Mendocino County Today: Saturday, Feb. 5, 2022

High Pressure | 70 Cases | Doggie Dorie | Isbell Bros | Layoff Notice | Cordage Workshop | Measure B-trayal | Paranormal Nest | Bragg Identity | Car Cleaner | Dealer Detritus | Drought Cancelled | Danger Holler | Burn Coast | Got Lost | Schapmire Interview | Burglary Suspect | Stone Zone | Al References | Yesterday's Catch | Labor Market | Divine Right | Booster Shy | Death Rates | Ignorant Intel | Plowing 1920s | Kryptonite Times | Wiltshire Landscape | NATO Nuts | Video Magazine | Shasta Recall | Dropping Dead | Nurse Christie | CA Crime | Bridge Collapse | Prohibit Drilling | Real Men | Vaquero 3 | Corrina Fallieri | Facing Defeat | Fouled Twice | Marco Radio | Steal Me | Impossibly Ridiculous | Butterflies

HIGH PRESSURE ALOFT will lead to a return of quiet and dry winter weather through the weekend and beyond, with an overall warming trend. Some coastal clouds will be present early today with sunshine then tending to prevail heading into Sunday and next week. (NWS)

70 NEW COVID CASES reported in Mendocino County yesterday afternoon.

FOUND DOG

My husband had to go to Philo Friday morning, on his way back down the Flynn Creek Road he saw a lady trying to catch a dog who was wondering down the road, my husband stopped, helped her catch the dog, not hers, she was on her way back to San Francisco. So he brought him home. Dog tag says “Dorie” phone number no longer active. Please let me know if you have any idea who he may belong to. Super cute and fluffy, black and white, small, kind of like a Shih Tzu. 

Thank you!

Susie Francis
Broker Associate, DRE#01298560
Century 21 Seascape Realty, Fort Bragg, 707-964-2194

AV UNIFIED Weekly Update

Dear Anderson Valley Community,

I hope you are all having a great week. I have shut schools down for power outages, snow days, and downed trees, but I have never had to do it for lack of water. Thank you to the elementary staff for all hands on deck to handle that situation swiftly and efficiently. Thank you to our families for your understanding and cooperation. I know that unexpected closure impacted work schedules, and we regret the inconvenience.

In GREAT NEWS, the pooled tests for the entire district, came back NEGATIVE for samples collected on Wednesday. Please remember that any student/staff member that had a confirmed positive is out of the testing pool for 90 days, so that we do not generate any false positives. I know the cancellation of Varsity Boys basketball for the week was a deep disappointment. I know Mr. Folz and coaches were hard at work to address another playing opportunity.

I know many of you saw the Board agenda posted yesterday. We do have several layoff resolutions pending, and I wanted to take a moment to explain “the why”. My door is always open to the staff and community to discuss these issues. My on-going pledge is to hold and grow the vision and success of the entire district in the context of the big picture, and sometimes those decisions and recommendations are hard and come with some heat.

I know layoffs are hard. I have to notice per Ed Code any layoffs by March 15. The classified law changed that we now need to notify employees in CSEA by March 15 as well, which limits my ability to make more "in the moment" budget reductions later in the year. If more money appears, or more retirements come through, we can make adjustments, but I have to notice proactively. We take action in February, in case we have a problem with procedures or paperwork. 

I heard our teachers and staff members loud and clear that salary is a priority in our last negotiation. I have to reduce $440,000 in spending due to our last contract negotiation and on-going expenses related to deferred maintenance. As soon as I do that with the layoffs and go back to the negotiation table and give another raise, I am back in the hole. 

I want to reiterate that the layoff resolutions are not a reflection in any way of performance of these teachers and classified staff. It is a budgetary necessity based on where we are right now and the tight timelines districts are required to follow.

I have always said in negotiations, "We can do anything we want, but we can't do everything"....Do we want full benefits, high salaries, small class sizes, small caseloads... We can't do it all. We have tried to do it painlessly through collapsed positions and vacant positions, but it didn't get us the full way there.

Our on-going challenges of expensive deferred maintenance repairs (hopefully, that we can rectify with the passage of the June bond) puts another heavy burden on our budget as we try to maintain a safe and engaging environment for our kids. I am still hoping and dreaming for a big donor to help me remodel the shop building, which will be outside of the scope of the bond.

On another topic, we are most appreciative of the Anderson Valley Health Center and their partnership with us on the drug testing for students with parent consent. This is a powerful tool for parents and our organization to determine what substances they are involved with and what we can do to shape better choices for our students. We are working with various community organizations and the probation department on outreach opportunities as well. My goal is to REACH kids before they need a RESCUE. I am so thankful to the parents that are working together with us in this partnership. We have seen a profound change in respect, campus care, and attitude at the Jr./Sr. High over the past few weeks.

Enjoy your weekend!

Take care,

Louise Simson
Superintendent
Anderson Valley Unified School District
Cell: 707-684-1017

LOCAL ARTIST WORKSHOP coming up Saturday 2/5 in Boonville!

Cordage and Connection: Exploring the ancient art of rope making from fabrics that remind us of those we love. 

Perfect for Valentine's day - make a cordage necklace for someone you care about from special fabrics. 

This is a hands on workshop where you will learn how to twist fibers into cordage. It is one of those life skills that once you start doing it, you'll find all sorts of things to turn into cordage!

Please RSVP by email or phone for tickets and directions. I hope that you will join me over looking a sweet vineyard in the sunshine to share in conversation and crafting.

February 5, 1:00-4:30;  $65-$95 sliding scale. 

And, Friday 2/4 at Corner Gallery in Ukiah from 5-8 I am showing a collection of cordage necklaces and found object sculptures - please come by and see the beautiful work created by so many local artists.

Thanks so much, 

Saoirse
saoirse@saoirsebyrne.com
415-254-3938

THE BETRAYAL OF MEASURE B

by Mark Scaramella

Much of the original intent of Measure B, the “Mental Health Treatment Act,” which was passed in November of 2017 by more than two thirds of Mendo’s voters, seems to have been forgotten.

The ballot measure declared that “Mendocino County is committed to improving residents’ lives and the public’s safety by strategically evaluating and enhancing resources for mental health treatment.” Measure B would “Provide for the necessary infrastructure to support and stabilize individuals with behavioral health conditions, including addiction and neurological disorders.”

Notice that it specifically said, “including addiction…”

“Conduct an independent annual audit and develop a performance management strategy which measures the effectiveness of the improved services, treatment and facilities and assesses the impact of the ‘Mental Health Treatment Act’.”

(This is listed separately from the requirement to create the Oversight Committee, which is required to “review the independent annual audit of expenditures and the performance management plan for compliance with the Specific Purpose of this ordinance.”

”For a period of five (5) years a maximum of 75% of the revenue deposited into the Mental Health Treatment Fund may be used for facilities, with not less than 25% dedicated to services and treatment; thereafter 100% of all revenue deposited into the Mental Health Treatment Fund shall be used for ongoing operations, services and treatment.”

