MCT: Wednesday, August 21, 2019

• Light Rain
• Hunnicutt Investigation
• Patriot's Day
• BOS Doings
• Free Cats
• Rogue Cops
• Guitar Show
• Great Day
• Mawk Master
• Ukiah Report
• Yesterday's Catch
• Satanic Stroll
• Single Shot
• Unicorn Books
• Increasing Crappiness
• Siamese
• Thanksgiving Fair
• Name Painting
• Pesky Journalists
• Tie Binds
• Home Castration
• Robinson Jeffers
• Found Object

LIGHT RAIN is forecast to spread across Del Norte and northern Humboldt County this afternoon and evening. Otherwise, seasonable temperatures are expected across the region today, followed by warmer weather over the interior occurring from Thursday into early next week. (National Weather Service)

CALUM HUNNICUTT FATAL ACCIDENT UPDATE

(From the AVA’s Special Correspondent, Andrew Scully):

Mendocino August 20th — In a phone interview today, Officer Marin of the Ukiah CHP provided the following update on the death of Calum Hunnicutt at the intersection of California Highway 1 and little Lake Road last month. "This is an active and ongoing investigation, and we are pursuing every lead thoroughly. Beyond that we have no announcement to make it this time."

Background: https://www.theava.com/archives/106100

DISTRICT ATTORNEY DAVID EYSTER opened Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors meeting by noting that his County paycheck is from Bank of America, but that Bank of America has departed Mendocino County. The DA suggested Mendo switch to a local bank. Supervisors response was the usual non-responsive — “Thank you.”

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SPEAKING OF PUBLIC ATTORNEYS: Mendo’s public attorneys are happy with their big pay raise, which increases their compensation 35.8% over three years — 12% a year. Now they can spare the County the strike they were threatening, according to their negotiator former Deputy DA Matt Finnigan. (By comparison, the County’s line employees will get a little over 3% per year, which will reportedly bring them closer to “market rates.” But then they aren’t attorneys and, therefore, a lower order of employee.

CEO ANGELO wasn’t the only senior County staffer who didn’t know how the raises in the two future years will be paid for. (Apparently, the Board hopes to maintain a high vacancy rate to save money for the future, but they haven’t asked anybody to keep track of it and nobody seems to care what impact such vacancy rates will have on the operations of the various departments.)

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SUPERVISOR DAN GJERDE didn’t appreciate being asked by the Grand Jury to hold regular meetings with his Fourth District constituents, keening that he goes to various meetings of various groups and agencies all the time. Golly gee, why didn’t the GJ count those? He said he’s done “more than 30 radio interviews” which he insists is “pretty good!” “I’m making an effort,” said the Supervisor. “We all do in our own way. I prefer to work with groups in my own district on a topic or in general. But not me personally organizing it.”

APPARENTLY, it’s too much work to announce a meeting date and time and location in the Fort Bragg area for an hour or two every month or two on Facebook or the AVA and see who shows up. That kind of “work” is what the Supervisor thinks is “organizing it.”

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THE LOW POINT Tuesday morning was the appearance of California Public Utilities Commission’s Government Relations liaison for Mendocino County, Dr. Naveed Paytar.

Supervisor John Haschak asked Mr. Paytar: “I was at a meeting at the Little Lake Fire Department last week. The Fire Chief said there will probably be up to four times as many fires caused by people with generators in their homes and out in the field that will cause these fires and people won't have the ability to fight these fires because they don't have the electricity to spray down their own yard or whatever catches on fire.”

Dr. Paytar replied: “Your point was about the risk of fires and people who are perhaps starting a generator for the first time, right? Is this correct? So the power goes out and now I think you were quoted that there would be four times more fires because of these -- these other problems and I think that that's -- that's -- that's definitely an issue, that's something that -- I don't think that's a reason to not do the PSPS per se because you know, that is -- that is -- the decision to do a de— a de-energization could save lives and save people's property and there are other issues honestly that can result from shutting down the enter— shutting down electricity and I think that public awareness is the solution to that to make sure that people — that — and I believe that PG&E offers resources to make sure people know how to start the generators and — and at least have that information and I think that should be a community wide local government and even to the state government and public awareness -- public awareness that how to do these things safely in the event of a de-energization.”

