NORTH BAY BOHEMIAN | APRIL 23-29, 2014 | BOHEMIAN.COM
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BOHEMIAN
Rhapsodies Ghost River Trickster Remembering Mike Ruppert BY CAROLINE CASEY
L
et us honor the life of Mike Ruppert. His last radio show’s theme was “If we can feel what we are doing to the earth, we wouldn’t do it.” After that show on April 13, Mike took his life in Calistoga, diving into the lunar eclipse, symbolically apt, as he was a deep-delving detective of all that is corrupt.
I hosted Mike on The Visionary Activist Show on KPFA, and afterward we were colleagues at the Harmony Festival, where he was dismayed and delighted to find himself teetering on the brink of happiness. Mike had been a strident dingbat, but he had just released the movie Collapse, which won acclaim from unlikely admirers. His playful, cannabis-smoking self was fleetingly available to be teased forth. One could see the faux-macho, selfmythologizing, L.A. cop and unhappy child, part of him melting, revealing glimpses of the “innocent dignity of his child heart.” Just a flicker, but it was still pulsing. “Better a trickster than a martyr” is a theme I proffered to him backstage and onstage: how do we not drown in the poison into which we delve to illumine the obscene? The martyr takes on the corruption of an unconscious family or culture, succumbing to the lonely futility of it all. The trickster takes on the unconscious, but then invites in what can metabolize the poison. Absence of collaborative magic is evidence of the still-colonized mind. He was up for this conversation, but distracted. Lest we strengthen what we oppose, embody what we decry, be possessed by the myriad sneaky guises of the colonized heart, let us honor Mike by withdrawing our complicity with the hyper-yang death frenzy destroying so much life, so that our manners and our language are in accord with our dedication. Let us release our addiction to having an enemy. Let us dedicate to being in collaborative cahoots with nature’s against-all-odds ingenuity. Let us treat all beings with respect. We welcome Mike’s scouting reports from the Underworld Ghost River, and can almost see him wink back at us, relieved of roiling, with a dark compassionate trickster gleam in his eye. Caroline W. Casey hosts-weaves context for ‘The Visionary Activist Show’ on KPFA Thursdays at 2pm, and is the creator of Coyote Network News. Open Mic is a weekly feature in the ‘Bohemian.’ We welcome your contribution. To have your topical essay of 350 words considered for publication, write openmic@bohemian.com.
The Golden Twirls
Please, over-thehill gang appears at Christy’s in Santa Rosa (“Some Like It Hot,” April 16). The county thrives on young blood, hello?
BRAD PIPAL Via online
presented this in a court of law he would have been laughed out of the courtroom by both judge and jury. This story is akin to a prosecutor arguing, “Well the defendant has done the crime once, so clearly he’s done it before!”
Thankfully, our legal system has protections built in for this. In journalism, that duty rests with a skilled editor. Sadly, in this case at least, it doesn’t appear the Bohemian has one.
PETER JENSEN Via online
The New Boyhemians
Lock ’Em Up
Thanks for introducing your new lineup! But you only introduced five men. Is that four women in the photo, too? Would love to hear their names and roles in the Bohemian as well!
KAREN DIONNE Via email
Editor’s note: All the names are listed online at www.bohemian.com.
So if a guy rapes me, Steve Martinot wants to put me in a room to talk to him, instead of putting him in jail (“Imagine No Prisons,” March 5). Wow, that’s brilliant. That’s how I want to spend my days, if that ever happens to me. I definitely want to spend my recovery days looking at the guy who raped me and knowing he’s still walking free, and probably choosing his next victim.
SUE HIRSCH Via online
Text Mess This is woefully inept reporting (“The Telltale Text,” March 19). It appears as if the Bohemian has done nothing more than file a series of public records requests and use that as the basis for skewering a competing news organization. I can’t say whether the assertions in this story are true—that the Press Democrat’s ownership is influencing coverage of a favored politician—they very well may be. But journalism—good journalism— owes an obligation to prove that. Here, the author has clearly fallen short. He takes one example, the Bosco-Carrillo text after the Lopez tragedy, and uses that to make a leap of logic backward to suggest that a similar thing may have happened after Carrillo’s arrest. No other hard evidence is provided, just circumstantial “proof” that may not prove anything. Had the author
Mr. Pickle vs. Hitler First off, I support freedom of speech. And to be honest, I support Obama. I am, however, not offended when I see someone exercising their right and protesting that Obama should be impeached. But the people who compare him to Hitler are taking that freedom too far. Regularly a table is set on the sidewalk outside Montgomery Village with a picture of Obama wearing a Hitler mustache. Hitler murdered over 11 million people. I politely call Montgomery Village every time and tell them I find the picture tasteless. They assure me they understand, but that since they are sitting on the sidewalk,