- Warm Afternoons
- 9 New Cases
- Pet Duo
- Sandelin Palace
- BOLO Kidnapper
- DA Assist
- Lake Low
- Durham Series
- Masonic Temple
- Ed Notes
- Yesterday's Catch
- Corrupt Politicians
- California Western
- Gay Pope
- Log Boat
- Halloweening
- Noyo Mouth
- Bench Tossing
- Glass Beach
- Mask Wearing
- Abalone Haul
- Greenwald Resignation
- Congressional Pressure
- Covid QB
- Beach Steps
- Socialist Lite
- Giant Burger
- Sorkin Schlock
- FB Inn
- Marco Radio
DRY WEATHER is expected through early next week, with chilly mornings and warm afternoons. Skies will generally remain clear except for occasional coastal clouds and patches of fog. (NWS)
NINE NEW COVID CASES reported in Mendocino County on Saturday, bringing total to 1174.
UKIAH SHELTER PETS OF THE WEEK
If our doggie duo could sing, you’d hear a howling good rendition of I’ve Got You Babe. Instead, we suggest you take a trip to the Ukiah Animal Shelter and meet Sonny and Cher in person.
Sonny is easy going and looking for someone to join him on low key adventures. He likes tennis balls and all toys, and did well meeting fellow shelter guests. Sonny's a year old and a very handsome 62 pounds. Cher is a teddy bear in disguise, with soft silky fur and big sweet brown eyes. During her evaluation, she wanted nothing more than to hang out quietly beside someone, with her head in their lap. She loves belly rubs and tolerates handling with ease. This girl is MELLOW. Cher is 2 years old and weighs in at a svelte 68 pounds. There’s more about this pair of cuties at mendoanimalshelter.com
While you’re there, you can read about our services, programs, events, and updates regarding covid-19 and the shelters in Ukiah and Ft. Bragg. Visit us on Facebook athttps://www.facebook.com/mendoanimalshelter/ For information about adoptions please call 707-467-6453.
FRANK SANDELIN & HIS PALACE HOTEL
by Alyssa Ballard
Early last century Frank Sandelin owned numerous businesses in Ukiah and a number of properties, including a 307-acre ranch two miles north of Ukiah.
The ranch grew grapes, Bartlett pears, alfalfa, hay and vegetables. Much of what was raised on the ranch was brought to the hotel for use in the kitchen, making the Palace Hotel even more popular as it always had a fresh supply of fruits and vegetables.
In 1909, he installed an electric piano in the billiard and card room. It was reported as being the only one in town and that it was “proving to be quite a fad.” He even started serving iced Wurtenberg artisan water in the hotel which apparently became the new favorite drink over the previous favorites, buttermilk and iced tea.
In 1914, Frank purchased the property itself from Judge Mannon for $30,000, giving him complete ownership of the business and property. Right away he spent $25,000 (about $640,000 today) in building improvements.
He began construction on a three-story brick addition to the back (west side) of the hotel which added 25 rooms (each with their own bath) bringing the hotel’s total room count to 80 rooms. He installed a steam heating system and cold water in every room. He added modern tiled floors, an elevator, and a number of suites.
Sandelin bought most of the new furniture for the Palace from the Union Square Hotel in San Francisco. Gibney, the barkeep at the Palace, was quite happy that the barroom was receiving a remodel, stating that the current accommodations reminded him of when he first became a mixologist in 1849. The new and improved Palace was formally opened in October 1914.
In 1915, Sandelin installed a “modern porcelain drinking fountain” in the lobby (likely the first in Ukiah) which was met with much excitement. The Ukiah Republican Press even described how it worked to its readers, as many had never seen one before.
(Alyssa Ballard is the Archivist at the Held-Poage Museum and Mendocino County Historical Society in Ukiah. She can be reached at mchs@pacific.net.)
KIDNAP ATTEMPT THWARTED, PERP STILL ON THE LOOSE
On Friday, October 30, 2020 at approximately 10:29 P.M. Mendocino County Sheriff's Deputies were dispatched to an attempted kidnapping in the 4200 block of East Side Calpella Road in Ukiah.
The Deputies learned that a mother and daughter were attending a party with family. While preparing to leave the party, a four year-old female was sitting in a vehicle with a family member while her mother was preparing to leave.
A subject approached the vehicle. The subject was described as an English speaking, Hispanic male in his 20s to 30s, wearing all black clothing and having a teardrop tattoo under his right eye.
The subject stated he had smoked marijuana, did not feel good and asked for a ride. When he was denied a ride, the subject reached into the vehicle grabbing the four year-old child and attempted to pull her from inside the vehicle.
The family member was able to hold onto the child while yelling for help resulting in the subject letting go of the child.
The subject then left walking southbound on East Side Calpella Road.
The Deputies searched the area while assisted by California Highway Patrol Officers and California Fish and Wildlife Wardens.
They were unable to locate anyone matching the subject's description.
Deputies subsequently learned that earlier in the evening, the subject attempted to take another child at the party without success.
The family involved in the earlier incident did not report the situation to the Sheriff's Office and left the party location prior to the Deputies arrival.
A county-wide Be On the Look Out (BOLO) was broadcasted to Mendocino County law enforcement agencies with the circumstances and the subject's description.
Anyone with information related to this incident that has not been interviewed by Deputies or anyone knows of the potential identity of the involved subject is urged to contact the Sheriff's Office Dispatch Center by calling 707-463-4086.
DA STAFFERS TO THE RESCUE!
Assistant DA Dale Trigg and Assistant Chief DA Investigator Andy Alvarado were traveling to the Mendocino coast this past Tuesday morning to interview witnesses when they happened upon an older woman who had locked herself out of her vehicle that she had parked along an isolated stretch of Highway 20.
While other drivers drove past the obviously distressed woman without stopping to help, the two DA men stopped to see what the problem was and to provide whatever assistance they could.
The early morning temperature was hovering around 40 degrees and the woman was quite cold. After introductions were made, the men invited the woman to sit in their DA vehicle and get warm while all three waited together for further help.
With the cell phone coverage not being adequate to get a call out, the onboard law enforcement radio in the DA vehicle did work and was utilized to summon AAA roadside assistance. It took about an hour for the AAA service vehicle to get dispatched and then travel to the location.
Showing great skill, the AAA serviceman had the woman’s locked car door open in a matter of a minute or two and the relieved woman was finally able to continue on her journey.
Good job, guys! As DA Eyster likes to say, your actions are further proof that the Mendocino County DA is a full-service public safety office.