IN GENERAL the thrust of Mr. Paytar’s ridiculously evasive replies went to asking the Board to file comments later in the year (after fire season) to the CPUC during the promised “Phase 2” of the PSPS (Public Safety Power Shutoffs) planning process. Everyone in the room was dissatisfied with Mr. Paydar’s responses. But that’s all he had to offer.

AT ONE POINT, in response to Supervisor Ted Williams, Dr. Paydar said that even the grand CPUC itself will get no more than a robo-call notification of a planned outage, just like Mendo. After noting that the request for a human notification and a human confirmation of that notification was “a good question,” Dr. Paytar said Mendo could ask the CPUC for such notifications in Phase 2. Dr. Paydar also had great praise for an unidentified attorney which he said was doing a great job of representing Mendocino at the CPUC hearings, as we wondered who that eminence could possibly be. The person the County has hired to sue PG&E for whatever they can get in damages for the PG&E-caused fires in 2017 in Potter and Redwood Valley?

WHOEVER IT IS, they’re certainly NOT doing much of a job representing Mendo in any hearings. Not that the County seems interested in whatever that representation is.

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AS ONE of 16 citizens looking in on the Supervisors Tuesday, a dispiriting experience recommended only in brief chunks, a pair of slick "bond consultants" — expensive suits and haircuts, faked earnestness — inspired this question from Supervisor Haschak: "“I guess these holdings — you just choose those holdings based on your expertise, right?"

HASCHAK reminds us, in his splendid innocence, of R. Crumb's Flakey Foont. Supervisor McCowen has strong Foont tendencies, but he's positively urbane alongside the 4th District solon.

CARRE BROWN managed to outdo Haschak when, responding to the Grand Jury's blast at her and her colleagues, she cited the County's pot licensing program as a success, a statement so at odds with that resounding failure it calls into question the Supervisor's sanity.

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THE SUPES slapped back the Grand Jury's critical assessment of them and County leadership generally, the traditional response of all County departments, those responses being one of two dismissive words. It will never happen in the potemkin context of local government, but if the GJ is ever to have real authority, the grandees of the Superior Court will have to declare the Supes and various department heads in contempt and throw them in jail for a few days. As it is, the conscientious work of many years of grand juries has simply been ignored and often even sneered at by local government.

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WHO SAYS the old girl doesn't have a sense of humor? Asked about the absence of Heidi Dunham, boss at Mendo’s Human Resources, County CEO Carmel Angelo responded:

“Dear Mr. Anderson, Good afternoon to you. All the board activity today and that's your question??? LOL… Ms. Dunham has been with the county for many years and recently decided to retire. She will definitely be missed. Thank you, Carmel”

MARK SCARAMELLA NOTES: Ms. Dunham is “retiring” at age 57? In the same week as the announced agreements with SEIU and the public attorneys? Interesting.

THE OUTSIDE MEDIA and the Press Democrat will never give her the credit, but it was HumCo's intrepid Kym Kemp of Redheaded Blackbelt who not only broke the story about Rohnert Part's rogue cops, but kept after it until the story couldn't be ignored. Operating under their own fake auspices as "interdiction" officers, two of Rohnert Park's finest lurked around the Mendo-SoCo county line where they pulled over southbound marijuana transporters to rob them of dope and, in some cases, large amounts of cash money.