The ballot “Argument in Favor” of Measure B said:

“Everyone agrees that people suffering from mental illness or drug addiction need treatment. Jail is not a solution. Nor is confinement in distant facilities far from home. …Traumatized veterans, the homeless, even some of our own family members or friends are paying the price of our neglected mental health system…”

The proponents, lead by then-Sheriff Tom Allman, concluded, “Vote YES on Measure B to save taxpayer dollars by providing early treatment of mental illness and drug addiction, breaking the cycle of homelessness and re-incarceration.”

According to the Measure B Oversight Committee minutes at one of their first meetings in July of 2018:

“Chair Allman [Founding Father of Measure B] shared that he reported to the Board of Supervisors in May that over a third of the jail population in May was taking some sort of psychiatric medication,” adding, “his overview of the purpose of Measure B and referenced a Board of Supervisors Resolution #15-079 on the topic. A reduction of people with mental health illness in the County Jail is the goal.”

Here we are more than four years later and there has never been an “annual audit.”

Nor has there ever been a single word about capping the sales tax earnings at 75% for facilities, nor ensuring that at least 25% of the earnings go to “services.”

There has never been any mention — none! — of using Measure B money for treatment of drug addiction.

There has never been any mention of a “performance management plan for compliance with the Specific Purpose of this ordinance.”

There has never been any discussion of aiming Measure B money at reducing the number of mentall ill people in jail.

There has never been any discussion of using Measure B money to help “break the cycle of homelessness.”

Instead, Mendocino County has purchased a nearly-unused “training facility” in Redwood Valley for which we have never seen a utilization report.

They’ve also spent $5 million on a glorified four-bedroom house — still not open despite a “grand opening” last year — which they call a “crisis residential treatment facility” which is not mentioned anywhere in the text pf Measure B.

They’ve committed to spending about $20 million on an all-new gold-plated 16-bed Psychiatric Health Facility on Whitmore Lane on South State Street in Ukiah after they demolish the old nursing home that’s now there.

Mendo formed the required “Measure B Oversight Committee,” which, in an only-in-Mendo version of Alfonse and Gaston, batted around vague opinions and recommendations for three years and did almost nothing before the Supervisors finally gave up and turned Measure B over to Mental Health Director Dr. Jenine Miller who has since made it quite clear that the only people she intends to help are the small number of Mendo’s “severely mentally ill” people with insurance, either government or private, plus a few more insured people imported from out-of-county to keep the beds full and balance the PHF’s books.

Essentially, Mendo has ignored the original intent of Measure B. The voters wanted mentally ill, addicted and homeless people to be helped, not just a few grossly overpriced buildings to house a few insured people. And no one in Official Mendocino County — especially the bureaucrats running the show, the Oversight Committee and the Elected Officials who appointed its members — seem to care.

CHRIS SKYHAWK: Hello everyone. Here is a pic of my nest.

Despite its pleasant exterior, please do not be fooled. There are nefarious paranormal forces inhabiting it! I can’t tell you the number of objects that have gone missing inside this tin can nest! I am always certain that in such a small space the things will show up soon, Many things have never been seen again, LOOK! I know I have stroke brain but this is getting ridiculous! Maybe it’s the paranormal entities just F-ing with me, or maybe I’m parked next to one of those weird portals that suck objects into other dimensions, Normal explanations no longer suffice!

SCOTT TAUBOLD: Generations of people have lived here identifying themselves collectively as Fort Bragg persons or people, a culture, without knowing anything about Braxton Bragg, for 1&2/3 centuries. We have developed as a culture on the isolated Mendocino Coast. How would robbing the local people of their cultural identity be any different than what the oppressors have done across the nation and though out history?

BRENDON SHAW-GRIFFIN: Is you're vehicle dirty from winter? Did you spill coffee? That's no problem for me, im super convenient right here in Philo and I wear masks too. Give me a call and I can wash vacuum and detail your car right here in the valley. A package is just a wash. B package is a wash and vacuum and C package is a wash, vacuum and detail. 707-558-5301. Let's get those vehicles detailed for spring. Message me or call me.

GROVER OPENS HIS DOOR AND…

On Monday, January 31, 2022 at 9:57 P.M., Mendocino County Sheriff's Deputies responded to a reported domestic argument at a location in the 1300 block of North State Street in Ukiah.

On arrival, Deputies knocked on the door and were met by Grover Hunter, 36, of Ukiah.

The Deputies inquired about the domestic argument and learned Hunter had been in an argument with his girlfriend, who was in the bathroom. As the Deputies were talking to Hunter, they observed a commercial quantity of Fentanyl and a usable amount of methamphetamine in plain view.

The Deputies waited for Hunter's girlfriend to exit the bathroom and confirmed there had been no physical violence during the argument.

As the Deputies continued to talk to Hunter and his girlfriend they observed other items inside the room; which were indicative of drug sales, such as a digital scale. The Deputies detained Hunter and continued their investigation.

The Deputies located evidence and developed probable cause to believe Hunter possessed a commercial quantity of a narcotic/controlled substance for sale and possessed a controlled substance.

Hunter was arrested for Felony Possession Narcotic/Controlled Substance For Sale and Misdemeanor Possession of Controlled Substance.

Hunter was booked into the Mendocino County Jail where he was to be held in lieu of $25,000 bail.

MENDO PREPARES FOR THE 2022 DROUGHT

National Weather Service, January 31, 2022: "The dry start to January and a dry end to the month will offset some of the gains observed in December for many areas of the west. In addition, ongoing La Niña conditions in the tropical Pacific Ocean are tilting odds toward warmer and drier conditions as the February-March-April season progresses"…

Mendocino County Presser January 14, 2022: "The Mendocino Countywide Drought Task Force meeting for the month of January has been CANCELLED. The next meeting will be held on February 10th, 2022."

IN THRILLER ‘BURN COAST,’ MOM-AND-POP POT GROWERS CONFRONT A TOXIC NEW REALITY

by Peter Fish

The California drug trade has inspired potent books. Early in his career, T.C. Boyle scored with “Budding Prospects,” the picaresque tale of Northern California naifs turned wannabe cannabis kings. In surf-noir novels like “Savages,” Don Winslow supplies readers with THC-fueled crime sagas that reveal affluent Southern California as alluring, brutal and corrupt.

Now Dale Maharidge — a veteran journalist and Columbia University professor whose 1990 book, “And Their Children After Them,” earned a nonfiction Pulitzer Prize — takes his shot with “Burn Coast,” set among the redwoods and marijuana patches of Humboldt County.

“Burn Coast” is a rangy, topical thriller that charts the conflicts that erupt when a region dependent on mom-and-pop pot growers confronts the new world of legal marijuana and big-bucks, large-scale producers.

The prologue explains that “the Burn Coast” draws its name from the controlled fires its Native American inhabitants employed to ensure the survival of the valuable tan oak. Those native inhabitants have mostly vanished, slaughtered by 19th century white settlers. In their place are refugees from mainstream America, escapees from former lives, seekers of off-the-grid autonomy and the chance to grow $1,500-a-pound sinsemilla.

