Mendocino County Today: Tuesday, June 14, 2022

Sunny Warm | Faulkner Boom | Burn Ban | New Deputies | Warriors Win | Perigee Syzygy | Collision Report | Booncap | Sales Tax | Alton Junction | On Papermaking | Laying Tracks | Firefighting PTSD | Geranium | Gas Tax | NWP Railroad | Methy Couple | Proud/Pride | Fox 1865 | Ed Notes | Yesterday's Catch | Ukraine | Evidence Tsunami | Double Trouble | Kinetic Swing | Ben Johnson | Ark Day | Tagging Bats | Xmas Carton | Smoking | Our Relationship | Confusing Storytime | Loyal Customer | Real Enemy | March of Tyranny

WARMER WEATHER will return for Tuesday and Wednesday. A disturbance will bring a return of cooler temperatures and light rain chances late in the week and over the weekend. Otherwise, breezy northwest winds will continue through the middle of the week. Dry weather and warmer weather is expected to return next week. (NWS)

FAULKNER PARK, YESTERDAY

BURN BAN IN EFFECT as of yesterday, June 13.

LAURA BETTS: I would like to take this opportunity to say how lucky the Mendocino County Sheriffs Department is to have these two Round Valley Tribal Members joining their team! Congratulations Marcis McCarty and Wade Sizemore! I am so proud of both of you!

THE GOLDEN STATE WARRIORS withstood a third-quarter 3-point barrage and an off-shooting night from Stephen Curry to beat the Boston Celtics 104-94 in Game 5 and take the series lead for the first time in these NBA Finals.

Andrew Wiggins’ all-around dominance Monday, with 26 points, 13 rebounds and stellar defense, ensured the Warriors would head to TD Garden on Thursday with an opportunity to clinch their fourth championship in eight seasons.

A game after his 43-point outburst, Curry went 0-for-9 from 3-point range and 7-for-22 from the field to finish with 16 points to go with eight assists. It was his first game without a 3-pointer since Nov. 8, 2018.

Takeaways from the game: When Warriors fans look back at this postseason run, they should always remember that Andrew Wiggins showed up in the biggest moments, C.J. Holmes writes. Golden State was facing the possibility of a 3-1 series deficit last Friday night, but Wiggins scored 17 points and collected a game-high 16 rebounds. And when the Warriors needed to protect home court in Game 5, he finished with a team-high 26 points and 13 rebounds.

JUDY VALADAO: Super Moon can be seen (weather permitting) on June 14, 2022.

June 13, 2022: The moon wasn’t quite full early this morning (98.7%) The moon will be full on June 14 at 4:51 a.m. and will be a “Super Full Moon/Strawberry Moon”.

June’s Full Moon is named after the wild strawberries that ripen this month and could be gathered by the Native American tribes. Other native names are Berries Ripen Moon, Green Corn Moon, and Hot Moon.

(For those who want to get technical the term for a Supermoon is perigee-syzygy.)

PATROL CAR SMACKED

MARSHALL NEWMAN SENDS ALONG THIS BOONVILLE HAT PIC from eBay: 

Newman notes: Really? I don't recall any lakes, jumping fish or cattails locally during that era.

ED NOTE: Way back Frank Falleri had a catfish pond at what is now River's Bend on Ray's Road, Philo.. I watched him toss chunks of hamburger meat to those fish, and they were whoppers (the fish, not the burgers), rising in a kind of feeding frenzy to snag the meat.

JOHN REDDING:

File this under “Never let a tax go to waste.” Measure B, passed by 2/3 of the voters (barely), increased the sales tax by 0.5% for 2018-2022. This adder decreases to 0.125% at the end of 2022 (and goes on forever, btw.) 

But wait a minute, the BOS isn't about to let taxes go down no matter how bad the economy or how high the inflation rate. Oh no. It has voted 4-1 to place a new sales tax adder, likely to be 0.375%, on the November ballot. Supposedly to fund fire and water needs. 

But will it? The sales tax will legally be for general fund purposes. You see that will require a simple majority. If it is designated for fire and water, it then becomes a special tax requiring a 2/3 majority. But we simple folk won't need to worry because the Board will appoint an advisory council to direct how the money is spent. Ooooh! What could possibly go wrong?

Well, everything. As Supervisors Gjerde (who opposes this) Haschak said just two weeks ago -- the public doesn't trust us to manage the money. And remember that BOS took $16.1 million dollars of covid relief money and put it into the General Fund, just to balance the budget for one more year. 

This is what passes for governance at the BOS. There is no strategic thinking or vision which would be difficult. Much easier on the brain to pass a tax. 

Finally, you want to know what loyalty looks like? The SEIU endorsed Ted Williams and he voted against a pay raise for the union. And he is sponsoring this new sales tax which the SEIU opposes.

You gotta wonder.

THE PAPERMAKER'S GARDEN:

“Pulped Under Pressure” curators speak on the everyday and ancient art of papermaking

On June 16, at 6:30 p.m., the Grace Hudson Museum will host a virtual talk on the rich history and diverse expressions of the art of papermaking. The presentation will feature Melissa H. Potter and Reni Gower, co-curators of the exhibition “Pulped Under Pressure: The Art of Handmade Paper,” now running at the Museum through August 14.

The seven artists in this exhibit combine a sense of urgency at the environmental devastations and social injustices of our time with a deep sense of beauty. They seek to broaden and increase the scope of what is defined as art by a focus on the labor of women. Physical labor is honored and incorporated in the very art of papermaking, an elaborate process based on ancient techniques. Form and content mesh in many of the show's artworks: paper is both the blank form on which multiple forms of expression flourish, and the paper is itself an art form, often with roots and shoots of the plants they are made from visible in the fabric.

