Mendocino County Today: Tuesday, May 4, 2021

Spring Swings | 18 New Cases | Heron Catch | FB Cannabiz | Roadside Detritus | Fishless River | Grace Tour | Missing Rod | Jet Rent | Mantelpiece | Ed Notes | Illegal Doings | Covelo Raven | Doc Countdown | Ukiah Reg | Yesterday's Catch | American Taliban | Phone Scams | Freeloaders | Workers Working | Custom Receipt | Unpacking Order | Destruction Lust | 1967 | Many Enemies | Spookworld | 1890 Wagons

DRY WEATHER WITH ABOVE NORMAL INTERIOR TEMPERATURES are expected through Wednesday. A cold front will bring significant interior cooling Thursday through Friday, followed by gradual warming over the weekend into early next week. Coastal areas will remain cool with occasional marine low clouds and fog through Wednesday. The cold front will also bring a chance of showers, primarily to Del Norte and northern Humboldt Counties on Thursday. Stronger northerly and northwesterly winds are expected this weekend as a thermal trough redevelops. (NWS)

18 NEW COVID CASES (since last Friday) reported in Mendocino County yesterday afternoon.

New cases, geographically: 9 in Ukiah Area; 7 in North County; and 2 in South County.

THIS AMAZING PHOTO IS BY JUDY VALADAO:

FORT BRAGG NOTES

by Chris Calder

The Fort Bragg City Council had a special meeting Monday devoted to refining where, how and by whom cannabis can be grown commercially within city limits.

One decision before the council was whether to loosen restrictions on who can own and operate cannabis businesses in the city. The current rules, stricter than the state's, ban anyone with a previous felony conviction, other than cannabis related offenses. Members of the public, according to City Hall staff, have asked those restrictions to be loosened. State law allows local governments to pick which kinds of felony offenses, like those involving violence or embezzlement, would disqualify a cannabis business owner. Many details involving the nuts and bolts of cannabis growing were on the table as well. For one thing, outdoor grows are currently outlawed in Fort Bragg, but they don't have to be. Cannabis' typically huge water and electricity use and whether to regulate that — for instance by requiring growers to use recycled water — is in the spotlight. Also, whether or not to require use permits, which trigger public notice to neghbors on new or modified cannabis operations, was up for debate.

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Sheriff Matt Kendall didn't split hairs when he reacted to the verdict convicting Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin of murder in killing George Floyd last week. “I didn't like what I saw to begin with,” Kendall said. “I believe in the system, and when a jury of 12 people says he's guilty, he's guilty… Let's all talk like real people: do we think what happened there is OK?”

Kendall expressed some concern over the County's emergency readiness. The day after he asked the Board of Supervisors in April for a dedicated space for an Emergency Operations Center, he was told, he said, that the room where the equipment was stored would be needed for something else, and the Sheriff's Office had to come get its stuff. Now, he said, the EOC — which mainly coordinates communications and decision making in county- and region-wide emergencies, is in boxes in a couple of rooms at Sheriff’s offices on Low Gap Road. Kendall expressed frustration at the apparent low priority the county bureaucracy is putting on being ready for fire season. “I've got a lot of moving myself to do now,” he said. 

FAR ALONG INTO THE 3RD MONTH NOW, still stationary on Philo-Greenwood Rd. 

Across the street at the edge of the pavement—a lovely outdoor barbecue on its side next to the pavement. By now, numerous country road workers, to include perhaps, even Supervisor Williams, have passed it by. (Mike Koepf)

DAVID SEVERN WRITES: Two weeks ago there was an attribution in Valley People naming me that to me did not look much like anything I said. But what the hey. The stranded steelhead this year, hanging out hoping for more water are what locals call bluebacks, and though large enough are still a bit smaller and a bit darker than a first run. To the best I could see none have made it into any of the three creeks that make up the Navarro River to spawn, nor is there any indication they have done so in that stretch of the Navarro they have already traversed. Indian Creek, Anderson Creek and Rancheria Creek appear (again to me) barren of any fish but maybe a few California roach and three spine sticklebacks, both species which have a hard time making it to 4 inches. Reds by the way are tamales not steelhead and in my lifetime have always been published on Tuesdays not Wednesday: Tuesday is Red’s Tamales Day - check it out on the internet. In any case things are not looking so good for those bluebacks. Not for going upstream nor even for having enough water to go back downstream to the ocean.

Here is the current stats for the Navarro River published by the USGS late afternoon on Monday. The River has been setting new record lows for a month. 