The novel’s cast of characters is vivid and varied. There’s the story’s protagonist, a reporter-professor Maharidge stand-in named Will Specter. There’s his pal Likowski, a successful grower with a signature strain named “Death Wish” who didn’t get the memo about not getting high on your own supply. There’s a sinister Bulgarian weed baron. And there’s Zoe, a 70-ish sprite who plays her tuba while gazing out to the sea.

Zoe’s sudden disappearance sets the book in motion. Did she flee the coast or was she killed? Why? The mystery triggers Will’s newshound instincts, and so he begins to dig into Zoe’s tangled past. (Likowski, likewise, has a secret history.) All the while, we discover that the Bulgarian weed baron seems to be behind every real estate transaction for 50 miles.

Maharidge lived part time in the Humboldt County town of Petrolia for many years, and he clearly knows the coast like a local. He’s good at painting its strenuous beauty — the fog tendrils wrapping the redwoods, the Pacific breakers smashing against the rocky shore. But he’s equally good at explaining the economic realities behind large-scale marijuana production, and he shows how those realities have turned the coast toxic. The Burn Coast may look like a haven for seekers of peace and love, but today its flower children are mostly “gnarly homeless dudes,” he writes, with its cute hippie shops “pandering cynical fronts for washing black-market weed money.”

Given its crowd of characters and its leaps in time, “Burn Coast” meanders some. But it regains momentum at its end, with more deaths and a final fire. “Maybe we were our own worst enemy,” a mourner grieves at a memorial service. “Where did we fail? What went wrong?” That’s the question that haunts Will Specter, and will no doubt linger with the reader, at “Burn Coast’s” close.

Burn Coast
By Dale Maharidge
(Unnamed Press; $28; 288 pages; SF Chronicle)

MENDO’S LONG-TIME COUNTY TREASURER-TAX COLLECTOR Shari Schapmire was interviewed in the Feb. 4 edition of the Independent Coast Observer, making her March 19 early retirement announcement official. Ms. Schapmire told ICO reporter Susan Wolbarst that the main reason she’s retiring now is the Supes ill-considered consolidation of the Treasurer-Tax Collector and Auditor-Controller offices. After reminding Ms. Wolbarst of her “very vocal” opposition to the consolidation, Schapmire added, “It couldn’t have happened at a worse time. I was extremely disappointed with the direction the board went. There is no communication. The two newest supervisors [McGourty and Mulheren] didn’t even talk to me. Supervisor Haschak is the only one who reached out to me. I have major concerns about what could potentially happen here,” adding that her experience with the County “has been extremely positive until the past three or four months. I’m very disappointed with the Board’s decision-making process.” Schapmire told Ms. Wolbarst that she expects interim/assistant auditor controller Chamisse Cubbison to run for the newly consolidated post and “I hope Chamise will be successful.” (Mark Scaramella)

THE HUMBOLDT COUNTY SHERIFF’S OFFICE is seeking information regarding the current whereabouts of a man wanted in relation to the burglary of a Blue Lake grocery store.

On Jan. 30, 2022, Humboldt County Sheriff’s deputies were dispatched to a business on the 1400 block of Glendale Drive in Blue Lake for the report of a burglary. Two male suspects were captured on surveillance video burglarizing the business, stealing over $1,400 worth of merchandise and causing significant property damage.

Through follow up investigation, deputies identified the two suspects as 21-year-old Steven Tyler Jackson and 22-year-old Dylan Dean Stout.

On Feb. 2, 2022, Sheriff’s deputies served a search warrant at a residence on Glendale Road known to be associated with both Jackson and Stout. Upon deputies’ arrival, Stout fled the residence, evading arrest. Jackson was located at the residence and taken into custody without incident. During the service of the search warrant, deputies located items believed to have been stolen during the burglary.

Jackson was booked into the Humboldt County Correctional Facility on charges of burglary (PC 459/461(b)), vandalism (PC 594(b)(1)), conspiracy to commit a crime (PC 182(a)(1)) and possession of stolen property (PC 496(a)), in addition to warrant charges of flight from a traffic officer (VC 2800.1(a)) and revocation of probation (PC 1203.2(a)).

Stout remains outstanding at this time and is wanted on charges of burglary (PC 459)), vandalism (PC 594(b)(1)), conspiracy to commit a crime (PC 182(a)(1)) and possession of stolen property (PC 496(a)) and resisting a peace officer (PC 148(a)(1)).

Stout is described as a white male adult, approximately 6 feet 4 inches tall, 220 pounds, with red/ginger hair and blue eyes.

Anyone with information about Stout’s whereabouts is encouraged to call the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office at (707) 445-7251 or the Sheriff’s Office Crime Tip line at (707) 268-2539.

* * *

On Line comment: I work with a portion of the population that includes young guys just like these two. They always, as soon as they can work it into the conversation bring up: when I was in jail or when I got out of jail, like a normal youth would say I got accepted at UCLA or Stanford. It is a badge of honor and pride. Some have parents as bad or worse than they are, most are already using meth and/or heroin. There are a shocking number of these boneheads out there.

AL NEEDS A HOME, REFS INCLUDED

Looking for a place to live...

Hello,

Hi my name is Alfred Nunez and i'm 62 years old, single, no dog no cat. I am a handyman caretaker kind of guy looking for another place to live. I have a motorhome i live in, a stepvan that i keep all my tools in, and a little truck and a log splitter. I can do carpentry, mechanic, and gardening work. I have plenty of other skills and the tools to do that work also. I can pay a little rent or we can do a work trade for my stay. I live in Albion and i'm hoping to find a place around the coast here. I have local work and character references. I do not have internet at home, you have to call me to contact me. Thank you... 707-409-4147 

My References;

• Sydelle - sydelle@mcn.org
• Michael - 707-367-0407
• Rob and Justine - 707-937-2585
• Karen-707 - 223-4531
• Kent - 357-1010
• Terry - 707- 984-8782
• Sam - bigbear@mcn.org
• Patricia and Jary - 707-964-4942
• Leslie - 415-686-6361
• Lydia and Dennis - 707-962-9401

CATCH OF THE DAY, February 4, 2022

GILBERT BENAVIDEZ, Ukiah. Pot possession for sale, suspended license for DUI, evasion, probation revocation.

JAMES BRAITHWAITE, Fort Bragg. DUI, probation revocation.

JADEN LUNDY, Fort Bragg. Probation revocation.

JONNIE MIZE, Santa Rosa/Ukiah. Failure to appear.

CLAIRE QUAVE, Hopland. DUI.

JERMAINE SALAS, Rohnert Park/Ukiah. DUI.

GERALD SIMPSON, Willits. County parole violation.

STEVEN WHITE, Potter Valley. Failure to appear.

DANIEL WOLDT, Fort Bragg. Probation revocation.

WHY ARE SO MANY PART-TIME WORKERS STRUGGLING TO FIND FULL-TIME WORK DURING A LABOR SHORTAGE?

by David Leonhardt

Brenda Garcia, who works at a Chipotle in Queens, has a problem that may sound surprising in today’s tight labor market. She is a part-time employee who wants more work, but the restaurant keeps assigning her less than 20 hours a week.