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NEW LAWSUIT accuses Rohnert Park police of stealing marijuana, cash from five more drivers on Highway 101

Five men who say their cannabis and cash were stolen by Rohnert Park police officers during unlawful roadside stops near the Mendocino-Sonoma county border have accused the city’s Public Safety Department of corruption, according to a federal racketeering complaint filed Friday in U.S. District Court in San Francisco.

pressdemocrat.com/news/9920719-181/new-lawsuit-accuses-rohnert-park

GREAT DAY IN ELK

The 45th fun-filled “Great Day in Elk” will be held on Saturday, August 24 from noon until 7 p.m. The parade starts at noon on Highway 1, with floats, tykes on bikes, Smokey the Bear and lots more. The carnival follows, with game booths and prizes and do-it-yourself craft projects for children. There's a $100 grease pole, a massage booth, a watermelon-eating contest, sack races, crafts fair, silent auction and a raffle. This year’s entertainment featrures live music, belly dancing by “The Trillium Tribe” and the fabulous cake auction. Daytime food includes tamales, Caesar salad with and without chicken, fresh baked focaccia bread, Moroccan lentil soup, old-fashioned hot dogs and lots of homemade goodies. There will be fresh-pressed Greenwood Ridge apple cider and Elk's famous margaritas, along with soft drinks and beer. Dinner will be an outdoor barbecue from 3:00 to 7:00 p.m. featuring Jamaican Jerk Pork, green salad and bread or Jamaican veggie option. So, come to the “Great Day” in the coastal village of Elk, located 5 miles south of Highway 128 on Highway 1, and enjoy a fun-filled family day while supporting the Greenwood Community Center. For more information call 877-3291 or go to www.elkweb.org. No dogs, please.

TRIPLE MAWK FROM THE MAN WHO WILL DO AND SAY ANYTHING

COUNCILWOMAN MULHEREN ON UKIAH

One Councilpersons Updates on what is happening in the City of Ukiah, Week 4. This week marks the end of summer and the beginning of school for many families in the Ukiah area.

On Saturday we had a "Friends of the Parks" Clean Up in Observatory Park.

A few years ago when the City was approached to discontinue the use of chemicals in the parks they agreed but requested the help of the community in the parks to keep them weed free. The group pulls weeds and spreads mulch in various parks throughout the spring and summer. At Observatory Park we trimmed the roses, pulled weeds and filled up four green bins in just two hours. This park is a gem so it's great when the community comes together to work on maintenance they get to see a park they might not usually visit and improve a neighborhood asset.

The Grace Hudson Museum and Sun House hosted an opening for the beautiful new exhibit "Stitching California: Fiber Artists Interpret The State's People, Life, And Land."

This exhibit is an interactive quilt exhibit that will be showing until January at the GHM. The quilts are a beautiful array of the challenges and strengths of California. In a fun twist you can call in and hear each artist talk about their piece on your cell phone. Additionally they have a book with each quilt and the artists story of the quilt and why they chose it and how they created it. It's a must see!

Sunday was the last Concert in the Park and The Original Wailers really packed the house. This year's sponsors were honored at a sponsor dinner and received a plaque for their support on stage during the break. My youngest daughter, Andie, has been helping me hand out for the last four years and its one of our favorite end of the summer traditions. The local businesses and organizations that support the events that the City of Ukiah puts on are doing much more than they realize when they become sponsors. Through the power of partnerships our community has more opportunities to interact and meet and spend time with neighbors and friends.

And again school is back in session so as a friendly reminder, please make sure you give yourself plenty of time to get to work and school. Follow the speed limits and watch for children, bicyclists and buses! "The greatness of a community is most accurately measured by the compassionate actions of its members." Coretta Scott King

CATCH OF THE DAY, AUGUST 20, 2019

LAURIE BERTOZZI, Redwood Valley. Domestic abuse.

THOMAS GALINDO JR., Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol. (Frequent flyer.)

ALFREDO KNIGHT, Redwood Valley. Criminal street gang member with loaded firearm, loaded handgun but not registered owner, participation in criminal street gang, conspiracy.

MICHAEL MONTANO, Ukiah. Probation revocation.

JESUS NAVA-SANDOVAL, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

ROMAN RAY, Ukiah. Loaded handgun but not registered owner, participation in criminal street gang, convicted felon with loaded firearm, conspiracy.

MARSHALL STILLDAY JR., Hopland. Criminal street gang member with loaded firearm, loaded handgun but not registered owner, participation in criminal street gang, conspiracy, probation revocation.