The seeds of the exhibit were planted in 2014 at Columbia College in Chicago, when Professor Potter, who had been papermaking most of her life, invited Gower to take up residency as a visiting artist and to spend time in the papermaking studio. Gower, until then primarily a painter, took to papermaking quickly and saw new opportunities to transfer her knowledge of color and form onto the new medium. She approached Potter with the idea of a group exhibit of papermaking and community-oriented artists, and “Pulped Under Pressure” was born. The first pilot exhibit happened in 2016, with the exhibit soon touring coast to coast.

“You have this thing of beauty that can be more than a blank slate; what do you do with it?” Gower muses of the papermaking process. Collaborating across time and space, honoring past pressures and laboring under new ones, the seven artists of “Pulped Under Pressure” have come up with fresh responses to inspire a troubled world.

For a link to the talk, go to www.gracehudsonmuseum.org and scroll down to the description of the talk. For more information go to the website, or call (707) 467-2836.

I WAS ROCKED by this story about a Mendocino County fire captain, and her incredible blend of courage, strength, intelligence, and just plain luck.

Back From The Brink: A Fire Captain’s Journey From Terror To Trauma To Recovery — And Then More Terror

“I felt trapped.” For months, a firefighter kept reliving her colleagues’ screams when a Mendocino County wildfire encircled them. On the day she planned to take her life, she got help instead — just in time.

calmatters.org/environment/2022/06/california-firefighter-mental-health-recovery/

SUSPEND CALIFORNIA'S GAS TAX

Editor,

Facts: Californians currently pay 51.1 cents a gallon in CA State Excise taxes. On July 1, this rate increases to 53.9 cents a gallon. In addition, there is a 2.5% sales tax rate, so as gas prices at the pump rise, so does this mostly “hidden” tax. The taxes generated amount to about $16 billion annually. California currently has a projected $100 billion budget surplus. 

Those most impacted by the rise in gas taxes are working folks who don't have alternative modes of transport. Gas prices are expected to increase even further to the point where many people have to choose between food or fuel.

The legislature is considering giving a tax rebate of $400 for single filers or $800 for married filers. This rebate would go to everyone - those without cars and those with electric vehicles. Yes, you read that correctly... not just those paying the price, but those who aren't. For the working driver this rebate might pay for a couple weeks of gas purchases and would be another boon to electric vehicle owners who already enjoy generous tax rebates or people who don't drive or enjoy public transport, that is, those who aren't impacted by the horrific gas price increases. Gardeners, delivery drivers, truck drivers, etc. have little choice other than pay higher gas prices and those burdensome gas taxes (highest in the USA).

Wouldn't it make more sense to suspend gas taxes temporarily until prices at the pump are lower and offset the revenue loss against the State budget surplus? No one loses and those most impacted see some relief. But good sense or fairness is too often lacking among our elected politicians. They are lemmings leading the pack toward jumping off California's economic cliff. In the meantime, prices continue to rise and people suffer more.

Walt Watson

Point Arena

THE NORTHWESTERN PACIFIC RAILROAD, pictured running through the Eel River canyon.

[CLEENK] HEY! WHAT’S THAT SOUND?

On 06-11-2022 at about 10:30 PM a Mendocino County Sheriff's Deputy observed a male subject in the driver’s seat of a parked vehicle while patrolling the 100 block of Kawi Place in Willits.

The Deputy recognized the subject as William Lee and knew Lee had an outstanding misdemeanor warrant for his arrest.

The Deputy contacted Lee and arrested him for the misdemeanor arrest warrant. During a search of Lee's person, the Deputy located several grams of methamphetamine.

After securing Lee in the patrol vehicle, the deputy noticed there was an adult female occupying the same vehicle Lee had occupied. The Deputy contacted the adult female who was identified as Denesa Cleek.

The Deputy conducted a search of Cleek's purse and found a collapsible baton, a can of pepper spray, methamphetamine and drug paraphernalia associated with the sale of methamphetamine. The Deputy conducted a records check and learned she was prohibited from possessing a baton and pepper spray. Cleek was arrested and placed in the back of another patrol vehicle.

While the Deputy was conducting a search of the vehicle both Cleek and Lee occupied, the Deputy heard glass hitting the ground at the patrol vehicle Cleek was seated in. The Deputy noticed a glass methamphetamine pipe and two plastic bags containing methamphetamine on the ground just below the patrol vehicle's open window.

Cleek and Lee were booked into the Mendocino County Jail for 

Possession of Controlled Substance for Sale, Conspiracy, Possession of Billy Club, Possession of Pepper Spray and Destroying or Concealing Evidence (as applicable) and were to be held in lieu of bail: Lee @ $55,000. Cleek @ $50,000).

MEMBERS OF THE PATRIOT FRONT HATE GROUP ARRESTED FOR PLANNING A RIOT AT IDAHO PRIDE

by Alex Hammer & Stephen M. Lepore

The alleged founder of a white supremacist group and 30 other members who were arrested for planning a riot at Idaho Pride have been pictured.

Thomas Ryan Rousseau, 23, of Grapevine, Texas, was among those facing felony charges of criminal conspiracy after dozens of members of the white nationalist group, known as the Patriot Front, were arrested in northwest Idaho Saturday.

The men, who had been packed in a rented UHaul truck wearing riot gear before being pulled over in Coeur d'Alene, are expected to appear in court in local Kootenai County later Monday.

Footage of the large-scale arrest shows the dozens of men, masked and wearing shirts that bore the message 'reclaim American,' kneeling in cuffs in a field in the Idaho Panhandle city about 380 miles north of the capital, Boise.