(District Attorney presser)
LAKE MENDO AT NEAR RECORD LOW
YO! KEITH BRAMSTEDT
For Keith Bramstedt who wrote a letter to the editor in the Oct 28th issue—
Hi Keith,
If memory serves there were about 8 volumes or more in Durham’s California Place names series—he would lump contiguous counties together—and they were vanity press publications before there were modern ways to get ANY book published. Being a map “junkie” I’d have loved to have the whole series but with limited shelf space I focus my library on North Coast themes (history, plants, natives, railroads, etc). I’m a retired librarian. The $195 volume would save space, that’s for sure. Hope you enjoyed the stories. And for fun—look up the derivation of my hometown Comptche.
— Katy Tahja
ED NOTES
BELATED BERNIE woke up yesterday to say the Democrats couldn't continue to represent only the coastal elites they've been representing for fifty years now. He said he wants to revive the weekly $600 payment that supplemented state unemployment benefits and wants to get that additional $1,200 out to individuals and families. And health care for anyone who has lost it along with their jobs, and money to cities so they won't have to lay off personnel.
OFFICIAL MENDO seems oblivious of events beyond Ukiah, as if Mendo is an economic island unto itself, although there is occasional mention that tax revenues are off. Everything is off. The fanciful notion that everything will be magically back on when Biden dodders on stage is beyond fanciful. Mom and her supervisors ought to be thinking worst econ case scenario, which I believe is called "pro-actively" in bureaucratic circles. They ain't, though.
BERN wants to raise the minimum wage to at least $15 and make it easier for workers to join unions. Oh yeah, and equal pay for women, none of which is likely under Biden and unthinkable under Orange Man.
THE TOOTHLESS tiger of the tame left roared, “If the Democratic Party does not stand firmly for working families and have the courage to take on the drug companies and the insurance companies and the big money interests, shame on them,” Sanders said.
THE DEMOCRATS haven't represented working families since Roosevelt (LBJ kinda did until Vietnam got him). Expecting Biden to represent working people is not reality based.
WALMART has reversed itself on guns and ammo displays. As apprehension grows that serious civil disorder commences next week, Walmart had said they would play down armed struggle by removing its hardware, but has now concluded it's business as usual.
GOVERNOR NEWSOM contributed to the growing national hysteria with this statement Friday: “As it relates to making sure people are safe, making sure not only the process of voting is a safe and healthy one, but keeping people safe after the election for whatever may occur, the answer is yes, we are always gaming out different scenarios and making sure that we are prepared.”
THE ALAMEDA COUNTY Sheriff’s Office spokesman was even scarier, telling the Merc News, “The ultimate thing we’re scared of is you would have multiple violent protests in every city throughout the Bay Area … And that each county would be overwhelmed, and therefore there wouldn’t be enough officers to respond.”
ACCORDING TO THE NATIONAL NEWS, stores in Washington DC, New York City, Los Angeles, Denver, LA, and lots of other places were boarding up in anticipation of potential violence that would be unprecedented in modern American history.
If it happens. Police, state, local and federal, fear the unrest could be widespread regardless of whether Trump or Biden wins. Security people are preparing for a range of possible threats, from spontaneous acts of mob violence to more organized, planned attacks.
SHADES OF HILLARY'S DEPLORABLES! Biden has been denounced by professional denouncers after calling Trump supporters who interrupted his drive-in rally by honking horns “ugly folks.” “'Dr. Fauci called for a mask mandate last week. This isn't a political statement like those ugly folks over there, beeping the horn. This is a patriotic duty for God's sake!” Earlier, Biden had called Trump supporters “chumps” when they tried to crash his drive-by rally in Pennsylvania.
ANDERSON VALLEY VOTES! For those who may not realize, the Mendocino County Fairgrounds Dining Room here in Boonville is listed as a Mendocino County Polling Location for 2020 - and - the Mendocino County Fairgrounds Office here in Boonville is an official Mendocino County Ballot Drop Box Location, Mon-Fri 9am-4pm.
CATCH OF THE DAY, October 31, 2020
JOSEPH ANDERSON, Ukiah. Controlled substance, county parole violation.
LUIS AYALA-ORTIZ, Ukiah. Petty theft, failure to appear, probation revocation.
CURTIS BETTENCOURT, Fort Bragg. Battery, trespassing, under influence.
RYAN DICKERSON, Ukiah. Probation revocation.
TEVIN HOAGLEN, Covelo. Paraphernalia, protective order violation, violation of probation via possession of firearm, probation revocation.
VIKTORIA LADD, Clearlake/Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-under influence of drug.
HARVEY MCCARTY, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.
MIRANDA MULLINS, Willits. Probation revocation.
MICHAEL MUNOZ, Santa Rosa/Ukiah. DUI-drugs&alcohol causing injury, county parole violation.
RODRIGO OSEGURA-ANGULIO, Ukiah. DUI, no license, probation revocation.
JOSE PEREZ, Willits. Disorderly conduct-alcohol, probation revocation.
MIGUEL RUIZ-SANCHEZ, Coachella/Ukiah. DUI, no license.
JEFFREY WIGGINS, Fort Bragg. Fugitive from justice.
STEVEN WIGGINS, Fort Bragg. Unspecified offense.
COMMON CORRUPTION
Dear Editor:
Thank you for mentioning Hunter Biden’s job for the Ukrainian gas monopoly for $186,000 per month. How there is no coverage in the national media is a story in itself. We would not even know about it and had it not been for the impeachment trials. Trump being accused of election tampering for shedding a little light on this very smelly situation, $30 billion in aid to the Ukraine, a little kickback to those who give our money away. Would Obama or Hillary ever bring something like this corruption to light? Absolutely not. It probably goes on all the time. If the electorate chooses Biden it will be a big okay to corrupt politicians across the country. Trump is not a politician. We need more like him.
Thank you,
Tom Madden
Comptche
IS THE POPE BLIND?
Letter to the Editor:
God save us and the Pope too!
A few days ago the Pope made a public statement relating to the rainbow/gay community.
Well now! Me being old and sometimes do not have a full grasp on subjects that are questionable at best.
Our Pope has held out his hand (left hand no doubt) to the gay flamers, showing acceptance? Love and understanding!
There is not much to understand when we see flaming liberal cities like San Francisco, i.e., liplockers, look out! We see numerous couples, two guys walking down the street with open hands in each other's back pocket. Pickpockets? I don't think so! This kind of display very well may fall under the Pope's understanding of love. You and the Pope may think this kind of public display is just being good friends, real real good friends? BS! Just another stepping stone, a prelude to an evening of adulterous butt bumping. Or as seen by a higher authority, an abomination, and should be put to death, their blood is on their hands.
Hey, words taken from the Bible, not mine. Yeah sure, you say, I say, if you know someone who has a King James Holy Bible borrow it and read Leviticus, the third book of Moses. Not likely! Well, what the ___! Get someone who can read and read it to you.
It is my opinion that our exalted ruler, the Pope, has slipped a cog. Perhaps he being of an older age has misplaced his Bible and-or does not remember God's commandment that man shall not lay with man!
