Mendocino County Today: Thursday, March 3, 2022

By AVA News Service on March 3, 2022

RAIN CONTINUES TO SPREAD across northwest California this morning as a front slowly progress southeastward. Precipitation will dissipate tonight before moving back in as snow levels fall with another system on Friday afternoon. Cooler air with this system will linger over the area this weekend, bringing colder overnight temperatures. (NWS)

20 NEW COVID CASES (between Tuesday morning and afternoon) reported in Mendocino County Tuesday afternoon.

THE FIRST MAJOR CITY IN UKRAINE has fallen to the Russians, the mayor confirmed on Wednesday, urging his residents on Facebook to obey “armed people who came to the city's administration.” Kherson, home to 290,000 people, is 300 miles south of Kyiv. The city is strategically important, sitting on an inlet of the Black Sea 260 miles west of the separatist enclave of Donetsk. Ihor Kolykhaiev, mayor of Kherson, earlier on Wednesday insisted the city remained under Ukrainian control, but it has now fallen. Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president, issued a video address to the nation in the early hours of Thursday, giving an upbeat assessment of the war and calling on Ukrainians to keep up the resistance. (Daily Mail)

LAMBERT LANE BRIDGE

SUPES NOTES

by Mark Scaramella

SUPERVISOR JOHN HASCHAK told his colleagues on Tuesday that he wants to go back to in-person board meetings. “It’s time to re-open,” the 3rd District solon boldly declared.

PREDICTABLY, CEO Angelo objected, saying, “We are working as quickly as we can to get renovations complete. They are almost complete. We expect final changes to be done by the end of March.” Which just happens to be after CEO Angelo’s last meeting. We couldn’t help note that the completion of the long-delayed chamber remodel happens to coincide with Angelo's departure for her lush retirement in San Diego.

“Then we need a new policy in place,” added the CEO to Haschak, presumably referring to some kind of post-covid policy with procedures on how zoom might be combined with face-to-face meetings. “So the soonest we could re-open is in April,” Angelo said, adding that that would be about the same time Public Health Officer Dr. Coren may lift masking requirements.

Supervisor Gjerde was dissatisfied with the CEO’s answer.

“We’ve been hearing this” – (the “we’re remodeling” excuse) — “for a long time. We need an update. We were told it was underway and would be finished sooner, but always seems to be extended.” But Gjerde conceded that zoom saved some drive time and costs for the County's far flung residents — and himself, living an hour and a half from the County seat.

Supervisor Glenn McGourty agreed, but he wanted to hear from public health officer Dr. Coren first. “What about the infection threat to us?,” McGourty asked. “I don’t go out in public much for health concerns.”

Chair Ted Williams didn’t want to argue about the constantly delayed renovation completion date, but asked for a status update on March 15.

CEO Angelo also said the first in-person board meeting should include all five board members. If all five are not on hand, she insisted, “it might be problematic.”

CEO Angelo, in keeping with these anxious times, worried, “I’m concerned about some members of public who are unhappy with the closure and with our health officer. If we do not have all five it may not work. Members of the public might cause some disruption. So the first open meeting we need all five Supes. I don’t think anything else will work. We should not leave staff here with a public who is unhappy with the health officer. I’m worried about staff. Our leaders need to be here for the first meeting. It will reflect poorly on the County if they are not here.”

But “our leaders” will not include CEO Angelo.

Everyone agreed to get a status report on March 15 when they will “look at options, models, policies, and get a presentation from Dr. Coren.”

McGourty said he wanted to “make sure we cover all the bases so there’s minimal risk for health and safety.”

CEO Angelo said she’d make sure a “security person” was included in the March 15 presentation.

* * *

THE HOUSING SHORTAGE CRISIS was also on Tuesday’s Board agenda. Supervisor Williams opened the discussion by pointing out that “One-off custom homes are not going to solve the housing problem,” adding that the building code now requires that homes more have stuff which adds more and more costs to construction. (And that’s not all that adds to costs — see below.)

(Interim) Planning and Building Director Ignacio ‘Nash’ Gonzalez pointed out (as he has been doing for decades) that the problem is a lack of sewer and water in the unincorporated areas, and that existing water and sewer systems are already at capacity.

GONZALES' statement of the obvious was followed by the usual prolonged free association ramble about infrastructure and grants and zoning and non-profits and partners and seniors and tax sharing and more ad hoc committees and more grants and “being proactive” and “shared infrastructure” and the nascent water agency that is being formed (someday, by a hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of consultant) and a survey of what people want…

Supervisor Williams summed up, “We can be honest by saying that only rich people can build houses now.” (Immutable and forever, thus spake the Good Democrat.)

Then it was back to more pointless free-association: “Zoning barriers, more focus on infrastructure, better planning, more grants, a non-profit just for housing and land acquisition…

Supervisor McGourty suggested that the County should develop “nice communities — planned developments that are nice places to live.”

At this point Williams asked if there was any public comment.

“There is no public comment,” said the Board clerk.

Of course not. What good would it do? These people are completely tone deaf and have no practical ideas at all — no proposals about anything related to housing.

In the end the Supes asked Mr. Gonzalez to “work on it” some more and come back to the Board someday with whatever comments and suggestions he may have.

And that was it.

Some “crisis.”

NOT MENTIONED (just to name a few of the unmentionables): Permit processing delays and high costs; restrictions on corporate owned vacation homes, Supervisor Williams’ (bogus) housing survey; inventorying unincorporated area zip codes for empty buildings with existing water and sewer hookups (both residential & commercial) with an eye toward imposing a vacancy fine on long-term vacant buildings or streamlined, reduced permit requirements and incentives for remodeling empty buildings for housing; possible sites (including county-owned property) where mobile parks could be established. Commercial building conversion. We could go on. None of that was mentioned.

* * *

MEANWHILE the Norcal real estate market is rapidly getting worse, even for those well-off people Williams was referring to.

According to a recent NorCal real estate report for Marin, Mendocino, Napa, Solano and Sonoma Counties, there were only of 1,051 homes and condominiums for sale in the entire area at the end of January. Inventory is 28% below that of a year ago (1,454) and slightly above the inventory last month (1,046). At times in the past, the inventory of homes for sale in the region has exceeded 10,000. Prices are “spiking,” interest rates are going up, there’s a record low inventory, new listings are selling fast… Homes in Mendo are selling at more than 22% over Original List Price (OLP). In Mendocino County at the end of January there were 187 unsold homes. January saw 40 new sales. In Ukiah there were 31 homes and condominiums for sale at the end of January. There were just eight homes for sale in Hopland and Talmage combined and eight in Redwood Valley/Calpella combined. (Info courtesy, Gerrett Snedaker at winecountrygroup.com)

YIKES! STATE ATTORNEY GENERAL LAUNCHES AUDIT OF HUMCO FINANCES.

Charges of fraud and major financial errors and delays leveled. HumCo Auditor blasts Supervisors and Department heads. [A version of this could easily happen in Mendo]

lostcoastoutpost.com/2022/mar/1/paz-dominguez-offensive-auditor-controller-riles-s/

CAL TRANS SET FOR PUDDING CREEK BRIDGE PROJECT

by Mary Benjamin

Cal Trans District 1 announced that a proposed upgrade to the Pudding Creek Bridge is scheduled to begin this summer. The Fort Bragg Public Works Department reviewed the plans with the City Council in February of 2020. According to Cal Trans, The California Transportation Commission (CTC) has confirmed the allocation of approximately $11.7 million for the Pudding Creek Bridge Widening and Rail Upgrade Project to “improve safety for motorists, bicyclists, and pedestrians.” The purpose is to create a bicycle and pedestrian-friendly bridge on State Route 1 in Fort Bragg.

Along this portion of the highway, at the northern edge of Fort Bragg, a restaurant, some businesses, hardware, and lumber store, a drive-in hamburger spot, a market, and a gas station add to the number of people coming and going. On the eastern, opposite side, just north of the bridge, the highway intersects with Pudding Creek Road. A motel sits at that juncture. A little farther north, on either side of the highway, four popular, beachfront motels sit close to the trestle bridge, adding to the steady traffic flow.

The narrow highway bridge spans Pudding Creek and borders popular beach areas frequently visited by locals and tourists. The Coastal Trail lies off the western, ocean side of the bridge, heading north toward Mc Kerricher State Park. Part of the trail, the Pudding Creek Trestle Footbridge, a popular photo spot, crosses the creek just yards away from the highway. Cyclists and pedestrians routinely use the trail most days of the week. Just to the south, beachcombers scour the renowned Glass Beach for polished glass pieces.

Farther south, the Old Haul Road runs parallel to the trail, leading tourists and locals, on foot or on bicycle, north across the trestle bridge, and into the state park. Tourists seasonally flock here for seal and whale-watching opportunities. Further south, the Coastal Trail provides easy access to the old mill runway and the location of the Crow’s Nest, an interpretive center operated by the Noyo Center for Marine Science. Over the past few years, tourism has increased at all of these listed sites.

The Cal Trans plan includes widening the bridge for two twelve-foot wide lanes, two eight-foot-wide shoulders, two six-foot-wide walkways, and new bridge railings. All improvements will meet current standards. The project will go out to bid soon, and Cal Trans expects completion of the project by October of 2023.

(Fort Bragg Advocate-News)

CALIFORNIA COUNTED ITS HOMELESS POPULATION, BUT CAN IT TRACK THE MONEY? [Not in Mendo, fer shure]

lostcoastoutpost.com/2022/mar/2/california-counted-its-homeless-population-but-can/

Henry Shaw, Mill Worker, Embalmber, Undertaker, Fort Bragg, 1952

LAKE COUNTY’S NEW PARADIGM COLLEGE SHUTTERS ITS DOORS AMID COVID AND DEPLETED FUNDS

Former provost says college vision remains unchanged, but Romero Institute pulled out

by Ariel Carmona

New Paradigm College in Lucerne is no more.

While most accredited institutions of higher learning in the region have been offering some type of instruction or online curriculum since the onset of the pandemic nearly two years ago, the fledgling institution which had been offering in person lectures, workshops, specialized courses and certificate programs in permaculture and ecology from the property previously known as the Castle in Lucerne, closed its doors to educational opportunities in Summer 2020 amidst COVID and depleted operational funds, despite reporting $111,874 from 228 donors in 2019, their only full year of operation.

