C. "Tory Radicalism and the Home Rule Crisis, 1910-1914: The Case of Lord Willoughby de Broke." Canadian Journal of History 37, no. 1 (April 2002): 23. Academic Search Premier, EBSCOhost (accessed November 25, 2012).

Maume, Patrick. “The Orangeman (1915) as Ulster-American Origin Narrative.” New Hibernia Review, Vol. 6, No. 1, (Spring 2002): 113-130. <http://muse.jhu.edu> (Accessed November 25, 2012).

Morris, Nicola K. “Traitors to Their Faith? Protestant Clergy and the Ulster Covenant of 1912.” New Hibernia Review, vol. 15, no. 3 (Autumn 2011): 16-35. http://muse.jhu.edu/ (accessed November 25, 2012).

Letter to Governor Jerry Brown Protesting Closure of California's State Parks

This letter was sent June 9, 2011.

Dear Governor Brown,

I protest the planned closures of any of California’s State Parks. These parks are our heritage and our legacy to our future generations. In your recent budget proposal, you seek to fund our state’s schools to the full extent possible. While I laud your support for schools, the California State Parks are educational aids that cannot be equaled by any videos or photos studied by students in a classroom. When a student visits one of our parks, he or she gets to see first-hand the environments and historical sites that contributed to our cultural and environmental diversity. Our parks represent the best progressive spirit of our state’s heritage. To close our state’s parks is a crime against our children’s’ futures.

Governor, if you seek to move California’s government toward a program of austerity, then perhaps you should review the salaries of your staff and senior department officials. According to the Salary Transparency website (http://www.transparency.ca.gov), in 2009, the Secretary for Environmental Protection received $158,208 in pay. In the governor’s office, the Senior Assistant to the Governor received $167,994 in salary that same year. Others received salaries of comparable size including Ruth Coleman, Director of Parks and Recreation, who received $129,294 in compensation. Additionally, the website for California’s State Senate reveals that members of the Senate received salaries of approximately $94,000 or more. If these leaders are truly public servants, why do they receive compensation equal to private for-profit corporations? Rather than cut funding to the Department of Parks and Recreation, funding for salaries of elected officials and non-civil service appointees need to be cut and limited annually to not more than the mean income for California residents or $48,000, whichever is less. Also, eliminate travel expenses across the board for legislators, yourself, the state’s Supreme Court justices, and all non-civil service appointees. If our state’s leaders cannot support themselves on $4,000 a month, then something is seriously wrong with our government. Government service in a representative democracy is not about becoming a millionaire.

California State Parks represent 150 years of our cultural and intellectual development. To spare the parks, I propose that you, by executive order, decentralize operations of the parks system to the district level with all associated revenues from fees being directed to accounts unavailable to General Fund financial liabilities. The local costs of operations would consequently be the responsibilities of the regional parks districts. Parks closures would then be determined by local interests and necessity rather than the vagaries of the political give-and-take of Sacramento. Furthermore, I encourage you, sir, to continue to promote the establishment of private not-for-profit entities for the assumption of operations in those parks that are slated to be closed. The park system could then evolve into a collaboration between private citizens who volunteer, regional economic organizations, and parks districts.

Again, I protest the draconian solution of closing any of California’s valuable state parks. The issues associated with the deficit are due to legislative and executive branches’ irresponsibility. Let the members of those branches of government carry the burden of spending cuts rather than the repositories of California’s heritage.

Sincerely,

Matthew Reed