DREVEN VALENCIA, Ukiah. Criminal street gang member with loaded firearm, loaded handgun but not registered owner, participation in criminal street gang, felon-addict with firearm, ammo possession by prohibited person, conspiracy.

RONALD VALENTINE, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol. (Frequent flyer.)

SHAWN WOLFE, Cloverdale/Ukiah. Domestic battery, elder abuse with great bodily harm or death.

CHURCH OF SATAN HIGH PRIEST, Anton Szandor LaVey enjoying a lovely stroll with his disciple, actress Jayne Mansfield and her daughter Mariska Hargitay, future star of Law and Order

SINGLE SHOT WILL DO

Editor,

I’m 73 and have been a gun owner for 60 years. I don’t want to give up my right. I will gladly turn in my gun, for reasonable compensation, and be satisfied with a single-shot weapon — pistol, rifle, shotgun, any caliber you like.

A good hunter should be looking for a one-shot kill. Most of the shooting skills only require one shot at a time. Home defense? Let the bad guys decide which one of them is going down.

There are a lot of single-shot weapons on the market. Civilians shouldn’t need assault weapons. Make the penalty for possession severe. Manufacturers would jump on board with lots of new state-of-the-art single-shots. They could even make a single-shot shotgun that makes that racking noise.

As a former National Rifle Association member, it would be nice to see them get back to their roots promoting gun safety, marksmanship and training classes.

Two tours in Vietnam showed me what military weapons can do. We can’t allow that. Even if a mad man was going to commit a mass shooting, reloading after each shot would change the game. If we try this and things don’t improve, my next letter will be extolling the virtues of the muzzle loader. Let’s give this a shot.

Robert Smith

Petaluma

ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

There’s a lot of big-picture arrangements that were designed to fail, not deliberately, but because the original big-thinkers tailored their assumptions not around reality but around their own interests which were directly contrary. But they couldn’t see past their self-interest and they deluded themselves and one another that all would be well, that while there are always risks, they are risk-takers by nature and so can manage such things.

While they’ve defied reality and kept the wheels on some business and economic arrangements with central banks helping them, you can’t defy it for ever.

And so there’s a lot of stuff destined to come apart based as they are on buy-now-pay-later forever and ever with no end in sight, or IOW, based not on trading goods-for-goods but rather on trading goods for paper. For ever.

But you can’t live on credit forever. So, watch supply-lines snap and shorten, revenue streams dry up, and a lot of businesses and banks go tits up and a lot of very pissed-off people, deprived of their livelihoods, not least ordinary workers, demand redress for this treachery and an accounting for who fucked up.

I’m not so much talking workers in the US and western countries but rather those in China and Mexico and any other number of other places where life is lived close to the edge. Their take-home is paltry, enough for getting basic food and shelter and clothes and not much more. What happens when the paychecks stop? Because they will stop.

As it is now life is getting shittier and shittier in widely divergent places on this planet and so people are taking to the streets. In Hong Kong on the weekend, as we saw on the telly, there were a couple million out protesting for “democracy”, according to the msm.

Now, I don’t know about you, but I wasn’t born yesterday, so when the msm shows me streets full of multitudes and news correspondents from different news orgs spout identical narratives, I get the idea that the moguls may have got their stories straight, but that the stories don’t remotely square with what’s real.

So, what’s happening? Are the gripes in HK really about an extradition treaty with China and about an abstraction like democracy? For eleven weeks running? With a million, two million protesters outdoors at a go? Does anyone seriously believe that? Or are they about material issues like the scarcity of living quarters and the cost of food and the increasing crappiness of everything in general and the utter don’t-give-a-shit-ness of those in charge?

The fellas running the show, no matter where, are not what you’d call altruists, humanitarian impulses few and far between in the world of the boardroom and mansion. That’s why things are at where they’re at.

What the mis-information processors in western media are doing is fake-news as the sophisticates like to call it, propounding accounts that are not remotely connected to events, as if lying about what’s happening changes what’s happening. It doesn’t.

