Mendocino County Today: Tuesday, March 16, 2021

Clearly Cold | 4 New Cases | Author Zoom | Intuitive Ideation | Trespass Letters | Hop Pickers | JC Demise | Cannabis Queen | Hovercat | B Devilment | Send Help | Residential Collision | Carson House | Deer Story | Lost Time | Ed Notes | Gas Prices | Bad Trip | Mexican Homicide | Yesterday's Catch | Talmage Asylum | Sheeple | Newspapermen | Hometown Journalism | Immigration Policies | Biden Honeymoon | Dead Happening | Fellow Boomers | We're Back | Weekly Comments

DRY WEATHER is expected through Wednesday, with another frosty night ahead for some inland areas. Another round of rain, high elevation snow, and gusty southerly winds will arrive Wednesday night and Thursday with a cold front. Chilly showers will likely last through Friday. A few showers may linger into Saturday, mainly north of Cape Mendocino. (NWS)

4 NEW COVID CASES reported in Mendocino County yesterday afternoon.

THIS IS THE SCENE that started me down the path to a photo collection. The bear ambled around a sweeping curve on the old road that once was the bed of the railroad running alongside the Albion River in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. 

I texted a friend, asking if I should follow, fully expecting a resounding, "No. Turn around and head for home."

Instead, the friend replied with one word, "Yes."

Both bear and human survived the encounter that ended up lasting an hour.

One of us will be on hand for an Authors' Night Zoom event hosted by Gallery Bookshop at 6 p.m. this Thursday, March 16th.

To watch vicariously or ask probing questions, you can use the event page link: https://www.gallerybookshop.com/event/authors-night-zoom-0

Or just the registration link:https://us02web.zoom.us/.../tZUodumhrT8rGtHQImxni7zGVRIAg...

And there's a Facebook listing for the event here: https://bit.ly/3aSxr36

You can order my photo collection, MENDOCINO INSPIRATIONS, or my novel, OUTLAW FORD, at gallerybookshop.com or by calling this wonderful independent book store at 707-937-2665.

Zoom in Thursday to find out more about the bear and how MENDOCINO INSPIRATIONS came to be within a four month time span.

Malcolm Macdonald

FROM SPY ROCK TO MOGULDOM!

FORT BRAGG TRESPASS LETTERS

The Fort Bragg Police Department would like to remind the citizens of the community that the Police Department has a trespass letter program available. The department has always had this program but intends on expanding it. 

Fillable trespass letters can be acquired any of the following ways: They can be found on the city’s website, obtained from an Officer, or obtained by contacting the front office staff at the department. These forms can also be mailed or electronically mailed to those that live out of the area but own property within the city limits. 

There are two types of letters: 

-General Trespassing Letters which allow Officers to advise individuals of trespassing and make arrests on behalf of the property/business owner. 

- Individual Trespassing Letters identify specific individuals who are prohibited from being on the property. 

These trespassing letters expire after one year and must be renewed annually. Our department maintains a spreadsheet of the active trespassing letters on file. Starting this week, we have expanded the program to include notifying individuals and businesses via phone that letters are within 30 days of expiring. 

Typically, once completed, a businesses or individual will submit a trespassing letter, which would allow police to take enforcement action on their behalf. These requests are usually associated with transient activity. 

Our department is currently in the process of auditing expired trespassing letters and notifying property owners via phone that their trespassing letters are no longer active. 

Questions regarding this press release or the trespassing program may be directed to Community Service Holaway; at (707) 961-2800 ext. 127 or at department email kholaway@fortbragg.com 

CORRECTION ABOUT JOHN CHAMBERLAIN AND LENNY LAKS.

Marco here. I've updated the 2021-03-13 post (titled /Hard Reset/) at https://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com to reflect this:

Nick Wilson wrote:

It was Steve Davidson, not Lenny Laks, who found John Chamberlin's body back on June 4, 2013. Someone got that mixed up. Steve told me some details back at the time, and I just phoned him to make sure I got the details right.