PS. Late to the party! I just realized that the “young fish aka ‘reds’” attributed to me was actually supposed to be “redds,” the name for the bowl shapped depresssions in gravel that are fish nests where they deposit their eggs during spawning. I saw no redds last year and none this year either.

GRACE UNDER PRESSURE: Virtual talk on May 6

On Thursday, May 6, from 3 to 4 pm, Carpenter-Hudson Family Historian Karen Holmes will lead a virtual tour of the Ivan B. and Elvira Hart Gallery, home to many of Grace Carpenter Hudson’s numbered oil paintings and a variety of her other artwork in different media. Holmes will discuss Hudson’s life, work, and place in history. To access the talk, go to global.gotomeeting.com/join/962028333 or visit the Grace Hudson Museum website at gracehudsonmuseum.org, and scroll down to the event announcement with accompanying link.

(Roberta Werdinger)

LEAVING ON A JET PLANE

by Bob Dempel

At 85 there are just some things you want to do before you just cannot do them. A case in point was to go to La Verne to see a new great granddaughter. We had seen her just prior to the Covid lockdown, but that was almost a year and a half ago. My two adult daughters had never seen their new great niece. So, one day I checked to see if everyone was agreeable to fly down in a small jet to see her. The entire family had taken the covid injections and we all had face coverings. The hard part was selecting a Sunday when everyone was available. Then I had to confer with my granddaughter to make arrangements with her that would include meeting at a place where we could have some space to enjoy a one-and-a-half-year-old. We agreed to meet at a park in La Verne not far from her house. Conveniently, the park was only about a mile from the airport. The airport was formerly a military strip called Brackett Field. It was about the same size as the Sonoma County airport here in Santa Rosa. 

After much discussion I was able to get everyone to agree to a specific Sunday for the trip. I strolled out to the airport and next to the car rental counters is Sonoma Jet Center. The office is customer friendly and well-staffed by very nice personnel. I just strolled up to the counter and stated I wanted to rent a jet for a few hours. One of the staff asked a few questions relating to the departure date and return time. About this time the owner of the Sonoma Jet Center entered the conversation and asked if I would like to see an identical jet that I could rent. We took a cart over to a hanger. Mysteriously, a set of doors opened up and there was a single Politas jet aircraft. He opened up the door so I could see the 6 seats inside. Lots of room to move around. 

So back at the office I said yes, sign me up for a specific Sunday at 10 am. They printed out an itinerary with the cost, and I said we will see you in a couple of weeks. I was amazed. No down payment, no personal information, nothing. Renting a car takes a least 30 minutes. Renting a jet was a breeze. All they knew was my name.

On the selected Sunday we arrived at ten am and were met by the pilot, Mat, (one t) who wore no uniform, just a polo shirt and dockers. He escorted us to the waiting plane and after a short safety talk, we all secured our seat belts and away we went. One hour and thirty-five minutes later we landed at Brackett air field in La Verne, Los Angeles County.

We took an Uber to the city park where our granddaughter, her husband, and our great-granddaughter were waiting for us. We refrained from social distancing and gave a lot of hugs all around, but no kissing. We had ordered some sandwiches and drinks, and had one of the greatest afternoons with our granddaughter’s family. Around 2:30 I started to suggest it was time for last hugs, something like bartenders do at a few minutes prior to closing. So, we relied on Uber again to take us all back to the airplane. Pilot Mat was right there on the tarmac with the stairs down, and soon we were up, up and away. Again after one hour and thirty five minutes we landed back at Sonoma County Airport. The time was five pm. We had done all of this in seven hours. We said good bye to Mat and strolled back through the Jet center and then home. 

I had to call the Jet Center several times for them to send me a bill. Maybe sometime I could treat the girls for another visit to see their great niece. Not to mention Shirley and me.

ED NOTES

A READER WRITES: “Water report. Businesses in the village of Mendocino are running out of water. Neighborhood 1 mile inland from Simpson Lane, out of water. Now, about 2-3 miles inland off Little River Airport Road, out of water. This year is going to be very trying re: WATER. I suggest all of you mulch your gardens, use drought-resistant seeds/strains, and curb your water use drastically. This is going to be serious. I've heard we got only 18 inches of rain this year, added to four years of low rainfall. I am a bit concerned."

FRANK BARDACKE passes along Hemingway's five-word short story, written on a dare: “For sale. Baby shoes. Unused.”