Police said the group had been plotting to incite chaos at a pride event about 10 minutes from where the arrested, called 'Pride in the Park' event in Coeur d'Alene City Park.

The group was reportedly busted after police received a tip from a local resident who called cops after spotting the group of men, donning white masks and carrying shields, load themselves into the vehicle.

Speaking to police, the witness said the group looked 'like a little army'.

Police officers seized at least one smoke grenade, a collection of several shields and shin guards, and documents that included an 'operations plan' from the group, found by officers in the U-haul.

Coeur d’Alene Police Chief Lee White told reporters Saturday that the contents of the document, without going into specific detail, made the group's intentions 'clear.'

However, a lawyer representing some of the alleged white supremacists has since attested that the charges to leveled against the members - a Class F felony punishable with up to five years in prison - are in violation of their First Amendment rights, citing that they do not have a reputation for violence and that Americans are allowed the right to protest.

He said: 'Even if you don't like the speech, they have the right to make it.'

The city's police chief, meanwhile, maintained Saturday that the men were there to cause mayhem.

'They came to riot downtown,' he said.

The men had come from at least 11 states across the country for the planned procession, police said, from states such as Texas, Colorado, and Virginia.

It was not immediately clear if any of the group had any firearms.

Video taken at the scene of the arrest and posted online showed a group of men in police custody, kneeling next to the truck with their hands bound, wearing matching military garb, consisting of khaki pants, blue shirts, white masks, and baseball caps.

The Patriot Front was founded in 2017 by Rousseau, who grew up in the suburbs of Dallas to emerge as the leading figures of the white nationalist right.

The group, responsible for more than 80 percent of white supremacist propaganda, was formed by Rousseau in the aftermath of the 2017 white nationalist 'Unite the Right' rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, breaking off from another extremist group, Vanguard America, which was also founded by then teen in 2015.

No attorney was immediately listed for Rousseau, who is currently being held without bond, police records showed Monday.

Also among the arrestees was Mitchell F. Wagner, 24, of Florissant, Missouri, who was previously charged with defacing a mural of famous black Americans on a college campus in St. Louis last year.

Michael Kielty, Wagner's attorney, said Sunday that he had not been provided information about the charges.

LGBTQ advocates said Sunday that polarization and a fraught political climate are putting their community increasingly at risk.

Those arrested came from at least 11 states, including Washington, Oregon, Texas, Utah, Colorado, South Dakota, Illinois, Wyoming, Virginia, and Arkansas, White said. Only one was from Idaho.

The group is a white supremacist neo-Nazi group whose members perceive black Americans, Jews and LGBTQ people as enemies, says Jon Lewis, a George Washington University researcher who specializes in homegrown violent extremism.

Their playbook, according to Lewis, involves identifying local grievances to exploit, organizing on platforms like the messaging app Telegram and ultimately showing up to events marching in neat columns, in blue- or white-collared-shirt uniforms, in a display of strength.

Though Pride celebrations have long been picketed by counter-protesters citing religious objections, they haven't historically been a major focus for armed extremist groups.

Still, it isn't surprising, given how anti-LGBTQ rhetoric has increasingly become a potent rallying cry in the far-right online ecosystem, Lewis said.

'That set of grievances fits into their broader narratives and shows their ability to mobilize the same folks against "the enemy" over and over and over again.'

The arrests come amid a surge of charged rhetoric around LGBTQ issues and a wave of state legislation aimed at transgender youth, said John McCrostie, the first openly gay man elected to the Idaho Legislature.

In Boise this week, dozens of Pride flags were stolen from city streets.

'Whenever we are confronted with attacks of hate, we must respond with the message from the community that we embrace all people with all of our differences,' McCrostie said in a text message.

Sunday also marked six years since the mass shooting that killed 49 people at the Orlando LGBTQ club Pulse, said Troy Williams with Equality Utah in Salt Lake City.

'Our nation is growing increasingly polarized, and the result has been tragic and deadly,' he said.

Authorities in the San Francisco Bay Area are investigating a possible hate crime after a group of men allegedly shouted homophobic and anti-LGBTQ slurs during a weekend Drag Queen Story Hour at the San Lorenzo Library on Saturday.

No arrests have been made, no one was physically harmed, and authorities are investigating the incident as possible harassment of children.

In Coeur d´Alene on Saturday, police found riot gear, one smoke grenade, shin guards and shields inside the van after pulling it over near a park where the North Idaho Pride Alliance was holding a Pride in the Park event, Coeur d´Alene Police Chief Lee White said.

The group came to riot around the small northern Idaho city wearing Patriot Front patches and logos on their hats and some T-shirts reading 'Reclaim America' according to police and videos of the arrests posted on social media.

Though there is a history of far-right extremism dating back decades in northern Idaho, White said only one of those arrested Saturday was from the state.

The six-hour Pride event generally went on as scheduled, including booths, food, live music, a drag show and a march of more than 50 people, the Idaho Statesman reported.

'We have been through so much, so much,' Jessica Mahuron of the North Idaho Pride Alliance, which organized the event, told KREM-TV. 'Harassment, and attempts to intimidate on the psychological level, and the truth is if you allow yourself to be intimidated you let them win and what we have shown today is that you will not win.'

The group is scheduled to be arraigned on Monday.

(dailymail.co.uk)

---

WHAT IS THE PATRIOT FRONT?

The Patriot Front is a white supremacist group founded by 23-year-old Dallas man Thomas Ryan Rousseau.

The group maintains a white nationalist ideology, firm in its belief that since its white members' ancestors conquered America, the country should be left to them, and no one else.

The group, which sees black Americans, Jews and LGBTQ people as enemies, argues, argues that through processions and riots against these groups, it is preserving the ethnic and cultural origins of its members’ white, European ancestors.