Steve and JC happened to be in Santa Rosa at the same time, and saw each other at Trader Joe's. Later, as Steve drove toward home he came upon John's car pulled off of 128 right at the Mendocino County line sign. A CHP was there, and Steve stopped to see what was happening.  JC was already unconscious and slumped over his steering wheel. The CHP officer said he had spoken with Jayce, who told him he was feeling very tired and pulled over to rest. He said he intended to continue onward after a rest. But he quickly got worse and lost conciousness while the officer was there, shortly before Steve arrived.

The CHP called for an ambulance. Steve and CHP got JC out of the car and tried to give him CPR, but he was gone. The ambulance crew confirmed he had died, but they couldn't transport his body until a coroner arrived on the scene. It took 3 hours for that, with Steve, CHP and a tow truck all waiting at the scene.

Steve and JC were the closest of pals. They had played music together from 1970 onward, starting with Cat Mother. Their last gig was at the Mendocino Film Festival with Peter Barg and Franny Leopold's latin music group, The Cumbaleros, just a week before John passed. Steve remembered that JC was in poor health at that time, and could barely climb the steps to the stage.

I was a buddy of John's too, and when I first arrived in 1970 used to share his bathroom and kitchen at the Elk compound while I slept in my VW camper in the driveway. I was 7 days older than JC. What a talented, smart, and caring guy. A genius at his graphic art and a very good musician, first on mandolin, and later on guitar and vocals.

When JC passed I started a John Chamberlin Memorial Group on Facebook, where people could share memories, photos and tributes. After a few months, seeing that other popular locals had also passed, I repurposed the group, changed the name to the Mendocino Coast Memorial Group, and opened it up to honoring and remembering all of the locals who have passed. It currently has over 700 members, but it's public, so anyone can go to it and see what's there.  Right now there are many posts about Lenny Laks. If you scroll down far enough you'll find the original 2013 posts about John. Or you could use the search function to find posts mentioning him. Here's the link. https://www.facebook.com/groups/645722462123648/

And here's a link to a photo of John and Steve performing with The Cumbaleros on May 28 at the 2013 film festival. It was about a week before he passed. https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=10151691580178944&set=a.10151691576293944

To add a little more about Lenny, he passed March 9, 2021 at the hospital in Fort Bragg.  His friends Judy Ashton Frank,  Sharon Trott-Sverko and Janet Atherton were with him.  Lenny had been ill since December 2019 when he fell and broke his hip. He had also injured his back. In surgery they found other serious issues. After a long stay in hospital he spent over a year in a series of skilled nursing facilities and had additional surgeries. He died of complications including sepsis.

--Nicholas Wilson

COUNTY ANNOUNCES HIRING OF CANNABIS MANAGER

On March 9, the Mendocino County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to hire Kristin Nevedal as manager of the county’s cannabis program. She began her duties Monday, March 15^th.

“Implementing Mendocino’s cannabis program has been a chronic problem for the county; it has changed departments and hands multiple times compounded with problematic local policy and hundreds of legacy cultivators stuck in the pipeline for years,” says Fifth District Supervisor Ted Williams.

“Untying this knot requires a special candidate. Kristin Nevedal is that candidate, and we are fortunate that she accepted the charge. Her extensive experience in cannabis policy, advocacy, and compliance makes her uniquely qualified to hit the ground running in managing the cannabis program and resolving our permitting backlog,” says Supervisor Williams, who continued by suggesting Ms. Nevedal’s hiring is among the county’s most important in 2021.

“Having such a competent person in this role will allow the Department of Planning and Building to function more effectively and work on other deferred countywide needs,” he concludes.

Third District Supervisor John Haschak notes, “Kristin has an excellent history of cannabis experience at state, regional, and local levels. Her ability to work with stakeholders and governmental entities will serve Mendocino County well.”