"SIAMESE" (1965) by Vladan Nicolic, Belgrade, Serbia

APPLY NOW

Thanksgiving Arts & Craft Fair | Artist Applications Now Available

From: "Mendocino Art Center" marketing@mendocinoartcenter.org

Apply now to be an artist at the Mendocino Art Center's 60th Annual Thanksgiving Arts & Crafts Fair, November 29-30, 2019

Application deadline: October 4, 2019

The Mendocino Art Center is now accepting applications from artists and craftspeople for the 60th Annual Thanksgiving Arts and Crafts Fair. The fair is scheduled over Thanksgiving Weekend, Friday and Saturday, November 29 and 30, from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. both days, at the Mendocino Art Center. The Thanksgiving Arts and Crafts Fair draws a large number of holiday visitors from the Bay Area, the Sacramento Valley and southern California, among other regions.

Handmade original artwork in all media is acceptable. Due to the fair being limited to 35 high quality art booths, the jury process is highly competitive. Applicants must submit high resolution images and a photograph or drawing of a proposed booth display. There is a $75 booth fee plus a 15 percent commission on gross sales, with the proceeds benefiting the Mendocino Art Center.

Applications and more information may be downloaded at mendocinoartcenter.org/PDF/thanksgiving-fair-application.pdf or call 707.937.5818 x15

NAME THAT PAINTING

MSP'S "BOO HOO, CRY ME A RIVER" DEPARTMENT

Oregon officials request criminal investigation into newspaper reporters over after-hours phone calls, emails

washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/08/20/malheur-enterprise-greg-smith-oregon-investigation/

IT COULD HAPPEN HERE!

Gary Van Ryswyk, 74, told deputies he had just performed a castration on a man and encountered major issues. Deputies found two body parts in a container. He reportedly told the victim that he had experience on animals and had even removed one of his own testicles in 2012.

truecrimedaily.com/2019/08/20/florida-man-arrested-after-botching-in-home-castration-surgery-deputies-say/

MY FRIEND ROBINSON JEFFERS

by W.W. Lyman

In the summer of 1924, my wife and I rented a house in Carmel for three months. We soon got in touch with Robinson Jeffers and his wife since he and my wife were already known to each other by reputation as poets. I don’t remember who introduced us, but I remember that we visited the Jeffers at their home two or three times that summer. I had heard that Jeffers was a difficult person to talk to, but I did not find him so. We talked to each other easily and simply. Perhaps one reason for this was that we had a mutual interest in natural scenery and the native fauna and flora. He knew and liked Helen’s poetry, and we knew and liked his, something, which made a good topic of conversation. During that summer, Edgar Lee Masters and George Sterling came to Carmel and called on us. Masters expressed a wish to meet Jeffers, so one evening I drove the four of us over to the Jeffers’ house. Both Jeffers and his wife Una received us cordially, and we sat for an hour in their living room. I remember the occasion vividly. Masters talked volubly as usual, and Una Jeffers and I responded. Jeffers and Helen said little. Sterling was in his usual state of semi-intoxication and went to sleep. This may have been the last occasion on which Jeffers and Sterling met, for not long after that Sterling committed suicide.

On one of our visits, I remember I asked Jeffers the only question about his literary work, which I ever made. I had been reading his poem “Tamar,” and I asked him why the brother had gone away. Jeffers replied, “Oh, he just got tired of the affair.” At these visits, I remember the Jeffers’ twins quite well. They were boys of eight or nine with pleasant bird-like voices and quite friendly. I recall thinking of them as two pigeons.

During the next five or six years, we saw little of the Jeffers family as we had no occasion to go to Carmel and Jeffers never travelled, but for the twenty years following 1931 we saw a good deal of Jeffers and his family. In that year, I went to Los Angeles to teach in the Los Angeles City College, and every summer and most Christmas seasons we came back to our ranch near St. Helena. On our way back and forth, it was easy to drop in on the Jeffers household, which we did frequently. We always found Jeffers and his wife cordial, and he and I developed a real friendship.