Moreover, the property’s landlord, Andrew Beath of the Malibu based Earthways Foundation, is currently embroiled in a property tax dispute with the County of Lake over taxes owed on the parcel and 75,000-square-foot building.

The college has effectively ceased operations, partly as a result of the Romero Institute no longer being associated with the institution, according to former provost William Stranger. The Santa Cruz based organization, described as an interfaith, law and public policy center, pulled out from the nonprofit they formed in 2019, taking with them the brand name and a number of board members previously involved in the founding and operation of the college, including its President, Vice President and Treasurer.

Stranger said trying to get the college off the ground during the pandemic was like a plane taking off the runway and having its wheels shut down upon take off. “We never really got underway before COVID,” he said, adding that the college had not established their full curriculum prior to the onset of the pandemic, even though they had been in discussion to partner with University of San Francisco, a private Jesuit University whose main campus is located on a 55-acre hilltop nestled between the Golden Gate Bridge and Golden Gate Park.

Seth Wachtel, a member of the NPC board and Chairman of USF’s Department of Architecture and Art, was working to develop a relationship with the university’s administration and was said to be gathering the interest of their faculty, according to the proposal which was drafted and pitched to the county by the Romero Institute in April 2018, but Stranger said USF is also currently undergoing changes in leadership. Wachtel failed to return calls inquiring about his work with the now defunct college in Lucerne or if he plans to play any future role, should it be resurrected.

Stranger added that the college will look to arrange new financing under a new name after filing for non-profit status, although he estimated it would need to raise about $15 million dollars to do so. Daniel Sheehan, who served as president of NPC since 2018, also failed to return calls regarding the transitional changes in operations and other matters involving the college.

Community members learn about using the principles of permaculture during a lecture at the now defunct New Paradigm in Lucerne in Spring 2019.

Community donations ranged from $50 to $5000

Former Supervisor and NPC co-founder Denise Rushing, who hasn’t been associated with the college since 2020 told the Record-Bee then that she was focusing on other projects. Rushing confirmed that in addition to about $40,000 in community based donations, Earthways also made donations which allowed the college to operate for most of 2019. Up until the shutdown, the college had been renting itself out to host business conferences and myriad of other events, including meetings of the Lucerne Area Town Hall. According to information which was previously posted on the college’s website, donations ranged from $50 to $5,000 from a plethora of community members.

The College also benefitted from a series of grants for activities such as Neighbor Fest, described as a “gratitude party” which was held at the lobby of the property in January of 2020, which turned out to be one of the last big events held there. According to Rushing, construction funds to get the college up to ADA code also came from Earthways.

After Rushing left, Shanna Faye Jamieson took over as acting director which Rushing said required her to look at the books, donation software and to also handle all of the institution’s tax documents. Jamieson was listed on the NPC board of directors in an executive summary released in 2019 which stated the college sought $500,000 from investors to turn the Castle property into a “functioning residential college and conference center.” Stranger said Jamieson, like many of its former directors, is no longer associated with the college.

Tax dispute over Lucerne Castle property

Former 3rd District Supervisor Jim Steele, who was on the Board of Supervisors when the county approved the sale of the Castle property located at 3700 Country Club Drive for $2.5 million, said he was approached by Beath for advice on the evaluation of the property by the County Assessor’s office. Earthways is seeking tax exemptions under section 501(c) 3 of the state tax code usually granted to nonprofits.

Steele said Earthways received a tax bill from the county after the property was assessed at over $8 million but that figure was later reduced to $6 million because of the age of the building and other factors. Documents obtained by the Record-Bee from the County Tax Collector’s Office show that Earthways was originally assessed for $8.7 million for all lands and the building in September of 2020.

Lake County Assessor Recorder Richard Ford said he could not go into too many specifics regarding a hearing pending on the matter because it would not be fair to Earthways, but he added that his office always advises people to pay outstanding taxes and fees prior to obtaining any resolution on a dispute.

Steele said a hearing for deciding the issue has not been scheduled, but he did receive a response to a query he made to the assessor’s office about their property evaluation which in part reads: “Only the State of California may relieve a non-profit from property tax. A County Government does not have the authority to change the State Constitution which states that all property is taxable. If there is a contract that states otherwise, it is between the signers of the contract but does not affect the valuation of the property as performed by the Assessor.”

According to Steele, one issue of contention appears to be that the Assessor’s Office has stated Earthways does not fit the criteria for exemption because they don’t qualify as “a public benefit nonprofit” thus, not making them eligible to receive tax-deductible donations.

Beath did not return messages seeking comment on the dispute, but Steele said he told him he was not happy and that Earthways feels they should not be taxed. Stranger said Earthways feels they are getting a raw deal from the county. “When we made the presentation to the county, they assured us that as a nonprofit, we would not be taxed.” Stranger added that he found it vexing and disappointing that a person who bought the property to serve the interests of Lake County is now faced with the assessor not honoring the agreement.

The agreement entered by Earthways and the county on Dec. 12, 2018, states in part that the property “is not subject to property taxes if owned by a not-for-profit organization.”

Although financial records for a nonprofit are not subject to public disclosure, New Paradigm College reported $405,996 in gross receipts to the state in 2019, and $185,518 in assets. According to state records, this figure is deduced from the IRS business master file. The figure does not deduct rental expenses, costs, sales expenses or costs of goods sold.

(Originally published: Lake County Record-Bee.)

ED NOTES

THE GOOD NEWS: AV Farm Supply stocks goldfish, and thanks to the locals who tipped me off. I'm a frequent customer who somehow managed not to see the small aquarium among the most interesting array of goods anywhere, including rescue cats and, just in today, baby chicks.

THE GOOD AND BAD NEWS. The most prominent opponent of Putin in Russia, Alexei Navalny, has called on people around the world to stage daily protests against Putin's brutal invasion of Ukraine. In a string of tweets sent from his prison cell, the Russian opposition leader called Putin “our obviously insane czar” and sent out a call to action. “We cannot wait any longer,” Navalny wrote. “Wherever you are, in Russia, Belarus or on the other side of the planet, go to the main square of your city every weekday and at 2 pm on weekends and holidays. If you are abroad, come to the Russian embassy. If you can organize a demonstration, do so on the weekend.” Navalny was imprisoned last year after he returned to Russia from Germany following his recovery from a nerve-agent attack by Putin assassins.

IF PUTIN can be stopped, it will be Russians who stop him, which seems more and more conceivable as the Russian economy tanks and prominent, influential Russians publicly come out against the invasion of Ukraine. Putin's obviously indifferent to world opinion, and brutal as it is, Putin's invasion of Ukraine seems like a standard two-step military operation — first invade then if the invaded don't give up, destroy them. All this may seem crazy but it's clear he's been planning it for a long time. Remember what he did to the Chechens? They wouldn't stop their resistance so Putin leveled their cities. Ukraine is a much larger atrocity but Putin's already played his hole card, which is the nuke option, and the world is left with the terrible choice of giving up Ukraine or daring Putin to end the rest of us. He admires Stalin. What would Stalin do? He'd go to the nukes if he didn't get what he wanted.

THE LOCAL ANGLE. It was the Cuban Missile Crisis that brought Jim Jones to Mendocino County. Jones had read a famous piece in Esquire magazine that claimed Mendo would survive a nuclear war because of favorable winds that would prevent fallout from falling on the Northcoast. Jones herded his Indianapolis flock westward where he first landed at the old Golden Rule church premises on the west side of the Willits Grade. From there, with the Reverend himself taking a job as a 5th grade teacher in Boonville, the Jones parish soon had accumulated enough capital to buy a place in Redwood Valley where he latched onto dependent persons as a steady stream of government dollars and, as an early demagogue deft at wielding the politically correct arsenal of race-baiting, Jones denounced skeptics of his inter-racial congregation as racists, even then an effective means of stifling criticism. The Rev parlayed his alleged good works into foreman of the Mendocino County Grand Jury and an all-round big shot in Mendocino County's diffuse firmament. Of course he wound up murdering most of his rainbow congregation and ever after the lawyers, judges, Democrat bigwigs, and other of Jones' well-placed enablers pretended not to know him.

AGAINST the widespread backdrop of domestic violence in our unhappy land, this on-line comment neatly sums up the depressing phenomena in our neighborhood: “Ah yes….the Emerald Triangle….where a woman with two black eyes is said to be hard of hearing.”

CBS: “Most who watched say the president struck the right approach to Russia in the speech. Although 3 in 10 didn't think he was tough enough.”

I LASTED a full hour of Biden's slurred Santa Claus promises before I wondered why and tuned him out. He's obviously impaired. Watching him is painful, knowing his shameful political history should make him generally unendurable, but there he is at the country’s worst possible political juncture.

“NOT TOUGH ENOUGH”? The one thing the committee running Biden is doing is playing Putin the only way they can. Get as much aid and ammo as possible to the Ukranians and hope Russians rise up against their thug government. He can’t be stopped from outside, at least that’s the way it looks from Boonville’s Global Affairs Desk.

HERE IT IS the first week of March and the Navarro is closed at its mouth. Toted up, the rolling catastrophes seem Biblical in their multitudes. (cf Pat Robertson for the specifics.)

FABISCH’S HIDDEN RING COMPARTMENT

On Monday, February 28, 2022 at approximately 2:15 AM, a Ukiah Police Officer was on patrol in the area of Motel 6 south (1208 S. State St.) when he observed a male subject seated in the driver’s seat of a vehicle in the parking lot. The Officer contacted the male subject and identified him as Taylor Fabisch, 30, of Ukiah. A records check on Fabisch revealed that he was on felony probation out of Lake County, with terms including search and seizure.

The Officer conducted a search of the vehicle and discovered approximately 20 grams of suspected fentanyl and a suspected methamphetamine pipe.

Fabisch was placed under arrest and transported to the MCSO Jail. During the process of being booked into the jail, an MCSO Correctional Deputy discovered a hidden compartment inside of the ring that Fabisch was wearing. Inside of the hidden compartment of the ring was a small amount of suspected fentanyl. Fabisch was booked at the MCSO Jail for possession of controlled substance, paraphernalia, drug possession in jail, and probation violation.

CATCH OF THE DAY, March 2, 2022

JOSE BONILLA-VELASQUEZ, Daly City/Ukiah. Possession & transportation-sale of organic drug-controlled substance with loaded firearm, large capacity magazine, loaded firearm with intent to commit felony, concealed firearm in vehicle with prior.