Ms. Nevedal’s cannabis resume encompasses local, state, and academic experience. She was co-director for the Humboldt Institute of Interdisciplinary Cannabis Research and an associate faculty member for the Humboldt State University Sociology Department. She worked concurrently as a social science research director and founder for the Center for the Study of Cannabis and Social Policy in Seattle, Washington. 

Within the cannabis community, Ms. Nevedal is known for her work with the Bureau of Cannabis Control as a gubernatorial appointee on several subcommittees. She is the founder of the International Cannabis Advisory Farmers Association, has been an education director for the Emerald Cup and the co-founder and vice president of the Humboldt Growers Association.

“I’m excited to be working with the County in its effort to develop and implement a meaningful cannabis regulatory program. I want to thank the Board of Supervisors for their support and confidence. I’m deeply humbled by the opportunity,” says Ms. Nevedal.

“I look forward to working with the Board, County staff, and the cannabis community to address concerns and inefficiencies, improve outcomes, and ensure we can achieve a successful path forward,” she concludes.

SUPERVISOR WILLIAMS: 

In November 2017, Measure B passed with 85% in favor of taxing ourselves to generate tens of millions to support mental health services. The bulk of money was intended to “Provide for assistance in the diagnosis, treatment and recovery from mental illness and addiction by developing: 1) a psychiatric facility...” 

The majority of potential Psychiatric Health Facility patients are inland, between Ukiah and Willits.

Is there a community that will not fight against a Psychiatric Health Facility in their backyard? Where did the 85% in favor of Measure B expect the facility to be built?

---

Mark Scaramella replies: Um, Supervisor: Weren’t you the one who brought up the desirability of using the existing former emergency room at the Adventist Hospital which they moved out of and into the new one next door? Weren’t you going to work with the local Adventist manager to develop a proposal to County for such use that the Adventists themselves suggested (not the County)? Didn’t you point out that since that empty emergency room was already a hospital facility there would be no special hospital construction requirements? Didn’t you point out that having it near the existing hospital and staff would be good for the patients and easier to staff? Weren’t the Adventists going to put together a proposal for some kind of lease or purchase for use as a PHF? Wasn’t County Counsel going to opine on how such an arrangement could be set up? Wasn’t the main purpose of having a Measure B Advisory Committee to scour the County for potential PHF locations? Didn’t I write just such an email to the Measure B Committee at their first meeting which was handed out by Committee Chair Tom Allman with nothing more than a “He makes some interesting points,” never to be mentioned again in favor of a professional needs assessment that hasn’t been followed AT ALL? Wouldn’t it be nice if the occasional good ideas that were stumbled upon over lo these many months and years of structureless Measure B meetings noted and given deadlines and followed up on systematically? 

Or do you and the County prefer to blame the “community” for the grotesque and inexcusable failures and delays that the County and the Measure B committee have inflicted on the people who voted for Measure B expecting that you and your well-paid colleagues would do your jobs?

THAT CRASH ON BUSH STREET…

On Sunday, March 14, 2021, at approximately 9:45 p.m., Ukiah Police Officers were dispatched to the 100 block of W. Bush Street for reports of a traffic collision that just occurred involving a motor vehicle striking a residential building. Officers immediately responded to the location and located a gold Toyota Tacoma pickup with minor damage to the front right side in the front yard of a residential building located in the 600 block of Stewart Street. Officers also observed a white Nissan Maxima sedan with major damage to the front and air bags deployed blocking the eastbound lane of the 100 block of W. Bush Street. 

Officers contacted both parties involved in the collision and discovered there were no injuries reported as a result of the collision. All occupants in the residential building were unharmed as well. The vehicles were later towed from the scene. If anyone witnessed the traffic collision occur, they are respectively asked to contact Officer Welter at (707) 961-2800 ext. 168 or at awelter@fortbragg.com. 

Questions regarding this press release may be directed to Sergeant McLaughlin at (707) 961-2800 ext. 123 or at jmclaughlin@fortbragg.com. 