If that be the case for god’s sake somebody wake up the pope and find his glasses. He truly needs a refresher course in the rights and wrongs as stated in his Bible.
It is no wonder that the Catholic Church is on the decline. The flaming gays can't save you! The Catholic persuasions may wake up! But don't just go through the motions when dealing with documented dozens and dozens of Catholic priests who should be or should have been jailed for child molestation. Documented, yes! Documented. The list is very long.
The Pope and earlier Popes have been more than just complacent. Excuse me! But they are just as deep in the mud as those perps are in the mire! And no one says much or has done anything about it. Sad, sad. These acts give "above the law" a new meaning.
If you or I violate any young child as has been done by the Catholic church, there is no question we would go directly to prison. Wearing a white collar/black robe gives you a get out of jail card? You think? Sometimes I say I don't understand (with truth). In this case I truly do not understand.
Someone, anyone without bias, please explain why it has happened and why does it continue to happen without retribution? Catholic comment (the truth) is welcome. Please don't cover over this ongoing problem with blue sky and rose petals.
Gran says something fell off the roof early this morning. It may have been gramps. You better check after dinner tonight. He's supposed to hook up the team tomorrow and drive us to town. He may have jumped. You know how he doesn't like getting up early. Oh my, I hope he didn't jump with that clean pair of bib overalls on. Gram, I smell burning cookies!
God bless America, the Donald, Jerry Philbrick, and Gran’s cookies,
Still old and angry
Boonville
HOLIDAY’S BOOST CANDY SALES
Editor:
Something I've noticed this Halloween season in central Marin, especially parts of San Rafael like Marinwood, Terra Linda and Gerstle Park, are much more Halloween lights and decorations than in past years. I'm referring to orange sometimes purple lights and a fair amount of inflatable decorations (most often pumpkins).
I'm assuming this is a response to the pandemic and also the tense political climate as people are trying to counter the unpleasantness with festive things like Halloween lights.
By the way, when I refer to the Halloween season, I could say it started when I first saw a large Halloween candy display at a local Safeway which was on July 31, a full three months before Halloween!
I subsequently read an article about candy sales during holiday season in the Chronicle which said 14% of yearly candy sales occur during Halloween season followed closely by Christmas and Easter with Valentine's Day a distant fourth.
Keith Bramstedt
San Anselmo
HIYEEEEEEE-YAH!
Editor:
A small group of us have been meeting a few times a week in Bower Park in Gualala to practice Tai Chi. It's been a lifesaver for us during these long months of isolation and staying at home. We hauled a lawnmower out to the soccer field a couple of times to cut through the tall, spiky grass, and then, thankfully, someone else came through with a bigger mower and cleared more space.
We hauled parts for a simple bench up to the field on a dolly and put it together so that we have a place to set our stuff, to sit for breathers. It was set right up against the wire fence at the far end of the field, certainly not in a position that would obstruct any kind of activity.
It had been there for only two or three days when we arrived to find that it had been tossed over the high the fence into the thick brush on the other side. It is very heavy, but we managed to retrieve it by pushing it back up over the fence and dropping it on the other side.
Several weeks went by and we were glad to see the bench in its place when we arrive each day.
Then it happened again. The bench was tossed over into even rougher terrain. We have not managed to get it back out yet.
I know in the grand scheme of the universe that this is a minute hiccup; that there is so much that is so hard in our present day world that this is hardly worth noting. Yet I can't help asking, "Why?"
What would prompt someone to do such a mean-spirited sort of thing, not once, but twice? I just don't get it.
Try as I might, I cannot figure out useless acts mindlessness and destruction. Whoever you are, please stop.
Leslie Harrison
Point Arena
SECOND NATURE
Editor:
As I go through my daily activities, I’m noticing how our local economy is adapting to wearing masks. If I had to guess, I would say about 9 out of 10 people wear masks. But what is interesting is how mask-wearing is becoming second nature, like brushing your teeth. Since masks are going to be with us for the foreseeable future, and for reasons of mental health, I think most people are now not thinking about it but just doing it. And to get a kid to wear a mask, just tell them how nice their mask looks.
Mike Haran
Santa Rosa
MY RESIGNATION FROM THE INTERCEPT
by Glenn Greenwald
Today I sent my intention to resign from The Intercept, the news outlet I co-founded in 2013 with Jeremy Scahill and Laura Poitras, as well as from its parent company First Look Media.
The final, precipitating cause is that The Intercept’s editors, in violation of my contractual right of editorial freedom, censored an article I wrote this week, refusing to publish it unless I remove all sections critical of Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, the candidate vehemently supported by all New-York-based Intercept editors involved in this effort at suppression.
The censored article, based on recently revealed emails and witness testimony, raised critical questions about Biden’s conduct. Not content to simply prevent publication of this article at the media outlet I co-founded, these Intercept editors also demanded that I refrain from exercising a separate contractual right to publish this article with any other publication.
I had no objection to their disagreement with my views of what this Biden evidence shows: as a last-ditch attempt to avoid being censored, I encouraged them to air their disagreements with me by writing their own articles that critique my perspectives and letting readers decide who is right, the way any confident and healthy media outlet would. But modern media outlets do not air dissent; they quash it. So censorship of my article, rather than engagement with it, was the path these Biden-supporting editors chose.
The censored article will be published shortly (it is now published here, and the emails with Intercept editors showing the censorship are here). My letter of intent to resign, which I sent this morning to First Look Media’s President Michael Bloom, is presented below.
As of now, I will be publishing my journalism here on Substack, where numerous other journalists, including my good friend, the great intrepid reporter Matt Taibbi, have come in order to practice journalism free of the increasingly repressive climate that is engulfing national mainstream media outlets across the country.
This was not an easy choice: I am voluntarily sacrificing the support of a large institution and guaranteed salary in exchange for nothing other than a belief that there are enough people who believe in the virtues of independent journalism and the need for free discourse who will be willing to support my work by subscribing.
Like anyone with young children, a family and numerous obligations, I do this with some trepidation, but also with the conviction that there is no other choice. I could not sleep at night knowing that I allowed any institution to censor what I want to say and believe — least of all a media outlet I co-founded with the explicit goal of ensuring this never happens to other journalists, let alone to me, let alone because I have written an article critical of a powerful Democratic politician vehemently supported by the editors in the imminent national election.
But the pathologies, illiberalism, and repressive mentality that led to the bizarre spectacle of my being censored by my own media outlet are ones that are by no means unique to The Intercept. These are the viruses that have contaminated virtually every mainstream center-left political organization, academic institution, and newsroom. I began writing about politics fifteen years ago with the goal of combatting media propaganda and repression, and — regardless of the risks involved — simply cannot accept any situation, no matter how secure or lucrative, that forces me to submit my journalism and right of free expression to its suffocating constraints and dogmatic dictates.