GENTLEMAN GEORGE HOLLISTER, the sage of Comptche (and President of the Local Farm Bureau), got it right. Responding to Mark Scaramella's article “Welcome to Mendo, Mr. Grewal,” GG noted: “As a government outsider, my impression of Harinder Grewal was that he was a highly qualified professional, and served agriculture and the county well. Something not seen often in this neck of the woods. He was the first person I heard say that the way to get through the backlog of cannabis permits was to fund, and fill more county positions that were involved with doing that, and reject the permits that obviously would never qualify. Ted Williams said the same thing 3 years later, and the BOS has finally recognized the problem today. Harinder said the solution “was simple.” The cannabis fee money was there to implement the program, but was spent elsewhere. Right on the money. Grewal was a highly qualified professional in the best sense, and whatever inspired him to apply for a supervisory position in the quicksand of Mendocino County, I'm sure he regrets. Grewal proposed using cannabis funds to hire staff to administer the program (the purpose of the funds) and to approve qualified applications and deny those that were unqualified, a radical notion in official Mendo where accountability is non-existent.”

THE AG DEPARTMENT was in a shambles when Grewal came on board. Joe Moreo, his immediate predecessor, lasted five days before departing without explanation. And before that Diane Curry was perp-walked out the door in front of her staff and the public, apparently for having crossed the terrible-tempered CEO, Ms. Angelo. Another short timer, Kelly Overton, had just been hired as Cannabis Program Manager despite zero experience other than extra curricular, one supposes given his relative youth. Overton didn't last long and was spotted on some kind of personal vision quest in the Mojave.

GREWAL SOON DISCOVERED the Ag Department was out of compliance with numerous state contracts that fund the department in return for such mundane tasks as verifying the accuracy of filling station gas pumps. (Now there's a truly frightening prospect; Mendo verifying pump accuracy?) The annual crop reports were also more than two years in arrears, to the dismay, among others, of the Mendo Farm Bureau. The yawning chasm of cannabis regulation seemingly swallowed up the ability of the department to do anything else.

GREWAL, demonstrating a commitment to his task rare in government, made it his responsibility to put in the hours needed to catch up with the state contracts and the crop reports. Grewal's work ethic stood in sharp contrast to his staff who were enjoying a type of island culture common to departments (like Ag) that fly below the public radar. Think Public Health prior to the arrival of the dread Ms. Angelo. (Give the old girl her due there; she pruned acres of dead wood in the aftermath of the 08/09 recession.) Or Probation prior to the office romance meltdown precipitated by Ms. Markham's work hours boffo-thons. These bureaucracies were on their own. Bad habits developed.

THE PRE-GREWAL standard at Ag seems to be that there was no standard. Employees pretty much came and went as they pleased, showing up late, taking off early, running personal errands on county time. Lax standards seemed to disappear entirely when the department staffed up to regulate cannabis. It was as if the whole show was Stonerville. One of the “inspectors” was let go after it was confirmed that he left a garden he was “inspecting” bearing gifts from the grower.

GREWAL'S ATTEMPT to enforce routine workplace standards — showing up on time, completing assigned tasks — was met with stiff resistance and attempts to get him fired. Employees went to their favorite Supervisors and/or CEO Angelo in an effort to get Grewal out. And they succeeded. Despite a four year contract, Grewal was placed on administrative leave for a month and fired the next. Without, according to his lawsuit, so much as an opportunity to present his side of the story.

GREWAL'S LAWSUIT, as detailed by Major Scaramella, lists specific instances of straight up racist and insubordinate actions by his employees who are called out by name in The Major's story. Grewal tried to have Human Resources investigate his complaints but HR, another office of slovens and time-servers, ignored his appeal. The message to Grewal was shut up and take it. But HR was quick to investigate employee complaints against Grewal.

COUNTY LEGAL FEES for the Grewal case are at $350,000 and climbing rapidly. A court-ordered settlement conference is not set until September and trial, following an expensive round of depositions, is not set until June of 2022. By then the legal bill, climbing upwards at hundreds of dollars per billable hour, will easily reach half a million. And once the County is held liable or settles, the County will pay Grewal whatever the court orders or what he settles for, and then will have to pay Grewal's attorney.

WHEN THE AVA asked CEO Angelo for comment on the Grewal matter she refused, peremptorily, insisting that the Ag Commissioner did not report to her. Which is disingenuous since HR, which was at the heart of the dispute, is one of numerous wholly owned subsidiaries of the County government controlled by Angelo. According to Grewal's lawsuit, his complaints of the office racism directed at him — he's a Sikh born in India — were never investigated. Which means they officially did not exist and were not presented to the Supes who only heard the complaints against Grewal.