DEER RESCUE STORY

From: "Meredith Smith" <merrie@mcn.org>

In my case, I did not unconsciously adopt Neeker projecting simpering savior qualities.....the fawn I raised was smaller than my cat and newborn; a friend's dog had brought it home in its mouth. It was a huge ordeal and commitment (like any newborn); I slept with her against my breast (she'd have died otherwise) with fresh milk obtained with much effort, etc.

No one should have an infant human who cannot manage care either, but oh well, shit happens.

I raised Neeker until she was full grown and then some, at which point my challenge became convincing her she belonged with "her people." This was a long term project involving me trying to sneak up on neighborhood herds to set up that Clairol moment when they saw, smelled and recognized one another.

But Neeker was a better Hider than I was a Sneaker.

It was many months before the interim time when (about 1 1/2 years old) she started hanging out with them in the yard and when I came home from work and called her she'd run gleefully in my direction and they would look at her like she was insane (and vice versa) and run the other way. Eventually, it all blended and she moved on but slowly. She still came in the open door, ate fruit out of the bowl on the table and invited her friends for lunch in my garden. For the record, I got in touch with the professionals. Their attrition rate is atrocious.

I did my own research and raised a healthy, beautiful albeit species confused animal. 

By the way, I also went through the process of having an animal welfare person visit and legally certify me to do so.

---

THE TRUTH ABOUT DEER 

From: "Ronnie James" <ronnie@mcn.org> 

From Woodlands Wildlife: 

Please, please, do not put out charming deer stories. 99% of deer raised by humans end up being euthanized (killed) by Fish and Wildlife wardens within their first year, and here's why. The doe leaves the fawn alone in a nest within hours of them being born. Deer are prey (food for other animals) animals, and the doe has a strong scent while the fawn has almost none. She stays away and only returns every few hours to nurse and clean the fawn. The fawn's instinct tells it to hunker down and stay put. As the fawn grows, at about 4-6 weeks, instinct tells it to start to follow it's mom everywhere. During the 'nesting phase' many people stumble upon fawns and thinking them abandoned, take them home, (or kidnap them as the actual case may be). It's so important not to touch or pet fawns if you find them, human scent scares mama away. If we receive them in wildlife rehab we try to return them to their mother, who will take them back up to 3-4 days post separation. Unless a fawn is standing beside its dead mother on the highway shoulder, it isn't an orphan. No doe will abandon its fawn!

But if the fawn has imprinted on a human caregiver, as it grows up and is allowed to go free, it will not carry the necessary fear of humans (or dogs) to keep it from being attracted to them, especially during rutting season. Males will approach any human female in estrus and it is instinct to subdue them by butting them with their horns. Human-raised deer are known to seriously injure or even kill women -- their antlers with a 200 pound thrust behind them are like daggers. The other habit that both male and females exhibit is that they like to jump up on people like dogs, accidentally ripping out eyes and tearing faces and causing other damage with their hoofs, which are very hard and sharp. We've definitely had such incidents along the coast that I personally am aware of.

Printing an article saying how much fun it is to raise a fawn will encourage people to pick one up if they find it. I agree they are incredibly sweet and difficult to resist, but one is not helping the fawn, because as soon as they are out wandering and their hormones kick in, Fish & Wildlife will be called and there is no other ending their story can have except death. There are millions of deer in zoos, etc. none want any more.

In California there are several deer centers within the Wildlife Rehabilitation and Rescue structure where they are raised without every seeing a human, in small herds that are then released in isolated areas.

Good used book to read: Touching Wings, Touching Wildlife on Amazon (used books only--it's out of print)

ED NOTES

SNOW FLURRIES at the higher elevations and encouraging blasts of heavy rain on the Valley floor as a meager winter limps into April which, the poet told us, “is the cruelest month, breeding lilacs out of the dead land, mixing memory and desire, stirring dull roots with spring rain.” The weather has sped up, it seems, with April's memory and desire now occurring in early March, although for us bolder olders desire is long gone and all we have is memory, which can be more cruel than April ever was.