From the time I began writing about politics in 2005, journalistic freedom and editorial independence have been sacrosanct to me. Fifteen years ago, I created a blog on the free Blogspot software when I was still working as a lawyer: not with any hopes or plans of starting a new career as a journalist, but just as a citizen concerned about what I was seeing with the War on Terror and civil liberties, and wanting to express what I believed needed to be heard. It was a labor of love, based in an ethos of cause and conviction, dependent upon a guarantee of complete editorial freedom.
It thrived because the readership I built knew that, even when they disagreed with particular views I was expressing, I was a free and independent voice, unwedded to any faction, controlled by nobody, endeavoring to be as honest as possible about what I was seeing, and always curious about the wisdom of seeing things differently. The title I chose for that blog, “Unclaimed Territory,” reflected that spirit of liberation from captivity to any fixed political or intellectual dogma or institutional constraints.
When Salon offered me a job as a columnist in 2007, and then again when the Guardian did the same in 2012, I accepted their offers on the condition that I would have the right, except in narrowly defined situations (such as articles that could create legal liability for the news outlet), to publish my articles and columns directly to the internet without censorship, advanced editorial interference, or any other intervention permitted or approval needed. Both outlets revamped their publication system to accommodate this condition, and over the many years I worked with them, they always honored those commitments.
When I left the Guardian at the height of the Snowden reporting in 2013 in order to create a new media outlet, I did not do so, needless to say, in order to impose upon myself more constraints and restrictions on my journalistic independence. The exact opposite was true: the intended core innovation of The Intercept, above all else, was to create a new media outlets where all talented, responsible journalists would enjoy the same right of editorial freedom I had always insisted upon for myself. As I told former New York Times Executive Editor Bill Keller in a 2013 exchange we had in The New York Times about my critiques of mainstream journalism and the idea behind The Intercept: “editors should be there to empower and enable strong, highly factual, aggressive adversarial journalism, not to serve as roadblocks to neuter or suppress the journalism.”
When the three of us as co-founders made the decision early on that we would not attempt to manage the day-to-day operations of the new outlet, so that we could instead focus on our journalism, we negotiated the right of approval for senior editors and, especially the editor-in-chief. The central responsibility of the person holding that title was to implement, in close consultation with us, the unique journalistic vision and journalistic values on which we founded this new media outlet.
Chief among those values was editorial freedom, the protection of a journalist’s right to speak in an honest voice, and the airing rather than suppression of dissent from mainstream orthodoxies and even collegial disagreements with one another. That would be accomplished, above all else, by ensuring that journalists, once they fulfilled the first duty of factual accuracy and journalistic ethics, would be not just permitted but encouraged to express political and ideological views that deviated from mainstream orthodoxy and those of their own editors; to express themselves in their own voice of passion and conviction rather stuffed into the corporatized, contrived tone of artificial objectivity, above-it-all omnipotence; and to be completely free of anyone else’s dogmatic beliefs or ideological agenda — including those of the three co-founders.
The current iteration of The Intercept is completely unrecognizable when compared to that original vision. Rather than offering a venue for airing dissent, marginalized voices and unheard perspectives, it is rapidly becoming just another media outlet with mandated ideological and partisan loyalties, a rigid and narrow range of permitted viewpoints (ranging from establishment liberalism to soft leftism, but always anchored in ultimate support for the Democratic Party), a deep fear of offending hegemonic cultural liberalism and center-left Twitter luminaries, and an overarching need to secure the approval and admiration of the very mainstream media outlets we created The Intercept to oppose, critique and subvert.
As a result, it is a rare event indeed when a radical freelance voice unwelcome in mainstream precincts is published in The Intercept. Outside reporters or writers with no claim to mainstream acceptability — exactly the people we set out to amplify — have almost no chance of being published. It is even rarer for The Intercept to publish content that would not fit very comfortably in at least a dozen or more center-left publications of similar size which pre-dated its founding, from Mother Jones to Vox and even MSNBC.
Courage is required to step out of line, to question and poke at those pieties most sacred in one’s own milieu, but fear of alienating the guardians of liberal orthodoxy, especially on Twitter, is the predominant attribute of The Intercept’s New-York based editorial leadership team. As a result, The Intercept has all but abandoned its core mission of challenging and poking at, rather than appeasing and comforting, the institutions and guardians most powerful in its cultural and political circles.
Making all of this worse, The Intercept — while gradually excluding the co-founders from any role in its editorial mission or direction, and making one choice after the next to which I vocally objected as a betrayal of our core mission — continued publicly to trade on my name in order to raise funds for journalism it knew I did not support. It purposely allowed the perception to fester that I was the person responsible for its journalistic mistakes in order to ensure that blame for those mistakes was heaped on me rather than the editors who were consolidating control and were responsible for them.
The most egregious, but by no means only, example of exploiting my name to evade responsibility was the Reality Winner debacle. As The New York Times recently reported, that was a story in which I had no involvement whatsoever. While based in Brazil, I was never asked to work on the documents which Winner sent to our New York newsroom with no request that any specific journalist work on them. I did not even learn of the existence of that document until very shortly prior to its publication. The person who oversaw, edited and controlled that story was Betsy Reed, which was how it should be given the magnitude and complexity of that reporting and her position as editor-in-chief.
It was Intercept editors who pressured the story’s reporters to quickly send those documents for authentication to the government — because they was eager to prove to mainstream media outlets and prominent liberals that The Intercept was willing to get on board the Russiagate train. They wanted to counter-act the perception, created by my articles expressing skepticism about the central claims of that scandal, that The Intercept had stepped out of line on a story of high importance to U.S. liberalism and even the left. That craving — to secure the approval of the very mainstream media outlets we set out to counteract — was the root cause for the speed and recklessness with which that document from Winner was handled.
But The Intercept, to this very day, has refused to provide any public accounting of what happened in the Reality Winner story: to explain who the editors were who made mistakes and why any of it happened. As the New York Times article makes clear, that refusal persists to this very day notwithstanding vocal demands from myself, Jeremy Scahill, Laura Poitras and others that The Intercept, as an institution that demands transparency from others, has the obligation to provide it for itself.
The reason for this silence and this cover-up is obvious: accounting to the public about what happened with the Reality Winner story would reveal who the actual editors are who are responsible for that deeply embarrassing newsroom failure, and that would negate their ability to continue to hide behind me and let the public continue to assume that I was the person at fault for a reporting process from which I was completely excluded from the start. That is just one example illustrating the frustrating dilemma of having a newsroom exploit my name, work and credibility when it is convenient to do so, while increasingly denying me any opportunity to influence its journalistic mission and editorial direction, all while pursuing an editorial mission completely anathema to what I believe.