THE GREWAL LAWSUIT captures the essence of everything wrong with current Mendo County Administration. The CEO, not the Supes, is firmly in control of setting policy and approving the budget. (Although some fissures may be appearing in the CEO's dominance of the Supes.) Any department head or other person in a supervisory role who attempts to hold subordinates accountable runs the risk of internal sabotage. There is no budget control on outside counsel. There is no one willing to question why so much money is being funneled to “outside” counsel instead of defending cases in-house with the county's own ten or so full-time lawyers. Or better yet, settling claims on the front end instead of at the back end of the process. And there is no such thing as an independent HR department able to give unbiased information to the Supes.

AND WHY IS COUNTY COUNSEL missing in action? With eight or nine attorneys on staff — forty years ago there was one (Tim Stoen) — why does the County hire outside counsel every time a lawsuit is filed? Part of the answer seems to be a lack of confidence in County Counsel Christian Curtis. The last time Curtis went to Court was to try and keep in place the bogus restraining order against Barbara Howe who posed no threat to anyone. Judge Nadel had no trouble seeing through the bumbling presentation put on by Curtis and denied it.

THE GO TO SOLUTION for a lack of confidence in County Counsel is to hire the CEO's buddies at LCW, a high-priced and supposably high-powered law firm in San Francisco. But when is the last time the County won a lawsuit? (The AVA is hearing rumors that the Barbara Howe, et al’s, lawsuit against the County may not be dead after all.) If LCW could win a lawsuit here and there, or cut losses with a strategic early settlement, they might be able to justify their exorbitant hourly rates. But any law school hack or hackette knows how to run up the billable hours and delay processes while their own meter is running. Astonishingly, the increase from $200,000 in legal fees (for the Grewal bottomless pit alone) up to $350,000 was approved on the Consent Calendar without comment.

BUT IS CARMEL ANGELO's iron grip on the Supes starting to slip? Since January when Mo Mulheren and Glenn McGourty came aboard, the Supes have apparently turned down Angelo's scheme to buy her friend Dick Selzer's office building (for an unknown purpose) and balked at rubber stamping her list of pet projects for the $22 plus million in PG&E disaster funds from the 2017 Redwood Complex fire.

ANGELO ALSO CAME OFF looking bad when she attempted to spend $5 million of Measure B funds to buy a ranch situated next door to the property owned by missing in action Deputy Public Health Officer Noemi (Mimi) Doohan. (Doohan is presently pulling down a hundred grand as back-up to Public Health Officer Andy Coren, the both of them simply relaying state covid bulletins.) Ms. Doohan was said by neighbors to have long been interested in controlling the neighboring ranch but lacked the funds to purchase it. Solution: have your friend the CEO use Measure B money to buy it. The alleged justification was the “Ranch Proposal” to set up some sort of Drug, Alcohol and Mental Health Recovery program administered, naturally, by the multi-tasking Doohan who is getting her hundred grand from Mendo while she has a full-time job in San Diego.

DOOHAN APPEARS to have raked in a cool $450,000 since she was first hired on a part time basis in September of 2019. When she was made full time Health Officer the County conveniently neglected to adjust her contract to remove overtime pay, something that is paid to no one else in her position. Angelo, no slouch at pulling down taxpayer dollars rakes in about $330,000 in salary and benefits annually.

WILL THE SUPES awake from their slumber in time for the Budget Hearings coming up shortly? Will anyone ask why the CEO is promoting real estate deals to benefit her pals? Or why Ms. Doohan is being paid big bucks to sit home in San Diego? (Especially with the pandemic in its wind-down stage.) Or why the County is paying to maintain a full stable of attorneys in the County Counsel's Office and a full array of outside counsel, none of whom appear able to win or settle a case? We remain cautiously optimistic that newcomers McGourty and Mulheren can somehow avoid falling under Carmel Angelo's spell, which could in turn embolden Williams or Gjerde to take a fresh look at the reversal of roles and responsibilities that has been engineered by Angelo.

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WRITING AS Detective Hieronymous 'Harry' Bosch in his novel "Lost Light" (2003), popular detective novel writer Michael Connelly says in passing that there are more retired cops in the Humboldt County outback than there are pot growers, and that the pot growers don't know it.

NEVER HEARD that one before. I thought cops retired to Idaho, not to the anarchic wilds of the Emerald Triangle.