ADAM CHAVIRA, Redwood Valley. Domestic battery.

MISTY DOUGLAS, Ukiah. Robbery, failure to appear.

TAYLOR FABISCH, Controlled substance, paraphernalia, possession of drugs in jail/fire camp, probation revocation.

AMBROSE FALLIS, Covelo. Under influence, county parole violation.

JAMES HARNETT, Ukiah. DUI-alcohol&drugs, controlled substance, paraphernalia.

TRAVIS JONES, Lakeport/Ukiah. Misdemeanor hit&run, felon-addict with firearm, stolen property, reckless evasion/wrong way traffic.

CATALINO MALDONADO, Oakland/Ukiah. Possession & transportation-sale of organic drug-controlled substance with loaded firearm, hashish, saps or similar weapons, switchblade, large capacity magazine, loaded firearm with intent to commit felony, concealed firearm in vehicle with prior.

PAULA MCFADDEN, Fort Bragg. Disorderly conduct-alcohol,

MACK SAMUEL JR., San Francisco/Ukiah. DUI-alcohol&drugs causing bodily injury, Possession & transportation-sale of organic drug-controlled substance with loaded firearm, large capacity magazine, loaded firearm with intent to commit felony.

Third Mendocino Lumber Mill, Big River, 1864

UKRAINE NEWS HIGHLIGHTS

Russians besiege Ukrainian ports as armored column stalls

By Jim Heintz, Yuras Karmanau, Vladimir Isachenkov and Dasha Litvinova

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian forces laid siege to two strategic Ukrainian seaports Wednesday and pressed their bombardment of the country’s second-biggest city, while the huge armored column threatening Kyiv appeared stalled outside the capital.

Moscow’s isolation deepened, meanwhile, when most of the world lined up against it at the United Nations to demand it withdraw from Ukraine. And the prosecutor for the International Criminal Court opened an investigation into possible war crimes.

A second round of talks aimed at ending the fighting was expected Thursday, but there appeared to be little common ground between the two sides.

Russia reported its military casualties for the first time since the invasion began last week, saying nearly 500 of its troops have been killed and almost 1,600 wounded. Ukraine did not disclose its own military losses but said more than 2,000 civilians have died, a claim that could not be independently verified.

With fighting going on on multiple fronts across the country, Britain’s Defense Ministry said Mariupol, a large city on the Azov Sea, was encircled by Russian forces, while the status of another vital port, Kherson, a Black Sea shipbuilding city of 280,000, remained unclear.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s forces claimed to have taken complete control of Kherson, which would make it the biggest city to fall yet in the invasion. But a senior U.S. defense official disputed that.

“Our view is that Kherson is very much a contested city,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s office told The Associated Press that it could not comment on the situation in Kherson while the fighting was still going on.

But the mayor of Kherson, Igor Kolykhaev, said Russian soldiers were in the city and came to the city administration building. He said he asked them not to shoot civilians and to allow crews to gather up the bodies from the streets.

“I simply asked them not to shoot at people,” he said in a statement. “We don’t have any Ukrainian forces in the city, only civilians and people here who want to LIVE.”

Kherson, a city of 300,000, is strategically located on the banks of the Dnieper River near where it flows into the Black Sea.

Mariupol Mayor Vadym Boychenko said the attacks there had been relentless.

“We cannot even take the wounded from the streets, from houses and apartments today, since the shelling does not stop,” he was quoted by the Interfax news agency as saying.

Meanwhile, the senior U.S. defense official said the immense column of hundreds of tanks and other vehicles appeared to be stalled roughly 25 kilometers (16 miles) from Kyiv and had made no real progress in the last couple of days.

The convoy, which earlier in the week had seemed poised to launch an assault on the capital, has been plagued with fuel and food shortages and has faced fierce Ukrainian resistance, the official said.

On the far edges of Kyiv, volunteer fighters well into their 60s manned a checkpoint to try to block the Russian advance.

“In my old age I had to take up arms,” said Andrey Goncharuk, 68. He said the fighters needed more weapons, but “we’ll kill the enemy and take their weapons.”

Russian warplanes bombed the village of Gorenka, a half-hour’s drive from Ukraine’s capital, Wednesday, leaving the bodies of villagers strewn among ruined homes, residents said.

In the aftermath, Larissa Lipatova crowded under blankets with seven other villages in a cold, damp concrete cellar among jars of pickled vegetables. A candle stuck in a pickle jar, propped up in front of a religious icon, provided their only light.

Lipatova wept, covering her face with one hand, as she spoke in the dark with a message for Ukraine’s invaders. “We don’t need to be freed. Leave us alone!”

Russia also pounded Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city with about 1.5 million people, in another round of aerial attacks that shattered buildings and lit up the skyline with flames. At least 21 people were killed and 112 injured over the past day, said Oleg Sinehubov, head of the Kharkiv regional administration.

Several Russian planes were shot down over Kharkiv, according to Oleksiy Arestovich, a top adviser to Zelenskyy.

“Kharkiv today is the Stalingrad of the 21st century,” Arestovich said, invoking what is considered one of the most heroic episodes in Russian history, the five-month defense of the city from the Nazis during World War II.

From his basement bunker, Kharkiv Mayor Igor Terekhov told the BBC: “The city is united and we shall stand fast.”

Russian attacks, many with missiles, blew the roof off Kharkiv’s five-story regional police building and set the top floor on fire, and also hit the intelligence headquarters and a university building, according to officials and videos and photos released by Ukraine’s State Emergency Service. Officials said residential buildings were also hit, but gave no details.

Seven days into Russia’s invasion, the United Nations said more than 934,000 people have fled Ukraine in a mounting refugee crisis on the European continent, while the head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency warned that the fighting poses a danger to Ukraine’s 15 nuclear reactors.

Rafael Grossi of the International Atomic Energy Agency noted that the war is “the first time a military conflict is happening amid the facilities of a large, established nuclear power program,” and he said he is “gravely concerned.”

“When there is a conflict ongoing, there is of course a risk of attack or the possibility of an accidental hit,” he said. Russia already has seized control of the decommissioned Chernobyl power plant, the scene in 1986 of the world’s worst nuclear disaster.

In New York, the U.N. General Assembly voted to demand that Russia stop its offensive and immediately withdraw all troops, with world powers and tiny island states alike condemning Moscow. The vote was 141 to 5, with 35 abstentions.

Assembly resolutions aren’t legally binding but can reflect and influence world opinion.

The vote came after the 193-member assembly convened its first emergency session since 1997. The only countries to vote with Russia were Belarus, Syria, North Korea and Eritrea. Cuba spoke in Moscow’s defense but ultimately abstained.

Ukraine’s U.N. Ambassador Sergiy Kyslytsya said Russian forces “have come to the Ukrainian soil, not only to kill some of us ... they have come to deprive Ukraine of the very right to exist.” He added: ”The crimes are so barbaric that it is difficult to comprehend.”

A large explosion shook central Kyiv on Wednesday night in what the president’s office said was a missile strike near the capital city’s southern railway station. There was no immediate word on any deaths or injuries. Thousands of Ukrainians have been fleeing the city through the sprawling railway complex.

A spokesman for the Russian Defense Ministry, Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov, released his side’s military casualty figures, disputing as “disinformation” reports of much higher losses. Ukraine’s leader claimed almost 6,000 Russian soldiers have been killed.

Konashenkov also said more than 2,870 Ukrainian troops have been killed and about 3,700 wounded, while over 570 have been captured.

Russia also ramped up its rhetoric. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov reminded the world about the country’s vast nuclear arsenal when he said in an interview with Al-Jazeera that “a third world war could only be nuclear.”

In the northern city of Chernihiv, two cruise missiles hit a hospital, according to the Ukrainian UNIAN news agency, which quoted the health administration chief, Serhiy Pivovar, as saying authorities were working to determine the casualty toll.

In other developments:

— The price of oil continued to soar, reaching $112 per barrel, the highest since 2014.

— Russia found itself even more isolated economically as Airbus and Boeing said they would cut off spare parts and technical support to the country’s airlines, a major blow. Airbus and Boeing jets account for the vast majority or Russia’s passenger fleet.

(Isachenkov and Litvinova reported from Moscow; Karmanau reported from Lviv, Ukraine. Edith M. Lederer and Jennifer Peltz at the United Nations; Mstyslav Chernov in Mariupol, Ukraine; Sergei Grits in Odesa, Ukraine; Robert Burns and Eric Tucker in Washington; Francesca Ebel, Josef Federman and Andrew Drake in Kyiv; and other AP journalists from around the world contributed to this report. (AP))

Ukraine president issues clarification on earlier statement that Russia will attack Wednesday

Volodymyr Zelenskyy now says the prediction that the attack would come Feb. 16 was spread by the media and is not an official date.

by Alexander Smith

Hours after he issued a global statement saying he had heard Russia would attack his country on Feb. 16, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy issued a clarification of his prediction Monday, explaining that he was referring only to media reports of a possible attack.

The earlier statement spooked the markets and led to widespread headlines and media reports.

“We are told that February 16 will be the day of the attack,” Zelenskyy said in a video statement posted on Facebook.

However, after his comments were taken by many at face value, his spokesman, Sergii Nykyforov, said that the president, who is a former comedian, was only saying what has been reported elsewhere.

“The president referred to a date that was spread by the media,” the spokesman told NBC News.

Some observers said Zelenskyy appeared to Ukrainian speakers to have been sarcastic when discussing the possible date of an attack.

In another sign of the spiraling tensions, the United States is moving its embassy from the Ukrainian capital Kyiv to the western city of Lviv “due to the dramatic acceleration in the buildup of Russian forces,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Monday.

Zelenskyy has often taken a cooler tone about the likelihood of a Russian invasion, which the U.S. and its allies believe is a distinct possibility in the coming days.

Russia, which has stationed some 130,000 troops as well as tanks and other military units near Ukraine’s borders, denies it is planning to invade its former Soviet republic again.

The embassy move is a sign of how seriously the U.S. and others are taking the Russian threat.

“I have ordered these measures for one reason — the safety of our staff — and we strongly urge any remaining U.S. citizens in Ukraine to leave the country immediately,” Blinken said.

In an interview on MSNBC, Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said Monday that there is “a very small number of people” in the embassy and warned that the U.S. would not be able to keep Americans safe amid an invasion.