Despite all of this, I did not want to leave The Intercept. As it deteriorated and abandoned its original mission, I reasoned to myself — perhaps rationalized — that as long as The Intercept at least continued to provide me the resources to personally do the journalism I believe in, and never to interfere in or impede my editorial freedom, I could swallow everything else.
But the brute censorship this week of my article — about the Hunter Biden materials and Joe Biden’s conduct regarding Ukraine and China, as well my critique of the media’s rank-closing attempt, in a deeply unholy union with Silicon Valley and the “intelligence community,” to suppress its revelations — eroded the last justification I could cling to for staying. It meant that not only does this media outlet not provide the editorial freedom to other journalists, as I had so hopefully envisioned seven years ago, but now no longer even provides it to me. In the days heading into a presidential election, I am somehow silenced from expressing any views that random editors in New York find disagreeable, and now somehow have to conform my writing and reporting to cater to their partisan desires and eagerness to elect specific candidates.
To say that such censorship is a red line for me, a situation I would never accept no matter the cost, is an understatement. It is astonishing to me, but also a reflection of our current discourse and illiberal media environment, that I have been silenced about Joe Biden by my own media outlet.
Numerous other episodes were also contributing causes to my decision to leave: the Reality Winner cover-up; the decision to hang Lee Fang out to dry and even force him to apologize when a colleague tried to destroy his reputation by publicly, baselessly and repeatedly branding him a racist; its refusal to report on the daily proceedings of the Assange extradition hearing because the freelance reporter doing an outstanding job was politically distasteful; its utter lack of editorial standards when it comes to viewpoints or reporting that flatter the beliefs of its liberal base (The Intercept published some of the most credulous and false affirmations of maximalist Russiagate madness, and, horrifyingly, took the lead in falsely branding the Hunter Biden archive as “Russian disinformation” by mindlessly and uncritically citing — of all things — a letter by former CIA officials that contained this baseless insinuation).
I know it sounds banal to say, but — even with all of these frustrations and failures — I am leaving, and writing this, with genuine sadness, not fury. That news outlet is something I and numerous close friends and colleagues poured an enormous amount of our time, energy, passion and love into building.
The Intercept has done great work. Its editorial leaders and First Look’s managers steadfastly supported the difficult and dangerous reporting I did last year with my brave young colleagues at The Intercept Brasil to expose corruption at the highest levels of the Bolsonaro government, and stood behind us as we endured threats of death and imprisonment.
It continues to employ some of my closest friends, outstanding journalists whose work — when it overcomes editorial resistance — produces nothing but the highest admiration from me: Jeremy Scahill, Lee Fang, Murtaza Hussain, Naomi Klein, Ryan Grim and others. And I have no personal animus for anyone there, nor any desire to hurt it as an institution. Betsy Reed is an exceptionally smart editor and a very good human being with whom I developed a close and valuable friendship. And Pierre Omidyar, the original funder and publisher of First Look, always honored his personal commitment never to interfere in our editorial process even when I was publishing articles directly at odds with his strongly held views and even when I was attacking other institutions he was funding. I’m not leaving out of vengeance or personal conflict but out of conviction and cause.
And none of the critiques I have voiced about The Intercept are unique to it. To the contrary: these are the raging battles over free expression and the right of dissent raging within every major cultural, political and journalistic institution. That’s the crisis that journalism, and more broadly values of liberalism, faces. Our discourse is becoming increasingly intolerant of dissenting views, and our culture is demanding more and more submission to prevailing orthodoxies imposed by self-anointed monopolists of Truth and Righteousness, backed up by armies of online enforcement mobs.
And nothing is crippled by that trend more severely than journalism, which, above all else, requires the ability of journalists to offend and anger power centers, question or reject sacred pieties, unearth facts that reflect negatively even on (especially on) the most beloved and powerful figures, and highlight corruption no matter where it is found and regardless of who is benefited or injured by its exposure.
Prior to the extraordinary experience of being censored this week by my own news outlet, I had already been exploring the possibility of creating a new media outlet. I have spent a couple of months in active discussions with some of the most interesting, independent and vibrant journalists, writers and commentators across the political spectrum about the feasibility of securing financing for a new outlet that would be designed to combat these trends. The first two paragraphs of our working document reads as follows:
American media is gripped in a polarized culture war that is forcing journalism to conform to tribal, groupthink narratives that are often divorced from the truth and cater to perspectives that are not reflective of the broader public but instead a minority of hyper-partisan elites. The need to conform to highly restrictive, artificial cultural narratives and partisan identities has created a repressive and illiberal environment in which vast swaths of news and reporting either do not happen or are presented through the most skewed and reality-detached lens.
With nearly all major media institutions captured to some degree by this dynamic, a deep need exists for media that is untethered and free to transgress the boundaries of this polarized culture war and address a demand from a public that is starved for media that doesn’t play for a side but instead pursues lines of reporting, thought, and inquiry wherever they lead, without fear of violating cultural pieties or elite orthodoxies.
I have definitely not relinquished hope that this ambitious project can be accomplished. And I theoretically could have stayed at The Intercept until then, guaranteeing a stable and secure income for my family by swallowing the dictates of my new censors.
But I would be deeply ashamed if I did that, and believe I would be betraying my own principles and convictions that I urge others to follow. So in the meantime, I have decided to follow in the footsteps of numerous other writers and journalists who have been expelled from increasingly repressive journalistic precincts for various forms of heresy and dissent and who have sought refuge here.
I hope to exploit the freedom this new platform offers not only to continue to publish the independent and hard-hitting investigative journalism and candid analysis and opinion writing that my readers have come to expect, but also to develop a podcast, and continue the YouTube program, “System Update,” I launched earlier this year in partnership with The Intercept.
To do that, to make this viable, I will need your support: people who are able to subscribe and sign up for the newsletter attached to this platform will enable my work to thrive and still be heard, perhaps even more so than before. I began my journalism career by depending on my readers’ willingness to support independent journalism which they believe is necessary to sustain. It is somewhat daunting at this point in my life, but also very exciting, to return to that model where one answers only to the public a journalist should be serving.
LETTER OF INTENT TO RESIGN
Subject: Resignation
Date: Thu, 29 Oct 2020 10:20:54 -0300
From: Glenn Greenwald xxxxxxxx@theintercept.com
To: Michael Bloom <xxxxxxxxx@firstlook.media>, Betsy Reed <xxxxxxx@theintercept.com>
Michael -
I am writing to advise you that I have decided that I will be resigning from First Look Media (FLM) and The Intercept.