On one occasion, Jeffers showed us his tower, which was almost finished, and he explained its construction with evident pride. On another occasion much later, Jeffers showed us a tree house, which he was making for his grandchildren. I remember seeing the twins about the time they had graduated from college. They were strikingly different in appearance. Garth was tall and muscular and a pure blond. He was going into forestry as a profession. Donnan was of medium height, slender and dark. I do not recall what profession he was choosing. The names of the boys reflected the interest of their parents in the Norse and Irish literatures.

We did not become intimate with Una Jeffers. She seemed to form a background for her husband. It was obviously her intention to make things as easy as possible for him. Neither my wife nor I found her to be a stimulating personality. She was a good conversationalist, however, and kept things going when Jeffers was in a silent mood.

A good deal has been written about Jeffers and his character. With much of what I have read on this subject, I disagree. In my opinion, he was essentially a gentle, kindly person with an almost neurotic aversion to crowds, loud talking, or controversy of any kind.

An example of his kindly spirit is shown in the association my son Amis had with him. When my son was about to go to Fort Ord on his way to the Korean War in 1951, he wrote to Jeffers and asked permission to have his letters sent to Jeffers’ address. Jeffers assented readily. For the next few months, my son would go to his house at odd times to get his mail and was always received cordially by Jeffers. On one occasion, my son brought over four or five of his buddies to Jeffers’ house. Jeffers received them warmly, gave them drinks, and talked to them individually trying to bring them out. He tried to make everyone feel at home. My son remembers this occasion with great pleasure.

I believe Jeffers’ preoccupation with stones and granite was a defense mechanism to strengthen his feeling of inadequacy in facing the world of men. For the same reason, he emphasized strength and violence in his poetry. Underneath this, one can discern his sympathy for the loving and gentle as in his poem “The Loving Shepherdess” and in a number of places where he shows his revulsion at cruelty. His choice of strange and abnormal themes has probably a deep psychological significance. I am surprised that his poem, “Apology For Bad Dreams” has been so largely ignored by his commentators. In it, Jeffers states clearly that he put the phantoms in words to keep them from pursuing him.

Note the following lines:

“…. I said in my heart,

“Better invent than suffer: imagine victims

Lest your own flesh be chosen the agonist, or you

Martyr some creature to the beauty of the place.” And I said,

“Burn sacrifices once a year to magic

Horror away from the house, this little house here

You have built over the ocean with your own hands

Besides the standing bowlders: ….”

And:

“…. Pain and terror, the insanities of desire; not accidents,

but essential,

And crowd up from the core.” I imagined victims for those

Wolves, I made the phantoms and missed the house. …..”

I regard Jeffers’ psychology as akin to that of Poe.

Jeffers’ love of wild nature may account for some of his pessimism about mankind. He was an early ecologist. It pained him to see nature debased. He looked to a world without the presence of man the corruptor. If man were to exist, it should be in his primitive state as in his poem “The Stone Axe.” Jeffers’ views on the political scene were rather vague, but he thoroughly disliked the machine age. He believed that mankind was destroying himself quite before the advent of the atom bomb. This is best expressed in his poem “Shine, Perishing Republic.” Later, he carried his pessimism even further. In his poem “Night,” one of the most poignant he has written, he looks to the annihilation of the whole universe. It pleases him to think that “Night,” “the splendor without rays, the quieter of all shining,” will eventually cover the universe.

I think that the style of Jeffers was much influenced by the three-verse form of Whitman, but Jeffers’ effects are more musical and his imagery more concrete. Note the vowel sounds in the following lines from “Night”:

“Over the weight of the prone ocean

On the low cloud.”

And:

“Where the shore widens on the bay she opens dark wings

And the ocean accepts her glory.”

And also:

“The striding winter-giant Orion shines, and dreams darkness.”

The poem “Fauna,” which is usually overlooked by critics, indicates that Jeffers’ idiom could have gone in another direction. It is a remarkably fine poem in both form and content, using rhyme and regular metre in a mood, which rises to ecstasy. There are no dark tones in the poem; all is light. The following quotation will give some idea of the character of the poem.

