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Long, Cold Summer
William P. Meyers, Publisher and Editor
Lately this site may have looked abandonned. I started Mendoday because I thought (and still think) Mendocino County is not adequately served by its news papers and Web sites. But back in 2007 I also thought my prior business was going away, as my largest client moved my work to India. In 2008 the economy started looking a bit grim, and you know what followed. So I worked, when I could, on creating the skeleton of this site to flesh out.
But my clients did not entirely disappear. This year July was booked to the maximum with my stepson (who lived in Anchor Bay until he was six) getting married at the end of the month. By the time Jan and I got back from Whidbey Island near Seattle, more work had piled up and Mendoday had to stay on the back burner. If we already had more readers I would not have prioritized things that way, but my nationally oriented web sites have a lot more readers.
On the coast in particular, and even inland, it has been a winter-like summer. Highs here on Ten Mile Road, about two miles from the ocean, have rarely been over 70 degrees Fahrenheit. Lows have often been in the high 40s. In other parts of the world, however, people are starting to take global warming seriously. Russia was hit by heat and drought that drove wheat prices up in international markets. In the United States the middle and east sections of the company roasted, but at least did not suffer from drought.
In Ukiah the Board of Supervisors has had no choice but to cut the budget. In the seven good years of rising housing prices and rising tax proceeds they spent more than they made and promised more than they could possibly give in the future. I'm not saying it is easy to be an elected official (I did that once). Everyone wants more money, and no one wants to pay more taxes. So instead of the government being able to pick up the slack when the private sector has a downturn, we have the government laying off workers, adding to the overall misery.
In Sacramento the legislature is, yet again, unable to agree upon a budget. I have a new rule that might help: any year the budget is even a day late, all members of the legislature are forever thereafter prohibited from ever seeking elected office or any government job of any kind. That would get us budgets on time. They don't improve just because they are late.
Of course the voters could throw the rascals out, but the rascals control the voters, not the other way around. It is a sad thing seeing someone as incompetent as Wesley Chesbro breezing into another term, but it is inevitable given the structure of the system. All sleezedom lines up behind the incumbent, of either party, making challenging an incumbent so formidable that no one with much going for them will take it on. That being a given, there ought to be a way to hold Wesley's feet to the fire. The fire of we want a budget passed on time. Every year. Whatever compromises have to be made, whatever corrupt bargains struck, at least do them on time.
At least the local redwood trees are happy with all the fog dripping down too their roots this summer. Enjoy life as best you can. And it you are out of work, do something productive. Clean up your neighborhood, babysit for overwhelmed relatives, volunteer. Don't just sit on your ass waiting for unemployment checks to arrive. That isn't good for you, and it is not good for society. You might even find you can make a nice little service business for yourself, if you ask people what they need done, and do it humbly, well, and at minimum cost to them.