The precipitating (but by no means only) cause is that The Intercept is attempting to censor my articles in violation of both my contract and fundamental principles of editorial freedom. The latest and perhaps most egregious example is an opinion column I wrote this week which, five days before the presidential election, is critical of Joe Biden, the candidate who happens to be vigorously supported by all of the Intercept editors in New York who are imposing the censorship and refusing to publish the article unless I agree to remove all of the sections critical of the candidate they want to win. All of that violates the right in my contract with FLM to publish articles without editorial interference except in very narrow circumstances that plainly do not apply here.
Worse, The Intercept editors in New York, not content to censor publication of my article at the Intercept, are also demanding that I not exercise my separate contractual right with FLM regarding articles I have written but which FLM does not want to publish itself. Under my contract, I have the right to publish any articles FLM rejects with another publication. But Intercept editors in New York are demanding I not only accept their censorship of my article at The Intercept, but also refrain from publishing it with any other journalistic outlet, and are using thinly disguised lawyer-crafted threats to coerce me not to do so (proclaiming it would be “detrimental” to The Intercept if I published it elsewhere).
I have been extremely disenchanted and saddened by the editorial direction of The Intercept under its New York leadership for quite some time. The publication we founded without those editors back in 2014 now bears absolutely no resemblance to what we set out to build -- not in content, structure, editorial mission or purpose. I have grown embarrassed to have my name used as a fund-raising tool to support what it is doing and for editors to use me as a shield to hide behind to avoid taking responsibility for their mistakes (including, but not only, with the Reality Winner debacle, for which I was publicly blamed despite having no role in it, while the editors who actually were responsible for those mistakes stood by silently, allowing me to be blamed for their errors and then covering-up any public accounting of what happened, knowing that such transparency would expose their own culpability).
But all this time, as things worsened, I reasoned that as long as The Intercept remained a place where my own right of journalistic independence was not being infringed, I could live with all of its other flaws. But now, not even that minimal but foundational right is being honored for my own journalism, suppressed by an increasingly authoritarian, fear-driven, repressive editorial team in New York bent on imposing their own ideological and partisan preferences on all writers while ensuring that nothing is published at The Intercept that contradicts their own narrow, homogenous ideological and partisan views: exactly what The Intercept, more than any other goal, was created to prevent.
I have asked my lawyer to get in touch with FLM to discuss how best to terminate my contract. Thank you -
Glenn Greenwald
JEFFREY ST. CLAIR ON THE GREENWALD RESIGNATION
+ I’ve watched with morbid interest the train wreck at the Intercept which led to the resignation of Glenn Greenwald in an editorial dispute over a story on Biden family corruption. I’m all for publishing the Hunter Biden documents, even the suspicious trove Glenn’s friend Tucker Carlson implied were swiped in the mail by the Deep State but turned out to have been mislaid by UPS, the kind of privatized mail service Carlson wants to replace the US Postal Service. So much for the efficiency of the market.
In his resignation letter, Greenwald goes a little far in claiming his story was “censored.” Call it the victim of a strong editorial hand. Cockburn used to apply his frequently to my stories and his normal scalpel was replaced by a ruthless chainsaw whenever my subject matter strayed onto the fraught terrain of climate change, assault weapons or catch-and-release trout fishing.
There’s a lot of finger-pointing going on and axes being ground to a sharp edge, as sides are taken. Much of the animosity toward Greenwald is for his rather indulgent writing about Trump over the past four years and his running slot on Carlson’s xenophobic show, where Greenwald has been reluctant to challenge many of the despicable views broadcast on that regrettable FoxNews hate-fest. Still, Glenn has never really pretended to be part of the Left. He’s always advertised himself as a civil libertarian and his view of the first amendment was so expansive that it led him to admirably, in my view, provide legal representation to the neo-Nazi Matthew Hale and, more questionably, to endorse the Supreme Court’s ruling in Citizens’ United.
+ It’s become a fixture of American political culture where those who later apologize for being wrong about a disastrous policy (regardless of the body count) are given more attention and credibility than those who made the right call from the beginning.
+ Many people are unaware of Greenwald’s early support for Bush’s war on terror, a fact he discloses in the preface to his book, How Would a Patriot Act: “I believed then that the president was entitled to have his national security judgment deferred to, and to the extent that I was able to develop a definitive view, I accepted his judgment that American security really would be enhanced by the invasion…”
+ I’m glad Greenwald came to regret his support for the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. It’s something the moral miscreant Hitchens refused to do. But it shouldn’t be blotted from his CV either. A few–very few in fact–of us opposed both wars from the beginning and were relentlessly vilified for doing so.
+ Robert McNamara was welcomed back into the salons of liberal America after he apologized for being a chief architect of the Vietnam War, despite the fact he went on to kill & immiserate 10s of millions more during his tenure running the World Bank without any lingering twitches of guilt.
+ One of the useful disclosures in Greenwald’s letter is his detailed description of just how badly the Intercept bungled its relationship with whistleblower Reality Winner, leading the FBI right to her computer and door. One of Biden’s first acts, if he becomes president, should be issue her a pardon and apology. But he’s more likely to pardon John Kelly, Mad Dog Mattis, John Brennan, Clapper, Gina Haspel and McMaster…on the remote chance any of them might be charged for their crimes.
+ On the flip side, I’ve learned my lessons as an editor as well. Ishmael Reed may not recall this, but the first time a submission from him landed in my inbox I was so excited I called one of my old college professors, who’d given me a copy of Yellow Back Radio-Broke Down back in 78, to gloat about it. Then I started editing it according to the CP stylesheet and quickly sent the story back to the great man, thinking I’d polished it up like a low-rent William Shawn. A few minutes later, Ishmael sent me an email consisting of four words: “Let Reed be Reed!” I printed it out and 20 years later it remains pinned to the wall in my office.
+ Speaking of “censorship,” it would be nice to finally have the long-promised access to the Edward Snowden archive, which Greenwald and Laura Poitras shuttered and continue to keep under lock and key.
COLLEGE FOOTBALL’S GREAT DEFENDER HAS COVID-19
by Dave Zirin
Donald Trump is running for reelection on the claim is that he “saved college football.” He did so by recklessly applying presidential pressure to college football conference leaders to forget about Covid-19 and have players take the field. Granted, these conference chiefs truly did not need that much pressure, eager as they were to claim their seven and even eight-figure salaries to keep the trains running on time. And after four years of Trumpian decay with little to justify four more years, the thinking was that bringing football back—especially to swing states in the Big Ten and ACC—would put him on a toboggan ride to electoral college victory.
College sports continuing this season always seemed like an dubious prospect to people actually concerned about a virus that has claimed so many lives. Unlike professional basketball where players could be put in a bubble, or professional football where they could easily quarantine, college athletes would have more freedom, and college students – even if not allowed in the stadium, even if not allowed in their damn classes – would congregate to socialize, party, and feign normalcy in abnormal times. Sure enough, the reopening of colleges and college sports has led to a greater spread of the virus. Yet these stories have largely flown under the sports media radar. After all, who cares about the students? They’re just fans who happen to take classes in between games. Players who have contracted the virus also have been disregarded by a sports media that prefers analyzing game film to calling out this obscene negligence.