“It’s not enough for me,” Garcia told my colleague Noam Scheiber. “They’re not giving me a stable job.”

Garcia is one of millions of Americans who want an established, full-time work schedule and are struggling to find it, as Noam explains in a Times article. As a result, these part-timers struggle with not only low pay but also uncertain shifts that can change at the last minute, disrupting the rest of their lives. The workers can obviously quit, but they often find that the other jobs available to them have similar problems.

How could this be when the country is in the midst of a labor shortage in which employers are struggling to fill jobs? Because executives at many companies have decided that part-time work is too important to abandon just because the labor market is temporarily tight.

Part-time work allows companies to hold down labor costs in two crucial ways. First, companies can reduce their benefit costs because part-time workers often do not receive health care and retirement benefits. Second, companies can change staffing levels quickly, to meet demand on a given day or week, rather than having workers sit idle during slower periods.

“It’s very deeply embedded in employers’ business models,” Noam — who covers workers and the workplace from Chicago — told me. “They’re incredibly reluctant to give it up, even if it means enduring labor shortages and elevated turnover in the short and intermediate term. Basically, they think it makes more economic sense to wait out the current shortages than to fundamentally change their labor model.”

That may well be a rational decision for individual businesses. The shift toward flexible, part-time and often outsourced work is a major reason that corporate profits have risen in recent decades. After-tax corporate profits have accounted for more than 7 percent of national income in recent years, up from an average of 5.6 percent from the 1950s through the 1970s, according to the Commerce Department.

If employers shift away from part-time work during a tight labor market like today’s, they worry they will be stuck with higher labor costs for years. “Employers will typically try everything else first — raising wages, offering bonuses and other financial incentives, giving part-timers more hours temporarily,” Noam explains. “All these measures are reversible, and presumably will be reversed once the labor shortages subside.”

The power dynamic

Companies have been able to insist on so much part-time work largely because they have more negotiating power over workers than in the past. The corporate sector is more consolidated than it was decades ago, leaving the average employer with more resources and the average worker with fewer alternatives in any given industry.

Workers, for their part, are much less likely to belong to a union than in the past. And union members make more money than similar nonunion workers, as an extensive study of the U.S. economy by economists at Princeton and Columbia has found. Unions effectively shift some of a company’s revenue from profits to wages. Shrinking unions, in turn, have contributed to growing economic inequality.

One way that unions tend to lift wages is by putting pressure on companies to hire people full time — and threatening to strike if the companies refuse.

Last month, unionized workers at King Soopers, a supermarket chain mostly in the Denver area and owned by Kroger, went on strike. They made the growth of part-time work a central issue. In the strike’s settlement, Kroger agreed to contract language that will likely lead it to add 1,000 or more full-time jobs over the next three years. A majority of jobs at King Soopers are still part-time, but the settlement has changed the balance.

“Without a labor union that could organize a strike and provide strike pay, it’s hard to see how most workers could pressure their employers to make a similar change,” Noam said.

In the short term, a tight labor market will lift wages for many American workers. If it were to persist for years — which is unlikely — it might alter the balance of power between workers and employers. But the more plausible way that balance could change is through government policy.

The House has passed a bill called the PRO Act that would make it easier for workers to form unions, and President Biden supports it. Among other things, the bill would bar companies from requiring employees to attend anti-union meetings and would impose financial penalties on companies that fire workers for trying to organize a union.

The bill seems stalled in the Senate, where Republicans oppose it. Democrats may try to pass some of the bill’s provisions along party lines in coming months.

The bottom line

The increasing inequality of the U.S. economy over the past half-century is unlikely to end because of a temporarily tight labor market. “Labor shortages may be a necessary condition for changing the nature of these jobs,” Noam says, “but they’re generally not a sufficient condition.”

(New York Times)

WHY ARE SO FEW PEOPLE IN THE BAY AREA GETTING COVID BOOSTER SHOTS?

by Kellie Hwang, Aidin Vaziri

It is well established that the protection offered by the initial series of COVID vaccines wanes over time. But despite months of availability, booster shots remain comparatively unpopular, even in a highly vaccinated region like the Bay Area, where hundreds of thousands of people have so far taken a pass on the third dose.

Many public health experts think that low uptake of boosters not only exacerbated the devastating winter omicron surge, but is extending the tail of the pandemic. That means it will take longer to lift restrictions — and it could leave the population vulnerable to other variants and more waves of cases and hospitalizations.

According to new data from the state Department of Public Health, Californians with booster shots have rates of omicron infection less than half those with only the original one- or two-dose vaccination regimen. Rates for boosted people were 95.6 cases per 100,000 people as of Jan. 16, compared to 229.5 cases per 100,000 for those without boosters. Rates for unvaccinated Californians were three to seven times higher, at 712.7 cases per 100,000 people.

Uptake of boosting varies widely among the largest racial and ethnic groups in the Bay Area. In the Asian population, 64% of all people were both “fully vaccinated” and boosted as of Jan. 31. The white population was next at 47%, followed by the Black and African American population at 29%, with the Latino population close behind at 27%.

Only around 43% of Latinos who are fully vaccinated have also gotten booster shots, compared with half of the Black and African American population. The share of vaccinated Asian and white people who have gotten boosted is roughtly equal at around two-thirds.

“I think the messaging of our public health officials has not been as accurate as it could be,” said Dr. Andre Campbell, a public health advocate and attending trauma surgeon at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital. “They said you take two shots and you’re done. The reality is, with the aggressive nature of omicron you need to have three to have full protection.”

He said there are 55 patients currently in his hospital with COVID-19 and eight in intensive care unit beds — those most severely ill with the virus. Those numbers are not far from the peak of 69 patients S.F. General saw during last year’s winter surge, before vaccines became widely available. …

sfchronicle.com/health/article/COVID-vaccines-booster-shots-16830524.php

COVID DEATH RATES

ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

In my old age, my readings in history and current events as they were and as they passed me by are finally paying off. Now every time I hear about “our intel people” I think of the many times US intel was out of touch with reality. 1941 — months before Pearl Harbor, the Martin-Bellinger report from a couple of high ranking US military commanders was thoroughly ignored by “our intel”. It predicted the upcoming attack’s time of day, day of the week, method, direction from which the attack would come, and the fact that the Empire would not declare war on the US before striking. Oct 1962: 4 Soviet subs off Cuba repositioned themselves under water when JFK announced his “quarantine” of shipping in and around Cuba. “Our intel” was ignorant of the fact that each sub had a “special weapon” – a nuclear tipped torpedo for which each sub’s commander had Moscow’s full authority to launch, at the decision of each sub’s command, no need to communicate with Moscow. It was a miracle IMNSHO that Soviet sub B59 did not launch its “special weapon” against the US Navy despite being depth-charged. “Our intel” was completely ignorant of this situation until 1992 when the military archives of the defunct USSR were opened for review. Jan 1968 — a frontline US Army intel officer captures documents from a dead NVA officer with the full plan of the upcoming Tet offensive. He makes a point of personally presenting them to Gen. Westmoreland for his perusal. Westie gives the documents no more than a glance, gives them a wave of the back of his hand, and says, “They’re not able to do that!”