WAS THE FRIDAY CASPAR VAX A GOOD IDEA?

Chloe Gans-Rugebregt, Anderson Valley Health Center Manager, doesn’t think so: “This event has put the entire county's supply at risk. California and our own county officials have said they will hold back supply if counties break phases/tiers, which this event has done. I really hope all the vulnerable folks in the rest of the county don't get sacrificed because the folks on the coast got lucky. And I am not a patient trying to get a vaccine, I am a healthcare provider who is dedicated to vaccinating my service area in Mendocino County according to county guidelines.”

ANDERSON VALLEY’S schools are slowly coming back to life. Preschool, First, and Second grades resumed classes today, Monday the 15th of March. Superintendent Warych reports he expects a larger return after the spring break.

THAT ABANDONED motor home at the junction of 128 and 253, has been there for two weeks, ironically placed beneath the sign that says that stretch of road is the clean-up responsibility of Robert Mailer Anderson. 

A local guy happened to see the old man who towed it from over the hill in his ancient pick-up, dumped it where it has rested ever since, then drove back over the hill. Why he chose Boonville as his drop site — in broad daylight yet — may not ever be known.

IF THE PULITZER’S weren’t rigged, Kym Kemp of the essential Redheaded Blackbelt web site would get one for her revelatory stories on Rohnert Park’s pair of rogue cops robbing southbound travelers on 101. A then-HumCo man, Zeke Flatten, went to Kym with his account of being stopped in December of 2017 near Squaw Rock by two apparent policemen wearing generic “police” vests claiming to be with the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. The badged bandits took three pounds of marijuana from Flatten’s vehicle without citing him for any crime or leaving him with documentation of the stop. Flatten, who has since moved from California to Texas, turned to the fearless Ms. Kemp with his story which, in turn, inspired a bunch of similar claims from other travelers along 101 that they’d been robber by Rohnert Park cops. Flatten subsequently won a substantial claim against RP, the cops, their boss and other culpable RP bureaucrats were fired and await trials for their crimes.

FROM STATE SENATOR McGUIRE

IT WOULD be interesting to learn where Mendo people get their covid information. Nothing against the scrappy little second sacker from Healdsburg, but it wouldn't occur to me to turn to McGuire for anything, let alone, life and death directions. I go to Fauci for the general trends and the Mendo covid chart to see how we're doing here behind the Green Curtain. If I have a specific question I ask Chloe at the AV Health Center. Asking the County about covid, on the off chance you might rouse someone on a County phone or e-mail line, risks confusion.

A READER points out that CEO Angelo is done. "The Supes spent almost five hours on her closed session evaluation last Tuesday then emerged to state their intention to return to a Chief Admin Officer arrangement between them and the Angelo-CEO model, and Angelo herself announces that she plans to retire in the not-too-distant future.”

HOW WOULD the mighty AVA evaluate the old girl? On the plus side, given the boards of Supervisors she's had to make seem plausible prior to this board, not bad, given that as a quintet they were incompentent and often contained at least one certifiable 5150. She seems to have concluded early on, “Well, if I don't step in here and run this sucker the whole show could collapse. I'll be the boss, and these clowns will sign off on whatever I put in front of their uncomprehending pusses.” Which she did. But now that there's a smart and engaged board, assuming Gjerde continues to have regained consciousness, the boss lady command structure is obsolete. To us, Angelo's deficits include a bad temper, a Queeg-quality paranoia and, dare I say, a barely concealed contempt for, and hostility to, the male gender, understandable of course given the many sins of the phallocracy all the way back to the Garden of Eden. 

KOLBY PARKER told deputies he and his grandfather had been smoking marijuana together when a fight began. Parker asked a deputy “Do you want to know where he is?” Parker then took two human ears out of each of his pants pockets. “This is where he is.”

“An agency-issued Taser 7 was used but was not effective,” according to Parker's arrest report.