The Patriot Front spreads its message predominantly through the internet, via social media with materials such as banners, fliers, and posters.

In 2020, the group shifted its materials' message from being more antisemitic and white supremacist to a form of 'patriotism' that justifies its bigotry, based in white supremacist, xenophobic, anti-Semitic, and fascist ideals.

The group is responsible for the majority of white supremacist propaganda in the US, representing 80 percent of all propaganda incidents nationally in 2020.

They currently participate in localized 'flash demonstrations' across the country.

ED NOTES

THE PROUD BOYS summer offensive? Mugshots have been released by the Coeur D’Alene, Idaho Police Department of members of the Patriot Front, aka Proud Boys, who were pulled out of the back of a U-Haul truck one block from a Gay Pride in the Park event in Coeur D’Alene. 

All were arrested for lightweight misdemeanor varieties of criminal conspiracy and have since bailed out of jail. 

None of them are local to North Idaho except one being from Spokane, Washington.

THESE TERMINALLY MISGUIDED Yobbos assemble from all over the country to attack a small group of same-sexers in Idaho? Nuts by definition, and try it in Frisco, boys.

BUT I WONDER if the Patriot Front has also sponsored the hit and run homophobes who appeared briefly in Fort Bragg and Mendocino last week, shouting abuse at mystified passersby before fleeing? Our favorite social justice warrior, Autumn Faber, of Albion, announced on the MCN chatline that she had her bear spray at the ready, but the flying squad of homo-bashers fled so quickly the forces of righteousness didn't have time to mobilize a counter-offensive. 

NOT THAT the Proud Boys seem particularly scholarly, and they're obviously led by cretins, but if they want to be credible fascists they've got to hit the history books, take lessons from Hitler and Mussolini, and go for socialist programs to get the support of the dim and vicious sectors of the working-class while at the same time arranging funding from the usual sources friendly to the goosestep, big money. Beating up homosexuals in Northern Idaho? Adolph wouldn't have approved it as an organizing strategy.

WHERE ARE THESE BOLD WARRIORS FROM?

• Dylan Carter Corio lives in Cheyenne, Wyoming
• Kieran Padraig Morris lives in Haslet, Texas.
• Thomas Ryan Rousseau lives in Grapevine, Texas.
• Derek Joseph Smith lives in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.
• Dakota Ray Tabler lives in West Valley, Utah.
• Steven Derrick Tucker lives in Lexington, Alabama.
• Robert Benjamin Whitted lives in Conroe, Texas.
• Josiah Daniel Buster live in Watauga, Texas
• Brandon Mitchel Haney lives in Kaysville, Utah.
• James Michael Johnson lives in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.
• James Julius Johnson lives in Concrete, Washington.
• Justin Michael O'Leary lives in Des Moines, Washington.
• Forrest Clark Rankin lives in Wheat Ridge, Colorado.
• Spencer Thomas Simpson lives in Ellensburg, Washington.
• Devin Wayne Center lives in Fayetteville, Arkansas
• Winston Worth Durham lives in Genesee, Idaho
• Garret Joseph Garland lives in Freeburg, Illinois
• Nathaniel Taylor Whitfield lives in Elk Ridge, Utah.
• Nathan David Brenner lives in Louisville, Colorado.
• Mishael Joshua Buster lives in Spokane, Washington.
• Richard Jacob Jessop lives in Idaho Falls, Idaho.
• Cameron Kathan Pruitt lives in Midway, Utah.
• Conor James Ryan Lives in Thornton, Colorado.
• Mitchell Frederick Wagner lives in Florissant, Missouri.
• Colton Michael Brown lives in Rovensdale, Washington.
• Connor Patrick Moran lives in Watauga, Texas.
• Alexander Nicholai Sisenstein lives in Midvale, Utah.
• Graham Jones Whitsom lives in Haslet, Texas.
• Lawrence Alexander Norman lives in Prospect, Oregon.
• Jared Michael Boyce, lives in Soringville, Utah
• Wesley Evan Van Horn lives in Lexington, Alabama 

(Information from the Kootenai County Sheriff Office) #NorthIdahoNews

MUCH FUN in the current edition of the Independent Coast Observer out of Gualala, Mendocino County's lost stepchild tucked away on the deep South Coast.

RIGHT THERE on the front page beneath an amusing typo in the headline describing an unamusing event — “Suicide off Noyo Bridge Tuesday buy unnamed man.” The AVA should talk. We congratulate ourselves if we go without a week without at least one howler. And the ICO seems confused about which words in a title to capitalize, in this case all should be, but who asked me?

THE POOR MAN isn't the first person to jump off the Noyo. I remember when Farina Bangladesh, aka Diana Vance, made that leap. Landed on the rocks, too, and survived. Daughter of a Secretary of Defense Cyrus Vance, she was/is. A regular contributor to our letters page, and I hope Farina's still with us.

ANYWAY, just below the fold, Bryan Cebulski takes us on a plunge all the way through the looking glass with this lede, “The path forward for the Great Redwood Trail, a widely popular proposed 320-mile multi-use trail stretching from Humboldt Bay to San Francisco Bay, might be complicated by new efforts from the Skunk Train and a coal export company that separately seek to reactivate portions of the defunct rail line that the trail is intended to run along.” 

WHEW! A lot of pure fantasy packed into that endless paragraph, beginning with “widely popular.” With whom? Certainly not anyone at all familiar with the realities of any kind of trail running along the old Northwestern Rail line, especially the 60 collapsed miles of track in the Eel River Canyon. I tend to hang out in skeptical circles, but I haven't heard from a single enthusiastic person that State Senator McGuire's Great Redwood Trail is doable. Nope, and most people I've mentioned it to reply with versions of, “Just a lot of bullshit from a guy who does nothing pretending to do stuff.”