SPEAKING of the Triangle, arch-hustler Tim Blake has moved the Emerald Cup to LA. Starting out tiny in Laytonville, Blake soon realized there was big money to be made in the annual contest to determine the best smoke, he moved the festivities to the fairgrounds in Santa Rosa where he cashed in big. Now LA. Gee, and we knew him clear back when he stiffed the AVA for his first ad.

AT LEAST THEY KEPT HER GUN

On Thursday, April 29, 2021 at about 10:22 PM a Mendocino County Sheriff’s Deputy conducted a traffic stop on a vehicle being driven by Raven Young, 28, of Covelo in the approximate 76000 block of Highway 162 in Covelo.

A consent search of the vehicle was conducted and the Deputy found a loaded Sig Sauer .40 caliber pistol in a backpack belonging to Young.

The backpack was located in the passenger area of the vehicle. Also in the backpack was a glass methamphetamine pipe and a baggie of crystal methamphetamine.

Young was arrested and booked into the Mendocino County Jail on the charges of Possession of loaded Firearm in Public, Possession of Controlled Substance while armed with loaded Firearm, Possession of Controlled Substance, and Possession of Drug Paraphernalia.

In accordance with the COVID-19 emergency order issued by the State of California Judicial Council, bail was set at zero dollars and Young was released after the jail booking process, on her signed promise to appear in court at a later date.

NO CATCH & RELEASE FOR REG

On Friday, April 30, 2021 at about 6:45 P.M., Mendocino County Sheriff's Deputies served a felony arrest warrant on South Oak Street in Ukiah. 

A Mendocino County Superior Court Judge issued a warrant for the arrest of Reginald Faber III, 44, of Ukiah for Robbery and Burglary.

Upon arrival at the residence on South Oak Street, Deputies located Faber and he was taken into custody without incident.

Faber was booked into the Mendocino County Jail where he was to be held in lieu of $200,000 bail.

CATCH OF THE DAY, May 3, 2021

STEPHEN AINSWORTH, Gualala. Domestic battery.

ROBERT DOLIVIERA, Penn Valley/Ukiah. Sale-transport organic drug. 

JOHN HAMAKER, Weed. Stolen vehicle, arson offender registration upon discharge of parole.

DENA MORRIS, Ukiah. Parole violation. (Frequent flyer.)

ROBIN PHILLIPS, Willits. Felon-addict with firearm. 

MARK SPITSEN, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

SCAM ALERT

Editor,

Sadly, many elderly citizens continue to be victimized by phone scams even though warnings have appeared in hundreds of publications and are regularly discussed on television and radio. In 2020, phone scams cost Americans $19.7 billion, most of which was never recovered.

To help elderly relatives and friends avoid becoming victims, download and review with them the Federal Trade Commission’s comprehensive article on phone scams: consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0208-phone-scams. 

The AARP’s monthly bulletin is an excellent source for timely information about phones scams (aarp.org).

Emphasize to your elderly relatives and friends that sending money, accepting financial advice, disclosing personal information or agreeing to purchase a product or service in response to a phone call they did not initiate are sure ways to become a scam victim. Encourage them to be wary of suspicious phone calls and discuss them with you before they take any action.

David Karp

Cloverdale

ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

Meanwhile, our nation’s economy is headed for a train wreck. Detroit can’t make cars, because of a lack of semi-conductors. Locally, McDonald’s can’t hire entry-level workers at $15/hour, and college tuition support. Shortages of everything, nation-wide. Locally, construction crews are importing Mexicans to work, because there are not enough workers. Biden’s three big initiatives (Recovery, Infrastructure, Families) have a collective price tag of $6 trillion dollars, almost $20,000 for every man, woman, and child in the country. He wants to replace every lead drinking water pipe in America. That’s great, but have you tried to get a plumber lately? Biden wants to rebuild roads, bridges, and lay a new power grid across this vast nation. Who is going to do it? Trust me, anyone who wants a job in “fly over country” has a job. You’re going to get the long-term unemployed in big cities to climb poles to install the next-generation power grid….to climb on girders, building bridges….to stand in the baking sun, pouring concrete for new roads? Trust me…people willing to take jobs like that, already have jobs.

6 TIPS FOR UNPACKING IN YOUR NEW HOME

That feeling when you first step into your new home, after you've signed the paperwork and it's officially yours—it's an incredible feeling. There you are, standing in your new, pristine space, with its freshly painted walls and cleaned carpets and glimmering hardwood floors. 

And then the moving van arrives, and you're suddenly surrounded by boxes. It can be a little overwhelming. Luckily, The Spruce shared some tried-and-true practices for making unpacking less stressful and more efficient. 