MEMENTO MORI — remember you must die — is the subtext of Mexican life, and no wonder. Consider the shocking statistics of Mexico's homicides — in 2017, around thirty thousand, the greatest number of annual murders in modern Mexican history. This was exceeded by the murders in 2018, when I was winding up my Mexican trip. No one shrugged at these statistics: the wise ones kept their heads down, they whispered advice, they stayed indoors at night, they locked their doors; the vulnerable ones headed for the border, and safety; the others — the vast majority — continued to live and work as before. The medieval theme was “death comes to all and makes a mockery of us all.” And in the street theater and cemetery crapulosities — borracheras — of those Days of the Dead, the Mexicans return the compliment: they dress as skeletons, they parade in skull masks, they make gifts of sugar skulls, they engage in macabre dances, they mock death. 

— Paul Theroux

CATCH OF THE DAY, March 15, 2021

LEVI LAMOUREUX, Laytonville. County parole violation. (Frequent flyer.)

REMO MCOSKER, Ukiah. Parole violaation, failure to appear. (Frequent flyer.)

JACOB PARMELY, Ukiah. Attempted exposure of obscene matter to a minor, paraphernalia, parole violation.

ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

It’s interesting to follow the origin of the term “sheeple” beyond the obvious implication of passivity. Sheep have behavioral characteristics not common to other species except perhaps Americans. On the one hand they require the presence of a herd and resist being separated from it or being forced to associate with non-herd members. However they are intensively competitive. While enjoying the choicest of morsels they will instantly abandon it if they perceive that another sheep is munching on a tender shoot of grass that may be better, and rush forward to take it for themselves. For me the point at which I knew all was lost was when I was trout fishing a half mile from the nearest person last July. Around the bend came two middle aged women kayakers, fully masked up to protect themselves from the Corvids presumably roosting in the willows and waiting to pounce upon them.

CARL HIAASEN ENDS MIAMI HERALD CAREER with warning for journalism's future

In his final column for the Herald, Hiaasen also addressed the impact of the long-running crisis in local journalism, at a time when American newspapers are closing in droves and journalists are being laid off with depressing regularity.

The local news industry in the US was already in a sorry state before Covid-19, with some 1,800 newspapers closing between 2004 and 2018 <https://www.poynter.org/locally/2020/unc-news-deserts-report-2020/>, and coronavirus only worsened the crisis. Without local news coverage, important decisions can slip by unnoticed and unchallenged, Hiaasen warned, with devastating consequences.

”That’s what happens when hometown journalism fades — neighborhood stories don’t get reported until it’s too late, after the deal’s gone down. Most local papers are gasping for life, and if they die it will be their readers who lose the most.

theguardian.com/media/2021/mar/15/carl-hiaasen-miami-herald-column-journalism

THIS IS WHAT YOU VOTED FOR

by James Kunstler

Well, naturally, Woke Hollywood staged a riot in tribute to George Floyd at this year’s Grammy awards, complete with “police” (actors) shooting a black man (another actor) in the back, a demagogic harangue for “justice, equity, policy, and everything else,” and a stage-set of burning buildings in the background — a harbinger of things-to-come? Haven’t riots become another form of entertainment this restless pandemic year of lockdowns and shutdowns? And how else might youth occupy itself, especially these fervid days that presage the loamy heavings of springtime?

It’s about “systemic racism,” you understand, because how else do you explain the rather spectacular failure-to-thrive in such a big demographic chunk of the US population? By an odd coincidence, in the slot just before the Grammys, CBS’s 60-Minutes showed how: spotlighting St. Louis’s Circuit Attorney (equivalent of DA) Kim Gardner’s battle with the city’s police department, who arrest too many black men. Left out of the argument by CBS correspondent Bill Whitaker was why they are arrested. Might it be for committing crimes, you know, robbing stuff, killing folks? 60-Minutes didn’t want to know and didn’t ask.