IN ANOTHER TIME, say 1955, when Americans still knew how to make things work, and a daily train ran from Fort Bragg to Willits where Coasties could catch either a northbound train to Eureka or a southbound train for San Francisco, a Skunk carrying gravel or coal would have been entirely feasible. Today? Not happening. The line can't get through to Fort Bragg because of tunnel collapses, and the Democrats allegedly representing the interests of their trapped Northcoast constituents have already killed the purely chimerical coal train.

McGUIRE FLOATED the coal train scare as a kind of sub-plot to his Great Redwood Trail scam. Put on your thinking cap, Cebulski! An unnamed Indian tribe — the casual vilification of Indians here as handy scapegoats — will pull sovereign nation rank to ship coal from an unnamed site somewhere in the Midwest to Oakland, then north by rail to Eureka where it will be shipped outtahere. Uh, critical thinking anyone?

AND ON PAGE TWO, we've got a nice color photo of Aaron Mata, “the sole graduate of Manchester Elementary School. ‘We're so proud of him,’ said Kristan Balliet, principal/superintendent at the school.”

CATCH OF THE DAY, June 13, 2022

IVY BODWIN, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol, probation revocation. (Frequent flyer.)

RAYMOND BOWMAN, Nice/Ukiah. Controlled substance, under influence, county parole violation, suspended license.

LEGEN EDGE, Fort Bragg. Domestic battery.

JACK FULLER, Willits. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

TREVOR GUNBY, Ukiah. Domestic battery, vandalism, controlled substance.

CODY LADD, Ukiah. Parole violation. 

DANIEL LOVATO II, Ukiah. Probation revocation.

GUILLEN MENDOZA, Fort Bragg. DUI.

ANTONIO NAVA-GOMEZ, Livingston/Ukiah. DUI, no license.

JEFFERY WEBB JR., Lucerne/Fort Bragg. Probation revocation.

CHRISTOPHER WESS, Ukiah. Taking vehicle without owner’s consent.

UKRAINE, Monday, June 13, 2022

As Monday, 13 June draws to a close in Kyiv and in Moscow, here are the key developments of the day:

Russian troops are pushing to fully encircle the key city of Sievierodonetsk in eastern Ukraine,and Ukrainian officials say the next few days could be critical. A victory there would give Russia control of every major city of the Luhansk region, part of Ukraine's industrial eastern area of Donbas. The regional governor said Russian troops have destroyed bridges spanning a river that the Ukrainian military relied on to bring troops, arms and supplies into Sievierodonetsk.

Early in its invasion, Russia's assault on Kharkiv, in northeastern Ukraine, killed hundreds of civilians with relentless, indiscriminate bombardments that constitute war crimes, Amnesty International said in a new report. The human rights group's researchers documented repeated shelling and the use of cluster munitions — banned by many countries — in several residential neighborhoods. The organization cited the regional medical director as saying 606 civilians had been killed and 1,248 injured in the Kharkiv region between Feb. 24 and April 28.

Ukrainian cybersecurity officials are tracking an attempted hack targeting local news outlets.Malware emails went out to 500 people in Ukraine, many at radio stations, websites and newspapers, the officials said. Ukraine's Computer Emergency Response Team warned Ukrainian media groups especially to avoid clicking messages advertising interactive maps, which could contain malware. The team said it's moderately confident the attack can be linked to Russian hacking group Sandworm, which experts have tied to major Russian cyberattacks in Ukraine for years.

(NPR)

ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

It has been said that the devil/satan is one who interferes with others’ lives and relationships. 

Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble . . .

Interestingly, the actual passage is “Double, double toil and trouble”—meaning I guess that the point of the spell is to INCREASE any naturally occurring toil and trouble to create POWERFUL trouble!

Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and caldron bubble.
Fillet of a fenny snake,
In the caldron boil and bake;
Eye of newt and toe of frog,
Wool of bat and tongue of dog,
Adder's fork and blind-worm's sting,
Lizard's leg and howlet's wing,
For a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.

Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and caldron bubble.
Cool it with a baboon's blood,
Then the charm is firm and good.

That’s quite a charm, and quite a piece of poesie, as well.

I like that “boil and bubble” and “toil and trouble.”

BEN JOHNSON was a ranch hand and rodeo performer when, in 1940, Howard Hughes hired him to take a load of horses to California. 

“I'd been making a dollar a day as a cowboy, and my first check in Hollywood was for $300. After that, you couldn't have driven me back to Oklahoma with a club.”

He decided to stick around (the pay was good), and for some years was a stunt man, horse wrangler, and double for such stars as John Wayne, Gary Cooper and James Stewart. He left Hollywood in 1953 to return to rodeo, where he won a world roping championship, but at the end of the year he had barely cleared expenses. The movies paid better, and were less risky, so he returned to the west coast and a career that saw him in over 300 movies.

During the making of “Rio Grande” (1949), Johnson and Ford had a brief verbal argument. All seemed well afterward, and nothing further was said of it, so Ben assumed it was completely blown over. However, Ford didn't use Johnson again in another picture for 14 years, when Ben played a small role in “Cheyenne Autumn” (1964). Johnson's lifelong friend Harry Carey Jr. said he believed the reason was that when Ford was casting “The Sun Shines Bright” (1953), Johnson's agent heard that Ford wanted him for the role, called Ford--without Johnson's knowledge--and demanded a hefty salary. Outraged at having been squeezed like that, Ford held it against Johnson, and used that and the argument they had during “Rio Grande” as an excuse not to use him again. They did manage to maintain a friendly relationship nonetheless.