“So, we want to make sure that we get Americans out of Ukraine because if the invasion comes, you know, we don’t really have any way to protect them,” Smith said. comes, you know, we don’t really have any way to protect them,” Smith said.

(NBC News)

ZAPAD-77

by Sadakat Kadri

On Sunday afternoon, Vladimir Putin warned that aggressive statements by “top officials in NATO’s leading countries” had obliged him to put Russia’s “deterrence forces” on high alert. The Kremlin press secretary blamed “various representatives at various levels” and didn’t want to name names, “although it was the British foreign minister.” Liz Truss has denied responsibility.

Putin loyalists seemed as baffled as everyone else. Even the defense minister and chief of staff, peering at their commander-in-chief from the far end of a long table, looked quizzical. I happened to be watching the Kremlin-owned TV channel formerly known as Russia Today at the time (it’s still viewable via Freeview, despite recent bans by the EU and many online platforms), and its live coverage abruptly ended when the on-air translator stumbled over the president’s words. Caught on the hop, the studio presenter looked ashen – as though realizing for the first time that his job now involved justifying a war of aggression. The only explanation the official news agency TASS could put forward, rather hesitantly, was that Putin was introducing “what he described as a ‘special service regime’.”

Since then, explanations of the threat have tightened up. A video clip that RT posted on YouTube (no longer available) was given subtitles, presumably with the approval of someone important, which said that Russia’s “nuclear deterrent forces” were being put “on highest alert.” TASS’s initial report has been updated to explain that the special service regime extends to “various types of weapons, including nuclear ones,” while the defense minister, Sergei Shoygu, assured Putin that an array of forces, offensive and atomic as well as defensive and conventional, have been “switched to enhanced combat alert.” That doesn’t clarify much, except perhaps that Putin wants the world to worry about his state of mind.

Last September, Russia and Belarus staged Zapad-21, a war game involving up to 200,000 troops. The show of strength had felt ominous even then – not least because I was in Lithuania at the time, and one of the places I visited was a former Soviet nuclear base with links to the Cuban Missile Crisis – but I’d assumed Putin and Lukashenko were just rattling sabres.

Zapad is a quadrennial exercise that dates back to the 1970s. The 1977 war game postulated a Western aggressor using supposedly routine military movements as the pretext for an invasion. Planners hypothesised that the attack would peter out, causing panicked Western forces to prepare for a nuclear strike. That obliged the Soviet camp to press home its advantage by pre-empting it. In a section headed “Exploitation of Success with the Use of Nuclear Weapons”, Marshal Nikolai Ogarkov reported that the ensuing exchange of one to two thousand warheads left behind “extensive zones of contamination, destruction and fires” and 250,000 military fatalities on both sides, hypothetically. The likely number of civilian casualties wasn’t assessed.

I didn’t write about any of this last autumn because I reasoned that military doctrines and political structures in Russia had evolved considerably since Zapad-77. Even if the Putin-led oligarchy didn’t have all the checks and balances it should, it didn’t look then as if it might turn into a war machine on autopilot. Even when I learned that Russia had initiated another notional first nuclear strike during Zapad-99, and that Zapad-09 ended with atomic missiles fired at Poland, it seemed wrong to dwell on ideas about military deterrence and mutually assured destruction. I’d read a very well argued and informative analysis acknowledging the contention that Russia had lowered its threshold for the use of battlefield nuclear weapons, but it felt provocative and alarmist to wonder if Cold War fantasies of nuclear-enabled success might linger in Russian military circles. Perhaps it wasn’t.

(London Review of Books)

Иди Hаxуй

by Alex Abramovich

“You’re occupiers. You are fascists. Why the fuck did you come here with your guns?” This is from the widely shared video of an anonymous woman confronting Russian soldiers in Henichesk, in southern Ukraine. “Take these seeds and put them in your pocket so, at least, sunflowers will grow on your graves.”

That’s my loose translation of a few lines I’ve seen rendered more literally, if more obscurely (“so at least sunflowers grow when you all lie down here”). The translators are doing an excellent job, catching almost everything, though the full range and depth of Russian obscenities – which overlap with Ukrainian obscenities – is notoriously hard to convey written down, even in the original. In the 1870s, Dostoevsky described a conversation consisting, entirely, of one “unprintable noun”:

"Once, late in the evening on Sunday. I chanced to take some 15 steps side by side with a group of six drunken workmen; and suddenly I became convinced that it is possible to express all thoughts, feelings, and even profound arguments, by the mere utterance of that one noun which, besides, is composed of very few syllables indeed. First, one of the lads sharply and energetically pronounces this noun to express his contemptuous negation of something that had been the general topic of their conversation. Another lad, answering him, repeats the same noun, but in an altogether different tone and sense – namely, in the sense of complete doubt as to the veracity of the former’s negation. The third fellow suddenly blows up with indignation against the first lad, bitterly and excitedly bursting into the conversation, and he shouts to him the same noun, but this time in the sense of invective and abuse."

And so on.

“Thus, not once having uttered any other single word, they repeated six times this one pet little word of theirs, in strict succession, and they fully understood each other. This is a fact which I have witnessed.”

The word in question, khuy (хуй) – ‘prick’ or ‘dick’ – has been banned in Putin’s Russia. But you hear it, over and over again, in phone videos and sound clips coming out of Ukraine, including the remarkable audio recording of an exchange between a Russian warship and Ukrainian soldiers stationed on Snake Island in the Black Sea:

Russian warship: “Snake Island, I, Russian warship, repeat the offer: put down your arms and surrender, or you will be bombed. Have you understood me? Do you copy?”

Ukranian 1: “Nu, vsyo. That’s it, then. Or, do we need to fuck them back off?”

Ukranian 2: “Might as well.”

Ukranian 1: “Russian warship, go fuck yourself.”

Moments later, it was reported, the island was shelled and all the Ukrainian soldiers – thirteen in total – were killed. They are now said to be alive. The exchange became an instant, obvious example of Ukrainian courage and resolve; in Ukraine itself, road signs between Kyiv and Boryspil were altered to read: “Russian ship – fuck yourself.”

But that’s not quite right, because the word being translated as “fuck” here is khuy. Idi nakhuy (иди наxуй) – “go to dick” or, more loosely, “go sit on a dick” – is what the Ukrainians (and the road signs) have been saying.

Translating swear words is never simple. In this video of a Ukrainian soldier warning and threatening Russian troops, the words blayd (“slut” or “whore”), pizdetz (“a messed-up situation,” deriving from pizda, or “cunt”), and khuy – three of the four words that form the basis of mat – are all translated as “fuck,” while ebat (which really does mean “fuck,” and is the root of the word Boris Nemtsov once used to describe Putin’s mental state) is never used. If that matters, it’s because in Russian khuy is stronger, by far, than the word for “fuck.” Tell a Russian acquaintance to fuck off, and he’s likely to laugh it off. But even among old friends, khuy and pizda are no laughing matter. (Pizdetz, on the other hand, is rather mild.)

“Иди наxуй is the worst thing you can say,” my sister Mariana tells me. She lives in Europe, and my Russian’s OK but hers is still fluent. “You can’t say it in jest, unlike pizdets or ebat. You can play with those two words. You can’t play with idi nakhuy. It’s a really aggressive, serious swear word.”

In that sense, “go fuck yourself” isn’t wrong. (Mariana: “Pick the worst thing you can say in English.”) “Go the fuck, you fucks” gets us closer, but only a bit. The truth is, there’s nothing in English that goes quite so far. (In Spinal Tap terms, our curses go up to ten, but Russian words go to eleven.) There’s no elegant solution, just as there is no way to convey the historically specific sense of resignation – of weariness and resolve – that I hear in that “nu, vsyo” from Snake Island. (As a Soviet-born man with Ukrainian grandparents, it’s something I feel in my bones, but can’t capture in English, even though “that’s it, then” is close on a literal level.)

Or not. Perhaps I’m still missing nuances – unlike those Ukrainian soldiers and Russian sailors, who seem to have understood each other perfectly – and my sister hears something just a bit different. “Such a tragedy,” she says, “this Snake Island. But when people have crossed some line of fear, there is nothing to stop them. I can imagine this very well. To be honest, I just have a stone in my stomach. I’ve been to Kiev a lot, the last time was three months ago. I keep thinking of people: the excursionist who brought us to Chernobyl. The driver. The maid at our hotel.”

(London Review of Books)

THESE ARE THE TIMES that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it now deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us—that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: It is dearness only that gives everything its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as freedom should not be highly rated. Britain, with an army to enforce her tyranny, has declared that she has a right not only to tax but “to bind us in all cases whatsoever,” and if being bound in that manner is not slavery, then there is not such a thing as slavery upon earth. Even the expression is impious, for so unlimited a power can belong only to God.

— Thomas Paine, 1776, ‘The Crisis’

MITCH CLOGG:

Mornings, I assemble myself for confronting the world as—could this be ME I’m talking about?—an old man. Glasses on window sill. Without them, I can see you but not read you. Put on glasses. Hearing aids, w/o which I can hear you but not understand you; I can hear a raven but not a robin. Dentures. Without them I can bite you (my top front teeth, the ones on view, are mine) but not chew you. Arthritis cream for right thumb and wrist. Wait for it to dry. Apply velcro wrist splint, w/o which I can shake your hand firmly but not turn a doorknob w/o a wincing jab of pain (it’s in the rotation).

This goes on, to the soles of my feet. They hurt, for some goddamned reason, and coating them with Vitamin-E cream puts that off.

I’m tellin’ ya.

NO need to PROceed. Often, when the house is silent, Eleanor in her studio, the former detached garage, no sound audible to unaided me from outside, I go ear-unaided. I don’t need the ambient sounds of life. A dish, a pot, a pan, bumping another, is rudely loud. Hearing aids don’t distinguish. They amplify what I call “trash noise” as readily as the music of the spheres. Ordinary chores are noisy. One wonders, considering the superior hearing of, say, dogs and cats, what kind of cacophony they must tolerate. Likewise teeth. Oatmeal or scrambled eggs don’t need ‘em. OJ doesn’t, nor coffee. I can swallow my blood-pressure pill w/o teeth, my anti-depressant. I don’t yet have to have foreign objects rattling around in my mouth. Yet.

