Page 36 - Sonoma County Gazette 12-2019

As we transition from fire to flood season, let’s hope 2020 brings us changes to the status quo on many levels. One large positive from this past year has been the outpouring of support to help those of us affected by the flood and fire evacuations. I am astounded by the generosity of people donating to help our area.
What can you do this Holiday season? Shop and dine locally!!! Our businesses and their employees have had a rough year and your support during the slow season means more now than ever.
Look forward to changes at Fern’s Market. Mike and his sister Linda Kahrau’s family have owned this property since inception. His great aunt
and Fern originally started the business. Mike and Linda recently bought the business in October. Mike has been busy improving the property and hopes to re-open Fern’s on Dec 1st. The property also has two 2 bedroom units in the back with Mike living in one of the units. Fern’s will have the original deli, pizza, smoked meats, and outside seating available. Mike is promising quality food at fair prices and will be community-oriented. What more could we want?
Looking for a break? Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap is playing at Curtain Call Theater through Dec 14th. curtaincallrussianriver.com Monte Rio Supper Club presents dining by Russian House & music by Joyride
Dec 2nd. friendsofmonterio.org Monte Rio Rec & Park District’s Holiday Craft Faire is Friday 11/29, Saturday, 11/30, and Sunday, 12/1. Local craft vendors will sell jewelry, home décor, holiday decorations, candles and art of all mediums. mrrpd.org
This is also a good time of the year to consider security. There has been an increase in car break-ins in Monte Rio recently. Motion sensor lights, and cameras such as Ring Doorbell, are inexpensive and easy to install. Do not leave anything of value in your car (including garage door openers). Please keep an eye out for your neighbors and report any incidences to the Sheriff Department as well as Nextdoor.
Regarding winter air quality and burning cleanly, we now have 6 local air sensors monitoring air quality from Drake Road (across river from Rio Nido) to Cazadero! We still need one in Rio Nido. Yes, we have one in Villa Grande and one on Starrett Hill. Thanks to everyone that installed one. Visit purpleair.com to view air quality in your area or to obtain your own sensor.
This is one of those times where my column will no doubt
be overtaken by events. As I write this, I’ve just come back from Lucy’s #besthashbrownsincreation Lounge, where the collective townfolk were all abuzz over last night’s events. Those being the unpleasantness at Westminster Woods. Here’s what I know as of the writing of this column: last night, five miscreants arrived in Westminster Woods garbed in black robes, wearing the “Guy Fawkes” mask made famous, and an object of cult worship among a certain subculture, by the 2005 movie “V for Vendetta”.
and Park District is working on bringing more events to the amphitheater. Next summer will be two evenings of Rockin’ on the River as an expansion to their Guerneville Plaza events. We are hoping to have more music events, weddings, and possibly a farmer’s market at the amphitheater as well.
It’s all the same cosplay, folks: the very definition of “sound and fury, signifying nothing.” My sincere thanks to those many of you who have left
your sophomoric ways in the rearview mirror, and have learned to think through problems and find better ways to solve problems that, even if attempted “nonviolently” carry the very real possibility of getting someone killed.
Got any ideas or suggestions for the greater good of Monte Rio? Send me an email at chram@aol.com
What “better ways” are there? I will leave you with this John Lennon quote: “When it gets down to having to use violence, then you are playing the system’s game. The establishment will irritate you – pull your beard, flick your face – to make you fight. Because once they’ve got you violent, then they know how to handle you. The only thing they don’t know how to handle is non- violence and humor.”
Wishing you the best of Holidays with family and friends as we close out this year and look forward to 2020.
Vacation Wonderland, we just keep getting better.
36 - www.sonomacountygazette.com - 12/19
These yobbos then proceeded to barricade the entrance, presumably in protest against something or someone who happened to be at Westminster Woods. Somebody got the idea that these masked, robed individuals were armed and called 911. The combined forces of law enforcement, already on heightened alert status because of both the recent fires and the spate of mass shootings nationwide, responded with an all hands on deck police presence, including helicopters, a SWAT team, more than a dozen Sheriff’s cars, and Bohemian Highway locked down from Occidental to Monte Rio.
Five individuals were detaine (one released), no one was injured, and no weapons were found. Courtesy of the 11/17 Press Democrat: According to the article, #5 was not on board with the other four.
None of the other four were in any way cooperative with law enforcement,
to the point of being “physically combative.” A variety of charges are being contemplated, starting with trespassing and resisting arrest and proceeding to more serious offenses. That’s as much hard news as I can provide here. I can only speculate and theorize, and if you know me well enough by now you know I’m going to. This is all my personal opinion. Clear? Clear.
First, the fact that no weapons were found leads me to hope
that there were no weapons present, and the whole thing was intended to be an aggressive bit of political theater, agitprop as it used to be called. That would lessen the severity of the offensive, although NOT justifying it in any way. Arrived masked, unasked, garbed in black and erecting barricades are all acts of hostile intent: the real Guy Fawkes blew up Parliament! A reasonable individual could conclude that persons capable of the hostile acts above are capable of more. Even on the observed facts, an immediate call to 911, followed by all the active shooter situation responses one has been taught. So, yet once again, our profound thanks go to the first responders who put themselves in harm’s way to keep us safe. A brief and mild inconvenience is a very small price to pay. Job well done.
Good news coming regarding our Amphitheater. Monte Rio Rec
So what we don’t know is why. That may have come out by the time you read this, but right now, nothing is available other than the garb and the actions. When I ponder those actions, the word that fairly leaps to mind is “sophomoric.” We were all sophomoric once, full of piss and vinegar at having escaped the bottom rung of the social ladder and thinking ourselves pretty sharp in all
ways of contending, with the humbling accountability of junior and senior years to leaven our self-righteous arrogance at those others we hold responsible for the world not being to our liking and our half-formed, still raw in the middle concepts of justice. Those on the right usually start devouring Ayn Rand about this time, whose those of a more lefty persuasion consume whatever romantic revolutionary movement has the best fashion sense. The “Okay, Boomer” crowd put Che Guevara posters on their dorm room walls, the Gen Xers partied at Rage Against the Machine shows, and the millennials watched the movie “V for Vendetta” sixteen million times and bought their Guy Fawkes masks and black robes on Amazon.