Johnson initially turned down the role of Sam the Lion in “The Last Picture Show” (1971) when it was first offered to him by Peter Bogdanovich because he thought the script was “dirty,” and he did not approve of swearing and nudity in motion pictures. Bogdanovich appealed to Ford, who got Johnson to change his mind as a favor to him. With the permission of Bogdanovich, Johnson rewrote his role with the offensive words removed. Johnson went on to win a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for playing the role.

From his Oscar speech: “What I'm about to say probably will stir up a lot of conversation around over the country. There's something I'd like to leave in everyone's mind throughout the world: This couldn't have happened to a nicer feller. Thank you.” (IMDb/Oscars.org)

Happy Birthday, Ben Johnson!

OUR BLINDING, BLARING WORLD

by Ed Yong

Within the 310,000 acres of Wyoming’s Grand Teton National Park, one of the largest parking lots is in the village of Colter Bay. Beyond the lot’s far edge, nestled among some trees, is a foul-smelling sewage-pumping station that Jesse Barber, a sensory ecologist at Boise State University, calls the Shiterator. On this particular night, sitting quietly within a crevice beneath the building’s metal awning and illuminated by Barber’s flashlight, is a little brown bat. A white device the size of a rice grain is attached to the bat’s back. “That’s the radio tag,” Barber tells me. He’d previously affixed it to the bat so that he could track its movements, and tonight he has returned to tag a few more.

From inside the Shiterator, I can hear the chirps of other roosting bats. As the sun sets, they start to emerge. A few become entangled in the large net Barber has strung between two trees. He frees a bat, and Hunter Cole, one of his students, carefully examines it to check that it’s healthy and heavy enough to carry a tag. Once satisfied, Cole daubs a spot of surgical cement between its shoulder blades and attaches the tiny device. “It’s a little bit of an art project, the tagging of a bat,” Barber tells me. After a few minutes, Cole places the bat on the trunk of the nearest tree. It crawls upward and takes off, carrying $175 worth of radio equipment into the woods.

I watch as the team examines another bat, which opens its mouth and exposes its surprisingly long teeth. This isn’t an aggressive display; it only looks like one. The bat is unleashing a stream of short, ultrasonic pulses from its mouth, which are too high-pitched for me to hear. Bats, however, can hear ultrasound, and by listening for the returning echoes, they can detect and locate objects around them.

Echolocation is the primary means through which most bats navigate and hunt. Only two animal groups are known to have perfected the ability: toothed whales (such as dolphins, orcas, and sperm whales) and bats. Echolocation differs from human senses because it involves putting energy into the environment. Eyes scan, noses sniff, and fingers press, but these sense organs are always picking up stimuli that already exist in the wider world. By contrast, an echolocating bat creates the stimulus that it later detects. Echolocation is a way of tricking your surroundings into revealing themselves. A bat says “Marco,” and its surroundings can’t help but say “Polo.”

The basic process seems straightforward, but its details are extraordinary. High-pitched sounds quickly lose energy in air, so bats must scream to make calls that are strong enough to return audible echoes. To avoid deafening themselves, bats contract the muscles in their ears in time with their calls, desensitizing their hearing with every shout and restoring it in time for the echo. Each echo provides a snapshot in time, so bats must update their calls quickly to track fast-moving insects; fortunately, their vocal muscles are the fastest known muscles in any mammal, releasing up to 200 pulses a second. A bat’s nervous system is so sensitive that it can detect differences in echo delay of just one- or two-millionths of a second, which translates to a physical distance of less than a millimeter. A bat thus gauges the distance to an insect with far more precision than humans can.

Echolocation’s main weakness is its short range: Some bats can detect small moths from about six to nine yards away. But they can do so in darkness so total that vision simply doesn’t work. Even in pitch-blackness, bats can skirt around branches and pluck minuscule insects from the sky. Of course, bats are not the only animals that hunt nocturnally. In the Tetons, as I watch Barber tagging bats, mosquitoes bite me through my shirt, attracted by the smell of the carbon dioxide on my breath. While I itch, an owl flies overhead, tracking its prey using a radar dish of stiff facial feathers that funnel sound toward its ears. These creatures have all evolved senses that allow them to thrive in the dark. But the dark is disappearing.... 

— The Atlantic

CLEARING SOME SMOKE: EATING, DRINKING, AND VAPING

by Steve Heilig

 “We don't smoke that s_ _ t. We just sell it. We reserve the right to smoke for the young, the poor, the black and stupid.” - R.J. Reynolds executive, 1970s

Older folks may recall when tobacco smokers ruled the earth, and about half of all adults indulged. They could light up most anywhere, and did so, ignoring those around them, and as that was wholly normal at the time, few complained. Eating out usually entailed inhaling lots of smoke with your food and drink. Bars were especially smoky and that almost seemed a selling point. Going out dancing in a club meant wadding up ones sweaty and smoke-reeking clothes afterward, sometimes even throwing them away as the stench would never quite be removed. Long airplane or bus rides were like marinating in a giant bong. Houses often had ashtrays and other tobacco paraphernalia in every room. Every film featured lots of so-called sexy or tough-guy puffing. And few if any dared complain about it all, even while living with coughing, burning eyes, and all the stink. Meanwhile the toxic impacts sickened and killed ever more people, while the tobacco industry saturated society with marketing, especially to young people, for any business whose products kill needs to constantly replace their own customers.

Eventually though, starting with a landmark 1964 US Surgeon General’s report, ever more evidence was published that tobacco was a killer, and then that even secondhand or environmental tobacco smoke posed serious health hazards even to non-smokers. Tobacco lobbyists did all they could to deny this research, with varying success for decades, but gradually facts won out and restrictions on tobacco marketing and public smoking began. In 1994, San Francisco became the first big city to ban all smoking in restaurants, bars, and other public workplaces. And therein lies a little story.