This is just the front row of accommodations I make to continue on. The wrist splint might go away. Annoyances come and settle in, it seems permanently, and, sometimes, they fade away. ¿Quién sabe? Hearing aids and false teeth are immutable for me. Canes are not, yet.

My balance was shot by damage done to my ears when I had cancer. Aging didn’t help. I reluctantly started using a cane. On walks with Surely, I used two long, stout walking sticks. Balance and upward thrust for me auld legs, doncha know? (I’m descended from apes and Scots. Maybe. My family seemed not to give a rat’s fanny for our heritage. That disappoints my curiosity but delights my incipient, small-r republicanism, indifference to family pedigree. I can only be sure of the “apes” part. Germany and the UK seem to be the ancestral home—for recent hundreds of millennia, anyway. “Clogg” is not too common…)

OH! Right! I was talking about morning assembly. SO I DECIDED TO GIVE UP (mostly) THE STICKS AND CANES. The decision is still on probation. My reasoning was along the lines of: “Don’t compensate for shrinking capacity—reverse it!” So I’ve upped my exercise. My stupid legs are still stupid, and my lack of balance is funny except when I bump my head, but I entertain the possibility that I can feel a tiny improvement. If it is a deception, such self-deceptions can be salutary.

This has been a brief comment on old age. A longer version plays tiresomely in my head.

IT’S KEROUAC TIME AGAIN: JACK MEETS JOE MCCARTHY

by Jonah Raskin

2022 is the 100^th anniversary of the birth of Jack Kerouac, the author of On the Road, The Dharma Bums, Lonesome Traveler, Mexico City Blues and much more, who died at the age of 1969. Celebrations are planned from Lowell, Massachusetts, where he was born to a French Canadian Catholic working class family, to San Francisco, home of the Beat Museum and City Lights Bookstore and City Lights Publishing. The City Lights event is called “Still Outside: Kerouac @ 100,” though it isn’t clear just what the word “outside” means. By now, more than 70 years after his first novel The Town and the City was published, most, though not all, of Kerouac’s writings are in print.

One essay that has never been published, not even in a volume titled The Unknown Kerouac is about the Army-McCarthy which were televised in 1954 and that held the nation’s rapt attention week after week. Kerouac watched the hearings, took notes and typed them up. They’re in the Kerouac collection at the New York Public Library on 42^nd Street. I’ve read them and found them fascinating and troubling, too. Kerouac never met McCarthy face-to-face; their encounter was only “virtual,” though in 1954 the word wasn’t used as it is today.

Kerouac’s notes on the Army-McCarthy show how challenging it is to pinpoint Kerouac politically. During his lifetime, he was all over the ideological map, attending communist party meetings in the 1940s and expressing a desire to join his Russian comrades and fight against fascism. “Had a little discussion with a few Reds,” he wrote in April 1941.The following year, he told a young woman, “I wish to take part in this war, not because I want to kill anyone, but for a reason directly opposed to killing—the Brotherhood. To be with my American brothers, for that matter, my Russian brothers.” Joe McCarthy would have called him a “fellow traveler,” a “pinko” and a “Commie symp.”

Later, Kerouac became an anti-communist. In 1952, he cast his ballot for Republican Senator, Robert Taft, who lost to Eisenhower. Still later, Kerouac became an anti-anti-communist. He often latched on to crusades and then burnt out on them. Kerouac’s copious notes on the Army-McCarthy hearings say more about his free-wheeling politics—a mix of iconoclastic populism and pseudo-radicalism—than anything else he ever wrote and published, though he offered valuable insights in “About the Beat Generation.” In that 1957 essay he reflects on the Korean War, the Cold War and the political and cultural repression in the US that followed the end of World War II when misfits and hipsters—his heroes—“vanished into jails and madhouses or were shamed into silent conformity.”

For Kerouac, the televised Army-McCarthy hearings were a psychodrama and an allegory that provided a window into the heart and soul of the nation at large in the mid-1950s. Kerouac wanted the hearings to be broadcast at night, not during the day, so that average Americans could watch them at home when they got off work. Then, he reasoned, they might learn valuable lessons about their own country, whether they lived in cities or on farms, and whether they were mid-western Christians, or New York Jews.

For Kerouac, McCarthy was a kind of Everyman with contradictions galore: devious, fearless and fake, a narcissistic crusader and a paranoid schizophrenic. The entire mediated spectacle confirmed Kerouac’s long-held belief that there were, in fact, real Communists embedded in twentieth-century American institutions. The hearings, he insisted, uncovered and magnified the ways that Soviet-style communism had made secret inroads into the US.

At the same time, paradoxically, he argued that the hearings failed to uncover anti-communist intrigue and subterfuge. After the first day of testimony, he expressed a hope that Allen Dulles, the director of the CIA, might be revealed as the real villain. But that was not to be. At the heart of the hearings, Kerouac saw a kind of fog, rather than a jewel. For him, the conclusion was anticlimactic, though he recognized that the hearings marked the end of McCarthyism, at least as embodied in McCarthy himself. Kerouac knew that behind the scenes, J. Edgar Hoover, had back-peddled and abandoned McCarthy, who was made to fit the role of the scapegoat. Kerouac even felt sorry for Joe.

He viewed the bonding between McCarthy and Roy Cohen as a twisted case of brotherly love with little brother enamored of big brother. Kerouac was certain that Cohen was a homosexual. He was also certain that all across America there was a vast underground network of homosexuality.

Joseph Welsh, the lawyer for the Army, struck Kerouac as an effeminate, upper class Bostonian, though Kerouac also appreciated his wit. John F. Kennedy, who attended the hearings, looked boyish in Kerouac’s eyes. Kennedy was 37, five years older than Kerouac. Unlike many other Democrats, JFK—who served in the Senate with McCarthy, beginning in 1953—never publicly attacked him.

To Kerouac, Ray Jenkins, a lawyer from Tennessee and the special counsel for the senate subcommittee, seemed like a character out of a William Faulkner novel. Arkansas Senator John McClellan reminded him of William Burroughs’ surrealistic universe. He imagined a movie based on the hearings and cast veteran actor Ralph Bellamy in the role of David Shine, a wealthy, Jewish, staunch anti-communist and apparently Roy Cohen’s lover. When Kerouac watched Senator Symington he thought of bandleader Glen Miller. Instinctively, he didn’t like the sight of the generals in their uniforms, or the whole idea of the Pentagon with its bureaucracy and red tape. The army, in his view, was as bad as McCarthy.

The press coverage seemed superficial to him and he singled out Murray Kempton, the liberal columnist for The New York Post,for rebuke. Kerouac noticed the tics, the facial gestures—McCarthy’s habitual scowl—and the constipated body language of all the players. At one point, he conjured a weird image of the august personages on TV leaving the room to take a “shit.” He used the four-letter word. In one sentence that now seems out of place, Kerouac described himself as a marijuana smoker who went to Mexican whorehouses, and saw police corruption in front of his own eyes. Perhaps he wanted to practice what he preached: total candor and no hiding.

The lesson he derived from the mediated event was largely cynical: human beings preferred hate to love and blindness above clear thinking. The big unknown for Kerouac was the American people. He envisioned them as a kind of slumbering beast that might wake and then, who knew what? He didn’t know.

A year after the conclusion of the riveting Army-McCarthy hearings, Kerouac wrote to Allen Ginsberg to say that he had just written a “big science fiction fantasy preview of the city of the future.” He added that he wrote his story “during the Army-McCarthy hearings and so it has a wildly hip political flavor.” In October 1960, in one of his last letters to Ginsberg – they had a falling out that was partially political — Kerouac explained that he watched the Nixon-Kennedy debate on TV and decided to vote for Kennedy, even though Kennedy wasn’t his hero.

Of Nixon, he wrote, “He is very evil.” Kerouac added apropos of Nixon and Kennedy, “both are phony and both are outright warmongers. The communists are right on that.” He added, in a flash of uncharacteristic utopian optimism, “Why don’t we be hip planned socialists and make food and [electrical] power instead of gas bombs.” Indeed, Jack, why don’t we? And, while we celebrate the 100^th anniversary of your birth in 1922 we might remember that once upon a time you were a real lefty, and an anti-fascist who saw Kennedy and Nixon for whom they really were: “warmongers.”

(Jonah Raskin is the author of Beat Blues, San Francisco, 1955.)

ENSURING A FUTURE WITHOUT EEL RIVER DAMS

(Friends of the Eel)

PG&E's license for the Eel River dams expires in April! Now we must apply pressure to avoid delay tactics.

The first license to operate the Potter Valley Project was issued nearly 100 years ago. When the dams were built — blocking salmon, steelhead, lamprey, and other aquatic life from the headwaters — these serious harms to the Eel River ecosystem were not considered. When the diversion tunnel was carved through a mountain to take water from the Eel River, Tribes and other people living in the Eel were not consulted. And over the last 100 years as pikeminnow introduced via the reservoir ravaged the food web, as methylmercury accumulated in organisms living in the reservoir, and as it became evident that the dams posed a safety risk to downstream residents, project owners PG&E failed to mitigate these harms.

It is now clear, as their license to operate the project expires in just two months, that PG&E will soon begin the process to surrender their license and ultimately decommission the project. But they’ve never done right by the river before, and we shouldn’t expect them to act swiftly to do so now. According to filings with the California Public Utilities Commission, PG&E calculates hydropower decommissioning as a 15-year process. But their rationale is flawed, and it’s our job to show decision-makers why decommissioning the Potter Valley Project should be prioritized.

We’ve heard your concerns about the recent news that PG&E plans to spend several years and $5-$10 million dollars (funded by ratepayers) to rebuild their failed transformer. It’s important to understand that this does not mean they are relicensing the project. Rather, PG&E is attempting to make a little profit off the last remaining years of this project, or really off of ratepayers who will bear the burden of reimbursing the company (plus interest!) for this “investment”.

Our job remains clear — we will pressure PG&E and FERC to swiftly proceed with license surrender and decommissioning. And we will fight hard to ensure appropriate protections for Eel River fish until they can once again reach the cold water refugia trapped behind the dams.

For the fish, Alicia Hamann Request for Donations To celebrate the expiration of PG&E's license for the Potter Valley Project and to raise funds for our continued work pushing for swift dam removal, FOER is hosting a virtual auction this spring!

Some items from our last auction. We could really use your help.

Please contact us at foer@eelriver.org to donate items for the auction. Some great ideas include artwork, gently used outdoor gear, jewelry, stays at vacation rentals, CSA shares, or really anything else that you have to offer.