1. Start with your essentials—those items you packed in your overnight bag (a few changes of clothes, toiletries, medications, a shower curtain and towels, phone charger, etc.). Make sure you have everything you need to keep yourself feeling human that first night in your new home. 

2. The first room to focus on is the kitchen. Hook up any major appliances you brought with you. If you have time, go ahead and install your shelf liner before you start filling the cabinets with dishes and cookware. If you’re short on time, just unpack what you’ll need for the new few days. Because you’ll want to make sure you get to this very important next step... 

3. The bedrooms! Because you’ll need a place to lay your weary head after a long day of moving in. Assemble the beds and unpack the linens. “Decide on furniture placement and closet organization before you unpack boxed items, if at all possible," writes moving expert Diane Schmidt. "Installing shelving and closet organization units first will make unpacking more productive and save you future work.” 

4. Bathrooms are next. Hang the shower curtain, unpack the towels, and stock the bathroom with all of the essential toiletries you packed in your overnight bag. “Nothing makes a house feel like a home more than having a comfortable, fully stocked bathroom," says Schmidt. 

5. Set up furniture. Once you’ve got the kitchen, bedrooms, and bathroom set up with their essentials, it’s time to start assembling and arranging furniture. Go ahead and set up a few tabletop framed family photos, while you’re at it. It’ll make the place start to feel like home. 

6. Once you’ve unpacked the essentials, take your time unpacking everything else as you set up your new home. Think about how you want each room to function and how you want your items to be organized. 

And in the midst of all of this unpacking and moving in, be sure to take some time to explore your new neighborhood and enjoy this new adventure with your family.

(via Anne Fashauer)

WHEN AMERICA GOT HIGH & NEVER CAME DOWN

by Nicholas Von Hoffman (1997)

Heard from any Army colonel stationed in Washington, as follows: “At last when my children ask ‘What did YOU do in the Vietnam War, Daddy?’ I will be able to reply proudly, ‘I defended the south parking lot against the hippies!’”

— Herb Caen, San Francisco Chronicle, 10/26/97

The sports network ESPN made use of the anniversary in some of its promos, but for the most part the media and social science professoriate have chosen to skip the 30th anniversary of the Summer of Love. There’s a paucity of retrospective documentaries, a dearth of seminars on C-SPAN. This happening, which dominated every form of communications in America that year, is largely unremembered, although it shouldn’t be.

Our history books, written more often than not by men and women who were New Leftist zealots 30 years ago, put their emphasis on the following year. For them, 1968 was the hinge of time. That year, there were the assassinations, the hell week of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, the rioting, looting and killing breaking out in almost every section of the country. In Europe, New Leftism took to the streets and tipped over Charles DeGaulle’s France. Even West Germany rocked back and forth for a few weeks that year, when grown-ups who knew no other line of verse shook their heads and quoted William Butler Yeats’ insistence that the center cannot hold.

Yet it was the Summer of Love, 1967, not the tempestuous year which followed it, that left this nation and much of western Europe irrevocably altered. That was the summer of sex, drugs and rock ‘n roll — the moment when life unzipped and quivering nudity made the nation swallow empty air.

The legacy of the New Left politicos is next to nonexistent. Without the analytical scaffolding afforded by Marxism, New Left political theory was a vapid, high-flown intellectuosity. If the power has flowed to the people, the people are making scant use of it. The Summer of Love, however — attached no doctrine, no school of thought, no theory worthy of the name — is with us to this hour.

The summer, which drew multitudinous numbers of youth to San Francisco, ended with several hundred thousand hippies surrounding the Pentagon, where they smoked dope and occasionally fucked for the cameras. The summer of 1967 was the year that the baby boomers first graduated from high school in epic numbers. It was a time for turning hippie, at least for a few months, a time of communes, Zen and sitars, the Beatles and the Rolling Stones.

Some of the most salient figures who orchestrated the festivities of that summer are dead now. Timothy Leary, Abbie Hoffman, Aldous Huxley and the lesser-known artists, musicians and counterculturists who got boys to grow their hair long and girls to cut theirs off, who put rings through their ears and a ringing in them as the rock beat assumed the throbbing dominance it has never relinquished.

It was in this period that terms like “youth culture” began to be used. The concept of adolescence fell into desuetude as the word “kid” came to be applied to anyone between 14 and 26. Madison Avenue took this gigantic slice of the population and turned it into a demographic market segment; the courts weakened the power of adults to supervise youth and made them citizens of a land of their own. Social class was superseded as they became inhabitants of a vast, floating continent, independent, separate and answerable to its own norms. Easily recognized by its uniforms (bell-bottoms then, shaggy-bagies now), their norms are largely determined by advertising and the companies that pay for it.