In the early 1990s a coalition of health advocates decided to make a little anti-tobacco history by banning smoking in restaurants – one of the city’s biggest and most renowned business sectors. Led by then-President of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors Angela Alioto, the San Francisco Tobacco-Free Coalition, made up of the local Heart, Lung, and Cancer societies, other health and children’s advocates, and more, hosted by the San Francisco Department of Public Health (which, along with UCSF’s leading tobacco researchers could provide scientific and logistical support but as public organizations could not actively “lobby”), and the SFMS, supported local legislation to ban smoking in restaurants. I represented the local medical society, established back in the Gold Rush era, and as chance would have it was a co-chair of the coalition.

The local restaurant association and other business interests were adamantly opposed and marshaled their forces. Tobacco lobbyists in dark suits roamed City Hall and showed up at all Supervisors’ hearings on the matter. At one hearing I, as a surrogate moderator, asked each health group to identify themselves and who funded them, then asked each youth group to show us their posters in support and who funded them (“Um, my mom?”), and finally asked “All the gentlemen in the nice ties to kindly tell us who they are and who pays them and if they’d like their own kids to start smoking tobacco as the tobacco industry so fervently wishes they would?” A mild pandemonium ensued and Alioto asked me “That’s enough of that, but would you like a security escort to your car when this meeting is over?” For when the meeting was over, the Supervisors had indeed voted for the landmark ban.

Fortunately I didn’t need a security detail, but instead retired to what was then one of the most popular dining and drinking spots in town, a short walk from City Hall. Its famed owner and chef had spoken vehemently against our smoking ban, in the media and at the actual Supervisors hearings. We were never sure if he was funded by Big Tobacco too, but in any event he said that fine diners came to his place from around the world (true) and that many would stop doing so if they couldn’t smoke there. He favored “smoking sections” as a compromise. Alioto asked me for a response, and I said “I love your establishment, sir, but I bet your wonderful food will taste even better without smoke mixed with it, and besides, if somebody won’t eat there just because they won’t step outside to smoke, they don’t really want to eat there very much, do they?” He glared at me as I continued. ”Anyway, if you can tell how to enforce a ‘no chlorine’ section in a public pool, we might consider that for tobacco too.” More general hilarity ensued, his side lost, and once I got over to his fine bar, where an old friend of mine worked, he and I noted the nasty glare I was again getting from the famous boss. ”I think we are going to ban smoking in here,” I explained. ”Excellent!” my friend responded, speaking for countless food industry workers. “But it’s probably a good idea to not let him make any of your drinks tonight.”

Once the smoking ban passed, there were inevitable challenges and lawsuits and cries of doom, but as hoped and feared, the policy spread statewide, nationally, and even to other nations. Despite the fearmongering, restaurants thrived. Other local policies banning tobacco advertising, flavored tobacco products, and more have followed. San Francisco was a pioneer of something that now seems common sense. If there are those who would prefer to go back to the Smoky Old Days, they are a small and dying breed indeed. But hopefully many have had healthier and longer lives in clearer dining rooms - and enjoyed their meals more too. The multi-pronged effort to regulate tobacco has worked, slashing smoking rates nationwide over the past couple generations, one of the most important health victories in history. But there are still more battles to fight in this long war.

The multinational tobacco companies now focus more on selling without restrictions in less-developed nations around the world (in Malaysia I was accosted by prepubescent kids offering cigarettes from carried trays, just as there used to be free handouts by miniskirted young women on Market Street in San Francisco). Now the tobacco war front here in the USA is more about flavored tobacco products – menthol cigarettes, vaping products, and other such stuff. San Francisco has already banned much of the vaping products, after a nasty battle and attempted deceptive ballot initiative, defeated by a true landslide. This too is spreading nationwide, with the FDA announcing proposed regulations this past April. Once finalized, the industry will almost certainly sue to stop them, for menthol and other flavors are one of the best/worst ways to hook young people, and especially some ethnic populations where these products have long been most intensively marketed. Tobacco lobbyists pay ethically-challenged representatives of the African-American and other communities to fight such regulations, of course crying they are discriminatory and even racist. But as even the NAACP and other leading representatives favor the bans, citing the disproportionately high health tolls tobacco has long taken among blacks and other non-white populations, the political reality is clear on that front.

What’s a bit fuzzier is the role of vaping, and the cost/benefit calculation of banning flavored and other vaping products. On the one hand, vaping, especially among youth, clearly leads to nicotine addiction and outright tobacco smoking in significant numbers; menthol additives have been called ‘training wheels for smoking.” This might have something to do with why Big Tobacco has bought up much of the vaping industry, so much so that they are now basically one and the same. On the other, vaping undeniably an help tobacco smokers to cut down and even quit, a very important prospect when tobacco still kills over 400,000 Americans a year and quitting smoking can be as difficult as any of the worst drugs. 

There will be a “sweet spot” found in anti-vaping policies, where the benefit of bans will be balanced with allowing smokers to use vaping to quit tobacco. There’s really no reason we can’t have both goals, once we get past the propaganda from tobacco and vaping profiteers and yes, perhaps some over-zealous health advocates. And then after that, we might be able to even find a better balance in marijuana policy as well, curtailing what has been called the “tobacco-ization” of the herb, with endless promotion and hype about getting high and “medical” use that cures seemingly everything, much of it even aimed at kids, all in the interest of cash. But that’s another story and it will be a long one too. But one hard lesson I’ve learned is that most if no all real change is generational, and one can dream.