“Fauna the sun has kissed your body brown,

The hot south sun, but O I hate the white

Teeth of those waves that bite

Your dancing ankles when your wander down

Alone under the dunes a moonlit night.”

“Fauna” is regrettably not included in Jeffers’ volume “Selected Poems.” In my view, the art of Jeffers never advanced beyond the “Roan Stallion,” “Tamar,” volume. He was about 35 when that book was published and after that some vitality seems to have left him. This applies to both narrative and the descriptive pieces. I consider that “Tamar” and “Roan Stallion” are distinctly superior to his later narratives. “Give Your Heart to the Hawks” and “The Loving Shepherdess” approached these, but the other narratives, I feel, are on a lower level. In Jeffers’ last poetry, I feel a straining after effect. In conclusion, I should say that Jeffers has written a large body of poetry of beauty and power and original in form, which, I believe, places him in the front rank of twentieth century poets. He is, I think destined to live.

I end this memoir by including a letter which Jeffers wrote me in 1934. It was written in response to a letter I had written him enclosing a discriminating essay on his poetry composed by one of my students at the Los Angeles City College. In this essay, the author praised most of Jeffers’ poetry with the exception of “Dear Judas.” In his letter, Jeffers defends the poem and for the first time.

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“Taos, New Mexico

July 11, 1934.

Dear Mr. Lyman:

Thank you very much for sending me Claude Ross’ essay. His kindness toward my verses makes it hard for me to say what I think of the paper: let me say that if it concerned the work of W.B. Yeats, for instance, whom I much admire, the essay would seem to me an excellently thoughtful, attentive and well-expressed piece of writing.

Now shall I attempt (for the first time) a defense of “Dear Judas,” which Mr. Ross, like most other critics, doesn’t approve of? — In the first place, the nature of things is both good and evil (from a human point of view) and one who has identified himself with it, however imperfectly and temporarily, as both Barclay and Jesus in my verses are imagined to have done, will express both good and evil. They will not be merely saints.

Second, the poem is not presented as history, but as memories of a 2000-year-old passion re-enacted by ghosts in a dream, so that Jesus understands that his life and crucifixion will make him the captain of the western world for at least twenty future centuries; and also he feels what persecutions, insanities and miseries his church will be responsible for. He accepts the primacy, and with it the blame. The cross is a bloody symbol as well as a high one.

Third, if one accepts the story of the gospels as more or less true, and reads it without bias, one finds an evident change in Christ’s character toward the end. He becomes less gentle, more insistent on his own greatness, more inclined to exasperation and violence. Expectation of the atrocious end is casting a shadow on his nature. He wields a whip, tells Peter to bring a sword, etc. He falls into bitter despair, at least for a moment, on the cross. Perhaps the accumulated veneration of centuries hides these things from the ordinary reader of the gospels, even when he is not a Christian.

But I haven’t read them for several years, nor read “Dear Judas” since I saw the proofs, — and had better close this argument.

We have been here in Taos for four weeks, guests of Mabel Luhan, and are starting home tomorrow. We have been riding everyday; the country is extraordinarily interesting, though too hot and dry for my complete liking. Several trips up to Frieda Lawrence’s ranch, remote on a mountainside twenty miles from here. She is a delightful person, boisterous, cordial and full of life. Her memoirs of D.H. Lawrence, called from a line of one of his poems “Not I, but the Wind,” have been printed in Santa Fe and are just about to appear — a limited edition published by herself — she hates all publishers — but probably there will be a trade edition after a while.

Please thank Mr. Ross for me, for his kind piece of criticism; and cordial regards from Una and me to Helen Hoyt and yourself.

Sincerely,

Robinson Jeffers”

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It is sad that Jeffers died when he did. He should have lived on in the midst of his children and grandchildren. He was two years younger than I, a circumstance, which makes me feel this the more. He should be alive now.

(signed) W.W. Lyman

Lyman Ranch

St. Helena, California

September, 1972

FOUND OBJECT