The lines and shapes of the youth culture, like a photograph materializing in a tank of developer, began to come clear in the Summer of Love. In those months drug-taking, heretofore regarded as depravity, was introduced to the middle classes, and the social controls that once might have made such behavior impossible were too weak to prevent the first wave of middle-class drug addiction.

Before 1967, drug-taking was an activity carried on only in small subsets of the population, none of them middle-class; afterward, drugs made their way into millions of respectable homes in every state and community. In a matter of months, what had been an unthinkable act for the children raised in what used to be called decent families became commonplace.

The vehicle by which drugs penetrated the permeable wall of middle-class rectitude was opposition to the Vietnam War.

American youth never did and doesn’t now concern itself with politics. But in the late 60s and early 70s, young men who couldn’t care less if the United States fought an imperialist war knew that Vietnam was too far away and smudgy for them to get their asses shot off fighting there.

The boys who didn’t want to go to war, along with their families and girlfriends, weren’t material for a serious political movement. Although some were collegians, they were not as well schooled as the generation that had gone to school on the GI Bill. Politically illiterate, more interested in feeling than in thoughts, they were not able to sustain organized political effort. Their emergence into public life marks the beginning of the politics of affect, which, to this day, makes them such easy marks for whoever comes along to tell them he or she feels their pain.

It was the political genius of men such as Abbie Hoffman to make dope, sex and dance symbolic acts of opposition to the establishment, the word universally employed for the pro-war faction. “Do It in the Road,” the Beatles said, and you can stop the war. The antiwar come-all-ias of music, dope and sexuality in that summer were aptly named be-ins. Derived from the civil rights sit-ins, the be-in, the coming together of a throng in chaotically ecstatic opposition to the world of those over 30, masked the fact that these unsophisticated sybarites, flashing on their happy lusts, were not up to anything past the politics of pleasure.

The drug message was enhanced by an advertising campaign, carried on through what the politicians now call free media. From every TV, the new dispensation was broadcast: Drugs not only make you feel good, but they give drug-takers insight, self-awareness, self-liberation and self-knowledge. It was eyewash, but millions believed the advertising claims of the Summer of Love.

Today, few denizens in the Subcontinent of Youth believe that drugs are a religious experience or a door to a higher consciousness. They take more drugs and more potent forms of drugs like marijuana than their parents did 30 years ago, but it has no special meaning. It is “recreational.”

After Richard Nixon ended conscription, the antiwar movement evaporated, but the drugs didn’t. The social topography post-1967 was never the same. The politics of affect infuse every public discussion. Sexual practices took their contemporary shape. The Subcontinent of Youth would have been formed whether or not there was a Summer of Love. But not the drugs. That took a special set of circumstances. There was only a short moment when that bottle could have been uncorked, and 1967 was the year.

BIDEN FAMILY JUSTICE

by James Kunstler

If you want to grok the awesome failure of authority these Fourth Turning crack-up years in America, start with the lawlessness at the Department of Justice and its sociopathic step-child, the FBI, along with a demonic host of intel agencies seeded throughout the national government: the CIA, the NSA, the DIA, the DHS, and even the lowly crypto-public US Postal Service, lately enlisted to spy on US citizens’ social media posts.

Who is supposed to rein-in these freewheeling rogues? I’ll tell you: the courts and the judges appointed to them. The problem is especially acute in the federal courts where, for instance, Judge James Boasberg allowed the FBI to lie repeatedly on warrant applications to his FISA court, and Judge Emmet G. Sullivan hung General Mike Flynn out to dry even after the DOJ had to admit misconduct in his prosecution — and the DC Court of Appeals failed to enforce the DOJ’s reluctant decision to finally drop charges.

The campaign of false witness against US citizens went into overdrive when Donald Trump strutted onto the scene and “seventeen agencies of the Intel Community” conspired with The New York Times and other news media to manufacture the RussiaGate hoax. No top official across the boards has been taken to law for the stupendous cavalcade of false accusations and deceitful investigations associated with that venture in sedition, and the nation is still waiting for the apparition known as Special Counsel John Durham to make a peep. In fact, since 2017 much of the publicly-reported activity around the DOJ and FBI has demonstrated only their attempts to suppress their own felonious misdeeds — cover-ups on top of cover-ups.