Yet this latest story could not be ignored by anyone. Trevor Lawrence, the blonde, long-haired quarterback for Clemson, the frontrunner for the Heisman Trophy, the face of college football, has now been diagnosed with Covid-19. Just 21 years old, Lawrence really wanted to play this season. And powerful people in college football, the people who work in the shadows of this dirty multi-billion-dollar business and their media stenographers, elevated Lawrence’s voice as if he wasn’t a 21-year-old kid with an itch for football, and instead an authority like Dr. Fauci in shoulder pads.
They swooned when Lawrence spoke out for the season to commence. In August he tweeted, “Players are at just as much, if not more risk, if we don’t play. Players will be sent home to their own communities where social distancing is highly unlikely and medical care and expenses will be placed on the families if they were to contract COVID 19. Not to mention the players coming from situations that are not good for them/their future and having to go back to that. Football is a safe haven for so many people. We are more likely to get the virus in everyday life than playing football…..”
This argument reeks of paternalism: the idea that players would be safer under the watchful eye of millionaire head coaches who surely have their best interests at heart rather than “their communities” – a phrase which conjures images of reckless, adult-free, impoverished hovels. But Clemson isn’t Boystown, and Coach Dabo Swinney isn’t Father Flanagan.
And now, even under the selfless protection of his Coach Swinney – salary $9.3 million per year before bonuses – Trevor Lawrence has the Rona. The people in power who used this 21-year-old over the summer as a stalking horse for their own profit motives should be ashamed. The people deeming unpaid college athletes as “essential workers” even though they don’t get paid should share that shame.
As for Trevor Lawrence, he should forget about Clemson, forget about the Heisman trophy, heal up, and get ready to be the number-one pick in the NFL draft. Instead, he is already getting prepared for Clemson’s game a week from Saturday against Notre Dame, telling everyone he is symptom-free. This isn’t Trevor Lawrence’s fault. He’s 21, for goodness’ sake. If you are searching for blame, you have to look on the sidelines, look in the offices of university presidents, and look at a system that sees college athletes as expendable commodities. Even the stars with long blonde hair.
ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY
Extending Medicare to all Americans and not just allowing those 62 and up to enjoy the benefits we all paid into, and having the Social Security program that has literally saved American seniors from extreme poverty (another program seniors paid into all of our working lives) I would term as “socialist lite” since the recipients contributed to both programs with deductions from our paychecks.
Trump would be a true national hero if he asked Congress to allow all Americans under 62 to have Medicare with a work contribution and our taxes making a contribution as well. Medicare could then negotiate very low drug prices, everyone could change jobs and move from state to state without worrying about being “covered” (portability) and never have to worry about losing their homes due to unexpected illnesses.
I am a Registered Nurse (retired) and have championed Medicare for All for decades and it is a fact that the vast majority of polling shows the American people supporting such a health program which would save billions by eliminating the unnecessary insurance corporations from their gouging and controlling middle man positions. When Medicare is explained, as above, well over 50% polled support it.
Which is why the corporate whore Joe Biden announced that if Congress passed Medicare for All he would veto it.
Obama was even worse. He lied about supporting Medicare for All then once he was elected he signed on to Romneycare and he even personally killed The Public Option.
Trump could do a listening tour on healthcare and get an earful. The American people are tired of being dicked around by private insurance and their games and gouging. People need health “security” since most Americans are one heart attack away from having medical bills causing them to lose their homes!
If Trump wants a great legacy, securing Social Security and simply extending Medicare to all who want it would do the trick.
If supporting the above makes me a socialist then so be it.
TRIAL OF THE CHICAGO 7 REVIEW – SPOILERS.
by Paul Glusman
I was a journalist at the Chicago 8 (later 7) trial, reporting for Ramparts Magazine. I was there, day by day, in the courtroom and in the defense offices, for practically all of it. I was 22 years old, but the memories of that trial are indelible. This weekend I decided to watch the Aaron Sorkin movie, “The Trial of the Chicago 7” when it was available to stream from Netflix.
There was some good acting in the movie. Sasha Baron Cohen did a reasonably good rendition of the late Abbie Hoffman. Mark Rylance, although he didn’t nail the late William Kunstler, did a decent job. There was some witty dialogue at times. But that’s about all I have to say positive about the movie.
When someone “does” a historical event, it isn’t expected that it be accurate to every detail. It is historical drama, after all, not history itself. I didn’t expect a treatment that used verbatim dialogue from the trial transcript in every court exchange. But even though the trial was 51 years ago there are those of us who still remember it. Me, for instance. I haven’t reached out to Bobby Seale, Rennie Davis, John Froines, or Lee Weiner who are the defendants that are still alive. Most of the other principals in the trial have passed on. But when something happened within the memory of humans who lived through it, it seems to be a bad idea to mischaracterize what those people lived though so completely as Sorkin did.
There’s so much wrong, I can only give examples.
The courtroom itself was a brutal federal mid-century modern edifice designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. It was almost a character in the original trial. Judge Hoffman constantly reminded the defense lawyers that they had to stand behind the lectern, which was where Mies van der Rohe, had placed it when addressing the court or witnesses. The judge said he had been a friend of Mies van der Rohe. He was proud of the spartan authoritarian image that the courtroom projected. It admitted no natural light. Abbie Hoffman called it a “neon oven.” The entirety of the building and the courtroom seemed to serve the purpose of illustrating the futility of human beings contesting the federal government, or the “United States of America” as the prosecution was and is termed in federal criminal trials.
Not in the movie. In the movie the trial was held in an old fashioned courtroom, like maybe Miracle on 34th Street. There were floor-to-ceiling windows. Lots of natural light. Not a big deal, but it took something away from the power image that the feds were projecting against the defendants.
There’s a bit of dialogue in the movie where Seale points out that Tom Hayden was rebelling against his own father, rather than the government. I wasn’t there for every exchange between Seale and Hayden, but I highly doubt that happened. Whatever you think of Hayden, he was a dedicated radical and a leftist. By the time of the trial he not only had co-written the SDS founding document the Port Huron Statement, but had been a community organizer for a decade in places like Newark. And Seale respected (and still respects) the white radical counterparts in the movement. But it makes a nice liberal moment for Sorkin to point out the difference in what’s at stake between Hayden and Seale.