PROUD OF YOURSELVES?

by James Kunstler

America has an eating disorder — have you noticed? — and a touch of the old sexual dysphoria — am I a boy or a girl? — and has been caught in its room playing with razor blades. Ergo: America is a thirteen-year-old girl in need of some therapeutic assistance. Who will answer the call for help?

Here we are in the fat middle of Pride Month. Why is it, then, that the authorities have sent squadrons of drag queens out across the land like so many flying monkeys, flapping and shrieking from the candy-colored forests of Oz, to conduct “story hours” for children? Is America not sufficiently confused these days? Are drag queens really the best interlocutors for the doctrine of Diversity and Inclusion? Have we nothing better on offer to occupy childrens’ minds, say, learning to bake bread or build a bird-house? Practical skills they will need when the economy of Western Civ completes its disorienting descent out of Modern Times into the New Medieval?

Does anyone actually know what children think about a drag queen reading, say, My Princess Boy by Cheryl Kilodavis to a roomful of five-year-old boys and girls? I mean, apart from what the parents who take them there tell us their children think. (“They were enchanted!”) We know that the parents are pretending that this is a wholesome developmental exercise. And yet, let’s face it: is it not the whole point of being a drag queen to present a horrifying parody of an adult female human? Something like women-as-monsters?

Do any of the mommies who bring their children to the drag queen story hour present themselves in public as women the way the drag queens do? As, above all, sexually super-available? Would, say, the Palo Alto mommy of a five-year-old pause to twerk in the frozen food section of the supermarket on any given afternoon? In that context, what might be the reaction of other mommies shopping for hot pockets and Ben and Jerry’s Chubby Hubby?

Five-year-old children generally have no idea what adult sexuality is about. Should perhaps their first exposure to a realm so fraught and complex that many adults do not understand it be the presentation of women as monsters? And why are the mommies so avid for their children to be introduced to sexuality this way? Are some of the children perceptive and astute enough to suspect that drag queens on display are not really women? That, for instance, they might be… men? (A beard can be a give-away.) And might they take that thought a step or two further and ask themselves: why does this man want to pretend to be a monster-woman? Why doesn’t he want to be a daddy? Are mommies monsters? Can they turn into something like this when I’m not around? Are daddies who try to act like mommies monsters?

How exactly is a child supposed to process all of this? All on its own, without any inversions, distortions, and misconstructions, sex is difficult for some young humans to process. By the time they reach the threshold of puberty — say, age thirteen for girls — the onset of sexual development is so alarming that they attempt to starve their way out of it and cut themselves up.

Of course, we have not begun to probe what might animate a man to present himself to the world as a monstrous parody of a woman. Suffice it to say that such behavior suggests some complicated psychodynamics. And why, exactly, are they suddenly on-display so extravagantly now across the country, supposedly for the edification of children? I’ll tell you why: It’s not actually for the sake of the children. The children are just pawns in what is actually a national political psychodrama. Or rather, they are hostages.

What you’re seeing is the Party of Chaos sending a message to the rest of us — those who are not members of the Party of Chaos. The message is: we will take your children and destroy their minds, and pretend that it’s just another module of their education… and you will know, and we will know, and you will know that we know that this is just a malicious shuck-and-jive to humiliate you while we wreck the machinery of civilization, which we hate because it requires boundaries and norms to function.

And think of it: just days ago the FDA announced that it accepted Pfizer’s application for a Covid-19 vaccine for children between six months and five years old. That’s the same “safe and effective” vaccine they have been giving to the rest of you for over a year, which has produced adverse reactions and illnesses in rather striking numbers. Do you know why they did that? I’ll tell you why: to extend the emergency use authorization that shields Pfizer from legal liability for their mRNA vaccines. They are not content with wrecking civilization. They want to kill you and your children too.

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

OUR REAL ENEMIES ARE NOT IN BEIJING OR MOSCOW

by Caitlin Johnstone

My enemies are not in Moscow or Beijing. My enemies are in Washington, Arlington, Langley, Wall Street, Silicon Valley, and Hollywood.

And so are yours. The only question is whether or not you realize it yet.

There's a massive narrative management campaign geared toward convincing people it's impossible to simply have a different opinion about Russia and Ukraine. You either fully believe what institutions who've lied about every war are saying or you're a Kremlin agent or useful idiot.

The victims of this narrative management campaign can never really articulate why it's so extremely important that everyone think the same thoughts about Ukraine. This is because it is not their own opinion; it's something that was slyly inserted into their minds without their informed consent.

And of course if you've been paying attention you can very easily explain why it's so important for everyone to think the same thoughts about Ukraine. It's because otherwise the public would never consent to agendas which directly hurt their bank accounts and which could easily lead to a nuclear war which kills everyone they know.

If not for this narrative management campaign, Ukraine would be just another issue like gun control or abortion which you could simply have opinions about without being a secret agent or unwitting tool of a foreign government. And it would be much harder to enforce conformity.

The continually rising likelihood of nuclear war is the single most consequential and dangerous thing that is happening in the world right now, and the political/media class are conspiring to hide this reality from the people to prevent public outcry from interfering in imperial grand chessboard maneuverings.

This conspiracy of silence on the horrifying realities of the steadily escalating nuclear brinkmanship we're seeing between the US and Russia is the single greatest scandal in the world. Everyone on earth has a loaded gun to their head right now, and these bastards are hiding this reality from everyone. They're covering it up.…

Any analysis of world power dynamics which doesn't account for the US government's unique, front-and-center role in worldwide tyranny and oppression is empty children's entertainment.…

caitlinjohnstone.com/2022/06/14/our-real-enemies-are-not-in-beijing-or-moscow-notes-from-the-edge-of-the-narrative-matrix/