Nowadays it seems “our intel” has gone over to organized crime, a task they perform much better than “intel”.

LOOKS LIKE THE BACKUP PLAN is for “Joe Biden’s” geniuses in the foreign affairs and intel bureaucracy to start a war with Russia over Ukraine, our dearest ally in the whole wide world (not). Yesterday, State Department spox Ned Price floated up a raggedy balloon about Russia pulling a “false flag” stunt in Ukraine’s Donbass frontier to get things going. It sounded like he was just making shit up. And he was conspicuously short on details. “Our intel people something something, blah blah….” Skeptical reporters shot the balloon down with a few barbed remarks — the darn thing just zinged around the press room with the air rushing out and crashed on the spox’s podium — suggesting that even the news media is tired of its role in the controlled demolition of our country.

More likely, though, the financial scaffold of Late Modernity gives way under the burden of rackets and Ponzis it has been asked to support. This week, Facebook (a.k.a. Meta) scored the world record for biggest single-day market value drop ever, shedding $232-billion in capital losses. You go, Zuck! The Everything Bubble has achieved supernova scale and everybody knows she’s gonna blow as soon as Jay Powell lifts the Fed Funds rate twenty-five basis points. When that finally happens, things get realer than real and Truth comes marching in like the saints with bells on. It’ll be the Left’s Masque of the Red Death… ashes, ashes, all fall down.

The actual global economy itself — the thing that sends, you know, products from one place to another — is seizing up like the engine on a beater 1998 Buick Regal. Long about right now, lots of things are not going from point A to Point B, including stuff of a food nature. It’s starting to irk the home-folks. When all that goes south, you’ll hear no more about Covid-19, systemic racism, the patriarchy, the drag queen story hour, and all the other hobgoblins that infest the gospel garden of Wokery. The kryptonite is coming on hard. They are done… and for the moment we are stuck with them running the country. 

— James Kunstler

BUMBLING INTO ANOTHER WAR

Editor: 

The forever wars in Vietnam and Afghanistan ended with the same outcome. After a great loss of life and treasure, the enemy we fought seized power.

In defiance of the proverbial definition of insanity, we are preparing for another war in another remote area of the world, because an old enemy threatens to invade its neighbor or overthrow its government. Have we not learned anything from the recent past?

While Vladimir Putin may be a thug, any Russian president would be concerned about the United States, a longtime adversary, encircling his homeland with a military alliance including states formerly allied with Russia.

Since NATO was created to block Soviet expansion and the Soviet Union no longer exists, what is the logic for continuing NATO and expanding it to surround Russia? Despite promises by Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, NATO grew by 14 countries, 11 on Russia’s doorstep.

In view of the coronavirus pandemic and climate crisis, which can only be attacked effectively through diplomacy and international cooperation, isn’t this the wrong crusade at the wrong time? Before we back into another war, President Joe Biden and our European partners should negotiate a peace agreement with Russia.

Tony White

Santa Rosa

VIA CHRIS CALDER

In Shasta County:

"The Cottonwood militia, an armed group of men who describe themselves as civic leaders and helpers of local law enforcement (though law enforcement has said they are not affiliated), threw their might into the (recall) effort. A film producer, best known for religious music videos, decided to make a glossy documentary full of slow-motion horseback riding, hopeful a successful recall would provide a blueprint for other communities to do the same.

"They started a podcast and spent a lot of time telling one another (and anyone listening) how important they were to saving Shasta from what they described as criminal corruption — something they argued could be punishable by death. They demanded a government beholden to nothing and no one, except themselves, quoting dubious interpretations of the Constitution. Eventually, organizers collected enough signatures to trigger an election to unseat one supervisor, Leonard Moty, Redding’s ex-police chief who describes himself as a fiscal conservative and social moderate.

"The fight seemed neck and neck for a while until money came in the mix. Reverge Anselmo, the son of a billionaire and an erstwhile film producer and director, began dumping thousands into the recall effort, though he lives in Connecticut. It was $50,000 at first, then $400,000 in November. I left a message with Anselmo’s assistant but never heard back as to why he funded the far-right campaign. Local media reported that he had a beef with the county over permitting on a vineyard and restaurant he tried to build there."

"The election was held Tuesday, and while some ballots are still out, it is almost certain Moty will be recalled, leaving Shasta County likely to have leadership that is beholden to the militia and their far-right compatriots. For months, militia members have been clear about what that looks like.

""We have to make politicians scared again,” Carlos Zapata, a bar owner and militia member, told my colleague Hailey Branson-Potts, as the militia was heating up its tactics. “If politicians do not fear the people they govern, that relationship is broken.”

"It isn’t just politicians who are cowed. Regular citizens are, too. People came up to Moty and said they supported him, “but they didn’t want to have their name out there because they are afraid,” he said."

IN OTHER NEWS, CATEGORY GULLIBILITY:

I've been reading where the antivax lunatics are now claiming (quote) "It's well recorded that at least 150 professional athletes have died on the court or on the pitch because of vaccines."...A comment after an article about that goes, "If only professional sports weren't so ignored and unreported on, there might be some video evidence of all these hundreds and hundreds of athletes clutching their hearts and keeling over dead in the middle of wrecking their brains crashing head-on into each other, fighting like great lummoxes over a ball. If only someone were there with a camera or something. If only even just a few deluded pro-Fauci-Pharma sheep were there to see the vaccines dropping them like carnival shooting gallery targets. But alas." (It was shorter than that. I fixed it up a little.)

— Marco McClean

CALIFORNIA CRIME STORY: The Numbers, Explained Crime statistics are a loaded weapon.

by Nigel Duara

They can be pointed in any direction, to mean anything: To law enforcement, rising crime usually means police departments need more officers, or that prison sentences aren’t high enough to deter crime. To criminal justice reform advocates, the same statistics might show that, in context, crime is down, and long-term legislative changes to the criminal code are working.

So how do we interpret California’s crime statistics? What does a spike in homicides in 2020 mean? Why did property crime go down in the first year of the pandemic? How many years of data do we need to create responsive policy?

The answer, according to those who study the issue – and aren’t running for office or stoking a political agenda — is: Don’t jump to conclusions.

For one thing, the way crime data is collected in California and across the country is inconsistent and doesn’t always provide a clear picture of how much crime is happening, who’s committing it and who is being victimized.

Law enforcement agencies self-report their crime data to the FBI, which each year publishes the Uniform Crime Reporting Program. The California Department of Justice then produces statewide reports from those numbers.

But not every department reports its statistics. And among those that do, some don’t report all their data — or report the information differently. Some jurisdictions log every incident; others only report crimes that lead to incarceration.

Then there are the circumstances beyond the bounds of each jurisdiction. In the 2020 data, the first year of pandemic lockdowns, some police departments and sheriff’s offices across the state made fewer arrests for lower-level crimes. Fewer people were taken to jail, and a number of people incarcerated in jails and prisons were granted early releases.

Researchers are also wary of sweeping conclusions made about so-called spikes in homicides or other violent crimes, when long-range data may reveal far less alarming trends.