Thanks, and stay tuned this spring to participate in the auction! Enviro Groups Comment on Nordic Aquafarms

We signed onto comments authored by our colleagues at Humboldt Baykeeper, EPIC, Coalition for Responsible Transportation Priorities, and others, which take a critical look at the Nordic Aquafarms Draft Environmental Impact Report. Some concerns raised in the comments include the significant impacts from greenhouse gas emissions associated with the project, in particular, its high electricity usage; failure to provide an analysis of the project's consistency with the State's climate goals; impacts to biological resources including noise impacts and potential impacts of seawater intakes; and water quality impacts from the proposed discharge.

VLAD'S ADVANTAGE

Editor:

I think most Americans — save a few Putin fan boys like Tucker Carlson and Donald Trump — are dismayed and appalled by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. And I think it is true that the economic sanctions imposed by the U.S. and the European Union will hurt the Russian economy and the pocketbooks of the oligarchs.

But neither Europe nor the U.S. is willing to hit Putin where it really hurts: oil and gas exports. As a petro-state, nearly all of the Russian government’s revenue comes from this. Both President Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin know that an embargo would raise the price of energy globally, something that no politician wants to be seen doing. This is Putin’s trump card and our greatest vulnerability.

The root cause of the West’s powerlessness over Russian aggression is our dependence on oil and gas. Effectively, we are hostages to our addiction. If we truly want to safeguard democracy and a livable future, our only option is to scale up the development of clean energy as quickly as possible and break the fossil fuel habit.

In the meantime, my heart breaks for the people of Ukraine, the pawns in someone else’s game.

Larry Robinson

Sebastopol

ANOTHER DEVASTATING YEAR For Imperiled Salmon And Delta Fish Forecasted Unless Ca Officials Take Action

by Dan Bacher

The US Bureau of Reclamation at a news briefing on February 23 announced its initial 2022 water supply allocations for Central Valley Project contractors as California continues to reel from a record drought, pointing to another tough year for salmon and other fish populations in the Central Valley rivers and Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.

A recent scientific journal article reveals that the drought in the Western states that started in 2000 represents the driest two decades in 1200 years: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-022-01290-z

Reclamation said allocations are based on an estimate of water available for delivery to CVP water users and reflect current reservoir storages, precipitation, and snowpack in the Central Valley and Sierra Nevada.

The agency also said this year’s low allocations “are an indicator of the third consecutive dry year California is experiencing and will be updated if conditions warrant.”

“We began the 2022 water year with low CVP reservoir storage and some weather whiplash, starting with a record day of Sacramento rainfall in October and snow-packed December storms to a very dry January and February, which are on pace to be the driest on record,” said Regional Director Ernest Conant. “Further, the December storms disproportionately played out this year in the headwaters—heavy in the American River Basin and unfortunately light in the upper Sacramento River Basin, which feeds into Shasta Reservoir, the cornerstone of the CVP.”

CVP reservoir storage is currently below the historic average for this time of year and runoff forecasts predict that overall storage will be limited if substantial spring precipitation does not materialize, according to Conant.

The California Department of Water Resources’ forecast update from Feb. 1 to Feb. 15 shows a total decrease in projected annual inflow to Shasta, Oroville, Folsom, and New Melones reservoirs of 1.2 million acre-feet.

“Without significant precipitation, this may continue to decrease further,” said Conant. “Losing over a million acre-feet of projected inflow in two weeks’ time is concerning. We’ve got our work cut out for us this year; strengthened collaboration and coordination among agency partners, water and power users, and stakeholders will be instrumental.”

The Bureau's press release, with all of the allocation details, is available at: https://www.usbr.gov/newsroom/#/news-release/4104

John McManus, President of the Golden State Salmon Salmon Association (GSSA), pointed to another devastating year for imperiled salmon populations unless the Governor takes action to address the dire water situation.

"We're likely looking at another year of decimated natural salmon runs due to water decisions that favor a small group of agricultural landowners over the interests of the rest of California,” said McManus. “The governor's team needs to take action to avoid this disastrous outcome, not only for the thousands of families whose livelihoods are tied to the salmon industry, but also for all Californians who care about the natural fish and wildlife native to our state.”

“The news from the Bureau of Reclamation makes clear that they and other water managers squandered a whole lot of water after the very wet spring of 2019. This highlights the need for more responsible drought planning. When it comes to being responsible stewards of the state's natural resources, water business as usual isn't serving the state anymore,” said McManus.

“Fish and people need that water,” Regina Chichizola, co--director for Save California Salmon, told the U.K. Guardian, adding that environmental water releases are important because they keep saltwater from the ocean from creeping too far into the freshwater rivers.

EVALUATING BIDEN

Hello AVA,

While I’m a Bernie socialist progressive who opposes the corporate Dems and works to move the Dem Party further left, I’m impressed that Biden is as left as he is, as described below, considering his and the Dems expected losses to the GOP in the upcoming elections. Instead of moving to the center, as Dems have usually done, he is almost FDRish today.

I know you knock him constantly, but please read this report below and see what is good about his administration.

Tom Wodetzki

Albion

Enclosed: Heather Cox Richardson’s March 2nd Letter from an American:

In Ukraine, Russian troops escalated their bombing of cities, including Kyiv, Kharkiv, Odesa, and Mariupol, in what Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky called a campaign of terror to break the will of the Ukrainians. Tonight (in U.S. time), airborne troops assaulted Kharviv, which is a city of about 1.5 million, and a forty-mile-long convoy of tanks and trucks is within 17 miles of Kyiv, although a shortage of gas means they’ll move very slowly.

About 660,000 refugees have fled the country.

But the war is not going well for Putin, either, as international sanctions are devastating the Russian economy and the invasion is going far more slowly than he had apparently hoped. The ruble has plummeted in value, and the Kremlin is trying to stave off a crisis in the stock market by refusing to open it. Both Exxon and the shipping giant Maersk have announced they are joining BP in cutting ties to Russia, Apple has announced it will not sell products in Russia, and the Swiss-based company building Nord Stream 2 today said it was considering filing for insolvency.

Ukraine’s military claimed it today destroyed a large Russian military convoy of up to 800 vehicles, and Ukrainian authorities claim to have stopped a plot to assassinate Zelensky and to have executed the assassins. The death toll for Russian troops will further undermine Putin’s military push. Russians are leaving dead soldiers where they lie, likely to avoid the spectacle of body bags coming home. It appears at least some of the invaders had no idea they were going to Ukraine, and some have allegedly been knocking holes in their vehicles’ gas tanks to enable them to stay out of the fight. Morale is low.

Associated Press correspondent Francesca Ebel reports from Russia: “Life in Russia is deteriorating extremely rapidly. So many of my friends are packing up & leaving the country. Their cards are blocking. Huge lines for ATMs etc. Rumours that borders will close soon. “What have we done? How did we not stop him earlier?’ said a friend to me y[ester]day.” The Guardian’s Moscow correspondent, Andrew Roth, agreed. “Something has definitely shifted here in the last two days.”

According to the BBC, a local government body in Moscow's Gagarinsky District called the war a “disaster” that is impoverishing the country, and demanded the withdrawal of troops from Ukraine. Another, similar, body said the invasion was "insane" and "unjustified" and warned, "Our economy is going to hell."

Putin clearly did not expect the European Union, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and the U.S. and other allies and partners around the world, including the United Kingdom, Canada, Japan, Korea, Australia, New Zealand, and others, to work together to stand against his aggression. Even traditionally neutral Switzerland is on board. The insistence of the U.S. on exposing Putin’s moves ahead of time, building a united opposition, and warning of false flag operations to justify an invasion meant that the anti-authoritarian world is working together now to stop the Russian advance. Today, Taiwan announced it sent more than 27 tons of medical supplies to Ukraine, claiming its own membership in the "democratic camp" in the international community.

This extraordinary international cooperation is a tribute to President Joe Biden, who has made defense of democracy at home and abroad the centerpiece of his presidency. Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and State Department officials have been calling, meeting, listening, and building alliances with allies since they took office, and by last Thanksgiving they were making a concerted push to bring the world together in anticipation of Putin’s aggression.

Their early warnings have rehabilitated the image of U.S. intelligence, badly damaged during the Trump years, when the president and his loyalists attacked U.S. intelligence and accepted the word of autocrats, including Putin.

It has also been a diplomatic triumph, but in his State of the Union address tonight, Biden quite correctly put it second to the “fearlessness, courage, and determination” of the Ukrainians who are resisting the Russian troops.

The theme of Biden’s speech tonight was unity. He worked to bring Americans from all political persuasions into a vision of the country we could all share, focusing on the measures—lower prescription drug costs, background checks for gun ownership, access to abortion, voting rights, immigration, civil rights, corporate taxation—that polls show enjoy enormous popular support.

“Last year COVID-19 kept us apart,” he began, addressing a vaccinated, boosted, and audience that was largely maskless, since the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently eased mask recommendations according to risk level. “This year we are finally together again.”

Tonight, we meet as Democrats, Republicans and Independents. But most importantly as Americans. With a duty to one another, to the American people, to the Constitution. And with an unwavering resolve that freedom will always triumph over tyranny.” He urged people to “stop seeing each other as enemies, and start seeing each other for who we really are: Fellow Americans.”

Biden outlined the ways in which his administration has “helped working people—and left no one behind.” The $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan helped us to fight Covid-19 and rebuilt the economy after the devastation of the pandemic. It helped the nation gain more than 6.5 million new jobs last year, more jobs created in one year than in any other time in our history.

The economy grew at an astonishing rate in Biden’s first year: 5.7%, the strongest growth in 40 years. Forty years of tax cuts, initiated in the belief that freeing up private capital would enable the wealthy to invest efficiently in the economy, have led to “weaker economic growth, lower wages, bigger deficits, and the widest gap between those at the top and everyone else in nearly a century,” Biden pointed out.

Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris believe instead that both the economy and the country do best when the government invests in ordinary people. The administration’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law will rebuild America, creating well-paying jobs. The administration has also brought home military contracts, using tax dollars to provide Americans good jobs and to bring manufacturing back home. Biden called on Congress to pass the Bipartisan Innovation Act, which invests in innovation and will spark additional investment in new technologies like electric vehicles.