It happened anyway that the weekend was ripe for fighting in the streets. After the long, dull, semi-lockdown winter, riots resumed in the irascible West Coast cities of Seattle, Portland, and LA, purportedly in honor of Breonna Taylor, member of a Louisville, KY, drug-trafficking outfit who got shot in a police raid on her apartment after her boyfriend opened fire on the cops. This was a few years after the dead body of one Fernandez Bowman was found in her rent-a-car, and she was unable to explain to the police how it got there. She must have been turning her life around when she got shot. Now, it’s game-on for Antifa and BLM. The coronavirus hasn’t been hard enough on small business owners, so let’s smash some storefront windows and, by the way, attempt another insurrection at Portland’s long-besieged federal courthouse.

So far, not a peep out of Washington, Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi and company. They are still too busy objurgating over the January 6 “insurrection” at the US Capitol building, which has so far led to charges against 400 people. Federal prosecutors have asked for a 60-day delay in further action, saying, “While most of the cases have been brought against individual defendants, the government is also investigating conspiratorial activity that occurred prior to and on January 6, 2021.” Yet last week federal prosecutor Kathryn Rakoczy told federal district court Judge Amit Mehta that there was “no evidence of conspiracy” in the matter. I guess we’ll have to wait for the new Attorney General Merrick Garland to sort all that out.

Meanwhile, up in Minneapolis, where jury selection is underway in the trial of former police officer Derek Chauvin in the death of George Floyd, the City Council approved 13-to-0 a $27-million wrongful death civil settlement to Mr. Floyd’s family. Say, what…? The way it’s supposed to work is that a civil case for wrongful death follows the criminal trial — for how would you know what’s rightful or wrongful in a matter before the facts in the case have been adjudicated? Sounds like Hennepin County, MN, may not be the right venue for these proceedings.

Should Mr. Chauvin face a jury that will likely have heard news reports that the city council already decided the verdict, and in the most imprecise terms possible? “Mr. Floyd died because the weight of the entire Minneapolis Police Department was on his neck,” Floyd family Attorney Ben Crump said when the suit was filed. Systemic racism, you see. Following the George Floyd riots last year, the Minneapolis City Council announced its plan to defund the police. In February 2021, the council announced the release of $6.4-million to hire more police, following a dramatic uptick in crime. Such are the strange inconsistencies of life under the crypto-Jacobin revolution in America today.

Speaking of Joe Biden, alleged to be president, he was oddly absent altogether on the front page of Monday’s New York Times, leading the curious to wonder if last Tuesday night’s Coronavirus Action speech drained his dwindling mojo for the rest of the month. The curious might also seek to know why Mr. Biden’s “team” is still so wound up about eradicating Coronavirus, yet eager to let tens of thousands cross the border illegally from Mexico, many of them live vectors of the virus, who are then bussed all over the USA under the revived “catch-and-release” policy. Mr. Biden’s “honeymoon” period is about over. The country had not quite discovered just how leaderless it is. Will it come as a shock to find out? After all, isn’t this what you voted for?

(Support Kunstler’s writing by visiting his Patreon Page.)

AS THE YEARS HAVE PASSED, I have nurtured a special feeling for anyone close to my age. It means that we grew up in the same world, in the austere aftermath of World War II, that we knew the same terrors and tyrants and heroes, as well as the same cultural touchstones, certain fashions, banned books, forbidden words, items of slang, the music of the fifties — rock 'n' roll and jazz. We were in our early twenties in the tumble and conflict of the sixties: the civil rights movement, Vietnam, women's lib, a new way of looking at ourselves and the world, the hope we felt seeing oppressive institutions shaken up; we shared a bellicose mood, too, thanks to guerilla wars and decolonization in Africa. We had lived through an era when authority was challenged by people like us, from the margins of society, whose origins were obscure and inauspicious. 

— Paul Theroux

ON LINE COMMENTS OF THE WEEK

[1] “Pay close attention to events unspooling. Get ready for trouble. It’s coming every which way…”

It’s hard to pay attention to anything when one is oxygen-deprived from wearing pieces of cloth over one’s breathing holes for the last 12 months while looking down at the little black box of joy and ecstasy with mesmerizing pixels while bobbing one’s head to-and-fro to degrading noise and dissonant racket coming from ear buds while masquerading as today’s modern musical soundtrack of personal, moral, and social degradation.