In all, the reporting of crime numbers is a snapshot of self-reported data, subject to human error and misinterpretation. It can also be deliberately manipulated, as claimed by whistleblowers at the New York and Los Angeles police departments.

“So long as police departments have any influence on reporting or recording crime, even independent, credentialed bodies will be unsuccessful in their effort to collect and publish accurate accounts,” wrote Emory College professor Carl Suddler in a Brookings Institution report.

It’s impossible to know what crimes were missed by police, or counted incorrectly. But from the available data, here is a snapshot of crime in California.

The homicide spike: The big picture

The headlines blared that homicides were up 31% in California in 2020. That’s true, but it doesn’t tell the whole story.

A long-range look at crime statistics, particularly homicide data, shows that the 2020 crime rate nationally and in California was still a fraction of its highs in the early 1990s, according to government statistics.

The jump between 2019 and 2020 became a central aspect of the unsuccessful recall of Gov. Gavin Newsom.

Republican Larry Elder, the leading vote-getter among Newsom’s challengers, decried the “soft-on-crime ethos that we see emanating from Sacramento and from many of our major cities.” Kevin Faulconer, another Newsom challenger, said the rising crime rate forced major employers to pull out of San Francisco.

 In Kern County, the homicide rate per 100,000 people was 12.7 in 2020 — the state’s highest — or about one for every 8,000 people. Statewide, the average homicide rate was 5.5.

Some parts of California were able to suppress a spike in homicides. Monterey County’s homicide rate, once as high as 13.8 people per 100,000 in 2015, has dropped significantly, and in 2020 was lower than the statewide average at 3.2 per 100,000.

Someone she knows

In California, homicide victims and their relationship to their killers looks starkly different for women vs. men.

For homicides of women in which police could identify a suspect, 84% were friends, acquaintances, family members or relatives of the women killed. Spouses specifically were suspected in 12% of homicides in which women were victims.

Only 16% of suspects in the killings of women were strangers, according to the California Department of Justice.

That wasn’t true for men: More than 40% of suspects in the killings of men were strangers.

A significant number of suspects in the homicides of both men and women had an unknown relationship to their victims, justice department figures show.

Gun deaths were dropping. Then, 2020

After three years of a decline, the number of homicides caused by firearms in 2020 hit its highest level in California in at least a decade.

Statewide, 1,606 people were killed by guns in the first year of pandemic lockdowns, the most recent year for which data is available.

It wasn’t just the number of people killed. A higher percentage of people were killed by firearms in 2020 than in any year since at least 2011.

Of those, nearly half were killed by a handgun. The number is almost certainly higher, since 23% of all firearm homicides reported by police did not specify or could not determine the type of firearm used.

Property crime and the pandemic

Perhaps it’s no surprise that property crimes dipped significantly during the first year of the pandemic amid curfews and lockdown orders. In fact, 2020 was a historically low year for property crime, according to statistics reported by police departments and sheriff’s offices to the California Department of Justice.

It also shouldn’t be a surprise that property crime returned to pre-pandemic levels in 2021 as restrictions eased.

According to a separate analysis by the Public Policy Institute of California that tabulated four major cities’ preliminary crime data, property crime in 2021 was up in Los Angeles, Oakland, San Diego and San Francisco between Jan. 1, 2020, and Oct. 31, 2021.

That followed a dip in which property crime in 2020 reached a six-decade low.

“While the specific factors driving fluctuations in crime numbers in the wake of the COVID health crisis are very difficult to determine, the data suggest that overall both violent and property crime are back to pre-pandemic levels,” the institute’s authors wrote.

Among California’s five largest counties – Los Angeles, San Diego, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino — property crime fell slightly from 2015 to 2019, with a pandemic dip beginning in March 2020. The same trend held true for Alameda and Sacramento counties in Northern California.

A spate of smash-and-grab retail thefts in the Bay Area and Los Angeles in November and the burglarizing of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s own wine shop in San Francisco drew headlines. Newsom’s 2022 budget proposal included $300 million over three years to combat retail theft, most of it through grants to local law enforcement.

California hate crimes: Who’s being targeted?

Hate crimes were up in California in 2020, a year marked by lockdown orders but also a spate of nationally-reported incidents of anti-Asian bias.

In 2020, 1,530 hate crimes were reported in California. Of those, 1,030 were rooted in racial bias.

Nearly 70% of hate crimes reported as “closed” in 2020 were violent crimes. Of those, most were intimidation, simple assault or aggravated assault.

Of all hate crimes reported as “closed” in 2020, the majority — 67% — were directed against someone’s race, ethnicity or national origin.

And of those crimes committed against racial and ethnic groups, the highest number of victims per capita were Black and Jewish people.

Anti-Asian bias was the primary factor in 7% of those crimes. Asians make up 15% of Californians.

By contrast, anti-Black bias was the primary factor in 33% of all hate crimes in 2020. Black people make up just 6.5% of California’s population, according to 2021 estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau.

Among hate crimes directed at someone’s race or ethnicity, Black people made up 50% of victims.

According to the 2020 American Jewish Population Estimate from Brandeis University, 1.17 million Jewish people live in California. The same year, 120 anti-Jewish hate crimes were reported, according to the California Department of Justice.

Criminal complaints against police officers

Since 2016, California has been publishing the number of criminal complaints made against law enforcement officers by the public and how many were “sustained” – or deemed to be “true, by a preponderance of evidence.”

Before 2016, the Department of Justice only published statewide data without listing specific agencies.

Now, four years of data show which departments received the most complaints, and at what rate they sustained those complaints.

The data show that, since 2016, law enforcement agencies statewide sustained 7.6% of criminal complaints against their officers.

But there were wide variations. For instance, in 2017, the Department of Corrections sustained 22% of complaints against its officers — nearly triple the statewide average.

And in 2018, the Oakland Police Department also upheld criminal complaints against officers at a rate far outpacing the statewide average. The department has been under the supervision of an outside monitoring team and a federal judge since 2003, the result of a class action lawsuit settlement that accused Oakland police officers of beating residents and planting evidence.

In California, each department is its own fiefdom, with its own rules and procedures for adjudicating complaints.

Not surprisingly, the Los Angeles Police Department — one of the nation’s largest and the state’s most populous city — received the most complaints between 2016 and 2020. The department sustained those complaints at a rate of between 5% and 7%, which is below the statewide average.

How well are California cops clearing their cases?

Every year, most law enforcement agencies in California publish the results of their year: the number of crimes reported to them, and the number of arrests they made. With a little math, this becomes their “clearance rates.”

In 2020, the last year for which data is available, the total statewide clearance rate on non-fatal violent crimes was 45%, compared with 42% nationally. On homicides, clearance rates were 59% in California, compared with 54% nationally.

But clearances for homicide cases varied wildly — from more than four arrests per five homicides investigated by the San Diego Police Department, to fewer than one in five by the Kern County Sheriff’s Office.

 The Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department made far more arrests per non-fatal violent incident than they did for homicides, driven primarily by higher arrests per rape and aggravated assault.