Biden not only outlined the ways in which he plans to nurture his vision of government, he took on Republican criticisms.

Biden said he plans to combat the inflation that has plagued the recovery by cutting the cost of prescription drugs and letting Medicare negotiate lower prices for prescription drugs the way the VA already does. He called for cutting energy and child care costs. He called for avoiding supply chain issues by strengthening domestic manufacturing. He spoke up against the price gouging that has characterized the pandemic years, and he called for corporations and the wealthiest Americans to pay their fair share of taxes through a minimum 15% tax rate for corporations.

Biden also undercut Republican accusations that Democrats want to “defund” the police by countering that we need to fund the police at even higher rates, an idea he talked about on the campaign trail when he urged better funding for social services to relieve law enforcement from the community policing issues for which they are currently ill prepared. At the same time, he noted that his Department of Justice has “required body cameras, banned chokeholds, and restricted no-knock warrants for its officers.”

To those complaining about the effect of this spending on the deficit—this has the name of Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) all over it—Biden noted that by the end of the year, “the deficit will be down to less than half what it was before I took office.” He is, he said, “the only president ever to cut the deficit by more than one trillion dollars in a single year.”

Biden offered a “Unity Agenda for the Nation.” He outlined “[f]our big things we can do together”: beat the opioid epidemic, make the way we address mental health equal to the way we address physical health, support our veterans, and end cancer as we know it.

Biden’s speech listed items that are very popular but that are nonetheless highly unlikely to pass the Senate, where Republicans use the filibuster to stop any programs that support Biden’s ideology of government. The speech subtly reminded listeners that it is Republican members of Congress who are standing between these popular programs and the American people.

Since the attack on Ukraine made the line between democracies and autocracies crystal clear, Republicans have tried desperately to backpedal their previous coziness with Putin (in 2018, eight Republican lawmakers spent July 4 in Moscow, for example) and to declare their solidarity with Ukraine. Whether that sudden shift toward democracy would affect their approach to U.S. politics has been unclear. Tonight’s speech had some clues: Representative Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) and Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) said they wouldn’t attend because they didn’t have time to waste getting covid tests, and Representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and Lauren Boebert (R-CO) actually turned their back on Biden’s cabinet members when they came in, then heckled the president as he spoke.

“In the battle between democracy and autocracy, democracies are rising to the moment, and the world is clearly choosing the side of peace and security,” Biden said. And Americans “will meet the test. To protect freedom and liberty, to expand fairness and opportunity. We will save democracy.”

(Heather Cox Richardson is an historian who issues such letters as the above 3-4 times a week to subscribers (at no cost) via https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com)

Second Annual Apple Fair, Mendocino, 1912

TALK TO ME

Maintaining in Ukiah, California

Warmest spiritual greetings, Please know that I am at Building Bridges and have been given a shelter bed. Also, am eating at the Plowshares Kitchen nearby. Two days at the Motel Six de-stressing have returned my mind to normal, with the feelings and emotions basically calm. The extreme changes due to the heart emergency have come and gone. This moment identified with the Divine Absolute, been chanting the Mahamantram as I walk along the lengthy blocks, and looking forward to everything. Am poised to move beyond my current situation of homelessness and survival. Don't you believe that I ought to be doing something else, than just surviving? Mull it over. Talk to me. Set me up with a supportive opportunity. Hey, I'm ready again!! When do we make another huge statement in Washington, D.C.?

Craig Louis Stehr

Email: craiglouisstehr@gmail.com

PayPal.me/craiglouisstehr

‘KU KLUX KLAN KARENS’

Editor,

Lauren Boebert (R-CO) and Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) are the fresh fascist faces of the GOP in the 21st Century. These two terrible twits could form their own crackpot congressional caucus called the Ku Klux Klan Karens, since moronic Marjorie’s neo-Nazi “America First” caucus fell flat with the media.

Both of these low-IQ racist Republikkkan congresscritters repeatedly interrupted President Biden’s first State of the Union speech by yelling and screaming nonsensical insults like the idiotic, inbred, no class White Trash whack jobs everyone knows they are.

Enough is enough! Neither one of these psychotic skanks deserves to be anywhere near Capitol Hill under any circumstances, especially after Lauren Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Greene have been the unrepentant conservative cheerleaders for traitor Trump’s failed fascist coup d’etat of January 6, 2021.

And the U.S. Justice Department is reportedly in possession of the videotaped evidence of the multiple reconnaissance tours of the U.S. Capitol given by Boebert and Greene to some of the treasonous insurrectionists during the days immediately preceding Putin puppet Donald Trump’s murderous last ditch attempt at stealing the 2020 presidential election on January 6, 2021. Hey, ladies! Y’all are busted. Enjoy prison! (You know Marjorie will, based upon her randy reputation for being extremely promiscuous.)

I would say call Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) at (202) 225-4965 to demand an immediate vote on the proposed expulsion of both Boebert and Greene from the U.S. House of Representatives for their continuing criminally seditious anti-American activities, but to be perfectly blunt - as an unapologetically partisan Democrat who wants to maintain a Democratic majority in the House after November 8, 2022 against all odds - don’t bother! Let’s keep these two political albatrosses around the neck of the Republican Party for as long as possible, or at the very least until after this year’s general election.

To be fair, both of these non-liberal ladies have extensively documented and widely reported ongoing marriage difficulties that may in fact be the root cause of their non-stop hysterical misbehavior in public. First of all, as already mentioned, Congresswoman Greene has had multiple extramarital affairs mostly with the muscular male patrons of the CrossFit gym she owns in Georgia. These men have some seriously low sexual standards for sure.

And then there is Colorado Congresswoman Lauren Boebert…. Wow! Where does one even begin with how unbelievably dysfunctional the Boebert household is? For starters, Lauren’s husband Jayson Boebert is a confirmed, verified, bona fide pervert! That’s right - Jayson Boebert is a convicted criminal sex offender who spent time behind bars for taking out and exposing his tattooed penis to multiple underaged girls at a bowling alley, amongst other pedophile criminal acts he’s guilty of. No wonder his wife Lauren owns so many guns!

For America’s sake, We the People have got to get these two severely mentally ill succubi out of their failed marriages ASAP. I’m willing to take one (or two) for the team, if necessary. I have no interest whatsoever in contracting a venereal disease, so I’d rather avoid making physical contact with bleached blonde bimbo Marjorie Taylor Greene’s well-worn personal private areas, if possible.

But on the other hand, as dimwitted of a dolt as Lauren Boebert is, I must admit that she is kind of cute from a purely visual perspective. If I have to sacrifice my sexual innocence for the greater good, I’d be willing to turn brunette Boebert out for America. Go ahead and give me a call, Lauren, and “make my day” (and night…)!

Sincerely,

Jake Pickering

Arcata

NOBEL PEACE LAUREATE ON KMUD THIS THURSDAY

Our guest at KMUD for this Thursday's show is Ira Helfand, MD, who, in 2017, accepted the Nobel Prize for Peace.

Dr. Helfand accepted the prize on behalf of the Physicians for Social Responsibility and that group's Nuclear Weapons Abolition Committee, and also on behalf of the global federation, International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War.

Physicians for Social Responsibility asserts a strong medical voice on the gravest threats to health, especially nuclear war.

We hope you can listen. We'll talk about the war in the Ukraine and the escalating threat of nuclear war between Russia and NATO.

Again, that's this Thursday, March 3, at 9 am, Pacific Time (12 noon, EST), at https://kmud.org.

You can join the discussion. Studio (707) 923-3911.

Wherever you live, KMUD is your community radio station. We are a global community of informed, loving, progressive people. Please support KMUD by becoming a member.

John Sakowicz

Heroes and Patriots Radio

https://heroespatriots.org

TOP COVID HOST NATIONS & HUNTING GROUNDS

country	cases	deaths
United States	79,143,716	954,518
India	42,945,160	514,388
Brazil	28,846,495	650,254

(data from Johns Hopkins University & Medicine, 3/3/2022)

43 Comments

George Hollister March 3, 2022

If disempowering Putin from within is Russia’s, and the world’s best option, then someone in his inner circle needs to take him out. Sooner is better than later. As hard as Putin is, and can make it for Ukraine, and its supporters, it is Russia that stands to suffer the most in the end. And the longer it takes the end to come, the more damage Putin will do, and the worse it will be for Russia.

Something I have been wondering as well. Who is the person, or people that Putin is honest with?

Reply
- Harvey Reading March 3, 2022
  
  Who is Lyin’ Biden honest with? Certainly not the US public. As far as that goes, who are YOU honest with? Spouting platitudes conceived by others is NOT honesty.
  
  Reply
  - George Hollister March 3, 2022
    
    Putin does not seem to be reading off a teleprompter, in words written by others. That is Biden. Putin does not appear to do “messaging”, either. There is nothing robotic in his motions. His constant deception is the way the Kremlin was before the USSR collapsed. “Never tell the truth if a good enough lie can be found to explain the same”.
    
    Reply
    - Harvey Reading March 3, 2022
      
      ?
      
      Reply
- Marmon March 3, 2022
  
  Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said today that it is a “pity” U.S. support for his nation began after the Russian invasion.
  
  Marmon
  
  Reply
chuck dunbar March 3, 2022

ABOUT TIME: THE TRUTH OF THE MATTER

“The January. 6 Select Committee says its evidence has shown that then-President Donald Trump and his campaign tried to illegally obstruct Congress’ counting of electoral votes and ‘engaged in a criminal conspiracy to defraud the United States.’

In a major release of its findings, filed in federal court late Wednesday, the committee suggested that its evidence supported findings that Trump himself violated multiple laws by attempting to prevent Congress from certifying his defeat.

‘The Select Committee also has a good-faith basis for concluding that the President and members of his Campaign engaged in a criminal conspiracy to defraud the United States,’ the committee wrote in a filing submitted in U.S. District Court in the Central District of California.”

Reply
- chuck dunbar March 3, 2022
  
  Source for the above: Politico, 3/2/22
  
  Reply
  - Stephen Rosenthal March 3, 2022
    
    I read the entire article last night. Hopefully this will lead to serious felony charges but I’m not holding my breath. I’m sure our local (via Lake County) village idiot is frantically scanning his sources in search of a fitting rebuttal for his cult leader. Or maybe he’s trying to sign up for said cult leader’s social media platform, which, not surprisingly, is just another of the fat fuck’s failures in a long line of them.
    