Now comes the curious case of Rudy Giuliani, whose apartment was raided on a warrant last week by the FBI seeking his computers and cell phones. The probable cause remains murky — something to do with violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) in representing Ukrainian clients in the US? So, the DOJ wants Rudy’s files, emails, and memoranda on that? Of course, Rudy was acting as the President’s lawyer in impeachment No. 1 over a telephone call to Ukraine, and what was that about? Hunter Biden’s grifting activities, his cumulatively receiving millions from the Burisma Company, of which Hunter’s dad was due to receive at least his usual ten percent cut? And concerning which activity, Joe Biden threatened former Ukraine President Poroshenko in withholding US aid, unless an investigation into Hunter’s Burisma grift was dropped.

It might be helpful to the current occupant of the Oval Office to know what kind of evidence Rudy has acquired on all that and more over the years — yes? But then, there’s plenty of evidence about it and much much much more on Hunter’s wayward laptop. Perhaps hundreds of millions in wide-ranging grifts beyond lowly Ukraine all the way to China, where to this day Hunter retains active and substantial financial connections through his Skaneateles LLC financial company. And it has become known that the FBI was in possession of Hunter’s laptop from at least one month prior to the commencement of impeachment proceedings in December of 2019. And nobody was informed about that… not least the president’s lawyer?

Don’t Christopher Wray and William Barr have some ‘splainin’ to do about how such a crucial trove of evidence was withheld during the impeachment? After all, Mr. Trump’s fateful phone call to Ukraine was about the influence-peddling operations of the Biden family in foreign lands. A whole other year passed before the existence of Hunter’s laptop was even acknowledged in the fall of 2020, and then the sole reportage about it from The New York Post was suppressed in a coordinated campaign between the social and news media — in the midst of a national election, with Joe Biden standing for president. Funny how that worked.

Also, note the connections between Rep Adam Schiff’s House Intel Committee, where the first impeachment hearings were staged, especially the committee’s Chief Counsel, one Daniel Goldman, and William Barr’s DOJ. Mr. Goldman was a former US Attorney in the Southern District of New York (2007 -2017). Do you suppose he knows people in Main Justice — like, just about everybody? Was he apprised formally or otherwise of the existence of Hunter’s laptop in possession of the FBI at the time of the hearings? Or Did Mr. Wray and Mr. Barr leave him in the dark about what was on it? (Personally, I doubt it.)

It has come out lately that the FBI secretly hacked its way into Mr. Giuliani’s iCloud data storage account without a warrant in the fall of 2019, when Mr. Schiff’s Intel Committee held its hearings preliminary to impeachment and Mr. Giuliani was the president’s lawyer. Did Mr. Wray and Mr. Barr or others funnel info about what was on the president’s lawyer’s private iCloud files to Mr. Goldman and Mr. Schiff? And was that info known to then Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire? Or Intel Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson, who allowed the bogus complaints of CIA “whistleblower” Eric Ciaramella and National Security Council officer Alexander Vindman to be manufactured into an impeachable “crime?” Do these seem to be esoteric issues? I don’t think so. Will they ever be adjudicated? And will our country pay a price for allowing all that to happen?

It has also been imputed in media coverage of the Giuliani raid that the president’s lawyer was somehow nefariously involved in advising Mr. Trump to fire US Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch. In fact, ambassadors to foreign lands serve at the pleasure of the chief executive. He can fire them for any reason. And his lawyer has every right to advise him to do it. Does the news media not know that?

Does the DOJ aim to mount an indictment against Rudy Giuliani? Well, if they do, of course, they open the door to evidentiary discovery — like, who gave the order to hack into the President’s lawyer’s iCloud account during the 2019 impeachment? Anything funny going on with that? It happens that Mr. Giuliani’s personal lawyer is one Bob Costello, who served as head of the Southern District’s criminal division when Rudy ran the DOJ’s SDNY. Mr. Costello might know something of the workings in Main Justice. He could possibly root something interesting out.

To return to my original point: who and where are the authorities who will hold high public officials accountable for the things they’ve been doing? Do you wonder why Americans increasingly lack faith in their government? Do you wonder why, for example, so many want to avoid “vaccine” shots, endorsed by government officials as “safe and effective?” Do you note the contrast between what’s taken ultra-seriously in the BLM hoopla over police shootings of perps obviously resisting arrest and fighting with them, and the awesome depravity at the highest levels of the US justice system? Oh, by the way, the Arizona ballot recount and voting machine forensic inquiry goes on. Maybe soon you will start putting together the reasons why your country is cracking up.

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