The opposite was true of the Oakland Police Department, which made more than one arrest for every two homicides, but fewer than one arrest for every three violent crimes.

There’s an important consideration to this data: The arrests are reported as “clearances,” but arrests are not convictions. A clearance doesn’t necessarily mean a crime was solved or anyone was punished.

Police also sometimes clear crimes by “exceptional means.” According to the FBI, this is when police have a suspect and enough evidence to make an arrest, but “a circumstance outside the control of law enforcement” stopped them – the suspect died, for instance, or the victim stopped cooperating.

When officers are injured or killed

From 2011 to 2020, California police officers were most likely to be injured or killed when they arrived at the scene in a vehicle and assisted a non-police agency, like firefighters.

During that period, 32 officers were killed “feloniously,” meaning their deaths were not accidental, according to California Department of Justice data.

(CalMatters.org)

LA CITY COUNCIL VOTES TO PROHIBIT DRILLING OF NEW OIL AND GAS WELLS, PHASE OUT EXISTING PRODUCTION

by Dan Bacher

On January 26, the Los Angeles City Council voted unanimously to prohibit the drilling of new oil and gas wells, phase out production of existing oil and gas wells and create a process for the phase-out and cleanup of existing oil wells, with a just transition.

"Oil drilling is and has always been an inherently incompatible land use with neighborhoods and schools and hospitals and homes,” said LA City Councilmember Paul Koretz, EOPA California Leadership Council, and one of the co-authors of the original motion, in a statement from Elected Officials to Protect America (EOPA) California. “No one should have to wake up in her own bed with a nose bleed caused by toxic oil drilling chemicals. Nor with cancer caused by the same. That said, we must also ensure the affected workers have a secure working future. Today's item will take care of both."

The motion specifically directs the Department of City Planning to work with the City Attorney’s office to draft an ordinance that prohibits any new oil and gas extraction operations and makes existing extraction activities a nonconforming land use in all areas of the city, according to Koretz.

The ordinance will also include a study to determine the phase-out period, a plan to plug and remediate inactive wells, and direction to the City to participate in L.A. County’s Just Transition Taskforce to ensure an equitable transition plan for impacted oil workers.

“On behalf of 430 elected officials from 49 counties working to phase out dangerous oil and gas drilling, EOPA California congratulates the LA City Council for their bold leadership to phase out and end the pumping of dirty fossil fuels that continue to devastate communities of color with toxic pollutants that can lead to premature death,” said Dominic Frongillo, Executive Director and Co-Founder of Elected Officials to Protect America. “EOPA Californian is working statewide to do the same as California transitions with a just transition for workers to a 100 percent clean energy future.”

The City of Los Angeles has a total of 5,229 oil wells, of which 296 are idle and the majority are located within 2,500 feet of homes, schools and hospitals, EOPA California reported. For comparison, in unincorporated Los Angeles County, there are nearly 2,000 active and idle oil and gas wells.

“More than 580,000 LA City residents live within one-quarter mile of a productive oil and gas well. Scientific evidence shows that nearby oil and gas drilling operations can cause premature death. A host of ailments including, cancer, liver and kidney damage, neurological, cardiovascular and respiratory problems, low birth weights and birth defects have been attributed to oil and gas industries operations,” the group stated.

“Communities of color host the majority of these oil and gas wells and continue to suffer greater health risks. In LA County, 44 percent of Black residents, 37 percent of Latino residents and 48 percent of Asian residents live near oil and gas wells, compared to 31 percent of Caucasian residents,” the group noted.

“We will continue to urge Governor Newsom to stop issuing all oil and gas permitting now and to follow the lead of LA City and Culver City to phase out all oil and gas drilling and pumping operations, with a just transition as we move forward creating good union jobs with a just transition,” added Frongillo.

The vote wouldn’t have happened without the years of grassroots organizing by the STAND-LA Coalition.

“This vote represents a tremendous victory for frontline communities across the city of Los Angeles,” said Nancy Halpern Ibrahim, MPH, Executive Director, Esperanza Community Housing. “Unified within STAND-L.A., their strategic and tenacious campaign to outlaw neighborhood drilling has culminated in our elected council members voting to end one of the City's most noxious structural inequities and begin repairing the harm driven by decades of racist planning and zoning policies.”

“These policies have caused frontline communities across Los Angeles severe and lasting health impacts, destructive land uses and toxic air pollution that contributes to climate change. This morning’s vote begins the work of phasing out all existing operations and leads the way for an equitable transition to jobs that promote community health and economic growth. Many thanks to members of our City Council who supported and championed this motion, and understand their responsibility as stewards of the City to maintain its sustainability for future generations,” she concluded.

"Today's vote to prohibit new oil and gas extractions and phase out existing oil drilling sites in our city is monumental and a direct result of years of grassroots advocacy,” said Gloria Medina, Executive Director, SCOPE LA. “After six years of organizing in South L.A., we are deeply grateful for the frontline communities that have lent their voices and leadership to address the harmful health impacts of urban oil drilling and build a healthier city. SCOPE celebrates this win with South L.A. residents and leaders, while recognizing there is still work to do to fulfill L.A. City's commitment to public health equity grounded in racial and environmental justice. We look forward to being part of the process to help draft an ordinance as quickly as possible."

“This is a very important day for the environmental justice communities in Los Angeles,” said Ashley Hernandez, Youth Organizer and Wilmington community leader, Communities for a Better Environment., :After being adversely impacted by polluting oil drilling operations in their neighborhoods for generations and after a decade of advocacy and perseverance, frontline communities and youth activists from Wilmington to South L.A. have proven the skeptics wrong. We have shown that if you fight for justice and stay the course, you can make a difference and change the policies that impact your health and your quality of life.”

On the day of the historic City Council vote, Consumer Watchdog and FracTracker Alliance reported that Governor Newsom has approved 10,212 oil drilling permits since he assumed office in 2019. The total is nearly identical to the number of permits Governor Jerry Brown approved in his first three years.

According to the latest analysis by FracTracker Alliance of permits approved through December 31, 2021, and posted by Consumer Watchdog, the number of permit approvals fell from 2020.

Nevertheless, the groups note that Newsom’s number is “nipping on the heels” of Brown’s 10,268 permits dispensed in his first three years in office. Brown — who portrayed himself as a “climate leader” at scores of conferences and photo opportunities — ultimately approved 31,545 wells during his eight years in office while receiving over $9.8 million from oil and gas corporations and utilities.

*Culver City shows that phasing out fossil fuel use helps grow local economies *

Culver City voted in June of 2021 to phase out oil and gas production, enact a just transition for industry workers and require the cleanup of well sites in the city’s portion of the Inglewood Oil Field within five years, according to EOPA California.

“How Culver City is phasing out the Inglewood Oil Field’s production has been an example for other municipalities to follow as they transition away from fossil fuels and embrace a clean energy economy,” said Culver City Councilmember Alex Fisch. “We are proving there can be a just transition for workers. The job opportunities that have opened up by closing down oil and gas production show economic growth can be achieved. I’m pleased to see the City of Los Angeles moving forward in the same direction as we are.”