    Reply
    - Stephen Rosenthal March 3, 2022
      
      Idle conjecture from the feeble-minded one, but that didn’t take long, did it Chuck?
      
      Reply
      - chuck dunbar March 3, 2022
        
        He’s a quick one, ever on the lookout, ready to post, mostly nonsense and/or partial truths from folks who seek only to damage America and its institutions…
        
        Reply
    - Marmon March 3, 2022
      
      I don’t have to scour the internet regarding this story. The article itself is enough to raise doubt that President Trump “knowingly” committed fraud or any other criminal act. This article is mostly based on Jason Miller’s testimony. Miller has a financial interest in harming President Trump, it’s called “GETTR” VS. TRUTH SOCIAL. Miller is CEO of GETTR, and Trump owns TRUTH SOCIAL. TRUTH SOCIAL is currently undergoing Beta testing and will not officially launch until the end of March.
      
      Beta testing is the best chance to find bugs and usability issues before a product is fully released. While internal testing can uncover many problems, nothing can truly simulate real users trying to complete real tasks.
      
      Marmon
      
      Reply
      - Marmon March 3, 2022
        
        Miller is pissed that Trump did not join GETTR but instead decided to build his own social media platform, TRUTH SOCIAL.
        
        Marmon
        
        Reply
      - Harvey Reading March 3, 2022
        
        Wonderful, just what we need: another propaganda outfit run by shiteaters.
        
        Reply
      - chuck dunbar March 3, 2022
        
        TRUTH SOCIAL– Where the posts will be called “Truths” and “Retruths” (as in tweets and retweets). Doesn’t that say it all, almost like a parody and the person in charge–Trump–is so stupid he does not get it. Orwell had it exactly right.
        
        Reply
        
        Stephen Rosenthal March 3, 2022
        
        I wouldn’t give it another thought. With Farmer Nunes overseeing the “platform”, what could go wrong? At least we got rid of his stench representing California in Congress.
        
        Reply
      - chuck dunbar March 3, 2022
        
        This “story” is a Court filing, James. Not a mere media story. And we know how well Trump has done in all of his court issues across America in the last year and more, including in the Supreme Court– losing, losing, losing…
        
        Reply
        
        Marmon March 3, 2022
        
        The election was stolen and we all know that.
        
        Marmon
        
        Reply
        
        chuck dunbar March 3, 2022
        
        Will let you have the last say here–your comment is brief and to the point and speaks speaks for itself.
        
        Reply
        
        Harvey Reading March 3, 2022
        
        LOL.
        
        Reply
        
        Chuck Wilcher March 4, 2022
        
        Fallacy alert!
        
        Reply
- Marmon March 3, 2022
  
  Which member of the un-select committee leaked this story, wannabe screenplay writer Adam Schiff?
  
  Marmon
  
  Reply
Marmon March 3, 2022

RE: BIG NURSE

“Angelo said, adding that that would be about the same time Public Health Officer Dr. Coren may lift masking requirements.”

It’s clear that Coren takes direction from Angelo.

Marmon

Reply
Bill Pilgrim March 3, 2022

“For the chorus of people who will fulminate for the rest of their lives that any consideration of US culpability in this fiasco is somehow an “apology” for Putin, or a denial of his agency, or any other assorted nonsense: feel free to live in your black-and-white moral universe where tales of Good versus Evil always result in the princess being rescued by the knight, or whichever other comforting myths you need to tell yourself. The US deliberately chose — across administrations of both parties — to subsidize and “train” Ukraine’s military, flood the country with weapons, and otherwise assume the role of primary foreign sponsor. That’s the indisputable reality… There is a certain point when these endless calls for Putin condemnation function as nothing more than a coercive disciplinary tactic to preclude any further debate, and that point has arrived.” – Michael Tracey, substack.com

Reply
Lazarus March 3, 2022

Mr. AVA
“SUPERVISOR JOHN HASCHAK told his colleagues on Tuesday that he wants to go back to in-person board meetings. “It’s time to re-open,” the 4th District solon boldly declared.”
MS

So Chair Dan Gjerde “boldly declared, It’s time to re-open?”
Because John Haschak is the 3rd District Supervior.
Be well,
Laz

Reply
- Lazarus March 3, 2022
  
  I see you corrected the error…
  Your welcome,
  Laz
  
  Reply
- Bruce Anderson March 3, 2022
  
  Fixed, Laz.
  
  Reply
Malcolm Macdonald March 3, 2022

To state that the supervisors are all tone deaf about housing issues reflects poorly on Mr. Scaramella’s ability to read the agenda. If they were all tone deaf, there would have been no item on the agenda, no discussion. Perhaps the supervisors would be better served by not speaking in short hand and acronyms about some of the intricacies involving housing needs, zoning, tax sharing, et al. However, this overly simplistic dismissal is not worthy of the Major’s skills as a writer or his often apt observations of the local political landscape.

Reply
- Mark Scaramella March 3, 2022
  
  I stand corrected about the agenda mentioning the Williams questionnaire, but Williams didn’t even bring it up during the meeting — not that the results are of any practical value. But upon re-reading the agenda I see nothing that would cause me to revise my view that this board is tone-deaf, especially regarding housing. I thought I made that clear with my list of subjects that they could easily explore but didn’t. Williams is on the ad hoc committee which was supposed to look into corporate vacation rental restrictions, for example, and even though there’s a perfectly workable model to borrow from Sonoma County, Williams never even brought it up.
  
  Reply
- Eli Maddock March 3, 2022
  
  I remain dissatisfied with their (BOS’s) efforts on the matter.
  Stop telling us what we cannot afford.
  Open the door for prospective building.
  Stop dilly dallying about ab&b’s.
  Simplify the permitting process.
  Need new affordable housing units now!
  
  Reply
Harvey Reading March 3, 2022

https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/03/03/putin-lenin-imperialism-and-the-real-history-of-ukraine/

Reply
Marmon March 3, 2022

RE: MORE TWEEKER GRAFITTI COMING TO CLEARLAKE

“The city of Clearlake will receive $1,557,158 to clean and beautify the downtown corridor with the installation of wayfinding signage and murals on exterior walls of businesses painted by local artists.”

https://www.lakeconews.com/news/71865-nearly-3-million-awarded-to-lake-county-projects-through-clean-california-grants

Marmon

Reply
- Harvey Reading March 3, 2022
  
  The proper term is speed freak. It describes the scum to a tee.
  
  Reply
Stephen Rosenthal March 3, 2022

To eliminate Putin we need a James Bond in Moscow, but in lieu of that I’ll settle for a Pete Seeger.

In the 1970s, Pete Seeger was invited to sing in Barcelona, Spain. Francisco Franco’s fascist government, the last of the dictatorships that started World War II, was still in power but declining. A pro-democracy movement was gaining strength and to prove it, they invited America’s best-known freedom singer to Spain. More that a hundred thousand people were in the stadium, where rock bands had played all day. But the crowd had come for Seeger.
As Pete prepared to go on, government officials handed him a list of songs he was not allowed to sing. Pete studied it mournfully, saying it looked an awful lot like his set list. But they insisted: he must not sing any of these songs.
Pete took the government’s list of banned songs and strolled on stage. He held up the paper and said, “I’ve been told that I’m not allowed to sing these songs.” He grinned at the crowd and said, “So I’ll just play the chords; maybe you know the words. They didn’t say anything about you singing them.”
He strummed his banjo to one song after another, and they all sang. A hundred thousand defiant freedom singers breaking the law with Pete Seeger, filling the stadium with words their government did not want them to hear, words they all knew and had sung together, in secret circles, for years. What could the government do? Arrest a hundred thousand singers? It had been beaten by a few banjo chords and the fame of a man whose songs were on the lips of the whole world.”

Reply
- chuck dunbar March 3, 2022
  
  Great man, great story. I have either forgotten it, or never knew about it. Nice post for these hard times.
  
  Reply
Marmon March 3, 2022

RE: HUMCO AUDIT

[A version of this could easily happen in Mendo]

Rumor has it that it already happened a couple of weeks ago.

Marmon

Reply
Marmon March 3, 2022

RE: JAN. 6 COURT FILING THIS WEEK

Trump: Jan. 6 Panel’s ‘Sole Goal’ Is to Stop Me From Running

“Their lies and Marxist tactics against political opponents will not stop the truth, or the biggest political movement, Make America Great Again/America First, in the history of our Country. And now we have a war waging in Ukraine that would have never happened, record-setting inflation, an embarrassingly poorly executed withdrawal from Afghanistan, and an economy that is teetering, at best. All because of a corrupt Election result.”

https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/donald-trump-january-6-committee-capitol-riot/2022/03/03/id/1059530/

Marmon

Reply
- Harvey Reading March 4, 2022
  
  LOL. You trumpenstein monsters have scrambled brains and are very gullible.
  
  Reply
Harvey Reading March 3, 2022

https://fair.org/home/action-alert-nbc-off-by-18-years-on-uss-last-use-of-cluster-bombs/

How can that possibly be? The nooze media never lie. Not here in freedomlandia, home of the brave and all. LOL.

Reply
Jim Armstrong March 3, 2022

Watching Donald Trump and his legal shenanigans over the years lead me to believe he will eventually simply be held incompetent to face any charges.

Reply
- Marmon March 3, 2022
  
  Could he ever get a fair trial?
  
  Marmon
  
  Reply
  - Harvey Reading March 4, 2022
    
    As fair a trial as any in our screwed-up judicial system. Kinda like how he had no problems with the electoral system in 2016, but claimed it was corrupt in 2020. The scumbag should be locked away for life.
    
    Reply
Marmon March 3, 2022

RE: THANK GOD

UC Berkeley Ordered to Freeze Enrollment at 2020 Levels

UC Berkeley was ordered by California’s Supreme Court on Thursday to freeze its undergraduate enrollment at 2020-21 levels, meaning it will have to accept at least 3,000 fewer students than planned for the upcoming academic year.

The ruling is a victory for some residents of the city of Berkeley, who had sued the university for accepting more and more students without providing enough housing for them, even though their lawsuit blocked construction of planned off-campus faculty housing.

Marmon

Reply
- Harvey Reading March 4, 2022
  
  I see why you like the ruling: its keeps knowledge limited to fewer people, just what you trumpenstein monsters desire.
  
  Reply

Mendocino County Today: Thursday, March 3, 2022

43 Comments

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