Add to that the contemporary standard of losing our ability of any kind of reasonable attention span beyond seven seconds before one’s cognition begins to fully shut down and dissipate into nothingness. 

Close Attention gives way to Ignorant Bliss… the soundtrack of our times.

[2] In the early blooming of the financial crisis in late 2007, Arianna Huffington said “In America we used to make things, now we just make things up.” 

One significant attribute of our collapsing empire is its dithering into abstraction, ungrounded in reality and ruled by blockheads who mistake words for concepts–all of them the product of a clerical oligarchy whose whole existence is derivative: without something to destroy they too collapse. Fitting, then, that our president by fiat shuffles listlessly through his sad days, muttering and grimacing in a simulation of the punchy second-rate car salesman he used to be.

Time and nature are the implacable authorities that check faulty abstraction and crush foolish fantasy.

[3] “Does anyone seriously believe that the husk of Joe Biden will remain in office more than another few weeks? It’s obvious that he doesn’t have the mental mojo to work an authentic press conference, and surely not the customary address to a joint session of Congress. Even the news media may seek to know who is actually in charge of the executive branch before much longer”

People who do not know, are either not paying attention, or are fearful of being marginalized as a conspiracist for speaking the truth that not only the executive branch, but the entire U.S. government, is lead by an entrenched elite straddling the executive offices of bureaucracy (most importantly the CIA with the Department of State a close second), 501c/3 and 501c/4 bill-mills AKA “think tanks”, consultants, lobbying firms, and the C-suites of business and finance (the revolving doors at Goldman, JP Morgan, Boeing, Monsanto/Bayer).

Presidents who did not capitulate to this arrangement (FDR, JFK, Trump) either died before they were killed, murdered on parade, or found themselves a victim of a relentless 4 year long coup involving the aforementioned along with the 4th estate (also controlled by the aforementioned). 

Does anyone seriously believe that Biden is making decisions? Does anyone believe that he is making the decision to bring onboard the people that are making the decisions?

Sustain your disbelief, just like bad theatre, or a bad film, you lack the courage to stand up and leave and it’s so much easier to endure, to hold out a little while more.

[4] Biden’s speech was bizarre, and rambling. It had many points, that weren’t always congruent with each other.

A major theme throughout Biden’s speech (again, under 30 minutes) was his strident call for “unity”, and in one extraordinary case stated

“We need to remember the government isn’t some foreign force in a distant capital. No, it’s us. All of us.”

When there are more troops deployed around the US Capitol, then the nation of Afghanistan, then yes– this is an action of an occupying power– not a republic.

More I think about it, the speech was an argument for a kind of soft totalitarianism, trotted out by a misty-eyed grandpa, against the US public at large.

[5] Cue up Country Joe and the Bloodfarmers

Plenty of Covid lockdown inspired MAYHEM so far this weekend, almost too much to list.

But why focus on the negative?

Lead story “Man released from hospital after 9 months of Covid treatment” that’s pretty heartwarming. His family was on hand to greet him. Here he comes, weighing in at 350 lbs, an improvement over the 500 lbs from when he went in. And the infection positive rate has improved, from 2.75% to 2.74% … it’s this kind of human interest and statistical minutia — SIGNS OF HOPE — that will get us thru.

As an aside, on our drive to the coast my wife wanted to stop at a little shopping mall to check out a kitchen supply shop she likes. I’m not much of a mall guy but this one isn’t too bad as far as it goes, an outdoor shopping center from the 1980s. For some reason when we have guests from Europe this is the one they want to visit. It’s well maintained, not too big, easy to get to off I-95. Well the day we went hardly any cars in the lot … the place was like a ghost town. 3/4 of the stores were vacant, including our kitchen supply company. It was pretty much dead, and I don’t see it coming back.