The movie shows Seale denouncing to the court the murder of Fred Hampton. Nice touch. But Hampton was murdered – or lynched – by the Chicago Police Department on December 4, 1969. Seale’s case was mistried on October 29. So, Seale was not in the trial at that point. Seale is also shown accusing white radicals of being racist by calling the trial the “Chicago 7” trial when he was still a defendant. But that never happened. Nobody called it the Chicago 7 until after Seale was mistried. The remaining defendants insisted on still calling themselves the Chicago 8. Sorkin once again is accusing the white radicals of something they never did. They never threw Seale under the bus.
Sorkin does show Seale repeatedly protesting his denial of counsel because Judge Hoffman refused to grant a 6 week continuance so that Seale’s lawyer, Charles Garry, could recover from gall bladder surgery. That’s accurate so far. But Seale grounded this in the history of slavery and the oppression of Black people in the United States. He called out Judge Hoffman for having pictures of slave-owning presidents, like Washington and Jefferson hanging on the wall behind the bench. Those pictures were missing from the movie. Seale also quoted from the Dred Scott decision, which held that Black people have no rights that White people are bound to respect, and accused Hoffman, and the federal government, of acting on that. Seale was absolutely accurate in this. Sorkin omitted that.
Possibly the most ridiculous part of the movie shows Jerry Rubin in tears because a Chicago Police Department plant had come on to him, he fell hard for her, and was devastated not only that she would do something like that, but that the government would train her to do that. This was absolutely false. A female undercover cop followed him around, but he never got involved with her. He wasn’t a 16 year old child jilted by his first crush. He was near 30 and his long-time girlfriend, Nancy, was with him practically every step of the way. But Sorkin, having infantilized Hayden by attributing his radicalism to his resentment of his father, infantilized Rubin also. Sorkin also omitted the part that women played in supporting the defense. (At one point a woman in the office is called “Bernadine” supposedly referring to Bernadine Dorhn, who in reality didn’t work in the office.)
Sorkin also portrays Hayden on insisting on respect for the court. Not really. Every day Hayden would arrive in court before the session started and ask the bailiff if the judge was still alive. Let’s not forget Rennie Davis. Davis insisted on being respectful, according to Sorkin, because his fiance’s parents would be upset if he weren’t and would interfere with their relationship. This was a big deal because he was living with them. He wasn’t. I remember the couple having their own apartment.
There are other missteps. Sorkin completely omits Abbie’s confrontation with Mayor Daley. Abbie came in one morning and found Daley sitting in the witness stand before trial began. He walked up to Daley, put up his fists in a mock-fighting pose, and told Daley that this whole thing could be settled right away, one on one, man-to-man. As I recall even Daley cracked up.
Sorkin glosses over Lenny Weinglass’s work. He was the most effective lawyer in the trial, a more than adequate counterpart to Kunstler’s sometime grandstanding. Judge Hoffman never could get Weinglass’s name straight, calling him Weinstein, and Weinreb. Even in sentencing him for contempt, the judge misstated his name. Weinglass calmly said that regarding the subject of respect, he had hoped, after five months in trial, the judge would have learned his name. This was powerful. Sorkin left it out.
The part about Hayden giving the speech for all the defendants at sentencing was made up and atrocious. Sorkin simply had Hayden read the names of the U.S. soldiers killed in the war, as if that was what this was all the protest was about. It wasn’t. The protests were more about what the United States was doing in Vietnam, to the people of that country. The U.S. soldiers counted, but they were NOT the main thrust of the demonstrations, or the trial. Rennie Davis testified in trial about what was happening in Vietnam, and why the war was illegal and unconscionable. It was powerful testimony. Sorkin left that out. Hayden at no point read off the names of U.S. soldiers killed in the war. The trial was not a Vietnam War Veterans memorial before its installation in DC. And for Sorkin to twist that is unconscionable.
In short, Sorkin brings in personal motives for white radicals Hayden (his father), Rubin (his seduction by a cop), and Davis (his fiance’s parents) for why they acted the way they did in the demonstrations and subsequent trial. (He pretty much skimps on Seale’s own reasons for being at the demonstrations.) This is a huge miss. You might disagree with what they did, but don’t disrespect them by implying that the demonstrations, and subsequent conduct at the trial had nothing to do with what the United States was doing to the people of Vietnam.
Watch the movie if you want, but understand that although it uses real names, it doesn’t depict real people or their motives in opposing the government at that time.
I may give some personal observations of the trial in future posts. But this is long enough.
* * *
Paul Glusman adds: One minor correction. After writing this I looked at a transcript. Seale had denounced Washington and Franklin as slaveholders, not Jefferson. He was one, but apparently his pic was not on the wall behind Julius Hoffman. I'd also add that the part about prosecutor Richard Schultz standing for the reading of the names of American war dead was insane. Schultz wasn't the conflicted liberal who sort of came over at the end of the trial. He was the rabid attack dog from the beginning to the end of the trial.
MR. MISCHIEF NIGHT.
The recording of last night's Halloween-Eve (2020-10-30) Memo of the Air: Good Night Radio show on KNYO-LP Fort Bragg is right here: https://tinyurl.com/KNYO-MOTA-0408
Furthermore, at https://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com you'll find a fresh batch of dozens of links to not necessarily radio-useful but nonetheless worthwhile educational items I set aside for you while gathering the show together. Such as:
Shivery creepy. Especially when the crawlspace woman drinks right out of the milk. With her mouth. https://nagonthelake.blogspot.com/2020/10/food-thief.html
A German band of session musicians plays all of Dark Side of the Moon live. (40 min.) https://laughingsquid.com/studio-cover-of-pink-floyd-dark-side-of-the-moon/
Wonderboy, by Tenacious D. https://misscellania.blogspot.com/2020/10/wonderboy-star-wars-story.html
And Ethel Smith on the tingy but mighty Hammond organ. You kids don’t know, but it wasn’t that long ago that every shopping center used to have an organ store full of organs of all sizes for sale, and there’d be someone like this woman, or a man in church clothes (suit and tie), playing just like this on the organ in the entryway, to draw people in. Pizza places had an organ and somebody to play it; some of them had a kind of clockwork or electrical or vacuum-operated mechanism to play it, to pull the keys down while you watched, or while you sat at it and pretended to be the one playing it. Churches, of course. I don’t remember banks having one, but that would’ve been a great idea, and still would be, if people still went in banks. Mark Scaramella of the Anderson Valley Advertiser worked his way through college playing an organ for intermissions in a giant movie theater, on a platform that would rise up on a hydraulic lift out of the stage in front of the curtains that would shut over the screen and then go back down when the curtains pulled aside and the movie started again. People had an organ in their house, in the living room or basement or den. Some people had two or three. Organs were a big deal for a long time, and then they just weren't anymore. Why, I wonder. What ruined it? And where did they all go? https://tinyurl.com/EthelAndTheBrownies
— Marco McClean, memo@mcn.org, https://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com
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