The Inglewood Oil Field is the largest contiguous urban oil field in the U.S., with more than one million people living within five miles of the site. Jurisdiction over the Inglewood Oil Field is split between Culver City and Los Angeles County,

On average, the field produces 2.5 to 3.1 million barrels of oil yearly on about 1,100 acres. Approximately 10 percent (78 acres) was located within the limits of Culver City.

TOM VAQUERO, PART 3

by David Gurney 

-- The following real stories have been adapted from historical records of Marin County --

"By reference to the map of Marin County it will be seen that on the north side of Tomales Bay there is a point of land described as Woods Point. (later called “Tom’s Point”). Previous to the discovery of gold in California, a man named Thomas who deserted from a whaling vessel that touched on this coast, took up his residence at that point with the tribe of Tomales Indians. Wood took as a spouse a winsome mohala of that tribe.

The name Thomas Wood however, had been metamorphosed into that of Tom Vaquero. And by the latter name he was universally known. To his marvelous skill in horsemanship and unerring precision in hurling the Riata he was indebted for his name.

Way back in the early days of California, Tom Vaquero kept a standing offer for his horse, saddle, bridle and spurs if he failed to ride the wildest mustang of the plains until it was conquered and domiciled, without losing from his stirrups two silver dollars, one to be placed under each foot, at the of mounting of his horse.

In the summer of 1854 we visited Tomales Bay, and spent several days in hunting fishing and clamming. We camped on the beach near Tom Vaquero’s rancheria and heard him narrate many incidents and adventures worth being perpetuated in print. The stories dated prior to the discovery of gold in California. At that time trading vessels touched in at the various harbors along the coast for the purpose of buying hides and tallow, and such other articles as might have commercial value. French traders especially bought all the abalone shells they could find. By the aid of his Indians, Tom Vaquero gathered the shells in large quantities, and was driving a profitable trade with the small French coasters that put in at Tomales periodically.

On one occasion no vessel had arrived for several months, and Vaquero’s abalone shells had accumulated to a pile nearly as large as the sweat house – an indispensable prerequisite of every well-ordered rancheria.

A grand fandango at a distant ranch lured Vaquero away from home for a period of several days. During his absence a French vessel came in, and finding him away from home, plied his Indians with liquor, and for a few trinkets and goo-gaws, took his whole stock-in-trade of abalone shells. The wily Frenchman had traded a large cask of whiskey, enough liquor to keep the Indians blazing drunk for several days.

Vaquero returned in the nighttime and found the Indians carousing and frenzied. His mohala was the only faithful one among them. She got him inside of their substantial domicile before the other Indians were aware of his return, and by barricading the door, and the free use of his trusty gun, he kept them at bay until the liquor was exhausted and they ceased to thirst for his blood. He said that night seemed to him a week in length.

At the date of our visit, Tom Vaquero’s house was a cross between a cottage and a ship. It embraced a little of everything from a state room door, up to the mast of a vessel. This nautical medley was accounted for by the appearance at low tide of the whole of a wrecked vessel about a mile out in the bay.

In reference to this wreck, Tom informed us that in 1849, one morning he was astonished to see a large merchant vessel coming in out of the fog into Tomales Bay under full sail. Having been a sailor himself, and knowing as he did the soundings of the bay, he knew that a vessel of that size had no business there. On it came however, and in plain view was dashed by a heavy swell upon a shallow bar with such force that the wooden hull of the vessel was said to have crushed and cracked like an eggshell. The captain, after this mishap, sent a boat ashore to ascertain whether or not he was in San Francisco Bay. The captain had mis-navigated, and thought he was entering into San Francisco. Tom used the timbers and planks to build his substantial cabin and trading post. This mishap continued to have tidewaters flow over the skeleton of the “Cambridge,” once a first-class English merchant vessel, to be in visible in the bay for 100 years.

It was said that for successful vessels entering the mouth of Tomales Bay, the secret was to come in at high tide and wait for that third big wave to take you through."

A WAR WITH RUSSIA would be unlike anything the US and NATO have ever experienced.

by Scott Ritter

As someone who once trained to fight the Soviet Army, I can attest that a war with Russia would be unlike anything the US military has experienced – ever. The US military is neither organized, trained, nor equipped to fight its Russian counterparts. Nor does it possess doctrine capable of supporting large-scale combined arms conflict. If the US was to be drawn into a conventional ground war with Russia, it would find itself facing defeat on a scale unprecedented in American military history. In short, it would be a rout.

rt.com/op-ed/548322-war-russia-us-nato/

MEMO OF THE AIR: GOOD NIGHT RADIO ALL NIGHT FRIDAY NIGHT!

Hi! Marco here. Deadline to email your writing for tonight's (Friday night's) MOTA show is around 7pm. After that, send it whenever it's ready and I'll read it on the radio /next/ week.

Memo of the Air: Good Night Radio is every Friday, 9pm to 5am on 107.7fm KNYO-LP Fort Bragg as well as anywhere else via http://airtime.knyo.org:8040/128 (That's the regular link to listen to KNYO in real time.)

Any day or night you can go to https://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com and hear last week's MOTA show. By Saturday night the recording of tonight's show will also be there.

Also there you'll find an assortment of educational bonbons to smear your mental tonsils with until showtime, or any time, such as:

Better than Wordle: Phrasle.
https://phrasle.com/

Art imitates life. (via NagOnTheLake)
https://spitalfieldslife.com/2022/01/29/the-east-london-group-photography-x/

And America, America, God shed his grace on thee. (A real-life full-restaurant chaotic brawl, like in a cowboy movie, with everything /but/ a man being shot off the balcony to gracefully fall on a hidden mattress.)
https://boingboing.net/2022/02/01/buffet-brawl-erupts-after-golden-corral-runs-out-of-steak.html

STEADY ON, CRAIG

Thank you VERY much for your being supportive of my efforts to remain alive.

Thanking the AVA for being willing to allow me to post messages, in regard to my ridiculous impossible social situation in postmodern California. I would love to return to the Voll Motel in Ukiah. At present, I’ve got about $1300 in the bank with food stamps incoming Feb. 8th. How about if the Cannabis Industry (which is directly responsible for my facing homelessness beyond the situation in Garberville, because I am not welcome to return to the residence in Redwood Valley where I successfully lived for over one year, because the cannabis trimmers do not want me there) set me up for one month at the Voll Motel? P.S. I have informed Savings Bank of Mendocino County this morning that I will NOT send them any further messages survival related. They informed me that I could contact law enforcement and/or social services myself to get help with my ridiculous impossible situation in postmodern California. I do not have any law enforcement nor social service connections. How about if postmodern California help me with this? Telephone messages are being received c/o Andy Caffrey at (213) 842-3082. I’d like to leave Garberville, CA as soon as possible. I wish to be taken into custody for my protection, and placed into a senior shelter, residence, or whatever I can get other than a jail cell. At this point, I do not care where I go anymore or what I will do next. Dualistically speaking, whatever God wants is just fine with me. The good news is that some day I am leaving this world forever, and I am taking nothing here with me.

Signed, Craig Louis Stehr, Email: craiglouisstehr@gmail.com